CHAPTER III.

THE NEW MODEL ARMY AND THE KING.

In his desire to escape from the undoubted evils of military

government, Cromwell had the best part of the army behind him. Nor

did it, at the moment, appear very difficult to attain this object by

coming to terms with the King, especially as the army leaders were

prepared to make concessions to Charles's religious scruples. Claiming

freedom for themselves in matters of conscience, they were ready to

concede it in return, and, for the first time since he had ridden

out of Oxford, Charles was allowed to receive the ministrations of

his own chaplains, and to join in offering prayer and praise in the

familiar language of the Prayer Book of the Church. It was a long step

towards the settlement of that religious question which had created so

impassable a gulf between the King and the Presbyterians.

The constitutional question remained to be discussed, and the burden

of framing terms to bind the King fell upon Cromwell's son-in-law,

Ireton, rather than upon Cromwell himself. Cromwell indeed would never

have consented to see Charles replaced in the old position, but he

was unskilled in constitutional niceties, and he left such details to

others. The main difficulty of the situation was not long in revealing

itself. Charles, who had been removed to Windsor, talked as if the

dispute between the Houses and the soldiers might be referred to his

decision. "Sir," replied Ireton, "you have an intention to be the

arbitrator between Parliament and us; and we mean to be it between

your Majesty and Parliament." It was not that there was any definite

constitutional idea in Charles's mind. With him it was rather a matter

of feeling than of reason that he could occupy no other place in the

State than that which tradition confirmed by his own experience had

assigned to the man who wore the crown. For him as for another as weak

for all purposes of government, as richly endowed with the artistic

temperament as himself,

Not all the waters of the salt, salt sea

Could wash the balm from an anointed King.

Under whatever forms, Parliamentary or constitutional, he and no other

was to be the supreme arbiter, empowered to speak in due season the

decisive word--always just, always in the right. What was passing

before his eyes did but confirm him in his delusion. There had been

a quarrel between army and Parliament. Where was it to end unless he

sat in judgment to dispense equity to both? Against that will--call

it firm or obstinate, as we please--so inaccessible to the teaching

of facts, so clinging to the ideas which had inspired his life, the

pleadings of Cromwell and Ireton would be vain.

Of this Cromwell had no suspicion. He had never had personal dealings

with the King, and had little insight into his peculiar character. On

July 4 he saw him at Caversham, where Charles had been established,

in order that he might be near Reading, now the head-quarters of the

army. He fell at once under the charm of Charles's gracious manner, and

fancied that a few days would bring about an agreement. In full accord

with Fairfax, he hoped to establish the throne on a constitutional and

Parliamentary basis. Neither Charles nor any of those who were under

his influence could understand the sincerity of this purpose. The

French Ambassador, Bellièvre, seems to have sounded Cromwell on the

object of his ambition, and to have received the memorable reply: "No

one rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going". To Sir John

Berkeley, an ardent Royalist, Cromwell explained that the army asked

only 'to have leave to live as subjects ought to do, and to preserve

their consciences,' thinking that no man could enjoy his estates unless

the King had his rights. Probably Cromwell, in his conversation, had

emphasised the points which the army was willing to concede, and had

minimised those on which it expected Charles to yield. Charles, at

all events, was so convinced that the officers were prepared, almost

unconditionally, to restore him to his former power, that he gave it as

a reason for distrusting them, that they had not asked him for personal

favours in return. There can be no doubt that Cromwell refrained at

this time from pressing the King hardly. He was present at the meeting

of Charles with his children, now permitted to visit him for the first

time since the beginning of the civil war. Himself a devoted father,

he was touched by the affecting scene. The King, he told Berkeley, was

the 'uprightest and most conscientious man of his three kingdoms'. Yet

he was too keen-sighted to be blind to the other side of his character.

He wished, he said, that his Majesty would be more frank and not so

strictly tied to narrow maxims.

Already Cromwell's apparent devotion to the King's person was not

unnaturally drawing forth harsh criticisms from those who failed to

understand the essential unity underlying divergencies in his action.

Some at least amongst the Agitators were joining the Presbyterians

in sarcasms directed against the man who was everything by turns;

who had at one time taken the Covenant--at another time accepted the

disbandment of the army; at another time again had made himself the

instrument of the army in its resistance of disbandment. Cromwell took

no notice of such calumnies. He was more concerned with the eagerness

of the Agitators to march upon Westminster with the object of forcing

the Houses to condemn the eleven members who were again stirring,

and of crushing the discontent which was simmering amongst the City

population. Happily the mere threat of force had been sufficient, and

Parliament virtually abandoned its hostile attitude by naming Fairfax

Commander-in-chief of all the forces in the country. Would it be so

easy to deal with Charles? By July 23, _The Heads of the Proposals_,

probably drawn up by Ireton--who, of all the officers, was the most

versed in constitutional lore--with the assistance of Colonel Lambert,

having been adopted by the Army Council, were submitted to the King.

So far as religion was concerned, they anticipated the settlement

of the Revolution of 1688, leaving all forms of worship--including

that of the condemned Prayer Book--to the voluntary choice of the

worshipper. So far as politics were concerned, provision was to be

made, not merely for making the King responsible to Parliament, but

for making Parliament responsible to the people. There were to be

biennial Parliaments, elected by enlarged constituencies, and a Council

of State was to be formed, to whose consent in important matters the

King was to bow. The first Council was to remain in office for at least

seven years. How it was to be nominated after that was left uncertain,

probably till the question had been threshed out in discussion with

the King. The army leaders had yet to discover how little profit such

a discussion would bring. Charles was not prepared to abandon his old

position for that of constitutional King, limited, as he had never been

limited before, by opposing forces. If he had spoken his objections

clearly out it would have been easy to criticise him as one who was

blind to the forces which were governing events: it would have been

impossible to hold him morally at fault. The course which he took

could not but lead to disaster. Listening to the army leaders, he yet

conspired against them, still placing his hopes on the assistance of

a Scottish army, and speculating on the chances of a breach between

the army on the one side and the Parliament and the City on the

other, which would enable him to grasp the reins of power under the

old conditions. "I shall see them glad ere long," he told Berkeley,

"to accept more equal terms." He even went so far as to imagine

that Fairfax and Cromwell were to be bribed by offers of personal

advantage to re-establish his fallen throne on other terms than those

now offered to him. "You cannot," he told them, "do without me. You

will fall into ruin if I do not sustain you." He was partly supported

by his knowledge that though the City authorities had yielded to the

sway of the army, the City apprentices were in a state of disquiet

and had broken into the House of Commons, compelling the members to

vote a series of Presbyterian resolutions in defiance of the army. In

misplaced confidence in this movement in the City, Charles entered

into communication with Lauderdale, the ablest member of a body of

Scottish Commissioners who had recently arrived nominally to urge the

King to accept the Parliamentary terms, but in reality to negotiate

a separate agreement between the Scots and the King. Charles eagerly

closed with their proposals and allowed Lauderdale to send a message

to Edinburgh urging the equipment of a Scottish army for the invasion

of England. Unluckily for him, mob-violence was a feeble reed on which

to lean. The Speaker of the two Houses, together with the Independent

members, took refuge with the army, and the army treating them as

the genuine Parliament reconducted them to Westminster. On August 6

Fairfax was named by the reconstituted Parliament Constable of the

Tower, which though it had hitherto been guarded by the citizens was

from henceforward to be garrisoned by a detachment of the army, whilst

another detachment was left at Westminster as a guard to the Houses.

The remainder of the soldiers, to show their power, tramped through the

City, passing out by London Bridge on the march to Croydon--Cromwell

riding at the head of the cavalry.

What could be the possible end of such demonstrations? Every time

they were employed, the appeal to force was placed more clearly

in evidence, in spite of all efforts to minimise it. Scarcely had

the regiments filed out of the City when the Presbyterian majority

reasserted itself in Parliament. On the other hand, the Agitators

raised their voices for a purge of Parliament which would thrust out

those members who had sat and voted under the influence of the mob.

Cromwell was growing impatient. "These men," he said of the eleven

members, some of whom had returned to their seats when the House was

under the dominion of the mob, "will never leave till the army pull

them out by the ears." "I know nothing to the contrary," he said on

another occasion, speaking of Holles and Stapleton, "but that I am as

well able to govern the kingdom as either of them." On this, the eleven

members left their seats for good and all, six of them taking refuge on

the Continent. Yet the majority in the Commons was Presbyterian still,

and refused to vote at the dictation of the army. Cromwell's patience

was exhausted. On August 20 he brought a cavalry regiment into Hyde

Park in order to obtain a vote that the proceedings of the House, in

the absence of the Speaker, had been null and void. Under this threat,

the majority gave way, and Cromwell, who had the whole army behind him,

gained his immediate end. Once more he was drifting forwards in the

direction of that military despotism which neither he nor his comrades

desired to establish.

The one way of escape still lay in an understanding with the King. With

the King, however, no agreement was possible. Charles, hopelessly at

fault in his judgment of passing events, stood aloof in the assurance

that the strife amongst the opponents would serve but to weaken both.

In the negotiations carried on with the army simultaneously with the

latest Parliamentary struggle, he fought every point stubbornly.

To extricate themselves from this difficulty, Cromwell and Ireton

joined in a vote for resuscitating the Newcastle propositions, and

allowed Charles to be formally requested to give his consent to

those extravagant Presbyterian demands. Charles, driven to the wall,

expressed his preference for _The Heads of the Proposals_. Cromwell and

Ireton contrived to persuade themselves that he was in earnest, and

gave their support to the King's demand for a personal negotiation with

Parliament on that basis.

Under these circumstances the Independent party and the army split

in two. The greater number of the superior officers, together with

the Parliamentary leaders of the party, Vane, St. John and Fiennes,

supported Cromwell and Ireton in an attempt to persuade Parliament to

open the negotiations asked for by the King. As was not unnatural,

there were others, Rainsborough in the army, and Marten in the House

of Commons, who gathered round them a new Republican party, declaring

it useless to enter into a fresh discussion with Charles, and

even talking of imprisoning him in some fortress. Coalescing with

the Presbyterians, who wished merely to summon Charles to accept a

selection from the Newcastle Propositions, they beat Cromwell on the

vote, in spite of his warning that by disowning the King they were

playing into the hands of men who 'were endeavouring to have no other

power to rule but the sword'. Inside and outside the House Cromwell

was denounced as a mere time-server, who had no other end in view

but his own interests. Cromwell's only answer was to urge Charles

more pressingly than before to make the concessions without which his

restoration to any kind of authority was out of the question. Conscious

of his own integrity, he still hoped for the best, even from Charles.

"Though it may be for the present," he wrote to a friend, "a cloud may

be over our actions to those who are not acquainted with the grounds

of them, yet we doubt not God will clear our integrity and innocence

from any other ends we aim at but His glory and the public good." Yet

September passed away, and Charles had made no sign.

Charles's silence did but strengthen the party amongst the soldiers

which aimed at cutting the political knot with the sword. In the Army

Council indeed Cromwell was still predominant, and on October 6 it

agreed to meet on the 14th, to formulate terms which the King might

be able to accept. In the interval everything was done to come to a

private understanding with Charles. Charles, however, was trusting to

the probable Scottish invasion, and saw in the events taking place more

closely under his eyes no more than a chance of discrediting Cromwell

and his associates. When the Army Council met on the 14th, the subject

of continuing the negotiations had to be dropped. The position was well

explained in a letter from a Royalist. "The secret disposition," he

wrote, "is that there is no manner of agreement between the King and

the army; all this negotiation having produced no other effect but to

incline some of the chief officers not to consent to his destruction,

which I believe they will not, unless they be over-swayed; but cannot

observe that they are so truly the King's as that they will pass the

Rubicon for him, which if they could do, considering the inclination

of the common soldiers, and generally of the people they might do

what they would; but they are cold, and there is another faction of

desperate fellows as hot as fire."

Almost, if not altogether, in despair, Cromwell sought a compromise

with the Presbyterians on the basis of the temporary establishment of

Presbyterianism as the national religion, with as large a toleration

as he could persuade them to grant. When the House of Commons refused

to extend toleration to the worship authorised by the Prayer Book, it

was obvious that the scheme was not one which had a chance of obtaining

the assent of Charles. Cromwell's hope of uniting Parliament and army

in bringing pressure upon the King was as completely frustrated as his

former hope of bringing about an understanding between the King and

the army. His impotence could not but give encouragement to the other

'faction of desperate fellows as hot as fire' to demand a settlement

on quite another basis from that on which Cromwell and the other army

leaders had vainly attempted to found a Government.

In all his efforts, Cromwell's aim had been to strengthen the chances

in favour of the new toleration by intertwining it with the old

constitutional pillars of King and Parliament. His schemes, based as

they were on a thoroughly political instinct which warned him against

the danger of cutting the State adrift from its moorings, had broken

down mainly in consequence of the resistance of the King. It was but

natural that earnest men should seek new modes of gaining their ends

when the old ones proved ineffective. As the years of revolution passed

swiftly on, new and more drastic schemes appeared upon the surface,

not, as is often said, because in some unexplained way revolutions tend

in themselves to strengthen the hands of extreme men, but because the

force of conservative resistance calls forth more violent remedies.

The misgovernment of Buckingham and Laud had fostered the Parliamentary

idea. The resistance of Parliament to toleration had led to the

conception by the army leaders of the idea of Parliamentary reform,

and now the failure of those leaders produced the plan of founding a

government not on institutions sanctified by old use and wont, but on a

totally new democratic system. Outside the army, the main supporter of

the new principles was John Lilburne, who had been a lieutenant-colonel

in Manchester's army before the formation of the New Model, a man

litigious and impracticable, but public-spirited and prepared to accept

the consequences of his actions on behalf of his fellow-citizens or

of himself. During the troubles he spent a great part of his life in

prison, and at the present time he had been more than a year in the

Tower. He had a large following in the army, and early in October five

regiments deposed their Agitators, and choosing new ones, set them to

draw up a political manifesto which, under the name of _The Case of the

Army Truly Stated_, was laid before Fairfax on the 18th.

The new thing in this scheme of the recently elected Agitators was

not that they proposed to fix the institutions of the State by means

of written terms. That had been done again and again by Parliament in

various propositions submitted to Charles since the commencement of

the Civil War, and more recently by the army leaders in _The Heads

of the Proposals_. What was new was that they proposed in the first

place to secure religious freedom and other rights by the erection of

a paramount law unalterable by Parliament; and in the second place to

establish a single House of Parliament--all mention of King or House

of Lords was avoided--with full powers to call executive ministers

to account--a House which was to be elected by manhood suffrage--an

innovation which they justified on the ground that 'all power is

originally and essentially in the whole body of the people of this

nation'. It was a complete transition from the principles of the

English Revolution to those of the French.

Against the foundation of a government on abstract principles,

Cromwell's whole nature--consonant in this with that of the vast

majority of the English people--rose in revolt. On the 20th he

poured out his soul in the House of Commons in a three-hours' speech

in praise of monarchy, urging the House to build up the shattered

throne, disclaiming on behalf of the whole body of officers any

part in the scheme of the party of the new Agitators, who were now

beginning to be known as Levellers. It was to no purpose. Monarchy

without a King was itself but an abstract principle, and Charles would

accept no conditions which would not leave him free to shake off any

constitutional shackles imposed upon him. Only four days before

the delivery of Cromwell's speech, Charles had assured the French

Ambassador that he trusted in the divisions in the army, which would be

sure to drive one or other of the disputants to his side.

The immediate result of Charles's resolution to play with the great

questions at issue was an attempt by Cromwell and the officers to

come to terms with the Levellers. On October 28 a meeting of the Army

Council was held in Putney Church, to which several civilian Levellers

were admitted, the most prominent of whom was Wildman, formerly a major

in a now-disbanded regiment. Fairfax being out of health, Cromwell

took the chair. The Agitators put the question in a common-sense

form. "We sought," one of them said, "to satisfy all men, and it was

well; but, in going to do it, we have dissatisfied all men. We have

laboured to please the King; and, I think, except we go about to cut

all our throats, we shall not please him; and we have gone to support

a House which will prove rotten studs.[D] I mean the Parliament, which

consists of a company of rotten members." Cromwell and Ireton--they

continued--had attempted to settle the kingdom on the foundations of

King and Parliament, but it was to be hoped that they would no longer

persist in this course. Ireton could but answer that he would never

join those who refused to 'attempt all ways that are possible to

preserve both, and to make good use, and the best use that can be of

both, for the kingdom'. The practical men had become dreamers, whilst

the dreamers had become practical men. The Levellers, at least, had a

definite proposal to make, whilst Cromwell and Ireton had none. Since

the appearance of _The Case of the Army_, the Agitators had reduced its

chief requirements into a short constitution of four articles, which

they called _The Agreement of the People_, intending, it would seem, to

send it round the country for subscription, thus submitting it to what,

in modern days, would be called a plebiscite, though apparently it was

to be a plebiscite in which only affirmative votes were to be recorded.

Nothing could be more logical than this attempt to find a basis of

authority in the popular will, if the other basis of authority, the

tradition of generations, was to be of necessity abandoned.

[D] _I.e._ props.

Cromwell, of all men in the world, was reduced to mere negative

criticism. The proposal of the Agitators, he admitted, was plausible

enough. "If," he said, "we could leap out of one condition into another

that had so precious things in it as this hath, I suppose there would

not be much dispute; though perhaps some of these things may be well

disputed; and how do we know if, whilst we are disputing these things,

another company of men shall gather together, and they shall put out

a paper as plausible as this? I do not know why it may not be done

by that time you have agreed upon this, or got hands to it, if that

be the way; and not only another and another, but many of this kind;

and if so, what do you think the consequence would be? Would it not be

confusion?... But truly I think we are not only to consider what the

consequences are ... but we are to consider the probability of the ways

and means to accomplish it, that is to say that, according to reason

and judgment, the spirits and temper of this nation are prepared to

receive and go along with it, and that those great difficulties which

lie in our way are in a likelihood to be either overcome or removed.

Truly to anything that's good, there's no doubt on it, objections may

be made and framed, but let every honest man consider whether or no

these be not very reasonable objections in point of difficulty; and

I know a man may answer all difficulties with faith, and faith will

answer all difficulties really where it is, as we are very apt all of

us to call faith that perhaps may be but carnal imagination and carnal

reasoning."

Not a word had Cromwell to say on behalf of any possible understanding

with the King. All that he could do was to stave off a declaration in

favour of the establishment of a democratic Republic, by proposing

that the Army Council should reduce into formal shape the engagements

entered upon at Newmarket and Triploe Heath. As those engagements

had been put forward as demands to Parliament--not to the King,

this suggestion at least thrust aside for the time being the thorny

question of the possibility of coming to an understanding with Charles.

Cromwell's proposal, however, was not likely to secure unanimity.

Wildman, on behalf of the Levellers, refused to be bound by engagements

which he personally held to be unjust. On this Cromwell asked for

the appointment of a committee to examine this question, as well as

any others upon which there was a difference of opinion. He pleaded

with his audience not to approach the matters in controversy 'as two

contrary parties'. His hearers were in no temper to profit by the

suggestion. Wildman threw out a hint that if Parliament were to patch

up an arrangement with the King, it would detract from natural right.

The expression at once divided the assembly into two camps. Ireton

declared that there was no such thing as natural right. Cromwell asked

for the appointment of a committee to discuss the questions that

had been raised about the engagements of the army. A Captain Audley

sensibly urged the controversialists to remember that it was no time

for empty disputation. "If we tarry long," he said, "the King will

come and say who will be hanged first." Neither Audley's judicious

remark, nor Cromwell's words thrown in from time to time in favour

of peace, could stop the wrangle, which at least served to draw from

Cromwell the nearest approach he ever made to the enunciation of a

constitutional principle. Though the Council of the Army, he declared,

was not 'wedded and glued to forms of government,' it was prepared

to maintain the doctrine that 'the foundation and the supremacy is

in the people--radically in them--and to be set down by them in

their representations,' in other words by their representatives in

Parliament. To conciliate this doctrine with the upholding of the

ancient constitution, reformed indeed, but unaltered in its main

features, was the problem which the nation solved for itself in 1689,

but which neither the nation nor Cromwell could contrive to solve so

long as Charles I. refused to face the teaching of events.

On the following day, after a prayer-meeting held in compliance with a

suggestion from the pious Colonel Goffe, the Army Council met again,

to resolve, after long debate, to lay aside the consideration of the

engagements of the army and to proceed at once to the examination

of _The Agreement of the People_. This determination was a check to

Cromwell, who had proposed the committee. It was not long before his

prudence was justified. A debate sprang up on the question of manhood

suffrage, claimed by the Levellers as being in accordance with natural

right, and rejected by their opponents, to whom natural right was

a mere absurdity. After a fierce dispute, Cromwell did his best to

persuade the meeting to avoid abstract considerations, and to content

itself with the discussion of such questions as whether the existing

franchise could be in any way improved. His characteristic tendency

to look to the preservation of ancient rights finding no scope in any

possible scheme for the retention of the monarchy, fixed itself on the

question of the constitution of Parliament. Colonel Rainsborough, who,

on questions relating to Parliamentary elections, was the chief speaker

on the side of the Levellers, proposed an appeal from the Army Council

to the Army at large. His proposal found no support and the Council

broke up without coming to a decision.

After this Cromwell had his way. On the 30th the committee which he

suggested, and on which both parties were represented, met to consider

the points at issue. The constitutional scheme to which its assent was

given followed the lines of _The Heads of the Proposals_ more than

those of _The Agreement of the People_. It proposed reforms, not an

entire shifting of the basis of government. Above all, it adhered to

the view that the new constitution should come into existence by an

agreement between King and Parliament--not by an appeal to the natural

rights of man. In the long run Cromwell was justified by the event. On

no other basis would the distressed nation find rest. His wisdom so far

as present results were concerned was less conspicuous.

The next meeting of the Army Council was held under discouraging

circumstances. Charles, who had for some time been established at

Hampton Court, had refused to renew the parole which he had given, and

it had been found necessary to strengthen his guards. Though there

was no accurate knowledge at Putney of his intrigue with the Scots,

enough had leaked out to raise grave suspicion, and when, on November

1, Cromwell again took the chair, he called on those present to 'speak

their experiences as the issue of what God had given in answer to

their prayers'. The result was distinctly unfavourable to the King.

One said that the negative voice of the King and Lords must be taken

away; another that he could no longer pray for the King; a third that

their liberties must be recovered by the sword. Cromwell did his best

to stem the tide. Pointing out, just as a modern historian might do,

that there had been faults on both sides, he called on 'him that was

without sin amongst them to cast the first stone'. He then turned to

the more practical question of the difficulty of maintaining discipline

in the army, if the authority of Parliament were shut off. "If there

be no Parliament," he argued, "they are nothing, and we are nothing

likewise." Though Cromwell was not yet prepared to strike at the King,

he no longer regarded his comprehension in the new constitution as

absolutely essential. He was even ready to accept the new democratic

basis of _The Agreement of the People_, if there should be a wide

demand for it. He must look, he said, for 'a visible presence of the

people, either by subscriptions or numbers--for in the government of

nations that which is to be looked after is the affections of the

people'. For the present, however, he seemed most inclined to trust

in Parliament as the source of authority. On one thing he was clear,

that the discipline of the army must not be ruined by such an appeal

to the general body of the soldiers in support of the Agreement as

Rainsborough had contemplated. "I must confess," he said, "that I have

a commission from the General, and I understand what I am to do by it.

I shall conform to him according to the rules and discipline of war ...

and therefore I conceive it is not in the power of any particular men,

or any particular man in the army, to call a rendezvous of a troop, or

regiment, or in the least to disoblige the army from the commands of

the General.... Therefore I shall move what we shall centre upon. If it

have but the face of authority, if it be but a hare swimming over the

Thames I will take hold of it rather than let it go."

It was hard, indeed, in those days, to say where the face of authority

was to be found, and Cromwell was far from being able to solve the

question. The most innocent suggestion made by his opponents was that

the army must purge Parliament and declare the King responsible for

the ruin of the country. Goffe declared that it had been revealed to

him that the sin of the army lay in its tampering with God's enemies,

in other words, with Charles. Cromwell struck in with an expression of

distrust in personal revelations. He himself, he explained, was guided

by God's dispensations, that is to say, in more modern phrase, by the

requirements of the situation. He acknowledged that danger was to be

apprehended from the King and House of Lords, and that it was not his

intention 'to preserve the one or the other with a visible danger and

destruction to the people and the public interest'. On the other hand,

he refused to accept it as certain that God had determined to destroy

King and Lords, though he thought it probable that it was so. In the

end, the constitutional discussion was transferred to a committee.

For a right judgment of Cromwell's character and habits of procedure

no evidence exists of such importance as that which has been thus

summarised. Here at least is laid bare before us his reluctance to

abandon an untenable position, long after it has become clear to more

impatient spirits that it has become untenable. Yet his hesitation is

not based on any timorous reluctance to act. It arises from his keen

sense of the danger of any alternative policy, a sense which will be

overmastered as soon as action in one direction or the other becomes a

manifest necessity. On November 8, seeing that the Levellers were bent

on pushing forward their proposal of manhood suffrage, he obtained a

vote from the Army Council directing that both officers and Agitators

should be sent back to their regiments. There can be little doubt

that the danger was greater than was thus indicated, and that there

was truth in a story which charged the Levellers with intending, at

this time, to purge the Parliament and to bring the King to trial. On

the 11th, at all events, the brave but fanatical Colonel Harrison was

calling for the prosecution of the King, and on the same day Cromwell

sent to Whalley, who commanded the guard at Hampton Court, to provide

against any attempt on Charles's person. Similar warnings had reached

Charles himself, and on the evening of the same day he quietly made his

escape. On the 14th, after the failure of a scheme for the provision

of a vessel from Southampton to carry him to France, he reached

Carisbrooke, where the Governor of the Castle was Robert Hammond,

Cromwell's cousin. Cromwell's first task was to ensure the discipline

of the army. His persistent efforts to keep up negotiation with the

King had exposed him to the distrust of the Levellers, and it is said

that some of them had resolved to murder him in his bed. There was no

time to be lost. On the 15th a rendezvous of a third part of the army

was to be held on Corkbush Field, not far from Ware, and there could be

no doubt that the Levellers would make desperate attempts to seduce

the regiments from their military obedience. To meet the danger, a

manifesto was issued in the name of Fairfax and the Army Council, in

which Fairfax offered to give his support to the early dissolution of

Parliament and to a plan for making the House of Commons 'as near as

may be, an equal representative of the people that are to elect'. For

the rest, every soldier would be expected to sign a form of adhesion to

the General and the Council. Speaking broadly, the conflict was between

the men who knew the importance of maintaining the discipline of the

army, and those who would reduce it to an armed mob eager to compel

Parliament to adopt the democratic system of _The Agreement of the

People_. On the 15th the soldiers gathered to the appointed rendezvous

on Corkbush Field, where most of the regiments, with more or less

reluctance, submitted to their officers. Two, those of Harrison and

Robert Lilburne, both of which had been ordered elsewhere, mutinously

made their appearance with copies of _The Agreement of the People_ in

their hats, as well as the motto "England's Freedom! Soldiers' Rights!"

A few words from Fairfax reduced Harrison's regiment to obedience.

Cromwell, finding that Lilburne's men defied his order to remove the

papers from their hats, rode into the ranks with his sword drawn, on

which the regiment, with one accord, did as it was bidden. Three of

the ringleaders were condemned to death by a court-martial held on

the spot, and then ordered to throw dice for their lives. He who threw

lowest was shot in the presence of the whole force, and the mutiny was

brought to an end.

By this time the weary round of negotiation was beginning afresh.

Charles sent up new proposals to the Parliament, proposals which, if he

were in earnest, might possibly serve as a foundation for an agreement.

It concerned Parliament and army alike to discover whether Charles, who

for many months had shown no sign of eagerness for settlement, was now

aiming at anything more than an excuse to enable him to gain time for

an arrangement with the Scots. So suspicious had the officers grown

that Ireton was heard to say that if peace were to be made between King

and Parliament, he hoped it would be such as that the army 'might,

with a safe conscience, fight against both'. If we are to believe a

story, told indeed only after the Restoration, but which has inherent

probability in it, Cromwell and Ireton, having reason to suppose that

a letter from Charles to the Queen would be carried by a man who was

to stay the night at the Blue Boar in Holborn, disguised themselves

as troopers, and waited in the inn drinking beer till the messenger

arrived. Then, ripping up his saddle, they found the expected letter,

from which they learnt that 'the King had acquainted the Queen that he

was now courted by both the factions, the Scotch Presbyterians and the

army, and which bid fairest for him should have him, but he thought

he should close with the Scots sooner than the other'. According to

another account, the letter also assured Henrietta Maria that she need

not concern herself about any concessions he might make, as 'he should

not look upon himself as obliged to keep any promises made so much on

compulsion whenever he had power enough to break them'.

Whatever may be the exact truth about the intercepted letter, it is

exceedingly likely that Cromwell, in some way or other, received

intelligence which confirmed his growing belief in Charles's

untrustworthiness. This view of the case is confirmed by the fact

that, not long after, the Parliament prepared four Bills, not as a

basis of a settlement, but as a test to show whether Charles was in

earnest or not, principally by asking him to abandon his control over

the militia. On the other hand Charles so misconceived his position

as to send Berkeley to Fairfax with a request that he would support

him in asking for a personal treaty unfettered by any conditions

whatsoever. When, on November 28, Berkeley arrived at head-quarters,

Fairfax briefly referred him to Parliament, whilst neither Cromwell nor

Ireton would enter into conversation with him. To the soldiers who had

mistrusted him Cromwell professed 'that the glories of this world had

so dazzled his eyes that he could not discern clearly the great works

the Lord was doing; that he was resolved to humble himself, and desired

the prayers of the saints, that God would be pleased to forgive his

self-seeking'. On the following morning he sent a message to Berkeley

in a more worldly strain, bidding him 'be assured he would serve His

Majesty as long as he could do it without his own ruin, but desired

that he would not expect that he should perish for his sake'. Such at

least was the form given to the message by Berkeley when he wrote his

Memoirs at a later date, and we may at least take it as established

that Cromwell made it clear to Charles that, after what had happened,

it was perfectly hopeless to expect the army to bring pressure on

Parliament in his favour.

Charles turned to the Scots. There were two parties in Scotland--the

party of the ministers of the Kirk, headed by the Marquis of Argyle,

and the party of the nobility, headed by the Duke of Hamilton, of which

the leading members were the Duke's brother, the Earl of Lanark, and

the Earl of Lauderdale, both of whom, like many other Scottish nobles,

had thrown themselves into the Presbyterian movement so long as it was

directed against Bishops, but had rallied to the Crown as soon as the

Ministers strove to make themselves independent of the nobility. It was

this latter party that was represented by the Scottish Commissioners

in England, and on December 26 Charles signed an agreement with

them--_The Engagement_, as it was called--which gave him his own way

in England, allowing him to put an end to all toleration of the sects,

and to grant a dominant position to Presbyterians for three years

only. Against the English Parliament and the army the Scots were to

claim for the Crown the power over the militia, the control over the

Great Seal, the bestowal of honours and offices, the choice of Privy

Councillors, and the negative voice in Parliament. In support of this

settlement, which included a disbandment of the army and a dissolution

of Parliament, a Scottish army was to march into England. Of all the

Scotsmen embarked in this scheme, the only man of marked ability was

Lauderdale, and though no direct evidence exists on the subject, it

seems likely enough that the Engagement was mainly, if not altogether,

his work. If the suggestion be accepted that the picture by Janssen in

the possession of the present Duke, in which a paper is being handed

by Lauderdale to Lanark, represents the transference of the Engagement

from the former to the latter, it would lend additional strength to the

supposition founded on the relative intellectual powers of the two men.

However this may be, it is certain that two days after the signature of

_The Engagement_, Charles rejected the Four Bills which had been laid

before him by the English Parliament, thus showing his own belief that

it was no longer needful for him to keep up even the semblance of an

understanding with the Houses at Westminster.

That the result of a successful Scottish invasion would be to restore

Charles to the throne on the old conditions, and to sweep away

everything for which any English party had struggled, can hardly be

doubted. It is true that _The Engagement_ was buried in the garden

of Carisbrooke Castle, and that not a word of its contents reached

any English ears. Yet from the rejection of the Four Bills, following

on the visit of the Scottish Commissioners to Carisbrooke, it was

evident that some dangerous project was on foot, and even those who

had welcomed a Scottish army in 1643, when it invaded England at their

bidding, were likely to be scandalised at the intervention of another

Scottish army in opposition to themselves. To Cromwell and to the

soldiers of every grade, the prospect of seeing those objects for which

they had shed their blood wrenched from them by a Scottish invasion,

was peculiarly offensive. In the army all quarrels were hushed and all

offences pardoned in face of the obvious danger. What was more, the

leading officers assured Parliament that the army might be relied upon

against the invaders. The extreme Levellers indeed continued to regard

Cromwell as a time-server and a hypocrite, and some even of those who

were ready to accept his co-operation were somewhat suspicious. "If

you prove not an honest man," said Hazlerigg to him, "I will never

trust a fellow with a great nose for your sake."

Under the circumstances Charles's Royalist friends were sent away from

Carisbrooke, and he himself, after a futile attempt to escape, treated

as a prisoner under lock and key. A vote that no further addresses

should be made to the King passed the Commons. For some time the

Lords refused their concurrence, and it was only on a threat of the

intervention of the army that they gave way. After the struggle was at

an end, two regiments occupied Whitehall and the Mews. The supremacy

of the army in the State was growing more pronounced as each political

difficulty arose. There are good reasons for believing that before

the end of January, 1648, Cromwell, to whom the interference of the

army in politics was almost as objectionable as the establishment of

a democracy on abstract principles, proposed to transfer the Crown

from Charles to the Prince of Wales; preserving the office whilst

changing the persons. No proposal could have been more statesmanlike;

but, unhappily, it was not possible to carry it into effect. The

whole of the Royal family was too exasperated against the enemies of

its head to lend itself to such a transaction. There can be no doubt

that Cromwell had, by this time, abandoned all thought of looking to

Charles as the basis of the political settlement he desired. About

the end of February a letter from Charles to the Queen was intercepted

which convinced those into whose hands it fell that the writer was

preparing to take the aggressive against his opponents. Early in

February Cromwell was found amongst the supporters of a Parliamentary

declaration intended to uphold the vote of No Addresses, in which

Charles's misdemeanours were set forth at length, somewhat in the

fashion of the Grand Remonstrance. His attempt to bring into England

Germans, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Lorrainers, and Danes as well as

Irishmen was one of the principal counts against him. Cromwell is even

said to have 'made a severe invective against monarchical government,'

though it is probable that his argument was directed less against a

hereditary chief-magistracy bound by constitutional limitations than

against a system under which the King retained the ultimate decision

of all questions in his own hands. At all events, he refused to commit

himself absolutely to Republicanism, thereby exasperating those who,

like Marten, and even his own bosom friend--the younger Vane--had come

to the conclusion that, in the England of that day, a Republic was the

only alternative to an absolute monarchy.

It was about this time that a meeting took place, the proceedings

at which were recorded by Edmund Ludlow, himself a Republican or

Commonwealth's-man--to use the term in use amongst contemporaries.

Anxious to bring men of different opinions into line against Charles,

Cromwell gave a dinner to the leaders of the various parties, after

which a conference was held in which, according to Ludlow, Cromwell and

his friends 'kept themselves in the clouds, and would not declare their

judgments either for a monarchical, aristocratical or democratical

government, maintaining that any of them might be good in themselves,

or for us according as Providence should direct us'. The old difference

of opinion between the men of practice and the men of theory was, on

this occasion, aggravated by the fact that many theoretical upholders

of a Commonwealth drew the very practical conclusion that not only were

Charles's subjects absolved from their allegiance, but that it was the

duty of Parliament to call the King to account for the blood that had

been shed in England in consequence of his misdeeds. The conference

begun in the interests of peace bade fair to lead to open division, and

Cromwell, to silence angry vituperation, flung a cushion at Ludlow's

head and ran downstairs. Ludlow in his turn threw the cushion back at

Cromwell, and, as he proudly boasted, 'made him hasten down faster than

he desired'. A rough piece of horseplay, it at all events served its

purpose in quieting a strife which, every minute that it lasted, was

doing injury to the cause which Cromwell desired to serve.

At no time did Cromwell fix beforehand the methods by which he

intended to work, though he never had any doubt of the object against

which his energies were to be directed. He had contended first against

irresponsible monarchical power, then in turn against military anarchy,

Presbyterian tyranny, the political supremacy of the army, and abstract

theories of government. He was ready to meet each danger as it arose,

with the help of all who, whatever their opinions on other points might

be, were ready to join him in attacking the abuse which he wished at

the time to abate. If, like Ludlow, they persisted in looking too far

ahead, there was nothing for it but to silence them, if it were but by

flinging cushions at their heads.

In the Spring of 1648 Cromwell and his political allies had thus

to deal with a very complicated situation. They had to face not

merely Charles's intrigue with the Scots, but also the widely spread

discontent in England. Especially in the towns, men were weary of

military dictation, and of the increased taxation by which the army

was supported. Parliament too was as unpopular as the army. Englishmen

were no less weary of the prolonged uncertainty which neither army nor

Parliament seemed capable of bringing to an end. In their longing for

a settled government, a considerable part of the population turned

their eyes to the throne, as the ancient basis of authority and order.

If England had been polled, there would probably have been a large

majority in favour of Charles's restoration to power, and yet, it was

precisely amongst those whose system was most democratic that the most

intense opposition to a restoration was to be found.

To Cromwell, man of order and discipline as he was, a restoration

unaccompanied with security against the old mischief was intolerable.

Of his own disinterestedness he gave at this time undeniable proof.

Parliament having granted him lands valued at £1,680 a year, proceeded

to reduce his pay at the same time that it reduced that of other

officers, by the large sum of £1,825. Far from taking umbrage at this

diminution of his income, he presented not less than £5,000 to the

public cause, and also abandoned the arrears due to him, which at that

time amounted to £1,500. Certainly dangers were gathering thickly.

An intercepted letter from the King's agent at the Hague disclosed

Charles's expectation to be succoured not only by an Irish army but

by a Dutch one. Common prudence taught Cromwell to do everything in

his power to conciliate any party that might stand by his side against

so extensive a combination. When his scheme for placing the Prince of

Wales on the throne was revived about the middle of March, some of

the Episcopal clergy preferred an understanding with the army to an

understanding with the Scots. Towards the end of the month, Cromwell

was still in negotiation with members of the Royalist party, the

purport of which it is impossible to define, but which probably had its

rise in his persistent desire to maintain royalty in some shape or form

as a basis of order. It is at least certain that he gained much obloquy

from his own party. "I know," he wrote to a friend, "God has been above

all ill reports, and will in His own time vindicate me. I have no cause

to complain." It was never Cromwell's way to answer calumny by a public

explanation of his conduct.

At last, however, Cromwell came to the conclusion that nothing was to

be hoped from an understanding with the Royalists; and it therefore

became more necessary to secure the co-operation of the English

Presbyterians. An attempt to win the City Magistrates by concessions

was, however, promptly repulsed. On April 6 it became known in London

that Charles had all but succeeded in effecting his escape, and on

the 9th a City mob was rushing westwards along the Strand with the

intention of overpowering the soldiers at Whitehall and the Mews. A

charge of cavalry ordered by Cromwell drove them back, but it was not

till the following day that the tumult was suppressed. All this while

the Hamilton party, which was keen for an invasion of England, was

gaining strength in Scotland. So black did the outlook become that

one more appeal was made to the King, and there are strong reasons

for believing that he was warned that, if he persisted in refusing

compliance to the demands made upon him--whatever they may have

been--Parliament would proceed, on April 24, to depose him, and to

crown the Duke of York, who was still in their hands, as James II.

Charles replied by sanctioning a plan for his son's escape, and before

the appointed day arrived the boy was well on his way to the Continent.

The first resistance to Parliament came from an unexpected quarter.

As early as on February 22, Colonel Poyer, the Governor of Pembroke

Castle, had refused to deliver up his charge till his arrears had

been paid, and on March 23 he had proceeded to seize the town. At

first no more than a local difficulty was apprehended, and Colonel

Horton was despatched to suppress the rising. On his arrival he wrote

that he was likely to have the whole of South Wales on his hands.

Almost at the same time it was known at Westminster that a Scottish

army was actually to be raised. Presbyterian as was the majority of

the English Parliament, it had no mind to have even its favourite

religion established by an invading army of Scots, especially as that

army would be the army of the Scottish nobility, who were supposed

not to feel any warm attachment to the Presbyterian cause except

so far as their own interests were connected with it. It was the

hesitation of the English Presbyterians between their political and

their ecclesiastical aims which alone could have given a free hand to

Fairfax and Cromwell. It was Cromwell who, seconded by Vane, carried

a vote in the House for granting concessions which the City under

the pressure of the recent intelligence, was now prepared to accept

as satisfactory. A further vote that the House would not alter the

fundamental government of the kingdom by King, Lords and Commons, was

supported by the leading Independents. The House then proceeded to

declare itself ready to concur in a settlement on the ground of the

propositions laid before the King at Hampton Court, that is to say, on

the ground of the establishment of Presbyterianism without any liberty

of conscience whatsoever. Whether Cromwell was in his place when the

last two votes were taken is uncertain. At all events we can hardly

be wrong in supposing that he had no objection to the Presbyterians

amusing themselves with another hopeless negotiation whilst the army

took the field. He had had too much experience of Charles's character

as a diplomatist to imagine that he was likely to aim at anything more

than hoodwinking his opponents till the time came when he might deem it

advisable to hoodwink his allies.

Cromwell's presence was imperatively needed at head-quarters, which

were now established at Windsor. He found the army in an agitated

condition, and we may well believe that his own feelings were no

less agitated. The peaceful settlement which he had so long pursued

seemed farther off than ever, and he can have brought with him no

friendly thoughts of a King who would neither accept reasonable terms

for himself, nor abdicate in favour of those who would. On April 29

the chief men of the army held a prayer-meeting to inquire 'into the

causes of that sad dispensation,' and in a discussion which followed

on the 30th Cromwell urged those present thoroughly to consider their

actions as an army and their conduct as private Christians, that they

might discover the cause of 'such sad rebukes' as were upon them by

reason of their iniquities. That day no definite result was arrived

at, but on the next, news having arrived that the forces in Wales had

suffered a check, Fairfax ordered Cromwell to take the command in those

parts. Before Cromwell set out for his new command one more meeting was

held. "Presently," we are told by one who was present, "we were led and

helped to a clear agreement amongst ourselves, not any dissenting, that

it was the duty of our day, with the forces we had, to go out and fight

against those potent enemies which that year in all places appeared

against us, with humble confidence, in the name of the Lord only, that

we should destroy them; also enabling us then, after serious seeking

His face, to come to a very clear and joint resolution on many grounds

at large then debated amongst us, that it was our duty, if ever the

Lord brought us back again in peace, to call Charles Stuart, that man

of blood, to an account for the blood he had shed and mischief he had

done to his utmost against the Lord's cause and people in these poor

nations."

To what other conclusion could these men possibly come? How were they

likely to recognise the deeply seated belief in the justice of his

Church and cause which lay behind the slippery trickiness of Charles?

and how, even if they had recognised it, could they have counted it

to him for righteousness? For many a month Cromwell had staved off

this decision. Now, he could not reconcile it to his conscience to

stave it off any longer; his conscience in this, no doubt, concurring

with his interests. He left the Presbyterians at Westminster to

their own devices--to pass an ordinance which imposed the bitterest

penalties on heresy, and to toy with the idea of a fresh negotiation

with Charles, content that they had been brought into line with the

army in opposition to a Cavalier insurrection at home and a Scottish

invasion from abroad. Every indication served to convince the Houses of

the Royalist character of the insurrection. There were tumults either

actually breaking out or threatened in Suffolk, in Essex and in Surrey,

and in every case a resolution to support the King was either declared

or implied. Such a development was no more to the taste of the

Presbyterians than to that of the soldiers, and the army was therefore

able to calculate on the support of a Parliament which, though it might

detest the principles of the soldiers, was unable to dispense with

their services.

That army was not one to be easily defeated. Before Cromwell reached

his appointed station, he heard that Horton had overcome the Welshmen

at St. Fagans. The political effect of the victory was immense. "To

observe the strange alteration," wrote a London Independent to a friend

in the army, "the defeating of the Welsh hath made in all sorts is

admirable. The disaffected to the army of the religious Presbyterians

now fawn upon them--partly for fear of you, and partly in that they

think you will keep down the Royal party which threatened them, in

their doors, in the streets, to their faces with destruction, and put

no difference between Presbyterian and Independent." On May 19 the

Common Council of the City declared its readiness to live and die with

the Parliament, at the same time requesting that a fresh negotiation

should be opened with the King--a proposal which was at once accepted.

The Royalists were bitterly disappointed. "How long," jibed one of

them, "halt ye between two opinions? If Mammon be God, serve him; if

the Lord be God, serve Him. If Fairfax be King, serve him; if Charles

be King, restore him." To Fairfax and Cromwell the decision of the

City must have come as a great relief. The work before them was hard

enough, but there was no longer reason to despair.

So far as Fairfax was concerned, it had been intended that he should

march against the Scots whilst Cromwell marched into Wales. A rising in

Kent, followed by the defection of part of the navy, frustrated this

design. On June 1 Fairfax defeated the Kentish Royalists at Maidstone,

but a part of their forces crossing the Thames threw themselves into

Essex in the hope of rallying the Royalists of the eastern counties

to their side. Fairfax after a magnificently rapid march penned them

into Colchester, where they could only be reduced by a long and tedious

blockade. At the same time Cromwell, having pushed on through South

Wales, was occupied with the siege of Pembroke Castle, which did not

surrender till July 11, thus leaving full time for the completion of

the Scottish preparations. "I pray God," he had written to Fairfax

whilst as yet the issue was undecided, "teach this nation and those

that are over us, and your Excellency and all us that are under you,

what the mind of God may be in all this, and what our duty is. Surely

it is not that the poor godly people of this kingdom should still be

made the object of wrath and anger, nor that our God would have our

necks under a yoke of bondage; for these things that have lately come

to pass have been the wonderful works of God breaking the rod of the

oppressor as in the day of Midian, not with garments much rolled in

blood, but by the terror of the Lord, who will yet save His people and

confound His enemies."

What a light is thrown upon Cromwell's thoughts by these words! No

Parliamentary supremacy or rule of the majority--not even a general

toleration after the fashion of Roger Williams or Milton was uppermost

in his mind. Security for those whom he styled 'the poor godly people'

was the main object of his striving, though he was too large-minded

not to assign an important, if but a secondary place, to questions

relating to the fall or preservation of Kings and Parliaments, as the

institutional framework of political order without which even 'the poor

godly people' could not enter the haven of safety.

Three days before Cromwell was released from Pembroke the Scottish

army under the Duke of Hamilton had crossed the Border, sending before

it a declaration against toleration either for the Common Prayer Book

or for the worship of the sects. It was unlikely that if Charles were

restored by Hamilton's means he would be required to fulfil more than

that portion of the declaration which related to the repression of

the sects. The Hamilton party, as the secular party in Scotland, was

devoid of enthusiasm, and anxious to throw off the yoke of the clergy.

Hamilton, however, was a most incompetent general. He and his army, in

short, had no advantage but that of numbers over the well-disciplined

and fiery enthusiasts who followed Cromwell. They neither trusted God

nor kept their powder dry.

Though the invading army entered England by way of Carlisle, Cromwell

marched against them not through Lancashire but through Yorkshire.

He had to supply his men with shoes and stockings from Northampton

and Coventry, and to halt at Doncaster to pick up the artillery which

was forwarded him from Hull, as well as to rejoin Lambert, who was in

command of the small force which it had been possible to despatch to

the North whilst Cromwell was detained at Pembroke, and who had been

doing his best to delay the progress of the Scots till Cromwell was

ready to strike home. On its march through Lancashire, Hamilton's army,

some 21,000 strong, pushed slowly forward in a long straggling column,

the van and the rear at too great distance from each other to be able

to concentrate in case of an attack. On August 17, when Cromwell had

crossed the hills into Ribblesdale and was close at hand upon his

left flank, Hamilton, who had pushed on his cavalry to Wigan sixteen

miles in advance, sent the bulk of his infantry across the Ribble at

Preston, leaving Sir Marmaduke Langdale with 3,600 English Royalists

on the north bank, whilst another detachment was some miles in the

rear. It did not need much generalship to overwhelm an army under

such leadership as this. Cromwell fell upon Langdale, who had posted

his small force to the greatest advantage behind hedges, and after a

hard tussle, carried the position and captured the greater part of

the division. Then lining the steep northern bank of the Ribble with

musketeers, he drove Hamilton from the flat southern bank and, later

on, across the Darwen which, near this point, flows into the Ribble.

What followed was little more than mere pursuit. The Scots, half

starved and discouraged, were beaten wherever they attempted to make a

stand, and Hamilton at last surrendered at Uttoxeter, eight days after

the battle.

It was Cromwell's first victory in an independent command, and if the

Scottish leader had played into his hands, he had been wanting in no

part of an efficient general to profit by his folly. Once more, in the

despatch in which he announced his success to the Speaker, he harped

upon the old string, the duty of the Parliamentary Government to give

protection to the 'people of God'. "Surely, Sir," he wrote, "this is

nothing but the hand of God, and wherever anything in this world is

exalted or exalts itself, God will put it down; for this is the day

wherein He alone will be exalted. It is not fit for me to give advice,

nor to say a word what use you should make of this; more than to pray

you and all that acknowledge God, that they would take courage to do

the work of the Lord in fulfilling the end of your magistracy in

seeking the peace and welfare of this land; that all that will live

peaceably may have countenance from you, and they that are incapable

and will not leave troubling the land may speedily be destroyed out of

the land."

On August 27, ten days after the victory at Preston, Colchester

capitulated, and as far as England was concerned, the second civil war

was brought to an end, only a few fortresses in the North--incapable of

prolonged resistance without succour from any army in the field--still

holding out. It remained to be considered what policy should be adopted

towards the defeated Scots, and first of all towards the thousands of

prisoners captured at Preston and in the pursuit which followed. Of

these a division was made--those who had been pressed into the service

being set at liberty under an engagement never again to bear arms

against the Parliament of England. Those who had voluntarily taken

service under Hamilton were transported to Barbados or Virginia, not,

as is commonly said, as slaves, but as servants subjected for a term

of years to a master who, though he usually dealt with them far more

harshly than with his negro slaves, was at least bound to set them at

liberty at the end of the appointed time.

The decision in this matter rested with Parliament--not with Cromwell.

It was for Cromwell to follow up the relics of the Scottish army left

behind to the north of Preston, and which, after the defeat of their

comrades, had retreated to Scotland. Nor could it be doubted that the

word of the victorious general would have great weight with Parliament

in that settlement of the outstanding complaints against Scotland which

was now impending. It was fortunate that this was so, as Cromwell was

just the man to turn to the best advantage the dispute between the

Scottish parties now bursting into a flame. The defeat of Hamilton

left the way open to Argyle and that party of the more fanatical

clergy whose followers in the strongly Presbyterian West were known as

Whiggamores, an appellation from which the later appellation of Whig

was derived. The West rose in arms, and the Whiggamore Raid--as it was

called--swept from power those few partisans of Hamilton who were still

at liberty, and placed Scotland once more in the hands of Argyle and

the clergy. On September 21, whilst the conflict was yet undecided,

Cromwell entered Scotland, demanding the surrender of Berwick and

Carlisle, still occupied by Scottish garrisons. Argyle, glad of English

support to strengthen his nascent authority, gave a hearty consent;

and, to display the overwhelming strength of the English army to

the Scottish people, Lambert was sent forward in advance, Cromwell

following with the bulk of the army and arriving in Edinburgh on

October 4. On the 7th Cromwell returned to England, leaving Argyle

under the protection of Lambert at the head of two regiments of horse.

In the meanwhile Cromwell had come to an understanding with Argyle

that no Scotsman who had supported the Engagement with Charles should

be allowed to retain office, a stipulation as much in accordance with

Argyle's wishes as with his own. A fanatic might have objected that it

was unfitting that a tolerationist should give his support to the most

intolerant clergy in Protestant Europe. As a statesman, Cromwell could

but remember that unless England were to assume the direct control

over the Government of Scotland, it must leave such matters to local

decision, especially as there were few or no Independents in Scotland

to be wronged by any action which the new Government at Edinburgh

might take. Yet there was undoubtedly a danger for the future in the

divergency of aim between the followers of Argyle in Scotland and those

of Cromwell in England.

Cromwell transferred his forces into Yorkshire to hasten the surrender

of Pontefract and Scarborough, which still held out. The political

interest of the day had shifted to the South. Parliament, as soon as it

was relieved from danger, had determined to reopen the negotiation with

the King, and the conference--known as The Treaty of Newport--commenced

in the Isle of Wight on September 18. In the regiments under Cromwell's

command, as well as in Fairfax's army, the disgust was intense, and

Ireton now took the lead in calling for a purge of the House which

would get rid of such members as supported this piece of misplaced

diplomacy. To complete the dissatisfaction of the army, the demands

of Parliament included the establishment of Presbyterianism without

a shadow of toleration on either hand. It is unnecessary here to

follow up this negotiation in detail. The objection taken to Charles's

counter-proposals was less that they were themselves unjust, than

that it was impossible to hinder him from slipping out of his promise

whenever he felt strong enough to do so. Of this objection Ireton was

the mouthpiece in Fairfax's army, and on or about November 10, he laid

before the Council of officers the draft of a _Remonstrance of the

Army_. It touched on many constitutional proposals, but the clause

of the greatest practical interest asked 'that the capital and grand

author of all our troubles, the person of the King, may be speedily

brought to justice for the treason, blood and mischief he is therein

guilty of'. The suggestion was too much for Fairfax, and he carried

his officers with him in favour of a proposal that the army should ask

the King to assent to the heads of a constitutional plan which would

have reduced the functions of the Crown to that influence which is so

beneficially exercised at the present day.

This proposal made to the King on the 16th was, however, rejected at

once. The feeling of the army being what it was, Charles virtually

signed his own death-warrant by this action, and it might seem to a

superficial observer, as if his sufferings were due to his refusal to

anticipate two centuries of history, and to abandon all the claims

which had been handed down to him by his predecessors. To the careful

inquirer, it is evident that the causes of the army's demand lay far

deeper. The men who made it were no constitutional pedants. It was the

deep distrust with which Charles had inspired them that led to this

drastic mode of setting him aside from the exercise of that authority

which he had so constantly abused. It was his avoidance of open and

honourable speech which brought Charles to the block. Those who imagine

that he was brought to the scaffold because of his refusal to submit

to the abolition of episcopacy, forget that it had been in his power

to secure the retention of episcopacy when it was offered him in

_The Heads of the Proposals_, if only he had consented to its being

accompanied by a complete toleration.

The effect of the news which Cromwell from time to time received from

the army in England may be traced in the letters written by him at this

time. In one which he sent to Hammond on November 6 he justified his

dealings with Argyle, suggesting that the example of Scotland, where

one Parliament had been dissolved and another had been elected, might

be followed in England. In a second letter, written on the 20th, after

he had had time to consider the rejection by Charles of the proposal

of the army, he replied bitterly to an order of the House to send up

Sir John Owen, a prisoner taken in Wales, that he might be banished.

Cromwell angrily wrote that those who brought in the Scots had been

adjudged traitors by Parliament, 'this being a more prodigious treason

than any that had been perfected before; because the former quarrel was

that Englishmen might rule over one another, this to vassalise us to

a foreign nation, and their fault who have appeared in this summer's

business is certainly double theirs who were in the first, because it

is the repetition of the same offence against all the witnesses that

God has borne, by making and abetting a second war'. "To vassalise us

to a foreign nation." Here, in political matters at least, was the

head and front of Charles's offending. It was this that finally broke

down Cromwell's reluctance to shake himself loose from constituted

authority. "God," Hammond had written, "hath appointed authorities

among the nations, to which active or passive obedience is to be

yielded. This resides in England in the Parliament. Therefore active or

passive resistance is forbidden." To this reasoning Cromwell replied,

on the 25th, by various arguments, closing with the daring suggestion

that the army might, after all, be 'a lawful power called by God to

oppose and fight against the King upon some stated grounds; and, being

in power to such ends,' might not they oppose 'one name of authority

for these ends as well as another name'? Whatever might be the worth of

these considerations, no good was to be expected from Charles. "Good,"

he protested, "by this man against whom the Lord hath witnessed, and

whom thou knowest!"

Surely we have here laid bare before us Cromwellian opinion in the

making. As in other men, the wish was father to the thought. The

desire, whether for private or for public ends, shapes the thoughts,

and in Cromwell's case, as the desires swept a wider compass than with

most men, the thoughts took a larger scope and, to some extent, jostled

with one another. The cloudy mixture would clear itself soon enough.

Meanwhile events followed quickly on one another in the south. Hammond,

as too soft-hearted, was removed from Carisbrooke, and on December 1

emissaries from the army removed Charles to Hurst Castle, where he

could be more easily isolated. The foremost men in the army talked

openly of putting the King to death, and adopted Cromwell's suggestion

that Parliament should be forcibly dissolved, and a new one elected

in its place. In this sense a Declaration was issued on November 30,

and on December 2 the army marched into London. The Commons showed

themselves to be unaffected by threats of violence, and voted on the

5th that the King's offers were 'a ground for the House to proceed

upon for the settlement of the peace of the kingdom'. The scheme of

a dissolution favoured by the army was wrecked on the resistance of

the Independent members of the House. There was to be a purge, not

a dissolution followed by a general election. The plan thus agreed

on was carried into practice on the morning of the 6th, when Colonel

Pride stood with a military guard at the door of the House, turning

back or arresting the members who had voted for a continuance of the

negotiation with the King. When Cromwell returned to Westminster,

on the evening of the same day, he declared that he had not 'been

acquainted with the design; yet, since it was done, he was glad of it,

and would endeavour to maintain it'. As 'Pride's purge' had not been

resolved on before the previous night it was physically impossible

that he should have been informed of the resolution taken. There can

be little doubt that he had given his sanction to the other plan of a

dissolution, and had also concurred in the language ascribed to Ireton

and Harrison on the previous evening. "Where," they had said of the

House, "have we either law, warrant, or commission to purge it, or can

anything justify us in doing it but the height of necessity to save the

kingdom from a new war that they, with the conjunction of the King,

will presently vote and declare for, and to procure a new and free

representative, and so successive and free representatives, which this

present Parliament will never suffer, and without which the freedoms of

the nation are lost and gone!" It will be worth while to remember these

words, when the continuance of the now truncated Parliament was at last

brought to an end.

It was Cromwell's habit to accept the second best, when the best proved

unattainable. As to subjecting the King to a traitor's death, Cromwell,

as on so many other occasions, exercised a moderating influence.

Ireton, it seems, would have been satisfied if Charles were tried and

sentenced, after which he might be left in prison till he consented 'to

abandon his negative voice, to part from Church lands' and 'to abjure

the Scots'. Cromwell even wanted the trial itself to be deferred. By a

small majority the Army Council resolved that Charles's life should be

spared. As a last effort in this direction, Lord Denbigh was despatched

to Windsor--to which place Charles had been removed--to lay before him

conditions on which he might yet be permitted to live. Charles, who

cannot but have known the nature of the overtures now brought, refused

even to see the messenger. Though no direct evidence has reached us, it

can hardly be doubted that the terms offered included the renunciation

of the negative voice and the abandonment of the Church, that is to

say, of Bishops' lands; in other words, the abandonment of control

over legislation and of episcopacy. Here at last Charles found no

possibility of evasion, and driven as he was to the wall, the true gold

which was in him overlaid by so much ignorance and wrong-headedness

revealed itself in all its purity. For him the only question was

whether he should betray the ordinance of God in Church and State. The

incapable ruler--the shifty intriguer--was at once revealed as the

sufferer for conscience' sake.

Neither Cromwell nor his brother-officers had an inkling of this. To

them Charles, in refusing this final overture, had asserted his right

to be the persecutor of the godly and the obstructor of all beneficent

legislation. Their patience was at length exhausted. On January 1,

1649, an ordinance was sent up to the Lords creating a High Court of

Justice for the trial of the King, accompanied by a resolution that

'by the fundamental laws of this kingdom it is treason in the King

of England for the time being to levy war against the Parliament and

Kingdom of England'. 'If any man whatsoever,' said Cromwell when this

ordinance was under debate, 'hath carried on the design of deposing the

King, and disinheriting his posterity; or, if any man hath yet such

a design, he should be the greatest traitor and rebel in the world;

but since the Providence of God hath cast this upon us, I cannot but

submit to Providence, though I am not yet provided to give you advice'.

In the last words were the last symptoms of hesitation on Cromwell's

part. Somehow or other all his efforts to save Charles from destruction

had failed, and it was as much in Cromwell's nature to attribute the

failure to Providence as it was in Charles's nature to regard himself

as the earthly champion of the laws of God.

The House of Lords having refused to pass the ordinance, the House

of Commons declared 'the people to be, under God, the original of

all just power,' and in consequence, 'the Commons of England in

Parliament assembled' to be capable of giving the force of law to their

enactments. From this time forth the name of an Act was given to the

laws passed by a single House. On January 6, such an Act erected a

High Court of Justice for the trial of the King, on the ground that he

had had a wicked design to subvert his people's rights, and with this

object had levied war against them, and also, having been spared, had

continued to raise new commotions. Therefore, that no chief officer

or magistrate might hereafter presume to contrive the enslaving or

destroying of the nation, certain persons were appointed by whom

Charles Stuart was to be tried.

Having once given his consent to the trial, Cromwell threw himself

into the support of the resolution with all his vigour. "I tell you,"

he replied to some scruples of young Algernon Sidney on the score of

legality, "we will cut off his head with the crown upon it." When a

majority of the members of the Court refused to sit; when divisions of

opinion arose amongst those who did sit; when difficulties, in short,

of any kind arose, it was Cromwell who was ready with exhortation and

persuasion to complete the work which they had taken in hand. His

arguments appear to have been directed not to the technical point

whether Charles had levied war against the nation or not, but to

convince all who would listen that there had been a breach of trust

in his refusal to do his utmost for the preservation of the people.

Charles, on the other hand, maintained, as he was well entitled to do,

that he was not being tried by any known law, and that the violence

used against him would lead to the establishment of a military

despotism over the land. Nothing he could say availed to change the

determination of the grim masters of the hour. On January 27 sentence

of death was pronounced by Bradshaw, the President of the Court, and on

the 30th this sentence was carried into execution on a scaffold erected

in front of the Banqueting House of his own palace of Whitehall.

That Cromwell, once his mind made up, had contributed more than any

other to this result can hardly be doubted. If we are to accept a

traditional story which has much to recommend it, we have something

of a key to his state of mind. "The night after King Charles was

beheaded," we are told, "my Lord Southhampton and a friend of his got

leave to sit up by the body in the Banqueting House at Whitehall.

As they were sitting very melancholy there, about two o'clock in the

morning, they heard the tread of somebody coming very slowly upstairs.

By-and-by the door opened, and a man entered very much muffled up

in his cloak, and his face quite hid in it. He approached the body,

considered it very attentively for some time, and then shook his

head--sighed out the words, 'Cruel necessity!' He then departed in the

same slow and concealed manner as he had come. Lord Southhampton used

to say that he could not distinguish anything of his face, but that by

his voice and gait he took him to be Oliver Cromwell."

Whether there was indeed any such necessity may be disputed for ever,

as well as that other question whether the army had a right to force on

the trial and execution in the teeth of the positive law of the land.

The main issue was whether, whatever positive law might say, a king was

not bound by the necessities of his position to be the representative

of the nation, acting on its behalf, merging his own interests in those

of his people, refusing to coerce them by foreign armies, and owing to

them, whenever it became prudent to speak at all, the duty of uttering

words of simple truth. So Elizabeth had acted: so Bacon had taught.

That Charles's own conduct was moulded on far different principles it

is impossible to deny. Confidence in his own wisdom was inherent in his

nature, and there is no reason to doubt that he soberly believed his

critics and antagonists to be so heated by faction that he was actually

unable to do his best for the nation as well as for himself unless he

called foreign armies to his aid, and raised false expectations in the

hope of throwing off each party with whom he was treating, as soon

as a convenient opportunity arrived. Such an attitude could not but

engender resistance, and when long persisted in, necessarily called

forth an attitude equally unbending. That which to Cromwell was at one

time a cruel necessity--at another time a decree of Providence--was

but the natural result of the offence given by Charles to men who

required plain dealing in a ruler from whom nothing but ill-concealed

deceitfulness was to be had. The final struggle had come to be mainly

one over the King's retention of the Negative Voice, which, if he

had been permitted to retain it, would enable him to hinder all new

legislation which did not conform to his personal wishes. No doubt he

had both law and tradition on his side, but, on the other hand, his

antagonists could plead that the law of the land must depend on the

resolution, not of a single person, but of the nation itself.

"Fortunately or unfortunately," I can but repeat here what I have

already said elsewhere, "such abstract considerations seldom admit

of direct application to politics. It is at all times hard to

discover what the wishes of a nation really are, and least of all

can this be done amidst the fears and passions of a revolutionary

struggle. Only after long years does a nation make clear its definite

resolves, and, for this reason, wise statesmen--whether monarchical or

republican--watch the currents of opinion, and submit to compromises

which will enable the national sentiment to make its way without a

succession of violent shocks. Charles's fault lay not so much in his

claim to retain the Negative Voice, as in his absolute disregard of

the conditions of the time, and of the feelings and opinions of every

class of his subjects with which he happened to disagree. Even if those

who opposed Charles in the later stages of his career failed to rally

the majority of the people to their side, they were undoubtedly acting

in accordance with a permanent national demand for that government by

compromise which slowly, but irresistibly, developed itself in the

course of the century.

"Nor can it be doubted that, if Charles had, under any conditions,

been permitted to reseat himself on the throne, he would quickly have

provoked a new resistance. As long as he remained a factor in English

politics, government by compromise was impossible. His own conception

of government was that of a wise prince, constantly interfering to

check the madness of the people. In the Isle of Wight he wrote down

with approval the lines in which Claudian, the servile poet of the

Court of Honorius, declared it to be an error to give the name of

slavery to the service of the best of princes, and asserted that

liberty never had a greater charm than under a pious king. Even on

the scaffold he reminded his subjects that a share in government was

nothing appertaining to the people. It was the tragedy of Charles's

life that he was utterly unable to satisfy the cravings of those who

inarticulately hoped for the establishment of a monarchy which, while

it kept up the old traditions of the country, and thus saved England

from a blind plunge into an unknown future, would yet allow the people

of the country to be to some extent masters of their own destiny.

"Yet if Charles persistently alienated this large and important

section of his subjects, so also did his most determined opponents.

The very merits of the Independents--their love of toleration and of

legal and political reform, together with their advocacy of democratic

change--raised opposition in a nation which was prepared for none of

these things, and drove them step by step to rely on armed strength

rather than upon the free play of constitutional action. But for this,

it is probable that the Vote of No Addresses would have received a

practically unanimous support in the Parliament and the nation, and

that in the beginning of 1648 Charles would have been dethroned, and

a new government of some kind or other established with some hope

of success. As it was, in their despair of constitutional support,

the Independents were led, in spite of their better feelings, to the

employment of the army as an instrument of government.

"The situation, complicated enough already, had been still further

complicated by Charles's duplicity. Men who would have been willing to

come to terms with him despaired of any constitutional arrangement in

which he was to be a factor, and men who had been long alienated from

him were irritated into active hostility. By these he was regarded

with increasing intensity as the one disturbing force with which no

understanding was possible and no settled order consistent. To remove

him out of the way appeared, even to those who had no thought of

punishing him for past offences, to be the only possible road to peace

for the troubled nation. It seemed that, so long as Charles lived,

deluded nations and deluded parties would be stirred up by promises

never intended to be fulfilled, to fling themselves, as they had flung

themselves in the Second Civil War, against the new order of things

which was struggling to establish itself in England.

"Of this latter class Cromwell made himself the mouthpiece. Himself a

man of compromises, he had been thrust, sorely against his will, into

direct antagonism with the uncompromising King. He had striven long to

mediate between the old order and the new, first by restoring Charles

as a constitutional King, and afterwards by substituting one of his

children for him. Failing in this, and angered by the persistence with

which Charles stirred up Scottish armies and Irish armies against

England, Cromwell finally associated himself with those who cried out

most loudly for the King's blood. No one knew better than Cromwell that

it was folly to cover the execution of the King with the semblance of

constitutional propriety, and he may well have thought that, though

law and constitution had both broken down, the first step to be taken

towards their reconstruction was the infliction of the penalty of death

upon the man who had shown himself so wanting in the elementary quality

of veracity upon which laws and constitutions are built up. All that

is known of Cromwell's conduct at the trial points to his contempt for

the legal forms with which others were attempting to cover an action

essentially illegal."

A further question which has been often mooted is whether

Cromwell--whatever may be said on the purity of his motives--did not

commit a blunder in respect of the interests of himself and his cause.

If those who have discussed this problem mean that the attempt to

establish a free government during Cromwell's lifetime was rendered

more difficult by the execution of the King, it is hard to gainsay

their opinion, though the estrangement of the bulk of the population

from the new order, in consequence of the execution, is probably very

much exaggerated. Those who, like the Cavaliers, had been mulcted of

a portion of their estates had an additional reason for detesting a

government which had used them so ill, and there must have been a

certain number amongst the crowds who read the _Eikon Basilike_--the

little book in which Charles's vindication of his life was supposed

to have been written by his own hand--who were permanently affected

by that sentimental production of Dr. Gauden. If, however, it is

argued that Cromwell and his allies might possibly have succeeded in

establishing a government to their taste if they had abstained from

inflicting the last penalty on the King, it can only be answered that

other causes made their success in the highest degree improbable.

Their plans for the benefit of the people were on the one hand too

far advanced to secure popular support; and, on the other hand, too

defective in fair-play to their opponents to deserve it. Puritanism was

not, and never could be the national religion, and though it made more

enemies through its virtues than through its defects, those who strove

to enforce its moral and social precepts needed a strong military force

at their backs. The irritation caused by the interference of the army

in religion and politics, and by the demands on the tax-payer which

the maintenance of the army rendered necessary, would surely have been

fatal to any government resting on such a basis, even if Charles had

been suffered to prolong his days. If there remains any interest in

Cromwell's career after the execution of the King it arises from his

constantly renewed efforts to throw off this incubus, and his repeated

failures to achieve his purpose.