at Exeter, Dorchester, Colchester, and other places, with instructions to the Major-Generals in the respective districts to see the order carried out and the fines of the poor people discharged.  The business of the Piedmontese Protestants still occupied the Council, and there were letters to various foreign powers.  Of new diplomatic arrangements of the Protector about this time, and through the whole session of the Parliament, account will be more conveniently taken hereafter; but Ambassador Lockhart’s temporary presence in London, and his frequent colloquies with the Protector over French affairs, Spanish affairs, the movements of Charles II abroad, a rumoured dissension between Charles II. and his brother the Duke of York, and Mazarin’s astute intimacy with all, are worthy of remark even now.  It was on Dec. 10, 1656, that Lockhart received from his Highness the honour of knighthood at Whitehall; and on Feb. 3, 1656-7, it was settled by his Highness and the Council that Lockhart’s allowance thenceforward in his Embassy should be L100 a week, i.e, about L18,000 a year in present value.  Lockhart’s real post being in Paris, his attendance in Parliament can have been but brief.  His fellow-Scotsman, Swinton of Swinton, also gave but brief attendance.  The Protector had taken the opportunity of Swinton’s visit to London to show him special attention, and to promote in the Council certain very substantial recognitions of his adhesion to the Commonwealth when other Scots abhorred it, and of his good services in Scotland to it and the Protectorate since.  But, as his proper place was in Edinburgh, it was ordered, Dec. 25, 1656, that he, and his fellow-members of the Scottish Council, Major-General Charles Howard and Colonel Adrian Scroope, should return thither.  This was the more necessary because Lord Broghill did not mean to return to Scotland, the air of which did not suit him, but preferred employment for the future either in England or in his native Ireland.  Broghill’s Presidency in Scotland had now, indeed, virtually ceased, and the administration there, with the difficult steering between the Resolutioners and the Protesters of the Kirk, had been left to Monk and the rest.  Nay, as we know, the hearing of that vital Scottish question had been transferred to London.  Sharp, who had come to London in Broghill’s train as agent for the Resolutioners, “presently got access to the Protector” and “was well liked of and accepted.”  But the Marquis of Argyle had weight enough yet to stop any concession to him till the other party had been heard.  Accordingly, in October, 1656, a Mr. James Simson, minister of Airth, had been sent up by the Protesters, to be followed, more effectively, in January, by Mr. James Guthrie himself, Principal Gillespie of Glasgow, and three elders, of whom one was Warriston.  There had been a conference and debate between Sharp and these Protesters before Cromwell, three of his Council being present, and Owen, Lockyer, Manton, and Ashe attending