nours, and all pardon, except in cases of murder and treason; that he should govern in all things by the advice of the council, and according to the present instrument and laws; that the militia and all forces both by sea and land should, during the sitting of parliament, be in his and their hands, but, in the intervals of parliament, in his and the council's only; that he and the council should have the power of making war and peace with foreign princes; that the laws should not be altered, suspended, abrogated, or repealed, nor any new law made, nor any tax, charge, or imposition laid upon the people, except by common consent in parliament; that a parliament should be called within six months, and afterwards every third year, and if need oftener, which the protector should not dissolve without its own consent till after five months; that the parliament should consist of four hundred English members, thirty Scotch members, and thirty Irish, to be chosen by equal distribution in counties and boroughs; that none that had borne arms against the parliament, no Irish rebels, or papists, should be capable of being elected; that none should be elected under the age of twenty-one years, or that were not persons of known integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation; that all persons seised or possessed of any estate, real or personal, to the value of 2007., should have votes in county elections; that sixty members should be deemed a quorum; that bills offered to the protector, if not assented to by him within twenty days, should pass into, and become law, notwithstanding; that Philip Lord Viscount Lisle, Charles Fleetwood, Esq., John Lambert, Esq., Sir Gilbert Pickering, baronet, Sir Charles Wolsey, baronet, Sir Antony Ashley Cooper, baronet, Edward Montague, John Desborough, Walter Strickland, Henry Lawrence, William Sydenham, Philip Jones, Richard Major, Francis Rous, Philip Skipton, esquires, or any seven of them, should be a council of government, with power in the lord protector and the majority of the council to add to their number; that a regular yearly revenue should be settled for the maintenance of ten thousand horse and fifteen thousand foot, and that the navy should not be altered or lessened but by advice of the council; that the office of lord protector should be elective, and not hereditary-care being taken that none of the children of the late king, nor any of his line or family, should ever be elected; that Oliver Cromwell, captain-general of the forces of England, Scotland, and Ireland, should be declared to be lord protector of the commonwealth for life; that all the great officers, as chancellor, keeper or commissioner of the great seal, treasurer, admiral, chief governors of Ireland and Scotland, and the chief justices of both the Benches, should be chosen by the approbation of parliament, and in the intervals of parliament by the majority of the council, whose choice was to be afterwards approved by the parliament; that the Christian religion, as contained in the scriptures, should be

held forth and recommended as the public profession of these nations; that as soon as might be a provision, less subject than tithes to scruple and contention and uncertainty, should be made for the encouragement and maintenance of able and painful teachers, and that until such provision were made the present maintenance should not be taken away or impeached; that none should be compelled to consent to the public profession of faith by fines or penalties or otherwise, but that endeavours should be used to win them by persuasion and example, and that such as professed faith in God by Jesus Christ, though differing in judgment from the doctrine, worship, or discipline publicly held forth, should not be restrained from, but protected in, the exercise of their religion, so that they did not quarrel with and disturb others in the exercise of theirs; provided that (for Cromwell was either unwilling or unable to extend this wide toleration to the church of Rome and the Anglican episcopal church) this liberty were not extended to popery or prelacy, or to such as under the profession of Christ held forth and practised licentiousness. Such were the principal clauses of the instrument of government which the lord protector swore to, and to which he put his signature, promising, in the presence of God, not to violate or infringe the matters and things contained therein. And hereupon he sat down, covered, in the chair of state, and the lords commissioners delivered to him the great seal of England, and the lord mayor his sword and cap of maintenance, all which the lord protector returned immediately to them again. The court then rose, and Cromwell went back in state to the Banqueting House at Whitehall, the lord mayor carrying the sword before him all the way, the soldiers shouting, and the great guns firing. On the following day (the 17th of December) the lord protector was proclaimed by sound of trumpet in the Palace Yard at Westminster, at the Royal Exchange and other places in the city; and soon after the lord mayor and corporation invited him to a great feast at Grocers' Hall.*

Thus was the government of England converted into a republic with a chief magistrate at its head. In the interval which had elapsed since the forcible expulsion of the Long Parliament, the maritime war had been conducted with vigour and successthe English fleet having, according to a pun of those days, out-trumped Van Tromp. This Neptune of the Dutch had again presented himself in the Downs on the 25th of May, and that, too, with a fleet of 108 ships. On the 2nd of June Monk and Dean engaged him; on the 3rd the gallant Blake came up and decided the action, in which the Dutch lost seventeen of their ships, which were sunk or taken, and, besides the slain, more than 1300 men that were made prisoners. The English lost none of their ships, but General Dean unfortunately fell by a great shot on the first day of the action. After the battle the English went

• Whitelock.-Perfect Politician.-Carrington.

and lay off the ports of Holland, taking prizes at their pleasure. But by the 29th of July Van Tromp again got to sea with 120 sail, and put all in a fighting posture to engage the English the next day. As the night was foul, and flats and shoals close under his lee, Monk, who now commanded in chief, hoisted sail and stood out to sea. "This sight made the Dutch suppose a flight, insomuch that one of their captains desired Van Tromp to pursue: for, said he, these Schellums dare not stand one broadside from your excellency you may see them plainly running home, and therefore, my lord, miss not the opportunity. This was not the first time that Tromp had seen the English at sea, and he therefore returned the captain this short answer: Sir, look to your charge; for, were the enemy but twenty sail, they would never refuse to fight us. So it fell out: for, the weather proving fair and calm, the English contracted their fleet together, and, in a body, tacked about to meet the enemy.' On Sunday morning, the 31st of July-a cloudy, gloomy morning-the two fleets engaged with an excess of fury, the Dutch having the weathergage, and beginning the fight at long shots. But But it was not long before they fought board and board, and so they continued fighting, the Dutch using

• Perfect Politician.

fire-ships, which stuck like plasters to the sides of some of the English, from five in the morning till ten," about which time Van Tromp, fighting in the midst of the English fleet, had a passport sent him for another world, being shot with a musket bullet into the left breast near the heart. . . . And no sooner was his life spent, but the hearts of his men were broken, a general consternation suddenly possessing the whole fleet, so that the seamen had more mind to carry home the news of their renowned admiral's death, than to take vengeance on the English for killing him."* This tremendous battle, in which the Dutch lost thirty ships, and the English only two, put an end to the war, and allowed the protector time to attend to business at home.

A.D. 1654.-Whenever Cromwell, who would frequently bemoan the animosities amongst the people caused by diversity in religion, was pressed by preachers and zealots to put an end to them by enforcing a settlement and conformity to one creed, he represented that his power in the nation was merely that of a constable, who was to keep peace and quietness amongst all parties, and misuse none; but he thought himself obliged to imprison for a month some expounders of the gospel who represented him as a tyrant, and a worse protectór

Perfect Politician.

Don

than Richard III. In the courts of law he made some new appointments, among which was that of the great Sir Matthew Hale, who was put on the Bench of the Common Pleas. Thurloe, the friend of Milton, was made secretary of state; and a higher tone was noticeable in the state-papers of the country than had ever been known before, not excepting even the productions of Elizabeth's time. The French government made haste to congratulate the lord protector, and engaged to dismiss the family of the late King Charles from France; Spain made a tender of friendship and alliance; and Portugal, which had, in effect, been at war with the commonwealth ever since the affair of Prince Rupert, sent over an ambassador extraordidinary to negotiate for a peace with Cromwell. Don Pantaleon Sa, brother to the Portuguese envoy, was insulted one day in London by an Englishman of the name of Gerrard, commonly called "Generous Gerrard," an enthusiastic royalist; and on the next day, towards evening, the vindictive Portuguese sallied out with a fanatic crew," armed with swords, pistols, and daggers, in search of Gerrard, whom they found at the New Exchange. An affray ensued; an Englishman named Greenway was shot, and Colonel Mayo received seven dangerous wounds; but Gerrard, "with his good rapier and with a magnanimous spirit, drove the Portugals all before him." Pantaleon fled for refuge to the house of his brother, who pleaded the ambassadorial right of considering his house as a sacred asylum in all cases; but, soon seeing that nothing less would satisfy, he delivered up his brother, his friend, a knight of Malta, and some others. The ambassador then addressed himself to Cromwell, chiefly for his brother, but Cromwell told him that the business concerned the public, and that his excellency must apply to the parliament and council of state. In fact, Cromwell had resolved that Don Pantaleon should suffer the extremity of the law, and, without heeding prayers, promises, or threats, he brought him publicly to trial before a jury, (for more fairness, and as was usual in such cases, it consisted of half Englishmen and half foreigners,) who returned a verdict of guilty, which was followed by the sentence that he should be hanged. On the 10th of July, his sentence being commuted to beheading, he was conveyed from Newgate to Tower Hill in a coach and six, with divers of his brother the ambassador's retinue with him, all in mourning, and there his head was chopped off at two blows. Yet, in spite of this catastrophe, the ambassador was fain to sign the treaty of peace with the lord protector. It appears, indeed, that he signed on the very day of the execution-and then made haste to get away from a country where the laws and the ruler would make no distinction of persons, nor tolerate assassination in any. But, also on the same day, the "generous" Gerrard, who was himself capable of a worse species of assassination than that perpetrated by the Portuguese,

• Whitelock.-Thurloe.- Perfect Politician.

was beheaded on the same spot: for he had engaged with Charles II.* to surprise and murder Cromwell, and then proclaim Charles. He had fully concerted this plan with a set of men as desperate and lawless as himself, and his plot was only discovered by the protector a few hours before the time fixed for its execution. Only one of his accomplices suffered death: this was a Mr. Vowel, who was hanged at the Mews' gate.

At the same time the authority, if not the life, of Cromwell was threatened by some of the discontented republican officers of the army; and he justified himself by the necessity of the case in imprisoning a few of the most distinguished of those men, who had prayed with him and fought with him from the beginning, but never with any intention of making him a sovereign. Ireland remained tolerably tranquil under his lieutenants, and subsequently under the rule of his second son, Henry Cromwell, who, according to the report of one who is no partial narrator, "ruled with so much discretion, that in a small time he brought that disordered nation into the most hopeful condition of a flourishing state." But in Scotland the highlanders for the most part defied the authority of the commonwealth, maintaining a loose predatory warfare; and the Lords Glencairn, Athol, Lorn, and Balcarras, with other royalists, kept the standard of Charles II. flying, and, upon being joined by General Middleton, who came over from the continent, they assumed a very menacing attitude. But jealousies and fierce dissensions broke out among them; some of the officers turned their arms against one another, and when General Monk, re-appointed by Cromwell to the chief command in Scotland, returned to that country after his victories over the Dutch, he quelled the insurrection with infinite ease, and made Middleton run back to his exiled master. It appears that, as early as this at least, Charles was tampering with Monk; but that third-rate, selfish man could have seen no chance of mastering Cromwell, and his interest, and his conviction that any attempt at a royalist revolution must fail, kept him for the present faithful to the protector and commonwealth.

On the 3rd of September-" the Lord's day, yet the day of the parliament's meeting"-the newly-elected members met first in the afternoon at sermon in Westminster Abbey; and after the sermon they attended the protector in the Painted Chamber. There Cromwell addressed them as to the cause of their being summoned; and then they

Gerrard had recently returned from Paris with a proclamation running in the name of Charles II., offering a reward to any “who should, by pistol, sword, poison, or other means, do an act acceptable to God and good men, in destroying the life of a certain base mechanic fellow, by name Oliver Cromwell, who had usurped the supreme power." Clarendon, who is suspected to have penned this atrocious paper, denies that there was any plot of the kind: but there are few things more clearly proved than Gerrard's guilt; or more obvious than the fact that not one, but many, of the royalists thought it would be no sin to shoot, stab, poison, or otherwise dispose of the usurper.

† Perfect Politician.

I Whitelock. The 3rd of September, though a Sunday, had been chosen, because it was the anniversary of the great victories of Dunbar and Worcester, and because Cromwell considered it his lucky day..

went to their House and adjourned till the next morning. On that morning the protector rode in state* from Whitehall to the Abbey, where another sermon was preached, and whence the members followed him back to the Painted Chamber. He took his seat in a chair of state set upon steps -as like a throne as it well might be ;-the members, all uncovered, sat upon benches round about him; and all being silent, "his highness" took off his hat, and made what Whitelock calls a large and subtle speech." He spoke to them of what he assuredly might have felt as a citizen, as an English gentleman-the great danger resulting from the anarchic principles of the Levellers, and the fantastic opinions of the Fifth-monarchy men, who, if left to themselves, would destroy liberty, property, law, and rational religion, in order to introduce their wild systems and theories of government under the mask of the most sacred of all liberties—the liberty of conscience.+ "They can tell the magistrate," continued the protector, "that he hath nothing to do with men in these matters-for these are matters of conscience and opinion; they are matters of religion-what hath the magistrate to do with them? He is to look to the outward man, but not to meddle with the inward. And truly it so happens, that though these things do break out visibly to all, yet the principle wherewith they are carried on so forbids the magistrate to meddle with them, as it hath hitherto kept the offenders from punishment. . . . . The afore-mentioned abominations did thus swell to this height amongst us. The axe was laid to the root of the ministry. It was antichristian, it was Babylonish: it suffered under such a judgment, that, the truth of it is, as the extremity was great on that, I wish it prove not so on this, hand. The extremity was, that no man having a good testimony, having received gifts from Christ, might preach, if not ordained. So, now, many on the other hand affirm that he who is ordained hath a nullity, or antichristianism, stamped upon his calling; so that he ought not to preach, or not be heard. I wish it may not too justly be said that there was severity and sharpness; yea, too much of an imposing spirit in matters of conscience; a spirit unchristian enough in any times, most unfit for these; deny ing liberty to those who have earned it with their blood; who have gained civil liberty, and religious

About nine in the morning his highness (not much affecting pomp and bravery) rode in his coach to church: with him there sat his son Henry and the Lord Lambert: his gentlemen, very richly clad, marched first, bare-headed; next before the coach went the pages, and on one side of the coach walked on foot Mr. Strickland, one of the council, and captain of the guard, together with the master of the ceremonies; on the other side, in like manner, was Captain Howard, captain of the Lifeguard. After these, followed, in coaches, the lords commissioners of the Great Seal, of the Treasury, and the Council; at last, the ordinary guard of the protector put an end to the train. In this manner he went to the Abbey. As he entered the church, there was borne before him four maces, the purse and a sword, which the Lord Lambert carried bare-headed." -Perfect Politician.

The Fifth-monarchy men confidently expected that the Millennium was at hand,-that Christ was coming, and that they, as the blessed saints, were to have under him the exclusive dominion of the whole world. All this and a great deal more they conceived they saw clearly foretold in the Apocalypse,

VOL. III.

also, for those who would thus impose upon them." He went on to tell them that there had been too much subverting and undoing; that "overturn, overturn, overturn," was a scripture phrase very much abused, and applied by men of discontented spirits to justify all kinds of unpeaceable practices; that the common enemy in the mean time was not sleeping; that swarms of Jesuits were coming over to meddle in the affairs of England, to hinder the good work in Ireland, to obstruct it in Scotland. After speaking of the successful termination of the war with the Portuguese, and the war with the Dutch, he asserted that it was his government that had applied the remedy, and that he and that government were calculated for the interest of the people, for their interest alone and for their good, without respect had to any other interest. "I may," continued the Protector, "with all humbleness towards God, and modestly before you, say something in the behalf of this government. It hath endeavoured to reform the laws, and for that end hath joined persons of integrity and ability to consider how the laws may be made plain, short, and easy. . . It hath taken care to put into the seats of justice men of the most known integrity and ability. The Chancery hath been reformed, and, I hope, to the just satisfaction of all good men. It hath put a stop to that heady way, for every man that will to make himself a preacher, having endeavoured to settle a way for approbation of men of piety and fitness for the work, and the business committed to persons both of the Presbyterian and Independent judgment. One thing more this government hath done. It hath been instrumental to call a free parliament: blessed be God, we see here this day a free parliament! And that it may continue so, I hope is in the heart and spirit of every good man in England. For mine own part, as I desired it above my life, so to keep it free I shall value it above my life."+ When Cromwell had done speaking, the members went to their House; elected the old Speaker, Lenthall; reappointed several of the officers of the Long Parliament; and appointed the 13th of September as a day of humiliation, to be kept by the parliament, city, and parts adjacent. But, on the morrow (the 5th), their very first proceeding was to call in question the recent "instrument of government," or charter, by appointing a committee of privileges, and by moving that the House should resolve itself into a committee to deliberate whether the legislative power should be in a single person and a parliament, or, in other words, whether they should or should not acknowledge the late instrument which had made Cromwell protector and them a parliament.

If Cromwell had taken any great pains in influencing the election of these men, his pains had been thrown away in good part,-for not only had many republicans been returned, but also many Presbyterians; and the united opposition of these two † Parl. Hist.-Whitelock,

Parl. Hist.

3 H

ex

parties was too strong for the protectorians, or the court party, as Cromwell's adherents were already called. Bradshaw was one of the republican members; and he and Scott headed that section, and spoke with great boldness in support of their own theory of government, possibly not reflecting sufficiently upon the undeniable fact, that there were not materials in England to constitute or sustain a republic. Ludlow, who was as enthusiastic as Bradshaw, says, that these speeches were very instrumental in opening the eyes of many young members, who had never before heard the public interest so clearly stated and asserted; so that the commonwealth party increased every day, and that of the sword lost ground proportionally." These speeches, or the reports of them, are among the many things of this period that have perished; but we learn, from a contemporary, that a noble gentleman, whom he names not, made one cellent speech, wherein he showed the snares that then were laid to entrap the people's privileges: for his own part, he declared that God had made him instrumental in cutting down tyranny in one person, and now he could not endure to see the nation's liberties ready to be shackled by another, whose right to the government could be measured out no other ways than by the length of his sword, -'twas this emboldened him to command his commanders. To the same effect many more speeches were made, in direct opposition to a single person."* When they had jarred for eight days together upon this string, Cromwell summoned all the members before him in the Painted Chamber, and there gave them to understand that the government by a single person and a parliament was a fundamental principle, fully established, and not subject to their discussion; that the "instrument of government" expressly provided that no parliamentary bills should contain anything in them contrary to the clauses of the said instrument; that the same instrument of government that made them a parliament made him a protector; and as they were intrusted with some things, so was he with others; and that these fundamentals could not be altered or called in question. They were-1. That the government should be in one person and a parliament. 2. That parliament should not be made perpetual. 3. That the militia was not to be trusted to any one hand or power, but to be so disposed that the parliament should have a check upon the protector, and the protector upon the parliament. 4. That, in matters of religion, there should be a due liberty of conscience, with bounds and liberties set, so as to prevent persecution. As for all other points, he assured them that they were examinable and alterable as the occasion and the state of affairs might require. "I told you," continued Cromwell, still leaning upon the clear clauses in the instrument of government, "I told you you were a free parliament; and so you are, whilst you own the government and authority that called you hither: for, certainly,

Perfect Politician.

that word implied a reciprocation, or implied nothing at all. . . . . I called not myself to this place. I say, again, I called not myself to this place; of that God is witness. . . . If my calling be from God, and my testimony from the people, God and the people shall take it from me, else I will not part with it." In the end, he told them that he was necessitated to appoint a test or recognition of his government, which must be signed by them all before they went any more into the House. The test or recognition was simply in these words:"I do hereby promise and engage to be true and faithful to the lord-protector and the commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland; and shall not (according to the tenor of the indenture whereby I am returned to serve in parliament) propose or give my consent to alter the government as it is settled in one person and a parliament." This parchment was placed on a table near the door of the House, and about one hundred and thirty members subscribed it immediately, and went back to their seats, when they adjourned for one day, to give time for the rest to sign it. In the course of the day Major-General Harrison, who had returned to his republicanism, regarded the rule of one man as contrary to the law of Christ, and who had played so conspicuous a part in driving out the Long Parliament, but who had himself been driven out of the Little Parliament, was secured by a party of horse at the Lord Protector's order. On the 14th of September many more of the members subscribed the recognition; the House, however, voting and declaring that this recognition did not comprehend, nor should be construed to comprehend, the whole instrument of government, consisting of forty-two articles, but only the clauses which concerned the government of the commonwealth by a single person and successive parliaments. On the 18th they voted that all persons returned, or that should be returned hereafter to serve in this present parliament, should, before they were admitted to sit in the House, subscribe the test or recognition; and that the subscription should be taken in the presence of any two members who had themselves subscribed it. On the 19th they began to sit in grand committee to debate, de die in diem, the instrument of government, till they should go through all the forty-two articles, and confirm or reject them. And upon the same day they voted that the supreme legislative authority should reside in a lord-protector and the people assembled in parliament, and that the present lord-protector should continue during life. By the 6th of October three hundred of the four hundred members had signed the recognition. On the 16th of October they took up the critical question whether the office of the single person or protector should be elective or hereditary, and, after a high debate, which lasted several days, it was carried by a very large majority that the office should be elective. The veto allowed to the lord-protector by the instrument of