Page:Studies in Irish History, 1649-1775 (1903).djvu/72

Cromwell in Ireland He swore to uphold the liberties and rights of his country, but he trampled upon the one and betrayed the other. Standing in his place in the House of Commons, with his hand upon his heart, he swore in the presence of Almighty God that he knew the army would disband and lay down their arms at the door of the House whenever the Parliament should command them to do so. Within twenty-four hours he was in the midst of that army, inciting them to fresh defiance of the Parliament.

Can any instance of hypocrisy match that in which Cromwell, protesting his desire to save the King's life, said that he had prayed on his knees to God for the life of Charles until his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, by which he saw that God had willed the death of the King?

Let any man read the account of the interview between Cromwell and Sir John Berkeley, near Reading, when Charles was a prisoner in the hands of the army. Cromwell tells Berkeley that he had lately seen the tenderest sight that ever his eyes beheld—the meeting between the King and his children; and he wept plentifully at the remembrance thereof, saying "that never man was so abused as he in his sinister opinion of the King, who, he now thought, was the most 60