Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/361

] and still more strange, the levellers, pretending to demand a freer and more republican government, had entered into the unnatural alliance with Charles and Spain to murder him and destroy the commonwealth.

All this was perfectly true. Sexby, the leveller, had gone over to Charles, and thence to Spain, to solicit aid towards a popish invasion, offering first to kill Cromwell himself. He obtained forty thousand crowns for the use of his party, and a promise of six thousand men when they were ready to land in England, who should wait in Flanders. Some of this money, when remitted to the accomplices in England, Cromwell intercepted, as he assured the parliament. Sexby followed to accomplish his design of assassinating the protector, as we shall find anon. Cromwell proceeded to remind parliament of the insurrections excited by Charles's emissaries, Wagstaff and Rochester, and the conspiracy of Gerard and Vowel, the outbreaks at Salisbury, Rufford Abbey, and a score of other places; of Wildman taken in the act of penning his call to rebellion, of the design to destroy Monk in Scotland, and of similar instigations in the army in Ireland; of the plottings of the Lord Taafe with Hyde at Antwerp; and, finally, that there had been an attempt to blow him up with gunpowder in his own house, and an officer of the guard had been engaged to seize him in his bed. These last he characterised as "little fiddling attempts not worth naming," and which he regarded no more than he did "a mouse nibbling at his heel." But he told them that the animus altogether was of that un-English and un-Christian character, that it became them to fight fully against it, and though they were low in funds, till they should still put forth all their energies to crush this malignant power of Spain, whence the other enemies drew for strength. He assured them that France was well disposed to them, and that all the rest of the world was at peace with them; and, therefore, the greater the complication of interests amongst their Spanish and domestic enemies, then, he exclaimed, "that in the name of God is the greater reason for you to act vigorously, and waste no precious time!"

He then assured them that the major-generals had done good service in every quarter, that the improvement of the ministry had become manifest through the exercise of the commissioners, and that the presbyterians had themselves expressed their approbation of what had been done in that respect. He strongly recommended to them further equalisation and improvement of the laws, so that every one should have cheap and easy justice, and that the purification of the public morals should be carefully attended to—"The cavalier interest, the badge and character of continuing profaneness, disorder, and wickedness in all places," having worked such deplorable effects. "Nobility and gentry of this nation!" he exclaimed; "in my conscience it was a shame to be a Christian, within these fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen years in this nation; whether 'in Caesar's house' or elsewhere! It was a shame, it was a reproach to a man, and the badge of 'Puritan' was put on it." As they would maintain nobility and gentry, he told them they must not suffer these classes "to be patronisers or countenancers of debauchery and disorders! And therefore," he concluded, "I pray and beseech you, in the name of Christ, show yourselves to be men; quit yourselves like men! It doth not infer any reproach if you do show yourselves men—Christian men, which alone will make you quit yourselves."

In the early days of the sitting of this parliament—that is, in the beginning of October—came the news of Stayner's victory over the Spanish Plate fleet, and the capture of the treasure; and in the beginning of November the money arrived, and thirty-eight wagon-loads of silver were sent up from Portsmouth to the mint to be coined, and universal rejoicings. Before the year closed, also, Cromwell, by the help of Mazarin, effected a temporary separation of interests betwixt Charles Stuart and the duke of York; but it did not last long. But by this time colonel Sexby was in England, watching his opportunity to murder Cromwell. He was daring enough to introduce himself amongst the protector's escort in Hyde Park, and he and his accomplices had filed nearly through the hinges of the gates through which the protector was accustomed to pass, so that they might create a sudden obstruction and confusion, during which Sexby might shoot Cromwell. But not being able to succeed to his mind, Sexby returned to Flanders to consult with the royal party, and left sixteen hundred pounds in the hands of one Miles Sindercomb, a cashiered quartermaster, who was to carry out the bloody design. Sindercomb took a house in Hamersmith, where the road by which the protector passed to and from Hampton Court was very narrow, and there he prepared an "infernal machine," consisting of a battery of seven blunderbuses, which was to blow Cromwell's coach to atoms as it passed; but the machine did not answer, or could not be used from the crowd of guards: and then Sindercomb resolved to set fire to Whitehall by night, and kill Cromwell as he came out in the confusion, he had bribed a great number of accomplices, many of them in the palace itself, and had probably a considerable number of fellow conspirators, for he had a hundred swift horses in stables in the neighbourhood, on which he and his confederates might escape, the deed being done. All this was with the privity and approbation of Charles, Clarendon, and the rest of that court, and shows the state of moral principle in it, and which, after the restoration, broke over England like a pestilence. They were constantly dabbling in attempts at assassination, and in the Clarendon papers themselves we have Clarendon's own repeated avowals of his satisfaction in them. He styles these base assassins "brave fellows and honest gentlemen," and thinks it a pity that any agent of the protectorate abroad should not have his throat cut.

But Sindercomb's wholesale bribery led to the detection of the plot. Amongst those tampered with was Henry Toope, a life guardsman, who revealed the scheme. On the 8th of January Sindercomb attended the public worship in the evening at "Whitehall Chapel. Toope, Cecil—a fellow who had been engaged in the construction of the infernal machine—and Sindercomb were arrested, and having been seen about general Lambert's seat, it was examined, and there was found a basketful of the most inflammable materials, strong enough, it was said, to burn through stones, and a lighted slow-burning match, calculated to reach the combustibles about midnight. There were found also holes bored in the wainscoat, to facilitate the communication of