“Heaven, that hath placed this Island to give law
  To balance Europe and its states to awe,
  In this conjunction doth on Britain smile,—­
  The greatest Leader and the greatest Isle ....

  “Had you some ages past this race of glory
  Run, with amazement we should read your story;
  But living virtue, all achievements past,
  Meets envy still to grapple with at last."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Waller’s Poems:  date of this from Thomason’s Catalogue.]

Waller’s verses, if nothing else, would suggest that we ought to know something more, at this point, of the state of Scotland, Ireland, and even the Colonies, under Cromwell’s Protectorate.

SCOTLAND.

After August 1654, when the Glencairn-Middleton insurrection had been suppressed (Vol.  IV, p. 532), the administration of Scotland had been again for some time wholly in the hands of Monk, as the Commander-in-chief there, with assistance from the four resident English Judges and minor officials.  Cromwell and his Council in London, however, had been thinking of a more regular method for the Government of Scotland; and, at length, in the end of July 1655, the following was the arrangement: 

I. CIVIL ESTABLISHMENT.

COUNCIL, SITTING IN EDINBURGH.

President of Council (L2000 a year):  Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill.

  General Monk. 
  Major-General Charles Howard. 
  Colonel Adrian Scroope. 
  Colonel Cooper. 
  Colonel Nathaniel Whetham. 
  Colonel William Lockhart (soon afterwards Sir William, and Ambassador to
      France). 
  John Swinton, Laird of Swinton (afterwards Sir John). 
  Samuel Desborough, Esq. (brother of the Regicide).

Chief Clerk to the Council (L300 a year):  Emanuel Downing.

SUPREME COMMISSIONERS OF JUSTICE (in lieu of the Old Scotch Court of Session):—­This was a body of Seven Judges; four of whom were English—­George Smith, Edward Moseley, William Lawrence, and Henry Goodyere (the last two in the places of two of the original four of 1652),—­but three of them native Scots, accustomed to Scottish law and practice.  These native Judges had been added for some time already, and there had been, and were to be, changes of the persons; but one hears most of Lockhart, Swinton, Sir James Learmont, Alexander Pearson, and Andrew Ker.  At hand, and helping much, though no longer now the great man he had been in Scotland, was Sir Archibald Johnstone of Warriston.

STATE OFFICERS:—­Most of the state-offices of the old Scottish constitution were still kept up, but were held, of course, by the new Councillors and Judges.  The Keepership of the Great Seal was given to Desborough; the Signet or Privy Seal, with the fees of the old Secretaryship, to Lockhart; the Clerk Registership to Judge Smith; &c.

TRUSTEES OF FORFEITED AND SEQUESTRATED ESTATES:—­Under this name, by the Ordinance of April 12, 1654 (Vol.  IV. pp. 561-562), there was a body of seven persons, about half of them English, looking after the rents and revenues of those numerous Scottish nobles and lairds the punishment of whom, for past delinquency, by total or partial seizing of their estates, had been one of the necessary incidents of the Conquest (Vol.  IV. pp. 559-561).