[Footnote 1:  Milton’s State Papers, 35, 37, 39, 47, 49, 50.  Baillie, ii. 5, 8.  Carte’s Letters, i. 414.]

[Footnote 2:  State Trials, v. 4.  Milton’s State Papers, 39, 47, 50, 57.  One of these agents employed by both parties was a Mrs. Walters, alias Hamlin, on whose services Bishop placed great reliance.  She was to introduce herself to Cromwell by pronouncing the word “prosperity.”—­Ibid.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1650.  December.]

that the plans of the royalists were always discovered, and by that means defeated by the precautions of the council.  While the king was on his way to Scotland, a number of blank commissions had been seized in the possession of Dr. Lewen, a civilian, who suffered[a] the penalty of death.  Soon afterwards Sir John Gell, Colonel Eusebius Andrews, and Captain Benson, were arraigned on the charge of conspiring the destruction of the government established by law.  They opposed three objections to the jurisdiction of the court:  it was contrary to Magna Charta, which gave to every freeman the right of being tried by his peers; contrary to the petition of right, by which courts-martial (and the present court was most certainly a court-martial) had been forbidden; and contrary to the many declarations of parliament, that the laws, the rights of the people, and the courts of justice, should be maintained.  But the court repelled[b] the objections; Andrews and Benson suffered death, and Gell, who had not been an accomplice, but only cognizant of the plot, was condemned[c] to perpetual imprisonment, with the forfeiture of his property.[1]

These executions did not repress the eagerness of the royalists, nor relax the vigilance of the council.  In the beginning of December the friends of Charles took up arms[d] in Norfolk, but the rising was premature; a body of roundheads dispersed the insurgents; and twenty of the latter atoned for their temerity with their lives.  Still the failure of one plot did not prevent

[Footnote 1:  Whitelock, 464, 468, 473, 474.  Heath, 269, 270.  See mention of several discoveries in Carte’s Letters, i. 443, 464, 472.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1652.  July 13.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1652.  August 22.] [Sidenote c:  A.D. 1652.  Oct. 7.] [Sidenote d:  A.D. 1650.  Dec. 2.]

the formation of another; as long as Charles Stuart was in Scotland, the ancient friends of his family secretly prepared for his reception in England; and many of the Presbyterians, through enmity to the principles of the Independents, devoted themselves to the interests of the prince.[1] This party the council resolved to attack in their chief bulwark, the city; and Love, one of the most celebrated of the ministers, was apprehended[a] with several of his associates.  At his trial, he sought to save his life by an evasive protestation, which he uttered with the most imposing solemnity in the presence of the Almighty.  But it was clearly proved against him that the meetings had been held