s. The
levellers and agitators had been encouraged by Cromwell to interpose
with their advice in all political deliberations; and he had even
pretended to honor many of them with his intimate friendship, while he
conducted his daring enterprises against the king and the parliament. It
was a usual practice with him, in order to familiarize himself the more
with the agitators, who were commonly corporals or sergeants, to take
them to bed with him, and there, after prayers and exhortations, to
discuss together their projects and principles, political as well as
religious. Having assumed the dignity of protector, he excluded them
from all his councils, and had neither leisure nor inclination to
indulge them any further in their wonted familiarities. Among those who
were enraged at this treatment was Sexby, an active agitator, who now
employed against him all that restless industry which had formerly
been exerted in his favor. He even went so far as to enter into a
correspondence with Spain, and Cromwell, who knew the distempers of
the army, was justly afraid of some mutiny, to which a day, an hour, an
instant, might provide leaders.

Of assassinations, likewise, he was apprehensive, from the zealous
spirit which actuated the soldiers. Sindercome had undertaken to murder
him; and by the most unaccountable accidents, had often been prevented
from executing his bloody purpose. His design was discovered; but the
protector could never find the bottom of the enterprise, nor detect any
of his accomplices. He was tried by a jury; and, notwithstanding the
general odium attending that crime, notwithstanding the clear and full
proof of his guilt, so little conviction prevailed of the protector's
right to the supreme government, it was with the utmost difficulty[*]
that this conspirator was condemned. When every thing was prepared for
his execution, he was found dead; from poison, as is supposed, which he
had voluntarily taken.

* Thurloe, voL vi. p. 53.

The protector might better have supported those fears and apprehensions
which the public distempers occasioned, had he enjoyed any domestic
satisfaction, or possessed any cordial friend of his own family, in
whose bosom he could safely have unloaded his anxious and corroding
cares. But Fleetwood, his son-in-law, actuated by the wildest zeal,
began to estrange himself from him; and was enraged to discover, that
Cromwell, in all his enterprises, had entertained views of promotin