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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 December 2009
[Bonde's instructions are dated 14 June 1655, and were supplemented by secret instructions dated 15 June.
By the former, he was ordered, in general, to complete what had been left unsettled in Whitelocke's treaty of 1654; was to do everything possible to ensure that commerce should be free from interruption; to draw up a list of contraband goods which should exclude copper, iron, tar, grain and timber, but should include all weapons of war, soldiers, horses and cloth; to reach agreement on a form of sea-pass; to seek access to English possessions in America, and to the herring and cod fisheries. He was further to try to divert English trade to Russia from Archangel to the Baltic harbours under Swedish control, the duties on such trade not to exceed 2%; to offer permission for customs-free deposit of Russian goods in Ingria or Livonia, with the right to sell them retail; and to emphasize England's obligation, in terms of the Whitelocke treaty, to assist Charles X against any disturbers of the trade in the Baltic or North Sea, in view of the fact that war with Poland was imminent.
page 104 note 1. A full summary of both instructions is printed in Carlbom, , Sverige och England, pp. 43–5Google Scholar: that in Pufendorf, , ii. 132–3Google Scholar, is less satisfactory.
page 105 note 1. Erik Oxenstierna.
page 106 note 1. Bonde was mistaken, as he later realized: Whitelocke retained his post as a Commissioner of the Treasury.
page 107 note 1. In mourning for Maria Eleonora, widow of Gustavus Adolphus, who had died on 18 March [OS] 1655.
page 108 note 1. At this point the MS has an asterisk referring to a note at the bottom of the page. The note is almost undecipherable, but may be in English, and could read ‘? of the generals and’.
page 110 note 1. Underlined in original.
page 110 note 2. De Witt himself was for a moment almost inclined to suspect that the elector was secretly in league with Charles X: de Witt to Nieupoort, 2 July NS 1655, Brieven, iii. 77Google Scholar: cf. the comment of one of Thurloe's agents in Holland, to the effect that a Dutch–Brandenburg alliance would be ‘a trick put upon the States of Holland, in regard that alliance is more Orangeist and royalist than any one in the world. And the States of Holland making profession to esteem the amity of the protector, ought not to make amity with men so violently royalist’: Thurloe, iii. 525–6.
page 112 note 1. A defensive alliance was signed on 7/17 July 1655, the Dutch taking care to insist on the provision of the treaty of Westminster (art. xv), that England was to be free to join it.
page 112 note 2. Whitelocke was deprived of the Great Seal on 6 June; on the 15th it was given to Fiennes and Lisle.
page 113 note 1. Cf. The Clarke Papers, iii. 46Google Scholar. A similar brawl about precedence (this time between the French and Portuguese ambassadors, with swords drawn) had occurred in March 1654: Sherwood, Roy, The Court of Oliver Cromwell (1977), p. 92.Google Scholar
page 114 note 1. The original transcriber has here inserted: ‘This appendix is annexed to the letter, but I have not transcribed it’. It probably contained an account of the ceremonial connected with Bonde's formal entry.
page 114 note 2. Bonde's Diarium for 1 August notes that the audience lasted an hour and three quarters, ‘cum tamen nunquam id voluerit facere, nisi ad minimum in praesentia Semlarii Thurloe’.
page 115 note 1. The encounter at Ujście, which resulted in the capitulation of Opaliński's forces.
page 115 note 2. Paulucci, in his despatch to Sagredo on 22 August (NS), reported a conversation with Bonde in which, on receiving congratulations on the initial victories in Poland, Bonde is reported to have said that ‘the Swedes mean to press their good fortune against Poland, but with their eyes fixed on the empire, since this minister went on to say that if his king should happen some day to envision a protestant emperor, the present state of the world would be changed indeed, and the Ottoman empire would certainly be subdued. This is looking far ahead, and it will stir all Christendom with a terror like that caused many years ago by King Gustavus’: CSP (Ven) 1655–56, p. 97.Google Scholar
page 115 note 3. The Dutch-Brandenburg alliance of 7/17 July was known to Thurloe on 27 July/6 August. By it the elector promised not to allow any foreign power into his harbours, and the Dutch promised 4000 men to assist in repelling any attack in the Baltic or in Cleves: Wittrock, Georg, ‘Fordraget i Königsberg och dess förhistoria’, Karolinska Förbundets Årsbok (1921), p. 21.Google Scholar
page 116 note 1. The allusion is to a brawl between one Richard Broke and some ‘Belgians’ in Pskov, in which one of Broke's assailants was killed: the protector's letter to Charles X is printed in Abbott, iii. 798.
page 117 note 1. Cf. Whitelocke's account: ‘There were of his company five Swedish barons and about thirty other gentlemen of quality, about four pages, and ten lackeys; his other servants made up the number of two hundred persons; generally proper handsome men, and fair-faced; they were all in mourning (very genteel), as the ambassador himself was’: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 209.Google Scholar
page 117 note 2. The Swedish fleet (of 14 ships, to which 5 were added later), took station in Danzig Roads on 25 August. The decision to blockade Danzig had been taken on 28 July, after the arrival of the news of the Dutch–Brandenburg alliance. The admiral was to take toll of all ships entering or leaving the port except English ships. The blockade became fully effective on 10 September, and continued for the remainder of the trading season until 25 November. Danzig's reply was simply to close the port entirely, thus denying to the Swedes any financial advantage: see Finn Askgaard, pp. 31–5. Abbott is in error when he writes (iv. 71) ‘the English merchants in Danzig wrote to ask protection against the Swedish king who had been hindering their trade’: on the contrary, as the letter from them to Thurloe (iv. 404)—to which he refers— makes clear, their complaint was against Danzig's imposition of head-money, and the city's refusal to accept English goods which had been re-routed through Pillau to avoid the blockade: cf. ibid, iv. 368–70, 490, v. 88. For varying Danish reactions to the blockade, see Becker, P. W., Samlinger til Danmarks Historic under Kong Fredrik den Tredies Regering af udenriges Archiver (2 vols. Copenhagen 1847), i. 74, 77–8.Google Scholar
page 119 note 1. Bonde was mistaken: Nieupoort had been invited out to Hampton Court on 30 June, and Bordeaux received a general invitation on 8 May: Guizot, , History of Oliver Cromwell, ii. 560.Google Scholar
page 119 note 2. The Dutch had already decided to send a fleet to the Sound (but not to the Baltic). De Witt defined its object as being to protect Denmark from attack. It had been decided also to send a deputation to Denmark to find out what Frederick Ill's attitude would be if the Swedes were to disturb trade to the Baltic by imposing new tolls, or otherwise harassing shipping: De Witt to Nieupoort, 13 August NS 1655: Brieven, iii. 101.Google Scholar
page 120 note 1. On 3 September (NS) Nieupoort reported to de Witt that Thurloe stressed his fear of involvement in a war with Sweden, and England's inability to bear another war, as the protector's main reason for disliking de Witt's alliance-policy: Brieven, iii. 114Google Scholar. De Witt on 30 September NS informed Nieupoort that the States of Holland had decided to send embassies to Sweden and to Denmark in the hope of composing the Swedish–Polish quarrel, and that he hoped for England's collaboration in obtaining a settlement: Thurloe, iv. 45.
page 120 note 2. Bonde's Diarium for 11 August gives a rather different account: ‘… heard music; walked in the park, killed a stag; then to bowling-green and played bowls; then kissed the hand of Cromwell's wife, and his daughter's cheek; then drank a glass of Spanish wine, and returned to London’ (p. 50). Ekeblad adds that after playing bowls with Cromwell, Fleetwood and Whitelocke, Bonde was conducted to Cromwell's wife and daughters, ‘three of them, and ugly they were’: Ekeblad, Brev. i. 415Google Scholar. Bonde seems to have been invited to Hampton Court only once again, on 25 July 1656, when he was on the eve of departure. It is conceivable that Cromwell preferred to have his weekends unspoiled by business. But a royalist observer could already report ‘[Cromwell] is exceedingly intimate with the Swedish ambassador …; they drive, sup and hunt and play at bowls together. Cromwell never caressed any man so much, nor sought the friendship of any so much as the king of Sweden’: Nicholas to Jos. Jane, 4/14 September 1655: CSP (Dom) 1655–56, p. 135.Google Scholar
page 121 note 1. On the contrary, the arrival of the Swedish fleet coincided with the climax of Danzig's trading season: the busiest day of the year was St Dominic's Day, the day of the opening of the August fair: Davies, Norman, God's Playground. A History of Poland, i (Oxford 1982), p. 258.Google Scholar
page 121 note 2. In a letter to Bonde of 30 September Charles X asserted that the blockade had not been imposed for the sake of revenue, but as a measure of economic warfare: Carlbom, , Sverige och England, p. 45Google Scholarn.
page 122 note 1. Charles accepted this suggestion, deciding on reflection that a preference for English merchants would be too provocative to the Dutch: Pufendorf, , ii. 70–1.Google Scholar
page 122 note 2. The blockade ended in November 1655, and was briefly renewed in the following spring. The economic effects on Danzig were perceptible, but much more important was the effect of Charles X's campaigns, which ruined the countryside and prevented commodities from reaching Danzig down the Vistula: Cieślak, Edmund, ‘Gdansks militär-politiska och ekonomiska betydelse under det polsk-svenska kriget 1655–1659’, in Polens krig med Sverige 1655–1660 (Carl X Gustaf-studier, 5) (Stockholm 1973), pp. 145–7.Google Scholar
page 122 note 3. He had already turned traitor to the Polish republic and concluded a treaty with Charles X.
page 122 note 4. Missing in transcript, but cf. The Clarke Papers, Newsletter, 11 08 1655, iii. 48.Google Scholar
page 123 note 1. A boijort was a light craft equipped with both sails and oars.
page 124 note 1. Missing in transcript.
page 125 note 1. In Ekeblad's opinion ‘they had not nearly so good an appearance as our soldiers, and kept pretty indifferent order on the march, but their cavalry is well mounted’: Ekeblad, i. 421. But Sagredo observed that ‘The troops are paid punctually and marvellously appointed, so that a private soldier is as well equipped as an officer in Italy’: Sagredo to Doge, 24 September NS 1655: CSP (Ven) 1655–56, p. 112.Google Scholar
page 126 note 1. There being no reason for them to remain, since Bonde was not going to speak Latin, with which Cromwell might have needed some assistance. For the ceremonial at Cromwell's court see, in general, Sherwood, , Court of Oliver CromwellGoogle Scholar; and Stern, , ‘Oliver Cromwell und die evangelische kantone der Schweiz’, p. 58.Google Scholar
page 127 note 1. He had relatives in the Dutch forces, whose promotion was a matter of concern to him.
page 127 note 2. When in October 1654 the French minister to Sweden had presented Charles II's compliments to Charles X, the acknowledgement had been in terms of studiously vague good-will: d'Avaugour to Charles II, PRO. SP 95/56/130–1. A letter of intelligence of 14 September NS 1655 from Cologne informed Thurloe that royalists there believed that Charles X was double-crossing them. There seems no reason, in fact, for supposing that Bonde's apprehensions were well-grounded, though de Witt for a moment seems to have suspected it: cf. Coyet's letter no. 27 supra, p. 91 and n. 1.
page 130 note 1. A reference to de Bye's negotiations of 1653–4.
page 130 note 2. Whitelocke's treaty of 1654 laid it down that England and Sweden would coöperate to prevent disturbance of trade in ‘the Baltic, Sound, Northern, Western and British Seas, Mediterranean, Channel and other Seas in Europe’: Abbott, , iii. 914.Google Scholar
page 133 note 1. After 1648 the city of Bremen had claimed to be immediate to the emperor and had refused to acknowledge Swedish overlordship. Christina had declared war; Bremen had successfully defended itself; Charles X on his accession had forced it to accept a compromise peace which conceded the Swedish demand but left the question of immediacy open.
page 135 note 1. The Vaudois massacres: the protector's appeal to Charles X is printed in Abbott, iii. 968.
page 137 note 1. For the Muscovy Company's grievances against the Russians, see CSP (Dom) 1653–4, p. 340Google Scholar,. and 1655–56, p. 189.
page 138 note 1. Charles X at the beginning of his Polish campaigns found it expedient to adopt a relatively tolerant attitude, since he relied on the support of the Polish nobility.
page 140 note 1. Something like this emerged as one improbable solution to the protector's perplexities a month or so later, when Nieupoort reports Thurloe as suggesting that the best solution to their difficulties might be a defensive alliance of England, the Dutch, Denmark, Sweden—and Brandenburg. Nieupoort to de Witt, 9 October NS: Brieven, iii. 218–19Google Scholar. On which Nieupoort drily commented that it might be worth while to take him at his word: ibid., 130.
page 141 note 1. There seems no justification for Guernsey Jones's suggestion that Bonde at this conference committed a diplomatic blunder by dismissing ‘the Protestant Cause’-argument as of little importance: Guernsey Jones, p. 35. He probably got this idea from Pehr Kalling, Om Riks-Rådet Frik. Christer Bondes. Ambassad., p. 17Google Scholar, who paraphrases Bonde as saying ‘For the protestant religion nothing was now to be feared. The catholics had made no attacks, except against the protestants in Savoy, but this was an affair which seemed of small importance’.
page 142 note 1. Some fervent protestant syncretists were attracted by an apocalypticism which promised that the Latter Days would probably start in 1654 or 1655; and to some of them Charles X's attack on Poland seemed to be the signal for their beginning. Samuel Hartlib, John Durie, Drabik and Comenius were of this persuasion, and looked forward to a godly coalition between Charles X, Cromwell, and George II Rákóczy of Transylvania. Durie and Hartlib were in close touch with Cromwell, though it does not appear that they succeeded in seriously interesting him in their ideas: see Göransson, Sven, Den europeiska konfessionspolitikens upplösning 1654–1660 (Uppsala 1955), especially pp. 44–5Google Scholar, and Dahl, Folke, ‘King Charles Gustavus of Sweden and the English astrologers William Lilly and John Gadbury’, Lychnos (Uppsala 1937), ii. pp. 161–86Google Scholar. For Durie, see Batten, J.M., John Durie. Advocate of Christian Reunion (Chicago 1944)Google Scholar. He had been a member of Lisle's embassy to Sweden in 1652. It was probably one of Lilly's enthusiastic predictions that Bonde took home with him to Sweden: Ekeblad, Brev, ii. 61.Google Scholar
page 143 note 1. Vice-Chancellor Hieronymus Radziejowski was a rebel and fugitive from Poland, who fled to Sweden in 1652. He entered into (possibly unauthorized) communications with Chmielnicki, who had just concluded the treaty of Pereyaslavl, which transferred the allegiance of the Cossacks to Russia. When his intrigue with the Cossacks leaked out he was sent to England with Christina's recommendation, and was well received. Thence he went to France, where he involved himself in efforts to organize a coalition against the Turks, with the object of liberating Greece. Exiled Greek patriots, anxious to obtain the aid of Chmielnicki, sent the Abbot Daniel to the Ukraine, with proposals for an alliance. Thence he went to Stockholm, arriving in September 1654, with an offer of an alliance contra quemcunque—including, therefore, Russia. Philaras was another Greek with the same objectives. The Swedish council debated Daniel's offers in January 1655, but considered that though Chmielnicki's revolt against Poland was to be encouraged, they would for the moment await developments: for all this, see Kentrschyńskyj, Bohdan, ‘Ukrainska revolutionen och Rysslands angrepp mot Sverige 1656’, Karolinska Förbundets Årsbok, (1956), pp. 28–37Google Scholar. Daniel continued to act as an intermediary between Chmielnicki and Charles X in 1655–56: Wibling, Carl, Carl X Gustaf och Georg Rákóczy (Lund 1891), pp. 10, 28.Google Scholar
page 144 note 1. Missing in transcript.
page 145 note 1. Missing in transcript.
page 146 note 1. Bonde's letter is in Thurloe, iii. 736. Abbott (iii. 814) links it to Charles X's proposal that England should lend him twenty warships; but this does not appear from the text.
page 146 note 2. By an Ordinance of 1645 Swedish merchantmen, if adequately armed, and manned by Swedish crews, were to be ‘wholly free’; others who did not quite come up to this standard were to be ‘half-free’: i.e., the former to enjoy a reduction of one-third, and the latter of one-sixth, of the ordinary duties payable: text in Stiernman, Samling utaf … stadgar … aug … Sweriger … commerca, ii. 400 ffGoogle Scholar. Bonde's offer probably went beyond the terms of his instructions.
page 147 note 1. Thurloe's information was correct, as far as it went; and in the end the convoyfleet sailed only as the result of a compromise, designed to appease the opposition in Zeeland, by which it was to have no official character: Kolkert, , Nederland en het Zweedsche Imperialisme, pp. 26–8, 159–64.Google Scholar
page 149 note 1. The Russians had invaded Poland in 1654, had overrun Lithuania, and in the spring of 1655 had entered Polish Livonia, and were in alarming proximity to Riga.
page 150 note 1. Presents of elks and reindeer frequently occur in Swedish diplomacy: they were curiosities from a country not over-endowed with such things.
page 150 note 2. Bonde's Dianum notes, under 29 August, ‘Cromwell unwell’, and under 1–3 September, ‘protector very ill’.
page 151 note 1. In conversations with Thurloe on 20 and 27 August NS Nieupoort argued that Bonde was simply trying to gain time; suggested that England, France and Holland might jointly intervene to end the Polish war, as they had done it Altmark in 1629; and urged a quick and secret alliance with Denmark. Thurloe asked why England should engage in an alliance which might easily lead to a war to defend the elector of Brandenburg, ‘who hates us, and has recently offered Charles II 3000 men if he can provide a landing-place’?: would it not be better first to try persuasion with Charles X, get him to agree to a treaty pledging him not to disturb trade, and then, perhaps, a quadruple alliance with Denmark, Sweden and the Dutch? To which Nieupoort replied that Denmark must be ‘animated’ in the meantime. And Thurloe conceded (or professed to concede) that Sweden was only ‘amusing’ England: Brieven, iii. 107, 112.
page 151 note 2. See infra, p. 152, n 1.
page 152 note 1. Nieupoort to de Witt, 20 August NS 1655: Brieven, iii. 107Google Scholar. In June 1655 Charles X, anxious to rally the clergy to the support of his war, issued a Statute of Religion which would have prohibited calvinist religious services. The Swedish council of state decided on 22 November to postpone its publication: as Per Brahe remarked, ‘Herr Christer Bonde is already in England, negotiating with the protector; and if news of this got about … that would undoubtedly greatly hamper the aforesaid ambassador in his negotiations, so that he might not be able to obtain from the protector what he otherwise might have had good hopes of; for in this connexion it is well known how much the aforesaid protector took to heart the persecuting of the Waldensians by the duke of Savoy …’: RRP., xvi. 278Google Scholar. But on 1 May 1656, in consequence of orders from Charles dated 7 March, the council ordered the immediate publication of the Statute: ibid., 455.
page 156 note 1. Cf. The Narrative of General Venables, p. 167.Google Scholar
page 157 note 1. On 30 September (NS) de Witt informed Nieupoort that the States-General had decided to send embassies to Sweden and to Denmark: the purpose of the latter being to invite the aid of Frederick III in restoring good relations between Sweden and Poland. De Witt feared that otherwise Denmark might be driven into alliance with Sweden: Thurloe, , iv. 45Google Scholar; Fridericia, J. A., Adelsvaeldens sidste Dage. Danmarks Historia fra Christian IVs Død Till Enevaeldens Indførelse (Copenhagen 1894), pp. 222–3.Google Scholar
page 157 note 2. Missing in transcript.
page 158 note 1. Cf. Corbett, , England in the Mediterranean, i. 316.Google Scholar
page 160 note 1. A large embassy, headed by Gustaf Bielke, had been sent to Russia in July with secret instructions to ‘amuse’ the tsar with plans for a partition of Poland, but on no account to conclude any binding engagement: Bonnesen, Sten, Karl X Gustaf, pp. 78–9Google Scholar. So far from being ‘amused’ the tsar very soon imprisoned them.
page 160 note 2. On 10 September NS Nieupoort reported that Thurloe had told him that he had heard that Denmark had promised that no warships would be permitted to pass the Sound. De Witt's reply (17 September NS) was silent on this point: Brieven, iii. 118–19.Google Scholar
page 163 note 1. I have not been able to identify the Irish bishop.
page 163 note 2. Bonde's Diarium for 28 September reads: ‘Talked with Secretary Thurloe; et veniam largitus est de conducendis militibus in Scotia’.
page 164 note 1. Svenska Akademiens Ordbok gives the meaning of this word as (i) injure, wound, hurt; (ii) oppress, repress, humiliate. Neither seems appropriate here. Neither Wittenberg nor Königsmarck was wounded at Ujście, which was a short encounter which terminated in the capitulation of the Poles. It might apply if Thurloe was speaking ironically; but that does not seem likely. Johan Ekeblad (Brev, i. 428Google Scholar) uses the word to describe how he felt smothered in the enormous English beds; but regularly uses it to mean ‘wounded’. It seems likely that what Thurloe said was ‘quits’, and that Bonde's secretary mistook it for ‘qwätze’. Hans Christopher von Königsmarck had captured—on the very eve of peace—the ‘New Town’ of Prague, with immense booty. Wittenberg's bloodless victory at Ujście could be compared to this achievement only by way of flattery, and it leaves unexplained the reference to Königsmarck's son, who in 1648 was only 19.
page 165 note 1. After Wittenberg's victory at Ujście John Casimir on 22 July/I August offered the Polish crown to Ferdinand III.
page 165 note 2. On 1 October (NS) Thurloe informed Nieupoort that Cromwell had been consulting ‘with a few gentlemen who take part in the most secret and important deliberations’ on the Baltic question. They found three difficulties: uncertainty as to Denmark's intentions; the elector of Brandenburg's dislike of England; the uncertain political situation in the United Provinces, where the Orange party appeared to be gaining strength. Cromwell wondered if the other provinces would not be prepared to follow Holland's example and pass an Act of Seclusion: which Nieupoort declared to be impossible. De Witt explained that as to Denmark, Frederick III wanted no more than ‘an opportunity to obtain reparation for the damage and disasters sustained in the last war with Sweden’, but would not give provocation ‘unless and until the occasion should clearly arise’: Brieven, iii. 125–30Google Scholar. Strickland subsequently informed Nieupoort that the ‘few gentlemen’ comprised himself, Lambert, Fiennes and Lawrence: ibid., iii. 146. Thurloe was still brooding on the effectiveness of the Act of Seclusion as regarded Brandenburg in June 1656: Schlezer to elector, 13 June 1656, Urk. und Act., vii. 752.Google Scholar
page 167 note 1. The proclamation prolonged the Act of 1652, disabling royalists from election to corporations and other offices: Gardiner, , Commonwealth and Protectorate, iii. 324Google Scholar, though he does not associate it with any plan to hold parliamentary elections.
page 167 note 2. His instructions are printed in Urk. und Act., vii. 721–4Google Scholar. They included a request to the protector to send a special envoy to the Baltic to try to mediate peace, and suggestions for trading privileges for English merchants in Prussia. Schlezer was not granted an audience until 4 December: ibid., p. 729.
page 169 note 1. Sagredo.
page 170 note 1. The case of Dom Pantaleon Sá, who in 1654 killed a man in a brawl, and was tried and executed by the English courts.
page 170 note 2. After the encounter at Ujście on 14/24 July a section of the Polish nobility recognized Charles X as king on 7/17 August.
page 171 note 1. On 6/16 September 1655.
page 171 note 2. From mid-May Charles X had been sending repeated orders to Magnus Dureel in Copenhagen to try to obtain an alliance with Denmark; but the first exchange of proposals did not come till the beginning of November: Carlbom, J. Levin, Magnus Dureels negotiation, pp. 27, 51, 55–60Google Scholar. The proposals were for an alliance against all powers attempting to intervene in the Baltic: cf. Thurloe, , iv. 149–50.Google Scholar
page 172 note 1. Missing in transcript.
page 172 note 2. By the rule that foreign ministers might not visit or be visited by members of the council of state: hence the recurrent references to apparently casual meetings in St James's Park. Nieupoort was provided with a key to the Park (Abbott, , iv. 24Google Scholar), and Bonde must have had one also, though he makes no mention of it.
page 173 note 1. This can hardly be true, for the protector gave him leave to stay out or come home, as he pleased: he anchored in the Downs on 6 October, ‘with his fleet as worn and strained as himself’: Corbett, , England in the Mediterranean, i. 317.Google Scholar
page 178 note 1. A reference to the murder of Anthony Ascham in 1650.
page 178 note 2. Isaac Dorislaus, murdered in 1649.
page 180 note 1. On 12 October the commissioners for the Admiralty and Navy reported that wages due to the fleet amounted to ca. £120,000, and that they had not been paid for about twenty months. Cash in hand was less than £20,000, the remainder having gone to pay for Penn's and Blake's fleets. The total debt on the navy was ca. £657,835; there was a shortage of naval stores, and no chance of replenishing them unless further money was made available: Thurloe, , iv. 79–80.Google Scholar
page 180 note 2. Missing in transcript.
page 180 note 3. Bonde's informant was entirely mistaken.
page 180 note 4. Nieupoort believed that the rupture with Spain would mean that England would at most commit herself to engaging Charles X to act against the emperor, as part of an anti-Habsburg alliance founded mainly on religion. But on 22 October (NS) Thurloe offered him private talks on the details of a joint Anglo-Dutch démarche to Sweden, and appointed the 29th for the discussion: Brieven, iii. 133Google Scholar. On that day Nieupoort reported that ‘the lord protector roundly declared to me that in regard to Sweden he would accept no offers or invitation except in common with Holland’: ibid., 136.
page 183 note 1. Cf. Ekeblad, , Brev, i. 426–7Google Scholar. Bonde had promised Ekeblad that he should be the first to be sent home, and his choice, first of Pär Bonde, and now of Johan Sack, was therefore a disappointment: ibid., p. 416.
page 184 note 1. I.e. during the Thirty Years War, especially with regard to John George of Saxony.
page 185 note 1. Missing in transcript.
page 186 note 1. There was no foundation for this rumour.
page 186 note 2. On 30 August Charles X entered Warsaw; on 7 October Kraków capitulated; Thorn was to surrender on 25 November.
page 187 note 1. Bonde was probably right: on 15 October NS Nieupoort reported that Thurloe had said to him that he heard that the Swedish navy was in a very bad state; that Wrangel was reported dead, having done nothing on land; and that the Swedes had suffered heavy defeats: Brieven, iii. 131.Google Scholar
page 188 note 1. The treaty was signed on 24 October, the negotiations having been saved at the last moment by the tactful persuasions of Nieupoort, who induced the English government to be content with the formulation ‘Rex Galliarum’, instead of ‘Rex Gallorum’, as they had desired: Brieven, iii. 138–9Google Scholar. Nieupoort considered that the treaty was a necessary preliminary to the ‘Marine Treaty’ which he was trying to negotiate, since until peace was formally established between France and England Dutch trade could never be secure from French privateers, or be able to establish ‘normal’ relations with England in regard (e.g.) to contraband and sea-passes; for the nuisance of French privateers, see Molsbergen, E. C., Frankrijk en de republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden 1648–1662 (Rotterdam 1902), ch. vi.Google Scholar
page 189 note 1. Missing in transcript.
page 189 note 2. Amalia von Solms. A letter of intelligence from The Hague of 29 October NS reported that she was trying to arrange a triple alliance between the United Provinces, Denmark and Brandenburg: Thurloe, , iv. 94.Google Scholar
page 191 note 1. Bonde's Diarium for 29 October reads: ‘Vidi processum et pompam de My Lord Maior; a silver white chariot drawn by six white horses cui insidebat virgo sparsis crinibus quae virginitatem representare debeat’.
page 193 note 1. Thurloe was receiving regular and apparently accurate information on the course of the negotiations between the Dutch and Brandenburg: Thurloe, , iii. 447etc.Google Scholar
page 194 note 1. The Dutch offered Brandenburg a loan at 6% on the security of the customs at Pillau: Brieven, i. 381Google Scholar; Fries, Ellen, Bidrag till kännedomen om Sveriges och Nederländernas diplomatiska förbindelser under Karl X Gustafs tid (Uppsala 1883), p. 24.Google Scholar
page 194 note 2. Sagredo had the same impression: CSP (Ven) 1655–56, p. 138Google Scholar, Sagredo to Doge, 12 November 1655.
page 196 note 1. In fact, the protector seems to have been in a state of painful indecision, to the exasperation of de Witt, who waited impatiently for some clear indication of what he might expect from England: de Witt to Nieupoort, 12 Nov. NS: Brieven, iii. 141Google Scholar. A week later Cromwell assured Nieupoort that he hoped for ‘a still closer and more confident friendship’ with the Dutch: Thurloe, iv. 178. On 29 November NS Nieupoort could report that the protector, in reply to an appeal from the States-General to signify his intentions with regard to the Baltic, had informed him ‘That he had caused … to be proposed to the lord ambassador of Sweden so much, that he was of opinion, that all the protestant powers ought to cultivate among themselves unity and friendship’— an answer which left matters as uncertain as before: Thurloe, , iv. 214.Google Scholar
page 197 note 1. Cf. Giustinian's report from Paris: ‘everyone is agreed that the king of Sweden in the end will attack the states of his catholic majesty, as there is little for him to gain in Poland; and that Cromwell, by a mutual understanding, will invade the Indies and the provinces of the Low Countries which pertain to the catholic king … The Dutch … are afraid that with the opportunity England will approach too close to the United Provinces. The Dutch ambassador indeed spoke to me very earnestly about it, urging me to prepare the way and bring about peace between the crowns, as he foresees and dreads the expedition into Flanders that England will make if the first attempts are not stoutly resisted’: Giustinian to Doge, 29 November NS 1655, CSP (Ven) 1655–56, p. 146.Google Scholar
page 197 note 2. In 1643. The enquiry obviously had reference to the possibility of Charles X's hiring of English ships.
page 197 note 3. Frederick William had tried as early as January 1655 to persuade Danzig to join the other towns of royal Prussia in defensive measures against a possible Swedish attack. The estate of nobles in royal Prussia reached agreement with the elector at Ryńsk on 2 November, but Danzig refused to participate: they distrusted the elector, and hoped for help from the Dutch: Cieślak, ‘Gdansks … betydelse’, pp. 133–7. And cf. Bohdan Kentrschyńskyj, Karl X Gustav inför krisen i öster 1654–55, (Stockholm 1956), pp. 42–3, 113Google Scholar, for Charles X's anxiety at this possibility.
page 198 note 1. Kraków capitulated on 9/10 October.
page 198 note 2. Swedish resident in Danzig.
page 198 note 3. Johan Mayer af Lilienthal had been sent to Danzig in October 1654, and to Prussia and Poland, with instructions to attempt to assess the danger from Russia and the intentions of John Casimir and the Polish magnates: Kentrschyńskyj, Karl X Gustaf, pp. 41–2.Google Scholar
page 198 note 4. For this, see Kentrschyńskyj, Karl X Gustaf, pp. 12, 28, 68, 73, 80, 82Google Scholar; and idem, ‘Ukrainska revolutionen’, pp. 27–42, 56, 58.Google Scholar
page 198 note 5. Bonde seems to have taken this as implicitly approving Swedish designs on Danzig, or possibly Brandenburg.
page 200 note 1. Abbott, , iv. 17.Google Scholar
page 200 note 2. On 15/25 November Nieupoort had a long audience which clearly reflected Cromwell's indecision. In a lengthy and rambling speech he observed that Charles X was buried in the depths of Poland; no word had come from Rolt; could not he and Nieupoort negotiate jointly with Bonde? He agreed with Dutch objectives, protested his affection for Holland, remarked that the Swedes would deny any sinister intentions, compared Prussia to Naboth's Vineyard, doubted if he could find any suitable envoy to send to Charles, and promised to think it over: Brieven, iii. 145–6Google Scholar. De Witt's reply showed his impatience, and a suspicion that Cromwell would refuse to coöperate: moreover he had found that Bonde was well informed about Dutch approaches to Thurloe: ibid., 148.
page 201 note 1. Carlbom, , Sverige och England, p. 46Google Scholar. Charles X instructed Bonde to proceed caute in regard to any suggestion for a protestant alliance. He was to change his mind a month later.
page 201 note 2. This was Danzig's reply to the Swedish blockade: it deprived the Swedes of the tolls they had hoped to collect.
page 204 note 1. Abbott writes of this audience: ‘It seems to have begun with a suggestion reminiscent of the days of Gustavus Adolphus that England might invade Flanders, form a strong army there, and later, with increased power, enter Germany, and “with God's help make an end of the Pope's dominion”’. This is a reflection (in the wrong place) of the opinion—not of the protector but of ‘some leading personages’, reported in Bonde's despatch of 9 November: it was not a ‘suggestion’ made by either side at this audience: Abbott, , iv. 28.Google Scholar
page 204 note 2. By the treaty of Kiedany, 18 August 1655, between Charles X on the one hand, and the Lithuanian hetman Janusz Radziwill and the Lithuanian estates on the other; whereby Lithuania was incorporated into a union with Sweden.
page 205 note 1. Between 1 and 4 September Charles and his army marched 120 km. from Warsaw to Opoczno: Jan Wimmer, in Polens krig med Sverige 1655–1660 (Carl X Gustaf-studier, 5) (Stockholm 1973), p. 344.Google Scholar
page 205 note 2. Bonde's Diarium of 28 November notes ‘Composui articulos quosdam tractandos’.
page 205 note 3. Possibly by Milton: see Masson, David, The Life of John Milton, narrated in connection with the … History of his Time (7 vols. 1859–1864), v. 241.Google Scholar
page 205 note 4. There was no truth in the rumour: the emperor was not anxious to see him in Vienna.
page 206 note 1. The tsar had given a reassuring reception to a mission sent to announce Charles X's accession, but privately spoke of him and the Swedes in terms of contempt: Kentrschyńskyj, Karl X Gustav, pp. 106–7.Google Scholar
page 206 note 2. Missing in transcript; but printed in CSP (Dam) 1655–56, p. 97Google Scholar, and dated 4 January 1656.
page 206 note 3. The remonstrance appended to this despatch (wrongly inserted in transcript after Bonde's of 23 August) is in Latin. It appeals to the protector to hasten negotiations with the commissioners: Bonde has been awaiting their answer for more than three months; he fears that Charles X may take it ill, or put the blame on him; the period allotted for his mission has already elapsed, and it may well be that he may be sent immediate letters of recall.
page 207 note 1. Both are missing in the transcript.
page 208 note 1. As Whitelocke recorded: ‘No commissioners being yet come to the Swedish ambassador, he grew into some high expressions of his sense of the neglect to his master by this delay; which I did endeavour to excuse, and acquainted the protector with it, who thereupon promised to have it mended, and to send suddenly to the ambassador’: Whitelocke, Memorials, iv. 218Google Scholar. Whitelocke was appointed a commissioner on 5 December.
page 208 note 2. English privateers had taken 12 Dutch ships, and Nieupoort had put in a strong protest: cf. Brieven, iii. 159Google Scholar, 23/4 December NS, where he comments ‘No one outside this country could have any idea what harpies there are here’.
page 209 note 1. Bonde was misinformed, as he was to find in his negotiations later.
page 210 note 1. Bonde had already appealed to the Swedish council, through his brother, Gustav Bonde, for financial assistance: they sent him 3000 rdr. which it was hoped would be sufficient to cover a month's expenses: RRP xvi. 342, 391.Google Scholar
page 211 note 1. Since Whitelocke was not a member of the council, the rule against visits by foreign diplomats did not apply to him.
page 211 note 2. I.e. regarding the alliance, and Charles X's request for naval aid.
page 212 note 1. The truth was the exact opposite of what Bonde supposed: Article XV accorded free trade to English and French merchants trading to ‘the Mediterranean, the Eastern Sea, or the Ocean’ except that all sorts of war-materials were to be contraband for four years: Abbott, hi. 934.
page 212 note 2. The four years referred not to England's war with Spain, but to France's: Bonde's whole subsequent argument on the point was irrelevant, because it was throughout based on false premises.
page 214 note 1. Nieupoort's letter of 17 December NS (Brieven, iii. 157Google Scholar) gives no indication of the reason for his agitation; but on that day he had delivered a strong protest against the seizure by English privateers of twelve ships from Zeeland: ibid., 159.
page 217 note 1. Summary in Carlbom, , Sverige och England, p. 47.Google Scholar
page 219 note 1. Cf. Whitelocke's entry for 23 January: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 220–1.Google Scholar
page 219 note 2. Schlezer reported this audience on 14 December. The protector, apart from expressing a general wish to be friends with the elector, seems to have confined himself to explaining why he preferred a French to a Spanish alliance: Urk. und Act., vii. 729–30.Google Scholar
page 220 note 1. The Swedes had established a colony on the Delaware in 1641; but after a promising start it had been neglected under Christina. In 1653 a reinforcement of colonists was sent out, and Risingh appointed governor; but at the time of its capitulation to the Dutch it still numbered only about 200 persons: Ward, C., Svenskarne vid Delaware (Stockholm 1938)Google Scholar. Risingh was the author of a justly celebrated treatise on Swedish trade.
page 220 note 2. This was to conform to art. 15 of the treaty of peace between England and the United Provinces, which provided that each party be given an opportunity to be included in any alliance concluded by the other.
page 223 note 1. On this same day Thurloe, after assuring Nieupoort that England would take no steps without informing the Dutch, and reiterating that the protector would listen to no proposals prejudicial to them, asked him what he would think if East Prussia were to become a fief of Sweden, as it had previously been of Poland: Brieven, iii. 163Google Scholar. This was a shrewd guess: by the treaty of Königsberg (10 January (OS) 1656) the elector became the vassal of the crown of Sweden for his duchy of East Prussia. Nieupoort replied that he would rather see things remain as they were. For the background to the treaty, see Wittrock, ‘Fordraget i Königsberg’, pp. 1–55.
page 223 note 2. Abbott translates ‘emädan thet saken något nähr tracterade’ by ‘since the subject touched him too closely’, whereas what Bonde implied was that the protector felt that it anticipated the discussions to be held with the commissioners: Abbott, , iv. 48.Google Scholar
page 224 note 1. Missing in transcript.
page 226 note 1. The difficulty lay in John IV's refusal to ratify the treaty of 1654 unless the article conceding to English merchants and seamen free exercise of worship in their ships and houses was deleted.
page 228 note 1. The future Charles XI.
page 229 note 1. Bonde was mistaken. Cromwell told Nieupoort that he had had no objection to Charles X's attack on Roman catholic Poland, ‘and though the king had thought fit to pursue his conquests as far as Constantinople, that he should have wished him from his heart good success’, as also if he had directed his campaigns to lands where there were many oppressed protestants [sc. Silesia]; but added that ‘he had already spoken seriously to Bonde and Coyet on the question of the king of Poland and Prussia; that he would take further action; and if the king of Sweden should desist, that would be well; but if he went on, something more than ambassadors would be required’. And that ‘he would never receive anything separately and not in common with the United Netherlands in regard to any privileges, liberties or otherwise in the commerce and navigation of the east sea’: Brieven, iii. 170–3.Google Scholar
page 230 note 1. Since the treaty of Königsberg between Charles X and the elector, which provided for this, was concluded only on 7/17 January, Bonde cannot have known it with any certainty. For the negotiations and the terms, see Fries, Ellen, Erik Oxenstierna, pp. 244–49Google Scholar, and Wittrock, , ‘Fördraget i Königsberg’.Google Scholar
page 230 note 2. The truce of Stuhmsdorf, 1635.
page 231 note 1. Cromwell and Thurloe were both disturbed by the news that William Frederick of Nassau was being proposed as field-marshal of the United Provinces: Brieven, iii. 170Google Scholar. In the event, the proposal was not pursued: see Geyl, Pieter, Orange and Stuart (1969), pp. 107, 110, 112.Google Scholar
page 232 note 1. As well he might be, in view of Bonde's very different language as reported in his letter of 28 September, above.
page 234 note 1. Bonde's Diarium for 8 January 1656 runs: ‘Desideravit colloquium mecum Dnus Prot. Quare hora 5 pomeridiana usque ad octavam maximi momenti discursum habui’.
page 236 note 1. This is the first official suggestion from the English side of an offensive alliance: it foreshadows the terms Thurloe was shortly to communicate to Bonde.
page 236 note 2. In the audience which Cromwell gave to the Brandenburg envoy Schlezer on 7 January, the protector observed that ‘it was nothing new to hear of religion's being used as a cloak for ambitious designs’, Urk. und Act., vii. 733.Google Scholar
page 237 note 1. This was untrue: the Lower Saxon circle at first indicated willingness to join, but later refused; the Upper Saxon circle was never willing to do so.
page 238 note 1. The tone of this audience as reported by Bonde contrasts markedly with that of the audience given to Schlezer on the same day. Cromwell is there reported as saying that ‘he had no wish to point either to the king or to the elector, or to anybody else, nor to constitute himself a judge over the hidden counsels and thoughts of men; for he well knew that he himself must be judged by others as one that used religion and the name of God only as a pretext… Of the reasons for the dispute that had arisen between the elector and the king he could say nothing definite, and it was not to be a matter of blame to him if he could not quite grasp it; for the places in question were far away, and had really nothing in common with this country: the interests, the jura, the privilegia, were pretty complex, and not so well known here’: Urk. und Act., vii. 733–4Google Scholar. The protector could not know that the treaty of Königsberg, which removed some of his difficulties, had been concluded some four days earlier. But he must have known of the petition of the Eastland Company, of 4 January, which asked for a better regulation of the Eastland trade, and expressed the view that Bonde's presence might facilitate a solution of their problems: CSP (Dom) 1655–56, p. 97Google Scholar. Thurloe told Nieupoort that when Bonde began to dilate on Charles X's zeal for protestantism, Cromwell (innocently?) interjected ‘for instance, in royal Prussia?’: Brieven, iii. 173.Google Scholar
page 240 note 1. Missing in transcript.
page 240 note 2. It was subsequently returned to him: CSP (Dom) 1655–56, p. 41.Google Scholar
page 241 note 1. Though the transcript has no further despatches from Coyet, he did not leave England until 14 June 1656. He continued to send a ‘Relation’ in instalments to Erik Oxenstierna, which was in fact a newsletter, and did not deal with policy, until the end of February, and was kept busy with arrangements for payments to Leven and Cranstoun, and with necessary correspondence with Commissary Hoffstetter in Hamburg. His departure was held up by exasperating delays in providing him with a frigate to convoy his ship; and while he was waiting he undertook a trip to Oxford and Bath, which was however cut short at Oxford by bad weather and a quarrel with his coachman about the fare: he was threatened with distraint for the amount due, but stood stiffly (and successfully) on his diplomatic privilege: for all this, see RA Stockholm, Coyetska samlingen, E. 3400 vol.4 (unfoliated). At his audience of leave-taking on 3 May he was dubbed a Knight of the Garter. Giavarina noted that he was the first minister to receive a present on leaving since the beginning of the protectorate: CSP (Ven) 1655–36, pp. 215, 218.Google Scholar
page 242 note 1. One of Bonde's suite.
page 242 note 2. Whitelocke had been informed in confidence that it had been decided to send an extraordinary embassy to Charles X in the hope of preventing a quarrel between Sweden and the Dutch, and that he and Sir Christopher Packe had been selected. Though pressed by Cromwell, Whitelocke declined to accept appointment, remarking that Bonde probably considered himself sufficiently empowered to deal with the business. In discussion with Bonde on 23 January he suggested that the best procedure would be to conclude the Anglo-Swedish alliance first, and then invite other states to adhere to it (Bonde's own proposal). Bonde told him that ‘he hoped within a very few days there would be an agreement between the king and the elector of Brandenburg’ so that a special embassy would be unnecessary: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 219–21.Google Scholar
page 243 note 1. Bonde's Diarium records receipt of the news only on 1 February; but it was known at The Hague already on 28 January NS, and to Nieupoort soon afterwards. Thurloe's comment as relayed by Nieupoort was that he had always expected something of the sort, Brandenburg and Portugal being about equally trustworthy; and had added that Cromwell had always resented the Dutch-Brandenburg alliance, as having been made without consulting him. He deduced that Charles X would restore the king of Poland and annex Prussia and Lithuania; and disclosed (untruly) that Bonde had offered an off- and defensive alliance: Brieven, iii. 175–81Google Scholar. But Thurloe varied his comment to suit his audience: to Henry Cromwell he described it as a defeat for the Dutch; to Pell, as likely to advance the protestant cause: Thurloe, , iv. 505Google Scholar; Vaughan, , Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, i. 315Google Scholar. As to the protector, he wrote to Charles X that ‘we make no question, but the wresting of the kingdom of Poland by your arms from the papal subjection, as it were a horn from the head of the Beast … will be of very great consequence for the peace and profit of the church’: Masson, Milton, v. 250.Google Scholar
page 243 note 2. Whitelocke's recollection of the sequence of events is faulty: he dates the appointment of Fiennes, Strickland, Pickering and himself as commissioners to 28 January [OS]; and their meeting with Bonde to scrutinize Bonde's two draft articles of 5 December (supra,no. XXV, 7 December 1655), to 30 January OS.
Page 244 note 1. The draft, in Thurloe's hand, proposed that
1. There should be an offensive and defensive alliance, directed against the House of Austria, ‘whereof Poland is a chief branch’.
3. The States-General ‘and such other states as shall be thought fitt’ to be invited into ‘this confederacy’, ‘by such meanes as shal be thought convenient’.
4. An army to be raised by the confederates ‘for invading the said common enemy in such a manner, as shal be agreed upon’.
5. No peace save by common consent.
6. Freedom for England and Sweden to levy soldiers and hire warships and merchantmen in each other's territories.
8. ‘That in case either side be invaded by the sayd common … enemy’ the party so invaded be entitled to call for aid by land and sea from the other, at the expense of the requerant, regard being had to his circumstances.
9. ‘Noe declared rebell or fugitive from the one’ to be tolerated in the dominions of the other.
10 Ships carrying commissions for taking prizes ‘from any prince, that hath noe territories, to be esteemed as pyrates’.
11 No contraband goods to be supplied to enemies of either party: ships carrying them, with all their cargo, to be forfeit. A form of sea-pass to be provided, conformable to the twelfth article of the treaty of 1654. ‘To the end, that the navigation and commerce may be encouraged, the tolls and customes shall not be raysed in the places now in the possession of each other; and in case of the conquest of any other places, noe greater toll, duty, or custome shall be imposed or set upon the people of either, than were due or payable in such places before the conquest thereof, and the same priviledges and advantages in all other respects continued. That if the tolls or customes be lessened to any other forreigner, or further priviledges granted to them, the people of either shall enjoy the like. That the States-General of the United Provinces, and such other of the confederates, as shall desire it within 3 months, shall be included in the treaty’. [and at the foot]
Note of particulars to be added to the treaty with Sweden: ‘all ships belonging to the one or other confederate, or the subjects of either [if provided with proper sea-passes] shall pass freely without any molestation…’ [English ships in the Baltic; Swedish in the North Sea]: Thurloe, , iv. 486–7.Google Scholar
page 247 note 1. Thurloe's draft includes no such limitation: Bonde is importing into the argument about alliance-terms a matter which was being discussed in relation to the undecided points in Whitelocke's treaty: cf. Bonde's draft terms on p. 214. supra.
page 247 note 2. If this argument had been accepted Charles X would have been debarred from extending the existing preference for Swedish shipping (‘half- or full exemption’) to match (e.g.) the Navigation Act. In the existing state of the Swedish mercantile marine this was only a hypothetical case, but it was the mercantile marine that Sweden was especially anxious to encourage. And it ignored the question what duties Charles might impose if he succeeded in capturing (e.g.) Danzig.
page 249 note 1. This was a misinterpretation of the article, as Bonde later realized: it did no more than bind each party to make provision for the inclusion of the other, should such inclusion be desired.
page 249 note 2. Whitelocke noted: ‘The ambassador seemed much unsatisfied with divers parts of the articles, and said, that he had no commission to treat of any matters concerning the United Provinces to be included, and was much nettled at that business. In discourse touching a general union of the protestant interest, he said, it would be a difficult work; and for his master's falling upon the emperor, he said, that they in Sweden did not wish it to be so, because they doubted that then Sweden would be neglected. He declared his opinion to be, not to meddle with the great business of the protestant union … but he said, that they might send to the king his master at their pleasure, and have a fitting answer’: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 222.Google Scholar
page 250 note 1. Coyet's report is not in the transcript, nor in the Coyet papers in RA, and Nieupoort does not mention it.
page 250 note 2. Not in Abbott, nor in SP 95/5B.
page 251 note 1. Presumably in regard to captures of Dutch merchantmen by English ships.
page 251 note 2. The instructions of the Dutch embassy, of whom van Beuningen was the leading spirit, are of 6/16 November 1655 (though they did not reach Copenhagen till 4 February): printed in Becker, , Samlinger, i. 91–3Google Scholar. They were to convey the anxiety of the Dutch at developments in the Baltic; to attempt to elicit how Denmark proposed to ensure freedom of trade there; to enquire, in the event of Charles X's levying tolls at Danzig in 1656, whether Denmark would join in an embassy to make remonstrances, or to mediate peace. The Dutch envisaged an alliance which should send a fleet, and possibly a land force, to Prussia, and wished to know whether, if a Dutch fleet were attacked, Denmark would come to its aid: Carlbom, , Magnus Dureels negotiation, pp. 69–72Google Scholar. For de Witt's correspondence with van Beuningen, see Brieven van Johan de Witt…bewerkt door Robert Fruin (Amsterdam 1919), iGoogle Scholar; Brieven aan Johan de Witt … bewerkt door Robert Fruin, (Amsterdam 1919), II. iGoogle Scholar., and Thurloe, , iv. 553, 564, 568, 585, 622–3, 628, 680Google Scholar; v. 149, 783. De Witt on 24 March NS firmly rejected van Beuningen's suggestion that the existing Dutch-Swedish alliance of 1645 be regarded as no longer binding. Dureel's devastating description of the weakness and unpreparedness of Denmark may well have influenced Charles X in 1657: Carlbom, , Magnus Dureels negotiation,p. 94.Google Scholar
page 252 note 1. Simon Petkum. He had a trying and unfruitful time of it in London: on 25 April NS 1656 he wrote to Rosenvinge ‘I have sent continually for these last three weeks to speak with the secretary of state, but he will never be at home’; and three days later, ‘Sir Oliver Fleming is of late so much Swedified, that I hardly dare to speak to him’: Thurloe, , iv. 698, 710.Google Scholar
page 253 note 1. He was to use this argument to Whitelocke later: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 225.Google Scholar
page 253 note 2. In May 1653.
page 254 note 1. Bonde was ultimately defeated on this point.
page 254 note 2. For their complaints, Thurloe to Roll, 10 January NS 1656: Thurloe, , iv. 260–70Google Scholar; for the protector's letter, Abbott, , iv. 91–2.Google Scholar
page 254 note 3. Charles's new instruction, dated Schlippenbeil 6 January, ordered Bonde to press the protector to conclude a defensive alliance contra quemcunque, with the special object of upholding the peace of Osnabrück: England to contribute an annual subsidy of 900,000 rdr., in return for which Charles would provide 30,000 foot and 6000 horse if the emperor violated that peace so flagrantly as to require the use of force. It communicated also a change of policy on commercial matters: Bonde was to make no further offers of special privileges at the expense of other countries, ‘because we discern much jealousy in other countries, and because it provides an opportunity for cheating, and the diminution of our revenues’; nor was it necessary ‘that you attempt with so much labour to induce them to forsake the trade to Archangel and sail to Nyen or Narva for Russian goods, since they may suspect that there is more in it than there really is’: Carlbom, , Sverige och England, pp. 64–6Google Scholar, and Thurloe, , iv. 613–14.Google Scholar
page 255 note 1. The orders from Schlippenbeil suggested that the agreement to defend the peace of Osnabrück was necessary in view of the possibility of an attackby the emperor; but though Ferdinand III gave moral support to Poland, and mediated the Polish-Russian truce of October 1656, he gave no practical assistance until the conclusion of the treaty of 21 November 1656, and one significant provision of that treaty was that it exempted the emperor from taking any action which constituted a breach of the peace of Westphalia: Bonnesen, , Karl X Gustaf, p.176.Google Scholar
page 255 note 2. In discussion with Whitelocke on 7 April Bonde argued that art. XV of the treaty of Westminster did not prevent the conclusion of an Anglo-Swedish alliance, but only bound England to give the Dutch an opportunity to join it: they read over the article together, and Whitelocke conceded that Bonde's argument was correct: Whitelocke, Memorials, iv. 240. For Charles X, a war with the emperor was no more than an unwelcome possibility: Bonde, both to Fleetwood and to Cromwell, was representing it as a possible option.
page 256 note 1. This might pass for fair comment on the audience of 2 January, but it was a serious misrepresentation of that of 8 January: Cromwell's declaration on that day had been clearly for an offensive and defensive alliance; Charles was now offering a defensive alliance only.
page 256 note 2. On 9 February (the day after the arrival of the orders from Schlippenbeil) Bonde reiterated to Whitelocke that this was not the moment for a general union of protestants, but that ‘if the king of Sweden and the protector made a conjunction first, they might fall upon the emperor and the house of Austria’. But the last clause was no doubt a sop to Bonde's interlocutor, and not a serious statement of possible policy: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 224.Google Scholar
page 257 note 1. On this same 15 February Thurloe had a conversation with Nieupoort which illustrated the similarity of the difficulties which hampered the protector's dealings with the Dutch, and those which hampered an alliance with Sweden. Thurloe told him that they were agreed in aim, but differed in method: the Dutch wanted a preliminary agreement with England on policy; Thurloe preferred independent action by their ambassadors to Charles X, and added that Charles would not tolerate being confronted by a joint Anglo-Dutch plan and being asked to adhere to it: Brieven, iii. 186–7.Google Scholar
page 257 note 2. On 7 February the commissioners debated whether the right of recruiting and hiring ships should be done only at places approved by local authorities: Bonde objected that in that case they might assign Finland or Ireland. An expedient proposed ‘and not held unreasonable’ that if one place were not approved by the local authorities, they should appoint another, as convenient and as near as possible: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 223Google Scholar; it was further agreed, on Bonde's insistence, that recruited troops might be employed defensively (e.g. in garrisons) against the friends of the other party. But Bonde insisted also that in the case of ships they might be employed offensively against disturbers of trade [sc.the Dutch]: this point left for consideration: ibid., iv. 224. Neither of Bonde's demands was conceded in the treaty. On 13 February they met again; when it appeared that the council had inserted corn, hemp, pitch, tar, money, into the list of contraband goods. ‘The ambassador said, that if they would likewise add copper and iron, it would take in all the commodities of his master's dominions, and he might insist cloth to be added, which was as necessary for soldiers as corn and money’. Bonde took the line that the present situation (war with Spain) was irrelevant: what they had to look to was the situation in which Whitelocke had made the treaty. On passports, Bonde propounded ‘free ship makes free goods, free goods make free ship’—‘which was not held unreasonable’: ibid., 225–6. But controversy on both points continued.
page 258 note 1. ‘In discourse with the Dutch ambassador, he was passionate even to indiscretion, blaming the neglect of sending to the king of Sweden from the protector, and urging the necessity of yet doing it speedily. Being asked for what end, he answered, concerning trade’: Whitelocke, Memorials, iv. 224Google Scholar. Nieupoort was especially disturbed by Cromwell's remark ‘that we might be assured of his good faith and friendship for so long as we adhered to our true interests, and added, that he was ready to believe that we should not allow ourselves to be misled’. De Witt at once asked for an explanation of these reservations: Nieupoort replied that he could only suppose that the protector had meant ‘as long as the Dutch do not turn to Orange’: Brieven, iii. 184–5, 193.Google Scholar
page 260 note 1. Cf. Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 219–20.Google Scholar
page 261 note 1. They seem to have been of a very splendid nature: Whitelocke was much impressed: Whitelocke, Memorials, iv. 226–7.Google Scholar
page 262 note 1. Text in Abbott, , iii. 930–8Google Scholar. They provided for the expulsion from France of Charles II, his brothers James and Henry, and seventeen leading royalists; and from England of Barrière and nine other adherents of Conde.
page 262 note 2. Samuel Morland, commissioner extraordinary at Geneva: cf. Abbott, , iv. 141, 147.Google Scholar
page 263 note 1. Whitelocke records under 25 February: ‘The Swedish ambassador came to visit me, and told me, that now the business of sending an ambassador from hence to Sweden was over, and there was at present no occasion for it; for this, their reasons, he alleged, were, a peace concluded betwixt the king of Sweden and the elector of Brandenburg, and the proceeding of the treaty here. Intimating, that he was sufficiently empowered to conclude what was at present requisite between his master and the protector; and that there was no likelihood but that there would also be a good understanding between the king of Sweden and the United Provinces’: Whitelocke, Memorials, iv. 227Google Scholar. Abbott so far misunderstood this as to write: ‘Bonde believed his chances of concluding an Anglo-Swedish treaty had been improved by the peace signed between Sweden and Brandenburg, which automatically eliminated [!] any close alliance between Sweden and the United Provinces’: Abbott, , iv. 109.Google Scholar
page 263 note 2. Cf. CSP (Dom) 1655–56, p. 202.Google Scholar
page 264 note 1. Sagredo reported on 25 February NS that there was a ‘universal belief’ that an offensive and defensive alliance would be concluded, and that the negotiations ‘occasion no little jealousy in the Dutch minister’: CSP (Ven) 1655–56, p. 180.Google Scholar
page 264 note 2. Admiral Montagu was in fact very eager to do this, but was ordered to confine himself to a demonstration off Lisbon: Corbett, , England in the Mediterranean, i. 326.Google Scholar
page 264 note 3. On 12 March the council resolved to advise his highness to authorize Sir [General] George Fleetwood to raise a regiment of 2000 English (not Scottish) volunteers for the Swedish service: CSP (Dom) 1655–56, p. 221.Google Scholar
page 265 note 1. In February 1656 the Swedish forces in Poland attained their maximum strength (some 57,000 men); and on 8/18 February Charles X inflicted a severe defeat on Czarniecki at Golab.
page 265 note 2. Among the points debated was the English demand that they pay no more than Swedes in Swedish ports, though Swedes received no reciprocal treatment; and the question of diverting the Russia trade to Narva (on which Whitelocke was sceptical): decision on these points deferred: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 228–32.Google Scholar
page 265 note 3. The audience had been preceded by a meeting between Bonde and Cromwell in St James's Park: Bondes Diarium, p. 51Google Scholar; at which he probably communicated verbally the proposals for an alliance which were handed over to Thurloe on 17 March: Thurloe, , iv. 623–4.Google Scholar
page 266 note 1. On 4 March the commissioners for the projected Marine Treaty with the Dutch were ordered to speak to Nieupoort concerning information received about Dutch ships in Spanish service: CSP (Dom) 1655–56, p. 207Google Scholar; Thurloe, , iv. 588–9Google Scholar; Brieven, iii. 203–7Google Scholar: cf. the account of Cromwell's strong remonstrance to Nieupoort, 3 March NS: CSP (Ven) 1655–56, p. 184.Google Scholar
page 266 note 2. On this day Giavarina reported that Cromwell had agreed to provide Charles X with ten powerful ships, Charles being to pay for them and retain them for as long as he wished: an extraordinarily belated (and inaccurate) reflection of Charles's proposal 1655: CSP (Ven) 1655–56, p. 190.Google Scholar
page 267 note 1. Cf. Boreel to de Witt, 15, 23 March NS 1656: Brieven,i. 269, 279–80Google Scholar; CSP (Dam) 1655–56, p. 209Google Scholar, Nicholas to Jos. Jane, 4/14 March. Mazarin informed d'Avaugour that he would be glad to see Sweden a member of the League of the Rhine which he was endeavouring to form: Lettres du Cardinal Mazarin, vii. 191Google Scholar (25 February NS 1656). Rumours of such an alliance had been current for some time: CSP (Ven) 1655–56, p. 122Google Scholar. The Dutch hoped rather for an alliance between the United Provinces, France and England, and put the idea to Thurloe on 7 April; who answered evasively. But Nieupoort urged that it was essential to split the very dangerous rapprochement between France and Spain by an alliance which would ensure the continuance of the Franco-Spanish war—though the States of Holland, replying to Thurloe's enquiries, made it clear that such a defensive alliance was to operate only against future aggression by Spain after that war was over: Thurloe, , iv. 650, 712Google Scholar; v. 25; Brieven, iii. 216–19.Google Scholar
page 267 note 2. On 11 March Whitelocke noted that the articles on recruiting, passports and contraband ‘were near agreed between us’ (an optimistic assessment); the articles on trade, and on restitution and compensation for damage, were deferred: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 232Google Scholar. Soon afterwards (on 7 April NS) Nieupoort began his negotiations for a Marine Treaty: Brieven, iii. 213–15.Google Scholar
page 268 note 1. It was possibly for Coyet that Bonde wrote the long Latin promemoria which is printed in Carlbom, , Sverige och England, pp. 69–70Google Scholar, note. It simply recapitulated the terms Charles had put forward in his orders from Schlippenbeil.
page 268 note 2. This was awkward for Bonde, who had been arguing that such an embassy was unnecessary.
page 269 note 1. Cf. Bondes Diarium, p. 51.Google Scholar
page 269 note 2. CSP (Dom) 1655–56, p. 221Google Scholar: Whitelocke's version (31 March) is that he was given leave to levy ‘two thousand more than the four thousand already granted … in case the treaty here with the Swedish ambassador came to a good conclusion’: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 232.Google Scholar
page 269 note 3. I.e. the battle of Golab, which Charles X had reported in his letter.
page 269 note 4. Two days later, on 16 March, Schlezer reported to Frederick William that in the course of an audience with the protector, at which Schlezer had suggested an alliance with Brandenburg, Cromwell had asked: with what object? with what advantage to England at a time when he was involved in a war with Spain? To which Schlezer could give only general replies. But he added ‘Wie ihm aber sei, so wird man alhier je länger je mehr in der Opinion confirmiret, dass aus demjetzigen Wesen ein rechter generaler und pur lauter Religionskrieg werden werde’: Urk. und Act., vii. 740–1.Google Scholar
page 270 note 1. Cf. Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 225.Google Scholar
page 270 note 2. On 31 January Charles X had written to the Swedish council of state informing them that he had offers of alliance from France, Siebenbürgen and England, and asking their advice. On 27 March the council debated the question at some length. Some members were of opinion that an offensive alliance with England was to be avoided, as they thought that Charles himself seemed to suggest in his letter, though he had added that ‘a defensivum pro mutua defensione rei Evangelical’ had something to be said for it. Gustav Horn considered that Cromwell's object might be to ‘conserve the title which all English kings have borne, i.e. to be called “defensor Jidei”’. Johan Gyllenstierna held that any treaty should be with England rather than with the protector, since his children were unlikely to succeed him. Herman Fleming remarked that ‘despite the fact that the protector gives out that it is to be considered pro mutua defensione rei Evangelicae… it may well be a scheme to involve Sweden in England's wars’. Per Brahe alone seems to have been clearly for an off- and defensive alliance. The reply upon which they eventually agreed approved a defensive alliance with England, or with France, or Siebenbürgen, and listed Sweden's enemies (in order) as the emperor, the Muscovites, the Dutch, and Denmark: RRP, xvi. 422–5, 429.Google Scholar
page 272 note 1. Cromwell was probably already informed of them through Roll's letter to Thurloe of 4 March from Hamburg, which among other things reported that Charles X seemed likely to attack Russia when he had pacified Poland: Thurloe, , iv. 575Google Scholar. In fact it was the Russians who began hostilities in June, by invading Ingria and Kexholm, thus virtually cutting off land-communications with Finland; and in July they over ran most of Livonia: Bonnesen, Karl X Gustaf, pp. 168–72Google Scholar; Carlson, , Sveriges historia, i. 323–9.Google Scholar
page 272 note 2. It must be to this audience that Whitelocke's undated entry for April refers: ‘The Swedish ambassador had been at Whitehall, and was much discontented because he waited above an hour before the protector came to him, which brought the ambassador to such impatience, that he rose from his seat and was going home again without speaking to the protector’. Fleming, however, prevailed on him to stay, and he had his audience, in which Cromwell said ‘that he was willing in case of a nearer alliance, or of an union concerning the protestant interest, to have our neighbours and allies in the Low Countries included therein; and that he thought that it did become him to have a particular care of them, and to take them into any such treaty or alliance, and that he was not willing to do any such thing without them. These expressions of his highness did not a little startle the ambassador’: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 234–5.Google Scholar
page 273 note 1. The figure of 10,000 was probably too high: see Lettres du Cardinal Mazarin, vii. 191.Google Scholar
page 274 note 1. These rumours must reflect the desperate predicament of Charles X, who on 20/30 March found himself trapped, with 5500 men, in the triangle formed by the confluence of the San and the Vistula. On 27–28 March the force of Frederick of Baden, which had been summoned to the king's assistance, was heavily defeated—the first victory of the Poles in the open field in this war. But if it was indeed to these events that the rumours referred, the news must have travelled with unusual speed.
page 275 note 1. On 25 March/4 April Charles by brilliant tactics miraculously extricated himself from his predicament and headed north towards Warsaw: for these events see Wimmer, in Polens krig med Sverige, pp. 358–60.Google Scholar
page 275 note 2. Nils Brahe reported that Coyet, after denying the report, had added ‘Nor have any such portenta been seen, as use to proclaim the deaths of great men’; to which Nieupoort replied ‘We have seen portenta already, and it is portenta enough that the king should wish to be master of the Baltic, and should in so short a time overthrow so powerful a realm as Poland’: Carlson, , Sveriges historia, i. 288Google Scholarn. 1.
page 275 note 3. Charles's orders from Siedlice made it clear that he desired an alliance in order to conserve his Polish conquests. It must therefore be directed against any who sought ‘ratione belli polonici’ to attack him in the Baltic or elsewhere: thus a defensive alliance, if not contra quoscunque then at least against Holland and Denmark. Failing such an alliance, there was little point in an alliance to defend the Protestant Cause: an alliance based on religion was inexpedient while the position in Poland was still insecure. Bonde was therefore to contrive that the protector joined in a guarantee of the treaty of Osnabrück—which was ‘in effectu’ a protestant alliance under another name. If the protector should be ready to accept this, Bonde could then proceed to negotiate for an annual subsidy, which Charles had the more reason to ask since in the event of a breach with Austria the greatest burden would fall on him. Though he concurred with Bonde's rejection of an alliance which would include other protestant powers, he conceded that once the alliance was made other powers would probably fall into line, and could be included by an accession-clause. If there seemed good prospects of the kind of alliance he wanted Bonde was to remain in England and continue working for it parallel with his negotiations for perfecting Whitelocke's treaty. But if the prospects for the alliance were poor, or too remote, he was to depart, referring everything to such embassy as the protector might later send to negotiate: the full text is printed in Carlbom, , Sverige och England, pp. 75–7.Google Scholar
page 276 note 1. The negotiations had been made more difficult by the decision of the council that pitch, tar, hemp and flax were to be classed as contraband. But on 31 March the council changed its mind, and required only that they be deemed contraband during the war with Spain; and on 5 April Whitelocke was ordered to protract discussions with Bonde pending a reconsideration of the question: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 232, 237Google Scholar. This was in fact the compromise which was eventually agreed on. On 7 April, however, when Whitelocke called on Bonde, he found him in an intractable temper: ‘he desired to know a certain answer, I or no, whether he [the protector] would do it [i.e. the alliance] or not’. Whitelocke, being ignorant of Charles X's terms, enquired what they were; and Bonde defended the guarantee of Osnabrück by observing that France was pledged to Sweden to maintain it, ‘and England joining likewise therein, France would be engaged with them’, whereas an alliance directed simply against Habsburg would probably reconcile all the catholic powers: Whitelocke, iv. 237–9. Meanwhile, on the contraband question, Whitelocke and Fiennes consulted with Thurloe, and they agreed that ‘free ship makes free goods’ was unacceptable—not because it would be a precedent which the Dutch would urge in the negotiations for their Marine Treaty, but because it would lead to an expansion of Sweden's mercantile marine: ibid., 243.
page 277 note 1. ‘A day or two’ was, to put it mildly, an understatement: ‘a month’ would have been nearer the truth.
page 277 note 2. This was an astonishing reversal of the line England had been taking since 26 January. Pufendorf (iii. 241) makes the protector introduce his declaration with ‘In order that it should not appear that the whole alliance hung exclusively on the question of money…’; but this does not appear from Bonde's reports of 11 and 18 April, though it is clear that it is to this audience that Pufendorf refers.
page 277 note 3. Bonde wrote ‘equality’ (esgalitet), and ‘belittled’ (forringhade)—not, as Abbott has it, ‘similarity’ and ‘stressed’: Abbott, iv. 136.
page 278 note 1. In fact, this was a provision of the treaty of Münster, not of Osnabrück, as Bonde must have known—though perhaps Cromwell did not.
page 278 note 2. This was more than Charles X's orders from Siedlice empowered him to say.
page 278 note 3. Cromwell had thus abandoned the idea of dealing with the alliance-question by direct personal negotiations with Bonde.
page 279 note 1. Blake and Montagu had been unable to leave Torbay until the end of March owing to the difficulty of manning so large a fleet: Corbett, , England in the Mediterranean, i. 322Google Scholar. A letter of intelligence from Holland, 5 May NS, informed Thurloe of the fleet's arrival, and stated that it had been convoyed in part by de Ruyter: Thurloe, , iv. 732Google Scholar. On 19 April there had been a serious clash in the Channel, when Captain William Whitehorn had stopped and searched four Dutch merchantmen escorted by de Ruyter: CSP (Dam) 1655–56, p. 284Google Scholar. On 19 May NS Nieupoort noted the strength of anti-Dutch feeling in the army, and in circles near the government: Brieven, iii. 289Google Scholar. Schlezer was very explicit about Dutch aid to Spain, and reported (most improbably) that with a view to a general alliance of protestants Cromwell was ready to support the Great Elector's claims to Jülich: Urk. und Act., vii. 744–5.Google Scholar
page 279 note 2. At Bonde's meeting with the commissioners on 8 April he had objected to this (and also to the draft articles' being in English); but on contraband he was eventually to give way. Thurloe was reported to have blamed Whitelocke for making too many concessions to the Swedes: Brieven, iii. 224.Google Scholar
page 280 note 1. Cf. Sagredo: ‘all the acts of state are entrusted to a single secretary, who is so overwhelmed by the mass of business and the burden of so many different affairs, the perfect digestion of which demands an immense amount of time. For this reason their decisions move slowly …’: Sagredo to Doge, 5 Nov. NS 1655, CSP (Ven) 1655–56, p. 132.Google Scholar
page 281 note 1. This represents a disavowal, on a decisive point (contra quoscunque), of the protector's declaration of 11 April.
page 282 note 1. It took Milton a fortnight to translate the draft articles: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 257Google Scholar. Ordinarily, the work would have been done by Meadowe. See the comment in Masson, Milton, v. 255–6.Google Scholar
page 283 note 1. The treaty between Charles and Spain was signed on 12 April 1656 and ratified by Philip IV in June. It provided for placing 4000 foot and 2000 horse at Charles's disposal for an invasion of England: Firth, Last Years, i. 24.Google Scholar
page 283 note 2. I.e. Mary, the widow of William II and sister of Charles Stuart. But there is nothing in her letters from Paris (in The Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers, (4 vols. Oxford 1869–1932) iiiGoogle Scholar) to suggest that her visit had any such political purpose.
page 284 note 1. The text has förslagen (cunning, wily), but the context suggests that this must be a slip for nedslagen (downcast): cf. Giavarina to Doge, 26 May NS 1656: ‘They are indeed so fully occupied that they do not know which way to turn, and the protector has not a moment to call his own … it is said, that when speaking recently in the council pointing out their difficulties, to consider how they might most readily obtain money, he could not restrain his tears as he spoke’: CSP (Ven) 1655–56, pp. 221–2.Google Scholar
page 284 note 2. Bonde was now putting off his mourning for Maria Eleonora, widow of Gustavus Adolphus.
page 285 note 1. Charles X obtained a share in the tolls at Pillau in terms of his treaty of Königsberg with the elector of Brandenburg.
page 285 note 2. Missing in transcript.
page 286 note 1. Obdam's instructions are printed in Thurloe, , iv. 756–7Google Scholar; and cf. ibid. v. 29. On 21 April NS the States General had ordered that Appelboom be informed that the Dutch fleet was intended only to protect commerce: ibid., iv. 689.
page 287 note 1. The commissioners met Bonde on 6 May, and the question of pitch, tar, hemp etc. was again debated: Bonde pointing out that these commodities were not in the list of contraband goods given by the council to Bonnell in 1654–an objection which ignored the new situation which had arisen as a result of the war with Spain—and that in any case Sweden's trade with Spain was very small (an argument which the commissioners could fairly use against him): Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 259Google Scholar. On 13 May Whitelocke and Fiennes proposed a declaration that pitch and tar be neither included nor excluded as contraband, until Charles X's pleasure should be known, and Bonde undertook to consider this proposal: ibid., 262–3: this in fact provided the final settlement, as it would be laid down in the treaty.
page 288 note 1. On 21 April NS Nieupoort had reported Thurloe as alleging that the protector would have sent an ambassador to the Baltic, if the Swedish-Brandenburg alliance had not upset everything; that the elector was still an Orange partisan; and finally that no suitable envoy could be found, Whitelocke being too committed to Sweden: Brieven, iii. 216–19.Google Scholar
page 289 note 1. This was scarcely true: he had met them on 6 May.
page 289 note 2. This was true in general; but there had been numerous exceptions.
page 289 note 3. Abbott's version makes it appear that it was Cromwell, not Thurloe, who monopolized all business: Abbott, , iv. 159.Google Scholar
page 290 note 1. In the course of the negotiations for the Dutch Marine Treaty Thurloe gave Nieupoort an assurance that the Swedes would not obtain this concession: Brieven, iii. 224.Google Scholar
page 290 note 2. This was the solution eventually agreed on. On 8 May Fiennes had propounded another expedient: that English merchants should buy up all those commodities around which controversy on contraband centred: to this Bonde raised many practical objections: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 259Google Scholar. The question was left open in the convention attached to the treaty. Charles X accepted the convention, and it was probably in consequence that there was drawn up (early in 1657) ‘Considerations and Propositions to be represented to His Highness the Ld Protector for the manageing the Trade of Sweden and the King of Denmark’ (PRO, SP 95/5B, fos. 154–6). It proposed the formation of a joint-stock company for three years, in which members of the council should have ‘a considerable share’. It was to have the sole right to buy Swedish iron, copper and tar: the king of Sweden was to forbid such purchase to anyone else. During the three-years’ duration of the contract he was to be prohibited from permitting the erection of any new mills or furnaces for the manufacture of iron or copper, except with the consent of the company. The company was to have the right to import these commodities, and to re-export them, free of duty; it was also to have the sole right to vend them at any place in the Swedish dominions. Prices were to be pegged at the lowest current rate; quality was to be guaranteed by the Swedes. Company ships importing salt into Sweden were to pay no more in duty than the Swedish Salt Company, and if possible leave was to be obtained to import salt into Sweden's Baltic provinces. As to Denmark, the king was to be forbidden to raise the Sound Tolls, or to detain company ships on the pretext of visitation: if possible, full exemption from the Sound Tolls (as in the case of Sweden) was to be obtained. These preposterous proposals would have reduced Sweden for three years to virtual economic servitude, and would have violated Denmark's sovereignty. Not surprisingly, no more was heard of them; but it was probably to them that Thurloe was referring when he wrote ‘There was a particular treaty on foot with Sweden for pre-emption of all their copper, to prevent the Dutch of that commodity’: Somers Tracts,vi. 332Google Scholar. The idea arose from a petition on 15 January 1656 by Jacob Momma, a Swedish merchant resident in London, who manufactured brass and brass wire (Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 249–50Google Scholar), which asked for the raising of the duty on Swedish copper to balance the quadrupling of the export duty which Charles X had ordered in order to protect the Swedish brass industry against foreign competition. Cromwell referred it to the Council of Trade, where Whitelocke, pointing out that England had almost a monopoly of calamine, suggested buying up all Sweden's copper output, and so giving England a monopoly of brass. The Committee strongly supported him; but on 13 May reported that it would be difficult at present to include any moderation of the Swedish duty in the terms of Bonde's treaty: CSP (Dom) 1655–56, p. 318Google Scholar. For Momma, see Sondén, Per, ‘Bröderna Momma-Reenstierna. Ett bidrag till den svenska handelns och industriernas historia på 1600-talet’, Historisk tidskrift (1911)Google Scholar. The ‘Propositions in Order to a Treaty with Sweden’ (PRO, SP 95/5B fos. 152–3), which date evidently from about the time when Cromwell began to ask for Bremen, were slightly more realistic: all they demanded wus equality of dues and duties in Sweden as between English and Swedish subjects, and the abolition of the Swedish Tar Company's monopoly; but this was to ask more than any Swedish king would have been prepared to grant.
page 291 note 1. The Council had suggested, in order to avert complaints against the Admiralty Courts in future, that Boards of Commissioners, equally composed of representatives of England and Sweden, should assess claims for compensation, and should also scrutinize passports; and this Bonde seemed prepared to consider: this arrangement was eventually agreed upon: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 247–9.Google Scholar
page 292 note 1. Thurloe's intelligence from The Hague, of 26 May NS, was to the effect that the fleet, of 48 ships, was definitely to sail: Thurloe, , v. 29.Google Scholar
page 294 note 1. Charles X, turning his back for the moment on the partisans in central Poland, was concentrating on establishing a firm control of royal Prussia. On 8/18 February the Swedes had captured Marienburg; but this was their only substantial success, and Danzig proved defiant: Wimmer, in Polens krig med Sverige, p. 361.Google Scholar
page 295 note 1. When Bonde met the commissioners on 20 May, they informed him that the council stood firm on the inclusion of pitch, hemp and tar as contraband for the duration of the Spanish war, and used Bonde's own argument against him: that there was little Swedish trade with Spain. To which Bonde replied that he certainly could not wait (as Fiennes had suggested) for an answer from Charles X on this point. They appointed to meet next Tuesday; but Whitelocke has no mention of such a meeting: Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 264–9.Google Scholar
page 295 note 2. De Witt wrote to Nieupoort on 9 May NS: ‘the Vice-Admiral de Ruyter is arrived in Zealand, being come from Cadiz with 7 men of war and 30 merchant ships richly laden, for which God be praised: here is extraordinary joy shown at their arrival’: Thurloe, , iv. 729.Google Scholar
page 295 note 3. Presumably on the ground of the wide dispersal of English naval forces at this time.
page 296 note 1. The rumour was untrue. Cromwell did not send orders to Montagu to return until 29 August, and even then Blake and twenty frigates were to remain on station off the Portuguese coast: Corbett, , England in the Mediterranean, i. 333Google Scholar. The recall had nothing to do with internal affairs, but was decided upon on the grounds that nothing material was now to be effected.
page 297 note 1. I.e. conscience; though Abbott (iv. 150) translates it ‘state of mind’.
page 297 note 2. Neither stert, nor any compound of it, is listed in Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal, xv (1940)Google Scholar. I am indebted to Professor André Brink for the information that this is a slightly vulgar word, meaning ‘tail’, or in this context ‘backside’: cf. Swedish stjärt.
page 300 note 1. A reference to the protracted negotiations between Erik Oxenstierna, (the Swedish chancellor) and the Dutch ambassadors, which led eventually to the treaty of Elbing on 1 September. A Dutch embassy to Charles X arrived in Marienburg on 9 May; but tentative negotiations did not begin until the end of June, and the first formal conference was held on 14 July, once Charles X (by the treaty of Marienburg on 15 June) had obtained a firm promise of military aid from Frederick William of Brandenburg. They were given additional urgency by the arrival of a powerful Dutch fleet in Danzig Roads on 17 July. For the negotiations see Fries, , Erik Oxenstierna pp. 291–300.Google Scholar
page 301 note 1. On 19 May NS de Witt had written to Nieupoort informing him that at a special meeting of the States of Holland it had been made quite clear that they would not engage in any offensive alliance directed against Spain, nor in any way violate the peace with that country: Brieven, iii. 227.Google Scholar
page 302 note 1. The article on passports was to become article IV of the eventual treaty.
page 302 note 2. Art. XII.
page 302 note 3. Schlezer reported on 6 June that Bonde was very discontented at his lack of success (which Schlezer attributed to the ‘Dexterität’ of Nieupoort, ‘der jetzt à toute force regieret’), and was probably not very well disposed to Brandenburg either. Further, that Cromwell was seeking information (under art. 15 of the treaty with the Dutch) on the terms of the alliance between the Dutch and Brandenburg: Urk. und. Art. vii. 748–9.Google Scholar
page 304 note 1. I.e. the negotiations which were to result in the treaty of Elbing.
page 304 note 2. In reality, Charles's position was anything but favourable. He had indeed, by the treaty of Marienburg (15/25 June), constrained the Great Elector to renew—for the last time—his agreement (in return for large territorial concessions) to give military assistance, but only until the end of the year; but after the battle of Warsaw the elector was not to be persuaded to participate in any further campaigns deep into Poland. Charles was in fact now desperate to come to some agreement with the Dutch.
page 304 note 3. Charles's orders (which arrived on 11 June, according to Bonde's Diarium) approved Bonde's actions on the completion of the treaty of 1654. In regard to the alliance Charles was prepared, since it seemed mostly to stick on money, to lower his demand from the 5 tunnor of gold (which was the amount of the former French subsidy) by one-third: i.e. to 333,333.4 rdr. per annum, or even to 300,000 if agreement could be reached on the other terms, payable annually in two instalments. But regarding the protector's demand that the alliance be directed against the House of Austria Bonde was to represent that ‘at present it is not appropriate in that form, but we think it best that it be in terminis generalibus contra quemcunque’: Carlbom, , Sverige och England, pp. 103–4.Google Scholar
page 305 note 1. Article V, as finally agreed, provided that ships of one ally, if taken as prize by an enemy or rebel, should not be admitted to the ports of the other; but if so admitted, they and their cargoes were not to be sold, the passengers and crew were to be liberated, and the ship to quit the port immediately.
page 305 note 2. The treaty of 1645.
page 306 note 1. Printed in Abbott, iv. 928–9. Danzig had appealed to the protector for aid in (?) March: Thurloe, iv. 663–4; and a month earlier to the Dutch: ibid., 499. A copy of the protector's protest was read to the Swedish council on 29 May: RRP, xvi. 466Google Scholar. The orders from Schneebloch were written just when Charles X—for the first time—was giving serious attention to preparing a regular siege of Danzig.
page 307 note 1. The text of the transcript has ‘prokade på’: qy: a mistake for ‘pockade på?
page 307 note 2. Magnus Dureel, the Swedish minister in Copenhagen.
page 307 note 3. Bonde's assessment of the position in Copenhagen was already out of date. The first detachment of Obdam's fleet arrived at Helsingör on 15 June, and Frederick III lost no time in giving permission for it to sail on into the Baltic. Its coming caused near-panic in Stockholm, where it was feared that it might attack Öland or Gotland. On 6/16 August Denmark agreed to cooperate with the Dutch in naval operations off Danzig, and did actually send a squadron to join Obdam. Already on 4 July NS de Witt could inform Nieupoort that ‘our ambassadors report that we have nothing but good to expect from Frederick III’: Brieven, iii. 248–9.Google Scholar
page 307 note 4. Cf. Whitelocke, , Memorials, iv. 270Google Scholar, for Bonde's optimism after this meeting.
page 307 note 5. note 5. On 17 June the council of state ordered that Cranstoun's Scottish estates be desequestered, at Charles X's request: CSP (Dam) 1656–7, p. 14Google Scholar. But when on 29 April 1657 a bill was introduced to grant a pardon to Cranstoun, as having done good service to Sweden, Thurloe intervened with the remark ‘I doubt that Cranstoun hath not done such good service as is moved. It is true, he raised some men in Scotland for the king of Sweden, but I hear they are since gone to Middleton’, and the bill was laid aside: The Diary of Thomas Burton, ed. J. T. Rutt (4 vols. 1828), ii. 76.Google Scholar
page 309 note 1. The first four paragraphs of Bonde's argument were no more than the plain truth, now bluntly thrown at the English negotiators for the first time. Not so paragraph 5, which was partly based on Bonde's ignorance of the real situation, and partly bluff. Though the treaty of Elbing, soon to be concluded, might paper over the cracks with Holland, Charles X never ceased to expect trouble from Denmark. As to Poland, he more than once attempted a negotiated settlement with John Casimir, but before 1659 his attempts never had any hope of success.
page 309 note 2. Pufendorf (iii. 247) mistakenly makes Bonde say that Charles would be willing to conclude the alliance without any subsidies.
page 311 note 1. On 19 June the council of state minuted: ‘To remind His Highness to speed an ambassador to Sweden’: CSP (Dom) 1655–56, p. 387Google Scholar; and already on 21 June NS Thurloe had assured Nieupoort somewhat airily that ‘although the embassy might arrive somewhat late, he could assure me … that it would be proceeding forthwith’: Brieven, iii. 251.Google Scholar
page 311 note 2. Ratifications were exchanged in Lisbon on 31 May, the approach of Blake's fleet having persuaded John IV to yield at all points.
page 312 note 1. It may have been some rumour of Bonde's improved relations with the protector that provided the basis for the startling letter from Dureel which was read in the Swedish council of state on 24 July. That letter (of 17 July) reported that Cromwell had 40 warships ready in the Downs to proceed to the Sound, and had given orders that all Dutch ships were to be visited in the Channel. The rumour had no foundation, and the council seems to have passed over the letter in silence: RRP, xvi. 560Google Scholar. For similar rumours, CSP (Ven) 1655–56, p. 190Google Scholar; Thurloe, , iv. 584.Google Scholar
page 312 note 2. Transcript mistakenly has ‘främpte’, for ‘femte’.
page 312 note 3. Transcript has ‘kammar’, for ‘hamnar’.
page 312 note 4. Article VII of the treaty would indeed establish regulations for the settling of claims; but controversy was not thereby ended.
page 313 note 1. Article IX of the treaty would, on the contrary, reiterate the English claim to a monopoly of trade to America; though it added the somewhat illusory qualification that individual Swedes, if provided with Charles X's recommendation, might be allowed to trade thither ‘as far as the state of his [the protector's] affairs and of the republic will for that time permit’.
page 313 note 2. This was an important concession to the Swedes, and one which had been denied to the Dutch at the peace of Westminster. It had been foreshadowed by Cromwell's additional instruction to Whitelocke of 7 April 1654; but at that time with the proviso that they should pay a recognition of the tenth herring, or at worst of the twentieth herring: Whitelocke, Journal, ii. 196Google Scholar. The proviso was now dropped.
page 313 note 3. By article VIII it was provided that the English should enjoy all the ‘prerogatives’ which they had formerly had in Prussia, Poland, or elsewhere in the Swedish dominions, ‘in preference to other nations’. If Sweden were to grant greater privileges to any other nation than the English, or to people who were not [at present] Swedish subjects, England should also enjoy such improved privileges. This met Charles X's insistence on his right to grant specially favourable terms to his own subjects, and implicitly to those who might afterwards become so. And any edict published since 1650 which might have been burdensome to English traders to Poland or Prussia was to be cancelled in the Swedish dominions [e.g. in a Swedish-controlled Danzig?]
page 315 note 1. Abbott (iv. 200) translates ‘they … would have offered mediation if it had been advantageous to them’; but the Swedish is not förmånlig but behaghlig.
page 315 note 2. CSP (Dom) 1655–56, p. 375Google Scholar, and ibid., 1656–57, p. 14 (10 July 1656) which notes that the order was ‘confirmed in person’.
page 316 note 1. Abbott (iv. 200) paraphrases this: ‘The other was that in the preceding winter the English in order that the Spanish silver-fleet should not slip away from them, had been inclined to ally themselves with the king of Sweden’—which makes nonsense.
page 316 note 2. Denmark's treaty with the Dutch bound Frederick III to send a squadron to collaborate with the Dutch fleet off Danzig; and this was in fact done.
page 317 note 1. Printed in Abbott, , iv. 104.Google Scholar
page 317 note 2. Abbott (iv. 200) states that at a date ‘a week later’ than the audience of 3 July Bonde ‘suggested Whitelocke for the post’ of ambassador to Sweden. I cannot identify the basis for this statement: see the reference to Whitelocke in the letter of 11 July, supra.
page 318 note 1. Missing in transcript.
page 318 note 2. Text in Abbott, , iv. 904–11Google Scholar. Art. I gave each party the right to recruit; art. IV accepted the ‘preheminence’ of each in its own waters, and regulated passports; art. VIII dealt with English trading privileges in Prussia and Poland (see p. 00 note 00, supra);art. IX gave individual Swedes the right to seek special license to trade to America, if circumstances permitted; art. X gave Swedes the right to fish herring on the British coast, provided the number of ships did not exceed 1000. An attached convention provided (subject to Charles X's agreement) that no Swedish naval stores be exported to Spain for the duration of the Spanish war in Swedish ships, but suggested a conference to determine prices of these commodities, should England wish to buy up Sweden's total production of them: (see p. 290 n. 2, supra).Cromwell ratified the treaty on 5 November; Charles on 30 December.
page 318 note 3. The Swedish garrison in Warsaw surrendered on 21 June/1 July.
page 318 note 4. Nyen fell to the Russians on 5 June.
page 319 note 1. Missing in transcript; but Bonde's Diarium for 25 July has: ‘Habui solennem audientiam valedictoriam … played at bowls for two hours; bibit mihi sed secrete adeo Dns Prot. in memoriam Regiae Maiestatis, quod adeo contra morem ipsorum est, sed nunc maximam amicitiam annuebat’: Diarium, p. 52.Google Scholar
page 320 note 1. For the letter from Erik Oxenstierna, see Carlbom, , Sverige och England, p. 112.Google Scholar
page 321 note 1. Obdam's fleet had arrived off Danzig on 17 July, and was soon to be joined by a Danish squadron; and Charles X was by this time desperately anxious to come to some arrangement with the Dutch. His anxiety (and his change of objectives) was reflected in his letter to Erik Oxenstierna of 12 July: ‘We must have the Baltic safe: we consider the crisis which could follow the failure of this negotiation of more importance than anything that Poland and Prussia can do against us’; and on 24 August: ‘God knows what the condition of our affairs is here at present. I do not believe that our country has for many years been in such a dangerous situation: humanly speaking the only means of salvation is a quick settlement with the Dutch’: Carlson, , Sveriges historia, i. 314, 316.Google Scholar
page 321 note 2. On 16 April the Dutch ambassadors at Copenhagen had reported that Denmark would probably agree to send embassies to Poland and Sweden, provided Cromwell did so. Also that Frederick III had written to Cromwell concerning proposals for an alliance with Denmark, and was awaiting his answer: Thurloe, iv. 680.
page 322 note 1. Contrast his argument to the contrary, in his recent interview with Fiennes and Fleetwood: supra, p.309.
page 322 note 2. The defeat of the French forces attempting to relieve the siege of Valenciennes, 16 July (NS) 1656; the raising of the siege of Pavia by the Marquis of Caracena soon afterwards.
page 323 note 1. For Spanish activity in the Netherlands, and especially in Amsterdam, see Molsbergen, , Frankrijken … Nederlanden, pp. 157, 160.Google Scholar
page 324 note 1. No trace of any such project seems to have remained; if, indeed, it ever existed.
page 324 note 2. Bonde was ordered to obtain some sort of help from England—by a diversion, a loan of troops, or a subsidy—now that Charles was attacked by the Russians and that the emperor was appearing more clearly his enemy; and especially to ask what England would do if Denmark and Holland should combine to attack in the Baltic. Mediation was to be ruled out; but (a notable indication of his weakening position) if it were actually offered ‘it might go ahead’: text in Carlbom, , Sverige och England, pp. 117–18.Google Scholar
page 324 note 3. The orders for the presents to Bonde had already been placed: CSP (Dom) 1656–7, pp. 50, 79, 95, 115Google Scholar; but the jewel (estimated at £1850; actual price £863.18.0) could not be ready in time: hence Bonde's departure had to be delayed. He was also to have £1200 of cloth.
page 325 note 1. On 4 August Bordeaux told Nieupoort that he had seen Cromwell on the previous day and offered good offices about the Marine Treaty; that Cromwell had professed optimism, but had added that the sending of the Dutch fleet to the Baltic was another business; that he looked on it as ‘very considerable’; and that other proceedings were ‘a great reflection upon the crown of Sweden’. Nieupoort was surprised at this last, since the protector had said nothing of it two days earlier; and he said that he would speak to Cromwell about it. Bordeaux advised him to ‘let it alone’ since with Cromwell he would be speaking through an interpreter: better to raise it with Thurloe privately. Nieupoort did so, and Thurloe said that he had not heard a word about the Baltic from Cromwell during Bordeaux's audience, though he had been present all the time; ‘but he did observe and find, that there was a very strict confederacy between Sweden and France’: Nieupoort to [?] de Witt, Thurloe, v. 247. In this he was mistaken.
page 326 note 1. The reports were true.
page 326 note 2. ‘Freight’ (frachta) not ‘hire’, in the transcript.
page 326 note 3. Presumably to induce the other provinces to follow Holland's example, and adopt it, though this does not appear in Carlbom's paraphrase of the text.
page 326 note 4. This was the Count Hohenlohe mentioned in Coyet's no. 26, supra. Nothing seems to have come of this idea: Hohenlohe left England (with £100 journey-money from Cromwell) on 19 October 1656 to go to Germany: BL Add. MS 38100 fo. 29.
page 327 note 1. A technique which Cromwell had successfully deployed in the case of Portugal.
page 328 note 1. By the terms of the Dutch-Danzig treaty of 30 June/10 July. But in fact Danzig disavowed her negotiators, declined to grant parity of treatment for Dutch merchants, and refused to ratify the treaty: Cieślak, Gdansks … betydelse, pp. 138–9.Google Scholar
page 329 note 1. It was not ready till 21 August: a letter informing Charles X of its contents is dated the same day: Abbott, , iv. 233–4.Google Scholar
page 329 note 2. This was scarcely correct: the treaty of 1645 had had an implicit point against Denmark.
page 329 note 3. The three-days' battle of Warsaw, 18–20 July OS: see Herbst, Stanislaw, in Polens krig med Sverige 1655–1660, (Carl Gustaf-studier, 5) (Stockholm 1973), pp. 255–94Google Scholar. The strategic effects were nil, but politically it administered a temporary cold douche to Denmark.
page 331 note 1. Full accounts of these last audiences, and the ceremonial which accompanied them, up to the time of Bonde's final departure, are in Barkman's letters of 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29 August, in BL Add. MS 38100, fos. 1–10v.
page 331 note 2. A somewhat cheeseparing requital for his own lavish treatment; but he was clearly in financial straits.
page 331 note 3. After a somewhat troublesome voyage he caught up with Coyet in Hamburg, where the financial difficulties of each of them were relieved: they landed together at Pillau, 16 October 1656: Carlbom, , Sverige och England, p. 131.Google Scholar