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Heroes of the Nations
A Series of Biographical Studies
presenting the lives and work
of certain representative
historical characters, about
whom have gathered the
traditions of the nations to
which they belong, and who
have, in the majority of
instances, been accepted as
types of the several national
ideals.
FOR FULL LIST SEE END OF THIS VOLUME
_Heroes of the Nations_
EDITED BY
Evelyn Abbott, M.A.
FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD
FACTA DUCIS VIVENT, OPEROSAQUE GLORIA RERUM.—OVID, IN LIVIAM 265.
THE HERO’S DEEDS AND HARD-WON FAME SHALL LIVE.
OLIVER CROMWELL
[Illustration:
OLIVER CROMWELL.
(_From a painting by an unknown artist, in the National Portrait
Gallery._)
]
OLIVER CROMWELL
AND THE RULE OF THE PURITANS IN ENGLAND
BY
CHARLES FIRTH, M.A.
BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
COPYRIGHT, 1900
BY
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]
PREFACE
This _Life of Cromwell_ is in part based on an article contributed by
the author to the _Dictionary of National Biography_ in 1888, but
embodies the result of later researches, and of recently discovered
documents such as the Clarke Papers. The battle plans have been
specially drawn for this volume by Mr. B. V. Darbishire, and in two
cases differ considerably from those generally accepted as correct. The
scheme of this series does not permit a discussion of the reasons why
these alterations have been made, but the evidence concerning the
battles in question has been carefully examined, and any divergence from
received accounts is intentional. The reader who wishes to see this
subject discussed at length is referred to a study of the battle of
Marston Moor printed in Volume XII. of the _Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society_ (new series), and to a similar paper on Dunbar which
will appear in Volume XIV.
The quotations from Cromwell’s letters or speeches are, where necessary,
freely abridged.
C. H. F.
OXFORD, Feb. 6, 1900.
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
EARLY LIFE, 1599–1629 1
CHAPTER II
THE PREPARATION FOR THE CIVIL WAR, 1629–1640 19
CHAPTER III
THE LONG PARLIAMENT, 1640–1642 47
CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST CAMPAIGN, 1642 69
CHAPTER V
CROMWELL IN THE EASTERN ASSOCIATION, 1643 86
CHAPTER VI
MARSTON MOOR, 1644 102
CHAPTER VII
NASEBY AND LANGPORT, 1645–1646 121
CHAPTER VIII
PRESBYTERIANS AND INDEPENDENTS, 1642–1647 142
CHAPTER IX
ARMY AND PARLIAMENT, 1647–1648 164
CHAPTER X
THE SECOND CIVIL WAR, 1648 193
CHAPTER XI
CROMWELL AND THE KING’S EXECUTION, 1648–1649 207
CHAPTER XII
THE REPUBLIC AND ITS ENEMIES, 1649 232
CHAPTER XIII
IRELAND, 1649–1650 255
CHAPTER XIV
CROMWELL AND SCOTLAND, 1650–1651 276
CHAPTER XV
THE END OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT, 1651–1653 300
CHAPTER XVI
THE FOUNDATION OF THE PROTECTORATE, 1653 326
CHAPTER XVII
CROMWELL’S DOMESTIC POLICY, 1654–1658 346
CHAPTER XVIII
CROMWELL’S FOREIGN POLICY, 1654–1658 370
CHAPTER XIX
CROMWELL’S COLONIAL POLICY 390
CHAPTER XX
CROMWELL AND HIS PARLIAMENTS 409
CHAPTER XXI
THE DEATH OF CROMWELL, 1658–1660 433
CHAPTER XXII
CROMWELL AND HIS FAMILY 453
CHAPTER XXIII
EPILOGUE 467
INDEX 487
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
OLIVER CROMWELL _Frontispiece_
[From a painting by an unknown artist, in the National Portrait
Gallery.]
THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL, HUNTINGTON 6
[From Pike’s _Oliver Cromwell_.]
ELIZABETH, THE WIFE OF OLIVER CROMWELL 8
[From a drawing by W. Bond.]
CROMWELL’S HOUSE, ELY 28
[From a photograph.]
ST. IVES AND THE RIVER OUSE, AND MEDIÆVAL CHAPEL ON THE 36
BRIDGE
[From Pike’s _Oliver Cromwell_.]
JOHN PYM 48
[From a miniature by Cooper.]
ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX 78
[From Devereux’s _Lives of the Devereux_.]
PRINCE RUPERT, K.G. 80
[From a painting by Sir Peter Lely, in the National Portrait Gallery.]
JOHN HAMPDEN 88
[From Nugent’s _Life of Hampden_.]
MAP OF THE EASTERN ASSOCIATION 90
EDWARD MONTAGUE, EARL OF MANCHESTER 100
[From Birch’s _Heads of Illustrious Persons_.]
CROMWELL CREST 101
MAP OF THE BATTLE OF MARSTON MOOR 106
SIR THOMAS FAIRFAX 122
[From the painting by Gerard Zoust.]
MAP OF THE BATTLE OF NASEBY 128
HENRY IRETON 168
[From a painting by Robert Walker, in the National Portrait Gallery.]
PEMBROKE CASTLE 194
[From a photograph.]
MAP OF THE PRESTON CAMPAIGN 198
CHARLES I. 228
[From an old engraving.]
SIR HENRY VANE (THE YOUNGER) 246
[From a painting by William Dobson, in the National Portrait Gallery.]
MAP OF IRELAND, TO ILLUSTRATE CROMWELL’S CAMPAIGN 256
THE SEAL OF THE “TRIERS” 278
THE DUNBAR MEDAL, HEAD OF CROMWELL, BY THOMAS SIMON 278
MEDAL REPRESENTING CROMWELL AS LORD GENERAL OF THE ARMY, 278
BY THOMAS SIMON
A CROWN-PIECE OF THE PROTECTOR, ISSUED IN 1658 278
[From Henfrey’s _Numismata Cromwelliana_.]
MAP OF THE BATTLE OF DUNBAR 282
MAP OF THE BATTLE OF WORCESTER 292
REV. JOHN OWEN, D.D. 306
[From a painting, possibly by Robert Walker, in the National Portrait
Gallery.]
BUST OF CROMWELL, ATTRIBUTED TO BERNINI 312
[In the Palace of Westminster, 1899.]
CROMWELL COAT-OF-ARMS 325
OLIVER CROMWELL 326
[From the painting by Sir Peter Lely.]
JOHN LAMBERT 328
[From a painting by Robert Walker, in the National Portrait Gallery.]
JOHN MILTON 378
[From an engraving by Faithorne.]
THE GREAT SEAL OF THE PROTECTOR 432
[From Henfrey’s _Numismata Cromwelliana_.]
FACSIMILE SIGNATURE OF OLIVER CROMWELL, OCTOBER 19, 1651 440
FACSIMILE SIGNATURE OF OLIVER CROMWELL, AUGUST 11, 1657 440
OLIVER CROMWELL 454
[From a miniature by Cooper, in the Baptist College at Bristol.]
RICHARD CROMWELL 462
[From a drawing by W. Bond.]
HENRY CROMWELL 466
[From a drawing by W. Bond.]
STATUE OF CROMWELL, BY THORNEYCROFT, ERECTED AT 484
WESTMINSTER IN 1899
[Illustration]
OLIVER CROMWELL
CHAPTER I
EARLY LIFE
1599–1629
“I was by birth a gentleman living neither in any considerable height
nor yet in obscurity,” said the Protector to one of his Parliaments.
Cromwell’s family was one of the many English families which rose to
wealth and importance at the time of the Reformation. It owed its name
and its fortune to Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, the minister of Henry
VIII., and the destroyer of the monasteries. In 1494, Thomas Cromwell’s
sister Katherine had married Morgan Williams, a wealthy brewer of
Putney, whose family sprang from Glamorganshire. Her eldest son Richard
took the surname of Cromwell, entered the service of Henry VIII., and
assisted his uncle in his dealings with refractory Churchmen. Grants of
land flowed in upon the lucky kinsman of the King’s vicegerent. In 1538,
he was given the Benedictine priory of Hinchinbrook near Huntingdon. In
1540, the site of the rich Benedictine abbey of Ramsey and some of its
most valuable manors were added to his possessions. Honour as well as
wealth fell to his lot. At the tournament held at Westminster on May
Day, 1540, to celebrate the espousals of Henry VIII. and Anne of
Cleves,—a marriage which was to unite English and German
Protestantism,—Richard Cromwell was one of the six champions who
maintained the honour of England against all comers. Pleased by his
prowess with sword and lance, the King gave him a diamond ring and made
him a knight.
Six weeks later fortune turned against the all-powerful Earl of Essex.
He had pushed forward the Reformation faster than the King desired and
bound the King to a woman he detested. “Say what they will, she is
nothing fair,” groaned Henry, and suddenly repudiated wife, policy, and
minister. On June 10th, Thomas Cromwell was arrested in the Council
Chamber itself and committed to the Tower on the charge of high treason.
“He had left,” it was said, “the mean, indifferent, virtuous, and true
way” of reforming religion which his master trod. In his zeal to advance
doctrinal changes, he had dared to say that if the King and all his
realm would turn and vary from his opinions, he would fight in the field
in his own person with his sword in his hand against the King and all
others; adding that if he lived a year or two he trusted “to bring
things to that frame that it should not lie in the King’s power to
resist or let it.” On July 28th, Cromwell passed from the Tower to the
scaffold.
Few pitied him and only one mourned him. Sir Richard Cromwell, said
tradition, dared to appear at the Court in the mourning raiment which
the King hated, and Henry, respecting his fidelity, pardoned his
boldness. He retained the King’s favour the rest of his life, was made a
gentleman of the Privy Chamber and constable of Berkeley Castle, got
more grants of lands, and died in 1546.
Sir Richard’s son Henry built Hinchinbrook House, was knighted by Queen
Elizabeth, whom he entertained during one of her progresses, and was
four times sheriff of Huntingdonshire. As marshal of the county he
organised its forces at the time of the Spanish Armada, raised, besides
the four soldiers he was bound to furnish, twenty-six horsemen at his
own cost, and called on the trained bands to practise “the right and
perfect use of their weapons,” and fight for “the sincere religion of
Christ” against “the devilish superstition of the Pope.” In their
mixture of military and religious ardour his harangues recall the
speeches of his grandson. People called him “the golden knight” because
of his wealth and his liberality, and he matched his children with the
best blood of the eastern counties. One daughter was the mother of
Major-General Edward Whalley, one of the Regicides; another married
William Hampden, and her son was John Hampden.
Of Sir Henry’s sons, Oliver, his heir, was a man who from love of
ostentation pushed his father’s liberality to extravagance. When James
I. came to England he was received at Hinchinbrook, “with such
entertainment as had not been seen in any place before, since his first
setting forward out of Scotland.” James made him a Knight of the Bath at
the coronation, and paid him three other visits during his reign.
Robert, Sir Henry’s second son, inherited from his father an estate at
Huntingdon, worth in those days about £300 a year, equal to three or
four times as much now. He sat for Huntingdon in the Parliament of 1593,
filled the office of bailiff for the borough, and was one of the
justices of the peace for the county. Robert Cromwell married Elizabeth,
widow of William Lynn, and daughter of William Steward of Ely. Her
family were well off, and she brought with her a jointure of £60 a year.
The Stewards were relatives of the last prior and first Protestant dean
of Ely, who had obtained good leases of Church lands, and were farmers
of the tithes of the see. Tradition, which loves curious coincidences,
has connected them with the royal House of Stuart that their descendant
overthrew, but history traces their origin to a Norfolk family
originally named Styward. Oliver, the future Lord Protector, was the
fifth child of Robert Cromwell, and the only one of his sons who
survived infancy. He was born at Huntingdon, on April 25, 1599, baptised
at St. John’s Church in that town on April 29th, and christened Oliver
after his uncle, the knight of Hinchinbrook. Little is known of his
boyhood. A royalist biographer says that he was of “a cross and peevish
disposition” from his infancy, while a contemporary panegyrist credits
him even then with “a quick and lively apprehension, a piercing and
sagacious wit, and a solid judgment.”
Stories are told of his marvellous deliverances from danger, and of
strange prognostications of his future greatness. It was revealed to him
in a dream or by an apparition “that he should be the greatest man in
England, and should be near the King.” Another story was that he had
acted the part of a king in a play in his school days, placing the crown
himself upon his head, and adding “majestical mighty words” of his own
to the poet’s verses. These are the usual fictions which cluster round
the early life of great men. All that is certain is that Cromwell was
educated at the free school of Huntingdon under Dr. Thomas Beard—a
Puritan schoolmaster who wrote pedantic Latin plays, proved that the
Pope was Antichrist, and showed in his _Theatre of God’s Judgments_ that
human crimes never go unpunished by God even in this world. Beard was an
austere man who believed in the rod, and a biographer describes him as
correcting the manners of young Oliver “with a diligent hand and careful
eye,” which may be accepted as truth. But these disciplinings did not
prevent pupil and master from being friends in later life.
At the age of seventeen, Cromwell was sent to Cambridge, where on April
23, 1616, he was admitted a fellow commoner of Sidney Sussex College.
The College, founded in 1598, was one of those two which Laud
subsequently complained of as nurseries of Puritanism. Its master,
Samuel Ward, was a learned and morbidly conscientious divine; a severe
disciplinarian, who exacted from his scholars elaborate accounts of the
sermons they heard, and had them whipped in hall when they offended.
Cromwell did not distinguish himself, but he by no means wasted his time
at Cambridge. He had no aptitude for languages. Burnet says he “had no
foreign language but the little Latin that stuck to him from his
education, which he spoke very viciously and scantily.” When he was
Protector he remembered enough Latin to carry on a conversation in that
tongue with a Dutch ambassador.
Another biographer tells us that Cromwell “excelled chiefly in the
mathematics,” and his kinsman, the poet Waller, was wont to say that the
Protector was “very well read in the Greek and Roman story.” His advice
to his son Richard bears out this account of his preferences. “Read a
little history,” he wrote to him; “study the Mathematics and
cosmography. These are good with subordination to the things of God.
These fit for public services for which a man is born.” With Cromwell,
as with Montrose, Sir Walter Raleigh’s _History of the World_ was a
favourite book, and he urged his son to read it. “’Tis a body of
history, and will add much more to your understanding than fragments of
story.”
Cromwell’s tutor is said to have observed with great discrimination that
his pupil was not so much addicted to speculation as to action, and
royalist biographers make his early taste for athletics and sport a
great reproach to him. One says: “He was easily satiated with study,
taking more delight in horse and field exercise.” Another describes him
as “more famous for his exercises in the fields than in the schools,
being one of the chief matchmakers and players of football, cudgels, or
any other boisterous sport or game.”
[Illustration:
THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL, HUNTINGTON.
(_From Pike’s “Oliver Cromwell.”_)
]
How long Cromwell remained at the university is not known, but it is
certain that he left it without taking a degree. Probably he quitted
Cambridge prematurely on account of the death of his father, who was
buried at All Saints’ Church, Huntingdon, on June 24, 1617. For a time
Cromwell stayed at Huntingdon, no doubt helping his mother in the
management of the estate and in the settlement of his father’s affairs.
Then he went to London to acquire the smattering of law which every
country gentleman needed, and which one whose position marked him out as
a future justice of the peace and member of parliament could not do
without. “He betook himself,” says a contemporary biographer, “to the
study of law in Lincoln’s Inn; that nothing might be wanting to make him
a complete gentleman and a good commonwealthsman.” Though his name does
not appear in the books of that society, the fact is probable enough,
and sufficiently well attested to be accepted.
Three years after his father’s death, Cromwell married, on August 22,
1620, at St. Giles’s Church, Cripplegate, Elizabeth Bourchier. She was
the daughter of Sir James Bourchier, a city merchant living on Tower
Hill and owning property at Felstead in Essex. It is probable that
Cromwell’s wife brought him a considerable dowry, for the day after
marriage he contracted, under penalty of £4000, to settle upon her, as
her jointure, the parsonage house of Hartford in Huntingdonshire with
its glebe land and tithes. Elizabeth Cromwell was a year older than her
husband, and is traditionally said to have been a notable housewife. In
spite of royalist lampooners she was, if her portraits may be trusted,
neither uncomely nor undignified in person. Her affection for her
husband was sincere and lasting. “My life is but half a life in your
absence,” she writes to him in 1650. “I could chide thee,” says Cromwell
in answer to a complaint about not writing, “that in many of thy letters
thou writest to me, that I should not be unmindful of thee and thy
little ones. Truly, if I love you not too well, I think I err not on the
other hand much. Thou art dearer to me than any creature; let that
suffice.”
After his marriage, Cromwell settled down at Huntingdon and occupied
himself in farming the lands he had inherited from his father.
Two-thirds of the income of the estate had been left by Robert Cromwell
to his widow for the term of twenty-one years, in order to provide for
the maintenance of the daughters, so that Oliver’s means during the
early years of his married life must have been rather narrow. It was
understood, however, that he was destined to be the heir of his mother’s
brother, Sir Thomas Steward, and in 1628 another uncle, Richard
Cromwell, left him a small property at Huntingdon. Ere long there was a
proof that Cromwell had earned the good opinion of his neighbours, for,
in February, 1628, he was elected to represent his native town in the
third Parliament called by Charles I. The choice was partly due to the
position of his family and its long connection with the borough, but
more must have been due also to Cromwell’s personal character and
reputation, since the local influence of the Cromwell family, thanks to
the reckless extravagance of its head, was already on the wane. In 1627,
Sir Oliver to pay his debts had been obliged to sell Hinchinbrook to Sir
Sidney Montague, and had retired to Ramsey. He had represented the
county in eight Parliaments, but he sat for it no more, and the
Montagues were henceforth the leading family in Huntingdonshire.
[Illustration:
ELIZABETH, THE WIFE OF OLIVER CROMWELL.
(_From a drawing by W. Bond._)
]
Cromwell’s entry upon the stage of English politics took place at the
moment when the quarrel between Charles I. and his Parliaments became a
complete breach. To Henry VIII. Parliaments had been the servile tools
with which he used to work his will in Church and State. To Elizabeth
they had been faithful servants, obedient though sometimes venturing to
grumble or criticise. During her reign, the House of Commons had grown
strong and conscious of its strength. The spoils of the monasteries had
enriched the country gentry, and the development of local government had
given them political training, while the growth of commerce had brought
wealth to merchants and manufacturers. Into upper and middle classes
alike the Reformation had put a spirit which began by questioning
authority in matters of religion, and went on to question authority in
politics.
It was in religious matters, naturally, that this spirit of opposition
first revealed itself. Henry VIII. had separated the English from the
Catholic Church, not in order to alter its doctrine, but in order to
make himself its master. The doctrinal change which Thomas Cromwell had
prematurely attempted, Somerset and Northumberland carried out in the
reign of Henry’s son. The only result of the reaction under Mary was to
inspire most Englishmen with a passionate hostility to the faith in
whose name the Queen’s bonfires had been kindled. Elizabeth restored
Protestantism, and re-established the control of the State over the
Church. She called herself “Supreme Governor” instead of “Head of the
Church,” but kept all the essentials of the supremacy which her father
had established. To conciliate the English Catholics she made the
doctrine and ritual of the National Church less offensively Protestant,
but to impose her compromise she was obliged to use force. Year after
year the penalties inflicted upon Catholics who refused to conform
became heavier, and their lot was made harder, but thousands remained
invincibly constant, and preferred to suffer rather than deny their
faith.
Not only did the enforcement of the Elizabethan compromise fail to
suppress Catholicism, but it created Puritanism and Protestant
Nonconformity. Puritanism represented from the first “the Protestantism
of the Protestant religion.” The aim of those who called themselves
Puritans was to restore the Church to what they thought its original
purity in doctrine, worship, and government. Some remained within its
pale, content to accept the rule of bishops and the supremacy of the
Crown so long as doctrine and ritual were to their liking. Others, who
desired a simpler ceremonial and a more democratic form of government,
sought to transform the Anglican Church to the model of that of Scotland
or Geneva, and were the predecessors of the Presbyterian party of
Charles the First’s time. A small band of extremists separated
altogether from the National Church, and founded self-governing
congregations, which defined their own creed and chose their own
ministers. But though Independency sprang up first in England it made
few converts, and never throve till it was transplanted to Holland or
New England.
Elizabeth suppressed nascent Presbyterianism, and persecuted with equal
vigour Catholic recusant and Protestant separatist. But within the
National Church, in spite of repressive measures, the Puritan party grew
continually stronger, while Parliament became more aggressively
Protestant, and more eager for Church reform. While the Queen lived, no
change in the ecclesiastical system was possible. When she died, wise
men counselled her successor to adopt a different policy: to try
comprehension instead of compulsion, and to make concessions to
Puritanism. James refused. “I shall make them conform themselves,” was
his answer, “or I shall harry them out of the land.” He began his reign
by authorising new canons which enforced more rigid uniformity, and by
driving three hundred ministers from their livings. The main cause of
his breach with his first Parliament was his refusal to restrict the
authority or to reform the abuses of the ecclesiastical courts.
The Church policy of James aggravated the divisions he should have tried
to heal; his foreign policy ran counter to the national traditions of
his subjects as well as their religious prejudices. It was an axiom with
Englishmen that England’s natural allies were the Protestant states of
Europe, and that it was her duty when occasion demanded to come forward
as the champion of Protestantism against the Catholic powers. But for
more than ten years James made a close alliance with Spain his chief
object in European politics, partly with the laudable aim of putting an
end to religious wars, partly in the hope of paying his debts with the
dowry of the Spanish Infanta. For the sake of this alliance he sent
Raleigh to the block, declined to help the German Protestants, offered
to suspend the penal laws against the Catholics, and forbade Parliament
to discuss foreign affairs. The general joy which hailed the breaking
off of the Spanish match revealed the depth of the hostility which the
King’s schemes had excited.
During the same years, the King’s attitude towards English institutions
called into life a constitutional opposition. His theory of monarchy
found expression in persistent attempts to extend the power of the Crown
and diminish the rights of Parliament. Backed by a judicial decision
that the right to tax imports and exports was a part of the royal
prerogative, James imposed new customs duties by his own authority, and
dissolved his second Parliament when it voted them illegal. Members were
imprisoned for their utterances in the House of Commons, and Parliament
was forbidden to debate mysteries of State or matters touching the
King’s government. When the House asserted its right to freedom of
speech James replied that its privileges were derived from the grace and
favour of his ancestors, and erased the protest, which claimed that the
liberties of Parliament were “the undoubted birthright and inheritance
of the subjects of England.”
Such a policy seemed to proceed from a formed design to destroy English
freedom. Throughout Europe, absolute monarchies had risen on the ruins
of national liberties, and now the same fate threatened England. When
Charles I. succeeded his father, he found the nation he had to govern
not only discontented, but also full of suspicion. “We are the last
monarchy in Christendom that maintains its rights,” said a parliamentary
orator in 1625, and the distrust and fear created by the pretensions of
James flung their shadows across the path of his son.
Charles I., with his royal bearing and his kingly graces, seemed fitter
to win back the hearts of his subjects than James, who lacked both
majesty and manners. But he was as devoid of sympathy for the nation he
governed as his father had been; as prone to cherish chimerical schemes,
and as blind to facts. James had left him a courtier instead of a
statesman to be his guide, and Charles gave Buckingham as complete trust
as if he had possessed the experience of Burleigh or the wisdom of
Bacon.
At the moment when the new reign opened, the rupture with Spain had
given both Charles and his minister a factitious popularity. But on both
foreign and domestic affairs King and Parliament speedily disagreed.
Parliament was eager for war with Spain, but not ready either to furnish
funds for a European coalition against the House of Hapsburg, or to buy
the alliance of France by repealing the penal laws against English
Catholics. It granted the King money to fit out a fleet, but its refusal
of a more liberal supply, and its open declaration of want of confidence
in the King’s minister, brought the session to a sudden close.
Buckingham hoped to justify himself by success, and launched forth on
the sea of European politics with all the boldness of an adventurer. He
sent an expedition to sack Cadiz and to capture the Spanish plate-fleet.
He promised subsidies to the King of Denmark for his campaigns in
Germany. He courted popularity with the Puritans by repudiating the
engagements made to France in the King’s marriage treaty, and
endeavouring to pose as the protector of the Huguenots. But when a
second Parliament met there was nothing but a record of failure to lay
before it. The expedition to Cadiz had ended in disaster and disgrace.
“Our honour is ruined,” cried Sir John Eliot to the Commons, “our ships
are sunk, our men perished, not by the sword, not by the enemy, not by
chance, but by those we trusted.” All blame fell on the man who had
monopolised power, but the King forbade Parliament to call his servant
to account, and put a stop to Buckingham’s impeachment by a second
dissolution.
During the next two years Charles tried the “new ways” he had threatened
to adopt if Parliament declined to supply his necessities. A forced loan
of £300,000 was levied, and those who refused payment were, if rich,
imprisoned; if poor, impressed. There were schemes for raising an excise
to support a standing army, and Ship-money to maintain a fleet. Judges
were dismissed for denying the legality of the forced loan, and divines
promoted for declaring it sinful to refuse payment. But abroad failure
still dogged the King’s foreign policy. In Germany the King of Denmark
was crushed because Charles could not pay the promised subsidies. The
French alliance ended in quarrels which grew into a war with France.
Buckingham’s expedition to the Isle of Rhé ended in a more ruinous
failure than the expedition to Cadiz. “Since England was England,” wrote
Denzil Holles, “it received not so dishonourable a blow.” Unable to
continue the fight with France and Spain without money, Charles was
forced once more to appeal to the nation.
Charles the First’s third Parliament met on March 17, 1628. It opened
its proceedings with a debate on the grievances of the nation, and
almost the first speech Cromwell heard in the House must have been
Eliot’s appeal to his brother members to remember the greatness of the
issue before them. “Upon this dispute,” said the spokesman of the
Commons, “not alone our goods and lands are engaged, but all that we
call ours. Those rights, those privileges that made our fathers freemen
are in question. If they be not now the more carefully preserved, they
will render us to posterity less free, less worthy than our fathers.”
The House voted the King supplies, but made their grant dependent on the
redress of grievances. Then followed the drawing up of the Petition of
Right, declaring arbitrary imprisonment and taxation without the consent
of Parliament henceforth illegal, and at last the Commons, by the threat
of impeaching Buckingham again, wrung the acceptance of their petition
from the reluctant King.
In the interval between the first and second session of the third
Parliament, Buckingham died by Felton’s hand, but his death did not put
an end to the quarrel. Charles became his own prime minister, and made
evident to all men that the King’s will, not the favourite’s influence,
was the source of the policy against which the Commons protested. The
beginning of the second session, in January, 1629, was marked by a new
dispute about taxation. The Commons asserted that the levy of tonnage
and poundage without its grant, and the continued collection of the new
customs duties imposed by James I., were contrary to the Petition of
Right. The King declared that these were rights he had never meant to
part with, and persisted in exacting them despite the votes of the
House. Louder still grew the cry against the High Church clergy and the
ecclesiastical policy of the King. It was not only of sermons in favour
of absolute monarchy or innovations in ritual that the Puritan leaders
complained. The dispute about ceremonies had now developed into a
dispute about doctrine too. The milder theories about justification and
election—known as Arminianism and favoured by the High Church
clergy—seemed to Puritans to be sapping the foundations of Protestantism
and paving the way for Popery. The King endeavoured to put an end to
doctrinal disputes by silencing controversial preaching; the Commons
demanded the suppression of Arminianism, and the punishment of all who
propagated views deviating from what they regarded as Protestant
orthodoxy.
It was during these religious disputes that Cromwell first took part in
the debates of the Commons. Inheriting the traditions of a family that
owed everything to the Reformation, trained by a Puritan schoolmaster
and at a Puritan college, he could take only one side, and he raised his
voice to swell the attack upon the friends of Popery in the Church. The
House was discussing some charges against Dr. Neile, the Bishop of
Winchester, when Cromwell intervened with a story showing that prelate’s
leaning to popish tenets. A certain Dr. Alablaster, said Cromwell, had
“preached flat Popery” in a sermon before the Lord Mayor, and when Dr.
Beard, the next preacher there, came in turn to deliver his sermon,
Neile sent for Beard, and “did charge him as his diocesan not to preach
any doctrine contrary to that which Dr. Alablaster had delivered.” Beard
nevertheless persisted in refuting his predecessor, and was reprimanded
by Neile for his disobedience.
Before the charges against Neile and other like-minded prelates were
brought to a conclusion, and before the remonstrance of the Commons
against the King’s ecclesiastical policy was perfected, Charles put an
end to the sitting of Parliament.
Ere it separated, the House of Commons, at Eliot’s bidding, affirmed
once more the principles for which it was fighting. Cromwell was one of
the defiant crowd who refused to obey the King’s orders for adjournment
till they had passed by acclamation Eliot’s three resolutions. Whoever,
it was declared, should bring in innovations in religion, or seek to
introduce Popery, Arminianism, or any opinion disagreeing from the true
and orthodox Church, should be reported a capital enemy to this kingdom
and commonwealth. Whoever counselled the levying of tonnage and poundage
without a parliamentary grant should also be held an enemy to his
country and an innovator in the government; and whoever willingly paid
those taxes was proclaimed to be a betrayer of the liberties of England.
The significance of the resolutions lay not merely in their challenge to
the King, but in the union of political and religious discontents which
they indicated. Elizabeth’s policy had called into being a religious
opposition. James had created a constitutional opposition. Under Charles
the two had combined, and from their alliance sprang the Civil War.
To themselves the parliamentary leaders seemed defenders of the existing
constitution in Church and State against the revolutionary changes of
the King. In reality the greatest innovation of all lay in the claim of
the Commons that Church and State should be controlled by the
representatives of the people, not by the will of the King. When that
claim was once made, the struggle for sovereignty was an inevitable and
irrepressible conflict.
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