parliament about this time, in its memorable resistance to Charles I.;
and how different would have been the political destinies of the English
people, if Stratford, just such a man as Richelieu, had succeeded in his
schemes! But in England the parliament was backed by the nation,--at
least by the middle classes. In France the people had then no political
aspirations; among them a Cromwell could not have arisen, since a
Cromwell could not have been sustained.
Thus Richelieu, by will and genius, conquered all his foes in order to
uphold the throne, and thus elevate the nation; for, as Sir James
Stephen says, "the grandeur of the monarchy and the welfare of France
with him were but convertible terms." He made the throne the first in
Europe, even while he who sat upon it was personally contemptible. He
gave lustre to the monarchy, while he himself was an unarmed priest. It
was a splendid fiction to make the King nominally so powerful, while
really he was so feeble. But royalty was not a fiction under his
successor. How respectable did Richelieu make the monarchy! What a deep
foundation did he lay for royalty under Louis XIV.! What a magnificent
inheritance did he bequeath to that monarch! "Nothing was done for forty
years which he had not foreseen and prepared. His successor, Mazarin,
only prospered so far as he followed out his instructions; and the star
of Louis XIV. did not pale so long as the policy which Richelieu
bequeathed was the rule of his public acts." The magnificence of Louis
was only the sequel of the energy and genius of Richelieu; Versailles
was really the gift of him who built the Palais Royal.
The services of Richelieu to France did not end with centralizing power
around the throne. He enlarged the limits of the kingdom and subdued her
foreign enemies. Great rivers and mountains became the national
boundaries, within which it was easy to preserve conquests. He was not
ambitious of foreign domination; he simply wished to make the kingdom
impregnable. Had Napoleon pursued this policy, he could never have been
overthrown, and his dynasty would have been established. It was the
policy of Elizabeth and of Cromwell. I do not say that Richelieu did not
enter upon foreign wars; but it was to restore the "balance of power,"
not to add kingdoms to the empire. He rendered assistance to Gustavus
Adolphus, in spite of the protests of Rome and the disgust of Catholic
powers, in order to prevent the dangerous ascendency of Austria; thus
setting an example for William III., and Pitt himself, in his warfare
against Napoleon. In these days we should prefer to see the "balance of
power" maintained by a congress of nations, rather than by vast military
preparations and standing armies, which eat out the resources of
nations; but in the seventeenth century there was no other way to
maintain this balance than by opposing armies. Nor did Richelieu seek to
maintain the peace of Europe by force alone. Never was there a more
astute and profound diplomatist. His emissaries were in every court,
with intrigues very hard to be baffled. He equalled Metternich or
Talleyrand in his profound dissimulation, for European diplomacy has
ever been based on this. While he built up absolutism in France, he did
not alienate other governments; so that, like Cromwell, he made his
nation respected abroad. His conquest of Roussillon prepared the way for
the famous Treaty of the Pyrenees, under the administration of Mazarin.
While vigorous in war, his policy was on the whole pacific,--like that
of all Catholic priests who have held power in France. He loved glory
indeed, but, like Sully and Colbert, he also wished to develop the
national resources; and, as indeed all enlightened statesmen from Moses
downward have sought to do, he wished to make the country strong for
defence rather than offence.
He showed great sagacity as well as an enlightened mind. The ablest men
were placed in office. The army and navy were reorganized. Corruption
and peculation on the part of officials were severely punished. The
royal revenue was increased. Roads, bridges, canals were built and
repaired, and public improvements were made. The fine arts were
encouraged, and even learning was rewarded. It was he who founded the
French Academy,--although he excluded from it men of original genius
whose views he did not like. Law and order were certainly restored, and
anarchy ceased to reign. The rights of property were established, and
the finances freed from embarrassments.
So his rigid rule tended to the elevation of France; absolutism proved
necessary in his day, and under his circumstances. When arraigned at the
bar of posterity, he claims, like Napoleon, to be judged for his
services, and not for his defects of character. These defects will
forever make him odious in spite of his services. I hardly know a more
repulsive benefactor. He was vain, cold, heartless, rigid, and proud. He
had no amiable weakness. His smile was a dagger, and his friendship was
a snare. He was a hypocrite and a tyrant. He had no pity on a fallen
foe; and even when bending under the infirmities of age, and in the near
prospect of death, his inexorable temper was never for a moment subdued.
The execution of Cinq-Mars and De Thou took place when he had one foot
in his grave. He deceived everybody, sent his spies into the bosom of
families, and made expediency the law of his public life.
But it is nothing to the philosophic student of history that he built
the Palais Royal, or squandered riches with Roman prodigality, or
rewarded players, or enriched Marion Delorme, or clad himself in mail
before La Rochelle, or persecuted his early friends, or robbed the
monasteries, or made a spy of Father Joseph, or exiled the Queen-mother,
or kept the King in bondage, or sent his enemies to the scaffold: these
things are all against him, and make him appear in a repulsive light.
But if he brought order out of confusion, and gave a blow to feudalism,
and destroyed anarchies, and promoted law, and developed the resources
of his country, making that country formidable and honorable, and
constructed a vast machinery of government by which France was kept
together for a century, and would have fallen to pieces without
it,--then there is another way to survey this bad man; and we view him
not only as a great statesman and ruler, but as an instrument of
Providence, raised up as a terror to evil-doers. We may hate absolutism,
but must at the same time remember that there are no settled principles
of government, any more than of political economy. That is the best
government which is best adapted to the exigency of that human society
which at the time it serves. Republicanism would not do in China, any
more than despotism in New England. Bad men, somehow or other, must be
coerced and punished. The more prevalent is depravity, so much the more
necessary is despotic vigor: it will be so to the end of time. It is all
nonsense to dream of liberty with a substratum of folly and vice. Unless
evils can be remedied by the public itself, giving power to the laws
which the people create, then physical force, hard and cold tyranny,
must inevitably take the place. No country will long endure anarchy; and
then the hardest characters may prove the greatest benefactors.
It is on this principle that I am reconciled to the occasional rule of
despots. And when I see a bad man, like Richelieu, grasping power to be
used for the good of a nation, I have faith to believe it to be ordered
wisely. When men are good and honest and brave, we shall have
Washingtons; when they are selfish and lawless, God will send
Richelieus and Napoleons, if He has good things in store for the future,
even as He sends Neros and Diocletians when a nation is doomed to
destruction by incurable rottenness.
And yet absolutism in itself is not to be defended; it is what
enlightened nations are now striving to abolish. It is needed only under
certain circumstances; if it were to be perpetuated in any nation it
would be Satanic. It is endurable only because it may be destroyed when
it has answered its end; and, like all human institutions, it will
become corrupted. It was shamefully abused under Louis XIV. and Louis
XV. But when corrupted and abused it has, like slavery, all the elements
of certain decay and ruin. The abuse of power will lead to its own
destruction, even as undue haste in the acquisition of riches tendeth
to poverty.
AUTHORITIES.
Petitot's Mémoires sur le Règne de Louis XIII.; Secret History of the
French Court, by Cousin; Le Clerc's Vie de Richelieu; Henri Martin's
History of France; Mémoires de Richelieu, by Michaud and Poujoulat; Life
of Richelieu, by Capefigue, and E.E. Crowe, and G.P.R. James; Lardner's
Cabinet Cyclopaedia; Histoire du Ministère du Cardinal de Richelieu, by
A. Jay; Michelet's Life of Henry IV. and Richelieu; Biographie
Universelle; Sir James Stephen's Lectures on the History of France.
OLIVER CROMWELL.
A.D. 1599-1658.
ENGLISH REVOLUTION.
The most difficult character in history to treat critically, and the
easiest to treat rhetorically, perhaps, is Oliver Cromwell; after two
centuries and more he is still a puzzle: his name, like that of
Napoleon, is a doubt. Some regard him with unmingled admiration; some
detest him as a usurper; and many look upon him as a hypocrite. Nobody
questions his ability; and his talents were so great that some bow down
to him on that account, out of reverence for strength, like Carlyle. On
the whole he is a popular idol, not for his strength, but for his cause,
since he represents the progressive party in his day in behalf of
liberty,--at least until his protectorate began. Then new issues arose;
and while he appeared as a great patriot and enlightened ruler, he yet
reigned as an absolute monarch, basing his power on a standing army.
But whatever may be said of Cromwell as statesman, general, or ruler,
his career was remarkable and exceedingly interesting. His character,
too, was unique and original; hence we are never weary of discussing
him. In studying his character and career, we also have our minds
directed to the great ideas of his tumultuous and agitated age, for he,
like Napoleon, was the product of revolution. He was the offspring of
mighty ideas,--he did not create them; original thinkers set them in
motion, as Rousseau enunciated the ideas which led to the French
Revolution. The great thinkers of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries were divines, the men whom the Reformation produced. It was
Luther preaching the right of private judgment, and Calvin pushing out
the doctrine of the majesty of God to its remotest logical sequence, and
Latimer appealing to every man's personal responsibility to God, and
Gustavus Adolphus fighting for religious liberty, and the Huguenots
protesting against religious persecution, and Thomas Cromwell sweeping
away the abominations of the Papacy, and the Geneva divines who settled
in England during the reign of Elizabeth,--it was all these that
produced Oliver Cromwell.
He was a Puritan, and hence he was a reformer, not in church matters
merely, but in all those things which are connected with civil
liberty,--for there is as close a connection between Protestantism and
liberty as between Catholicism and absolutism. The Puritans intensely
hated everything which reminded them of Rome, even the holidays of the
Church, organs, stained-glass, cathedrals, and the rich dresses of the
clergy. They even tried to ignore Christmas and Easter, though
consecrated by the early Church. They hated the Middle Ages, looked with
disgust upon the past, and longed to try experiments, not only in
religion, but in politics and social life. The only antiquity which had
authority to them was the Jewish Commonwealth, because it was a
theocracy, and recognized God Almighty as the supreme ruler of the
world. Hence they adhered to the strictness of the Jewish Sabbath, and
baptized their children with Hebrew names.
Now to such a people, stern, lofty, ascetic, legal,
spiritual,--conservative of whatever the Bible reveals, yet progressive
and ardent for reforms,--the rule of the Stuarts was intolerable. It was
intolerable because it seemed to lean towards Catholicism, and because
it was tyrannical and averse to changes. The King was ruled by
favorites; and these favorites were either bigots in religion, like
Archbishop Laud, or were tyrannical or unscrupulous in their efforts to
sustain the King in despotic measures and crush popular agitations, like
the Earl of Strafford, or were men of pleasure and vanity like the Duke
of Buckingham. Charles I. was detested by the Puritans even more than
his father James. They looked upon him as more than half a Papist, a
despot, utterly insincere, indifferent to the welfare of the country,
intent only on exalting himself and his throne at the expense of the
interests of the people, whose aspirations he scorned and whose rights
he trampled upon. In his eyes they had no _rights_, only _duties_; and
duties to him as an anointed sovereign, to rule as he liked, with
parliaments or without parliaments; yea, to impose taxes arbitrarily,
and grant odious monopolies: for the State was his, to be managed as a
man would manage a farm; and those who resisted this encroachment on the
liberties of the nation were to be fined, imprisoned, executed, as
pestilent disturbers of the public peace. He would form dangerous
alliances with Catholic powers, marry his children to Catholic princes,
appoint Catholics to high office, and compromise the dignity of the
nation as a Protestant State. His ministers, his judges, his high
officials were simply his tools, and perpetually insulted the nation by
their arrogance, their venality, and their shameful disregard of the
Constitution. In short, he seemed bent on imposing a tyrannical yoke,
hard to be endured, and to punish unlawfully those who resisted it, or
even murmured against it. He would shackle the press, and muzzle the
members of parliament.
Thus did this King appear to the Puritans,--at this time a large and
influential party, chiefly Presbyterian, and headed by many men of rank
and character, all of whom detested the Roman Catholic religion as the
source of all religious and political evils, and who did not scruple to
call the Papacy by the hardest names, such as the "Scarlet Mother,"
"Antichrist," and the like. They had seceded from the Established Church
in the reign of Elizabeth, and became what was then called
Non-conformists. Had they been treated wisely, had any respect been
shown to their opinions and rights,--for the right of worshipping God
according to individual conscience is the central and basal pillar of
Protestantism,--had this undoubted right of private judgment, the great
emancipating idea of that age, been respected, the Puritans would have
sought relief in constitutional resistance, for they were conservative
and loyal, as English people ever have been, even in Canada and
Australia. They were not bent on _revolution_; they only desired
_reform_. So their representatives in Parliament framed the famous
"Petition of Right," in which were reasserted the principles of
constitutional liberty. This earnest, loyal, but angry Parliament, being
troublesome, was dissolved, and Charles undertook for eleven years to
reign without one,--against all precedents,--with Stafford and Laud for
his chief advisers and ministers. He reigned by Star Chamber decrees,
High-commission courts, issuing proclamations, resorting to forced
loans, tampering with justice, removing judges, imprisoning obnoxious
men without trial, insulting and humiliating the Puritans, and openly
encouraging a religion of "millineries and upholsteries," not only
illegally, but against the wishes and sentiments of the better part of
the nation,--thus undermining his own throne; for all thrones are based
on the love of the people.
The financial difficulties of the King--for the most absolute of kings
cannot extort _all_ the money they want--compelled him to assemble
another Parliament at an alarming crisis of popular indignation which he
did not see, when popular leaders began to say that even kings must rule
_by_ the people and not _without_ the people.
This new Parliament, with Hampden and Pym for leaders, though fierce and
aggressive, would have been contented with constitutional reform, like
Mirabeau at one period. But the King, ill-advised, obstinate, blinded,
would not accept reform; he would reign like the Bourbons, or not at
all. The reforms which the Parliament desired were reasonable and just.
It would abolish arbitrary arrests, the Star Chamber decrees, taxes
without its consent, cruelty to Non-conformists, the ascendency of
priests, irresponsible ministers, and offensive symbols of Romanism. If
these reforms had been granted,--and such a sovereign as Elizabeth would
have yielded, however reluctantly,--there would have been no English
revolution. Or even if the popular leaders had been more patient, and
waited for their time, and been willing to carry out these reforms
constitutionally, there would have been no revolution. But neither the
King nor Parliament would yield, and the Parliament was dissolved.
The next Parliament was not only angry, it was defiant and unscrupulous.
It resolved on revolution, and determined to put the King himself aside.
It began with vigorous measures, and impeached both Laud and
Strafford,--doubtless very able men, but not fitted for their times. It
decreed sweeping changes, usurped the executive authority, appealed to
arms, and made war on the government. The King also on his part appealed
to the sword, which now alone could settle the difficulties. The contest
was inevitable. The nation clamored for reform; the King would not grant
it; the Parliament would not wait to secure it constitutionally. Both
parties were angry and resolute; reason departed from the councils of
the nation; passion now ruled, and civil war began. It was not, at
first, a question about the form of government,--whether a king or an
elected ruler should bear sway; it was purely a question of reforms in
the existing government, limiting of course the power of the King,--but
reforms deemed so vital to the welfare of the nation that the best
people were willing to shed their blood to secure them; and if reason
and moderation could have borne sway, that angry strife might have been
averted. But people will not listen to reason in times of maddening
revolution; they prefer to fight, and run their chances and incur the
penalty. And when contending parties appeal to the sword, then all
ordinary rules are set aside, and success belongs to the stronger, and
the victors exact what they please. The rules of all deadly and
desperate warfare seem to recognize this.
The fortune of war put the King into the hands of the revolutionists;
and in fear, more than in vengeance, they executed him,--just what he
would have done to _their_ leaders if _he_ had won. "Stone-dead," said
Falkland, "hath no fellow." In a national conflagration we lose sight of
laws, even of written constitutions. Great necessities compel
extraordinary measures, not such as are sustained either by reason or
precedents. The great lesson of war, especially of civil war, is, that
contending parties might better make great concessions than resort to
it, for it is certain to demoralize a nation. Heated partisans hate
compromise; yet war itself generally ends in compromise. It is
interesting to see how many constitutions, how many institutions in both
Church and State, are based on compromise.
Now, it was amid all the fierce contentions of that revolutionary
age,--an age of intense earnestness, when the grandest truths were
agitated; an age of experiment, of bold discussions, of wild
fanaticisms, of bitter hatreds, of unconquerable prejudices, yet of
great loftiness and spiritual power,--that the star of Oliver Cromwell
arose. He was born in the year 1599, of a good family. He was a country
squire, a gentleman farmer, though not much given to fox-hunting or
dinner hilarities, preferring to read political pamphlets, or to listen
to long sermons, or to hold discussions on grace, predestination,
free-will, and foreknowledge absolute. His favorite doctrine was the
second coming of Christ and the reign of the saints, the elect,--to whom
of course he belonged. He had visions and rhapsodies, and believed in
special divine illumination. Cromwell was not a Presbyterian, but an
Independent; and the Independents were the most advanced party of his
day, both in politics and religion. The progressive man of that age was
a Calvinist, in all the grandeur and in all the narrowness of that
unfashionable and misunderstood creed. The time had not come for
"advanced thinkers" to repudiate a personal God and supernatural
agencies. Then an atheist, or even a deist, and indeed a materialist of
the school of Democritus and Lucretius, was unknown. John Milton was one
of the representative men of the Puritans of the seventeenth
century,--men who colonized New England, and planted the germs of
institutions which have spread to the Rocky Mountains,
Cromwell on his farm, one of the landed gentry, had a Cambridge
education, and was early an influential man. His sagacity, his
intelligence, his honesty, and his lofty religious life marked him out
as a fit person to represent his county in parliament. He at once became
the associate of such men as Hampden and Pym. He did not make very
graceful speeches, and he had an ungainly person; but he was eloquent in
a rude way, since he had strong convictions and good sense. He was
probably violent, for he hated the abuses of the times, and he hated
Rome and the prelacy. He represented the extreme left; that is, he was a
radical, and preferred revolution to tyranny. Yet even he would probably
have accepted reform if reform had been possible without violence. But
Cromwell had no faith in the King or his ministers, and was inclined to
summary measures. He afterwards showed this tendency of character in his
military career. He was one of those earnest and practical people who
could not be fooled with. So he became a leader of those who were most
violent against the Government During the Long Parliament, Cromwell sat
for Cambridge; which fact shows that he was then a marked man, far from
being unimportant. This was the Parliament, assembled in 1640, which
impeached Strafford and Laud, which abolished the Star Chamber, and
inaugurated the civil war, that began when Charles left Whitehall,
January, 1642, for York. The Parliament solicited contributions, called
out the militia, and appointed to the command of the forces the Earl of
Essex, a Presbyterian, who established his headquarters at Northampton,
while Charles unfurled the royal standard at Nottingham.
Cromwell was forty-two when he buckled on his sword as a volunteer. He
subscribed five hundred pounds to the cause of liberty, raised a troop
of horse, which gradually swelled into that famous regiment of one
thousand men, called "Ironsides," which was never beaten. Of this
regiment he was made colonel in the spring of 1643. He had distinguished
himself at Edgehill in the first year of the war, but he drew upon
himself the eyes of the nation at the battle of Marston Moor, July,
1644,--gained by the discipline of his men,--which put the north of
England into the hands of Parliament. He was then lieutenant-general,
second in command to the Earl of Manchester. The second battle of
Newbury, though a success, gave Cromwell, then one of the most
influential members of Parliament, an occasion to complain of the
imbecility of the noblemen who controlled the army, and who were
Presbyterians. The "self-denying ordinance," which prohibited members of
Parliament from command in the army, was a blow at Presbyterianism and
aristocracy, and marked the growing power of the Independents. It was
planned by Cromwell, although it would have deprived him also of his
command; but he was made an exception to the rule, and he knew he would
be, since his party could not spare him.