Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/341

] haughty indifference; and it was, therefore, with great satisfaction, that they now beheld the change which took place in England.

The reformers of various shades and creeds had at first been combined by the one great feeling of rescuing the country from the absolute principles of the Stuarts. They had fought bravely side by side for this great object; but in proportion as they succeeded, the differences betwixt themselves became more apparent. The presbyterians, Scotch and England, were bent on fixing their religious opinions on the country as despotically as the catholics and episcopalians had done before them. But here they found themselves opposed by the independents, who had notions of religious freedom far beyond the presbyterians, and were not inclined to yield their freedom to any other party whatever. Their religious notions naturally disposed them towards the same exercising system in the state, and as the chiefs of the army were of this denomination, they soon found themselves in a condition to dictate to the parliament. Pride's Purge left parliament almost purely independent, and it and the army worked harmoniously till the sweeping victories of Cromwell created a jealousy of his power. This power was the more supreme because circumstances had dispersed the other leading generals into distant scenes of action. Monk and Lambert were in Scotland till Monk was called to the fleet, Fleetwood was in Ireland, Ireton was dead. The long parliament, or the remnant of it, called the Rump, ably as it had conducted affairs, was daily decreasing in numbers, and dreaded to renew itself by election, because it felt certain that anything like a free election would return an overwhelming number of presbyterians, and that they would thus commit an act of felo de se.

In no period did what is called the commonwealth of England present any of the elements of what we conceive by a republic, that is, by a government of the free representatives of the people. Had the people been allowed to send their representatives, There would have been a considerable number of catholics, a much greater number of episcopalians, and both of these sections royalists. There would have been an overwhelming number of presbyterians, and a very moderate one of independents: The government was, therefore, speedily converted into an oligarchy, at the head of which were the generals of the army, and some few of the leaders of parliament. The army, by Pride's Purge, reduced the parliament to a junta, by turning out forcibly the majority of the representatives of the people, and the time was now fast approaching when it must resolve itself into a military dictatorship.

Cromwell had long been accused by his own party of aiming at the possession of the supreme power. At what period such ideas began to dawn in his mind is uncertain; but as he felt himself rising above all his contemporaries by the energy and the comprehensive character of his mind, there is no doubt that he secretly indulged such ideas. Ludlow, Whitellock, Hutchinson, and others, felt that such was the spirit growing in him, and many of those who had most admired his genius, fell away from him, and openly denounced his ambitious intentions as they became more obvious. The excellent colonel Hutchinson and Sir Henry Vane charged him with the ruin of the commonwealth. But Cromwell must have long felt that nothing but a military power could maintain the ascendancy of those principles which he and his fellow independents entertained and held sacred. The world was not prepared for them. The roots of royalty were too deeply struck into the heart of the nation by centuries of its existence, to be torn out by the follies and tyrannics of one family. Republicanism;, in its pure and free from, injuries a state of things in which the whole community is imbued with the principle of equal rights, and the love of their exercise A state in which men arc become educated into a living sense, not only of their own rights, but of the rights of their neighbours; not only of their rights, but of their duties. A state in which the resolve to exercise the fullest franchise is admirably blended with a sense of the necessity of subordination to self-constituted authorities. A state in which enlightened liberty shall produce, not faction, but patriotism. In a word, as a republic is the highest conceivable form of government, so it clearly demands the highest moral as well as intellectual development of society for its maintenance. Such a state of things none but enthusiasts like Lilburne could suppose was existing then.

But if a free parliament, which it had been the proud boast of the reformers to be the sole seat of the national power, could not exist; if the sitting body calling itself a parliament, could not even add to its members without endangering its own existence either from itself or from the jealousy of the army—what could exist? Clearly nothing but a dictatorship—and the strongest man must come uppermost. That strongest man was without a question Cromwell. In the senate or the field he was alike clear sighted, energetic, and predominant by sheer force of character. He was said to be no orator, to be even confused and bewildered in speech; but on all occasions for speaking out strongly, so far as we can judge by his remaining speeches, he had a power and common-sense force in his speech, which burst through all mystification, like the sun through clouds. No man better or more instinctively did what is called hitting the nail on the head; and feeling his pre-eminence—feeling practically every day how completely they were his own judgment and action which were steering the vessel of the state through all the storms of faction and the quicksands of party jealousy; it is no wonder that he came habitually to hold the reins of power, and persuade himself that he must hold them. There is no doubt that he had in such a course to do the very things which ho and his party had made mortal crimes in Charles; but the human mind is inimitable in excusing to itself what it deems necessary for the preservation of what it desires. Cromwell, pious but ambitious, for he was no hypocrite, but a zealot, soon came to satisfy him self, though not without some stout wrestlings of conscience, that he was destined to save the nation by the power of God working in him. All history has shown how easily the religious enthusiast slides into the belief that all which he deems necessary is dictated by God. From the date of the battle of Worcester the career of Cromwell was decided; he felt that he must embrace the republic in his own person. Friends and foes saw and felt that ultimatum. His enemies had long declared that he was in all but name "a king;" and both civil and military authorities addressed him in