name, I duly return your Majesty my most cordial thanks.  Over the most happy victory which God gave to our conjoint forces against the enemy [in the Battle near Dunkirk on June 3, ten days before the surrender of the town:  ante p. 340], I rejoice along with you; and it is very gratifying to me that in that battle our men were not wanting either to their duty to you, or to the warlike glory of their ancestors, or to their own valour.  As for Dunkirk, your Majesty’s hopes for the near surrender of which are expressed in your letter, I have the additional joy of being able so soon to write back that the surrender has now actually taken place; and my hopes are that the Spaniard will presently pay for his double treachery by the loss not of one city only,—­the effecting of which result by the capture of the other town [Bergen, near Dunkirk, now also besieged] I would that your Majesty may have it in your power to report as quickly.  As to your Majesty’s farther promise that my interests shall be your care, in that matter I have no mistrust, the promise coming from a King of such worth and friendliness, and having the confirmation of the word of his Ambassador, the most excellent and accomplished Duke de Crequi.  That Almighty God may be propitious to your Majesty and to the French State, at home and in war, is my sincere wish.” (2.) To CARDINAL MAZARIN.  As we have already seen in Cromwell’s correspondence with France, letters to the King and the Cardinal then almost always went in pairs, for Louis XIV. was but beginning his long career of Grand Monarque at the age of twenty, while the Cardinal, at the age of fifty-six, still retained that ministerial ascendancy which he had exercised all through the minority of Louis, and indeed since the death of Richelieu in 1642.  This letter of Cromwell’s to the Cardinal is even more interesting than that to the King, and may be given in full:—­“Most Eminent Lord,—­While I am thanking by letter your most Serene King, who has sent such a splendid embassy to return respects and congratulations and to communicate to me his joy over the recent most noble victory, I should be ungrateful if I did not at the same time pay by letter the thanks due also to your Eminence, who, to testify your good-will towards me, and your regard for my honour in all possible ways, have sent with the embassy your most worthy and highly accomplished young nephew, and even write that, if you had any one nearer akin to you or dearer, you would have sent that person in preference,—­adding a reason which, coming from the judgment of so great a man, I consider no mean tribute of praise and distinction:  to wit, your desire that those nearest to you in blood should imitate your Eminence in honouring and respecting me.  Well, they will perhaps, at least, in your love for me, have had no stinted example of politeness, candour, and friendliness:  of worth and prudence at their highest there are other far more brilliant examples in you, by which they may learn how to administer