Chapter 1244: Bedroom Diplomacy with Charles II

London, Hampton Court Palace.

The younger Cromwell, now Lord Protector for eight years, sat in the office his father had once used, looking down at the design drawings for a new-model naval warship sent over by the Admiralty — after word of the great Battle of the Malacca Strait reached Europe, the two naval powers, England and the Netherlands, had as usual begun a new round of money-burning shipbuilding competition.

Because the Lord Protector-class and Parliament-class ships the two countries had previously built had become obsolete overnight!

The experience of the great Battle of the Malacca Strait showed that wooden-hulled warships could hardly withstand pointed-nose explosive shells, so wooden warships that could carry only a small number of large-caliber bombardment guns had become thoroughly outdated.

But iron- or copper-hulled ships of the line were still impossible to build, so the naval experts of England and the Netherlands could only set aside the question of a warship's shell resistance for the time being and instead pursue more guns and greater firepower — since they could not defend against it, then carry a few more cannons and strive to destroy the enemy's warships before the enemy's naval guns destroyed their own!

So the design drawings the Admiralty handed to the younger Cromwell showed yet another great vessel with two gun decks and fifty-two 18-pounder long guns, with a full load displacement of a full 1,200 tons!

A 1,200-ton ship with only fifty-two 18-pounder long guns was of course meant to strengthen defense — not defense against shells, however, but defense against magazine explosions. Shells could not be stopped, but a magazine explosion could still be guarded against. The gun decks of the new warship had been redesigned: no longer two guns per compartment, but one gun per compartment, meaning the guns on the port and starboard sides were separated, with a passageway left down the middle.

Looking at the drawings of the new warship, the younger Cromwell could not help but sigh.

According to the quote from the Woolwich Dockyard, building this 1,200-ton ship of the line would cost at least twenty-five thousand pounds sterling.

And that was the discounted price for ordering ten ships at once... ten ships meant 250,000 pounds!

The English republican government's annual fiscal revenue was now only 2.5 million pounds, so ten warships would use up ten percent of it.

The Admiralty believed that to ensure victory over the Dutch navy in future battles, the English navy would need at least one hundred such ships of the line.

And to defeat the Great Ming navy... it was estimated they would need to equip two hundred of them!

This was going to drive England into bankruptcy!

But the cost of updating naval equipment was not the most troublesome matter for this Lord Protector; what troubled him most was the rise of France!

France had a large population! Larger than England, the Netherlands, and Spain combined! And Louis XIV was not burning money on a navy now, but building up a great army, and already possessed 150,000 new-model troops.

And what made this new-model army new was that it was equipped in large numbers with bayonet-fitted flintlock muskets, and with large-caliber short guns and mortars capable of firing explosive shells.

England's New Model Army had followed suit, but its numbers were not as great as 150,000 — England also had to maintain a navy and could not afford too large an army, so the upgraded New Model Army now numbered only a mere 40,000.

An army of 40,000 was enough for domestic purposes; the British Isles were now firmly in the younger Cromwell's grasp, and the Royalist elements and Catholics could only flee with their tails between their legs. Those with money and connections ran to the European continent, while those with little money and no connections could only flee to America.

As for those left in England who could not leave, all that remained was to unite as one — whether English, Welsh, Scottish, or Irish, all had to become Englishmen who loved the English motherland under the younger Cromwell's leadership!

And moreover, they had to be Puritans who believed in the Anglican Puritan faith!

This was the elder Cromwell's dream, and now it was being turned into reality bit by bit in the hands of the seemingly mediocre younger Cromwell.

And in order to realize the dream of uniting England as one, the younger Cromwell, after taking power, had deliberately kept his distance from the great powers of the European continent, avoiding entanglement in a continental struggle for supremacy that would be equally enormous in cost and risk.

But some things cannot be avoided just because you wish to avoid them... England did not want to go looking for trouble on the continent, but France on the continent was sharpening its knives, putting on a formidable show of punching Spain and kicking the Netherlands. If those two little dwarfs, Louis XIV and the Prince of Condé, really got their way, would England, isolated out at sea, still have good days ahead?

So the younger Cromwell had no choice but to conduct secret diplomacy with De Witt of the Netherlands and Don Juan José of New Spain, discussing the possibility of an Anglo-Dutch alliance and joint intervention in the continental war.

Of course, England could not possibly act for nothing; there had to be satisfactory returns... and the returns the younger Cromwell wanted were of two kinds. One was the complete end of England's internal strife — the Royalist faction headed by Charles II must leave Europe and at the same time renounce their claim to supreme power in England.

The second was the hope of expanding England's territory on the European continent — Dunkirk was still in English hands and had not been bought away by the French. The younger Cromwell hoped to carve out another piece of land from the Spanish Netherlands, so that it could be joined together with Dunkirk to form a small republic dependent on England.

The price had now been named, and all that remained was to wait for the answers of those great figures on the continent.

At this thought, the younger Cromwell's mind wandered, and he no longer had any heart to look at warship drawings.

Just then, hurried footsteps sounded from outside the door, followed by the voice of the Republic's Foreign Secretary, Andrew Marvell.

"Your Highness the Lord Protector, it is Marvell."

"Andrew, come in quickly!" The younger Cromwell stood up, came around from behind the desk, and made a show of going to greet him.

The office door was pulled open by a secretary, and then Marvell was seen walking in with a delighted expression; upon seeing the younger Cromwell he immediately bowed.

"Andrew, how did it go?" the younger Cromwell asked hurriedly, before he had even taken a seat.

"Your Highness, Charles II has agreed!" Andrew Marvell said. "He has agreed to go to America... and he has also agreed to renounce the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland!"

"Excellent!" The younger Cromwell laughed. "Thanks be to God, the English people can at last have a country of their own, completely unified!

Andrew, I have thought of a new and more fitting name for this country — the Commonwealth of England! All the countries and peoples of the British Isles, united as one, becoming one nation, believing in one religion, never to be separated!"

Andrew Marvell nodded as well. "Good, this is the wish of the old Lord Protector and all the English revolutionaries... we have struggled for this for more than twenty years, and now it is finally about to be realized!"

He suddenly thought of something and looked at the younger Cromwell. "Your Highness, if the country is renamed the Commonwealth, then should your office not also be changed? The Commonwealth of New England on the east coast of America has a king!"

"No, no, I will not take the title of king, that would not be fitting..." The younger Cromwell shook his head at once. "If the name is to be changed, then change it to Lord President of the Commonwealth!"

Almost at the same moment, the French on the other side of the English Channel also learned the news that the English Royalists were preparing to go into exile in America to found a state.

Louis XIV, who wished to lead Europe, naturally had his intelligence network, and by the side of that Charles II were agents he had sent.

When the news arrived, the King of France was inspecting the construction site of the Palace of Versailles; work on this famous palace had begun in 1661, and the project had already lasted five years and was still not complete.

"Your Majesty," the Prince of Condé, who was also accompanying the King, immediately offered his advice, "we should send troops as soon as possible, lest England complete its preparations for intervention!"

Louis XIV, whose height was about the same as the Prince of Condé's, wore high-heeled shoes but still appeared short. The King of France paced a few steps on a newly laid brick path, then suddenly turned and asked the Prince of Condé: "How long will it take you to reach the Dutch border?"

The Prince of Condé said: "The troops will need two weeks to enter their attack positions, and then at most one month to occupy the entire Spanish Netherlands!"

The King of France asked: "What if England, the Netherlands, and Sweden intervene?"