ENGLAND UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL
Before sunset on the memorable day on which King Charles the First was
executed, the House of Commons passed an act declaring it treason in
any one to proclaim the Prince of Wales—or anybody else—King of
England. Soon afterwards, it declared that the House of Lords was
useless and dangerous, and ought to be abolished; and directed that the
late King’s statue should be taken down from the Royal Exchange in the
City and other public places. Having laid hold of some famous Royalists
who had escaped from prison, and having beheaded the Duke Of Hamilton,
Lord Holland, and Lord Capel, in Palace Yard (all of whom died very
courageously), they then appointed a Council of State to govern the
country. It consisted of forty-one members, of whom five were peers.
Bradshaw was made president. The House of Commons also re-admitted
members who had opposed the King’s death, and made up its numbers to
about a hundred and fifty.
But, it still had an army of more than forty thousand men to deal with,
and a very hard task it was to manage them. Before the King’s
execution, the army had appointed some of its officers to remonstrate
between them and the Parliament; and now the common soldiers began to
take that office upon themselves. The regiments under orders for
Ireland mutinied; one troop of horse in the city of London seized their
own flag, and refused to obey orders. For this, the ringleader was
shot: which did not mend the matter, for, both his comrades and the
people made a public funeral for him, and accompanied the body to the
grave with sound of trumpets and with a gloomy procession of persons
carrying bundles of rosemary steeped in blood. Oliver was the only man
to deal with such difficulties as these, and he soon cut them short by
bursting at midnight into the town of Burford, near Salisbury, where
the mutineers were sheltered, taking four hundred of them prisoners,
and shooting a number of them by sentence of court-martial. The
soldiers soon found, as all men did, that Oliver was not a man to be
trifled with. And there was an end of the mutiny.
The Scottish Parliament did not know Oliver yet; so, on hearing of the
King’s execution, it proclaimed the Prince of Wales King Charles the
Second, on condition of his respecting the Solemn League and Covenant.
Charles was abroad at that time, and so was Montrose, from whose help
he had hopes enough to keep him holding on and off with commissioners
from Scotland, just as his father might have done. These hopes were
soon at an end; for, Montrose, having raised a few hundred exiles in
Germany, and landed with them in Scotland, found that the people there,
instead of joining him, deserted the country at his approach. He was
soon taken prisoner and carried to Edinburgh. There he was received
with every possible insult, and carried to prison in a cart, his
officers going two and two before him. He was sentenced by the
Parliament to be hanged on a gallows thirty feet high, to have his head
set on a spike in Edinburgh, and his limbs distributed in other places,
according to the old barbarous manner. He said he had always acted
under the Royal orders, and only wished he had limbs enough to be
distributed through Christendom, that it might be the more widely known
how loyal he had been. He went to the scaffold in a bright and
brilliant dress, and made a bold end at thirty-eight years of age. The
breath was scarcely out of his body when Charles abandoned his memory,
and denied that he had ever given him orders to rise in his behalf. O
the family failing was strong in that Charles then!
Oliver had been appointed by the Parliament to command the army in
Ireland, where he took a terrible vengeance for the sanguinary
rebellion, and made tremendous havoc, particularly in the siege of
Drogheda, where no quarter was given, and where he found at least a
thousand of the inhabitants shut up together in the great church: every
one of whom was killed by his soldiers, usually known as Oliver’s
Ironsides. There were numbers of friars and priests among them, and
Oliver gruffly wrote home in his despatch that these were ‘knocked on
the head’ like the rest.
But, Charles having got over to Scotland where the men of the Solemn
League and Covenant led him a prodigiously dull life and made him very
weary with long sermons and grim Sundays, the Parliament called the
redoubtable Oliver home to knock the Scottish men on the head for
setting up that Prince. Oliver left his son-in-law, Ireton, as general
in Ireland in his stead (he died there afterwards), and he imitated the
example of his father-in-law with such good will that he brought the
country to subjection, and laid it at the feet of the Parliament. In
the end, they passed an act for the settlement of Ireland, generally
pardoning all the common people, but exempting from this grace such of
the wealthier sort as had been concerned in the rebellion, or in any
killing of Protestants, or who refused to lay down their arms. Great
numbers of Irish were got out of the country to serve under Catholic
powers abroad, and a quantity of land was declared to have been
forfeited by past offences, and was given to people who had lent money
to the Parliament early in the war. These were sweeping measures; but,
if Oliver Cromwell had had his own way fully, and had stayed in
Ireland, he would have done more yet.
However, as I have said, the Parliament wanted Oliver for Scotland; so,
home Oliver came, and was made Commander of all the Forces of the
Commonwealth of England, and in three days away he went with sixteen
thousand soldiers to fight the Scottish men. Now, the Scottish men,
being then—as you will generally find them now—mighty cautious,
reflected that the troops they had were not used to war like the
Ironsides, and would be beaten in an open fight. Therefore they said,
‘If we live quiet in our trenches in Edinburgh here, and if all the
farmers come into the town and desert the country, the Ironsides will
be driven out by iron hunger and be forced to go away.’ This was, no
doubt, the wisest plan; but as the Scottish clergy _would_ interfere
with what they knew nothing about, and would perpetually preach long
sermons exhorting the soldiers to come out and fight, the soldiers got
it in their heads that they absolutely must come out and fight.
Accordingly, in an evil hour for themselves, they came out of their
safe position. Oliver fell upon them instantly, and killed three
thousand, and took ten thousand prisoners.
To gratify the Scottish Parliament, and preserve their favour, Charles
had signed a declaration they laid before him, reproaching the memory
of his father and mother, and representing himself as a most religious
Prince, to whom the Solemn League and Covenant was as dear as life. He
meant no sort of truth in this, and soon afterwards galloped away on
horseback to join some tiresome Highland friends, who were always
flourishing dirks and broadswords. He was overtaken and induced to
return; but this attempt, which was called ‘The Start,’ did him just so
much service, that they did not preach quite such long sermons at him
afterwards as they had done before.
On the first of January, one thousand six hundred and fifty-one, the
Scottish people crowned him at Scone. He immediately took the chief
command of an army of twenty thousand men, and marched to Stirling. His
hopes were heightened, I dare say, by the redoubtable Oliver being ill
of an ague; but Oliver scrambled out of bed in no time, and went to
work with such energy that he got behind the Royalist army and cut it
off from all communication with Scotland. There was nothing for it
then, but to go on to England; so it went on as far as Worcester, where
the mayor and some of the gentry proclaimed King Charles the Second
straightway. His proclamation, however, was of little use to him, for
very few Royalists appeared; and, on the very same day, two people were
publicly beheaded on Tower Hill for espousing his cause. Up came Oliver
to Worcester too, at double quick speed, and he and his Ironsides so
laid about them in the great battle which was fought there, that they
completely beat the Scottish men, and destroyed the Royalist army;
though the Scottish men fought so gallantly that it took five hours to
do.
The escape of Charles after this battle of Worcester did him good
service long afterwards, for it induced many of the generous English
people to take a romantic interest in him, and to think much better of
him than he ever deserved. He fled in the night, with not more than
sixty followers, to the house of a Catholic lady in Staffordshire.
There, for his greater safety, the whole sixty left him. He cropped his
hair, stained his face and hands brown as if they were sunburnt, put on
the clothes of a labouring countryman, and went out in the morning with
his axe in his hand, accompanied by four wood-cutters who were
brothers, and another man who was their brother-in-law. These good
fellows made a bed for him under a tree, as the weather was very bad;
and the wife of one of them brought him food to eat; and the old mother
of the four brothers came and fell down on her knees before him in the
wood, and thanked God that her sons were engaged in saving his life. At
night, he came out of the forest and went on to another house which was
near the river Severn, with the intention of passing into Wales; but
the place swarmed with soldiers, and the bridges were guarded, and all
the boats were made fast. So, after lying in a hayloft covered over
with hay, for some time, he came out of his place, attended by Colonel
Careless, a Catholic gentleman who had met him there, and with whom he
lay hid, all next day, up in the shady branches of a fine old oak. It
was lucky for the King that it was September-time, and that the leaves
had not begun to fall, since he and the Colonel, perched up in this
tree, could catch glimpses of the soldiers riding about below, and
could hear the crash in the wood as they went about beating the boughs.
After this, he walked and walked until his feet were all blistered;
and, having been concealed all one day in a house which was searched by
the troopers while he was there, went with Lord Wilmot, another of his
good friends, to a place called Bentley, where one Miss Lane, a
Protestant lady, had obtained a pass to be allowed to ride through the
guards to see a relation of hers near Bristol. Disguised as a servant,
he rode in the saddle before this young lady to the house of Sir John
Winter, while Lord Wilmot rode there boldly, like a plain country
gentleman, with dogs at his heels. It happened that Sir John Winter’s
butler had been servant in Richmond Palace, and knew Charles the moment
he set eyes upon him; but, the butler was faithful and kept the secret.
As no ship could be found to carry him abroad, it was planned that he
should go—still travelling with Miss Lane as her servant—to another
house, at Trent near Sherborne in Dorsetshire; and then Miss Lane and
her cousin, Mr. Lascelles, who had gone on horseback beside her all the
way, went home. I hope Miss Lane was going to marry that cousin, for I
am sure she must have been a brave, kind girl. If I had been that
cousin, I should certainly have loved Miss Lane.
When Charles, lonely for the loss of Miss Lane, was safe at Trent, a
ship was hired at Lyme, the master of which engaged to take two
gentlemen to France. In the evening of the same day, the King—now
riding as servant before another young lady—set off for a public-house
at a place called Charmouth, where the captain of the vessel was to
take him on board. But, the captain’s wife, being afraid of her husband
getting into trouble, locked him up and would not let him sail. Then
they went away to Bridport; and, coming to the inn there, found the
stable-yard full of soldiers who were on the look-out for Charles, and
who talked about him while they drank. He had such presence of mind,
that he led the horses of his party through the yard as any other
servant might have done, and said, ‘Come out of the way, you soldiers;
let us have room to pass here!’ As he went along, he met a half-tipsy
ostler, who rubbed his eyes and said to him, ‘Why, I was formerly
servant to Mr. Potter at Exeter, and surely I have sometimes seen you
there, young man?’ He certainly had, for Charles had lodged there. His
ready answer was, ‘Ah, I did live with him once; but I have no time to
talk now. We’ll have a pot of beer together when I come back.’
From this dangerous place he returned to Trent, and lay there concealed
several days. Then he escaped to Heale, near Salisbury; where, in the
house of a widow lady, he was hidden five days, until the master of a
collier lying off Shoreham in Sussex, undertook to convey a ‘gentleman’
to France. On the night of the fifteenth of October, accompanied by two
colonels and a merchant, the King rode to Brighton, then a little
fishing village, to give the captain of the ship a supper before going
on board; but, so many people knew him, that this captain knew him too,
and not only he, but the landlord and landlady also. Before he went
away, the landlord came behind his chair, kissed his hand, and said he
hoped to live to be a lord and to see his wife a lady; at which Charles
laughed. They had had a good supper by this time, and plenty of smoking
and drinking, at which the King was a first-rate hand; so, the captain
assured him that he would stand by him, and he did. It was agreed that
the captain should pretend to sail to Deal, and that Charles should
address the sailors and say he was a gentleman in debt who was running
away from his creditors, and that he hoped they would join him in
persuading the captain to put him ashore in France. As the King acted
his part very well indeed, and gave the sailors twenty shillings to
drink, they begged the captain to do what such a worthy gentleman
asked. He pretended to yield to their entreaties, and the King got safe
to Normandy.
Ireland being now subdued, and Scotland kept quiet by plenty of forts
and soldiers put there by Oliver, the Parliament would have gone on
quietly enough, as far as fighting with any foreign enemy went, but for
getting into trouble with the Dutch, who in the spring of the year one
thousand six hundred and fifty-one sent a fleet into the Downs under
their Admiral Van Tromp, to call upon the bold English Admiral Blake
(who was there with half as many ships as the Dutch) to strike his
flag. Blake fired a raging broadside instead, and beat off Van Tromp;
who, in the autumn, came back again with seventy ships, and challenged
the bold Blake—who still was only half as strong—to fight him. Blake
fought him all day; but, finding that the Dutch were too many for him,
got quietly off at night. What does Van Tromp upon this, but goes
cruising and boasting about the Channel, between the North Foreland and
the Isle of Wight, with a great Dutch broom tied to his masthead, as a
sign that he could and would sweep the English of the sea! Within three
months, Blake lowered his tone though, and his broom too; for, he and
two other bold commanders, Dean and Monk, fought him three whole days,
took twenty-three of his ships, shivered his broom to pieces, and
settled his business.
Things were no sooner quiet again, than the army began to complain to
the Parliament that they were not governing the nation properly, and to
hint that they thought they could do it better themselves. Oliver, who
had now made up his mind to be the head of the state, or nothing at
all, supported them in this, and called a meeting of officers and his
own Parliamentary friends, at his lodgings in Whitehall, to consider
the best way of getting rid of the Parliament. It had now lasted just
as many years as the King’s unbridled power had lasted, before it came
into existence. The end of the deliberation was, that Oliver went down
to the House in his usual plain black dress, with his usual grey
worsted stockings, but with an unusual party of soldiers behind him.
These last he left in the lobby, and then went in and sat down.
Presently he got up, made the Parliament a speech, told them that the
Lord had done with them, stamped his foot and said, ‘You are no
Parliament. Bring them in! Bring them in!’ At this signal the door flew
open, and the soldiers appeared. ‘This is not honest,’ said Sir Harry
Vane, one of the members. ‘Sir Harry Vane!’ cried Cromwell; ‘O, Sir
Harry Vane! The Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane!’ Then he pointed
out members one by one, and said this man was a drunkard, and that man
a dissipated fellow, and that man a liar, and so on. Then he caused the
Speaker to be walked out of his chair, told the guard to clear the
House, called the mace upon the table—which is a sign that the House is
sitting—‘a fool’s bauble,’ and said, ‘here, carry it away!’ Being
obeyed in all these orders, he quietly locked the door, put the key in
his pocket, walked back to Whitehall again, and told his friends, who
were still assembled there, what he had done.
They formed a new Council of State after this extraordinary proceeding,
and got a new Parliament together in their own way: which Oliver
himself opened in a sort of sermon, and which he said was the beginning
of a perfect heaven upon earth. In this Parliament there sat a
well-known leather-seller, who had taken the singular name of Praise
God Barebones, and from whom it was called, for a joke, Barebones’s
Parliament, though its general name was the Little Parliament. As it
soon appeared that it was not going to put Oliver in the first place,
it turned out to be not at all like the beginning of heaven upon earth,
and Oliver said it really was not to be borne with. So he cleared off
that Parliament in much the same way as he had disposed of the other;
and then the council of officers decided that he must be made the
supreme authority of the kingdom, under the title of the Lord Protector
of the Commonwealth.
So, on the sixteenth of December, one thousand six hundred and
fifty-three, a great procession was formed at Oliver’s door, and he
came out in a black velvet suit and a big pair of boots, and got into
his coach and went down to Westminster, attended by the judges, and the
lord mayor, and the aldermen, and all the other great and wonderful
personages of the country. There, in the Court of Chancery, he publicly
accepted the office of Lord Protector. Then he was sworn, and the City
sword was handed to him, and the seal was handed to him, and all the
other things were handed to him which are usually handed to Kings and
Queens on state occasions. When Oliver had handed them all back, he was
quite made and completely finished off as Lord Protector; and several
of the Ironsides preached about it at great length, all the evening.
SECOND PART
Oliver Cromwell—whom the people long called Old Noll—in accepting the
office of Protector, had bound himself by a certain paper which was
handed to him, called ‘the Instrument,’ to summon a Parliament,
consisting of between four and five hundred members, in the election of
which neither the Royalists nor the Catholics were to have any share.
He had also pledged himself that this Parliament should not be
dissolved without its own consent until it had sat five months.
When this Parliament met, Oliver made a speech to them of three hours
long, very wisely advising them what to do for the credit and happiness
of the country. To keep down the more violent members, he required them
to sign a recognition of what they were forbidden by ‘the Instrument’
to do; which was, chiefly, to take the power from one single person at
the head of the state or to command the army. Then he dismissed them to
go to work. With his usual vigour and resolution he went to work
himself with some frantic preachers—who were rather overdoing their
sermons in calling him a villain and a tyrant—by shutting up their
chapels, and sending a few of them off to prison.
There was not at that time, in England or anywhere else, a man so able
to govern the country as Oliver Cromwell. Although he ruled with a
strong hand, and levied a very heavy tax on the Royalists (but not
until they had plotted against his life), he ruled wisely, and as the
times required. He caused England to be so respected abroad, that I
wish some lords and gentlemen who have governed it under kings and
queens in later days would have taken a leaf out of Oliver Cromwell’s
book. He sent bold Admiral Blake to the Mediterranean Sea, to make the
Duke of Tuscany pay sixty thousand pounds for injuries he had done to
British subjects, and spoliation he had committed on English merchants.
He further despatched him and his fleet to Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli,
to have every English ship and every English man delivered up to him
that had been taken by pirates in those parts. All this was gloriously
done; and it began to be thoroughly well known, all over the world,
that England was governed by a man in earnest, who would not allow the
English name to be insulted or slighted anywhere.
These were not all his foreign triumphs. He sent a fleet to sea against
the Dutch; and the two powers, each with one hundred ships upon its
side, met in the English Channel off the North Foreland, where the
fight lasted all day long. Dean was killed in this fight; but Monk, who
commanded in the same ship with him, threw his cloak over his body,
that the sailors might not know of his death, and be disheartened. Nor
were they. The English broadsides so exceedingly astonished the Dutch
that they sheered off at last, though the redoubtable Van Tromp fired
upon them with his own guns for deserting their flag. Soon afterwards,
the two fleets engaged again, off the coast of Holland. There, the
valiant Van Tromp was shot through the heart, and the Dutch gave in,
and peace was made.
Further than this, Oliver resolved not to bear the domineering and
bigoted conduct of Spain, which country not only claimed a right to all
the gold and silver that could be found in South America, and treated
the ships of all other countries who visited those regions, as pirates,
but put English subjects into the horrible Spanish prisons of the
Inquisition. So, Oliver told the Spanish ambassador that English ships
must be free to go wherever they would, and that English merchants must
not be thrown into those same dungeons, no, not for the pleasure of all
the priests in Spain. To this, the Spanish ambassador replied that the
gold and silver country, and the Holy Inquisition, were his King’s two
eyes, neither of which he could submit to have put out. Very well, said
Oliver, then he was afraid he (Oliver) must damage those two eyes
directly.
So, another fleet was despatched under two commanders, Penn and
Venables, for Hispaniola; where, however, the Spaniards got the better
of the fight. Consequently, the fleet came home again, after taking
Jamaica on the way. Oliver, indignant with the two commanders who had
not done what bold Admiral Blake would have done, clapped them both
into prison, declared war against Spain, and made a treaty with France,
in virtue of which it was to shelter the King and his brother the Duke
of York no longer. Then, he sent a fleet abroad under bold Admiral
Blake, which brought the King of Portugal to his senses—just to keep
its hand in—and then engaged a Spanish fleet, sunk four great ships,
and took two more, laden with silver to the value of two millions of
pounds: which dazzling prize was brought from Portsmouth to London in
waggons, with the populace of all the towns and villages through which
the waggons passed, shouting with all their might. After this victory,
bold Admiral Blake sailed away to the port of Santa Cruz to cut off the
Spanish treasure-ships coming from Mexico. There, he found them, ten in
number, with seven others to take care of them, and a big castle, and
seven batteries, all roaring and blazing away at him with great guns.
Blake cared no more for great guns than for pop-guns—no more for their
hot iron balls than for snow-balls. He dashed into the harbour,
captured and burnt every one of the ships, and came sailing out again
triumphantly, with the victorious English flag flying at his masthead.
This was the last triumph of this great commander, who had sailed and
fought until he was quite worn out. He died, as his successful ship was
coming into Plymouth Harbour amidst the joyful acclamations of the
people, and was buried in state in Westminster Abbey. Not to lie there,
long.
Over and above all this, Oliver found that the Vaudois, or Protestant
people of the valleys of Lucerne, were insolently treated by the
Catholic powers, and were even put to death for their religion, in an
audacious and bloody manner. Instantly, he informed those powers that
this was a thing which Protestant England would not allow; and he
speedily carried his point, through the might of his great name, and
established their right to worship God in peace after their own
harmless manner.
Lastly, his English army won such admiration in fighting with the
French against the Spaniards, that, after they had assaulted the town
of Dunkirk together, the French King in person gave it up to the
English, that it might be a token to them of their might and valour.
There were plots enough against Oliver among the frantic religionists
(who called themselves Fifth Monarchy Men), and among the disappointed
Republicans. He had a difficult game to play, for the Royalists were
always ready to side with either party against him. The ‘King over the
water,’ too, as Charles was called, had no scruples about plotting with
any one against his life; although there is reason to suppose that he
would willingly have married one of his daughters, if Oliver would have
had such a son-in-law. There was a certain Colonel Saxby of the army,
once a great supporter of Oliver’s but now turned against him, who was
a grievous trouble to him through all this part of his career; and who
came and went between the discontented in England and Spain, and
Charles who put himself in alliance with Spain on being thrown off by
France. This man died in prison at last; but not until there had been
very serious plots between the Royalists and Republicans, and an actual
rising of them in England, when they burst into the city of Salisbury,
on a Sunday night, seized the judges who were going to hold the assizes
there next day, and would have hanged them but for the merciful
objections of the more temperate of their number. Oliver was so
vigorous and shrewd that he soon put this revolt down, as he did most
other conspiracies; and it was well for one of its chief managers—that
same Lord Wilmot who had assisted in Charles’s flight, and was now Earl
of Rochester—that he made his escape. Oliver seemed to have eyes and
ears everywhere, and secured such sources of information as his enemies
little dreamed of. There was a chosen body of six persons, called the
Sealed Knot, who were in the closest and most secret confidence of
Charles. One of the foremost of these very men, a Sir Richard Willis,
reported to Oliver everything that passed among them, and had two
hundred a year for it.
Miles Syndarcomb, also of the old army, was another conspirator against
the Protector. He and a man named Cecil, bribed one of his Life Guards
to let them have good notice when he was going out—intending to shoot
him from a window. But, owing either to his caution or his good
fortune, they could never get an aim at him. Disappointed in this
design, they got into the chapel in Whitehall, with a basketful of
combustibles, which were to explode by means of a slow match in six
hours; then, in the noise and confusion of the fire, they hoped to kill
Oliver. But, the Life Guardsman himself disclosed this plot; and they
were seized, and Miles died (or killed himself in prison) a little
while before he was ordered for execution. A few such plotters Oliver
caused to be beheaded, a few more to be hanged, and many more,
including those who rose in arms against him, to be sent as slaves to
the West Indies. If he were rigid, he was impartial too, in asserting
the laws of England. When a Portuguese nobleman, the brother of the
Portuguese ambassador, killed a London citizen in mistake for another
man with whom he had had a quarrel, Oliver caused him to be tried
before a jury of Englishmen and foreigners, and had him executed in
spite of the entreaties of all the ambassadors in London.
One of Oliver’s own friends, the Duke of Oldenburgh, in sending him a
present of six fine coach-horses, was very near doing more to please
the Royalists than all the plotters put together. One day, Oliver went
with his coach, drawn by these six horses, into Hyde Park, to dine with
his secretary and some of his other gentlemen under the trees there.
After dinner, being merry, he took it into his head to put his friends
inside and to drive them home: a postillion riding one of the foremost
horses, as the custom was. On account of Oliver’s being too free with
the whip, the six fine horses went off at a gallop, the postillion got
thrown, and Oliver fell upon the coach-pole and narrowly escaped being
shot by his own pistol, which got entangled with his clothes in the
harness, and went off. He was dragged some distance by the foot, until
his foot came out of the shoe, and then he came safely to the ground
under the broad body of the coach, and was very little the worse. The
gentlemen inside were only bruised, and the discontented people of all
parties were much disappointed.
The rest of the history of the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell is a
history of his Parliaments. His first one not pleasing him at all, he
waited until the five months were out, and then dissolved it. The next
was better suited to his views; and from that he desired to get—if he
could with safety to himself—the title of King. He had had this in his
mind some time: whether because he thought that the English people,
being more used to the title, were more likely to obey it; or whether
because he really wished to be a king himself, and to leave the
succession to that title in his family, is far from clear. He was
already as high, in England and in all the world, as he would ever be,
and I doubt if he cared for the mere name. However, a paper, called the
‘Humble Petition and Advice,’ was presented to him by the House of
Commons, praying him to take a high title and to appoint his successor.
That he would have taken the title of King there is no doubt, but for
the strong opposition of the army. This induced him to forbear, and to
assent only to the other points of the petition. Upon which occasion
there was another grand show in Westminster Hall, when the Speaker of
the House of Commons formally invested him with a purple robe lined
with ermine, and presented him with a splendidly bound Bible, and put a
golden sceptre in his hand. The next time the Parliament met, he called
a House of Lords of sixty members, as the petition gave him power to
do; but as that Parliament did not please him either, and would not
proceed to the business of the country, he jumped into a coach one
morning, took six Guards with him, and sent them to the right-about. I
wish this had been a warning to Parliaments to avoid long speeches, and
do more work.
It was the month of August, one thousand six hundred and fifty-eight,
when Oliver Cromwell’s favourite daughter, Elizabeth Claypole (who had
lately lost her youngest son), lay very ill, and his mind was greatly
troubled, because he loved her dearly. Another of his daughters was
married to Lord Falconberg, another to the grandson of the Earl of
Warwick, and he had made his son Richard one of the Members of the
Upper House. He was very kind and loving to them all, being a good
father and a good husband; but he loved this daughter the best of the
family, and went down to Hampton Court to see her, and could hardly be
induced to stir from her sick room until she died. Although his
religion had been of a gloomy kind, his disposition had been always
cheerful. He had been fond of music in his home, and had kept open
table once a week for all officers of the army not below the rank of
captain, and had always preserved in his house a quiet, sensible
dignity. He encouraged men of genius and learning, and loved to have
them about him. Milton was one of his great friends. He was good
humoured too, with the nobility, whose dresses and manners were very
different from his; and to show them what good information he had, he
would sometimes jokingly tell them when they were his guests, where
they had last drunk the health of the ‘King over the water,’ and would
recommend them to be more private (if they could) another time. But he
had lived in busy times, had borne the weight of heavy State affairs,
and had often gone in fear of his life. He was ill of the gout and
ague; and when the death of his beloved child came upon him in
addition, he sank, never to raise his head again. He told his
physicians on the twenty-fourth of August that the Lord had assured him
that he was not to die in that illness, and that he would certainly get
better. This was only his sick fancy, for on the third of September,
which was the anniversary of the great battle of Worcester, and the day
of the year which he called his fortunate day, he died, in the sixtieth
year of his age. He had been delirious, and had lain insensible some
hours, but he had been overheard to murmur a very good prayer the day
before. The whole country lamented his death. If you want to know the
real worth of Oliver Cromwell, and his real services to his country,
you can hardly do better than compare England under him, with England
under Charles the Second.
He had appointed his son Richard to succeed him, and after there had
been, at Somerset House in the Strand, a lying in state more splendid
than sensible—as all such vanities after death are, I think—Richard
became Lord Protector. He was an amiable country gentleman, but had
none of his father’s great genius, and was quite unfit for such a post
in such a storm of parties. Richard’s Protectorate, which only lasted a
year and a half, is a history of quarrels between the officers of the
army and the Parliament, and between the officers among themselves; and
of a growing discontent among the people, who had far too many long
sermons and far too few amusements, and wanted a change. At last,
General Monk got the army well into his own hands, and then in
pursuance of a secret plan he seems to have entertained from the time
of Oliver’s death, declared for the King’s cause. He did not do this
openly; but, in his place in the House of Commons, as one of the
members for Devonshire, strongly advocated the proposals of one Sir
John Greenville, who came to the House with a letter from Charles,
dated from Breda, and with whom he had previously been in secret
communication. There had been plots and counterplots, and a recall of
the last members of the Long Parliament, and an end of the Long
Parliament, and risings of the Royalists that were made too soon; and
most men being tired out, and there being no one to head the country
now great Oliver was dead, it was readily agreed to welcome Charles
Stuart. Some of the wiser and better members said—what was most
true—that in the letter from Breda, he gave no real promise to govern
well, and that it would be best to make him pledge himself beforehand
as to what he should be bound to do for the benefit of the kingdom.
Monk said, however, it would be all right when he came, and he could
not come too soon.
So, everybody found out all in a moment that the country _must_ be
prosperous and happy, having another Stuart to condescend to reign over
it; and there was a prodigious firing off of guns, lighting of
bonfires, ringing of bells, and throwing up of caps. The people drank
the King’s health by thousands in the open streets, and everybody
rejoiced. Down came the Arms of the Commonwealth, up went the Royal
Arms instead, and out came the public money. Fifty thousand pounds for
the King, ten thousand pounds for his brother the Duke of York, five
thousand pounds for his brother the Duke of Gloucester. Prayers for
these gracious Stuarts were put up in all the churches; commissioners
were sent to Holland (which suddenly found out that Charles was a great
man, and that it loved him) to invite the King home; Monk and the
Kentish grandees went to Dover, to kneel down before him as he landed.
He kissed and embraced Monk, made him ride in the coach with himself
and his brothers, came on to London amid wonderful shoutings, and
passed through the army at Blackheath on the twenty-ninth of May (his
birthday), in the year one thousand six hundred and sixty. Greeted by
splendid dinners under tents, by flags and tapestry streaming from all
the houses, by delighted crowds in all the streets, by troops of
noblemen and gentlemen in rich dresses, by City companies, train-bands,
drummers, trumpeters, the great Lord Mayor, and the majestic Aldermen,
the King went on to Whitehall. On entering it, he commemorated his
Restoration with the joke that it really would seem to have been his
own fault that he had not come long ago, since everybody told him that
he had always wished for him with all his heart.