[1654 A.D.]

(2) that the parliament should be successive, and not perpetual; (3) that neither protector nor parliament alone should possess the uncontrolled command of the military force; and (4) that liberty of conscience should be fenced round with such barriers as might exclude both profaneness and persecution. The other articles of the instrument were less essential; they might be altered with circumstances; and he should always be ready to agree to what was reasonable. But he would not permit them to sit, and yet disown the authority by which they sat.e

He went on: "I can sooner be willing to be rolled into my grave, and buried with infamy, than I can give my consent unto the wilful throwing away of this government, in the fundamentals of it! And therefore I must deal plainly with you. What I forbore upon a just confidence at first, you necessitate me unto now! Seeing the authority which called you is so little valued, and so much slighted-till some assurance be given and made known that the fundamental interest shall be settled and approved, according to the proviso in the writ of return, and such a consent testified as will make it appear that the same is accepted-I have caused a stop to be put to your entrance into the parliament house.

"I am sorry, I am sorry, and I could be sorry to the death, that there is cause for this. But there is cause. There is therefore somewhat to be offered to you: a promise of reforming as to circumstantials, and agreeing in the substance and fundamentals, that is to say, in the form of government now settled. The making of your minds known in that, by giving your assent and subscription to it, is the means that will let you in, to act those things as a parliament which are for the good of the people. The place where you may come thus and sign, as many as God shall make free thereunto, is in the lobby without the parliament door."

So much boldness in displaying his power, and in making indiscriminate use of force and right, truth and falsehood, in the assertion of his authority, struck all minds with stupor. Indignant, but powerless, the republican leaders, Bradshaw, Scott, and Haslerig, refused to give any pledge, and returned home again; and to the honour of the party, about a hundred and fifty members followed their example. But the majority of members either approved or submitted; on the very first day, a hundred and forty signed the required engagement; before the end of the month, more than three hundred had subscribed it, and the parliament resumed its labours. Cromwell manifested no ill-feeling towards the recusant members. On the 18th of September, in order to give an air of independence to their servility, the house converted the whole of Cromwell's recent conduct into a measure of their own, and resolved: "That all persons returned, or who shall be returned, to serve in this parliament, shall, before they be admitted to sit in the house, subscribe the recognition of the government-to be true and faithful to the lord protector, and not to propose, or give consent, to alter the government, as it is settled in one person and a parliament.' A disreputable artifice of a mutilated assembly, which falsely ascribed to itself an act of violence, in order to cover its humiliation by the lie!

A singular accident was well nigh causing the abrupt overthrow of the precarious edifice, so laboriously supported by the strong arm of one man. On the 29th of September, Cromwell had taken it into his head to dine in the open air, in Hyde Park, with Thurloe and some of his household; his carriage was harnessed with six Friesland horses which the duke of Oldenburg had sent him not long before; and he resolved to try, with his own hand, the mettle of these animals, "not doubting," says Ludlow, "but they would prove

[1634–1655 A.D.]

as tame as the three nations which were ridden by him." Thurloeh could not resist the desire to ride in a carriage driven by the protector, and so got inside. Cromwell, he says, "drove pretty handsomely for some time, but, at last, provoking the horses too much with the whip, they grew unruly"; the postilion was thrown; Cromwell fell from the coach-box upon the pole, and from the pole to the ground; his foot caught in the harness, and he was dragged along for a moment, but he quickly extricated himself, and the carriage passed on without touching him. During his fall, a pistol went off in his pocket, revealing, in the accidental danger which he had incurred, his secret precautions against the constant dangers by which he was surrounded. He was immediately taken up-as well as Thurloe, who had dislocated his ankle by jumping out of the carriage- and conveyed to Whitehall, where he was let blood, and remained confined to his room for nearly three weeks, during which time he received few visitors, and gave but little attention to business. The government newspapers made no allusion to the accident; those of the opposition merely mentioned the danger to which the protector had been exposed, without specifying its cause; the court poets celebrated his miraculous deliverance.1

Cromwell's real or apparent inactivity lasted much longer than his indisposition; for more than three months, he remained almost utterly unmoved and silent, as if his only intention were to watch and wait. Meanwhile parliament was discussing the constitution of the protectorate./

CROMWELL DISSOLVES THE PARLIAMENT (1655 A.D.)

The force so lately put on the parliament, and the occasion of that force, had opened the eyes of the most devoted among his adherents. His protestations of disinterestedness, his solemn appeals to heaven in testimony of his wish to lead the life of a private gentleman, were contrasted with his aspiring and arbitrary conduct; and the house, though deprived of one-fourth of its number, still contained a majority jealous of his designs and anxious to limit his authority. The accident which had placed his life in jeopardy naturally led to the consideration of the probable consequences of his death; and, to sound the disposition of the members, the question of the succession was repeatedly, though not formally, introduced. The remarks which it provoked afforded little encouragement to his hopes; yet, when the previous arrangements had been made, and all the dependants of the government had been mustered, Lambert, having in a long and studied speech detailed the evils of elective, the benefits of hereditary, succession, moved that the office of protector should be limited to the family of Oliver Cromwell, according to the known law of inheritance. To the surprise and the mortification of the party, the motion was negatived by a division of two hundred against eighty voices; and it was resolved that, on the death of the protector, his successor should be chosen by the parliament if it were sitting, and by the council in the absence of parliament. Cromwell, on his part, betrayed no symptom of impatience; but waited quietly for the moment when he had resolved to break the designs of his adversaries. They proceeded with the revision of the "instrument"; their labours were embodied in a bill, and the bill was read a third time. During two days the courtiers prolonged the debate by moving a variety of amendments; on the third Cromwell summoned the house to meet him in the Painted Chamber. Displeasure and contempt were marked [The cavaliers declared with better wit than prophesy that Cromwell's next fall would be from the end of a hangman's cart.]

[1655 A.D.] on his countenance; and the high and criminatory tone which he assumed taught them to feel how inferior the representatives of the people were to the representative of the army.

They appeared there, he observed, with the speaker at their head, as a house of parliament. Yet, what had they done as a parliament? He never had played, he never would play, the orator; and therefore he would tell them frankly, they had done nothing. For five months they had passed no bill, had made no address, had held no communication with him. But had they then done nothing? Yes: they had encouraged the cavaliers to plot against the commonwealth, and the levellers to intrigue with the cavaliers. By their dissension they had aided the fanatics to throw the nation into confusion, and by the slowness of their proceedings had compelled the soldiers to live at free quarters on the country. They supposed that he sought to make the protectorship hereditary in his family. It was not true; had they inserted such a provision in the "instrument," on that ground alone he would have rejected it. He spoke in the fear of the Lord, who would not be mocked, and with the satisfaction that his conscience did not belie his assertion. The different revolutions which had happened were attributed to his cunning. How blind were men who would not see the hand of providence in its merciful dispensations, who ridiculed as the visions of enthusiasm the observations "made by the quickening and teaching Spirit!" It was supposed that he would not be able to raise money without the aid of parliament. But "he had been inured to difficulties, and never found God failing when he trusted in him." But that he might trouble them no longer, it was his duty to tell them that their continuance was not for the benefit of the nation, and therefore he did then and there declare that he dissolved the parliament.

This was a stroke for which his adversaries were unprepared. The "instrument" had provided that the parliament should continue to sit during five months, and it still wanted twelve days of the expiration of that term. But Cromwell chose to understand the clause not of calendar but of lunar months, the fifth of which had been completed on the preceding evening. Much might have been urged against such an interpretation; but a military force was ready to support the opinion of the protector, and prudence taught the most reluctant of his enemies to submit.e

ROYALIST CONSPIRACIES AND CROMWELL'S DESPOTISM

The coalition of royalists and republicans to which Cromwell alluded was no fiction. The common hatred of him united them, and each hoped that when he was overthrown they would be able to subdue their allies and establish their own system. Some of the leading republicans, such as Colonel Overton and Major Wildman, entered into correspondence with the exiled king. Okey, Alured, Lawson, and Hacker, held consultations with Wildman, at which Marten and Lord Grey of Groby are said to have been sometimes present. Of the co-operation of Haslerig, Harrison, Carew, and some others, there seems to have been no doubt. The vigilance of the government, however, disconcerted all their plans. Overton was arrested and sent up from Scotland; Lord Grey, Harrison, and Carew, were committed to various prisons. Wildman was taken in the very act of dictating "The Declaration of the free and well-affected people of England, now in arms against the tyrant Oliver Cromwell, Esq." A part of Whitelocke's remarks on it are as follows: "Divers suspected their designs at the bottom in it to intend the bringing in of the king; because they conclude in their declaration for a truly free parliament, which

[1655 A.D.]

was the way for the king's restauration. And that began now to be held fit and requisite by many sober and faithful patriots, who were distasted at the private ambition of some and their domineering." He hints that he was himself of this way of thinking. We everywhere meet with proofs of the general wish for the restoration of the monarchy.

The general rising of the royalists had been fixed for the beginning of March (1655). Wilmot (now earl of Rochester) and Sir Joseph Wagstaff came over privately to take the command of them, and Charles himself with Ormonde and others moved from Cologne to Middelburg, to be ready to pass over to England. The wakeful eye of government, however, was on their projects, and the partial risings which they made in Yorkshire and the west were easily suppressed. Sir Henry Slingsby and Sir Richard Malever, who had been with Wilmot at the head of the former, were taken, but Wilmot himself escaped. In the west, Wagstaff being joined by Colonel Penruddock, Captain Grove, and about two hundred others, entered Salisbury on a Sunday night (March 11th), and seized in their beds the judges and the sheriff who were there to hold the assizes next day. In the morning Wagstaff prepared to hang them; but Penruddock and others, horrified at such barbarity, interposed so warmly that he consented to liberate them. The insurgents then proclaimed the king, but finding that none joined them, and that a reinforcement which they expected from Hampshire did not arrive, they retired and passed through Dorset into Devon, where they were attacked at South Molton by Captain Crooke, and routed. Wagstaff made his escape, the rest surrendered. Cromwell resolved to venture on trying them by jury, and as their guilt was manifest according to the existing laws, they were all found guilty. Grove and Penruddock were beheaded; some were hanged, others were pardoned; the remainder, without any regard to their station in life, were, in the usual way, shipped off for slaves to Barbadoes.

Hitherto Cromwell had been lenient to the royalists in the hopes of gaining them; of this he now despaired, and he resolved to keep measures with them no longer. A great number of noblemen and gentlemen were arrested; the Episcopalian clergy were forbidden to act as schoolmasters or tutors, or to use the church service either in public or private; priests were ordered to quit the kingdom under pain of death; cavaliers and papists were not to come within less than twenty miles of the city. He finally "decimated" the royalists, that is, imposed an annual income-tax of ten per cent. on all possessing £100 a year and upwards in land, or £1,500 in personal property, who had ever borne arms for the king, or declared themselves to be of the royal party. He thus openly trampled on the Act of Oblivion, which, when it suited his purpose, he had pressed on so strenuously. The reason he assigned was, that as, by their obstinately keeping themselves separate from the rest of the nation, they were a continual cause of danger, it was but just that they should be made to defray the expenses incurred in guarding against it.

For the collection of this tax, and for carrying into effect his other arbitrary measures, he divided England into eleven districts, over each of which he set a major-general. These officers were furnished with most extensive authority; they were empowered to raise troops, levy the taxes, disarm cavaliers and papists, inquire into the conduct of ministers and schoolmasters, arrest and imprison dangerous and suspicious persons. When to these we add the arbitrary system of general taxation continued or imposed, the high courts of justice, the interference with the functions of judges and advocates, we have a picture of despotism before which that of the Stuarts almost sinks into insignificance.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND NAVAL EXPEDITIONS

[1655-1656 A.D.]

We now turn to the foreign affairs of the protector's government. France and Spain, we have seen, were rivals for his favour. Of all the states of Europe, Spain was, perhaps, the one with which there was least ground of quarrel: it had given no countenance whatever to the royal family; it had been the first to acknowledge the commonwealth. But on the other hand, Cromwell was a zealous Protestant, and Spain was Catholic, and the chief seat of the Inquisition; and the gold and silver which it drew from America were, moreover, tempting to the protector's cupidity. He did not see why Spain should monopolise the wealth of an immense country, the innocent people of which she had so barbarously massacred, and treat as pirates the crews of all ships which were found in those latitudes. The Spanish court, meantime, aware that Cromwell was equipping a fleet, and fearing that it might be intended for the West Indies, sent the marquis of Leyda to London; but after staying there five months, he returned without having effected anything.

Cromwell had, in fact, prepared two fleets; the one of thirty sail under Blake had sailed in the preceding month of October (1655) to the Mediterranean, to exact reparation for injuries done to the English trade by the states around that sea. Blake first cast anchor before the port of Leghorn, and he made the duke of Tuscany and the pope pay 60,000l. for the injuries done to the English nation [in permitting Prince Rupert to sell in their ports three English merchantmen captured in 1650]. He then sailed to Algiers (March 10th, 1656), and required the dey to deliver up the English ships and men taken by his piratic subjects. Having received a conciliatory reply, he proceeded to Tunis, and made a similar demand; but the dey bade him destroy the castles of Goletta and Porto Forina, and his fleet, if he was able. Blake speedily silenced the fire of these castles, and then entered the harbour and burned nine ships of war that were lying there. He sailed thence to Tripoli, whose dey submitted at once to his demands. Having thus chastised these pirates, Blake returned to England.

The other fleet, which consisted of thirty sail, commanded by Admiral Penn, and carrying four thousand land forces under General Venables, sailed about the end of December for the West Indies,' with sealed orders. When they reached Barbadoes January 29th, they opened their instructions, and having enlisted and regimented a good number of those who had been sent thither as slaves, and thus raised their forces to nine thousand men, to which they added twelve hundred at St. Christopher's, they sailed to Haiti; but instead of entering the port of Santo Domingo at once (April 14th), when the town would probably have submitted, they landed the troops at a distance of forty miles from it. Here a mutiny broke out in consequence of commissioner Winslow's issuing a proclamation, stating, in Roman fashion, that all plunder should be public property. This being appeased by Venables, they advanced for three days under a burning sun, and living chiefly on unripe fruit, which caused diseases among the men. At length they joined a detachment which had landed within ten miles of the town. As they advanced they fell into an ambuscade; they drove off the enemy, but their success was of no avail, for the diseased condition of the troops made it necessary for them to fall back to the station of the detachment, where they remained for a week. When they

['Gardiner notes that the mundane spirit of conquest now revealed marks a turning point in the Puritan attitude, and in Cromwell's soul. He also thinks that, whatever the provocation, the act of sending a fleet to attack Spanish colonies previous to any declaration of war was highly dishonourable.]