The most notable contributions to the historical literature of England
during the year 1897 are two volumes by Samuel R. Gardiner: the Oxford
lectures, "Cromwell's Place in History," published in the spring; and
the second volume of "History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate,"
which appeared in the autumn. These present what is probably a new view
of Cromwell.
If one loves a country or an historic epoch, it is natural for the mind
to seek a hero to represent it. We are fortunate in having Washington
and Lincoln, whose characters and whose lives sum up well the periods in
which they were our benefactors. But if we look upon our history as
being the continuation of a branch of that of England, who is the
political hero in the nation from which we sprang who represents a great
principle or idea that we love to cherish? Hampden might answer if only
we knew more about him. It occurs to me that Gray, in his poem which is
read and conned from boyhood to old age, has done more than any one else
to spread abroad the fame of Hampden. Included in the same stanza with
Milton and with Cromwell, he seems to the mere reader of the poem to
occupy the same place in history. In truth, however, as Mr. Gardiner
writes, "it is remarkable how little can be discovered about Hampden.
All that is known is to his credit, but his greatness appears from the
impression he created upon others more than from the circumstances of
his own life as they have been handed down to us."
The minds of American boys educated under Puritan influences before and
during the war of secession accordingly turned to Cromwell. Had our
Puritan ancestors remained at home till the civil war in England, they
would have fought under the great Oliver, and it is natural that their
descendants should venerate him. All young men of the period of which I
am speaking, who were interested in history, read Macaulay, the first
volume of whose history appeared in 1848, and they found in Cromwell a
hero to their liking. Carlyle's Cromwell was published three years
before, and those who could digest stronger food found the great man
therein portrayed a chosen one of God to lead his people in the right
path. Everybody echoed the thought of Carlyle when he averred that ten
years more of Oliver Cromwell's life would have given another history to
all the centuries of England.
In these two volumes Gardiner presents a different conception of
Cromwell from that of Carlyle and Macaulay, and in greater detail. We
arrive at Gardiner's notion by degrees, being prepared by the reversal
of some of our pretty well established opinions about the Puritans.
Macaulay's epigrammatic sentence touching their attitude towards
amusements undoubtedly colored the opinions of men for at least a
generation. "The Puritan hated bear-baiting," he says, "not because it
gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators."
How coolly Gardiner disposes of this well-turned rhetorical phrase: "The
order for the complete suppression of bear-baiting and bull-baiting at
Southwark and elsewhere was grounded, not, as has been often repeated,
on Puritan aversion to amusements giving 'pleasure to the spectators,'
but upon Puritan disgust at the immorality which these exhibitions
fostered." Again he writes: "Zealous as were the leaders of the
Commonwealth in the suppression of vice, they displayed but little of
that sour austerity with which they have frequently been credited. On
his way to Dunbar, Cromwell laughed heartily at the sight of one soldier
overturning a full cream tub and slamming it down on the head of
another, whilst on his return from Worcester he spent a day hawking in
the fields near Aylesbury. 'Oliver,' we hear, 'loved an innocent jest.'
Music and song were cultivated in his family. If the graver Puritans did
not admit what has been called 'promiscuous dancing' into their
households, they made no attempt to prohibit it elsewhere." In the
spring of 1651 appeared the "English Dancing Master," containing rules
for country dances, and the tunes by which they were to be accompanied.
Macaulay's description of Cromwell's army has so pervaded our literature
as to be accepted as historic truth; and J. R. Green, acute as he was,
seems, consciously or unconsciously, to have been affected by it, which
is not a matter of wonderment, indeed, for such is its rhetorical force
that it leaves an impression hard to be obliterated. Macaulay writes:
"That which chiefly distinguished the army of Cromwell from other armies
was the austere morality and the fear of God which pervaded all ranks.
It is acknowledged by the most zealous Royalists that in that singular
camp no oath was heard, no drunkenness or gambling was seen, and that
during the long dominion of the soldiery the property of the peaceable
citizen and the honor of woman were held sacred. If outrages were
committed, they were outrages of a very different kind from those of
which a victorious army is generally guilty. No servant girl complained
of the rough gallantry of the redcoats; not an ounce of plate was taken
from the shops of the goldsmiths; but a Pelagian sermon, or a window on
which the Virgin and Child were painted, produced in the Puritan ranks
an excitement which it required the utmost exertions of the officers to
quell. One of Cromwell's chief difficulties was to restrain his
musketeers and dragoons from invading by main force the pulpits of
ministers whose discourses, to use the language of that time, were not
savory."
What a different impression we get from Gardiner! "Much that has been
said of Cromwell's army has no evidence behind it," he declares. "The
majority of the soldiers were pressed men, selected because they had
strong bodies, and not because of their religion. The remainder were
taken out of the armies already in existence.... The distinctive feature
of the army was its officers. All existing commands having been vacated,
men of a distinctly Puritan and for the most part of an Independent type
were appointed to their places.... The strictest discipline was
enforced, and the soldiers, whether Puritan or not, were thus brought
firmly under the control of officers bent upon the one object, of
defeating the king."
To those who have regarded the men who governed England, from the time
the Long Parliament became supreme to the death of Cromwell, as saints
in conduct as well as in name, Mr. Gardiner's facts about the members of
the rump of the Long Parliament will be an awakening. "It was
notorious," he records, "that many members who entered the House poor
were now rolling in wealth." From Gardiner's references and quotations,
it is not a strained inference that in subjection to lobbying, in
log-rolling and corruption, this Parliament would hardly be surpassed by
a corrupt American legislature. As to personal morality, he by
implication confirms the truth of Cromwell's bitter speech on the
memorable day when he forced the dissolution of the Long Parliament.
"Some of you," he said, "are whoremasters. Others," he continued,
pointing to one and another with his hands, "are drunkards, and some
corrupt and unjust men, and scandalous to the profession of the gospel.
It is not fit that you should sit as a Parliament any longer."
While I am well aware that to him, who makes but a casual study of any
historic period, matters will appear fresh that to the master of it are
well-worn inferences and generalizations, and while therefore I can
pretend to offer only a shallow experience, I confess that on the points
to which I have referred I received new light, and it prepared me for
the overturning of the view of Cromwell which I had derived from the
Puritanical instruction of my early days and from Macaulay.
In his foreign policy Cromwell was irresolute, vacillating and tricky.
"A study of the foreign policy of the Protectorate," writes Mr.
Gardiner, "reveals a distracting maze of fluctuations. Oliver is seen
alternately courting France and Spain, constant only in inconstancy."
Cromwell lacked constructive statesmanship. "The tragedy of his career
lies in the inevitable result that his efforts to establish religion and
morality melted away as the morning mist, whilst his abiding influence
was built upon the vigor with which he promoted the material aims of his
countrymen." In another place Mr. Gardiner says: "Cromwell's negative
work lasted; his positive work vanished away. His constitutions perished
with him, his Protectorate descended from the proud position to which he
had raised it, his peace with the Dutch Republic was followed by two
wars with the United Provinces, his alliance with the French monarchy
only led to a succession of wars with France lasting into the nineteenth
century. All that lasted was the support given by him to maritime
enterprise, and in that he followed the tradition of the governments
preceding him."
What is Cromwell's place in history? Thus Mr. Gardiner answers the
question: "He stands forth as the typical Englishman of the modern
world.... It is in England that his fame has grown up since the
publication of Carlyle's monumental work, and it is as an Englishman
that he must be judged.... With Cromwell's memory it has fared as with
ourselves. Royalists painted him as a devil. Carlyle painted him as the
masterful saint who suited his peculiar Valhalla. It is time for us to
regard him as he really was, with all his physical and moral audacity,
with all his tenderness and spiritual yearnings, in the world of action
what Shakespeare was in the world of thought, the greatest because the
most typical Englishman of all time. This, in the most enduring sense,
is Cromwell's place in history."
The idea most difficult for me to relinquish is that of Cromwell as a
link in that historic chain which led to the Revolution of 1688, with
its blessed combination of liberty and order. I have loved to think, as
Carlyle expressed it: "'Their works follow them,' as I think this Oliver
Cromwell's works have done and are still doing! We have had our
'Revolution of '88' officially called 'glorious,' and other Revolutions
not yet called glorious; and somewhat has been gained for poor mankind.
Men's ears are not now slit off by rash Officiality. Officiality will
for long henceforth be more cautious about men's ears. The tyrannous
star chambers, branding irons, chimerical kings and surplices at
Allhallowtide, they are gone or with immense velocity going. Oliver's
works do follow him!"
In these two volumes of Gardiner it is not from what is said, but from
what is omitted, that one may deduce the author's opinion that
Cromwell's career as Protector contributed in no wise to the Revolution
of 1688. But touching this matter he has thus written to me: "I am
inclined to question your view that Cromwell paved the way for the
Revolution of 1688, except so far as his victories and the King's
execution frightened off James II. Pym and Hampden did pave the way,
but Cromwell's work took other lines. The Instrument of Government was
framed on quite different principles, and the extension of the suffrage
and reformed franchise found no place in England until 1832. It was not
Cromwell's fault that it was so."
If I relinquish this one of my old historic notions, I feel that I must
do it for the reason that Lord Auckland agreed with Macaulay after
reading the first volume of his history. "I had also hated Cromwell more
than I now do," he said; "for I always agree with Tom Macaulay; and it
saves trouble to agree with him at once, because he is sure to make you
do so at last."
I asked Professor Edward Channing of Harvard College, who teaches
English History of the Tudor and Stuart periods, his opinion of
Gardiner. "I firmly believe," he told me, "that Mr. Gardiner is the
greatest English historical writer who has appeared since Gibbon. He has
the instinct of the truth-seeker as no other English student I know of
has shown it since the end of the last century."
General J. D. Cox, a statesman and a lawyer, a student of history and of
law, writes to me: "In reading Gardiner, I feel that I am sitting at the
feet of an historical chief justice, a sort of John Marshall in his
genius for putting the final results of learning in the garb of simple
common sense."