f the local
management. Of Fleetwood, all in all, indeed, one knows not, by this
time, what to think. The combination of mild qualities which Milton
had eulogised in him in 1654 did not now suit. Ever since Richard's
fall, to which he had so largely contributed, Fleetwood had comported
himself as a dignified and sweet-mannered man, more acceptable in the
highest place than Lambert, but uneasy in his mind, and uncomfortable
in his relations to Lambert. He was a deeply religious man, which
Lambert was not; and it was observed that on late occasions in the
Council of Officers, when bad news made some sudden resolution
necessary, and Lambert would have been, ready with one, Fleetwood's
one resource had been "Gentlemen, let us pray." One thinks of
Fleetwood's brother-in-law, poor Henry Cromwell, and what he might
have been in Fleetwood's place. He, the man of real fitness, was in
seclusion in Cambridgeshire, rejected where he was most needed, and
indeed, though he did not yet fully know it, foreclosed already, at
the age of thirty-one, by his own honourable fidelity to his father's
ashes, from all farther career or employment in any English
world.[1]

[Footnote 1: Phillips, 674-676; Whitlocke, IV. 378-380; Skinner,
170-178; Thurloe, VII. 797-798 (Letter of Sir Anthony Ashley
Cooper, Scott, &c., to Fleetwood); Guizot, II. 54-57; Letters of M.
de Bordeaux in Appendix to Guizot, II. 307-318.]

It was close on Christmas, and the anarchy in London had become
indescribable. "I wished myself out of these daily hazards, but knew
not how to get free of them," is Whitlocke's entry in his diary for
Dec. 20; and, under Dec. 22, he writes, "Most of the soldiery about
London declared their judgment to have the Parliament sit again, in
honour, freedom, and safety; and now those who formerly were most
eager for Fleetwood's party became as violent against them, and for
the Parliament to sit again." In other words, the soldiers of
Fleetwood's own London regiments were tired of being insulted and
jeered at, and had come to the conclusion, with their brethren
everywhere else, that Lambert's _coup d'etat_ of Oct. 13 had
been a blunder and that the Rump must be reinstated.--In these
circumstances, Whitlocke, after consultation with Lord Willoughby of
Parham, the Presbyterian Major-General Browne, and others, thought
himself justified in going to Fleetwood with a very desperate
project. It was evident, Whitlocke told him, that Monk's design was