THE LAST YEARS OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT.
During the last weeks of Charles's life, the army, in co-operation
with some of the Levellers, had drawn up an enlarged edition of _The
Agreement of the People_, a task which was completed on January 15.
In accordance with Cromwell's wish, this proposed constitution was
laid before Parliament on the 20th for its approval, instead of being
imposed on Parliament by a previous vote amongst the so-called well
affected. Parliament being sufficiently busy at the time, laid the
proposal aside with a few well-chosen compliments. The members had no
wish to engage, at such a moment, in the uncertainties of a general
election.
There can be little doubt that in this matter Parliament was
instinctively in the right. That mutilated Assembly to which modern
writers give the name of 'the Rump,' though no such word was employed
by contemporaries till its reappearance on the scene some time after
Cromwell's death, was in possession of the field. It now contented
itself with proclaiming England to be a Commonwealth without King or
House of Lords, and with electing an annually renewable Council of
State to perform executive functions under its own control. The first
political act of the sovereign Parliament was to order the execution
of the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland, and Lord Capel, who,
having taken the King's part in the last war, had been condemned by
a High Court of Justice, similar to the one that had sent Charles
to the block. For the moment the most serious danger to the young
Commonwealth arose from the opposition of Lilburne and the Levellers,
who, not content with asking, on the ground of abstract principles,
for the immediate foundation of a democratic Republic in the place of
the existing makeshift arrangement, extended their propaganda to the
army itself, appealing to the private soldiers against the officers.
Lilburne and three of his supporters were summoned before the Council.
Lilburne, having threatened to burn down any place in which he might be
imprisoned, was directed to retire. From the outer room he listened to
the voices in the Council chamber. "I tell you, sir," said Cromwell,
"you have no other way of dealing with these men but to break them,
or they will break you; yea, and bring all the guilt of the blood and
treasure shed and spent in this kingdom upon your heads and shoulders;
and frustrate and make void all that work that, with so many years'
industry, toil and pains you have done, and so render you to all
rational men in the world as the most contemptiblest generation of
silly, low-spirited men in the earth, to be broken and routed by such a
despicable, contemptible generation of men as they are, and therefore,
Sir, I tell you again, you are necessitated to break them." We can
sympathise with Lilburne now in his desire to establish government by
the people, to confirm individual right, and to restrain the commanders
of the army from political power. Yet, after all, the practical
necessities of the hour were on Cromwell's side.
It was not long before the mutinous spirit to which Lilburne appealed
showed itself in the army. A regiment quartered at Salisbury refused
obedience to its officers, and roamed about the country seeking for
other bodies of troops with which to combine. Fairfax set out from
London in chase, and on the night of May 14 Cromwell, by a forced
march with his cavalry, overtook the mutineers at Burford. Three were
executed, and the remainder submitted to the inevitable.
It was the more necessary to keep the army in hand, as there was
renewed fighting in prospect. The eldest son of the late King, now
claiming the title of Charles II., was about to make an effort to seat
himself on his father's throne, and hoped, as his father had hoped
before him, to have on his side the forces of Scotland and Ireland.
For many years the problem of the relations between the three countries
had been inviting a solution. Both Scotland and Ireland had social
and political interests of their own, and the natural reluctance of
the inhabitants of either country to see these merged in those of the
wealthier and more numerous people of England would in any case have
called for delicate handling. The rise for the first time of a powerful
army in England made her relations with the two other countries even
more difficult than before, and had contributed fully as much as
zeal for Presbyterianism to the ridiculous scheme of re-establishing
Charles I. as a covenanting King. After the defeat of Hamilton, indeed,
Argyle and the Scottish clergy had welcomed Cromwell's support in
the overthrow of the power of the nobility, but the dread of English
predominance had not been entirely dispelled, and the King's execution
added a sentimental grievance to other causes of alarm. In refusing
to allow any English government to dispose of Scotland, the Scots
were undoubtedly within their rights; but when on February 5 they
proclaimed Charles II. not merely as King of Scotland, but as King
of Great Britain, France and Ireland, they took up a position which
no English government could allow to remain unchallenged, whilst in
adding a condition that Charles was to be admitted to power only on his
engagement to rule according to the National Covenant and the Solemn
League and Covenant, they put forward the monstrous claim to control
the religious development of England and Ireland, as well as of their
own country.
The necessity--according to these conditions--of coming to an
understanding with Charles, made Scotland little dangerous for the
moment, and enabled the English Parliament to turn its attention to
Ireland, to which Charles I. had looked hopefully after the failure
of the Hamilton invasion. Ormond, who had formerly headed Charles's
partisans in Ireland, now returned to that country as the King's
Lord Lieutenant, and brought under his leadership, not only his old
followers, but the army of the Confederate Catholics. Though Owen
O'Neill, at the head of an army raised amongst the Celts of Ulster,
kept aloof, the way seemed open for Ormond to attack Dublin, which was
now guarded by a Parliamentary garrison under Michael Jones, and was
almost the only place in Ireland still holding out for England. As in
Scotland, so in Ireland, the question was not so much whether England
was to win forcible mastery over those portions of the British Isles
outside her borders, as whether they were to be used to determine the
political institutions of England herself. The attacks on Ireland and
Scotland, which were now to follow, were in a certain sense acts of
defensive warfare.
To no man more than Cromwell was this thought present. An Englishman of
Englishmen--his bitterest complaint against the late King had been that
he had attempted to 'vassalise' England to a foreign nation, and when
on March 15 he was named to the command, he explained to his brother
officers the reasons which inclined him to accept the post. "Truly,"
he said, "this is really believed:--If we do not endeavour to make
good our interest there, and that timely, we shall not only have our
interest rooted out there, but they will, in a very short time, be able
to land forces in England and put us to trouble here; and I confess I
have these thoughts with myself that perhaps may be carnal and foolish:
I had rather be overrun with a Cavalierish interest than a Scottish
interest; had rather be overrun by a Scottish interest than an Irish
interest, and I think of all this is most dangerous; and, if they shall
be able to carry on their work, they will make this the most miserable
people in the earth; for all the world knows their barbarism--not
of any religion almost any of them, but, in a manner, as bad as
Papists--and truly it is thus far that the quarrel is brought to this
State that we can hardly return into that tyranny that formerly we were
under the yoke of ... but we must at the same time be subject to the
kingdom of Scotland and the kingdom of Ireland for the bringing in of
the King. Now it should awaken all Englishmen who perhaps are willing
enough he should have come in upon an accommodation; but now he must
come in from Ireland or Scotland."
In these words are revealed the convictions that dominated Cromwell's
action at this period of his life. So far as it lay in him, he would
never admit that Scotland, still less that Ireland, should impose a
government upon England. On July 12 he set out for Ireland. Before
he could embark he received the welcome news that Michael Jones had
defeated Ormond at Rathmines, and that Dublin was consequently out
of danger. When he landed at Dublin, his intention was, as soon
as possible, to make his way into Munster and rally round him the
Protestant colonists who formed a considerable part of the population
of the towns on the coast. It was, however, necessary first to protect
Dublin from an attack from the north, from which quarter Owen O'Neill,
who, after long hesitation, had thrown in his lot with Ormond, was
expected to advance. Accordingly, on September 1, Cromwell marched
upon Drogheda, which was held for the King by a garrison of about
2,800 men, mainly composed of Irishmen, under Sir Arthur Aston. On the
10th Cromwell summoned the place, and on the refusal of the governor
to surrender opened a cannonade on the south-eastern angle. It was
impossible for the garrison--short of ammunition as it was--to hold out
long, and on the second day, when a breach had been effected, Cromwell
gave the word to storm. The assailants, though twice driven back, were,
on the third attempt, successful. Aston, with about three hundred men,
took refuge on a huge artificial mound, known as the Mill Mount. Angry
at the prolonged resistance, Cromwell gave the word to put to the sword
all who were in arms. The hasty word was ruthlessly obeyed, and some
two thousand men were slaughtered in cold blood. There is no doubt that
in what he did, Cromwell was covered by the strict law of war, which
placed a garrison refusing surrender outside the pale of mercy; but the
law had seldom been acted on in the English war, and it is permissible
to doubt whether Cromwell would have acted on it on this occasion, if
the defenders had been others than 'Irish Papists,' as he scornfully
called them. The memory of the Ulster massacre of 1641, not merely as
it really was, but accompanied by all the exaggerations to which it had
been subjected by English rumour, was ever present to his mind, and he
regarded every Irishman in arms, not as an honourable antagonist, but
as either a murderer or a supporter of murderers.
Yet even Cromwell seems to have thought the deed deserving of excuse.
"Truly," he wrote to Bradshaw, the President of the Council, "I believe
this bitterness will save much effusion of blood through the goodness
of God. I wish that all honest hearts may give the glory of this to
God alone, to whom indeed the praise of this mercy belongs." "I am
persuaded," he assured Lenthall, "that this is a righteous judgment of
God upon those barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so
much innocent blood, and it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood
for the future, which are the satisfactory grounds for such actions,
which otherwise cannot but work remorse or regret."
Leaving a garrison behind him in Drogheda, Cromwell marched to the
south by way of Wexford. There too a slaughter took place, though
this time it was brought on by the act of the townsmen, who continued
their resistance after the walls had been scaled. The story often
repeated of the two or three hundred women killed in the market place
is pure fiction, of which nothing is heard till after the middle of the
eighteenth century. On the other hand, both at Drogheda and Wexford
priests were put to death without mercy. Whether these cruelties, in
the long run, rendered Irishmen more ready to submit to the invaders
may be doubted, but they certainly made Cromwell's path easier whilst
the terror spread by them was recent. Wexford fell on October 11. On
the 17th Cromwell summoned New Ross. "I have this witness for myself,"
he wrote to the Governor, "that I have endeavoured to avoid effusion
of blood--this being my principle that the people and the places where
I come may not suffer except through their own wilfulness." Two days
later he was asked whether he would grant liberty of conscience. "I
meddle not," he answered, "with any man's conscience, but if by liberty
of conscience, you mean liberty to exercise the mass, I judge it best
to use plain dealing, and to let you know that where the Parliament of
England have power that will not be allowed of." Cromwell's principle
in Ireland was very much what Elizabeth's had been in England. Men
might hold what religious opinions they pleased, but toleration was
not to be extended to the Roman Catholic worship. The distinction may
appear unjustifiable in the eyes of the present generation. It was
perfectly familiar to the statesmen of the seventeenth century.
Before long Cromwell's hope of support from the Protestants in the
south was amply justified. Cork was the first of the coast towns in
Munster to rise in his favour, and others soon followed the example.
Waterford, on the other hand, held out, being assisted by the winter
rains. The first months of 1650 were employed in the reduction of towns
further inland, such as Kilkenny and Clonmel, though the garrison of
the latter place succeeded in making its escape. After the surrender
of Clonmel Cromwell left Ireland, his services being required at home.
Ireton, who remained behind as Lord Deputy, had nearly completed the
conquest when he died in November 1651 of a disease caused by his
devotion to the calls of duty, though the last fortified post did not
surrender till April 1653.
Cromwell's reason for treating the Irish Roman Catholics with peculiar
harshness may be gathered from a controversy in which he took part
some time before he left the country. In December 1649 the Irish
Prelates assembled at Clonmacnoise issued a Declaration in which they
warned their flocks that Cromwell was bent on extirpating the Catholic
religion, and could not effect his purpose 'without the massacring or
banishment of the Catholic inhabitants'. They proceeded to point out
that those who were spared by the sword were doomed to impoverishment,
as by English Acts of Parliament already passed, 'the estates of the
inhabitants of this kingdom are sold, so there remaineth now no more
but to put the purchasers in possession by the power of forces drawn
out of England, and for the common sort of people, to whom they show
any more moderate usage at present, it is to no other end but for their
private advantage, and for the better support of their army, intending
at the close of their conquest, if they can effect the same--as God
forbid--to root out the commons also, and plant this land with colonies
to be brought hither out of England--as witness the number they have
already sent hence for the Tobacco Islands--and put enemies in their
place'. The Prelates concluded by declaring that, henceforth, clergy
and laity would unite to defend the Church, the King and the nation.
In one part of this declaration the Prelates had referred to the
English army as 'the common enemy'. "Who is it," asked Cromwell
wrathfully in reply; "that created this common enemy? I suppose you
mean Englishmen. The English! Remember, ye hypocrites, Ireland was once
united to England; Englishmen had good inheritances, which many of them
purchased with their money, they or their ancestors, from many of you
and your ancestors. They had good leases from Irishmen for long time to
come, great stocks thereupon, houses and plantations erected at their
cost and charge. They lived peaceably and honestly amongst you; you had
generally equal benefit of the protection of England with them, and
equal justice from the laws--saving what was necessary for the State,
upon reasons of State, to put upon some few people apt to rebel upon
the instigation of such as you. You broke the union; you unprovoked
put the English to the most unheard of and most barbarous massacre
without respect of sex or age that ever the sun beheld, and at a time
when Ireland was at perfect peace, and when, through the example of
English industry, through commerce and traffic, that which was in the
natives' hands was better to them than if all Ireland had been in their
possession and not an Englishman in it; and yet then, I say, was this
unheard of villainy perpetrated through your instigation, who boast
of peace-making and union against the common enemy. What think you, by
this time? Is not my assertion true? Is God--will God be with you? I am
confident He will not."
Such was the picture which framed itself in Cromwell's mind in the
contemplation of the troubles of 1641. It was no long by-past history
that he ignored--though the race against which his sword was drawn
was one singularly retentive of the tradition of days long-ago. It
was the occurrences which had passed in his own life-time which he
misinterpreted. The Irish peoples and tribes, it seemed, had had
no grievances of which to complain. They had never, forsooth, been
ousted from their land by the chicanery of English lawyers and English
statesmen. As for their religion, it was hardly to be regarded as a
religion at all. Favour enough was shown to them if they were allowed
to bury their creed in their hearts, though they were deprived of
those consolations on which those who held their faith were far more
dependent than the adherents of other Churches. That Cromwell believed
every word he said is not to be doubted. This representation of Irish
problems and of Irish facts was no creation of his own mind. It was the
common--probably the universal belief of Englishmen of his own day.
Nor was Cromwell any more original in propounding remedies. "We are
come," he continued, "to take an account of the innocent blood that
hath been shed, and to endeavour to bring them to account--by the
blessing of Almighty God, in whom alone is our hope and strength--who
by appearing in arms seek to justify the same. We come to break the
power of a company of lawless rebels who, having cast off the authority
of England, live as enemies to human society, whose principles--the
world hath experience of--are to destroy and subjugate all men not
complying with them. We come--by the assistance of God--to hold forth
and maintain the lustre and glory of English liberty, in a nation where
we have an undoubted right to do it, whereas the people of Ireland--if
they listen not to such seducers as you are--may equally participate
in all benefits to use liberty and fortune equally with Englishmen, if
they keep out of arms." Irishmen, in short, were to be what Englishmen
were, or to bear the penalty. It was the old remedy of the Elizabethans
and of Strafford. It is not so much the victorious sword that alienates
as the contempt of the conqueror for all that the conquered are in
themselves or for all that they hold dear. Yet it must be acknowledged
that in whatever proportion the guilt of past errors may be divisible
between English and Irish, no English government could endure longer to
face that danger of invasion from the side of Ireland, which had so
constantly threatened England since first her civil broils began. Under
these circumstances, an English conquest of Ireland was inevitable
as soon as it was undertaken by a disciplined army. Irishmen were
too deeply riven asunder by diversities of race and institutions to
unite in common resistance; and even if these difficulties could be
removed, there was no common leader who commanded universal devotion.
Conquered--Ireland was bound to be, but it was unfortunate for both
peoples that she was conquered at a time when the religious and
political ideas of Englishmen were, more than ever before or since, the
antithesis of those of Irishmen. It was when a Puritan Government took
in hand what they hoped to be the regeneration of Ireland that the real
difficulties of the task would be made manifest.
No such gulf was open between England and Scotland, yet the
apprehension of fresh troubles approaching from Scotland caused the
Government at Westminster to recall Cromwell in May 1650. For some
time a negotiation had been carried on at Breda between the exiled
Charles II. and a body of commissioners who had been sent by the
extreme Presbyterians now dominant in Edinburgh, with the object of
persuading the young King to accept their assistance to regain his
other kingdoms on conditions which could not fail to be most repulsive
to him. He was to disallow the treaty concluded by Ormond, by which
the Irish were exempted from the penal laws, though in that treaty
lay his sole hope of resisting Cromwell in that country; he was to
establish Presbyterianism both in England and Ireland without a shred
of toleration either for the sects or for that Church of which he was
himself a member, and he was to sign the two Covenants, marking his own
adhesion to the Scottish form of religion. Against these terms Charles
long struggled, but on May 1 he signed the draft of an agreement
assenting to them, which was sent to Scotland for approval, accompanied
by a demand on his part for their modification. Before an answer was
received, Charles heard that his most gallant champion, Montrose, had
been defeated and hanged as a traitor. A day or two later, on June 1,
he was informed that his request for the modification of the Scottish
terms had been rejected at Edinburgh. On the 2nd Charles embarked for
Scotland without signing anything, and it was only on June 11, off
Heligoland, that he affixed his name to the treaty, and only on the
23rd, off Speymouth, that he swore to the Covenants, as the treaty
required him to do. There can be little doubt that he intended to cast
off the bondage as soon as an opportunity arrived. It is doubtful
which was the greater, the ignorance of the Scottish Government in
supposing that their conditions could be imposed on England, or their
folly in imagining that Charles would be bound by his oath to become
their accomplice. Of this Government Argyle was still the leading
personality, but that shrewd statesman only held his own by submitting
to the crowd of fanatics, clerical and lay, whom he had once hoped to
control, and who now made themselves his masters. Secret communications
had long been passing between Charles and his English supporters. They
were expected to rise in support of the Scots, but as to the engagement
to establish Presbyterianism, it 'was by most refused, and resolved to
be broken by those who took it'.
Under these circumstances, Cromwell's return had been ardently expected
by all who had attached themselves to the existing Government. Whilst
he was still absent, Parliament had secured to him the use of the
Cockpit--a house opposite Whitehall--and also of St. James's House and
Spring Gardens; and had afterwards voted to him an additional grant
of lands bringing in £2,500 a year. On June 1 he had a magnificent
reception as he crossed Hounslow Heath, and on the 4th received the
thanks of Parliament for his services. The first question mooted was
on whom should be bestowed the command of the army destined for the
north. As long as it was expected that the troops were to act on the
defensive, Fairfax was ready to go with Cromwell serving under him, as
in old days, as his Lieutenant-General.
On June 20, when it was resolved, doubtless at Cromwell's suggestion,
that the English army should invade Scotland to anticipate an attack
which was regarded as inevitable, Fairfax's hesitations began, and
after a brief delay he offered to resign his commission. Cromwell
did his best to combat his arguments, which proceeded rather from
a general feeling of distrust of the tendency of the Commonwealth
Government than from any distinct resolve to separate himself from it.
Cromwell's persuasions were of no avail, and on June 26 he received the
appointment of Lord General, which Fairfax was now permitted to resign.
Cromwell's mind was set on something more than military success. In
a conversation with Ludlow who was about to leave for Ireland, he
discoursed for an hour on the 110th Psalm. "He looked," he said, "on
the design of the Lord in this day to be the freeing of the people
from every burden." Especially he found hard words to fling at the
lawyers--those sons of Zeruiah who had hitherto stood in the way of the
simplifying of the law in favour of poorer litigants.
On June 28 Cromwell set out for his command. At Berwick on July 19 he
found himself at the head of 16,000 men, whilst the Scottish army,
under the command of David Leslie, numbered 26,000. For the first
time in his life Cromwell was opposed to a general who was a capable
strategist. The Scottish army, moreover, had the advantage of position.
Occupying Edinburgh Castle and the fortified city sloping eastwards
beneath it, Leslie had thrown up intrenchments from the foot of the
Canongate to Leith, to bar the way to any army threatening to cut off
the city from its port. Cromwell, having failed to carry this line,
retreated to Musselburgh to prepare for his next step.
Though the Scots had the advantage of military position, their army
had none of the coherence of the English. The clergy, under whose
influence it had been gathered, had a shrewd suspicion that Charles
was not whole-hearted in his devotion to the Kirk. They were afraid
of his influence on the soldiers, and when he made his appearance
at Leith they compelled him to withdraw. His expulsion was followed
by a purge of the army, and in three days no fewer than 80 officers
and 3,000 soldiers were dismissed as not coming up to the proper
spiritual or moral standard. To the clergy Cromwell's appeal was
directed in vain. "I beseech you," he wrote to them, "in the bowels
of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken." It was the very
last thing they were prepared to do. To them sectarianism was an evil
to be combated at all hazards, and Cromwell's entreaties to join him
in brotherly union met with no response. Yet amongst the stricter
Presbyterian laity there were some--such as Strachan and Ker--who felt
uncomfortable at being told that they were fighting for a malignant
King. Cromwell having posted himself, on August 13, on Braid Hill,
to the south of Edinburgh, committed one of the greatest faults of
which a general is capable. His eagerness to win over those whom--in
spite of their contumelious rejection of his claim--he persisted in
regarding as his brothers in religion, led him to subordinate war to
diplomacy. For the first time in his military career he was hesitating
and tentative, prone to delay action, and above all inspired by the
hope that action might be avoided. Even if he had acted more promptly
it is possible that he might have failed against so wary an antagonist
as Leslie. His plan, probably the best under the circumstances, was
to march on Queensferry, in order to cut the communications of the
Scottish army with its base of supplies in Fife, communications which
could not be maintained lower down the Firth where the English fleet
was master of the sea. Leslie held the inner line, and when at last,
on August 27, Cromwell advanced towards Queensferry, he found Leslie
across his path, posted behind a morass. He could but turn back once
more to Musselburgh, after which, giving up the game he had been
playing for some weeks, he found himself, on September 1, at Dunbar.
Leslie followed, taking care to avoid a battle and drawing up his
army on Doon Hill, whose steep slopes looked down on the flatter
ground on which Cromwell's forces lay. Blocking the route to England
by occupying the defile at Cockburnspath, Leslie had but to remain
where he was to force Cromwell--now commanding less than half his
former numbers--either to surrender or to ship the best part of his
force for England--the fleet which accompanied him not affording space
for the accommodation of his whole army. "The enemy," wrote Cromwell,
"lieth so upon the hills that we know not how to come that way without
difficulty, and our lying here daily consumeth our men who fall sick
beyond imagination." There could be little doubt that even if the army
secured its retreat to its own country, its failure to defeat the Scots
would be followed by a general rising of the Cavaliers in England.
Humanly speaking, the prospect was a dark one, and Cromwell could but
console himself with his trust in divine assistance. "All," he wrote,
"shall work for good; our spirits are comfortable, praised be the
Lord, though our present condition be as it is, and indeed we have
much hope in the Lord, of Whose mercy we have had large experience."
With him faith in Divine protection was consistent with the adoption
of every military measure by which an adversary's mistakes could be
turned to his own advantage. It was otherwise with the clergy and their
adherents, who exercised so much influence on the Doon Hill. There had
been fresh purging of the Scottish army, and soldiers had again been
dismissed--not for any lack of military efficiency, but because their
views of the Covenant were insufficiently exalted. It is said that the
men who were thus weakening their own fighting power grew impatient
with Leslie for not crushing the enemy by an immediate onslaught. Other
causes may have combined to make the postponement of a conflict almost
impossible. There was no water on the Doon Hill, and provisions for
23,000 men must have been hard to come by in that bleak region. At all
events, on the 2nd the Scots began to move down the Hill. The struggle
was to be transformed from a competition in strategy to a competition
in tactics, and Cromwell, sure of mastery in that field, was rejoiced
at the sight which met his eyes. In the early morning of the 3rd a plan
of action brilliantly conceived was skilfully carried into execution;
and the Scots, after a brave resistance, broke and fled. As the sun
rose out of the sea, Cromwell, with the joyful exclamation on his lips:
"Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered," pushed his victorious
cavalry in pursuit. Before they drew rein, 3,000 of the enemy had been
slain, and 10,000 captured together with the whole of the artillery.
Never again did a Scottish army take the field to impose its religion
upon a recalcitrant England.
"Surely," wrote Cromwell, after the battle had been won, "it's probable
the Kirk has done their do. I believe their King will set up upon his
own score now, wherein he will find many friends." Charles himself
seems to have taken the same view of the situation if it be true that,
on receiving the news from Dunbar, he gave thanks to God 'that he was
so fairly rid of his enemies'. At all events the key to the history of
the next twelve months in Scotland is the attempt to convert a clerical
into a national resistance. To Cromwell, an attempt to force England
into political conformity with Scotland was as much to be resisted as
an attempt to impose on her the Scottish religion. It was the despotic
tendencies, not the fervour of that religion, that he disliked. The
association of the laity with the clergy in the government of the
Church was insufficient for him. His ideal community was one in which
every layman was capable of performing spiritual functions. He would
not listen to the objection of a colonel who complained that one of his
officers 'was a better preacher than fighter'. "Truly," he replied, "I
think that he that prays and preaches best, will fight best. I know
nothing will give like courage as the knowledge of God in Christ will,
and I bless God to see any in this army able and willing to impart
the knowledge they have, for the good of others; and I expect it be
encouraged by all the chief officers in this army especially; and I
hope you will do so. I pray receive Captain Empson lovingly; I dare
assure you he is a good man and a good officer. I would we had no
worse."
Unluckily there was no response amongst the Scottish laymen to such
an appeal as this. They were satisfied--if religiously inclined--with
the part assigned to them on Kirk Sessions or Presbyteries, and
preferred to take their sermons from an ordained minister. Even those
Presbyterians who distrusted a malignant King held aloof from the
sectarian Englishman.
In England, the news of the great victory was enthusiastically
received. One hundred and sixty Scottish flags were hung up in
Westminster Hall, and Parliament ordered that a medal, known as the
'Dunbar Medal,' the first war medal granted to an English army, should
bear Cromwell's likeness on one side. Against this glorifying of
himself Cromwell protested in vain, but for all that he could say, his
own lineaments were not excluded. His work in Scotland was however far
from being accomplished. The victory of Dunbar was in time followed
by the surrender of Edinburgh Castle, brought about, it is said, by
the treachery of the governor; but it was in vain that the conqueror
attempted to win over the extreme Covenanters who held out in the west
under Strachan and Ker, and in the end he had to send Lambert against
them. Lambert fell upon them at Hamilton and broke their power of
resistance.
In the meantime, the tendency to resist the pretensions of the clergy
was slowly making its way. On January 1, 1651, Charles was duly
crowned at Scone, swearing not only to approve of the Covenants in
Scotland, but to give his Royal assent to acts and ordinances of
Parliament, passed and to be passed, enjoining the same in his other
dominions. The young King protested his sincerity and begged the
Ministers present to show him so much favour as 'that if in any time
coming they did hear or see him breaking that Covenant, they would tell
him of it, and put him in mind of his oath'. For all that, Charles was
busily undermining the party of the Covenant. One by one the leaders
of the Hamilton party--Hamilton himself--a brother of the Duke who
had been beheaded at Westminster,--and who, when still only Earl of
Lanark, had been deeply concerned in patching up the Engagement with
Charles I.--Middleton, the rough soldier who had fought Charles I., and
Lauderdale, the ablest of those Presbyterians who had rallied to the
throne, were admitted, after humbly acknowledging their offences to the
Kirk, to take their seats in Parliament, and to place their swords at
the King's disposal. Argyle, who had triumphed over these men in his
prosperity, was driven to seek refuge in his Highland home at Inverary.
His policy of heading a democratic party organised by the clergy had
fallen to the ground without hope of recovery. The national movement
had passed into the hands of the nobility.
In the spring and early summer of 1651 Cromwell had thus to face
a resistance based on a national policy rather than on extreme
Covenanting grounds. For the present he had to leave his enemies
unassailed. He was lying at Edinburgh, stricken down by illness, and
for some time his life was despaired of. More than ever, indeed, he had
the strength of England to fall back on. Englishmen had no desire to
submit to Scottish dictation. Conspiracies for a Royalist insurrection
were firmly suppressed, and suspected Royalists committed to prison as
a preventive measure. At the same time a body of the new militia, which
had been recently organised, was entrusted to Harrison--the fierce
enthusiast who had been left in charge of the forces remaining in
England, and who was now directed to guard the northern border against
the Scottish invasion.
At last Cromwell was himself again. In the first days of June Charles's
new army lay at Stirling. The seizure and imprisonment of his English
partisans had deprived him of all hope of raising a diversion in the
south, and Leslie was compelled to fall back on the defensive tactics
by which he had guarded Edinburgh the year before. During the first
fortnight of July Cromwell laboured in vain to bring on an engagement.
Leslie, strongly posted amongst the hills to the south of Stirling, was
not to be induced to repeat the error he had committed at Dunbar, and
this time provisions and water could be obtained without difficulty.
If Cromwell did not intend to waste his army away, he must transfer it
to the enemy's rear, with a certain result of leaving the road open
for their advance into England. Six months before, whilst the chiefs
of English royalism were still at large, it would have been a most
hazardous plan. Now that they were under arrest, it might be attempted
with impunity. Lambert was sent across to North Queensferry, and on
July 20 he defeated, at Inverkeithing, a Scottish force sent out from
Stirling against him. Before long Cromwell followed his lieutenant,
and on August 2 Perth fell into his hands. The communications of
the Scottish army at Stirling were thus cut, and there was nothing
before it but to march southwards on the uncertain prospect of being
still able to find allies in England. That Cromwell had been able to
accomplish this feat was owing partly to his command of the sea, which
had enabled him with safety to send Lambert across the Forth, partly to
his knowledge that the materials of the Scottish army were far inferior
to those of his own. Had Leslie been at the head of a force capable
of meeting the invaders in the field, Cromwell at Perth might indeed
have found himself in an awkward position, as, in case of defeat, he
might easily have been driven back to perish in the Highlands. On the
other hand, it must be acknowledged that the English General had been
learning from his opponent. It was now--unless the campaign of Preston
be excepted, when his march upon Hamilton's flank had been decided by
the necessity of picking up his artillery in Yorkshire--that Cromwell,
for the first time in his life, developed strategical power, that is to
say, the power of combining movements, the result of which would place
the enemy in a false position. Already, before he followed Lambert, he
had summoned Harrison to Linlithgow, and had ordered him to keep the
Scots in check as they marched through England.
The first rumour that the Scottish army had broken up from Stirling
and was on its way to the south reached Cromwell on August 1. On
the 2nd, leaving 6,000 men under Monk--a soldier well tried in the
Irish wars--to complete the subjugation, he started in pursuit. "The
enemy," he wrote to Lenthall, "in his desperation and fear, and out of
inevitable necessity, is run to try what he can do this way." Cromwell
was never less taken by surprise. "I do apprehend," he continued,
"that if he goes for England, being some few days' march before us,
it will trouble some men's thoughts, and may occasion some men's
inconveniences, of which I hope we are as deeply sensible, and have
been, and I trust shall be as diligent to prevent as any. And indeed
this is our comfort that in simplicity of heart as towards God we have
done to the best of our judgments, knowing that if some issue were not
put to this business it would occasion another winter's war to the
ruin of your soldiery, for whom the Scots are too hard in respect of
enduring the winter difficulties of this country, and would have been
under the endless expense of the treasure of England in prosecuting
this war. It may be supposed we might have kept the enemy from this by
interposing between him and England, which truly I believe we might;
but how to remove him out of this place without doing what we have
done, unless we had a commanding army on both sides of the river of
Forth, is not clear to us; or how to answer the inconveniences above
mentioned we understand not. We pray, therefore, that--seeing there
is a probability for the enemy to put you to some trouble--you would,
with the same courage grounded upon a confidence in God, wherein you
have been supported to the great things God hath used you in hitherto,
improve, the best you can, such forces as you have in readiness as may
on the sudden be gathered together to give the enemy some check until
we shall be able to reach up to him, which we trust in the Lord we
shall do our utmost endeavour in."
Instructions were despatched to Harrison to attend the enemy's march
upon his flanks whilst Lambert hung upon his rear as he moved by way
of Carlisle and Lancaster. Cromwell himself pushed on by the eastern
route to head off the Scots as soon as he could gain sufficiently
upon their slower march. The only question of importance was to know
which of the opposing armies could gain most assistance in England.
In Lancashire indeed the Earl of Derby raised a force for the King,
but he was defeated by Robert Lilburne at Wigan, and was himself
captured. When on August 22 Charles reached Worcester, scarcely a
single Englishman had joined him. Large bodies of militia, on the
other hand, flocked to Cromwell's standard; and when on September
3--the anniversary of Dunbar--the final battle was fought at Worcester,
Cromwell commanded some 31,000 men, whilst the Scottish army did not
number above 16,000. Cromwell having laid bridges of boats across the
Severn and the Teme, was able to shift his regiments from one bank to
the other of either stream as occasion served, and the Scots, fighting
their best, were crushed by superior numbers as well as by superior
discipline. Charles, when all was lost, rode away from the place of
slaughter, and after an adventurous journey, made his escape to France.
"The dimensions of this mercy," wrote Cromwell, "are above my thoughts.
It is, for aught I know, a crowning mercy. Surely if it be not, such
a one we shall have, if this provoke those that are concerned in it
to thankfulness, and the Parliament to do the will of Him who hath
done His will for it and for the nation, whose good pleasure it is
to establish the nation and the change of government, by making the
people so willing to the defence thereof, and so signally blessing the
endeavours of your servants in this great work."
Was it really in defence of 'the change of government" that the people
had sided with Cromwell? Or was it merely that they would not tolerate
a Scottish conquest? At all events, the tide of feeling gave to the
Parliament a momentary strength. Of the notable Scots engaged, Hamilton
had fallen at Worcester, and the greater number of the remainder were
now consigned to English prisons. Of the few Englishmen who had risen,
Derby was beheaded at Bolton-le-Moors, four of his followers being
subsequently executed. The subjugation of Scotland was completed by
Monk.
As for Cromwell, he settled down into a quiet and unpretentious life,
attending to the discipline of the army, and ready in his place in
Parliament to forward the cause which he had most at heart--the
establishment of that Commonwealth to which his victories had given a
breathing-space. To him, as to many disinterested observers, the time
had come to found the government no longer on the sword, but on the
consent of the nation, and there can be little doubt that at no time
between 1642 and 1660 was there more chance of gaining a majority for
the new system than this. Cromwell, at least, did everything in his
power to procure a vote for an early dissolution. It was only, however,
by a majority of two that Parliament agreed to fix a date for its
dissolution, following the vote by a resolution postponing that event
for three years. There can be little doubt that this resolution found
support amongst those members who were fattening on corruption; but
there was also something to be said for the view taken some time before
by Marten, when he compared the Commonwealth to Moses, because the
members now sitting 'were the true mother to this fair child, the young
Commonwealth,' and therefore its fittest nurses. A general election
is always somewhat of a lottery, and it was the weakest part of the
system--or want of system--on which the Commonwealth was based, that
it never represented the people as a whole, and that its actions might
easily have been repudiated by them if they had been consulted.
Baffled in his desire to secure an immediate appeal to the electors,
Cromwell prepared to use the time which the members had secured for
themselves, by coming to an understanding with the leading statesmen
on the principles of the future Government. He had never committed
himself to the doctrine that the executive authority ought to be
placed directly in the hands of an elected assembly or of a council
subordinated to it. When at the conference now held the lawyers
pleaded that Charles II. or the Duke of York might be called on to
accept the government if the rights of Englishmen could be safeguarded,
he replied somewhat oracularly: "That will be a business of more than
ordinary difficulty; but really, I think, if it may be done with safety
and preservation of our rights as Englishmen and Christians, that a
settlement with somewhat of a monarchical power in it would be very
effectual". It is very unlikely that Cromwell, being what he was, had
as yet formed any settled design in his own mind, but the tendency
towards the course which eventually established the Protectorate is
quite evident. To secure the rights of Englishmen and Christians rather
than to strengthen the absolute supremacy of Parliaments had been his
constant aim. Whether he reflected that if the monarchical power was
to be given to some one not of the House of Stuart, it could hardly be
given to any other man than himself, is a question which every one must
answer as he thinks fit.
The conference had led to no decision, and during the first half
of 1652 Cromwell had enough to do in defending religious liberty
against those who had constituted themselves its champions. Before
the Battle of Worcester had been fought, Parliament had passed a
Blasphemy Act, for the punishment of atheistical, blasphemous and
execrable opinions. In the following February, the publication of a
Socinian catechism startled even the professed tolerationists. John
Owen, the foremost Independent minister of the day, now--owing to the
influence of Cromwell--Dean of Christchurch and Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Oxford, was almost certainly the author of a scheme of
ecclesiastical organisation presented by himself and twenty-six others
to the Committee for the Propagation of the Gospel. This scheme in
its main lines was subsequently adopted under the Protectorate. There
was to be an established Church, ministered to by orthodox persons
accepted by a body of triers, without regard to smaller points of
discipline, on condition that they presented a testimonial 'of their
piety and soundness of faith,' signed by six orthodox persons, and
these ministers upon proof of unfitness were liable to be removed
by a body of Ejectors. Other religious bodies were to be allowed to
meet for worship, but Unitarians and those opposing the principles of
Christianity were to be excluded from toleration. A list of fifteen
fundamental propositions which no one was to be permitted to deny was
set forth by Owen and his supporters. At this Cromwell took alarm.
"I had rather," he said, "that Mahometism were permitted amongst us
than that one of God's children be persecuted." The stand taken by him
secured the warm approval of Milton. "Cromwell," wrote the poet, whose
blindness had been hastened by his services to the State:
"Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud
Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughed,
And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud
Hast reared God's trophies, and his work pursued,
While Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbrued,
And Dunbar field resound thy praises loud,
And Worcester's laureate wreath: yet much remains
To conquer still; Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than War: new foes arise
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains,
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose Gospel is their maw."
Though Milton, in his unpractical idealism, was for discontinuing all
public support to the clergy, whilst Cromwell, so far as we can judge,
was merely for substituting some other mode of payment for the unequal
burden of the tithe as it was levied in those days, they concurred on
the point of extending religious liberty to the uttermost, and in this
Cromwell had the army behind him. For the moment, however, the decision
was postponed, as the Commonwealth had become involved in a war which
occupied the thoughts of its rulers.
In the Dutch war, which broke out in 1652, neither Cromwell nor his
brother officers had much part. Ever since the beginning of the
Commonwealth a maritime war with France had virtually existed under
the pretext of reprisals for injury done by French ships to English
trade. The seizure of French goods in Dutch vessels had irritated the
Netherlanders, and the Navigation Act passed in 1651 had taken away
much of the trade done by them in English ports. In May, 1652, Tromp,
the great Dutch admiral, had been sent out with orders to resist the
right of search, and on approaching an English fleet commanded by
Blake, he had neglected to lower his flag, as required by English
commanders in satisfaction of their claim to enforce the Sovereignty
over the British Seas, a claim which the Commonwealth had received
from the Monarchy. An action resulting brought on war between the
two peoples. In this war, neither Cromwell nor the army sympathised.
Holding as they did that the force of England, if used at all, should
be used for the advantage of Protestantism, they disliked a war waged
against a Protestant nation. On the other hand they had no wish to
see the English navy playing a craven part; and believing that Tromp
had kept his flag flying as a studied insult, they offered no direct
opposition to the war. Yet, as long as it was in progress, whenever
any overture likely to lead to peace was made, it was sure to have the
support of Cromwell and the officers.
If the Commonwealth leaders were immersed in preparations for
war, the officers of the army had not forgotten their demand for
reforms in Church and State, and in contemplating the slackness of
Parliament with regard to these reforms, their minds were again set
on a dissolution of Parliament at a time far earlier than that which
had been fixed by the House itself. Towards the end of July the Army
Council--now composed of officers alone--had considered a petition to
be addressed to Parliament, and had asked 'that a new representative
be forthwith elected'. When the petition was finally submitted to
Parliament, this clause had given place to another merely requesting
Parliament to consider of some qualifications which would secure 'the
election only of such as are pious and faithful in the interests of
the Commonwealth to sit and serve as members in the said Parliament,'
in this way shifting from a demand for a dissolution to be followed
by a general election, to a demand for partial elections to fill up
existing vacancies. Though no direct evidence exists, there are strong
reasons for believing that this substitution was made in consequence of
Cromwell's intervention. Even then he did not append his signature to
the petition.
It was as a mediator--not as a partisan--that Cromwell bore himself
at the time when the army--after an interval of more than two years
and a half--once more began to put pressure on Parliament. On the one
hand Parliament was not only discredited by its inability to undertake
the reforms demanded, but still more by the widely spread belief
that many of its members had made full use of their opportunities
to feather their own nests. On the other hand, this discredited
House, though, mutilated as it was, it had scarcely a semblance of
constitutional right, was yet the only body remaining in existence to
which even a semblance appertained. Cromwell might not be an authority
on constitutional law, but he had an instinctive apprehension for the
truth on which all constitutional law is based--that the first thing
necessary in the institutions of any country is not that they shall
be theoretically defensible, but that they should meet with general
acceptance. Those who like ourselves can look back on that stirring
time from the safe vantage ground which we occupy, can see that, so far
as constitutional questions were concerned, the work of the men of the
seventeenth century was to substitute Parliament for the Crown as the
basis of authority, and we have, accordingly, considerable difficulty
in placing ourselves in the position of those to whom only part of the
drama had been unrolled. In 1652, at least, it was impossible to appeal
to the truncated Parliament as in any way representing the nation.
Yet how was it possible to base authority on any new Parliament which
should even approximate to such a representation? Except with extreme
theorists there was no desire to evoke such a spectre. Already in 1650
Vane, speaking on behalf of the Parliamentary majority, had advocated
a scheme of partial elections which left the members in possession
of their seats, and the army leaders now proposed to substitute for
this a general election modified by qualifications which would exclude
all men of Royalist proclivities. The question at this time dividing
Parliament and Army was therefore merely the choice of the best means
of controlling the national verdict. The plan on either side might
be one that men might reasonably adopt according to different points
of view. Neither was likely to excite enthusiasm or to be generally
accepted as a new basis of authority round which the nation could be
expected to rally. There is no reason to suppose that Cromwell had
anything better to propose, and it is certain that the theory, accepted
at the present day, that it is better to allow a nation to learn by
experience of misfortune than to force it, even to its own benefit, in
a given direction, had no supporters in 1652, and least of all was it
likely to find an advocate in Cromwell.
Cromwell had the strongest faith in the virtue of conferences at which
such problems could be threshed out by men of good-will separated only
by intellectual differences. It had been by an appeal to a committee
that he had surmounted the difficulties which had faced him when the
Levellers, in 1647, called prematurely for the trial of the King. He
now, in October, 1652, secured the meeting of a conference between
the leading members of Parliament and the principal officers. "I
believe," he afterwards declared, "we had at least ten or twelve
meetings, most humbly begging and beseeching of them that by their
own means they would bring forth those good things which had been
promised and expected; that so it might appear they did not do them by
any suggestion from the army, but from their own ingenuity, so tender
were we to preserve them in the reputation of the people." Vane and
Bradshaw, and even, politically speaking, Henry Marten, the champions
of the existing Parliament, were men of the highest character, and were
justly apprehensive of giving way either to a military dictatorship,
or to a Royalist reaction. Cromwell, on the other hand, had his eye
increasingly fixed on the immediate evils of the present system. "How
hard and difficult a matter was it," he complained at a somewhat
later date, "to get anything carried without making parties, without
things unworthy of a Parliament." In November he opened his mind to
Whitelocke. "As for members of Parliament," he said, "the army begins
to have a strange distaste against them, and I wish there were not
too much cause for it; and really their pride and ambition, and their
self-seeking, engrossing all places of honour and profit to themselves
and their friends, and their daily breaking forth into new and violent
parties and factions; their delay of business and design to perpetuate
themselves and to continue the power in their own hands; their meddling
in private matters between party and party contrary to the institution
of Parliament, their injustice and partiality in those matters, and
the scandalous lives of some of the chief of them; these things, my
lord, do give much ground for people to open their mouths against
them and to dislike them; nor can they be kept within the bounds of
justice and law or reason, they themselves being the supreme power
of the nation, liable to no account of any, nor to be controlled or
regulated by any other power; there being none superior or co-ordinate
with them." Cromwell was evidently harking back to his proposal for
mixing something of monarchy with the existing institutions. "Unless,"
he continued, "there be some authority and power so full and so high
as to restrain and keep things in better order, and that may be a
check to these exorbitances, it will be impossible in human reason to
prevent our ruin." To Whitelocke's constitutional objections he replied
sharply: "What if a man should take upon him to be a King?" Whitelocke
replied that it would be better to recall Charles II. Cromwell's
utterance was plainly unpremeditated, and may be taken as a sign that
the idea of his own elevation was, even at this early date, present in
his mind, at least as a possibility, though it was far from having as
yet crystallised itself into a settled design.
It was no restoration of kingship, but the speedy choice of a new
Parliament that was in the thoughts of Cromwell's subordinates. In
January, 1653, a circular was sent by them to the regiments, asking
the soldiers, as well as the officers, to approve of a petition for
'successive Parliaments consisting of men faithful to the interests of
the Commonwealth, men of truth, fearing God and hating covetousness,'
as well as for law reform and liberty of conscience. For some time it
seemed as if Parliament would consent to hasten its own dissolution.
In March, however, though a bill for new elections was considered, the
pace slackened, and the hopes of the army again fell. In the army,
indeed, there was far from being complete unanimity. A party headed
by Lambert would have been content with a new Parliament from which
members hostile to the Commonwealth were excluded, whilst the perfervid
Harrison advocated the principles of the Fifth Monarchy, and asked that
the government should be entrusted to moral and religious men, without
recourse to popular election. Both Lambert and Harrison concurred
in urging Cromwell to proceed to a forcible dissolution. Cromwell
hesitated long. "I am pushed on," he complained, "by two parties to do
that, the consideration of the issue whereof makes my hair stand on
end."
If only Parliament could have been induced to clear the way for its
successor on the terms proposed by the army, Cromwell would have been
the first to rejoice. In the early part of April he was still prepared
to stand by Parliament if it would proceed in earnest with the Bill for
the new elections. Yet on the 6th, one of the days appointed for its
consideration, the Bill was quietly passed over. By degrees it came
out that the Bill, when completed, would be one authorising Vane's
pet scheme of partial elections, the old members not only retaining
their seats but forming an election committee with power to exclude
any member whose presence was distasteful to them. There are even
reasons to believe that it was intended that this arrangement should be
a permanent one, and that each successive Parliament should have the
right of shedding such members as were not to its taste. Moreover, as
soon as the Bill was passed, Parliament was to adjourn till November,
that it might be out of its power to repeal or amend the act under
military pressure.
Such an arrangement must have irritated Cromwell to the uttermost. On
April 15, having been absent from Parliament for a month, he returned
to his place to plead against it. "It is high time," was the answer
vouchsafed by one of the leading personages to his pleading for a new
Parliament, "to choose a new general." Cromwell, in reply, offered
his resignation, but as no officer could be found to take his place,
the demand for it was soon dropped. Still anxious for a compromise,
he made a fresh proposal. Why should not the difficulty be got over
by a temporary suspension of the Parliamentary system, and a body of
right-thinking men appointed to take into consideration the necessities
of the time, and to prepare the way for its re-establishment. This
proposal was taken into consideration at a meeting of officers and
Parliamentarians on the 19th, but, as might have been expected, it
provoked opposition and, after a sitting prolonged far into the night,
the conference broke up on an undertaking given, as it would seem, by
Vane, that the members of the House who were present would do their
best to hinder the progress of the Bill on the following morning.
When the morning arrived, the House, taking the bit between its teeth,
threw aside the engagements of its leaders and insisted on proceeding
with the Bill. To the pecuniary interests of the Parliamentary rank
and file it was far more important to escape the necessity of facing
their constituents than it was to such men as Vane or Bradshaw, who
would almost certainly be re-elected in any case. Yet it has never been
alleged that either Vane or Bradshaw took steps to persuade the excited
House to act in conformity with the promise given the evening before.
Harrison at once despatched a message to Cromwell to warn him of the
danger, and Cromwell evidently regarded the action of the members as
a clear breach of faith on the part of Vane. Hurrying to the House,
without giving himself time to change the plain black clothes and the
grey worsted stockings which appear to have been considered unsuitable
to a member in his place in Parliament, he sat for a while in silence.
When the Speaker put the question that 'this Bill do pass,' he rose to
speak. Dwelling at first on the pains and care of the public good which
had characterised the early days of the Long Parliament, he proceeded
to blame the members for their later misconduct, holding up to scorn
'their injustice, delays of justice, self-interest, and other faults
... charging them not to have a heart to do anything for public good,'
and to have 'espoused the corrupt interest of Presbytery and lawyers
who were the supporters of tyranny and oppression'. Their last crime
was the present attempt to perpetuate themselves in power. "Perhaps,"
he continued, his wrath growing upon him as he spoke, "you think this
is not Parliamentary language. I confess it is not, neither are you to
expect any such from me." Then striding up and down the floor of the
House, he pointed to individual members, charging them with corruption
or immorality. "It is not fit," he added, "that you should sit as a
Parliament any longer. You have sat long enough, unless you had done
more good." Then, upon a remonstrance from Sir Peter Wentworth, he took
the final step. "Come, come!" he cried, "I will put an end to your
prating. You are no Parliament. I say you are no Parliament. I will
put an end to your sitting." Then turning to Harrison, he uttered the
fateful words, "Call them in; call them in". The door was thrown open
and thirty or forty musketeers tramped in. "This," exclaimed Vane, "is
not honest, yea it is against morality and common honesty." It was to
Vane's broken word that Cromwell, whether truly or falsely, attributed
the necessity of acting as he was now doing. Doubtless with a touch of
sadness in his voice, he addressed his old friend--his brother, as he
had long styled him--with the veiled reproof: "Oh, Sir Henry Vane! Sir
Henry Vane! The Lord deliver me from Sir Henry Vane!"
The hall of meeting was soon cleared. Harrison handed Speaker Lenthall
down from the chair. Algernon Sidney had to be removed with some show
of compulsion. Most of the members yielding to the inevitable trooped
out without even this nominal resistance. "It's you," said Cromwell as
they filed past him, "that have forced me to this, for I have sought
the Lord night and day that He would rather slay me than put me upon
the doing of this work." Glancing at the mace he asked "What shall
we do with this bauble?" Ordering Captain Scott to remove it from
the table, he bade him take it away. When all was over, carrying the
Bill on Elections under his cloak, he returned to Whitehall. In the
afternoon he dispersed--in like manner--the Council of State, assuring
its members that they could sit no longer, the Parliament having been
dissolved. "Sir," replied Bradshaw, "we have heard what you did at the
House in the morning, and before many hours all England will hear it;
but, Sir, you are mistaken to think that the Parliament is dissolved;
for no power under heaven can dissolve them but themselves; therefore
take you notice of that."