in saving Poland, and therefore tended to an alliance against Karl Gustav; while, on the other hand, the Great Elector of Brandenburg, Friedrich-Wilhelm, found it convenient for the present, in the interests of his Prussian possessions, to be on the side of Sweden.  Cromwell had not been likely at first to interfere directly in such a complicated continental quarrel; and, indeed, as we have seen from a previous letter of his to the Swedish King (ante p. 166), his first feeling on hearing of the Swedish movements on the Continent had been that of regret at the disturbance of the Peace of Westphalia.  Still Sweden was a power which commanded Cromwell’s respect.  Nor was Charles X., on his side, less anxious to retain the friendship of the great English Protector.  On succeeding Christina he had accepted and ratified her Treaty with Cromwell—­“Whitlocke’s Treaty,” as it may be called; he had sent a Mr. PETER COYET to be Swedish Resident in London; and, after he had begun his Polish war, there was nothing he desired more than some yet closer partnership between himself and Cromwell, that might unite Sweden and England in a common European policy.  Accordingly, in July 1655, Charles X. being then in camp in Poland, there had arrived in London a splendid Swedish embassy extraordinary, consisting of COUNT CHRISTIERN BUNDT, and other noblemen and gentlemen, with attendants, to the number of two hundred persons in all, “generally proper handsome men and fair-haired.”  Whitlocke, who was naturally called in by the Protector on this occasion, describes with unusual gusto the reception of the Embassy.  There was a magnificent torchlight procession of coaches, most of them with six horses, to convey the Ambassador and his suite from Tower Wharf, where they landed, to Sir Abraham Williams’s house in Westminster; there were feastings and other entertainments, at the Lord Protector’s charge, for three days; and at length on the third day Count Bundt had audience in the Banqueting House at Whitehall, in the midst of a great assembly, with ladies in the galleries.  It was difficult to say whether in this audience the Ambassador or the Protector acquitted himself best.  “The Ambassador’s people,” says Whitlocke, “were all admitted into the room, and made a lane within the rails in the midst of the room.  At the upper end, upon a footpace and carpet, stood the Protector, with a chair of state behind him, and divers of his Council and servants about him.  The Master of the Ceremonies [still Sir Oliver Fleming] went before the Ambassador on the left side; the Ambassador, in the middle, betwixt me and Strickland, went up in the open lane of the room.  As soon as they [the Ambassador and his immediate suite] came within the room, at the lower end of the lane, they put off their hats, the Ambassador a little while after the rest; and, when he was uncovered, the Protector also put off his hat, and answered the Ambassador’s three salutations in his coming up to him; and on the foot-pace they saluted each