CHRONOLOGICAL. THE Plots and perils to the Commonwealth, which my Lord Protector spoke of to his honourable Members, were not an imagination, but a very tragic reality. Under the shadow of this Constitutioning Parliament, strange things had been ripening: without some other eye than the Parliament's, Constitution and Commonwealth in general had been, by this time, in a had way! A universal rising of Royalists combined with Anabaptists is in a real state of progress. Dim meetings there have been of Royalist Gentlemen, on nocturnal moors, in this quarter and in that, with cart-loads of arms,'-terrified at their own jingle, and rapidly dispersing again till the grand hour come. Anabaptist Levellers have had dim meetings, dim communications; will prefer Charles Stuart himself to the traitor Oliver, who has dared to attempt actual governing' of men. Charles Stuart has come down to Middleburg, on the Dutch coast, to be in readiness; Hyde is cock-sure.' the dreary old Thurloes, and rubbish-continents, of Spy Letters, Intercepted Letters, Letters of Intelligence; where, scattered at huge intervals, the History of England for those years still lies entombed, it is manifest enough what a winter and spring this was in England. A Protector left without supplies, obliged to cut his Parliament adrift, and front the matter alone; England, from end to end of it, ripe for an explosion; for a universal blazing-up of all the heterogeneous combustibilities it had; the Sacred Majesty waiting at Middleburg, and Hyde cock-sure! 1 Manning's Letter in Thurloe, iii. 384. From |