ings of others, there can be no doubt that his loss was deeply lamented by his own family. When the sobs of his children reached the ears of Sterry, a silly fanatic preacher, "Weep not," he said, "but rather rejoice; for he, who was your protector here, will prove a far more powerful protector now that he sits with Christ at the right hand of the Father."

About a week after Cromwell's death, Bishop Tillotson, hearing accidentally that the household of the new Protector were maintaining a solemn fast, sauntered, out of curiosity, into the presencechamber at Whitehall. Seated on one side of the table were Richard Cromwell and the rest of the Protectoral family, and on the other were six of the most popular Puritan preachers. "He heard," says Bishop Burnet, "a great deal of strange stuff, enough to disgust a man for ever of that enthusiastic boldness. God was, as it were, reproached with Cromwell's services, and challenged for taking him away so soon. Goodwin, who had pretended to assure them in a prayer that he was not to die, which was but a very few minutes before he expired, had now the impudence to say to God, Thou hast deceived us, and we were deceived.'" The impious adulation of Carrington is even more offensive. "He died," says

Carrington, "in a bed of bucklers, and on a pillow of caskets; and though the wreaths of the imperial laurel which environed his head did wither at the

groans of his agony, it was only to make place for a richer diadem, which was prepared for him in heaven." Richard Cromwell was doubtless compelled to play his part on the occasion; otherwise he had little taste for such blasphemous buffoonery.

That Cromwell made his will at Hampton Court is certain from the united evidence of several writers; and yet, after his death, the instrument was nowhere to be found. It was whispered at the time that, having nominated Fleetwood his heir and successor, one of his daughters, from selfish motives, had thought proper to commit it to the flames. According to Bates, it was missing before the death of the Protector, who caused a search to be made for it in his closet and elsewhere, but to no purpose. "It was thought," says Bates, "that he had either burnt it himself or that it had been stolen by others." Whether the Protector in that document had nominated his successor, of course cannot now be ascertained. In his last extremity, when paroxysm was succeeding paroxysm, and when it was but too evident that his hours were numbered, the council of state waited at his bedside, and endeavoured to elicit from him the name of the individual whom he would wish to fill his place.

Apparently he was

reply. Some one,

too exhausted to make any however, inquiring whether he intended it should be his son Richard, he either replied in the affirmative, or at all events showed sufficient signs of

approbation to justify the measures which were subsequently taken by the council.

The fearful tempest which howled around the death-bed of the Usurper was listened to with superstitious awe by those who were aware of his great extremity. By his frenzied worshippers it was regarded as a supernatural and divine attestation of his extraordinary powers, a symbol that a master-spirit was being snatched from the earth. His enemies, of course, interpreted it differently. They even heard the voices of demons in the roaring of the hurricane, and believed that, amidst the clashing of the elements, their arch-enemy had been whirled away by a spirit scarcely more dreaded or accursed than himself. Of the violence of the storm we have many records. Ships were dashed against the shore; houses were torn from their foundations; trees were uprooted in vast numbers, and especially in St. James's Park, close to the apartments where the Protector lay expiring. To this circumstance Waller alludes in the opening of his fine monody on the death of Cromwell:

"We must resign! Heaven his great soul doth claim,
In storms as loud as his immortal fame.

His dying groans; his last breath shakes our isle,
And trees uncut fall for his funeral pile;
About his palace their broad roots are tost

Into the air. So Romulus was lost!

And Rome in such a tempest lost her king,
And from obeying, fell to worshiping."

CHAPTER IV.

OLIVER CROMWELL.

Cromwell's "Fortunate Day"- Magnificent Ceremony of His Lying in State - His Splendid Funeral - His Body Exhumed and Exposed at Tyburn - Other Accounts of the Disposal of His Remains - The Body of Charles Supposed to Have Been Substituted for That of Cromwell — Barkstead's Singular Narrative Descendants of the Protector - Reflections on His Character and Conduct.

THE third of September had always been regarded by Cromwell as his "fortunate day." On the two successive anniversaries of that day he had gained his famous victories of Dunbar and Worcester; and yet subsequently on that very day, agreeably with a strange prophecy of Colonel Lindsey, the Protector breathed his last.'

1 In a curious pamphlet, printed in 1679, and entitled “Dayfatality, or some Observations of Days Lucky and Unlucky,' several similar evidences are carefully brought together. "On the sixth of April," says the writer, "Alexander the Great was born; upon the same day he conquered Darius, won a great victory at sea, and died the same day. Neither was this day less fortunate to his father, Philip; for on the same day he took Potidea; Parmenio, his general, gave a great overthrow to the Illyrians; and his horse was victor at the Olympic games. Upon the thirtieth of September Pompey the Great was born; upon that

The funeral of the late Protector, as well as the ceremony of lying in state, were conducted with a pomp and magnificence which have rarely been exceeded. According to Heath, the two pageants cost the enormous sum of sixty thousand pounds,' more than double what had ever been expended on the obsequies of any of our legitimate sovereigns. Noble, however, reduces the real expenditure to twenty-eight thousand pounds.

The ceremony of lying in state took place in the great hall at Somerset House. On the twentysixth of September, about ten at night, the coffin, attended by the private domestics of the late Protector, was conveyed thither in a mourning coach. A few days afterward, the public were admitted to the memorable sight. Passing through three rooms, covered with black and lined with soldiers, they were introduced into the principal apartment. The ceiling, as well as the walls of this room, were hung with black velvet, ornamented with escutcheons. About five hundred candles threw a brilliant light over the trappings of woe. Under a black canopy was placed a couch covered with crimson velvet, on which lay a waxen image of the deceased,

day he triumphed for his Asian conquest; and on that day died." There are numberless other instances from which the author deduces his fantastic theory.

'Walker, in his "History of Independency" (part iv., p. 32), places the expenses at twenty-nine thousand pounds.