Yet still, like the mystical sun in the
Apocalypse, tormenting others while he was himself tormented, the era of
his assuming power was the consummation of his extreme misery. He waded
through seas of blood; he broke every divine and human obligation; he
made the name of liberty a terror, and that of religion contemptible, to
become himself a more pitiable object than the veriest wretches whom he
inhumed in his prisons. They had some who sympathized in their
sufferings, some who wished them God speed; but though the civilized
world trembled at the name of Cromwell, he knew he had spies, creatures,
and parasites, but not one friend.
Yet amidst this secret wretchedness and universal odium, the distant
reflex of his name and authority was respected by all. Lady Bellingham
found her reception very different, as the Protector's friend, in her
return through England, than when she fled to Scotland an alarmed
fugitive. Conscious of former remissness, Morgan met her at Lancaster,
and earnestly entreated she would repose some days at Saint's-Rest after
the fatigue of her journey.
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