for those who in later ages study the lessons of his career to remember that it was by appealing to the desire for national independence rather than to sectional Protestantism, that William III.- the man who is justly regarded as Cromwell's successor in the fruitful guidance of the foreign policy of England-achieved those permanent results which Cromwell's activity failed to produce. 1651. of the Navi The authors gation Act did not contemplate war. CHAPTER XXI AN IMPENDING WAR On the So little did the authors of the Navigation Act contemplate a war with the United Provinces that for some months after their measure passed into law they were hesitating between. two strongly opposed lines of foreign policy, the adoption of either of which would bind England hand and foot in the presence of the Dutch navy. Continent the most noteworthy phenomenon of the time was the temporary effacement of France. In the autumn of 1651 the civil broils of the Fronde had blazed up afresh. The liberation of Condé early in the year1 had not turned out to the Queen's advantage. Harassed by the insults which the masterful Prince showered upon such France. of her ministers as were known to be under the influence of Mazarin, she resolved to follow the traditions of the monarchy by announcing her son's majority as soon as he entered his fourteenth year. It is true that for some years to come the boy's personal influence would be but nominal. Yet the King's name, especially in the France of the seventeenth century, in which all the currents of thought and feeling ran towards monarchy, a strong charm wherewith to conjure. If Condé's Renewed troubles in Aug. 27. Sept. 6. Majority of Louis XIV. was 1 See vol. i. 315. 2 L'heure solennelle a sonné, et Condé ne l'a pas entendue. Plus de régente espagnole, plus de ministre étranger. Qu'importe la fiction légale ! la prétendue minorité de fait succédant à la minorité de droit, qu'importe ! c'est le Roi, le roi de France qui règne.' Le duc d'Aumale, Hist. des Princes de Condé, vi. 91. Condé's mistake. character had been equal to his assumptions, he would have recognised the full meaning of the change, and might have secured for himself a high place in the court of the young sovereign. As it was, he was the last to perceive the significance of the formal act. His political intelligence was but slight, and except on the day of battle his strong words seldom covered strong deeds. His resolutions were moulded by dependents and flatterers. Resenting the Queen's nomination of ministers who refused to consult his wishes, he hurried off to his own Government of Guienne, that he might standard of raise a standard of rebellion against the boy who, in his tender years, stood forth as the representative of He raises a rebellion. Condé in Causes of his weakness. He sends to national unity. The nobles of the south flocked round Condé as sixty years before they had flocked round Henry of Navarre. The municipal spirit too still moved in the southern Guienne. towns, and Bordeaux in particular, irritated at the interruption of its wine trade with England, the result, it seemed, of Mazarin's refusal to recognise the Commonwealth, placed itself unreservedly on his side. Condé had now but one more fault to commit, the fault of calling in the foreigner to redress the balance of domestic faction. He did not hesitate for a moment. His first act was to despatch one agent, Lenet, to invite help from Spain, and another agent, La Rivière, to invite help from England. Lenet was welcomed at Madrid, and there, on October 27, a treaty was signed which admitted a Spanish garrison into Bourg, a fortress at the mouth of the Dordogne.1 The task of La Rivière was less easy. He arrived in England early in October, and at once asked Cromwell for 100,000l. and 10,000 men. Cromwell derisively replied that he would come in with 40,000 foot and 12,000 horse, if he person could be assured that at the end of the struggle France should be as England. A Protestant and Republican Hist. des Princes de Condé, vi. 60-103; Chéruel, Ministère de Mazarin, i. 10-33. Oct. 27. Nov. 6. A treaty with Spain. Oct. 1651 Oct. 16. An offer OVERTURES FROM ROCHELLE 155 France was hardly within the limits of political forecast, and Condé's agent had to return to his master a disappointed man.1 La Rivière was succeeded by Conan, a native of Rochelle, who brought a proposal from Le Daugnon, the governor of Rochelle, who at this time held the place for Condé. He now offered to admit an English garrison into the towers which at that time formed the only defences of the place, the town-wall having been destroyed after Richelieu's siege. Cromwell listened to Conan, called for a map of France, and, after poring over it for some time, refused to support the scheme.2 from Rochelle. Cromwell's interest was nevertheless roused. So far as he had hitherto taken a line in foreign politics he had been hostile Cromwell to the French Government, on account of its friendliness to the Presbyterian party and the exiled House and France. of Stuart. An overture to De Retz. He now despatched Vane to France to enter into communication with De Retz, the clerical demagogue of the Fronde.3 The attempt to come to an understanding with him appears to have failed for the time in any case Cromwell was unlikely to repose much confidence in a mere intriguer. If Cromwell was to take part in the French complications, protection to the French Protestants must be a prominent feature of his policy. It is true that 1 Morosini to the Doge, Oct. 18, Venetian Transcripts R.O. 2 Conan to Brun, Oct. 31 ; Cardenas to Philip IV., Nov. ;Consulta, Feb. Simancas MSS. 2,084. Conan had been for some time absent from Rochelle, and had been sent with Le Daugnon's message by the Spanish ambassador at the Hague. Nov. 10 3 Mém. du Card. De Retz (ed. 1859), ii. 267. The account of De Retz's interview with Vane is placed in these memoirs amongst the events of 1650, Charles's defeat at Worcester being also dated a year too soon. However, as Cromwell was in Ireland and Scotland during almost the whole of 1650, it seems safe to put Vane's mission down to the latter part of 1651, when Conan's message turned the attention of Cromwell to the thought of an intervention in France. 4 De Retz was not as irreconcilable as he gives out. In 1653 he became one of the regular correspondents of Scot, who was at the head of what would now be called the Intelligence Department of the Commonwealth. 'Scot's Confession,' Hist. Rev., Jan. 1897. Condition of the French Protestants. Mazarin had shown himself well disposed towards them, and that Royal edicts had from time to time been issued in their favour; but the Government, even if its authority had been greater than it was, would have found it hard to bear up against the weight of the Catholic organisation resting upon a large majority of the population. Bishops and clergy were of one mind in their resolve to encroach on the privileges secured to Protestants by the Edict of Nantes, and Catholic lawyers and Catholic nobles seldom failed to discover legal excuses for injustice. Protestant temples, as they were styled, were frequently closed, Protestant ministers harassed, and Protestant children kidnapped to be educated in the dominant creed.1 Sexby's mission. What Cromwell and the Council of State wanted in their present mood was information as to the real condition of the south of France, and they therefore resolved to despatch thither a trustworthy agent, on whose reports they might ground their policy. Such an agent they found in Sexby, the Agitator of 1647, who had risen to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Sexby, however, had been recently cashiered by the sentence of a court-martial for having irregularly detained the pay of some of his men, though the court acknowledged that 'as to his own intentions he did it for the advancement of the public service.' 2 He was now sent to Bordeaux together with four other persons, one of whom, named Arundel, he kept in his own company. The remaining three were ordered to travel amongst the Protestants of the south. One of these was arrested and put to the torture, from the effects of which he died.3 1 Benoit, Hist. de l'Edit de Nantes, iii. 134-155. For a detailed account of the treatment of Protestants in one particular locality, see Les Protestants à Pamiers, by G. Doublet, an interesting pamphlet, a knowledge of which I owe to M. Gustave Monod. 2 Letters from Roundhead Officers, 27; Letter from Edinburgh, June 14, Clarke MSS. xix. fol. 26. 3 Statement by Sexby, May 9, 1654, S. P. Dom. lxxi. 49. Compare Dyer's Information, Thurloe, vi. 829. |