After the execution of Charles I in 1649 a series of daring and
desperate attempts were
made on the lives of agents and ambassadors dispatched to continental Europe
by
the fledgling republic.
This essay explores the evidence relating to these plots, and to the murders
of
Isaac Dorislaus and
Anthony Ascham, in an attempt to show that the royalists responsible were
not merely desperadoes
seeking revenge for the murder of their king, but the employees and
emissaries of prominent exiled
courtiers. The complicity of Montrose, Cottington and Hyde in such
conspiracy can be both
documented and explained, in the context of the struggle for diplomatic
recognition and financial
assistance in the months of shock, outrage and uncertainty after the
regicide. The concerns of
diplomacy and high politics which lay behind these plots also helped to
determine the reaction of
European leaders, as it gradually became clear on whose side fortune
smiled in Britain.