Charles Harding Firth

“ Cromwell had not ceased to remind parliament of the necessity of establishing the toleration promised in the vote of September 1614. ‘Honest men served you faithfully in this action,’ he wrote after Naseby; ‘I beseech you not to discourage them. He that ventures his life for the liberty of his country, I wish he trust God for the liberty of his conscience and you for the liberty he fights for’ (Letter xxix.) ”

“ Thus at the very beginning of the conferences Cromwell plainly stated the reason which led to his final refusal of the title, but he had good reason for delaying the refusal itself. After so many experiments and failures, the petition and advice held forth a prospect of the long desired settlement. ‘I am hugely taken with the word settlement, with the thing, and with the notion of it,’ he told parliament. In the scheme in question the religious and civil liberties of the nation seemed to him to be fully secured. ”

“ It was willing to accept the government of a single person, but insisted on the subordination of that person to parliament. ‘The government,’ ran the formula of the opposition, ‘shall be in the parliament of the people of England, and a single person qualified with such instructions as the parliament shall think fit’ (Burton, Diary, i. xxv) . The co-ordinate and independent power attributed to the protector by the ‘instrument of government’ was thus denied, and Cromwell thought necessary to intervene to protect his own authority and the authority of the constitution itself. ”

“ Though he might despise insults, Cromwell could not despise the dangers with which this agitation threatened the Commonwealth. ‘You have no other way to treat these people,’ said he to the council, ‘but to break them in pieces; if you do not break them, they will break you’ (Lilburn, The Picture of the Council of State, p. 15) . His advice was followed, the leaders of the levellers were arrested, and the mutiny in the army swiftly and vigorously suppressed by himself and Fairfax (May 1649) . ”

“ Cromwell shared the general opinion of the army that a settlement could best be obtained by negotiation with the king. Whatever the world might judge of them, he said to Berkeley, they would be found no seekers of themselves, further than to have leave to live as subjects ought to do, and to preserve their consciences, and they thought that no men could enjoy their lives and estates quietly without the king had his rights (Maseres, Tracts, i. 360) . Accordingly he exerted all his influence to render the propositions of the army acceptable to the king ”

“ Just as the commons had appointed a committee to inquire into Manchester’s conduct, so the lords appointed one to inquire into that of Cromwell, and a quarrel between the two houses on the question of privilege was on the point of breaking out. Once more Cromwell drew back, for to press his accusation was to risk not only himself but also his cause. As in the case of Crawford, he abandoned his attack on the individual to concentrate his efforts on the attainment of the principle. The idea of the necessity of a professional army under a professional general had already occurred to others. ”

“ On the question of religion the declaration was equally explicit. Cromwell held that the catholic doctrine was poisonous and antichristian; that the catholic clergy were the chief promoters of the rebellion ; and that the catholic religion had no legal right to exist in Ireland. In conformity with these principles, the exorcise of the catholic worship was not to be suffered, and the laws against it strictly enforced against all offenders. Liberty of conscience in the narrowest sense of the term was left to the people. ‘I meddle not with any man’s conscience. ”

“ The causes of the war were the exclusiveness of Spanish colonial policy and the uncompromising character of Spanish catholicism. English traders in the American seas and English colonists in the West Indies were continual victims of Spain’s treacherous hostility. English merchants in Spanish ports were continually maltreated by the inquisition on account of their religion. For these injuries redress had been persistently denied, and Cromwell’s demand for freedom of trade and freedom of religion for English merchants was indignantly refused. ”

“ Scotland, impoverished by long wars, began now to revive under the influence of free trade and good government, and Cromwell dwelt with pride on the ‘thriving condition’ of the meaner sort and ‘the middle sort’, of people ‘in that country’ under his rule (Speech xiii.) Other ordinances regulated the interests of the adventurers for Irish lands, extended the privileges of the new colonists, and determined the representation of Ireland in the British parliament. In England itself Cromwell’s chief care was the reorganisation of the church. ”

“ In March 1644 Major-general Crawford cashiered a lieutenant-colonel on the ground that he was an anabaptist. ‘Admit he be,’ wrote Cromwell, ‘shall that render him incapable to serve the public ? Sir, the state in choosing men to serve it takes no notice of their opinions; if they be willing faithfully to serve it, that satisfies’ (Carlyle, Letter xx.) Manchester’s army was split into two factions—the presbyterians headed by Crawford, the independents headed by Cromwell, struggling with each other for the guidance of their commander. ”

“ The massacre of the Vaudois in the same April roused the sympathy and indignation of Cromwell. He declared that the misfortunes of the poor people of the Piedmontese valleys lay as near to his heart as if it had concerned the dearest relations he had in the world. He headed with a contribution of 2,000l. the national subscription raised for the sufferers. By the pen of Milton he called for the interference of all the protestant powers of Europe. He sent a special ambassador to bespeak the intervention of Louis XIV, and another to remonstrate with the Duke of Savoy. ”

“ Apart from the paramount necessity of preventing a new war, Cromwell had no sympathy with either the social or political aims of the levellers. He was tenaciously attached to the existing social order. ‘For the orders of men, and ranks of men, did not that levelling principle tend to the reducing of all to an equality? ”

“ Cromwell sent Cony’s lawyers to the Tower, replaced the doubting judges by men of fewer scruples, and enforced the payment of taxes by the agency of the major-generals. Necessity justified this in his own eyes and he believed that it would justify him in the eyes of the nation. ‘The people,’ he had said, when he dissolved his last parliament, ‘will prefer their safety to their passions, and their real security to forms, when necessity calls for supplies’ (Carlyle, Speech iv.) ”

“ When parliament met in January 1658, Cromwell’s party in the House of Commons was weakened by the promotion of many of his supporters to the upper house and the readmission of the members excluded during the first session. The Protector’s opening speech was full of confidence that the desired settlement was at last secure. He hailed the assembled members as the repairers of breaches and the restorers of paths to dwell in, the highest work which mortals could attain to in the world (Speech xvi. 20 Jan. 1658) . ”

“ The Dutch war led parliament to raise money from the royalists in the old fashion, and confiscation began again. The work of law reform stood stock still, and neither the propagation of the gospel nor liberty of conscience was provided for (Carlyle, Speech i.) To Cromwell and his officers it seemed that the duty of setting these things right rested on themselves. In 1652, as in 1647, they held that their successes had called them to govern and take care of the commonwealth and made them the guardians of the land (Religuiæ Baxterianæ, p. 99) . ”

“ From many a staunch Cromwellian outside the army letters and pamphlets against kingship reached the Protector (Nickolls, Letters addressed to Cromwell, pp. 139–43; Chidlby, Reasons against choosing the Protector to he King) . It became clear that to accept the crown would alienate the greater part of the army. Such a schism the Protector was extremely anxious to avoid. In his speech on 13 April he told the parliament that good men generally did not swallow the title, and urged them to comply with the weaknesses of men who had been faithful and bled for the cause. ”

“ The state in which Cromwell found the foreign relations of England in 1653 is described by him in his second speech. There were wars with Portugal and Holland, and open hostility with France and Denmark. The nation was fast sinking beneath the burden of taxation and the cessation of trade. In spite of the pressure of those who urged that perseverance in the war would bring Holland to complete submission, Cromwell signed on 5 April 1654 a peace with the States-General which provided security for English commerce and satisfaction for the losses of English merchants in the east. ”

“ With even greater anxiety he watched the increasing dissensions within the parliament, and the growing hostility of the city to the army. ‘We are full of faction and worse,’ he writes in August 1646; and in March 1647, ‘There want not in all places those who have so much malice against the army as besots them. Never were the spirits of men more embittered than now (Letters xxxviii, xliii.) Cromwell’s attitude at the commencement of the quarrel between the army and the parliament has been distorted by fable and misrepresentation. ”

“ On 5 June a petition from the city of London to the lords demanded that Cromwell should be sent to command the associated counties, and on 8 June Fairfax and his officers sent a letter to the commons asking that Cromwell might be continued in command of the horse, ‘being as great a body as ever the parliament had together in one army, and yet having no general officer to command them.’ It can hardly have been by accident that those who nominated the officers of the New Model had left vacant that post of lieutenant-general which the council of war thus proposed to fill. ”

“ Once more Cromwell intervened on behalf of the Vaudois, and by his influence with Mazarin seemed some amelioration of their condition. But this success was more apparent than real. In spite of all opposition another Austrian prince had been elected emperor, and Mazarin was already preparing to make peace with Spain. The war between Sweden and Denmark broke out again in August, and the ambition of Charles Gustavus brought Brandenburg and Holland to the aid of the Danes. A protestant league was impossible, because the protestant powers preferred to pursue their separate national interests. ”

“ It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon a supposition he may abuse it. When he doth abuse it, judge’ (Letter cxlviii.)
Once more he stated the conditions on which peace might be obtained. ‘Give the state of England,’ he wrote to the committee of estates, ‘that satisfaction and security for their peaceable and quiet living beside you which may in justice be demanded from a nation who have, as you, taken their enemy into their bosom whilst he was in hostility against them’ (Letter cl.) ”

“ The original plan of the parliamentary leaders had been to perpetuate the existence of the present parliament by following the precedent of 1646 and electing new members in the place of those dead or excluded. The resistance of Cromwell forced them to abandon this plan, and they then adopted a scheme which provided for a continuous succession of parliaments, each lasting two years, and one immediately succeeding another. From the army point of view there was little to choose between a perpetual parliament and perpetual parliaments. ”

“ In the mutual independence of parliament and protector, and the arrangement which made the Protector in some sense the guardian of the constitution against the parliament, lay the seeds of future difficulties. During the abeyance of parliament the Protector and council were empowered to make ordinances which had the force of law until parliament otherwise ordered, and Cromwell made a liberal use of this power. ”

“ Godly men had fought the people out of their bondage under the regal power, godly men were now called to rule them (Speech i.) Looking back on this constitutional experiment four years later, Cromwell confessed that the issue was not answerable to the simplicity and honesty of the design, and termed it a story of his weakness and folly (Speech xiii.) The reforming zeal of the Little parliament seemed likely to end in ‘the confusion of all things.’ The policy adopted by it on the ecclesiastical question was fundamentally opposed to the opinions of Cromwell on that point. ”

“ Cromwell sought to complete the league with France against the Spanish branch of the Hapsburgs by a league with Sweden against the Austrian branch. It was necessary to support Sweden in order to maintain the freedom of the Baltic and protect English trade thither. It was necessary also to stand up for the protestant cause against the league of the pope, Spain, and Austria to tread it under foot. ”

“ In equally vigorous language he refuted their claim to suppress dissent in order to suppress error. ‘Your pretended fear lest error should step in is like the man who would keep all wine out of the country lest men should be drunk. ”

“ Manchester’s Quarrel with Cromwell, 78) . Manchester replied by a narrative vindicating his generalship (Rushworth, v. 733–6) , and by bringing before the lords a countercharge against Cromwell for offensive and incendiary language on various occasions. His expressions were sometimes against the nobility; he said that he hoped to live to see never a nobleman in England. He had expressed himself with contempt of the assembly of divines, and said that they persecuted honester men than themselves. ”

“ The death of his favourite daughter, Elizabeth Claypoole (6 Aug. 1658) , and attendance on her during her illness seriously affected Cromwell’s own health. Even before his daughter’s death he had begun to sicken, and his illness finally developed into what was defined as ‘a bastard tertian ague.’ Early in August he was confined to his bed, but on the 20th George Fox met him riding at the head of his guards in Hampton Court park, and thought he looked like a dead man already (Fox, Journals, p. 195) . ”