. RICHARD BRADSHAW,
likewise, who had been sent as Envoy to the Czar of Muscovy in the
beginning of the year (ante pp. 292-294), would be moving about
usefully on the east of the Baltic. And, if a reconciliation between
Sweden and Denmark should by any means be brought about, what then
should be aimed at but a repair of the rupture between the Elector of
Brandenburg and the Swedish King, so as to save the Elector from the
threatened vengeance of the Swede, and then farther the aggregation
of other Protestant German States, and of the Dutch, round this
nucleus of a Swedish-Danish-Brandenburg alliance, for common action
against Poland, Austria, and German Catholicism? Even the Muscovites,
as of the Greek Church, might be brought in, or at least they might
be rendered neutral. All this was in contemplation, as a tissue of
ideal possibilities, when MEADOWS and JEPHSON were despatched in
August, and the mission of DOWNING four months later to the United
Provinces was partly in the same great interest. It may seem matter
for wonder that a man of Cromwell's practical sagacity, already so
deeply implicated on the Continent by his Flanders enterprise and his
alliance with France, should have had such a passion for farther
interference as thus to insert his hands into the apparently
measureless entanglement in northern and eastern Europe. But, in the
first place, his practical sagacity was not at fault. Precisely that
it should not be an entanglement, but a marshalling of powers in two
sets according to their true religions and political affinities, was
the essence of his aspiration; there were deep tendencies towards
that result; sagacity consisted in perceiving these, and practicality
in promoting them. Cromwell's aspiration in connexion with the
Swedish-Danish war was also, it could be proved, that of other
thoughtful Protestants then contemplating the war and speculating on
its chances. But, in the second place, the business of the French
alliance and the Flanders enterprise was vitally inter-connected with
the so-called entanglement in the north and east. The German Emperor
Ferdinand III. had died in April 1657; the Empire was vacant; Mazarin
had set his heart on obtaining that central European dignity for his
young master, Louis XIV., and was intriguing with the Electors for
the purpose; it was still uncertain whether, when the time came, a
majority of the Electoral College would vote for Louis XIV. or would
retain the Impe