Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/146

 Mr. Cromwell’s, who at length did cease to cherish ‘malice and revenge’ against Mr. Hyde!

Tracking this matter, by faint indications, through various obscure courses, I conclude that it related to ‘the Soke of Somersham,’ near St. Ives; and that the scene in the Queen’s Court probably occurred in the beginning of July 1641. Cromwell knew this Soke of Somersham, near St Ives, very well; knew these poor rustics, and what treatment they had got; and wished, not in the impertubablest manner it would seem, to see justice done them. Here too, subtracting the due subtrahend from Mr. Hyde’s Narrative, we have a pleasant visuality of an old summer afternoon ‘in the Queen’s Court’ two hundred years ago.

Cromwell’s next Letters present him to us, not debating, or about to debate, concerning Parliamentary Propositions and Scotch ‘Eighth Articles,’ but with his sword drawn to enforce them; the whole Kingdom divided now into two armed conflicting masses, the argument to be by pike and bullet henceforth.