Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/145

 present as a party, and by the direction of the Committee sitting covered. Cromwell, who had never before been heard to speak in the House of Commons,’—at least not by me, though he had often spoken, and was very well known there,—‘ordered the Witnesses and Petitioners in the method of the proceeding; and seconded, and enlarged upon what they said, with great passion; and the Witnesses and persons concerned, who were a very rude kind of people, interrupted the Counsel and Witnesses on the other side, with great clamour, when they said anything that did not please them; so that Mr. Hyde (whose office it was to oblige men of all sorts to keep order) was compelled to use some sharp reproofs, and some threats, to reduce them to such a temper that the business might be quietly heard. Cromwell, in great fury, reproached the Chairman for being partial, and that he discountenanced the Witnesses by threatening them: the other appealed to the Committee; which justified him, and declared that he behaved himself as he ought to do; which more inflamed him,’ Cromwell, ‘who was already too much angry. When upon any mention of matter-of-fact, or of the proceeding before and at the Enclosure, the Lord Mandevil desired to be heard, and with great modesty related what had been done, or explained what had been said, Mr. Cromwell did answer, and reply upon him with so much indecency and rudeness, and in language so contrary and offensive, that every man would have thought, that as their natures and their manners were as opposite as it is possible, so their interest could never have been the same. In the end, his whole carriage was so tempestuous, and his behaviour so insolent, that the Chairman found himself obliged to reprehend him: and to tell him, That if he’ Mr Cromwell ‘proceeded in the same manner, he’ Mr. Hyde ‘would presently adjourn the Committee, and the next morning complain to the House of him. Which he never forgave; and took all occasions afterwards to pursue him with the utmost malice and revenge, to his death,’—not Mr. Hyde’s, happily, but