uncovered;' which latter circumstance may be taken as an astonishing hypocrisy in him, say the old blockhead Books. The arms, munitions, furnishings were with al. rigor of law, not with more rigor and not with less, carried away; and Oliver parted with his Uncle, for that time, not 'craving his blessing,' I think, as the old blockhead Books say; but hoping he might, one day, either get it or a better than it, for what he had now done. Oliver, while in military charge of that country, had probably re. peated visits to pay to his Uncle; and they know little of the man or of the circumstances, who suppose there was any likelihood or need of either insolence or hypocrisy in the course of these. As for the old Knight, he seems to have been a man of easy temper; given to sumptuosity or hospitality; and averse to severer duties.* When his eldest son, who also showed a turn for expense, presented him a schedule of debts, craving aid towards the payment of them, Sir Oliver answered with a bland sigh, “I wish they were paid." Various Cromwells, sons of his, nephews of his, besides the great Oliver, took part in the civil war, some on this side, some on that, whose indistinct designations in the old Books are apt to occasion mistakes with modern readers. Sir Oliver vanishes_now from Hinchinbrook, and all the public business records, into the darker places of the Fens. His name disappears from Willis:—in the next Parliament the Knight of the Shire for Huntingdon becomes, instead of him, Sir Capell Bedall, Baronet.' The purchaser of Hinchinbrook, Sir Sidney Montague, was brother of the first Earl of Manchester, brother of the third Lord Montague of Boughton; and father of the valiant Colonel Montague,' valiant General Montague, Admiral Montague, who, in an altered state of circumstances, became first Earl of Sandwich, and perished, with a valor worthy of a better generalissimo than poor James Duke of York, in the Seafight of Solebay (Southwold Bay, on the coast of Suffolk) in 1672.† In these same years, for the dates and all other circumstances of the matter hang dubious in the vague, there is record given by * Fuller's Worthies, § Huntingdonshire. + Collins's Peerage (London, 1741), ii., 286–9. Dugdale, a man of very small authority on these Cromwell matters, of a certain suit instituted, in the King's Council, King's Court of Requests, or wherever it might be, by our Oliver and other relations interested, concerning the lunacy of his Uncle, Sir Thomas Steward of Ely. It seems they alleged, This Uncle Steward was incapable of managing his affairs, and ought to be restrained under guardians. Which allegation of theirs, and petition grounded on it, the King's Council saw good to deny : whereupon-Sir Thomas Steward continued to manage his affairs, in an incapable or semi-capable manner; and nothing followed upon it whatever. Which proceeding of Oliver's, if there ever was such a proceeding, we are, according to Dugdale, to consider an act of villany,-if we incline to take that trouble. What we know is, That poor Sir Thomas himself did not so consider it; for, by express testament some years afterwards, he declared Oliver his heir in chief, and left him considerable property, as if nothing had happened. So that there is this dilemma: If Sir Thomas was imbecile, then Oliver was right; and unless Si Thomas was imbecile, Oliver was not wrong! Alas, all calumny and carrion, does it not incessantly cry, "Earth, O, for pity's sake, a little earth!" 1628. Sir Oliver Cromwell has faded from the Parliamentary scene into the deep Fen-country, but Oliver Cromwell, Esq., appears there as Member for Huntingdon, at Westminster on Monday the 17th of March,' 1627-8. This was the Third Parliament of Charles by much the most notable of all Parliaments till Charles's Long Parliament met, which proved his last. Having sharply, with swift impetuosity and in indignation, dis. missed two Parliaments, because they would not 'supply' him without taking 'grievances' along with them; and, meanwhile and afterwards, having failed in every operation foreign and domestic, at Cadiz, at Rhé, at Rochelle; and having failed, too, in getting supplies by unparliamentary methods, Charles consulted with Sir Robert Cotton what was to be done;' who answered, summon a Parliament again. So this celebrated Parliament was summoned. It met, as we said, in March, 1628, and continued Went with one prorogation till March, 1629. The two former Parliaments had sat but a few weeks each, till they were indignantly hurled asunder again; this one continued nearly a year. worth (Strafford) was of this Parliament; Hampden too, Selden, Pym, Holles, and others known to us: all these had been of former Parliaments as well; Oliver Cromwell, Member for Huntingdon, sat there for the first time. It is very evident, King Charles, baffled in all his enterprises, and reduced really to a kind of crisis, wished much this Parlia ment should succeed; and took what he must have thought incredible pains for that end. The poor King strives visibly throughout to control himself, to be soft and patient; inwardly writhing and rustling with royal rage. Unfortunate King, we see him chafing, stamping,―a very fiery steed, but bridled, check-bitted, by innumerable straps and considerations; struggling much to be composed. Alas, it would not do. This Parliament was more Puritanic, more intent on rigorous Law and divine Gospel, than any other had ever been. As indeed all these Parliaments grow strangely in Puritanism; more and ever more earnest rises from the hearts of them all, "O Sacred Majesty, lead us not to Antichrist, to Illegality, to temporal and eternal Perdition!" The Nobility and Gentry of England were then a very strange body of men. The English Squire of the Seventeenth Century clearly appears to have believed in God, not as a figure of speech, but as a very fact, very awful to the heart of the English Squire. 'He wore his Bible-doctrine round him,' says one, ' as our Squire wears his shotbelt; went abroad with it, nothing doubting.' King Charles was going on his father's course, only with frightful acceleration : he and his respectable Traditions and Notions, clothed in old sheepskin and respectable Church-tippets, were all pulling one way; England and the Eternal Laws pulling another;-the rent fast widening till no man could heal it. This was the celebrated Parliament which framed the Petition of Right, and set London all astir with 'bells and bonfires' at the passing thereof; and did other feats not to be particularised here. Across the murkiest element in which any great Entity was ever shown to human creatures, it still rises, after much consideration to the modern man in a dim but undeniable manner as a most brave and noble Parliament. The like of which were worth its weight in diamonds even now ;—but has grown very unattainable now, next door to incredible now. We have to say that this Parliament chastised sycophant Priests, Mainwaring, Sibthorp, and other Arminian sycophants, a disgrace to God's Church; that it had an eye to other still more elevated Church-Sycophants, as the mainspring of all; but was cautious to give offence by naming them. That it carefully 'abstained from naming the Duke of Buckingham.' That it decided on giving ample subsidies, but not till there were reasonable discussion of grievances. That in manner it was most gentle, soft-spoken, cautious, reverential; and in substance most resolute and valiant. Truly with valiant patient energy, in a slow teadfast English manner, it carried, across infinite confused opposition and discouragement, its Petition of Right, and what else it had to carry. Four hundred brave men,—brave men and true, after their sort! One laments to find such a Parliament smothered under Dryasdust's shot-rubbish. The memory of it, could any real memory of it rise upon honorable gentlemen and us, might be admonitory, would b astonishing at least. We must clip one extract from Rushworth's huge Rag-fair of a Book; the mournfullest torpedo rubbish-heap, of jewels buried under sordid wreck and dust and dead ashes, one jewel to the wagon-load ;—and let the reader try to make a visual scene of it as he can. Here, we say, is an old Letter, which 'old Mr. Chamberlain of the Court of Wards,' a gentleman entirely unknown to us, received fresh and new, before breakfast, on a June morning of the year 1628; of which old Letter we, by a good chance,* have obtained a copy for the reader. It is by Mr. Thomas Alured, a good Yorkshire friend, Member for Malton in that county;-written in a hand which, if it were not naturally stout, would tremble with emotion. Worthy Mr. Alured, called also 'Al'red' or 'Aldred;' uncle or father, we suppose, to a 'Colonel Alured,' well known afterwards to Oliver and us, he writes; we abridge and present, as follows: * Rushworth's Historical Collections (London, 1682), i., 609-10 66 Friday, 6th June, 1628. "Sir,-Yesterday was a day of desolation among us in Parliament; and this day, we fear, will be the day of our dissolution. Upon Tuesday Sir John Eliot moved that as we intended to furnish his Majesty with Money, we should also supply him with Counsel." Representing the doleful state of affairs, "he desired there might be a Declaration made to the King, of the danger wherein the Kingdom stood by the decay and contempt of religion, by the insufficiency of his Ministers, by the " &c., &c. Sir Humphrey May, "Chancellor of the Duchy, said, 'It was a strange language;' yet the House commanded Sir John Eliot to go on. Whereupon the Chancellor desired, 'If he went on, he the Chancellor might go out.' They all bade him 'begone :' yet he stayed, and heard Sir John out. The House generally inclined to such a Declaration," which was accordingly resolved to be set about. "But next day, Wednesday, we had a Message from his Majesty by the Speaker, That as the Session was positively to end in a week, we should husband the time, and despatch our old businesses without entertaining new. Intending" nevertheless "to pursue our Declaration, we had, yesterday, Thursday morning; a new Message brought us, which I have here enclosed. Which requiring us not to cast or lay any aspersion upon any Minister of his Majesty, the House was much affected thereby." Did they not in former times proceed by fining and committing John of Gaunt, the King's own son; had they not, in very late times, meddled with and sentenced the Lord Chancellor Bacon and others? What are we arriving at !— Sir Robert Philips of Somersetshire spake, and "mingled his words with weeping. Mr. Pym did the like. Sir Edward Cook" (old Coke upon Lyttleton), "overcome with passion, seeing the desolation likely to ensue, was forced to sit down when he began to speak, by the abundance of tears." O, Mr. Chamberlain of the Court of Wards, was the like ever witnessed? Yea, the Speaker in his speech could not refrain from weeping and shedding of tears. Besides a great many whose grief made them dumb. But others bore up in that storm, and encouraged the rest." We resolved ourselves into a Committee, to have freer 66 |