visit to Fontarabia, and had made remonstrances on the subject of his passage through France, it was now known that there was no danger of action for Charles either by France or by Spain.  The danger, indeed, was of a more subtle and incalculable kind, and within the Commonwealth itself.  We have seen how naturally the baulked Cromwellianism of the epoch of the dissolution of Richard’s Parliament and the overthrow of his Protectorate tended to transmute itself into Stuartism, and how much of the strength of Sir George Booth’s insurrection consisted of new Royalism so produced.  What we have now to add is that every baulked or defeated cause in succession within the Commonwealth yielded in the same way potential capital for Charles.  The cause of Charles was like an ultimate refuge for all the disappointed and destitute.  Those who had not already been driven into it were ruefully or gladly looking forward to it.  Even among the extreme Rumpers or pure Republicans, now maddened by Lambert’s coup d’etat, there were some, Colonel Herbert Morley for one, who were feeling cautiously for ways and means of forgiveness at Brussels.  Nay, in the present Committee of Safety and in the Wallingford-House Council associated with it, there were some fully prepared, should this experiment also fail, to help in a restoration of the Stuarts rather than go back into the Republican grasp of Scott, Neville, and Hasilrig.  There was a vague common cognisance of this convergence of so many separate currents to one final reservoir.  It showed itself in mutual accusations of that very tendency of which all were conscious.  Every party of Commonwealth’s men accused every other party of a design to bring the King in, and every party so accused repudiated the charge with such strength of language as to beget the suspicion, “The Lady protests too much, methinks.”  On the other hand, the uneasy common consciousness disposed people to be practically somewhat tolerant.  When no one knew what might happen to himself, why should he indict his neighbour for treason?  On some such ground it may have been, as well as to try to win grace with the Presbyterians or new Royalists, that the present Government did not proceed with the trials of the lords and gentlemen committed for high treason for their concern in the late Insurrection, but released all or most of them.  Lords Northampton, Falkland, Herbert, Howard, and others had been released November 1, and Sir George Booth himself was set at liberty on the 9th of December.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Thurloe, VII. 708, 727, 743, 753-4, 775, and 802; Whitlocke, IV. 369, 377, and 378; Clarendon, 872-877; Guizot, I. 211-215; Letters of M. de Bordeaux, in Appendix to Guizot, II. 288, 294, and 298; Order Books of Council of State, Aug. 23 and Oct. 13, 1659.]

In the matter of a new Constitution for the future the procedure of the Committee of Safety had been not uninteresting.  On the 1st of November they had referred the subject to a sub-committee, consisting of Vane, Whitlocke, Fleetwood, Ludlow, Salway, and Tichbourne; and on this sub-committee Ludlow did consent to act.  In fact, however, the General Committee and the Wallingford-House Council kept along with the Sub-Committee in the great discussion.[1]