the prisons continued
crowded with victims. Judges and juries were too slow and uncertain in
their proceedings to be permitted to decide on the fate of those whom
the Protector of the liberties of England had pre-ordained to death or
captivity. High courts of justice were occasionally erected, and summary
modes of trial resorted to, which the ancient laws of the realm
reprobated or disavowed. By these the Tyrant freed himself from those
more obnoxious enemies who had taken arms against his authority; but the
objects of his suspicious fear, whose enmity he knew, and whose ability
he dreaded, still remained in close confinement. The crime of some was
having concealed Loyalists; many were shut up for sending remittances to
the King abroad, or for having shown him some mark of respect and
allegiance while he was in England. The presbyterians suffered for
lamenting the fall of the Long-parliament, and inveighing against the
present tyranny; the Fifth-Monarchy-men, for expecting the reign of King
Jesus; the Levellers, for requiring Agrarian laws and the equalization
of property. The conduct of Cromwell had disgusted the whole body of
sectaries as well as the stanch Republicans. "Anabaptists, Independents,
and Quakers conceived an implacable hatred against him; and, whilst they
contrived how to raise a power to contend with him, they likewise
entered into plots for his assassination." These plots, and the
libellous writings by which they excited insurrection, continually
agitated the mind of Cromwell; for as his new enemies were not
restrained by those principles which prevented most of his old ones from
resorting to indirect modes of warfare, cutting off one daring villain
added nothing to his security, but rather stimulated that faction to
vengeance. He had now humbled and disappointed all parties, and could no
longer play one against another. No one was attached to him; even those
who had gone equal lengths in guilt only clung to him as a pledge for
their own security. Mercy and lenity had no effect on those with whom he
now contended. Lilburn, who may be considered as an epitome of the
fanatical opponents of Cromwell, "had wrought himself to a marvellous
inclination and appetite to suffer in the defence, or for the
vindication of any oppressed truth." To men who courted persecution, who
gloried in personal suffering, and to whom, connecting their cause with
that of the Almighty, all measures seemed allowable which their humo