A.D. 1653. CROMWELL DISMISSES THE COMMONS. 365 boroughs for which they then sat; and it was resolved that a general committee should pronounce upon the validity of the new returns. Against the proposal "for the perpetuating the same men in parliament," as Cromwell afterwards described this Bill, he gave his most strenuous opposition. On the 19th of April, 1653, there was a great conference of members of the House, and of officers of the army, at Cromwell's residence of Whitehall. It was understood that the discussion was to be renewed on Wednesday, the 20th. On that day, the Lord General and his officers were ready to receive the members, when news arrived, first, that the parliament was sitting, and then that the obnoxious Bill was about to become law. Cromwell instantly went forth, followed by Lambert and several other officers. A detachment of soldiers was ordered to march to the House of Commons. The Lord General placed his men in the lobby, and then entered the House alone. "He sat down and heard the debate for some time. Then calling to major-general Harrison, who was on the other side of the House, to come to him, he told him, that he judged the parliament ripe for a dissolution, and this to be the time of doing it." Harrison remonstrated, and Cromwell remained quiet until "the question for passing the Bill being to be put, he said again to major-general Harrison, "This is the time-I must do it ;' and suddenly standing up, made a speech, wherein he loaded the parliament with the vilest reproaches. . Sir Peter Wentworth stood up to answer him, but as he was going on, the General stepped into the midst of the House, where continuing his distracted language, he said, 'Come, come, I will put an end to your prating;' then walking up and down the House like a madman, and kicking the ground with his feet, he cried out, 'You are no parliament, I say you are no parliament; I will put an end to your sitting; call them in, call them in.' Whereupon the sergeant attending the parliament opened the doors, and lieutenant-colonel Worsley with two files of musketeers entered the House." He commanded the mace to be taken away, saying, "What shall we do with this bauble? Here, take it away." Major-general Harrison then handed the Speaker from the chair. Cromwell "ordered the guard to see the House cleared of all the members, and then seized upon the records that were there, and at Mr. Scobell's house. After which he went to the clerk, and snatching the Act of Dissolution, which was ready to pass, out of his hand, he put it under his cloak, and having commanded the doors to be locked up, went away to Whitehall."* The Council of State was dismissed the same afternoon by the same strong hand. The republican leaders were indignant; but they were powerless. This great change appears to have produced very little public excitement. It was followed by no severities against those who were known to be most hostile to the one man who was regarded in most things as the real ruler of England. Many rejoiced at this approach to an authority more direct, less vacillating and less contentious, than the supreme government by a parliament. A Council of State, consisting of thirteen, was appointed,nine military men and four civilians, with Cromwell as their president. The country remained in perfect tranquillity. The government went on without the slightest interruption. Amidst this general submission to what was regarded as a probable blessing or an inevitable evil, there was sent out, on the 6th of June, a summons to serve as a Member of Parlia ment, addressed, in Cromwell's name, to each of one hundred and thirtynine persons. Monk and Deane were cruising, with a portion of the English fleet, between the North Foreland and Nieuport; Blake was on our northern coasts. Van Tromp decided to encounter the fleet thus separated from their great admiral. The engagement continued all through the day of the 2nd of June. Deane had been killed by a cannon-shot at the first broadside. The action recommenced on the 3rd, when Blake came to Monk's assistance, and broke through the Dutch line. Van Tromp fought with desperation. His ship, the Brederode, was boarded by the crew of Penn's flag-ship, the James, after having repulsed Van Tromp's boarders. The Dutch admiral, resolved not to be a prisoner, threw a lighted match into his own powder-magazine. The explosion blew up the deck, but he himself escaped, to renew the battle in a frigate. He at last felt that he was beaten; retreated to his own coasts; and left with the triumphant English eleven vessels and thirteen hundred and fifty prisoners. The Council of State ordered a thanksgiving for the victory. Cromwell's Little Parliament met, on the 4th of July, under prosperous auspices. To Cromwell's summons only two had answered by non-attendance. Sitting in chairs round a table, the Lord General, surrounded by his officers, made a speech to the assembly. After going through a narrative of the circumstances which preceded the dissolution of the Long Parliament, and accounting for his participation in that act, he explained that he had called them together "to the end we might manifest to the world the singleness of our hearts and our integrity who did these things, not to grasp at the power ourselves, or keep it in military hands, no, not for a day; but, as far as God enabled us with strength and ability, to put it into the hands of proper persons that might be called from the several parts of the nation.” Cromwell then proceeded to exhort them "to approve themselves to God," and to "have a care of the whole flock! Love the sheep, love the lambs; love all, tender all, cherish and countenance all, in all things that are good. And if the poorest Christian, the most mistaken Christian, shall desire to live peaceably and quietly under you,-1 say, if any shall desire but to lead a life of godliness and honesty, let him be protected." The constitution of Cromwell's Assembly was provisional. The supreme authority was devolved upon them by an instrument signed by the Lord General and his officers, but they were to engage not to retain it beyond the 3rd of November, 1654; three months before that time they were to choose their successors; and these were not to sit longer than a year, and then to determine upon a future constitution of government. The "Little Parliament" at once applied themselves to the reform of the law; the amendment of the condition of prisoners for debt, and of the poor; the promotion of education, and other objects of importance, such as Union with Scotland, the division of lands in Ireland, and the financial condition of the kingdom. They did, however, some things which gave offence to two A.D. 1653. OLIVER CROMWELL, LORD PROTECTOR. 367 powerful classes-the clergy and the lawyers. They abolished the Court of Chancery, and they decreed by a majority of two, that tithes should be abolished. The more enthusiastic of the religious party-those who held that "the Saints shall take possession of the kingdom and keep it,"-had gained an ascendancy in the parliament. Cromwell saw that these men, led by major-general Harrison, were too strong in their enthusiasm to make a stable government of the people a practicable thing. There were many of his adherents of the same opinion; and the men of station and property began to regard Cromwell as the only power interposed between order and anarchy. On the 12th of December, colonel Sydenham, rose in his place, and forthwith accused the majority of desiring to take away the laws of the land, and substitute a Mosaic code; of seeking to remove a regularly appointed Christian ministry; of opposing all learning and education. He proposed that they should repair in a body to the LordGeneral, and resign the trust that had been committed to them. The motion was seconded by sir Charles Wosleley. The Speaker suddenly left the chair, followed by about forty members, and repaired to Whitehall, where they hastily wrote a paper resigning their authority into the hands of Cromwell. In the course of the next four days it was signed by eighty members, constituting a majority of the whole House. On the 16th of December, 1653, Oliver Cromwell was inaugurated "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland." The sovereignty was to reside in the parliament. The Protector was not to have the right of a negative on their laws. He had a power of making temporary ordinances until the meeting of a parliameut. A Council of State was to assist the Protector in the government. At this period, in spite of the Puritan rigour occasionally breaking out, the nation was gradually resuming the habits, if not wholly of merry England, of stirring and well-employed England. We see the stir of inventive genius; and we may trace the beginnings of that experimental philosophy which was to put England at the head of all industrious nations. Agriculture felt the influence of the general movement of the national mind. The forfeitures of property, so calamitous to individuals, had thrown extensive estates into the hands of the middle classes, who cultivated them to greater profit than their hereditary proprietors. CHAPTER XXVIII. Out of his own courage, sagacity, and abiding sense that his destiny was in the hands of a supreme directing Power, had a great ruler been made-one, says Milton, who "alone remained to conduct the government and to save the country." Oliver Cromwell did many things that are repugnant to the principles of just freedom under an established rule; but in his own manifestations of arbitrary power he was ever striving to establish a system of constitutional liberty. The acceptance by Cromwell of the office of Protector immediately gave a personal character to the controversy which before was general. From that moment he was surrounded with conspirators of every degree. The doctrine of assassination was openly preached by the royalists abroad. From Paris, on the 23rd of April, 1654, came out a Proclamation in the name of Charles II., promising all sorts of rewards to "whosoever, whether soldier or other, who shall be instrumental in so signal a piece of service" as cutting so detestable a villain from the face of the earth." This incentive to assassination was extensively circulated, openly abroad, secretly in England; and it produced its natural effect. On the 20th of May, the Protector's guards were to be attacked on the road to Hampton Court by thirty stout men, and then and there was the deed to be done. But the Protector escaped the ambuscade; for five of the royalist projectors of the plot were arrested in their beds a few hours before its intended accomplishment. Forty persons were subjected to examination as confederates with colonel John Gerard, Peter Vowell, a schoolmaster, and Somerset Fox. These three were tried before a High Court of Justice. Fox pleaded guilty, and was pardoned. The other two were executed. Of their guilt the evidence is sufficiently clear; and it is equally manifest that the plan had been communicated to prince Rupert at Paris. Hyde protested, in a letter to the Secretary Nicholas, that of the "whole matter the king knows no more than you do." It is indisputable that an envoy of the French king, de Baas, had employed the name of Mazarin to encourage this scheme of murder. Cromwell sent M. de Baas back to his own Court, imputing blame to him alone. He did not wish to interrupt in any way the negotiations now pending with France; and was satisfied with having made known to Europe, and especially to France, out of whose bosom the assassins came, the vigilance of his own police. Whilst France and Spain were each employing all the resources of their diplomacy to secure the alliance of England, Cromwell, after tedious negotiations, had concluded a peace with the United Provinces. The naval power of the Dutch had been finally broken by the victory of Blake, in July, 1653, when Van Tromp was himself killed by a musket-ball. The conditions of peace which Cromwell exacted were moderate. In the treaty with Holland, which was signed on the 5th of April, 1654, were comprehended Denmark, the Hanseatic Towns, and the Swiss Protestant Cantons. A treaty of friendship and alliance with Sweden was concluded in the same month. Cromwell demanded of Spain that the navigation of the West Indies should be free; and that Englishmen in Spain should be protected in the exercise of their religion against the interference of the Inquisition. The Spanish ambassador said that such a demand was to ask for the two eyes of his master. From France he required the expulsion of the Stuarts; and, in a nobler spirit, liberty and security for the French Protestants. No treaty with France was concluded in the first year of the Protectorate, and no hostilities were offered to Spain; but it became manifest that the disposition of Cromwell was in favour of the alliance with France, in preference to that with Spain. With Portugal he concluded a commercial treaty; on the same day, Don Pantaleon de Sa, the brother of the Portuguese ambassador, was executed for the murder of two Englishmen. A.D. 1654. DISCUSSION ON FORM OF GOVERNMENT. 369 The first parliament of the Protectorate was to include representatives of the three kingdoms. Of four hundred for England and Wales, two hundred and fifty-one were to be returned by counties, and a hundred and forty-nine by cities and boroughs. Scotland, which had been declared united to England by an Ordinance of the 12th of April, was to send thirty members; Ireland was to send also thirty members. The right of voting for representatives was in those who possessed real or personal property to the value of two hundred pounds. Roman Catholics, and those who had been in arms against the parliament during the Civil Wars, were excluded from voting, or from being returned as members. On the 4th of September the Parliament was opened with almost regal pomp. The Protector had a very difficult assembly to address. His own council had been elected, with one exception. Some of the republican leaders were again returned. A large body of the Presbyterians were also members. There was a peculiar significance in the Protector's words when he said that the great end of their meeting was "Healing and Settling." Cromwell enumerated what had been done in the way of ordinances during the last nine months. The administration of finance had been regulated; the hardships of prisoners for debt had been lessened; prison discipline had been reformed; highways had been improved. On more important points :-Commissioners had been appointed to consider the Reform of the Law. "In the meanwhile there hath been care taken to put the administration of the Laws into the hands of just men; men of the most known integrity and ability. The Chancery hath been reformed, I hope, to the satisfaction of all good men." A Commission had also been appointed for the trial of public preachers; and another to inquire into the conduct of, and eject from their livings if necessary, "scandalous, ignorant, and insufficient" ministers. It is impossible that such Commissions should not have been in many cases arbitrary, perhaps prejudiced and unjust; but they were the necessary results of an endeavour to remedy the evils which had been produced by the total sus pension of an authorised ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The Parliament had ample powers under the Instrument of Government. The authority of the Protector was great, but with very stringent limitations. Nevertheless, the very first occupation of the representatives was to proceed to the discussion of the question whether the House should approve of the system of government by a Parliament and a single Person. For three days this elementary question had been debated; and the House then resolved to go into committee to deliberate still further upon the fundamental proposition. On the morning when the committee was to meet, the doors of the parliament were found closed. The members were directed to meet in the Painted Chamber, to which the Protector came with his guards; and took his seat in a chair of state. He then spoke for an hour and a-half to the bare-headed assembly, with an earnestness to which a feeling of wounded pride gave unwonted emphasis. He maintained that the people, in the expression of their voices by grand juries, by addresses from counties and cities, were his witnesses of approbation to the place he filled. But the climax of his speech was that they, the members of parliament, were his last witnesses. They came there by his writs directed to the sheriffs. The writ of return was signed with proviso BB |