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 assembled members as the repairers of breaches and the restorers of paths to dwell in, the highest work which mortals could attain to in the world (Speech xvi. 20 Jan. 1658). But the republican leaders refused to recognise the new House of Lords or to transact business with it. They remained deaf to Cromwell’s appeals to consider the danger of the protestant interest abroad, and the risk of a new and a bloodier civil war (Speech xvii. 25 Jan. 1658). While they disputed, Charles II had collected in Flanders the Irish regiments in Spanish service, hired Dutch ships for their transport, and was preparing to effect a landing in England; the plan of the opposition was to incite the malcontents in the army and city to present petitions against the late settlement, and to vote, in reply, an address demanding the limitation of the Protector’s control over the army and the recognition of the House of Commons as the supreme authority of the nation. Cromwell forestalled the completion of their plot, and, charging them with playing the game of the King of Scots, and seeking to throw everything into a confusion in order to devise a commonwealth again, suddenly dissolved parliament (Speech xviii. 4 Feb. 1658; Tanner MSS. lii. 225, 229).

Over the threatened insurrection and invasion Cromwell triumphed without difficulty. City and army again declared their resolution to stand by him. The plots of the anabaptists and the royalists were paralysed by the arrest of their leaders, and the strength of the English navy prevented any landing from Flanders. Abroad his policy seemed still more successful. In February 1658 an English agent mediated the peace of Roschild between Denmark and Sweden. On 28 March the league with France was renewed for another year (, iii. 133). In April came news of the defeat of a Spanish attempt to reconquer Jamaica. On 4 June the united forces of France and England defeated the Spaniards before Dunkirk, and on the 15th that place was handed over to Lockhart [see ]. Once more Cromwell intervened on behalf of the Vaudois, and by his influence with Mazarin seemed some amelioration of their condition. But this success was more apparent than real. In spite of all opposition another Austrian prince had been elected emperor, and Mazarin was already preparing to make peace with Spain. The war between Sweden and Denmark broke out again in August, and the ambition of Charles Gustavus brought Brandenburg and Holland to the aid of the Danes. A protestant league was impossible, because the protestant powers preferred to pursue their separate national interests. The great aim of the Protector’s foreign policy was unsuited to the actual conditions of Europe. The era of religious wars was over, and material rather than religious considerations shaped the mutual relations of European powers. Nevertheless the energy of the Protector’s government had given himself and England a great position in Europe. His greatness at home, wrote Clarendon, was a mere shadow to his greatness abroad; and Burnet recalls Cromwell’s traditional boast that he would make the name of Englishmen as great as ever that of Roman had been (, Rebellion, xv. 152;, Own Time, i. 138, ed. 1823). Poets were still more emphatic. ‘He once more joined us to the continent,’ sang Marvell, while Sprat depicted Cromwell as rousing the British lion from his slumbers, and Dryden as teaching him to roar (Three Poems upon the Death of Oliver, late Lord Protector, 1659). Still more glorious appeared his policy when contrasted with that of Charles II. ‘It is strange,’ notes Pepys, ‘how everybody do nowadays reflect upon Oliver and commend him, what brave things he did, and made all the neighbour princes fear him’ (Diary, 12 July 1667). Of those who inquired into the aims of Cromwell’s foreign policy, many, like Morland, praised him for identifying the interests of England with the interest of European protestantism (, History of the Churches of Piemont, p. 2). In the parliament of 1659, however, there were loud complaints that the Protector had sacrificed the interests of trade. In the eyes of the merchants and of many of the republicans Holland rather than Spain was the natural enemy of England (, Diary, iii. 394;, Detection, ii. Still more was he censured by one class of politicians, as the rivalry of France and England grew more bitter, for destroying the balance of power in Europe by his alliance with France against Spain (, The World’s Mistake in Oliver Cromwell; , Letters on the Study of History, vii.; , History of England).

While abroad Cromwell’s policy was only partially successful, he was beginning himself to perceive his failure in England. ‘I would have been glad,’ he said, ‘to have lived under my woodside, to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than undertake such a government as this’ (, Speech xviii.) The Protector frequently compared himself to a constable set to keep the peace of the parish, and the comparison was not inapt. He could keep order amid contending factions, but he could do no more. He could maintain his government against all oppo-