land being open, where he hoped to be joined by numerous friends, he persuaded the generals to march thither; and with one consent the army, to the number of fourteen thousand men, rose from their camp, and advanced by rapid marches towards the south.

Cromwell, leaving Monk with seven thousand men to complete the reduction of Scotland, followed the king with all possible expedition. Charles found himself disappointed in his expectations of increasing his army: the Scots fell off in great numbers; the English presbyterians and the royalists were unprepared to join him; and when he arrived at Worcester, his forces were not more numerous than when he rose from his camp at Torwood.

Such is the influence of established government, that the commonwealth, though very unpopular, had sufficint influence to raise the militia of the counties; and these, united with the regular forces, enabled Cromwell to fall upon the king at Worcester with an army of thirty thousand men. The streets of that city were strewed with the dead. Hamilton, a nobleman of bravery and honour, was mortally wounded; Massey was wounded and taken prisoner; and the king himself, having given many proofs of personal valour, was obliged to fly. The whole Scottish army was either killed or taken prisoners.

By the earl of Derby's directions, Charles went to Boscobel, a lone house on the borders of Staffordshire, inhabited by one Penderell, a farmer, who, with his four brothers, served him with unshaken fidelity. Having clothed the king in a garb like their own, they led him into a neighbouring wood, and pretended to employ themselves in cutting faggots. For better concealment, he mounted an oak, where, hid among the leaves, he saw several soldiers pass by, who expressed in his hearing their earnest wishes of finding him. At length, after escaping frequent dangers of detection, the king embarked on board a vessel at Shoreham, in Sussex, and arrived safely at Fescamp in Normandy, after a concealment of one and forty days. No less than forty men and women had at different times been, privy to his concealment, yet all of them proved faithful to their trust.

The battle of Worcester afforded Cromwell what he called his "crowning mercy;" and he now discovered to his

intimate friends his aspiring views. The unpopularity of the parliament aided the ambition of this enterprising man, and paved the way to his exaltation. Never, however, had the power of this country appeared so formidable to neighbouring nations, as at this time. Blake had raised the naval glory of England to a greater height than it had attained at any former period. In America, the Bermudas, Antigua, Virginia, and Barbadoes, were reduced; Jersey, Guernsey, Scilly, and the Isle of Man, were brought under subjection to the republic; and all the British dominions submitting, parliament turned its views to foreign enterprises.

The Dutch were the first that felt the weight of their arms. The parliament passed the famous navigation act. Letters of reprisal were granted to several merchants, who complained of injuries which they had received from the states; and above eighty Dutch ships fell into their hands, and were made prizes. The cruelties committed on the English at Amboyna, which had been suffered to sleep in oblivion for thirty years, were also urged as a ground for hostile aggression.

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That they might not be unprepared for the war with which they were menaced, the States equipped a fleet of one hundred and fifty sail; and gave the command of a squadron of forty-two ships to Van Tromp, an admiral of great talents, to protect the Dutch navigation against the privateers of England. In the road of Dover, he met with Blake, who commanded an English fleet much inferior in number. Who was the aggressor in the action which ensued, it is not easy to determine; but the Dutch were defeated with the loss of one ship sunk, and another taken.

The parliament gladly seized this opportunity of commencing the war in form. Several actions now took place with various success. At length, Tromp, seconded by De Ruyter, met near the Goodwin Sands with Blake, who, though his fleet was inferior to that of the Dutch, declined not the combat. Both sides fought with the greatest bravery; but the advantage remained with the Dutch; and after this victory, Tromp, in a bravado, fixed a broom to his mast-head, as if resolved to sweep the seas of the English.

Great preparations were made in England to wipe off

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this disgrace; and a fleet of eighty sail was fitted out, commanded by Blake, and under him by Dean and Monk. As the English lay off Portland, they descried a Dutch fleet of seventy-six vessels, sailing up the channel, with three hundred merchantmen, under the command of Tromp and De Ruyter. A most furious battle commenced, and continued for three days, with the utmost rage and obstinacy; and Blake, who was victor, could scarcely be said to have gained more honour than the vanquished. Tromp made a skilful retreat, and after losing eleven ships of war, and thirty merchantmen, reached the coast of Holland.

This defeat, together with the loss which their trade sustained by the war, inclined the States to peace; but parliament did not receive their overtures in a favourable manner; and they rejoiced at the dissolution of that assembly by Cromwell, as an event likely to render their affairs more prosperous.

Cromwell, sensible that parliament entertained a jealousy of his power, which they wished to restrain, determined to anticipate their designs. A council of officers presented a remonstrance, complaining of the arrears due to the army, and demanding that a new parliament should be summoned. To this the parliament made a sharp reply; and Cromwell in a rage hastened to the house, attended by three hundred soldiers, some of whom he placed at the door, some in the lobby, and some on the stairs. He reproached the parliament for their tyranny, ambition, and oppression; and commanding the soldiers to clear the hall, he himself went out the last, and ordering the doors to be locked, departed to his lodgings at Whitehall.

Oliver Cromwell, who had by this violent measure monopolized the whole civil and military power in the kingdom, was born at Huntingdon, of a good family, though their estate was small. In the early part of his life, he was extremely dissolute and dissipated; but he was suddenly seized with the spirit of reformation, and entered into all the zeal and rigour of the puritans. His affairs being embarrassed, he took a farm at St. Ives, and applied himself to agriculture; but this expedient involved him in greater difficulties. The length of his prayers, together with the general abstraction of his mind, prevented him from paying due attention to his farm; and urged by his