The republicans, both by the turn of their disposition, and by the nature of the instruments which they employed, were better qualified for acts of force and vigor, than for the slow and deliberate work of legislation. Notwithstanding the late wars and bloodshed, and the present factions, the power of England had never, in any period, appeared so formidable to the neighboring kingdoms as it did at this time, in the hands of the commonwealth. A numerous army served equally to retain every one in implicit subjection to established authority, and to strike a terror into foreign nations. The power of peace and war was lodged in the same hands with that of imposing taxes; and no difference of views, among the several members of the legislature, could any longer be apprehended. The present impositions, though much superior to what had ever formerly been experienced, were in reality moderate, and what a nation so opulent could easily bear. The military genius of the people had, by the civil contests, been roused from its former lethargy; and excellent officers were formed in every branch of service. The confusion into which all things had been thrown, had given opportunity to men of low stations to break through their obscurity, and to raise themselves by their courage to commands which they were well qualified to exercise, but to which their birth could never have entitled them. And while so great a power was lodged in such active hands, no wonder the republic was successful in all its enterprises.
Blake, a man of great courage and a generous disposition the same person who had defended Lyme and Taunten with such unshaken obstinacy against the late king, was made an admiral; and though he had hitherto been accustomed only to land service, into which, too, he had not entered till past fifty years of age, he soon raised the naval glory of the nation to a greater height than it had ever attained in any former period. A fleet was put under his command, and he received orders to pursue Prince Rupert, to whom the king had intrusted that squadron which had deserted to him. Rupert took shelter in Kinsale; and escaping thence, fled towards the coast of Portugal. Blake pursued, and chased him into the Tagus, where he intended to make an attack upon him. But the king of Portugal, moved by the favor which throughout all Europe attended the royal cause, refused Blake admittance, and aided Prince Rupert in making his escape. To be revenged of this partiality, the English admiral made prize of twenty Portuguese ships, richly laden; and he threatened still further vengeance. The king of Portugal, dreading so dangerous a foe to his newly-acquired dominion, and sensible of the unequal contest in which he was engaged, made all possible submissions to the haughty republic, and was at last admitted to negotiate the renewal of his alliance with England. Prince Rupert, having lost a great part of his squadron on the coast of Spain, made sail towards the West Indies. His brother, Prince Maurice, was there shipwrecked in a hurricane. Every where this squadron subsisted by privateering, sometimes on English, sometimes on Spanish vessels. And Rupert at last returned to France, where he disposed of the remnants of his fleet, together with his prizes.
All the settlements in America, except New England, which had been planted entirely by the Puritans, adhered to the royal party, even after the settlement of the republic; and Sir George Ayscue was sent with a squadron to reduce them. Bermudas, Antigua, and Virginia were soon subdued. Barbadoes, commanded by Lord Willoughby of Parham, made some resistance; but was at last obliged to submit.
With equal ease were Jersey, Guernsey, Scilly, and the Isle of Man brought under subjection to the republic; and the sea, which had been much infested by privateers from these islands, was rendered safe to the English commerce. The countess of Derby defended the Isle of Man; and with great reluctance yielded to the necessity of surrendering to the enemy. This lady, a daughter of the illustrious house of Trimoille, in France, had, during the civil war, displayed a manly courage by her obstinate defence of Latham House against the parliamentary forces; and she retained the glory of being the last person in the three kingdoms, and in all their dependent dominions, who submitted to the victorious commonwealth.[*] 24
Ireland and Scotland were now entirely subjected, and reduced to tranquillity. Ireton, the new deputy of Ireland, at the head of a numerous army, thirty thousand strong, prosecuted the work of subduing the revolted Irish; and he defeated them in many rencounters, which, though of themselves of no great moment, proved fatal to their declining cause. He punished without mercy all the prisoners who had any hand in the massacres. Sir Phelim O’Neale, among the rest, was some time after brought to the gibbet, and suffered an ignominious death, which he had so well merited by his inhuman cruelties. Limeric, a considerable town, still remained in the hands of the Irish; and Ireton, after a vigorous siege, made himself master of it. He was here infected with the plague, and shortly after died; a memorable personage, much celebrated for his vigilance, industry, capacity even for the strict execution of justice in that unlimited command which he possessed in Ireland. He was observed to be inflexible in all his purposes; and it was believed by many that he was animated with a sincere and passionate love of liberty, and never could have been induced by any motive to submit to the smallest appearance of regal government. Cromwell appeared to be much affected by his death; and the republicans, who reposed great confidence in him, were inconsolable. To show their regard for his merit and services, they bestowed an estate of two thousand pounds a year on his family, and honored him with a magnificent funeral at the public charge. Though the established government was but the mere shadow of a commonwealth, yet was it beginning by proper arts, to encourage that public spirit, which no other species of civil polity is ever able fully to inspire.
The command of the army in Ireland devolved on Lieutenant-General Ludlow. The civil government of the island was intrusted to commissioners. Ludlow continued to push the advantages against the Irish, and every where obtained an easy victory. That unhappy people, disgusted with the king on account of those violent declarations against them and their religion which had been extorted by the Scots, applied to the king of Spain, to the duke of Lorraine; and found assistance nowhere. Clanricarde, unable to resist the prevailing power, made submissions to the parliament, and retired into England, where he soon after died. He was a steady Catholic, but a man much respected by all parties.
The successes which attended Monk in Scotland were no less decisive. That able general laid siege to Stirling Castle, and though it was well provided for defence, it was soon surrendered to him. He there became master of all the records of the kingdom; and he sent them to England. The earl of Leven, the earl of Crawford, Lord Ogilvy, and other noblemen, having met near Perth, in order to concert measures for raising a new army, were suddenly set upon by Colonel Alured, and most of them taken prisoners. Sir Philip Musgrave, with some Scots, being engaged at Dumfries in a like enterprise, met with a like fate. Dundee was a town well fortified, supplied with a good garrison under Lumisden, and full of all the rich furniture, the plate and money of the kingdom, which had been sent thither as to a place of safety. Monk appeared before it; and having made a breach, gave a general assault. He carried the town; and following the example and instructions of Cromwell, put all the inhabitants to the sword, in order to strike a general terror into the kingdom. Warned by this example, Aberdeen, St. Andrew’s, Inverness, and other towns and forts, yielded of their own accord to the enemy. Argyle made his submissions to the English commonwealth; and excepting a few royalists, who remained some time in the mountains, under the earl of Glencairn, Lord Balcarras, and General Middleton, that kingdom, which had hitherto, through all ages, by means of its situation, poverty, and valor, maintained its independence, was reduced to total subjection.
The English parliament sent Sir Harry Vane, St. John, and other commissioners to settle Scotland. These men, who possessed little of the true spirit of liberty, knew how to maintain the appearance of it; and they required the voluntary consent of all the counties and towns of this conquered kingdom, before they would unite them into the same commonwealth with England. The clergy protested; because, they said, this incorporating union would draw along with it a subordination of the church to the state in the things of Christ.[*] English judges, joined to some Scottish, were appointed to determine all causes; justice was strictly administered; order and peace maintained; and the Scots, freed from the tyranny of the ecclesiastics, were not much dissatisfied with the present government.[**] 25 The prudent conduct of Monk, a man who possessed a capacity for the arts both of peace and war, served much to reconcile the minds of men, and to allay their prejudices.
1652.
By the total reduction and pacification of the British dominions, the parliament had leisure to look abroad, and to exert their vigor in foreign enterprises. The Dutch were the first that felt the weight of their arms.
During the life of Frederic Henry, prince of Orange, the Dutch republic had maintained a neutrality in the civil wars of England, and had never interposed, except by her good offices, between the contending parties. When William, who had married an English princess, succeeded to his father’s commands and authority,[***] the states, both before and after the execution of the late king, were accused of taking steps more favorable to the royal cause, and of betraying a great prejudice against that of the parliament. It was long before the envoy of the English commonwealth could obtain an audience of the states general. The murderers of Dorislaus were not pursued with such vigor as the parliament expected. And much regard had been paid to the king, and many good offices performed to him, both by the public, and by men of all ranks, in the United Provinces.
After the death of William, prince of Orange,[****] which was attended with the depression of his party and the triumph of the Dutch republicans, the parliament thought that the time was now favorable for cementing a closer confederacy with the states.
St. John, chief justice, who was sent over to the Hague, had entertained the idea of forming a kind of coalition between the two republics, which would have rendered their interests totally inseparable; but fearing that so extraordinary a project would not be relished, he contented himself with dropping some hints of it, and openly went no further than to propose a strict defensive alliance between England and the United Provinces, such as has now, for near seventy years taken place between these friendly powers.[*] But the states, who were unwilling to form a nearer confederacy with a government whose measures were so obnoxious, and whose situation seemed so precarious, offered only to renew the former alliances with England. And the haughty St. John, disgusted with this disappointment, as well as incensed at many affronts which had been offered him with impunity by the retainers of the Palatine and Orange families, and indeed by the populace in general, returned into England, and endeavored to foment a quarrel between the republics.
The movement of great states are often directed by as slender springs as those of individuals. Though war with so considerable a naval power as the Dutch, who were in peace with all their other neighbors, might seem dangerous to the yet unsettled commonwealth, there were several motives which at this time induced the English parliament to embrace hostile measures. Many of the members thought, that a foreign war would serve as a pretence for continuing the same parliament, and delaying the new model of a representative, with which the nation had so long been flattered. Others hoped, that the war would furnish a reason for maintaining, some time longer, that numerous standing army, which was so much complained of.[**]
On the other hand, some, who dreaded the increasing power of Cromwell, expected that the great expense of naval armaments would prove a motive for diminishing the military establishment. To divert the attention of the public from domestic quarrels towards foreign transactions, seemed, in the present disposition of men’s minds, to be good policy. The superior power of the English commonwealth, together with its advantages of situation, promised success; and the parliamentary leaders hoped to gain many rich prizes from the Dutch, to distress and sink their flourishing commerce, and by victories to throw a lustre on their own establishment, which was so new and unpopular. All these views, enforced by the violent spirit of St. John, who had great influence over Crom-well, determined the parliament to change the purposed alliance into a furious war against the United Provinces.
To cover these hostile intentions, the parliament, under pretence of providing for the interests of commerce, embraced such measures as they knew would give disgust to the states. They framed the famous act of navigation; which prohibited all nations from importing into England in their bottoms any commodity which was not the growth and manufacture of their own country. By this law, though the terms in which it was conceived were general, the Dutch were principally affected; because their country produces few commodities, and they subsist chiefly by being the general carriers and factors of Europe. Letters of reprisal were granted to several merchants, who complained of injuries which, they pretended, they had received from the states; and above eighty Dutch ships fell into their hands, and were made prizes. The cruelties committed on the English at Amboyna, which were certainly enormous, but which seemed to be buried in oblivion by a thirty years’ silence, were again made the ground of complaint. And the allowing the murderers of Dorislaus to escape, and the conniving at the insults to which St. John had been exposed, were represented as symptoms of an unfriendly, if not a hostile disposition in the states.
The states, alarmed at all these steps, sent orders to their ambassadors to endeavor the renewal of the treaty of alliance, which had been broken off by the abrupt departure of St. John. Not to be unprepared, they equipped a fleet of a hundred and fifty sail, and took care, by their ministers at London, to inform the council of the state of that armament. This intelligence, instead of striking terror into the English republic, was considered as a menace, and further confirmed the parliament in their hostile resolutions. The minds of men in both states were every day more irritated against each other; and it was not long before these humors broke forth into action.
Tromp, an admiral of great renown, received from the states the command of a fleet of forty-two sail, in order to protect the Dutch navigation against the privateers of the English. He was forced by stress of weather, as he alleged, to take shelter in the road of Dover, where he met with Blake, who commanded an English fleet much inferior in number. Who was the aggressor in the action which ensued between these two admirals, both of them men of such prompt and fiery dispositions, it is not easy to determine; since each of them sent to his own state a relation totally opposite in all its circumstances to that of the other, and yet supported by the testimony of every captain in his fleet. Blake pretended, that having given a signal to the Dutch admiral to strike, Tromp, instead of complying, fired a broadside at him. Tromp asserted, that he was preparing to strike, and that the English admiral, nevertheless, began hostilities. It is certain that the admiralty of Holland, who are distinct from the council of state, had given Tromp no orders to strike, but had left him to his own discretion with regard to that vain but much contested ceremonial. They seemed willing to introduce the claim of an equality with the new commonwealth, and to interpret the former respect paid the English flag as a deference due only to the monarchy. This circumstance forms a strong presumption against the narrative of the Dutch admiral. The whole Orange party, it must be remarked, to which Tromp was suspected to adhere, was desirous of a war with England.
Blake, though his squadron consisted only of fifteen vessels, reënforced, after the battle began, by eight under Captain Bourne, maintained the fight with bravery for five hours, and sunk one ship of the enemy, and took another. Night parted the combatants, and the Dutch fleet retired towards the coast of Holland. The populace of London were enraged, and would have insulted the Dutch ambassadors, who lived at Chelsea, had not the council of state sent guards to protect them.
When the states heard of this action, of which the consequences were easily foreseen, they were in the utmost consternation. They immediately despatched Paw, pensionary of Holland, as their ambassador extraordinary to London, and ordered him to lay before the parliament the narrative which Tromp had sent of the late rencounter. They entreated them, by all the bands of their common religion and common liberties, not to precipitate themselves into hostile measures, but to appoint commissioners, who should examine every circumstance of the action, and clear up the truth, which lay in obscurity. And they pretended, that they had given no orders to their admiral to offer any violence to the English, but would severely punish him, if they found, upon inquiry, that he had been guilty of an action which they so much disapproved. The imperious parliament would hearken to none of these reasons or remonstrances. Elated by the numerous successes which they had obtained over their domestic enemies, they thought that every thing must yield to their fortunate arms; and they gladly seized the opportunity, which they sought, of making war upon the states. They demanded that, without any further delay or inquiry, reparation should be made for all the damages which the English had sustained. And when this demand was not complied with, they despatched orders for commencing war against the United Provinces.
Blake sailed northwards with a numerous fleet, and fell upon the herring busses, which were escorted by twelve men-of-war. All these he either took or dispersed. Tromp followed him with a fleet of above a hundred sail. When these two admirals were within sight of each other, and preparing for battle, a furious storm attacked them. Blake took shelter in the English harbors. The Dutch fleet was dispersed, and received great damage.
Sir George Ayscue, though he commanded only forty ships, according to the English accounts, engaged near Plymouth the famous De Ruiter, who had under him fifty ships of war, with thirty merchantmen. The Dutch ships were indeed of inferior force to the English. De Ruiter, the only admiral in Europe who has attained a renown equal to that of the greatest general, defended himself so well, that Ayscue gained no advantage over him. Night parted them in the greatest heat of the action. De Ruiter next day sailed off with his convoy. The English fleet had been so shattered in the fight, that it was not able to pursue.
Near the coast of Kent, Blake, seconded by Bourne and Pen, met a Dutch squadron, nearly equal in numbers, commanded by De Witte and De Ruiter. A battle was fought, much to the disadvantage of the Dutch. Their rear-admiral was boarded and taken. Two other vessels were sunk, and one blown up. The Dutch next day made sail towards Holland.
The English were not so successful in the Mediterranean. Van Galen, with much superior force, attacked Captain Badily, and defeated him. He bought, however, his victory with the loss of his life.
Sea fights are seldom so decisive as to disable the vanquished from making head in a little time against the victors. Tromp, seconded by De Ruiter, met near the Goodwins, with Blake; whose fleet was inferior to the Dutch, but who resolved not to decline the combat. A furious battle commenced where the admirals on both sides, as well as the inferior officers and seamen, exerted great bravery. In this action the Dutch had the advantage. Blake himself was wounded. The Garland and Bonaventure were taken. Two ships were burned, and one sunk; and night came opportunely to save the English fleet. After this victory, Tromp, in a bravado fixed a broom to his mainmast; as if he were resolved to sweep the sea entirely of all English vessels.
1653.
Great preparations were made in England, in order to wipe off this disgrace. A gallant fleet of eighty sail was fitted out. Blake commanded, and Dean under him, together with Monk, who had been sent for from Scotland. When the English lay off Portland, they descried, near break of day, a Dutch fleet of seventy-six vessels, sailing up the Channel, along with a convoy of three hundred merchantmen, who had received orders, to wait at the Isle of Rhé, till the fleet should arrive to escort them. Tromp, and under him De Ruiter, commanded the Dutch. This battle was the most furious that had yet been fought between these warlike and rival nations. Three days was the combat continued with the utmost rage and obstinacy; and Blake, who was victor, gained not more honor than Tromp, who was vanquished. The Dutch admiral made a skilful retreat, and saved all the merchant ships, except thirty. He lost, however, eleven ships of war, had two thousand men slain, and near fifteen hundred taken prisoners. The English, though many of their ships were extremely shattered, had but one sunk. Their slain were not much inferior in number to those of the enemy.
All these successes of the English were chiefly owing to the superior size of their vessels; an advantage which all the skill and bravery of the Dutch admirals could not compensate. By means of ship money, an imposition which had been so much complained of, and in some respects with reason, the late king had put the navy into a situation which it had never attained in any former reign; and he ventured to build ships of a size which was then unusual. But the misfortunes which the Dutch met with in battle, were small in comparison of those which their trade sustained from the English. Their whole commerce by the Channel was cut off: even that to the Baltic was much infested by English privateers. Their fisheries were totally suspended. A great number of their ships, above sixteen hundred, had fallen into the hands of the enemy. And all this distress they suffered, not for any national interests or necessity, but from vain points of honor and personal resentments, of which it was difficult to give a satisfactory account to the public. They resolved therefore to gratify the pride of the parliament, and to make some advances towards peace. They met not, however, with a favorable reception; and it was not without pleasure that they learned the dissolution of that haughty assembly by the violence of Cromwell; an even from which they expected a more prosperous turn to their affairs.
The zealous republicans in the parliament had not been the chief or first promoters of the war; but, when it was once entered upon, they endeavored to draw from it every possible advantage. On all occasions, they set up the fleet in opposition to the army, and celebrated the glory and successes of their naval armaments. They insisted on the intolerable expense to which the nation was subjected, and urged the necessity of diminishing it by a reduction of the land forces. They had ordered some regiments to serve on board the fleet in the quality of marines. And Cromwell, by the whole train of their proceedings, evidently saw that they had entertained a jealousy of his power and ambition, and were resolved to bring him to a subordination under their authority. Without scruple or delay, he resolved to prevent them.
On such firm foundations was built the credit of this extraordinary man, that though a great master of fraud and dissimulation, he judged it superfluous to employ any disguise in conducting this bold enterprise. He summoned a general council of officers; and immediately found, that they were disposed to receive whatever impressions he was pleased to give them. Most of them were his creatures, had owed their advancement to his favor, and relied entirely upon him for their future preferment. The breach being already made between the military and civil powers, when the late king was seized at Holdenby, the general officers regarded the parliament as at once their creature and their rival; and thought, that they themselves were entitled to share among them those offices and riches, of which its members had so long kept possession. Harrison, Rich, Overton, and a few others, who retained some principle, were guided by notions so extravagant, that they were easily deluded into measures the most violent and most criminal. And the whole army had already been guilty of such illegal and atrocious actions, that they could entertain no further scruple with regard to any enterprise which might serve their selfish or fanatical purposes.
In the council of officers it was presently voted to frame a remonstrance to the parliament. After complaining of the arrears due to the army, they there desired the parliament to reflect how many years they had sitten, and what professions they had formerly made of their intentions to new model the representative, and establish successive parliaments, who might bear the burden of national affairs, from which they themselves would gladly, after so much danger and fatigue, be at last relieved. They confessed that the parliament had achieved great enterprises, and had surmounted mighty difficulties; yet was it an injury, they said, to the rest of the nation to be excluded from bearing any part in the service of their country. It was now full time for them to give place to others; and they therefore desired them, after settling a council, who might execute the laws during the interval, to summon a new parliament, and establish that free and equal government which they had so long promised to the people.
The parliament took this remonstrance in ill part, and made a sharp reply to the council of officers. The officers insisted on their advice; and by mutual altercation and opposition, the breach became still wider between the army and the commonwealth. Cromwell, finding matters ripe for his purpose, called a council of officers, in order to come to a determination with regard to the public settlement. As he had here many friends, so had he also some opponents. Harrison having assured the council, that the general sought only to pave the way for the government of Jesus and his saints, Major Streater briskly replied, that Jesus ought then to come quickly: for if he delayed it till after Christmas, he would come too late; he would find his place occupied. While the officers were in debate, Colonel Ingoldsby informed Cromwell, that the parliament was sitting, and had come to a resolution not to dissolve themselves, but to fill up the house by new elections; and was at that very time engaged in deliberations with regard to this expedient. Cromwell in a rage immediately hastened to the house, and carried a body of three hundred soldiers along with him. Some of them he placed at the door, some in the lobby, some on the stairs. He first addressed himself to his friend St. John, and told him that he had come with a purpose of doing what grieved him to the very soul, and what he had earnestly with tears besought the Lord not to impose upon him: but there was a necessity, in order to the glory of God and good of the nation. He sat down for some time, and heard the debate. He beckoned Harrison, and told him that he now judged the parliament ripe for a dissolution. “Sir,” said Harrison “the work is very great and dangerous: I desire you seriously to consider, before you engage in it.” “You say well,” replied the general; and thereupon sat still about a quarter of an hour. When the question was ready to be put, he said again to Harrison, “This is the time: I must do it.” And suddenly starting up, he loaded the parliament with the vilest reproaches, for their tyranny, ambition, oppression, and robbery of the public. Then stamping with his foot, which was a signal for the soldiers to enter, “For shame,” said he to the parliament, “get you gone: give place to honester men; to those who will more faithfully discharge their trust. You are no longer a parliament. I tell you, you are no longer a parliament. The Lord has done with you: he has chosen other instruments for carrying on his work.” Sir Harry Vane exclaiming against this proceeding, he cried with a loud voice, “O! Sir Harry Vane, Sir Harry Vane! The Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane!” Taking hold of Martin by the cloak, “Thou art a whoremaster,” said he; to another, “Thou art an adulterer;” to a third, “Thou art a drunkard and a glutton;” “And thou an extortioner,” to a fourth. He commanded a soldier to seize the mace. “What shall we do with this bauble? Here, take it away. It is you,” said he, addressing himself to the house, “that have forced me upon this. I have sought the Lord night and day, that he would rather slay me than put me upon this work.” Having commanded the soldiers to clear the hall, he himself went out the last, and ordering the doors to be locked, departed to his lodgings in Whitehall.
In this furious manner, which so well denotes his genuine character, did Cromwell, without the least opposition, or even murmur, annihilate that famous assembly, which had filled all Europe with the renown of its actions, and with astonishment at its crimes, and whose commencement was not more ardently desired by the people than was its final dissolution. All parties now reaped successively the melancholy pleasure of seeing the injuries which they had suffered, revenged on their enemies, and that too by the same arts which had been practised against them. The king had, in some instances, stretched his prerogative beyond its just bounds; and aided by the church, had well nigh put an end to all the liberties and privileges of the nation. The Presbyterians checked the progress of the court and clergy, and excited, by cant and hypocrisy, the populace, first to tumults, then to war against the king, the peers, and all the royalists. No sooner had they reached the pinnacle of grandeur, than the Independents, under the appearance of still greater sanctity, instigated the army against them, and reduced them to subjection. The Independents, amidst their empty dreams of liberty, or rather of dominion, were oppressed by the rebellion of their own servants, and found themselves at once exposed to the insults of power and hatred of the people. By recent, as well as all ancient example, it was become evident, that illegal violence, with whatever preferences it may be covered, and whatever object it may pursue, must inevitably end at last in the arbitrary and despotic government of a single person.
1653.
OLIVER CROMWELL, in whose hands the dissolution of the parliament had left the whole power, civil and military, of three kingdoms, was born at Huntingdon, the last year of the former century, of a good family; though he himself, being the son of a second brother, inherited but a small estate from his father. In the course of his education, he had been sent to the university; but his genius was found little fitted for the calm and elegant occupations of learning; and he made small proficiency in his studies. He even threw himself into a dissolute and disorderly course of life; and he consumed, in gaming, drinking, debauchery, and country riots, the more early years of his youth, and dissipated part of his patrimony. All of a sudden, the spirit of reformation seized him; he married, affected a grave and composed behavior entered into all the zeal and rigor of the Puritanical party, and offered to restore to every one whatever sums he had formerly gained by gaming. The same vehemence of temper which had transported him into the extremes of pleasure, now distinguished his religious habits. His house was the resort of all the zealous clergy of the party; and his hospitality, as well as his liberalities to the silenced and deprived ministers, proved as chargeable as his former debaucheries. Though he had acquired a tolerable fortune by a maternal uncle, he found his affairs so injured by his expenses, that he was obliged to take a farm at St. Ives, and apply himself for some years to agriculture as a profession. But this expedient served rather to involve him in further debts and difficulties. The long prayers which he said to his family in the morning, and again in the afternoon, consumed his own time and that of his ploughmen; and he reserved no leisure for the care of his temporal affairs. His active mind, superior to the low occupations to which he was condemned, preyed upon itself; and he indulged his imagination in visions, illuminations, revelations; the great nourishment of that hypochondriacal temper to which he was ever subject. Urged by his wants and his piety, he had made a party with Hambden, his near kinsman, who was pressed only by the latter motive, to transport himself into New England, now become the retreat of the more zealous among the Puritanical party; and it was an order of council which obliged them to disembark and remain in England. The earl of Bedford, who possessed a large estate in the fen country near the Isle of Ely, having undertaken to drain these morasses, was obliged to apply to the king; and by the powers of the prerogative, he got commissioners appointed, who conducted that work, and divided the new-acquired land among the several proprietors. He met with opposition from many, among whom Cromwell distinguished himself; and this was the first public opportunity which he had met with, of discovering the factious zeal and obstinacy of his character.
From accident and intrigue he was chosen by the town of Cambridge member of the long parliament. His domestic affairs were then in greater disorder; and he seemed not to possess any talents which could qualify him to rise in that public sphere into which he was now at last entered. His person was ungraceful, his dress slovenly, his voice untonable, his elocution homely, tedious, obscure, and embarrassed. The fervor of his spirit frequently prompted him to rise in the house; but he was not heard with attention: his name, for above two years, is not to be found oftener than twice in any committee; and those committees into which he was admitted, were chosen for affairs which would more interest the zealots than the men of business. In comparison of the eloquent speakers and fine gentlemen of the house, he was entirely overlooked; and his friend Hambden alone was acquainted with the depth of his genius, and foretold that, if a civil war should ensue, he would soon rise to eminence and distinction.
Cromwell himself seems to have been conscious where his strength lay; and partly from that motive, partly from the uncontrollable fury of his zeal, he always joined that party which pushed every thing to extremities against the king. He was active in promoting the famous remonstrance, which was the signal for all the ensuing commotions; and when, after a long debate, it was carried by a small majority, he told Lord Falkland, that if the question had been lost, he was resolved next day to have converted into ready money the remains of his fortune, and immediately to have left the kingdom. Nor was this resolution, he said, peculiar to himself: many others of his party he knew to be equally determined.
He was no less than forty-three years of age when he first embraced the military profession; and by force of genius, without any master, he soon became an excellent officer; though perhaps he never reached the fame of a consummate commander. He raised a troop of horse; fixed his quarters in Cambridge; exerted great severity towards that university which zealously adhered to the royal party; and showed himself a man who would go all lengths in favor of that cause which he had espoused. He would not allow his soldiers to perplex their heads with those subtleties of fighting by the king’s authority against his person, and of obeying his majesty’s commands signified by both houses of parliament: he plainly told them, that if he met the king in battle, he would fire a pistol in his face as readily as against any other man. His troop of horse he soon augmented to a regiment; and he first instituted that discipline, and inspired that spirit, which rendered the parliamentary armies in the end victorious. “Your troops,” said he to Hambden, according to his own account,[*] “are most of them old, decayed serving men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows; the king’s forces are composed of gentlemen’s younger sons and persons of good quality. And do you think that the mean spirits of such base and low fellows as ours will ever be able to encounter gentlemen, that have honor, and courage, and resolution in them? You must get men of spirit; and take it not ill that I say, of a spirit that is likely to go as far as gentlemen will go, or else I am sure you will still be beaten, as you have hitherto been, in every encounter.”
He did as he proposed. He enlisted the sons of freeholders and farmers. He carefully invited into his regiment all the zealous fanatics throughout England. When they were collected in a body, their enthusiastic spirit still rose to a higher pitch. Their colonel, from his own natural character, as well as from policy, was sufficiently inclined to increase the flame. He preached, he prayed, he fought, he punished, he rewarded. The wild enthusiasm, together with valor and discipline, still propagated itself; and all men cast their eyes on so pious and so successful a leader. From low commands, he rose with great rapidity to be really the first, though in appearance only the second, in the army. By fraud and violence, he soon rendered himself the first in the state. In proportion to the increase of his authority, his talents always seemed to expand themselves; and he displayed every day new abilities, which had lain dormant till the very emergence by which they were called forth into action. All Europe stood astonished to see a nation, so turbulent and unruly, who, for some doubtful encroachments on their privileges, had dethroned and murdered an excellent prince, descended from a long line of monarchs, now at last subdued and reduced to slavery by one who, a few years before, was no better than a private gentleman, whose name was not known in the nation, and who was little regarded even in that low sphere to which he had always been confined.
The indignation entertained by the people against an authority founded on such manifest usurpation, was not so violent as might naturally be expected. Congratulatory addresses, the first of the kind, were made to Cromwell by the fleet, by the army, even by many of the chief corporations and counties of England; but especially by the several congregations of saints dispersed throughout the kingdom.[*]
The royalists, though they could not love the man who had imbrued his hands in the blood of their sovereign, expected more lenity from him than from the jealous and imperious republicans, who had hitherto governed. The Presbyterians were pleased to see those men by whom they had been outwitted and expelled, now in their turn expelled and outwitted by their own servant; and they applauded him for this last act of violence upon the parliament. These two parties composed the bulk of the nation, and kept the people in some tolerable temper. All men, likewise, harassed with wars and factions, were glad to see any prospect of settlement. And they deemed it less ignominious to submit to a person of such admirable talents and capacity, than to a few ignoble, enthusiastic hypocrites, who, under the name of a republic, had reduced them to a cruel subjection.
The republicans, being dethroned by Cromwell, were the party whose resentment he had the greatest reason to apprehend. That party, besides the Independents, contained two sets of men who are seemingly of the most opposite principles, but who were then united by a similitude of genius and of character. The first and most numerous were the Millenarians, or Fifth Monarchy men, who insisted that, dominion being founded in grace, all distinction in magistracy must be abolished, except what arose from piety and holiness; who expected suddenly the second coming of Christ upon earth; and who pretended, that the saints in the mean while, that is, themselves, were alone entitled to govern. The second were the Deists, who had no other object than political liberty, who denied entirely the truth of revelation, and insinuated, that all the various sects, so heated against each other, were alike founded in folly and in error. Men of such daring geniuses were not contented with the ancient and legal forms of civil government; but challenged a degree of freedom beyond what they expected ever to enjoy under any monarchy. Martin, Challoner, Harrington, Sidney, Wildman, Nevil, were esteemed the heads of this small division.
The Deists were perfectly hated by Cromwell, because he had no hold of enthusiasm by which he could govern or overreach them; he therefore treated them with great rigor and disdain, and usually denominated them the heathens. As the Millenarians had a great interest in the army, it was much more important for him to gain their confidence; and their size of understanding afforded him great facility in deceiving them. Of late years, it had been so usual a topic of conversation to discourse of parliaments, and councils, and senates, and the soldiers themselves had been so much accustomed to enter into that spirit, that Cromwell thought it requisite to establish something which might bear the face of a commonwealth. He supposed that God, in his providence, had thrown the whole right, as well as power, of government into his hands; and without any more ceremony, by the advice of his council of officers, he sent summons to a hundred and twenty-eight persons of different towns and counties of England, to five of Scotland, to six of Ireland. He pretended by his sole act and deed, to devolve upon these the whole authority of the state. This legislative power they were to exercise during fifteen months; and they were afterwards to choose the same number of persons, who might succeed them in that high and important office.
There were great numbers at that time who made it a principle always to adhere to any power which was uppermost, and to support the established government. This maxim is not peculiar to the people of that age; but what may be esteemed peculiar to them is, that there prevailed a hypocritical phrase for expressing so prudential a conduct: it was called a waiting upon providence. When providence, therefore, was so kind as to bestow on these men, now assembled together, the supreme authority, they must have been very ungrateful, if, in their turn, they had been wanting in complaisance towards it. They immediately voted themselves a parliament; and having their own consent, as well as that of Oliver Cromwell, for their legislative authority, they now proceeded very gravely to the exercise of it.
In this notable assembly were some persons of the rank of gentlemen; but the far greater part were low mechanics; Fifth Monarchy men, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Independents; the very dregs of the fanatics. They began with seeking God by prayer: this office was performed by eight or ten gifted men of the assembly; and with so much success, that, according to the confession of all, they had never before, in any of their devotional exercises, enjoyed so much of the Holy Spirit as was then communicated to them.[*] Their hearts were, no doubt, dilated when they considered the high dignity to which they supposed themselves exalted. They had been told by Cromwell, in his first discourse, that he never looked to see such a day, when Christ should be so owned.[**]
They thought it, therefore, their duty to proceed to a thorough reformation, and to pave the way for the reign of the Redeemer, and for that great work which, it was expected, the Lord was to bring forth among them. All fanatics, being consecrated by their own fond imaginations, naturally hear an antipathy to the ecclesiastics, who claim a peculiar sanctity, derived merely from their office and priestly character. This parliament took into consideration the abolition of the clerical function, as savoring of Popery; and the taking away of tithes, which they called a relic of Judaism. Learning also and the universities were deemed heathenish and unnecessary: the common law was denominated a badge of the conquest and of Norman slavery; and they threatened the lawyers with a total abrogation of their profession. Some steps were even taken towards an abolition of the chancery,[*] the highest court of judicature in the kingdom; and the Mosaical law was intended to be established as the sole system of English jurisprudence.[**]
Of all the extraordinary schemes adopted by these legislators, they had not leisure to finish any, except that which established the legal solemnization of marriage by the civil magistrate alone, without the interposition of the clergy. They found themselves exposed to the derision of the public. Among the fanatics of the house, there was an active member much noted for his long prayers, sermons, and harangues. He was a leather-seller in London, his name Praise-God Barebone. This ridiculous name, which seems to have been chosen by some poet or allegorist to suit so ridiculous a personage struck the fancy of the people; and they commonly affixed to this assembly the appellation of Barebone’s parliament.[***]