A Letter of Comfort TO Richard cronwell Esq; alias Lord Richard, alias Richard PROTECTOR.  
Sent him since the Alteration of his Titles and our Government: FROM, A Servant of his late Highness, and the late Highness of his late deceased Father, and a kinsman of the late deceased Highness of his still surviving MOTHER.  Si cadendum est mihi, coelo eccidisse velim. Senec. q. l. 6. c. 2. 
London, Printed 1659.   

A Letter of Comfort to Richard cromwell, Esq; alias Lord Richard alias Richard Protector.  
SIR,  
THe World does not so much bewail the fall of your late Highness, as wonder you could fall so easily from it, and not crush any thing but your Highnesse. That it is not so much a chance, as a law; for greatness sooner or later to fall, we must needs confess, if we aclowledge it built upon the common instability of human things, or the changeable humours of men. And if we row-back the stream of forepast a●es, searching for the greatest things, of which now there onely remains a memory, that they were; we must allow there is nothing beautiful but fades, nothing durable, but has an end; nothing great, but decaves, kingdoms, Monarchies, and Empires fall on a sudden, that seemed built upon the Foundations of eternity, as held up by the wise heads of Senators, and the inflexible shoulders of many a valiant Hercules; in vain they are secured by the rampars of Mountains, and enclosed by the large Moats of confinin Seas; nay guarded in vain, both by Fortune and Virtue, as Florus said of Rome. Dignities and Honours often dazzle their possessors eves with the height of place, and he that was yesterday a King, may become to day a Slave; perchance as Nabuchadonezer, a beast; and it may be said of many a Princes Reign, as Tully in jest said of Vatinius his short Consulship; Magnum ostentum anno Vatinii factum est, quòd illo consul, nec bruma, nec ver, nec aestas, nec autumnus fuit. Sir, there have been as sudden changes of Government as ours, and as sudden falls as yours: but we shall seldom find so great a fall with so much ease; and so little mischief done, either in the changes of our times, or Histories of the former.  
In Scripture, we red, that Lucifer fell from Heaven; but he fell like Lightning, and drew with him a third part of the Angelical Militia: We red that Adam fell out of Paradise; but all his posterity fell with him: That Saul fell in a great Battle, but with him fell his Son Jonathan, and many a stout one by him. In history, we red that Darius fell, but it was by the hand of an Alexander, and with him fell his kingdom: That Pompey fell, and he that a little before had scarce earth enough for his Victories, had now not earth enough for a tomb: but with him fell the Roman liberty into the hands of a triumphant Usurper; and she that beholded Europe, Affrica, and Asia, chained to the chariot of her triumphs, now found her self a Slave to one of her own Citizens; She upon the wings of her conquering Eagles sent the thunder-bolts of her Victorious arms so far, that it was held for an unknown Region that was not conquered by Rome; yet she fell at last, and if she grew by the ruins of an hundred kingdoms, now falling to ruin, she enriched as many more with the plunder of her. Caligula when he fell, would have the frame of Nature fall with him; and it was the ambition of a generous spirit, Si cadendum est mihi, coelo cecidisse velim. But not to trouble you further with Histories of tragical Catastrophe, little relating to your mischance; I doubt not but you have heard, how in the witty Fictions of Poets( who under pleasant Fables couched the gravest moralities) a during Pha●ton, that unwisely affencted to rule his Fathers Chariot, and distribute the great treasure of light equally to the World: 
Sen. Ausus aeternos agitare currus,  
Immemor metae juvenis paternae,  weakly let go the reins of his new Government, and unadvisedly abandoning his hold, fell from the Heavens( which he had already put in a combustion) and setting fire on the earth, was struck with a Thunder-bolt into the water, 
Quos polo sparsit furiosus ignes,  
Ipse recepit.  otherwise the ill conduct and misrule of one unruly boy, had been the ruin of all.  
That your Father may be compared to Phoebus, the lustre and brightness of his attempts shining from East to West, the flaming complexion of his countenance; but chiefly his fondness towards his children and kindred( to put in your hands the reins of an unruly people, and scarce by him to be governed) will make warrantable the comparison; but if you were to be the falling Phaeton, why fell ye not so, as the world might have cause to feel your fall, and pled for you this honourable excuse, magnis tamen excidit ausis, that if ye failed, it was in an enterprise deserved a greater venture? Sir, I must needs tell you, when you were advised of your danger, had you taken the heads off, which then you had in your hands, you might either have secured yourself and family for ever, or have bravely ventured to restore the true Owner to his Right, and your Country to its Liberties, and so have redeemed yourself from your Fathers sins, and us all from slavery.  
But resolving to hold in your own hands, what was gotten to your hand, rather than restore it to him, out of whose hands it was gotten; the world neither compassionates your fall, nor can choose but blame your want of resolution: For it is no less in Policy than in philosophy, an undenied maxim, Unumquodque conservatur eodem modo quo fit: that ever, thing is kept as it is gotten, every thing maintained by the same means it was obtained: So that Dominion usurped by Fraud and Force, was by Fraud and Force to be preserved. Such a necessity of Tyrann● your Father left you heir unto, as well as to an Usurped Dominion; and I think, a fair example of his own to work by: for it was well observed by that politic Historian, Tacit. lib. 10. Nemo unquam imperium flagitio acquisitum bonis artibus exercuit.  
If you run over the annals of all Tyrants reigns, as I believe you will scarce red of any one that with more deceit, Perjury, hypocrisy, Fraud, &c. raised himself from a mean condition to the height of usurped greatness than O. P( your never to be forgotten Father, and never to be remembered without a groan from the whole Nation) so I am satisfied that neither Sy●a, nor Caesar, nor any Invador of their own Nations and Countries, ever changed more vizards of dissimulation, invented more tricks of state, used more force and frand to mask his usurped authority with a pretended free consent, with fasting, Preaching, Praying and Crying, with belying the Divine Providence, abusing Scripture, and misinterpreting success, and in fine made better use of Machiavell, Borgia and all their political axioms, to flanck one crime with another, and fortify himself in mischief, and impiously to maintain what he had impiously got, than Oliver; whose name was either famous or dreadful to all the admiring World. Now Sir, if you could have digested iniquity with as good a stomach as he you should by the same means as he did, have made good your hold, for he was said to be a devil so strongly possessing our polytick body, that he would have torn it in pieces in the exorcizing, rather than have been disposessed of it, and surely you have left behind you many in employment, who to stand in the place of your late Highness, would yet willingly venture a greater fall than yours, which was not with noise, like thunder, nor with a boult, like lightning; but like the imaginary shooting of a star, that falls from heaven in a jelly. I dare compare it even to that of Icarus, for no other regard, then that you fell softer than he, who falling was drowned in the Sea; but left not a fleeting famed writ in the waves, for he bequeathed it for ever to the I●arian Ocean, and a dispute to posterity, whether more blame belonged to his fall, or admiration to his ambitious flight.  
— tinaeque innixus arator  
Vidit, et ob●●upuit, quiq, ●thera carpere posset,  
Credidit esse deum.—  
So far the Fable has relation to your misfortune, as your father was known to be a great Dedalus of polytick engines, who with prodigious dexterity raised himself on forged wings from a low and despicable condition, and bore himself ever an ocean of opposing difficulties to the height of usurped greatness. The like wings he forged for your use, but to your person the other part of the fiction is no ways applicable. Yet the mischance you got in Epping foreste, in the self same place where William Rufus was slame casually with a dart, seeming something ominous and prognosticating this ensuing event, makes me call to mind one Fable that haltes but little to come nigh your case.  
Vulcan by a conspiracy of the under-●eities was cast head-long out of heaven, and lighting on the iceland Lemnos fell so gently, that his so long living amongst the gods, and enjoying celestial Nestar, as likewise his curiosity of vewing, in his fall all the starry Orbs, and measuring the way from heaven to earth, cost him by good fortune, but the straining of one Thigh, and the halting of one Leg, Behold then, the onely motive of Comfort I can furnish you with in this case, is something like that which a good woman gave her Husband, that falling from a three, broken his Leg, and she gave God thanks he had not broken his Neck. You in your Fathers time of Government, enjoyed all the delights and pleasures a Noble mans condition( to which you were not born) could afford; your entrance after his death into the Protectorship, cost your Father but a word, and you but your acceptance; You had in your hands so long three kingdoms to play with, if you lost them, you lost but what cost you nothing; your fall was as easy as your rise; and it had been great pitty a drop of blood should have been spent to take that from you, which never cost you a drop to win; however it came to pass, that the best of Kings lost his head to hold it fast. You may Answer as an accient Philosopher did, who being asked what was left him after his Cities Sack and Plunder, made answer, Nullum vidi, qui res meas auferret, Demetr. He counted nothing his own, that he could possess no longer than Fortune & chance would let him; and why should you count that lost, which you could not possess without fear, gain without Usurpation, hold without Tyranny? You may say as the lyric Anacreon did, who having received from the courteous liberality of Polierates, five Talents in gold for a gift, and having lost two nights fleep in thinking how ●o dispose of them for greatest and surest profit, and now fearing least he should shortly become a watchful Dragon about this fruit of gold, took them, and with them all the troublesone thoughts they caused him; restored them to the giver with this excuse, Odi munus quodcunque vigilare me facit. I hate a gift that keeps me always watching: You may now sleep long enough, for all the cares of Government, and leave them to such as will be more vigilant to keep what they have, and gain what they have not: every body will praise your modesty, your unambitious bashfulness, your gentle acquiescency, your limber disposition: Neither can the resuscitated members of the defunct Long Parliament, now after their Resurrection, zealously tugging at the Good old Cause, have much reason to upbraid you with want of resolution and weakness, since they may be graciously pleased to remember, that their long Reign, was as easily, with as little noise, with as little blood-shed, and as much joy of the people interrupted, as your short Protectorship.  
And if your Gallant Brother Henry, can bravely resolve to catch hold of the opportunity, you lost, of making himself and all his family secure, great and for ever honourable; by restoring, what they & your Father joined impiously to pull down, you may yet live to laugh at the ruin of those that could pull you down, but cannot set up themselves, and be glad to yield your younger Brother the Precedency, as you yielded up to your other ungracious, ungrateful Kindred your Government.  
FINIS.