BOOK

IV.

1655.

ment was destroyed at the period of which we are treating. The law under which those who were engaged in the late insurrection were tried, declaring that to compass or imagine the death of the protector, or to raise forces against the present government, was treason, was, like the law for continuing the customs, an ordinance of the lord protector and council'. The judges who sat on the prisoners in the west, were Thorpe, Glyn and Steeles. Rolle declined sitting, as was alleged, lest he might be thought influenced by personal resentment, in deciding the fate of the men, who had threatened to hang him at Salisbury. But, as his opinion, in the case of Cony, was unfavourable to the legislative authority of the protector and council, it is not improbable that that consideration might have had its influence in his declining to sit upon the commission at SalisResigna bury and Exeter". These trials being over, a further commission was prepared for the arraignand ment of the prisoners in the north; and the names of Thorpe and Newdigate were ordered to be put in this commission *. But they no sooner received notice of the design, than they waited on the protector, giving in their excuses,

tion of

Newdigate

Thorpe.

See above, p. 34. See above, p. 169. t * Ludlow, p. 517. "Clarendon says expressly, "He raised some scruples in point of law, whether the men could legally be condemned."

* Thurloe, Vol. III, p. 359, 360, 385.

and requesting that they might not be called on to discharge an office, which their consciences disapproved. The consequence was, that they received their writs of ease on the third of May', as Rolle did in the following month. In some measure to supply the vacancy thus occasioned, Steele was appointed chief baron of the exchequer on the twenty-eighth2.

CHAP.

XIII.

し

1655.

and Wid

The difficulties Cromwel had to encounter on Whitlocke the question of the competence of his council to drington, make laws and ordinances, did not end here. An keepers of ordinance had been made in August 1654 for dismissed. limiting the jurisdiction of the court of chancery

Perfect Proceedings, May 10.

Docquet Book of Crown Office. In July following Richard Pepys, one of the barons of the exchequer, was removed from that situation, and made chief justice of the upper bench in Ireland.

It is here that Clarendon (Vol. III, p. 650) introduces the absurd story, resting on his authority only, of Cromwel, in reply to the expostulation of the judges, speaking of Magna Charta in a phrase of the most insolent and opprobrious contempt. [The phrase is also ascribed to Cromwel by Roger Coke, Vol. II, p. 31, but in general terms only.] We cannot sufficiently wonder that a writer so highly gifted as Clarendon, should condescend to disgrace his pages with a tale, likely enough to have been the invention of Buckingham, or some of his riotous companions. Cromwel was an accomplished statesman. The period of which we are treating was the most critical of his government. lutely he went through the painful task which his situation imposed upon him. But he did not by the smallest atom exceed what that demanded from him. Least of all, would he at such a moment have added the wantonness of insult to the ungracious proceeding in which he could not excuse himself from being engaged.

Reso

the seal,

BOOK and regulating its proceedings; and Cromwel, IV. who did not chuse any order of his to remain 1655. dead and ineffective, issued a mandate on the

twenty-third of April to the commissioners of the great seal, requiring them to proceed according to the directions of this ordinance. The commissioners were Whitlocke, Widdrington and Lisle. Lenthal also, master of the rolls, was interested in the question. These four held several consultations together, and, Lisle excepted, agreed to draw up a representation of their reasons against it, and of the inconveniences which would arise in the execution of it. One of the grounds of objection Whitlocke distinctly says, was, that those who issued the ordinance had in reality no power to make a law. The order however for practising its regulations was repeated on the first of May; and in the following month, after due time had been allowed for deliberation, and the authors of the representation had declared their resolution to persist, they were ordered to deliver up the seal, which in the subsequent week was committed to the custody of Lisle and Nathaniel Fiennes. Lenthal, who had protested that he would be hanged at the Rolls' Gate rather than submit, when he saw Whitlocke and Widdrington put out of office, took the question anew into consideration, and decided to prefer the urgency of public affairs to the honours of a specu

a See above, p. 42, 43.

XIII.

1655. but appoint

ed commis

lative consistency. Meanwhile Cromwel, "being CHAP. good-natured, and somewhat grieved at the harsh measure that was dealt to the two ex-commissioners," ordered a new writ to be made out, appointing them, with Montagu and Sydenham, to be commissioners of the treasury, with a salary of one thousand pounds per annum to each.

Whitlocke, Apr. 23, May 1, June, July. By this arrangement, the commissioners of the treasury, which had before been seven (See above, p. 142), were reduced to four.

sioners of

the treasury.

184

CHAPTER XIV.

FOREIGN POLICY OF CROMWEL.-HE IS COURTED

BY FRANCE AND SPAIN.

EXPEDITION OF BLAKE. OF VENABLES AND PENN.-THEY MISCARRY AT ST. DOMINGO.-CONQUEST OF JAMAICA.

IV.

1654.

Foreign policy of Cromwel. He is courted by

Spain.

Character

BOOK BUT the mind of Cromwel, not contented with vanquishing all the domestic difficulties that assailed his government, resolved at the same time to assert the dignity and character of England among the neighbouring nations. We have seen France and that, from the commencement of his protectorship, he was incessantly courted by the rival governments of France and Spain. Don Alonzo de of the Spa Cardenas, the ambassador of Spain, had received some personal disobligation from Charles the First, and from that time had become the inveterate enemy of him and his family. He had therefore uniformly represented to his court the parliament as too firmly seated ever to be shaken, and had assured his masters that they might count upon it as a certainty, that there would never

nish am

bassador.

a See above, p. 82.