Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847

In the despatch which Cromwell addresses to the Speaker, Lenthall, after the storm of Tredah, otherwise Drogheda, we observe that the Puritan is as strong as ever, but that the Soldier and the great Captain speak out with increased boldness. Our sectarian farmer of St Ives, who brooded, by the dark waters of the Ouse, over the wickedness of surpliced prelacy, whose unemployed spirit sank at times into hypochondria, and was afflicted with "strange fancies about the town-cross," has been moving for some time in the very busiest scene the world could furnish him, and has become the great general of his age. The spirit of the "big wars" has entered, and grown up side by side with his Puritanism. The ardour of the battle fully possesses him; he is the conqueror always in the tremendous charge he makes at the head of his Ironsides; and he lets appear, notwithstanding his self-denying style, a consciousness and a triumph in his own skill as a tactician. He is still the genuine Puritan; but the arduous life, the administrative duties of a soldier and a general, have also been busy in modifying his character, and calling forth and exercising that self-confidence, which he will by and by recognise as "faith" and the leading of Providence, when he assumes the place of dictator of his country.

From one passage in this despatch it would appear that his severity at the storm of Drogheda was not wholly the result of predetermined policy, but rose, in part, from the natural passion which the sword, and the desperate struggle for life, call forth.

"Divers of the enemy retreated into the Mill-Mount, a place very strong and of difficult access. The Governor, Sir Arthur Ashton, and divers considerable officers being there, our men getting up to them, were ordered by me to put them all to the sword. And, indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any that were in arms in the town; and, I think, that night they put to the sword about 2000 men: divers of the officers and soldiers being fled over the bridge into the other part of the town, where about 100 of them possessed St Peter's church steeple, some the west gate, and others a strong round tower next the gate called St Sunday's. These being summoned to yield to mercy, refused; whereupon I ordered the steeple of St Peter's church to be fired, when one of them was heard to say in the midst of the flames, 'God damn me, God confound me! I burn, I burn.'"

In the same despatch there is rather a noticeable passage, which illustrates the manner in which the Puritan general was accustomed to regard the Roman Catholics and their worship. There may be some who have been so far deceived by the frequent use of the terms "religious toleration" in conjunction with the name of Cromwell, as to attribute to him a portion of that liberal spirit which is the greatest boast of cultivated minds in the present century. His religious toleration extended only to the small circle of sects whose Christian doctrine, whose preaching, and whose forms of worship were almost identical; it was just the same toleration that a Baptist dissenter of our day may be supposed to extend towards an Independent dissenter, or a member of the Countess of Huntingdon's connexion. The Independents differed from the Presbyterians in no one definite article of creed, with this exception—that they set no value upon ordination, and violently objected to the restraining any good man from public preaching, or any of the ministrations of a pastor, because he wanted this authorisation of a visible church. For this point of "religious freedom" (an expression which in their mouths has little other than this narrow signification) they had to contend with the Presbyterians. The sect which has to resist oppression, or the restraints of power, uses, of course, the language of toleration. The Independents used it in their controversy with the Presbyterians, just as the latter had employed it in their controversy with Episcopacy. But Independents and Presbyterians were alike intolerant of the Episcopalian or the Roman Catholic. All sects of that age preached toleration when a powerful adversary was to be deprecated—preached it then, and then only. The Independents coming last upon the field, preached it last; but they have no title beyond others to the spirit of toleration. Cromwell put down the mass as he would put down a rebellion—as openly, as decidedly, as rigorously.

"It is remarkable," continued the despatch, "that these people, at the first, set up the mass in some places of the town that had been monasteries; but afterwards grew so insolent, that, the last Lord's day before the storm, the Protestants were thrust out of the great church called St Peter's, and they had public mass there; and in this very place near 1000 of them (the Catholics—a clear judgment) were put to the sword, fleeing thither for safety. I believe all their friars were knocked on the head promiscuously but two; the one of which was Father Peter Taaff, brother to the Lord Taaff, whom the soldiers took the next day and made an end of. The other was taken in the Round Tower, under the repute, (the disguise) of a lieutenant, and when he understood that the officers in that tower had no quarter, he confessed he was a friar; but that did not save him."

Ireland was no sooner subjected by this unflinching and terrific severity, than the presence of the great general of the Commonwealth was needed in Scotland. The Scots had no predilection for a republic, no desire whatever for it; they were bent solely on their covenant, their covenant and a Stuart king. It was a combination very difficult to achieve. Nevertheless they took their oath to both, and marched into England to establish them both over the United Kingdom. Here was sufficient enthusiasm at all events; sufficient, and of the proper kind, one would think, to earn the sympathies of our editor. And he does look upon the Scots at this time as an "heroic nation." But, unfortunately, it is precisely the heroic nation that his own great hero is about to combat and subdue. He is compelled, therefore, upon his part, as the faithful bard and minstrel of his chosen champion, to give them up—them, and their covenant, and Stuart king—to merciless sarcasm. Indeed, he tells us, that the great, the sole fault of the Scots, was precisely this—that they did not produce a Cromwell. "With Oliver born Scotch," he says or sings, "one sees not but the whole world might have become Puritan!"

However, he launches his Puritan hero against the godly and heroic nation with full sound of trumpet, not unmixed with a certain vague and solemn voice of prophecy.

"In such spirit goes Oliver to the wars—a god-intoxicated man, as Novalis elsewhere phrases it. I have asked myself, if any where in modern European history, or even in ancient Asiatic, there was found a man practising this mean world's affairs with a heart more filled by the idea of the Highest? Bathed in the eternal splendours—it is so he walks our dim earth: this man is one of few. He is projected with a terrible force out of the Eternities, and in the Times and their arenas there is nothing that can withstand him. It is great; to us it is tragic; a thing that should strike us dumb! My brave one, thy noble prophecy is divine; older than Hebrew David; old as the origin of man; and shall, though in wider ways than those supposed, be fulfilled."—(P. 172.)

We feel no disposition to follow Cromwell to the Scottish wars, though "bathed in the eternal splendours." We hardly know of any thing in history to our taste more odious than this war between the Scottish Covenanter and the English Puritan; the one praying clamorously for victory against "a blaspheming general and a sectarian army;" the other animating his battle with a psalm, and charging with a "Lord, arise! and let thy enemies be scattered," or some such exclamation. Both generals, in the intervals of actual war, sermonise each other, and with much the same spirit that they fight. Their diplomacy is a tangled preachment, and texts are their war-cries. Meanwhile, both are fighting for the gospel of Christ! only one will have it with, the other without the covenant! Such "eternal splendours" are not inviting to us. We will step on at once to the battle of Worcester, which concluded both the Scottish war, and all hopes for the present of the royalist party.

This last of his battles and his victories dismisses the great Puritan from the wars. It is a striking despatch he writes from the field of Worcester. He is still the unmitigated Puritan; he still preaches to Speaker Lenthall, but he preaches somewhat more dogmatically. There is an air of authority in the sermon. We all know that godly exhortation may be made to express almost every shade of human passion; as what son and what wife has not felt who has lived under the dominion and discourse of one of these "rulers in Israel." The Parliament felt, no doubt, the difference between the sermons of their general and those of their chaplain.

Cromwell and the army return to London. It is now that the Commonwealth is to be really put upon its trial. Hitherto the army, that had made and could unmake it, had been occupied first in Ireland, then in Scotland; and the minds of people at home had been equally occupied in watching its achievements. The Commonwealth has lived upon the expectations of men. It has been itself an expectation. It is now to be perfected, its organisation to be completed, its authority established.

But Cromwell was not a Washington. Not only did he want that serene and steady virtue which counselled the champion of American independence to retire into the ranks of the constitution—commander in the field, private soldier in the city—not only did he fail in this civic virtue, and found it hard to resign the sway and authority he had so long exercised; but the inestimable advantages of a constitutional government his mind had not been cultivated to appreciate. His thoughts had hitherto taken another direction. His speculative habits theology had moulded; his active habits had been formed in the camp. He felt that he could administer the government better than any of the men around him: we will give him credit, too, for the full intention to administer it conscientiously, and for the good of the nation; but for those enlarged views of the more enlightened patriot, who is solicitous to provide not alone for the present necessities, but for the future long life of a people—he had them not. He grew afterwards into the statesman, as he had grown into the soldier; but at this time the Puritan general had very little respect for human institutions.

We are far from asserting, that even with the assistance of Cromwell a republic could have been established in England. But he lent no helping hand; his great abilities, his fervent zeal, were never employed in this service. He kept aloof—aloof with the army. He gathered himself to his full height, standing amidst the ruins of the civil war: all men might see that he alone kept his footing there. When the unhappy Parliament, struggling with its cruel embarrassments, not knowing how to dissolve itself with safety, had brought down on it the impatience, the distrust, the contempt of men—when he had allowed its members to reap the full harvest of a people's jealousies and suspicions—when at length they were on the point of extricating themselves by a bill determining the mode of electing a successor—then he interfered, and dissolved them!

A question may be raised, how far Cromwell had the power, if such had been his wish, to take over the army to the side of the Parliament, to lead it into due allegiance to the Commonwealth. The officers of the army and the members of the Parliament formed the two rival powers in the kingdom. Cromwell, it may be said, could not have united them, could only make his choice between them. It would have been only a fraction of the army that he could have carried over with him. The division between the council of officers and the Parliament was too wide, the alienation too confirmed and inveterate, to have been healed by one man, though it was the Lord General himself. Thus, it may be said that Cromwell, in the part he acted against the Long Parliament, was thrust forward by a revolutionary movement, which, according to the law of such movements, must either have carried him forward in the van, or left him deserted or down-trodden in the rear.

This would be no flattering excuse. But whatever truth there may be in this view of the case, Cromwell never manifested any intention or any desire to quit the cause of the army for that of the Parliament. He was heart and soul with the army; it was there his power lay; it was there he found the spirits he most sympathised with. He walked at the head of the army here as in the war. It was alone that he entered the House of Parliament—alone "in his gray stockings and black coat," with no staff of officers about him, no military parade, only a few of his Ironsides in the lobby. Though aware he should have the support of his officers, there is no proof that he had consulted them. The daring deed was his. And it is one of the most daring deeds on record. The execution of the King—in that day when kings were something more in the imagination of men than they are now—was indeed an audacious act. But it was shared with others. This dissolution of the Parliament, and assumption of the dictatorship—this facing alone all his old compeers, met in due legislative dignity, and bidding them one and all depart—strikes us as the bolder deed.

The scene has been often described, but nowhere so well, or so fully, as by Mr Carlyle. We cannot resist the pleasure of quoting his spirited account of this notable transaction.

"The Parliament sitting as usual, and being in debate upon the bill, which it was thought would have been passed that day, 'the Lord General Cromwell came into the House, clad in plain black clothes and gray worsted stockings, and sat down, as he used to do, in an ordinary place.' For some time he listens to this interesting debate on the bill, beckoning once to Harrison, who came over to him, and answered dubitatingly. Whereupon the Lord General sat still for about a quarter of an hour longer. But now the question being to be put, That this bill do now pass, he beckons again to Harrison, says, 'This is the time; I must do it!' and so 'rose up, put off his hat, and spake. At the first, and for a good while, he spake to the commendation of the Parliament, for their pains and care of the public good; but afterwards he changed his style, told them of their injustice, delays of justice, self-interest, and other faults,' rising higher and higher into a very aggravated style indeed. An honourable member, Sir Peter Wentworth by name, not known to my readers, and by me better known than trusted, rises to order, as we phrase it; says, 'It is a strange language this; unusual within the walls of Parliament this! And from a trusted servant, too; and one whom we have so highly honoured; and one—' Come, come,' exclaims my Lord General, in a very high key, 'we have had enough of this'—and in fact my Lord General, now blazing all up into clear conflagration, exclaims, 'I will put an end to your prating,' and steps forth into the floor of the House, and 'clapping on his hat,' and occasionally 'stamping the floor with his feet,' begins a discourse which no man can report! He says—Heavens! he is heard saying: 'It is not fit that you should sit here any longer!' You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing lately, 'You shall now give place to better men! Call them in!' adds he, briefly, to Harrison, in way of command; and some 'twenty or thirty' grim musketeers enter, with bullets in their snaphances; grimly prompt for orders; and stand in some attitude of carry arms there. Veteran men: men of might and men of war, their faces are as the faces of lions, and their feet are swift as the roes upon the mountains; not beautiful to honourable gentlemen at this moment!

"'You call yourselves a Parliament,' continues my Lord General, in clear blaze of conflagration. 'You are no Parliament! Some of you are drunkards,' and his eye flashes on poor Mr Chalmer, an official man of some value, addicted to the bottle; 'some of you are'—and he glares into Henry Martin and the poor Sir Peter, who rose to order, lewd livers both—'living in open contempt of God's, commandments. Following your own greedy appetites, and the devil's commandments. Corrupt, unjust persons,' and here I think he glanced 'at Sir Bulstrode Whitlocke, one of the Commissioners of the Great Seal, giving him and others very sharp language, though he named them not.' 'Corrupt, unjust persons, scandalous to the profession of the Gospel:' how can you be a Parliament for God's people? Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name, of God—go!

"The House is of course all on its feet—uncertain, almost, whether not on its head: such a scene as was never seen before in any House of Commons. History reports with a shudder that my Lord General, lifting the sacred mace itself, said, 'What shall we do with this bauble? Take it away!'—and gave it to a musketeer. And now—'Fetch him down!' says he to Harrison, flashing on the Speaker. Speaker Lenthall, more an ancient Roman than any thing else, declares, He will not come till forced. 'Sir,' said Harrison, 'I will lend you a hand;' on which Speaker Lenthall came down, and gloomily vanished. They all vanished; flooding gloomily, clamorously out, to their ulterior businesses, and respective places of abode: the Long Parliament is dissolved! 'It's you that have forced me to this,' exclaims my Lord General, 'I have sought the Lord night and day, that He would rather slay me than put me upon the doing of this work.' 'At their going out, some say the Lord General said to young Sir Harry Vane, calling him by his name, That he might have prevented this; but that he was a juggler, and had not common honesty.' 'O Sir Harry Vane,' thou, with thy subtle casuistries and abstruse hair-splittings, thou art other than a good one, I think! 'The Lord deliver me from thee, Sir Harry Vane!' 'All being gone out, the door of the House was locked, and the key, with the mace, as I heard, was carried away by Colonel Otley,' and it is all over, and the unspeakable catastrophe has come, and remains."—(Vol. ii. p. 361.)

The usurpation of Cromwell is, we believe, generally considered as the most fortunate event which, under the peculiar circumstances of the country, could have occurred. The people, it is said; were not prepared for a republic. The attempt, therefore, to establish one, would have been attended by incessant tumults; its short and precarious existence would have been supported by the scaffold and the prison. It would have terminated indeed, as did the Protectorate, in a Restoration, but the interval between the death of Charles I. and the accession of his son, would have been passed in a very different manner. Under the Protectorate the country rallied its strength, put forth its naval power, obtained peace at home, and respect abroad. Under a republic, it would have probably spent its force, and demoralised itself, in intestine strife and by a succession of revolutionary movements.

But if this view be quite correct, it will not justify Cromwell. It is one thing to be satisfied with the course of events, quite another with the conduct of the several agents in them. Cromwell, in the position in which he stood, as an honest man and a patriot, should have done his best for the establishment of the Commonwealth; and this he did not. We are far, as we have said, from venturing to give a decisive opinion on the probability (with the united efforts of the victorious general and the Parliament) of forming a republic. But we are not disposed to think that the cause was hopeless. Had the Parliament been allowed to recruit its numbers without dissolving itself—the measure which it constantly desired, and which Cromwell would not hear of, though, without a doubt, it was the very line of conduct which his own practical sagacity would have led him to, if his heart had been in the business—the minds of men would have had time to settle and reflect, and a mode of government, which had already existed for some years, might have been adopted by the general consent.

We look upon the Restoration very calmly, very satisfactorily, for whom a second revolution has placed another dynasty upon the throne, governing upon principles quite different from those which were rooted in the Stuarts. We see the Restoration, with the Revolution of 1688 at its back, and almost consider them as one event. But a most loyal and contented subject of Queen Victoria, would have been a Commonwealthsman in those days. How could it then have been foreseen that all the power, and privilege, and splendour of royalty, should exist only to protect the law, to secure the equal rights of all—that monarchy, retaining a traditionary awe and majesty derived from remote times, should remain amongst us to supply to a representative government that powerful, constant, and impartial executive which, from the mere elements of a republic, it is so difficult to extract? Who could have imagined that a popular legislature, and the supremacy of the law, could have been so fortunately combined and secured under the shadow of the monarchy? Enlightened minds at that time could not have looked calmly towards a Restoration; they probably thought, or would have been led to think, that, in the position they then were, it was better to take the constitution of Holland, than the government of France, for their model.

But the multitude—with what enthusiasm they welcomed the restoration of the Stuarts! Very true. But the Protectorate was no antagonist to monarchy. Republican pride was never called forth to contend in the public mind against the feeling of loyalty, and an attachment to kings. The Protectorate was itself a monarchy without its splendour, or the prestige of hereditary greatness. It was a monarchy under the Geneva gown. Was it likely that the populace would accept of this in lieu of the crowned and jewelled royalty which was wont to fill its imagination?

However, the experiment—fortunately for us, as the result has turned out—was never destined to be made. Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament. He now stood alone, he and the army, the sole power in the state. His first measure, that of sending a summons in his own name, to persons of his own choice, and thus, without any popular election whatever, assembling what is called the Little Parliament, or Barebones Parliament, shows a singular audacity, and proves how little trammelled he was himself by traditionary or constitutional maxims. He who would not allow the Long Parliament to recruit its numbers, and thus escape the perils of a free election of an altogether new assembly, extricates himself from the same embarrassment by electing the whole Parliament himself. Some historians have represented this measure as having for its very object to create additional confusion, and render himself, and his own dictatorial power, more necessary to the state. It has not appeared to us in this light. We see in it a bold but rude assay at government. In this off-hand manner of constituting a Parliament, we detect the mingled daring of the Puritan and the Soldier. In neither of these characters was he likely to have much respect for legal maxims, or rules of merely human contrivance. Cromwell was educating himself for the Statesman: at this juncture it is the Puritan General that we have before us.

The Little Parliament having blundered on till it had got itself entangled in the Mosaic dispensation, resigned its power into the hands of him who had bestowed it. Thereupon a new Instrument of Government is framed, with the advice of the council of officers, appointing Cromwell Protector, and providing for the election of a Parliament.

This Parliament being elected, falls, of course, on the discussion of this very Instrument of government. Henceforth Cromwell's great difficulty is the management of his Parliaments. The speeches he delivered to them at various times, and which occupy the third volume of the work before us, are of high historical interest. They are in every respect superior to his letters. Neither will their perusal be found to be of that arduous and painful nature which, from the reputation they have had, most persons will be disposed to expect. The sermon may weary, but the speech is always fraught with meaning; and the mixture of sermon and speech together, portray the man with singular distinctness. We see the Puritan divine, the Puritan soldier, becoming the Puritan statesman. His originally powerful mind is excited to fresh exertion by his onerous and exalted position. But he is still constant to himself. Very interesting is the exhibition presented to us of this powerful intellect, breaking out in flashes of strong sense, and relapsing again into the puerilities of the sect. But as it falls upon the strong sense to act, and on the puerilities only to preach, the man comes out, upon the whole, as a great and able governor.