, and Oxford, Lord Fairfax,
Lord Bruce, Lord Falkland, Lord Falconbridge, Sir William Waller,
Colonel Popham, Colonel Ingoldsby, Mr. Edmund Dunch, and many others,
were all implicated, or reported as implicated. Major-General Browne
had been sounded, with a view to a rising of the London
Presbyterians. Moreover, there had been communications from Charles
himself to Admiral Montague in the Baltic, begging him to declare for
the cause, and bring his fleet, or at least his own ship, home for
use. There had been special devices also for bringing Monk into the
confederacy. "I am confident that George Monk can have no malice in
his heart against me, nor hath he done anything against me which I
cannot easily pardon," Charles had written to Sir John Greenville on
the 21st of July, authorizing him to treat with Monk, who was a
distant relative of Greenville's, and to offer him whatever reward in
lands and titles he might himself propose as the price of his
adhesion. With this letter there had gone one to be conveyed by
Greenville to Monk. "I cannot think you will decline my interest,"
Charles there said, adding various kind expressions, and offering to
leave the time and manner of Monk's declaring for him entirely to
Monk's own judgment. The letter had not yet been delivered, but much
was expected from it. Meanwhile, as it was deemed essential to the
success of the insurrection that Charles himself should come to
England, he, Ormond, the Earl of Bristol, and one or two others,
went, with all possible privacy, from Brussels to Calais. The Duke of
York was to follow them thither, or to Boulogne; and all were to
embark together.[1]

[Footnote 1: Clarendon, 868-870; Phillips, 640 and 619-651; Guizot,
191-204.]

As usual, there was great bungling. On the one hand, Thurloe's means
of intelligence being still wonderfully goods, if only because the
Royalist traitor Sir Richard Willis still maintained with him the
curious compact made with Cromwell, and Thurloe's information being
at the disposal of the Rump Government, there had been time for some
precautions on their part, Through the whole of July 30 and July 31
the Council, with Whitlocke for President, were busy with
examinations. On the other hand, and chiefly through the agency of
Willis himself, doubts and hesitations had already arisen among the
confederates. It had all along been Willis's good-natured policy to
balance his treachery in revealing the Royalist plans by prevent