NVASION FROM FLANDERS, AND
RAMIFICATIONS OF THE ROYALIST CONSPIRACY AT HOME: ARRESTS OF
ROYALISTS. AND EXECUTION OF SLINGSBY AND HEWIT: THE CONSPIRACY
CRUSHED: DEATH OF ROBERT RICH: THE EARL OF WARWICK'S LETTER TO
CROMWELL, AND HIS DEATH: MORE SUCCESSES IN FLANDERS: SIEGE AND
CAPTURE OF DUNKIRK: SPLENDID EXCHANGES OF COMPLIMENTS BETWEEN
CROMWELL AND LOUIS XIV.: NEW INTERFERENCE IN BEHALF OF THE
PIEDMONTESE PROTESTANTS, AND PROJECT OF A PROTESTANT COUNCIL _DE
PROPAGANDA FIDE_; PROSPECTS OF THE CHURCH ESTABLISHMENT: DESIRE OF
THE INDEPENDENTS FOR A CONFESSION OF FAITH: ATTENDANT DIFFICULTIES:
CROMWELL'S POLICY IN THE AFFAIRS OF THE SCOTTISH KIRK: HIS DESIGN FOR
THE EVANGELIZATION AND CIVILIZATION OF THE HIGHLANDS: HIS GRANTS TO
THE UNIVERSITIES OF EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW; HIS COUNCIL IN SCOTLAND:
MONK AT DALKEITH: CROMWELL'S INTENTIONS IN THE CASES OF BIDDLE AND
JAMES NAYLER; PROPOSED NEW ACT FOR RESTRICTION OF THE PRESS: FIRMNESS
AND GRANDEUR OF THE PROTECTORATE IN JULY 1658: CROMWELL'S BARONETCIES
AND KNIGHTHOODS: WILLINGNESS TO CALL ANOTHER PARLIAMENT: DEATH OF
LADY CLAYPOLE: CROMWELL'S ILLNESS AND LAST DAYS, WITH THE LAST ACTS
AND INCIDENTS OF HIS PROTECTORSHIP.

Whether Cromwell's Second and Constitutionalized Protectorship was as
agreeable to himself as his First had been may be doubted. He had
accepted it, however, and meant to try it in all good faith. If, on
the one hand, it was more limited, on the other it was attended with
more of grandeur and dignity. Inasmuch as the actual Kingship had
been offered him, and the new constitution was exactly that which
would have gone with the Kingship, his Protectorship now, in the eyes
of all the world, was equivalent to Kingship. When inducted into his
First Protectorship, stately though the ceremonial had been, he had
worn but a black velvet suit, with a gold band round his hat, and
the chief symbol of his investiture had been the removal of his own
military sword and substitution of the civil sword presented to him
by Lambert. He had come into this Second Protectorship robed in
purple, and holding a sceptre of massy gold. In heraldry, as well as
in reality, he had taken his place among the Sovereigns of Europe.

Round about Cromwell, even through the First Protectorate, there had
been, as we have abundantly seen, much of the splendour and equipage
of sovereignty. The phrases "His Highness's Court" and "His
Highness's Household" had become quite familiar. On all public