'the Insurrection in the West was bold and dangerous in
itself, and had in all likelihood increased to great Numbers
of Horse and Foot by the conjunction of others of their own
party, besides such Foreign forces, as in case of their
success, and seizing upon some place of Strength, were to
have landed in those parts, had they not been prevented by
the motion of some troops, and diligence of the officers,
in apprehending divers of that Party a few days before; and
also been closely pursued by some of our Forces, and in the
conclusion supprest by a handful of men, through the great
goodness of God.'
As Charles had not at his disposal a single ship, or one soldier in the
pay of any foreign Power, the possibility of a foreign invasion needs no
disproof. And how did Cromwell deal with his enemies at home? Shortly
before the rising of the 11th of March, troops were undoubtedly moved
about in Wiltshire: their course can be traced from day to day. As the
Protector, according to his habit, bases his statements as far as he
can, on facts, so far we can agree with him. But as certainly as they
were marched about, Cromwell's soldiers were marched not towards, but
away from Salisbury.
During the latter part of February, Major Butler, the officer in charge
over Wiltshire, wrote to Thurloe, telling him that as Bristol was in 'a
peaceable state,' the Major intended to leave that city. He did so: just
eleven days before the outbreak he was on the march to his central
station, at Marlborough, when a messenger from the Protector, summoned
him back to Bristol. Butler was, in consequence, detained there, whilst
the event took place; nor did he reach Salisbury until the third day
after the insurgents had left the town. Cromwell knew what he was about:
on the very Sunday when Wagstaff took possession of Salisbury, Cromwell
occupied Chichester by horsemen, sent there at daybreak; and he
dispatched a warning to Portsmouth, that 'some desperate design was on
foot.' But he kept his soldiers away from Salisbury. He took this
course, although he knew that Salisbury Plain had been named as a
Levellers' rendezvous; and although he had received a report, about
three weeks before the 11th of March, from an officer sent to Salisbury
on police duty, 'that it would be convenient for some horse to be
quartered hereabouts,'[46] because the Royalists in the neighbourhood
were restless.
And Cromwell himself proves why Major Butler was detained at Bristol:
for when he did reach the scene of the revolt, though the insurgents had
been two days at large in the neighbourhood, and were disbanding,
drifting aimlessly towards Devonshire, Butler was withheld from active
operations by orders from Whitehall. He was directed to keep at a
distance from the insurgents for fear of a mishap. This is shown by the
opening words of Butler's letter of remonstrance to the Protector. 'Now,
my Lord,' Butler wrote, 'though I know it would be of sad consequence if
we assaulting them should be worsted,' still, he pleaded with much
earnestness that he, under 'the good providence of The Lord' would
assuredly be successful. So palpably absurd it was to suppose that his
four troops of horsemen could not make short work of that undisciplined,
badly armed, and disheartened band of men, that Butler declared, that he
could not 'with any confidence stay' here at Salisbury, 'nor look the
country in the face, and let them alone.''[47]
The Protector, however, was resolute. Butler was forced to let the enemy
alone; and, after four days' delay, they yielded at South Molton to one
troop of horse sent after them from Weymouth. Thus it was Cromwell, and
not Butler, as was surmised by a contemporary observer, who kept his
troopers 'at a distance in the rear' of the Royalists, 'to give them an
opportunity of increasing.'[48]
With this suspicion afloat, and Major Butler unable 'to look the country
in the face,' Cromwell felt that to ascribe the suppression of
Wagstaff's attempt mainly to the 'close' pursuit of the enemy 'by some
of Our Forces,' would hardly suffice. He accordingly also attributed
that happy result 'to the goodness of God,' and to 'the diligence of the
officers in apprehending some of the party.' In this statement Cromwell
made some approach to the truth. Butler had been diligent; and though he
failed to seize Douthwait, that mysterious 'principal verb', still,
during the last two weeks of February, he did arrest suspects in the
West of England, but none within the district round Salisbury.[49]
Wagstaff and his comrades were undisturbed, whilst preparing for their
attempt. Nor is it an unfounded assumption, if their security is
attributed to the same influence which sanctioned Wagstaff's repair to
the rendezvous, and which protected him from Major Butler's horsemen.
Having thus dealt with that 'bold and dangerous insurrection in the
West,' Cromwell turned northward, and took in hand that rather vague
affair at Marston Moor, on which, as he asserted, 'the enemy most
relied.' His account of that event was, that the Royalists who met there
dispersed and ran away in confusion, partly because of a failure among
the plotters; but also, 'in respect that Our Forces, by their marching
up and down in the country, and some of them providentially, at that
time, removing their Quarters, near to the place of Rendezvous, gave
them no opportunity to reassemble.' Again, Cromwell is, to a certain
extent, correct. Divided counsels did keep one of the principal
Yorkshire Royalists from the meeting, and he may have had followers;
and others were stayed, when on the march, by a timely warning that they
were on a fool's errand. But the assertion, that the Royalists were
dispersed by a providential movement of troops, and by 'Our Forces
marching up and down' Yorkshire, is utterly false. And, as before, the
witness against Cromwell is one of Cromwell's servants. An officer,
responsible for the peace of Yorkshire, reported to his chief in London
regarding himself and his comrades, that 'notwithstanding all our
frequent alarums from London of the certainty of this plot, carried on
with such secrecy on the traitor's part, though we were upon duty, and
in close quarters, we had no positive notice of it till the day was
past.' And no other soldiers were in that neighbourhood during the night
of the 8th of March. The only martial display that the occasion called
forth, was the march of two troops of horsemen into York about three or
four days subsequently; and the officer in command reported that if more
men were wanted, they must be drawn from Durham, Newark, or Hull.[50]
Thus it was that Cromwell dealt with 'the Insurrection of Yorkshire.' If
the Royalists had, in truth, 'reckoned on 8000 in the North,' or if York
had been in danger, soldiers, and not 'alarums' would have been sent
into Yorkshire. Nor was he mistaken in deeming that the Royalists relied
most on that attempt. Hoping to find a large gathering of Levellers in
arms against the Protector, many of the principal Yorkshire landowners,
of higher rank and more influential than poor Penruddock or any of his
comrades, met that night on Marston Moor. And probably it was owing to
their social position, that the trick was not fully played out, and
that, sorely to Cromwell's disappointment, they saved their lives.
Besides the insurrectionary displays at Salisbury and Marston Moor, it
was arranged that on the 8th of March similar symptoms should appear in
various other places, to create the idea that 'the Design was great and
general.' Cromwell was accordingly able to declare that 'the coming of
300 foot from Berwick' dispersed 'those who had rendezvoused near
Morpeth to surprise Newcastle:'--that in North Wales and Shropshire,
where they intended to surprise Shrewsbury, 'some of the chief persons
being apprehended, the rest fled:'--and that, 'at Rufford Abbey, Notts,
was another rendezvous, where about 500 horse met, and had with them a
cart load of horse-arms, to arm such as should come to them; but upon a
sudden, a great Fear fell upon them,' and they, also, dispersed
themselves, and 'cast their arms into the pond.' Nor did the Protector
omit to describe the action of 'other smaller Parties,' also in motion
during the night of the 8th of March, who, 'as in the Town of Chester
designed the surprise of the Castle there, but they, failing in their
expectations, were discouraged for that time.' 'And thus by the goodness
of God, these hidden works of darkness' were discovered. 'Fear' was 'put
into the hearts' of the cruel and bloody enemy, and their great and most
dangerous design was 'defeated, and brought to nothing.'
The depositions on which Cromwell based his description of the minor
passages of the Insurrection are all mere informers' tales, none rising
above the inanity of the story of a tobacco-pipe-maker's attack on
Chester Castle, of which more anon; and, from Carlyle's point of view,
this sample of Thurloe's papers might assuredly be classed among 'human
stupidities.' But Carlyle has overlooked the fact, that to Cromwell
these depositions were an important element in his government, and were
worked up into his speeches and the 'Declaration of October 1655. Hence
the greater the absurdity of those documents, the greater their
historical importance, as showing, not only how the Royalists were
duped, and how Cromwell duped his subjects, but also that the tricks of
his trepanners were so clumsy that, almost without exception' no
Cavaliers of any standing were drawn into the Protector's game.
An apt example of the kind of evidence on which Cromwell based his
statements, and also a comical illustration of his propensity to cling
to fact in the midst of fraud, is afforded by that alleged 'rendezvous'
of Royalists 'to surprise Newcastle.' If his spies are to be believed,
presumably with that object, on the 8th of March, 'about 3 score and 10
horsemen armed with swords and pistols' met by night 'at a place called
Duddo;' and then vanished, not, however, for fear 'of 300 foot coming
from Berwick,' but because the conspirators were warned 'that there was
300 sail of ships come into Newcastle, for fear of whom they durst not
fall upon Newcastle at that time.' Much in the same way, and during the
same night, a party of Royalist gentlemen and their servants, repaired
to the inn on Rufford Abbey Green; and a real cart was driven to the
door containing 'horse-arms,' fifty-six pair of pistols, two buff coats,
two suits of arms, &c., and was then driven away, and the party broke
up. So far the Protector's words are verified by the very full
information that Thurloe collected regarding the Rufford Abbey incident;
but if to the conspirators therein specifically mentioned, a large
addition be made for 'divers unnamed gentlemen,' seen 'coming in and
going out of the inn-door,' the plotters cannot be rated at much above
20, instead of at Cromwell's 500.
The Protector's concluding statements may be briefly disposed of.
Shrewsbury Castle was to have been taken by 'two men in the apparel of
gentlewomen,' acting in combination with their comrades, 'in certain
alehouses near unto the said castle;' and the determined purpose of
these plotters may be tested by the temper of their ringleader, who
urged his recruits to appear at the rendezvous, but refused for his
part, to join with them, 'because his wife was not well.'[51] The
Shropshire insurrection was, indeed, of so visionary a nature, that
zealous Commissary Reynolds could not manipulate it into any definite
shape. Though sent to Shrewsbury that he might develop the existence of
'a general plot of the malignants' in the West of England, he entirely
failed. And so annoyed was he at his failure, that he suggests to
Thurloe, that it would 'not to be unfit to make' the malignants 'speak
forcibly, by tying matches, or some kind of pain, whereby they may be
made to discover the plot;' and as he re-urges his craving to inflict
torture on his prisoners, the proposal had drawn no disapproval from the
Secretary.[52]
An account of the 'great and signal disappointment, as great as any this
age can produce,' which the 'goodness of God' inflicted upon that
'smaller party,' 'who' according to Cromwell, 'designed the surprise of
the castle' of Chester, forms an appropriate close to this portion of
our narrative. An 'exceeding poor' dupe, Francis Pickering, tells the
story, and the duper was a Colonel Worthing. After enticing Pickering
into the plot by assurances of a general rising against the Protector,
on the night of the 8th of March, Worthing announced that his part in
the design 'was principally to surprise the Castle of Chester;' and as
related by Pickering, while he and the Colonel remained quietly at home.
'Accordingly that night three or four went, sent by Col.
Worthing' to seize the Castle: they were all inhabitants of
Chester, and one of them is commonly known by the name of
Alexander, the tobacco-pipe-maker. These persons brought
back word to Col. Worthing that at the place where they
intended to raise a ladder to surprise the Castle, they
heard a sentinel walk and cough. At which report Col.
Worthing was very much startled! and sent them back again to
seize any other convenient place; and they brought back word
that they had centinels walking.'[53]
No third attempt was made by Mr. Alexander and his friends; and next day
Pickering was told by Worthing 'that he was much troubled, for that he
could not contrive how to take said Castle;' and, in due time, Pickering
found himself in custody.
In singular contrast to the vague and absurd stories told by 'exceeding
poor' and foolish men, such as Mr. Pickering and his fellow plotters,
are the numerous and positive assurances that Cromwell received from his
own officers, that all was well with England both before, during, and
after the Insurrection of March 1655. Headed by Thurloe, they are all
unanimous in reporting 'that the nation was much more ready to rise
against, than for Charles Stuart;' that, in the town of Leeds, 'not
thirty men were disaffected to the present Government;' and that 'there
was no design on foot' even in 'the most corrupt and rotten places of
the Nation,' such as Hampshire, Dorsetshire, Kent, and the Eastern
Counties. From Bristol to York all was quiet, or wished to be so, during
February, March, and April, 1655.[54]
Further illustration of this statement is needless. For, if Cromwell had
thought otherwise, even though he might in his wisdom have admitted the
Earl of Rochester and his associates into England, he certainly would
not have allowed them to remain here, apparently as long as they chose,
after their enterprise was over. That the Protector gave them this
freedom of action is made singularly clear by the Thurloe Papers': they
contain repeated indications of the 'whereabouts' of the Earl of
Rochester, the leader of the revolt. He and Major Armourer did not,
after the Marston Moor failure, fly to the coast, or seek separate
hiding-places. They journeyed together, with two servants, leisurely
through England towards London: and to guard his safety, Rochester would
not disturb his bedtime, or his dinner-hour. After the outbreak, people
were naturally anxious to pick up what they could, by arresting 'the
great ones.' Of these, Rochester was the greatest; and he and Armourer
were arrested at Aylesbury. The resident magistrate gave a warrant to
the constable, desiring him to keep safely the bodies of the Earl and
his three companions, 'in the name of my Lord Protector.' The warrant
was acted upon; the prisoners evidently were 'persons of great quality.'
Yet somehow, both magistrate and constable left the Earl and the Major
in charge of the innkeeper 'where they lay;' and naturally enough, 'when
the constable came in the morning, he found that the innkeeper had let
the two chiefs escape,' taking with them 'all their rich apparel.'[55]
Had this been merely a sample of Aylesbury carelessness, the incident
need not have been noticed. But the example of the magistrate and
constable was followed by Cromwell. Although the escape of Rochester and
Armourer was promptly known, and their course was closely tracked, and
though Cromwell was informed where they might be found, they 'wrote very
comfortably from London;' and they endeavoured 'to lay the foundation of
some new design.' And at last, as if he were an ordinary traveller,
sending his servants before him, Rochester left England for the
Continent, having been a resident here for about five months; and the
latter part of his stay in England was a season of extraordinary
severity against the Royalists. In like manner, every one of his
thirteen comrades returned 'weekly without difficulty' to their King's
presence, apparently at their pleasure; whilst Cromwell's continental
informers repeated their warnings that 'Day, the Clerk of the Passage,'
is 'a rogue,' and that if the Protector had 'been ruled' by them 'all
these had not escaped.'[56]
In this matter, and indeed throughout his connection with the
Insurrection of March 1655, Cromwell was not his own master. The
conditions under which he obtained the espial of one of the King's most
trusted friends, and a member of the 'Sealed Knot,' formed a complete
protection to the Earl of Rochester and his associates. Nor for his own
sake could he touch those conspirators. Their seizure would have
disclosed the fact, that 'persons in the very bosom of our enemies' gave
him 'intelligence;' and hence, if 'he once discovered the grounds, he
would destroy the intelligence.'[57] Anyhow, it is evident that Cromwell
could with entire safety allow his most determined enemies to remain in
England, and lay foundations for new projects against him.
Having seen Cromwell's conspirators safe home again, tribute must be
paid to his amazing dexterity. The Prince of Wire-Pullers, he made his
puppets perform what part he chose. Some jerked the royal doll Charles,
against his liking, from Cologne to Middleburg, and some warned him to
keep quiet, and others seemed to fight against the manager of the show,
though in reality they fought in his behalf: all played Cromwell's game,
whilst they thought they were playing their own; and even the most
innocent outsiders were pressed into his service. With comic audacity he
assured his audience that the more trivial was the scene at Salisbury,
the more they ought to recognize its dramatic force. 'Observe,' he said,
'when this Attempt was made--it was made when nothing but a well-formed
Power could hope to put us into disorder. Do you think that' such a
company of mean fellows 'would have attacked Us, if they had not been
supported by vast unseen forces behind the scenes.'[58] With what cruel
craft, but seeming indifference, the artful old showman treated his
manikins! He cut off the heads of some amongst those who responded most
vigorously to his touch; whilst others, not less free upon the wire,
were carefully packed up, and sent home safe. By seizing and boxing up
in the Tower mere bystanders, wholly unconcerned in the sport, he made
his 'little tin soldiers' fancy that he did not see their antics. The
only hitch in his 'knavish piece of work' arose when, too assured, he
placed upon the boards a real live judge, who refused to take the bench
in the manager's sham Court of Justice. In every other respect the
mystery play was a complete success; everybody was puzzled, players,
spectators, and the gentlemen of the press; not one even guessed at the
true meaning of the performance; though a few 'men of wicked spirits'
would try to peep behind the curtain. But they never found him out; they
all danced to Cromwell's tune, but none discovered that the pipe they
heard was in their Protector's mouth. Even Ludlow, with all the
proverbial opportunities of a bystander, though most anxious to know his
great opponent's game, never guessed that he had patched up the
Insurrection of March 1655, from the beginning to the end.
And such was Cromwell's power of deception, that though dead, he still
deceived; his works did follow him, as he desired, out of sight. He
seems to have anticipated that the records of his detective department
might remain as a witness against him, and to have cast over the
'Thurloe Papers' a spell, that has hitherto rendered them invisible. For
nearly 150 years these evidences of his 'hidden works of darkness' have
been before the world; but Cromwell has preserved his secret; he has
humbugged every historian as effectually as he hoodwinked his
contemporaries. The 'Thurloe Papers' were published in 1742, well
edited and indexed; they contain the documents which Cromwell himself
read and handled, the notes of his speeches, the information of his
spies, the letters of his enemies and of his clerks. Though called after
Thurloe, those papers are, in fact, Cromwell's own. Yet such is the
glamour that he has cast over all that has approached him, that they
have accepted his words without question, or, if they have read his
writings, they have read them according to his inspiration.
Yet there was much even in that Insurrection itself to arouse suspicion.
Cromwell, in January 1655, assured his Parliament that he had crushed
the various conspiracies which were then on foot against him, all most
'real dangers,' and that he had disarmed and rendered powerless those
conspirators; yet within six weeks they had organized a universal
revolt, and had secreted stores of arms and ammunition all over England.
This universal revolt broke out at Salisbury, 'bold and dangerous'; and
it was put down by a single troop of horsemen, after the rebels had
paraded, disheartened and deserted, across England. Except on that
occasion, the vast design was suppressed without the aid of a single
soldier or even a beadle. And, strangely enough, the Protector himself
supplied a hint which might have provoked some curiosity about the
nature of that 'Rebellion.'
For surely it is odd that 'such a terrible Protector this; no getting of
him overset!' should have been compelled to contend with the notorious
and obstinate incredulity of the members of his Parliament regarding the
late attempt to overset him? Yet Cromwell's speech of September 1656 is
pervaded with expressions such as these, regarding the 'bold and
dangerous Insurrection' of March 1655,--'I think the world must know and
acknowledge, that it was a general design,'--'I doubt if it be believed,
that there was any rising,' either in North Wales or at Shrewsbury, or
on Marston Moor, 'at the very time when there was an Insurrection at
Salisbury'--' therefore, how men of wicked spirits may traduce Us in
that matter--I leave it!'[59] Surely 'sluggish mortals, saved from
destruction,' not caused by secret agencies, but from an actual
'Rebellion,' which threatened to bring every one of them into 'blood and
confusion,' need not be required to believe in the very existence of so
great and conspicuous a danger!
And Cromwell felt that he could not afford to leave that 'matter'
untouched. A suspicion was prevalent, during the whole of Cromwell's
reign, that plots were manufactured to suit his purposes. He knew that
full well; he knew also the danger of such a suspicion. The surmises of
the 'men of wicked spirits,' were those 'half tales,' that 'be truths.'
It had been hoped that such a 'real plot' as 'the late Insurrection,'
would give that suspicion a quietus. When it was safely transacted,
Thurloe and his associates congratulated each other over that hope.[60]
But it was not fulfilled. Hence arises the tone of angered honesty,
which Cromwell so repeatedly assumed when he addressed his Parliament,
and Carlyle's indignant protest--'What a position for a hero, to be
reduced continually to say he does not lie!'
But what was Cromwell's motive in the fabrication of this Insurrection
of March, 1655? It was not, as might be suggested, a device to thwart by
a premature explosion, a dangerous conspiracy during a critical moment
in the Protectorate. Cromwell himself asserts in his 'Declaration,' that
'this Attempt was made, when nothing but a well-formed Power could hope
to put Us into disorder; Scotland and Ireland being perfectly reduced;
Differences with most Neighbour Nations composed; our Forces, both by
Sea and Land, in order and consistency.' Nay, he artfully converted the
very security of his Government into a proof that 'the pretended King'
would not have sent over his servants, and that the Royalists would not
'have actually risen' at Salisbury, had the insurrection been other than
'a general design,' based on a vast secret organization. No one in all
England possessed more certain knowledge, than did Cromwell, that such
was not the case, and that he could not plead in his behalf the poor
excuse, that the Nation as a Nation needed a severe lesson, or that it
was to save England from civil war that he had sacrificed the lives of
those fourteen victims of his deception, and consigned that band of
seventy or eighty Englishmen to the horrors of West Indian slavery.
But if Cromwell could not claim that excuse, what then was his motive?
Dark as was the light within him, he was not in such utter darkness as
to encompass himself about with written, spoken, and acted lies merely
to gratify caprice, or that he might indulge in causeless cruelty. His
motive was a very simple one. He was forced to obey his servant, the
Army. The men whom he had made, and who had made him, demanded a visible
share in the power and profit that he enjoyed. Reverting to the autumn
of 1654, much had then occurred to disquiet the Army. Cromwell had taken
a distinct step towards Kingship, by attempting to persuade Parliament
to make the Protectorate hereditary. Parliament had made a distinct
movement towards a large reduction in the Army and Navy. If rumour be
evidence, there was, during November, 'a great division in the army.'
And it is certain that, at the close of that month, Cromwell and his
military men came to terms. At a meeting held in St. James's Palace, the
staff of the army agreed 'to live and die with Cromwell.'[61] And a
train of events, occurring in direct sequence after that meeting, proves
that it was at this conjuncture that Cromwell agreed to parcel out his
Protectorship among the leading officers of the Army. Parliament was
dissolved 22nd January, 1655, on the pretext that under its shadow,
conspiracy and discontent had thriven; and Cromwell gave an alarming
account of the 'real dangers,' of imminent insurrection and anarchy,
that threatened England. That speech was the prologue; then came the
tragedy itself, the Insurrection of March, 1655; then came its
consequence, the appointment of the Major-Generals. And in the end, the
reason why they were appointed, was brought to light by a state of
affairs, very identical with that which had raised them to power.
Cromwell had renewed the attempt that he had made in the autumn of 1654,
and in his quest after Kingship he had come, during February 1657,
almost within sight of the throne. Again the army officers interfered;
and again Cromwell was forced to meet them face to face; to receive, on
this occasion, their protest against his acceptance of the Crown. He
made a compromise as he had done before; but in speech, he was not
conciliatory. If the Protectorate had been a failure, he told his former
comrades, it was their fault. It was they, and not he who had governed;
as for himself, 'they had made him their drudge upon all occasions: to
dissolve the Long Parliament,' and 'to call a Parliament or Convention
of their naming,' which proved so unsuccessful; and then another
Parliament, alike in unsuccess; and he concluded that catalogue of their
untoward interferences with his government, by reminding his hearers
that they thought it was necessary to have Major-Generals; adding that
so they 'might have gone on,' if they had not insisted on his calling
the Parliament of 1656, against his will, which had given them 'a
foil.'[62]
That speech is the most exceptional, in some respects the most
important, of all Cromwell's speeches. Spoken if not 'in haste,'
certainly 'out of the fulness of the heart,' that is caused by anger, it
is, though unusually brief, delightfully incautious. Being addressed to
men who could not well be deceived, the speech must be true, at least so
far as they are concerned, in every particular; it does not contain a
single appeal to God; and of no other among Cromwell's speeches, are the
original MS. notes in existence. This speech, of the utmost historic
importance, is essentially unheroic in tone and circumstance,--the
querulous complaint of a master against servants who have overmastered
him,--an assertion of supremacy made by a man, who felt that he was not
really supreme. But the singularity that attends the address to the
recalcitrant officers is not yet exhausted. Surprise may well be felt
that Carlyle, with this speech before him, ventured on the construction
of his false image of Cromwell, the Hero. Judged even as an ordinary
ruler, he must have been a very sorry Protector who, according to his
own showing, was only a sham supreme magistrate,--the minister, the
'drudge,' of his servants but real masters--who had compelled him to
call, and to dissolve Parliaments, and to impose on England those
military despots.
Carlyle has endowed his ideal Protector 'with the virtue to create
belief,' by the force of self-assertion, which still finds its
imitators, by pouring out contempt on all who differ from him, and by
implying that, as all other Cromwellian authorities are 'stupidities and
falsities,' he alone was wise and true. This was but a risky basis on
which to exhibit 'this Oliver' to the world, as the noblest Hero 'among
the noblest of Human Heroisms, this English Puritanism of ours,' and as
'not a Man of falsehoods, but a Man of truths.' But reading over these
words, and calling to mind the confidence with which Carlyle compels all
to join with him in his Cromwell-worship, it is impossible to resist the
conviction, that it was with good faith that he could see in Cromwell
'the glimpses,' even the revelation 'of the god-like,' and that he would
not attend to aught that disclosed Cromwell 'not' as 'august and divine,
but hypocritical, pitiable, detestable.' Even though he claimed a
familiar acquaintance with the 'Thurloe Papers,' he must have been
ignorant, it is impossible to think otherwise, of the black stories
which Cromwell's 'expertest of secretaries' could publish against his
master.
And passing from the worshipper to the Idol; surely it is but in
accordance with common sense and common charity to hope that, as with
Carlyle, so also with his Oliver, the real Cromwell was wholly shrouded
from Cromwell's sight. That hope might, indeed, be forbidden by some. It
might be argued that, although many a wrong-doing, such as bloodshed,
oppression, or even treachery, has been committed by men in the sincere
belief that they were doing God service, Cromwell cannot be placed among
that group of self-deceivers: that he stands by himself, and on a lower
level. It was to save himself, to propitiate a gang of mutinous
servants, that Cromwell contrived and wrought out the deception of
March, 1655, and obtained in the bloodshed that it produced, the
essential result that he desired. And then, to give validity to his
imposture, to grace it with the Divine sanction, he ascribed his course
of acted and uttered lies, and the cruelty and misery they had
engendered, to God himself.
Undoubtedly that statement is true. But yet on the other hand it may be
pleaded, that nothing but an intense living conviction, that God was
with him in all his ways, could have enabled Cromwell to make 'with
comfort' his 'appeal to God, whether' the Insurrection of March 1655
'hath been the matter of Our Choice' or 'according to Our own
inclinations?'
This is but a sorry plea to urge in Cromwell's behalf. The blackness and
the fury of the storm, which roared across England during his dying
hours, cannot have exceeded the blinding energy of that strong delusion,
that ever drove him onward, through his cruel and crooked devices, fully
persuaded that 'God was even such a one as' himself. Though all may
agree in believing that it was not from the lips, but truly from the
heart--not to cheat his hearers, but in a veritable ecstasy--that
Cromwell claimed to stand before God, as one who 'had learned too much
of God, to dally with him,' still it must be felt, that such an
assertion, coming from such a Protector, reveals a mental condition that
baffles the understanding. But as man, when he shrinks from passing
judgment on another, ever takes the better part; and as even with the
best amongst us, the relation of the soul to God is a question which, of
all others, should not be intermeddled with, assuredly we must leave
Cromwell, whose being is one of 'the deep things of God,' to His
judgment.--'Hell and destruction are before the Lord: how much more then
the hearts of the children of men?'