vehemently opposed his assuming the title of king. He used every effort to stimulate the opposition of the army against the scheme (Thurloe, vi. 219; Clarendon, bk. xv. par. 34). The next year, however, he accepted without scruple a place in Cromwell's House of Lords (Ludlow, ii. 131–3; Harleian Miscellany, Park, iii. 476).
After Cromwell's death Desborough cast off all restraint and joined the party among the officers whose plan was to make Fleetwood commander-in-chief, independent of Richard Cromwell. Failing in this, the officers sent Fleetwood and Desborough on 22 April 1659 to force Richard to dissolve the parliament. Fleetwood spoke mildly, but Desborough, using ‘threats and menaces,’ told his nephew ‘that if he would dissolve his parliament, the officers would take care of him; but that if he refused so to do, they would do it without him, and leave him to shift for himself’ (Clarendon, bk. xvi. par. 10; Ludlow, ii. 177). This had the desired effect. The Rump, directly it was restored, elected him one of the council of state on 13 May 1659—he had just before been nominated one of the committee of safety—and gave him the governorship of Plymouth and a colonel's commission in July, but so far resented his effrontery in presenting with other officers a petition in the name of the general council of the army on 5 Oct., as to cashier him a week later (Whitelocke, pp. 678, 681, 684). After Fleetwood had broken up the house on 13 Oct. Desborough was nominated by the officers one of a committee of ten of the council of state to consider of fit ways to carry on the affairs of government (17 Oct.), and was also appointed commissary-general of the horse (Whitelocke, p. 685; Clarendon, bk. xvi. pars. 86, 91; Ludlow, ii. 240–1). His conduct, always unruly, had now become so violent as to render him an object of popular derision. ‘Everybody laughs at the lord Fleetwood and Disbrowe,’ writes an anonymous correspondent in Thurloe (vii. 823). Even his regiment rose in revolt against him. On the second restoration of the Rump Desborough was punished by being relegated (January 1659–1660) to his house ‘farthest off London,’ although he proffered more than one abject apology (Whitelocke, pp. 692, 693, 698).
When the Restoration was inevitable, Desborough attempted to leave the kingdom, but was arrested by the sheriff of Essex near the coast and sent up in custody to the council of state (Commons' Journals, 21 May 1660, viii. 39). On 13 June 1660 a resolution was passed excepting him out of the Act of Indemnity, the effect of which was merely to incapacitate him from all public employment, as he was not mentioned in the clause of pains and penalties extending either to life or property (ib. viii. 63). He had scarcely got free when he was again seized in London and sent to the Tower on suspicion of being concerned in a plot to kill Charles II and Henrietta Maria. There was no evidence of any such plot, and he was soon liberated (Ludlow, iii. 80). Finding himself closely watched, he contrived to escape to Holland, where he occupied himself in fruitless endeavours to unite the remains of the republican party (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1661, pp. 550–1, &c., 1663–4, passim). His intrigues coming to the knowledge of the government, he was ordered by proclamation, dated 9 April 1666, to be in England before 23 July on pain of being declared a traitor (ib. 1665–6, pp. 318, 342, 358). He promptly obeyed, and, landing in Thanet, was sent a prisoner to Dover Castle on 13 July, whence he was transferred a few days later to the Tower (ib. 1665–6, pp. 529, 544, 581). Here he remained until 23 Feb. 1667, when he was brought up for examination before Lord-chancellor Clarendon, the Duke of Albemarle, and Lord Arlington (ib. 1666–7, p. 531). In the result he obtained his liberty, and would appear to have been allowed to reside quietly in England for the rest of his life (Pepys, Diary, ed. Bright, iv. 306).
Desborough died at Hackney in 1680 (Probate Act Book, P. C. C., 1680). His will, in which he describes himself as ‘of Hackney, in the county of Middlesex, esquire,’ bearing date 26 March 1678, was proved on 20 Sept. 1680 by his eldest surviving son, Valentine (Reg. in P. C. C. 115, Bath). From it we learn that he died possessed of the manor of Eltisley, his birthplace (cf. Lysons, Mag. Brit. vol. ii. pt. i., Cambridgeshire, pp. 184–185), and of other lands in Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, and Essex. Desborough was twice married. His first wife, Jane Cromwell, who was living in December 1656 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1656–7, p. 489), was buried in Westminster Abbey, from which her remains were exhumed at the Restoration (Nichols, Collectanea, viii. 153). By her he had a daughter and seven sons. Jane, the daughter, married John, son of William Burton, M.P. for Yarmouth in 1656, and one of the seventy members who offered the crown to Cromwell (Palmer, Perlustration of Great Yarmouth, i. 385, 387). She died in 1729. Of the sons, John, the eldest, was baptised at St. John the Baptist, Huntingdon, on 27 April 1637. Nathaniel, the second but eldest surviving son, was placed by Cromwell under Lockhart's care at Paris to qualify for foreign embassies (Thurloe, vi. 221). In November
