Parliamentary differences, jealousies of political parties, sectarian bitterness, which it pleased them to call religious opinion, were all seething to the great issue. The powerful mind of Cromwell was not for ever to be proof against myriad influences. If he desired the Crown, he dared not accept it: as he dared not do many things which appealed to his own inclinations.
Having abolished the Anglican Church, he would have reinstated it. Anything was better than the wild fanaticism that was overrunning the land—Anabaptists, Quakers, Muggletonians, Fifth Monarchy Men, et hoc genus omne, who, all claiming the one divine spirit, seemed animated by a million devils of hatred, pride, and malice. Haunted by memories, saddened by domestic sorrows and bereavements, grown fearful of the pitfalls for his own death lying in his path, the existence of the Lord Protector was one he must have been well willing to break with. Colonel Titus promulgating his views of “Killing no Murder” in his tract; Ralph Syndercombe plotting his bloody deed in the little Shepherd’s Bush cottage; and how many more biding their time? But it was not so the end came to Oliver Cromwell.
When he had prayed for peace—the much-needed peace—for the people and for himself, “Lord, pardon them all,” he went on, “and whatever Thou mayst do with me, grant them Thy mercy, and me also. Give them peace.” The dawn of 3rd September broke—the anniversaries of Dunbar and of Worcester, Cromwell’s “lucky day.” Parched with the thirst of his aguish fever, they put a cup of drink to his lips. “I will neither drink nor sleep,” he said. “I am thinking only of making haste. I must depart.” And so he died.
And so when Richard Cromwell had just tasted of the cup of dignities his father had left him, and but too gladly set it down again, and retired to his quiet country home in the lanes of Cheshunt, Charles II. was brought in triumph to Whitehall.
That home-coming is a tale told too often to tell again here—even though Lady Derby has much to say about it in her graphic correspondence. Many details of how gracious his Majesty was to her, how handsome but for this or that his Queen would be, are mixed up with those of her children’s marriages. When those sons and daughters reached marriageable years, the worst of the Royalist troubles were past. There was no difficulty in their making suitable alliances. Amelia was married to the Earl of Athole. Catherine, less happy in her union, became Marchioness of Dorchester. Mary, “dear Mall,” became Lady Strafford. Two of her sons died while still children.
Of absorbing interest to herself—as indeed they all might well be—the incidents of Court life, and the doings of her children and friends, drag somewhat heavily for us, like the more commonplace though dazzling groupings in some stirring drama whose curtain is about to fall.
Her own little day of life was nearing its setting. She died at a fitting time. The son was not the father. The rebound from Puritanism and religious hypocrisy o’erleaped itself. The licence of Court life soon came to be a scandal and a grief to many of Charles II.’s most loyal servants, as assuredly it might have made the stately martyred King turn in his grave. To the Mistress Nellys and my Lady Castlemaynes nothing was sacred; and when these frail “beauties” had contrived to humble their Queen in her own presence-chamber, or to secure a Clarendon’s downfall, they were well pleased with their day’s work.
With some prescience of this, the Countess of Derby, no longer compelled to remain in London, spent much of her time at Knowsley. Chancellor Clarendon, who had been negotiating arrangements for the restitution of her pension, had left England in disgust at the indifference of the Court and the ingratitude of the King, who was prone to make a hand-clasp and a “God bless you, my old friend,” do duty for more substantial repayments to impoverished Royalists.
On 6th February 1663 the Countess was ill, and writes thus:—
“If the winter is as bitter where you are as it is here, it is a miracle to think your health has improved. Mine has been very indifferent for more than a month; but God has preserved it for me. I pray Him to enable me to use it to better account than I have done in the past, and it is that which impels me to hasten to tell you that it has pleased his Royal Highness to give to your nephew Stanley the post of first and sole gentleman of the bedchamber, which is a very desirable one, and, what is of more importance, that it is the voluntary act of his Highness, to whom, and to the Duchess, he owes all the obligation. His youngest brother has a cornetcy in the King’s Guards. His Majesty has done him the honour to tell him that this is only a commencement. Therefore I have hope.... All that I have to add is that I pray God to give you many long and happy years, with all the content you can desire. Permit me to say also as much to my brother.”