Chapter III: Part 3

There was no comprehensive strategy in the fighting this year; but the balance of the isolated expeditions undertaken inclined in favor of the King. Cromwell appears clearly, for the first time, as a successful military leader in May, near Grantham. He had under him twelve troops. The Cavaliers much outnumbered him. Nevertheless, when, after some preliminary firing from the dragoons on both sides, Cromwell charged at a round trot, the Cavaliers, instead of meeting the charge, received it and were broken and routed. The fight was of great value as being the first in which the Parliamentary horse beat a superior number of Royalist horse. Cromwell was as yet learning his trade. On this occasion he hesitated a long time about charging, and only charged at all when it became evident that his opponents would not; and he owed his victory to the incompetence of the Royalist commander. It was an invaluable lesson to him.

A great deal of scrambling, confused, and rather pointless warfare followed. Rupert and Hampden encountered each other, and Hampden was defeated and killed. Hampden’s great colleague, Pym, died later in the year, just after having brought about the league with Scotland—one of the first-fruits of which was the trial and execution of Laud. Presbyterianism was now dominant, and set itself to enforce everywhere the rigid rule of clerical orthodoxy. Against this the Independents began to raise their voices; but the real force which was to gain them their victory over both Royalist and Presbyterian was as yet hidden. Cromwell’s Ironsides—as they were afterward termed when Rupert christened Cromwell himself by that name—the regiments which he raised and drilled after his own manner from the Eastern Association, these represented the real power of the Independents, and these were not yet recognized as the heart and right arm of the army.

John Hampden.

From the portrait by Robert Walker at Port Eliot.

By permission of the Earl of St. Germans.
]

Cromwell held Nottingham, where the Royalists attacked him and he beat them off. He took Burleigh House, which was held by a strong Royalist garrison; then, in July, 1643, he advanced to rescue the Parliamentary general, Lord Willoughby, who was besieged at Gainsborough by a division of Newcastle’s army. About a mile and a half out of town he met the cavalry of Lord Cavendish, which was drawn up at the top of a hill. To attack him it was necessary to advance up steep slopes, honeycombed by rabbit burrows; but Cromwell’s squadrons were already remarkable alike for flexibility and steadiness, and their leader knew both how to prepare his forces and how to take daring advantage of every opportunity that offered. As his leading troops struggled to the top of the hill Cavendish’s horsemen advanced, but the Cromwellian troopers, closing up, charged them at once. There was a stiff contest, but as the rest of the Parliamentary troops came to the front, the Royalists were overthrown and driven off in wild rout. Cavendish himself brought up his reserve and routed a portion of the Parliamentary forces; but Cromwell had neither lost his head nor let his force get out of hand. He, too, had a reserve, and with this he charged Cavendish and overthrew him, Cavendish himself being slain.

This feat was succeeded by another quite as notable. After relieving the town and giving Lord Willoughby powder and provisions, Cromwell advanced toward some Royalist soldiers who still remained in view, about a mile distant. To his astonishment, these proved to be the vanguard of Newcastle’s whole army, and there was nothing for it but to retreat. Cromwell’s troops were tired, and only his excellent generalship and indomitable courage prevented a disastrous rout. Both the Parliamentary horse and foot were at first shaken by the advance of the fresh Royalist soldiery, but Cromwell speedily got them in hand and retired by divisions, making head against the enemy alternately with one body of horse and then with another, while the rest of the troops drew back behind the shield thus afforded them. The alternating squadrons of the rear-guard always made head against the enemy and checked him, but always slipped away before he could charge, and thus the tired army was brought off in safety.

In September Cromwell joined Sir Thomas Fairfax; and in October they met and overthrew a Royalist force at Winceby, the Puritan troopers singing a psalm as they advanced to the combat. The numbers seem to have been about equal, perhaps 3,000 a side. The battle began with a skirmish between the dragoons of the two forces. It was decided by the tremendous charge of Cromwell’s steel-clad troopers. The charge was made at the trot, Cromwell leading his men. The Royal dragoons fired upon them as they came on, Cromwell’s horse was killed, and a Cavalier knocked him down as he rose, but was himself killed by a Puritan trooper. Cromwell sprang to his feet, flung himself on a fresh horse, and again joined in the fight. His troops were heavy cavalry, cuirassiers, and the opposing Royalists, with only buff coats, were overthrown by the shock of his advance. Fairfax charged in flank, and the rout was complete. The Royalist leaders chronicled with astonishment the fact that the Parliamentary horse showed great superiority—that they were “very good and extraordinarily armed.” Apparently the victory was owing to the excellent drilling of Cromwell’s troops, which enabled them to charge knee to knee; and when thus charging, the weight of the horses and of the ironclad men made them irresistible.

In 1644 the war at first dragged on as a series of isolated expeditions and fights in which neither side was able to score any decided advantage. Rupert performed two or three brilliant feats; the Scotch crossed the border to aid the Parliamentarians; and Charles tried to come to some understanding with the Irish, by which they would, if possible, furnish him troops, and if not, would at least free the English troops in Ireland. Some of the latter he did bring over. After one or two successes a body of them were captured and many subscribed to the Covenant. The most noted man who thus changed sides was the after-time General, George Monk.

Cromwell was looming up steadily; not only for the discipline of his men, but for the vigilant way in which he kept touch with the enemy and gained information about them, making the best possible use of pickets, outposts, and scouting parties; all, by the way, being, as was usual in those times, under the headship of an officer known as the Scout-master—a far better term than the cumbrous modern “Chief of the Bureau of Intelligence.” Of course Cromwell’s growing military reputation added greatly to his weight in Parliament, of which, like most of the leading generals, he was still a member. His first feat during this year showed how little the duties of the soldier and the statesman were as yet differentiated.

Early in January he appeared in the House of Commons, charged Lord Willoughby with misconduct, and brought about his removal and the naming of Manchester to the sole command in the seven associated counties. Manchester was little more than a figure-head. He made Cromwell his lieutenant-general and yielded in all things to him, until he was alienated by falling under the control of the Scotch Covenanters, who already hated Cromwell as a representative of the “sectaries” whom they persecuted. The House of Commons appointed a Committee of Both Kingdoms to assume the supreme executive authority for the conduct of the war. Cromwell was made a member of this Committee, and was also the ruling member of the Committee of the Eastern Association, which furnished the zealously Puritan force that was already the mainspring of the Parliamentary army.

In June the Scotch, under the Earl of Leven, and the English, under Lord Fairfax and Lord Manchester, were besieging York, which was defended by Lord Newcastle. Toward the very last of the month Rupert marched rapidly to its relief. The three Parliamentary generals fell back instead of falling on him as he advanced. Newcastle wished to leave them alone, but Rupert insisted upon following and attacking the Parliamentary armies. He and Newcastle had about 20,000 men. The Parliamentarians probably numbered some 25,000; but throughout this war it is impossible to give either the numbers or the losses with accuracy.

On July 2d Rupert overtook the end of the Parliamentary column, which was saved from disaster only by the fortunate fact that the horse of Cromwell and Sir Thomas Fairfax formed the rear-guard. The two latter sent on word of Rupert’s advance, warning the Parliamentary generals that they could not now avoid a fight; and promptly the Scotch and English troops were turned to face their Royalist foes on Marston Moor.

A ditch stretched across the moor, and the armies drew up with this extending for most of its length between them. Each side was marshalled in the usual order—infantry in the centre, cavalry on the flanks. The horse of the Parliamentary right wing was commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had under him his own English cavalry and three Scottish regiments. The right wing of the foot was commanded by Lord Fairfax, and consisted of the Yorkshire troops and two brigades of Scots. The centre, with its reserve, consisted of Scotch troops; the left, of the infantry of the Eastern Association. Leven was with the infantry of the centre; Manchester on his left. The horse of the left wing were under Cromwell, his Ironsides occupying the front line with three Scotch regiments in reserve.

In the Royalist army the horse on the left wing were under Goring; the infantry in the centre were under Newcastle, and Rupert himself led the horse of the right wing. At last the two great cavalry leaders of the war—Rupert and Cromwell—were to meet face to face. The war had lasted nearly two years. The best troops, under the best leaders, had reached very nearly their limit of perfectibility; they were veterans, soldiers in every sense.

Hour after hour passed while the armies stood motionless, the leaders on either side anxiously scanning the enemy, seeking to find a weak point at which to strike. Evening drew on and no move was made. The Royalist leaders made up their mind that the battle would not be fought that day. Suddenly, at seven o’clock, the whole Parliamentary army moved forward, the Puritan troopers chanting a psalm, according to their wont.

On the right, Fairfax’s troopers, as they advanced, were thrown into disorder. Goring charged them furiously, drove them back on the reserve of Scotch cavalry, and overthrew them all. The rout was hopeless, and the flying horsemen carried away the Yorkshire foot with them. Sir Thomas kept the ground, with a few of his troopers and a large number of Lord Balgony’s Scotch Lancers and the Earl of Eglinton’s Scotch Cuirassiers. The fugitives were followed in hot pursuit by Goring, but part of his horse were kept in hand by their commander, Sir Charles Lucas, who, wheeling to the right, charged the flank of the Scotch foot, who had formed the Parliamentary centre, and who had now crossed the ditch and were attacking the Royalists in front. The Scotch fought with stubborn valor, repulsing Lucas again and again, but suffering so heavily themselves that it became evident that they could not long stand the combined front and flank attack.

While disaster had thus overtaken the Parliamentary right, on the left Cromwell had completely the upper hand. His steel-clad troopers crashed into Rupert’s horsemen at full speed. The fight was equal for some time, neither stubborn Roundhead nor gallant Cavalier being able to wrest the mastery from the other. But Rupert, who always depended upon one smashing blow, and put his main force into his front line, did not, like Cromwell, understand how best to use a reserve. Cromwell’s reserve—the Scotch cavalry—came up and charged home, and the Royalist horse were overthrown with the shock. “God made them as stubble to our swords,” said Cromwell.

Cromwell’s Engagement with the Marquis of Newcastle’s Regiment of
“Whitecoats” in the Battle of Marston Moor.
]

Sending his leading troops in pursuit, to prevent the enemy from rallying, Cromwell instantly gathered the bulk of his horse and fell on the right wing of the Royalist foot—already hard pressed by the foot of the Eastern Association. The King’s men fought with dogged courage, most conspicuous among them being Newcastle’s own Northumbrian Regiment, the famous Whitecoats, who literally died as they stood in the ranks.

Sweeping down the line the Ironsides smashed one regiment after another, until, in the fading summer evening, Cromwell had almost circled the Royalist army, and came to their left wing, where he saw the Royalist horse charging the right flank of the Scots and harrying the routed Yorkshire foot. Immediately he reformed his thoroughly trained squadrons almost on the same ground where Goring’s horse stood at the beginning of the battle, and fronting the same way. The foot of the Association formed beside them, and just before nightfall the Puritan cavalry and infantry made their final charge. Goring’s troopers were returning from their pursuit; Lucas’s men were recoiling from their last charge, in which Lucas himself had been captured. They were scattered like chaff by the shock of the steel-clad Cromwellian troopers, riding boot to boot; and the remaining Royalist foot shared the same fate. The battle was over just as night fell, stopping all pursuit. But there was little need of pursuit. As at Waterloo, the very obstinacy with which the fight had been waged made the overthrow all the more complete when at last it came. Night went down on a scene of wild confusion, with thousands of fugitives from both armies streaming off the field through the darkness; for the disaster to the right wing of the Parliamentary army had resulted not only in the rout of all the Yorkshire men and half of the Scotch, but also in the three Parliamentary commanding generals, Leven, Manchester, and Lord Fairfax, being swept off in the mass of fugitives. The fight had been won by Cromwell, not only by the valor, coolness, keen insight, and power of control over his men, which he had showed in the battle itself, but by the two years of careful preparation and drill which had tempered the splendid weapons he used so well.

This was the first great victory of the war; but it produced no decisive effect; for there was no one general to take advantage of it. York fell; but little else resulted from the triumph. Fairfax, Manchester, and Leven all separated to pursue various unimportant objects. They left Rupert time to recruit his shattered forces. They did not march south to help Essex, who was opposed to the King in person. Essex blundered badly, and when he marched into Cornwall was out-manœuvred and surrounded, and finally had to surrender all his infantry. Before this the King had already beaten the Parliamentary general, Waller, at Copredy Bridge, the defeat of the Parliamentarians being turned into disaster by the conduct of the London trained-bands, who, after two years of battle, were still mere militia, insubordinate and prone to desert. It was not with such stuff that victory over the Royalists could be obtained. Mere militia who will not submit to rigid discipline cannot be made the equals of regulars by no matter how many years of desultory fighting. In the War of the American Revolution it was the Continentals—the regulars of Washington, Wayne, and Greene—who finally won the victory, while even to the very end of the struggle the ordinary militia proved utterly unable to face the red-coats. So in the English Civil War, it was the carefully drilled and trained horse and foot of the Eastern Association, and not the disorderly London trained-bands, who overthrew the King’s men. Cromwell had developed his troops just as Grant and Lee, Sherman and Johnston long afterward developed theirs. It is only under exceptional conditions, and with wholly exceptional populations, that it is possible to forego such careful drilling and training.

One great reason for the failures of the Parliamentary forces was that their leading generals no longer greatly cared for success. They were Presbyterians, who believed in the Parliament, but who also believed in the throne. They hated the Independents quite as much as they hated the Episcopalians, and felt a growing distrust of Cromwell, who in religious matters was the leader of the Independents, and who had announced that if he met the King in battle he would kill him as quickly as he would kill anyone else. Essex was no more capable of putting a finish to the war than McClellan was capable of overthrowing the Confederacy. The one, like the other, had to make room for sterner and more resolute men.

The Committee of both Kingdoms struggled in vain to get their generals to accomplish something. At Newbury—where one indecisive battle had already been fought—they got together an army nearly double the strength of the King’s: with no result save that another indecisive battle was fought, on October 29, 1644. It was evident that there had to be a complete change in the management of the war if a victory was to be achieved. Accordingly Cromwell once more turned from the field to the House of Commons.

In November he rose in Parliament and denounced Manchester as utterly inefficient; and then turned his onslaught from an attack on one man into a general move against all the hitherto leaders of the army. On December 9th he addressed the House in one of his characteristic speeches, rugged in form, but instinct with the man’s eager, strong personality, fiery earnestness and hard common-sense. He pointed out, not all the truth—for that was not politic—but the evident truth that it was not wise to have leaders who both served in Parliament and also commanded in the army. The result was the passage of the Self-denying Ordinance, by which all members of either of the Houses were required to resign their commands; so that, at a stroke, the Presbyterian and Parliamentary leaders were removed from their control of the forces. Two months afterward it was decreed that the forces of the Commonwealth should be reorganized on the “New Model.” For the short-time service and militia levy system there was substituted the New Model; that is, the plan under which in the Eastern Association the Ironsides had been raised to such a pitch of efficiency was extended to include the whole army. Sir Thomas Fairfax was put in command, but so evident was it to everyone that Cromwell was the real master-mind of the Parliamentary armies that the Self-denying Ordinance was not enforced as far as he was concerned, and he was retained, nominally as second, but in reality as chief, in command. This was not only a victory for the radical military party, but a victory for the Independents over the Presbyterians. The Independent strength was in the army, and they now had their own leaders.

During the period of reorganization of the army the war lagged along in its usual fashion, with Rupert as much to the fore as ever; and to the Royalists it merely seemed that their adversaries had gotten at odds, and that the great noblemen, the experienced leaders, had been driven from their leadership. Their hopes were high, especially as in Scotland affairs had taken a sudden and most unexpected turn in their favor. Immediately after Marston Moor Montrose had begun his wonderful year of crowded life. Recognizing the extraordinary military qualities of the Celtic clansmen of the Highlands, he had stirred them to revolt, and had proved himself a master of war by a succession of startling victories which finally put almost all Scotland at his feet. One would have to examine the campaigns of Forrest to find any parallel for what he did. Because of his feats he has been compared to Cromwell, but his fights were on so much smaller a scale that the comparison is no more possible than it would be possible to compare Forrest with Grant or Lee.

It is a noteworthy fact that the two soldier types which emerged from the English Civil War as victorious over all others were the Cromwellian Ironside and the Scotch Highlander. The intense religious and patriotic fervor and hard common-sense of the one was in the other supplanted by a mere wild love of fighting for fighting’s sake. It may be questioned which was most formidable in battle, but in a campaign there was no comparison whatsoever between them; and once his other foes were vanquished, the Cromwellian soldier had not the slightest difficulty in holding down the Highlander.

The victories of Montrose, the feats of Rupert, and the failures of the Parliamentarians since Marston Moor gave Charles every feeling of confidence, when, on June 14, 1645, he led his army against the New Model at Naseby. As usual in these battles, it is not possible to state the exact numbers, but it would appear that, as at Marston Moor, the Royalists troops were outnumbered, being about 10,000 as against 14,000 in the Parliamentary army. Fairfax commanded for the Parliament, and the King was present in person. As usual, the infantry on each side was in the centre. On the right wing of the Parliamentarians Cromwell led his horse, while Ireton had the horse of the left. Rupert commanded the cavalry on the right wing of the Royalists, and Sir Marmaduke Langdale that of the left. Thus Rupert was not, as at Marston Moor, pitted against Cromwell; and anyone except Cromwell he could beat. Ireton was a stout soldier, but he and his cavalry were completely overthrown; then, according to their usual custom, Rupert’s Cavaliers followed the headlong flight of their opponents in an equally headlong pursuit. Meanwhile, in the centre, the foot crashed together and fought with savage obstinacy on equal terms. As at Marston Moor, the fight was decided solely by Cromwell. He overthrew the Royalist horse as he always overthrew them, and he kept his men in hand as he always kept them. Leaving a sufficient force to watch the broken hostile squadrons, he wheeled the remainder and fell on the Royalist infantry in flank and rear. For a moment, King Charles, stirred by a noble impulse, led forward his horse guards to do or die; but the Earl of Carnworth seized his bridle and stopped him, saying: “Will you go upon your death?” Had the King been indeed a king, as ready to stake his own life for his kingdom as he was to stake the lives of others, it would have gone hard with the man who sought to halt him, for in such a case no man is stopped by another unless he himself is more than willing; but Charles faltered, the moment passed, and his army was overthrown in wild ruin. Rupert came back and reformed his men, but when Cromwell charged home with horse and foot the Royalist troopers never waited the onslaught. There was plenty of light for pursuit now, and Cromwell showed yet another trait of the great commanders by the unsparing energy with which he followed his foe to complete the wreck. For twelve miles the Parliamentary horse kept touch with the flying foe. The King’s army was hopelessly shattered; from half to two-thirds of their number were slain or captured. The Parliamentary losses were also heavy; a thousand of their men were killed or wounded. Ireton had been wounded, and Skippon, the Parliamentary major-general of foot. Fairfax, who had behaved with his usual gallantry, had had his helmet knocked off in the hand-to-hand fighting. The victory was Cromwell’s.

The City Walls of York, with the Cathedral in the Distance.
]

So decisive was the overthrow that it practically ended the war. For a moment the King had hopes of what Montrose would do; but when Montrose came out of the Highlands he found that the clansmen would not march beside him for a long campaign; at Philiphaugh he was overwhelmed by numbers, and the Royalist party in Scotland disappeared with his overthrow. Fairfax whipped Goring and captured Bristol. Cromwell took Winchester, where he dealt severely with certain of his troopers who had been plundering. He then stormed Basing House, an immense fortified pile, the property of the Catholic Marquis of Winchester. Again and again the Parliamentary generals had attempted to take the place, but had always been beaten. Cromwell would not be denied; after three days’ battering with his guns, and an evening spent in prayer and in reading the 115th Psalm, he stormed it with a rush, and the splendid castle, its rooms and galleries filled with all the treasures of art, was left a blackened and blood-stained ruin. After this it was in vain that the Royalist troops strove to make head against their foes. If they stood in the open they were beaten; castle after castle, and fortified manor-house after manor-house, were battered down or stormed by Cromwell and his comrades; and in the spring of 1646 the King surrendered himself to the Scotch army.

III
THE SECOND CIVIL WAR AND THE DEATH OF THE KING

When the stout old Royalist, Sir Jacob Astley, was overcome and surrendered, he exclaimed, as he gave up his sword: “Now you have done your work and may go play, unless you fall out among yourselves!” It very soon became evident that the victors would fall out among themselves. Any revolutionary movement must be carried through by parties whose aims are so different, or whose feelings and interests are so divergent, that there is great difficulty in the victors coming to a working agreement to conserve the fruits of their victory. Not only the leaders, but more especially their followers—that is, the mass of the people—must possess great moderation and good sense for this to be possible. Otherwise, after much warfare of factions, some strong man, a Cromwell or a Napoleon, is forced or forces himself to the front and saves the factions from destroying one another by laying his iron hand on all.

In the middle of the seventeenth century the English people, accustomed for many generations to look to the monarch as their real ruler, began to tumble into chaos when they wrenched themselves free from the ingrained hereditary habit which had made loyalty to the King and orderly government convertible terms. They were not yet fit to govern themselves unaided; such fitness is not a God-given, natural right, but comes to a race only through the slow growth of centuries, and then only to those races which possess an immense reserve fund of strength, common-sense, and morality. The English of the middle of the seventeenth century were very much farther advanced along the road than were the French at the end of the eighteenth. They had no such dreadful wrongs to avenge as had the French people, and they indulged in no such bloodthirsty antics among themselves. But they had by no means attained to that power of compromise which they showed forty years later in the Revolution of 1688, or which was displayed by their blood-kin and political heirs, the American victors in the struggles of 1776 and 1861. In the English Revolution that placed William on the throne, in the American Revolution, and in the American Civil War, the victors passed through periods of great danger when it seemed possible that the fruits of their victory might be thrown away. They did not suffer the fate of the victors of 1648, chiefly because of the growth of the spirit of tolerance, of the capacity for compromise, which enabled them in part to ignore their own differences, and in part to abide by a peaceful settlement of them.

In England, by 1688, the Cromwellian movement had itself educated even those who most sincerely believed that they abhorred it; and there was a far less servile spirit toward James II. than toward Charles I. There was less fanatical intolerance of one another among the elements that had combined to put William on the throne; and William, otherwise by no means as great a man as Cromwell, was yet far more willing to accept working compromises, and more content to let Parliament go its own way, even when that way was not the wisest. After the American Revolution Washington’s greatness of character, sound common-sense, and entirely disinterested patriotism, made him a bulwark both against anarchy and against despotism coming in the name of a safeguard against anarchy; and the people were fit for self-government, adding to their fierce jealousy of tyranny a reluctant and by no means whole-hearted, but genuine, admission that it could be averted only by coming to an agreement among themselves. Washington would not let his officers try to make him Dictator, nor allow the Continental Army to march against the weak Congress which distrusted it, was ungrateful to it, and refused to provide for it. Unlike Cromwell, he saw that the safety of the people lay in working out their own salvation, even though they showed much wrong-headedness and blindness, not merely to morality, but to their own interests; and, in the long run, the people justified this trust.

But Cromwell never wanted the people to decide for themselves, unless they decided in the way that he thought right; and, on the other hand, the difficulty with the people was even greater; for they had neither the desire for freedom, the moderation in using freedom, nor the toleration of differences of opinion, which the American colonists had developed by the end of the following century. At the close of, and after, the American Civil War the differences of opinion and belief among the victors were such as would inevitably have produced further fighting in Cromwell’s time. The Northern Democrats were anxious to combine politically with the defeated Southerners, and to reinstate, as nearly as might be, the old ante-bellum conditions—that is, to prepare for another Civil War. The Republican Party itself showed signs of a deep division between the Extremists and Moderates, while there were all sorts of violent little factions, just as there were Anabaptists and Fifth Monarchy men in Cromwell’s time. The Garrison or disunion Abolitionists, for instance, had formed just such a faction, and had seen their cause triumph, not through, but in spite of, their own efforts. If the Abolitionists of the Wendell Phillips type, instead of seeking to compass Lincoln’s defeat for the Presidency in 1864 by peaceful means, had threatened armed agitation; if, instead of trying to elect McClellan or Seymour at the polls, the Northern Democrats had taken the field with the former at their head; if the Republicans had first crushed them by force of arms, and then had fought among themselves until the extreme radical element got the upper hand, installed Grant as perpetual President and dissolved Congress when it became evident that the Democrats and moderate Republicans combined would outnumber the radicals—we should have had a very fair analogy to what happened in the Cromwellian era.

In such a case, moreover, be it remembered that the fault would have lain less with the perpetual President than with the people whose defects called him into being. Cromwell did not stand on the lofty plane of Washington; but, morally, he was infinitely and beyond all comparison above the class of utterly selfish and unscrupulous usurpers, of whom Napoleon is the greatest representative. At the close of the first Civil War there is no reason to suppose that he had any ambition inconsistent with the highest good of his country, or any thought of making himself paramount. To all outward seeming, his efforts were conscientiously directed to securing the fruits of the victory for liberty, while at the same time securing stability in the government. Unfortunately, in coming to an agreement among men, no moderation or wisdom on the part of any one man will suffice. Something of these qualities must be possessed by all parties to the agreement. The incurable treachery of King Charles rendered it hopeless to work with him; and the utter inability of Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, and indeed of all parties and all creeds to act on the live-and-let-live principle, rendered a really free government almost unworkable at the moment. How little Cromwell yet thought of striving for a kingly position is shown by his conduct in his social relations, notably by the marriages of his children, who at this time sought their mates in families of his own rank. The only one of these marriages with which we need concern ourselves is that of his daughter, Bridget, to Ireton, a good soldier and able politician, who was devoted to Cromwell, and was on very close and intimate terms with him.

The religious element entered into everything Cromwell did, mixing curiously with his hard common-sense and practical appreciation of worldly benefits. It appears in all his letters and speeches. Such a letter as he wrote to the Speaker of the House after the storming of Bristol, is in thought and manner more akin to the writings of some old Hebrew prophet than to those of any conqueror before or after Cromwell’s time. It is saturated, not merely with biblical phraseology, but with biblical feeling, all the glory being ascribed to God, and the army claiming as their sole honor that God had vouchsafed to use them in his service, and that by faith and prayer they had obtained the favor of the Most High. It is impossible for a fair-minded and earnest man to read Cromwell’s letters and reports after action, and the prayers he made and the psalms he chose to read and to give out before action, and to doubt the intensity of the man’s religious fervor. In our day such utterances would be hypocritical. Almost the only modern generals in whom they would have been the sincere expression of inward belief were Stonewall Jackson and Gordon; and the times had changed so utterly that even they could not possibly give utterance to them as Cromwell did. But in Cromwell’s time the most earnest Puritans thought as he did, and expressed their thoughts as he did. That such expression should lend itself very readily to hypocrisy was inevitable; indeed, it was perhaps inevitable that the habitual use of such expression should breed somewhat of hypocrisy in almost any user. The incessant employment by Cromwell and his comrades of the word “saints,” to distinguish themselves and those who thought like them, is particularly objectionable in its offensive self-consciousness.

In this letter about the taking of Bristol Cromwell touches upon the religious differences which were the great causes of division among the victors. He writes:

“Presbyterians, Independents, all have here the same spirit of faith and prayer; the same presence and answer; they agree here; have no names of difference; pity it is it should be otherwise anywhere.... And for brethren in things of the mind we look for no compulsion but that of light and reason.”

Cromwell strove earnestly to bring about harmony between the Independents of the New Model army and the Presbyterians, who were dominant in Parliament. Even in that day there were in private life men of high character and great intellect who believed in true religious liberty, men who stood far ahead of Cromwell; but Cromwell was equally far ahead of all the men who then had any real control in public life; so far ahead, indeed, that he could not get any considerable body of public opinion abreast of him.

The Ironsides, the cavalry of Cromwell, stood as the extreme representatives of the spirit which actuated the army. The great bulk of them were men of intense political and religious convictions. However, many even of the cavalry, and a large majority of the rank and file of the infantry, were of the ordinary military type, men of no particular convictions, a considerable number, indeed, having been enlisted from among the captured armies and garrisons of the King himself. Under the ties of discipline and comradeship, such men were sure to follow with entire fidelity the masterful spirits among the officers and in their own ranks; and all these masterful spirits were devoted to Cromwell as the great leader who had given them victory. They were even more devoted to their conceptions of religious and political liberty, and were resolutely bent on striking down the King who embodied, in their minds, the principles of religious and political oppression. These men had broken entirely with the past, and were no longer overawed by the name of hereditary power. “What,” they asked, “were the Lords of England but William the Conqueror’s Colonels, or the Barons but his Majors, or the Knights but his Captains?”

They believed they were indeed the Lord’s chosen people, and that upon them, as conquerors, there devolved the duty of safeguarding the interests of religion and of the Commonwealth. They wished to strike down the Bishops as well as the King; and though most of them were Congregationalists or Baptists, they had already begun to develop plenty of men whose Christianity was of the most heterodox form, or who boldly announced that they had a right to profess any creed, Christian or otherwise, if they so desired. Together with their iron discipline as an army went wide liberty of thought and discussion on all outside matters—religious and political alike—when they were not in the ranks. There were preachers who served with sombre fidelity as privates, but who were fanatical inciters of Republican enthusiasm in every leisure hour, haranguing and exhorting their fellow-soldiers about every political or religious wrong.

King Charles I.

From the replica at the Dresden Gallery, by Sir Peter Lely.
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Trouble was brewing between this army and Parliament. The Episcopalians—the Royalists—had left Parliament when the war broke out. The Presbyterians were in complete command. London, which held the purse-strings of the Parliamentary cause, was strongly Presbyterian. Now, the Presbyterians, as the war went on, had grown more and more afraid of their allies, and, indeed, of too decisive a victory over the King. They were just as much bent upon an intolerant uniformity in Church matters as was Laud, though they wished to substitute a different form of Church government, which should rest upon a broader and more popular basis. They wished to make Parliament supreme, but they had no idea of dispensing with the King, and they were exceedingly distrustful of a popular movement which would extend liberty beyond and beneath the classes from which they drew their strength. On the contrary, the army, which represented the Independent movement, was strongly democratic in its tendencies, and was filled with sullen wrath against the King.

Cromwell himself was no theorist; in fact, he was altogether too little of one. He wished to do away with concrete acts of oppression and injustice; he sought to make life easier for any who suffered tangible wrong. Though earnestly bent upon doing justice as he saw it, and desirous to secure the essentials of liberty for the people as a whole, he failed to see that questions of form—that is, of law—in securing liberty might be themselves essential instead of, as they seemed to him, non-essential. He was reluctant to enter into general schemes of betterment, especially if they seemed in any way visionary. But when his feelings were greatly roused over specific cases of wrong-doing or oppression, he sometimes became so wrought up as to advocate reform in language so sweeping that he seemed to commit himself, not only to absolute religious toleration, but to complete political equality. Thus when he broke with Lord Manchester he told him that he hoped “to live to see never a nobleman in England.” In open Parliament he denounced “monarchical government.” He advocated entire religious freedom. In dealing with the army he declared his readiness to maintain the doctrine that “the foundation and the supremacy is in the people—radically in them—and to be set down by them in their representations”—that is, by their representatives in Parliament.

Of course, to make his conduct square with these various utterances, Cromwell would have had to strive for precisely such a government as Washington was able to inaugurate a century and a half later; a government in which there should be complete religious toleration, in which all differences of rank and title should be abolished, and in which the basis of representation in Parliament would have to approach more or less closely to manhood suffrage. Doubtless, there were times when Cromwell ardently wished for such a Government; but it was wholly out of the question to realize it in the middle of the seventeenth century, even in England. Generations had to pass before men could grasp the true principles of religious toleration and political equality in all their bearings; and, like every other man who actually works out great reforms, who actually does signal service in the world, Cromwell had to face facts as they were, and not as bodies of extremists—no matter how good—thought they ought to be.

The best and most high-minded of the Puritan party were now growing to fear lest the Presbyterians should try to perpetuate the old religious oppression under a new name. Milton—with but one exception the greatest poet of the English tongue, a man whose political and social ideas were at least two centuries in advance of his time, but who had the good sense to accept, no matter with what heart-burning, the best possible when he could not get the best—Milton expressed the convictions of his whole party when he said that if “Presbyter was but Priest writ large” the people were no better off than before.

The army began to show openly its spirit of fierce unrest. A very considerable portion avowed extreme republican theories. The Levellers, as they were called, were looked upon in that day, even by advocates of freedom like Cromwell, with great distrust, although the principles they advocated—such as manhood suffrage—are now the commonplaces of American politics. Of course, then they were not commonplaces; they were revolutionary ideas, for the reception of which the mind of the English people was not ready, and therefore it was the duty of men who sought practical reform to refuse to put these schemes into operation.

There were much more extreme and dangerous groups than the mere Republicans; groups of men in whom the desire for religious, political, and moral reform had overstepped the broad, but not always clearly marked, border line which divides sane and healthy fervor from fanaticism. In such troublous times small sects and parties of extremists swarm. Already the foundations were laid for the Fifth Monarchy men, the men who believed that the times were ripe for the installation of the last great world monarchy, the monarchy of which the Saviour himself was to be Ruler; the men who shouted for King Jesus, and were ferociously opposed to everybody who would not advocate the immediate introduction into all mundane affairs of Heaven’s law, as the Fifth Monarchy men chose to interpret it. Of course, men of this type are always to be found in every free government, and aside from their peculiar notions, they may have excellent traits. In peaceful times and places like the United States at the present day, they merely join little extreme parties, and run small, separate tickets on election-day, thereby giving aid, comfort, and amusement to the totally unregenerate. In times of great political convulsion, when the appeal to arms has been made, these harmless bodies may draft into their ranks—as the Fifth Monarchy men did—fierce and dangerous spirits, ever ready to smite down with any weapons the possible good, because it is not the impossible best. When this occurs they need to be narrowly watched.

There are many good people who find it difficult to keep in mind the obvious fact that, while extremists are sometimes men who are in advance of their age, more often they are men who are not in advance at all, but simply to one side or the other of a great movement, or even lagging behind it, or trying to pilot it in the wrong direction.

The seething unrest of the army found expression in the creation of a regular political organization to oppose the organized Parliament. The officers formed a Council, and the rank and file chose delegates, two for each company or troop, known as “agitators.” In short, the army became an organized political body whose scarcely acknowledged function was to control or supersede the Parliament; just as, prior to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Committees of Correspondence were formed, in the various colonies, out of which there sprang the Continental Congress, which superseded the loyalist colonial legislatures.

Cromwell, like every other great leader who rises in a period of storm and convulsion, could partly direct the forces around him, and in part had to be directed by them. He did not sympathize with the extreme position of the army about the King—the “man of blood,” as the Puritan zealots called him, whose life they already demanded; nor yet with their radical political aspirations. But it was the army alone through which he could act, which gave him his strength; and in return he was the one man who could in any way check or control it, for its loyalty to, and admiration of, the great leader at whose hands it had drained the cup of victory, were the only emotions strong enough to offset its fierce zeal for its own theories of Church and State.

Cromwell was most earnestly desirous of getting a working compromise between the King, the Presbyterian Parliament, and the Independent army; a compromise which would allow the King to reign, exercising such executive powers as the Parliament felt he should possess, and which should leave the supreme control to Parliament, but with sufficient guarantees for political and religious freedom to insure justice to the Independents and the soldiers. He strove so hard to accomplish his purpose as to excite angry mutterings against himself among his own followers in the army; and the first steps of the impending revolution were seemingly taken by him only because he was irresistibly pushed onward by the army itself. When, however, he had once made up his mind that there was no other path possible, he trod it as a leader, with all his wonted firmness and decision.

The effort for reconciliation was hopeless, chiefly because the King was an utterly impossible person with whom to deal. He had many bitter foes; but they could not prevail against him until he convinced some of his would-be friends that he was absolutely and utterly untrustworthy. He never for a moment entertained the idea of accepting his defeat, of abandoning the effort to rule as a despot, and of acting with good faith toward the people. His purpose was to play off the Presbyterians, together with the Scotch, against the Independents; as he wrote to a friend, he hoped to get either the one party or the other “to side with me for extirpating one another, and I shall be really King again.”

Meanwhile, the Presbyterian Parliament was determined not to tolerate the “sectaries” of the Congregationalist and Baptist Churches, and was drawing closer and closer to the Scotch Covenanters, who were even more intolerant; and finally it grew ready to accept the King himself on almost any terms, if it could overcome the army.

But the army could not be overcome. It had perfected its political organization, and had begun to work through Ireton—Cromwell’s other self. The army was genuinely reluctant to break with the Parliament, for, after all, it was deeply permeated with the English respect for law and order; and in the elections to fill the vacancies in the House, very many Independents—men like Ireton, Fairfax, and Blake, the after-time admiral—had been returned, so that there was in the Parliament a party which strongly sympathized with the army.

General Sir Thomas Fairfax.

From the Portrait by Robert Walker at Althorp.

By permission of Earl Spencer, K.G.
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The majority in Parliament, however, remained steadfast in its own views, and by its refusal to give the soldiers their arrears of pay it added a very tangible, material grievance to those of an ethical character. In January, 1647, the Scottish army delivered King Charles to the agents of the Parliament, and quitted England, having received part of the sum of money due them.

The most complicated and devious negotiations followed between the King, the Parliament, and the army. Cromwell tried to get the army in touch with the Parliament, but found the Parliament hopelessly obstinate. He tried to get it in touch with the King, but found the King hopelessly false. Yet, neither could the King and Parliament come together. Then the army threatened mutiny, whereupon the Parliament began to negotiate for bringing back the Scottish force to overawe the New Model, and attempted the disbandment of the latter. The army struck back with great decision and sent Cornet Joyce to seize the person of the King and take him away from the Presbyterians. Parliament attempted to proceed with the disbandment of the army, but was forced to abandon the effort when it became evident that to pursue it meant war. No one knew quite what the outcome would be, or, indeed, what his own course would be.

Cromwell, like the rest, was drifting; he seriously thought of leaving England and going to Germany to fight for the Protestant cause, as the Thirty Years’ War had not yet come quite to an end. To the French ambassador, who sounded him on the object of his ambition, he answered: “No one rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going.” He was certainly at this time making the most honest efforts to come to an agreement, either with the King, or the Parliament, or with both, provided only liberty of conscience should be granted, the power of Parliament guaranteed against the despotism of the King, and the rights of the people guaranteed as against the despotism of Parliament. But, when Parliament began to negotiate with the Scots on its account, and Charles secretly sought to enter into a separate agreement with the Scots on his account, to bring about an invasion of England, while the city mob, which was rabidly Presbyterian, forced the hand of the House of Commons and compelled its members to defy the army, it became evident that Oliver had to choose his course. Reluctantly he was pushed along the road of military revolution. The speaker and the Independent members of Parliament, in fear of the London mob, took refuge with the army, whither Cromwell himself had already gone. On June 10th the army issued a manifesto, demanding a settlement of the difficulties upon terms which it approved. Early in August it marched in formidable and orderly parade through the city, overawing resistance by its mere appearance, and Parliament submitted. This was the real beginning of the military interference which terminated in the military dictatorship of one man. If Cromwell is to be blamed for what he did to the Long Parliament, this is the step for which he is to be blamed most; yet it was a step approved by Milton, Fairfax, Ireton, and the great majority of the best and most high-minded believers in English liberty who were then alive. The conduct of the King and the Parliament had been such that it is difficult to see how any other course was possible.

Cromwell did his best to stop the Revolution at the point it had now reached. For months he endeavored to make terms with the King on the conditions outlined above; and he not only put a stop to the extreme democratic agitation of the Levellers and refused to further the plan for a republican commonwealth, but, with prompt severity, repressed a mutiny that broke out under the cry of “England’s Freedom and Soldiers’ Rights.” He disregarded the grumbling of the army until he became convinced that Charles was incurably false, incurably treacherous and untrustworthy, and was fomenting a counter-revolution. Then Cromwell turned from him with loathing, and made up his mind to trust to the sword, and to strike down anyone, even the King himself, if the need warranted it.