Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/71

Cromwell in Ireland And now a few words about the man Oliver Cromwell himself.

For some fifty or sixty years it has been the fashion of the time to speak of him as one of the greatest and the best of men. For nearly two hundred years previous to this scarcely one historian, or writer of any eminence, had found anything good to say about him. But we have changed al] that. His eulogisers can now be counted by the thousand, his admirers by the million.

I have already quoted for you a letter written by Cromwell some years before he became famous. "Who goeth to war at his own cost?" That was the key to his character Underneath pious pretence the chief objects of his effort were personal ambition, plunder, and persecution. He and his were saints; they were to possess the earth. All the rest were sinners; they were to be despoiled, cast out, persecuted. Who can count the oaths taken by him and broken? He swore allegiance to the King, but he cut the King's head off. He swore to support the Parliament, but he betrayed it, and turned it out of doors. He swore to the Scottish Covenant, but he destroyed it. He swore to be loyal to Essex, to Manchester, to Fairfax, but he intrigued against them, and upset them in turn. 59