The Commonwealth. page 10

Cromwell affected to receive with reluctance the onerous charge of the supreme power and responsibility; but the officers urged its necessity, and the document being soon signed by eighty members, he acceded to it. The council of officers and ministers decided that it was necessary to have "a commonwealth in a single person;" and a new constitution was drawn up; and on the 16th of December Cromwell, dressed in a suit and cloak of black velvet, with long boots and a broad gold band round his hat, proceeded in his carriage from Whitehall to the court of chancery. The way was lined by files of soldiers consisting of five regiments of foot and three of horse. A long procession followed, including the lord mayor, aldermen, and city officers, the two commissioners of the great seal, the judges, the councillors of state and of the army. On reaching the court of chancery, Cromwell took his place before a chair of state, which had been placed on a rich carpet, the commissioners of the great seal standing on his right and left, the judges ranging themselves behind, and the civil and military officers disposing of themselves on each hand. Lambert then stepped forward and addressed the lord-general. He spoke of the dissolution of parliament, and of the necessity of a strong government, not liable to be paralysed by contending opinions; and he prayed the lord-general, in the name of the army and of the official authorities of the three kingdoms, to accept the office of Lord-Protector of the Commonwealth, and to govern it for the public good by a constitution already drawn up. Cromwell assented, and thereupon Jessop, a clerk of the council, read what was called, "The Instrument of Government," consisting of forty-two articles. The chief of these were, that the legislative power should be invested in the lord-protector and the parliament; but chiefly in the parliament, for every act passed by them was to become law at the end of twenty days, though the protector should refuse it his consent. Parliament should not be adjourned, prorogued, or dissolved, without its own consent, for five months; and there was to be a new parliament called within three years of the dissolution of the last, The members of the parliament were adopted from a plan by Vane, brought forward during the Long Parliament - namely, three hundred and forty members for England and Wales, thirty for Scotland, and thirty for Ireland. The members were to be chosen chiefly from the counties, and no papist, malignant, or any one who had borne arms against the parliament, was admissible. In the protector resided the power of making war or peace with the consent of the council; he held the disposal of the militia, and of the regular forces and the navy, the appointment of all public offices with the approbation of parliament, or during the recess of parliament with that of the council, subject to the after approval of parliament; but he could make no law, nor impose taxes without consent of parliament. The civil list was fixed at two hundred thousand pounds, and a revenue for the army capable of maintaining thirty thousand men, with such a navy as the lord-protector should deem necessary. The elective franchise extended to persons possessed of property worth two hundred pounds, and sixty members of parliament should constitute a quorum. All persons professing faith in Jesus Christ were to enjoy the exercise of their religion except papists, prelatists, or such as -taught doctrines subversive of morality. Cromwell was named lord-protector for life, and his successor was to be elected by the council, and no member of the family of the late king, or any one of his line, should be capable of election. A council was specially named by the Instrument, to consist of Philip, lord viscount Lisle, brother of Algernon Sydney, Fleetwood, Lambert, Sir Gilbert Pickering, Sir Charles Wolseley, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, Edward Montague, John Desborough, brother-in-law of Cromwell, Walter Strickland, Henry Lawrence, William Sydenham, Philip Jones, Richard Major, father-in-law of Richard Cromwell, Francis Rouse, Philip Skipton, Esqrs., or any seven of them, with a power in the protector, and a majority of the council, to add to their number. Thurloe, the historian, was secretary of the council, and Milton Latin secretary.

This instrument being ready, Cromwell swore solemnly to observe it, and to cause it to be observed; and then Lambert, kneeling, offered the protector a civic sword in the scabbard, which he took, laying aside his own, as indicating that he thenceforward would govern by the new constitution, and not by military authority. He then seated himself, covered, in the chair of state, all besides standing uncovered; he then received from the commissioners the great seal, and from the lord mayor the sword and cap of maintenance, which he immediately returned to them. On this the court rose, and the lord-protector returned in state to Whitehall, the lord mayor bearing the sword before him, amid the shouting of the soldiers and the firing of cannon. The next day, the 17th of December, the lord- protector was proclaimed by sound of trumpet in Westminster and in the city, and thus had the successful general, the quondam farmer of Huntingdon, arrived at the seat of supreme power, at the seat of a long line of famous kings, though not with the name of king, to which many suspected him of aspiring. Yet even without the royal dignity, he soon found the position anything but an enviable one, for he was surrounded by hosts of men still vowed to his destruction and the restoration of the monarchy; and amongst those who had fought side by side with him towards this august eminence, were many who regarded his assumption of it as a crime, to be expiated only by his death. Before we proceed, however, to notice the protector's struggles with his secret or avowed enemies, and with his new parliament, we must notice what had been doing meantime in the war with Holland, which had still been raging.

In May, 1653, the fleets of England and Holland, each amounting to one hundred sail, put to sea. That of England was under the command of Monk, Dean, Penn, and Lawson; that of Holland under Van Tromp, De Ruyter, De Witt, and Evertsens. At first they passed each other, and whilst Monk ravaged the coast of Holland, Van Tromp was cannonading Dover. At length, on the 2nd of June, they met off the North Foreland, and a desperate conflict took place, in which Dean was killed at the side of Monk. Monk immediately threw his cloak over the body, to avoid discouraging the men, and fought on through the day. In the night Blake arrived with eighteen additional sail, and at dawn the battle was renewed. The result was, that the Dutch were beaten, lost one-and-twenty sail, and had thirteen hundred men taken prisoners, besides great numbers killed and wounded. The English pursued the flying vessels to the coast of Holland, and committed great ravages amongst their merchantmen. But the undaunted Van Tromp, on the 29 th of July, appeared again at sea with above a hundred sail. Monk, on his appearance, stood out to sea for more battle-room, and one of the Dutch captains seeing this, said to Tromp that they were running; but Tromp, who knew the English better, replied curtly, "Sir, look to your own charge, for were there but twenty sail, they would never refuse to fight us." Monk, on his part, ordered his captains to attempt making no prizes, but to sink and destroy all the ships they could. The battle, therefore, raged furiously, from five in the morning till ten; but at length the gallant Tromp fell dead by a musket shot, and the courage of the Dutch gave way. In this fight the Dutch lost thirty ships, about one thousand prisoners, besides the numbers of slain, the English losing only two vessels.

These splendid victories enabled Cromwell to conclude advantageous treaties with Holland, France, Denmark, Portugal, and Sweden. Most of these states sent over ambassadors to congratulate him on his elevation, and these were received at Whitehall with much state. The royal apartments were furnished anew in a very magnificent style, and in the banqueting-room was placed a chair of state raised on a platform with three steps, and the lord-protector gave audience seated in it. The ambassadors were instructed to make three obeisances, one at the entrance, one in the middle of the room, and the third in front of the chair, which the protector acknowledged with a grave inclination of the head. The same ceremony was repeated on retiring.

Cromwell received the ambassadors of Holland to dinner, sitting mi one side of the table alone, and the ambassadors with a few of the lords of the council on the other. The lady protectress at the same time entertained their ladies. In his appearances abroad the protector assumed very much the state of a king, with state coaches, life guards, pages, and lacqueys richly clothed. He took up his abode instantly in the royal palaces, quitting the Cock-pit altogether, Whitehall being his town house, and Hampton Court his country one, where he generally went on Saturday afternoon, and spent the Sunday.

It was not, however, without many heartburnings and some plots for his destruction that his wonderful elevation was witnessed by many of his old comrades, as well as his natural enemies.

The anabaptists and fifth-monarchy men, who carried their notions of political liberty as far beyond Cromwell as the chartists or communists of our time carry theirs beyond the whigs, were exceedingly violent, and denounced him as an apostate and deceiver. Feak and Powell, two anabaptist preachers in Blackfriars, thundered from their pulpits against him, as the beast in the Apocalypse, the old dragon, and the man of sin. "Go, tell your protector," they cried, "that he has deceived the Lord's people, and is a perjured villain." They declared that he was worse than the last tyrant usurper, the crookback Richard, and would not reign long.

Having borne the violent abuse of these men for some time, he at length sent them to the Tower. But amongst his own generals and former colleagues were men not less exasperated. Harrison and Ludlow were fifth-monarchy men, who believed that none but Christ ought to reign, and they joined the most disaffected. Harrison being asked if he would own the new protectoral government, answered fiercely, "No!" and Cromwell was obliged to send him to his own house in the country, and afterwards to commit him also to the Tower. Vane and others were not less angered, though less openly violent.

Cromwell expressed much sorrow at these symptoms of resentment amongst his old friends, and declared that he would much rather, so far as his own inclinations were concerned, have taken a shepherd's staff than that of the protector, In Scotland and Ireland there was much dissatisfaction at the new revolution, as it was called. Even Fleetwood, his son- in-law, scarcely knew how to receive it, and Ludlow and Jones expressed no unequivocal discontent. Colonel Alured had been sent to Ireland to conduct certain forces to Monk in the Scottish Highlands, but he was an anabaptist, and became so insubordinate, that Cromwell dismissed him both from his commission and from the army. Ludlow refused to continue on the Irish civil commission. Cromwell, however, sent over his son Henry on a visit to Fleetwood, so that he might learn the true state of the army, and the most active or formidable of the malcontent officers were removed to England, or by degrees dismissed from the service.

In Scotland similar disaffection was apparent, but there active service against the royalists, who were also astir with fresh vigour on this occasion, tended to divert their attention from their discontents. Charles IL, from Paris, about

Easter, issued a proclamation, supposed to be drawn up by Clarendon, offering five hundred pounds a year, and a colonelcy in the army, to any one who would take off by sword, pistol, or poison, "a certain base, mechanic fellow, by name Oliver Cromwell," who had usurped his throne. His partisans in Scotland seized the opportunity to renew the war. The earls of Glencairn and Balcarras, Angus, Montrose, Seaforth, Athol, Kenmure, and Lorne, the son of Argyll, were up in arms. Charles sent over general Middleton to take the chief command, and Cromwell ordered Monk again from the victorious fleet to hasten to the Highlands to oppose him, colonel Robert Lilburne having in the meantime made a successful assault upon them. Monk speedily defeated Middleton and his associates, and the Scotch lords lost no time in making their submission. Cromwell had subdued the rebellion completely by August, but still earlier he had abolished all separate rule in Scotland. In April he published three ordinances, by which he incorporated England with Scotland, abolished the monarchy and parliament in that country, and absolved the people from their allegiance to Charles Stuart, erecting courts baron instead of those suppressed. The people who contended through so many bloody wars against English monarchs who had attempted the same thing, now quietly submitted to this plebeian but energetic conqueror, and the kirk only defied his authority, by meeting in assembly in Edinburgh on the 20th of July. But there presently appeared amongst them colonel Cotterel, who bade them depart, and marched them a mile out of the city betwixt two files of soldiers, to the astonishment and terror of the inhabitants, where he informed them, that if any of them were found in the capital after eight o'clock the next morning, or attempted to sit or meet more than three together, he would imprison them as disturbers of the public peace. Our old acquaintance, Baillie, beheld this amazing spectacle with consternation. "Thus," he exclaimed, "our general assembly, the glory and strength of our church upon earth, is by your soldiery crushed and trodden under foot. For this our hearts are sad, and our eyes run down with water." Yet it does not appear that real religion suffered at all by Cromwell's innovations, either in Scotland or in England, for Kirton says of the kirk, " I verily believe there were more souls converted unto Christ in that short period of time than in any season since the reformation. Ministers were painsful, people were diligent. At their solemn communions many congregations met in great multitudes, some dozens of ministers used to preach, and the people continued, as it were, in a sort of trance, so serious were they in spiritual exercises, for three days at least." Baxter, in England, though a decided enemy of Cromwell, confessed that, by his weeding out scandalous ministers, and putting in " able, serious preachers, who lived a godly life," though of various opinions, "many thousands of souls blessed God" for what was done.