Cromwell had in vain kept from any office his former comrade, Lambert, who had refused to take the oath to the new constitution. In vain had he been delivered of an austere witness by the death of Admiral Blake, who had succumbed beneath the fatigues of his triumph, after having won the victory of Teneriffe against the Spaniards. The Protector, who had not succeeded in making himself king, was conscious of a revolutionary agitation around him. On the 4th of February, without consulting or apprising any one, he repaired to the House of Lords and caused the House of Commons to be summoned. "I had very comfortable expectations," he said, "that God would make the meeting of this Parliament a blessing. … It was granted I should name another House. I named it … of men of your own rank and quality, who should shake hands with you, who would not only be a balance unto you. … Yet, instead of owning a king, some must have I know not what, and you have not only disjointed yourselves but the whole nation, and that at the moment when the King of Scots hath an army at the water-side ready to be shipped for England. … If this be your carriage, I think it high time that an end be put to your sitting, and I do dissolve this Parliament. And let God judge between you and me." "Amen!" replied a few of the opposition.
Cromwell sought in the army the support which Parliament refused him; he convoked a grand council of officers, and expounded to them the perils of the situation, with an invasion and an insurrection imminent, Charles Stuart united with the Spaniards, the Spaniards with the Cavaliers, the Cavaliers with the Levellers; civil war certain, and the army threatened with losing all the advantages which it had conquered at the price of its blood. Parliament was laboring to destroy the constitutional act which it had voted. Were the army and its leaders determined with him to preserve it? This was responded to with acclamations. Cromwell urged on his advantages. He had noticed some officers who were gloomy and silent. He addressed them personally. "We are ready," said Parker, a major commanding his own regiment, "to fight against Charles Stuart and his adherents, but we cannot engage ourselves blindly and for every case." Cromwell did not reply, but a few days later the adverse officers were dismissed, and they proceeded to range themselves around Lambert, who was cultivating flowers in his garden at Wimbledon.
It was the general opinion that, in all these demonstrations, the Protector much exaggerated the perils with which the public peace and his government were threatened. The nation was in this neither so foreseeing nor so well informed as its chief. Indomitable in their hopes as in their hatreds, the hostile parties were rallying in the shadow of their reverses. As soon as the Protector was seen to be in contention with Parliament, which had wished to make him king, a new and terrible conspiracy was set afoot against him in all directions. Levellers, Cavaliers, Republicans, ex-members of the State-Council, Anabaptist ministers, were alike passionately engaged in it. The conspirators carried their audacity, in London even and under the eyes of Cromwell, to the point of fixing the day and hour on which the city was to be occupied, the Lord Mayor arrested, and the Tower fired.
The policy of Cromwell was as bold as, and more experienced than that of the conspirators. He had known before his best friends had discovered it that the Marquis of Ormond had visited London, to come to an understanding with the conspirators of all parties and all ranks. "Tell him that I know where he is and what he is doing," the Protector said to Lord Broghill, who was defending himself from the charge of having been cognizant of the journey of Ormond. The plot was complete and about to burst forth, but suddenly numerous hurried arrests took place, surprising the Republican, Royalist, and Anabaptist conspirators. The Tower was filled with prisoners. In London, on the very morning of the day fixed for the great insurrection, the ringleaders were captured in the house in which they had met, and Colonel Barkstead, Lieutenant of the Tower, advanced to the middle of the city with five cannon. The plot was thwarted everywhere, stricken powerless at the moment when the conspirators thought themselves assured of success.
Cromwell was unwilling to trust this important matter to a jury. By virtue of an act of the Parliament which he had recently dissolved, he constituted a High Court, composed of a hundred and thirty members and presided over by Lord Lisle, one of the judges of Charles I. The accused persons all protested against this exceptional jurisdiction. "I demand to be tried by a jury," said Sir Henry Slingsby, an indomitable Cavalier; "you are my enemies. I see among you persons who have confiscated and caused my estates to be sold. … You accuse me of having violated your laws. … I cannot have violated them since I have never submitted to them. …" Doctor Hewitt, a clergyman justly esteemed by the Church of England, claimed with the same firmness the rights "which were those of his fellow-countrymen as well as his own." Both were condemned and executed, notwithstanding the circumstance that Sir Henry Slingsby was the uncle of Lord Falconbridge, who had recently married Lady Mary, one of the daughters of the Protector, and though Doctor Hewitt had recently bestowed his blessing upon that marriage privately. Lady Claypole, the favorite daughter of Cromwell, made in common with her sisters ardent efforts to obtain the pardon of the Doctor. Cromwell was inflexible; he thought severity necessary. Six executions took place, then the Protector allowed the High Court to rest, and the last accused persons were tried by jury. He continued to be troubled and dejected—causing horses to be driven fast when he rode in his carriage, followed by numerous guards, and often changing his sleeping apartment in Whitehall. This gloomy anxiety with regard to his safety ill accorded with the character of Cromwell; his powerful self-will was still firm and bold, but an evident necessity weighed upon him; he accepted it frankly and without illusion, guarding his life with the same ardor which he had formerly brought to bear in achieving his great position.
He undoubtedly experienced a bitter mixture of pleasure and pride when he turned his eyes to the other side of the Channel, and when, while his situation at home was so precarious and so perilous, he contrasted with this the power and splendor which he had conquered abroad for his country and himself. It was precisely at this time, when he was contending so arduously in England against plots, that he obtained upon the Continent the most brilliant successes. He had not been slow to perceive that, to make war against Spain effectively, the treaty of peace and commerce which he had concluded with France did not suffice; he had therefore responded to the advances of Mazarin for a more intimate and fruitful union. A treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, between France and England had been concluded in Paris, on the 23d of March, 1657; and a few weeks later six thousand English soldiers, carefully chosen by Cromwell, landed at Boulogne, ready to join the army of Turenne. "Sire," said Lockhart, the English ambassador and a relative of Cromwell, to the young king, "the Protector has commanded his officers and soldiers to display in the service of your Majesty the same zeal as in his own." Louis XIV. showed himself to be very sensible of this mark of affection "of a prince whom he considered," he said, "as one of the greatest and happiest in Europe." The campaign was prolonged; meanwhile Mazarin did not keep his promise: Cromwell complained, as he knew how to complain. Mardyck, besieged and soon captured, was consigned as a hostage to the English; the troops marched towards Gravelines, but the Spaniards having opened all the dams around the town, the capture became impossible. It was found necessary to put off to the spring of 1658 the siege of Dunkirk. The town was invested; all the court was present to be witnesses of the assault. The Spaniards would not believe that Dunkirk was in danger. Don John of Austria hastened forward, however, to its defence, with his cavalry and a portion of the artillery. The Prince of Condé, unhappily engaged among the enemies of his country, was desirous of awaiting the remainder of the troops. "I am persuaded," said Don John, "that the French will not even dare to look at the army of his Catholic Majesty face to face." "Ah! you do not know M. de Turenne," said Condé; "a mistake is not made with impunity in presence of that man." The fight began on the 14th of June. At daybreak Turenne sent an intimation to Lockhart, who had assumed the command of the English troops. The aide-de-camp of the marshal was desirous of explaining his plan to the English general. "It is well," replied Lockhart, "I rely upon M. de Turenne; he shall tell me his reasons after the battle, if it is agreeable to him." Strange contrast between the manly discipline of English good sense, and the frivolous blindness of Spanish pride. Condé was not mistaken; the issue of the battle could not be doubtful to his old experience. "My lord," he said to the young Duke of Gloucester, who was serving in the Spanish army with his brother, the Duke of York, "you have never seen an army give battle?" "No, prince." "Well, you are going to see how a battle may be lost." The battle of the Dunes was in fact completely lost by the Spaniards. With two exceptions, all the officers of the regiment of Lockhart were killed or wounded. On the 25th of June, 1658, Louis XIV. entered Dunkirk, to solemnly surrender it into the hands of the English. "Although the court and the army may be in despair at depriving themselves of so good a morsel," wrote Lockhart to Thurloe, "the cardinal is firm in his promises, and appears as pleased at surrendering this town into the hands of his Highness as I am to receive it. The king is also extremely obliging and polite, and he has more probity in his soul than I imagined."
It was a great triumph for Cromwell, and he enjoyed it without suffering himself to be dazzled by success. An exchange of magnificent embassies—Lord Falconbridge in France on the part of the Protector, the Duke of Créquy in England on the part of Louis XIV.—completed the ratification of this alliance, which had already borne such glorious fruit and restored to England that foothold in France of which the Duke of Guise had deprived it in reconquering Calais. Cromwell began once more to think of the election of a new Parliament, which at last should sanction, support, and perpetuate his power. The confidence of the country and the money necessary for the war were equally wanting to him. His friends urged him to nominate his successor.