twenty-two years (I have been servant to him when he was prince, and
ever since: it will be twenty-three years in August next)--I confess
these two motives drew me into this foolish business. I have often since
declared to good friends that I was glad it was discovered, because it
might have occasioned very ill consequences; and truly I have repented
having any hand in it."

Challoner was equally fatal against Waller, and said, when at the same
giddy altitude as Tomkins, "Gentlemen, this is the happiest day that
ever I had. I shall now, gentlemen, declare a little more of the
occasion of this, as I am desired by Mr. Peters [the famous Puritan
divine, Hugh Peters] to give him and the world satisfaction in it. It
came from Mr. Waller, under this notion, that if we could make a
moderate party here in London, and stand betwixt and in the gap to unite
the king and the Parliament, it would be a very acceptable work, for now
the three kingdoms lay a-bleeding; and unless that were done, there was
no hopes to unite them," &c.

Waller had a very narrow escape, but he extricated himself with the most
subtle skill, perhaps secretly aided by his kinsman, Cromwell. He talked
of his "carnal eye," of his repentance, of the danger of letting the
army try a member of the House. As Lord Clarendon says: "With incredible
dissimulation he acted such a remorse of conscience, that his trial was
put off, out of Christian compassion, till he could recover his
understanding." In the meantime, he bribed the Puritan preachers, and
listened with humble deference to their prayers for his repentance. He
bent abjectly before the House; and eventually, with a year's
imprisonment and a fine of L10,000, obtained leave to retire to France.
Having spent all his money in Paris, Waller at last obtained permission
from Cromwell to return to England. "There cannot," says Clarendon, "be
a greater evidence of the inestimable value of his (Waller's) parts,
than that he lived after this in the good esteem and affection of many,
the pity of most, and the reproach and scorn of few or none." The body
of the unlucky Tomkins was buried in the churchyard of St. Andrew's,
Holborn.

According to Peter Cunningham, that shining light of the Puritan party
in the early days of Cromwell, "Praise-God Barebone," was a
leather-seller in Fetter Lane, having a house, either at the same time
or later, called the "Lock and Key," near Crane Court, at which place
his son, a great sp