to Monk himself and to probe also the feelings of his officers and soldiers.—­They had not to wait long.  No sooner had Monk heard of Lambert’s coup d’etat than he repeated his former determination most emphatically, both by energetic procedure on his own Scottish ground and by letters to all the four winds.  “I am resolved, by the grace and assistance of God, as a true Englishman,” he wrote to Speaker Lenthall from Edinburgh October 20, “to stand to and assert the liberty and authority of Parliament; and the Army here, praised be God, is very courageous and unanimous.”  There were letters to the same effect to Fleetwood and Lambert, to Ludlow and his substitutes in Ireland, to the commanders of the Fleet, and to many private persons.  Colonel Gobbet was not allowed to enter Scotland, but was seized at Berwick and put in prison.  In short, before October 28, when the new Committee of Safety met for the first time in Whitehall, it was clear that Monk had constituted himself the antagonist-in-chief of their government, and the armed champion of the dismissed Rump.  Hasilrig, Scott, Neville, and their comrades, were in exultation accordingly.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Whitlocke, IV. 366-367; Ludlow, 710-712 and 728-729; Phillips, 663-666; Skinner’s Life of Monk, 117-128; Guizot, II. 18-22.]

Two resolutions were immediately taken by the Committee of Safety.  It was resolved to attempt even then a negotiation with Monk; and it was resolved to send Lambert north with a large force to prevent Monk’s march into England if the negotiation should fail.  On the night of the 28th of October, Monk’s brother-in-law Dr. Clarges, and Colonel Talbot, one of Monk’s favourite officers, then in London, were sent for by the Committee, and asked to undertake the mission of peace.  They willingly consented, and set out on the 29th, to be followed within a few days by six other missionaries for the same purpose—­Colonels Whalley and Goffe for the Wallingford-House officers, a Mr. Dean specially for Fleetwood, and three Independent ministers, Caryl, Barker, and Hammond, on a religious account.  There were letters in plenty also from Fleetwood and others.  Monk was to be reasoned with from all points of view.  But, on the 3rd of November, Lambert also set out for York, to join Colonel Robert Lilburne there, and gather forces to block the north of England against the possibility of Monk’s invasion.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Whitlocke, IV. 368-369; Phillips, 663; Skinner, 131, 140, and 142-143; Guizot, II. 27-29.]

Monk, on his part, when Clarges and Talbot arrived in Edinburgh (Nov. 2), and Clarges had held his first long private discourse with him, was very willing to seem to negotiate, and gave Clarges his reasons.  Though he had represented his Army as unanimously with him, that was hardly the case.  The re-modelling operations of the late Rump had perturbed his Army considerably, displacing or degrading officers he liked, and inserting or promoting officers he did