orfolk Howards, was raised to the dignity of
Viscount Howard of Morpeth and Baron Gilsland in Cumberland;
Cromwell's relative, Edmund Dunch, of Little Wittenham, Berks, was
created Baron Burnell, April 20, 1658; and Cromwell, just before his
death, made, or wanted to make, Bulstrode Whitlocke a Viscount.]

As early as April the new Parliament had been thought of, and since
June there had been a select committee of nine, precognoscing the
chances, considering the questions to be brought up, and feeling in
every way the public pulse. The nine so employed were Lords
Fleetwood, Fiennes, Desborough, Pickering, Philip Jones, Whalley,
Cooper, and Goffe, and Mr, Secretary Thurloe. There are a few
glimpses of their consultations in the Thurloe correspondence, where
also there is a hint of some hope of the compliance at last even of
such old Republicans as Vane and Ludlow. But July 1658 had come, and
no one yet knew when the Parliament would meet. It could not be
expected then before the end of the year.[1]

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, VII. 99, 151-152, et seq.]

Before that time Oliver Cromwell was to be out of the world. Though
but in his sixtieth year, and with his prodigious powers of will,
intellect, heart, and humour, unimpaired visibly in the least atom,
his frame had for some time been giving way under the pressure of his
ceaseless burden. For a year or two his handwriting, though statelier
and more deliberate than at first, had been singularly tremulous, and
to those closest about him there had been other signs of physical
breaking-up. Not till late in July, however, or early in August, was
there any serious cause for alarm, and then in consequence of the
terrible effects upon his Highness of his close attendance on the
death-bed of his second daughter, the much-loved Lady Claypole. She
had been lingeringly ill for some time, of a most painful internal
disease, aggravated by the death of her youngest boy, Oliver. Hampton
Court had received her as a dying invalid, tortured by "frequent and
long convulsion-fits"; and here, through a great part of July, the
fond father had been hanging about her, broken-hearted and unfit for
business. For his convenience the Council had transferred its
meetings from Whitehall to Hampton Court; but, though he was present
at one there on July 15, he avoided one on July 20, another on July
22, and a third on July 27. On the 29th, which was the fifth meeting
at Hampton Court, he did look in again