The circumstance, of the dreadful storm which happened on the day of Cromwell's death, is noticed by all writers. Many vessels were dashed on the coast, and trees and houses were overthrown, upon the land. It seemed as if that active spirit, which had rode in the whirlwind while he lived, could not depart without an universal convulsion of nature. Waller has touched upon this remarkable incident with great felicity:
We must resign; heaven his great soul does 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 were tost
Into the air:—so Romulus was lost;
New Rome in such a tempest missed her king,
And from obeying fell to worshipping.
But, while the authors of these threnodies explained this prodigious storm as attendant on the deification of the Protector, or at least the effects of the Genius of Britain's unbounded lamentation, the cavaliers unanimously agreed, that the tempest accompanied the transportation of his spirit to the infernal regions.