[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1654.  August 30.]

On one subject, in the protector’s estimation of considerable importance, he was partially successful.  Possessed of the supreme power himself, he considered Charles as a personal rival, and made it his policy to strip the exiled king of all hope of foreign support.  From the prince of Orange, so nearly allied to the royal family, Cromwell had little to fear during his minority; and, to render him incapable of benefiting the royal cause in his more mature age, the protector attempted to exclude him by the treaty from succeeding to those high offices which might almost be considered hereditary in his family.  The determined refusal of the States had induced him to withdraw the demand; but he intrigued, through the agency of Beverning, with the leaders of the Louvestein party;[1] and obtained a secret article, by which the states of Holland and West Friesland promised never to elect the prince of Orange for their stadtholder, nor suffer him to have the chief command of the army and navy.  But the secret transpired; the other states highly resented this clandestine negotiation; complaints and remonstrances were answered by apologies and vindications; an open schism was declared between the provinces, and every day added to the exasperation of the two parties.  On the whole, however, the quarrel was favourable to the pretensions of the young prince,

[Footnote 1:  The leaders of the republicans were so called, because they had been confined in the castle of Louvestein, whence they were discharged on the death of the late prince of Orange.]

from the dislike with which the people viewed the interference of a foreign potentate, or rather, as they termed him, of an usurper, in the internal arrangements of the republic.[1]

The war[a] in which the rival crowns of France and Spain had so long been engaged induced both Louis and Philip to pay their court to the new protector.  Alonzo de Cardenas, the Spanish ambassador, had the advantage of being on the spot.  He waited on Cromwell to present to him the congratulations of his sovereign, and to offer to him the support of the Spanish monarch, if he should feel desirous to rise a step higher, and assume the style and office of king.  To so flattering a message, a most courteous answer was returned; and the ambassador proceeded to propose an alliance between the two powers, of which the great object should be to confine within reasonable bounds the ambition of France, which, for so many years, had disturbed the tranquillity of Europe.  This was the sole advantage to which Philip looked; to Cromwell the benefit would be, that France might be compelled to refuse aid and harbour to Charles Stuart and his followers; and to contract the obligation of maintaining jointly with Spain the protector in the government of the three kingdoms.  Cromwell listened, but gave no answer; he appointed commissioners to discuss the proposal, but forbade them to make any promise, or to hold out any hope of his acquiescence.  When Don Alonzo communicated to them the draft of a treaty which he had all but concluded with the deputies appointed by the late parliament, he was