commanded the right wing of the army, Fairfax (nominally his superior
general) the centre, and Ireton the left; against Prince Rupert and
Charles. The battle was won by the bravery of Cromwell, and decided the
fortunes of the King, although he was still able to keep the field.
Cromwell now became the foremost man in England. For two years he
resided chiefly in London, taking an important part in negotiations with
the King, and in the contest between the Independents and
Presbyterians,--the former of which represented the army, while the
latter still had the ascendency in Parliament.
On the 16th of August, 1648, was fought the battle of Preston, in which
Cromwell defeated the Scotch army commanded by the Duke of Hamilton,
which opened Edinburgh to his victorious troops, and made him
commander-in-chief of the armies of the Commonwealth. The Presbyterians,
at least of Scotland, it would seem, preferred now the restoration of
the King to the ascendency of Cromwell with the army to back him, for it
was the army and not the Parliament which had given him supreme command.
Then followed the rapid conquest of the Scots, the return of the
victorious general to London, and the suppression of the liberty of
Parliament, for it was purged of its Presbyterian leaders. The
ascendency of the Independents began; for though in a minority, they
were backed by an army which obeyed implicitly the commands and even the
wishes of Cromwell.
The great tragedy which disgraced the revolution was now acted. The
unfortunate King, whose fate was sealed at the battle of Naseby, after
various vicissitudes and defeats, put himself into the hands of the
Scots and made a league with the Presbyterians. After Edinburgh was
taken, they virtually sold him to the victor, who caused him to be
brought in bitter mockery to Hampton Court, where he was treated with
ironical respect. In his reverses Charles would have made _any_
concessions; and the Presbyterians, who first took up arms against him,
would perhaps have accepted them. But it was too late. Cromwell and the
Independents now reigned,--a party that had been driven into violent
measures, and which had sought the subversion of the monarchy itself.
Charles is brought to a mock trial by a decimated Parliament, is
condemned and executed, and the old monarchy is supplanted by a military
despotism. "The roaring conflagration of anarchies" is succeeded by the
rule of the strongest man.
Much has been written and said about that execution, or martyrdom, or
crime, as it has been variously viewed by partisans. It simply was the
sequence of the revolution, of the appeal of both parties to the sword.
It may have been necessary or unnecessary, a blunder or a crime, but it
was the logical result of a bitter war; it was the cruel policy of a
conquering power. Those who supported it were able men, who deemed it
the wisest thing to do; who dreaded a reaction, who feared for
themselves, and sought by this means to perpetuate their sway. As one of
the acts of revolution, it must be judged by the revolution itself. The
point is, not whether it was wrong to take the life of the King, if it
were a military necessity, or seemed to be to the great leaders of the
day, but whether it was right to take up arms in defence of rights which
might have been gained by protracted constitutional agitation and
resistance. The execution proved a blunder, because it did not take away
the rights of Charles II., and created great abhorrence and indignation,
not merely in foreign countries, but among a majority of the English
people themselves,--and these, too, who had the prestige of wealth and
culture. I do not believe the Presbyterian party, as represented by
Hampden and Pym, and who like Mirabeau had applied the torch to
revolutionary passions, would have consented to this foolish murder.
Certainly the Episcopalians would not have executed Charles, even if
they could have been induced to cripple him.
But war is a conflagration; nothing can stop its ravages when it has
fairly begun. They who go to war must abide the issue of war; they who
take the sword must be prepared to perish by the sword. Thus far, in the
history of the world, very few rights have been gained by civil war
which could not have been gained in the end without it. The great rights
which the people have secured in England for two hundred years are the
result of an appeal to reason and justice. The second revolution was
bloodless. The Parliament which first arrayed itself against the
government of Charles was no mean foe, even if it had not resorted to
arms. It held the purse-strings; it had the power to cripple the King,
and to worry him into concessions. But if the King was resolved to
attack the Parliament itself, and coerce it by a standing army, and
destroy all liberty in England, then the question assumed another shape;
the war then became defensive, and was plainly justifiable, and Charles
could but accept the issue, even his own execution, if it seemed
necessary to his conquerors. They took up arms in self-defence, and war,
of course, brought to light the energies and talents of the greatest
general, who as victor would have his reward. Cromwell concluded to
sweep away the old monarchy, and reign himself instead; and the
execution of the King was one of his war measures. It was the penalty
Charles paid for making war on his subjects, instead of ruling them
according to the laws. His fate was hard and sad; we feel more
compassion than indignation. In our times he would have been permitted
to run away; but those stern and angry old revolutionists demanded
his blood.
For this cruel or necessary act Cromwell is responsible more than any
man in England, since he could have prevented it if he pleased. He ruled
the army, which ruled the Parliament. It was not the nation, or the
representatives of the nation, who decreed the execution of Charles. It
was the army and the purged Parliament, composed chiefly of
Independents, who wanted the subversion of the monarchy itself.
Technically, Charles was tried by the Parliament, or the judges
appointed by them; really, Cromwell was at the bottom of the affair, as
much as John Calvin was responsible for the burning of Servetus, let
partisans say what they please. There never has a great crime or blunder
been committed on this earth which bigoted, or narrow, or zealous
partisans have not attempted to justify. Bigoted Catholics have
justified even the slaughter of St. Bartholomew. Partisans have no law
but expediency. All Jesuits, political, religious, and social, in the
Catholic and Protestant churches alike, seem to think that the end
justifies the means, even in the most beneficent reforms; and when
pushed to the wall by the logic of opponents, will fall back on the
examples of the Old Testament. In defence of lying and cheating they
will quote Abraham at the court of Pharaoh. There is no insult to the
human understanding more flagrant, than the doctrine that we may do evil
that good may come. And yet the politics and reforms of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries seem to have been based on that miserable form
of jesuitism. Here Machiavelli is as vulnerable as Escobar, and Burleigh
as well as Oliver Cromwell, who was not more profound in dissimulation
than Queen Elizabeth herself. The best excuse we can render for the
political and religious crimes of that age is, that they were in
accordance with its ideas. And who is superior to the ideas of his age?
On the execution of the King, the supreme authority was nominally in the
hands of Parliament. Of course all kinds of anarchies prevailed, and all
government was unsettled. Charles II. was proclaimed King by the Scots,
while the Duke of Ormond, in Ireland, joined the royal party to seat
Charles II. on the throne. In this exigency Cromwell was appointed by
the Parliament Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.
Then followed the conquest of Ireland, in which Cromwell distinguished
himself for great military abilities. His vigorous and uncompromising
measures, especially his slaughter of the garrison of Drogheda (a
retaliatory act), have been severely commented on. But war in the hands
of masters is never carried on sentimentally: the test of ability is
success. The measures were doubtless hard and severe; but Cromwell knew
what he was about: he wished to bring the war to a speedy close, and
intimidation was probably the best course to pursue. Those impracticable
Irish never afterwards molested him. In less than a year he was at
leisure to oppose Charles II. in Scotland; and on the resignation of
Fairfax he was made Captain-General of all the forces in the empire. The
battle of Dunbar resulted in the total defeat of the Scots; while the
"crowning mercy" at Worcester, Sept. 3, 1651, utterly blasted the hopes
of Charles, and completely annihilated his forces.
The civil war, which raged nine years, was now finished, and Cromwell
became supreme. But even the decimated Parliament was jealous, and
raised an issue,--on which Cromwell dissolved it with a file of
soldiers, and assembled another, neither elective nor representative,
composed of his creatures, without experience, chiefly Anabaptists and
Independents; which he soon did away with. He then called a council of
leading men, who made him Lord Protector, December 13, 1653. Even the
shadow of constitutional authority now vanishes, and Cromwell rules with
absolute and untrammelled power, like Julius Caesar or Napoleon
Bonaparte. He rules on the very principles which he condemned in Charles
I. The revolution ends in a military despotism.
If there was ever a usurpation, this was one. Liberty gave her last sigh
on the remonstrance of Sir Harry Vane, and a military hero, by means of
his army, stamps his iron heel on England. He dissolves the very body
from which he received his own authority he refuses to have any check on
his will; he imposes taxes without the consent of the people,--the very
thing for which he took up arms against Charles I.; he reigns alone, on
despotic principles, as absolute as Louis XIV.; he enshrouds himself in
royal state at Hampton Court; he even seeks to bequeath his absolute
power to his son. And if Richard Cromwell had reigned like his father
Oliver, then the cause of liberty would have been lost.
All this is cold, unvarnished history. We cannot get over or around
these facts; they blaze out to the eyes of all readers, and will blaze
to the most distant ages. Cromwell began as a reformer, but ended as a
usurper. Whatever name he goes by, whatever title he may have assumed,
he became, by force of his victories and of his army, the absolute ruler
of England,--as Caesar did of Rome, and Napoleon of Paris. We may
palliate or extenuate this fact; we may even excuse it on the ground
that the State had drifted into anarchy; that only he, as the stronger
man, could save England; that there was no other course open to him as a
patriot; and that it was a most fortunate thing for England that he
seized the reins, and became a tyrant to put down anarchies. But
whatever were the excuses by which Cromwell justified himself, or his
admirers justify him, let us not deny the facts. It may have been
necessary, under his circumstances, to reign alone, by the aid of his
standing army. But do not attempt to gloss over the veritable fact that
he did reign without the support of Parliament, and in defiance of all
constitutional authorities. It was not the nation which elevated him to
supreme power, but his soldiers. At no time would any legitimate
Parliament, or any popular voice, have made him an absolute ruler. He
could not even have got a plebiscitum, as Louis Napoleon did. He was not
liked by the nation at large,--not even by the more enlightened and
conservative of the Puritans, such as the Presbyterians; and as for the
Episcopalians, they looked upon him not only as a usurper but as a
hypocrite.
It is difficult to justify such an act as usurpation and military
tyranny by the standard of an immutable morality. If the overturning of
all constitutional authority by a man who professed to be a reformer,
yet who reigned illegally as a despot, can be defended, it is only on
the principle of expediency, that the end justifies the means,--the plea
of the Jesuits, and of all the despots who have overturned constitutions
and national liberties. But this is rank and undisguised Caesarism. The
question then arises, Was it necessary that a Caesar should reign at
Hampton Court? Some people think it was; and all admit that after the
execution of the King there was no settled government, nothing but
bitter, intolerant factions, each of which wished its own ascendency,
and all were alike unscrupulous. Revolution ever creates factions and
angry parties, more or less violent. It is claimed by many that a good
government was impossible with these various and contending parties, and
that nothing but anarchy would have existed had not Cromwell seized the
reins, and sustained himself by a standing army, and ruled despotically.
Again, others think that he was urged by a pressure which even he could
not resist,--that of the army; that he was controlled by circumstances;
that he could do no otherwise unless he resigned England to her
fate,--to the anarchy of quarrelling and angry parties, who would not
listen to reason, and who were too inexperienced to govern in such
stormy times. The Episcopalians certainly, and the Presbyterians
probably, would have restored Charles II.,--and this Cromwell regarded
as a great possible calamity. If the King had been restored, all the
fruit of the revolution would have been lost; there would have been a
renewed reign of frivolities, insincerities, court scandals, venalities,
favorites, and disguised Romanism,--yea, an alliance would have been
formed with the old tyrants of Europe.
Cromwell was no fool, and he had a great insight into the principles on
which the stability and prosperity of a nation rested. He doubtless felt
that the nation required a strong arm at the helm, and that no one could
save England in such a storm but himself. I believe he was sincere in
this conviction,--a conviction based on profound knowledge of men and
the circumstances of the age. I believe he was willing to be aspersed,
even by his old friends, and heartily cursed by his enemies, if he could
guide the ship of state into a safe harbor. I am inclined to believe
that he was patriotic in his intentions; that he wished to save the
country even, if necessary, by illegal means; that he believed there was
a higher law _for him_, and that an enlightened posterity would
vindicate his name and memory. He was not deceived as to his abilities,
even if he were as to his call. He knew he was the strongest man in
England, and that only the strongest could rule. He was willing to
assume the responsibility, whatever violence he should do to his early
principles, or to the opinions of those with whom he was at first
associated. If there was anything that marked the character of Cromwell,
it was the abiding sense, from first to last, of his personal
responsibility to God Almighty, whose servant and instrument he felt
himself to be. I believe he was loyal to his conscience, if not to his
cause. He may have committed grave errors, for he was not infallible. It
may have been an error that he ruled virtually without a Parliament,
since it was better that a good measure should be defeated than that the
cause of liberty should be trodden under foot. It was better that
parliaments should wrangle and quarrel than that there should be no
representation of the nation at all. And it was an undoubted error to
transmit his absolute authority to his son, for this was establishing a
new dynasty of kings. One of the worst things which Napoleon ever did
was to seat his brothers on the old thrones of Europe. Doubtless,
Cromwell wished to perpetuate the policy of his government, but he had
no right to perpetuate a despotism in his own family: that was an insult
to the nation and to the cause of constitutional liberty. Here he was
selfish and ambitious, for, great as he was, he was not greater than the
nation or his cause.
But I need not dwell on the blunders of Cromwell, if we call them by no
harsher name. It would be harsh to judge him for his mistakes or sins
under his peculiar circumstances, his hand in the execution of Charles
I., his Jesuitical principles, his cruelties in Ireland, his dispersion
of parliaments, and his usurpation of supreme power. Only let us call
things by their right names; we gain nothing by glossing over defects.
The historians of the Bible tell us how Abraham told lies to the King of
Egypt, and David caused Uriah to be slain after he had appropriated his
wife. Yet who were greater and better, upon the whole, than these
favorites of Heaven?
Cromwell earned his great fame as one of the wisest statesmen and ablest
rulers that England ever had. Like all monarchs, he is to be judged by
the services he rendered to civilization. He was not a faultless man,
but he proved himself a great benefactor. Whether we like him or not, we
are compelled to admit that his administration was able and beneficent,
and that he seemed to be actuated by a sincere desire to do all the good
he could. If he was ambitious, his ambition was directed to the
prosperity and glory of his country. If he levied taxes without the
consent of the nation, he spent the money economically, wisely, and
unselfishly. He sought no inglorious pomps; he built no expensive
palaces; he gave no foolish fetes; nor did he seek to disguise his
tyranny by amusing or demoralizing the people, like the old Roman
Caesars. He would even have established a constitutional monarchy, had
it been practicable. The plots of royalists tempted him to appoint
major-generals to responsible situations. To protect his life, he
resorted to guards. He could not part with his power, but he used it for
the benefit of the nation. If he did not reign by or through the people,
he reigned _for_ the people. He established religious liberty, and
tolerated all sects but Catholics and Quakers. The Presbyterians were
his enemies, but he never persecuted them. He had a great regard for
law, and appointed the ablest and best men to high judicial positions.
Sir Matthew Hale, whom he made chief-justice, was the greatest lawyer in
England, an ornament to any country. Cromwell made strenuous efforts to
correct the abuses of the court of chancery and of criminal law. He
established trial by jury for political offences. He tried to procure
the formal re-admission of the Jews to England. He held conferences with
George Fox. He snatched Biddle, the Socinian, from the fangs of
persecutors. He fostered commerce and developed the industrial resources
of the nation, like Burleigh and Colbert. He created a navy, and became
the father of the maritime greatness of England. He suppressed all
license among the soldiers, although his power rested on their loyalty
to him. He honored learning and exalted the universities, placing in
them learned men. He secured the union between England and Scotland, and
called representatives from Scotland to his parliaments. He adopted a
generous policy with the colonies in North America, and freed them from
rapacious governors. His war policy was not for mere aggrandizement. He
succeeded Gustavus Adolphus as the protector of Protestantism on the
Continent. He sought to make England respected among all the nations;
and, as righteousness exalts a nation, he sought to maintain public
morality. His court was simple and decorous; he gave no countenance to
levities and follies, and his own private life was pure and
religious,--so that there was general admiration of his conduct as well
as of his government.
Cromwell was certainly very fortunate in his régime. The army and navy
did wonders; Blake and Monk gained great victories; Gibraltar was
taken,--one of the richest prizes that England ever gained in war. The
fleets of Spain were destroyed; the trade of the Indies was opened to
his ships. He maintained the "balance of power." He punished the African
pirates of the Mediterranean. His glory reached Asia, and extended to
America. So great was his renown that the descendants of Abraham, even
on the distant plains of Asia, inquired of one another if he were not
the servant of the King of Kings, whom they were looking for. A learned
Rabbi even came from Asia to London for the purpose of investigating his
pedigree, thinking to discover in him the "Lion of the tribe of Judah."
If his policy had been followed out by his successors, Louis XIV. would
not have dared to revoke the Edict of Nantes; if he had reigned ten
years longer, there would have been no revival of Romanism. I suppose
England never had so enlightened a monarch. He was more like Charlemagne
than Richelieu. Contrast him with Louis XIV., a contemporaneous despot:
Cromwell devoted all his energies to develop the resources of his
country, while Louis did what he could to waste them; Cromwell's reign
was favorable to the development of individual genius, but Louis was
such an intolerable egotist that at the close of his reign all the great
lights had disappeared; Cromwell was tolerant, Louis was persecuting;
Cromwell laid the foundation of an indefinite expansion, Louis sowed the
seeds of discontent and revolution. Both indeed took the sword,--the one
to dethrone the Stuarts, the other to exterminate the Protestants.
Cromwell bequeathed to successors the moral force of personal virtue,
Louis paved the way for the most disgraceful excesses; Cromwell spent
his leisure hours with his family and with divines, Louis with his
favorites and mistresses; Cromwell would listen to expostulations, Louis
crushed all who differed from him. The career of the former was a
progressive rise, that of the latter a progressive fall. The ultimate
influence of Cromwell's policy was to develop the greatness of England;
that of Louis, to cut the sinews of national wealth, and poison those
sources of renovation which still remained. The memory of Cromwell is
dear to good men in spite of his defects; while that of Louis, in spite
of his graces and urbanities, is a watchword for all that is repulsive
in despotism. Hence Cromwell is more and more a favorite with
enlightened minds, while Louis is more and more regarded as a man who
made the welfare of the State subordinate to his own glory. In a word,
Cromwell feared only God; while Louis feared only hell. The piety of the
one was lofty; that of the other was technical, formal, and pharisaical.
The chief defect in the character of Cromwell was his expediency, or
what I call _jesuitism_,--following out good ends by questionable means;
the chief defect in the character of Louis was an absorbing egotism,
which sacrificed everything for private pleasure or interest.
The difficulty in judging Cromwell seems to me to be in the imperfection
of our standards of public morality. We are apt to excuse in a ruler
what we condemn in a private man. If Oliver Cromwell is to be measured
by the standard which accepts expediency as a guide in life, he will be
excused for his worst acts. If he is to be measured by an immutable
standard, he will be picked to pieces. In regard to his private life,
aside from cant and dissimulation, there is not much to condemn, and
there is much to praise. He was not a libertine like Henry IV., nor an
egotist like Napoleon. He delighted in the society of the learned and
the pious; he was susceptible to grand sentiments; he was just in his
dealings and fervent in his devotions. He was liberal, humane, simple,
unostentatious, and economical. He was indeed ambitious, but his
ambition was noble.