ad never been suffered to
compound, had never submitted to the commonwealth, and had

[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 673, 674. Thurloe, vii. 159, 164. State Trials, v.
871, 883, 907. These trials are more interesting in Clarendon, but much of
his narrative is certainly, and more of it probably, fictitious. It is not
true that Slingsby's offence was committed two years before, nor that Hewet
was accused of visiting the king in Flanders, nor that Mallory escaped out
of the hall on the morning of the trial (See Claren. Hist. iii. 619-624.)
Mallory's own account of his escape is in Thurloe, vii. 194-220.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1658. June 9.]

been for years deprived both of his property and liberty, so that his
conduct should be rather considered as the attempt of a prisoner of war
to regain his freedom, than of a subject to overturn the government. This
reasoning was urged[a] by his nephew, Lord Falconberg, who, by his recent
marriage with Mary Cromwell, was believed to possess considerable influence
with her father. The interest of Dr. Hewet was espoused by a more powerful
advocate--by Elizabeth, the best-beloved of Cromwell's daughters, who at
the same time was in a delicate and precarious state of health. But it
was in vain that she interceded for the man whose spiritual ministry she
employed; Cromwell was inexorable. He resolved[b] that blood should be
shed, and that the royalists should learn to fear his resentment,
since they had not been won by his forbearance. Both suffered death by
decapitation.[1]

During the winter, the gains and losses of the hostile armies in Flanders
had been nearly balanced. If, on the one hand, the duke of York was
repulsed with loss in his attempt to storm by night the works at Mardyke;
on the other, the Marshal D'Aumont was made prisoner with fifteen hundred
men by the Spanish governor of Ostend, who, under the pretence of
delivering up the place, had decoyed him within the fortifications. In
February, the offensive treaty

[Footnote 1: Ludlow, ii. 149. I think there is some reason to question
those sentiments of loyalty to the house of Stuart, and that affliction and
displeasure on account of the execution of Hewet, which writers attribute
to Elizabeth Claypole. In a letter written by her to her sister-in-law, the
wife of H. Cromwell, and dated only four days after the death of Hewet, she
calls on her to return thanks to God for their deliverence from Hewet's
conspiracy: "for sertingly not ond