CROMWELL’S FUNERAL.
Wren was engaged also in a series of observations on the planet Saturn. These pursuits were, however, interrupted by an event that convulsed all England. On September 3, 1658, during a fearful storm which swept over London, Oliver Cromwell died. Hume[66] gives a terrible account of the state of constant suspicion and fear of assassination in which Cromwell passed the last year of his life; the secret armour which he wore, his constant guard of soldiers wherever he moved, his fears on a journey, his habit of never returning the way he had come, nor by the direct road, seldom sleeping above three nights together in the same chamber, or in any he did not choose himself, or without sentinels. His body lay in state for a considerable time. The funeral, on October 22, Evelyn calls ‘superb.’ He says:—
‘I saw the Protector carried from Somerset House on a velvet bed of state drawn by six black horses, houss’d with the same; the pall held up by his new lords; Oliver lying in effigie in royal robes, crown’d with a crown, sceptre, and globe like a king ... a knight of honour armed cap-à-pie, and, after all, his guard, soldiers, and innumerable mourners. In this equipage they proceeded to Westminster; but it was the joyfullest funeral I ever saw, for there were none that cried but dogs, which the soldiers hooted away with a barbarous noise, drinking and taking tobacco in the streets as they went.’
Under the feeble rule of Richard Cromwell at first and then under the multiform tyranny of the reassembled ‘Long Parliament,’ every kind of disorder and oppression had free course. Monk grievously disappointed the Royalist hopes by proclaiming Richard Cromwell. The day of deliverance appeared more than ever distant.
LETTERS FROM LONDON.
The Gresham Professors were all driven out of the college except Dr. Goddard, Cromwell’s physician, and the place was garrisoned by soldiers, who did it great damage. Matthew Wren made an attempt two days after Cromwell’s funeral to enter the college, and sent a curious account to Christopher, who had returned to All Souls at Oxford. He writes:
‘Dear Cousin,—Yesterday being the first of the term, I resolved to see whether Dr. Horton[67] entertained the new auditory at Gresham with any lecture, for I took it for granted that if his divinity could be spared your mathematics would not be expected. But at the gate I was stopped by a man with a gun, who told me there was no admission upon that account, as the college was reformed into a garrison. Then changing my pretension, I scarce got permission to go in to Dr. Goddard, who gave me assurance enough that none of your colleagues intend to appear this term unless the soldiers be removed, of which there is no probability. Upon these premises it is the opinion of all your friends that you may save that journey hither, unless some other occasion calls you; and for these I expect you will make me your agent, if they be such as I am capable of despatching.
‘But it will not perhaps be amiss to take from hence the occasion of a short and civil letter to the Committee, signifying that you hope you have not deceived their expectations in choosing you, and that you are ready to attend your duty but for this public interruption and exclusion from your chamber; or what else you will that looks towards this.
‘I know no more domestic news than what everybody talks of. Yesterday I was in Westminster Hall, and saw only Keudigate and Windham in the two courts, and Wild and Parker in the Exchequer. In the Chancery none at all; Bradshaw keeps the seal as if it were to be carried before him in the other world, whither he is going. Glyn and Fountain pleaded at the bar. They talk much of the mediation of the two Crowns, and proceed so far as to name Marshall Clerambault for the Embassador who is to come hither from France. My service to all friends. Dear Cousin, your most humble servant,
‘M. W.