The Commonwealth. page 12

Cromwell was not the man to suffer this. He sent to the lord mayor, and ordered him to take measures to preserve the peace of the city, marched three regiments into it, and then summoned Lenthall, and bade him meet him in the Painted Chamber, on Tuesday, the 12th of September, with the commons. Harrison, who was zealously getting up petitions for the support of the inquiry into the constitution, was clapped in the Tower. When Cromwell met the commons, he expressed his surprise that a set of men from whom so much healing management had been expected, should immediately attempt to overturn the government which called them together. That the instrument consisted of incidentals and fundamentals. The incidentals they were at liberty to discuss, but the fundamentals, of which the article that the power resided in one person and a parliament was one, were out of their range. He very zealously asserted that he had been called to the head of the nation by God and the people, and that none but God and the people should take his office from him. That his own wish had been to lead the life of a country gentleman, but necessity had forced him thence, and three several times he had found himself placed by the course of events at the head of the army, and by them at the head of the government. As to the dismissal of the Long Parliament, he had been compelled to that by its endeavouring to perpetuate itself, and by its tyranny and corruption. "That poor men, under its arbitrary power, were driven like flocks of sheep, by forty on a morning, to the confiscation of goods and estates, without any man being able to give a reason why two of them had deserved to forfeit a shilling." That he had twice resigned the arbitrary power left in his hands, and having established a government capable of saving the nation, he would sooner lie rotting in his grave and buried with infamy than suffer it to be broken up. That they had now peace at home and abroad, and it would be a miserable answer to give to the people, "Oh, we quarrelled for the liberty of England; we contested and went to confusion for that."

To prevent any such evil consequences, he informed them that he had caused a stop to be put to their entrance into the parliament house; he did not turn them out this time, he shut them out - and that none would be readmitted that did not first sign an engagement to be true and faithful to the protector and commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, not to propose or consent to alter the government, as settled in a single person and parliament.

On hearing this, the honourable members looked at one another in amazement, but one hundred and forty thought well to sign the engagement, which lay in the lobby of the house that day, and within a month three out of the four hundred had signed. Of course all the ultra republicans refused to sign, and were excluded - Bradshaw, Haselrig, Scott, Wildman, and the rest.

This summary dealing did not cure the parliament of meddling with the question for touching which they had thus been purged of a hundred members. On the 19th of September, only a week after the check they had received, they went into committee to discuss the "Instrument of Government." They took care not to touch the grand point which they had now pledged themselves not to meddle with - the government by a protector and parliament; but they affected to consider all the other articles as merely provisional ones, decreed by the protector and the council, to be confirmed or rejected by the parliament. They discussed these one by one, and on the 16th of October proceeded to the question, whether the office of protector should be elective or hereditary. Lambert advocated the office being hereditary, and pointed oat the many disadvantages of the elective form. He strongly recommended the office being confined to the Cromwell family, and this, of course, was attributed to the instigation of Cromwell himself. They decided for the elective form. On the 11th of December they voted that the protector should have a veto on bills touching liberty of conscience, but not such as suppressed heresies, as if what they called suppressing heresies were not direct attacks on liberty of conscience. Thus they crept round the very roots of the protectorate authority, nibbling at the powers he had forbidden them to discuss, and they proceeded to give proof of their intention to launch into all the old persecutions for religion, if they possibly could, by summoning betöre them John Biddle, who may be regarded as the father of the Unitarians. He had been thrice imprisoned by the Long Parliament, for holding that he could not find in Scripture that Christ or the Holy Ghost were styled God. The parliament committed him to the gate-house, and ordered a bill to be prepared for his punishment.

It was high time that they were stopped in their incorrigible spirit of persecution; and by now proceeding to frame a bill to include all their votes on the articles of the instrument, they were suddenly arrested in their progress. The instrument provided that parliament should not be adjourned under five months. On the 22nd of January, 1655, the protector chose to consider that the months were not calendar but lunar months, which then expired. The parliament, counting the other way, deemed themselves safe till the 3rd of February, but on the 22nd of January Oliver summoned them to the Painted Chamber, and observed to them, that though he had met them at first with the hope that their hearts were in the great work to which they had been called, he was quite disappointed in them. He complained that they had sent no message to him, taken no more notice of his presence in the republic than if he had not existed, and that with all patience, he had forborne teasing them with messages, hoping that they would at length proceed to some real business. "But," added he, "as I may not take notice of what you have been doing, so I think I have a very great liberty to tell you that I do not know what you have been doing; that I do not know whether you have been dead or alive. I have not once heard from you all this time. I have not, and that you all know."

He then reminded them that various discontented parties, the royalists, the levellers, and others, had been encouraged by their evident disposition to call in question the government, to raise plots, and that if they were permitted to sit, making quibbles about the government itself, the nation would soon be plunged again into bloodshed and confusion. He, therefore, did then and there dissolve them as a parliament.

The plots to which the protector alluded had been going on for some time, and even yet were in full activity. We shall trace their main features, but before that we may notice an incident which showed that Cromwell was prepared for them, resolved to sell his life manfully if attacked. On the 24th of September, immediately after compelling the parliament to subscribe the engagement, the protector was out in Hyde Park, taking a dinner under the shade of the trees, with Thurloe, the secretary, a man with whom he took much council on the affairs of the nation. After this little rural dinner, which gives us a very interesting idea of the simplicity of the great general's habits and tastes, he tried a team of six fine Friesland coach horses, presented to him by the duke of Oldenburg. Thurloe was put into the carriage, Cromwell mounted the coachman's seat, and a postillion rode one of the fore horses. The horses soon became unruly, plunged, and threw the postillion, and then, nearly upsetting the carriage, threw the protector from his seat, who fell upon the pole and had his legs entangled in the harness. On went the mad horses at full gallop, and one of Cromwell's shoes coming off, which had been held by the harness, he fell under the carriage, which went on without hurting him, except by some bruises. In the fall, however, a loaded pistol went off in his pocket, thus revealing the fact that he went armed.

And indeed he had great need. His mother, who died just now, on the 16th of November, and who was ninety- four years old, used, at the sound of a musket, says Ludlow, to imagine that her son was shot, and could not be satisfied unless she saw him once a day at least. Her last words to him do not give us any idea of hypocrisy in mother or son - "The Lord cause his face to shine upon you, and enable you to do great things for the glory of the Most High God, and to be a relief unto his people. My dear son, I leave my heart with thee. A good night!" Both mother and son undoubtedly believed him to be doing God's work.

Amongst the plotters were both royalists and republicans. The ejected members of parliament, in their different quarters, were stirring up discontent against Cromwell, and even declaring that it were better to have Charles Stuart back again. Colonel Overton, who had been questioned at the time of colonel Alured's dismissal, was once more called up and questioned. In Scotland, where he lay, the protector discovered an agitation to supersede Monk, and make the republican Overton commander-in-chief, and leaving only the garrisons, to march the rest of the army into England on the demand of pay and constitutional reform. Overton was committed to the Tower.

Allen, who, with Sexby and another agitator, in 1647 presented a remarkable petition from the army to the Long Parliament, now become adjutant-general, was arrested at his father-in-law's house, in Devonshire, at the end of January, on a charge of plotting disturbances in Ireland, and exciting discontent about Bristol and in Devon. Allen was a zealous anabaptist, and the excitement amongst them and other army republicans was great and extensive. Pamphlets were published, letters and agitators passed from one regiment to another, and a general rising was planned, with the seizure of Edinburgh Castle, Hull, Portsmouth, and other strong places. Cromwell was to be surprised and put to death. Colonel Wildman, one of these fanatics, who had been ejected from parliament by refusing to sign the recognition, was taken on the 12th of February at Exton, near Marlborough, in Wilts, by a party of horse, as he was in his furnished lodgings upstairs, leaning on his elbows, and in the act, with the door open, of dictating to his clerk, "A Declaration of the free and well affected people of England, now in arms against the tyrant Oliver Cromwell.'' He was secured in Chepstow Castle, and his correspondents, Harrison, lord Grey of Groby, and others, were secured in the Tower. Colonel Sexby for the time escaped.

About the same time a royalist plot was also in progress. Charles Stuart, who had removed from Paris to Cologne - the French government not wishing to give offence to Cromwell - had concocted a plot with Hyde, his chancellor, to raise the royalists in various quarters at once, fancying that as Cromwell had given so much offence to both people and parliament, there was great hope of success. Charles went to Middleburg, on the coast of Holland, to be ready at a call, and Hyde was extremely confident. In Yorkshire there was a partial outbreak under lord Mauleverer and Sir Henry Kingsby, which was speedily quelled, and Kingsby seized and imprisoned in Hull. This abortive attempt was under the management of lord Wilmot, now earl of Rochester, who was glad to make his escape. Another branch of the plot, under the management of Sir Joseph Wagstaff, who came over with Rochester, fared no better.' Wagstaff attempted to surprise Winchester on the 7th of March, during the assizes. Penruddock, Grove, and Jones, royalist officers, were associated with him, and about two hundred others entered Salisbury about five o'clock on the morning of the 11th, posted themselves in the market place, liberated the prisoners from the gaol, and surprised the sheriff and two judges in their beds. Wagstaff proposed to hang the judges, but Penruddock and the rest refused to allow it; he then ordered the high sheriff to proclaim Charles Stuart, but neither he nor the crier would do it, though menaced with the gallows. Hearing that captain Unton Crook was after them with a troop of horse, and seeing no chance of a rising, they quitted the town about three o'clock, and marched through Dorsetshire into Devonshire. At Southmolton captain Crook came up with them, and speedily made himself master of fifty of the insurgents, including Penruddock, Grove, and Jones - Wag- staff escaped. They had expected a body of conspirators from Hampshire to join them at Salisbury, and these were actually on their way when they heard of the retreat of Wagstaff's body, and immediately dispersed. Similarly feeble outbreaks took place in the counties of Northumberland, Nottingham, Shropshire, and Montgomery. Penruddock, Grove, and Jones, were beheaded at Exeter, and about fifteen others suffered there and at Salisbury; the rest of the deluded prisoners were sold to Barbadoes. Charles returned crest-fallen to Cologne, and Hyde, convinced that his plans had been betrayed, attributed the treason to Manning, whom, having secured, they had shot in the following winter, in the territory of the duke of Neuburg.

To prevent more of these outbreaks, Cromwell planned to divide the whole country into military districts, over each of which he placed an officer, who was to act chiefly with the militia, and not with the levelling regulars. These officers he created major-generals, beginning first with Desborough in the south-west, and, finally, before the year was out, he had distributed the other major-generals, Fleetwood, Skippon, Whalley, Kelsey, Goffe, Berry, Butler, Wortley, and Barkstead, each to their district, who effectually preserved the peace of the nation. During the spring also, undaunted by these disturbances, Cromwell progressed with his internal reforms, and with the greatest of all, the reform of chancery. This was no easy matter. The lawyers were as turbulent as the anabaptists in the army. Two of the commissioners of the great seal, Whitelock and Widdrington, refused to enforce the reform, and were obliged to resign. Lisle and Fiennes, the other commissioners, dared to carry out the change. Old Lenthall, the speaker, now master of the rolls, protested that he would be hanged at the Rolls gate before he would obey; but he saw fit to alter his mind, and the protector, so far from bearing any ill-will to the two conscientious commissioners, Whitelock and Widdrington, soon after made them commissioners of the treasury.

We may now look back a little, to observe what Cromwell had been doing beyond the shores of the kingdom. We have seen that almost all the nations of Europe sent embassies to congratulate him on his elevation to the protectorate. The vigour of his will soon made them more anxious to stand on good terms with him. He soon made a peace with Sweden as a protestant country, and from a natural sympathy with the protestant fame of the great Gustavus. He concluded peace also with Holland, but with France and Spain there were more difficulties. France had, both under Richelieu and Mazarin, lent continual aid and refuge to the royalist cause against the reformers, The queen, whom the republicans had chased from the throne, was a princess of France, and was living there with numbers of the royalists about her. Charles, the heir to the throne of England, was pensioned by France, and maintained a sort of court in Paris, whence continual disturbances and alarms were coming. It is true, the French court had never been very munificent to the exiled queen of England and her family. Henrietta was found by cardinal Retz without fire, and almost without food, and Charles and his countrymen so miserably poor, that Clarendon, in June, 1653, wrote, " I do not know that any man is yet dead for want of bread, which I really wonder at. I am sure the king owes all that he has eaten since April, and I am not acquainted with one servant who hath a pistole in his pocket. Five or six of us eat together one meal a day for a pistole a week; but all of us owe, for God knows how many weeks, to the poor woman that feeds us." He adds that he wanted shoes and shirts, and that the marquis of Ormond was in no better condition. The court of Charles was as much rent with divisions and jealousies as it was poor. His brave conduct in England raised great hopes of him, but on his return to France he relapsed into all sorts of dissipations and intrigues, which made him contemptible. Amongst a troop of mistresses, Lucy Walters, or Barlow, as she was called, the mother of the afterwards celebrated duke of Monmouth, was the most notorious.