2.  To the cares of government must be added his constant dread of assassination.  It is certainly extraordinary that, while so many conspiracies are said to have been formed, no attempt was actually made against his person; but the fact that such designs had existed, and the knowledge that his death was of the first importance to his enemies, convinced him that he could never be secure from danger.  He multiplied his precautions.  We are told that he wore defensive armour under his clothes; carried loaded pistols in his pockets; sought to remain in privacy; and, when he found it necessary to give audience, sternly watched the eyes and gestures of those who addressed him.  He was careful that his own motions should not be known beforehand.  His carriage was filled with attendants; a numerous escort accompanied him; and he proceeded at full speed, frequently diverging from the road to the right or left, and generally returning by a different route.  In his palace he often inspected the nightly watch, changed his bed-chamber, and was careful that, besides the principal door, there should be some other egress, for the facility

[Footnote 1:  Ibid. 153, 282, 295.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1658.  July 27.]

of escape.  He had often faced death without flinching in the field; but his spirit broke under the continual fear of unknown and invisible foes.  He passed the nights in a state of feverish anxiety; sleep fled from his pillow; and for more than a year before his death we always find the absence of rest assigned as either the cause which produced, or a circumstance which aggravated, his numerous ailments.[1]

3.  The selfishness of ambition does not exclude the more kindly feelings of domestic affection.  Cromwell was sincerely attached to his children; but, among them, he gave the preference to his daughter Elizabeth Claypole.  The meek disposition of the young woman possessed singular charms for the overbearing spirit of her father; and her timid piety readily received lessons on mystical theology from the superior experience of the lord-general.[2] But she was now dying of a most painful and internal complaint, imperfectly understood by her physicians; and her grief for the loss of her infant child added to the poignancy of her sufferings.  Cromwell abandoned the business of state that he might hasten to Hampton Court, to

[Footnote 1:  So says Clarendon (iii. 646), Bates (Elench. 343), and Welwood (p. 94); but their testimony can prove nothing more than that such reports were current, and obtained credit, among the royalists.]

[Footnote 2:  The following passage from one of Cromwell’s letters to his daughter Ireton, will perhaps surprise the reader.  “Your sister Claypole is (I trust in mercye) exercised with some perplexed thoughts, shee sees her owne vanitye and carnal minde, bewailinge itt, shee seeks after (as I hope alsoe) that w’ch will satisfie, and thus to bee a seeker, is to be of the best sect next a