with joy. The Governor of Boulogne was ordered to furnish him with all the vessels that could be collected in his government; the Duke de Bouillon and others of Turenne's nephews proposed to accompany the expedition as volunteers, and Rye was fixed upon for the place of landing, when news of the de

feat of Sir George Booth put an end to the design.

VOL. II.

CHAPTER III.

Hopes of Queen Henrietta.-Her letter to her son.-Warnings against his admission to supreme power.-Arguments of Milton.-The Officers petition the House.-The Rump turned out.-New appointments. - General Monk.—His professions.-Clamour for a free Parliament.-Disturbances in the metropolis.-Monk marches to London.-His letter to the Parliament.-Return of the Secluded Members.Dissolution of the Long Parliament. - Lambert taken prisoner. Correspondence with the King.-His popularity. -Festivities in the city.-Inconsistent conduct of Monk.Meeting of the Parliament.-Arrival of Sir J. Grenville with a letter and declaration from the King.-His Majesty's conditions accepted. Charles invited to return to take possession of his kingdom.-Fleet sent to fetch him over. -Charles proclaimed throughout the country.-He embarks with his suite.-Incidents on the voyage.-He lands at Dover.-Honours paid to him at Canterbury.-Paper presented to him by Monk.-His enthusiastic reception in the metropolis.-Speech of the Earl of Manchester, and of Sir Harbottle Grimstone.-The King's reply.-He passes the Restoration-night with Mrs. Palmer.

HE news of Cromwell's death kindled new hopes in the Queen's mind of her son's speedy Restoration to the throne, and prompted her to renew her relations with those who had continued faithful

to the royal cause, so as to gain their co-operation in case of any movement in his favour; and the subsequent resignation of Richard Cromwell was hailed as a most auspicious circumstance by the removal of a principal barrier in his path.

When the dearest hope of her heart was on the eve of being realized, she addressed to him the following note, dated Colombe, five o'clock in the morning, June 9th, 1660.

"Progers' arrived on Monday evening: you may judge of my joy, and if you are torn to pieces in England with kindness, I have my share of it also in France. I am going this instant to Chaillot, to hear the Te Deum sung, and from thence to Paris to have bonfires lighted. We made them yesterday. I think I shall have all Paris. In fact, you cannot imagine the joy that prevails here. We must, amidst all this,

1 Edward Progers, Esq., a younger son of Philip Progers, of the family of Gareddin, Monmouthshire. His father was a colonel in the army, and equerry to James I. Edward was early introduced to Court; and, after having been page to Charles I., was appointed Groom of the Bedchamber to his son, while Prince of Wales. He attached himself zealously to the King's interest during the war with the Parliament. "In 1660," says Lord Oxford, "he was named one of the Knights of the Royal Oak. He represented the county of Brecon in Parliament for 17 years," "and expired," says Le Neve, "on the 1st of January, 1713, aged 96, of the anguish of cutting teeth, he having cut four new teeth, and having several ready to cut, which so inflamed his gums, that he died thereof." See Monumenta Anglicana, p. 273, 1717.

praise God: all this is from His hand; you can see that it is. I will not trouble you more.

"God bless you."

Some of the warnings held out to the public against the admission of Charles to the supreme power during the suspense of 1659, were almost prophetic. "As for the King's religion," says Marchamont Nedham, "if any, it is at best but a devotion to prelacy, which was bequeathed to him in legacy; for he forfeited all his coronation-oaths and protestations to the Scottish nation, with all his other pretences of religion there, before ever he left that country. What profession he hath since owned abroad, hath, for reason of state, been kept very close; but he discovered it when visiting one of the English Jesuites colledges in Flanders: they shewing him in their chapple the effigies of several good fathers of that house which had been sainted at Tyburn, he pulled his hat over his eyes and turned aside to the wall.

"But, if this be not evidence, let us have recourse to reason, and then consider how long he was under the wing of his mother's instructions in France, and what a nursery Flanders hath been for him since, which is the most Jesuited place in the world: consider also the urgency of his necessities disposing him to embrace anything, or take any course to get a crown, being under the same influence of that wandering star called ragione di stato, as was his grandfather Henry

1 Lambeth Manuscripts, 645, Art. 120.

the Fourth of France, who shifted his religion to secure a crown, and chose rather to hazard his portion in paradise, than his palace at Paris (which some say were his own very words): but to these considerations take along with you the young man's intercourse with, obligation, dependence upon foreign priests and Papists; his frequent known applications and promises to the Pope by special agents employed to Rome for that purpose, and to the Emperor as well as the Spaniard; his alliance to, and combination with them and other Popish Princes, especially of those of the Austrian party; being put altogether into the ballance, are ground enough to believe him sufficiently affected, if not sworn to Popery."

Milton, too, employed his nervous pen in combating the restitution of Monarchy. "A King," he says, "must be adored like a demi-god, with a dissolute and haughty Court about him of vast expence and luxury, masks and revels, to the debauching of our prime gentry, both male and female, not in their pastimes only, but in earnest, by the loose employments of court-service, which will be then thought honourable. There will be a Queen of no less charge, in most likelihood outlandish and a Papist, besides a Queenmother, such already; together with both their Courts and numerous train: then a royal issue, and ere long severally their sumptuous courts; to the multiplying of a servile crew, not of servants only, but of nobility and gentry, bred up then to the hopes, not of publick Interest will not Lye," 4to. London, 1659.

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