ride last night, or let him escape. By my troth, I had only your
pleasure in mind."
"Oh, but the price paid was too great! I had to give up your society
for hours. That is a loss I shall mourn to the end of my life. I hope,
then, that you killed him. Nothing less will suffice for it."
"I was out of fortune, as I always am. I had an accident, and was at
his mercy. He gave me my life."
"Now, indeed, you pierce my heart. You at his mercy! It is an
intolerable shame! It will make me cry out, even when I sleep! I shall
die of it. You! You! to be at his mercy--at the mercy of that Puritan
braggart. Oh, I cannot endure it!"
"You see that I endure it very complacently, Mata. The man behaved as a
gentleman and a soldier. I have even taken a liking to him. I have
also paid back his kindness; we are quits, and as soldiers, friends. It
was an accident, and as Neville very piously said, 'Accidents are God's
part in an affair;' and therefore we would not be found fighting against
God. You know, Mata, that I have been very religiously brought up. And
I can assure you no one's honour suffered, mine least of all."
But Matilda was hard to comfort. Her last interview with her lover was
saddened and troubled by this disagreement; and though both were
broken-hearted in the moments of farewell, Matilda, watching Rupert
across the Place Royale, discovered in the listless impatience of his
attitude and movements, that inward revolt against outward strife,
which, if it had found a voice, would have ejaculated, "I am glad it is
over."
This, then, was the end of the visit from which she had expected so
much; and one sad gray morning in November they reached London. Sir
Thomas was like a man released from a spell, and he went about his house
and garden in a mood so happy that it was like a psalm of gratitude to
be with him. Lady Jevery was equally pleased, though less ready to show
her pleasure; but to Matilda, life appeared without hope--a state of
simple endurance, for she had no vital expectation that the morrow, or
any other morrow, would bring her happiness.
The apparently fateful interference of Neville in her affairs made her
miserable. She thought him her evil genius, the bearer of bad news, the
bringer of sorrow. She felt Rupert's "accident" as part of the bad
fate. She had been taught fencing, and Cymlin Swaffham had often
declared her a match for any swordsman, so that she knew, as well as
Rupert knew, no honour had been lost between him and Neville. But the
"accident" touched her deeper than this: she regarded it as a proof that
the stars were still against her good fortune, separating her from her
lover, influencing Neville and his party for victory, and dooming the
King and his party to defeat in all their relationships, private and
national.
She said to herself in the first hours of her return that she would not
see Jane, but as the day wore on she changed her mind. She wished to
write Rupert every particular about national events, and she could best
feel the Puritan pulse through Jane; while from no one else could she
obtain a knowledge of the household doings of Cromwell and his family.
Then, also, she wished Jane to see her new dresses, and to hear of the
great and famous people she had been living among. What was the use of
being familiar with princesses, if there was no one to talk to about
them? And Matilda had so much to say concerning the ex-Queen of Bohemia
and her clever daughters, that she could not deny herself the society of
Jane as a listener. So she wrote and asked her to come, and Jane
answered the request in person, at once. This hurry of welcome was a
little malapropos. Matilda had not assumed the dress and style she had
intended, and the litter of fine clothing about her rooms, and the
partially unpacked boxes, gave to her surroundings an undignified and
unimpressive character. But friendship gives up its forms tardily;
people kiss each other and say fond words long after the love that ought
to vitalise such symbols is dead and buried; and for awhile the two
girls did believe themselves glad to meet again. There were a score of
things delightful to women over which they could agree, and Jane's
admiration for her friend's beautiful gowns and laces and jewels, and
her interest in Matilda's descriptions of the circumstances in which
they were worn, was so genuine, that Matilda had forgotten her relation
to Lord Neville, when the irritating name was mentioned.
"Did you see Lord Neville in Paris?" Jane asked; and there was a wistful
anxiety in her voice to which Matilda ought to have responded. But the
question came when she was tired even of her own splendours and
successes; she had talked herself out, and was not inclined to continue
conversation if the subject of it was to be one so disagreeable. "No,"
she answered sharply. "I did not see him. He called one day, and had a
long talk with Sir Thomas, but aunt had a headache, and I had more
delightful company."
"I thought for my sake you would see him. Did you hear anything of his
affairs?"
"Indeed, I heard he gave great offense to Cardinal Mazarin by his
authoritative manner."
"_Oh!_"
"You know, Jane, that he has a most presuming, haughty way? He has!"
"I am sure he has not, Matilda."
"Every one wondered at Cromwell sending a mere boy on such delicate and
important business. It was considered almost an insult to Mazarin."
"How can you say such things, Matilda? The business was neither
delicate nor important. It was merely to deliver a parcel to Mazarin.
Cluny was not charged with any explanations, and I am sure he took
nothing on himself."
"I only repeat what I heard--that he carried himself as if he were a
young Atlas, and had England's fate and honour on his shoulders."
"You can surely also repeat something pleasant. Did you hear of him at
the minister's, or elsewhere? He is not one to pass through a room and
nobody see him."
"I heard nothing about him but what I have told you. He prevented my
seeing the Queen of Bohemia on my return, because he offered to attend
to my uncle's business at The Hague for him; and for this interference I
do not thank Lord Neville."
"Nor I," answered Jane. "Had he not gone to The Hague he might have
been in London by this time." Then wishing to avoid all unpleasantness,
she said, "To be sure it is no wonder you forgot me and my affairs. You
have been living a fairy tale, Matilda; and the fairy prince has been
living it with you. How charming!"
Matilda was instantly pleased, her voice became melodious, her face
smiling and tender. "Yes," she answered, "a fairy tale, and my prince
was so splendid, so famous, so adored, kings, cardinals, great men of
all kinds, and the loveliest women in France sought him, but he left all
to sit at my side;" and then the girls sat down, hand in hand, and
Matilda told again her tale of love, till they were both near to
weeping. This sympathy made Matilda remember more kindly Jane's dreams
and hopes concerning her own love affair, and though she hated Neville,
she put aside the ill feeling and asked, "Pray now, Jane, what about
your marriage? Does it stand, like mine, under unwilling stars?"
"No. I am almost sure my father has changed his mind; perhaps the Lord
General has helped him to do so, for no man, or woman either, takes such
sweet interest in a true love affair. He is always for making lovers
happy, whether they be his own sons and daughters or those of his
friends; and he likes Cluny so much that when he returns he is to have a
command at Edinburgh. And I can see father and mother have been talking
about our marriage. One morning, lately, mother showed me the fine
damask and house linen she is going to give me, and another morning she
looked at my sewing and said, 'I might as well hurry a little; things
might happen sooner than I thought for;' and then she kissed me, and
that is what mother doesn't often do, out of time and season."
Jane had risen as she said these words, and was tying on her bonnet, and
Matilda watched her with a curious interest. "I was wondering," she
said slowly, "if you will be glad to marry Cluny Neville and go away to
Scotland with him."
"Oh, yes," Jane answered, her eyes shining, her mouth wreathed in
smiles, her whole being expressing her delight in such an anticipation.
Matilda made no further remark, but when Jane had closed the door behind
her, she sat down thoughtfully by the fire, and stirring together the
red embers, sighed rather than said--
"Why do people marry and bring up sons and daughters? This girl has been
loved to the uttermost by her father and mother and brothers, and she
will gladly leave them all to go off with this young Scot. She will
call it 'Sacrifice for Love's sake;' I call it pure selfishness. Yet I
am not a whit whiter than she. I would have stayed in Paris with
Rupert, though my good uncle was in danger. How dreadful it is to look
into one's own soul, and make one's self tell it the honest truth. I
think I will go to my evening service;" and as she rose for her Common
Prayer, she was saying under her breath, "We have left undone those
things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which
we ought not to have done. And there is no health in us."
Lady Jevery had a dinner party that night, and Matilda went down to it
in considerable splendour. Doctor Hewitt was present, and Mr. Waller,
the poet, and Denzil Hollis, and the witty, delightful Henry Marten, and
Matilda's great favourite, the little royalist linen draper, Izaak
Walton, whose _Complete Angler_ had just been published. He had brought
Sir Thomas a copy of it, and Matilda found out at once the song, "Come
live with me and be my love." Her praises were very pleasant to the old
man, who had hid Donne and Hooker and Herbert in his Inner Chamber
during the days of the Long Parliament; who had been the friend of
bishops Ken and Sanderson, and of archbishops Usher and Sheldon; and
who, born in Elizabeth's reign, had lived to see "Sceptre and Crown
tumbled down."
"But you are not the only author of Great Oliver's reign," she said with
a whimsical smile. "This day Mistress Dorothy Osborne sent me a copy of
the poems of my Lady Newcastle. She has been making herself still more
absurd than she is by writing a book--and in verse. 'Sure,' said
Mistress Dorothy to me, 'if I did not sleep for a month, I should never
come to that point.' Why does her husband let her run loose? I vow
there are soberer people in Bedlam."
"Her husband adores her; he believes her to be a prodigy of learning."
"They are a couple of fools well met. I am sorry for them. She dashes
at everything, and he goes about trumpeting her praises. Come, sir, I
hear the company tossing Cromwell's name about. Let us join the
combatants; I wish to be in the fray."
The fact was Sir Thomas had asked after political affairs since he left
England in April, and there was plenty of material for discussion.
Denzil Hollis was describing the opening of the Parliament summoned by
Cromwell, and which met on the fourth of July. "He made to this
Parliament," he said, "a wonderful speech. He declared that he 'did not
want supreme power, no, not for a day, but to put it into the hands of
proper persons elected by the people.' And he bid them 'be humble and
not consider themselves too much of a Parliament.' And then he burst
into such a strain as none ever heard, taking texts from psalms, and
prophets and epistles, mingled with homely counsels, and entreaties to
them to do their duty--speaking till the words fell red hot from his
lips, so that when he ended with the psalm on Dunbar field we were all
ready to sing it with him; for as he told us, with a shining face, 'the
triumph of the psalm is exceeding high and great, and God is now
accomplishing it.'"
"No English Parliament was ever opened like that," said Sir Thomas.
"Has it done anything yet?"
"It has done too much. It has committees at work looking into the
affairs of Scotland and Ireland, the navy, the army and the law. They
have been through the jails, and set three hundred poor debtors free in
London alone. They have abolished titles and the Court of Chancery; and
the last two acts have made the nation very uneasy. Upon my honour, the
people are more unhappy at getting rid of their wrongs than you would
credit."
"Englishmen like something to grumble about," said Mr. Walton. "If the
Commonwealth leaves them without a grievance, it will doom itself."
"That is not it, Mr. Walton," said Henry Marten; "Englishmen don't like
the foundations destroyed in order to repair the house. Going over
precipices is not making progress. You may take it for an axiom that as
a people, we prefer abuses to novelties."
"The reign of the saints is now begun," said Doctor Hewitt scornfully;
"and Sir Harry Vane is afraid of what he has prayed for. He has gone
into retirement, and sent Cromwell word he would wait for his place
until he got to heaven."
"Sir Harry is not one of Zebedee's sons."
"This Parliament is going too fast."
"They have no precedents to hamper them."
"Everything old is in danger of being abolished."
"They talk of reducing all taxation to one assessment on land and
property. Absurd!"
"Some say they will burn the records in the Tower; and the law of Moses
is to take the place of the law of England."
"And the Jews are to have civil rights."
"And after that we may have a Jewish Sanhedrim in place of a Puritan
Parliament."
"The good people of England will never bear such innovations," said Sir
Thomas with great indignation.
"None of us know how much the good people of England will bear,"
answered Hollis.
"And pray what part does Cromwell take in these changes? Surely he is
the leader of them?" asked Lady Jevery.
"He takes no part in them, madame," answered Walton; "gives no advice,
uses no authority."
"Oh, indeed he is just waiting till his Assembly of Saints have made
themselves beyond further bearing," said Matilda. "Then he will arise to
the rescue, and serve them as he did the last Parliament."
"And then, Lady Matilda, what then?" asked Doctor Hewitt.
"He will make himself Emperor of these Isles."
"I do not think he has any such intent; no, not for an hour," said Sir
Thomas.
There was a cynical laugh at this opinion, and Matilda's opinion was, in
the main, not only endorsed, but firmly believed. Many could not
understand why he had waited so long. "When he sheathed his sword at
Worcester he could have lifted the sceptre, and the whole nation would
have shouted gratefully, 'God save King Oliver,'" said Sir Thomas. "Why
did he not do so, I wonder?"
But if the spiritual eyes of these men had been suddenly opened, as were
those of Elisha, they might have seen that hour the man Cromwell, as God
saw him, and acknowledged with shame and blame their ready injustice.
For even while they were condemning him, accusing him of unbounded
ambition and unbounded hypocrisy, he was kneeling by the side of a very
old woman, praying. One of her small, shriveled hands was clasped
between his large brown palms, and his voice, low, but intensely deep
and earnest, filled the room with that unmistakable pathetic monotone,
which is the natural voice of a soul pleading with its God. It rose and
fell, it was full of tears and of triumph, it was sorrowful and
imploring, it was the very sob of a soul wounded and loving, but crying
out, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." When he rose, his
face was wet with tears, but the aged woman had the light of heaven on
her calm brow. She rose with him, and leaning on the top of her ivory
staff, said,
"Oliver, my son Oliver, have no fear. Man nor woman shall have power to
hurt thee. Until thy work is done, thou shalt not see death; and when
it is done, the finger of God will beckon thee. Though an host should
rise up against thee, thou wilt live thy day and do thy work."
"My mother! My good mother! God's best gift to me and mine."
"The Lord bless thee, Oliver, and keep thee.
The Lord make His face to shine upon thee,
And be gracious unto thee.
The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee,
And give thee peace."
Then Oliver kissed his mother tenderly, and went out from her presence
with the joy of one whom "his mother comforteth." And his face was
bright and lifted up, and his footsteps firm; and he carried himself
like a man whose soul had been "ministered unto." And if the envious
doubters at Sir Thomas Jevery's had seen him at that moment, they must
have instantly taken knowledge of him that he had been with God. All
his fears were gone, all his troubles lighter than a grasshopper; in
some blessed way there had come to him the knowledge that even
"Envy's harsh berries, and the chocking pool,
Of the world's scorn and hatred, are the right mother milk
To the true, tough hearts that pioneer their kind."
_*BOOK III*_
_*Oliver The Conqueror*_
*CHAPTER XI*
*OLIVER PROTECTOR*
"O heart heroic, England's noblest son!
At what a height thy shining spirit burns
Starlike, and floods our souls with quickening fire."
* * * * *
"Fearful commenting is
The leaden servitor to dull delay."
The popular discontent with the rapid and radical reforms of the saints'
Parliament was not confined to the Royalists; the nation, without regard
to party, was bitterly incensed and alarmed. Cromwell was no exception;
the most conservative of men, he also grew angry and restless when he
saw the reign of the saints beginning in earnest.
"These godly men are going straight to the confusion of all things," he
said to Israel Swaffham; "they forget they are assembled here by the
people, and are assuming a direct power from the Lord. If we let them,
they will bring us under the horridest arbitrariness in the world."
There was reason enough for this fear. Not content with the changes in
government, religion and law, Feake and Powell were urging social
changes that would level all ranks and classes to an equality, and
Cromwell abominated such ideas. Of equality, as we understand the word,
he had no conception. He told the members plainly that England had
known for hundreds of years, ranks and orders of men--nobles, gentlemen,
yeomen--and that such ranks were a good interest to the nation, and a
great one. "What is the purport," he asked, "to make the tenant as
liberal a fortune as the landlord? If obtained, it would not last; the
men of that principle, after they had served their own turns, would have
cried up property fast enough."
To the Fifth Monarchy men who held that the saints alone should rule the
earth, he gave the sternest rebuke, telling them plainly that the carnal
divisions among them were not symptoms of Christ's Kingdom. "Truly," he
added, "you will need to give clearer manifestations of God's presence
among you before wise men will submit to your conclusions."
In the meantime the anger outside the Parliament House rose to fury.
Doubtless Cromwell had foreseen this crisis. Certainly a large number of
the members were of his way of thinking, and on the twelfth of December,
Colonel Sydenham rose, and accusing the members of wishing to put a
Mosaic code in place of the Common Law of England--of depreciating a
regular ministry (for what need of one, if all men could prophesy?) and
of opposing learning and education, he declared the salvation of the
nation lay in resigning the trust committed to them into the hands of
the Lord General Cromwell. The motion was seconded by Sir Charles
Wolseley. The Speaker left the chair, and followed by a majority of the
members, went to Whitehall, and there and then they wrote out their
resignation. It was said that "Cromwell looked astonished, and only
received the paper upon great importunity." And if ever Cromwell
drolled in his life, he drolled then, for it is not likely this movement
was unforeseen; all its details had been too ably arranged to be the
result of unanticipated action.
No serious opposition was made. Some thirty of the members remained in
the House "to protest," but Colonel Goff entering with a file of
musketeers, the argument was quickly closed. "What are you doing here?"
asked the Colonel, and some one answered, "We are seeking the Lord,"
then said he, "You may go elsewhere, for to my certain knowledge the
Lord has not been here these many years." Three days after this event a
new Council of State resolved that his Excellency be chosen LORD
PROTECTOR of the three nations, and on the sixteenth of December be so
installed in Westminster Hall.
"And you would think that he had been publicly scorned instead of
publicly chosen," said Israel to his wife. "He looks miserable; he is
silent and downcast, and talks much to himself. Yet he is in his right
place, and the only man in England who can save us from anarchy."
"God knows. It is a place of great honour for Mr. Oliver Cromwell of
Slepe House."
"No, no. 'Tis a place of great danger, a place of terror and forlorn
hope. God knows, I would not have it for all the honour and gold in
England. Martha, his Excellency and her Highness desire your company,
and that of Jane, to the ceremony. You will go?"
"I had better stay at home, Israel. I cannot 'Your Highness' Elizabeth
Cromwell. Jane will go."
"And you, too, Martha. I wish it."
"I never go against your wishes, Israel--at least not often."
So it happened that on the sixteenth of December, Mrs. Swaffham and Jane
wore dressing for Whitehall. Mrs. Swaffham was nervous and irritable;
nervous, because she feared her gown was not as handsome as it ought to
be; irritable, because she felt that circumstances were going to control
her behaviour, whether she approved or not. Jane was unable to
encourage or cheer her mother; she was herself the most unhappy maiden
in London that day. She was white as the satin robe that clothed her,
and her eyes held in their depths the shadow of that fear and grief
which filled her heart. And though her mother was sorry for her
distress, she was vexed that her girl could not better hide her trouble.
"I hate to be pitied, Jane," she said, "and above all by 'her Highness.'
And those Cromwell girls, they too will be crying 'Oh dear me!' and
'Poor Jane!' and you will be a sweet sadness to spice their own glory
and happiness. Keep a brave heart, my girl. Something may happen any
hour."
Jane did not answer. She could not talk; she needed all her strength to
live. For eighteen days she had been forced to accept the fact that
Cluny was at least eighteen days behind all probable and improbable
delays. She had not received a line from him since he left Paris; no
one had. He had apparently vanished as completely as a stone dropped
into mid-ocean. She had been often at Jevery House, and during two of
her visits had managed to see Sir Thomas and ask "if he had any
intelligence from Lord Neville?" On her first inquiry he answered her
anxiously; on his second his reply showed some anger.
"He offered voluntarily to take charge of Lady Jevery's jewels and to
collect my money at The Hague; and unless he was certain of his ability
to do these things safely, he ought not to have sought the charge."
And with these words there entered into Jane's heart a suspicion that
hurt her like a sword-thrust. She found herself saying continually, "It
is impossible! impossible! Oh, my God, where is he?"