CHAP. XVII. HOPES OF THE ROYALISTS. HYDE'S PLAN OF OPERATIONS. HOPES OF NEGOTIATION WITH FLEETWOOD. - CHARLES REPAIRS TO THE CONGRESS AT FONTARABIA. FRUITLESS OPPOSITION. MONK ENTERS LONDON. XVII. 1659. 1659-1660. CHAP. THE Royalists had many sources of hope. They had reason to believe that the leading men of the Presbyterian party, Lords Manchester, Denbigh, Willoughby, and Fairfax, Sir George Booth, Sir William Waller, Sir Ashley Cooper, Sir Horatio Townshend, Mr. Popham, and Mr. Howe, were all favourable to the King's cause.* They were even not without hope that Richard Cromwell might be disposed to resign his tottering power in Charles's favour; and Lord Fauconberg, his brother-in-law, was in communication with a Royalist on the expediency of opening a negotiation with Richard on this subject.† A little later, Rumbold, March. * Clar. State Papers, iii. 417. 423. 433, 434. 443, 444. 460. 66 66 XVII. 1659. in a letter to Hyde, tells him, "there will be all CHAP. possible care taken, at a fit juncture of time, to dispose Cromwell to reason, by representing to "him the difficulties and dangers that he will "meet with in his government, and the safe and "honourable advantages that he may receive by an "accommodation with his Majesty; to the which "I think it would be no hard work to incline "him, if he were out of the hands of St. John and "Thurloe."* In the following month, Hyde himself expresses his belief that Cromwell" hath no small advantage "with many considerable men by their believing "that he intends wholly for the King." It appears, too, that Richard, after the dissolution of the Parliament, wished to aid the royal cause, and even to name the price of his assistance: but the time was past when he had power to serve the King: and the Royalists looked for other aid. ‡ The wiser among them had never relied upon him; and before his deposition, and in the same letter in which Hyde alluded to the foregoing hopes, he thus drew a plan of the proposed operations of the Royalist party under such various circumstances as were likely to occur. operations. "If either upon the dissolution, or upon any Hyde's "other contest, the army could be divided, and so plan of "the breach be made evident, we hope it will be "no hard matter for our friends to get into arms, CHAP. 1659. 66 66 "and to justify it upon such plausible reasons as 66 66 66 66 Willis, Wm. Chicheley, and all our friends of "those parts, with Sir Horatio Townshend and "Rossister, and if my Lord Bellasis could draw "his friends of the north to stir at the same time, "and if Major-General Browne, and our friends of "Kent and your own quarter, would resolve to "move as soon as the army, upon the other appearance, should draw from London, I say, if all this could be adjusted between you, the game "would be very fair; but I confess, without some "such general conjunction, and therefore kindling "the fire in several parts of the kingdom together, "I cannot imagine how any simple attempt, how 66 bravely soever undertaken by our friends alone, CHAP. "can be attended with success."* XVII. On the 16th of May, the King assured his friends 1659. in England that, upon their rising and seizing some defensible place, he would immediately sail from Ostend, with such force as he could muster, which he hoped might amount to 2000 men.† Early in July, he communicated the intention of quitting Brussels on the 21st of that month, to join them with all possible haste; and the 1st of August was fixed as the day of general rising. Sir George Booth was to seize Chester; Lord Newport, Shrewsbury; Massey, Gloucester; Arundel, Pollard, Grenville, and Trelawney were to secure Exeter and Plymouth; Lord Willoughby and Sir Horatio Townshend, Lynn; Sir Thomas Middleton was to head the rising in North Wales; Sir Henry Lingen, in Herefordshire; in Worcestershire, Lord Windsor; and other noblemen and gentlemen in some other parts of the kingdom. of Willis. Treachery disconcerted this formidable enter- Treachery prise. Sir Richard Willis, that double traitor, who had betrayed Ormond to Cromwell, and Cromwell to Ormond, was still one of the "sealed knot," intimately concerned in the arrangement of the conspiracy, and entirely trusted by the King's friends. The first intimation that he was unworthy of this trust appears to have been conveyed to the King by Morland‡, Thurloe's secretary, who, on * Clar. State Papers, iii. 454. + Ibid. iii. 472. Harris, who loved to contradict whatever had been stated by Cla XVII. 1659. CHAP. confirmation of his statement being required, sent over letters in Willis's hand-writing, wherein he disclosed the secrets of the Royalists. The appointed time of general rising was at hand: to put the King's dispersed adherents on their guard against Willis was difficult, if not impossible; and if the charges against him had been fully made known, they might have produced a general panic, and entirely checked the intended enterprise. In this emergency, Charles, apparently by Hyde's advice, endeavoured to withdraw Willis from the scene of action, sending him a letter in his own handwriting, which Hyde enclosed in one to Broderick, requiring Willis to come and meet the King at Calais. But Willis, perhaps suspecting, came not; and it then became necessary to prevent the Royalists from holding further communication with him—but to prevent them in such a manner as might produce the least alarm and the least removal of mutual confidence. With this view, Hyde wrote thus to rendon, declares this story respecting Morland and Willis to be faise; and cites a letter from the former to the latter, first published by Echard (p. 729.), denying that he had ever given information respecting Wilis to Charles II. Either the letter is a forgery, or Morland excused himself to Willis at the expense of truth. There is ample evidence of Willis's treachery, without the admissions in his letter to Hyde (Clar. State Papers, iii. 743.), which alone are sufficient to remove all doubt, That Morland was the informer is indirectly proved by the honour he received after the Restoration, and directly and amply by the testimony of Pepys. The latter, in his Diary (vol. i. p. 82.), mentions the circumstance as an acknowledged fact, and afterwards (vol. i. p. 133.) repeats the statement as mentioned to him by Morland himself. Truly, as the veracious Harris observes, “Happy is it for the lovers of historic truth, that there are so many authentic papers "preserved." Harris's Lives, iv. 216. 66 |