between Sweden and Denmark, with the reinvasion of Zealand by Charles Gustavus, and his march on Copenhagen (ante p. 396).  Had Cromwell lived, there is no doubt that, with whatever regret at the new rupture, he would have stood by his heroic brother of Sweden.  For was not the Swedish King still, as before, the one real man of mark in the whole world of the Baltic, the hope of that league of Protestant championship on the Continent which Cromwell had laboured for; and was he not now standing at bay against a most ugly and unnatural combination of enemies?  Not only were John Casimir and his Roman Catholic Poles, and the Emperor Leopold and his Roman Catholic Austrians, and Protestant Brandenburg and some other German States, all in eager alliance with the Danes for the opportunity of another rush against him; the Dutch too were abetting the Danes for their own commercial interests?  Actually this was the state of things which Richard’s Government had to consider.  Charles Gustavus was still besieging Copenhagen; a Dutch fleet, under Admiral Opdam, had gone to the Baltic to relieve the Danes (Oct. 1658):  was Cromwell’s grand alliance with the Swede, were the prospects of the Protestant League, were English interests in the Baltic, to be of no account?  Applications for help had been made by the Swedish King; Mazarin, through the French ambassador, had been urging assistance to Sweden; the inclinations of Richard, Thurloe, and the rest, were all that way.  Here again, however, the perplexity of home-affairs, the want of money, the refusal of Mazarin himself to lend even L50,000, were pleaded in excuse.  All that could be done at first was to further the despatch to the Baltic of Sir George Ayscough, an able English Admiral who had for some years been too much in the background, but of whom the Swedish Count Bundt had conceived a high opinion during his embassy to England in 1655-6, and who had consequently been invited by the Swedish King to enter his service, bringing with him as many English officers and seamen as he could.  This volunteer expedition of Ayscough Richard and his Council did at once countenance.  Nay, when news came (Nov. 8) of a great defeat of Opdam’s Dutch fleet by the Swedish Admiral Wrangel, the disposition to help the Swede became stronger.  On the 13th of that month a special envoy from the Swedish King, who had been in London for some weeks, took his departure with some satisfaction; and within a few days Vice-Admiral Lawson and his fleet of some twenty or twenty-one ships in the Downs had orders to sail for the Sound, for mediation at least, but for the support of Charles Gustavus if necessary.  The fleet did put to sea, but with hesitations to the last and the report that it was “wind-bound."[2]

[Footnote 1:  Letters between Mazarin and M. de Bordeaux in Guizot, I. 231-286, and II. 441-450; Thurloe, VII. 466-467.]

[Footnote 2:  Letters between Mazarin and M. de Bordeaux last cited, with.  Guizot, I. 23-26; Thurloe, VII. 412, 509, 529; Whitlocke for Sept., Oct., Nov., and Dec. 1658, also for Aug. 1656; Phillips, 638.]