"At any rate," continued General Swaffham, "Cromwell at this hour owed nothing to his dress. I have seen him in the fields by St. Ives, and in Ely Market, in the same kind of clothing. What would you? And what did it matter? His spirit clothed his flesh, and the power of the spirit was on him, so that the men in velvet and fine lace wilted away in his presence." "No one minds the Lord General’s having power, no one minds giving him honour for what he has done for England, but the Cromwell women! What have they done more than others?" asked Mrs. Swaffham. "Be at peace, Martha," said General Swaffham; "here are things to consider of far greater import than the Cromwell women. How the nation will take this affair, remains to be seen. ’Tis true the Lord General was cheered all through the city, but he knows—and no man better—what a fickle heart the populace have. As like as not, it will be, as he said to me, ’Overturn, overturn, and great tasks on all sides.’" "I look for measureless wrath and vain babble, and threats heard far and wide," said Doctor Verity. "The people have been given what they wanted, and twenty to one they will now nay-say all they have roared for. That would be like the rest of their ways." For once Doctor Verity was wrong. This master-stroke of Cromwell’s went straight to the heart of London. "Not a dog barked against it," said Cromwell to his friends, and he was to all intents and purposes right. Those who called it "usurpation" confessed that it was an usurpation of capability, in place of one of incapability. Even the lampoons of the day were not adverse to Cromwell, while some of them gave him a grim kind of pleasure. Thus, one morning, Cluny Neville passing the Parliament House noticed placards on its walls, and going close enough to read them, found they advertised "_This house to let; unfurnished_." And when he told this to Cromwell, that faculty in the man which sometimes made for a rude kind of mirth, was aroused, and he burst into an uproarious enjoyment of the joke. "I wish," he cried, "I wish I knew the wag who did it. I would give him a crown or two, I would indeed, and gladly." There had been a little uncertainty about the navy, for Sir Harry Vane had shown it great favour. But Admiral Robert Blake was as great and as unselfish a man in his office as was Oliver Cromwell. He accepted the change without dissent, telling his fleet simply— "It is not the business of seamen to mind state affairs. Our business is to keep foreigners from fooling us, and to find the Dutch ships, fight them, and sink them."