elf to the preachers as
an assurance that their prayers were heard. Writing to Henry Cromwell
at nine o'clock that night, Thurloe could say, "The doctors are yet
hopeful that he may struggle through it, though their hopes are
mingled with much fear." Even the next day, Tuesday, Aug. 31,
Cromwell was still himself, still consciously the Lord Protector.
Through the storm of the preceding day Ludlow had made a journey to
London from Essex on family-business, beaten back in the morning by a
wind against which two horses could not make way, but contriving late
at night to push on as far as Epping. "By this means," he says, "I
arrived not at Westminster till Tuesday about noon, when, passing by
Whitehall, notice was immediately given to Cromwell that I was come
to town. Whereupon he sent for Lieutenant General Fleet wood, and
ordered him to enquire concerning the reasons of my coming at such
haste and at such a time." If Cromwell could attend to such a matter
that day, he must have been able also to prompt the resolution of his
Council in Whitehall the same day in the case of the Duke of
Buckingham. It was that the Duke, on account of his health, might be
removed from the Tower to Windsor Castle, but must continue in
confinement. At the end of the day, Fleetwood, writing to Henry
Cromwell, reported, "The Lord is pleased to give some little reviving
this evening: after few slumbering sleeps, his pulse is better." As
near as can be guessed, it was that same night that Cromwell himself
uttered the well-known short prayer, the words of which, or as nearly
as possible the very words, were preserved by the pious care of his
chamber-attendant Harvey. It is to the same authority that we owe the
most authentic record of the religious demeanour of the Protector
from the beginning of his illness. Very beautifully and simply Harvey
tells us of his "holy expressions," his fervid references to
Scripture texts, and his repetitions of some texts in particular,
such repetitions "usually being very weighty and with great vehemency
of spirit." One of them was "It is a fearful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God." Three times he repeated this; but the texts
of promise and of Christian triumph had all along been more
frequently on his lips. All in all, his single short prayer, which
Harvey places "two or three days before his end," may be read as the
summary of all that we need to know now of the dying Puritan in these
eternal respects