troops, directing that two of these troops in rotation should be always on duty near his person.[1] Before the end of the year, he learned[a] that a plot had actually been organized, that assassins had been engaged, and that his death was to be the signal for a simultaneous rising of the Levellers and royalists, and the sailing of a hostile expedition from the coast of Flanders.  The author of this plan was Sexby; nor will it be too much to assert that it was not only known, but approved by the advisers of Charles at Bruges.  They appointed an agent to accompany the chief of the conspirators; they prepared to take every advantage of the murder; they expressed an unfeigned sorrow for the failure of the attempt.  Indeed, Clarendon, the chief minister (he had lately been made lord chancellor), was known to hold, that the assassination of a successful rebel or usurper was an act of justifiable and meritorious loyalty.[2]

Sexby had found a fit instrument for his purpose in Syndercombe, a man of the most desperate courage,

[Footnote 1:  Thurloe, iv. 567.  Carte, Letters, ii. 81.  Their pay was four and sixpence per day.—­Ibid.  In addition, if we may believe Clarendon, he had always several beds prepared in different chambers, so that no one knew in what particular room he would pass the night.—­Hist. iii. 646.]

[Footnote 2:  That both Charles and Clarendon knew of the design, and interested themselves in its execution, is plain from several letters.—­Clar.  Pap. iii. 311, 312, 315, 324, 327, 331, 335.  Nor can there be a doubt that Clarendon approved of such murders.  It is, indeed, true that, speaking of the murder of Ascham, when he was at Madrid, he says that he and his colleague, Lord Cottington, abhorred it.—­Clar.  Hist. iii. 351.  Yet, from his private correspondence, it appears that he wrote papers in defence of the murderers (Clar.  Pap. iii. 21, 23), recommended them as “brave fellows, and honest gentlemen” (ibid. 235, 236), and observed to Secretary Nicholas, that it was a sad and grievous thing that the princess royal had not supplied Middleton with money, “but a worse and baser thing that any man should appear in any part beyond sea under the character of an agent from the rebels, and not have his throat cut.”—­Ibid. 144, 1652, Feb. 20.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1657.  Dec. 9.]

formerly a quarter-master in the army in Scotland, and dismissed on account of his political principles.  Having admitted a man of the name of Cecil as his associate, he procured seven guns which would carry a number of balls, hired lodgings in places near which the protector was likely to pass, bribed Took, one of the life-guardsmen, to give information of his motions, and bought the fleetest horses for the purpose of escape.  Yet all his designs were frustrated, either by the multitude of the spectators, or the vigilance of the guards, or by some unforeseen and unlucky accident.  At the persuasion of Wildman he changed his plan;[a]