they levied from the Royalists an income tax of ten per cent., known by the name of "The Decimation." Although arbitrary, the people, weary of disturbance, made no objection to this Government, which on the whole worked well and justly.

It lasted about a year, during which the energy of the Protector, having now secured domestic quiet, was directed to raising the character of the country abroad. His policy was a deForeign policy. clared and simple one. His object was to set England at the head of the Protestant interest in Europe. With this end in view, when the Duke of Savoy attempted by force of arms and by persecution to convert the Protestant inhabitants of the Alpine valleys, Cromwell at once took up their cause, and refused to complete a treaty which Mazarin, the French minister, was most eager to form with him, till justice had been done. This treaty was itself part of his general plan. Adopting the views of the statesmen of Queen Elizabeth's reign, he still regarded Spain as the head of the Catholic powers, and it was to oppose that Court, and not to assist France, that he was willing to unite with Mazarin. His enmity to Spain had already taken an active form. Blake had for the last year been lying off the coast, watching for the Plate ships; and a great fleet and expedition, which had been raised with secret instructions, was found to be directed against the Island of Hispaniola, to deal a blow if possible against the Spanish interest in the West Indies. The expedition was not a success. It had been organized by Desborough, probably not well, and was intrusted to Admiral Penn, and to Venables as commander of the land forces. Neither of these officers gave satisfaction. They acted without energy, and were driven from Hispaniola. But to avoid the appearance of total defeat, they mastered the Island of Jamaica, at the time regarded as of little value. On their return to England they were both imprisoned for leaving their command without leave. But Cromwell determined to make the best he could of such success as he had won, and during the rest of his reign he eagerly pressed forward the colonization of Jamaica, of which the wealth and resources gradually became evident. In November the treaty with France was completed, and open war declared against Spain, the fleets to be employed against it being intrusted to Montague and Blake.

War with Spain.

Capture of
Jamaica.

It was about this time that the question of the readmission of the Jews to England was raised, and a conference held on the subject. Cromwell was decidedly in favour of it, but the superstition of his

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PLOTS AGAINST CROMWELL.

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calls his Third

counsellors was too strong for him; he could go no further than to admit of their residence in England upon sufferance. The war with Spain gave fresh opportunities to the Royalists. Charles again appeared upon the coast. An invasion even was dreaded; and Cromwell, who never liked his position as arbitrary Fearing invagovernor, determined upon summoning a new Parlia- sion, Cromwell ment to his assistance. In September it assembled ; Parliament. again he gave the members a short history of the events which had taken place, and of the constraint under which he had felt himself to undertake the government, and again urged upon them the necessity of restoring some sort of constitution. To secure some unity of action, he thought it necessary to exclude about a hundred of the most violent of his enemies. Thus arranged, the Parliament set really to work at its duties. This hopeful state of affairs was increased by the popularity gained by a great victory which Blake and Montague won over the Spaniards. The Plate fleet had been captured, and very visible proofs of the success were shown by the passage of thirty-eight waggon loads of the treasure from Portsmouth to London. At the same time, Cromwell found it possible to withdraw the arbitrary government of the major-generals.

The general success of the Protector had thwarted all plans of invasion which had been contrived by Spain and the Royalists. His enemies were again reduced to plots. Charles had long Plots against since offered large rewards for the head of "the base Cromwell. mechanic fellow who had usurped his throne;" and now, in January 1657, Colonel Sexby, an old leader of the Levellers, whom hatred for Cromwell had induced to make common cause with the Royalists, had been hatching plots to kill the Protector. Failing himself, he intrusted an old soldier called Miles Sindercomb with the duty. He at first arranged a sort of infernal machine in the windows of a house at Hammersmith, intending to kill Cromwell on his way to Hampton Court. On the failure of this plan he determined on a still bolder step, and attempted to set fire to Whitehall. This also was discovered. But the danger which had threatened the life of the man whom the whole Puritan party, with the exception of the extreme Anabaptists, regarded as necessary to their existence, tended to unite Parliament, which now, though many of its members had formerly been his enemies, combined in presenting him with a formal congratulation on his escape, and began to think that it was necessary to hedge him round with some more sacred securities than his Protectorship afforded, and to speak of making him King.

him King.

The Petition and Advice.

This growing feeling found utterance on the 23rd of February, when Sir Christopher Pack, one of the members for London, induced Proposal to call the Parliament to hear "an improved constitution for these nations," suggesting a second House of Parliament, and an increase of the Protector's power, even to give him the name of King. Pack's suggestion was afterwards incorporated in the document known as the Petition and Advice. By the end of March, the Petition and Advice had been voted by the House, and on the 31st of that month was presented to Cromwell for acceptance. It consists of eighteen articles, short and clear enough, and in fact restored, as far as was possible without recalling the old House, the ancient Constitution of the country. In all its essential points it exactly agreed with Cromwell's own views. As has been before said, he was at heart conservative, and believed thoroughly in the necessity of checks upon the arbitrary power, whether of the head of the executive or of Parliament. Whatever may have been his earlier opinions, all his later experience had tended to strengthen his conservative feelings. All the irregular methods to which he had been driven had been more or less unsatisfactory. His Little Parliament had been an absolute failure. His second Parliament, republican in character, had done nothing. His major-generals, though working well as a temporary expedient, had been constantly open to the charge of illegality. He felt that the continued government of the army was destructive to the civil liberties of the country. On the other hand, Parliament, when left to itself, had degenerated into an oligarchy, incapable of seeing any good apart from its own existence, and intent on establishing a tyranny in no way preferable to that of the monarchy it had superseded. He was therefore quite inclined to introduce an Upper House as a check upon the Lower, government in a single person as a check upon the Parliament, and the Parliament itself as a check upon the arbitrary tendency of the single person. He also, more than all else, had at heart a Church at once free and orderly. It was then with complete acquiescence that he heard the articles in the Petition and Advice, which secured the continuance of the tithes for the maintenance of religion, but which suggested that the religion thus maintained should be based upon a declaration of the Christian faith of the simplest character; all varieties of opinion in non-essentials and in the forms of worship being regarded as immaterial. He approved also of the establishment of two Houses of Parliament, as securing the civil liberty of the subject;

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and of the limitation set to his own power in the matter of the army, which was henceforward to be in the hands of the chief of the executive and Parliament. He even added additional clauses with regard to the arrangements of finance, to forbid any public expenditure except by the advice of the Council, and to render the Treasurers receiving the money accountable to every Parliament.

He objects to

May 25.

The only point on which he disagreed was the title of King, which was pressed upon him. Left entirely to himself, he might have desired the title, which, as many lawyers the title of King. urged, was almost necessary for the maintenance of many of the existing laws, all of which had been drawn up under the supposition that there would be a King. But he thought it wiser-for fear, no doubt in part of the anger which such a title excited among his supporters in the army, in part because, as he pointed out, the reality of kingship might exist without the name, and partly for the sake of consistency-to refuse the title, and to continue that which he now held, the Protector of England. His position, however, was exactly that of a King, except that his title was not hereditary. Instead of this, he was intrusted with the duty of nominating his successor. The propriety of Cromwell's conduct in thus accepting the Petition and Advice without the royal dignity was a matter of much discussion even among his own friends. Several of the army commanders, as Whalley, Goffe and Berry, seem to have wished that he should have accepted the office, and founded a dynasty. Desborough, Fleetwood and Lambert were strongly opposed to it.

The session of Parliament pursued its course, granting what money was required, and was quietly closed by an adjournment in June, to give the Protector time to select his new House of Lords, which, with the present Commons' House, was to assemble, in conformity with the Petition and Advice, early in the following year.

While affairs seemed to be going thus prosperously for Cromwell in England, he was raising the importance of the country His success abroad. The war with Spain was carried on with marked abroad. success at sea by Blake, who destroyed a second great Plate fleet in the Bay of Santa Cruz, and upon land, where a body of English troops were now acting under the command of Colonel Reynolds, and subsequently under that of Lockart, the ambassador to France. These troops had been sent by Cromwell on the understanding that Mardyke and Dunkirk, after capture, were to be given over to him. They had been employed however chiefly against inland fortresses, such as Montmédy and Cambrai, which was not at all what Cromwell desired.

His pressing letters induced Mazarin to fulfil his engagement. In September, Mardyke was taken with the co-operation of Montague and the fleet.

But the appearance of general success was somewhat hollow. Every change in the Constitution roused afresh the hopes of the Royalists. Sexby, the Anabaptist colonel, who in his persistent enmity to Cromwell had become the chief agent of the Royalists, was in October apprehended as he was leaving England, where he had been spreading the pamphlet entitled "Killing no murder,” and otherwise trying to organize a rebellion. In the winter Ormond himself came over from abroad, and entered into communication with all sections of the enemies of the Government, while Spain hoped to neutralize the successes of France and England in the Low Countries by assisting Charles to regain his throne. Cromwell Attempts at rebellion was remarkable for his success in thwarting the plots thwarted. formed against him, being much assisted by Thurloe, his Secretary of State. Even at this moment, Willis, a member of a small secret committee who had undertaken the management of Royalist affairs, and who were known by the name of "The Sealed Knot," was in his pay. Still the situation was grave, and the Royalists hoped much from the new Parliament. Nor were they wrong in expecting that the Government would find itself in difficulties. In accordance with the Petition and Advice, the members who had

Parliament reconstructed. Jan. 20, 1658.

been excluded from the last session were now readmitted, and their influence, which was naturally directly opposed to Cromwell, was increased by the absence of a certain number of his greatest friends, who had been summoned to take their places in the new Upper House. For this body sixty-two summonses had been issued, but the difficulty of creating a new peerage was at once manifested by the refusal of such of the old peers as were summoned to take their seats by the side of the new creations. It was against the Upper House too that the Republicans of the House of Commons directed their assaults. They had been required to take an oath to the Protector and the Constitution, but Sir Arthur Haselrig and Mr. Scott, their leaders, seem to have taken a very lax view of the obligation it entailed on them, and at once proceeded to wrangle as to the name by which the new House should be called, and the amount of respect which should be shown it. After a few days thus idly spent, Cromwell called the House before him, and pointed out the danger which threatened the very existence of the Commonwealth unless they acted with unanimity.