Protector.

Neither in Cromwell's actions, nor his motives, nor his speeches, nor his letters can he find anything deserving of praise. But then for many a long year had Sir Reginald Palgrave bowed down almost in adoration before the Golden Mace. How could the sacrilegious man who insulted and carried off The Bauble' look for mercy from the hand of a Clerk at the Table ?

Mr. Morley is an admirer of Cromwell, and an ardent Liberal, but he is capable of disagreeing with Carlyle, and of dissociating himself from Charles Fox. When the former declares that the action of the regicides struck a damp like death through the heart of Flunkyism universally in this world; whereof Flunkyism, Cant, Cloth-worship, or 'whatever ugly name it have, has gone about miserably sick ever since, and is now in these generations very rapidly dying,' Mr. Morley quietly observes that cant is not slain by a single stroke of a republican headsman's axe; that in fact Charles's execution kindled and nursed for many 'generations a lasting flame of cant, flunkyism, or whatever else be the right name of spurious and unmanly senti'mentalism, more lively than is associated with any other 'business in our whole national history.' We should have been almost tempted to say that Carlyle on this occasion had written nonsense, as surely sometimes may be permitted to a great genius, had not this very passage been quoted by Mr. Roosevelt as manifestly the utterance of an inspired 'seer.'

It is impossible for any one at the present day to read Cromwell's letters recording his victories over his Irish foes without a feeling akin to disgust. It is not pleasant to hear, after an enemy has submitted, that the officers were 'knocked on the head, every tenth man of the soldiers 'killed, and the rest shipped to Barbadoes,' as happened after the storm of Tredah, or to read of fights in which the losses on the two sides make it plain that they were butcheries rather than battles. For all these mercies' the approval of Heaven is invariably claimed, and the plea made-common in all ages-that the harsher and more seemingly cruel the punishment of the vanquished the more merciful it would prove in the end, the more it would check the ultimate effusion of blood. Mr. Roosevelt rightly declares that these things leave black and terrible stains on Cromwell's character. Not only did he permit, he encouraged and inspired, the ferocity of his Puritan soldiery. The Irish were barbarians and heathens in the

sight of Cromwell, and in the Old Testament he thought he found ample justification for his conduct. The Protector's less judicious admirers have often made too loud a boast of his exemption from religious bigotry, and have found in his character a larger admixture of tolerant and liberal principles than the facts warrant; relying, apparently, rather upon some of the wiser and more moderate phrases in his speeches and letters than upon the undisputed testimony of his actions. True, he saw the impolicy of punishing any one for his intimate convictions and private religious beliefs, for he recognised the impossibility as a matter of fact of getting inside a man's mind and heart. But overt acts he could suppress. I shall not, when I have power' (said Cromwell, when Lord Lieutenant, in his declaration to the Irish people) and the Lord is pleased to bless me, suffer 'the exercise of the mass when I can take notice of it,' and he threatens to punish any Papists that come into his hands according to law.

'As for the people,' he continues,' what thoughts they have in their own breasts I cannot reach; but shall think it my duty, if they walk honestly and peaceably, not to cause them in the least to suffer for the same, and shall endeavour to walk patiently and in love towards them, to see if at any time it shall please God to give them another or a better mind. And all men under the power of England, within this dominion, are hereby required and enjoined strictly and religiously to do the same.'

In practice, Cromwell's toleration at high-water mark seems never to have reached to Roman Catholics or Episcopalians, unless, indeed, they kept their religion entirely within their own breasts; yet Episcopalians, after all, constituted the majority of his own fellow-countrymen. Cromwell's rule in Ireland was by far the most painful part of his career; and not many of those who most respect his truly great qualities are able to find much consolation in Carlyle's foaming phrases in mitigation of horrible savagery, in regard to 'Jean-Jacques philanthropy and universal rosewater in a world of sin!' Of this sad period Mr. Frederic Harrison, in his brilliant and admirable little book, speaks with a vigour of his own; and with an originality surely not less his own he puts the blame on religion. for crimes which the Puritan theology has yet to answer for at the bar of humanity.' Thus has Mr. Harrison completely turned the tables upon the gods, who will have to answer before men for misdeeds which, no doubt, they, poor people, will plead were the result of human wickedness!

Whether the gods or men were to blame, or which were more to blame, is a question too extensive to be here pursued, and we return to Cromwell.

What were his real aims and ambitions? What was his conception of the right future for his country? What permanent work did he accomplish? How far was his rule a success? That the man was full of kindly human feeling is certain-Drogheda notwithstanding. His sympathetic nature, his strong sense of duty, come out in many letters never intended for the world to read. The upstart or adventurer theory cannot hold for a moment. Such a man as

he was must have had high ideals, though it is not, of course, suggested that throughout his life he was consciously engaged in forwarding any definite principles of government. Mr. Morley has forcibly pointed out that all he did or could do in many of the great emergencies of his life was to make the best of a situation he did not create. Something of an opportunist Cromwell was bound to be, unless, indeed, he was merely an adventurer playing always and solely for his own hand.

It is very clear that, from the beginning to the end of Cromwell's public career, his politics were the result of his religion. He believed that the godly' amongst his countrymen-those, whether Independents, or Presbyterians, or Baptists, who had the root of the matter in them '-were the chosen people of God; in short, that the welfare of England was dependent upon the ascendency of Puritanism. Subject to this fundamental conception, he was willing to allow much latitude of belief and opinion, and experience in governing men and an increased sense of responsibility concurred in later days to widen still further his ideas in these respects. He had, it is clear, found little to please him in the rule of the saints, as it was attempted by the so-called 'Barebones Parliament,' composed of his own nominees, and selected entirely from the ranks of the godly. This great failure, for an utter failure it was, must have tended to make Cromwell more anxious to build a stable system of government upon foundations to which the people were accustomed; and as he grew towards practical statesmanship the breach with the religious and political extremists, once the main strength of his party, grew too.

We agree with Mr. Morley, rather than with Mr. Frederic Harrison, in thinking that as a constitution-builder Cromwell completely failed. According to the latter authority Cromwell's period of rule proved his success as a constructive

conservative statesman. It certainly served to show that he had in his character and sympathies a strong leaven of conservatism, and that many of his aspirations were those of a wise and farseeing statesman. But, as a matter of fact, he constructed nothing that would work; and he died in 1658 the same absolute ruler that he had been when he acquired his power to govern the State from the desire of his own soldiers to make their successful general military dictator of the three kingdoms. Whether he wished it or not, and in our belief he did not wish it, his rule was a purely personal one. When his life came to an end the Commonwealth collapsed, and the Monarchy was restored amidst the enthusiastic rejoicings of the people, who regarded it not merely as the restoration of the rightful king, but also as the guarantee of their old rights and privileges against the detested sway of sheer military rule.

Yet, as Mr. Harrison rightly urges, Cromwell was not in truth or by nature a military despot. He was not a professional soldier; he had not till past middle life dreamed of taking up arms. What was he to do, when he was called upon in the public interest to secure the peace and orderly government of the nation? There was no one else who could do it, and it remains exceedingly doubtful whether even he could have done it in any other way. He regarded himself, as he repeatedly put it, as the constable to keep order in the parish.' No charge of want of patriotism, or of any deliberate preference of private ambition or personal interest to the welfare of the State, can be brought against him. The way in which he did this work claims the gratitude of posterity; but when a claim is made far beyond this-viz., that Cromwell was a great constitutionbuilder who laid the firm foundations of the orderly, free, popular, monarchical system of modern England-it is not easy to assent to it.

Cromwell desired a written constitution, and this the Instrument of Government under which he officially assumed the position of Protector of the Commonwealth provided. His powers were strictly limited by the Instrument, which provided that he was to govern with the assistance of a Council and a Parliament. But what constitutional authority had the Instrument' itself? When Parliament met in September 1654 nothing could prevent its at once discussing the question lying at the foundation of the new constitution-viz., whether the system of government ought to be that of a Single Person and a Parliament.' The

extreme Republicans would have preferred a system in which Parliament should itself be the supreme executive authority, but this Cromwell would not stand. The speech of the Protector in Parliament on September 4 was full of hope. 'You are met here on the greatest occasion that I 'believe England ever saw, having upon your shoulders the 'interest of three great nations. . . indeed, the interest ' of all the Christian people of the world,' and he proceeded to lay before them their proper work. But Parliaments would have been of little service to the world had they always been willing to confine themselves to the topics which those who summoned them wished them to discuss; and a week later the Protector was addressing his Parliament in a less hopeful and happy frame of mind. True, when he first met them he had said they were a Free Parliament, but now he reminded them that they were free only under the conditions of the Instrument by virtue of which they existed. It will be necessary for him, he says, 'to 'magnify his office,' which he is loth to do. But his office, he maintains, is as much part of the constitution as is the Parliament.

'I called not myself to this place. . . . Of that God is my witness. . . . And being in it I bear not witness to myself, but God and the People of these nations have also borne testimony to it. 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.. I should be false to the trust that God hath placed in me, and to the interest of the People of these nations, if I did.' *

Cromwell's desire, he repeatedly states, had been to get rid of the arbitrariness in the previous system, and he had welcomed the limitation of his powers. In his office as Protector, in accordance with the Instrument, he had the approval of the whole people, judges, magistrates, and persons of authority. There were fundamentals' in the system of government, which Parliament must not touch. Thus it was fundamental' that the government should be in a single person, with a Parliament to vote taxes and make laws; that Parliament should not be perpetual; that there should be liberty of conscience in religious belief; that the militia should be subject to the joint control of Protector and Parliament. It was almost treason to the new constitution to attack these fundamentals;' so he informed his Parliament that no members would hence

* Cromwell's Speeches and Letters.