the next time he appears in history it is with the rank of lieutenant in the Cromwellian army.

Before that, however, many great events had taken place, in war and politics. The Royalist resistance in England had been beaten down, and the king was dead, the title and office of king had been abolished, the House of Lords had been done away with, and England was a commonwealth with a Huntingdonshire gentleman, Oliver Cromwell, at its head. The war had shifted to Scotland and Ireland. Charles II had been proclaimed in Edinburgh, and Catholic and Royalist had risen in Ireland. Thither Cromwell had hastened with his invincible Ironsides, to crush the Irish before they could gather head and, with the aid of the Scotch, overthrow his hard-won power. His stroke was swift and merciless. The chief strongholds of his enemies, Drogheda and Wexford, were stormed and their inhabitants put to the sword after the manner of the old Testament. The Irish army was overpowered and Cromwell hurried back to crush the Scots at Dunbar and Worcester, leaving his son-in-law, the lawyer-general Ireton, to stamp out the embers of rebellion. Thereafter, he sent the ablest of his sons, Henry, to hold the island for the Commonwealth.

With him Blood came into touch with the house of Cromwell. The young Irishman had probably been among the troops which were brought over to conquer the "rebels" serving under the Lord General and Ireton after him. For when the new government, following the example of its predecessors, confiscated the land of its enemies and the fair domains of Royalist and Catholic passed into the hands of the hard-hitting and loud-praying colonels and captains and even common soldiers of the Commonwealth, Blood not only acquired estates, but was further distinguished by being made Justice of the Peace under Henry Cromwell. Thus with his fellows, and in greater proportion than most of them, he prospered and after an adventurous career seemed about to achieve the ambition of most Englishmen then and since, and become a real country gentleman. For a space of seven years, under Commonwealth and Protectorate, he lived, like many others of his kind, satisfied and secure in the enjoyment of the fruits of his share in saving England from the tyrant, little moved by the great events oversea. And, had it not been for circumstances as far outside his little sphere as those which had raised him to this position, he might well have finished an obscure and peaceful existence, with little further interest for the historian or moralist. But at the end of those seven fat years Fate, who had been so kind to Blood and his fellows, changed sides, and he, like many others, missing the signs of the times, or moved by conviction, could not, or would not, at all events did not change with her.

On September 3, 1658, Oliver Cromwell died and the fabric of government which for some years had rested on little more than his will and his sword, began at once to crumble. For a few months his son Richard endured the empty honour of the Protector's title. Then he resigned and the administration was left in a weltering chaos of Rump Parliament politicians and Cromwellian army generals. To end this anarchy came the governor of Scotland, General Monk, with his army, to London in the first months of 1660. Under his shrewd, stern management the old Parliament was forced to dissolve itself and a new House of Commons was chosen. The first act of this so-called Convention was to recall the House of Stuart to the throne, and on May 29, 1660, Charles II rode into London and his inheritance, welcomed by the same shouting thousands who had so recently assembled to pay the last honours to the Protectorate. As rapidly as might be thereafter the new regime was established. The old officers and officials were replaced by Royalists, the forces by land and sea were disbanded, save for five thousand trusty troops to guard the new monarchy, the leaders of the fallen party were arrested and executed, or driven into exile, or put under security. Some, like Monk and Montague and Browne, were now the strongest pillars in the new political edifice. Many, like Harrison and his fellow-regicides, were marked for speedy execution, while others, like Vane, were kept for future sacrifice. Many more, like Marten and Waller and Cobbet, dragged out a wretched existence as political prisoners, exchanging one prison for another till death released them. Some, like Hutchinson, were put under bonds and granted a half liberty that in too many cases led only to later imprisonment. Only a few, like Lambert, lived long in the more pleasant confinement of the Channel Islands and the Scillies. Yet many escaped. Ludlow and Lisle and their companions found protection if not safety in Switzerland. Many more sought refuge in Holland. Some like Algernon Sidney flitted over Europe like uneasy spirits. No small number joined the Emperor to fight the Turk, or took service in Holland or Sweden or the petty states of Germany. And still others, like Goffe and Whalley and Dixwell, sought and found security in the New World. The leaders of the fallen party out of the way, for the ensuing six years the government left no stone unturned to undo the work of revolution and to restore in so far as possible the old order.

It was no easy task. For twenty years England had been engaged in a civil strife where political animosities were embittered by religious dissensions, emphasized by lines of social cleavage. Not merely had the ancient fabric of church and state been shattered, but society itself had been convulsed by the intrusion of ideas and classes hitherto little regarded as vital elements of public affairs. One by one institutions long held sacred fell before these new vandals who seemed about to set up a new heaven and a new earth. King, Lords, Church, local government, finally the House of Commons itself disappeared. An open way for the talents was created. A carter became a colonel and member of Parliament, a butcher became a major-general. The son of a country merchant developed into the greatest English naval commander of his time. Meeting house and conventicle took their place beside parish church and cathedral. Bishops, vestments, liturgy, at last the whole Establishment disappeared, and there came to be thousands of men who, like Pepys, saw a church service with its "singing men" for the first time after the Restoration. One section of the people in short had triumphed over another. Many of them, like Blood, actually entered into their enemies' inheritance and seemed likely to found a new dominant caste. Nor was the effect confined to England. That land where Puritanism had taken refuge across the sea, New England, felt the impulse no less strongly. The current of emigration which some years before had flowed so strongly toward the new world was checked and even turned back. With the clash of arms not a few New World Puritans hastened to the mother country to strike a blow for their cause. Thus the young George Downing, but just graduated from Harvard, entered the Parliamentary army as chaplain, turning thence to diplomacy, and with the overthrow of the Puritans, to Royalism. But many were more scrupulous or less fortunate than he. When 1660 came and this was all reversed, when the old party was in the ascendant, the king on the throne, what would become of them? They had been free to worship in their own way and had been largely exempt even from many forms of taxation. But all this was now suddenly reversed. The Royalists were again in the ascendant, the king was on his throne, Puritanism was discredited, its leaders gone, its organization destroyed. What were men like Blood to do?

Matters moved rapidly in those early months of 1660 as they had need to do if the restoration of the old order was to be accomplished without bloodshed. From the first of January when Monk with his Scotch army entered England on its way to London to the end of May when Charles II rode into Whitehall and his inheritance, great events pressed close on each other's heels. The old Long Parliament was restored to decree its own