Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/366

352 The ceremony, it is clear, fell little short of a royal ceremony, with the exception of the crown and the anointing. Charles Stuart might have used the words of James of Scotland to Johnny Armstrong—"What lacks this knave that a king should have?" With the exception of the name of king, Cromwell, the farmer, was become the monarch of Great Britain and Ireland. He had all the power, and inhabited the palaces of kings. He had the right to place his son in the supreme seat after him; and one whole house of parliament were the creatures of his own creation, the other were purgated to his express satisfaction.

Cromwell had not enjoyed his new dignity more than about six weeks, when he received the news of the death of his great admiral Blake. His health had been for some time decaying. Scurvy and dropsy were fast destroying him, yet to the last he kept his command at sea, and finished his career with one of the most brilliant victories which had ever been achieved. During the winter and spring he maintained the blockade of Cadiz, but learning that the Plate fleet had taken refuge in the harbour of Santa Cruz, in the island of Teneriffe, he made sail thither. He found the fleet drawn up under the guns of seven batteries in the harbour, which was shaped like a horse shoe. The merchantmen, ten in number, were ranged close in shore, and the galleons, in number and of greater force than any of his own ships, placed in front of them. It was a sight, seven forts, a castle, and sixteen ships, to have daunted any man but Blake. Don Diego Darques, the Spanish admiral, was so confident of the impregnable nature of his position, that he sent Blake word to come and take his vessels. "But," says Clarendon, "the illustrious genius of Blake was admired even by the hostile faction of his countrymen. He was the first man that declined the old track, and made it manifest that the science might be obtained in less time than was imagined, and despised those rules which had long been in practise, to keep his ship and men out of danger, which had been held in former times a point of great ability and circumspection, as if the principal act requisite in the captain of a ship, had been to be sure to come safe home again; the first man who brought the ships to contemn castles on shore, which had been thought ever very formidable; the first that infused that portion of courage into the seamen, by making them see what mighty things they could do if they were resolved, and taught them to fight in fire as well as upon water."

Blake therefore did not hesitate. The wind was blowing into the harbour on the morning of the 20th of April; and though an admiral of our time, with a cautionary letter from Sir James Graham "to take care of his ships," would have wondered how he was to get out again, Blake, trusting to the omnipotent instincts of courage, dashed into the harbour at eight o'clock in the morning. Captain Stayner, who had so lately defeated the Spanish Plate fleet, and destroyed in it the viceroy of Peru, now led the way in a frigate, and Blake followed in the larger ships. His fleet altogether amounted to twenty-five sail. It was received with a hurricane of fire from the batteries on both sides the harbour and the fleet in front; but discharging his artillery right and left, he advanced, silencing the forts, and soon driving the seamen from the front line of galleons into the merchant ships. For four hours the flexible encounter continued, the British exposed to a deadly hail of ball from the land as well as the ships, but still pressing on till the Spanish ships were all in flames, and reduced to ashes, the troops in them having escaped to land. The question, then, was how to escape out of the harbour, and from the fury of the exasperated Spaniards on the land around. But Blake drew his ships out of reach of the forts, and as if Providence had wrought in his favour, as Blake firmly believed he did, the wind about sunset veered suddenly round, and the fleet sailed securely out to sea.

The fame of this unparalleled exploit rang throughout Europe, and raised the reputation of England for naval prowess to the highest pitch. Unhappily, death was fast claiming the undaunted admiral. He was sick and suffering at the moment that he won this great triumph, and, sailing homewards, he expired on board his ship, the St. George, just as it entered the harbour of Plymouth. We have quoted the encomium of Clarendon, we may add that of a writer of his own party and time, in the admiring narrative of the "Perfect Politician"—"He was a man most wholly devoted to his country's service, resolute in his undertakings, and most faithful in his performances of them. With him valour seldom missed its reward, nor cowardice its punishment. When news was brought him of a metamorphosis in the state at home, he would then encourage the seamen to be most vigilant abroad; for, said he, it was not our duty to mind state affairs, but to keep foreigners from fooling us. In all his expeditions the wind seldom deceived him, but mostly in the end stood his friend, especially in his last undertaking in the Canary Islands. To the last he lived a single life, never being espoused to any but his country's quarrels. As he lived bravely, he died gloriously, and was buried in Henry VII.'s chapel, yet enjoying at this time no other monument but what is raised by his valour, which time itself can hardly deface." Hume, with all his dislike of the commonwealth, supports this eulogy, and adds, "Disinterested, generous, liberal, ambitious only of true glory, dreadful only to his avowed enemies, he forms one of the most perfect characters of the age, and the least stained with those errors and violences which were then so predominant."

During this summer, Oliver had not only been gloriously engaged at sea, but he had been busy on land. He was in league with Louis XIV. of France to drive the Spaniards from the Netherlands. The French forces were conducted by the celebrated marshal Turenne, and the Spanish by Don John of Austria, and the French insurgent chief, the prince of Condé. Cromwell sent over six thousand men under Sir John Reynolds, who landed near Boulogne on the 13th and 14th of May. They were supported by a strong fleet under admiral Montague, the late colleague of Blake, which cruised on the coast. The first united operations were to be the reductions of Gravelines, Mardyke, and Dunkirk, the first of which places, when taken, was to belong to France, the two latter to England. If Gravelines was taken first, it was to be put into possession of England, as a pledge for the conveyance of the two latter. This bold demand, on the part of Cromwell, astonished his French allies, and was violently