six Englishmen entered the house; four remained below to watch; two burst into the room, exclaiming, "Welcome, gallants, welcome;" and in a moment both the ambassador and the interpreter lay on the floor weltering in their blood. Of the assassins, one, a servant to Cottington and Hyde, the envoys from Charles, fled to the house of the Venetian ambassador, and escaped; the other five took refuge in a neighbouring chapel, whence, by the king's order, they were conducted to the common goal. When the criminal process was ended, they all received judgment of death. The crime, it was acknowledged, could not be justified; yet the public feeling was in favour of the criminals: the people, the clergy, the foreign ambassadors, all sought to save them from punishment; and, though the right of sanctuary did not afford protection to murderers, the king was, but with difficulty, persuaded to send them back to their former asylum. Here, while they remained within its precincts, they were safe; but the moment they left the sanctuary, their lives became forfeited to the law. The people supplied them with provisions, and offered the means of escape. They left Madrid; the police pursued; Sparkes, a native of Hampshire, was taken about three miles from the city; and the parliament, unable to obtain more, appeared to be content with the blood of this single victim.[1]
6. These negotiations ended peaceably; those between the commonwealth and the United Provinces, though commenced with friendly feelings, led to hostilities. It might have been expected that the Dutch, mindful of the glorious struggle for liberty maintained
[Footnote 1: Compare Clarendon, iii. 369, with the Papers in Thurloe, i. 148-153, 202, and Harleian Miscellany, iv. 280.]
by their fathers, and crowned with success by the treaty of Munster, would have viewed with exultation the triumph of the English republicans. But William the Second, prince of Orange, had married[a] a daughter of Charles I.; his views and interests were espoused by the military and the people; and his adherents possessed the ascendancy in the States General and in all the provincial states, excepting those of West Friesland and Holland. As long as he lived, no atonement could be obtained for the murder of Dorislaus, no audience for Strickland, the resident ambassador, though that favour was repeatedly granted to Boswell, the envoy of Charles.[1] However, in November the prince died of the small-pox in his twenty-fourth year; and a few days later[c] his widow was delivered of a son, William III., the same who subsequently ascended the throne of England. The infancy of his successor emboldened the democratical party; they abolished the office of stadtholder, and recovered the ascendancy in the government. On the news of this revolution, the council advised that St. John, the chief justice of the Common Pleas, and Strickland, the former envoy, should be appointed ambassadors extraordinary to the States General. St. John, with the fate of Ascham before his eyes, sought to escape this dangerous mission; he alleged[d] the infirmity of his health and the insalubrity of the climate; but the parliament derided his timidity, and his petition was dismissed on a division by a considerable majority.[2]
Among the numerous projects which the English leaders cherished under the intoxication of success, was that of forming, by the incorporation of the
[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 112, 113, 114, 124.]
[Footnote 2: Journals, 1651, Jan. 21, 23, 28.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1646. Dec. 8.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Nov. 6.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. Nov. 14.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1651. Jan. 28.]
United Provinces with the commonwealth, a great and powerful republic, capable of striking terror into all the crowned heads of Europe. But so many difficulties were foreseen, so many objections raised, that the ambassadors received instructions to confine themselves to the more sober proposal of "a strict and intimate alliance and union, which might give to each a mutual and intrinsical interest" in the prosperity of the other. They made their public entry into the Hague[a] with a parade and retinue becoming the representatives of a powerful nation; but external splendour did not check the popular feeling, which expressed itself by groans and hisses, nor intimidate the royalists, who sought every occasion of insulting "the things called ambassadors."[1] The States had not forgotten the offensive delay of the parliament to answer their embassy of intercession for the life of Charles I.; nor did they brook the superiority which it now assumed, by prescribing a certain term within which the negotiation should be concluded. Pride was met with equal pride; the ambassadors were compelled to solicit a prolongation of their powers, and the treaty began to proceed with greater rapidity. The English proposed[c] a confederacy for the preservation of the liberties of each nation against all the enemies
[Footnote 1: Thus they are perpetually called in the correspondence of the royalists.—Carte's Letters, i. 447, 469; ii. 11. Strickland's servants were attacked at his door by six cavaliers with drawn swords; an attempt was made to break into St. John's bedchamber; Edward, son to the queen of Bohemia, publicly called the ambassadors rogues and dogs; and the young duke of York accidentally meeting St. John, who refused to give way to him, snatched the ambassador's hat off his head and threw it in his face, saying, "Learn, parricide, to respect the brother of your king." "I scorn," he replied, "to acknowledge either, you race of vagabonds." The duke drew his sword, but mischief was prevented by the interference of the spectators,—New Parl. Hist. iii. 1, 364.]