[Sidenote b:  A.D. 1658.  Sept. 26.]

which covered, or was supposed to cover, the coffin.  On each side lay different parts of his armour:  in one hand was placed the sceptre, in the other the globe; and behind the head an imperial crown rested on a cushion in a chair of state.  But, in defiance of every precaution it became necessary to inter the body before the appointed day; and the coffin was secretly deposited at night in a vault at the west end of the middle aisle of Westminster Abbey, under a gorgeous cenotaph which had recently been erected.  The effigy was now removed to a more spacious chamber; it rose from a recumbent to an erect posture; and stood before the spectators not only with the emblems of royalty in its hands, but with the crown upon its head.  For eight weeks this pageant was exhibited to the public.  As the day appointed for the funeral obsequies approached, rumours of an intended insurrection during the ceremony were circulated; but guards from the most trusty regiments lined the streets; the procession consisting of the principal persons in the city and army, the officers of state, the foreign ambassadors, and the members of the protector’s family, passed[a] along without interruption; and the effigy, which in lieu of the corpse was borne on a car, was placed, with due solemnity, in the cenotaph already mentioned.  Thus did fortune sport with the ambitious prospects of Cromwell.  The honours of royalty which she refused to him during his life, she lavished on his remains after death; and then, in the course of a few months, resuming her gifts, exchanged the crown for a halter, and the royal monument in the abbey for an ignominious grave at Tyburn.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Thurloe, vi. 528, 529.  Carrington apud Noble, i. 360-369.  The charge for black cloth alone on this occasion was six thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine pounds, six shillings, and fivepence,—­Biblioth.  Stow. ii. 448.  I do not notice the childish stories about stealing of the protector’s body.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1658.  Nov. 23.]

Before the reader proceeds to the more important transactions at home, he may take a rapid view of the relations existing between England and foreign states.  The war which had so long raged between the rival crowns of France and Spain was hastening to its termination; to Louis the aid of England appeared no longer a matter of consequence; and the auxiliary treaty between the two countries, which had been renewed from year to year, was suffered to expire at the appointed[a] time.  But in the north of Europe there was much to claim the attention of the new protector; for the king of Sweden, after a short peace, had again unsheathed the sword against his enemy, the king of Denmark.  The commercial interests of the maritime states were deeply involved in the issue of this contest; both England and Holland prepared to aid their respective allies; and a Dutch squadron joined the Danish, while