private idea that Louis XIV, and the Cardinal might do better by using such a fine opportunity for an invasion and conquest of England by France on her own account; and he had hinted as much to the Cardinal.  The idea was not encouraged; and so the position of M. de Bordeaux in London remained that of a secret partisan of the Cromwellians, offering them all help from France if they should engage in a civil war with the Rumpers.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Guizot, I. 141-146, with Letters of M. de Bordeaux in the Appendix to the volume (where the dates are by the French reckoning)—­especially Letters 46, 47, 48, and 49 (pp, 381-402); Baillie, III. 430; Phillips, 647-648.]

Before the middle of June it was evident that such a Civil War was not to be feared.  Richard himself had been quite inert in Whitehall, and his abdication was a signal to all his partisans to give up the cause.  Even after that there were efforts or protests in his behalf here and there, but they died away.—­Monk, about whose conduct in the crisis there had been great anxiety among the Rumpers, and who had sulkily wanted to know at first what this “Good Old Cause” was that they were so enthusiastic about in London, had already sounded the Army in Scotland sufficiently to find that they would not oppose their English brethren.  A letter of adhesion to the Restored Commonwealth by Monk and the Scottish Army had, accordingly, been received May 18, and read in the House with great joy; and, though there were still signs that Monk would stand a good deal on his independence, his adhesion on any terms was an immense gain.—­Lockhart also, looking about him in Flanders, and considering what would be best for English interests altogether, had given up all thoughts of a revolt from the Rump by the Continental forces, and had returned to England, early in June, to render his accounts.  The Council of the Rump, on their side, considering what was best in the circumstances, with Dunkirk and the other results of Cromwell’s Flanders enterprise still on their hands, were glad to retain Lockhart’s services in the post of Ambassador to Louis XIV. and sent him back, after a week or two, with re-credentials in that post from the new Government.—­There had been more uncertainty about Henry Cromwell in Ireland.  His great popularity and the conditions of the country itself made a Cromwellian revolt there more likely than anywhere else.  But there was to be no such thing.  Left by his inert brother without direct communications, and receiving intelligence, as he says, “only from common fame,” Henry had very bravely held out to the last, ascertaining the temper of his officers and the Army.  Not till the 15th of June was he clear as to his duty; but on that day, having fully made up his mind, he addressed to the Speaker of the Rump a letter worthy of himself and of the occasion.  “All this while,” he wrote, “I expected directions from his Highness, by whose authority I was placed here, still having