THE FOUNDATION OF THE PROTECTORATE
1653
The fall of the Long Parliament was received with general satisfaction.
“There was not so much as the barking of a dog or any general and
visible repining at it,” said Cromwell afterwards. His words are
justified by the facts. Hyde termed it a most popular and obliging act,
and the French Ambassador told his Government that nobility and populace
universally rejoiced at General Cromwell’s noble deed. Public feeling
found vent in ballads. One described the scene of the dissolution,
relating what Cromwell had said, and how the members had looked.
“Brave Oliver came to the House like a sprite,
His fiery face struck the Speaker dumb,
‘Begone,’ said he, ‘you have sate long enough;
Do you mean to sit here until Doomsday come?’”
[Illustration:
OLIVER CROMWELL.
(_From the painting by Sir Peter Lely._)
]
“Cheer up, kind countrymen, be not dismayed,” sang another street poet,
ending every verse with the exultant chorus: “Twelve parliament men
shall be sold for a penny.”
For a few weeks, Cromwell was the most popular man in the nation.
Royalists whispered that the King would marry Cromwell’s daughter, and
that Cromwell would content himself with a dukedom and the viceroyalty
of Ireland. A more general belief was that he would assume the crown
himself. An enthusiastic partisan hung up in the Exchange a picture of
Cromwell crowned, with the invitation underneath:
“Ascend three thrones, great captain and divine,
I’ th’ will of God, old Lion, they are thine.”
Cromwell’s own view of his position was that, being Commander-in-chief
by Act of Parliament, his commission made him the only constituted
authority left standing. His desire was to put an end to this
dictatorship as soon as he could. The sword must be divested of all
power in the civil administration, and the army leaders must prove to
the world that they had not turned out the Long Parliament in order to
grasp at power themselves. The army itself accepted Cromwell’s view, but
on the nature of the new civil authority to be set up there were two
views amongst the officers. For the present, a temporary Council of
State, consisting of thirteen persons, most of whom were officers,
carried on the daily business of administration.
As to the future, Major-General Lambert advocated one kind of
government, and Major-General Harrison another. Lambert was a gentleman
of good family, with some political aptitude and some constitutional
knowledge, but less of either than he fancied. A dashing leader and a
skilful tactician, he was popular because of his gallant bearing and his
genial temper, and believed to be honest because he was good-natured. As
a politician he was an intriguer, inscrutable, scheming, and insatiably
ambitious. Harrison was a man of no birth and little education, bred on
perverted prophecies, full of desperate courage and high-flown
enthusiasms,—a man born to lead forlorn hopes and die for lost causes,
who did both even to the admiration of his enemies. Unselfish in his own
aims, he swayed others by his devotion and his zeal. But he was fitter
to command the left wing in the battle of Armageddon than to take any
part in the government of earthly states.
Lambert wished to entrust power to a small council of ten or twelve.
Harrison wished to give it to a larger council of seventy members like
the Jewish Sanhedrin. Lambert’s party proposed that the council should
be assisted by an elected Parliament, and the authority of both defined
by a written constitution. Harrison’s followers wished to dispense with
a Parliament altogether. The first adhered to the principles laid down
in the Agreement of the People, which they had drawn up four years
earlier. The second were inspired by the opinions of the Fifth Monarchy
men, and believed that the time had come to realise their hopes. Of the
four great monarchies of the world’s history, the Assyrian and the
Persian, the Macedonian and the Roman, three had fallen, and the fourth
was tottering to its fall. At last, as the prophets had foretold, the
monarchy of Christ was to begin, and till He came to reign in person,
His saints were to rule for Him. A text which Harrison had often in his
mouth was—“The saints shall take the kingdom and possess it.”
[Illustration:
JOHN LAMBERT.
(_From a painting by Robert Walker, in the National Portrait
Gallery._)
]
When Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament, he had no definite plan for
the future government of England. He was not a Fifth Monarchy man, but
he had no faith in paper constitutions. He was convinced that godly men
would make the best governors, but he felt that a government somewhat
like a Parliament would be most satisfactory to the nation.
The result was a compromise by which a larger and more representative
assembly than Harrison had proposed, was called together. In each county
the Congregational Churches were asked to nominate suitable persons, and
from this list the council of officers selected those it thought
fittest. A hundred and forty persons were thus chosen, of whom five
represented Scotland, six Ireland, and the rest England. A writ
addressed to each person separately, from Oliver Cromwell,
Captain-General, recited that he had been nominated by the General with
the advice of his council of officers as one of the men to whom the
weighty affairs of the Commonwealth were to be entrusted. All were
Puritan notables, combining godliness with fidelity to the cause, and
described in the writs as “men fearing God and hating covetousness.”
On July 4th, they met at Westminster, and on behalf of the army Cromwell
presented them with a deed under his hand and seal, whereby the several
persons therein mentioned were constituted the supreme authority. In his
opening speech he related the causes which had led to the dissolution of
the Long Parliament and their own convocation, adding some advice on the
use they were to make of their power. Let them be just and tender to all
kinds of Christians, endeavour the promoting of the Gospel, and study to
win the support of the nation by their devotion to the public weal.
“Convince them that as men fearing God have fought them out of their
bondage, so men fearing God do now rule them in the fear of God.” In the
war, and in the events which had led to the overthrow of the monarchy,
there was “an evident print of providence,” and now the task of
government had come to them “by the way of necessity, by the way of the
wise providence of God.” “God manifests this to be the day of the power
of Christ; having through so much blood, and so much trial as hath been
upon these nations, made this to be one of the great issues thereof: to
have His people called to the supreme authority.” Let them therefore own
their call, for never any body of men had come into the supreme
authority in such a way of owning God and being owned by Him.
It was not, said Cromwell, by his own design that this had come to pass.
“I never looked to see such a day as this.... Indeed it is
marvellous, and it hath been unprojected. It’s not long since either
you or we came to know of it. And indeed this hath been the way God
hath dealt with us all along; to keep things from our eyes all
along, so that we have seen nothing in all His dispensations long
beforehand—which is also a witness, in some measure, to our
integrity.”
Since God had brought about so wonderful a thing, why should they not
hope for things more wonderful still? “Why should we be afraid to say or
think, that this way may be the door to usher in the things that God
hath promised and prophesied of, and set the hearts of His people to
wait for and expect?” Again and again Cromwell reiterated these hopes.
“Indeed I do think somewhat is at the door. We are at the threshold.”
“You are at the edge of the promises and prophecies.” He ended by
quoting the 68th Psalm as a prophecy of the glory and the triumph of
“the Gospel Churches.” “The triumph of that Psalm is exceeding high, and
God is accomplishing it.”
The assembly to which he spoke was equally confident that its meeting
marked the opening of a new era. “They looked,” as they declared, “for
the long-expected birth of freedom and happiness.” “All the world over
amongst the people of God” there was “a more than usual expectation of
some great and strange changes coming upon the world, which we can
hardly believe to be paralleled with any times but those a while before
the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Full of hope, the
assembly set to work to fulfil its mission. It voted itself the title of
Parliament, invited Cromwell and four other representative officers to
take part in its proceedings, elected a new Council of State, and
appointed twelve great Committees for the redress of all kinds of
grievances. It took in hand, simultaneously, the reform of the Law and
of the Church. The abolition of the Court of Chancery was voted after a
single day’s debate. Its delays and costliness had long been a scandal,
and it was said that twenty-three thousand causes of five to thirty
years’ standing were lying there undetermined. Next came an Act
establishing civil marriage, and providing for the registration of
births, marriages, and burials. Acts were passed for the relief of
prisoners for debt, for the safe custody of idiots and lunatics, and for
the removal of some smaller legal abuses. A committee was appointed to
codify the Law, and sanguine reformers talked of reducing its great
volumes “into the bigness of a pocket book, as it is proportionable in
New England and elsewhere.” The Fifth Monarchy preachers at Blackfriars
went further, and bade them abolish the law of man, and set up in its
place the law of God. They required not a simplification of the laws of
England, but a code based on the laws of Moses.
The Church was taken in hand with the same rough vigour as the Law. A
proposal to abolish tithes at once was lost by a few votes, but even its
opponents were willing to abolish them if lay tithe-owners were
compensated, and if some other maintenance were provided for the clergy.
So the whole question was referred to a committee. On the other hand, a
resolution abolishing patronage was passed by seventeen votes, and a
bill ordered to be drawn up to carry it into effect. There were also
persistent rumours of an impending attack on the endowments of the
universities, and a large party in the House were opposed to any
established Church, or any ministry not dependent on voluntary support.
Outside Parliament, the Fifth Monarchy preachers denounced the parochial
clergy as “hirelings” and “priests of Baal.” Their sermons described the
Church as an “outwork of Babylon,” and a part of the “Kingdom of the
Beast.” The great design of Christ, they said, was to destroy all
anti-Christian forms and churches and clergy all over the world. Their
hymns summoned the faithful to follow the Lord to war.
“The Lord begins to honour us,
The Saints are marching on,
The sword is sharp, the arrows swift
To destroy Babylon.”
In private, the Fifth Monarchy men were caballing to make Harrison Lord
General instead of Cromwell.
Cromwell was dissatisfied and alarmed at the conduct of the Little
Parliament and its consequences. Instead of promoting the Gospel, they
had threatened to deprive its ministers of the means of subsistence.
Instead of allaying sectarian strife their policy had embittered it. His
own persistent attempts to reconcile religious animosities met with
little success. Vainly he arranged conferences between Presbyterian,
Independent, and Baptist ministers to persuade them to live harmoniously
together. As he complained to his son-in-law, Fleetwood: “Fain would I
have my service accepted of the Saints, if the Lord will, but it is not
so. Being of different judgments, and those of each sort seeking most to
propagate their own, that spirit of kindness that is to all, is hardly
accepted of any.” When he tried to mediate between the fighting
ecclesiastics, they turned on him as the two Israelites did on Moses,
and asked, “Who made thee a prince or a judge over us?” Because he
wished to support a national Church the Blackfriars preachers abused him
as “The Old Dragon” and “The Man of Sin.” Because he had not called a
real Parliament, the Levellers accused him of high treason to “his lords
the people of England.” For what he had done and what he had left undone
Cromwell was attacked by fanatics of all parties.
At the same time the position of the Republic had changed for the worse
since the Little Parliament began to sit. The Dutch war still continued,
and though Monk had gained two decisive victories, on June 3rd and July
31st, over the Dutch fleet, peace was still far off. The chief obstacle
to it was the exorbitant terms which the Little Parliament demanded, and
on this question also Cromwell was at issue with the men now in power.
Peace had become a necessity to England as well as Holland, for in
September it was discovered that there would be a deficit of over half a
million on the estimates for the navy. A new insurrection, fanned by
promises of Dutch aid, had broken out in Scotland. In England there was
a marked revival of royalist feeling, and a plot for the surprise of
Portsmouth had been discovered. The Levellers were once more raising
their heads. Lilburn, defying the penalty imposed by the act of
banishment, had returned to England, and in August, 1653, he was tried
for his contumacy. Crowds flocked to hear him tried, or to rescue him if
condemned, and when he was acquitted their shouting was heard a mile
off. Even the soldiers set to guard the Court blew their trumpets and
beat their drums for joy, and it seemed as if the agitation suppressed
in 1649 was beginning again.
Cromwell was now thoroughly disillusioned and began to repent his part
in putting the men of the Little Parliament in power.
In later years, when he referred to his experiment, he called it
apologetically “a story of my own weakness and folly.”
“And yet,” he said, “it was done in my simplicity. It was thought
then that men of our own judgment, who had fought in the wars, and
were all of a piece upon that account, why surely these men will hit
it, and these men will do it to the purpose, whatever can be
desired. And such a company of men were chosen and did proceed to
action. And this was the naked truth, that the issue was not
answerable to the simplicity and honesty of the design.”
Besides repenting his own act, Cromwell began to doubt his own motives.
Was his eagerness to transfer supreme power to others an honest
constitutional scruple, or a cowardly evasion of responsibility? Was it
not, perhaps, “a desire, I am afraid sinful enough, to be quit of the
power God had most clearly by His providence put into my hands before He
called me to lay it down; before those honest ends of our fighting were
attained and settled.”
Not only the General, but the officers, too, were dissatisfied with
their creation. Apart from political or religious considerations, the
proceedings of the Little Parliament seriously affected their interests
as soldiers. It had touched their honour and threatened their pockets. A
point on which the soldiers were justly sensitive was the strict
observance of capitulations with royalist commanders, and in one
notorious case articles of surrender had been grossly violated, and the
Parliament had refused redress. Great opposition had been made to the
renewal of the monthly assessment for the maintenance of the army, and a
more equitable way of raising the money had been proposed. The soldiers
feared that if this new method were adopted their pay would fall
behindhand, and they would be obliged to starve or take free quarters.
Still further irritation was caused by a motion that, in view of the
pressing needs of the State, and the wealth they had obtained in its
service, the higher officers should serve without pay for a whole year.
The discontented officers naturally turned to their General for help.
Lambert and his party took up once more the idea of a written
constitution. In November, a meeting of officers took place at which
Lambert’s scheme was discussed and adopted. It was a first draft of the
Instrument of Government, the main difference being that it placed at
the head of the State a King instead of a Protector. At the end of the
month, it was submitted to Cromwell. “They told me,” he said, “that
except I would undertake the government they thought things would hardly
come to a settlement, but blood and confusion would break in upon us.”
But to all their solicitation he replied with refusals. He had two great
objections to accepting their offer. One was the aversion to the title
of King, which revealed itself again in 1657. The other was that he had
empowered the Little Parliament to sit till the end of 1654, and he was
not willing to expel a second Parliament by force of arms. Lambert’s
plot was frustrated by the reluctance of the principal actor, and he
retired sulkily to the country.
Cromwell still hoped that the Parliament might be induced to adopt a
wiser policy. The strength of the two parties in it was very nearly
equal, and a few votes might turn the scale in favour of the moderate
section. A final battle on the Church question brought about a new trial
of strength. On December 2nd, the Committee on Tithes produced a report
containing a regular scheme for the reorganisation of the Church. One
clause proposed the appointment of itinerant commissioners to eject
unfit ministers and fill up vacant livings. Another provided that the
present provision for the maintenance of approved ministers should be
guaranteed by Parliament. Others affirmed that tithes were legal
property, and suggested a plan for their commutation in case of persons
who had conscientious scruples about paying them. Over this report the
two parties fought for five whole sittings. The question whether the
Church should be reformed or disestablished hung on their decision. At
last, on Saturday, December 10th, the extremists triumphed, and the
first clause of the report was rejected by fifty-six to fifty-four
votes. The supporters of the Church regarded the division as fatal to
the whole scheme.
Immediately on this defeat, the moderate party in the Parliament and the
malcontents amongst the officers came to an agreement. All Sunday the
leaders intrigued and negotiated. The one expedient left was to persuade
the Parliament to abdicate, and make way for a more capable government.
If the difficulty of getting rid of the Parliament was peaceably solved,
those who knew Cromwell felt sure he would accept the accomplished fact,
and assume the power offered him. The thing was not impossible, if it
was properly worked. Some of the majority had voted on side issues;
others might be gained over. Absentees were whipped up; waverers were
appealed to through their interests or their fears. An argument which
weighed with some was, that the army meant to put a stop to the sitting
of the Parliament, and that a decent suicide was the only way to avoid a
violent end.
On Monday, December 12th, the Moderates rose early and came to the House
betimes. As soon as business began, Colonel Sydenham and other leaders
of the party rose up and inveighed against the policy of their
opponents. They charged them with seeking to destroy the army by not
making sufficient and timely provision for its pay, with endeavouring to
overthrow the Law, the Clergy, and the property of the subject. In
conclusion they moved, “that the sitting of this Parliament any longer,
as it is now constituted, will not be for the good of the Commonwealth,
and that therefore it is requisite to deliver up to the Lord General
Cromwell the powers which they had received from him.”
Everything went off with the precision of a field-day. The debate was
very short. One party strove to spin it out till the House grew fuller
and their reinforcements came up. The other had resolved to carry the
enemy’s position by storm. It was no time to debate, said the Moderates,
but to do something to prevent the calamities which threatened the
State. Old Rouse, the Speaker, who was in the plot himself, ended the
discussion by rising from the chair, and left the House without stopping
to put the question or to hear the opponents of the motion. In vain they
called to him to stop. Preceded by the mace, and accompanied by the
clerk of the House, he marched off with fifty or sixty members to
Whitehall. Arrived there, they proceeded to sign their names to a paper
returning their powers to Cromwell, and became once more private
persons. Eventually about eighty members signed this act of abdication.
About twenty-seven members had stayed behind in the House. They were too
few to form a quorum, and could not act as a Parliament. While they were
drawing up a protest against the late proceedings, two colonels entered
and ordered them to come out. “We are here,” said one of the members,
“by a call from the General, and will not come out by your desire unless
you have a command from him.” The colonels had no order from Cromwell to
produce, but they fetched in two files of musketeers, and the members
took the hint.
Cromwell had taken no part in the plot for procuring the abdication of
the Little Parliament. “I can say it,” he told the members of the next
Parliament, “in the presence of divers persons here who know whether I
lie, that I did not know one tittle of that resignation, till they all
came and brought it, and delivered it into my hands.” As none of the
said persons ever contradicted his statement, it may be accepted as
true. It sufficed for him to remain passive, and power came back to his
hands by a sort of natural necessity. Once more he was in possession of
the dictatorship he had sought to lay down. “My power was again by this
resignation as boundless and unlimited as before, all things being
subject to arbitrariness, and myself a person having power over the
three nations without bound or limit set; all government being
dissolved, and all civil administration at an end.” For the second time
Lambert and his allies urged Cromwell to accept the government under the
constitution which they had drawn up. The difficulty of getting rid of
the Little Parliament no longer stood in the way, and the title of King
had been replaced by the title of Protector. They also pointed out to
him that the acceptance of the Protectorship in no way increased his
power. On the contrary, it put an end to his dictatorship, and reduced
his power by imposing constitutional restrictions upon its exercise. It
bound him to do nothing without the consent of either a Council or a
Parliament. Another argument was still more effective. Once more they
warned Cromwell, that, unless he would undertake the government, anarchy
was inevitable, and made him responsible for the “blood and confusion”
which would be the result. After three or four days’ discussion,
Cromwell accepted the constitution, to which a general meeting of
officers had in the interim given their approval and adhesion. He was
solemnly installed as Protector on December 16, 1653, dressed not like a
general in scarlet, but like a citizen in a plain black coat, to show
all men that military rule was over, and civil government restored.
The new constitution, like the Agreement of the People in 1649,
represented the political ideas of the officers of the army. But since
1649 the officers had lost confidence in the people, and they sought now
to erect a government based on something firmer than the will of a
fickle multitude. A written constitution was asserted to be a better
foundation for a government than popular consent, for the express reason
that the people would have no power to alter it. There had been enough
of commotion, and confusion, and change. “It was high time that some
power should pass a decree upon the wavering humours of the people, and
say to this nation, as the Almighty Himself said once to the unruly sea:
‘Here shall be thy bounds; hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther.’”
This was what Lambert and the officers assumed the right to say when
they imposed the “Instrument of Government” upon England.
Throughout its provisions their distrust of the English people is
evident. Little boroughs were abolished and constituencies made more
equal, but the franchise instead of being extended was restricted. In
boroughs, the franchise remained unaltered—that is, the right of
election was generally in the hands of the corporation; in counties, the
forty-shilling freeholders were abolished, and a new franchise was
created, which gave the vote to all men possessing property worth two
hundred pounds. Henceforth, therefore, Parliament would represent the
opinions and interests of the middle classes.
Distrust of the electors was naturally accompanied by distrust of the
representatives. For the future, the legislative and executive powers
were to be kept permanently separate. The authority and the duration of
Parliament were strictly limited. It was to meet once in three years,
but to sit for five months only. It had power to legislate as it thought
fit, but its laws must not contravene the provisions of the
constitution. Its consent to levy money for extraordinary expenses was
necessary, but a constant yearly revenue was to be raised to meet the
ordinary charge of civil government, army, and navy, which Parliament
had no right to diminish.
The Protector possessed the executive power, but his authority was
limited also. Except when bills contained something contrary to the
constitution, he had no right to veto them. In domestic administration
and in foreign affairs, he could not act without the consent of the
Council; in taxation and for the employment of the army, he needed the
consent of Parliament or Council. The members of the new Council were,
in Cromwell’s phrase, “the trustees of the Commonwealth in the intervals
of Parliament,” and possessed far more power than the Council of State
erected in 1649. The councillors, most of whom were appointed by the
“Instrument” itself, held office for life, and in their hands lay the
choice of the Protector’s successor.
The object of this complicated system of checks and balances was to
prevent either Parliament or Protector from becoming absolute, and to
render religious liberty unassailable. None knew better than the leaders
of the army how slight a hold upon the nation the principle of
toleration had obtained, or how little religious parties were willing to
accept it. “This hath been one of the vanities of our contest,” said
Cromwell. “Every sect saith, ‘Oh give me liberty,’ but give it him and
to his power he will not yield it to anybody else.” For the ingenious
political devices of the constitution the Protector cared very little,
but the religious settlement was a settlement after his own heart. There
was to be a national Church, maintained for the present by tithes, in
the future, it was hoped, by some better way. Outside the Church, there
was to be full liberty of worship for those who did not belong to it,
“provided they did not abuse their liberty to the civil injury of
others, or to the actual disturbance of the public peace.” But this
liberty was not to extend to Popery or Prelacy, which were politically
dangerous, or “to such as under the profession of Christ hold forth and
practise licentiousness.”
This was the religious freedom which ever since 1647 the army had
demanded, and had at last realised. Yet in spite of all the new
constitution promised, there was little prospect that it would obtain
the acceptance of the nation. England was the last country in which the
attempt to transform a military dictatorship into a sort of
constitutional government was likely to succeed.
At the moment, however, the only opposition there was came from the
Fifth Monarchy men—hostile to anything which resembled a monarchy or an
established Church. Harrison refused to act under the Protector’s
Government, and was deprived of his commission. Fifth Monarchy preachers
raged against the Protector from the pulpit. One called him “the
dissemblingest perjured villain in the world.” Another identified him
with the Little Horn in Daniel’s prophecy, which was to make war against
the Saints and to be destroyed by them.
Their ravings only strengthened Cromwell’s position. What England wanted
was a government which would maintain order and preserve property. The
interests which the Little Parliament had imperilled welcomed Cromwell’s
accession to power. His elevation was a bargain, says Ludlow, with the
corrupt part of the clergy and the lawyers; he became their Protector
and they the humble supporters of his tyranny. So evident was the
advantage which Cromwell derived from the events of the last few months
that what had happened was freely attributed to his profound statecraft.
All was a pageant played by Cromwell, thought Baxter, in order to make
his soldiers out of love with democracy and to render his usurpation
necessary. He was resolved we should be saved by him or perish.
“He made more use of the wild-headed sectaries than barely to fight
for him. They now serve him as much by their heresies, their enmity
to learning and ministry, their pernicious demands which tend to
confusion, as they had done before by their valour in the field. He
can now conjure up at pleasure some terrible apparition of
Agitators, Levellers, and such like, who, as they affrighted the
King from Hampton Court, shall affright the people to fly to him for
refuge: that the hand that wounded may heal them.”
Hitherto Cromwell had been the destroyer of old institutions. Now he
came forward as the saviour of society. England, therefore, submitted to
his government without resistance and without enthusiasm, but with a
general feeling of relief. The conversion of the monarchy into a
republic had been violent and bloody; the transition from the Republic
to the Protectorate was as peaceful as one of the ordinary operations of
nature. As such, Waller celebrated it in his poem to Cromwell.
“Still as you rise, the State exalted too
Finds no distemper while ’tis changed by you,
Changed like the world’s great scene when without noise
The rising sun night’s vulgar lights destroys.”
[Illustration]