the Reverend Dr. Hewit, a man of much forwardness in Royalism. Sir Henry, prisoner in Hull and acquainted with the Chief Officers there, has been treating with them for betrayal of the place to his Majesty; has even, to that end, given one of them a Majesty's Commission; for whose Spanish Invasion such a 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.

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; — sat 'in '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, was condemned; he pleaded what he could, poor gentleman, a very constant Royalist all along; but the Hull business was too 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 1 Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 172).

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 Am'bassador;' but refused to meet the Christian King at all; would not even meet Ormond except as if by accident, on the public road,' to say that there was no hope. The Spanish Minister, Don Luis 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 Self-government 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 1 Kennet, iii. 214; Clarendon, iii. 914.

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. We 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.

But in these same June days of the year 1658, while Hewit and Slingsby lay down their heads on Tower Hill, and the English Hydra finds that its Master is still here, there arrive the news of Dunkirk alluded to above: Dunkirk gloriously taken, Spaniards gloriously beaten : victories and successes abroad; which are a new illumination to the Lord Protector in the eyes of England. Splendid Nephews of the Cardinal, Manzinis, Ducs de Crequi, come across the Channel to congratulate the most invincible of Sovereigns;' young Louis Fourteenth himself would have come, had not the attack of small-pox prevented. With whom the elegant Lord Fauconberg and others busy themselves: their pageantry and gilt coaches, much gazed at by the idler multitudes, need not detain us here.

The Lord Protector, his Parliament having been dismissed 1 Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, pp. 172-3; 15-21 June, 1658).

with such brevity, is somewhat embarrassed in his finances. But otherwise his affairs stand well; visibly in an improved condition. Once more he has saved Puritan England; once more approved himself invincible abroad and at home. He looks with confidence towards summoning a new Parliament, of juster disposition towards Puritan England and him.' With a Parliament, or if extremity of need arrive, without a Parliament and in spite of Parliaments, the Puritan Gospel Cause, sanctioned by a Higher than Parliaments, shall not sink while life remains in this Man. Not till Oliver Cromwell's head lie low, shall English Puritanism bend its head to any created thing. Erect, with its foot on the neck of Hydra Babylon, with its open Bible and drawn Sword, shall Puritanism stand, and with pious all-defiance victoriously front the world. That was Oliver Cromwell's appointed function in this piece of sublunary Space, in this section of swift-flowing Time; that noble, perilous, painful function: and he has manfully done it, and is now near ending it, and getting honourably relieved from it.

LETTER CCXXV.

THE poor Protestants of Piedmont, it appears, are again in a state of grievance, in a state of peril. The Lord Protector, in the thickest press of domestic anarchies, finds time to think of these poor people and their case. Here is a Letter to Ambassador Lockhart, who is now at Dunkirk Siege, in the French King and Cardinal's neighbourhood: a generous pious Letter; dictated to Thurloe, partly perhaps of Thurloe's composition, but altogether of Oliver's mind and sense; -fit enough, since it so chances, to conclude our Series here.

1 Thurloe, vii. 84, 99, 128, &c. (April, May, 1658).