Royalty Restored | Page 9

was
divided into factions which one strong hand alone had been able to
control; and terror, begotten by dire remembrances of civil war and
bloodshed, abode with all lovers of peace.
As evening closed in, the elements appeared in unison with the
distracted condition of the kingdom. Dark clouds, seeming of ominous
import to men's minds, gathered in the heavens, to be presently torn
asunder and hurried in wild flight by tempestuous winds across the
troubled sky. As night deepened, the gale steadily increased, until it
raged in boundless fury above the whole island and the seas that rolled
around its shores. In town houses rocked on their foundations, turrets
and steeples were flung from their places; in the country great trees
were uprooted, corn-stacks levelled to the ground, and winter fruits
destroyed; whilst at sea ships sank to rise no more. This memorable
storm lasted all night, and continued until three o'clock next afternoon,
when Cromwell expired.
His body was immediately embalmed, but was of necessity interred in

great haste. Westminster Abbey, the last home of kings and princes,
was selected as the fittest resting-place for the regicide. Though it was
impossible to honour his remains by stately ceremonials, his followers
were not content to let the occasion of his death pass with-out
commemoration. They therefore had a waxen image of him made,
which they resolved to surround with all the pomp and circumstances
of royalty. For this purpose they carried it to Somerset House--one of
the late King's palaces--and placed it on a couch of crimson velvet
beneath a canopy of state. Upon its shoulders they hung a purple
mantle, in its right hand they placed a golden sceptre, and by its side
they laid an imperial crown, probably the same which, according to
Welwood, the Protector had secretly caused to be made and conveyed
to Whitehall with a view to his coronation. The walls and ceiling of the
room in which the effigy lay were covered by sable velvet; the passages
leading to it crowded with soldiery. After a few weeks the town grew
tired of this sight, when the waxen image was taken to another
apartment, hung with rich velvets and golden tissue, and otherwise
adorned to symbolize heaven, when it was placed upon a throne, clad
"in a shirt of fine Holland lace, doublet and breeches of Spanish fashion
with great skirts, silk stockings, shoe-strings and gaiters suitable, and
black Spanish leather shoes." Over this attire was flung a cloak of
purple velvet, and on his head was placed a crown with many precious
stones. The room was then lit, as Ludlow narrates, "by four or five
hundred candles set in flat shining candlesticks, so placed round near
the roof that the light they gave seemed like the rays of the sun, by all
which he was represented to be now in a state of glory." Lest, indeed,
there should be any doubt as to the place where his soul abode, Sterry,
the Puritan preacher, imparted the information to all, that the Protector
"now sat with Christ at the right hand of the Father."
But this pomp and state in no may overawed the people, who, by
pelting with mire Cromwell's escutcheon placed above the great gate of
Somerset House gave evidence of the contempt in which they held his
memory. After a lapse of over two months from the day of his death,
the effigy was carried to Westminster Abbey with more than regal
ceremony, the expenses of his lying-in-state and of his funeral
procession amounting, as stated by Walker and Noble, to upwards of

L29,000. "It was the joyfullest funeral I ever saw," writes Evelyn, "for
there were none that cried but dogs, which the soldiers hooted away
with a barbarous noise, drinking and taking tobacco as they went."
A little while before his death Cromwell had named his eldest
surviving son, Richard, as his successor, and he was accordingly
declared Protector, with the apparent consent of the council, soldiers,
and citizens. Nor did the declaration cause any excitement, "There is
not a dog who wags his tongue, so profound is the calm which we are
in," writes Thurlow to Oliver's second son, Henry, then Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland. But if the nation in its dejection made no signs of
resistance, neither did it give any indications of satisfaction, and
Richard was proclaimed "with as few expressions of joy as had ever
been observed on a like occasion." For a brief while a stupor seemed to
lull the factious party spirit which was shortly to plunge the country
into fresh difficulties. The Cromwellians and Republicans foresaw
resistless strife, and the Royalists quietly and hopefully abided results.
Nor had they long to wait. In the new Parliament assembled in January,
1659, the Republicans showed themselves numerous