;;c;n ■•ifie*''«v«t:i.".;r;r University of California At Los Angeles The Library Form L I Xh'"^ •• "^ •'« DU^ on the last date stamped below UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. I RECEflvE'D DEC I 7 A.M. 7l8l9llO (n|i9|- iLD^URL jy 1QS4 P.M. I2i3 i r> 1 1986 RtCt> Form L9-116m-8,'62(D123788)444 THE PROTECTOR: VINDICATION. By J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNfi, D.D. 1 know God has been above all ill reports, and will in His own time Tindlcate mc- Oliver Cromwell: Letter to Col. Norton, 28 March 1648. REVISED AND ENLARGED. ^j[)irD ePtiition. EDINBURGH : OLIVER & BOYD, TWEEDDALE COURT. LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO. MDCCCXLVIII. ToUl cohort Papint'.ca veram molitur ronjuratlonom In nostros. In nf>» Bit I)ihi« Zal>aotb Protector ProteCtorU ct Ecdcmis '.—Diptoinalic Dcipatch from Zurkh, io Januiir]/ lt'34. c«a«« <*.> ENTERED IN STATIONERS' HALL. Printed by Oliver ii Boyd, Tweeddale Court, High Street, Edinburfli. 11-' - 1 TO THE OF THE FEEDEKICK-WILLIAM UNIVEKSITY, AT BERLIN, AS A MARK OF GRATITUDE FROM THE AUTHOE. ADYEETISEMENT. Struck with the light thrown on the character and history of Cromwell by the various documents which have issued from the press during the last few years, I felt a desire to publish in a Continental Review the result of my examination. But so great was the interest I found in my subject, that I have written a Book rather than an Article, and am now compelled to renounce my first intentions, and to lay this Historical Essay before the Public in the form of a distinct Work. Before I had attentively read Oliver CromiuelVs Letters and Speeches^ edited by Mr Thomas Caelyle, I thought it would be beneficial to translate his volumes into French ; but my opinions in that re- spect are changed. They appear to us generally on the Continent to possess so much originality of thought and manner as to defy all possibility of rendering them into any of our languages. I would not be understood as censuring an undertaking, which, in my judgment, is one of the most remark- able that has been produced in Great Britain for a long period : indeed I have rarely met with any 8 ADVERTISEMENT. publication combining greater depth of research with remarks as acute as they are just. I have profited much by the scattered documents which Mr Carlyle has so happily brought together. I am not insensible to the imperfections of the Volume I now present to the English public. 1 therefore beg my readers to call to mind that my orio-inal desi^-n was merelv to write an article for a Review. The object of tliis work, the rectification of the common opinion with regard to Cromwell's relin-ious character, has obli^-ed the Author to introduce many quotations from his Letters and Speeches. Mere assertion or argument without proof would have been useless. It is not ive who ought, in this day, to justify the great Protector ; he should justify himself; and fortunately authentic and authoritative testimony is not wanting for this purpose. This circumstance will ex[)lain the differ- ence between the volume now submitted to the reader and the Author's other historical composi- tions. But he may also observe that the special nature of this work seemed occasionally to require him to introduce reflections, somewhat more ex- tended perhaps than properly l)elong to history. Should any of ray friends be surprised at the choice of my subject, I would remind them that the epoch to which it relates is, perhaps, one of the most important in modern times, so far as concerns the new developments of nations ; that Southey has said, "there is no portion of history ADVERTISEMENT. 9 " in which it so much behoves an Englishman to " be thoroughly versed as in that of Cromwell's "age;" and, above all, that "life would be no- " thing worth, if it were not employed to tell and " to maintain the truth," more especially a truth overlooked or forgotten. Uhi plura nitent non ego paucis Offendar raaculis, I will make one observation more : although the Protector is the subject of this sketch, its main in- terest does not consist in him, but in Protestantism, Protestantism in Cromwell's mind was far above his o^vn person. No book can treat worthily of the great Oliver, if the Protestant interest does not hold the foremost place in it. Protestantism is the great interest of Europe, of the world, — and, especially at this moment, the great interest of England. AYhile revising this essay, I met with a learned and distinguished work by an anonymous author on German Protest- antism. I was delighted to find that my ideas in many cases agreed with his, and I have, in several instances, profited by them. All the Protestant forces must now be aroused ; and to that end, it is the duty of every evangelical writer to point them out. This task I have here feebly attempted, and I shall perhaps resume it at some future period, by publishing a few recollections of the journey I made in 1845 through Germany, England, and Scotland. The Theologickl Faculty of the University of 10 ADVERTISEMENT. Berlin having recently conferred upon nie the de- gree of Doctor in Divinity, — a title which I had received some years ago from the College of Prince- town, New Jersey, United States, — I think it my duty to conform with the German custom, and dedicate to that learned body the first AVork pub- lished by me subsequently to that high honour. This will explain to my British readers the motives for the Dedication prefixed to this Volume. J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNE. Geneva, May 1847. The Author having observed that in England he is frequently called Dr d'Anhign^, takes the liberty of reminding his readers that his name is Merle (TAubigne ; the latter appellation being assumed by his grandfather to prevent a name from becoming extinct which had deserved well of Protestantism. As it proceeds from a matri- monial alliance, it is not sufficient of itself to designate the Author. CONTENTS. Introduction Page l7 CHAPTER I. Cromwell's private life. Tendency of the Stuarts — The Protestant Interest — Letter from a Country Gentleman — A Family on the Banks of the Ouse — The Earl of Essex — Oliver — His Birth and Parentage — A Hunting Match — James I. — Oliver at the University, and in London — His Morality — His Marriage — His Conversion — His Connexions — Pleasantry — Charles I. — His Marriage, and the Twelve Capuchin Friars — Influence of the Queen — Oliver's Conscientiousness 37 CHAPTER n. Cromwell's parliamentary life. Cromwell's Election and First Appearance in Parliament — His Por- trait — Tonnage and Poundage — Struggle in Parliament — Dissolu- tion — John Hampden's Refusal — Absolutism and Popery installed — Evangelical Ministers — Persecutions : Leighton, Prynne, Bastwick, Burton — Scotland and the Covenant — New Parliament — Strafford — Charles's Insincerity — Irish Massacre — ^Hemonstrance — Militia Bill — Cavaliers and Roundheads — Charge against Five Members — Beginning of the Revolution — Cromwell and his Sons become Soldiers — Necessity — Hampden's Opinion of Cromwell 64 1 2 CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. SCHISM BETWEEN THE KING AND THE PARLIAMENT. Conquest of Liberty — Beginning of the War — Cromwell's Frankness — Letter to Barnard — Intervention in Favour of Ilapton Parish — Doubtful Advantages — Cromwell's Expedient — Fortune of War changes — Cromwell refuses to take part in Disorderly Living — Death of Hampden — Cromwell's Courage — The two Parliaments — Battle of Mariton Moor — A Letter and an Episode — Prudence and Compassion — Anecdote — Cromwell's Military Character — Becomes the real Chief — Battle of Naseby — The King's Cabinet opened — Storming of Bristol — Glory to God ! — Christian Union — Discipline — Piety — King surrenders to the Scots — The Directory — Ireton — Cromwell's Letter to his Daughter Bridget — King given up to Parliament — Cromwell's Illness — Letter to Fairfax — Cromwell and his Soldiers — Unity of Man Page 70 CHAPTER IV. SCHISM BETAVEEN THE PARLIAMENT AND THE ARMY. The Two Parties, Presbyterians and Independents — Claims of the Army — Joyce — The King's Leaning towards the Independents^ Army Manifesto — Religious Liberty — Eleven Members accused — Errors — Influence of Opprcssi(m — Unlawful Intervention of the Presl)yterians — Opposition of the Army — Independent Influence — Cromwell favourably disposed towards the King — Charles's Blind- ness — Letter found in the Saddle — The Silk Garter and the Hempen Halter — Cromwell despairs of Cliarles — The King's Flight — He reaches the Isle of Wight — Cromwell suppresses the Levellers — Treaty with the Scots — Chai-les's Reply to Parliament —The Pit and he that diggeth it * 05 "oo^ CHAPTER V. DEATH OF THE KING. Parliament resolves to hold no further Cummunication with the King — Prayer-meeting at Windsor — Second Civil War — Royalist In- surrection — Scotch Invasion — Cromwell's Victories '—Parliament CONTENTS. 13 again treats with the Iving — Charles's Treachery — Great Alterna- tive — Army remonstrates with Parliament — Cromwell justified by Facts — The Woodman and the Sower — Cromwell to Hammond — Truth and Error — The King at Hurst Castle — Parliament rejects the Remonstrance — Composition of the Army — The Army at Lon- don — Pride's Purge — Cromwell's Hesitation about the King — Cromwell's Religious Error — Prayers — Howe's Sermon before Cromwell— The Will of God— Death Warrant— The Execution censured — Rivelation of the King's Treason — Principles of the Roman Church — Of Milton — Defence of the Right of Resistance — Charles's Children — Cromwell to his Daughter-in-law — Crom- well and Charles's Corpse — The European Powers Page 111 CHAPTER VI. IRELAND. The Irish Saint Bartholomew — Romish Cruelties — A Priest — Surgery or Slaughter — Cromwell's Appointment — His conciliatory Wisdom and Penetration — Lord Broghil — Sailmg of the Army — Cromwell's Plan — Theocracy — Storming of Drogheda, Wexford, and Ross — Peace and Prosperity — Oliver's Kindness to his Enemies — His Charge to the Popish Prelates — Early Days of Richard's Mar- riage — Cause of Ireland's Sufferings 148 CHAPTER Vn. SCOTLAND. Two Kings and two Loyalties — Charles II. in Scotland — Cromwell's Letter to the General Assembly and to the Scotch Commander-in- chief — Battle of Dunbar — Cromwell's Strait — The Prisoner — Seeking the Lord — The Praying Cornet — Glory to God — Despatch to Parliament — The Edinburgh Preachers in the Castle — Crom- well's Letter — All Christians ought to preach Christ — The Malig- nants — Cromwell's Illness — Two Letters — Cromwell concerning his Son Richard — Desire for Union — Worcester — Prosperity of Scotland — Cromwell's Military Career — Two Symbols 187 1 4 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. THE PROTECTORATE. The Commonwealth proclaimed — Vetat, vest moi — The Two French Invasions — Revival of English Liberty — Blake — Love and Fear — The Rump Parliament — Dissolved by Cromwell— The Little Tarlia- ment — Speech — Cromwell's Integrity — Reforms — Cromwell's Longing for Peace — Whitelocke Ambassador to Sweden — Conversa- tions with Queen Christina — The ICnd — The Protectorate — Crom- well's Piety and Humility — Social Disposition — Constitution — New Parliament — Cromwell's Apology — Death of his Mother — Obstruc- tions to Religious Liberty — Cromwell dissolves the Parliament — His Plans .' Page 225 CHAPTER IX. ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. Necessity of Organization — Ecclesiastical Commission — Errors — Im- partiality — Baxter's Testimony — Cromwell's — Tiie State — Discon- tents — Letter to Fleetwood — Bridget's Anxiety — Indulgence — Act of Oblivion — The Major-Generals — Address from the Corporation of Guildford — Cromwell's Aversion to Cruelty — Attempts at Assassination — Cromwell's Forbearance — His System in Ireland — Official and Popular Protestantism — Puritan Mannerism — A better Christianity 261 CHAPTER X. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. Milton to Cromwell — Cromwell's Part with regard to Religious Liberty — Opposition to Radicalism, Political and Religious — Estab- lished Religion and Liberty — Milton, a Champion of the Separation of Church and State — Cromwell's System of Religious Liberty — The Two Great Interests — The Protector's Catholicity — George Fox CONTENTS. 15 and Cromwell — Nayler — Cromwell and the Episcopalians — Roman- catholics and Jews — State and Protestantism Identical — Principia Vit(F — A Danger — True Means of diffusing Christianity — Ely Cathedral — State and Church : Church and People Page 283 CHAPTER XI. MORALITY, GLORY, AND ANTIPOPERY OF ENGLAND. The State — Principal Duty — The Glory of England — Cromwell's Court — Its Decency — Morality — Triumphs of Great Britain — Blake at Malaga — Commerce — Patronage of literary Men — Justice — Opposition to Spain — Antipopery — Consequences if the Stuarts had triumphed — Cromwell's Name — The Lion of the Tribe of Judah 311 CHAPTER Xn. DEFENDER OF THE FAITH. Defence of Protestantism — Letter to a Protestant Prince — Piedmon- tese Massacre — The Protector interferes — Geneva — Cromwell's Advice to the Protestants — Portugal — France : Nismes — Interven- tion — Switzerland — Germany — Austria — Coxincil for the general Interests of Protestantism — The Protector's living Christianity — The eternal Truths — Pompeii, Nineveh, and the Bible 330 CHAPTER Xni. THE KINGSHIP. New Parliament — Ludlow — The Protector's Speech — Exclusions — . Proposals about the Kingship — Discussions on this Subject between the Parliament and the Protector — Struggles — Cromwell's Re- fusal — Was he right 1 — His Character — Ambition 354 16 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. LAST PARLIAMENT, AND DEATH OF THE PROTECTOR. The Installation — Two Houses of Parliament — Tiie grand Design — Petty Quarrels — Parliament dissolved — Conspiracies — Domestic Trials — Death of Mr Rich — A pious Son of a pious Fatlicr — Death of Lady Claypole — Consolations — Fever — George Fox at Hampton Court — Cromwell's Words on his Deathbed — Christ our Righteous- ness — Confidence — The Storm — Cromwell's Successor — His Prayer and Last Words — His Death — Mourning — Cromwell's Christian Character — Oliver and the Pope — Restoration of Mankind — The Protestant Way — Oliver's Principles — The Pope's Policy — Conflicts and Dangers of the State — The Two !Men of the Seventeenth Cen- tury — Conclusion Page 376 THE PROTECTOR. INTRODUCTION. There are great crises in the history of man, in which the sovereignty of God over kings and people, however it may be hidden for a time from the eyes of the multitude, is manifested with such demon- strations of power as to excite the conviction of even the most incredulous. While favouring breezes bear the ship smoothly over the wide ocean, the crew and passengers, careless and inattentive, forget the arm of God, and perhaps indulge in blasphemy. But when " the Lord commandeth and raiseth the " stormy wind," — when the billows dash over the vessel, — when the sails are torn away and the masts are broken, — when these thoughtless people "mount "up to the heaven, and go down again to the depths," then the Almighty appears to them in the midst of the storm : — All eyes behold Him ; all A 18 INTRODUCTION. hearts tremble before him ; and the most impious, falling on their knees, cry to Him from the bottom of their souls. When men will not hear the " still " small voice" in which Jehovah ordinarily addresses them, then, to use the language of Scripture, " He " passes by in a great and strong wind, rending the " mountains and breaking the rocks in pieces." Of all the events which diversify human history, there is none in which mankind more readily ac- knowledge the intervention of the Deity than in the revolutions of empires, — the setting up and pulling do^vn of kings. These great changes are usually at- tended by circumstances so unexpected and appal- ling, that the eyes of the blindest are opened. Such events happened in England in the middle of the seventeenth century, when an attempt was made to revive the papal power. In every country this enemy, under the direction of the Jesuits, w^as rising from beneath the heavy blows inflicted on it by the Reformation. It possessed one spiritual head, which gave unity to its movements; and to support it, Spain, a stirring and fanatical power, was devoted to its interests, and ready to give to it " her seat and *' great authority.'' (Rev. xiii. 2.) Thus the Papacy was recovering a great part of the ground it had lost in Germany, France, the Low Countries, Spain, and even in Italy. It was imagined that if Rome could possibly suc- ceed in reconquering England, her cause would be gained and her triumph secured tliroughout the world ; the fruits of the Reformation would be INTRODUCTION. 1 9 for ever lost : and Great Britain and Europe, peopled anew with priests, Jesuits, and monks, would sink as low as Spain has sunk. The fearful commotions and sanguinary conflicts which shook the British isles in the middle of the seventeenth century, were in the main a direct struggle against Popery. They were like the shak- ings and shuddering of the earth, in a country threatened with conflagration by subterranean fires. If a traveller in self-defence slays a highway robber, the responsibility of bloodshed does not rest on him. In ordinary times his hand would have been pure from its stain. War is war, and calls, alas ! for blood. In the days of Louis XIV. and of the Stuarts it was a real battle that Popery was fighting V ao-ainst the British islands, o In our days, Rome is striving to re-enter England by means of certain teachers : then — it was through J' its kings. It was the misfortune and the crime of the Stuarts to have rallied around Rome, and to have desired to range their subjects under the same banner. Charles I. was the victim of this attempt ; for Popery ever destroys both the princes and the people who espouse it. Of this truth the Stuarts and the Bourbons are memorable examples. Strong measures, no doubt, were employed to save England from the danger with which it was threatened. But so formidable a disease could not be averted, except by the most active remedies. Royalty was overthrown ; and yet royalty pos- sessed — as it does still — the respect of this nation. 20 INTRUDUCTIOX. A republic was established ; and yet a republic in so vast an empire is a madman's dream. Episco- pacy was abolished ; and yet this is the form of the Church which the nation prefers. The blood of a king was shed ; and yet the inspired Preacher saith, Curse not the kin(j (x. 20). But all these things were accomplished, because the counsel of God had determined before that they should be done (Acts iv. 28) ; and thus the prophecy was fultilled, which saith, / gave thee a king in mine angei\ and took him away in my wratli. (Hosea xiii. 11.) If England desired in the present day, as her princes desired in the seventeenth century, to restore Popery ; — if the number of those unfaithlul ministers, who abjure the Gospel for the Pope, should multiply in her bosom ; — if that supersti- tious madness should spread to their congregations ; — if the heads of the Church should continue to slumber, and, instead of rescuing their flocks, allow them to proceed towards the wolf that is waiting to devour them ; — if the government, not satisfied w^ith granting liberty to Popery, should encourage it still farther by endowing its seminaries, paying its priests, building its churches, and restoring throughout Great Britain the power of the Roman bishop then would England probably be con- vulsed by a crisis, different, it might be, from those which startled the reign of Charles, but not the less formidable. Again the earth would quake; again would it open to pour forth devouring INTRODUCTION. 21 flames. On this account the study of that remark- able era, in which the first contest took place, was never more necessary than in the present day. In glancing over those times, however, we must make a distinction between acts and men. There are acts which we are bound openly and vehemently to condemn ; but we should proceed too far were we to throw upon individuals the responsibility of the results. Does it not sometimes happen in the course of ages that circumstances occur so calcu- lated to shake the mind, that dazzled, stunned, and blinded men can no longer see their way, and are mere instruments in the hand of God to punish and to save? Such is the idea put forth by an eminent writer, equally great as an historian and a statesman, when treating of this epoch : " The time had now come " when good and evil, salvation and peril, were so " obscurely confounded and intermixed, that the " firmest minds, incapable of disentangling them, " had become mere instruments in the hand of " Providence, who alternately chastises kings by " their people, and people by their kings." * But why should we endeavour to blacken the character of those whom God has employed in His work? Is it improper in this instance, more than on other occasions, to entertain respect for those minds which remain sincere, even when they are misguided, and are doing what they believe to be right, and to be the will of the King of kings ? * Guizot, Hist, de la Revolution d'Anglcterre, i. 278. 22 INTRODUCTION. From the beginning of the seventeenth century England was on a steep declivity, which she seemed inevitably doomed to descend, and be carried by it into the gulf of Popery. The blood of the Stuarts was mingled with the blood of the Guises. AMiat the Bourbons were effecting in France, the sons and descendants of Queen Mary, older veterans than they in Roman fanaticism, considered themselves called upon to accomplish on a larger scale on the other side of the Channel. Of a truth these unfortunate princes cannot all be placed in the same rank ; l)ut there is visible in them a constant progression to- wards the Church of Rome. Charles I. (1G25) is more averse from the Word of God, and more inclined to tradition and hierarchy, than James I. (1G03) ; Charles II. (IGGO) more so than Charles I. ; and James the Second surpasses his predecessors. This progression has all the strictness of a mathematical law. The despotic counter-revolution attempted by the two last Stuarts demonstrates the necessity of the democratic revolution which it pretended to combat. It plainly showed that, in the eighteen years between 1642 and 16G0, the English nation had not risen up against mere phantoms. Charles II. — who, as his mother Henrietta Maria declared to Louis XIV,, " had abjured the heresy of his educa- " tion, and was reconciled to the Church of Rome; "* * See a letter from Pell, English minister in Switzerland, to Secre- tary Thurloe, dated 8 May 1656, in Dr Vaughan's Protectorate, i. 402. London, 1839. INTRODUCTION. 23 — Charles II. composing a treatise to prove that there could be but one Church of Christ upon earth, and that that was the Church of Rome; — Charles II. acknowledging to his brother, the Duke of York, that he also was attracted to the mother-church ; — Charles II. sounding his ministers on their in- tentions with regard to Popery, and prepared to follow the duke's advice by a plain and public de- claration of Romanism, if he had not been checked by the prudent counsel of Louis XIV. ; — Charles II. refusing on his deathbed the sacrament from the Protestant bishop of Bath — replying to his brother, who proposed in a whisper to send him a Romish priest, " Do so, for the love of God !" — confessing to the missionary Huddlestone, declaring his wish to become reconciled to the Roman Church, and receiving from him absolution, the host, and even extreme unction : — these most assuredly were not phantoms. James II., his successor, declaring to the French ambassador, immediately after his accession, that the English were unconsciously Roman-catholics, and that it would be easy to induce them to make a public declaration ; — James II. hearing mass in the Queen's chapel with open doors on the first Sunday of his reign ; — James II., in contemptuous defiance of the laws, filling his army with Roman- catholic ofiicers ; and when Protestant clergymen went over to the Church of Rome, giving them dispensations to continue in the receipt of their stipends, and even in the administration of their 24 INTKODUCTIUN. cures ; — a gi'eat number of Roman churches rising, even in the metropolis ; — a Jesuit school opened without any attempt at concealment ; — Roman- catholic peers admitted into the privy-council, and along Avith them Father Petre, a covetous and fanat- ical Jesuit, Avho possessed the king's most intimate confidence; — Roman-catholic bishops in full activity in England ; — Magdalen College, Oxford, receiving a popish president ; — seven Anglican bishops, who had protested against these encroachments, con- veyed to the Tower, through crowds of people who fell on their knees as they passed, and who, when these patriots Avere acquitted by the jury, lighted up bonfires in every part of the city, and burnt the pope in effigy : — William of Orange, landing on the coast of Devonshire, on the 5th of November 1688, with the English B.arime-minister of Charles II. was exempt : and what he considered very natural then, in the midst of party feelings, will doubtless be thought so still by an unimpas- sioned posterity. The vindication, or rather the restoration, of the Protector's memory, has already begun ; and per- haps no one can do more for it than Mr Carlyle has accomplished. I think, however, that there is room for some improvement. Oliver has been presented as a hero to the world ; I present him as a Christian to Christians — to Protestant Christians ; and I claim boldly on his behalf the benefit of that pass- age of Scripture : Every one that loveth God that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of Him. Although these pages will bear no comparison with the work of the Avriter I have just named, they may, notwith- standing, advance the same object in some degree, * Burnet's Own Times, i. p. 102. INTRODUCTION. - 35 particularly when considered under a religious point of view. Others, I hope, will hereafter throw a still greater light on one of the most astonishing prob- lems that time has handed down to us. It is only gradually and by slow degrees that darkness is scattered in history, as well as in the natural world, I am Avell aware that the task I have undertaken is a difficult one. We have so deeply imbibed in our early youth the falsehoods maintained by the Stuart party, and by some of Cromwell's republican rivals — among others the narrow-minded Ludlow and the prejudiced Holies — that these falsehoods have become in our eyes indisputable truths. I know it by my own experience, by the lengthened resistance I made to the light that has recently sprung up, and illuminated, as with a new day, the obscure image of one of the greatest men of modern times. It was only after deep consideration that I submitted to the evidence of irresistible facts. I have no desire to write a literary work, but to perform an act of justice. I do not forget the maxim of pagan antiquity, that we should render to every person his due : I feel that among all the good things a man may possess, there is one which, according to the saying of the wisest of Eastern kings, surpasses all the rest : a good name is better than precious ointment ; and above all, I remember, that if a Christian ought to confess the Lord upon earth in order that he may be one day confessed before the angels in heaven, it is also his duty to 3G INTRODUCTION. confess the disciples of the Lord, particularly when they are disowned, calumniated, and despised by the multitude. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. CHAPTER I. Cromwell's private lite. Tendency of the Stuarts — The Protestant Interest — Letter from a Country Gentleman — A Family on the Banks of the Ouse — The Earl of Essex — Oliver — His Birth and Parentage — A Hunting Match — James I. — Oliver at the University, and in London — His Morality — His Marriage — His Conversion — His Connexions — Pleasantry — Charles I. — His Marriage, and the Twelve Capuchin Friars — Influence of the Queen — Oliver's Conscientiousness. The Tudors, and particularly Elizabeth, had exalted England by maintaining the cause of the Refor- mation ; but subsequently to the year 1603, and especially after 1625, the Stuarts, and principally Charles the First, had weakened it by inclining anew towards Catholicism. Not only did they desert their stations as the chiefs of European Protestant- ism ; not only did they cease to withstand fanatic Spain ; but a Romish princess, Henrietta of France, was placed upon the throne. That, however, was of little moment : another power than theirs pre- vented this mighty country from being placed by its monarchs under the yoke of the Italian pontiff. The people no longer Avalked with their princes. The cause of the Reformation was dear to them ; and they were ready to abandon their kings rather P; '> >" t d> J -f '.f I 38 Cromwell's i'iuvate life. than the Gospel. This unhappy family, by wishing to exalt a traditional power in the Church, de- stroyed their own. Wliile the monarchical author- ity was increasing everywhere on the Continent, it gradually declined in England ; and a new force, ^^the Commons, the middle classes, daily acquired /greater strength, liberty, and courage. The ancient charters of England contained ex- tensive guarfintees in favour of the national inde- pendence. But these institutions had long been, as it were, dead and neglected ; yet they still existed, and the skeleton, so long motionless, was about to be reanimated with a new life. If Enirland had been a nation devoted merely to secular policy, these charters might for ever have remained little better than old parchments ; but a new motive power — evangelical faith and the interest of Pro- testantism — was about to revivify these great in- stitutions, and,, by saving England from the abyss towards which the Stuarts were rapidly hurrying it, raise it erelong to the highest degree of influence and glory. , This evangelical spirit possessed great strength among the English people : godly families, lovers of the Bible and of liberty, peopled its cities and its fields. The following letter, written by a coun- try gentleman, the father of a numerous famil}-, may reasonably be considered one of the many symptoms of that christian life, which, in that age as in all others, alone possessed sufficient strength to withstand the encroachments of Popery : — Cromwell's private life. 39 " To my beloved Cousin^ Mrs St. John, at Sir William " Masham his house called Otes, in Essex : " Present these. " Dear Cousin, " Ely, isth October i638. " I thankfully acknowledge your " love in your kind remembrance of me upon this " opportunity. Alas, you do too highly prize " my lines and my company. I may be ashamed " to own your expressions, considering how unpro- " fitable I am, and the mean improvement of my " talent. " Yet to honour my God, by declaring what He " hath done for my soul, in this I am confident " and I will be so. Truly, then, this I find : that " He giveth springs in a dry barren wilderness " where no water is. I live, you know where, — " in Meshec, which they say signifies Pivlonging ; " in Kedar, which signifies Blackness : yet the Lord " forsaketh me not. Though He do prolong, yet " He will, I trust, bring me to His tabernacle, to " His resting-place. My soul is with the congre- " gation of the First-born, my body rests in hope : " and if here I may honour my God either by do- " ing or by suffering, I shall be most glad. " Truly no poor creature hath more cause to put " himself forth in the cause of his God than I. I " have had plentiful wages beforehand ; and I am " sure I shall never earn the least mite. The Lord " accept me in His Son, and give me to walk in the " light, — and give us to walk in the light, as He is 40 CKOMWELl's TKIVATE LlJb'E. " the lio^lit ! He it is that enlif^hteneth our black- " ness, our darkness, I dare not say. He hideth His " face from me. He giveth me to see light in His " light. One beam in a dark j)lace hath exceeding " much refreshment in it : — l)lessed be His Name " for shining upon so dark a heart as mine ! You " know what my manner of life hath been. Oh, I " lived in and loved darkness, and hated liglit ; " I was a chief, the chief of sinners. This is true : " I hated godliness, yet God liad mercy on me. " the riches of His mercy ! Praise Him for me ; — " pray for me, that He who hath begun a good work " would perfect it in the day of Christ. " Salute all my friends in that Family whereof " you are yet a member. I am much bound unto " them for their love. I bless the Lord for them ; " and that my son, by their procurement, is so " well. Let him have your prayers, your counsel ; *' let me have them. " Salute your Husband and Sister from me : — He " is not a man of his word ! He promised to write " about Mr Wrath of Epping ; but as yet I receive " no letters : — put him in mind to do what with " conveniency may be done for the poor cousin I " did solicit him about. " Once more farewell. The Lord be with you : " so prayeth, " Your truly loving cousin." We must say a few words on the individuals mentioned in this letter. Cromwell's trivate life. 41 Along the banks of the Ouse, near Huntingdon, lay a wide extent of fertile pasture-lands, bathed by the melancholy waters of that river, and broken here and there by little wood-covered heights. Towards the south, as you approach from Cam- bridge, stood an aged oak : Querculus anilis erat* Over those meadows a little boy frequently dis- ported, and perhaps climbed the stately oak-tree in quest of bird-nests. His parents, who were de- scended from an old and popular Saxon family, which does not appear to have mingled with the Norman race, lived in a house at the northern ex- tremity of Huntingdon. The old mansion exists no longer : a solid yellow brick building occupies its place. The origin of the family was this. The Earl of Essex, vicar-general under Henry VHI., had a nephew named Richard, who had been very active in the great work accomplished by his uncle, namely, the suppression of monasteries. In this business he had acquired a considerable fortune. The sale of church property and the division of the eccle- siastical estates were among the causes that had enriched the middle classes of England, and had made them sensible of their strength. At the commencement of the seventeenth cen- tury, five grandsons of this Sir Richard were alive in England, all sons of Henry called " the Golden Knight." These were Sir Oliver, Henry, Richard, Sir Philip, and Robert. This last had married * Barnabse Itinerarium, quoted by Carlyle, i. 33. 42 Cromwell's imuvate lite. Elizabeth Steward, who, say the genealogists, was descended from the royal family of Scotland, from one Walter Steward, namely, who had accompanied Prince James of Scotland into England in the time of Henry IV., and there settled. On the 2.5th of April 1599, while Shakspeare was yet alive, and in the latter years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, at a time when England already began to feel a presentiment of the greatness to which she would be called by her resistance to Rome, the wife of Robert Cromwell bore to him a child, who was to do more than any of his contem- poraries in accelerating this glorious destiny. He was named Oliver, and was christened on the 29th of the same month. This is the little boy of whom we have already spoken. This family possessed certain lands round Huntingdon, producing a re- venue of about £300 a-year, equivalent perhaps to £1000 of our present money. It was the same Oliver, then thirty-nine years of age, who wrote the letter we have given above. Mrs St. John, to whom it is addressed, was the wife of a celebrated barrister, and then on a visit at the house of Sir AVilliam Masham, a zealous Puritan, and also a busy man in the politics of his time. The Golden Knight's eldest son, Sir Oliver, uncle to our hero, was as expensive a man as his father, and dwelt in a stately mansion at Hinchinbrook, on the left bank of the Ouse, half a mile west of Huntingdon. It has been denied both in France and England that the Protector was related to the powerful Cromwell's private life. 43 minister of Henry VIII. ; but without other foun- dation than the impatient answer he returned to a fawning bishop, who reminded him of this relation- ship. The malleus monachorum, the mauler of mo- nasteries, as the Earl of Essex was denominated, was great-uncle to that Oliver, who proved a still more potent "mauler" than his ancestor: one Morgan Williams having married the vicar-general's sister, whose eldest son Richard took the name of Crom- well. There are still in existence two letters from this Sir Richard Cromwell, Oliver's great-grandfather, addressed to the Earl of Essex, in both of which he signs himself, your most boimden nejyhew* We must therefore class this denial with all those other falsehoods with which Cromwell's history has hither- to been overloaded ; such as the prophetic spectres that appeared to him in his childliood, his orchard- robbing, and his tyrannous combats with the boys of the neighbourhood. These are storied " grounded " on human stupidity," says his latest biographer, " to which we must give christian burial once for " all." Unfortunately it is not only by such unim- portant circumstances that falsehood has obscured ' the real life of Cromwell. Oliver was four years old, when the shouts of a magnificent hunting party Ve-echoed along the banks of the Ouse. On the afternoon of Wednes- day the 23d of April 1603, a royal train — hounds, horses, and cavaliers — approached the green lawns and winding avenues of elder and willow trees that i * Carlyle's Cromwell, i. 39. 44 CKUMWELL S TKIVATE LIFE. led to the manor-house. King James, son of the unhappy Mary Stuart was coming from the north to take possession of the English crown. Eliza- beth, the last of the Tudors, after raising England to the first place among the nations, had been dead little more than a month, having with her latest breath named her cousin of Scotland as her successor. On his way to London the king was to lodge at Hinchinbrook, the stately mansion of Oliver's uncle, where preparations were made to receive him in the most sumptuous manner. James came hunting all the way : and he appeared at last, possessing none of his mother's graces. He was of middle stature, and wore a thickly wadded dagger- proof doublet. He alighted in the court-yard, but his legs were too weak to carry his body, and he needed support to enable him to walk. He was almost seven years of age before he began to run alone. He took his seat at the table of the Golden Knight : he drank with difficult}^, and it seemed as if he masticated what he drank. On the other hand, he made a great show of learning, and his conversation was full of theological apophthegms and political maxims, which he delivered in the most pedantic fashion. This royal visit to Hinchinbrook House must have been a great treat for little Oliver. He was an active and resolute boy : but his quarrel and battle with young Prince Charles, then Duke of York, is probably a fable. The king arrived on Wednesday, and set ofi" again on Friday ; Sir Oliver giving him Cromwell's private life. 45 costly presents at his departure. Knights were created in the great hall, and among the number was the Protector's paternal uncle, and in the next year Thomas Steward of Ely, his maternal uncle. The king moved on towards London, although he had been informed that the plague was raging in that city : a circumstance which vexed him exceed- ingly, as he was deficient in courage. But the crown of England awaited him there, and this rendered him superior to fear. Amid such scenes as these young Oliver gTew up to manhood, in the bosom of an austere family, \ and at a time when the north seemed preparing for a struo'ffle ao-ainst the south, — Great Britain and Scandinavia against Rome and Spain. The in- trigues of the Jesuits ; the tendency of the Anglican party, which was erelong to muster under the ban- ner of Laud ; the rights and the power of the Word of God — these were the engrossing subjects of thought and conversation in the midst of which the child increased in strength in this rural soli- tude. In 1616, Oliver at the age of seventeen quitted the banks of the Ouse and the home of his boy- hood, for the LTniversity of Cambridge, about fifteen miles from Huntingdon. On this important occasion it is most likely that he was accompanied by his father. He was entered at Sidney Sussex Colleo;e on the festival of the Annunciation. Crom- well, it is true, never had any pretensions to learn- ing ; but he was far from being so deficient in this 46 Cromwell's private life. respect as has been represented. lie possessed a familiar acquaintance Avith the historians of Greece and Rome ; and on one occasion in particuhir lie conversed in Latin with a foreign anil)assador. In June 1G17, when only eighteen years old, he lost his father. In the same year died his gramlfather Steward at Ely; and his mother saw herself at once fatherless and a widow, left with ^ix daugh- ters and an only son. Oliver returned no more to Cambridge, but took his father's place at Hunting- don. A few months after, he proceeded to London to gain some knowledge of law. The stories that he led a dissolute life in tlie capital or elsewhere are exaggerated, or ratlier without any basis in truth. They are principally founded, so far as we can see, on that portion of his letter to Mrs St. John, in which he calls himself the chief of sinners. This merely shows how ignorant his accusers are of true religion. Every Christian, even the most moral man, is ready to declare him- self with Saint Paul, the chief of sinners. Oliver's greatest enemies have not been able to reproach him with any notorious vice. Welwood acknow- ledges that he was not addicted to profane swear- ing, gluttony, drunkenness, gaming, avarice, or the Y love of women. In later times he distributed in one year £40,000 from his own purse to charitable uses. Among the families that he visited in London was Sir James Bourchier's. This gentleman had a daughter, Elizabeth, to whom, on the 2 2d of August crom'wtill's private life. 47 1620, though only twenty-one years of age, Oliver was married at Saint Giles's Church, Cripplegate. He immediately returned with his wife to Hunt- ingdon, and settled down in the mansion of his fathers. The next ten years were passed in seclusion — years in which a man is formed for life. Cromwell busied himself in farming, and in industrial and social duties ; living as his father before him had done. But he was also occupied with other matters. Erelong he felt in his heart the prickings of God's laAv. It disclosed to him his inward sin ; with Saint Paul, he was disposed to cry out : ivretched man that I am ! ivho shall deliver me from the body of this death ? and, like Luther, pacing the galleries of his convent at Erfurth, exclaiming, " My sin ! my sin ! my sin ! " Oliver, agitated and heart-"\\Tung, uttering groans and cries as of a wounded spirit, wandered pale and dejected along the gloomy banks of the Ouse, beneath a clouded sky. He looked for consolation to God, to his Bible, and to friends more enlightened than him- self His health and even his strong frame were shaken ; and in his melancholy he would often send at midnight for Dr Simcott, physician in Hunting- don, supposing himself to be dying. At length peace entered into his soul. "It is therefore in^ " these years," says Mr Carlyle, " that we must place ^ " what Oliver, with unspeakable joy, would name , " his Conversion — his deliverance from the jaws of ] " Eternal Death. Certainly a grand epoch for a -^ 48 Cromwell's private life. " man : properly the one epoch lie was hence- " forth a Christian man," continues his biographer, " not on Sundays only, but on all days, in all places, " and in all cases."* Cromwell now zealously attended the Puritan ministry, and chose his friends from among the gentry and nobility of his neighbourhood who held the same opinions. He became intimate with Hampden and Pym, with the Lords Brook, Say, and Montague. Almost all the serious thought of England was then Puritan. In the midst of them was Oliver, modest, devout, conscientious, and earnestly intent " to make his calling and election \^' sure." His intercourse with his friends was full of cordi- ality. He has been reproached for a fondness for buffoonery ; but we must recollect that such a characteristic trait is often found in the most christian and truly serious men. It is a weakness that is thrown off with difficulty. Many sallies and jests imputed to him have been grossly ex- aggerated, and made grievous charges against his piety. Some of these anecdotes, even if they are true, would only prove that Oliver occasionally talked inconsistently with his principles ; or, being less under their power, indulged in jesting and rail- lery, to which he was naturally prone. " If two or " three casual expressions" says Dr Harris, " are to '* determine a man's character in opposition to his " whole speech and behaviour, woe be to those who * Letters and Speeches, i. 68. Cromwell's private life. 49 " think themselves virtuous and good." We must condemn all ill-timed levity ; but we should also remember that no prince, descended from the blood of kings, ever showed himself more jealous of his dignity, on great occasions, than the Protector did. From his early youth he possessed true seriousness. J7 He fervently devoted himself to works of christian charity. " Building of hospitals," wrote he to his friend, Mr Storie, in January 1636, "provides for " men's bodies ; to build material temples is judged " a work of piety ; but they that procure spiritual " food, they that build up spiritual temples, they " are the men truly charitable, truly pious."* An important work, as we have seen, was finished in Oliver during the nine or ten years of obscurity and seclusion that intervened between his marriage and his obtaining a seat in Parliament. Milton, who knew him well, says of him : " He had grown " up in peace and privacy at home, silently cher- " ishing in his heart a confidence in God, and a " magnanimity well adapted for the solemn times " that were approaching, f Although of ripe years, " he had not yet stepped forward into public life, " and nothing so much distinguished him from all * Carlyle's Cromwell, i. 116. — In the original this letter is dated January 1G85, but the reader will bear in mind that the English year in those times did not begin until the 25th of March, which was New- year's day ; this custom obtained in England until 1752. In all cases we give the year according to the new style, to prevent confusion. Thus, the last three months of 1635, old style, will be the first three of 1636, new style. t Domi in occulto creverat, et ad summa quaeque tempora fiduciam Deo fretani et ingentem animum tacito pectore aluerat, Defensio Se- cunda. 106 Hagse, 1654. C 50 Cromwell's riuvATE life. " around as the cultivation of a pure religion, and " the integrity of his life."* Oliver was henceforth a Christian in earnest. He had been called by God to the knowledge of Jesus Christ: his mind had })een enlightened and his heart renewed by the Divine A\'ord. To this call from on high, this great call from God, whieli so many souls despise, or at least neglect, he had replied from the depths of his heart, and had laid hold of the grace presented to him, Avith a new and unalterable will. He had believed in the name of the Lord, in the blood of Jesus Christ : he had been delivered from the penalty of sin, and from the do- minion of evil. A new birth had given him a new life. He was at peace with God : he possessed the spirit of adoption, and an easy access to the throne of Grace. From that time he became a man of prayer, and so he remained for the rest of his life. \ He lived and he died in prayer. It was not he who had loved God first : he had been loved by Him, and had believed in this love. He had not acted like those who, enchanted by the world, always defer the moment of their conversion, and thus become guilty of the greatest sin and the gi-eatest folly. Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis, at ille Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum. In regard to the kingdom of heaven, he had learnt that it is the violent who take it by force ; and he had seized upon it with the whole energy of his * Religionis cultu purioris et integritate vitae cogiiitus. lOG Ilagse, 1654. Cromwell's private life. 51 soul, regenerated by the Holy Ghost. Oliver was now a real Christian : he remained one to his latest breath ; and, if we except a few moments of trouble, to which the most godly men are subject, he perse- vered in faith and confidence till his course of mor- tality was completed. Events w^ere now becoming more serious every day, and thick clouds were already gathering over the people and the throne. The accession of Charles I. had been hailed with pleasure. His morals were virtuous ; and what might not the nation hope from a prince only twenty-five years old ? But when the king gave England a papist queen in the person of Henrietta of France, ' the affection that had been entertained towards him immediately cooled. Nor was it without a cause. In the marriage-contract, drawn up under the eyes of the Pope, there Avere several clauses favourable to the Romish faith. Henrietta arrived in London fortified by the instructions of Mother Magdalen of St Joseph, a Carmelite nun, and under the direc- tion of Father Berulli, accompanied by twelve priests of the Congregation of the Oratory. These having been sent back to France, were soon replaced by twelve capuchin friars. Henrietta, a worthy pupil of her native court, wished at first to make every- thing bend to her religion and her humour ; and her followers desired to celebrate their worship in all its splendour. The queen had even a liking for intrigue ; and it was soon found that the blood 52 Cromwell's private life. which flowed in her veins was that of the Medici. It was more particularly afler the death of Buck- ingham (23d August 1628) that she wished to take advantage of her husband's affection to enable her to domineer over the country, and that the most zealous Roman-catholics, admitted into the queen's cabinet, sought there the power they required for the accomplishment of their designs. At the time when Popery was thus reappearing at the court of England, the Gospel was flourishing in the house of Oliver, who was occupied with his flocks and fields, his children, the interests of his neighbours, and above all in putting into practice the commandments of God. Salvation was come to his house, and his light shone before men. He pos- sessed great delicacy of conscience, and of this we shall give one instance which occurred a little later. After his conversion to God, he remembered what Zaccheus said to Jesus, as he went into his house : Behold^ Lord, if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation^ I restore him fourfold. Cromwell had taken nothing in that way ; but, like other men of the world, he had won some money formerly in gambling. This he returned, rightly considering it would be sinful to retain it. The sums were large for those days ; one of them being £80, and the other £120. His means were not ample, his family had increased : but such things had no weight with him. His religion was one not of words but of works. As soon as his conscience spoke, he re- sponded to its suggestions, however gi'eat the sacri- Cromwell's private life. 53 fice he was compelled to make. He remembered Christ's remark, and acted on it during his whole life : Not every one that saith unto me^ Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven. CHAPTER II. CROMWELL S PARLIAMENTARY LIFE. Cromwell's Election and First Appearance in Parliament — His Por- trait — Tonnage and Poundage — Struggle in Parliament — Dissolu- tion — John Hampden's Refusiil — Absolutism and Popery inst^iUed — Evangelical Ministers — Persecutions : Leighton, Prynuc, Ikistwick, Burton — Scotland and the Covenant — New Parliament — Strafford — Cliarlcs's Lisincerity — Irish Massacre — Remonstrance — Militia Bill — Cavaliers and Roundheads — Charge against Five Members — Beginning of the Revolution — Cromwell and his Sons become Soldiers — Necessity — Hampden's Opinion of Cromwell. On the 29th of January 1G28, writs were issued for a, new Parliament, in which, on the 17th of March, Cromwell took his seat as member for Huntingdon. His father also, in earlier years, had been returned for the same town. After a prorogation of three months, the legislature assembled again on the 20th of January 1629. On the 11th of February, the House of Commons resolved itself into a grand Committee of Religion, in which one of the new members, Oliver, then thirty years of age, rose to speak for the first time. All eyes were turned upon him, and the House listened to him with attention. He wore a plain cloth suit, which seemed to have been made by a bad country tailor; his linen was not of the purest white ; his ruffles Cromwell's parliamentary life. 55 were old fashioned ; his hat was without a band ; his sword stuck close to his side ; his countenance was swollen and reddish ; his voice sharp and un- tunable ; but his delivery was warm and animated: his frame, although exceeding the middle height, strong and well proportioned ; he had a manly air, a stern look, a bright and sparkling eye.* Certain ecclesiastics were then gaining notoriety by their zeal in forwarding, within the pale of the Church, the power of the king and the doctrines of Rome. Cromwell complained that the bishops per- mitted and even recommended the preaching of " flat Popery," " If these are the steps to church " preferment," exclaimed he, " what are we to ex- " pect ?" — What are ive to expect f asked Oliver ; and this was in truth the great question of the age. The re-establishment of Popery Avas the object of the seventeenth century, and Cromwell's first public words were against it. He then set up the landmark which determined and marked out "" the course he had resolved to follow until his death. Even Hume, generally so hostile to him, is struck by seeing his first words correspond so exactly to his character. Cromwell, indeed, was from the beginning to the end of his life quite consistent ; ^ he was faithful to the one idea, which he ijroclaimed upon the housetops. And it is this man, so decided, so open, who has been termed a hypocrite ! History was never guilty of a greater error. The Commons did not for the present stop at * Memoirs of Sir Philip Warwick, 247. London, 1701. 56 cuumwkll's pakliamkntaky lifk. the extravagant doctrines of sucli semi-papists jus Muinwarinfr, Sibthorp, and Montague, wlioin the BislKip of Winchester liad taken into favour. It was a different question tliat led to the dissohition of parhanient. Tlie king rerpiired that they should vote the duties of tonnage and poundage for life, ■which the Commons refused. Tlie speaker Finch, a courtier, was desirous of adjourning the house immediately, according to the orders of his nnister ; but some of the members, among whom was Mr Holies, resisted, and in desi)ite of his supplications and tears, held him by main force in the chair. The kinir sent orders to the serii, sctth**! at Saint Ives; and it wiw wliile busied with fiirm- ing at tliis place, that lie wrote the letter whiut it was not Cromwell that was destined to quit London. On the 7th of December a bill wa.s proposed to the Commons, that the organization of the militia and the nomination of its otticers should not for the future take place without the con- currence of parliament. This bill in some measure undermined the royal power, and yet the prt'.* names of (Ca- valiers Mild Ivoundheads now first began to dis- tinguish tiie two j)arties : tlie latter deriving their title from the shortness of tlu'ir hair, which they wore clo.se about the oars. Their violent contests perpetually disturbed the peace of the cai)ital. At the opening of the next year all hearts were dis- quieted by the anticipation of coming events. On the 3d of January (1042), Charles began the attack by calling upon the Lower House to give up to him five of its most influential members : Pym, Hampden, Haselrig, Holies, and Strode. On the morrow it was announced that the king was advancing tow ards St. Stephen's, escorted by three or four hundred armed men. At his entrance, the whole House stood up uncovered. " Since I see " the birds are flown," said he, casting his eyes Cromwell's parliamentary life. 0.3 round on the assembly, " I expect that you will " send them to me ; otherwise I must take my " own course to find them." Cries of " Privilege ! " Privilege ! " rose from several parts of the House, as the king withdrew. Charles learnt soon after that the people, the militia, and even the Thames watermen were preparing to bring back the five members to Westminster in triumph. " What ! " said he, " do these water-rats, too, forsake me!" Of all the population of London, Charles thought himself most certain of the afiiection of these boatmen. This device having failed, the king left Whitehall on the 10th of January 1642. This was the be";innino; of the Revolution : the commencement of the struo;o:le between the Parlia- ment and the King. The ruin of the throne was in this movement, and yet it was inevitable. The maintenance of the liberty and religion of England could not be procured except at this cost. It has been said — and let us ever bear it in mind — that the English Revolution, by proclaiming the illegality of absolute 'poiver^ did nothing new. It was legitimate. " If the feudal aristocracy," says an eminent author, " took part in the development of " nations, it was by struggling against royal " tyranny, by exercising the rights of resistance, " and by maintaining the maxims of liberty."* The commonalty, the middle classes, did in the seventeenth century what had hitherto been done by the nobles. * Guizot, Hist, de la Rev. d'Angleterre ; Preface, p. xi. Gij Cromwell's pauliamentauy life. Cromwell was now fortv-two years old, and the fiUlier of six ehildren : Oliver, Richard, and Henry, Bridget, Elizabeth, and Mary. He was living qnietly, like many other good citizens and loyal subjects, who, as well as he, had never once thought of the profession of arms. But new times called for new measures. Every day these men, who felt the truest atfection for their country, were disturbed in their homes at London, or in their more tranquil rural retreats, by reports of the massacre of the Protestants in Ireland, of the king's connivance at it, of his insincerity and false- hood, of his projects, of the punishments already inflicted on many of their brethren, of the acknow- ledged Popery of the queen, of the semi-Romanism of the king, of the persecutions in Scotland, the daily banishment of the best Christians in the kinjjdom, and bv other siirns and events no less alarming. When evervthing seemed to announce that the Protestants of England would erelong be either trampled down by Popery or massacred by the sword, these serious men arose, and called upon the king, through the Commons, not to deceive the expectations of his subjects. But when they found that prince, deaf to their prayers, raising troops to overawe the parliament, and already victorious in several encounters, they resolved, in a spirit of devotedness, to save with God's assistance their country and their faith, by quitting their families and exposing their lives in arms. CROMT\T:LL's PAULIAilENTARY LITE. G 7 Oliver now exchanged his parliamentary career for another that had become more necessary. The Huntingdonshire yeoman, who had given the Com- mons some proofs of his eloquence, was about to astonish the army still more by his courage and genius. The fervent orator was now to show him- self a skilful general, and to become one of the greatest statesmen of modern times. On the 7th of Februarv, Cromwell contributed £300, a large sum for his small fortune, towards the salvation of Protestantism and of Eno;land. He then joined the parliamentary army with his two sons, respectively twenty and sixteen years of age ; and shortly after raised two companies of volunteers at Cambridge. The departure of his sons Oliver and Richard must have caused gi'eat sorrow in the peaceful abode of the Huntingdon farmer. With difficulty could these young men tear themselves from the embraces of their mother and of their sisters. But the hour was come when their country called for the greatest sacrifices. All must now be prepared either to stretch their necks to the sword, or to bow them beneath the yoke of the Pope. Cromwell's domestic society was a pleasing one ; he had a wife whom he loved most tenderly ; his good mother was still living ; he had passed the age of ambition ; yet he became a soldier. '' You " have had my money : I hope in God I desire to " venture my skin. So do mine," said he, with noble simplicity, on a later occasion. For the space of seventeen years, from this day until that of his 68 Cromwell's tauliamentaky life. death, all his thouglits, however well or ill con- ceived, were for Protestantism and for the liberty of his fellow-citizens. It is from this moral point of view that we must study Cromwell ; this was his ruling principle : and this alone explains his whole life. Can we look upon the departure of the Hunting- don volunteer as an insignificant event ? There was a great work to be accomplislied : no less than the settlement of England upon its double foundations of Protestantism and liberty; for on these depended her future destinies. Where was the Man to be found great enougli for so important a task ? One day, a member rose and addressed the House in an al^rupt but warm tone. His appear- ance was any tiling but courtly, and his dress did not add to his imj)ortance. Lord Digby leant for- ward and with astonishment inquired of Hampden the name of the speaker. Hampden, who was a man of excellent abilities, and whom, said Baxter, " friends and enemies acknowledged to be the most " eminent for prudence." answered with a smile : " That sloven whom you see before you, hath no " ornament in his speech : that sloven, I say, if " we should ever come to a breach with the King " (which God forbid !) — in such a case, I say, that " sloven will be the greatest man in England." The sloven was Oliver Cromwell. To those who, like his cousin Hampden, had enjoyed the intimacy of his private life, he had already revealed the cromwt:ll's tarliamentary lipe. 69 strength of his will and the extent of his genius ; and he was then beo^innino- to manifest them both to the nation in his parliamentary life. Erelong, in his military and political career, he was to make himself known to the world as the greatest man of his age, and at the same time as a godly Christian. CHAPTER III. SCHISM BETWEEN THE KING AND THE TAULIAMENT. Conquest of Liberty — Beginning of the War — Cromwell's Frankness — Letter to Barnard — Intervention in Favour of llnpton Parish — Doubtful Advantaires — Cromwell's Expedient — Fortune of War changes — Crouiwell refuses to take part in Disorderly Living — Death of Hampden — Cromwell's Counige — The two I'arliamt ntti — Battle of Marston Moor — A Letter and an Episode — Prudence and Compa-^ion — Anecdote — Cromwell's Military Character — Beconus the real Chief — Battle of NiuM.l>y — The King's Cabinet ojH-ned — Storming of Bristol — Glory to God I — Christian Union — Dis<.-ipline — Piety — King surrendvrs to the Scots — Thr Directory — Ireton — CromwiU's Li'ttor to his Daughter Bridget — King u-ivcn up to Parliament — Cromwell's Illness — Letter to Fairfax — Cromwell and his Soldiers — Unity of Man. The time liad come when one of tlie noblest victories ever gained by the luiman race was to be achieved. Constitutional libertv was about to be won for all future ages. This could not be attained without a terrible struggle — without great sacrifices ; for it is only by such means, alas ! that society advances. The despotism about to be struck down was destined to furnish one distin- guished victim. " Charles," says a royalist writer, " struggled ineffectually against the force of things ; " the age had outstripped him: it was not his nation " only, but the whole human race, that dragged hinvV' SCHISM BETWEEN THE KIXG AND THE PARLIA3IENT. 71 " along ; he desired what was no longer possible. " The liberty that had been won was first to be " swallowed up in a military despotism that deprived " it of its anarchy; but what was taken from the " fathers was restored to the children, and remained " as a final result to England."* On the 2 2d of August 1642, at six o'clock in the evening, the king planted the royal standard at Xottingham, and formally called his subjects to arms ; but the wind, which was very tempestuous, blew it down the very night it had been set up. At a short distance from the same place, the Earl of Essex was organizing the parliamentary army, in Avhich Cromwell was immediately made a captain. He inspected his troop without delay, and marked the commencement of his military career by that -^ frankness which is one of the distinctive features > of his character. He was unwilling to follow the > tortuous and hypocritical path of the parliament — fight against the king and pretend at the same time that they were marching in his defence. It is Clarendon himself who gives us this information. " Soldiers," said he to his company, " I wiU not " deceive you, nor make you believe, as my com- " mission has it, that you are going to fght for the " King and Parliament.'' f Cromwell carried his frankness even to rudeness : and this, rather than duplicity, is the fault we detect in him. He was * Les Quatre Stuards, by M. de Chateaubriand. CEu>rres com- pletes, vi. + Clarendon, Hist. Rebellion, book x. 72 SCHISM RKTVVEKN TIIK KING determined to fidit ajzainst all whom he found opposed to him, Avhosoever they nii<:ht hi-. 1I»' i<>n- tinued, according to Clarendon's account : "If the " king were in front of me, I would as soon shoot him " as another; if your conscience will not allow you " to do as mucli, go and serve elsewhere." These latter words have been doubted; and in truth Clarendon, or rather those from whom he derived the report, may have easily exaggerated what Oliver actually said. But, even if we are to admit the correctness of the report, we may look upon it simply as an energetic manner of saying : " l)o not " be mistaken : we are hi^htinfr airainst the kin<^" Cromwell was not merely a captain : his vigilant eye was everywhere. He knew how to batlle con- spiracies, and give sound advice to men whoso sentiments differed from his own. Mr Robert Barnard, a gentleman of his acquaintance, but a bad Protestant, was favourable to the royalists, and associated with those who fre(iuented suspici- ous meetings. Oliver wrote to him, on the 23d of January 1043, a letter of advice, in which we find another proof of his frankness : — " Subtlety may " deceive you ; integrity never will. With my heart " I shall desire that your judgment may alter, and " your practice. I come only to hinder men from " increasing the rent, — from doing hurt ; but not " to hurt any man : nor shall I you ; I hope you " wall give me no cause. If you do, I must be par- " doned what my relation to the public calls for."* * Letters and Speeches, Carlyle, i. 158. AND THE PARLIAMENT. 73 This language is full of firmness, and at the same time of true charity. He particularly busied himself with the protec- tion of those who were suffering for their faith. In the county of Norfolk, the parishioners of Hapton were much oppressed by an individual named Browne, for their attachment to the Gospel. On their behalf Cromwell Avrote to Mr Thomas Knyvett of Ashwellthorpe, in the following terms : " London, 27th July 1646 1 am bold to ask your favour on behalf of your honest poor neighbours of Hapton, who, as I am informed, are in some trouble, and are likely to be put to more, by one Robert Browne your tenant, who, not well pleased with the way of these men, seeks their disquiet all he may. " Truly nothing moves me to desire this more than the pity I bear them in respect of their honesties, and the trouble I hear they are likely to suffer for their consciences. And however the world interprets it, I am not ashamed to solicit for such as are anywhere under pressure of this kind ; doing even as I would be done by. Sir, it will not repent you to protect these poor men of Hapton from injury and oppres- sion."* It was in this manner that he manifested his brotherly charity, — " that charity, which," accord- ing to Milton, " is the strongest of all affections, " whereby the faithful, as members of Christ's body, * Gentleman's Magazine, 1787. Carlyle's Cromwell, i. 269. 74 SCHISM BETWEEN THE KING " mutually love and assist each other."* Oliver had heard the injunction, Relieve the oppressed (laaiali i. 17; Jeremiah xxii. 3); ojjen thy mouth for thu dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to de- struction (Proverbs xxxi. 8), and earnestly fuHilled God's commandments. On the 23(1 of October 1G42, the battle of Kdge- hill was fou;^dit, the indecisive result of which fdled London with alarm. It was perhaps on this occasion that Cromwell lost his eldest son : we shall see here- after what were the father's feelings under this be- reavement. The winter passed away quietly : in spring the war broke out again, with still d«3ubtful success. The ligitimate resistance of the ])arliament could only be justified and maintaineiit he has very much the air of agi-eeing with it. If Oliver had been a gambler and a drunkard ; if he kad practised the perfidious art of seducing inno- /cence ; if he had taken part in jollities and twcesses, I it would have been all very well : he would have I been a good Cavalier. These are the men whom ! the world loves, and for whom historians and I romance-writers* keep all their favour. But he loved the assemblings of the saints, according to " St. Paul's command. In his hours of repose, he delighted to follow the precepts of this apostle : Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess ; but be filled luith the Spirit : speakinr/ to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual sontfs, siwjint/ and making melody in your heart to the J^ord. (Implies, v. IH, \\).) From that hour he was held a contemj>tible man, and for two hundred vears all the servile, imitat- ing race of historians have continued to repeat this absurdity, not to say impiety. Contemptible ! says Clarendon. It may well be so : but Cromwell is not the only man who has been undervalued for I avoiding bad company, and for not having trod in \the way of sinners. David, St. Paul, and all chris- Itian men have been contemned like him, and for Uhe same reasons. But it is written in the revela- tions of God : Wo unto them that call evil good, and good evil. (Isaiah v. 20.) AVe do not think that these false judgments, thus stigmatized by the Divine * Ex. gr. Sir Walter Scott. AND THE PARLIAMENT. 77 Word, have ever been practised on a larger scale than in the case of Cromwell. On the 18th of June, a skirmish of cavalry took place some few miles from Oxford. One of the parliamentarian chiefs, who was usually in the fore- most rank, was seen slowly quitting the field of battle before the end of the action : his head hunsf a down, his hand was leaning on his horse's neck. "He is certainly wounded," said one of the by- standers. It was Hampden, Oliver's cousin. He died on the 24th of the same month, and the sor- rowing people named him the Father of his Coun- try. Who can say what influence, had he lived, he might have exercised over the developments of the Revolution ? In this war Cromwell gave many proofs of his courage, and among others we may cite the follow- ino; instance which occurred at Horncastle on the 11th of October, when he was opposed to the Marquis of Newcastle. He charged with great resolution immediately after the enemy's dragoons had given him the first volley ; yet within half pistol-shot they saluted him with a second discharge. Oliver's horse was killed, and fell down with him ; and as he rose, he was knocked down again by the gentleman that charged him, Sir Ingram Hopton. He got up once more, and, catching a sorry horse from a sol- dier's hand, mounted again. The royal army was defeated with considerable loss,* Charles, wishing to give the appearance of le- ■" Memoirs of Oliver Cromwell, i. 146. 78 SCHISM KETWKKN THE KING gality to liis power, suminoncd tlie two Houses of Parliuineiit to meet at Oxford ; and on tlie 22d of January 1G44, fort} -five Peers and a liundred and eighteen members of the Commons ohcyed his call. But the Parliament then sitting: in London counted twenty-two Peers and two liundn-d and eighty members of the Lower House, besides about one hundred more who were absent on the service of the state. The king, who in convei*sation with his courtiers called his parliament at one time a *' mongrel parliament," and at another, "cowardly " and seditious," adjourned it on the HIth of April. In January the Scots had entered Kngland, marching knee-deep in snow. In conjunction with the parliamentary troops, they commenced the siege of York, def«nded by the Manpiis of Newcastle. Prince Kupert Hew to its relief; and on the 2d of July U>4L took place the battle of Marston Moor. The conflict was bloody, but victory finally crowned the parliamentary army, owing to the invincible courage of its soldiers, and particularly of Crom- well's cavalry, on whom the name of JronsiJts was conferred on the very held of battle. The enemy lost more than a hundred Hags, which it was pro- posed to send to the parliament ; but they were torn in pieces by the conrpierors, and bound as trophies round their right arms. The king lost all the north of England, an»pon his sj)irit. I asked him, ' What that was. He tnM me it was. That (lod ' had not suffered him to he any nion* the execu- ' tioner of His enemies. At his fall, his horse ' l>ein^ killeil with the hullet, and as I am informed ' three horses more, I am told he hi«l them o|)en ' to ri^ht and left, that he mi;:ht we tlie ro;^uej» ' run. Trulv he was exceedin«dv beloved in the ' Armv, of all that knew him. But few knew ' him ; for he was a precious young man, fit for ' Tiod. Vol! have cause to ble.ss the Lord. He is ' a glorious Saint in Heaven; wherein you ought ' exceedingly to rejoice. Ix.*t this drink up your ' sorrow ; seeing the.'^c are not feigned words to ' comfort ymi, hut the thing is so real and un- ' doubted a truth. ^Ou may do all things by the ' strength of Christ. Seek that, and you shall easily ' bear your trial. Let this public mercy to the ' Church of God mak THE PARLIAMENT. 85 " It may be thought that some praises are due " to those gallant men, of whose valour so much " mention is made : — their humble suit to you and " all that have an interest in this blessing, is, That " in the remembrance of God's praises they be for- " gotten. It 's their joy that they are instruments " of God's glory, and their country's good. It 's '• their honour that God vouchsafes to use them. " Sir, they that have been employed in this service " know that faith and prayer obtained this City " for you : I do not say ours only, but of the " people of God with you and all England over, " who have wrestled with God for a blessing in " this very thing. Our desires are, that God may " be glorified by the same spirit of faith by which " we ask all our sufficiency, and have received it. " It is meet that He have aU the praise. " Presbyterians, Independents, all have here the " same spirit of faith and prayer : the same presence " and answer ; they agree here, have no names of " difference : pity it is it should be otherwise any- " where ! All that believe have the real unity, " which is most glorious : because inward, and " spiritual in the Body [which is the true Church], " and to the Head [which is Jesus Christ]. For " being united in forms, commonly called Uni- " formity, every Christian will for peace-sake study " and do as far as conscience will permit. And " for brethren, in things of the mind we look for " no compulsion, but that of light and reason. In " other things, God hath put the sword in the Par- 86 SCHISM IIETWKKN 11 IK KINO " liament's liaiuls — for tlie terror ofevil-doers, aiitiri- guishes with great precision between spiritual and temporal things. According to his views, love should prevail in the one; the sword in the other. Full of charity towards his brethren, rejecting every restraint uj)on religion, and proclaiming the great principles of liberty of conscience, how terrible he a])pears with the sword in his hand! Oliver did not show severity towards his enemies only. His justice was inflexible, even when it called upon him to punish his own followers. After quit- ting Bristol, he took several other strong places by storm, and became renowned for his sieges. At Winchester some of the captive enemies having * Rushworth, vi. 85. Carlvlc, i. 248. AND THE TARLIAMENT. 87 complained of being plundered contrary to tlie ar- ticles of capitulation, he directed that the soldiers accused of this disorder should be tried : six of them were found guilty, one of whom was hanged, and the five others were sent to the royalist gover- nor of Oxford, who returned them " with an ac- " knowledgment of the Lieutenant-general's noble- " ness." All who were about him bore testimony to his piety. In reference to this Mr Peters writes that he " had spent much time with God in prayer the " night before the storming of Basing House ; — and " seldom fights without some Text of Scripture to " support him. This time he rested upon that blessed "Word of God written in the 115th Psalm, 8th " verse. They that make them are like unto them ; so is " every one that trusteth in them. Which, with some " verses going before, was now accomplished."* Every day of his life he retired to read the Scrip- tures and to pray. Those who watched him narrow- ly relate, that, after having perused a chapter in the Bible, he was wont to prostrate himself with his face on the ground, and with tears pour out his soul before God. Who can charge with hypocrisy these inward movements of a soul, which pass all knowledge ? For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man ivhich is in him ? The king, who had retired to Oxford, left it in disguise on the 27th of April 1646. He wandered about from castle to castle, and from one county to * Cited in Carlyle, i. 258. 88 SriIISM HKTWKF.N TIIK KING another, until, not knowing what tu do, hu Mirren- dercd to tlie Scots army at Newark. One of the most distinguislied olheers of the parliamentary army was Colonel Ireton. lie liad studied at Trinity College, ( )xford, had distin- guished himself in the army by his )»ravi'ry, and had risen rajtiilly. He had long known Cromwell, and had made the acfjuaintanee of his daughter Bridget, wh<), l>v her decision of n his return, he received the thanks of the House. On the lM of June (K! 17), an un('xpecte«l incident occurred to accelerate the course of events. A body of five hundnil men, »Mid«T the orders of Cornet Joyce, j)roceede1I,-, Waller, t^'<".), are " full of mere Miiid ru^e, clistnietion, ami dark- " iiess ; the new narratives, believing only in ' Ma- *' ' ehiavelism,' iVe., disfigure the matter still more. " Connnon history, ohl and new, represents Crom- " well as having underhand, — in a most skilful " and indeed prophetic manner, — f«)mented or ori- " ginated all this commotion of the elements ; " steered his way through it hy ' hypoerisy,' hy " ' master-strokes of duplieity,* and sueh like. \s " is the hahit hitherto of history." To this we will adil the opinion of Lillmrne, the most unmanageahle aixl least credulous of the re- publicans, who had several sharp altercations with Cromwell, and who wrote to him on the 2.Jth of March in this same year in the following terms : — " 1 have looked upon you, as among the power- " ful ones of England, as a nnm with heart per- " feetly pure, pert'ectly free from all personal views." Such testimony as this is desenin*' of far more con- fidencc than the insinuations or the clamours of Ludlow and the Protector's other enemies.* We have no desire to make an indiscriminate < apology for Cromwell and his friends ; but we wish to be equitable, and to take into consideration the influences by which he must have been acted upon. There was at that time a twofold oppression in England. The friends of liberty had been oppressed by the tendency of the crown towards absolute * M. Guizot seems to have placed too much confidence in Ludlow's Memoirs. AND THE AEMY. 101 power ; and the popular independent cliurch had been harassed from the reign of Elizabeth, and even prior to that, by the state church. Oppression may sometimes have a good effect upon the sufferers, but it also has a bad one. In England it gave greater energy to the love of liberty and to the religious life ; but it also produced in the friends of civil and religious freedom a certain rudeness, acrimony, violence, and exaggeration. This will be found at all times in political and religious parties which have long been trodden down. To whom must we ascribe the blame ? Are not the oppres- sors far more guilty than their victims ? Cromwell and his party would no longer permit themselves to be checked, not even by their old friends. The torrent, kept for a time within its channel, bursts forth with the greater fury, when once the banks are broken through. It overthrows every obstacle, and deep gulfs mark its devastating course. Parliament was now in the greatest perplexity, not knowing how to satisfy the presbyterians and the city of London on the one hand, the indepen- dents and the army on the other. The presbyterians called upon God to incline the hearts of the Scots to come to their support. It would seem that their ecclesiastical system was an exotic plant in England, which could not be kept alive without the hand that had first transported it thither. On the 26th of July, some citizens of London attached to that system, forgetful of the character of moder- ation which belonged to them, went down to West- 102 SCHISM HKTWEEN THE I'AULI ANIENT minster, accompanied ])y a mob of aj)])rentice.s and mechanics, to demand that the actual otticers of the army shoidd be dismissed, and their commissions given to men devoted to the presbyterian cause. They entered the House of Commons with th«ir hat8 on, calling' out, " N'ote, vote!" and did not retire until tlie House liad complied with tlu-ir wishes. Upon this tlic Ihikv of Manchester, spcakt-r of the House of I^rds, with ei;rht peers, and Lenthall, speaker of the House of Commons, attended by a hundred members, privately withib'ew from Westminster, and joined the army. At their re- quest the soldiers marched to London and restored the fu;,ntives to their seats, when it was resolved to exchnh! from j)arliament the rin^deaders of the late tumult. Irom that time the independent in- fluence sup{)lanted the presbyterian in the Lower House. At first they showed themselves well disposed to- wards Charles, and C>liver made a most temperate use of the power which the course of cvent^i had placed in his hands. One of his cousins, John Crom- well, had heard him say at Hampton Court : " I " think the king the most injured prince in the *' w^orld, but this" — touching his sword — " shall " right him." He shrank from a revolution : he sought to prevent it, and to re-establish his sove- reign in the enjoyment of a legitimate authoritv. Everything shows that he was sincere in this de- sire. " May God be pleased to look upon me," said he, " according to the sincerity of my heart AND THE ARMY. 103 " towards the king." He did not as yet despair of Charles, and he desired to save this prince not less from the excesses of his own despotism than from those of the Levellers. This even the pre- judiced historian of the Four Stuarts seems to ac- knowledge.* Oliver and Ireton had frequent in- terviews with the king and his agents, and the propositions they made were, in the actual state of affairs, very equitable. Parliament had required that the regal authority should be limited for twenty years ; Cromwell asked for ten only, and declared that the king's conscience ought to be left free as regarded episcopacy. Sir John Berkeley, one of Charles's attendants, entreated him to accept these terms; and hence, for some time, strong hopes were entertained of a pacification. Cromwell's wife and daughters were presented to the king at Hampton Court, where the latter received them with great honours. Even the general himself and Ireton were seen walking with him in the Park, and were known to be often closeted with him. It was this monarch's destiny to be the contriver of his own ruin. The graciousness displayed at Hamp- ton Court was mere treachery. Misled and perhaps excited by messages from France, conveyed to him by Mr Ashburnham, the king rejected the most favourable offers. " I can turn the scale which way " I please," said he to his agents ; " and that party " must sink which I abandon." " Sire," replied Berkeley, " a crown so near lost was never recovered * Chateaubriand, Les Quatre Stuaids, p. 149. 104 SCHISM BETWEEN THE I'AHUAMEXT " on easier terins." Cliarlos in fact diil turn the scale, but to his own destruction. Negotiations were not yet tL-rniinatril : tlu- kiuf^ even appeareddesirous of resuming them; and sjioke of giving Cromwell the order of the Garter and the command of the armv, \\lun information was sent to this great leader, that in the course of the same day a letter addressed to tiie (jucen would l)e de- spatched for France, carefully sewn uj» in the Haps of a saddle, which a man, not in the secret, would carry on his luad, alM)Uf ten o'clock at night, to the lilue Boar, in Ilolliorn. whence it would be forwarded to 1 ranee by way of Dover. Cromwell and Ireton at once determined to seize this opportunity t)f learning the king's tljoughts ; for a feeling of uneasiness had eonstantlv pursue*! them amidst all his promises and favoui*s. They left Windsor, disguised as jirivate soldiei's, and on reaching the tavern, ])laced a trooper they had brought with them on watch at the door, sat down, and called for some beer. At ten o'clock, the messenger appeared ; they seized the saddle, under the pretext that they had ordei-s to search everything, carried it into the inn, i-ipped u\) the lining, found the letter, closed up the saddle again, and returned it to the terrified messen«Tcr, savincr that it was all right, that he was an honest fellow, and might continue his journey without fear. The impatient generals then withdrew to a pri- vate room, and opened the letter. " My time is " come at last," wrote the king. " I am now the AND THE ARMY. 105 ' man whose favour they court. I incline rather to ' treat with the Scotch than with the English ' army. For the rest, I alone understand my posi- ' tion ; be quite easy as to the concessions I may ' grant ; when the time comes, I shall know very ' well how to treat these rogues, and instead of a ' silken garter, I will fit them with a hempen ' halter." Ireton and Cromwell looked at each other. This was the truth, then, as regarded Charles, and what the nation might expect of him. With perfidious hand he had rent the compact which united him to England. He no longer pos- sessed any moral value in the eyes of his people. All confidence and respect were lost : and yet he was still a king. The two chiefs left the Blue Boar with the deepest emotion, and rode hastily back to Windsor. Not long after, Cromwell waited upon Mr Ashburnham, one of the king's attend- ants, and declared that he was now satisfied that his majesty could not be trusted. From this time the separation between Charles and the future Protector — between the King and England — was complete. The letter enclosed in the saddle was a divorce between his people and the unhappy monarch, who, by refusing a garter, conferred a crown. It was not long before he perceived that things had changed. His most trusty servants received orders to depart ; his guards were doubled ; his walks restricted ; and Cromwell wrote with un- easiness to Colonel Whalley, that " there were 10() SCHISM HKTWKKN TIIK rAUI.lA.MKNT " rumours abroad of j*onie intcndecl atti-mpt upon " his nuiji'sty's jnrsou." Tin.' kin;^'^ anxiety grew more painful every day ; a trivial eireuinstance ni' ti very dillcnnt luiture Kd liiui t«) take a decisive step. One ni;:lit, while agitated hy painful dreanm, his lauii) suddenlv went out He resolveil to Hv, but whither ? He gave a woman five hundred pounroach- inn, he, as William of ()range did somewhat later with regard to James 11., made every elfort to favour Charles's flight and his retreat to France. Cromwell, says the republican Ludlow, infonm-d the king of his danger, and assured him of his ser- vices. A report was current that the strict watch of the garrison at Hampton Court had been relaxed on the 11th November, and that sentinels had l>een withdrawn from the posts they usually guarded. AND THE ARMY. 107 At the same time it was asserted, that a vessel sent by the queen was cruising off the coast, to- wards which his majesty was to proceed, for the purpose of taking him off. But when he reached the shore, no ship, not even a fishing-boat, was in sight. Being now without resource, he surrendered to Colonel Hammond, governor of the Isle of Wight. He placed in that officer's hands a communication he had received from Oliver shortly before leaving Hampton Court, in which the latter informed him of the risk he would incur by staying any longer in that palace. " It was evident," says Ludlow, " that the king had escaped by Cromwell's advice." ^ If Oliver desired to see Charles leave England, he also wished to repress the disorders of the Level- lers. With one hand he removed tyranny ; with the other he suppressed the demagogues. The latter entered into associations, and made proposi- tions to their officers and to the parliament " to " introduce an equality into all conditions, and a " parity among all men." " The suppression of " this license," says Clarendon, " put Cromwell to " the expense of all his cunning, dexterity, and " courao-e." He still believed that parliament was capable of governing, and desired to maintain the authority of that body. Having been informed that the Levellers were holding a meeting with a view to seduce the army, he immediately pro- ceeded to the place of assemblage, attended by a few men only of whom he was sure. Without being disconcerted, he put several questions to those who 108 SCHISM BETWEEN THE TAULIAMENT appeared the most seditious. And upon receiving an insolent re{)ly, chastised some of them with his own hand, and with the assistance of his friends dispersed the others. Non civiiini nnlor prava juhontiuin, Nun vultus insUintis tymnni Mentc quatit solid a. On several occasions Oliver subdued those de- magogues. " If this factious spirit," says Claren- don, " had not been encountered at that time with " that rough and brisk temper of Cromwell, it would " presently have produced all imaginable confusion " in the parliament, army, and kingdom."* Erelong fresh hopes agitated Charles in his re- treat in tlie Isle of Wight. The House of Com- mons voted that f