to Pontefract." The present danger awakened him out of the amazement he was in, so that he told them he would wait upon them, and made the haste that was necessary to put on his clothes. One of them took his sword, aud so they led him down stairs. He that held the horses, had sent the soldier away to those who were gone before, to speak to them to get some drink, and anything else that could be made ready in the house, against they came. When Rainsborough came into the street, which he expected to find full of horse, and saw only one man, who held the others' horses, and presently mounted that he might be bound behind him, he begun to struggle, and to cry out. Whereupon, when they saw no hope of carrying him away, they immediately run him through with their swords, and, leaving him dead upon the ground, they got upon their horses, and rode towards their fellows, before any in the inn could be ready to follow them. When those at the bridge saw their companions coming, which was their sign, being well prepared, and knowing what they were to do, they turned upon the guard, and killed so many of them, that all the rest fled in distraction; so that the way was clear and free; and though they missed carrying home the prize for which they had made so lusty an adventure, they joined together, and marched, with the expedition that was necessary, a shorter way than they had come, to their garrison; leaving the town and soldiers behind in such a consternation, that, not being able to receive any information from their general, whom they found dead upon the ground without any body in view, they thought the devil had been there; and could not recollect themselves, which way they were to pursue an enemy they had not seen. The gallant party came safe home without the least damage to horse or man, hoping to make some other attempt more successfully, by which they might redeem sir Marmaduke Langdale. There was not an officer in the army whom Cromwell would not as willingly have lost as this man; who was bold and barbarous to his wish, and fit to be intrusted in the most desperate interest, and was the man whom that party always intended to commit the maritime affairs to, when it should be time to dismiss the earl of Warwick; he having been bred in that element, and knowing the duty of it very well, though he had that misfortune spoken of in the beginning of the summer.

When Lambert came to this charge, (instructed by Cromwell to take full vengeance for the loss of Rainsborough, to whose ghost he designed an ample sacrifice,) and kept what body of men he thought fit for that purpose, he reduced them in a short time within their own circuit, making good works round about the castle, that they might at last yield to hunger, if nothing else would reclaim them. Nor did they quietly suffer themselves to be cooped up without bold and frequent sallies, in which many of the besiegers, as well as the others, lost their lives. They discovered many of the country who held correspondence with, and gave intelligence to the castle, whom they apprehended, and caused to be hanged in sight of the castle, whereof there were two divines, and some women of note, friends and allies to the besieged. After frequent mortifications of this kind, and no human hope of relief, they were content to offer to treat for the delivery of the castle, if they might have honourable conditions; if not, they sent word, that they had provisions yet for a good time; that they durst die, and would sell their lives at as dear a price as they could." Lambert answered, that he knew "they were gallant men, and that he desired to preserve as many of them, as was in his power to do; but he must require six of them to be given up to him, whose lives he could not save; which he was sorry for, since they were brave men; but his hands were bound." The six excepted by him were colonel Morrice, sir John Digby, and four more whose names he found to have been amongst those who were in the party that had destroyed Rainsborough; which was an enterprise no brave enemy would have revenged in that manner: nor did Lambert desire it, but Cromwell had enjoined it

him all the rest he "was content to release, that they might return to their houses, and apply themselves to the parliament for their compositions, towards which he would do them all the good offices he could." They from within acknowledged "his civility in that particular, and would be glad to embrace it, but they would never be guilty of so base a thing, as to deliver up any of their companions;" and therefore they desired "they might have six days allowed them, that those six might do the best they could to deliver themselves; in which it should be lawful for the rest to assist them;" to which Lambert generously consented, "so that the rest would surrender at the end of that time;" which was agreed to. Upon the first day the garrison appeared twice or thrice, as if they were resolved to make a sally, but retired every time without charging; but the second day they made a very strong and brisk sally upon another place than where they had appeared the day before, and beat the enemy from their post, with the loss of men on both sides; and though the party of the castle was beaten back, two of the six (whereof Morrice was one) made their escape, the other four being forced to retire with the rest. And all was quiet for two whole days; but in the beginning of the night of the fourth day, they made another attempt so prosperously, that two of the other four likewise escaped : and the next day they made great shows of joy, and sent Lambert word, "that their six friends were gone," (though there were two still remaining,) " and therefore they would be ready the next day to surrender."

The other two thought it to no purpose to make another attempt, but devised another way to secure themselves, with a less dangerous assistance from their friends, who had lost some of their own lives in the two former sallies to save theirs. The buildings of the castle were very large and spacious, and there were great store of waste stones from some walls, which were fallen down. They found a convenient place, which was like to be least visited, where they walled up their two friends in such a manner that they had air to sustain them, and victual enough to feed them a month, in which time they hoped they might be able to escape. And this being done, at the hour appointed they opened their ports, and after Lambert had caused a strict inquisition to be made for those six, none of which he did believe had in truth escaped, and was satisfied that none of them were amongst those who were come out, he received the rest very civilly, and observed his promise made to them very punctually, and did not seem sorry that the six gallant men (as he called them) were escaped.

And now they heard, which very much relieved their broken spirits, that sir Marmaduke Langdale had made an escape out of the castle of Nottingham; who shortly after transported himself beyond the seas. Lambert presently took care so to dismantle the castle, that there should be no more use of it for a garrison, leaving the vast ruins still standing; and then drew off all his troops to new quarters; so that, within ten days after the surrender, the two, who were left walled up, threw down their inclosure, and securely provided for themselves. Sir John Digby was one of those who lived many years after the king's return, and was often with his majesty. Poor Morrice was afterwards taken in Lancashire, and by a wonderful act of Providence was put to death in the same place where he had committed a fault against the king, and where he first performed a great service to the parliament.

**

The revolutionary movement, hitherto restrained or regulated, even among the independents, by the necessities of the struggle, soared freely; each man's passions, In the higher hopes, and dreams became bold, and openly declared themselves. ranks of the party, in the house of commons, in the general council of officers, republican projects came forth plain and positive: already, for some time past, Vane, Ludlow, Haslerig, Martyn, Scott, and Hutchinson, had scarcely answered when any one accused them of hostility to monarchy: they now openly spoke of it with contempt; the principle of the sovereignty of the people, and, in the name of the people, one sole assembly appointed by the people, now guided all their actions and words; in their conversations, any idea of accommodation with the king, no matter upon what terms, was treated as treason. In the ranks below them, among the people as well as in the army, the excitement of men's minds was as general as it was intense; in everything, reforms till then unheard of were demanded, on all sides reformers rose up; to their wild desires no law imposed respect, no fact seemed an obstacle; all the more confident and imperious, in proportion to the profoundness of their ignorance and obscurity, their petitions, their pamphlets every day poured forth, hurled menace in all directions. Summoned before the judges, they brought the judges themselves in question, and ordered them to leave seats they had usurped; attacked in the churches by the presbyterian ministers, they rushed to the pulpits, dragged from it the preachers, and preached in their place, sincere in the very ravings they made use of to serve their passions. No powerful and entire theory, no precise and general plan presided over this movement; all of them republicans, these popular champions carried their thoughts and wishes far beyond a revolution in the government; they aimed at changing society itself, the relations, manners, and feelings of the community; but in all this their views were narrow and confused; some spent their daring in merely prosecuting some important but partial innovation, such as the abolition of the privileges of the lords or the lawyers; others were content with some pious dream, such as expecting the approaching reign of the Lord; others, under the name of rationalists, claimed absolute sovereignty for each man's reason; others talked of introducing a strict equality of rights and property, and these, their enemies nicknamed levellers. But neither this decried name, which they always vehemently rejected, nor any other, was appropriate to them for they neither formed a sect devoted to a systematic belief, nor a faction eager to advance towards a definite end. Citizens or soldiers, visionaries or demagogues, felt a desire of innovation, earnest but without any plan; vague instincts of equality, above all, a rude spirit of independence; such were their common characteristics; and inspired by an ambition short-sighted but pure, perfectly intractable by all whom they deemed weak or self-interested, they constituted in turn the strength and the terror of the different parties, all successively compelled to make use of and to deceive them.

No one had succeeded so well in doing the one and the other as Cromwell; no one enjoyed as he did the confiding intimacy of these obscure but powerful enthusiasts. Everything in him had found favour in their eyes; the irregular out bursts of his imagination, his eagerness to make himself the equal and the companion of the rough and boorish, his language at once mystic and familiar, his manners by turns commonplace and exalted, giving him at one time the air of an inspired preacher, and at others that of a plain peasant, even that free and supple genius which seemed to place at the service of a holy cause all the resources of mundane ability. He had sought and found among them his most useful agents, Ayres,

Evanson, Berry, Sexby, Sheppard, Wildman, all leading members of the council of agitators, all ever ready at a word from the lieutenant-general to stir up the army against king or parliament. Lilburne himself, the most unmanageable and least credulous of these men, who had quitted his regiment because he could not obey, had the greatest confidence in Cromwell: "I have looked upon you," he wrote to him, as among the powerful ones of England, as a man with heart perfectly pure, perfectly free from all personal views ;" and Cromwell more than once had made use of Lilburne's courage against the presbyterians. But when the ruin of the latter seemed accomplished, when the independents held in their power the king, the parliament, and the city, when all the revolutionary passions and desires burst forth, insatiable, blind, ungovernable, the situation of the leaders of the party, that of Cromwell in particular, already the object to whom all men's attention was turned, became affected. In their turn, they incurred distrust and felt fear. Many of their own party had viewed with disapprobation the negotiations entered into with the king; necessity alone, the danger of falling within the power of the presbyterians, had dominated disgust and kept suspicions under constraint. Now all this necessity had disappeared; the Lord had given into the hands of his servants all his enemies. Yet instead of securing and perfecting the triumph of His cause, the conqueror continued to live in friendship with, to treat with the delinquents. The first, the most culpable of all, the one on whose head a few of the faithful had already, for two years, been invoking public vengeance, and who lately, in his insane pride, had rejected proposals which ought perhaps never to have been made to him, the king, far from losing anything by the late events, had almost regained by them his power and splendour. With the consent of the generals, he had returned to his palace of Hampton Court (Aug. 24), and resided there amid idolatrous pomp, surrounded by a court more arrogant than ever. His former councillors, Richmond, Hertford, Capel, Southampton, had hastened to rejoin him, as if he were about to reassume the exercise of sovereign power. Ormond himself, the most dangerous leader of the royalists in Ireland, he who had so lately kept up the struggle in that kingdom against the parliament, and only had at last, with the greatest difficulty been induced to surrender Dublin, Ormond, upon his return to England, had been received by the general, the lieutenant-general, by almost all the leading personages of the army, with eager complaisance, and had free access to the king, doubtless meditating with him another insurrection in Ireland. At the same time, the most active confidants of the king, Berkley, Ashburnham, Ford, and Apsley, were constantly going to and fro between the court and head-quarters; the doors of Cromwell and Ireton were always open to them, while a number of the well-affected could gain no admittance there. Cromwell and Ireton themselves, either in person or by their messengers, maintained an assiduous intercourse with the king; they had been seen walking alone with him in the park, were known to be often closeted with him. Even their wives, Mrs. Cromwell, Mrs. Ireton, Mrs. Whalley, had been presented at Hampton Court, and the king had received them with great honours. So much familiarity was scandalous; such repeated conference must needs mean treachery. Every day, among the republicans and enthusiasts, particularly in the meetings of the soldiers, this language was held. Even from the dungeon of the Tower, where the lords had imprisoned him, to repress if possible his harangues and his pamphlets, Lilburne addressed to Cromwell violent reproaches, and his letter finished with these words : "If you despise, as hitherto, my warnings, be sure I will use against you all the power and influence I have, and so as to produce in your fortune changes that shall little please you."

Cromwell had small respect for Lilburne's advice, and cared not for his threats, standing alone, but it was different when they were backed by the anger of so many

of his heretofore devoted adherents. Ready to throw himself, when necessary, even with temerity, into the vortex of intrigue and daring hopes, he had still a keen sense of dangers and obstacles, and whatever his aim or passion, looked around him on every side, found out all that was going on, and directed his course accordingly. He begged Berkley and Ashburnham not to visit him so often, and the king to permit him to observe more caution in their intercourse. "If I am an honest man," he said, "I have done enough to convince his majesty of the sincerity of my intentions; if not, nothing will suffice." At the same time, he went to the Tower, paid Lilburne a long visit, held forth in earnest and pathetic language touching his zeal for their common cause, urged with vehemence the danger of the slightest disunion, asked him what he meant to do upon regaining his liberty, and promised, upon taking leave, to use every effort with the committee to whom the subject was referred, to hasten his release.

Lilburne was not set at liberty; the committee, of which Henry Martyn was chairman, even postponed their report; and the intercourse of Cromwell with the king, though less open, was not less active. A stranger to the blind presumption of his party, devoured by ambition and doubt, the most contrary combinations and anticipations agitated his mind, and he was unwilling to break faith or to pledge himself to any of them irremediably. The success of the republicans seemed to him questionable, the desires of the enthusiasts chimerical; the casuistical and passionate insubordination of the soldiers threatened his own power; the quality of his mind rendered him intolerant of disorder, even while fomenting it; the king's name was still a power, his alliance a means, his re-establishment a chance; he kept it in reserve like many others, ready to abandon it for a better, pushing his own fortune by every path which promised the greatest or readiest success. The king, on his

side, well informed of the disposition of minds in parliament and the army, gave another turn to his negotiations; they were now addressed less to the party than to its leaders, and indicated individual favours rather than public concessions. To Ireton was offered the government of Ireland; to Cromwell the office of commanderin-chief, the colonelcy of the king's guards, the title of earl of Essex, and the garter; similar advantages were mentioned with reference to their principal friends. Meantime, two royalists, judge Jenkins and a cavalier, sir Lewis Dewes, prisoners in the Tower with Lilburne, were continually talking with him of the treaty already concluded, they said, between the generals and the court, mentioned its conditions, stirred up his suspicions, and urged him to propagate them. Merely suspected, such a bargain threw the party into confusion; accepted, it would assure the king the support of the leaders, or leave themselves without support.

The two generals could not be ignorant as to these manœuvres; they had surrounded the king with their spies; colonel Whalley, whose regiment had charge of him, was the cousin and creature of Cromwell; the least incident in the king's life, his walks, his conversations, the visits and the proceedings of his councillors, the indiscretions of his servants, were minutely reported to them; and more than once they complained that reports from Hampton Court, spread abroad as if by design, by destroying their credit with the army, rendered them incapable of serving the king in that quarter. Ireton, in particular, of more unbending mind, and less tolerant of deceit, was so much displeased, that he was on the point of breaking off the negotiations. They, however, continued; and soon even the public conduct of the generals seemed to confirm the suspicions of the soldiers. At the entreaties of the Scots, and to give some satisfaction to the friends of peace (Aug. 27), parliament had decided that the proposals made at Newcastle should once more be presented to the king; the earls of Lauderdale and Lanark, lately arrived at Hampton Court, once more conjured him to accept them and join the presbyterians, who alone were sincere in the