" With a similar confidence in Cromwell's
sanctity, though in a somewhat lower tone of enthusiasm, the grave and
cautious Thurloe announced the event by letter to the deputy of Ireland.
"He is gone to heaven, embalmed with the tears of his people, and upon the
wings of the prayers of the saints."[2]
Till the commencement of the present century, when that wonderful man
arose, who, by the splendour of his victories and the extent of his empire,
cast all preceding adventurers into the shade, the name of Cromwell stood
without a parallel in the history of civilized Europe. Men looked with a
feeling of awe on the
[Footnote 1: Collection of Passages concerning his late Highness in Time of
his Sickness, p. 12. The author was Underwood, groom of the bed-chamber.
See also a letter of H. Cromwell, Thurloe, vii. 454; Ludlow, ii. 153.]
[Footnote 2: Ludlow, ii. 153. Thurloe, vii. 373.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1658. Sept. 3.]
fortunate individual who, without the aid of birth, or wealth, or
connections, was able to seize the government of three powerful kingdoms,
and to impose the yoke of servitude on the necks of the very men who had
fought in his company to emancipate themselves from the less arbitrary
sway of their hereditary sovereign.
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