Even the next day, Tuesday, Aug. 31, Cromwell was still himself, still consciously the Lord Protector.  Through the storm of the preceding day Ludlow had made a journey to London from Essex on family-business, beaten back in the morning by a wind against which two horses could not make way, but contriving late at night to push on as far as Epping.  “By this means,” he says, “I arrived not at Westminster till Tuesday about noon, when, passing by Whitehall, notice was immediately given to Cromwell that I was come to town.  Whereupon he sent for Lieutenant General Fleet wood, and ordered him to enquire concerning the reasons of my coming at such haste and at such a time.”  If Cromwell could attend to such a matter that day, he must have been able also to prompt the resolution of his Council in Whitehall the same day in the case of the Duke of Buckingham.  It was that the Duke, on account of his health, might be removed from the Tower to Windsor Castle, but must continue in confinement.  At the end of the day, Fleetwood, writing to Henry Cromwell, reported, “The Lord is pleased to give some little reviving this evening:  after few slumbering sleeps, his pulse is better.”  As near as can be guessed, it was that same night that Cromwell himself uttered the well-known short prayer, the words of which, or as nearly as possible the very words, were preserved by the pious care of his chamber-attendant Harvey.  It is to the same authority that we owe the most authentic record of the religious demeanour of the Protector from the beginning of his illness.  Very beautifully and simply Harvey tells us of his “holy expressions,” his fervid references to Scripture texts, and his repetitions of some texts in particular, such repetitions “usually being very weighty and with great vehemency of spirit.”  One of them was “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”  Three times he repeated this; but the texts of promise and of Christian triumph had all along been more frequently on his lips.  All in all, his single short prayer, which Harvey places “two or three days before his end,” may be read as the summary of all that we need to know now of the dying Puritan in these eternal respects.  “Lord,” he muttered, “though I am a miserable and wretched creature, I am in covenant with Thee through grace, and I may, I will, come to Thee.  For Thy people, Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, a mean instrument to do them some good, and Thee service; and many of them have set too high a value upon me, though others wish and would be glad of my death.  But, Lord, however Thou dost dispose of me, continue and go on to do good for them.  Give them consistency of judgment, one heart, and mutual love; and go on to deliver them, and with the work of reformation; and make the name of Christ glorious in the world.  Teach those who look too much upon Thy instruments to depend more upon Thyself; pardon such as desire to trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy people too; and pardon the