CROMWELL’S FOREIGN POLICY
1654–1658
Three aims guided Cromwell’s foreign policy: the first was the desire to
maintain and to spread the Protestant religion; the second, the desire
to preserve and extend English commerce; the third, the desire to
prevent the restoration of the Stuarts by foreign aid. The European
mission of England, its material greatness, and its political
independence were inseparably associated in his mind, and beneath all
apparent wavering and hesitation these three aims he consistently
pursued.
The Protector had inherited from the Long Parliament a European
situation of the greatest complexity. The Dutch war had undone the work
of the previous three years. In 1653, England was once more isolated and
in danger of a European combination against her. England and France were
still carrying on hostilities at sea. Denmark had seized English
merchantmen, and closed the Baltic to English trade. Portugal was
actually at war with us. There were rumours of the formation of a triple
alliance against England, between Holland, France, and Denmark. On the
other hand, the war turned more and more against the United Provinces.
In the spring of 1654, the English were “perfectly lords and masters of
the narrow seas,” and no Dutch merchantman could show itself in the
Channel.
England had captured over fourteen hundred sail from the Dutch,
including 120 men-of-war, and in March, 1654, she had 140 men-of-war at
sea, “and better ships,” added Cromwell’s Secretary of State, “than we
have had at any time heretofore.” Nevertheless, every motive—solicitude
for the Protestant cause, the interest of commerce, the frustration of
the designs of the Royalists—all made peace with Holland necessary.
Moreover, England was fast sinking under the financial burdens which
even successful war imposed. Cromwell, therefore, turned a deaf ear to
those who maintained that a little more persistence would force the
Dutch to accept the original demands of the Long Parliament, and from
the moment he took the negotiations in hand he threw overboard the
amalgamation of the two republics. In its place, he at first proposed an
offensive and defensive alliance between England and Holland. They were
to league themselves together not merely for commercial or national
ends, but “for the preservation of freedom and the outspreading of the
Kingdom of Christ.” “Who could tell,” said he, “what God in his own time
might intend to accomplish for the deliverance of oppressed nations by
means of the two republics?” Other Protestant powers, and even those
Catholic powers which allowed their subjects liberty of conscience,
might be invited to join the league.
The Dutch envoys, less enthusiastic and more practical, would hear of
nothing more than a defensive alliance, and even that proved more than
could be realised. The negotiations were slow, for the demands of
England were still too high, and France obstructed the progress of the
treaty as much as it could. The Protector yielded on some points, but
remained inexorable on others, and prepared to renew the war. So the
resistance of the Dutch gave way, and by the treaty signed on April 5,
1654, they admitted the supremacy of the British flag in the British
seas, abandoned any demand for the modification of the Navigation Act,
and promised to pay damages for the losses of English merchants in the
East. Each state undertook to expel from its borders the rebels or
enemies of the other. Finally, by a private engagement, the province of
Holland undertook permanently to exclude the Princes of Orange from
command by land or sea. Cromwell had thus attained two of his objects:
English commerce was made secure, and the Dutch would no longer help the
Royalists to attack the government which England had chosen to set up.
At the banquet which he gave the Dutch Ambassadors on the conclusion of
the treaty, he dwelt on the advantages of friendship between the two
states. They sang the 123d Psalm together: “Behold how good and how
pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” But there was
no real restoration of unity, and if the great Protestant alliance of
Cromwell’s dreams depended on the support of the Dutch, there was little
hope of its accomplishment. The commercial jealousy of the two states
never slumbered for a moment, and the diplomatists of the Protector
found the influence of the Dutch continually obstructing their
negotiations.
A few days later than the peace with the United Provinces, Cromwell’s
Ambassador, Whitelocke, concluded a treaty with Sweden (April 11, 1654).
To Cromwell and to Englishmen who had witnessed the exploits of Gustavus
Adolphus, Sweden still seemed the champion of Protestantism in northern
Europe, and the natural ally of a Puritan England. “The English,” wrote
Whitelocke in his diary, “are the only people with whom the Swedes may
hope for a firm amity and union for the Protestant interest against the
common enemy thereof, the Popish party.” Apart from this, there were
other questions in which the political interests of the two nations
coincided, and Cromwell offered to assist the Swedes with a fleet in
asserting the freedom of the Sound against Denmark and Holland.
Whitelocke was received with the greatest friendliness. “Your General,”
said Queen Christina to him, “hath done the greatest things of any man
in the world: the Prince of Condé is next to him, but short of him.” She
compared Cromwell to her ancestor, Gustavus Vasa, and predicted that,
like him, after being the liberator of his country he would become its
king. Nevertheless, the Swedish ministers, fearful of involving their
country in a war with Holland, and perhaps with France, declined the
proffered alliance. The embassy resulted in a treaty of amity regulating
the commercial intercourse of the two states, and providing that Sweden
should give no assistance to the cause of Charles II.
Next came a treaty with Denmark, which, as Holland’s ally, had been
included in the treaty with the Dutch, on condition that the English
merchants were compensated for the detention of their ships in the Sound
during the war. By the commercial treaty which followed in September,
1654, English vessels were in future to be allowed to pass the Sound on
the same terms as the Dutch. Still more important from the commercial
point of view was the treaty with Portugal, concluded in July, 1654.
English merchants received reparation for their losses, were guaranteed
freedom from the interference of the Inquisition, and were given liberty
to trade with all Portuguese colonies in the East or West. All these
treaties, besides the commercial advantages they brought, gave
additional security to the new government against the Royalists, but
Cromwell valued those with the Protestant states most, because they also
gave increased security to “the Protestant interest abroad.” “I wish,”
said he to his Parliament, “that it may be written upon our hearts to be
zealous for that interest. For if ever it were likely to come under a
condition of suffering, it is now. And by this conjunction of interests,
you will be in a more fit capacity to help them.”
In the same speech, the Protector was able to point out the change in
the attitude of Europe towards England, which nine months of his rule
had produced. “There is not a nation in Europe,” he said, “but is
willing to ask a good understanding with you.” Instead of rumours of
coalitions against England, the two greatest powers of the continent
were bidding against each other for her alliance. Spain pressed England
to land an army in southern France in support of Condé’s rebellion,
promising help to recover Calais, and large subsidies towards the cost
of the English auxiliaries. France offered to abandon the cause of
Charles II., and to assist England with men and money to conquer
Dunkirk. For some months, Oliver wavered, or seemed to waver. Apparently
he was intent only on driving the best possible bargain for England with
the two competitors for her support; in reality, he was studying the
conditions of the problem and making up his mind how to act. As both
were Catholic powers, religious considerations were less decisive than
usual. On the one hand, the case of the Huguenots, whose rights under
the Edict of Nantes were continually infringed by the French Government,
appealed strongly to his Protestant zeal. On the other hand, the
Catholicism of France was less bigoted than the Catholicism of Spain,
and whatever the wrongs of the Huguenots were, it became clear he could
do more to get them redressed by a good understanding with France than
by armed intervention. Political considerations also made peace with
France desirable. Hitherto, it was true, Spain had been far more
friendly to the Republic than its rival, but France was at once the more
dangerous enemy and the more valuable ally. Whatever subsidies Spain
might promise in return for English aid, it was soon evident that it
could pay none. Ere long, Cromwell came to the resolution not to involve
England in the European struggle between France and Spain by leaguing
himself with either, but to take advantage of the opportunity to settle
outstanding disputes, and to maintain, if possible, amicable relations
with both. His plan, however, was not so easy of execution as it seemed.
When the Protector, as a condition of the renewal of old treaties of
commerce and friendship with Spain, demanded that English merchants
should have the free exercise of their religion in Spanish ports, and
that English colonists and traders in the West Indies should be no
longer treated as enemies by the Spaniards, he met with a flat refusal.
“To ask liberty from the Inquisition and free sailing in the West
Indies,” declared the Spanish Ambassador, “was to ask for his master’s
two eyes,” and no concession could be made on either point. In August,
1654, Cromwell resolved to send an expedition to the West Indies in
order to exact reparation for the past and material guarantees for
future security. He did not believe that these reprisals would lead to
war with Spain in Europe, but if they did he was prepared to take the
risk.
Equally unsuccessful were the negotiations with France. The expulsion
from that country of Charles II. and his partisans was assented to in
principle, and it was agreed that the losses which the traders of the
two nations had suffered should be referred to arbitration, but the
question of the Huguenots proved an insurmountable obstacle. The
Protector demanded that the treaty should expressly recognise his right
to intervene on their behalf, if the liberties granted them by the Edict
of Nantes were infringed, which France, as was natural, steadfastly
refused. Cromwell remained firm. The Protector, wrote Thurloe to an
English agent, had espoused the interest of Protestantism, “which is
dearer to him than his life and all that he hath,” and he could not
consent to any clause in a treaty with a foreign power which seemed
prejudicial to it. The year 1654 ended without England’s coming to an
agreement either with France or Spain. Relying upon his army and his
fleet of 160 ships, the Protector felt strong enough to maintain a
completely independent position, and to assert the interest of England
with a high hand in defiance of either. When Penn sailed for the West
Indies, in December, 1654, he bore instructions not only to attack the
Spanish colonies, but to make prize of any French ships he came across.
When Blake in the previous October was despatched to the Mediterranean,
he was charged to continue the reprisals against French as well as to
protect British trade.
Blake’s voyage made the British flag respected and feared throughout the
Mediterranean, though the legendary account of the indemnities he
exacted from the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the Pope for their unfriendly
action during the Dutch war is unsupported by evidence. He made a treaty
with the Dey of Algiers, and redeemed the English captives held there.
The Dey of Tunis, less amenable to reason, refused reparation, and would
not even allow Blake’s ships to water in his ports. “We judged it
necessary,” wrote Blake, “for the honour of our fleet, our nation, and
religion, seeing they would not deal with us as friends, to make them
feel us as enemies”; so, sailing into the harbour of Porto Farina, he
bombarded the Dey’s castles, and burnt his ships (April 4, 1655).
Simultaneously with the news of Blake’s exploit, England learnt of the
massacre of the Vaudois by the troops of the Regent of Savoy. Every
Puritan’s heart thrilled with sympathy for the sufferings of his fellow
Protestants. Milton called on God to avenge the sufferings of the
“slaughtered saints” whose bones lay scattered on the Alpine mountains.
The armies of the three nations urged Cromwell to action. The Protector
needed no prompting. He headed with a gift of two thousand pounds the
national subscription raised for the relief of the sufferers. He told
the French Ambassador that the sufferings of the poor Piedmontese
touched his heart as closely as if they had been his own nearest kin,
and refused to sign the treaty with France till their wrongs were
righted. By the pen of Milton, he summoned all the Protestant powers to
intervene, and he projected employing Blake’s fleet to attack Nice or
Villa Franca. Diplomatic arguments proved sufficient. Eager to secure
the friendship of England, France put pressure on Savoy, the massacres
ceased, and the Vaudois were reinstated in their valleys. The Treaty of
Pignerol left much unredressed, and Cromwell was far from satisfied with
its terms, but by every Puritan in England and every Protestant in
Europe he was hailed as the saviour of the Vaudois. Even Englishmen who
were no Puritans felt proud to see their country, under his guidance,
assert the sovereignty of the seas, punish the pirates of the
Mediterranean, and defend the oppressed. Waller’s panegyric to the
Protector upon “the present greatness of his Highness and this nation,”
expressed this pride.
[Illustration:
JOHN MILTON.
(_From an engraving by Faithorne._)
]
“The sea’s our own; and now all nations greet,
With bending sails, each vessel of our fleet;
Your power resounds as far as winds can blow
Or swelling sails upon the globe may go.
Fame swifter than your winged navy flies
Through every land that near the ocean lies,
Sounding your name, and telling dreadful news
To all that piracy and rapine use.
Whether this portion of the world were rent
By the rude ocean from the continent,
Or thus created, it was sure designed
To be the sacred refuge of mankind.
Hither the oppressed shall henceforth resort
Justice to crave, and succour at your court;
And then your highness, not for ours alone
But for the world’s protector shall be known.”
To such a land, with such a leader, asked Waller, what could be thought
impossible? Ere long, however, the Protector discovered that even the
best-laid schemes did not always prosper. The _Panegyric_ was published
at the end of May: in August news came to England of the disastrous
defeat of the expedition sent to the West Indies at Hispaniola.[9] The
Protector fell ill, and everyone attributed his illness to vexation at
the evil tidings. Contrary to his expectation also, Spain laid an
embargo on English shipping, withdrew its ambassador, and declared war.
The breach with Spain was accompanied by the completion of the
long-delayed agreement with France, which was signed on the very day
that the Spanish Ambassador left England (October 24, 1655). In
substance, it was merely a commercial treaty, with a secret clause added
for the expulsion of the leading Royalists from France, and the
Protector contented himself with a private promise that the rights of
the Huguenots should not be infringed. The conditions under which the
agreement took place made a more intimate connection between the two
powers inevitable. But for the present Cromwell was busily engaged in
negotiations with Sweden, which he hoped to make the basis of a general
league of Protestant states. In June, 1655, Charles Gustavus, the
successor of Queen Christina, invaded Poland and sent an ambassador to
England to ask for aid in men, ships, and money. Cromwell treated the
King’s envoy with distinguished favour. “They dine, sup, hunt, and play
bowls together,” and “never was ambassador, or indeed any man, so much
caressed and regarded by Cromwell as this man is, nor did he ever seek
the friendship of anyone so much as this King of Sweden.” From the first
he declared his willingness to “enter into a more strict and close
alliance” with Sweden both for the sake of the two nations, and for the
sake of the Protestant cause. Yet it was impossible to come to an
agreement. The Swedish King’s conquest of Catholic Poland seemed to the
Protector a gain to Protestantism; “Wresting a horn from the head of the
Beast,” he termed it. But he saw plainly that it was not to the interest
of England that the Baltic should fall completely under the dominion of
Sweden, and that to support the designs of the King on the Baltic
coast-lands would necessarily embroil him with the Danes, the Dutch, and
the Brandenburgers. For a time he hoped to turn the arms of Gustavus
against the House of Austria, and to convert the offered alliance into
the Protestant league he longed for. But it was all in vain, and the
sole result of the embassy was a commercial treaty signed in July, 1656.
Footnote 9:
See p. 401.
Meanwhile, at sea, the war with Spain was vigorously prosecuted. During
the latter part of 1655 and through 1656, an English fleet cruised on
and off the Spanish coast in order to prevent the Spaniards from sending
reinforcements to the West Indies and to intercept the silver ships from
America. It served also to protect English traders to the Mediterranean,
and to force the King of Portugal to carry into effect the treaty of
1654. At one time Cromwell with prophetic foresight proposed the seizure
of Gibraltar. “If possessed and made tenable by us,” he wrote to Blake,
“would it not be an advantage to us and an annoyance to the Spaniards,
and enable us, without keeping so great a fleet on that coast, with six
nimble frigates lodged there to do the Spaniards more harm than by a
fleet and ease our own charge?” But without a force to land, the Admiral
judged the design impracticable. Blake’s perseverance in the blockade
was at last crowned with success. On September 8, 1656, Captain Stayner
with a squadron of cruisers detached from his fleet met eight Spanish
ships from America off Cadiz, of which he destroyed four bearing
treasure worth two millions, and captured a fifth with a cargo of silver
valued at six hundred thousand pounds. More glorious, however, was the
action at Santa Cruz in Teneriffe on April 20, 1657. Blake sailed into
the harbour, where the Spanish treasure-fleet from the West Indies had
taken refuge, fought batteries and galleons at close quarters, and sunk
or burnt all the sixteen ships without losing one of his own. It was the
most brilliant of all his exploits, and the last: he died on his return
to England, worn out with the fatigues of the long blockade, just as his
ship was entering Plymouth Sound (August 7, 1657).
Meanwhile, events forced Cromwell into closer union with France. The
Spaniards had zealously adopted the cause of Charles II., hoping to
overthrow Cromwell by means of an insurrection in England. In April,
1656, Philip IV. made a treaty with Charles II. by which he promised him
a pension, helped to maintain a little army of English and Irish
Royalists in Flanders, and undertook to provide ships for their
transport to the English coast. Spanish money, also, was employed to
further the plots of the Levellers for the assassination of the
Protector. It became evident that, in order to force Spain to peace, it
must be attacked on the continent as well as on the seas. On March 23,
1657, Cromwell signed an offensive alliance with France, by which
England supplied six thousand soldiers, supported by a fleet, to attack
the Spaniards in Flanders, and was to receive Mardyke and Dunkirk as its
share of the spoils. He thought that the possession of Dunkirk would
give him increased control of the Channel, enable him to exercise a
greater pressure upon France, and provide a secure basis for land
operations against Spain. “It would be,” said Secretary Thurloe, “a
bridle to the Dutch, and a door into the continent.”
Six weeks later, Sir John Reynolds, with six thousand men, landed at
Boulogne and joined the French army under Turenne. Turenne at first
employed the English contingent in the interior of Flanders, in sieges
and operations which seemed to serve French interests only, and his
delay to attack the coast towns made Cromwell suspicious. It seemed, he
wrote to Sir William Lockhart, the English Ambassador, as if the French
“would not have us have any footing on that side the water.” The French
excuses for their delay were but “parcels of words for children.” Unless
they set about the business at once, he would withdraw his troops and
demand the repayment of his expenses. “I desire you to take boldness and
freedom to yourself in your dealing with the French on these accounts.”
Lockhart spoke boldly and freely, and the effect was immediate. The
French army drew towards the Flemish coast. Mardyke was besieged, taken,
and handed over to an English garrison (October 3, 1657).
When the next campaign opened, Turenne laid siege to Dunkirk, and a
Spanish army of fourteen thousand men under Don John and Condé advanced
to its relief. Turenne routed them on June 4, 1658, amongst the
sandhills on the south of Dunkirk, with the loss of five thousand men.
No troops did better service in the battle than the English contingent
under Lockhart. The joyful cheer the redcoats gave when they saw their
enemy roused the admiration of Turenne, and the Duke of York, who served
in the Spanish army, was full of praises of his countrymen’s courage. On
their hands and knees they stormed the sandhill which was the key of the
Spanish left, and at push of pike drove the Spaniards from it. This
victory decided the long struggle between France and Spain, and ten days
later Dunkirk surrendered. It was all over now with the plans of Charles
II.: half his little army had been destroyed in the battle, and the
ships provided for their transport had been captured by the English
fleet.
Cromwell had at last the foothold on the continent which he desired, and
England was safe from attempted invasion, but the Protestant alliance he
dreamed of was farther off than ever. A storm had risen in northern
Europe which threatened to make any such combination permanently
impossible. As soon as Charles Gustavus conquered Poland, his ambition
had brought him into collision with his Protestant neighbours. A great
coalition was forming against him, and in the spring of 1657 he appealed
to Cromwell for help. But before Cromwell would risk either men or money
he required as a guarantee the temporary possession of Bremen. It would
serve as a basis for military operations, if necessary, and as a means
of bringing pressure to bear upon Denmark, if Denmark attempted to break
the peace. Gustavus refused, and all Cromwell could do was to endeavour
to mediate between Sweden and Denmark. In May, 1657, the Danes declared
war, and forced Gustavus to relax his hold on Poland. Brandenburg,
Holland, and Austria joined the coalition, and at the end of 1657, it
seemed as if Sweden must succumb. Cromwell had refused to join Gustavus
in his designs to partition Denmark, but just as little could he consent
to allow Denmark and its allies to complete the overthrow of Sweden. He
regarded the coalition as a Catholic plot against a Protestant power—a
plot in which misguided Protestant states were furthering the work of
the Pope and the House of Hapsburg. In imagination, he saw the Austrian
eagle once more stretching her wings towards the Eastern sea and
planting herself upon the Baltic, as in the dark days of the Thirty
Years’ War, before Sweden came to the rescue of the German Protestants.
The speech which the Protector made to Parliament, in January, 1658, was
full of these apprehensions. The question, he said, was, “whether the
Christian world should be all popery.” The Protestant interest abroad
was “struck at, nay, quite trodden under foot.” The Spanish and Austrian
Hapsburgs were leagued together to destroy it. In Poland and in the
Empire, Protestants were persecuted and driven out; the Swiss were
threatened, and Sweden, the chief champion of the Protestant cause, was
in danger. What resistance was there to “this mighty current coming from
all parts against all Protestants?” Only that made by Gustavus:
“a poor prince, and yet a man in his person as gallant and as good,
as any that these late ages have brought forth.”... “A man that hath
adventured his all against the Popish interest in Poland, and made
his acquisitions still good for the Protestant religion. He is now
reduced into a corner, and what adds to the grief of all is that men
of our religion forget this, and seek his ruin.”
He declared that the success of the coalition threatened the commerce
and the maritime power of England. “If they can shut us out of the
Baltic Sea, and make themselves masters of that, where is your trade?
Where are your materials to preserve your shipping?” Every sailor knew
what exclusion from the Baltic meant for England.
The Protector’s conclusion was that England must intervene to prevent
the King of Sweden from being crushed, and be ready to back him, not
only with its fleet, but by landing a force on the continent. “You have
accounted yourselves happy,” said he, “in being environed with a great
ditch from all the world besides. Truly, you will not be able to keep
your ditch, nor your shipping, unless you turn your ships and shipping
into troops of horse and companies of foot, and fight to defend
yourselves on terra firma.”
The crisis passed away as rapidly as it had risen, and Gustavus rescued
himself without English aid. A winter march over the frozen Belt and the
siege of Copenhagen brought Denmark to its knees. In February, 1658,
Cromwell’s ambassador mediated a peace between the rival powers at
Roeschild. But the peace was of short duration. In August, 1658, a month
before Cromwell died, the war broke out again, and once more Holland and
Brandenburg came to the help of the Danes. The general Protestant league
was impossible, because each Protestant power preferred to pursue its
private aims and defend its private interests. Ambition and national
traditions made Denmark and Sweden irreconcilable foes. Brandenburg was
more anxious to secure its own independence than to propagate the faith.
The Dutch sought first the interests of their commerce, and preferred,
as Oliver complained, “gain to godliness.”
In Cromwell’s England there were some who, like Morland, held it the
greatest glory of the Protector that he had ever identified the
interests of England with the interests of European Protestantism. But
the merchants of London complained that they were ruined by the
cessation of their Spanish trade, and the war with Spain had lost him
the hearts of the City. To the commercial classes, and to many
republican statesmen, Holland, not Spain, seemed the natural enemy of
England, and bitter attacks on the late Protector’s policy were heard in
the Parliament of 1659. Yet the great position in Europe which
Cromwell’s energy had gained for England impressed the imagination of
contemporaries. “He once more joined us to the continent,” sang Marvell,
in his lines on Cromwell’s death, while Sprat depicted him as waking the
British lion from its slumbers, and Dryden as teaching it to roar.
Contemporary historians struck the same note. “Cromwell’s greatness at
home,” admitted Clarendon, “was a mere shadow of his greatness abroad.”
Burnet recorded with approval Cromwell’s traditional boast, that he
would make the name of Englishman as great as ever that of Roman had
been. Still more glorious appeared the policy of the usurper in
comparison with that of Charles II. “It is strange,” noted Pepys, in
1667, “how everybody do nowadays reflect upon Oliver and commend him,
what brave things he did, and made all the neighbour princes fear him.”
Then came a change. For a hundred years it was the fashion to say that
Cromwell by allying himself with France against Spain destroyed the
balance of power in Europe, and produced that preponderance of France
against which Europe struggled so long. People forgot that the
overgrowth of French power was due to the complicity of Charles II.,
even more than to Oliver’s co-operation, and that, with Oliver as his
ally, Louis XIV. would neither have attempted the partition of Holland,
nor revoked the Edict of Nantes. With modern historians, it is a
commonplace to observe that Cromwell’s foreign policy was an
anachronism, that the era of religious wars ended with the Treaty of
Westphalia, and that material and political motives alone determined
thenceforth the relations of European powers. There is much truth in the
criticism, but in the years which immediately followed that treaty,
religious disputes entered so largely into political quarrels that it
was not easy for contemporaries to perceive what is obvious enough to
posterity. Least of all was such clearness of vision possible to the
Puritan statesman, in whose mind the interest of religion took
precedence of all other interests, and to the soldier who regarded war
as the instrument with which the God of battles worked out His purpose
on earth.
Cromwell’s foreign policy was in part a failure, but only in part. He
promoted the material welfare of his country, and saved her from foreign
interference in her domestic affairs. Where he sought purely national
interests he succeeded, but it was impossible for him not to look beyond
England. “God’s interest in the world,” he said, “is more extensive than
all the people of these three nations.” At another time he told his
Council: “God has brought us hither to consider the work we may do in
the world as well as at home.” Others shared these views, and there were
many Puritans who, like Cromwell, held that nations had duties as well
as interests. The duty of a free Commonwealth, wrote Harrington, was to
relieve oppressed peoples, and to spread liberty and true religion in
other lands. “She is not made for herself only,” but should be “a
minister of God upon the earth, to the intent that the whole world may
be governed with righteousness.” This was the dream that Cromwell sought
to realise through his great Protestant league. Looked at from one point
of view, he seemed as practical as a commercial traveller; from another,
a Puritan Don Quixote.
[Illustration]