"with as much gravity as the Grand Seignior when he enters "his Seraglio, possesses himself of the Chair." Another topic with the pamphleteers was the handsomeness of the official salaries which the New Masters of the State were voting for themselves-e. g. £2000 a year to President Bradshaw, with a gift of £1000 more-and the alacrity with which they accepted grants and additional offices of emolument, or bestowed such on their kinsmen and political friends. To investigate with real accuracy all the Royalist traditions on this topic would be toilsome and tedious. What I have observed is that the Republic was certainly liberal in its rate of pay, and very prompt and generous in rewarding any who distinguished themselves highly, or suffered much, in its service. The vote of £200 a year for life to the son of Dorislaus (equal to £700 a year or more now), and £500 at once to each of his daughters (equal to £1750 now), is but one instance out of many.1

The assassination of Dorislaus had had one good effect. There had, of course, been remonstrances on that outrage, addressed to the States General of the United Provinces; the States General and the Stadtholder himself were ashamed of the outrage, and disowned it; and it was signified to Charles II. that the Hague could no longer shelter him and his menagerie of refugees. After consultations and courteous leave-takings, therefore, Charles had begun a tour,

1 Mercurius Pragmaticus, as cited; Clement Walker's History of Independency, Part II. p. 184 (where Walker borrows expressions from Pragmaticus, if indeed he had not supplied Needham with the article); The Mystery of the Good Old Cause, reprinted from the original tract of 1660 in Parl. Hist. III. 1591-1612. As another illustration, fit only for a foot-note, of the ribaldry of the Royalist pamphleteers at this date against the Commonwealth and all connected with it, I may cite a squib with this title, "A Tragi-Comedy, called Newmarket Fair: or a Parliament Outcry of State Commodities set for sale,.. printed at you may go look: 1649." The date, by Thomason, is June 15. The squib is a kind of satirical drama, the scene of which is Westminster, and the characters Fairfax, Cromwell, Lady Fair

fax, Mrs. Cromwell, Ireton, Skippon, Marten, Rainsborough's widow, criers, messengers, &c. The Crown of England is set up for sale; Fairfax and Cromwell bid against each other for it; and their wives take part. Lady Fairfax says to Mrs. Cromwell: "What! would ye, "Mistress Yeast and Grains? Would ye, "Brazen-face?" Mrs. Cromwell retorts: "Call me Mistress Brazen-face, thou "Rotterdam slut, thou; call me Brazen"face! Thou lookest more like a Fool's"face than I do a Brazen-face, or a Copper-face either. Come, come: I never had a bastard by another man "when my husband was at the Leaguer "before Breda; nor I keep not company "with Cavaliers at taverns in my hus"band's absence. Gorge me that, gorge me that."

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by Antwerp and Brussels towards Paris, for a meeting with his mother at St. Germains, the refugees following him, or dispersing themselves hither and thither. Meanwhile, the Scottish Commissioners from the Argyle Government having utterly failed in their efforts to induce Charles to accept the Covenant and the other strict Presbyterian terms, the understanding among the refugees was that the initiative in Scotland had been abandoned, and that, unless Queen Henrietta Maria should alter her son's purpose, his destination was Ireland. The prospects there were increasingly favourable. Prince Rupert's fleet, indeed, was blockaded in Kinsale harbour by Admirals Blake and Dean; but Ormond had taken the field afresh (June 1) with an army of 8000, was driving Monk before him, and was threatening Jones in Dublin. The arrival of Charles himself in Ireland as soon as possible was highly desirable.1

It was desirable, on the other hand, that Cromwell should be in Ireland, and there was now nothing to hinder. The regiments that were to complete his army of 12,000 men had been selected by lot (April 20)-Ireton's, Lambert's, Horton's, Scroope's, for horse, and Ewer's, Hewson's, Cook's, and Dean's, for foot, besides dragoons. It had been arranged (June 13) that Ireton should be second in command; and it was finally settled that Cromwell's own title should be "Lord "Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland," that the military and civil commands should be conjoined in his person, with £8000 a year for the first and about £5000 a year for the second, and that his term of office should be three years. All other preparations having been made, and the transports lying ready at Bristol, Cromwell took his departure from London, July 10, with all magnificence. His coach was drawn by six Flanders mares; other coaches accompanied ; his lifeguard consisted of eighty commissioned officers; and the trumpets sounded and the people gazed as he drove away. A Hue and Cry after Cromwell is the title of a Royalist squib published in London after he was gone.2

1 Clarendon, 711-722; Commons Journals, May 18 and June 25; Godwin,

III. 142-143.

2 Whitlocke, under dates; with Com

Well might there be a hue and cry after Cromwell. It is told of Dante that once, when it was proposed to send him on a very difficult mission, and his colleagues were urgent that he should go because he was the fittest man among them, he replied, "Yes: but what if I should be also the fittest man to "stay here?" So of Cromwell's going to Ireland. How was England to be managed in his absence?

There was, in the first place, THE COUNCIL OF STATE, without Cromwell. It consisted, as we have seen, of about forty men, of whom nine were a quorum, and of whom from ten to eighteen of the ablest and most industrious were usually present, though occasionally there was not even a quorum and the meeting had to be adjourned. Then there was THE PARLIAMENT, with most of the Council in it, and so few besides that it was little else than an alter ego of the Council. The largest attendance of the House recorded in its Journals from the King's death to Cromwell's departure for Ireland is seventy-seven, and the smallest twenty-eight; the average attendance was from forty-five to fifty-five. Resolutions had been passed enabling members ejected by Pride's Purge, or who had discontinued attendance about that time, to reclaim

mons Journals, Council Order Book for June 13, Mrs. Green's Calendar, Preface, p. xlv., and Carlyle's Cromwell, II. 30. Besides the Hue and Cry after Cromwell, the Catalogue of the Thomason Collection notes, as published July 16, a squib, by Richard Overton, called The Baiting of the Great Bull of Bashan unfolded. A later tract which I have read, of date Aug. 7, entitled A New Bull-Baiting, or a Match played at the Town-Bull of Ely by Twelve Mongrels, was, I suppose, a Royalist travesty of this last. It represents, in a rigmarole dialogue of disgusting scurrility, Lilburne, Overton, Walwyn, Prince, and others, as bull-baiting Cromwell. Overton is made to say, in one speech, "It "had been good he had gone to the "butcher's so soon as he had been "calved. . . He junkets, feasts, and

kings it in his chariot with six "Flanders mares, and ruffles in suits "of £500 a-piece. Cain was the first "gentleman of his family; Judas was "the second that bore arms (three elder"trees and a halter); Coram, Dathan,

"and Abiram, his uncles by the mother's "side; Achan his godfather; Absalom "his schoolmaster; the two wicked "elders his tutors; Machiavel his "counsellor; Faux and Fairfaux his

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companions in evil." Prince is made to ask Overton, after this and more, whether he did not once himself adhere to Cromwell. "I profess I did," is the answer; "but he has, by swerving from "his first principles, deceived me and "thousands more." The squib ends with a mock will of Cromwell, beginning, "In the name of Pluto, Amen: I, "Noll Cromwell, alias the Town-Bull of "Ely, Lord Chief Governor of Ireland, "Grand Plotter and Contriver of all "Mischiefs in England, Lord of Misrule,

Knight of the Order of Regicides, "Thief-tenant General of the Rebels at "Westminster, Duke of Devilishness, "Ensign of Evil, Scoutmaster General to "his Infernal Majesty, being wickedly "disposed of mind, of abhorred memory, "do make this my last will and testa"ment in manner and form following," &c. &c.

their seats on due explanation and conformity; but few had yet done so, and, though the House had threatened to issue new writs, none had yet been issued except for the seats of members deceased. In this way the Earl of Pembroke had come in for Berkshire (April 16), the Earl of Salisbury for Lynn (writ issued June 22), and Lord Howard of Escrick for Carlisle (May 5). They were the only peers who so condescended, and were treated with some ceremony in consequence. It is to be remembered that the aristocratic titles, "Duke," "Marquis," "Earl," "Lord," &c., with the social distinctions they inferred, were not abolished under the Commonwealth, but only the political independency, or superiority, of the Peerage.1

CESSATION OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY: ITS BEQUESTS TO ENGLAND AND TO SCOTLAND: THE SCOTTISH KIRK IN 1649.

What, all this while, of THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY? Alas! that famous body, so potent in England, side by side with the Parliament, from July 1643 to the end of 1648, was no longer practically in existence. Their last mass of real work had been the Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms; and it is well to recollect here at least the dates of those documents. The Confession of Faith, finished by the Assembly after the labour of a year and a-half, had been first presented to Parliament in Dec. 1646, but had been remitted to the Assembly for the insertion of the Scriptural proofs of the various Articles (Vol. III. p. 512). Completed with this addition, it had been again presented to Parliament in April 1647, when five hundr d copies and no more were ordered to be printed for the use of members; and, with these copies in their hands, the Commons had begun the work of examining and passing the Articles one by one (Vol. III. pp. 545, 567). So slowly, however, had they proceeded, and with so many interruptions, that not till March 1648 was the

1 Notes from Council Order Books; Records of Divisions in Commons Jour

nals through the period; and same Journals for dates given.

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business concluded by that House, and not till June 1648 was there an order from Parliament for the open publication of the book, as authorized, with this title: Articles of Religion, approved and passed by both Houses of Parliament, after advice had with an Assembly of Divines called together by them for that purpose. More is notable here than the mere change of the name from "Confession of Faith' to "Articles of Religion." Only the Doctrinal or purely Theological Articles of the Assembly's document were included: such entire chapters, or portions of chapters, as concerned Discipline and Church-Government were omitted as unsatisfactory or as reserved by Parliament for farther consideration-e. g. Chap. XXX. (Of Church Censures), Chap. XXXI. (Of Synods and Councils), part of Chap. XXIV. (Of Marriage and Divorce), and the last paragraph of Chap. XX. (Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience), asserting the right of the Civil Magistrate, as well as of the Church, to punish certain kinds of religious error. These parts of the Assembly's Confession, containing a good deal of what the Presbyterians regarded as the very essence of their system, never had the sanction of an English Parliament. With the Catechisms there had been also some difficulty, but not so much. The Shorter Catechism had been ready since Nov. 1647; the Larger Catechism, though presented to the two Houses in Oct. 1647 (Vol. III. p. 568), had been referred back to the Assembly for the insertion of Scriptural proofs, and had not been completed by that body in proper form till April 1648, nor passed by Parliament as authorized, and ordered to be printed, till Sept. 1648.— In these documents, added to the Directory of Worship, which had been passed and authorized as long ago as Jan. 1644-5 (Vol. III. p. 173), all the real energy of the Assembly had been exhausted; and, through the latter part of 1648, the number of Divines in attendance, already thinned by the dropping away of country members, and by the appointment of some of the most eminent members to University-posts, had dwindled to nearly zero. The horror of the King's trial, it is true, had roused the Presbyterian Divines to a protest on his behalf and against the usurpation of power by the Army; but that