d him as
"Majesty," while they refused an audience to the English envoys. Their
Stadtholder, his brother-in-law, the Prince of Orange, was supported by
popular sympathy in the aid and encouragement he afforded to Charles;
and eleven ships of the English fleet, which had found a refuge at the
Hague ever since their revolt from the Parliament, were suffered to sail
under Rupert's command, and to render the seas unsafe for English
traders. The danger however was far greater nearer home. In Scotland
even the zealous Presbyterians whom Cromwell had restored to power
refused to follow England on its rejection of monarchy. Argyle and his
fellow-leaders proclaimed Charles the Second as king on the news of his
father's death; and at once despatched an embassy to the Hague to invite
him to ascend the throne. In Ireland the factions who ever since the
rebellion had turned the country into a chaos, the old Irish Catholics
or native party under Owen Roe O'Neill, the Catholics of the English
Pale, the Episcopalian Royalists, the Presbyterian Royalists of the
North, had at last been brought to some sort of union by the diplomacy
of Ormond; and Ormond called on Charles to land at once in a country
where he would find three-fourths of its people devoted to his cause.

[Sidenote: England and the Commonwealth.]

Of the dangers which threatened the new Commonwealth some were more
apparent than real. The rivalry of France and Spain, both anxious for
its friendship, secured it from the hostility of the greater powers of
the Continent; and the ill-will of Holland could be delayed, if not
averted, by negotiations. The acceptance of the Covenant was insisted
on by Scotland before it would formally receive Charles as its ruler,
and nothing but necessity would induce him to comply with such a demand.
On the side of Ireland the danger was more pressing, and an army of
twelve thousand men was set apart for a vigorous prosecution of the
Irish war. But the real difficulties were the difficulties at home. The
death of Charles gave fresh vigour to the Royalist cause; and the
loyalty which it revived was stirred to enthusiasm by the publication of
the "Eikon Basilike," a work really due to the ingenuity of Dr. Gauden,
a Presbyterian minister, but which was believed to have been composed by
the king himself in his later hours of captivity, and which reflected
with admirable skill the hopes, the suffering, and the piety of the
royal "martyr." For a momen