death was pronounced; and
the protector, notwithstanding the urgent solicitations of the French
and Spanish ambassadors, resolved that he should suffer. It was not that
Cromwell approved of sanguinary punishments in matters of religion, but
that he had no objection to purchase the good-will of the godly by shedding
the blood of a priest. The[a] fate of this venerable man[a] excited the
sympathy of the higher classes. Two hundred carriages and a crowd of
horsemen followed the hurdle on which he was drawn to the place of
execution. On the scaffold, he spoke with satisfaction of the manner of his
death, but at the same time pointed out the inconsistency of the men who
pretended to have taken up arms for liberty of conscience, and yet shed the
blood of those who differed from them in religious opinions. He suffered
the usual punishment of traitors.[1]

The intelligence of the late revolution had been received by the military
in Ireland and Scotland with open murmurs on the part of some, and a
suspicious acquiescence on that of others. In Ireland, Fleetwood knew not
how to reconcile the conduct of his father-in-law with his own principles,
and expressed a wish to resign the government of the island; Ludlow and
Jones, both stanch republicans, looked on the protector as a hypocrite and
an apostate, and though the latter was more cautious in his language, the

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, ii. 406. Whitelock, 592. Challoner, ii. 354.
Knaresborough's Collections, MS.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1654 June 23.]

former openly refused to act as civil commissioner under the new
constitution; and in most of the garrisons several of the principal
officers made no secret of their dissatisfaction: in one case they even
drew up a remonstrance against "the government by a single person." But
Cromwell averted the storm which threatened him, by his prudence and
firmness. He sent his son Henry on a visit to Fleetwood, that he might
learn the true disposition of the military; the more formidable of his
opponents were silently withdrawn to England; and several of the others
found themselves suddenly but successively deprived of their commands.
In most cases interest proved more powerful than principle; and it was
observed that out of the numbers, who at first crowded to the Anabaptist
conventicle at Dublin as a profession of their political creed, almost all
who had any thing to lose, gradually abandoned it for the more courtly
places of worship. Even the