A second House of Parliament was to be organised, to consist of not less than forty members, nor more than seventy, who were to be nominated by the Protector, and approved by the Commons. It was not to be called the House of Lords, nor the Upper, but the Other House. The same qualifications and disqualifications applied to it as to the Commons. All judges and public officers, as well as those of the army and navy, were to be approved of by the two Houses; or if Parliament were not sitting, by the Council. Another article settled the revenue, and all relating to it and—the most important one to the Protector—he was authorised to name his successor before his death. These matters being settled, and the Instrument revised by Parliament, on the 8th of May Cromwell summoned the House to meet him in the Banqueting-house, Whitehall, where he ratified the rest of the Instrument, but gave them this answer as to the kingship—that having taken all the circumstances into consideration, both public and private, he did not feel at liberty in his conscience to accept the government with the title of king; that whatever was not of faith was sin; and that not being satisfied that he could accept it in that form to the real advantage of the nation, he should not be an honest man if he did not firmly—but with every acknowledgment of the infinite obligations they had laid him under—decline it. This was his answer to that great and weighty business.
Whitelock assures us that Cromwell at one time had been satisfied in his private judgment that he might accept the royal title, but that the formidable opposition of the officers of the army had shown him that it might lead to dangerous and deplorable results, and that therefore he believed it better to waive it. Whatever the motives, whether those of conscience or prudence, or both, inciting the Protector, he surmounted his temptation, and decided with the firmness characteristic of him. Major-Generals Whalley, Goffe, and Berry are said to have been for his acceptance of the crown; Desborough and Fleetwood were strenuous against it, but Lambert, temporising, appearing to approve whilst he was secretly opposing, and at length coming out strong against it, was the only one whom Cromwell visited with his displeasure. He dismissed him, but with a pension of two thousand pounds a year, and Lambert retired to Wimbledon, where it had been happy for him had he remained in quiet.
On the 26th of June, 1657, the grand ceremony of the inauguration of the Protector as the head of this new Government took place in Westminster Hall. The Protector went thither from Whitehall by water, and entered the hall in the following manner:—First went his gentlemen, then a herald, next the aldermen, another herald, then Norroy, the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, and the Great Seal carried by Commissioner Fiennes, then Garter, and after him the Earl of Warwick, with the sword borne before the Protector, bareheaded, the Lord Mayor carrying the City sword at his left hand. Being seated in his chair, on the left hand of it stood the Lord Mayor and the Dutch ambassador; on the right the French ambassador and the Earl of Warwick; next behind him stood his son Richard and his sons-in-law Claypole and Fleetwood, and the Privy Council. Upon a lower platform stood the Lord Viscount Lisle, Lord Montague, and Whitelock, with drawn swords. As the Protector stood under the cloth of State, the Speaker presented him with a robe of purple velvet, lined with ermine, which the Speaker and Whitelock put upon him. Then the Speaker presented him with a Bible richly gilt and bossed, girt the sword about his Highness, and delivered into his hand the sceptre of massy gold. Having done this, he made the Protector an address, and finally administered the oath. Then Mr. Manton, one of the chaplains, in prayer recommended his Highness, the Parliament, the Council, the forces by land and sea, and the whole Government and the people of the three nations to the blessing and protection of God. On that the trumpets sounded, the heralds proclaimed his Highness Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland; and again the trumpets sounded, and the people shouted, "God save the Protector!" This closed the ceremony, and the Protector and his train returned to Whitehall as they came.
The ceremony, it is clear, fell little short of a royal ceremony, with the exception of the crown and the anointing. Charles Stuart might have used the words of James of Scotland to Johnny Armstrong—"What lacks this knave that a king should have?" With the exception of the name of king, Cromwell, the farmer, was become the monarch of Great Britain and Ireland. He had all the power, and inhabited the palaces of kings. He had the right to place his son in the supreme seat after him; and one whole House of Parliament was of his own creation, while the other was purged to his express satisfaction.
Cromwell had not enjoyed his new dignity more than about six weeks, when he received the news of the death of his great Admiral Blake. His health had been for some time decaying. Scurvy and dropsy were fast destroying him, yet to the last he kept his command at sea, and finished his career with one of the most brilliant victories which had ever been achieved. During the winter and spring he maintained the blockade of Cadiz, but learning that the Plate fleet had taken refuge in the harbour of Santa Cruz, in the Island of Teneriffe, he made sail thither. He found the fleet drawn up under the guns of seven batteries in the harbour, which was shaped like a horseshoe. The merchantmen, ten in number, were ranged close inshore, and the galleons, in number and of greater force than any of his own ships, placed in front of them. It was a sight—seven forts, a castle, and sixteen ships—to have daunted any man but Blake. Don Diego Darques, the Spanish admiral, was so confident of the impregnable nature of his position, that he sent Blake word to come and take his vessels. "But," says Clarendon, "the illustrious genius of Blake was admired even by the hostile faction of his countrymen. He was the first man that declined the old track, and made it manifest that the science might be obtained in less time than was imagined; and despised those rules which had been long in practice, to keep his ship and men out of danger, which had been held in former times a point of great ability and circumspection, as if the principal art requisite in the captain of a ship had been to be sure to come safe home again; the first man who brought the ships to contemn castles on shore, which had been thought ever very formidable; the first that infused that portion of courage into the seamen, by making them see what mighty things they could do if they were resolved, and taught them to fight in fire as well as upon water."
Blake did not hesitate. The wind was blowing into the harbour on the 20th of April, 1657; and trusting to the omnipotent instincts of courage, he dashed into the harbour at eight o'clock in the morning. Stayner, who had so lately defeated the Spanish Plate fleet, and destroyed in it the viceroy of Peru, now led the way in a frigate, and Blake followed with the larger ships. His fleet altogether amounted to twenty-five sail. It was received with a hurricane of fire from the batteries on both sides the harbour and the fleet in front; but discharging his artillery right and left, he advanced, silencing the forts, and soon driving the seamen from the front line of galleons into the merchant ships. For four hours the terrible encounter continued, the British exposed to a deadly hail of ball from the shore as well as the ships, but still pressing on till the Spanish ships were all in flames, and reduced to ashes, the troops in them having escaped to land. The question, then, was how to escape out of the harbour, and from the fury of the exasperated Spaniards on the land around. But Blake drew his ships out of reach of the forts and, as if Providence had wrought in his favour—as Blake firmly believed He did—the wind about sunset veered suddenly round, and the fleet sailed securely out to sea.
The fame of this unparalleled exploit rang throughout Europe, and raised the reputation of England for naval prowess to the greatest pitch. Unhappily, death was fast claiming the undaunted admiral. He was suffering at the moment that he won this brilliant triumph, and, sailing homewards, he expired (August 17, 1657) on board his ship, the St. George, just as it entered the harbour of Plymouth. Besides the high encomium of Clarendon, he received that of a writer of his own party and time, in the narrative of the "Perfect Politician"—"He was a man most wholly devoted to his country's service, resolute in his undertakings, and most faithful in his performances of them. With him valour seldom missed its reward, nor cowardice its punishment. When news was brought him of a metamorphosis in the State at home, he would then encourage the seamen to be most vigilant abroad; for, said he, it was not our duty to mind State affairs, but to keep foreigners from fooling us. In all his expeditions the wind seldom deceived him, but mostly in the end stood his friend, especially in his last undertaking in the Canary Islands. To the last he lived a single life, never being espoused to any but his country's quarrels. As he lived bravely, he died gloriously, and was buried in Henry VII.'s Chapel, yet enjoying at this time no other monument but what is raised by his valour, which time itself can hardly deface."
During this summer, Oliver had not only been gloriously engaged at sea, but he had been busy on land. He was in league with Louis XIV. of France to drive the Spaniards from the Netherlands. The French forces were conducted by the celebrated Marshal Turenne, and the Spanish by Don John of Austria, and the French insurgent chief, the Prince of Condé. Cromwell sent over six thousand men under Sir John Reynolds, who landed near Boulogne on the 13th and 14th of May. They were supported by a strong fleet under Admiral Montague, the late colleague of Blake, which cruised on the coast. The first united operations were to be the reduction of Gravelines, Mardyke, and Dunkirk, the first of which places, when taken, was to belong to France, the two latter to England. If Gravelines were taken first, it was to be put into possession of England, as a pledge for the conveyance of the two latter. This bold demand on the part of Cromwell astonished his French allies, and was violently opposed by the French cabinets, who told Louis that Dunkirk once in the hands of the English, would prove another Calais to France. But without Dunkirk, which Cromwell deemed necessary as a check to the Royalist invasions from the Netherlands, with which he was continually threatened, no aid was to be had from the Protector, and it was conceded, whence came the angry declaration from the French, that "Mazarin feared Cromwell more than the Devil."
The French Court endeavoured to employ the English forces on other work than the reduction of these stipulated places. The young French king went down to the coast to see the British army, and having expressed much admiration of them recommended them to lay siege to Montmédy, Cambray, and other towns in the interior. Cromwell was, however, too much of a man of business and a general to suffer this. He ordered his ambassador, Sir William Lockhart (who had married the Protector's niece, Miss Rosina Sewster) to remonstrate, and insist on the attack of Gravelines, Mardyke, and Dunkirk. He told the ambassador that to talk of Cambray and interior towns as guarantees was "parcels of words for children. If they will give us garrisons, let them give us Calais, Dieppe, and Boulogne." He bade him tell the Cardinal that if he meant any good from the treaty with him, he must keep it, and go to work on Dunkirk, when, if necessary, he would send over two thousand more of his veterans. This had the necessary effect: Mardyke was taken after a siege of three days only, and put into the hands of the English on the 23rd of September. The attack was then turned on Gravelines; but the enemy opened their sluices, and laid all the country round under water. On this Turenne, probably glad of the delay, put his troops at that early period into winter quarters. During this time attempts were made to corrupt the English officers by the Stuart party. The Duke of York was in the Spanish army with the English Royalist exiles, and communications were opened as of mere civility with the English at Mardyke. As the English officers took their rides between Mardyke and Dunkirk they were frequently met by the duke's officers, and conversation took place. Sir John Reynolds was imprudent enough to pay his respects to the duke on these occasions, and he was soon ordered to London to answer for his conduct; but both he and a Colonel White, who was evidence against him, were lost on the 5th of December on the Goodwin Sands. The Duke of York now made a treacherous attack on Mardyke, but was repulsed, and the affairs of Charles II. appeared so hopeless, that Burnet asserts, and the same thing is asserted also in the "Orrery Letters," that he was now mean enough to offer to marry one of Cromwell's daughters, and thus settle all differences, but that Cromwell told Lord Orrery that Charles was so debauched that he would undo them all. Cromwell, indeed, just now married his two remaining single daughters, Frances and Mary, to the Lords Rich and Falconberg. Frances married Lord Rich, the son of the Earl of Warwick, and Mary Lord Falconberg, of the Yorkshire family of Bellasis, formerly so zealous for the royal party.
