Oliver Cromwell

A further question which has been often mooted is whether Cromwell – whatever may be said on the purity of his motives – did not commit a blunder in respect of the interests of himself and his cause. If those who have discussed this problem mean that the attempt to establish a free government during Cromwell's lifetime was rendered more difficult by the execution of the King, it is hard to gainsay their opinion, though the estrangement of the bulk of the population from the new order, in consequence of the execution, is probably very much exaggerated. Those who, like the Cavaliers, had been mulcted of a portion of their estates had an additional reason for detesting a government which had used them so ill, and there must have been a certain number amongst the crowds who read the Eikon Basilike– the little book in which Charles's vindication of his life was supposed to have been written by his own hand – who were permanently affected by that sentimental production of Dr. Gauden. If, however, it is argued that Cromwell and his allies might possibly have succeeded in establishing a government to their taste if they had abstained from inflicting the last penalty on the King, it can only be answered that other causes made their success in the highest degree improbable. Their plans for the benefit of the people were on the one hand too far advanced to secure popular support; and, on the other hand, too defective in fair-play to their opponents to deserve it. Puritanism was not, and never could be the national religion, and though it made more enemies through its virtues than through its defects, those who strove to enforce its moral and social precepts needed a strong military force at their backs. The irritation caused by the interference of the army in religion and politics, and by the demands on the tax-payer which the maintenance of the army rendered necessary, would surely have been fatal to any government resting on such a basis, even if Charles had been suffered to prolong his days. If there remains any interest in Cromwell's career after the execution of the King it arises from his constantly renewed efforts to throw off this incubus, and his repeated failures to achieve his purpose.

CHAPTER IV.

THE LAST YEARS OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT

During the last weeks of Charles's life, the army, in co-operation with some of the Levellers, had drawn up an enlarged edition of The Agreement of the People, a task which was completed on January 15. In accordance with Cromwell's wish, this proposed constitution was laid before Parliament on the 20th for its approval, instead of being imposed on Parliament by a previous vote amongst the so-called well affected. Parliament being sufficiently busy at the time, laid the proposal aside with a few well-chosen compliments. The members had no wish to engage, at such a moment, in the uncertainties of a general election.

There can be little doubt that in this matter Parliament was instinctively in the right. That mutilated Assembly to which modern writers give the name of 'the Rump,' though no such word was employed by contemporaries till its reappearance on the scene some time after Cromwell's death, was in possession of the field. It now contented itself with proclaiming England to be a Commonwealth without King or House of Lords, and with electing an annually renewable Council of State to perform executive functions under its own control. The first political act of the sovereign Parliament was to order the execution of the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland, and Lord Capel, who, having taken the King's part in the last war, had been condemned by a High Court of Justice, similar to the one that had sent Charles to the block. For the moment the most serious danger to the young Commonwealth arose from the opposition of Lilburne and the Levellers, who, not content with asking, on the ground of abstract principles, for the immediate foundation of a democratic Republic in the place of the existing makeshift arrangement, extended their propaganda to the army itself, appealing to the private soldiers against the officers. Lilburne and three of his supporters were summoned before the Council. Lilburne, having threatened to burn down any place in which he might be imprisoned, was directed to retire. From the outer room he listened to the voices in the Council chamber. "I tell you, sir," said Cromwell, "you have no other way of dealing with these men but to break them, or they will break you; yea, and bring all the guilt of the blood and treasure shed and spent in this kingdom upon your heads and shoulders; and frustrate and make void all that work that, with so many years' industry, toil and pains you have done, and so render you to all rational men in the world as the most contemptiblest generation of silly, low-spirited men in the earth, to be broken and routed by such a despicable, contemptible generation of men as they are, and therefore, Sir, I tell you again, you are necessitated to break them." We can sympathise with Lilburne now in his desire to establish government by the people, to confirm individual right, and to restrain the commanders of the army from political power. Yet, after all, the practical necessities of the hour were on Cromwell's side.

It was not long before the mutinous spirit to which Lilburne appealed showed itself in the army. A regiment quartered at Salisbury refused obedience to its officers, and roamed about the country seeking for other bodies of troops with which to combine. Fairfax set out from London in chase, and on the night of May 14 Cromwell, by a forced march with his cavalry, overtook the mutineers at Burford. Three were executed, and the remainder submitted to the inevitable.

It was the more necessary to keep the army in hand, as there was renewed fighting in prospect. The eldest son of the late King, now claiming the title of Charles II., was about to make an effort to seat himself on his father's throne, and hoped, as his father had hoped before him, to have on his side the forces of Scotland and Ireland. For many years the problem of the relations between the three countries had been inviting a solution. Both Scotland and Ireland had social and political interests of their own, and the natural reluctance of the inhabitants of either country to see these merged in those of the wealthier and more numerous people of England would in any case have called for delicate handling. The rise for the first time of a powerful army in England made her relations with the two other countries even more difficult than before, and had contributed fully as much as zeal for Presbyterianism to the ridiculous scheme of re-establishing Charles I. as a covenanting King. After the defeat of Hamilton, indeed, Argyle and the Scottish clergy had welcomed Cromwell's support in the overthrow of the power of the nobility, but the dread of English predominance had not been entirely dispelled, and the King's execution added a sentimental grievance to other causes of alarm. In refusing to allow any English government to dispose of Scotland, the Scots were undoubtedly within their rights; but when on February 5 they proclaimed Charles II. not merely as King of Scotland, but as King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, they took up a position which no English government could allow to remain unchallenged, whilst in adding a condition that Charles was to be admitted to power only on his engagement to rule according to the National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant, they put forward the monstrous claim to control the religious development of England and Ireland, as well as of their own country.

The necessity – according to these conditions – of coming to an understanding with Charles, made Scotland little dangerous for the moment, and enabled the English Parliament to turn its attention to Ireland, to which Charles I. had looked hopefully after the failure of the Hamilton invasion. Ormond, who had formerly headed Charles's partisans in Ireland, now returned to that country as the King's Lord Lieutenant, and brought under his leadership, not only his old followers, but the army of the Confederate Catholics. Though Owen O'Neill, at the head of an army raised amongst the Celts of Ulster, kept aloof, the way seemed open for Ormond to attack Dublin, which was now guarded by a Parliamentary garrison under Michael Jones, and was almost the only place in Ireland still holding out for England. As in Scotland, so in Ireland, the question was not so much whether England was to win forcible mastery over those portions of the British Isles outside her borders, as whether they were to be used to determine the political institutions of England herself. The attacks on Ireland and Scotland, which were now to follow, were in a certain sense acts of defensive warfare.

To no man more than Cromwell was this thought present. An Englishman of Englishmen – his bitterest complaint against the late King had been that he had attempted to 'vassalise' England to a foreign nation, and when on March 15 he was named to the command, he explained to his brother officers the reasons which inclined him to accept the post. "Truly," he said, "this is really believed: – If we do not endeavour to make good our interest there, and that timely, we shall not only have our interest rooted out there, but they will, in a very short time, be able to land forces in England and put us to trouble here; and I confess I have these thoughts with myself that perhaps may be carnal and foolish: I had rather be overrun with a Cavalierish interest than a Scottish interest; had rather be overrun by a Scottish interest than an Irish interest, and I think of all this is most dangerous; and, if they shall be able to carry on their work, they will make this the most miserable people in the earth; for all the world knows their barbarism – not of any religion almost any of them, but, in a manner, as bad as Papists – and truly it is thus far that the quarrel is brought to this State that we can hardly return into that tyranny that formerly we were under the yoke of … but we must at the same time be subject to the kingdom of Scotland and the kingdom of Ireland for the bringing in of the King. Now it should awaken all Englishmen who perhaps are willing enough he should have come in upon an accommodation; but now he must come in from Ireland or Scotland."

In these words are revealed the convictions that dominated Cromwell's action at this period of his life. So far as it lay in him, he would never admit that Scotland, still less that Ireland, should impose a government upon England. On July 12 he set out for Ireland. Before he could embark he received the welcome news that Michael Jones had defeated Ormond at Rathmines, and that Dublin was consequently out of danger. When he landed at Dublin, his intention was, as soon as possible, to make his way into Munster and rally round him the Protestant colonists who formed a considerable part of the population of the towns on the coast. It was, however, necessary first to protect Dublin from an attack from the north, from which quarter Owen O'Neill, who, after long hesitation, had thrown in his lot with Ormond, was expected to advance. Accordingly, on September 1, Cromwell marched upon Drogheda, which was held for the King by a garrison of about 2,800 men, mainly composed of Irishmen, under Sir Arthur Aston. On the 10th Cromwell summoned the place, and on the refusal of the governor to surrender opened a cannonade on the south-eastern angle. It was impossible for the garrison – short of ammunition as it was – to hold out long, and on the second day, when a breach had been effected, Cromwell gave the word to storm. The assailants, though twice driven back, were, on the third attempt, successful. Aston, with about three hundred men, took refuge on a huge artificial mound, known as the Mill Mount. Angry at the prolonged resistance, Cromwell gave the word to put to the sword all who were in arms. The hasty word was ruthlessly obeyed, and some two thousand men were slaughtered in cold blood. There is no doubt that in what he did, Cromwell was covered by the strict law of war, which placed a garrison refusing surrender outside the pale of mercy; but the law had seldom been acted on in the English war, and it is permissible to doubt whether Cromwell would have acted on it on this occasion, if the defenders had been others than 'Irish Papists,' as he scornfully called them. The memory of the Ulster massacre of 1641, not merely as it really was, but accompanied by all the exaggerations to which it had been subjected by English rumour, was ever present to his mind, and he regarded every Irishman in arms, not as an honourable antagonist, but as either a murderer or a supporter of murderers.

Yet even Cromwell seems to have thought the deed deserving of excuse. "Truly," he wrote to Bradshaw, the President of the Council, "I believe this bitterness will save much effusion of blood through the goodness of God. I wish that all honest hearts may give the glory of this to God alone, to whom indeed the praise of this mercy belongs." "I am persuaded," he assured Lenthall, "that this is a righteous judgment of God upon those barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood, and it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which are the satisfactory grounds for such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse or regret."

Leaving a garrison behind him in Drogheda, Cromwell marched to the south by way of Wexford. There too a slaughter took place, though this time it was brought on by the act of the townsmen, who continued their resistance after the walls had been scaled. The story often repeated of the two or three hundred women killed in the market place is pure fiction, of which nothing is heard till after the middle of the eighteenth century. On the other hand, both at Drogheda and Wexford priests were put to death without mercy. Whether these cruelties, in the long run, rendered Irishmen more ready to submit to the invaders may be doubted, but they certainly made Cromwell's path easier whilst the terror spread by them was recent. Wexford fell on October 11. On the 17th Cromwell summoned New Ross. "I have this witness for myself," he wrote to the Governor, "that I have endeavoured to avoid effusion of blood – this being my principle that the people and the places where I come may not suffer except through their own wilfulness." Two days later he was asked whether he would grant liberty of conscience. "I meddle not," he answered, "with any man's conscience, but if by liberty of conscience, you mean liberty to exercise the mass, I judge it best to use plain dealing, and to let you know that where the Parliament of England have power that will not be allowed of." Cromwell's principle in Ireland was very much what Elizabeth's had been in England. Men might hold what religious opinions they pleased, but toleration was not to be extended to the Roman Catholic worship. The distinction may appear unjustifiable in the eyes of the present generation. It was perfectly familiar to the statesmen of the seventeenth century.

Before long Cromwell's hope of support from the Protestants in the south was amply justified. Cork was the first of the coast towns in Munster to rise in his favour, and others soon followed the example. Waterford, on the other hand, held out, being assisted by the winter rains. The first months of 1650 were employed in the reduction of towns further inland, such as Kilkenny and Clonmel, though the garrison of the latter place succeeded in making its escape. After the surrender of Clonmel Cromwell left Ireland, his services being required at home. Ireton, who remained behind as Lord Deputy, had nearly completed the conquest when he died in November 1651 of a disease caused by his devotion to the calls of duty, though the last fortified post did not surrender till April 1653.

Cromwell's reason for treating the Irish Roman Catholics with peculiar harshness may be gathered from a controversy in which he took part some time before he left the country. In December 1649 the Irish Prelates assembled at Clonmacnoise issued a Declaration in which they warned their flocks that Cromwell was bent on extirpating the Catholic religion, and could not effect his purpose 'without the massacring or banishment of the Catholic inhabitants'. They proceeded to point out that those who were spared by the sword were doomed to impoverishment, as by English Acts of Parliament already passed, 'the estates of the inhabitants of this kingdom are sold, so there remaineth now no more but to put the purchasers in possession by the power of forces drawn out of England, and for the common sort of people, to whom they show any more moderate usage at present, it is to no other end but for their private advantage, and for the better support of their army, intending at the close of their conquest, if they can effect the same – as God forbid – to root out the commons also, and plant this land with colonies to be brought hither out of England – as witness the number they have already sent hence for the Tobacco Islands – and put enemies in their place'. The Prelates concluded by declaring that, henceforth, clergy and laity would unite to defend the Church, the King and the nation.

In one part of this declaration the Prelates had referred to the English army as 'the common enemy'. "Who is it," asked Cromwell wrathfully in reply; "that created this common enemy? I suppose you mean Englishmen. The English! Remember, ye hypocrites, Ireland was once united to England; Englishmen had good inheritances, which many of them purchased with their money, they or their ancestors, from many of you and your ancestors. They had good leases from Irishmen for long time to come, great stocks thereupon, houses and plantations erected at their cost and charge. They lived peaceably and honestly amongst you; you had generally equal benefit of the protection of England with them, and equal justice from the laws – saving what was necessary for the State, upon reasons of State, to put upon some few people apt to rebel upon the instigation of such as you. You broke the union; you unprovoked put the English to the most unheard of and most barbarous massacre without respect of sex or age that ever the sun beheld, and at a time when Ireland was at perfect peace, and when, through the example of English industry, through commerce and traffic, that which was in the natives' hands was better to them than if all Ireland had been in their possession and not an Englishman in it; and yet then, I say, was this unheard of villainy perpetrated through your instigation, who boast of peace-making and union against the common enemy. What think you, by this time? Is not my assertion true? Is God – will God be with you? I am confident He will not."

Such was the picture which framed itself in Cromwell's mind in the contemplation of the troubles of 1641. It was no long by-past history that he ignored – though the race against which his sword was drawn was one singularly retentive of the tradition of days long-ago. It was the occurrences which had passed in his own life-time which he misinterpreted. The Irish peoples and tribes, it seemed, had had no grievances of which to complain. They had never, forsooth, been ousted from their land by the chicanery of English lawyers and English statesmen. As for their religion, it was hardly to be regarded as a religion at all. Favour enough was shown to them if they were allowed to bury their creed in their hearts, though they were deprived of those consolations on which those who held their faith were far more dependent than the adherents of other Churches. That Cromwell believed every word he said is not to be doubted. This representation of Irish problems and of Irish facts was no creation of his own mind. It was the common – probably the universal belief of Englishmen of his own day.

Nor was Cromwell any more original in propounding remedies. "We are come," he continued, "to take an account of the innocent blood that hath been shed, and to endeavour to bring them to account – by the blessing of Almighty God, in whom alone is our hope and strength – who by appearing in arms seek to justify the same. We come to break the power of a company of lawless rebels who, having cast off the authority of England, live as enemies to human society, whose principles – the world hath experience of – are to destroy and subjugate all men not complying with them. We come – by the assistance of God – to hold forth and maintain the lustre and glory of English liberty, in a nation where we have an undoubted right to do it, whereas the people of Ireland – if they listen not to such seducers as you are – may equally participate in all benefits to use liberty and fortune equally with Englishmen, if they keep out of arms." Irishmen, in short, were to be what Englishmen were, or to bear the penalty. It was the old remedy of the Elizabethans and of Strafford. It is not so much the victorious sword that alienates as the contempt of the conqueror for all that the conquered are in themselves or for all that they hold dear. Yet it must be acknowledged that in whatever proportion the guilt of past errors may be divisible between English and Irish, no English government could endure longer to face that danger of invasion from the side of Ireland, which had so constantly threatened England since first her civil broils began. Under these circumstances, an English conquest of Ireland was inevitable as soon as it was undertaken by a disciplined army. Irishmen were too deeply riven asunder by diversities of race and institutions to unite in common resistance; and even if these difficulties could be removed, there was no common leader who commanded universal devotion. Conquered – Ireland was bound to be, but it was unfortunate for both peoples that she was conquered at a time when the religious and political ideas of Englishmen were, more than ever before or since, the antithesis of those of Irishmen. It was when a Puritan Government took in hand what they hoped to be the regeneration of Ireland that the real difficulties of the task would be made manifest.

No such gulf was open between England and Scotland, yet the apprehension of fresh troubles approaching from Scotland caused the Government at Westminster to recall Cromwell in May 1650. For some time a negotiation had been carried on at Breda between the exiled Charles II. and a body of commissioners who had been sent by the extreme Presbyterians now dominant in Edinburgh, with the object of persuading the young King to accept their assistance to regain his other kingdoms on conditions which could not fail to be most repulsive to him. He was to disallow the treaty concluded by Ormond, by which the Irish were exempted from the penal laws, though in that treaty lay his sole hope of resisting Cromwell in that country; he was to establish Presbyterianism both in England and Ireland without a shred of toleration either for the sects or for that Church of which he was himself a member, and he was to sign the two Covenants, marking his own adhesion to the Scottish form of religion. Against these terms Charles long struggled, but on May 1 he signed the draft of an agreement assenting to them, which was sent to Scotland for approval, accompanied by a demand on his part for their modification. Before an answer was received, Charles heard that his most gallant champion, Montrose, had been defeated and hanged as a traitor. A day or two later, on June 1, he was informed that his request for the modification of the Scottish terms had been rejected at Edinburgh. On the 2nd Charles embarked for Scotland without signing anything, and it was only on June 11, off Heligoland, that he affixed his name to the treaty, and only on the 23rd, off Speymouth, that he swore to the Covenants, as the treaty required him to do. There can be little doubt that he intended to cast off the bondage as soon as an opportunity arrived. It is doubtful which was the greater, the ignorance of the Scottish Government in supposing that their conditions could be imposed on England, or their folly in imagining that Charles would be bound by his oath to become their accomplice. Of this Government Argyle was still the leading personality, but that shrewd statesman only held his own by submitting to the crowd of fanatics, clerical and lay, whom he had once hoped to control, and who now made themselves his masters. Secret communications had long been passing between Charles and his English supporters. They were expected to rise in support of the Scots, but as to the engagement to establish Presbyterianism, it 'was by most refused, and resolved to be broken by those who took it'.