D: p. 127
The sky by a veil; ‘A spiritual world,’ says a critic of deep insight, ‘over and above this invisible one, is a most important addition to our idea of the universe; but it does not of itself touch our moral nature. . . . Its moral effect depends entirely upon what we make that world to be.’—Cromwell’s religion, which may be profitably studied in his letters and speeches, (much better known of, than read) reveals itself there as the simple reflex of his personal views: it had great power to animate, little or none to regulate or control his impulses. He had, indeed, a most real and pervading ‘natural turn for the invisible; he thought of the invisible till he died; but the cloudy arch only canopied a field of human aim and will.’
The horrible sacrament; The summary of Cromwell’s conduct at Drogheda by a writer of so much research, impartiality, and philosophic liberality as Mr. Lecky deserves to be well considered.
‘The sieges of Drogheda and Wexford, and the massacres that accompanied them, deserve to rank in horror with the most atrocious exploits of Tilly and Wallenstein, and they made the name of Cromwell eternally hated in Ireland. It even now acts as a spell upon the Irish mind, and has a powerful and living influence in sustaining the hatred both of England and Protestantism. The massacre of Drogheda acquired a deeper horror and a special significance from the saintly professions and the religious phraseology of its perpetrators, and the town
where it took place is, to the present day, distinguished in Ireland for the vehemence of its Catholicism:’ (Hist. of Eighteenth Cent. ch. vi).
Mortal failure; The ever-increasing unsuccess of Cromwell’s career is forcibly set forth by Ranke (xii. 8). He had ‘crushed every enemy,—the Scottish and the Presbyterian system, the peers and the king, the Long Parliament and the Cavalier insurgents,—but to create . . . an organization consistent with the authority which had fallen to his own lot, was beyond his power. Even among his old’ Anabaptist and Independent ‘friends, his comrades in the field, his colleagues in the establishment of the Commonwealth, he encountered the most obstinate resistance. . . . At no time were the prisons fuller; the number of political prisoners was estimated at 12,000 . . . The failure of his plans soured and distracted him.’ It was, in fact, wholly ‘beyond his power to consolidate a tolerably durable political constitution.’—To the disquiet caused by constant attempts against Cromwell’s life, Ranke adds the death of his favourite daughter, Lady Claypole, whose last words of agony ‘were of the right of the king, the blood that had been shed, the revenge to come.’