It is also to be noted that these two parties have never been the whole

nation, nay, that they have never, taken together, made up a majority

of the nation. Between them has always been a great mass, which has

not steadfastly adhered to either, which has sometimes remained inertly

neutral, and which has sometimes oscillated to and fro. That mass has

more than once passed in a few years from one extreme to the other, and

back again. Sometimes it has changed sides, merely because it was tired

of supporting the same men, sometimes because it was dismayed by its

own excesses, sometimes because it had expected impossibilities, and had

been disappointed. But whenever it has leaned with its whole weight in

either direction, that weight has, for the time, been irresistible.

When the rival parties first appeared in a distinct form, they seemed

to be not unequally matched. On the side of the government was a

large majority of the nobles, and of those opulent and well descended

gentlemen to whom nothing was wanting of nobility but the name. These,

with the dependents whose support they could command, were no small

power in the state. On the same side were the great body of the clergy,

both the Universities, and all those laymen who were strongly attached

to episcopal government and to the Anglican ritual. These respectable

classes found themselves in the company of some allies much less

decorous than themselves. The Puritan austerity drove to the king's

faction all who made pleasure their business, who affected gallantry,

splendour of dress, or taste in the higher arts. With these went all who

live by amusing the leisure of others, from the painter and the comic

poet, down to the ropedancer and the Merry Andrew. For these artists

well knew that they might thrive under a superb and luxurious despotism,

but must starve under the rigid rule of the precisians. In the same

interest were the Roman Catholics to a man. The Queen, a daughter of

France, was of their own faith. Her husband was known to be strongly

attached to her, and not a little in awe of her. Though undoubtedly a

Protestant on conviction, he regarded the professors of the old religion

with no ill-will, and would gladly have granted them a much larger

toleration than he was disposed to concede to the Presbyterians. If the

opposition obtained the mastery, it was probable that the sanguinary

laws enacted against Papists in the reign of Elizabeth, would be

severely enforced. The Roman Catholics were therefore induced by the

strongest motives to espouse the cause of the court. They in general

acted with a caution which brought on them the reproach of cowardice

and lukewarmness; but it is probable that, in maintaining great reserve,

they consulted the King's interest as well as their own. It was not for

his service that they should be conspicuous among his friends.

The main strength of the opposition lay among the small freeholders in

the country, and among the merchants and shopkeepers of the towns.

But these were headed by a formidable minority of the aristocracy, a

minority which included the rich and powerful Earls of Northumberland,

Bedford, Warwick, Stamford, and Essex, and several other Lords of great

wealth and influence. In the same ranks was found the whole body of

Protestant Nonconformists, and most of those members of the Established

Church who still adhered to the Calvinistic opinions which, forty

years before, had been generally held by the prelates and clergy. The

municipal corporations took, with few exceptions, the same side. In the

House of Commons the opposition preponderated, but not very decidedly.

Neither party wanted strong arguments for the course which it was

disposed to take. The reasonings of the most enlightened Royalists may

be summed up thus:--"It is true that great abuses have existed; but they

have been redressed. It is true that precious rights have been invaded;

but they have been vindicated and surrounded with new securities. The

sittings of the Estates of the realm have been, in defiance of all

precedent and of the spirit of the constitution, intermitted during

eleven years; but it has now been provided that henceforth three years

shall never elapse without a Parliament. The Star Chamber the High

Commission, the Council of York, oppressed and plundered us; but those

hateful courts have now ceased to exist. The Lord Lieutenant aimed at

establishing military despotism; but he has answered for his treason

with his head. The Primate tainted our worship with Popish rites and

punished our scruples with Popish cruelty; but he is awaiting in the

Tower the judgment of his peers. The Lord Keeper sanctioned a plan by

which the property of every man in England was placed at the mercy of

the Crown; but he has been disgraced, ruined, and compelled to take

refuge in a foreign land. The ministers of tyranny have expiated

their crimes. The victims of tyranny have been compensated for their

sufferings. It would therefore be most unwise to persevere further in

that course which was justifiable and necessary when we first met, after

a long interval, and found the whole administration one mass of abuses.

It is time to take heed that we do not so pursue our victory over

despotism as to run into anarchy. It was not in our power to overturn

the bad institutions which lately afflicted our country, without shocks

which have loosened the foundations of government. Now that those

institutions have fallen, we must hasten to prop the edifice which it

was lately our duty to batter. Henceforth it will be our wisdom to look

with jealousy on schemes of innovation, and to guard from encroachment

all the prerogatives with which the law has, for the public good, armed

the sovereign."

Such were the views of those men of whom the excellent Falkland may be

regarded as the leader. It was contended on the other side with not less

force, by men of not less ability and virtue, that the safety which the

liberties of the English people enjoyed was rather apparent than real,

and that the arbitrary projects of the court would be resumed as soon

as the vigilance of the Commons was relaxed. True it was,--such was the

reasoning of Pym, of Hollis, and of Hampden--that many good laws had

been passed: but, if good laws had been sufficient to restrain the

King, his subjects would have had little reason ever to complain of his

administration. The recent statutes were surely not of more authority

than the Great Charter or the Petition of Right. Yet neither the Great

Charter, hallowed by the veneration of four centuries, nor the Petition

of Right, sanctioned, after mature reflection, and for valuable

consideration, by Charles himself, had been found effectual for the

protection of the people. If once the check of fear were withdrawn,

if once the spirit of opposition were suffered to slumber, all the

securities for English freedom resolved themselves into a single one,

the royal word; and it had been proved by a long and severe experience

that the royal word could not be trusted.

The two parties were still regarding each other with cautious hostility,

and had not yet measured their strength, when news arrived which

inflamed the passions and confirmed the opinions of both. The great

chieftains of Ulster, who, at the time of the accession of James, had,

after a long struggle, submitted to the royal authority, had not long

brooked the humiliation of dependence. They had conspired against the

English government, and had been attainted of treason. Their immense

domains had been forfeited to the crown, and had soon been peopled by

thousands of English and Scotch emigrants. The new settlers were, in

civilisation and intelligence, far superior to the native population,

and sometimes abused their superiority. The animosity produced by

difference of race was increased by difference of religion. Under the

iron rule of Wentworth, scarcely a murmur was heard: but, when that

strong pressure was withdrawn, when Scotland had set the example of

successful resistance, when England was distracted by internal quarrels,

the smothered rage of the Irish broke forth into acts of fearful

violence. On a sudden, the aboriginal population rose on the colonists.

A war, to which national and theological hatred gave a character of

peculiar ferocity, desolated Ulster, and spread to the neighbouring

provinces. The castle of Dublin was scarcely thought secure. Every post

brought to London exaggerated accounts of outrages which, without any

exaggeration were sufficient to move pity end horror. These evil tidings

roused to the height the zeal of both the great parties which were

marshalled against each other at Westminster. The Royalists maintained

that it was the first duty of every good Englishman and Protestant,

at such a crisis, to strengthen the hands of the sovereign. To the

opposition it seemed that there were now stronger reasons than ever for

thwarting and restraining him. That the commonwealth was in danger

was undoubtedly a good reason for giving large powers to a trustworthy

magistrate: but it was a good reason for taking away powers from a

magistrate who was at heart a public enemy. To raise a great army had

always been the King's first object. A great army must now be raised.

It was to be feared that, unless some new securities were devised, the

forces levied for the reduction of Ireland would be employed against

the liberties of England. Nor was this all. A horrible suspicion, unjust

indeed, but not altogether unnatural, had arisen in many minds. The

Queen was an avowed Roman Catholic: the King was not regarded by the

Puritans, whom he had mercilessly persecuted, as a sincere Protestant;

and so notorious was his duplicity, that there was no treachery of which

his subjects might not, with some show of reason, believe him capable.

It was soon whispered that the rebellion of the Roman Catholics of

Ulster was part of a vast work of darkness which had been planned at

Whitehall.

After some weeks of prelude, the first great parliamentary conflict

between the parties, which have ever since contended, and are still

contending, for the government of the nation, took place on the

twenty-second of November, 1641. It was moved by the opposition,

that the House of Commons should present to the King a remonstrance,

enumerating the faults of his administration from the time of his

accession, and expressing the distrust with which his policy was still

regarded by his people. That assembly, which a few months before had

been unanimous in calling for the reform of abuses, was now divided

into two fierce and eager factions of nearly equal strength. After a hot

debate of many hours, the remonstrance was carried by only eleven votes.

The result of this struggle was highly favourable to the conservative

party. It could not be doubted that only some great indiscretion could

prevent them from shortly obtaining the predominance in the Lower House.

The Upper House was already their own. Nothing was wanting to ensure

their success, but that the King should, in all his conduct, show

respect for the laws and scrupulous good faith towards his subjects.

His first measures promised well. He had, it seemed, at last discovered

that an entire change of system was necessary, and had wisely made

up his mind to what could no longer be avoided. He declared his

determination to govern in harmony with the Commons, and, for that end,

to call to his councils men in whose talents and character the Commons

might place confidence. Nor was the selection ill made. Falkland, Hyde,

and Colepepper, all three distinguished by the part which they had taken

in reforming abuses and in punishing evil ministers, were invited to

become the confidential advisers of the Crown, and were solemnly assured

by Charles that he would take no step in any way affecting the Lower

House of Parliament without their privity.

Had he kept this promise, it cannot be doubted that the reaction which

was already in progress would very soon have become quite as strong as

the most respectable Royalists would have desired. Already the violent

members of the opposition had begun to despair of the fortunes of their

party, to tremble for their own safety, and to talk of selling their

estates and emigrating to America. That the fair prospects which had

begun to open before the King were suddenly overcast, that his life was

darkened by adversity, and at length shortened by violence, is to be

attributed to his own faithlessness and contempt of law.

The truth seems to be that he detested both the parties into which the

House of Commons was divided: nor is this strange; for in both those

parties the love of liberty and the love of order were mingled, though

in different proportions. The advisers whom necessity had compelled him

to call round him were by no means after his own heart. They had joined

in condemning his tyranny, in abridging his power, and in punishing his

instruments. They were now indeed prepared to defend in a strictly legal

way his strictly legal prerogative; but they would have recoiled with

horror from the thought of reviving Wentworth's projects of Thorough.

They were, therefore, in the King's opinion, traitors, who differed only

in the degree of their seditious malignity from Pym and Hampden.

He accordingly, a few days after he had promised the chiefs of the

constitutional Royalists that no step of importance should be taken

without their knowledge, formed a resolution the most momentous of his

whole life, carefully concealed that resolution from them, and executed

it in a manner which overwhelmed them with shame and dismay. He sent the

Attorney General to impeach Pym, Hollis, Hampden, and other members of

the House of Commons of high treason at the bar of the House of Lords.

Not content with this flagrant violation of the Great Charter and of the

uninterrupted practice of centuries, he went in person, accompanied by

armed men, to seize the leaders of the opposition within the walls of

Parliament.

The attempt failed. The accused members had left the House a short time

before Charles entered it. A sudden and violent revulsion of feeling,

both in the Parliament and in the country, followed. The most favourable

view that has ever been taken of the King's conduct on this occasion by

his most partial advocates is that he had weakly suffered himself to be

hurried into a gross indiscretion by the evil counsels of his wife and

of his courtiers. But the general voice loudly charged him with far

deeper guilt. At the very moment at which his subjects, after a long

estrangement produced by his maladministration, were returning to him

with feelings of confidence and affection, he had aimed a deadly blow at

all their dearest rights, at the privileges of Parliament, at the very

principle of trial by jury. He had shown that he considered opposition

to his arbitrary designs as a crime to be expiated only by blood. He had

broken faith, not only with his Great Council and with his people,

but with his own adherents. He had done what, but for an unforeseen

accident, would probably have produced a bloody conflict round the

Speaker's chair. Those who had the chief sway in the Lower House now

felt that not only their power and popularity, but their lands and

their necks, were staked on the event of the struggle in which they were

engaged. The flagging zeal of the party opposed to the court revived in

an instant. During the night which followed the outrage the whole city

of London was in arms. In a few hours the roads leading to the capital

were covered with multitudes of yeomen spurring hard to Westminster with

the badges of the parliamentary cause in their hats. In the House of

Commons the opposition became at once irresistible, and carried, by more

than two votes to one, resolutions of unprecedented violence. Strong

bodies of the trainbands, regularly relieved, mounted guard round

Westminster Hall. The gates of the King's palace were daily besieged by

a furious multitude whose taunts and execrations were heard even in

the presence chamber, and who could scarcely be kept out of the royal

apartments by the gentlemen of the household. Had Charles remained much

longer in his stormy capital, it is probable that the Commons would have

found a plea for making him, under outward forms of respect, a state

prisoner.

He quitted London, never to return till the day of a terrible and

memorable reckoning had arrived. A negotiation began which occupied

many months. Accusations and recriminations passed backward and forward

between the contending parties. All accommodation had become impossible.

The sure punishment which waits on habitual perfidy had at length

overtaken the King. It was to no purpose that he now pawned his royal

word, and invoked heaven to witness the sincerity of his professions.

The distrust with which his adversaries regarded him was not to be

removed by oaths or treaties. They were convinced that they could be

safe only when he was utterly helpless. Their demand, therefore, was,

that he should surrender, not only those prerogatives which he had

usurped in violation of ancient laws and of his own recent promises, but

also other prerogatives which the English Kings had always possessed,

and continue to possess at the present day. No minister must be

appointed, no peer created, without the consent of the Houses. Above

all, the sovereign must resign that supreme military authority which,

from time beyond all memory, had appertained to the regal office.

That Charles would comply with such demands while he had any means of

resistance, was not to be expected. Yet it will be difficult to show

that the Houses could safely have exacted less. They were truly in a

most embarrassing position. The great majority of the nation was firmly

attached to hereditary monarchy. Those who held republican opinions

were as yet few, and did not venture to speak out. It was therefore

impossible to abolish kingly government. Yet it was plain that no

confidence could be placed in the King. It would have been absurd in

those who knew, by recent proof, that he was bent on destroying them, to

content themselves with presenting to him another Petition of Right,

and receiving from him fresh promises similar to those which he

had repeatedly made and broken. Nothing but the want of an army had

prevented him from entirely subverting the old constitution of the

realm. It was now necessary to levy a great regular army for the

conquest of Ireland; and it would therefore have been mere insanity to

leave him in possession of that plenitude of military authority which

his ancestors had enjoyed.

When a country is in the situation in which England then was, when the

kingly office is regarded with love and veneration, but the person

who fills that office is hated and distrusted, it should seem that the

course which ought to be taken is obvious. The dignity of the office

should be preserved: the person should be discarded. Thus our ancestors

acted in 1399 and in 1689. Had there been, in 1642, any man occupying a

position similar to that which Henry of Lancaster occupied at the time

of the deposition of Richard the Second, and which William of Orange

occupied at the time of the deposition of James the Second, it is

probable that the Houses would have changed the dynasty, and would have

made no formal change in the constitution. The new King, called to the

throne by their choice, and dependent on their support, would have been

under the necessity of governing in conformity with their wishes

and opinions. But there was no prince of the blood royal in the

parliamentary party; and, though that party contained many men of high

rank and many men of eminent ability, there was none who towered so

conspicuously above the rest that he could be proposed as a candidate

for the crown. As there was to be a King, and as no new King could be

found, it was necessary to leave the regal title to Charles. Only one

course, therefore, was left: and that was to disjoin the regal title

from the regal prerogatives.

The change which the Houses proposed to make in our institutions,

though it seems exorbitant, when distinctly set forth and digested into

articles of capitulation, really amounts to little more than the change

which, in the next generation, was effected by the Revolution. It is

true that, at the Revolution, the sovereign was not deprived by law of

the power of naming his ministers: but it is equally true that, since

the Revolution, no minister has been able to retain office six months

in opposition to the sense of the House of Commons. It is true that

the sovereign still possesses the power of creating peers, and the

more important power of the sword: but it is equally true that in the

exercise of these powers the sovereign has, ever since the

Revolution, been guided by advisers who possess the confidence of the

representatives of the nation. In fact, the leaders of the Roundhead

party in 1642, and the statesmen who, about half a century later,

effected the Revolution, had exactly the same object in view.

That object was to terminate the contest between the Crown and the

Parliament, by giving to the Parliament a supreme control over the

executive administration. The statesmen of the Revolution effected this

indirectly by changing the dynasty. The Roundheads of 1642, being unable

to change the dynasty, were compelled to take a direct course towards

their end.

We cannot, however, wonder that the demands of the opposition, importing

as they did a complete and formal transfer to the Parliament of powers

which had always belonged to the Crown, should have shocked that great

party of which the characteristics are respect for constitutional

authority and dread of violent innovation. That party had recently been

in hopes of obtaining by peaceable means the ascendency in the House of

Commons; but every such hope had been blighted. The duplicity of Charles

had made his old enemies irreconcileable, had driven back into the ranks

of the disaffected a crowd of moderate men who were in the very act of

coming over to his side, and had so cruelly mortified his best friends

that they had for a time stood aloof in silent shame and resentment.

Now, however, the constitutional Royalists were forced to make their

choice between two dangers; and they thought it their duty rather to

rally round a prince whose past conduct they condemned, and whose word

inspired them with little confidence, than to suffer the regal office to

be degraded, and the polity of the realm to be entirely remodelled.

With such feelings, many men whose virtues and abilities would have done

honour to any cause, ranged themselves on the side of the King.

In August 1642 the sword was at length drawn; and soon, in almost every

shire of the kingdom, two hostile factions appeared in arms against

each other. It is not easy to say which of the contending parties was at

first the more formidable. The Houses commanded London and the counties

round London, the fleet, the navigation of the Thames, and most of the

large towns and seaports. They had at their disposal almost all the

military stores of the kingdom, and were able to raise duties, both on

goods imported from foreign countries, and on some important products

of domestic industry. The King was ill provided with artillery and

ammunition. The taxes which he laid on the rural districts occupied by

his troops produced, it is probable, a sum far less than that which

the Parliament drew from the city of London alone. He relied, indeed,

chiefly, for pecuniary aid, on the munificence of his opulent adherents.

Many of these mortgaged their land, pawned their jewels, and broke up

their silver chargers and christening bowls, in order to assist him.

But experience has fully proved that the voluntary liberality of

individuals, even in times of the greatest excitement, is a poor

financial resource when compared with severe and methodical taxation,

which presses on the willing and unwilling alike.

Charles, however, had one advantage, which, if he had used it well,

would have more than compensated for the want of stores and money, and

which, notwithstanding his mismanagement, gave him, during some months,

a superiority in the war. His troops at first fought much better than

those of the Parliament. Both armies, it is true, were almost entirely

composed of men who had never seen a field of battle. Nevertheless, the

difference was great. The Parliamentary ranks were filled with hirelings

whom want and idleness had induced to enlist. Hampden's regiment was

regarded as one of the best; and even Hampden's regiment was described

by Cromwell as a mere rabble of tapsters and serving men out of place.

The royal army, on the other hand, consisted in great part of gentlemen,

high spirited, ardent, accustomed to consider dishonour as more terrible

than death, accustomed to fencing, to the use of fire arms, to bold

riding, and to manly and perilous sport, which has been well called the

image of war. Such gentlemen, mounted on their favourite horses, and

commanding little bands composed of their younger brothers, grooms,

gamekeepers, and huntsmen, were, from the very first day on which they

took the field, qualified to play their part with credit in a skirmish.

The steadiness, the prompt obedience, the mechanical precision of

movement, which are characteristic of the regular soldier, these gallant

volunteers never attained. But they were at first opposed to enemies as

undisciplined as themselves, and far less active, athletic, and daring.

For a time, therefore, the Cavaliers were successful in almost every

encounter.

The Houses had also been unfortunate in the choice of a general. The

rank and wealth of the Earl of Essex made him one of the most important

members of the parliamentary party. He had borne arms on the Continent

with credit, and, when the war began, had as high a military reputation

as any man in the country. But it soon appeared that he was unfit for

the post of Commander in Chief. He had little energy and no originality.

The methodical tactics which he had learned in the war of the Palatinate

did not save him from the disgrace of being surprised and baffled by

such a Captain as Rupert, who could claim no higher fame than that of an

enterprising partisan.

Nor were the officers who held the chief commissions under Essex

qualified to supply what was wanting in him. For this, indeed, the

Houses are scarcely to be blamed. In a country which had not, within the

memory of the oldest person living, made war on a great scale by

land, generals of tried skill and valour were not to be found. It was

necessary, therefore, in the first instance, to trust untried men; and

the preference was naturally given to men distinguished either by their

station, or by the abilities which they had displayed in Parliament.

In scarcely a single instance, however, was the selection fortunate.

Neither the grandees nor the orators proved good soldiers. The Earl

of Stamford, one of the greatest nobles of England, was routed by

the Royalists at Stratton. Nathaniel Fiennes, inferior to none of his

contemporaries in talents for civil business, disgraced himself by the

pusillanimous surrender of Bristol. Indeed, of all the statesmen who at

this juncture accepted high military commands, Hampden alone appears to

have carried into the camp the capacity and strength of mind which had

made him eminent in politics.

When the war had lasted a year, the advantage was decidedly with the

Royalists. They were victorious, both in the western and in the northern

counties. They had wrested Bristol, the second city in the kingdom, from

the Parliament. They had won several battles, and had not sustained a

single serious or ignominious defeat. Among the Roundheads adversity had

begun to produce dissension and discontent. The Parliament was kept

in alarm, sometimes by plots, and sometimes by riots. It was thought

necessary to fortify London against the royal army, and to hang

some disaffected citizens at their own doors. Several of the most

distinguished peers who had hitherto remained at Westminster fled to the

court at Oxford; nor can it be doubted that, if the operations of the

Cavaliers had, at this season, been directed by a sagacious and powerful

mind, Charles would soon have marched in triumph to Whitehall.

But the King suffered the auspicious moment to pass away; and it never

returned. In August 1643 he sate down before the city of Gloucester.

That city was defended by the inhabitants and by the garrison, with a

determination such as had not, since the commencement of the war, been

shown by the adherents of the Parliament. The emulation of London was

excited. The trainbands of the City volunteered to march wherever their

services might be required. A great force was speedily collected,

and began to move westward. The siege of Gloucester was raised: the

Royalists in every part of the kingdom were disheartened: the spirit of

the parliamentary party revived: and the apostate Lords, who had

lately fled from Westminster to Oxford, hastened back from Oxford to

Westminster.

And now a new and alarming class of symptoms began to appear in the

distempered body politic. There had been, from the first, in the

parliamentary party, some men whose minds were set on objects from which

the majority of that party would have shrunk with horror. These men

were, in religion, Independents. They conceived that every Christian

congregation had, under Christ, supreme jurisdiction in things

spiritual; that appeals to provincial and national synods were scarcely

less unscriptural than appeals to the Court of Arches, or to the

Vatican; and that Popery, Prelacy, and Presbyterianism were merely three

forms of one great apostasy. In politics, the Independents were, to use

the phrase of their time, root and branch men, or, to use the kindred

phrase of our own time, radicals. Not content with limiting the power of

the monarch, they were desirous to erect a commonwealth on the ruins of

the old English polity. At first they had been inconsiderable, both

in numbers and in weight; but before the war had lasted two years they

became, not indeed the largest, but the most powerful faction in the

country. Some of the old parliamentary leaders had been removed by

death; and others had forfeited the public confidence. Pym had been

borne, with princely honours, to a grave among the Plantagenets. Hampden

had fallen, as became him, while vainly endeavouring, by his heroic

example, to inspire his followers with courage to face the fiery cavalry

of Rupert. Bedford had been untrue to the cause. Northumberland was

known to be lukewarm. Essex and his lieutenants had shown little vigour

and ability in the conduct of military operations. At such a conjuncture

it was that the Independent party, ardent, resolute, and uncompromising,

began to raise its head, both in the camp and in the House of Commons.

The soul of that party was Oliver Cromwell. Bred to peaceful

occupations, he had, at more than forty years of age, accepted a

commission in the parliamentary army. No sooner had he become a soldier

than he discerned, with the keen glance of genius, what Essex, and men

like Essex, with all their experience, were unable to perceive. He saw

precisely where the strength of the Royalists lay, and by what means

alone that strength could be overpowered. He saw that it was necessary

to reconstruct the army of the Parliament. He saw also that there were

abundant and excellent materials for the purpose, materials less showy,

indeed, but more solid, than those of which the gallant squadrons of the

King were composed. It was necessary to look for recruits who were not

mere mercenaries, for recruits of decent station and grave character,

fearing God and zealous for public liberty. With such men he filled his

own regiment, and, while he subjected them to a discipline more rigid

than had ever before been known in England, he administered to their

intellectual and moral nature stimulants of fearful potency.

The events of the year 1644 fully proved the superiority of his

abilities. In the south, where Essex held the command, the parliamentary

forces underwent a succession of shameful disasters; but in the north

the victory of Marston Moor fully compensated for all that had been lost

elsewhere. That victory was not a more serious blow to the Royalists

than to the party which had hitherto been dominant at Westminster, for

it was notorious that the day, disgracefully lost by the Presbyterians,

had been retrieved by the energy of Cromwell, and by the steady valour

of the warriors whom he had trained.

These events produced the Selfdenying Ordinance and the new model of the

army. Under decorous pretexts, and with every mark of respect, Essex and

most of those who had held high posts under him were removed; and the

conduct of the war was intrusted to very different hands. Fairfax, a

brave soldier, but of mean understanding and irresolute temper, was the

nominal Lord General of the forces; but Cromwell was their real head.

Cromwell made haste to organise the whole army on the same principles

on which he had organised his own regiment. As soon as this process was

complete, the event of the war was decided. The Cavaliers had now to

encounter natural courage equal to their own, enthusiasm stronger than

their own, and discipline such as was utterly wanting to them. It soon

became a proverb that the soldiers of Fairfax and Cromwell were men of

a different breed from the soldiers of Essex. At Naseby took place the

first great encounter between the Royalists and the remodelled army of

the Houses. The victory of the Roundheads was complete and decisive. It

was followed by other triumphs in rapid succession. In a few months

the authority of the Parliament was fully established over the whole

kingdom. Charles fled to the Scots, and was by them, in a manner which

did not much exalt their national character, delivered up to his English

subjects.

While the event of the war was still doubtful, the Houses had put the

Primate to death, had interdicted, within the sphere of their authority,

the use of the Liturgy, and had required all men to subscribe that

renowned instrument known by the name of the Solemn League and Covenant.

Covenanting work, as it was called, went on fast. Hundreds of thousands

affixed their names to the rolls, and, with hands lifted up towards

heaven, swore to endeavour, without respect of persons, the extirpation

of Popery and Prelacy, heresy and schism, and to bring to public

trial and condign punishment all who should hinder the reformation of

religion. When the struggle was over, the work of innovation and revenge

was pushed on with increased ardour. The ecclesiastical polity of the

kingdom was remodelled. Most of the old clergy were ejected from their

benefices. Fines, often of ruinous amount, were laid on the Royalists,

already impoverished by large aids furnished to the King. Many estates

were confiscated. Many proscribed Cavaliers found it expedient to

purchase, at an enormous cost, the protection of eminent members of the

victorious party. Large domains, belonging to the crown, to the bishops,

and to the chapters, were seized, and either granted away or put up to

auction. In consequence of these spoliations, a great part of the soil

of England was at once offered for sale. As money was scarce, as the

market was glutted, as the title was insecure and as the awe inspired

by powerful bidders prevented free competition, the prices were often

merely nominal. Thus many old and honourable families disappeared and

were heard of no more; and many new men rose rapidly to affluence.

But, while the Houses were employing their authority thus, it suddenly

passed out of their hands. It had been obtained by calling into

existence a power which could not be controlled. In the summer of

1647, about twelve months after the last fortress of the Cavaliers had

submitted to the Parliament, the Parliament was compelled to submit to

its own soldiers.

Thirteen years followed, during which England was, under various names

and forms, really governed by the sword. Never before that time,

or since that time, was the civil power in our country subjected to

military dictation.

The army which now became supreme in the state was an army very

different from any that has since been seen among us. At present the

pay of the common soldier is not such as can seduce any but the

humblest class of English labourers from their calling. A barrier

almost impassable separates him from the commissioned officer. The great

majority of those who rise high in the service rise by purchase. So

numerous and extensive are the remote dependencies of England, that

every man who enlists in the line must expect to pass many years in

exile, and some years in climates unfavourable to the health and vigour

of the European race. The army of the Long Parliament was raised for

home service. The pay of the private soldier was much above the wages

earned by the great body of the people; and, if he distinguished himself

by intelligence and courage, he might hope to attain high commands.

The ranks were accordingly composed of persons superior in station and

education to the multitude. These persons, sober, moral, diligent, and

accustomed to reflect, had been induced to take up arms, not by the

pressure of want, not by the love of novelty and license, not by the

arts of recruiting officers, but by religious and political zeal,

mingled with the desire of distinction and promotion. The boast of the

soldiers, as we find it recorded in their solemn resolutions, was that

they had not been forced into the service, nor had enlisted chiefly

for the sake of lucre. That they were no janissaries, but freeborn

Englishmen, who had, of their own accord, put their lives in jeopardy

for the liberties and religion of England, and whose right and duty it

was to watch over the welfare of the nation which they had saved.

A force thus composed might, without injury to its efficiency, be

indulged in some liberties which, if allowed to any other troops, would

have proved subversive of all discipline. In general, soldiers who

should form themselves into political clubs, elect delegates, and pass

resolutions on high questions of state, would soon break loose from all

control, would cease to form an army, and would become the worst and

most dangerous of mobs. Nor would it be safe, in our time, to tolerate

in any regiment religious meetings, at which a corporal versed in

Scripture should lead the devotions of his less gifted colonel, and

admonish a backsliding major. But such was the intelligence, the

gravity, and the selfcommand of the warriors whom Cromwell had trained,

that in their camp a political organisation and a religious organisation

could exist without destroying military organisation. The same men,

who, off duty, were noted as demagogues and field preachers, were

distinguished by steadiness, by the spirit of order, and by prompt

obedience on watch, on drill, and on the field of battle.

In war this strange force was irresistible. The stubborn courage

characteristic of the English people was, by the system of Cromwell, at

once regulated and stimulated. Other leaders have maintained orders as

strict. Other leaders have inspired their followers with zeal as ardent.

But in his camp alone the most rigid discipline was found in company

with the fiercest enthusiasm. His troops moved to victory with the

precision of machines, while burning with the wildest fanaticism of

Crusaders. From the time when the army was remodelled to the time when

it was disbanded, it never found, either in the British islands or on

the Continent, an enemy who could stand its onset. In England,

Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, the Puritan warriors, often surrounded

by difficulties, sometimes contending against threefold odds, not only

never failed to conquer, but never failed to destroy and break in pieces

whatever force was opposed to them. They at length came to regard the

day of battle as a day of certain triumph, and marched against the most

renowned battalions of Europe with disdainful confidence. Turenne was

startled by the shout of stern exultation with which his English allies

advanced to the combat, and expressed the delight of a true soldier,

when he learned that it was ever the fashion of Cromwell's pikemen to

rejoice greatly when they beheld the enemy; and the banished Cavaliers

felt an emotion of national pride, when they saw a brigade of their

countrymen, outnumbered by foes and abandoned by friends, drive before

it in headlong rout the finest infantry of Spain, and force a passage

into a counterscarp which had just been pronounced impregnable by the

ablest of the Marshals of France.

But that which chiefly distinguished the army of Cromwell from other

armies was the austere morality and the fear of God which pervaded all

ranks. It is acknowledged by the most zealous Royalists that, in that

singular camp, no oath was heard, no drunkenness or gambling was seen,

and that, during the long dominion of the soldiery, the property of the

peaceable citizen and the honour of woman were held sacred. If outrages

were committed, they were outrages of a very different kind from

those of which a victorious army is generally guilty. No servant girl

complained of the rough gallantry of the redcoats. Not an ounce of plate

was taken from the shops of the goldsmiths. But a Pelagian sermon, or

a window on which the Virgin and Child were painted, produced in the

Puritan ranks an excitement which it required the utmost exertions

of the officers to quell. One of Cromwell's chief difficulties was to

restrain his musketeers and dragoons from invading by main force the

pulpits of ministers whose discourses, to use the language of that time,

were not savoury; and too many of our cathedrals still bear the marks

of the hatred with which those stern spirits regarded every vestige of

Popery.

To keep down the English people was no light task even for that army. No

sooner was the first pressure of military tyranny felt, than the nation,

unbroken to such servitude, began to struggle fiercely. Insurrections

broke out even in those counties which, during the recent war, had been

the most submissive to the Parliament. Indeed, the Parliament itself

abhorred its old defenders more than its old enemies, and was desirous

to come to terms of accommodation with Charles at the expense of the

troops. In Scotland at the same time, a coalition was formed between the

Royalists and a large body of Presbyterians who regarded the doctrines

of the Independents with detestation. At length the storm burst. There

were risings in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, Wales. The fleet in the

Thames suddenly hoisted the royal colours, stood out to sea, and menaced

the southern coast. A great Scottish force crossed the frontier

and advanced into Lancashire. It might well be suspected that these

movements were contemplated with secret complacency by a majority both

of the Lords and of the Commons.

But the yoke of the army was not to be so shaken off. While Fairfax

suppressed the risings in the neighbourhood of the capital, Oliver

routed the Welsh insurgents, and, leaving their castles in ruins,

marched against the Scots. His troops were few, when compared with the

invaders; but he was little in the habit of counting his enemies. The

Scottish army was utterly destroyed. A change in the Scottish government

followed. An administration, hostile to the King, was formed at

Edinburgh; and Cromwell, more than ever the darling of his soldiers,

returned in triumph to London.

And now a design, to which, at the commencement of the civil war, no man

would have dared to allude, and which was not less inconsistent with the

Solemn League and Covenant than with the old law of England, began to

take a distinct form. The austere warriors who ruled the nation had,

during some months, meditated a fearful vengeance on the captive King.

When and how the scheme originated; whether it spread from the general

to the ranks, or from the ranks to the general; whether it is to be

ascribed to policy using fanaticism as a tool, or to fanaticism bearing

down policy with headlong impulse, are questions which, even at this

day, cannot be answered with perfect confidence. It seems, however,

on the whole, probable that he who seemed to lead was really forced to

follow, and that, on this occasion, as on another great occasion a few

years later, he sacrificed his own judgment and his own inclinations to

the wishes of the army. For the power which he had called into existence

was a power which even he could not always control; and, that he might

ordinarily command, it was necessary that he should sometimes obey. He

publicly protested that he was no mover in the matter, that the first

steps had been taken without his privity, that he could not advise the

Parliament to strike the blow, but that he submitted his own feelings to

the force of circumstances which seemed to him to indicate the purposes

of Providence. It has been the fashion to consider these professions as

instances of the hypocrisy which is vulgarly imputed to him. But even

those who pronounce him a hypocrite will scarcely venture to call him a

fool. They are therefore bound to show that he had some purpose to serve

by secretly stimulating the army to take that course which he did not

venture openly to recommend. It would be absurd to suppose that he who

was never by his respectable enemies represented as wantonly cruel or

implacably vindictive, would have taken the most important step of his

life under the influence of mere malevolence. He was far too wise a man

not to know, when he consented to shed that august blood, that he was

doing a deed which was inexpiable, and which would move the grief and

horror, not only of the Royalists, but of nine tenths of those who had

stood by the Parliament. Whatever visions may have deluded others, he

was assuredly dreaming neither of a republic on the antique pattern,

nor of the millennial reign of the Saints. If he already aspired to

be himself the founder of a new dynasty, it was plain that Charles the

First was a less formidable competitor than Charles the Second would

be. At the moment of the death of Charles the First the loyalty of

every Cavalier would be transferred, unimpaired, to Charles the Second.

Charles the First was a captive: Charles the Second would be at liberty.

Charles the First was an object of suspicion and dislike to a large

proportion of those who yet shuddered at the thought of slaying him:

Charles the Second would excite all the interest which belongs to

distressed youth and innocence. It is impossible to believe that

considerations so obvious, and so important, escaped the most profound

politician of that age. The truth is that Cromwell had, at one

time, meant to mediate between the throne and the Parliament, and to

reorganise the distracted State by the power of the sword, under the

sanction of the royal name. In this design he persisted till he was

compelled to abandon it by the refractory temper of the soldiers, and

by the incurable duplicity of the King. A party in the camp began to

clamour for the head of the traitor, who was for treating with Agag.

Conspiracies were formed. Threats of impeachment were loudly uttered.

A mutiny broke out, which all the vigour and resolution of Oliver

could hardly quell. And though, by a judicious mixture of severity and

kindness, he succeeded in restoring order, he saw that it would be in

the highest degree difficult and perilous to contend against the rage of

warriors, who regarded the fallen tyrant as their foe, and as the foe

of their God. At the same time it became more evident than ever that the

King could not be trusted. The vices of Charles had grown upon him. They

were, indeed, vices which difficulties and perplexities generally bring

out in the strongest light. Cunning is the natural defence of the weak.

A prince, therefore, who is habitually a deceiver when at the height of

power, is not likely to learn frankness in the midst of embarrassments

and distresses. Charles was not only a most unscrupulous but a most

unlucky dissembler. There never was a politician to whom so many frauds

and falsehoods were brought home by undeniable evidence. He publicly

recognised the Houses at Westminster as a legal Parliament, and, at the

same time, made a private minute in council declaring the recognition

null. He publicly disclaimed all thought of calling in foreign aid

against his people: he privately solicited aid from France, from

Denmark, and from Lorraine. He publicly denied that he employed Papists:

at the same time he privately sent to his generals directions to employ

every Papist that would serve. He publicly took the sacrament at Oxford,

as a pledge that he never would even connive at Popery. He privately

assured his wife, that he intended to tolerate Popery in England; and he

authorised Lord Glamorgan to promise that Popery should be established

in Ireland. Then he attempted to clear himself at his agent's expense.

Glamorgan received, in the Royal handwriting, reprimands intended to be

read by others, and eulogies which were to be seen only by himself. To

such an extent, indeed, had insincerity now tainted the King's whole

nature, that his most devoted friends could not refrain from complaining

to each other, with bitter grief and shame, of his crooked politics. His

defeats, they said, gave them less pain than his intrigues. Since he had

been a prisoner, there was no section of the victorious party which had

not been the object both of his flatteries and of his machinations; but

never was he more unfortunate than when he attempted at once to cajole

and to undermine Cromwell.

Cromwell had to determine whether he would put to hazard the attachment

of his party, the attachment of his army, his own greatness, nay his

own life, in an attempt which would probably have been vain, to save

a prince whom no engagement could bind. With many struggles and

misgivings, and probably not without many prayers, the decision was

made. Charles was left to his fate. The military saints resolved that,

in defiance of the old laws of the realm, and of the almost universal

sentiment of the nation, the King should expiate his crimes with

his blood. He for a time expected a death like that of his unhappy

predecessors, Edward the Second and Richard the Second. But he was in

no danger of such treason. Those who had him in their gripe were not

midnight stabbers. What they did they did in order that it might be a

spectacle to heaven and earth, and that it might be held in everlasting

remembrance. They enjoyed keenly the very scandal which they gave. That

the ancient constitution and the public opinion of England were directly

opposed to regicide made regicide seem strangely fascinating to a party

bent on effecting a complete political and social revolution. In order

to accomplish their purpose, it was necessary that they should first

break in pieces every part of the machinery of the government; and this

necessity was rather agreeable than painful to them. The Commons passed

a vote tending to accommodation with the King. The soldiers excluded the

majority by force. The Lords unanimously rejected the proposition that

the King should be brought to trial. Their house was instantly closed.

No court, known to the law, would take on itself the office of judging

the fountain of justice. A revolutionary tribunal was created. That

tribunal pronounced Charles a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a

public enemy; and his head was severed from his shoulders, before

thousands of spectators, in front of the banqueting hall of his own

palace.

In no long time it became manifest that those political and religious

zealots, to whom this deed is to be ascribed, had committed, not only a

crime, but an error. They had given to a prince, hitherto known to his

people chiefly by his faults, an opportunity of displaying, on a great

theatre, before the eyes of all nations and all ages, some qualities

which irresistibly call forth the admiration and love of mankind, the

high spirit of a gallant gentleman, the patience and meekness of a

penitent Christian. Nay, they had so contrived their revenge that the

very man whose life had been a series of attacks on the liberties of

England now seemed to die a martyr in the cause of those liberties. No

demagogue ever produced such an impression on the public mind as the

captive King, who, retaining in that extremity all his regal dignity,

and confronting death with dauntless courage, gave utterance to the

feelings of his oppressed people, manfully refused to plead before

a court unknown to the law, appealed from military violence to the

principles of the constitution, asked by what right the House of Commons

had been purged of its most respectable members and the House of Lords

deprived of its legislative functions, and told his weeping hearers

that he was defending, not only his own cause, but theirs. His long

misgovernment, his innumerable perfidies, were forgotten. His memory

was, in the minds of the great majority of his subjects, associated with

those free institutions which he had, during many years, laboured to

destroy: for those free institutions had perished with him, and, amidst

the mournful silence of a community kept down by arms, had been defended

by his voice alone. From that day began a reaction in favour of monarchy

and of the exiled house, reaction which never ceased till the throne had

again been set up in all its old dignity.

At first, however, the slayers of the King seemed to have derived new

energy from that sacrament of blood by which they had bound themselves

closely together, and separated themselves for ever from the great body

of their countrymen. England was declared a commonwealth. The House of

Commons, reduced to a small number of members, was nominally the supreme

power in the state. In fact, the army and its great chief governed

everything. Oliver had made his choice. He had kept the hearts of his

soldiers, and had broken with almost every other class of his fellow

citizens. Beyond the limits of his camps and fortresses he could

scarcely be said to have a party. Those elements of force which, when

the civil war broke out, had appeared arrayed against each other, were

combined against him; all the Cavaliers, the great majority of the

Roundheads, the Anglican Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Roman

Catholic Church, England, Scotland, Ireland. Yet such, was his genius

and resolution that he was able to overpower and crush everything that

crossed his path, to make himself more absolute master of his country

than any of her legitimate Kings had been, and to make his country more

dreaded and respected than she had been during many generations under

the rule of her legitimate Kings.

England had already ceased to struggle. But the two other kingdoms which

had been governed by the Stuarts were hostile to the new republic. The

Independent party was equally odious to the Roman Catholics of Ireland

and to the Presbyterians of Scotland. Both those countries, lately in

rebellion against Charles the First, now acknowledged the authority of

Charles the Second.

But everything yielded to the vigour and ability of Cromwell. In a

few months he subjugated Ireland, as Ireland had never been subjugated

during the five centuries of slaughter which had elapsed since the

landing of the first Norman settlers. He resolved to put an end to that

conflict of races and religions which had so long distracted the island,

by making the English and Protestant population decidedly predominant.

For this end he gave the rein to the fierce enthusiasm of his followers,

waged war resembling that which Israel waged on the Canaanites, smote

the idolaters with the edge of the sword, so that great cities were left

without inhabitants, drove many thousands to the Continent, shipped off

many thousands to the West Indies, and supplied the void thus made by

pouring in numerous colonists, of Saxon blood, and of Calvinistic faith.

Strange to say, under that iron rule, the conquered country began to

wear an outward face of prosperity. Districts, which had recently been

as wild as those where the first white settlers of Connecticut were

contending with the red men, were in a few years transformed into the

likeness of Kent and Norfolk. New buildings, roads, and plantations were

everywhere seen. The rent of estates rose fast; and soon the English

landowners began to complain that they were met in every market by the

products of Ireland, and to clamour for protecting laws.

From Ireland the victorious chief, who was now in name, as he had long

been in reality, Lord General of the armies of the Commonwealth, turned

to Scotland. The Young King was there. He had consented to profess

himself a Presbyterian, and to subscribe the Covenant; and, in return

for these concessions, the austere Puritans who bore sway at Edinburgh

had permitted him to assume the crown, and to hold, under their

inspection and control, a solemn and melancholy court. This mock royalty

was of short duration. In two great battles Cromwell annihilated the

military force of Scotland. Charles fled for his life, and, with extreme

difficulty, escaped the fate of his father. The ancient kingdom of the

Stuarts was reduced, for the first time, to profound submission. Of that

independence, so manfully defended against the mightiest and ablest of

the Plantagenets, no vestige was left. The English Parliament made

laws for Scotland. English judges held assizes in Scotland. Even that

stubborn Church, which has held its own against so many governments,

scarce dared to utter an audible murmur.

Thus far there had been at least the semblance of harmony between the

warriors who had subjugated Ireland and Scotland and the politicians who

sate at Westminster: but the alliance which had been cemented by danger

was dissolved by victory. The Parliament forgot that it was but the

creature of the army. The army was less disposed than ever to submit to

the dictation of the Parliament. Indeed the few members who made up what

was contemptuously called the Rump of the House of Commons had no more

claim than the military chiefs to be esteemed the representatives of

the nation. The dispute was soon brought to a decisive issue. Cromwell

filled the House with armed men. The Speaker was pulled out of his

chair, the mace taken from the table, the room cleared, and the door

locked. The nation, which loved neither of the contending parties,

but which was forced, in its own despite, to respect the capacity

and resolution of the General, looked on with patience, if not with

complacency.

King, Lords, and Commons, had now in turn been vanquished and destroyed;

and Cromwell seemed to be left the sole heir of the powers of all three.

Yet were certain limitations still imposed on him by the very army to

which he owed his immense authority. That singular body of men was, for

the most part, composed of zealous republicans. In the act of enslaving

their country, they had deceived themselves into the belief that they

were emancipating her. The book which they venerated furnished them with

a precedent which was frequently in their mouths. It was true that the

ignorant and ungrateful nation murmured against its deliverers. Even so

had another chosen nation murmured against the leader who brought it, by

painful and dreary paths, from the house of bondage to the land flowing

with milk and honey. Yet had that leader rescued his brethren in spite

of themselves; nor had he shrunk from making terrible examples of those

who contemned the proffered freedom, and pined for the fleshpots, the

taskmasters, and the idolatries of Egypt. The object of the warlike

saints who surrounded Cromwell was the settlement of a free and pious

commonwealth. For that end they were ready to employ, without scruple,

any means, however violent and lawless. It was not impossible,

therefore, to establish by their aid a dictatorship such as no King

had ever exercised: but it was probable that their aid would be at once

withdrawn from a ruler who, even under strict constitutional restraints,

should venture to assume the kingly name and dignity.

The sentiments of Cromwell were widely different. He was not what he had

been; nor would it be just to consider the change which his views had

undergone as the effect merely of selfish ambition. He had, when he

came up to the Long Parliament, brought with him from his rural retreat

little knowledge of books, no experience of great affairs, and a temper

galled by the long tyranny of the government and of the hierarchy. He

had, during the thirteen years which followed, gone through a political

education of no common kind. He had been a chief actor in a succession

of revolutions. He had been long the soul, and at last the head, of

a party. He had commanded armies, won battles, negotiated treaties,

subdued, pacified, and regulated kingdoms. It would have been strange

indeed if his notions had been still the same as in the days when his

mind was principally occupied by his fields and his religion, and when

the greatest events which diversified the course of his life were a

cattle fair or a prayer meeting at Huntingdon. He saw that some schemes

of innovation for which he had once been zealous, whether good or bad

in themselves, were opposed to the general feeling of the country, and

that, if he persevered in those schemes, he had nothing before him but

constant troubles, which must be suppressed by the constant use of the

sword. He therefore wished to restore, in all essentials, that ancient

constitution which the majority of the people had always loved, and for

which they now pined. The course afterwards taken by Monk was not open

to Cromwell. The memory of one terrible day separated the great regicide

for ever from the House of Stuart. What remained was that he should

mount the ancient English throne, and reign according to the ancient

English polity. If he could effect this, he might hope that the wounds

of the lacerated State would heal fast. Great numbers of honest

and quiet men would speedily rally round him. Those Royalists whose

attachment was rather to institutions than to persons, to the kingly

office than to King Charles the First or King Charles the Second, would

soon kiss the hand of King Oliver. The peers, who now remained sullenly

at their country houses, and refused to take any part in public affairs,

would, when summoned to their House by the writ of a King in possession,

gladly resume their ancient functions. Northumberland and Bedford,

Manchester and Pembroke, would be proud to bear the crown and the

spurs, the sceptre and the globe, before the restorer of aristocracy. A

sentiment of loyalty would gradually bind the people to the new dynasty;

and, on the decease of the founder of that dynasty, the royal dignity

might descend with general acquiescence to his posterity.

The ablest Royalists were of opinion that these views were correct, and

that, if Cromwell had been permitted to follow his own judgment, the

exiled line would never have been restored. But his plan was directly

opposed to the feelings of the only class which he dared not offend.

The name of King was hateful to the soldiers. Some of them were indeed

unwilling to see the administration in the hands of any single person.

The great majority, however, were disposed to support their general, as

elective first magistrate of a commonwealth, against all factions which

might resist his authority: but they would not consent that he should

assume the regal title, or that the dignity, which was the just reward

of his personal merit, should be declared hereditary in his family. All

that was left to him was to give to the new republic a constitution as

like the constitution of the old monarchy as the army would bear. That

his elevation to power might not seem to be merely his own act, he

convoked a council, composed partly of persons on whose support he could

depend, and partly of persons whose opposition he might safely defy.

This assembly, which he called a Parliament, and which the populace

nicknamed, from one of the most conspicuous members, Barebonesa's

Parliament, after exposing itself during a short time to the public

contempt, surrendered back to the General the powers which it

had received from him, and left him at liberty to frame a plan of

government.

His plan bore, from the first, a considerable resemblance to the old

English constitution: but, in a few years, he thought it safe to proceed

further, and to restore almost every part of the ancient system under

hew names and forms. The title of King was not revived; but the kingly

prerogatives were intrusted to a Lord High Protector. The sovereign

was called not His Majesty, but His Highness. He was not crowned and

anointed in Westminster Abbey, but was solemnly enthroned, girt with

a sword of state, clad in a robe of purple, and presented with a rich

Bible, in Westminster Hall. His office was not declared hereditary: but

he was permitted to name his successor; and none could doubt that he

would name his Son.

A House of Commons was a necessary part of the new polity. In

constituting this body, the Protector showed a wisdom and a public

spirit which were not duly appreciated by his contemporaries. The vices

of the old representative system, though by no means so serious as they

afterwards became, had already been remarked by farsighted men. Cromwell

reformed that system on the same principles on which Mr. Pitt, a hundred

and thirty years later, attempted to reform it, and on which it was at

length reformed in our own times. Small boroughs were disfranchised

even more unsparingly than in 1832; and the number of county members

was greatly increased. Very few unrepresented towns had yet grown into

importance. Of those towns the most considerable were Manchester, Leeds,

and Halifax. Representatives were given to all three. An addition

was made to the number of the members for the capital. The elective

franchise was placed on such a footing that every man of substance,

whether possessed of freehold estates in land or not, had a vote for

the county in which he resided. A few Scotchmen and a few of the English

colonists settled in Ireland were summoned to the assembly which was to

legislate, at Westminster, for every part of the British isles.

To create a House of Lords was a less easy task. Democracy does not

require the support of prescription. Monarchy has often stood without

that support. But a patrician order is the work of time. Oliver found

already existing a nobility, opulent, highly considered, and as popular

with the commonalty as any nobility has ever been. Had he, as King of

England, commanded the peers to meet him in Parliament according to the

old usage of the realm, many of them would undoubtedly have obeyed the

call. This he could not do; and it was to no purpose that he offered

to the chiefs of illustrious families seats in his new senate. They

conceived that they could not accept a nomination to an upstart assembly

without renouncing their birthright and betraying their order. The

Protector was, therefore, under the necessity of filling his Upper House

with new men who, during the late stirring times, had made themselves

conspicuous. This was the least happy of his contrivances, and

displeased all parties. The Levellers were angry with him for

instituting a privileged class. The multitude, which felt respect and

fondness for the great historical names of the land, laughed without

restraint at a House of Lords, in which lucky draymen and shoemakers

were seated, to which few of the old nobles were invited, and from which

almost all those old nobles who were invited turned disdainfully away.

How Oliver's Parliaments were constituted, however, was practically

of little moment: for he possessed the means of conducting the

administration without their support, and in defiance of their

opposition. His wish seems to have been to govern constitutionally, and

to substitute the empire of the laws for that of the sword. But he soon

found that, hated as he was, both by Royalists and Presbyterians, he

could be safe only by being absolute. The first House of Commons which

the people elected by his command, questioned his authority, and was

dissolved without having passed a single act. His second House of

Commons, though it recognised him as Protector, and would gladly have

made him King, obstinately refused to acknowledge his new Lords. He had

no course left but to dissolve the Parliament. "God," he exclaimed, at

parting, "be judge between you and me!"

Yet was the energy of the Protector's administration in nowise relaxed

by these dissensions. Those soldiers who would not suffer him to assume

the kingly title stood by him when he ventured on acts of power, as

high as any English King has ever attempted. The government, therefore,

though in form a republic, was in truth a despotism, moderated only by

the wisdom, the sobriety, and the magnanimity of the despot. The country

was divided into military districts. Those districts were placed under

the command of Major Generals. Every insurrectionary movement was

promptly put down and punished. The fear inspired by the power of the

sword, in so strong, steady, and expert a hand, quelled the spirit both

of Cavaliers and Levellers. The loyal gentry declared that they were

still as ready as ever to risk their lives for the old government and

the old dynasty, if there were the slightest hope of success: but to

rush, at the head of their serving men and tenants, on the pikes of

brigades victorious in a hundred battles and sieges, would be a frantic

waste of innocent and honourable blood. Both Royalists and Republicans,

having no hope in open resistance, began to revolve dark schemes of

assassination: but the Protector's intelligence was good: his vigilance

was unremitting; and, whenever he moved beyond the walls of his palace,

the drawn swords and cuirasses of his trusty bodyguards encompassed him

thick on every side.

Had he been a cruel, licentious, and rapacious prince, the nation might

have found courage in despair, and might have made a convulsive effort

to free itself from military domination. But the grievances which the

country suffered, though such as excited serious discontent, were by

no means such as impel great masses of men to stake their lives, their

fortunes, and the welfare of their families against fearful odds. The

taxation, though heavier than it had been under the Stuarts, was not

heavy when compared with that of the neighbouring states and with

the resources of England. Property was secure. Even the Cavalier, who

refrained from giving disturbance to the new settlement, enjoyed in

peace whatever the civil troubles had left hem. The laws were violated

only in cases where the safety of the Protector's person and government

was concerned. Justice was administered between man and man with an

exactness and purity not before known. Under no English government since

the Reformation, had there been so little religious persecution. The

unfortunate Roman Catholics, indeed, were held to be scarcely within the

pale of Christian charity. But the clergy of the fallen Anglican Church

were suffered to celebrate their worship on condition that they would

abstain from preaching about politics. Even the Jews, whose public

worship had, ever since the thirteenth century, been interdicted, were,

in spite of the strong opposition of jealous traders and fanatical

theologians, permitted to build a synagogue in London.

The Protector's foreign policy at the same time extorted the ungracious

approbation of those who most detested him. The Cavaliers could scarcely

refrain from wishing that one who had done so much to raise the fame of

the nation had been a legitimate King; and the Republicans were forced

to own that the tyrant suffered none but himself to wrong his country,

and that, if he had robbed her of liberty, he had at least given her

glory in exchange. After half a century during which England had been of

scarcely more weight in European politics than Venice or Saxony, she at

once became the most formidable power in the world, dictated terms

of peace to the United Provinces, avenged the common injuries of

Christendom on the pirates of Barbary, vanquished the Spaniards by land

and sea, seized one of the finest West Indian islands, and acquired on

the Flemish coast a fortress which consoled the national pride for the

loss of Calais. She was supreme on the ocean. She was the head of the

Protestant interest. All the reformed Churches scattered over Roman

Catholic kingdoms acknowledged Cromwell as their guardian. The Huguenots

of Languedoc, the shepherds who, in the hamlets of the Alps professed a

Protestantism older than that of Augsburg, were secured from oppression

by the mere terror of his great name The Pope himself was forced to

preach humanity and moderation to Popish princes. For a voice which

seldom threatened in vain had declared that, unless favour were shown

to the people of God, the English guns should be heard in the Castle of

Saint Angelo. In truth, there was nothing which Cromwell had, for his

own sake and that of his family, so much reason to desire as a general

religious war in Europe. In such a war he must have been the captain of

the Protestant armies. The heart of England would have been with him.

His victories would have been hailed with an unanimous enthusiasm

unknown in the country since the rout of the Armada, and would have

effaced the stain which one act, condemned by the general voice of

the nation, has left on his splendid fame. Unhappily for him he had no

opportunity of displaying his admirable military talents, except against

the inhabitants of the British isles.

While he lived his power stood firm, an object of mingled aversion,

admiration, and dread to his subjects. Few indeed loved his government;

but those who hated it most hated it less than they feared it. Had it

been a worse government, it might perhaps have been overthrown in spite

of all its strength. Had it been a weaker government, it would certainly

have been overthrown in spite of all its merits. But it had moderation

enough to abstain from those oppressions which drive men mad; and it

had a force and energy which none but men driven mad by oppression would

venture to encounter.

It has often been affirmed, but with little reason, that Oliver died

at a time fortunate for his renown, and that, if his life had been

prolonged, it would probably have closed amidst disgraces and disasters.

It is certain that he was, to the last, honoured by his soldiers, obeyed

by the whole population of the British islands, and dreaded by all

foreign powers, that he was laid among the ancient sovereigns of England

with funeral pomp such as London had never before seen, and that he

was succeeded by his son Richard as quietly as any King had ever been

succeeded by any Prince of Wales.

During five months, the administration of Richard Cromwell went on

so tranquilly and regularly that all Europe believed him to be firmly

established on the chair of state. In truth his situation was in some

respects much more advantageous than that of his father. The young

man had made no enemy. His hands were unstained by civil blood.

The Cavaliers themselves allowed him to be an honest, good-natured

gentleman. The Presbyterian party, powerful both in numbers and in

wealth, had been at deadly feud with the late Protector, but was

disposed to regard the present Protector with favour. That party had

always been desirous to see the old civil polity of the realm restored

with some clearer definitions and some stronger safeguards for public

liberty, but had many reasons for dreading the restoration of the old

family. Richard was the very man for politicians of this description.

His humanity, ingenuousness, and modesty, the mediocrity of his

abilities, and the docility with which he submitted to the guidance of

persons wiser than himself, admirably qualified him to be the head of a

limited monarchy.

For a time it seemed highly probable that he would, under the direction

of able advisers, effect what his father had attempted in vain. A

Parliament was called, and the writs were directed after the old

fashion. The small boroughs which had recently been disfranchised

regained their lost privilege: Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax ceased to

return members; and the county of York was again limited to two knights.

It may seem strange to a generation which has been excited almost to

madness by the question of parliamentary reform that great shires and

towns should have submitted with patience and even with complacency, to

this change: but though speculative men might, even in that age, discern

the vices of the old representative system, and predict that those vices

would, sooner or later, produce serious practical evil, the practical

evil had not yet been felt. Oliver's representative system, on the other

hand, though constructed on sound principles, was not popular. Both the

events in which it originated, and the effects which it had produced,

prejudiced men against it. It had sprung from military violence. It

had been fruitful of nothing but disputes. The whole nation was sick

of government by the sword, and pined for government by the law. The

restoration, therefore, even of anomalies and abuses, which were in

strict conformity with the law, and which had been destroyed by the

sword, gave general satisfaction.

Among the Commons there was a strong opposition, consisting partly of

avowed Republicans, and partly of concealed Royalists: but a large and

steady majority appeared to be favourable to the plan of reviving

the old civil constitution under a new dynasty. Richard was solemnly

recognised as first magistrate. The Commons not only consented to

transact business with Oliver's Lords, but passed a vote acknowledging

the right of those nobles who had, in the late troubles, taken the side

of public liberty, to sit in the Upper House of Parliament without any

new creation.

Thus far the statesmen by whose advice Richard acted had been

successful. Almost all the parts of the government were now constituted

as they had been constituted at the commencement of the civil war. Had

the Protector and the Parliament been suffered to proceed undisturbed,

there can be little doubt that an order of things similar to that which

was afterwards established under the House of Hanover would have been

established under the House of Cromwell. But there was in the state

a power more than sufficient to deal with Protector and Parliament

together. Over the soldiers Richard had no authority except that which

he derived from the great name which he had inherited. He had never led

them to victory. He had never even borne arms. All his tastes and habits

were pacific. Nor were his opinions and feelings on religious subjects

approved by the military saints. That he was a good man he evinced by

proofs more satisfactory than deep groans or long sermons, by humility

and suavity when he was at the height of human greatness, and by

cheerful resignation under cruel wrongs and misfortunes: but the cant

then common in every guardroom gave him a disgust which he had not

always the prudence to conceal. The officers who had the principal

influence among the troops stationed near London were not his friends.

They were men distinguished by valour and conduct in the field, but

destitute of the wisdom and civil courage which had been conspicuous

in their deceased leader. Some of them were honest, but fanatical,

Independents and Republicans. Of this class Fleetwood was the

representative. Others were impatient to be what Oliver had been. His

rapid elevation, his prosperity and glory, his inauguration in the Hall,

and his gorgeous obsequies in the Abbey, had inflamed their imagination.

They were as well born as he, and as well educated: they could not

understand why they were not as worthy to wear the purple robe, and to

wield the sword of state; and they pursued the objects of their wild

ambition, not, like him, with patience, vigilance, sagacity, and

determination, but with the restlessness and irresolution characteristic

of aspiring mediocrity. Among these feeble copies of a great original

the most conspicuous was Lambert.

On the very day of Richard's accession the officers began to conspire

against their new master. The good understanding which existed between

him and his Parliament hastened the crisis. Alarm and resentment spread

through the camp. Both the religious and the professional feelings of

the army were deeply wounded. It seemed that the Independents were to be

subjected to the Presbyterians, and that the men of the sword were to

be subjected to the men of the gown. A coalition was formed between

the military malecontents and the republican minority of the House of

Commons. It may well be doubted whether Richard could have triumphed

over that coalition, even if he had inherited his father's clear

judgment and iron courage. It is certain that simplicity and meekness

like his were not the qualities which the conjuncture required. He fell

ingloriously, and without a struggle. He was used by the army as an

instrument for the purpose of dissolving the Parliament, and was then

contemptuously thrown aside. The officers gratified their republican

allies by declaring that the expulsion of the Rump had been illegal, and

by inviting that assembly to resume its functions. The old Speaker and a

quorum of the old members came together, and were proclaimed, amidst

the scarcely stifled derision and execration of the whole nation, the

supreme power in the commonwealth. It was at the same time expressly

declared that there should be no first magistrate, and no House of

Lords.

But this state of things could not last. On the day on which the long

Parliament revived, revived also its old quarrel with the army. Again

the Rump forgot that it owed its existence to the pleasure of the

soldiers, and began to treat them as subjects. Again the doors of the

House of Commons were closed by military violence; and a provisional

government, named by the officers, assumed the direction of affairs.

Meanwhile the sense of great evils, and the strong apprehension of still

greater evils close at hand, had at length produced an alliance between

the Cavaliers and the Presbyterians. Some Presbyterians had, indeed,

been disposed to such an alliance even before the death of Charles the

First: but it was not till after the fall of Richard Cromwell that the

whole party became eager for the restoration of the royal house. There

was no longer any reasonable hope that the old constitution could be

reestablished under a new dynasty. One choice only was left, the Stuarts

or the army. The banished family had committed great faults; but it had

dearly expiated those faults, and had undergone a long, and, it might be

hoped, a salutary training in the school of adversity. It was probable

that Charles the Second would take warning by the fate of Charles

the First. But, be this as it might, the dangers which threatened the

country were such that, in order to avert them, some opinions might well

be compromised, and some risks might well be incurred. It seemed but too

likely that England would fall under the most odious and degrading of

all kinds of government, under a government uniting all the evils of

despotism to all the evils of anarchy. Anything was preferable to the

yoke of a succession of incapable and inglorious tyrants, raised to

power, like the Deys of Barbary, by military revolutions recurring at

short intervals. Lambert seemed likely to be the first of these rulers;

but within a year Lambert might give place to Desborough, and Desborough

to Harrison. As often as the truncheon was transferred from one feeble

hand to another, the nation would be pillaged for the purpose of

bestowing a fresh donative on the troops. If the Presbyterians

obstinately stood aloof from the Royalists, the state was lost; and men

might well doubt whether, by the combined exertions of Presbyterians and

Royalists, it could be saved. For the dread of that invincible army was

on all the inhabitants of the island; and the Cavaliers, taught by

a hundred disastrous fields how little numbers can effect against

discipline, were even more completely cowed than the Roundheads.

While the soldiers remained united, all the plots and risings of the

malecontents were ineffectual. But a few days after the second expulsion

of the Rump, came tidings which gladdened the hearts of all who were

attached either to monarchy or to liberty: That mighty force which had,

during many years, acted as one man, and which, while so acting, had

been found irresistible, was at length divided against itself. The army

of Scotland had done good service to the Commonwealth, and was in

the highest state of efficiency. It had borne no part in the late

revolutions, and had seen them with indignation resembling the

indignation which the Roman legions posted on the Danube and the

Euphrates felt, when they learned that the empire had been put up to

sale by the Praetorian Guards. It was intolerable that certain regiments

should, merely because they happened to be quartered near Westminster,

take on themselves to make and unmake several governments in the course

of half a year. If it were fit that the state should be regulated by the

soldiers, those soldiers who upheld the English ascendency on the north

of the Tweed were as well entitled to a voice as those who garrisoned

the Tower of London. There appears to have been less fanaticism among

the troops stationed in Scotland than in any other part of the army; and

their general, George Monk, was himself the very opposite of a zealot.

He had at the commencement of the civil war, borne arms for the King,

had been made prisoner by the Roundheads, had then accepted a commission

from the Parliament, and, with very slender pretensions to saintship,

had raised himself to high commands by his courage and professional

skill. He had been an useful servant to both the Protectors, and had

quietly acquiesced when the officers at Westminster had pulled down

Richard and restored the Long Parliament, and would perhaps have

acquiesced as quietly in the second expulsion of the Long Parliament,

if the provisional government had abstained from giving him cause of

offence and apprehension. For his nature was cautious and somewhat

sluggish; nor was he at all disposed to hazard sure and moderate

advantages for the chalice of obtaining even the most splendid

success. He seems to have been impelled to attack the new rulers of

the Commonwealth less by the hope that, if he overthrew them, he should

become great, than by the fear that, if he submitted to them, he should

not even be secure. Whatever were his motives, he declared himself

the champion of the oppressed civil power, refused to acknowledge the

usurped authority of the provisional government, and, at the head of

seven thousand veterans, marched into England.

This step was the signal for a general explosion. The people everywhere

refused to pay taxes. The apprentices of the City assembled by thousands

and clamoured for a free Parliament. The fleet sailed up the Thames, and

declared against the tyranny of the soldiers. The soldiers, no longer

under the control of one commanding mind, separated into factions. Every

regiment, afraid lest it should be left alone a mark for the vengeance

of the oppressed nation, hastened to make a separate peace. Lambert, who

had hastened northward to encounter the army of Scotland, was abandoned

by his troops, and became a prisoner. During thirteen years the civil

power had, in every conflict, been compelled to yield to the military

power. The military power now humbled itself before the civil power.

The Rump, generally hated and despised, but still the only body in the

country which had any show of legal authority, returned again to the

house from which it had been twice ignominiously expelled.

In the mean time Monk was advancing towards London. Wherever he came,

the gentry flocked round him, imploring him to use his power for the

purpose of restoring peace and liberty to the distracted nation.

The General, coldblooded, taciturn, zealous for no polity and for no

religion, maintained an impenetrable reserve. What were at this time

his plans, and whether he had any plan, may well be doubted. His great

object, apparently, was to keep himself, as long as possible, free to

choose between several lines of action. Such, indeed, is commonly the

policy of men who are, like him, distinguished rather by wariness than

by farsightedness. It was probably not till he had been some days in the

capital that he had made up his mind. The cry of the whole people was

for a free Parliament; and there could be no doubt that a Parliament

really free would instantly restore the exiled family. The Rump and the

soldiers were still hostile to the House of Stuart. But the Rump was

universally detested and despised. The power of the soldiers was indeed

still formidable, but had been greatly diminished by discord. They had

no head. They had recently been, in many parts of the country, arrayed

against each other. On the very day before Monk reached London, there

was a fight in the Strand between the cavalry and the infantry. An

united army had long kept down a divided nation; but the nation was now

united, and the army was divided.

During a short time the dissimulation or irresolution of Monk kept all

parties in a state of painful suspense. At length he broke silence, and

declared for a free Parliament.

As soon as his declaration was known, the whole nation was wild with

delight. Wherever he appeared thousands thronged round him, shouting and

blessing his name. The bells of all England rang joyously: the gutters

ran with ale; and, night after night, the sky five miles round London

was reddened by innumerable bonfires. Those Presbyterian members of the

House of Commons who had many years before been expelled by the army,

returned to their seats, and were hailed with acclamations by great

multitudes, which filled Westminster Hall and Palace Yard. The

Independent leaders no longer dared to show their faces in the streets,

and were scarcely safe within their own dwellings. Temporary provision

was made for the government: writs were issued for a general election;

and then that memorable Parliament, which had, in the course of

twenty eventful years, experienced every variety of fortune, which had

triumphed over its sovereign, which had been enslaved and degraded by

its servants, which had been twice ejected and twice restored, solemnly

decreed its own dissolution.

The result of the elections was such as might have been expected from

the temper of the nation. The new House of Commons consisted, with few

exceptions, of persons friendly to the royal family. The Presbyterians

formed the majority.

That there would be a restoration now seemed almost certain; but whether

there would be a peaceable restoration was matter of painful doubt. The

soldiers were in a gloomy and savage mood. They hated the title of King.

They hated the name of Stuart. They hated Presbyterianism much, and

Prelacy more. They saw with bitter indignation that the close of their

long domination was approaching, and that a life of inglorious toil

and penury was before them. They attributed their ill fortune to the

weakness of some generals, and to the treason of others. One hour

of their beloved Oliver might even now restore the glory which had

departed. Betrayed, disunited, and left without any chief in whom they

could confide, they were yet to be dreaded. It was no light thing to

encounter the rage and despair of fifty thousand fighting men, whose

backs no enemy had ever seen. Monk, and those with whom he acted, were

well aware that the crisis was most perilous. They employed every art

to soothe and to divide the discontented warriors. At the same time

vigorous preparation was made for a conflict. The army of Scotland, now

quartered in London, was kept in good humour by bribes, praises, and

promises. The wealthy citizens grudged nothing to a redcoat, and were

indeed so liberal of their best wine, that warlike saints were sometimes

seen in a condition not very honourable either to their religious or

to their military character. Some refractory regiments Monk ventured

to disband. In the mean time the greatest exertions were made by the

provisional government, with the strenuous aid of the whole body of

the gentry and magistracy, to organise the militia. In every county the

trainbands were held ready to march; and this force cannot be estimated

at less than a hundred and twenty thousand men. In Hyde Park twenty

thousand citizens, well armed and accoutred, passed in review, and

showed a spirit which justified the hope that, in case of need, they

would fight manfully for their shops and firesides. The fleet was

heartily with the nation. It was a stirring time, a time of anxiety, yet

of hope. The prevailing opinion was that England would be delivered, but

not without a desperate and bloody struggle, and that the class which

had so long ruled by the sword would perish by the sword.

Happily the dangers of a conflict were averted. There was indeed one

moment of extreme peril. Lambert escaped from his confinement, and

called his comrades to arms. The flame of civil war was actually

rekindled; but by prompt and vigorous exertion it was trodden out before

it had time to spread. The luckless imitator of Cromwell was again

a prisoner. The failure of his enterprise damped the spirit of the

soldiers; and they sullenly resigned themselves to their fate.

The new Parliament, which, having been called without the royal writ, is

more accurately described as a Convention, met at Westminster. The

Lords repaired to the hall, from which they had, during more than eleven

years, been excluded by force. Both Houses instantly invited the King to

return to his country. He was proclaimed with pomp never before known.

A gallant fleet convoyed him from Holland to the coast of Kent. When he

landed, the cliffs of Dover were covered by thousands of gazers, among

whom scarcely one could be found who was not weeping with delight. The

journey to London was a continued triumph. The whole road from Rochester

was bordered by booths and tents, and looked like an interminable fair.

Everywhere flags were flying, bells and music sounding, wine and ale

flowing in rivers to the health of him whose return was the return of

peace, of law, and of freedom. But in the midst of the general joy, one

spot presented a dark and threatening aspect. On Blackheath the army was

drawn up to welcome the sovereign. He smiled, bowed, and extended his

hand graciously to the lips of the colonels and majors. But all his

courtesy was vain. The countenances of the soldiers were sad and

lowering; and had they given way to their feelings, the festive pageant

of which they reluctantly made a part would have had a mournful and

bloody end. But there was no concert among them. Discord and defection

had left them no confidence in their chiefs or in each other. The

whole array of the City of London was under arms. Numerous companies of

militia had assembled from various parts of the realm, under the command

of loyal noblemen and gentlemen, to welcome the King. That great day

closed in peace; and the restored wanderer reposed safe in the palace of

his ancestors.