page 49 note 1. Printed in full in Treffenberg, K. Carl X Gustafs instruction.

page 49 note 2. Pufendorf, , i. 7–8.Google Scholar

page 49 note 3. The instruction from the College of Commerce is printed in Carlbom, Sverige och England, Appendix.

page 49 note 4. Carlbom, , Sverige och England, p. 7Google Scholar. Leven had been released, and his estates had been restored to him, in April 1654, when Cromwell gave him a pass. He went to Sweden, where he arrived on 5 July, saying that his business was to thank Christina for interceding with Cromwell on his behalf: Abbott, iii. 268. While in Sweden he offered Charles X to raise 2000 men at his own charges. The six to eight regiments were intended to be in addition to these.

page 50 note 1. Coyet's leisurely progress provoked irritated reactions both from Charles X and from his chancellor, who were afraid that while he was lingering in Brussels the Polish agent, Nicolas de Bye, who was by now in London, might steal a march on him. For de Bye and his mission see Lindqvist, Åke, ‘Svenskarna och De Byes beskickningar 1654–1655’, Karolinska Fôrbundets Årsbok (1941).Google Scholar

page 51 note 1. Missing in transcript.

page 51 note 2. Penruddock's rising, and the events that preceded it.

page 52 note 1. The Dutch ambassador.

page 52 note 4. The treaty of Uppsala, negotiated by Bulstrode Whitelocke, dated 11 April 1654: text in Abbott, iii. 911–15.

page 54 note 5. One factor in the superiority of the Swedish armies in Poland lay in the excellence of their artillery: Carl X Gustafs armé, p. 277.Google Scholar

page 54 note 2. Missing in transcript.

page 55 note 1. This circumstantial story seems to be unsupported, and is improbable: none of the Browns or Brownes listed in Firth, C. H. and Davies, Godfrey, The Regimental History of Cromwell's Army (2 vols. Oxford 1940)Google Scholar seems a possible candidate; see Sir Charles Firth's controversy with Reginald Palmer in EHR iii (1888), pp. 323–50, 521–9Google Scholar; and iv(1889) pp. 313–38, 525–35.

page 55 note 2. Sir Oliver Fleming.

page 56 note 1. Coyet's arrival probably prompted de Witt to instruct Nieupoort to take soundings as to Cromwell's attitude to Charles X. Among other things he was to enquire whether a Dutch—Brandenburg—Danish alliance, designed to put a curb upon Sweden, would ‘shock him’, or whether he would be disposed to join it. Thurloe's reaction was to ask whether in fact Danzig had made any appeal for assistance, and to remark that the elector of Brandenburg must be suspect, as being ‘passionate in the interest of the prince of Orange’: De Witt to Nieupoort, 23 April NS; Nieupoort to de Witt, 30 April NS; Brieven, iii. 47Google Scholarseqq., 62–3.

page 56 note 2. Presumably Bonnel's letter of 6 April, Add. MS. 38100 fo. 54.

page 59 note 1. De Bye was acting simply as agent of King John Casimir.

page 60 note 1. Blake destroyed nine ships of the Tunis fleet at Porto Farina on 4 April: there was no truth in the story that he designed to attack the Knights of Malta: Corbett, Julian S., England in the Mediterranean, (2 vols. 1904), i. 306–12.Google Scholar

page 59 note 2. The envoy was Constantine Schaum: his speech to the protector is in Thurloe, , iii. 422–3Google Scholar. He urged an Anglo-Dutch-Swedish league, and asked for Cromwell's attitude to the approaching crisis: ibid., 438–9. Paulucci wrote to Sagredo (7 May NS) that Schaum was seconding de Bye's pleas for aid against Russia, but was unlikely to succeed: CSP (Ven) 1655–56, p. 54.Google Scholar

page 61 note 1. Leslie had been prominent in the Swedish armies during the Thirty Years War; Douglas was equally so in the wars of Charles X: Terry, C. Sanford, The Life and Campaigns of Alexander Leslie, fast Earl of Leven (1899)Google Scholar; Douglas, Archibald, Robert Douglas, en krigaregestalt från vår storhetstid (Stockholm 1957)Google Scholar. Douglas was in fact no longer Master of the Horse: one of Christina's last acts before her abdication had been to replace him in that office by her favourite Clas Tott: Douglas, pp. 168, 205.

page 61 note 2. Thurloe, , iii. 309, 351–3, 412, 437Google Scholar. Mazarin had in fact instructed de Baas either to try to obtain an alliance with England or to stir up trouble for Cromwell to keep him from making mischief; though he subsequently indignantly repudiated allegations of complicity in the Gerard—Vowell plot; Lettres du Cardinal Mazarin, vi. 157Google Scholar and n. 2, Mazarin to de Baas, 8 May NS 1655.

page 62 note 1. The rumour was premature, but it alarmed the Dutch: Brieven, iii. 60–1.Google Scholar

page 63 note 1. For Whitelocke's dissatisfaction see his Memorials, iv. 191–201.Google Scholar

page 63 note 2. Cf. The Clarke Papers, iii. 38Google Scholar. Nieupoort noted (7 May NS), as a sign of Cromwell's possible assumption of the crown, that the lawyers lately called in to aid in the administration of justice had declared that the laws of England would only square (‘quadreren’) with a monarchical form of government: Brieven, iii. 60.Google Scholar

page 66 note 1. Boreel, the Dutch ambassador in Paris, warned de Witt (21 May NS) that if the States General were to commit themselves in the Baltic, they might find Cromwell backing Sweden: Brieven, i. 208Google Scholar. And on 26 May NS he wrote that France was not privy to Swedish armaments, and would have preferred Poland not to be harassed, as being a bulwark against the Turk ‘and other formidable eastern powers’: ibid., i. 209. This was true: Mazarin to d'Avaugour, 14 May NS: Lettres du Cardinal Mazarin, vi. 473.Google Scholar

page 67 note 1. For Anglo—French relations under the commonwealth and protectorate, see most recently Korr, Charles P., Cromwell and the New Model Foreign Policy (Berkeley, Calif., 1975).Google Scholar

page 69 note 1. On 11 May Strickland and Jones, on behalf of the council, had replied to Coyet's remonstrances by denying any refusal of justice to Swedish subjects; had intimated that they would be ready to confer on the matters of contraband and sea-passes; and had informed him that the protector, though willing to oblige about recruiting, doubted whether permission could be granted at present without prejudice to their affairs: Carlbom, , Sverige och England, p. 14n.Google Scholar

page 69 note 2. Abbott (iii. 718) translates: ‘that some Swedish subjects had hired legal aid’—an error presumably arising from his confusion of the past participles of the verbs ligga (to lie) and lega (to hire).

page 70 note 1. On 24 May Coyet wrote to Erik Oxenstierna asking him to inform Christer Bonde of the protector's inclination to form a protestant league with Sweden, adding ‘for though I believe that members of the government here, and especially some of them — General Lambert, Viscount Lisle, and others—have pretty well no religion, they nevertheless wish to appear as men of great piety, and as very anxious for the liberty of religion against the papists’: Carlbom, , Sverige och England, p. 19Google Scholarn. 1.

page 71 note 1. This was Mazarin's opinion also: Lettres du Cardinal Mazarin, vii. 78Google Scholar. Hostilities did not actually begin till July; but it was evident that war was impending.

page 71 note 2. The report of the destruction of the ships was true; all the rest was fabulous.

page 71 note 3. The total force probably did not exceed 8000–9000: The Narrative of General Venables (ed. C.H. Firth), (Camden Society 1900), p. xxv.Google Scholar

page 72 note 1. This was correct: Corbett, England in the Mediterranean, i. 312.Google Scholar

page 73 note 1. See no. 19, infra.

page 73 note 2. Intelligence from The Hague, 29 May NS, reported that ‘many here will not be sorry’ for the hitch in the negotiations, ‘for they do imagine, that France and Sweden are agreed to prejudice the House of Austria, and that the chiefest design of the Swedish preparations is against Austria’: Thurloe, , iii. 473Google Scholar. Bordeaux wrote to Brienne, 3 June NS, ‘I know not to what I shall attribute this proceeding, so contrary to all expectations. The zeal of religion is certainly not able to shake the design of the lord protector’: ibid., iii. 470.

page 75 note 1. Cromwell's letter of 25 May 1655, of which Abbott (iii. 726) prints an English version only, seems the only one for which the date, and the general drift, fit this quotation, though the precise wording by no means squares with it.

page 77 note 1. The translation of the order is missing in the transcript.

page 77 note 2. They brought orders to ask leave to raise 5–6000 men in Scotland, in addition to the regiment of 2000 which Leven had already promised. George Fleetwood, whose arrival was expected shortly, was to take charge of their forwarding. Leven's 2000 must be trained men, furnished with clothes, and delivered at Stade, at Leven's expense. Coyet was to sound Cromwell on the prospects of an alliance; to justify Charles X's reasons for war with Poland; and to hint that he was disposed to give English traders privileges better than those enjoyed by the Dutch: Carlbom, , Sverige och England, p. 22.Google Scholar

page 78 note 1. Roll's instructions, and the ratification of Whitelocke's treaty, are printed in Thurloe, , iii. 418–9Google Scholar; cf. CSP (Dom) 1655–1656, p. 235Google Scholar: he did not leave, however, until 30 July: CSP (Ven) 1655–1656, p.94.Google Scholar

page 79 note 1. Cf. Ludlow's comment: ‘The new Chief Justice [Glynn] before he came to sit on the bench, took care to have this business accommodated with Cony’: The Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, ed. Firth, C. H., (2 vols. Oxford 1894), i. 413.Google Scholar

page 80 note 1. Cf. The Narrative of General Venables, pp. 171–2.Google Scholar

page 80 note 2. He was still alive in December 1655, when the protector authorized a grant of money to him to enable him to leave England: Abbott, iv. 59; cf. Gardiner, , Commonwealth and Protectorate, iii. 310Google Scholarn. 1.

page 80 note 3. Whitelocke was deprived of the Great Seal on 6 June; on the 15th it was given to Fiennes and Lisle: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 205–6.Google Scholar

page 80 note 4. Cf. The Clarke Papers, Newsletter, 8 05 1655, iii. 38.Google Scholar

page 80 note 5. Coyet was misinformed.

page 80 note 6. And on this point also.

page 81 note 1. Bonnel received his recredentials on 20 June: Abbott, , iii. 573–4.Google Scholar

page 81 note 2. It ordered Coyet to try to divert the Dutch from taking action against Charles in Poland, it having been reported that they were attempting to form an alliance with Poland, Danzig and Brandenburg, and had determined to send a convoy-fleet to the Sound, with the intention of getting a foothold there and in the Baltic: he was to point out to Cromwell the danger of such proceedings: Carlbom, , Sverige och England, p. 23.Google Scholar

De Witt had been projecting an alliance with Brandenburg since the beginning of May, and hoped that Cromwell would adhere to it; though Nieupoort warned him that the protector was unlikely to agree to being included in a system he had had no hand in framing. De Witt however hoped that the offer would persuade Cromwell that Brandenburg was not an Orange partisan; but in fact the suggestion gave great offence to the elector. The Dutch then tried another approach: on 10 June NS the States of Holland ordered Nieupoort to propose a Dutch—Spanish—English alliance to preserve freedom of commerce in the Baltic: Brieven, iii. 55, 62–3, 67, 69Google Scholar; Thurloe, , iii. 544Google Scholar. The English reaction was cool: Thurloe did indeed assure Nieupoort that the protector considered a Dutch alliance as the basis of his policy, but he thought the proposed triple alliance with Denmark premature, and hoped that Brandenburg would never be included in it: Nieupoort to de Witt, 30 July NS, Brieven, iii. 92Google Scholar; and same to same, 9 July NS, ibid., 78–9, for the protector's doubts about Denmark.

page 82 note 1. The granting of audiences in the late afternoon of Fridays (which was post-day) was a characteristic (and for foreign diplomats frustrating) habit of the protector.

page 83 note 1. But on 8/18 June 1655 Nieupoort reported to de Witt that Thurloe had explained to Coyet that the levy had been refused merely to please the Dutch, though it was to the protector's interest to clear the Highlands of every single highlander: Brieven, iii. 71.Google Scholar

page 83 note 2. Abbott translates ‘he answered me as before, but only after an arrogant speech’: here and elsewhere he takes ‘wijdlöfftigh’ to mean ‘arrogant’, though the real sense is simply ‘diffuse, discursive, prolix’.

page 85 note 1. This was a considerable underestimate: at the beginning of the war Sweden had 36 ships: see the list in Finn Askgaard, Kampen om Östersjön på Carl X Gustafs tid. Ett bidrag till nordisk sjökrigshistoria (Carl X Gustaf-studier, 6) (Stockholm 1974), pp. 28–9Google Scholar. Despite the fact that in 1647 Christina sold four ships to France, and a further nine to Louis de Geer, Sweden maintained a (varying) superiority over Denmark's navy: see the diagram in Från Femern och Jankow till Westfaliska freden. Minnesskrift utarbetad och utgiven av Försvarsstabens krigshistoriska avdelning (Stockholm 1948), pp. 47, 50Google Scholar. In December 1654, nevertheless, Bonde had asserted that the Swedish fleet was not capable of dealing with the Dutch and Danes in conjunction: RRP., xvi. 18Google Scholar. But on this point Thurloe was accurately informed: he wrote to Henry Cromwell on 15 May 1655 that Charles X, if he took Danzig, ‘will by this have the command of all the trade in the Baltique sea, haveing besides a good fleete of 36 men of warre, with which to beseidge the sayd town at sea’: Thurloe, , iii. 440Google Scholar. Nieupoort had also told Thurloe that the Swedish navy could not dispense with Dutch commanders and boatswains: Brieven, iii. 63. There was more truth in this: the Swedish navy had numbers of foreign officers English as well as Dutch.

page 86 note 1. The ambassadors (who were sent by the diet, not by the king) had nothing new to offer, and did not arrive until Charles X was actually embarking for Pomerania.

page 86 note 2. Charles Ferdinand, brother of King John Casimir. He died ‘vario morborum genere vexatus’, on 9 May 1655. At the election of 1648 Sweden had maintained neutrality as between John Casimir and Charles Ferdinand, though conscious that Charles Ferdinand would make the better king. John Casimir being childless, Charles Ferdinand offered the best hope of keeping alive the claims of the Polish Vasas to the throne of Sweden; but the precise bearing of de Bye's remark is not clear: see Jägerskiöld, Olof, ‘Karl Ferdinand Vasa och det polska konungavalet 1648’, Historisk tidskrift (1948), pp. 213–28.Google Scholar

page 86 note 3. Herman Bothe had made a raid into Swedish Livonia in 1639; J. Ernst Crachow had made an incursion in 1643. The Swedes believed—or affected to believe—that both events had the connivance of the Polish authorities. This was a grievance which the Swedish government kept warm, for propaganda purposes: see, e.g., RRP. xvi. 9, 100Google Scholar; and Sveriges ridderskaps och adels riksdagsprotokoll, V₂, 212–13, 216, 220.Google Scholar

page 87 note 1. The truce of Stuhmsdorff, 1635: its duration was to be twenty-six years, so that it was not due to expire until 1661.

page 88 note 1. De Bye's efforts to obtain an alliance with the United Provinces which would have bound them to send a fleet of warships to the Baltic.

page 89 note 1. Charles X, having mobilized on credit, could not afford a quick settlement, which would have left an unpaid army on his hands. As the French ambassador in Stockholm remarked, if a peace were somehow patched up, ‘it will turn this great army both by sea and land another way: it being certain, that Sweden will not rest with these considerable forces on foot’: d'Avaugour to Bordeaux, 10 July 1655: Thurloe, iii. 598.

page 90 note 1. Manning reported to Thurloe, 28 June OS ‘Charles Stuart hopes much to have foreign forces from the King of Sweden’: CSP (Dam) 1655–1656, p. 220Google Scholar; and CSP (Ven) 1655–1656, p. 91Google Scholar, where Sagredo conjectures (8 August NS) that English fears on this head may lie behind the recent wave of arrests.

page 90 note 2. The italicized passages presumably in cypher in the original.

page 90 note 3. Missing in the transcript.

page 91 note 1. Nieupoort was invited to Hampton Court on 30 June. He informed Cromwell that Frederick William of Brandenburg had arranged to hand over Pillau to Charles X (in which he was mistaken); spoke of persecution in the Habsburg lands as being worse than that of the Vaudois; and wondered whether Charles X might not be prepared to attend to it. To which Cromwell replied that he only hoped that he would. Cromwell invited him to play bowls; but (unlike Bonde later), he declined the invitation, excusing himself on the ground of his ignorance of the game: Nieupoort to de Witt, 9 July NS 1655, Brieven, iii. 78–9.

page 93 note 1. Rumours that the Dutch were thinking of sending a fleet to the Baltic had reached Charles X as early as May. In June the States-General decided to send 10–12 ships to the Sound, as convoy. The Dutch—Danish ‘Redemption’ treaty of 1649 permitted up to five Dutch warships to pass the Sound without prior notification, and more than five on three weeks' prior notice. However, the ‘Rescission’ treaty of 1653 abrogated this concession, and forbade Dutch warships to proceed beyond Helsingör: the Swedes seem at this time not to have appreciated the change: Carlbom, J. Levin, Magnus Dureels negotiation i Köpenhamn 1655–57 (Göteborg 1901), pp. 12–14, 27–37Google Scholar. The provisions of the truce of Stuhmsdorf (1635) prohibited the Poles from maintaining warships in the Baltic, and also made it clear that no other state than Sweden and Denmark would be permitted to do so.

page 94 note 1. Gideon van den Boetzelaer was ambassador to France from 1614. By the treaty of 1625 Dutch warships were to serve against Soubise. Coyet was possibly confusing him with van Sommelsdijk, who in 1626 agreed to make 25 ships available at need for service against Louis Kill's subjects. For the Dutch and La Rochelle, see Vreede, G. W., Inleiding tot eene Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Diplomatie, (2 vols. Utrecht 1856–1865), 112. 50–1, 100–2.Google Scholar

page 96 note 1. The reservation of the right to maintain ships of war in the Baltic as exclusive to Sweden and Denmark was always justified on the ground that they kept the sea clear of pirates and maintained navigation-lights. Convoys, however, were nearly essential to the safety of the unarmed Dutch fluits, and were requested (and provided) even for the protection of the heavier, armed, English ships as far as the Sound: see CSP (Dam) 1655–1656, pp. 203, 222, 242, 304, 345.Google Scholar

page 96 note 2. On 18 June NS 1655 Nieupoort wrote to Ruysch to the effect that the Dutch desired an Anglo-French alliance because of the ‘intolerable injuries’ to Dutch skippers under the guise of reprisals on France: Thurloe, iii. 528.

page 96 note 3. A proclamation revoking all letters of marque as from 1 August was issued on 12 July: CSP (Dom) 1655–1656, p. 240.Google Scholar

page 97 note 1. Major-General George Fleetwood had had a distinguished career in the Swedish service. At the battle of Lützen he had played an important part in saving the day at a critical moment: his narrative of the action is in Arkiv till upplysning om svenska krigens och krigsinrättningarnes historia (3 vols. Stockholm 1854–1861), ii. 643–4Google Scholar. Fleetwood was to act purely in a private capacity. He was to make contact with the protector, and express his hope, as a native Englishman, for an alliance between the two countries: Charles X, for his part, would prefer an offensive and defensive alliance contra quemcunque, Sweden taking care of the Baltic, and England of the North Sea. In such a case Sweden would be willing to grant English merchants preferential treatment as against the Dutch and other foreigners. In the meantime Charles would take care that his approaching war with Poland entailed no disadvantage to English merchants trading to the Baltic: summary of his instructions dated 15 May, in Carlbom, , Sverige och England, pp. 35–6.Google Scholar

page 97 note 2. In this he correctly judged Charles X's intentions, as would appear from the orders of 23 June, which must have reached him shortly afterwards: Carlbom, , Sverige och England, p. 34Google Scholarn. 1.

page 98 note 1. Vincent Möller.

page 99 note 1. Compare the view of the Venetian ambassador: ‘The best way would be to raise the protectorate to the dignity of emperor of the three kingdoms. This conspicuous title is not ill adapted to the might and power of this state. The emperor would be elected by the army, in imitation of the ancient Romans, elevated to the throne by the legions and exalted by arms. Cromwell has the courage, character and authority to uphold this high dignity with honour’: Sagredo to Doge, 5 November (NS) 1655: CSP (Ven) 1655–1656, p. 132.Google Scholar

page 99 note 2. If the ‘confidential quarter’ was correct in the report, the plan was not pursued and has left no trace.

page 100 note 1. Missing in the transcript, but printed in Abbott, , iii. 785.Google Scholar

page 100 note 2. Rolt's instructions, but not his credentials, are printed in Abbott, , iii. 774–5.Google Scholar

page 100 note 5. On 5 June 1655 Bonnel made a request for a private audience with the protector: Thurloe, , iii. 517Google Scholar. If he obtained it, it must have been unsuccessful, for on 17 July he wrote to Thurloe:

Paper cannot blush. It is my unhappiness, and not my sin, that makes me to suffer; and most of my suffering is for being an Englishman, and for having been ever true and faithful to my native country; the which hath bred me many enemies in Swedland, who would be very glad to see me forsaken here, and to fall into some inconvenience; not that they or any of them can accuse me of having been any way wanting in the service I owe to the king my master, who I have now a long time served with as much fidelity as any man could have done. I have now a long time been promised and kept up with hopes from time to time, that my sallary should be sent to me by exchange, else I would have provided myselfe of mine owne means, which, thanks be to God, are able yet to maintaine me; but being frustrated of my long hopes, and the necessity of my pressing departure not giving me time to send into Sweadland for my owne money, which would take above two months time, I have been necessitated to addresse myselfe to your honour to move his serenissime highnesse, that in case his highness would be pleased to vouchsafe to gratify me, his most humble servant, with what I made bold to speak [of] with your honour lately, assoone as ever I come over, I will be ready to lay the same downe at his highness's command and pleasure. Sir, a thing soone done is double done; and therefore I am the more pressing, my necessity forcing me to it. And in what place or quality I am, or hereafter shall be, I shall assure your honour that I am and will ever be till death, his serenissime highness's most humble, true, faithfull, and obliged servant, which I will endeavour to shew with deeds and effects, and will always approove myselfe

Your honour's most humble and faithful servant.

I shall expect and hope a favourable answer from your honour: Thurloe, , iii. 655Google Scholar. As appears from what follows, the application must have been unsuccessful, and long after the ‘two months’, his ‘owne money’ had not arrived from Sweden.

page 102 note 1. What passed was influenced by Thurloe's knowledge of the Dutch hope of an alliance with Denmark in which England might be included: and by the news, lately arrived, of the conclusion on 7/17 July of an alliance between the United Provinces and Brandenburg. On 20/30 June Thurloe had told Nieupoort that ‘the protector holds the alliance with our state for the ground and foundation, on which he is resolved for the future to base all treaties and alliances’; but that though he approved the idea of a Dutch—Danish alliance in principle he thought it unnecessary at the moment; that it would be better to wait until they heard what Bonde might have to say; and that the protector still hoped that Charles X might be diverted to attack the emperor. He had added that he trusted that Brandenburg would never be included in the Dutch—Danish alliance, since the elector had shown such ‘passion’ against the protector. The news of the Dutch alliance with Brandenburg therefore came as a severe shock: on 27 July/6 August he told Nieupoort that he regarded it as an Orange triumph: Brieven, iii. 87, 92, 96–9Google Scholar. For Dutch feelers in Denmark see Carlbom, , Magnus Dureel, pp. 28–36, 44–46Google Scholar; Thurloe, , iii. 588–9, 633, 667–8Google Scholar. For the Dutch—Brandenburg alliance, Kolkert, W. J., Nederland en het Zweedsche Imperialisme (Deventer 1908), pp. 79, 93–102, 116–18, 152–6.Google Scholar

page 102 note 2. Nicolaus Heinsius was the Dutch resident in Stockholm.

page 103 note 3. Alexander Leslie, earl of Leven.

page 103 note 4. Lord Cranstoun.