ngry
rebuke, "and let God be judge between you and me."

[Sidenote: Death of Cromwell.]

Fatal as was the error, for the moment all went well. The army was
reconciled by the blow levelled at its opponents, and a few murmurers
who appeared in its ranks were weeded out by a careful remodelling. The
triumphant officers vowed to stand or fall with his Highness. The danger
of a Royalist rising vanished before a host of addresses from the
counties. Great news too came from abroad, where victory in Flanders,
and the cession of Dunkirk in June, set the seal on Cromwell's glory.
But the fever crept steadily on, and his looks told the tale of death to
the Quaker, Fox, who met him riding in Hampton Court Park. "Before I
came to him," he says, "as he rode at the head of his Life Guards, I saw
and felt a waft of death go 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 drew 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