in the coming Parliament; a third was a general “Declaration” for all England, Scotland, and Ireland; a fourth was a short letter to the House of Lords, should there be one; a fifth was for Admirals Monk and Montague, to be communicated to the Fleet; and the sixth was to the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Councilmen of the City of London.  Besides the originals, copies of all were sent to Monk, that he might keep the originals unopened or suppress any of them.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Clarendon, 896-902; Phillips, 696; Skinner, 276-280.]

It could be an affair now only of a few weeks, more or less.  There, at Breda, was his swarthy, witty, good-humoured, utterly profligate and worthless, young Majesty, with his refugee courtiers round him; at home, over all Britain and Ireland, they were ready for him, longing for him, huzzahing for him, Monk and the Council managing silently in London; and between, as a moveable bridge, there was Montague and his fleet.  When would the bridge move towards the Continent?  That would depend on the newly-elected Parliament, which was to meet on the 25th.  Could there be any mischance in the meantime?

It did not seem so.  The late politicians of the Rump were dispersed and powerless.  Hasilrig sat by himself in London, moaning “We are undone:  we are undone”; Scott was in Buckinghamshire, if perchance they might elect him for Wycombe:  Ludlow hid in Wiltshire and Somersetshire, also nominated for a seat, but careless about it; the rest absconded one knows not where.  The “Fanatics,” as the Republican Sectaries were now called collectively, were silenced and overwhelmed.  Even Mr. Praise-God Barebone, tired of having his windows broken, was under written engagement to the Council to keep himself quiet.  The same written engagement had been exacted from Hasilrig and Scott.—­But what of the Army, the original maker of the Commonwealth, its defender and preserver through good report and bad report for eleven years, and with strength surely to maintain it yet, or make a stand in its behalf?  The question is rather difficult.  It may be granted that something of the general exhaustion, the fatigue and weariness of incessant change, the longing to be at rest by any means, had come upon the Army itself.  Not the less true is it that Republicanism was yet the general creed of the Army, and that, could a universal vote have been taken through the regiments in England, Scotland, and Ireland, it would have kept out Charles Stuart.  Nay, so engrained was the Republican feeling in the ranks of the soldiery, and so gloomily were they watching Monk, that, could any suitable proportion of them have been brought together, and could any fit leader have been present to hold up his sword for the Commonwealth, they would have rallied round him with acclamations.  Precisely to prevent this, however, had been Monk’s care.  One remembers his advice from Scotland to Richard Cromwell nineteen months ago, when Richard was entering on