would have been; but is overruled by Penruddock and the rest. He orders the High Sheriff to proclaim King Charles; High Sheriff will not, not though you hang him; Town-crier will not, not even he though you hang him. The Insurrection does not speed in Salisbury, it would seem. The Insurrection quits Salisbury on Monday night, hearing that troopers are on foot; marches with all speed towards Cornwall, hoping for better luck there. Marches ;-but Captain Unton Crook, whom we once saw before, marches also in the rear of it; marches swiftly, fiercely; overtakes it at South Molton, in Devonshire, on Wednesday, about ten at night,' and there in few minutes puts an end to it. They fired out of windows on us,' but could make nothing of it. We took Penruddock, Grove, and long lists of others; Wagstaff unluckily escaped.* The unfortunate men were tried, at Exeter, by a regular assize and jury; were found guilty, some of High Treason, some of 'Horse-stealing:' Penruddock and Grove, stanch Royalists both and gallant men, were beheaded; several were hanged; "a great many 'sent to Barbadoes ;'-and this Royalist conflagration too, which should have blazed all over England, is entirely damped out, having amounted to smoke merely, whereby many eyes are bleared! Indeed so prompt and complete is the extinction, thankless people begin to say there had never been anything considerable to extinguish. Had they stood in the middle of it,—had they seen the nocturnal rendezvous at Marston Moor, seen what Shrewsbury, what Rufford Abbey, what North Wales in general, would have grown to on the morrow,—in that case, thinks the Lord Protector not without some indignation, they had known!t Wagstaff has escaped, and Wilmot Earl of Rochester so-called; right glad to be beyond seas again; and will look twice at an Insurrection before they embark in it in time coming.

A terrible Protector this; no getting of him overset! He has the ringleaders all in his hand, in prison or still at large;-as

* Crook's Letter, South Molton, 15 March, 1654, two or three in the morning' (King's Pamphlets, small 4to., no. 637, § 15). State Trials, v. 767 et seq.; Whitlocke, p. 601; Thurloe, iii., 365, 384, 391, 445; Crom. welliana, pp. 152–3. ·

† Postea, Speech V.

they love their estates and their life, let them be quiet. He can take your estate :-is there not proof enough to take your head, if he pleases? He dislikes shedding blood; but is very apt to 'barbadoes' an unruly man,-has sent and sends us by hundreds to Barbadoes, so that we have made an active verb of it: 'Bar

badoes you. * Safest to let this Protector alone! Charles Stuart withdraws from Middleburg into the interior obscurities; and Mr. Hyde will not be so cock-sure another time. Mr. Hyde, much pondering how his secret could have been let out, finds that it is an underling of his, one Mr. Manning, a gentleman by birth, 'fond of fine clothes,' and in very straitened circumstances at present, who has been playing the traitor. Indisputably a traitor; wherefore the King in Council has him doomed to death; has him shot, in winter following, 'in the Duke of Newburgh's territory.'† Diligent Thurloe finds others to take his place.

May 28th, 1655. Desborow, who commands the Regular Troops in that insurrectionary Southwest region, is, by Commis. sion bearing date this day, appointed Major-General of the Militiaforces likewise, and of all manner of civic and military forces at the disposal of the Commonwealth in those parts. Major-General over six counties specified in this Document; with power somewhat enlarged, and not easy to specify,-power in fact to look after the peace of the Commonwealth there, and do what the Council of State shall order him. He coerces Royalists; questions, commits to custody suspected persons; keeps down disturbance by such methods as, on the spot, he finds wisest. A scheme found to answer well. The beginning of a universal Scheme of MAJOR-GENERALS, which developes itself into full maturity in the autumn of this year; the Lord Protector and his Council of State having well considered it in the interim, and found it the feasiblest; 'if not good, yet best.'

By this Scheme, which we may as well describe here as afterwards, All England is divided into Districts; Ten Districts, a Major-General for each: let him be a man most carefully chosen, a man of real wisdom, valor and veracity, a man fearing God and

† Clarendon, iii., 752; Whitlocke, p. 618 (Dec. 1655); Ludlow, ii., 608 Thurloe, iii., 486.

hating covetousness; for his powers are great. He looks after the Good of the Commonwealth, spiritual and temporal, as he finds wisest. Ejects, or aids in ejecting, scandalous ministers; summons disaffected, suspected persons before him; demands an account of them; sends them to prison, failing an account that satisfies him ;—and there is no appeal except to the Protector in Council. His force is the Militia of his Counties; horse and foot, levied and kept in readiness for the occasion; especially troops of horse. Involving, of course, new expense ;-which we decide that the Plotting Royalists, who occasion it, shall pay. On all Royalist disaffected Persons the Major-General therefore, as his first duty, is to lay an Income-tax of Ten per cent; let them pay it quietly, or it may be worse for them. They pay it very quietly. Strange as it may seem, the Country submits very quietly to this arrangement ;-the. Major-Generais being men carefully chosen. It is an arbitrary government! murmur many. Yes; arbitrary, but beneficial. These are powers unknown to the English Constitution, I believe; but they are very necessary for the Puritan English Nation at this time. With men of real wisdom, who do fear God and hate covetousness, when you can find such men, you may to some purpose entrust considerable powers!

It is in this way that Oliver Protector coerces the unruly ele. ments of England; says to them: "Peace, ye! With the aid of Parliament and venerable Parchment, if so may be; without it, if so may not be,-I, called hither by a very good Authority, will hold you down. Quiet shall you, for your part, keep your selves; or be barbadoesed,' and worse, Mark it; not while } live shall you have dominion, you nor the Master of you!"Cock-matches, Horse-races and other loose Assemblages are, for limited times, forbidden; over England generally, or in Districts where it may be thought somewhat is a-brewing. Without cockfighting we can do; but not without Peace, and the absence of Charles Stuart and his Copartneries. It is a Government of some arbitrariness.

And yet singular, observes my learned friend, how popular it seems to grow. These considerable infringements of the consti tutional fabric, prohibition of cockfights, amercings of Royalists

.axing without consent in Parliament, seem not to awaken the indignation of England; rather almost the gratitude and confidence of England. Next year, we have 'Letters of great appearances of the Country at the Assizes; and how the Gentlemen of the greatest quality served on Grand Juries; which is fi. to be observed.'*

We mention, but cannot dwell upon it, another trait belonging to those Spring Months of 1665: the quarrel my Lord Protector had in regard to his Ordinance for the Reform of Chancery. Ordinance passed merely by the Protector in Council; never confirmed by any Parliament; which nevertheless he insists upon having obeyed. How our learned Bulstrode, learned Widdrington, two of the Keepers of the Great Seal, durst not obey; and Lisle the other Keeper durst ;—and Old-Speaker Lenthall, Master of the Rolls, "would be hanged at the Rolls Gate before he would obey." What profound consults there were among us; buzz in the Profession, in the Public generally. And then how Oliver Protector, with delicate patient bridle-hand and yet with resolute spur, made us all obey, or else go out of that, which latter step Bulstrode and Widdrington, with a sublime conscientious feeling, preferred to take, the big heart saying to itself, "I have lost a thousand pounds a-year!" And Lenthall, for all his bragging, was not hanged at the Rolls Gate; but kept his skin whole, and his salary whole, and did as he was bidden. buzz in the Profession, notwithstanding much abatement of fees, had to compose itself again.t-Bulstrode adds, some two months hence, The Protector being good-natured, and sensible of his harsh proceeding against Whitlocke and Widdrington,' made them Commissioners of the Treasury, which was a kind of compensation. There, with Montague and Sydenham, they had a moderately good time of it; but saw, not without a sigh, the Great Seal remain with Lisle who durst obey, and for colleague to him a certain well-known Nathaniel Fiennes, a shrewd man, Lord Say and Sele's son, who knew nothing of that business, says Bulstrode, nay Lisle himself knew nothing of it till he learned it from us.‡

* Whitlocke, p. 624 (April, 1656). † Ibid., pp. 602-8.

Ibid., p. 608.

The

Console thyself, big heart. How seldom is sublime virtue rewarded in this world!

June 3d, 1655. This day come sad news out of Piedmont ; confirmation of bad rumors there had been, which deeply affects all pious English hearts, and the Protector's most of all. It appears the Duke of Savoy had, not long since, decided on having certain poor Protestant subjects of his converted at last to the Catholic Religion. Poor Protestant people, who dwell in the obscure Valleys of Lucerna, of Perosa and St. Martin,' among the feeders of the Po, in the Savoy Alps: they are thought to be descendants of the old Waldenses; a pious inoffensive people; dear to the hearts and imaginations of all Protestant men. These, it would appear, the Duke of Savoy, in the past year, undertook to himself to get converted; for which object he sent friars to preach among them. The friars could convert nobody; one of the friars, on the contrary, was found assassinated,-signal to the rest that they had better take themselves away. The Duke thereupon sent other missionaries: six regiments of Catholic soldiers; and an order to the People of the Valleys either to be converted straightway, or quit the country at once. They could not be converted all at once: neither could they quit the country well; the month was December; among the Alps; and it was their home for immemorial years! Six regiments, however, say they must; six Catholic regiments;—and three of them are Irish, made of the banished Kurisees we knew long since; whose humor, on such an occasion, we can guess at! It is admitted they behaved 'with little ceremony;' it is not to be denied they behaved with much bluster and violence: ferocities, atrocities, to the conceivable amount, still stand in authentic black-on-white against them. The Protestants of the Valleys were violently driven out of house and home, not without slaughters and tortures by the road;—had to seek shelter in French Dauphiné or where they could; and, in mute or spoken supplication, appeal to all generous hearts of men. The saddest confirmation of the actual banishment, the actual violences done, arrives at Whitehall this day 3d June, 1655.*

⚫ Letter of the French Ambassador (in Thurloe, iii., 470)