it was thought impossible for them to have equipped another Fleet able to look out Navies in the Face Withall there were so many Discontents and Divisions in that popular State that they were ready to ruine themselves without any of our help yet did this puny and unfledged Prince come to a Treaty and agreement with them upon most mean and inconsiderable Terms when it had been no question but another rub at Sea or beleaguering their Ports would have brought them down to the Humble Complement of Our faithful Tributaries which of how great advantage it might have been to the Trade and consequently the greatnesse of this Kingdome I take not upon me to determine His next Affair was a Conclusion of a League with the Queen of Sweeden which he transacted by the Embassy of the Lord Commissioner Whitlock who being commissioned at his Departure by the foolish Parliament was invested with new Credentialls from Cromwell whom accordingly he owned as his most serene Highness his Master But that which he most aspected was the two neighbouring potent Monarchies of France and Spain with one whereof he must of necessity quarrell and so spend the ill blood and convey away those humors which were so redundant in the old Soldiery both of the Kings and Essexes Army and if not employed in some forraign war would create him trouble at home this the French Cardinal newly restored to the administration of that Monarchy timely foresee and therefore a Treaty was privately and industriously carried on here by Mounsieur Bourdeaux Neufville to an amicable Association and League against the Spaniard Cromwell's Covetousnesse and thirst of Gold prevailing against his Interest and Ambition and thirst of Malice and Mischief against the Royal Family which was now shaded under the French Flower de Lyzes whereby all petsons expected an Invasion from hence of that Kingdome that if it were possible for his Treason he might drive it out of the World But Mazarine's Golden expedient temporary Medium of shifting the King and his Relations out of that Kingdome by vertue of the said League wholly swayed and inclined him to a War against Spain which not long after was commenced The greater invitation thereto being Three ships pretended Hamburgers but laden with the King of Spains Peices of Eight whether for his Account or no uncertain that had been newly stayed and seized by the Court of Admiralty at the prosecution of one Violet a Goldsmith and notwithstanding the Spanish Ambassador Don Alonso de Cardenas protested and strugled against it were carried to the Tower and there minted to the Sum of 400000. Sterl This and other moneys in the Exchequer gave the greater courage to his Ambition and his raw and unsetled Usurpation He had also now accepted satisfaction from the King of Portugal and was entred into League and Friendship with Him How many are the troubles cares and miseries of Tyrant greatnesse No sooner is one design one passion gratified and accomplished but another disquiet and danger invades or perplexes Him No sooner had he sacrificed to his Covetousnesse but now he must offer Victims to his cruelty the next Assurance of his hated Throne There is in the Labyrinth of Vice as in the orderly Frame of Arts and Sciences a Circle a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Spherical Motion from one evil to another till the last terminates at the beginning their qualities and quantities being only altered augmented or diminished by Time or other circumstances From the deep Design of forraign Mines He next converted his thoughts upon a Home-spun Plot. A horrible Practice of Machivilian Policy and Art of Empire with which even just Scepters have been polluted and stained by some unhumane Ministers of State upon pretences of preventing danger who stand chargeable even with the Loyal blood this Leach suckt through their Conduits to entrap and engage innocent persons upon Suspicion of others of the same party who are obnoxious to the Government in Machinations and Conspiracies of their own forming and contrivance and by their Emissaries betray and then condemn them This was the first bloody remarque of Cromwell's Princing managed by his Secretary Thurloe who drew in Col. John Gerrard and Mr. Vowell two eminent Royalists into his snare of conspiring the Death of the Protector with others who confessed the intention for which they were both condemned by a High Court of Justice Cromwell not daring to trust the Laws or a Jury the Birthright of Englishmen no more then did the Juncto of Regicides and the first beheaded at Tower-Hill and the other hanged at haring-Crosse the Collonel declaring That he was so far from having hand or heart in it or any encouragement from the King as was falsly suggested that he feared he should not dye right in his favour as being but suspected of that though so just assassinate it being below His Majesties Honour and Religion Mr. Vowell referred his Cause and his unjust Judges and the Tyrant to Heavens Tribunal This was the Rozin there wanted now the Consent of the People in Parliament to sidle his Instrument He resolved therefore to call one forthwith for the Nation began to murmure at him and some openly to refuâ—e obedience and to forget the pleasing acquiescence in the change he had made since they saw he made it only for himself The Nine days wonder was over and they had recovered themselves to a fresh sense of their Slavery which might afterwards stupifie and benum them before the several opposite parties of Royalists and Common-wealth-men could understand one another and bandy both against Him Having now plotted and secured the Elections of as many Sectaries and of his Party to the ensuing Parliament as his young Interest could procure him in the Month of July to recreate himself and his Familiar Thurloe with some robust and jogging Exercise to void the Gravel with which he was much troubled He would needs shew his skil in driving a Coach with six great German Horses sent him as a present by the Count of Oldenburgh in Hide-Park but those generous Horses no sooner heard the Lash of the Whip but away they ran with Thurloe sitting trembling in it for fear of his own Neck over Hill and Dale and at last threw down their unexpert Governour from the Box into the Traâ—es and there bad likely to have trod and drawn him to peices but Vengeance was yet again pleased to respite him and put him over to a like judicial Execution after his immature Death in 1660. Of this ominous chance many ingenlous Songs were made and one called the Jolt by Sir John Berkenhead which being in Print in a History and in the Rump Songs though the Author mistaken is purposely forborn The Elections were made one and the same day throughout England most of the Boroughs had but one Burgeâ—s and the Shires some of them 6. or 7. Knights all of them under sure qualifications of not having been or being of the Cavalier party there were
Treachery was before related County Troops were now also established for security to his Highnesse such Trooper 8 l. a year pay and more in case of Service a Captain a 100 l. and Officers proportionably and as these new Forces were raised here so were other old ones disbanded in Scotland and Ireland in which last place the disbanded were yet to be the same kind of Militia they being setled in the Rebel forfeited Lands their Tenure being their Service and thus that Kingdome was re-peopled An Agent that had come hither from Ragotzi Prince of Transilvania now departed the Conspiracy betwixt whom and the King of Sweden and the Swede and Cromwel was just ripe for execution The Spanish War therefore commencing the Protector began new practices against the Cavalier party whose interest and spirit was against his Government as high as ever he foresaw that by the French peace the King only shifted changed war from one quarter to another and was yet as neer as ever and in a more opportune and advantageous posture for that the King of Spain and he would certainly concur against him and so the Low Countries his Provinces and Ports be open and at the service of our Soveraign therefore his party was by all ways how unjust and tyrannical soever to be crusht and supprest it began with the Clergy who were neither to keep School nor cure nor be Chaplains except they give signal testimony of their Apostacy from the Church it next extended to all â—orts of men the revived Act of 1652 forbidding all Cavallers or such as meant well to the peace of the Kingdom in their subicription to the personal Treaty in 1648. by a new Proclamation to that purpose from giving voyces of Electing or to be elected themselves upon their utmost peril then came out a Declaration for Decimating such who were actually in Arms and to shew the Reasons of such proceedings against them Cromwel therein taking it for granted that the whole Mass of them were engaged in the late design of Penruddocks and observing their Malignity to the Government by refusing to match their Relations but within themselves and so to propagate the quarrell from one Generation to another that they supplyed their King as they call'd him with money that their Clergy were as refractory as ever and that therefore since by them the peace so endangered could not be kept nor the cause and the well affected secured but by keeping up a standing Army by a constant pay it was requisite the charge should be born by those who caused it For the better dispatch of this Affair He had erected a new Military Authority like the Turkish Bashaws distributed into several Provinces or Counties with an unbounded power England being now cantoned into this Hendecharchy viz. Kent and Surrey under Col. Kelsey Sussex Hantshire and Berk-shire under Goff Gloucestershire Wilts Dorset Somerset Devon and Cornwal under Col. Desborough Oxfordshire Buckingham Hartford Cambridge Isle of Ely Essex Norfolk and Suffolk under Lieutenant General Fleetwood London Major General Skippon Lincolnshire Nottingham Derby Warwick and Leicester under Whalley Northamptoushire Bedford Rutland and Huntingdon under villanous Butler Worcestershire Hereford Shropshire and Northwales under Col. Berry Cheshire Lancashire and Stafford under Col. Worsely York shire Durham Cumberland Northumberland and Westmorland under Lord Lambert Westminster and Middlesex under Col. Berkstead their Commission was to take a Roll and Account of all suspected persons of the Kings party and such as were actually so to receive security of them in which they were to be bound to act nothing against the Government and to reveal all Plots that should come to their knowledge they were to suppress all Horse-Races Cock matches and other Concourses of people to secure the High Ways to take engagement from Cavaliers for their Servants and Children and those that did not so nor give security to commit to prison and to rate and receive the mony rising from this Decimation In short there was nothing which they might not do nor which they did not such an Arbitrary vast power they had from the Protector To this purpose a M. Gen. Office was erected in Fleetstrees as other Courts had where these Recognizances were entred and all other the like Affairs dependencies and concerns thereof entred and Pecord d by this means the Tyrant intended to inform himself of the value and quality of every Estate and person together with the number of that party in every County throughout the Kingdome Most of those Loyal persons formerly secured were hereupon set at liberty but by another 20. Mile Proclamation driven into the Country into the bounds of the several Major Generals who presently took cognizance of them and summoned them to their respective Residences they sate sometimes without other times with some of the old Committees where they received accounts of Estates which were rated to the tenth peny yearly Some bought off that Tax and incumbrance by a present Sum at three years purchase which was very acceptable for mony was the thing the Usurper wanted others looked for a nearer Redemption and to be constrained to that paiment the well affected and godly people voyced this to be a just and reasonable imposition for when should they be at quiet and enjoy themselves in the goods they had got free from the interrupting endevour of this old and restless Enemy so that there wanted not Abettoâ—s and Assistants to this most religious work of the Major Generals who had ordered in the first place that no Cavalier should keep or wear either Arms offensive or defensive but streightways deliver them so that they lay a the mercy of whomsoever they met and at the Discretion and charity of whosoever resorted to their Houses for what they had left The Barbarous Cruelty and Severity of these Bashaws to the Orthodox Clergy while with the Hotnesse of the persecution it suffocated the true Religion did warm and foster the viperous brood of â—ects and Heresies into monstrous luxuriances For besides the Ranter who at this time began to infest the Church and multiply exceedingly and the Socinian who denied the Divinity of Christ one Biddle being infamous for those impious opinious as Erbury formerly a Minister for Ranting the Quakers appeared like Locusts and overspread the whole Kingdome even to the Disquiet of Oliver himself who could not endure to hear of their Anti-Magisterial-principles the â—chisme consisting chiefly of such as had been of the Army or Rebel Faction The Heighth of that Phrenzy and Delusion so possessed the haughty mind of one Janies Naylor as if Pride and Ambition were the raigning secular sins that he fancied himself to be our Saviour procuring such Worship to be done him as was due only to that Blessed Divinity This Blasphemous Impostor was severely punished by the consent of Oliver who perceived Lansbâ—re whose Soldier this was formerly to stickle for him on design to cajole his party But not from any sense of this
and bought him all Utensils and Materials as Ploughs Carts c. and the better to prosper his own and his mens Labour every Morning before they stirred out the Family was called together to Prayers at which exercise very often they continued so long that it was Nine of the Clock in the morning before they began their work which aukward beginning of their Labour sorted with a very sorry Issue for the effects of those prayers was that the Hinds and Plowmen seeing this zeal of their Master which dispensed with the profitable and most Commodious part of the Day for their labour thought they might borrow the other part of it for their pleasure and therefore they commonly went to the Plough with a pack of Cards in their pockets and having turned up two or three Furrows set themselves down to game till dinner time when they returned to the second part of their Devotion and measured out a good part of the afternoon with dinner and a repetition of some Market Lecture that had been preached the day before and that little work that was done was done so negligently and by halves that scarce half a Crop ever reared it self upon his Grounds so that he was after five years time glad to abandon it and get a friend of his to be the Tenant for the remainder of his time During his continuance here he was grown that is he pretended to be so just and of so scrupulous a Conscience that having some years before won thirty pounds of one Mr. Calton at play meeting him accidentally he desired him to come home with him and to receive his money telling him that he had got it of him by indirect and unlawful means and that it would be a sin in him to detain it any longer and did really pay the Gentleman the said thirty pound back again Now was he therefore thinking of transporting himself and his Family into New England a receptacle of the Puritan who flocked thither amain for liberty of Conscience But he indeed for that his purse and credit were so exhausted that he could no longer stay here which resolution he had taken up before the Estate of his Uncle fell to him and was put aside it by the amplitude of that Fortune to maintain him here with this Estate of his Uncle Stewards being again set up in the World and assisted with his borrowed stock of Sanctity He was look'd upon as a rising person the Voyage for New England the desperate Counsel of his necessity abandoned and the port and state of his Family resumed to such a conspicuous Grandeur that rendred him a Candidate for the ensuing Parliament and supplied him before with the Ability of disbursing 500 l. upon account of Irish Adventures towards the setling a plantation in Vlster in that Kingdome Yet was this the very last remains of that accessional Inheritance He being forced to borrow money in Town here very precariously and by the mediation of friends though for no greater sums then Ten pounds nay formerly ten shillings were acceptable at several times which he received with this inducing Expression That though sometime he had made no conscience of repaying any money yet he would punctually now keep his word which indeed he did justly observe and this an eminent Citizen his Friend and School-fellow hath often declared The last summe he borrowed being very anxiously besought and intreated as rising to a 100 l. which upon his growing Greatnesse was pleasured him and most abusefully imployed in hyring Wagons for the Earl of Essex's Army then advancing against the King To this constant and insuperable indigency and ebbe of Fortune was he kept and decreed to the brink of our Troubles that his ruines and private misery might the more industriously force him to the reparation of them by the publique calamities and then carry him to the mixt Affluence and Excesses of wealth and state Usurpation Nor did he omit any other duty or civility or Office of love to any especially to those of the Houshold as they then termed the people of the Separation insomuch that he had sâ—tued himself into the affections of a great many well-meaning people whose suffrages he obtained against his use for them in the long Parliament He was a great stickler likewise against ship-money in which danger his great friend and patron Mr. Hambden was so far embarqued nor was he better affected to the Scotch War then growing on as he to his hazard discovered himself to some Chief Commanders of the English Army who in their march against the Scots quartered at his House which Discourses drawing suspicion upon him made him the more popular in those parts who were generally infected with Puritanisme About the same time one Mr. Bernards coming to be Recorder of the Town of Huntingdon some difference about precedency of place happened between them Oliver's Spirit being too high to yeild to any person in that town where his Family had continued of the best rank some years together and therefore to avoid the Cession of his Honour to another he withdrew himself thence just before the summoning of the Long Parliament and took a dwelling in Cambridge where upon the Election of Burgesses by the procurement and means of Mr. Hambden he was chose Burgesse for that place and so returned Having now attained his desire and aims which was to help to blow up those Coals of dissention and rage which had kindled in the breast of his malecontent party so long and now were like to have free vent to the setting the kingdoms into a Conflagration like a right incendiary where he found any grievance complained of he would make himself a party concerned in it Enquire into the number and strength of the Faction that managed the Complaint proffer his and his friends assistance encourage them to clamour against the male-administration and generally set a foot those mischeivous petitions which were brought thick and threefold to the Parliament till his Faction had so exasperated the King against them that there seemed no possibility of reconciling them making even all the Kings most earnest endevours for an accommodation arguments of refusing it And though at first he was none of the principal of the Cabal being taken in and tutor'd by Mr. Pym and Hambden as finding him of a bold and undertaking Spirit of what mischief soever was propounded to him yet was he notably and highly instrumental and subservient to the Conspiracy and at last arose to such a knowledge and capacity of the mystery that he scornd their puny rudiments when with a deeper Athiesme he set up for himself The determinate time was now come for which the cabal of the Puritan had so long laboured and that none of those things which had been so direfully Prophesied of their Schisme if it ever should attain any power or prevalency might want or rather not exceed belief The whole Kingdome of a suddain as if some Magical Charme had transform'd the
off all Military employment which concluding so pertinently and peremptorily for him in this grand Event did charm the hatred and prejudice against him into fear and dread what this arrogance of his fortune would finally aspire to This Battell wholly overthrew the King who was never after able to make head against the Parliament Forces but peece-meal lost his Armies Castles and Towns Fairfax taking in the remoter Western Garrisons while Cromwell was employed nearer to London being sure to have one eye on the Counsells of the Parliament as well as the other intent against the King Among the rest of those places taken by him as Winchester the Devizes and Langford-house Basing-house that had defeated so many Seiges and ruined so many Leagures was not able to withstand the Fortune of this Victor but humbled it self to dust and ruine at his first and terrible approch The war now almost expired he began to ruminate on his former Dreams and to adjust those strange revolutions and unexpected alterations of the times and the Government to his former Fancy in which he had so much affiance anew that he became resolutely confirmed that all those things were brought about meerly to fulfill that Oracle of his Imagination That he should be King And therefore he thought it a just reverence to his Fate to neglect no advantages occasions and means which might conduce to the accomplishment of its mysterie and conciliate it's constant affection and favour to him One thing primarily requisite was the assistance and Counsell of some confident Privado and to this purpose he had before pitch'd upon Coll. Ireton a man of a most profound and deep dissimulation and of a most clean conveyance of any mischeivous design one very well learned but who had converted it as Toads do the best nutriment unto the most exquisite poyson to barbarous and most Horrid Artifices of impiety and Treason this man Cromwell made sure to him first by marriage as abovesaid and now by a more mutuall endearment the partnership of the Soveraignty which they agreed to seize and from henceforth they never ceased plotting and conspiring now colloguing with this party then with that and fomenting divisions still betwixt all till with these many strange patches of Policy Cromwell made himself a Protectoral Robe with which he was not many years after solemnly vested In the mean time the King in Oxford fearing a Seige and having no better shelter in England to secure himself after he had in vain woed the Parliament from this his Court to a Treaty and agreement designed an escape out of their hands and to that purpose Collonel Rainsborough and otheâ— Forces at a distance lying about all the passes of the City by Coll. Ashburnhams means procured a passe from the Generall for the said Coll. Ashburnham and his two servants to Travel from Oxford upon some pretence of private businesse of the Collonel and by vertue thereof in a Disguise of a Servant passed their Guards and after many traverses delivered himself into the Scotch hands then beseiging Newark Herein Cromwell most cunningly and deceitfully first practiced the Kings ruine for whereas upon the rendition of that City if the King had been taken in it a sudden end had been put to the Troubles by some composure which would have marred Cromwell's plots not to be acted but by a Stratocracy and an Army by this means of suffering the King to escape which might easily have been prevented the war was no nearer a conclusion then at the beginning if the Scots as was hoped howsoever would have proved honest and kept their Allegiance Faith due to such extraordinary confidence and trust reposed in them 〈◊〉 Now to carry on their Treason the more irresistibly and indiscoverably upon a plausible pretence of lessening the charge of the Kingdom they concluded to put their Partisans in the Parliament who gaped for the spoil of the Kingdom and would be content with that to motion a disbanding of some Regiments of the Army which being a just and necessary work was assented to by many Patriots who understood not the drift of the Conspiracy and accordingly Major Generall Massey and Coll. Cook and their Brigades were ordered to disband amounting to Two Thousand five hundred Horse which journey work was put upon Generall Fairfax who at the Dâ— performed it giving them six Weeks pay for many Months arrears divers of the disbanded 〈◊〉 from very remote Countries and had passes 〈◊〉 for Mesopotamia some for Egypt and Ethâ—â—piâ— M. G. Massey was he whom they aimed at in this Dismission as too much an Essexian and of juster and honester principles then their designs would allow of a very great interest in the Army also very well esteemed and beloved by them as being of a clear spirit and as valorous as the best of them and would dare to oppose any rebellious practice whatsoever against the Authority of their Masters Besides this Cromwell had a further reach to the future on the Parliament likewise first to make hereby a division and beget and stir some ill humour in the Army as if that were the leading case next to make those Officers that should continue when they should perceive at whose beck they must stand or fall more fixedly dependant on him and then to instill unto them his own Traiterous designs and purposes and so having the Army entire at his devotion effect and bring to passe his Royal projections Massey submitted but carried the revenges of this affront and Cabâ—l with him to the Parliament House Cromwell upon this Accident was at Westminster and perceived by the tosse and perplexity the Parliament was in about the King's Person that it was a brave thing to be a Monarch and therefore concluded it very necessary to other his Elements and Points of Policy to get Possession if he could of His Majesty and thereupon his party the Independent's Fâ—ction being so instructed fall violently upon the Scots and would have run it up to little lesse then Treason for the Scots to detain the Kings 〈◊〉 this purpose divers Resolutions and Messages passed but it appearing in the Conclusion that the Scots drove at a Bargain Cromwell and his Faction must readily agreed to strike it and so the King was delivered to the English Commissioners at New-Castle Yet that nothing might slip or passed which any way promoted his ambitious purposes he made use of this agreement of the 200000 l to be paid the Scots by his Agents to mutiny the Army under General Poyntz another Presbyterian Commander then at York upon their Guard against the said Scots as if the Parliament had no care or respect for them but that Forraigners should be paid with their money and then afterwards upon the ceasing that Tumult and military Sedition to get Poyntz dismissed as too remisse and negligent in his Command And not long after died the Earl of Essex one whom Oliver more feared then any or all the Presbyterian Officers