so effectively that they were committed to the Tower for what was called language destructive to the Government.  Cony himself then went on with the pleading, and so sturdily that Chief Justice Rolle was non-plussed, and had to confess as much to Cromwell.  It was only by delay, and then by some private management of Cony, that a decision was avoided which would have enabled the whole population legally to defy every taxing ordinance of the Protectorate.  Similarly the Ordinance of August 1654 for regulating the Court of Chancery, and even the Ordinance of Treason under which the late insurgents had been tried, had brought the Protectorate into collision with the consciences of Lawyers and Judges.  There were such remonstrances to Cromwell on the subject that he had to re-arrange the whole Bench.  He removed Rolle and two other Judges, appointing Glynne and Steele in their stead, and he deprived Whitlocke and Widdrington of their Commissionerships of the Great Seal, compensating them after a while by Commissionerships of the Treasury.  For all this “arbitrariness” Cromwell avowed, in the simplest and most downright manner, the plea of absolute necessity.  The very existence of his Protectorate was at peril; and that meant, he declared, the existence of the Commonwealth.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Godwin, IV. 174-183; Whitlocke, through April, May, June, and July, 1655.]

For such “arbitrariness” in some of the Protector’s home-proceedings there was, most people allowed, a splendid atonement in the marvels of his foreign policy.  Never had there been on the throne of England a sovereign more bent upon making England the champion-nation of the world.  The deference, the sycophancy, of foreign princes and potentates to him, and the proofs of the same in letters and embassies, and in presents of hawks and horses, had become a theme for jests and caricatures among foreigners themselves.  Parliaments might come and go in Westminster; but there sat Cromwell, immoveable through all, the impersonation of the British Islands.  His dissolution of the late Parliament, and his easy suppression of the subsequent tumult, had but increased the respect for him abroad.  Whether he would finally declare himself for Spain or for France was still the momentous question.  The Marquis of Leyda, Spanish Governor of Dunkirk, had come to London to assist Cardenas in the negotiations for Spain; but Mazarin was indefatigable in his offers, through M. de Bordeaux and otherwise.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Council Order Books passim; Guizot, II. 203.]

While the Parliament was still sitting, Cromwell had sent out two fleets, one under the command of Blake (Oct. 1654), the other under that of Penn (Dec. 1654).  There was the utmost secrecy as to the destination and objects of both, but the mystery did not last long about Blake’s.  He had received instructions to go into the Mediterranean, make calls there on all powers against which the Commonwealth had claims,