opinion was not ripe for it. He was far in advance of his
fellow-Englishmen. He described their attitude perfectly, and indeed the
attitude of all Europe, when he remarked: “Every sect saith, Oh, give me
liberty! but, given it and to spare, he will not yield it to anyone
else. Liberty of conscience is a natural right, and he that would have
it ought to give it.... I desire it from my heart; I have prayed for it;
I have watched for the day to see union and right understanding between
the Godly people—Scots, English, Jews, Gentiles, Presbyterians,
Independents, Anabaptists, and all.”
The whole principle of religious toleration is summed up in these brief
sentences. In his higher and better moments, and far more than most men
of his generation, Cromwell tried to live up to them. When Mazarin, the
great French cardinal, in responding to Cromwell’s call for toleration
of the Vaudois, asked toleration for English Catholics, Cromwell
answered, truly, that he had done all he could in face of the hostile
spirit of the people, and more than had before been done in England. Of
course the position of the English Catholics was beyond all comparison
better than that of the Vaudois; but in such a controversy the ugly fact
was that neither side would grant to others what it demanded for itself.
To the most persecuted of all peoples Cromwell did render a signal
service. He connived at the settlement of Jews in London, after having
in vain sought to bring about their open toleration.
[Illustration:
Henry Cromwell,
Son of the Protector, and Governor of Ireland.
From the miniature by S. Cooper at Palmerstown.
By permission of the Earl of Mayo.
]
In Scotland, the rule of the Protector wrought unmixed good. There was
no persecution and no interference with religious liberty, save in so
far as the restraint of persecution and intolerance could itself be
called such. Monk, and Dean, after him, as Cromwell’s lieutenants, did
excellent work, and even cautiously endeavored to mitigate the horrors
of the persecutions for witchcraft—for these horrible manifestations of
superstition were then in full force in Scotland, even more than in
either old or New England.
On the whole, then, England and Scotland fared well under Oliver
Cromwell—“Old Noll,” as he was affectionately called by his mainstay,
the army. In Ireland, the case was different. Materially, even in
Ireland, the conditions greatly improved during the Protectorate,
because order was rigidly preserved and law enforced; and any system
which secured order and law was bound to bring about a temporary
bettering of conditions when contrasted with the frightful anarchy which
had preceded it. Anarchy always serves simply as the handmaiden of
despotism, as those who bring it about should know. But the religious
element in the Irish problem rendered it insoluble by the means then
adopted for its solution. Cromwell was not responsible for introducing
the methods known by his name. They were the methods then universally in
use by the representatives of every victorious nationality or religion,
in dealing with a beaten foe. The only difference was that Cromwell’s
immense energy and power enabled him to apply them with dreadful
effectiveness.
In England, Cromwell stood for religious toleration, so far as he was
able. Fanatics who thought themselves incarnations of the Saviour, or
prophets of a new dispensation, or who indulged in indecent or seditious
conduct, or who disturbed the public peace by breaking into regular
churches, of course had to be suppressed. Nowadays, most offenders of
this type would be ignored, and, if not, they would simply be arrested
by the police, in the course of the ordinary exercise of the police
power, just as any other disturbers of the peace are arrested. In those
days, however, such offenders would have been punished with death in
Spain, Italy, or Austria; and, indeed, in most continental countries. In
the England of Cromwell, they were merely temporarily imprisoned. The
attitude of mind, both of the public generally and of the best and most
religious people, toward Unitarians, Socinians, and those who would
nowadays be called Free-Thinkers, was purely mediæval; and even Cromwell
could only moderate the persecution to which they were subjected. But
these were minor exceptions. For the majority of the people in England,
there was religious liberty; and for the bulk of the minority, though
there was not complete religious liberty, there was a nearer approach to
it than obtained in Continental Europe.
In Ireland, on the other hand, the public exercise of the faith of the
enormous majority was prohibited, and their religious teachers expelled.
There is a popular belief that under Cromwell all Irishmen were expelled
from three-fourths of the island, and driven into Connaught, their
places being taken by English and Scotch immigrants. While exceedingly
cruel, this would have been an understandable policy, and would have
resulted in the substitution of one race and one creed for another race
and another creed throughout the major part of the island. What was
actually done, however, combined cruelty with ultimate inefficiency; it
caused great immediate suffering, while perpetuating exactly the
conditions against which it was supposed to provide. The Catholic
landholders were, speaking generally, driven into Connaught, and the
priests expelled, while the peasants, laborers, and artisans were left
as they were, but of course deprived of all the leadership which could
give them a lift upward. In Ulster there had been a considerable
substitution of one race for the other, among the actual tillers and
occupiers of the soil. Under Cromwell, the change elsewhere consisted in
the bringing in of alien landlords. In other words, to the already
existing antagonism of race, creed, and speech, was added the antagonism
of caste. The property-holder, the landlord, the man of means, was an
Englishman by race and speech, and a Protestant by faith; while the mass
of the laborers roundabout him were Catholic Celts who spoke Erse. Ultra
admirers of Cromwell and the Puritans have actually spoken as if this
plan, provided only that it had been allowed to work long enough, would
have produced a Puritan Ireland. There was never the remotest chance of
its producing such an effect. The mass of the Irish, when all their
native teachers were removed, did gradually tend to adopt English as
their tongue, but their devotion to their own faith, and their hatred of
English rule, were merely intensified; while the course of the governing
race was such as absolutely to insure the land troubles which have riven
Ireland up to the present day. The very unedifying intolerance of the
Protestant sects toward one another was manifested as strongly in
Cromwell’s time as later. It must be said for him that he did not, like
his successors for generations, shape English policy toward Ireland on
the lines of Spain’s policy toward her own colonies, and oppress the
Protestant descendants of the English in Ireland only less than the
native Irish themselves; but the great central fact remains that his
Irish policy was one of bitter oppression, and that the abhorrence with
which the Irish, to this day, speak of “the curse o’ Crummle,” is
historically justifiable.
It is a relief to turn from the Cromwellian policy in Ireland to the
Cromwellian policy in foreign affairs. England never stood higher in her
relations with the outside world than she stood under Cromwell; a height
all the more noteworthy because it lay between the two abysses marked by
the policy of the earlier and the later Stuart kings. The French
biographer of the great Turenne, du Buisson, Major of the Regiment de
Verdelin, writing in the days of Charles II., when England was despised
rather than hated on the Continent, spoke with a mixture of horror and
fear of Cromwell, as the man who “_après l’attentat le plus énorme dont
on a jamais ouï parler, avoit trouvé le secret de se faire craindre, non
seulement des Anglois, mais encore des Princes voisins_.” This was
written as expressing the attitude of the power with which he was in
alliance, and from it may be gathered how those felt who were opposed to
him.
Cromwell’s strong religious feelings and military instincts, alike bade
him meddle in the policy of the Continent. The era of the great
religious wars was closed. More than a century was to pass before the
era of religious persecution was to cease, but the time had gone by when
one Christian country would try, by force of arms, to conquer another
for the purpose of stamping out its religious belief. Cromwell, however,
did not see this, and he naturally chose as his special opponent the
power which itself was equally blind to the fact—that is, Spain. Beyond
a question, he was influenced partly by the commercial and material
interests of England in the policy he pursued, but the religious motive
was uppermost in his own mind, and he never could get over the feeling
that it ought to be uppermost in the minds of everyone else. The very
able Swedish King, Charles X., was then pursuing the fatal policy of the
Swedish kings of that century, and was endeavoring to conquer territory
at the expense of the Danes and North Germans, instead of establishing,
to the east and southeast of the Baltic, a dominion which could hold its
own against Russia. Cromwell selected the Swede as the natural enemy of
Antichrist, and wished to back him in a general religious war. He was
amusingly irritated with the English, because they would not feel as he
did, and even more with the Dutch, Danes, and Brandenburgers for
declining to let themselves be made the tools of the northern king’s
ambition.
[Illustration:
The Last Charge of the Ironsides.
At the Battle of Dunkirk the Ironsides—as usual singing psalms—charged
the Spanish Cavalry (who were in retreat) and literally cut them to
pieces.
]
The great European struggle of the day, however, was that between Spain
and France, and for some time Cromwell hesitated which side to take. He
has often been blamed for not striking against France, the rising power,
whose then youthful king was at a later day to threaten all Europe, and
only to be held in check by coalitions in which England was the chief
figure. But, though France persecuted the Huguenots more or less, just
as England did the Irish Catholics, she was far more advanced than
Spain, which was the most bigoted and reactionary power of Europe, both
in religion and in politics. The Spanish empire was still very great.
Though her power on sea had gone, on land she had on the whole held her
own against the French armies, and, with England as her ally, she might
for the time being have remained the leading power of the Continent.
This would have been a frightful calamity, and Cromwell was right in
throwing the weight of his sword on the other side of the scale.
His decision enabled him to do one of the most righteous of his many
righteous deeds. It was at this time that the Duke of Savoy, under
ecclesiastical pressure, indulged in dreadful persecutions of the humble
Protestants of the Vaudois valleys; persecutions which called forth the
noblest of Milton’s sonnets. Oliver interfered, with fiery indignation,
on behalf of the Vaudois, threatening that if the persecutions continued
he would not only bring the pressure of the English arms to bear, but
would hire a great force of mercenaries among the Protestant Swiss to
invade the territory of the Duke of Savoy. Largely through the influence
of Mazarin he succeeded in having the wrong partially undone; and later,
in the middle of the operations against the Spanish armies, he again
interfered, effectively, with the Cardinal-Statesman on behalf of his
obscure and helpless co-religionists in the remote mountain valleys.
This action was purely disinterested; and those who are loudest in their
denunciation of Cromwell would do well to remember that, if the European
rulers at the end of the nineteenth century had possessed his capacity
for generous indignation on behalf of the oppressed, the Armenian
massacres either would never have taken place, or would have been
followed by the immediate expulsion of the Turk from Europe.
Oliver’s first contest with the Spaniards was carried on by sea, the
great Puritan Admiral, Blake, winning renown by his victory over the
forts at Santa Cruz, as he had already won renown by the way in which he
crushed the forces of Tunis, and for the first time taught the Moors to
respect English arms. An expedition against San Domingo by Penn and
Venables failed, the English leaders being treacherous and inefficient,
but it resulted in the capture of Jamaica and the founding of English
power in the West Indies. On land, as the result of the convention with
France, the English fleet deprived the Spaniards in the Netherlands of
assistance from the sea, while an English force of 6,000 troops, clad in
the red uniform which has since become distinctive of the British army,
was sent to serve under Turenne. They overthrew the flower of the
Spanish infantry, and won the heartiest praise from the great French
leader. The help given by Cromwell was decisive; the Spaniards were
beaten and forced to make peace. By this peace France became the first
power on the Continent, but a power heartily afraid of England while
Cromwell lived, and obliged to yield him Dunkirk as the price of his
services. The possession of Dunkirk put a complete stop to the piracy
which had ravaged British commerce, and gave to Cromwell a foothold on
the Continent which rendered him able to enforce from his neighbors
whatever consideration the honor and interest of England demanded.
Meanwhile, the tone of his Court was a model of purity and honesty.
Alone among the Courts of Europe in that age, under Cromwell no man
could rise who was profligate in private life, or corrupt in public
life. How he had risen socially is shown by the fact that his remaining
daughters now married into the nobility. His domestic relations were
exceptionally tender and beautiful, and his grief at the loss of his
mother and his favorite daughter—his favorite son was already dead—was
very great. His letters to and about his sons are just what such letters
should be. He explains that he does not grudge them “laudable
recreations nor honorable carriage in them,” nor any legitimate expense,
but that he does emphatically protest against “pleasure and
self-satisfaction being made the business of a man’s life.”
The time had now come, however, when Oliver was to leave alike the
family for whom he had so affectionately cared, and the nation he had
loved and ruled, and go before the God to whom he ever felt himself
accountable. When 1658 opened, peace and order obtained at home, and the
crown had been put to England’s glory abroad by the victories in
Flanders and the cession of Dunkirk. There was not the slightest chance
of Cromwell’s hold on the nation being shaken. So far as human eye could
see, his policy was sure to triumph, as long as he lived; but he was
weakened by his hard and strenuous life, and the fever, by which he had
been harassed during his later campaigns, came on him with renewed
force. Even his giant strength had been overtaxed by the task of ruling
England alone, and, as he conscientiously believed, for her highest
interest. Supreme though his triumph seemed to outsiders, he himself
knew that he had failed to make the effects of this triumph lasting,
though he never seems to have suspected that his failure was due to his
incapacity to subordinate his own imperious will so that he might work
with others. He saw clearly the chaos into which his death would plunge
England, and he did not wish to die; but as he grew weaker he felt that
his hour was come, and surrendered himself to the inevitable.
“I would be willing to live to be further serviceable to God and His
people,” muttered the dying ruler, showing, as ever, his strange mixture
of belief in himself and trust in the Most High; “but my work is done!
Yet God will be with His people!”
September came in with a terrible storm, the like of which had rarely
been known in England, and as it subsided, on September 3d, the day
which had witnessed the victories of Dunbar and Worcester, the soul of
the greatest man who has ruled England, since the days of the Conquest,
passed quietly away.[2]
Footnote 2:
In the queer little weekly paper “The Commonwealth Mercury,” of the
issue “From Thursday September 2d to Thursday September 9th, 1658,”
which contains an account of Cromwell’s death and of his son’s
installation, it happens that there is also an advertisement of a
pamphlet: “A few sighs from Hell, or the Groans of a damned Soul: By
that poor servant of Jesus Christ, John Bunyan.” Cromwell, Milton,
Bunyan—what can non-Puritan England, of their day, show to match these
three names?
With his death came the chaos he had foreseen, though he had not
foreseen that it could be averted only by the substitution of some form
of self-government by the people, for the arbitrary rule of one
man—however great and good that man might be. For a few months his son,
Richard, ruled as Protector in his stead, but, the Protectorate having
become in effect a despotism, it was sure to slip from any but Oliver’s
iron grasp. Richard called a Parliament, but Parliaments had been
hopelessly discredited by Oliver’s method of dealing with them. The army
revolted, forced the dismissal of the Parliament, and then the
abdication of Richard. Richard’s abler brother, Henry, who was governing
Ireland as deputy, resigned also, and the Cromwells passed out of
history.
[Illustration:
Richard Cromwell.
Painter unknown.
By permission of Sir Charles Hartopp, Bart.
]
For some months there was confusion worse confounded, and the whole
nation turned toward Charles II., and the re-establishment of the Stuart
kingship. Monk, the ablest of Cromwell’s generals, a soldier who cared
little for forms of civil government, who had already fought for the
Stuarts against the Parliament, and who would have stood by Richard had
Richard possessed the strength to stand by himself, threw his weight in
favor of the exiled king, and thereby prevented the slightest chance of
opposition. Charles II. returned, greeted with transports of frantic
delight by seemingly almost the whole people.
The King and his followers then took revenge on the dead body of the man
whose living eyes they had never dared to face. The bones of Cromwell,
of his mother, and of Ireton, were disinterred and thrown into a
lime-pit; and the head of the great Protector was placed on a pole over
Westminster Hall, there to stand for twenty years.
The skull of the mighty crown-grasper, before whose untamable soul they
had shuddered in terror, was now set on high as a target for the jeering
mockery of all who sang the praises of the line of libertines and bigots
to whom the English throne had been restored. For twenty-eight shameful
years the Restoration lasted; years of misgovernment and persecution at
home, of weakness abroad, of oppression of the weak, and obsequious
servility to the strong; years when the Court of England—devoid of one
spark of true greatness of any kind—was a scene of tawdry and obscene
frivolity. Then, once again, the principles for which, in the last
analysis, Cromwell and the Puritans stood, triumphed; the Dutch
stadtholder came over the narrow seas to ascend the throne of England;
and once more the current of her national life set toward political,
intellectual, and religious liberty.
Cromwell and the Puritans had gone too far, and the reaction against
them had been so violent that those who called William of Orange into
England dared not invoke the memory of the mighty dead lest they should
hurt the cause of the living. Nevertheless, the Revolution of 1688 was
in reality but the carrying on of the work which had been done in the
middle of the century. James II. could never have been deposed had not
Charles I. been executed. The men of the second Revolution had learned
the moderation which the men of the first had lacked. They were careful
not to kill the king of whom they wished to rid themselves; for though,
by every principle of equity, a tyrant who has goaded his people into
Revolution—like the leader of an unjustifiable rebellion—should suffer
the fate which he has brought on so many others, yet, as a matter of
fact, it is often unwise to treat him as he deserves, because he has
become a symbol to his followers, each of whom identifies himself with
the man whose cause he has been supporting, and in whose name he has
been fighting, and resents, with passionate indignation, any punishment
visited upon his chief as a wrong in which he personally shares. The men
of 1688 were, as a whole, actuated by far less lofty motives than the
men of 1648; but they possessed the inestimable advantages of
common-sense, of moderation, of readiness to accept compromises. They
made no attempt to realize the reign of the saints upon earth; and
therefore they were able to work a permanent betterment in mundane
affairs, and to avoid provoking a violent reaction. William, both by
position and by temper, was far better fitted than great Oliver to
submit to interference with his plans, to get on with representative
bodies of freemen, and to make the best he could out of each situation
as it arose, instead of indignantly setting his own will above law and
above the will of the majority, because for the moment the result might
be better for himself and the nation. Speaker Reed once said, that “in
the long run, the average sense of the many is better for the many than
the best sense of any one man;” and this is undoubtedly true of all
people sufficiently high in the scale to be fit for self-government.
Oliver surely strove to live up to his lights as he saw them. He never
acted in levity, or from mere motives of personal aggrandizement, and he
saw, with sad, piercing eyes, the dangers that rolled around the path he
had chosen. He acted as he did because he conscientiously felt that only
thus could he meet the needs of the nation. He said to the second
Protectorate Parliament: “I am a man standing in the place I am in;
which place I undertook, not so much out of hope of doing any good, as
out of a desire to prevent mischief and evil—which I did see was
imminent on the nation (for we were running along into confusion and
disorder, and would have necessarily run into blood).”
[Illustration:
Exterior of Westminster Hall.
After Charles II. succeeded to the throne, the bones of Cromwell were
disinterred and his head exposed upon a pole over Westminster Hall,
almost on the identical spot where the Cromwell statue, shown in the
right of the drawing, has just been erected.
]