vernment.[1]

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, VII. 669-671, and 683-684; Letters of M. de
Bordeaux, in Guizot, I. 409-413; Commons Journals, June 13 and July
2, 1659.]

The Cromwellians or Protectoratists being thus no longer a party
militant, the struggle was to be a direct one between the Bumpers and
the cause of Charles II. Here, however, one has to note a most
extraordinary phenomenon. The cause of Charles II., by no exertion on
its own part, but by the mere whirl of events between May and July,
had received an enormous accession of strength. Baulked of their own.
natural purpose of a preserved Protectorate constitutionally defined
and guaranteed afresh, and resenting the outrage done to their latest
suffrages for that end, what could many of the Cromwellians do but
cease to call themselves by that now inoperative name and melt into
the ranks of the Stuartists? For the veteran Cromwellians, implicated
in the Regicide and its close accompaniments, this was, of course,
impossible. To the last breath _they_ must strive to keep out
the King; and, as they could do so no longer as Protectoratists, they
must fall in with the pure Republicans or Restored Rumpers, But for
the great body of the Cromwellians, not burdened by overwhelming
recollections of personal responsibility, there was no such
compulsion. What mattered it to the Presbyterians, or to that younger
part of the entire population which had grown into manhood since the
death of Charles I., whether Kingship, which they would willingly
enough have seen Oliver assume, should now come back to them with
the old dynasty?

All this Charles and Hyde had been observing. From May 1659 it had
been their policy to enter into communications with the more eminent
of the disappointed or baulked Cromwellians, and to assure them not
only of indemnity for the past, but of rewards and honours to any
extent, if they would now become Royalists. Monk, Montague, Howard,
Falconbridge, Broghill, and Lockhart, had all been thought of.
Applications had been made even to the two Cromwells themselves, and
particularly to Henry Cromwell. There seems to be a reference to that
fact in the close of his fine letter to the Rump Parliament. He
thanked God that he had been able to resist temptation to a course
which in _him_, at all events, would have been infamous; and,
though, he could not serve the Republican Parliament in _their_
"further superstructures," he could wish them well on the whole, and
so