plotter. Lady Fairfax and the Duchess endeavoured to persuade the women of Cromwell's family to intercede with the Protector on behalf of Buckingham. 'They have been,' says a newsletter written in November 1657, 'several times at Whitehall of late to wait upon the great ladies there, but, alas! now all this is not regarded, for I am told that the females there do say, "Proud jades, are their stomachs now come down?"'

Of the sons Mrs. Hutchinson bestows comparative praise on Richard, describing him as a peasant in his nature, yet gentle and virtuous, but became not greatness.' The utmost malice could say against him was that he was a person well skilled in hawking, hunting, horse-racing, with other sports and pastimes.' During the first three years of the Protectorate, Richard lived generally in Hampshire, but after his father's second installation he became chancellor of the university of Oxford, colonel of a regiment of horse, and a member of the Council of State. "The Lord Richard,' as he was usually styled, was regarded popularly as heir to the Protectorate, and on his journey into the West of England in 1658 he was received at Bristol with princely honours. Throughout the whole entertainment,' observes the court newsman of his reception at Bristol, there appeared as clear a face of duty and good affection as ever was seen at any time upon the like occasion; yet it is no more than what is paid to that noble lord in every place by such as have had the honour to observe his great humanity, joined with so great hopes and the noblest inclinations of a virtuous mind.'

While neither Mrs. Hutchinson nor Republican pamphleteers had much to say against the Protector's eldest son, his younger son and his son-in-law were less fortunate. Claypole and Henry Cromwell, asserts Mrs. Hutchinson, were 'two debauched ungodly cavaliers.' As to Claypole, he is too obscure to determine the amount of truth this judgment contains. As to Henry Cromwell, it is certainly unjust, though Macaulay is recorded to have maintained its correctness in a controversy with Carlyle. Henry's letters show conclusively that he was a man of character and capacity; but as he was employed in Ireland most of the Protectorate his appearance at the Protector's court was rare. A leaning to the Presbyterians and the Moderate Independents gained him the hostility of the leaders of the military party and of the extremer religious sects. But his political adversaries in general made no charge against his morals.

VOL. III. NO. 15, N.S.

16

Extravagance and ostentation in dress, however, was an accusation sometimes made against both the Protector and his sons. Cromwell himself had certainly no fondness for fine clothes. When he first appeared in the Long Parliament he was, as Sir Philip Warwick relates, 'very ordinarily apparelled' in a plain cloth suit which seemed to have been made by an ill country tailor.' Later, when Sir Philip was a prisoner awaiting the Protector's decision, it seemed to him that Cromwell was a person of great and majestic deportment and comely presence,' which he attributed partly to his 'having had a better tailor, and more converse with good company.' Nevertheless, when Sir John Reresby saw him giving audience to an ambassador at Whitehall, he wrote that the Protector' was plain in his apparel, and rather affected a negligence than a genteel garb.'

On state occasions a certain splendour in costume was of course to be expected, but at his first installation as Protector, Cromwell was dressed simply 'in a black suit and cloak.' A few months later, when he was entertained by the Lord Mayor, he wore 'a musk colour suit and coat richly embroidered with gold.' The robe of purple velvet lined with ermine' which 'Master Speaker presented to him on behalf of the Parliament, at his second installation as Protector, was merely symbolical, being the habit anciently used at the solemn investiture of princes.' Such as it was, however, the occasional splendour of the Protector aroused the bitterest criticism amongst some of his officers, and the dress of his sons was a still greater cause of offence. In December 1654, Colonel Matthew Alured was cashiered by a court-martial for seditious and disaffected speeches. The King,' Alured had said, 'did never wear such rich clothing as the Lord Protector did, being embroidered with gold and silver; and there was no apparel good enough in London for the Lord Richard and the Lord Henry to wear. The Lord Protector did keep a court more chargeable to the Commonwealth than ever the King did, and Lord Richard and Lord Henry did keep courts higher than ever the Prince. The said Lord Protector did expend the Commonwealth's money in making himself such a coach as the King never had any.' It is already come to that pass,' he added, 'that the lace of one of his son's boot-hose-tops cost 30l. per yard, and that the hangings of one of their bedchambers cost 1,500l.'

It was not so much the cost of the Protector's court as the fact of his setting up anything resembling a court which offended

Republican pamphleteers. He was accused of apostatising from his own principles in doing so. 'The great man himself,' said one attack on the Protector, upon discourse about kingly government, some saying to him that the Lord would not prosper the King because he would set up wickedness by a law, and that the court was a sink of wickedness. . . . He replied, He replied, "He abhorred that way of government for nothing more than for the vast charge that went to maintain it, and for the upholding such a company of loose persons about it. . . ." I pray, friends, consider where he is now. Is he not, though not in the same name and title, yet in the same power and greater, and upholding many of the same things, as to the vanity, pride, idleness, and glory of this world, in his court attendance and appurtenances, which cannot but be very chargeable to this nation? Thou that condemnedst the late King and that government for these things, dost thou take it up and live in it, and do the same things thyself? Dost thou think thou shalt escape the judgment of God?'

Another pamphlet, called 'The Picture of a New Courtier,' makes similar charges in the form of a dialogue between two old acquaintances, Plainheart and Timeserver. 'I am at present,' says Timeserver, 'a courtier, and dwell at Whitehall.' 'Indeed,' replies Plainheart, 'that is a place I have not been at a great while, for I was banished from thence at the first erecting of the new court; none of my name could abide there any longer without making shipwreck of faith and a good conscience in conniving at the great man's wickedness.' Then he proceeds to denounce the Protector as a tyrant, worse than the King. Doubtless,' answers the courtier, 'there is some truth in what you have said, but his Highness has fixed a pair of silver spectacles upon my nose, through which I discern his actions to be of a better complexion than you have presented them.'

Even defenders of Cromwell, who knew that his court was free from the moral objections urged against it, were inclined, at first sight, to admit the validity of the economic arguments against it. 'His way of living,' writes one, I confess I have sometimes grudged at as too kingly, and not proportionable either to his late condition, or to the present condition of his brethren, or to his own affairs, being in such want of money. But, upon further examination of this censure, I do find, that such as you and I are, living at a distance from such greatness, our minds and breeding being as mean as our conditions, and our spirits narrow and rigid,

being outcasts also from this present glory, are troubled with a little envy, and so not fit at all to judge of it. I find others that know what greatness is, of nobler and freer minds, and live nearer to it, say, that there is nothing but what hath been ordinary amongst noble persons, not the tenth of what expense hath formerly been, and no more than is necessary for the honour of the English nation.' The last sentence is the keynote of all these apologies for the Protector. Even convinced Republicans felt that the dignity of the English state required that its head should be surrounded by a certain amount of pomp and ceremony. In Harrington's ideal republic of Oceana the Lord Archon Olphaus Megaletor, who typifies Cromwell, is praised as one of the greatest princes in the world, for while 'in the field he was followed by a force which was formidable to all,' at the same time in the pomp of his court he was not inferior to any.'

C. H. FIRTH.

365

LORD GILBERTHORPE'S PROPOSAL.

I

EVERY ONE was surprised at hearing that Lord Gilberthorpe had proposed to Miss Brockway. No one was astonished to hear that he had been rejected. It is difficult to explain how these things. leak out, but it was commonly believed that he chose Mrs. Alfred Martin's ball as a suitable occasion. His sudden departure from London gave a semblance of probability to the rumour.

Miss Brockway's decision was the less surprising, for Lord Gilberthorpe, in outward aspect, was not the ideal young English peer. At twenty-two, when he succeeded to his title, he was still a crude-looking, loose-jointed youth with conspicuous hands and prominent red ears. A candid friend had told him one day, as he was sitting with his back to the sun, that his ears cast a red shadow on the floor like stained glass in a church.

This was, of course, an exaggeration, but the consciousness of these deficiencies in his personal appearance did not give him an easy bearing in society. He suffered the tortures of shyness in their most acute form.

Gilberthorpe had just left Cambridge when his father died. He had passed through the University without making friends, and this shyness was a subject of some distress to his mother, for Lady Gilberthorpe was a worldly woman; she was the sort of woman who would have greatly enjoyed the triumph of having half a-dozen daughters, and marrying off each before the younger one came out of the schoolroom. As it happened, that pleasure was denied her; she had an only son, George, fifth Lord Gilberthorpe, who succeeded his father, sometime English minister at Coburg.

Lady Gilberthorpe had very few illusions about her son, and she confessed to herself that he was dreadfully unpresentable. She consoled herself with the comfortable thought that by mixing with other people he would become more like them. He was very unformed. Of course, George was shy. How could he be otherwise? He had never seen any one. argued, care for society, because he had never tried it. She had great faith in the polishing properties of her fellow creatures,

He did not, she