[Footnote 1:  Thurloe, VII. 669-671, and 683-684; Letters of M. de Bordeaux, in Guizot, I. 409-413; Commons Journals, June 13 and July 2, 1659.]

The Cromwellians or Protectoratists being thus no longer a party militant, the struggle was to be a direct one between the Bumpers and the cause of Charles II.  Here, however, one has to note a most extraordinary phenomenon.  The cause of Charles II., by no exertion on its own part, but by the mere whirl of events between May and July, had received an enormous accession of strength.  Baulked of their own. natural purpose of a preserved Protectorate constitutionally defined and guaranteed afresh, and resenting the outrage done to their latest suffrages for that end, what could many of the Cromwellians do but cease to call themselves by that now inoperative name and melt into the ranks of the Stuartists?  For the veteran Cromwellians, implicated in the Regicide and its close accompaniments, this was, of course, impossible.  To the last breath they must strive to keep out the King; and, as they could do so no longer as Protectoratists, they must fall in with the pure Republicans or Restored Rumpers, But for the great body of the Cromwellians, not burdened by overwhelming recollections of personal responsibility, there was no such compulsion.  What mattered it to the Presbyterians, or to that younger part of the entire population which had grown into manhood since the death of Charles I., whether Kingship, which they would willingly enough have seen Oliver assume, should now come back to them with the old dynasty?

All this Charles and Hyde had been observing.  From May 1659 it had been their policy to enter into communications with the more eminent of the disappointed or baulked Cromwellians, and to assure them not only of indemnity for the past, but of rewards and honours to any extent, if they would now become Royalists.  Monk, Montague, Howard, Falconbridge, Broghill, and Lockhart, had all been thought of.  Applications had been made even to the two Cromwells themselves, and particularly to Henry Cromwell.  There seems to be a reference to that fact in the close of his fine letter to the Rump Parliament.  He thanked God that he had been able to resist temptation to a course which in him, at all events, would have been infamous; and, though, he could not serve the Republican Parliament in their “further superstructures,” he could wish them well on the whole, and so feel that he was remaining as true as he could be, in such perplexed circumstances, to the cause wherein his father had lived and died.  Monk, without any such reservation, had already adhered to the Parliament, and Charles’s letter, when it did reach him, was not even to remain in his own pocket till he should see his way more clearly.  Falconbridge and Howard, those two “sons of Belial” in Desborongh’s esteem, had meanwhile, I believe, let it be known that they might be reckoned on by Charles, Montague and Broghill tended that way, but were in no such haste.  Lockhart had deemed it best to enter the service of the Restored Rump, and would act honourably for them while he remained their servant.  Thurloe also, though not yet safe from prosecution by the new Government, thought it only fair to assist them with advices and information.[1]