Note 353 — Chapter X

Berkley, 368, etc. Compare the letter of Ashburnham, published in 1648, and reprinted in 1764, but probably not so full as the MS. in the Earl of Ashburnham's possession; also the Memoirs of Hollis, Huntingdon, and Fairfax, which are all in Maseres's Collection; also Ludlow, Hutchinson, Clarendon, Burnet's Memoirs of Hamilton, and some despatches in 1647 and 1648, from a royalist in London, printed in the appendix to the second volume of the Clarendon Papers. This correspondent of Secretary Nicholas believes Cromwell and Ireton to have all along planned the king's destruction, and set the levellers on, till they proceeded so violently, that they were forced to restrain them. This also is the conclusion of Major Huntingdon, in his Reasons for laying down his Commission. But the contrary appears to me more probable.

Two anecdotes, well known to those conversant in English history, are too remarkable to be omitted. It is said by the editor of Lord Orrery's Memoirs, as a relation which he had heard from that noble person, that in a conversation with Cromwell concerning the king's death, the latter told him, he and his friends had once a mind to have closed with the king, fearing that the Scots and presbyterians might do so; when one of their spies, who was of the king's bedchamber, gave them information of a letter from his majesty to the queen, sewed up in the skirt of a saddle, and directing them to an inn where it might be found. They obtained the letter accordingly, in which the king said, that he was courted by both factions, the Scots presbyterians and the army; that those which bade fairest for him should have him; but he thought he should rather close with the Scots than the other. Upon this, finding themselves unlikely to get good terms from the king, they from that time vowed his destruction. Carte's Ormond, ii. 12.

A second anecdote is alluded to by some earlier writers, but is particularly told in the following words, by Richardson, the painter, author of some anecdotes of Pope, edited by Spence. "Lord Bolingbroke told us, June 12, 1742 (Mr. Pope, Lord Marchmont, and myself), that the second Earl of Oxford had often told him that he had seen, and had in his hands, an original letter that Charles the First wrote to his queen, in answer to one of hers that had been intercepted, and then forwarded to him; wherein she had reproached him for having made those villains too great concession, viz. that Cromwell should be lord lieutenant of Ireland for life without account; that that kingdom should be in the hands of the party, with an army there kept which should know no head but the lieutenant; that Cromwell should have a garter, etc.: That in this letter of the king's it was said, that she should leave him to manage, who was better informed of all circumstances than she could be; but she might be entirely easy as to whatever concessions he should make them; for that he should know in due time how to deal with the rogues, who, instead of a silken garter, should be fitted with a hempen cord. So the letter ended; which answer as they waited for, so they intercepted accordingly; and it determined his fate. This letter Lord Oxford said he had offered £500 for."

The authenticity of this latter story has been constantly rejected by Hume and the advocates of Charles in general; and, for one reason among others, that it looks like a misrepresentation of that told by Lord Orrery, which both stands on good authority, and is perfectly conformable to all the memoirs of the time. I have, however, been informed, that a memorandum nearly conformable to Richardson's anecdote is extant, in the handwriting of Lord Oxford.

It is possible that this letter is the same with that mentioned by Lord Orrery; and in that case was written in the month of October. Cromwell seems to have been in treaty with the king as late as September; and advised him, according to Berkley, to reject the proposals of the parliament in that month. Herbert mentions an intercepted letter of the queen (Memoirs, 60); and even his story proves that Cromwell and his party broke off with Charles from a conviction of his dissimulation. See Laing's note, iii. 562; and the note by Strype, therein referred to, on Kennet's Complete Hist. of England, iii. 170; which speaks of a "constant tradition" about this story, and is more worthy of notice, because it was written before the publication of Lord Orrery's Memoirs, or of the Richardsoniana.