o forth against him, and
when I came to him he looked like a dead man." In the midst of his
triumph Cromwell's heart was heavy in fact with the sense of failure. He
had no desire to play the tyrant; nor had he any belief in the
permanence of a mere tyranny. He clung desperately to the hope of
bringing over the country to his side. He had hardly dissolved the
Parliament before he was planning the summons of another, and angry at
the opposition which his council offered to the project. "I will take my
own resolutions," he said gloomily to his household; "I can no longer
satisfy myself to sit still, and make myself guilty of the loss of all
the honest party and of the nation itself." But before his plans could
be realized the overtaxed strength of the Protector suddenly gave way.
Early in August, 1658, his sickness took a more serious form. He saw too
clearly the chaos into which his death would plunge England to be
willing to die. "Do not think I shall die," he burst out with feverish
energy to the physicians who gathered round him; "say not I have lost my
reason! I tell you the truth. I know it from better authority than any
you can have from Galen or Hippocrates. It is the answer of God himself
to our prayers!"

Prayer indeed rose from every side for his recovery, but death grew
steadily nearer, till even Cromwell felt that his hour was come. "I
would be willing to live," the dying man murmured, "to be further
serviceable to God and his people, but my work is done! Yet God will be
with his people!" A storm which tore roofs from houses, and levelled
huge trees in every forest, seemed a fitting prelude to the passing away
of his mighty spirit. Three days later, on September 3d, the day which
had witnessed his victories of Worcester and Dunbar, Cromwell quietly
breathed his last.

So absolute even in death was his sway over the minds of men, that, to
the wonder of the excited Royalists, even a doubtful nomination on his
death-bed was enough to secure the peaceful succession of his son,
Richard Cromwell. Many in fact who had rejected the authority of his
father submitted peaceably to the new Protector. Their motives were
explained by Baxter, the most eminent among the Presbyterian ministers,
in an address to Richard which announced his adhesion. "I observe," he
says, "that the nation generally rejoice in your peaceable entrance upon
the government. Many are persuaded that you have been strangely kept
from participating in