THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF THE PROTECTORATE (1654-1656).
Heaven knows, I had no such intent,
But that necessity so bowed the state
That I and greatness were compelled to kiss.
HENRY IV., pt. ii., iii. 1.
I will discover to you a political secret, which must ere long be
made public. Capo d’Istria cannot long continue to administer the
affairs of Greece; he wants one requisite indispensable in that
position--_he is no soldier_. There is no instance on record in
which a mere statesman has been able to organize a revolutionary
state, and keep under his control the military and their leaders.
With the sabre in his hand, at the head of an army, a man may
command and make laws, secure of being obeyed, otherwise the
attempt is hazardous. Napoleon, if he had not been a soldier,
could never have attained the highest power; and Capo d’Istria
will soon be forced to play a secondary part.--CONVERSATIONS WITH
GOETHE, TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF ECKERMANN.
Cromwell held his power by will of the army. Though Anabaptists and
Republicans were hostile to the new government, the larger number
of the common soldiers, and all the principal officers--Monk and
Lambert, the protector’s son-in-law Fleetwood, and his brother-in-law
Desborough--were well content to effect a final settlement of the
kingdom by raising their general to be the head of the State. Milton,
who, though a Republican, consented to continue in office as Secretary
for Foreign Tongues to the Council of State, thus exhorted his “chief
of men:”--‘Recollect that thou thyself canst not be free, unless we are
so; for it is fitly so provided, in the nature of things, that he who
conquers another’s liberty, in the very act loses his own; he becomes,
and justly, the foremost slave.... Thou hast taken on thyself a task
which will probe thee to the very vitals, and disclose to the eyes of
all how much is thy courage, thy firmness, and thy fortitude; whether
that piety, perseverance, moderation, and justice really exist in thee,
in consideration of which we have believed that God hath given thee
the supreme dignity over thy fellows. To govern three mighty States
by thy counsels, to recall the people from their corrupt institutions
to a purer and nobler discipline, to extend thy thoughts and send out
thy mind to our remotest shores, to foresee all and provide for all,
to shrink from no labour, to trample under foot and tear to pieces all
the snares of pleasure and all the entangling seducements of wealth
and power--these are matters so arduous that, in comparison of them,
the perils of war are but the sports of children. These will winnow
thy faculties, and search thee to the very soul; they require a man
sustained by a strength that is more than human, and whose meditations
and whose thoughts shall be in perpetual commerce with his Maker.’[203]
%THE PROTECTOR’S IDEAL.%
Cromwell, who from the first had fought in defence of liberty in Church
and State, and who came of the same breed of men as Eliot, Pym, Vane,
and Milton himself, would have scorned to rule a race of slaves. “Of
the two greatest concernments,” he says, “that God hath in this world,
the one is that of religion, and of the just preservation of the
professors of it, to give them all due and just liberty; the other is
the civil liberty and interest of the nation, which though it is, and,
indeed, I think ought to be, subordinate to the more peculiar interest
of God, yet it is the next best God hath given men in this world,
and, if well cared for, it is better than any rock to fence men in
their other interests. Besides, if any whosoever think the interest of
Christians and the interest of the nation inconsistent, I wish my soul
may never enter into their secrets.”[204] Such was Cromwell’s ideal
of government--one which, while leaving a people free, was to work at
once for their material and moral improvement. In Cromwell’s mouth, the
words ‘interest of religion’ did not mean the interests of any sect:
in his use of the term, he comprehended the whole moral life of the
nation; a good education, the suppression of cruel sports, a reform of
the criminal law--all that could tend to elevate the minds of men, he
classed under the category of the interest of God.
%ENEMIES OF PROTECTORATE.%
The protector certainly could not fairly be accused of having
overthrown the free institutions of his country. Except during the
dictatorship of the first few months, the powers he possessed were
rather those belonging to the chief magistrate of a republican state,
than those exercised by former Kings of England. The executive was
placed under the control of the legislature; the chief magistrate
was denied a veto on laws; his office was rendered elective. “For
myself,” he said to his first Parliament, “I desire not to keep my
place in this government an hour longer than I may preserve England
in its just rights, and may protect the people of God in a just
liberty of their consciences.”[205] Yet there was much to hinder
Cromwell in achieving his cherished object of establishing a free and
constitutional government. Too much hung on a single life, and that
one past its prime. Time, the great conciliator, could not do much for
one who was already fifty-five. The mass of the people were sure to be
long prejudiced in favour of their old line of princes. Excepting his
own immediate supporters, no political party favoured his government.
Old Royalists and Presbyterians denounced him as guilty of treason and
rebellion. The Republicans, Vane, Bradshaw, Hutchinson, Ludlow, did
not scruple to avow their hostility, and their intention of rising
whenever a good opportunity should offer for the restoration of the
Commonwealth. Fanatical Levellers and Fifth-Monarchists joined with
Royalists in plotting against the new government, deluded enough
to think that, after they had overthrown it, they should be able
to crush their allies and set up a Parliament of their own. There
was, however, a surer and readier means than insurrection by which
the protector’s enemies might attempt the accomplishment of their
wishes--assassination. “There remains nothing for him to do,” said
the Swedish Chancellor Oxenstiern, when he heard of the establishment
of the Protectorate, “but to get him a back and breast-plate of
steel.” A proclamation was drawn in the name of Charles Stuart, and
secretly dispersed amongst malcontent Royalists, Fifth-Monarchists,
and Anabaptists, to the effect that, a certain base mechanic fellow,
by name Oliver Cromwell, having usurped the throne, whosoever killed
him by sword, pistol, or poison should receive a reward of £500 a
year (1654). The life and government of the protector were constantly
endangered by the plots of Royalists and Levellers, or of both parties
united. Cromwell, however, proved himself more than a match for his
enemies. He made use of his insight into character to find the right
men to serve as spies, and was generally in full possession of the
plans of his enemies. Conspirators, after having advanced with their
preparations until within a few hours for the moment of action, found
themselves suddenly swooped upon by the officers of justice, and
lodged securely in prison.
When the protector met his first Parliament, at the appointed date
(3rd Sept.), he was prepared with a good account of his nine months
of rule. Much to the indignation of Republicans and Anabaptists,
who still clung to the ambitious project of reducing the States and
incorporating the two Republics, Cromwell had ended the ruinous war
with Holland by granting peace on fairly moderate terms. The Dutch
agreed to lower their flag to the English navy; to banish from their
territories enemies of England; to restore to England the island of
Poleron, in the East Indies, seized by them during James’ reign; to
pay £170,000 damages to the East India Company; and to give to the
heirs of those massacred at Amboyna (p. 253) during the same reign a
sum amounting to near £4000, together with a compensation of nearly
£100,000 to English traders to the Baltic. With the Danes (July, 1654)
and with the Swedes (April, 1654) the protector had also concluded
treaties favourable to the interests of English merchants, Portugal,
long in disgrace for harbouring Rupert’s fleet of privateers, had only
obtained a treaty by consenting both to refund the expenses incurred by
the English government in consequence of this unfriendly act, and also
to allow English merchants liberty of conscience to worship in chapels
of their own, and to have free use of Bibles and other Protestant books
throughout the Portuguese dominions.
%TEMPORARY DICTATORSHIP.%
So much for foreign affairs; at home the protector had made active use
of the powers granted him by the Instrument of Government. He had had
the right to make ordinances and impose taxes, with the assistance of
his council, until the meeting of Parliament. No less than eighty-two
ordinances had been passed. Amongst others were two for the reform of
the Church. The first empowered thirty-eight commissioners, a body
of laymen and ministers, commonly called ‘triers,’ to examine and
approve every person, whether presented by a patron, or in any other
way introduced to a living, before allowing him to take possession
(March 20th, 1654). The second appointed from fifteen to thirty
commissioners in every county to expel from their offices any ministers
or schoolmasters who set the people a bad example by neglecting their
duties, and passing their time in taverns, playing at cards and dice
(28th Aug). Cromwell’s principles of toleration, made him desirous of
uniting Protestant sects, and he named, as commissioners upon these
ordinances, Presbyterians, Independents, and Anabaptists. To their
political opinions he was indifferent, so long as he thought them the
right men to do the work required. Amongst them sat, not only Fairfax,
though now at heart almost a Royalist, but Republicans who were bitter
enemies of the protector. The great Presbyterian, Baxter, was a ‘trier’
himself, and, though he could never forgive Cromwell’s usurpation,
he admitted that good resulted from this reform. “And with all their
faults,” he says, “thus much must be said of these triers, that they
saved many a congregation from ignorant, ungodly, drunken teachers,
that sort of men who intend no more in the ministry than to patch a few
good words together to talk the people asleep on Sunday, and all the
rest of the week go with them to the alehouse and harden them in sin;
so that, though many of them were somewhat partial to the Independents,
Fifth-Monarchy men, and Anabaptists, many thousands of souls blessed
God for the faithful ministers whom they let in.”[206] By another of
his ordinances Cromwell reduced the costs of suits in Chancery by
simplifying the procedure and cutting down the fees of counsel and
solicitors, one of those acts which few subsequent governments have
been found strong enough to repeat.
%REFORM IN REPRESENTATION.%
A reform was carried out in the system of representation. This
reform had been proposed by the Republicans, and was laid down in
the Instrument of Government. In early times, when the Lower House
was summoned solely for the purpose of granting the king subsidies,
attention had naturally been paid to allotting members to places in
proportion to population and wealth. But, in the course of years,
inequalities appeared. Towns which returned members lost their trade,
and decreased in the number of their inhabitants, while unrepresented
villages became large and thriving cities. This evil was increased
by the practice of the princes of the Houses of Tudor and Stuart,
who, in order to maintain their authority in the Commons, created new
boroughs out of mere villages, which returned members according to
the directions of servants of the crown. Thus Elizabeth added sixty
members to the House of Commons, the loyalty of petty Cornish hamlets
being especially favoured in the distribution of these seats. An
inequality had from the first existed in the county representation,
since counties, however unequal in size, as Yorkshire and Rutland, had
always returned two members each. According to the reform now made, the
number of members returned for England and Wales was reduced from 500
to 400. The county members, or knights of shires, were increased to
261, Yorkshire returning twelve members, Essex thirteen, Warwickshire
four, and other counties in like proportion. A large number of
rotten boroughs, some of which contained only a few houses, were
disfranchised, while members were given to a few rising places, such as
Leeds, Manchester, and Halifax; 149 members were returned in all for
the towns and boroughs.[207] The county franchise, formerly confined
to freeholders possessed of lands or tenements to the annual value of
40s., was extended to any resident in the county, the capital value
of whose property, real or personal, amounted to £200.[208] As the
value of money now is one-fourth of what it was then, the constituency
was not as democratic as the present; when owners of freeholds of the
annual value of 40s., and occupiers of property of the rateable value
of £12, are qualified as county electors.[209]
%CROMWELL’S FIRST PARLIAMENT.%
The reformed Parliament was imperial, representative of the three
nations, thirty members being summoned to sit for Scotland, and thirty
for Ireland. Those who had borne arms against the Parliament since
1641 were rendered, by the Instrument of Government, incapable of
voting at elections for the present Parliament or the three following
triennial Parliaments. This disfranchised not only the Royalists, but
some of the Presbyterians, who had joined in Hamilton’s invasion,
or in that led by Prince Charles. The House, however, contained
many Presbyterians, besides Republicans and others opposed to the
government. These proceeded to debate the question whether they should
approve the government by a single person and a Parliament; in other
words, to attack the Instrument of Government by authority of which
they, as well as the protector, ruled. More than a week had been spent
upon this subject of debate, when Cromwell summoned the members to the
Painted Chamber, and there informed them that he was in possession
of the government by a good right from God and man; by Divine right,
because it was by his hand that God had saved the nation; by human
right, because they had come to sit there in virtue of his writ, and,
therefore, could not call in question the authority by which the
Parliament itself existed. They would now, before again entering the
House, be required to sign their names to an engagement to be true and
faithful to the lord protector and Commonwealth, and not to propose
or consent to any alteration of the government as it was settled in
one person and a Parliament (Sept. 12th, 1654). Though this engagement
eliminated a hundred members who refused to sign it and so lost their
seats, the enemies of the government still maintained a majority in
the House, which did not offer the protector either the money bills
necessary for the support of the army, or any others for his consent.
Accordingly, as soon as five months were spent, the length of session
required by the Instrument of Government, Cromwell did not delay a day
in dissolving the Parliament. “Divisions and discontent,” he told the
members, “which, like briars and thorns, had nourished themselves under
their shadow, had been more multiplied during the five months they had
sat than in some years before.... I bless God I have been inured to
difficulties, and I never found God failing when I trusted in Him. I
can laugh and sing in my heart when I speak of these things to you or
elsewhere. And though some may think it is an hard thing to raise money
without Parliamentary authority upon this nation, yet I have another
argument to the good people of this nation, if they would be safe, and
yet have no better principle--whether they prefer the having of their
will, though it be their destruction, rather than comply with things of
necessity? That will excuse me. But I should wrong my native country to
suppose this” (Jan. 22nd, 1655).
%ROYALIST RISINGS.%
The divisions existing between the Parliament and the protector gave
courage to his enemies to plot murder and insurrection, whether these
were Royalists on the one hand, or Levellers and Fifth-Monarchists on
the other. The best of the Republicans--men such as Vane, Ludlow, and
Hutchinson--refused to join in conspiracies of which the success was
doubtful, while they scorned the thought of resorting to assassination
as a means to overthrow the government. Several conspiracies, however,
were formed in England and Scotland, but were nipped in the bud by
the timely seizure and imprisonment of the ringleaders. Wildman, a
Leveller, and member of the late Parliament, was seized sitting at
his table, and dictating a declaration against ‘The tyrant, Oliver
Cromwell, Esq.’ Several plots were laid against the protector’s life,
‘little fiddling things,’ as he once called them. In March partial
risings of the Royalists took place in several counties. A body of 200
Cavaliers rode into Salisbury in the middle of the night, and seized
the persons of the judges who had come to hold the assizes (10th March,
1655). The townspeople, however, refused to compromise themselves by
offering the insurgents any support. The town crier, being ordered by
Penruddock, their leader, to proclaim Charles Stuart at the Market
Cross, “made ‘O Yes’ (Oyez) four times, but still, when Penruddock
said, ‘Charles the Second, king,’ he stopped, though much beaten by
them, and said he could not say that word, though they should call for
faggots and burn him presently.” Within twenty-four hours of their
arrival, the Cavaliers were obliged to ride hastily out of the town,
in order to avoid meeting the protector’s troops. The insurgents were
overtaken and dispersed, and above fifty taken prisoners, among whom
were their leaders, Penruddock and Grove. The prisoners were regularly
tried by jury for treason. Of those condemned, seventeen were executed;
others transported to the Barbadoes, and their services as slaves sold
to the English planters there for a period of five years.[210] No
Republicans or Levellers were brought to trial.
%ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT.%
Cromwell, who had intimated not obscurely to his Parliament that
rather than suffer his government to be overturned he would resort to
arbitrary measures, now carried his threat into execution, with the
determination to keep up the army and with it maintain order at any
cost. He continued to enforce ordinances made in council, which the
Instrument of Government had only granted him power of making until
the meeting of his first Parliament. Thus he passed an ordinance for
the continuation of the monthly assessment of £60,000 for the support
of the army. Of his sole authority he imposed on Royalists, whose
estates exceeded the worth of £100 per annum, an income tax of ten per
cent., and this whether they had been engaged in the late risings or
not.
♦Major-Generals.♦ He divided England into eleven districts, over each
of which he placed in command a major-general, with power to call out
the county militia for the enforcement of his orders (Aug., 1655).
These major-generals were, in fact, military governors, who encroached
on the duties of the ordinary justices of the peace and other civil
authorities, and acted at once as judges and police officers. There
was no appeal from their decisions, except to the protector and his
council. They received instructions to suppress tumults and rebellion,
to see that Papists and Royalists had no arms in their possession, to
collect the income-tax imposed upon Royalists, to arrest and imprison
suspected persons, to aid in ejecting scandalous ministers, to suppress
horse races, cock-fightings, bear-baitings, and other sports at which
the disaffected collected.
Some of the chief men in the army, as Fleetwood, Skippon, and
Desborough, held office as major-generals. They do not seem to have
abused the power entrusted to them, though no doubt they carried out
Cromwell’s instructions to the full, exacted the last penny of the
income tax from Royalists, and required Royalist justices of the peace,
mayors, and sheriffs, to make way for men friendly to the government.
A severe ordinance was issued, forbidding any to take into their
families ejected Episcopalian ministers as chaplains or schoolmasters
(Jan., 1656). Many Royalists and Republicans, known malcontents, were
imprisoned, or forced to confine themselves to one place of abode. The
movements of both Vane and Ludlow were at one time or another thus
placed under restraint. An order of council was issued that no paper
should be published without permission from the Secretary of State; and
all but two, out of eight, weekly papers were suppressed (Sept., 1655).
Whether we admit, or not, the ‘tyrant’s plea, necessity,’ we must not
fail to mark the difference of motive that caused Charles and Cromwell
to exercise arbitrary government. Charles imposed taxes without consent
of Parliament, and committed men illegally to prison, in order to
break the spirit of the people, and convert a constitutional into an
absolute monarchy. Cromwell really taxed the country for the country’s
good, because his own government was all he saw able to stand between
anarchy on the one side and the loss of freedom of conscience on the
other. History will always judge by very different standards the
arbitrary acts that break up an existing order and those which restore
order out of disorder. The king who tries to make slaves of a free
people has none of the excuses of one on whose shoulders has fallen the
herculean task of remaking a nation out of the chaos of a revolution.
Cromwell was marked out as the pilot to steer the storm-tossed State
into port, and nothing would induce him to quit the helm. “I can sooner
be willing,” he said, “to be rolled into my grave and buried in infamy
than I can give my consent unto [it].”
%TREATMENT OF CONSPIRATORS.%
Hence, unlike Charles, Cromwell never resorted to arbitrary measures,
until either his government or his life were in real danger, and then
he was never cruel; the imprisonments he inflicted were generally
short; he never sought the ruin of his adversary. He counselled his
son, Henry, when commanding in Ireland, not to let the discontent of
some make too much impression upon him. “Time and patience may work
them to a better frame of spirit, and bring them to see that which for
the present seems to be hid from them; especially if they shall see
your moderation and love towards them, if they are found in other ways
towards you.”
%COMPARATIVE CLEMENCY.%
Tyrants who have been raised by an army to a throne have often proved
themselves the most suspicious of mankind. But the protector’s nature
remained as generous and trustful as it had been in his earlier years,
when none grudged the quiet country gentleman his life. He only took
a few necessary precautions for his safety by looking closely after
his guards, and letting a report spread that he wore a mail coat
under his clothes. So far, indeed, did he seem removed from personal
feelings of fear and revenge, that he would pass over insulting words
and even outbursts of deadly hatred, as though they concerned him
not, so long as he preserved his power intact. When he imprisoned
men without showing legal cause, he had good reason to suspect their
intentions. Republicans, Levellers, Anabaptists, even those of them
who sought his life, he always looked upon as friends estranged rather
than as enemies. A lesser man might have freed himself from the charge
of tyranny, and at the same time made his own life more secure, by
bringing traitors to the gallows, for there is little doubt Cromwell
had evidence enough if he had chosen to use it. A true tyrant, still
more one who was conscious he had deserted the cause to which he
was first engaged, would have been slow to deal leniently with old
Republican friends, whose conduct might have seemed as a perpetual
reproach to his own. But of all the Levellers, Fifth-Monarchists,
or Anabaptists, who conspired against the protector’s life or
government, only one suffered by the hand of the executioner.[211]
Sexby, a Leveller, died in prison, but he was a fanatic who plotted
with Royalists to take the protector’s life, and sent to England some
“strange engines to that purpose.”[212] Though towards Royalists
less mercy was shown, they admitted themselves that their condition
was greatly improved from the time of the dissolution of the Long
Parliament. A committee of officers restored to their Royalist owners,
estates unjustly sequestered, and inflicted condign punishment on false
informers.[213] In matters of life and death too, Royalists received
far more lenient treatment. Not nearly so many Royalist conspirators
were put to death by Cromwell as by the Republicans, and a High Court
of Justice, which he occasionally erected, never convicted any but
undoubted traitors.[214]
%IMPARTIAL JUSTICE.%
Cromwell’s government, even whilst arbitrary, was in many respects
conciliatory. No oaths of allegiance were required to be taken to it,
and none but those who conspired against it were shut out from holding
office in the State. The protector, in fact, endeavoured to obtain for
the service of his country the most able of her sons without inquiring
too closely into their political antecedents. The Republican, Admiral
Blake, still remained in command of the fleet. Milton continued in the
post of foreign secretary. Lockhart, the English ambassador in France,
was a Royalist and a Scotchman. The judges appointed by Cromwell were
not partisans of his own, who might be ready to wrest the law to serve
his will, but incorruptible men, of all parties, who dared administer
the laws impartially, not only between subject and subject, but between
the subject and the government. Sir Matthew Hale, the chief justice,
refused obedience to the Lord Protector himself, when he would once
have interfered in the trial of a criminal case; and there is no doubt
that the men appointed to office by Cromwell and the Republicans
introduced many beneficial reforms into the administration of the
law.[215]
%CRIMINAL CODE.%
It was possible for the judges gradually to modify the procedure of
the courts, where it was dependent only upon custom and precedent;
but for a thorough reform of the law itself, the interference of
the legislature was necessary. Cromwell was desirous of reforming
the anomalies and harshness of the criminal code, as well as the
dilatoriness and expense of the civil code. The object of punishment
is the protection of society, the primary object being to deter men
from committing criminal acts, the secondary object to act beneficially
on opinion, and so remove the motives to criminal acts. To deter
criminals, the main requirement is not that the penalty should be
terrible, but that it should be inevitable. To act beneficially on
opinion, it is necessary that the punishment should be approved as just
by the general judgment of the community. A criminal code that lags
behind the humanity of the age to which it belongs not only fails in
acting on opinion, but often defeats its primary end as a deterrent.
The criminal either escapes unpunished, because his jury, contrary to
evidence, refuses to find a verdict of guilty; or if he does go to
the gallows, he dies an object of sympathy rather than of abhorrence.
“There are wicked and abominable laws,” Cromwell said to his first
Parliament, “which it will be in your power to alter. To hang a man
for six-and-eightpence, and I know not what; to hang for a trifle,
and acquit murder--is in the ministration of the law, through the
ill-framing of it. I have known in my experience abominable murders
acquitted. And to see men lose their lives for petty matters, this is a
thing God will reckon for. And I wish it may not lie upon this nation a
day longer than you have an opportunity to give a remedy, and I hope I
shall cheerfully join with you in it.” To effect a reform of the law,
it was necessary to secure the co-operation of the lawyers. Lawyers,
however, were averse to changes which were often hurtful to their
pecuniary interests, or contrary to the prejudices of their profession.
It was not without difficulty that they were brought to submit to
the protector’s Ordinance for the Reform of Chancery. A rule of but
five years was too short to carry out reforms in the face of a most
influential profession, which was strongly represented in Parliament.
“The sons of Zeruiah,” as Cromwell once said, “were too strong for
him.” Had his life lasted twenty years instead of five, he might have
done as great wonders as a social reformer and legislator as he did as
a ruler and administrator.
Nor were his interests merely practical. Though not learned himself,
Cromwell both honoured and rewarded learning in others. He asked one
Royalist, a celebrated scholar, Meric Casaubon, to write an impartial
history of the civil war; to the Royalist philosopher, Hobbes, was
offered the post of secretary in his household; he put men of ability
at the head of the universities, and founded a new university at Durham.
Though the protector always kept up fitting state as ruler of England,
his court at Whitehall was neither luxurious nor extravagant. His
very enemies confessed “he had much natural greatness, and well became
the place he had usurped.” Nor did foreign ambassadors ever find him
less than the peer of kings in the dignity of his bearing or the
manner of their entertainment. Equal, however, to every occasion, the
protector could unbend at times. “He would sometimes,” says one of his
councillors, “be very cheerful with us, and laying aside his greatness,
he would be exceeding familiar with us, and by way of diversion, would
make verses with us, and every one must try his fancy; he commonly
called for tobacco, pipes, and a candle, and would now and then take
tobacco himself; then he would fall again to his serious business.”
%RELIGIOUS TOLERATION.%
Cromwell treated religious opponents in the same liberal spirit as
political. But for the intolerance of the people, he would have allowed
Catholics the public exercise of their worship. At one time he even
formed a project of allowing a Catholic bishop to reside in England,
and preside over the English Catholics. The severe ordinance he framed
at one time against Episcopalians was only enforced as long as they
were engaged in fomenting insurrection. Episcopalians preached publicly
in London and in the country, and both Catholics and Episcopalians were
left unmolested in their private worship.[216] No oath of fidelity to
the government was imposed upon ministers; and the church was made
wide enough to admit to her livings Presbyterians, Independents, and
Anabaptists. “If a man of one form,” said Cromwell, addressing one of
his Parliaments, “will be trampling upon the heels of another form,
I will not suffer it in him. But God give us hearts and spirits to
keep things equal. Which truly I must profess to you hath been my
temper. I have had some boxes and rebukes on the one hand and on the
other; some censuring me for Presbytery, others as an inletter to all
the sects and heresies of the nation. I have borne my reproach, but
I have, through God’s mercy, not been unhappy in hindering any one
religion to impose upon another.[217]... Here is a great deal of truth
among professors, but very little mercy. When we are brought into the
right way, we shall be merciful as well as orthodox, and we know who
it is that saith, ‘If a man could speak with the tongues of men and
angels, and yet want that, he is but sounding brass and a tinkling
cymbal.’” The Republicans had passed a law for the punishment of
blasphemous opinions; any person who said he was God, who taught that
swearing, drunkenness, and murder are as holy and righteous as prayer,
preaching, and thanksgiving, was for the first offence to suffer six
months’ imprisonment: for the second, to abjure the dominions of the
Commonwealth, and in case of return to suffer death as a felon (Aug.,
1650). If the enumeration of such opinions shows the prevalence of
strange fancies in that revolutionary time, their prohibition shows how
little the framers had learnt of the distinctions between the spheres
of law and of public opinion. Though a merciful law as compared with
that passed by the Presbyterians,[218] it was not in accordance with
the professed principles of its framers. With a large Presbyterian
element in it, Cromwell’s Parliament was not likely to be more tolerant
than the Rump. The plain-spoken protector exhorted them to moderation.
“What greater hypocrisy,” he says, “than for those who were oppressed
by the bishops to become the greatest oppressors themselves, as soon
as their yoke was removed?” There were several sects whose doctrines
gave offence, and whom Cromwell could with difficulty save from
suffering under the intolerance of men whose watchword had once been
‘liberty of conscience.’
♦The Quakers.♦ The Quakers, for instance, were at this time special
objects of persecution. Lord Say-and-Sele, a supporter of the
Independents, turned some of his tenants, who held Quaker opinions,
out into the streets. Their peculiar doctrines, that it is wrong
under any circumstances to go to war or to take an oath, excited
much indignation, and they often brought suffering upon themselves
by pressing their views out of season. George Fox, the founder of
the sect, went into churches and contradicted the teaching of the
ministers, into markets and exhorted traders to sell fairly, into inns
and bade drunkards reform their lives.
♦Fanatics.♦ Vain enthusiasts, men half deceivers, half deceived, copied
the example of Fox, and went about the country preaching, pretending
to work miracles, and calling themselves inspired by the Spirit of
God. Some dozen men and women believed that the Spirit of Christ dwelt
in an old soldier called James Naylor, as it had never dwelt in any
other man before. These walked by his side as he rode into Bristol,
strewing garments in his path, and shouting, ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord
God of Israel.’ One woman declared that she had been restored to life
by him, after having been two days dead. The protector merely confined
the wilder fanatics until they promised to keep quiet and give up
working miracles. But his Parliament was far less merciful, and but
for its timely dissolution, would have passed an act shutting out
Quakers and several other sects from toleration.[219] Cromwell wished
to allow even the Jews a legal residence in the country, though they
had been banished from England for four hundred years; and a conference
was held in London between some citizens, lawyers, and clergymen, and
some Jews of Amsterdam. The divines, however, objected to admitting
the unbelievers; the citizens were divided in their opinions; and the
conference closed without coming to any decision on the point.[220]
The protector afterwards of his own authority permitted several Jews
to reside in London, where they built a synagogue and worshipped
without molestation. In regard to toleration, indeed, Oliver’s views
were so far in advance of those generally held in his time, that they
were treated as a subject for apology rather than for praise, even by
friends and admirers. “It is true, his heart being tender to all,”
writes one, “especially such as were peaceable, he did not use that
severity ordinarily towards the Quakers, or others of that mind, as was
by some expected. But what other considerations did therein sway him to
so much lenity, I cannot tell, neither is it fit for every one to know,
much less to judge; but this we know, that he was merciful to all.”[221]
%UNION WITH SCOTLAND.%
In Scotland, as in England, order was established under the protector’s
government; justice fairly administered; liberty of conscience ensured.
♦Union of England and Scotland.♦ Both the Republicans and Cromwell
desired to incorporate the two countries under the same government, and
thus prevent a recurrence of the Scotch invasions of England, which
had occurred twice within five years. The Republicans were deprived of
power before they had carried out their purpose; but Cromwell passed an
ordinance, which was confirmed by his second Parliament, establishing
the union of England and Scotland (April 12, 1654). This union lasted
till the Restoration, when there was again a separation till the union
was finally effected in the reign of Anne, when it was sanctioned by
the consent of both nations (1707). At the time of the Commonwealth,
the national antipathy was so strong that, whatever the advantages of
union, the Scots would not voluntarily have consented to abandon their
independent government. Being, however, a conquered people, they were
forced to submit to the will of their masters; and thirty members for
Scotland were summoned to sit in each of the protector’s Parliaments.
The executive was administered in Scotland by General Monk, assisted
by a Council of State, of which, out of nine members, only two were
Scotchmen. The army was gradually raised to a force of 20,000 men, and
the country heavily taxed for its maintenance.
The union, though so much disliked by the Scots, conferred upon them
several undoubted benefits: freedom of trade with England, a boon
unprecedented at that time; the abolition of feudal tenures, which had
kept the Scotch people in a state of almost servile dependence upon
their lords; a pure administration of justice; security not only from
the plundering raids of the Highlanders, but also from the still more
destructive strife of factions. For under it the two hostile camps of
Presbyterians--those that owned and those that disowned Charles’ right
to the throne--were forced to live in peace together. Four Englishmen,
assisted by three Scotchmen, were appointed to go on circuits and
administer justice in place of the Scotch Court of Session, which was
exceedingly corrupt. Their fairness was long remembered: “Deil thank
them, a wheen (pack of) kinless loons,” said a Scotch judge of the next
century, when reminded of their impartiality. “During this period,”
says Burnet, himself a Scotchman, “Scotland was kept in great order;
there was good justice done, and vice was suppressed and punished; so
that we always reckon on those eight years of usurpation as a time of
great peace and prosperity.”
%SETTLEMENT OF IRELAND.%
♦Ireland. Act of Settlement.♦ The Republicans in the Rump, while still
in office, had passed a severe law for the settlement of Ireland. They
had not entertained the idea of reconciling the Irish to English rule,
regarding it as impossible that men who were Catholics and Royalists
should ever give willing submission to a government carried on by
Sectarians and Republicans. The Irish were accordingly treated as a
conquered people. In the course of the Irish war, two and a half
millions of acres in Ireland had been pledged to the “adventurers,”
who lent the Long Parliament money on the assurance that, when Ireland
was subdued, they should be repaid with interest out of the lands
forfeited by the rebels. In order to satisfy these State creditors, the
act of settlement had dealt hard measure to Irish landholders, A free
pardon was granted to the mass of the people, to husbandmen, ploughmen,
labourers, artificers, and others of inferior sort, not possessed of
lands or goods above the value of £10. All engaged in the massacre of
1641 were exempted from pardon of life or estate. So many, however,
of the original rebels were either dead or undetected, that sufferers
under this clause numbered only about two hundred.[222] Those who,
though not engaged in the massacre, had fought against the Parliament
in the war that followed, were to forfeit two thirds of their estates,
and to receive lands to the value of the remaining third in such other
parts of the country as the government should think fit to appoint.
Those who had not favoured the cause of the Parliament were to forfeit
one third of their estates, and to be assigned lands elsewhere to the
value of the remaining two-thirds (Aug., 1652). The barren and boggy
province of Connaught, laid desolate by the late war, was reserved for
division amongst these ejected Irish landowners. In this province,
they would have the Shannon as a barrier to prevent their attacking
the newcomers, and settled there it was not likely that they could
ever succeed again in overpowering the Protestant population. The
lands thus taken from the Irish were granted to the ‘adventurers,’ and
to soldiers who had fought in Ireland, and whose pay was in arrears
(1653). A strong Protestant army, maintained in the country, compelled
submission. Fleetwood, commander-in-chief of the forces in Ireland,
Ludlow, lieutenant-general of the horse, and three other officers
were appointed by the Republicans as commissioners to conduct the
government. Their government was distinguished by its severity; they
refused to allow Catholics the exercise of their worship in public or
in private, and forbade them to live in a garrison town, to possess
arms, or to travel without a licence. Priests and Jesuits found in
the country were declared traitors, and the celebration of the mass
was made a capital offence. This persecution is said to have been
maintained for two years (1653-4).
%CROMWELL’S IRISH POLICY.%
The protector summoned thirty members for Ireland, to sit in each
of his Parliaments. Fleetwood returned to England in 1655, and the
government was entrusted by Cromwell to his second son, Henry, first
as commander-in-chief of the army, and afterwards as Lord Deputy. The
young man inherited some of his father’s capacity for government, and
Ireland prospered under his administration. He treated the Irish more
mercifully than the Republican commissioners, and even saved some
families from the terrible transportation into Connaught. He treated
all religious parties with moderation, and refrained from persecuting
Catholics. Absolute freedom of trade was granted, and all manufactures
were encouraged, so that the country soon assumed a flourishing aspect,
in spite of the desolation caused by the late war. “There were many
buildings,” says the Royalist Hyde, “raised for beauty as well as use,
orderly and regular plantations of trees and fences, and enclosures
raised throughout the kingdom, purchases made by one from another at
very valuable rates, and jointures made upon marriages, and all other
conveyances and settlements, executed as in a kingdom at peace within
itself, and where no doubt could be made of the validity of titles.”
FOOTNOTES:
[203] Defensio Secunda (Godwin, iv. 20).
[204] Carlyle, iii. 222.
[205] Carlyle, iii. 84.
[206] Baxter, Life, 69.
[207] There had been 400 members for towns, 100 for counties (p. 2).
[208] After the Restoration (1660) the old system of representation was
restored, and no reform was made until 1832.
[209] Reform Act, 1867, by which county votes were also given to owners
of property other than freehold of the annual value of £5; and borough
votes to all ratepaying householders, and even to lodgers who have
occupied for a year rooms of the annual value of £10.
[210] This early form of transportation or penal servitude was first
introduced by the Long Parliament, who applied it to some of the Scotch
prisoners taken after the defeat of Hamilton at Warrington in 1648.
Such treatment seems quite indefensible when applied to prisoners of
war: insurgents are even now liable to the treatment of convicts, but
the substitution of private masters instead of the State is an outrage
to sentiment.
[211] The contrast of Bonaparte’s conduct may enable us to appreciate
more fully Cromwell’s magnanimity. Bonaparte had also for enemies
two implacable parties, Jacobins and Royalists. As he was driving
to the opera an attempt was made to kill him by blowing up a barrel
of gunpowder close to his carriage. The plot had been laid by the
Royalists, and two of the assassins were brought before a court of
justice, condemned, and executed. Bonaparte, however, though he knew
the contrary, affected to believe that the Jacobins were guilty, five
of whom lost their lives by sentence of a military commission, while
300 others were transported. Cromwell’s government by major-generals
for a year and a half, may again be contrasted favourably with the
present French government, which keeps half France under martial law
for more than three years because of a revolt of the capital.
[212] Clarendon State Papers, iii. 311.
[213] “On Saturday last, Faulkener, one of the Lord Craven’s accusers,
was condemned to the pillory for perjury; it is believed his lordship
will have his estates cleared and the purchaser to be satisfied with
other lands; here be many others that hope for right in the like case;
some interpret this favour (for here it is a great one to have justice)
as an inclination to oblige the royal party, but such plausible things
could never be more seasonable” (27th May, 1653). “The committee of
officers have restored several parties to their estates with reparation
for what is past. Sir John Stowel is out of prison upon bail, and many
such plausible things are done to stroke the poor easy Cavalier” (3rd
June, 1653).--Royalist letters of intelligence among MS. Clar. Papers
in Bodleian.
[214] Godwin, iv. 34, 91, 357.
[215] “The practice of questioning juries for their verdicts, the
exclusion of oral testimony” [as was the case in Raleigh’s trial, see
p. 88], “and the use of torture, were wholly swept away during the
ten years which succeeded the death of Charles I., and were never
afterwards revived. Just and rational principles of evidence, sound
views of the object of penal laws, and of the proper means of enforcing
them, first sprang up during the early years of the Commonwealth. Under
the wise and moderate superintendence of such minds as Hale, Whitelock,
and Rolle, our judicial institutions underwent a total revision and
reform.”--Jardine’s Reading on the Use of Torture.
[216] Guizot, Hist. de Rep., 643; Neal, 74, 124; Evelyn’s Diary, passim.
[217] Carl., iii. 182.
[218] See p. 203.
[219] Neal, iv. 91.
[220] Godwin, iv. 249-300.
[221] King’s Tracts.
[222] Godwin, iv. 433.