and communications were opened as of mere civility with the English at Mardyke. As the English officers took their rides between Mardyke and Dunkirk they were frequently met by the duke's officers, and conversation took place. Sir John Reynolds was imprudent enough to pay his respects to the duke on these occasions, and he was soon ordered to London to answer for his conduct; but both he and a Colonel White, who was evidence against him, were lost on the 5th of December on the Goodwin Sands. The Duke of York now made a treacherous attack on Mardyke, but was repulsed, and the affairs of Charles II. appeared so hopeless, that Burnet asserts, and the same thing is asserted also in the "Orrery Letters," that he was now mean enough to offer to marry one of Cromwell's daughters, and thus settle all differences, but that Cromwell told Lord Orrery that Charles was so debauched that he would undo them all. Cromwell, indeed, just now married his two remaining single daughters, Frances and Mary, to the Lords Rich and Falconberg. Frances married Lord Rich, the son of the Earl of Warwick, and Mary Lord Falconberg, of the Yorkshire family of Bellasis, formerly so zealous for the royal party. [Illustration: _By permission of the Corporation of Liverpool._ CROMWELL REFUSING THE CROWN, 1657. FROM THE PICTURE BY J. SCHEX IN THE WALKER ART GALLERY, LIVERPOOL.] [Illustration: ARREST OF CONSPIRATORS AT THE "MERMAID." (_See p._ 147.)] The year 1658 opened by the meeting of the new Parliament. It was a critical venture, and not destined to succeed better than the former ones. To constitute the new House, called the Other House, Cromwell had been obliged to remove to it most of the best-affected members of the Commons. To comply with the "Petition and Advice," he had been forced to admit into the Commons many who had been expelled from former Parliaments for their violent Republicanism. The consequences at once appeared. The Other House consisted of sixty-three members. It included six of the ancient Peers--the Earls of Manchester, Warwick, Mulgrave, Falconberg, Saye and Sele, and Lord Eure. But none but Eure and Falconberg took their seats, not even the Earl of Warwick, whose son and heir, Lord Rich, had just married the Protector's daughter. He and the others objected to sit in the same House with General Hewson, who had once been a shoemaker, and Pride, who had been a drayman. Amongst the members appeared a considerable number of the officers of the army, and the chief Ministers of State. These included the Protector's two sons, Richard and Henry Cromwell, Fiennes, Keeper of the Great Seal, Lisle, Fleetwood, Monk, Whalley, Whitelock, Barkstead, Pride, Hewson, Goffe, Sir Christopher Pack, alderman of London, General Claypole, St. John, and other old friends of the Protector, besides the lords already mentioned. As they had been called by writs, which were copies of the royal writs used on such occasions, the members