Royalty Restored | Page 7

the last moments of your life, to
consider with how much benefit to the world you are likely to leave it.
It is then only, my lord, the titles you now usurp will be truly yours;
you will then be, indeed, the deliverer of your country, and free it from
a bondage little inferior to that from which Moses delivered his, you
will then be that true reformer which you would now be thought;
religion shall then be restored, liberty asserted, and Parliaments have
those privileges they have sought for. All this we hope from your
Highness's happy expiration. To hasten this great good is the chief end
of my writing this paper; and if it have the effects I hope it will, your
Highness will quickly be out of the reach of men's malice, and your
enemies will only be able to wound you in your memory, which strokes
you will not feel."

The possession of life becomes dearest when its forfeiture is threatened,
and therefore Cromwell took all possible means to guard against
treachery--the only foe he feared, and feared exceedingly. "His sleeps
were disturbed with the apprehensions of those dangers the day
presented unto him in the approaches of any strange face, whose
motion he would most fixedly attend," writes James Heath, gentleman,
in his "Chronicles," published in 1675. "Above all, he very carefully
observed such whose mind or aspect were featured with any chearful
and debonair lineaments; for such he boded were they that would
despatch him; to that purpose he always went secretly armed, both
offensive and defensive; and never stirred without a great guard. In his
usual journey between Whitehall and Hampton Court, by several roads,
he drove full speed in the summer time, making such a dust with his
life-guard, part before and part behinde, at a convenient distance, for
fear of choaking him with it, that one could hardly see for a quarter of
an hour together, and always came in some private way or other." The
same authority, in his "Life of Cromwell," states of him, "It was his
constant custom to shift and change his lodging, to which he passed
through twenty several locks, and out of which he had four or five ways
to avoid pursuit." Welwood, in his "Memoirs," adds the Protector wore
a coat of mail beneath his dress, and carried a poniard under his cloak.
Nor was this all. According to the "Chronicle of the late Intestine War,"
Cromwell "would sometimes pretend to be merry, and invite persons,
of whom he had some suspicion, to his cups, and then drill out of their
open hearts such secrets as he wisht for. He had freaks also to divert the
vexations of his misgiving thoughts, calling on by the beat of drum his
footguards, like a kennel of hounds to snatch away the scraps and
reliques of his table. He said every man's hand was against him, and
that he ran daily into further perplexities, out of which it was
impossible to extricate, or secure himself therein, without running into
further danger; so that he began to alter much in the tenour of his
former converse, and to run and transform into the manners of the
ancient tyrants, thinking to please and mitigate his own tortures with
the sufferings of others."
But now the fate his vigilance had hitherto combated at last overtook

him in a manner impossible to evade. He was attacked by divers
infirmities, but for some time made no outward sign of his suffering,
until one day five physicians came and waited on him, as Dr. George
Bate states in his ELENCHUS MOTUUM NUPERORUM. And one of
them, feeling his pulse, declared his Highness suffered from an
intermittent fever; hearing which "he looked pale, fell into a cold sweat,
almost fainted away, and orders himself to be carried to bed." His fright,
however, was but momentary. He was resolved to live. He had
succeeded in raising himself to a position of vast power, but had failed
in attaining the great object of his ambition--the crowned sovereignty
of the nation he had stirred to its centre, and conquered to its furthest
limits. Brought face to face with death, his indomitable will, which had
shaped untoward circumstances to his accord with a force like unto fate
itself, now determined to conquer his shadowy enemy which alone
intercepted his path to the throne. Therefore as he lay in bed he said to
those around him with that sanctity of speech which had cloaked his
cruellest deeds and dissembled his most ambitious designs, "I would be
willing to live to be further serviceable to God and his people."
As desires of waking hours are answered in sleep, so in response to his
nervous craving for life he had delusive assurances of