The moment he expired, the council assembled, and the result of their deliberation was an order to proclaim Richard Cromwell protector, on the ground that he had been declared by his late highness his successor in that dignity.[2] Not a murmur of opposition was heard; the ceremony was performed in all places after the usual manner of announcing the accession of a new sovereign; and addresses of condolence and congratulation poured in from the army and

[Footnote 1:  “The Lord knows my desire was for Harry and his brother to have lived private lives in the country, and Harry knows this very well; and how difficultly I was persuaded to give him his commission for Ireland.”—­Letter to Fleetwood, 22nd June, 1655.]

[Footnote 2:  There appears good reason to doubt this assertion.  Thurloe indeed (vii. 372) informs Henry Cromwell that his father named Richard to succeed on the preceding Monday.  But his letter was written after the proclamation of Richard, and its contents are irreconcilable with the letters written before it.  We have one from Lord Falconberg, dated on Monday, saying that no nomination had been made, and that Thurloe had promised to suggest it, but probably would not perform his promise (ibid. 365); and another from Thurloe himself to Henry Cromwell, stating the same thing as to the nomination.—­Ibid. 364.  It may perhaps be said that Richard was named on the Monday after the letters were written; but there is a second letter from Thurloe, dated on the Tuesday, stating that the protector was still incapable of public business, and that matters would, he feared, remain till the death of his highness in the same state as he described them in his letter of Monday.—­Ibid. 366.  It was afterwards said that the nomination took place on the night before the protector’s death, in the presence of four of the council (Falconberg in Thurloe, 375, and Barwick, ibid. 415); but the latter adds that many doubt whether it ever took place at all.]

navy, from one hundred congregational churches, and from the boroughs, cities, and counties.  It seemed as if free-born Britons had been converted into a nation of slaves.  These compositions were drawn up in the highest strain of adulation, adorned with forced allusions from Scripture, and with all the extravagance of Oriental hyperbole.  “Their sun was set, but no night had followed.  They had lost the nursing father, by whose hand the yoke of bondage had been broken from the necks and consciences of the godly.  Providence by one sad stroke had taken away the breath from their nostrils, and smitten the head from their shoulders; but had given them in return the noblest branch of that renowned stock, a prince distinguished by the lovely composition of his person, but still more by the eminent qualities of his mind.  The late protector had been a Moses to lead God’s people out of the land of Egypt; his son would be a Joshua to conduct them into a more full possession of truth and righteousness.  Elijah had been taken into heaven:  Elisha remained on earth, the inheritor of his mantle and his spirit!"[1]