n into
activity.[3] After some previous negotiation, he repaired

[Footnote 1: Clarendon Papers, iii. 163, 164, 256, 281, 298, 316; Hist.
iii. 443]

[Footnote 2: Seven thousand two hundred pistoles for twelve months'
arrears, and three thousand six hundred for six in advance.--Clar. Pap.
iii. 293.]

[Footnote 3: While Charles was at Cologne, he was surrounded by spies, who
supplied Cromwell with copious information, though it is probable that they
knew little more than the public reports in the town. On one occasion the
letters were opened at the post-office, and a despatch was found from a
person named Manning to Thurloe. Being questioned before Charles, Manning
confessed that he received an ample maintenance from the protector, but
defended himself on the ground that he was careful to communicate nothing
but what was false. That this plea was true, appeared from his despatch,
which was filled with a detailed account of a fictitious debate in the
council: but the falsehoods which he had sent to England had occasioned the
arrest and imprisonment of several royalists, and Manning was shot as a
traitor at Duynwald, in the territory of the duke of Neuburg.--Clar. iii.
563-569. Whitelock, 633. Thurloe, iv. 293.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1656. March 12.]

to the neighbourhood of Brussels, and offered himself as a valuable ally to
the Spanish monarch. He had it in his power to call the English and Irish
regiments in the French service to his own standard; he possessed numerous
adherents in the English navy; and, with the aid of money and ships, he
should be able to contend once more for the crown of his fathers, and to
meet the usurper on equal terms on English ground. By the Spanish ministers
the proposal was entertained, but with their accustomed slowness. They had
to consult the cabinet at Madrid; they were unwilling to commit themselves
so far as to cut off all hope of reconciliation with the protector; and
they had already accepted the offers of another enemy to Cromwell, whose
aid, in the opinion of Don Alonzo, the late ambassador, was preferable to
that of the exiled king.[1]

This enemy was Colonel Sexby. He had risen from the ranks to the office of
adjutant-general in the parliamentary army; and his contempt of danger
and enthusiasm for liberty had so far recommended him to the notice of
Cromwell, that the adjutant was occasionally honoured with a place in
the councils, and a share in the bed, of the lord-general. Bu