Note 482 — Chapter X · (continued 2)

This curious fact appears for the first time, I believe, in the Clarendon State Papers, unless it is anywhere intimated in Carte's collection of the Ormond letters. In the former collection we find several allusions to it; the first is in a letter from Rumbold, a royalist emissary, to Hyde, dated Dec. 2, 1658, p. 421; from which I collect Lord Fauconberg's share in this intrigue; which is also confirmed by a letter of Mordaunt to the king, in p. 423. "The Lord Falconbridge protests that Cromwell is so remiss a person that he cannot play his own game, much less another man's, and is thereby discouraged from acting in business, having also many enemies who oppose his gaining either power or interest in the army or civil government, because they conceive his principles contrary to theirs. He says, Thurloe governs Cromwell, and St. John and Pierrepont govern Thurloe; and therefore is not likely he will think himself in danger till these tell him so, nor seek a diversion of it but by their councils." Feb. 10, 1659. These ill-grounded hopes of Richard's accession to their cause appear in several other letters, and even Hyde seems to have given in to them. 434, 454, etc. Broderick, another active emissary of the royalists, fancied that the three above-mentioned would restore the king if they dared (477); but this is quite unlikely.