German Catholics, the Muscovites, the Elector of Brandenburg, the Dutch, and other powers, looking on more or less in sympathy with the Danes, and some of them ready to strike in.  To end the war, if possible, by reconciling Charles X. and Frederick III, was Cromwell’s first object; and, with that aim in view, Jephson was to attach himself more particularly to Charles X., whatever might be his war-track, and Meadows more particularly to Frederick III.  But they might cross each other’s routes, deal with other States along these routes, and work into each other’s hands.  RICHARD BRADSHAW, likewise, who had been sent as Envoy to the Czar of Muscovy in the beginning of the year (ante pp. 292-294), would be moving about usefully on the east of the Baltic.  And, if a reconciliation between Sweden and Denmark should by any means be brought about, what then should be aimed at but a repair of the rupture between the Elector of Brandenburg and the Swedish King, so as to save the Elector from the threatened vengeance of the Swede, and then farther the aggregation of other Protestant German States, and of the Dutch, round this nucleus of a Swedish-Danish-Brandenburg alliance, for common action against Poland, Austria, and German Catholicism?  Even the Muscovites, as of the Greek Church, might be brought in, or at least they might be rendered neutral.  All this was in contemplation, as a tissue of ideal possibilities, when MEADOWS and JEPHSON were despatched in August, and the mission of DOWNING four months later to the United Provinces was partly in the same great interest.  It may seem matter for wonder that a man of Cromwell’s practical sagacity, already so deeply implicated on the Continent by his Flanders enterprise and his alliance with France, should have had such a passion for farther interference as thus to insert his hands into the apparently measureless entanglement in northern and eastern Europe.  But, in the first place, his practical sagacity was not at fault.  Precisely that it should not be an entanglement, but a marshalling of powers in two sets according to their true religions and political affinities, was the essence of his aspiration; there were deep tendencies towards that result; sagacity consisted in perceiving these, and practicality in promoting them.  Cromwell’s aspiration in connexion with the Swedish-Danish war was also, it could be proved, that of other thoughtful Protestants then contemplating the war and speculating on its chances.  But, in the second place, the business of the French alliance and the Flanders enterprise was vitally inter-connected with the so-called entanglement in the north and east.  The German Emperor Ferdinand III. had died in April 1657; the Empire was vacant; Mazarin had set his heart on obtaining that central European dignity for his young master, Louis XIV., and was intriguing with the Electors for the purpose; it was still uncertain whether, when the time came, a majority of the Electoral College would vote for Louis XIV. or would retain the Imperial dignity in the House of Austria by choosing the late Emperor’s son Leopold.  The future of Germany and of Protestantism in Germany was concerned deeply in that issue; and, whatever may have been Cromwell’s feelings in the special prospect of the election of his ally Louis XIV. to the Empire, he was bound to prefer that to the election of another incarnation of Austrian Catholicism.[1]