Constitutional History of England Volume II Part 17

_Life of Owen_, 335. It is certain that the congregational scheme leads to toleration, as the national church scheme is adverse to it, for manifold reasons which the reader will discover.

[339] Though the writings of Chillingworth and Hales are not directly in behalf of toleration, no one could relish them without imbibing its spirit in the fullest measure. The great work of Jeremy Taylor, on the _Liberty of Prophesying_, was published in 1647; and, if we except a few concessions to the temper of the times, which are not reconcilable to its general principles, has left little for those who followed him.

Mr. Orme admits that the remonstrants of Holland maintained the principles of toleration very early (p. 50); but refers to a tract by Leonard Busher, an independent, in 1614, as "containing the most enlightened and scriptural views of religious liberty."--P. 99. He quotes other writings of the same sect under Charles I.

[340] Several proofs of this occur in the _Clarendon State Papers_. A letter, in particular, from Colepepper to Digby, in Sept. 1645, is so extravagantly sanguine, considering the posture of the king's affairs at that time, that, if it was perfectly sincere, Colepepper must have been a man of less ability than has generally been supposed. Vol. ii.

p. 188. Neal has some sensible remarks on the king's mistake in supposing that any party which he did not join must in the end be ruined. P. 268. He had not lost this strange confidence after his very life had become desperate; and told Sir John Bowring, when he advised him not to spin out the time at the treaty of Newport, that "any interests would be glad to come in with him." See Bowring's _Memoirs_ in Halifax's _Miscellanies_, 132.

[341] Baillie's letters are full of this feeling, and must be reckoned fair evidence, since no man could be more bigoted to presbytery, or more bitter against the royalist party. I have somewhere seen Baillie praised for his mildness. His letters give no proof of it. Take the following specimens: "Mr. Maxwell of Ross has printed at Oxford so desperately malicious an invective against our a.s.semblies and presbyteries, that, however I could hardly consent to the hanging of Canterbury or of any jesuit, yet I could give my sentence freely against that unhappy man's life."--ii. 99. "G.o.d has struck Coleman with death; he fell in an ague, and after three or four days expired.

It is not good to stand in Christ's way."--P. 199.

Baillie's judgment of men was not more conspicuous than his moderation. "Vane and Cromwell are of horrible hot fancies to put all in confusion, but not of any deep reach. St. John and Pierrepont are more stayed, but not great heads."--P. 258. The drift of all his letters is, that every man who resisted the _jus divinum_ of presbytery was knave or fool, if not both. They are, however, eminently serviceable as historical doc.u.ments.

[342] "Now for my own particular resolution," he says in a letter to Digby, March 26, 1646, "it is this. I am endeavouring to get to London, so that the conditions may be such as a gentleman may own, and that the rebels may acknowledge me king; being not without hope that I shall be able so to draw either the presbyterians or independents to side with me for extirpating the one or the other, that I shall be really king again." Carte's _Ormond_, iii. 452; quoted by Mr. Brodie, to whom I am indebted for the pa.s.sage. I have mentioned already his overture about this time to Sir Henry Vane through Ashburnham.

[343] Clarendon, followed by Hume and several others, appears to say that Ragland Castle in Monmouths.h.i.+re, defended by the Marquis of Worcester, was the last that surrendered; namely, in August 1646. I use the expression _appears to say_, because the last edition, which exhibits his real text, shows that he paid this compliment to Pendennis Castle in Cornwall, and that his original editors (I suppose to do honour to a n.o.ble family), foisted in the name of Ragland. It is true, however, of neither. The North Welsh castles held out considerably longer; that of Harlech was not taken till April 1647, which put an end to the war. Whitelock.

Clarendon, still more unyielding than his master, extols the long resistance of his party, and says that those who surrendered at the first summons obtained no better terms than they who made the stoutest defence; as if that were a sufficient justification for prolonging a civil war. In fact, however, they did the king some harm; inasmuch as they impeded the efforts made in parliament to disband the army.

Several votes of the Commons show this; see the Journals of 12th May and 31st July 1646.

[344] The resolution to disband Fairfax's regiment next Tuesday at Chelmsford pa.s.sed 16th May 1647, by 136 to 115; Algernon Sidney being a teller of the noes. Commons' Journals. In these votes the house, that is, the presbyterian majority, acted with extreme imprudence; not having provided for the payment of the army's arrears at the time they were thus disbanding them. Whitelock advised Hollis and his party not to press the disbanding; and on finding them obstinate, drew off, as he tells us, from that connection, and came nearer to Cromwell. P.

248. This, however, he had begun to do rather earlier. Independently of the danger of disgusting the army, it is probable that, as soon as it was disbanded, the royalists would have been up in arms. For the growth of this discontent, day by day, peruse Whitelock's Journal for March and the three following months, as well as the _Parliamentary History_.

[345] It was only carried by 159 to 147, March 5, 1647, that the forces should be commanded by Fairfax. But on the 8th, the house voted without a division, that no officer under him should be above the rank of a colonel, and that no member of the house should have any command in the army. It is easy to see at whom this was levelled. Commons'

Journals. They voted at the same time that the officers should all take the covenant, which had been rejected two years before; and, by a majority of 136 to 108, that they should all conform to the government of the church established by both houses of parliament.

[346] _Clar. State Papers_, ii. 365. The army, in a declaration not long after the king fell into their power, June 24, use these expressions: "We clearly profess that we do not see how there can be any peace to this kingdom firm or lasting, without a due provision for the rights, quiet, and immunity of his majesty, his royal family, and his late partakers."--_Parl. Hist._ 647.

[347] Hollis censures the speakers of the two houses and others who fled to the army from this mob; the riot being "a sudden tumultuous thing of young idle people without design." Possibly this might be the case; but the tumult at the door of the house, 26th July, was such that it could not be divided. Their votes were plainly null, as being made under duress. Yet the presbyterians were so strong in the Commons that a resolution to annul all proceedings during the speaker's absence was lost by 97 to 95, after his return; and it was only voted to repeal them. A motion to declare that the houses, from 26th July to 6th August, had been under a force, was also lost by 78 to 75.

Journals, 9th and 17th August. The Lords, however, pa.s.sed an ordinance to this effect; and after once more rejecting it, the Commons agreed on August 20, with a proviso that no one should be called in question for what had been done.

[348] These transactions are best read in the Commons' Journals, and _Parliamentary History_, and next to those, in Whitelock. Hollis relates them with great pa.s.sion; and Clarendon, as he does everything else that pa.s.sed in London, very imperfectly. He accounts for the Earl of Manchester and the Speaker Lenthal's retiring to the army by their persuasion that the chief officers had nearly concluded a treaty with the king, and resolved to have their shares in it. This is a very unnecessary surmise. Lenthal was a poor-spirited man, always influenced by those whom he thought the strongest, and in this instance, according to Ludlow (p. 206) persuaded with difficulty by Haslerig to go to the army. Manchester indeed had more courage and honour; but he was not of much capacity, and his parliamentary conduct was not systematic. But upon the whole it is obvious, on reading the list of names (_Parl. Hist._ 757), that the king's friends were rather among those who staid behind, especially in the Lords, than among those who went to the army. Seven of eight peers who continued to sit from 26th July to 6th of August 1647, were impeached for it afterwards (_Parl. Hist._ 764), and they were all of the most moderate party. If the king had any previous connection with the city, he acted very disingenuously in his letter to Fairfax, Aug. 3, while the contest was still pending; wherein he condemns the tumults, and declares his unwillingness that his friends should join with the city against the army, whose proposals he had rejected the day before with an imprudence of which he was now sensible. This letter, as actually sent to Fairfax, is in the _Parliamentary History_, 734, and may be compared with a rough draught of the same, preserved in _Clarendon Papers_, 373, from which it materially differs, being much sharper against the city.

[349] Fairfax's "Memoirs" in Maseres's _Collection of Tracts_, vol. i.

p. 447. "By this," says Fairfax, who had for once found a man less discerning of the times than himself, "I plainly saw the broken reed he leaned on. The agitators had brought the king into an opinion that the army was for him." Ireton said plainly to the king, "Sir, you have an intention to be the arbitrator between the parliament and us; and we mean to be so between your majesty and the parliament."--Berkley's "Memoirs," _ibid._ p. 360.

This folly of the king, if Mrs. Hutchinson is well informed, alienated Ireton, who had been more inclined to trust him than is commonly believed. "Cromwell," she says, "was at that time so incorruptibly faithful to his trust and the people's interest, that he could not be drawn in to practise even his own usual and natural dissimulation on this occasion. His son-in-law Ireton, that was as faithful as he, was not so fully of the opinion, till he had tried it, and found to the contrary, but that the king might have been managed to comply with the public good of his people, after he could no longer uphold his own violent will; but upon some discourses with him, the king uttering these words to him, 'I shall play my game as well as I can,' Ireton replied, 'If your majesty have a game, you must give us also the liberty to play ours.' Colonel Hutchinson privately discoursing with his cousin about the communications he had had with the king, Ireton's expressions were these: 'He gave us words, and we paid him in his own coin, when we found he had no real intention to the people's good, but to prevail, by our factions, to regain by art what he had lost in fight.'"--P. 274.

It must be said for the king that he was by no means more sanguine or more blind than his distinguished historian and minister. Clarendon's private letters are full of strange and absurd expectations. Even so late as October 1647, he writes to Berkley in high hopes from the army, and presses him to make no concessions except as to persons. "If they see you will not yield, they must; for sure they have as much or more need of the king than he of them."--P. 379. The whole tenor, indeed, of Clarendon's correspondence demonstrates that, notwithstanding the fine remarks occasionally scattered through his history, he was no practical statesman, nor had any just conception, at the time, of the course of affairs. He never flinched from one principle, not very practicable or rational in the circ.u.mstances of the king; that nothing was to be receded from which had ever been desired. This may be called magnanimity; but no foreign or domestic dissension could be settled, if all men were to act upon it, or if all men, like Charles and Clarendon, were to expect that Providence would interfere to support what seems to them the best, that is, their own cause. The following pa.s.sage is a specimen: "Truly I am so unfit to bear a part in carrying on this new contention [by negotiation and concession], that I would not, to preserve myself, wife, and children from the lingering death of want by famine (for a sudden death would require no courage), consent to the lessening any part, which I take to be in the function of a bishop, or the taking away the smallest prebendary in the church, or to be bound not to endeavour to alter any such alteration."--_Id._ vol. iii. p. 2, Feb. 4, 1648.

[350] _Parl. Hist._ 738. Clarendon talks of these proposals as worse than any the king had ever received from the parliament; and Hollis says they "dissolved the whole frame of the monarchy." It is hard to see, however, that they did so in a greater degree than those which he had himself endeavoured to obtain as a commissioner at Uxbridge. As to the church, they were manifestly the best that Charles had ever seen.

As to his prerogative and the power of the monarchy, he was so thoroughly beaten, that no treaty could do him any substantial service; and he had, in truth, only to make his election, whether to be the nominal chief of an aristocratical or a democratical republic.

In a well-written tract, called "Vox Militaris," containing a defence of the army's proceedings and intentions, and published apparently in July 1647, their desire to preserve the king's rights, according to their notion of them, and the general laws of the realm, is strongly a.s.serted.

[351] The precise meaning of this word seems obscure. Some have supposed it to be a corruption of adjutators, as if the modern term adjutant meant the same thing. But I find agitator always so spelled in the pamphlets of the time.

[352] Berkley's _Memoirs_, 366. He told Lord Capel about this time that he expected a war between Scotland and England; that the Scots hoped for the a.s.sistance of the presbyterians; and that he wished his own party to rise in arms on a proper conjuncture, without which he could not hope for much benefit from the others. Clarendon, v. 476.

[353] Berkley, 368, etc. Compare the letter of Ashburnham, published in 1648, and reprinted in 1764, but probably not so full as the MS. in the Earl of Ashburnham's possession; also the Memoirs of Hollis, Huntingdon, and Fairfax, which are all in Maseres's Collection; also Ludlow, Hutchinson, Clarendon, Burnet's _Memoirs of Hamilton_, and some despatches in 1647 and 1648, from a royalist in London, printed in the appendix to the second volume of the _Clarendon Papers_. This correspondent of Secretary Nicholas believes Cromwell and Ireton to have all along planned the king's destruction, and set the levellers on, till they proceeded so violently, that they were forced to restrain them. This also is the conclusion of Major Huntingdon, in his Reasons for laying down his Commission. But the contrary appears to me more probable.

Two anecdotes, well known to those conversant in English history, are too remarkable to be omitted. It is said by the editor of Lord Orrery's _Memoirs_, as a relation which he had heard from that n.o.ble person, that in a conversation with Cromwell concerning the king's death, the latter told him, he and his friends had once a mind to have closed with the king, fearing that the Scots and presbyterians might do so; when one of their spies, who was of the king's bedchamber, gave them information of a letter from his majesty to the queen, sewed up in the skirt of a saddle, and directing them to an inn where it might be found. They obtained the letter accordingly, in which the king said, that he was courted by both factions, the Scots presbyterians and the army; that those which bade fairest for him should have him; but he thought he should rather close with the Scots than the other.

Upon this, finding themselves unlikely to get good terms from the king, they from that time vowed his destruction. Carte's _Ormond_, ii.

12.

A second anecdote is alluded to by some earlier writers, but is particularly told in the following words, by Richardson, the painter, author of some anecdotes of Pope, edited by Spence. "Lord Bolingbroke told us, June 12, 1742 (Mr. Pope, Lord Marchmont, and myself), that the second Earl of Oxford had often told him that he had seen, and had in his hands, an original letter that Charles the First wrote to his queen, in answer to one of hers that had been intercepted, and then forwarded to him; wherein she had reproached him for having made those villains too great concession, viz. that Cromwell should be lord lieutenant of Ireland for life without account; that that kingdom should be in the hands of the party, with an army there kept which should know no head but the lieutenant; that Cromwell should have a garter, etc.: That in this letter of the king's it was said, that she should leave him to manage, who was better informed of all circ.u.mstances than she could be; but she might be entirely easy as to whatever concessions he should make them; for that he should know in due time how to deal with the rogues, who, instead of a silken garter, should be fitted with a hempen cord. So the letter ended; which answer as they waited for, so they intercepted accordingly; and it determined his fate. This letter Lord Oxford said he had offered 500 for."

The authenticity of this latter story has been constantly rejected by Hume and the advocates of Charles in general; and, for one reason among others, that it looks like a misrepresentation of that told by Lord Orrery, which both stands on good authority, and is perfectly conformable to all the memoirs of the time. I have, however, been informed, that a memorandum nearly conformable to Richardson's anecdote is extant, in the handwriting of Lord Oxford.

It is possible that this letter is the same with that mentioned by Lord Orrery; and in that case was written in the month of October.

Cromwell seems to have been in treaty with the king as late as September; and advised him, according to Berkley, to reject the proposals of the parliament in that month. Herbert mentions an intercepted letter of the queen (_Memoirs_, 60); and even his story proves that Cromwell and his party broke off with Charles from a conviction of his dissimulation. See Laing's note, iii. 562; and the note by Strype, therein referred to, on Kennet's _Complete Hist. of England_, iii. 170; which speaks of a "constant tradition" about this story, and is more worthy of notice, because it was written before the publication of Lord Orrery's _Memoirs_, or of the _Richardsoniana_.

[354] Ashburnham gives us to understand that the king had made choice of the Isle of Wight, previously to his leaving Hampton Court, but probably at his own suggestion. This seems confirmed by the king's letter in Burnet's _Mem. of Dukes of Hamilton_, 326. Clarendon's account is a romance, with little mixture probably of truth.

Ashburnham's _Narrative_, published in 1830, proves that he suggested the Isle of Wight, in consequence of the king's being forced to abandon a design he had formed of going to London, the Scots commissioners retracting their engagement to support him.

[355] _Parl. Hist._ 799.

[356] Jan. 15. This vote was carried by 141 to 92. _Id._ 831. And see Append. to 2nd vol. of _Clar. State Papers_. Cromwell was now vehement against the king, though he had voted in his favour on Sept. 22.

Journals, and Berkley, 372. A proof that the king was meant to be wholly rejected is, that at this time, in the list of the navy, the expression "his majesty's s.h.i.+p," was changed to "the parliament's s.h.i.+p." Whitelock, 291.

The four bills were founded on four propositions (for which I refer to Hume or the _Parliamentary History_, not to Clarendon, who has mis-stated them) sent down from the Lords. The lower house voted to agree with them by 115 to 106; Sidney and Evelyn tellers for the ayes, Martin and Morley for the noes. The increase of the minority is remarkable, and shows how much the king's refusal of the terms offered him in September, and his escape from Hampton Court, had swollen the commonwealth party; to which, by the way, Colonel Sidney at this time seems not to have belonged. Ludlow says, that party hoped the king would not grant the four bills (i. 224). The Commons published a declaration of their reasons for making no further addresses to the king, wherein they more than insinuate his partic.i.p.ation in the murder of his father by Buckingham. _Parl. Hist._ 847.

[357] Clarendon, whose aversion to the Scots warps his judgment, says that this treaty contained many things dishonourable to the English nation. _Hist._ v. 532. The king lost a good deal in the eyes of this uncompromising statesman, by the concessions he made in the Isle of Wight. _State Papers_, 387. I cannot, for my own part, see anything derogatory to England in the treaty; for the temporary occupation of a few fortified towns in the north can hardly be called so. Charles, there is some reason to think, had on a former occasion made offers to the Scots far more inconsistent with his duty to this kingdom.

[358] Clarendon; May, "Breviate of the Hist. of the Parliament," in Maseres's _Tracts_, i. 113; Whitelock, 307, 317, etc. In a conference between the two houses, July 25, 1648, the Commons gave as a reason for insisting on the king's surrender of the militia as a preliminary to a treaty, that such was the disaffection to the parliament on all sides, that without the militia they could never be secure. Rush. Abr.

vi. 444. "The chief citizens of London," says May, 122, "and others called presbyterians, though the presbyterian Scots abominated this army, wished good success to these Scots no less than the malignants did. Whence let the reader judge of the times." The fugitive sheets of this year, such as the "Mercurius Aulicus," bear witness to the exulting and insolent tone of the royalists. The chuckle over Fairfax and Cromwell, as if they had caught a couple of rats in a trap.

[359] April 28, 1648; _Parl. Hist._ 883.

[360] June 6. These peers were the Earls of Suffolk, Middles.e.x, and Lincoln, Lords Willoughby of Parham, Berkley, Hunsdon, and Maynard.

They were impeached for sitting in the house during the tumults from 26th of July to 6th of August 1647. The Earl of Pembroke, who had also continued to sit, merely because he was too stupid to discover which party was likely to prevail, escaped by truckling to the new powers.

[361] June 8.

[362] See _Parl. Hist._ 823, 892, 904, 921, 924, 959, 996, for the different votes on this subject, wherein the presbyterians gradually beat the independent or republican party, but with very small and precarious majorities.

[363] Clarendon, vi. 155. He is very absurd in imagining that any of the parliamentary commissioners would have been satisfied with "an act of indemnity and oblivion."

That the parliament had some reason to expect the king's firmness of purpose to give way, in spite of all his haggling, will appear from the following short review of what had been done. 1. At Newmarket, in June 1642, he absolutely refused the nineteen propositions tendered to him by the Lords and Commons. 2. In the treaty of Oxford, March 1643, he seems to have made no concession, not even promising an amnesty to those he had already excluded from pardon. 3. In the treaty of Uxbridge, no mention was made on his side of exclusion from pardon; he offered to vest the militia for seven years in commissioners jointly appointed by himself and parliament, so that it should afterwards return to him, and to limit the jurisdiction of the bishops. 4. In the winter of 1645, he not only offered to disband his forces, but to let the militia be vested for seven years in commissioners to be appointed by the two houses, and afterwards to be settled by bill; also to give the nomination of officers of state and judges _pro hac vice_ to the houses. 5. He went no farther in substance till May 1647; when he offered the militia for ten years, as well as great limitations of episcopacy, and the continuance of presbyterian government for three years; the whole matter to be afterwards settled by bill on the advice of the a.s.sembly of divines, and twenty more of his own nomination. 6.

In his letter from Carisbrook, Nov. 1647, he gave up the militia for his life. This was in effect to sacrifice almost everything as to immediate power; but he struggled to save the church lands from confiscation, which would have rendered it hardly practicable to restore episcopacy in future. His further concessions in the treaty of Newport, though very slowly extorted, were comparatively trifling.

What Clarendon thought of the treaty of Newport may be imagined. "You may easily conclude," he writes to Digby, "how fit a counsellor I am like to be, when the best that is proposed is that which I _would not consent unto to preserve the kingdom from ashes_. I can tell you worse of myself than this; which is, that there may be some reasonable expedients which possibly might in truth restore and preserve all, in which I could bear no part."--P. 459. See also p. 351 and 416. I do not divine what he means by this. But what he could not have approved was, that the king had no thoughts of dealing sincerely with the parliament in this treaty, and gave Ormond directions to obey all his wife's commands, but not to obey any further orders he might send, nor to be startled at his great concessions respecting Ireland, for they would come to nothing. Carte's _Papers_, i. 185. See Mr. Brodie's remarks on this, iv. 143-146. He had agreed to give up the government of Ireland for twenty years to the parliament. In his answer to the propositions at Newcastle, sent in May 1647, he had declared that he would give full satisfaction with respect to Ireland. But he thus explains himself to the queen: "I have so couched that article that, if the Irish give me cause, I may interpret it enough to their advantage. For I only say that I will give them (the two houses) full satisfaction as to the management of the war, nor do I promise to continue the war; so that, if I find reason to make a good peace there, my engagement is at an end. Wherefore make this my interpretation known to the Irish." _Clar. State Papers._ "What reliance," says Mr. Laing, from whom I transcribe this pa.s.sage (which I cannot find in the book quoted), "could parliament place at the beginning of the dispute, or at any subsequent period, on the word or moderation of a prince, whose solemn and written declarations were so full of equivocation?" _Hist. of Scotland_, iii. 409. It may here be added that, though Charles had given his parole to Colonel Hammond, and had the sentinels removed in consequence, he was engaged during most part of his stay at Carisbrook in schemes for an escape. See Col.

Cooke's "Narrative," printed with Herbert's _Memoirs_; and in Rushw.

Abr. vi. 534. But his enemies were apprised of this intention, and even of an attempt to escape by removing a bar of his window, as appears by the letters from the committee of Derby House, Cromwell, and others, to Col. Hammond, published in 1764.

[364] Clarendon mentions an expression that dropped from Henry Martin in conversation, not long after the meeting of the parliament: "I do not think one man wise enough to govern us all." This may doubtless be taken in a sense perfectly compatible with our limited monarchy. But Martin's republicanism was soon apparent; he was sent to the Tower in August 1643, for language reflecting on the king. _Parl. Hist._ 161. A Mr. Chillingworth had before incurred the same punishment for a like offence, December 1, 1641. Nalson, ii. 714. Sir Henry Ludlow, father of the regicide, was also censured on the same account. As the opposite faction grew stronger, Martin was not only restored to his seat, but the vote against him was expunged. Vane, I presume, took up republican principles pretty early; perhaps also Haslerig. With these exceptions, I know not that we can fix on any individual member of parliament the charge of an intention to subvert the const.i.tution till 1646 or 1647.

[365] Pamphlets may be found as early as 1643 which breathe this spirit; but they are certainly rare till 1645 and 1646. Such are "Plain English," 1643; "The Character of an Anti-malignant," 1645; "Last Warning to all the Inhabitants of London," 1647.

[366] Charles Louis, elector palatine, elder brother of the Princes Rupert and Maurice, gave cause to suspect that he was looking towards the throne. He left the king's quarters where he had been at the commencement of the war, and retired to Holland; whence he wrote, as well as his mother, the Queen of Bohemia, to the parliament, disclaiming and renouncing Prince Rupert, and begging their own pensions might be paid. He came over to London in August 1644, took the covenant, and courted the parliament. They showed, however, at first, a good deal of jealousy of him; and intimated that his affairs would prosper better by his leaving the kingdom. Whitelock, 101; Rush.

Abr. xv. 359. He did not take this hint, and obtained next year an allowance of 8000 per annum. _Id._ 145. Lady Ranelagh, in a letter to Hyde, March 1644, conjuring him by his regard for Lord Falkland's memory to use all his influence to procure a message from the king for a treaty, adds: "Methinks what I have informed my sister, and what she will inform you, of the posture of the prince elector's affairs are in here, should be a motive to hasten away this message." _Clar. State Papers_, ii. 167. Clarendon himself, in a letter to Nicholas, Dec. 12, 1646 (where he gives his opinion that the independents look more to a change of the king and his line than of the monarchy itself, and would restore the full prerogative of the Crown to one of their own choice), proceeds in these remarkable words: "And I pray G.o.d they have not such a nose of wax ready for their impression. This it is makes me tremble more than all their discourses of destroying monarchy; and that towards this end, they find a.s.sistance from those who from their hearts abhor their confusions." P. 308. These expressions seem more applicable by far to the elector than to Cromwell. But the former was not dangerous to the parliament, though it was deemed fit to treat him with respect. In March 1647, we find a committee of both houses appointed to receive some intelligence which the prince elector desired to communicate to the parliament of great importance to the protestant religion. Whitelock, 241. Nothing farther appears about this intelligence; which looks as if he was merely afraid of being forgotten. He left England in 1649, and died in 1680.