To the Mayor of Newcastle: To be communicated to the Aldermen and others whom it doth concern

Whitehall, 18th December 1656.

Gentlemen, anD MY VERY GOOD Friends,

My Lord Strickland, who is one of our Council, did impart to us a letter written from yourselves to him, according to your desire therein expressed; which occasions this return from us to you.

As nothing that may reflect to the prejudice of your outward good, either personal or as you are a civil Government, shall easily pass with us; so, much less what shall tend to your discouragement, as you are saints, to your congregations, gathered in that way of fellowship commonly known by the name of Independents, whether of one judgment or other :-'this' will be so far from being actually discountenanced, or passively 'left to' suffer damage, by any applying themselves to me; I do, once for all, give you to understand, that I should thereby destroy and disappoint one of the main ends for which God hath planted me in the station I am in.

Wherefore I desire you in that matter to rest secure. True it is that two Ministers, one Mr. Cole and Mr. Pye, did present to me a letter in the name of divers Ministers in Newcastle, the Bishoprick of Durham and Northumberland, of an honest and Christian purpose: the sum whereof I extracted, and returned an answer thereunto (a true copy whereof I send you here enclosed), by which I think it will easily appear, that the consideration of my kindness is well deserved by them; provided they observe the condition 'there' expressed, which in charity I am bound to believe they will; and without which their own consciences and the world will know how to judge of them.

Having said this, I, or rather the Lord, require of you, that you walk in all peaceableness and gentleness, inoffensiveness, truth and love towards them, as becomes the servants and

churches of Christ; knowing well that Jesus Christ, of whose diocese both they and you are, expects it, who, when He comes to gather His people, and to make Himself a name and a praise amongst all the people of the earth,-He will save him that halteth, and gather her that was driven out, and will get them praise and fame in every land, where they have been put to shame.1 And such lame ones and driven-out ones were not only the Independents and Presbyterians, a few years since, by the Popish and Prelatical Party in these Nations, but such are and have been the Protestants in all lands, persecuted, and faring alike with you, in all the Reformed Churches. And therefore, knowing your charity to be as large as all the flock of Christ, who are of the same Hope and Faith of the Gospel with you, I have thought fit to commend these few words to you; being well assured it is written in your heart, so to do with this that I shall stand by you in the maintaining of all your just privileges to the uttermost.

And committing you to the blessing of the Lord, I rest,

Your loving friend,

OLIVER P.*

Zephaniah iii. 19, 20.

* Thurloe, v. 714: in Secretary Thurloe's hand. [In response to this letter, the "Churches at Newcastle" presented an address to the Protector, gratefully thanking him for his "singular affection and most Christian tenderness" to them as shown in his letter to the Mayor: assuring him that they have received with all gladness his "many inculcated exhortations to love the whole flock of Christ, though not walking in the same order of the Gospel," and ending as follows: 'When we consider how many of the precious sons of Sion have fled into a roaring wilderness to enjoy the tabernacle of God, and were glad of it; and that we should under our vines and fig-trees not only enjoy the privileges of the Gospel but have the protection and encouragement of the supreme powers of the nation, our hearts are drawn out to bless the Lord, and pray with the church for David (Psalm xx.), 'The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble, the name of the God of Jacob defend thee, send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Sion.'" Printed in Nickoll's Original Letters and Papers of State, p. 138.]

LETTER CCXVI1

CARDINAL MAZARIN, the governing Minister of France in those days, is full of compliance for the Lord Protector; whom, both for the sake of France and for the Cardinal's sake, it is very requisite to keep in good humour. On France's score, there is Treaty with France, and War with its enemy Spain; on the Cardinal's are obscure Court-intrigues, Queen-mothers, and one knows not what : in brief, the subtle Cardinal has found, after trial of the opposite course too, that friendship, or even at times obedient-servantship to Cromwell, will be essentially advantageous to him.

Some obscure quarrel has fallen-out between Charles Stuart and the Duke of York his Brother. Quarrel complicated with open politics, with Spanish War and Royalist Revolt, on Oliver's side; with secret Queen-mothers, and back-stairs diplomacies, on the Cardinal's :-of which there flit, in the dreariest manner, this and the other enigmatic vestige in the night-realm of Thurloe ; 2 and which is partly the subject of this present Letter. A letter unique in two respects. It is the only one we have of Oliver Cromwell, the English Puritan King, to Giulio Mazarini, the Sicilian-French Cardinal, and King of Shreds and Patches;3 who are a very singular pair of Correspondents brought together by the Destinies ! It is also the one glimpse we have from Oliver himself of the subterranean Spy-world, in which by a hard necessity so many of his thoughts had to dwell. Oliver, we find, cannot quite grant Toleration to the Catholics; but he is well satisfied with this 'our weightiest affair,'-not without weight to me at least, who sit expecting Royalist Insurrections backed by Spanish Invasions, and have Assassins plotting for my life at present 'on the word of a Christian King!'

Concerning the affair' itself, and the personages engaged in it, let us be content that they should continue spectral for us, and dwell in the subterranean Night-realm which belongs to them. The 'Person' employed from England, if anybody should be curious about him, is one Colonel Bamfield, once a flaming Presbyterian Royalist, who smuggled the Duke of York out of this Country in woman's clothes; and now lives as an Oliverian Spy, very busy making mischief for the Duke of York. 'Berkley' is the Sir John

[Letter CCXVII. is dated a day earlier than this one.]

2 iv. 506; v. 753; &c. &c.

Three insignificant official Notes to him: in Appendix, Nos. 27, 28. [See also Supplement, No. 125.]

Berkley who rode with Charles First to the Isle of Wight long since; the Duke of York's Tutor at present. Of 'Lockhart,' Oliver's Ambassador in France, we shall perhaps hear again. The others,―let them continue spectral to us. Let us conceive, never so faintly, that their 'affair' is to maintain in the Duke of York some Anti-Spanish notion; notion of his having a separate English interest, independent of his Brother's, perhaps superior to it; wild notion, of one or the other sort, which will keep the quarrel wide::—as accordingly we find it did for many months,2 whatever notion it was. We can then read with intelligence sufficient for us. To his Eminency Cardinal Mazarin'

'Whitehall,' 26th December 1656.

The obligations, and many instances of affection, which I have received from your Eminency, do engage 'me' to make returns suitable and commensurate to your merits. But although I have this set home upon my spirit, I may not (shall I tell you, I cannot ?), at this juncture of time, and as the face of affairs now stand, answer to your call for Toleration.3

my

1 Antea, i. 285.

2 Thurloe, iv. v. vi.: see also Biog. Brit. (2d edition), ii. 154. [See note 2, on next page.]

To the Catholics here. [A month before this, on Nov. 24, old style, Bordeaux wrote to Brienne that he had spoken to the Secretary concerning certain imprisoned priests, "tesmoignant que le roy [de France] se sentiroit obligé si, en sa consideration, tant eux que les Catholiques d'Angleterre estoient traittés avec moins de rigueur que par le passé." On Dec. 1-11, he wrote to Mazarin, saying that if he thought well to take up the cause of the English Catholics, the memoires of certain priests should be sent to him. But he entirely corroborates the statement in Oliver's letter concerning the leniency shown in England. His church is more frequented, he says, than that of any ambassador has ever been before. Every festival, three or four thousand attend, and are in no way molested as they go out, not even the priests who serve; a thing which the Queen was never able to prevent, nor the Spanish ambassador in the time of the Parliament. He fears, however, that the Protector will not grant anything further, his policy being to testify to the public an extraordinary zeal for the Protestants; and Parliament seems inclined to revive some of the old penal laws. On Dec. 8-18, he announced to the Cardinal that some of the chief Catholics had been that day with him, praying for the intervention of the King, his master. He has promised to see the Protector on the subject and even if refused, the request will show that Spain is not alone in zeal for religion, and after such refusal, the English government would not be able to meddle in favour of the Huguenots of France. It would, he thinks, be well for the King first to write to the Protector, but without its appearing that he had been instigated to it. It was no doubt in consequence of this suggestion that Mazarin sent the letter to which the above is the answer, but it is evident that Oliver was also negotiating matters with Mazarin of which the French ambassador knew nothing; for no trace appears in Bordeaux' letters to the Cardinal in relation to the business of the Duke of York.]

I say,

I cannot, as to a public Declaration of my sense in that point; although I believe that under my Government your Eminency, in the behalf of Catholics, has less reason for complaint as to rigour upon men's consciences than under the Parliament. For I have of some, and those very many, had compassion; making a difference. Truly I have (and I may speak it with cheerfulness in the presence of God, who is a witness within me to the truth of what I affirm) made a difference; and, as Jude speaks, plucked many out of the fire,1—the raging fire of persecution, which did tyrannise over their consciences, and encroached by an arbitrariness of power upon their estates. And herein it is my purpose, as soon as I can remove impediments, and some weights that press me down, to make a farther progress, and discharge my promise to your Eminency in relation to that.

And now I shall come to return your Eminency thanks for your judicious choice of that person to whom you have entrusted our weightest affair: an affair wherein your Eminency is concerned, though not in equal degree and measure with myself. I must confess that I had some doubts of its success, till Providence cleared them to me by the effects. I was, truly, and to speak ingenuously, not without doubtings; and shall not be ashamed to give your Eminency the grounds I had for much doubting. I did fear that Berkley would not have been able to go through and carry on that work; that either the Duke had cooled in his suit,2 or condescended to his Brother. I doubted

1 Verses 22, 23: a most remarkable Epistle, to which his Highness often enough solemnly refers, as we have seen.

2 His suit, I understand, was for leave to continue in France; an Anti-Spanish notion. [At the time Cromwell wrote, the question of James leaving France had long been settled. In obedience to his brother's commands he reluctantly quitted Paris on Sept. 10 and travelled to Bruges, having a curious little rencontre with Cromwell's ambassador by the way. Soon afterwards, at Charles's bidding, he entered the Spanish service, saying in response to the remonstrances of his friends in Paris that Mazarin only wanted to prevent him from doing so in order to retain the Irish troops in his service, and that his duty obliged him to obey his brother. But meanwhile a fresh difficulty arose, owing to the intrigues of a certain party of the King's followers and of the Duke's own people (headed by Sir Henry Bennet) to obtain the dismissal of Sir John Berkeley, the Duke's "governor," and to replace him by Sir George Ratcliffe. On Christmas Eve, new style (Dec. 14, old style) the King sent his positive commands that Berkeley should depart. The Duke agreed,