ROYALIST INSURRECTION FAILURE.

87

Haven and Fortress would have been extremely convenient. Reverend Dr. Hewit, preaching by sufferance, according to the old ritual, 'in St. Gregory's Church near Paul's,' to a select disaffected audience, has farther seen good to distinguish himself very much by secular zeal in this business of the Royalist Insurrection and Spanish Charles-Stuart Invasion ;—which has now come to nothing, and left poor Dr. Hewit in a most questionable position. Of these two, and of others, a High Court of Justice shall take cognisance.

6

The Insurrection having no chance in the eyes of reasonable Royalists, and they in consequence refusing to lead it, the large body of unreasonable Royalists now in London City or gathering thither decide, with indignation, That they will try it on their own score, and lead it themselves. Hands to work, then, ye unreasonable Royalists; pipe, All hands! Saturday the 15th of May, that is the night appointed: To rise that Saturday Night; beat drums for 'Royalist Apprentices,' 'fire houses at the Tower,' slay this man, slay that, and bring matters to a good issue. Alas, on the very edge of the appointed hour, as usual, we are all seized; the ringleaders of us are all seized, at the Mermaid in Cheapside,'-for Thurloe and his Highness have long known what we were upon! Barkstead, Governor of the Tower, 'marches into the City with five drakes,' at the rattle of which every Royalist Apprentice, and party implicated, shakes in his shoes :-and this also has gone to vapour, leaving only for result certain new individuals of the Civic class to give account of it to the High Court of Justice. Tuesday, 25th May, 1658, the High Court of Justice sat; a formidable Sanhedrim of above a Hundred-and-thirty heads; consisting of all the Judges,' chief Law Officials, and others named in the Writ, according to Act of Parliament;-satin 'Westminster Hall, at nine in the morning, for the Trial of 'Sir Henry Slingsby, Knight, John Hewit, Doctor of Divinity,' and three others whom we may forget. Sat day after day till all were judged. Poor Sir Henry, on the first day, demned; he pleaded what he could, poor gentleman, constant Royalist all along; but the Hull business was too

was con

a

a very

6

palpable; he was condemned to die. Reverend Dr. Hewit, whose proceedings also had become very palpable, refused to plead at all; refused even 'to take off his hat,' says Carrion Heath, 'till the officer was coming to do it for him;' had a Paper of Demurrers prepared by the learned Mr. Prynne,' who is now again doing business this way; 'conducted himself not very wisely,' says Bulstrode. He likewise received sentence of death. The others, by narrow missing, escaped; by good luck, or the Protector's mercy, suffered nothing.

As to Slingsby and Hewit, the Protector was inexorable. Hewit has already taken a very high line: let him persevere in it! Slingsby was the Lord Fauconberg's uncle, married to his Aunt Bellasis; but that could not stead him,-perhaps that was but a new monition to be strict with him. The Commonwealth of England and its Peace are not nothing! These Royalist Plots every winter, deliveries of garrisons to Charles Stuart, and reckless usherings of us into blood,' shall end! Hewit and Slingsby suffered on Tower Hill, on Monday 8th June; amid the manifold rumour and emotion of men. Of the City insurrectionists six were condemned; three of whom were executed, three pardoned. And so the High Court of Justice dissolved itself; and at this and not at more expense of blood, the huge Insurrectionary movement ended, and lay silent within its caves again.

Whether in any future year it would have tried another rising against such a Lord Protector, one does not know,-one guesses rather in the negative. The Royalist Cause, after so many failures, after such a sort of enterprises 'on the word of a 'Christian King,' had naturally sunk very low. Some twelvemonth hence, with a Commonwealth not now under Cromwell, but only under the impulse of Cromwell, a Christian King hastening down to the Treaty of the Pyrenees, where France and Spain were making Peace, found one of the coldest receptions. Cardinal Mazarin 'sent his coaches and guards a day's journey to meet Lockhart the Commonwealth Ambas'sador;' but refused to meet the Christian King at all; not even meet Ormond except as if by accident, on the

would

ROYALIST INSURRECTION FAILURE.

89

'public road,' to say that there was no hope. The Spanish Minister, Don Louis de Haro, was civiller in manner; but as to Spanish Charles-Stuart Invasions or the like, he also decisively shook his head. The Royalist cause was as good as desperate in England; a melancholy Reminiscence, fast fading away into the realm of shadows. Not till Puritanism sank of its own accord, could Royalism rise again. But Puritanism, the King of it once away, fell loose very naturally in every fibre,-fell into Kinglessness, what we call Anarchy; crumbled down, ever faster, for Sixteen Months, in mad suicide, and universal clashing and collision; proved, by trial after trial, that there lay not in it either Government or so much as Selfgovernment any more; that a Government of England by it was henceforth an impossibility. Amid the general wreck of things, all Government threatening now to be impossible, the Reminiscence of Royalty rose again, "Let us take refuge in the Past, the Future is not possible!" and Major-General Monk crossed the Tweed at Coldstream, with results which are well known.

Results which we will not quarrel with, very mournful as they have been! If it please Heaven, these Two Hundred Years of universal Cant in Speech, with so much of Cottonspinning, Coal-boring, Commercing, and other valuable Sincerity of Work going on the while, shall not be quite lost to us! Our Cant will vanish, our whole baleful cunningly-compacted Universe of Cant, as does a heavy Nightmare Dream. shall awaken; and find ourselves in a world greatly widened.Why Puritanism could not continue? My friend, Puritanism was not the Complete Theory of this immense Universe; no, only a part thereof! To me it seems, in my hours of hope, as if the Destinies meant something grander with England than even Oliver Protector did! We will not quarrel with the Destinies; we will work as we can towards fulfilment of them.

Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, vol. iv., p. 370.

DEATH OF THE PROTECTOR.

Oliver's look was yet strong; and for his young

which years, were Fifty-nine last April [1658]. The Three-score and ten 'years,' the Psalmist's limit, which probably was often in Oliver's thoughts and in those of others there, might have been anticipated for him: Ten Years more of Life;-which, we may compute, would have given another History to all the Centuries of England. But it was not to be so, it was to be otherwise. Oliver's health, as we might observe, was but uncertain in late times; often 'indisposed' the spring before last. His course of life had not been favourable to health! "A burden "too heavy for man!" as he himself, with a sigh, would sometimes say. Incessant toil; inconceivable labour, of head and heart and hand; toil, peril, and sorrow manifold, continued for near Twenty years now, had done their part: those robust life-energies, it afterward appeared, had been gradually eaten out. Like a Tower strong to the eye, but with its foundations undermined; which has not long to stand; the fall of which, on any shock, may be sudden.

The Manzinis and Ducs de Crequi, with their splendours, and congratulations about Dunkirk, interesting to the street populations and general public, had not yet withdrawn, when at Hampton Court there had begun a private scene, of much deeper and quite opposite interest there. The Lady Claypole, Oliver's favourite Daughter, a favourite of all the world, had fallen sick we know not when; lay sick now,-to death, as it proved. Her disease was of internal female nature; the painfullest and most harassing to mind and sense, it is understood, that falls to the lot of a human creature. Hampton Court we can fancy once more, in those July days, a house of sorrow; pale Death knocking there, as at the door of the meanest hut. 'She had great sufferings, great exercises of spirit!" Yes:and in the depths of the old Centuries, we see a pale anxious Mother, anxious Husband, anxious weeping Sisters, a poor young Frances weeping anew in her weeds. For the last

DEATH OF THE PROTECTOR.

91

'fourteen days' his Highness has been by her bedside at Hampton Court, unable to attend to any public business whatever. Be still, my Child; trust thou yet in God: in the waves of the Dark River, there too is He a God of help!-On the 6th day of August she lay dead; at rest forever. My young, my beautiful, my brave! She is taken from me; I am left bereaved of her. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the Name of the Lord! * * * *

:

In the same dark days occurred George Fox's third and last interview with Oliver. **** George dates nothing; and his facts everywhere lie round him like the leather-parings of his old shop but we judge it may have been about the time when the Manzinis and Ducs de Crequi were parading in their gilt coaches, That George and two Friends 'going out of Town,' on a summer day, 'two of Hacker's men' had met them,— taken them, brought them to the Mews. 'Prisoners there 'a while :'—but the Lord's power was over Hacker's men; they had to let us go. Whereupon:

'The same day, taking boat I went down' (up) 'to Kingston, and from thence to Hampton Court, to speak with the Pro'tector about the Sufferings of Friends. I met him riding into 'Hampton-Court Park; and before I came to him, as he rode at 'the head of his Lifeguard, I saw and felt a waft' (whiff)‘of 'death go forth against him.'--Or in favour of him, George? His life, if thou knew it, has not been a merry thing for this man, now or heretofore! I fancy he has been looking, this long while, to give it up, whenever the Commander-in-chief required. To quit his laborious sentry-post; honourably lay up his arms, and be gone to his rest:-all Eternity to rest in, O George! Was thy own life merry, for example, in the hollow of the tree; clad permanently in leather? And does kingly purple, and governing refractory worlds instead of stitching coarse shoes, make it merrier? The waft of death is not against him I think,-perhaps against thee, and me, and others, O George, when the Nell-Gwyn Defender and Two Centuries of all-victorious Cant have come in upon us! My unfortunate George,'a waft of death go forth against him;