Parliamentary leaders time to collect forces sufficient to meet all
attacks; and when he had thus baulked the attempt, Willis was ready to
discover enough to prevent those whom he had betrayed from falling into
the trap. Messages were sent to delay the rising, and in most cases they
were in time to prevent outbreaks which were fore-doomed to failure. Only
Sir George Booth, in the seizure of Chester, and Middleton, in the North
Wales rising, actually carried out what had been planned. A very brief
campaign sufficed for Lambert to crush the nascent rebellion. Booth and
Lord Derby [Footnote: Son of the Earl who played so noble a part in the
war, and who was executed after the battle of Worcester in 1651.] were
prisoners in the hands of Lambert; and Middleton was compelled to consent
to the destruction of his house, Chirk Castle. Once more a brief gleam of
hope was succeeded by more profound despair, and there was nothing more to
be done by Charles and the Duke of York than to return from the French
coast to Brussels. But there was no Cromwell to crush future attempts by a
policy of ruthless revenge. A few prisoners were taken; but the time was
past for trials and executions. Legal processes were beyond the range of
the sorry faction that stood for administration in England.

But scarcely had these abortive attempts been crushed before another
avenue of hope opened itself to Charles and his adherents. It was one for
which Hyde had no great liking, and from which he expected little good
result. But obviously it was not to be neglected. After a long, barren,
and destructive war, both France and Spain were eager for peace. Neither
was ready to make the first overtures, and neither would confess an ardent
desire for peace. But an opportunity occurred, now that a wife had to be
found for Louis XIV. The Infanta of Spain offered a consort entirely
suitable, and a marriage might be arranged with the better augury if it
should prove a method of bringing to an end a mutually destructive war.
Mazarin viewed the proposal with suspicion, and was unwilling to conclude