General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

II. THE COMMONWEALTH (1649-1660).

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH.—A few weeks after the execution of Charles, the Commons voted to abolish the Monarchy and the House of Lords, and to establish a republic, under the name of "The Commonwealth." The executive power was lodged in a Council of State, composed of forty-one persons. Of this body Bradshaw, an eminent lawyer, was the nominal, but Cromwell the real, head.

TROUBLES OF THE COMMONWEALTH.—The republic thus born of mingled religious and political enthusiasm was beset with dangers from the very first. The execution of Charles had alarmed every sovereign in Europe. Russia, France, and Holland, all refused to have any communication with the ambassadors of the Commonwealth. The Scots, who too late repented of having surrendered their native sovereign into the hands of his enemies, now hastened to wipe out the stain of their disloyalty by proclaiming his son their king, with the title of Charles the Second. The impulsive Irish also declared for the Prince; while the Dutch began active preparations to assist him in regaining the throne of his unfortunate father. In England itself the Royalists were active and threatening.

WAR WITH IRELAND.—The Commonwealth, like the ancient republic of Rome, seemed to gather strength and energy from the very multitude of surrounding dangers. Cromwell was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and sent into that country to crush a rising of the Royalists there. With his Ironsides he made quick and terrible work of the conquest of the island. Having taken by storm the town of Drogheda (1649), he massacred the entire garrison, consisting of three thousand men. About a thousand who had sought asylum in a church were butchered there without mercy. The capture of other towns was accompanied by massacres little less terrible. The conqueror's march through the island was the devastating march of an Attila or a Zinghis Khan. The following is his own account of the manner in which he dealt with the captured garrisons: "When they submitted, their officers were knocked on the head, and every tenth man of the soldiers killed, and the rest shipped for Barbadoes [to be sold into slavery]."

WAR WITH SCOTLAND.—Cromwell was called out of Ireland by the Council to lead an army into Scotland. The terror of his name went before him, and the people fled as he approached. At Dunbar he met the Scotch army. Before the terrible onset of the fanatic Roundheads the Scots were scattered like chaff before the wind (1650).

The following year, on the anniversary of the Battle of Dunbar, Cromwell gained another great victory over the Scottish army at Worcester, and all Scotland was soon after forced to submit to the authority of the Commonwealth. Prince Charles, after many adventurous experiences, escaped across the Channel into Normandy.

CROMWELL EJECTS THE LONG PARLIAMENT (1653).—The war in Scotland was followed by one with the Dutch. While this war was in progress Parliament came to an open quarrel with the army. Cromwell demanded of Parliament their dissolution, and the calling of a new body. This they refused; whereupon, taking with him a body of soldiers, Cromwell went to the House, and after listening impatiently for a while to the debate, suddenly sprang to his feet, and, with bitter reproaches, exclaimed: "I will put an end to your prating. Get you gone; give place to better men. You are no Parliament. The Lord has done with you." The soldiers rushing in at a preconcerted signal, the hall was cleared, and the doors locked (1653).

In such summary manner the Long Parliament, or the "Rump Parliament," as it was called in derision after Pride's Purge, was dissolved, after having sat for twelve years. So completely had the body lost the confidence and respect of all parties, that scarcely a murmur was heard against the illegal and arbitrary mode of its dissolution.

THE LITTLE PARLIAMENT.—Cromwell now called a new Parliament, or more properly a convention, summoning, so far as he might, only religious, God- fearing men. The "Little Parliament," as generally called, consisted of 156 members, mainly religious persons, who spent much of their time in Scripture exegesis, prayer, and exhortation. Among them was a London leather-merchant, named Praise-God Barebone, who was especially given to these exercises. The name amused the people, and they nicknamed the Convention the "Praise-God Barebone Parliament."

The Little Parliament sat only a few months, during which time, however, it really did some excellent work, particularly in the way of suggesting important reforms. It at length resigned all its powers into the hands of Cromwell; and shortly afterwards his council of army officers, fearing the country would fall into anarchy, persuaded him—though manifesting reluctance, he probably was quite willing to be persuaded—to accept the title of "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth."

[Illustration: OLIVER CROMWELL]

THE PROTECTORATE (1653-1659).—Cromwell's power was now almost unlimited. He was virtually a dictator. His administration was harsh and despotic. He summoned, prorogued, and dissolved parliaments. The nation was really under martial law. Royalists and active Roman Catholics were treated with the utmost rigor. A censorship of the Press was established. Scotland was overawed by strong garrisons. The Irish Royalists, rising against the "usurper," were crushed with remorseless severity. Thousands were massacred, and thousands more were transported to the West Indies to be sold as slaves.

While the resolute and despotic character of Cromwell's government secured obedience at home, its strength and vigor awakened the fear as well as the admiration of foreign nations. He gave England the strongest, and in many respects the best, government she had had since the days of Henry VIII and Elizabeth.

CROMWELL'S DEATH.—Notwithstanding Cromwell was a man of immovable resolution and iron spirit, he felt sorely the burdens of his government, and was deeply troubled by the perplexities of his position. With his constitution undermined by overwork and anxiety, fever attacked him, and with gloomy apprehensions as to the terrible dangers into which England might drift after his hand had fallen from the helm of affairs, he lay down to die, passing away on the day which he had always called his "fortunate day"—the anniversary of his birth, and also the anniversary of his great victories of Dunbar and Worcester (Sept. 3, 1658).

RICHARD CROMWELL (1658-1659).—Cromwell with his dying breath had designated his son Richard as his successor in the office of the Protectorate. Richard was exactly the opposite of his father,—timid, irresolute, and irreligious. The control of affairs that had taxed to the utmost the genius and resources of the father was altogether too great an undertaking for the incapacity and inexperience of the son. No one was quicker to realize this than Richard himself, and after a rule of a few months, yielding to the pressure of the army, whose displeasure he had incurred, he resigned the Protectorate. Had he possessed one-half the energy and practical genius that characterized his father, the crown would probably have become hereditary in the family of the Cromwells, and their house might have been numbered among the royal houses of England.

THE RESTORATION (1660).—For some months after the fall of the Protectorate the country trembled on the verge of anarchy. The gloomy outlook into the future, and the unsatisfactory experiment of the Commonwealth, caused the great mass of the English people earnestly to desire the restoration of the Monarchy. Prince Charles, towards whom the tide of returning royalty was running, was now in Holland. A race was actually run between Monk, the leader of the army, and Parliament, to see which should first present him with the invitation to return to his people, and take his place upon the throne of his ancestors. Amid the wildest demonstrations of joy, Charles stepped ashore on the island from which he had been for nine years an exile. As he observed the preparations made for his reception, and received from all parties the warmest congratulations, he remarked with pleasant satire, "It is my own fault that I did not come back sooner, for I find nobody who does not tell me he has always longed for my return."

1. Puritan Literature.

IT LIGHTS UP THE RELIGIOUS SIDE OF THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION.—No epoch in history receives a fresher illustration from the study of its literature than that of the Puritan Commonwealth. To neglect this, and yet hope to gain a true conception of that wonderful episode in the life of the English people by an examination of its outer events and incidents alone, would, as Green declares, be like trying to form an idea of the life and work of ancient Israel from the Kings and the Chronicles, without the Psalms and the Prophets. The true character of the English Revolution, especially upon its religious side, must be sought in the magnificent Epic of Milton and the unequalled Allegory of Bunyan.

Both of these great works, it is true, were written after the Restoration, but they were both inspired by the same spirit that had struck down Despotism and set up the Commonwealth. The Epic was the work of a lonely, disappointed Republican; the Allegory, of a captive Puritan.

Milton (1608-1674) stands as the grandest representative of Puritanism. He was the greatest statesman of the Revolution, the stoutest champion of English liberties against the tyranny of the House of Stuart. After the beheading of Charles I. he wrote a famous work in Latin, entitled The Defence of the English People, in which he justified the execution of the king.

The Restoration forced Milton into retirement, and the last fourteen years of his life were passed apart from the world. It was during these years that, in loneliness and blindness, he composed the immortal poems Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. The former is the "Epic of Puritanism." All that was truest and grandest in the Puritan character found expression in the moral elevation and religious fervor of this the greatest of Christian poems.

John Bunyan (1628-1688) was a Puritan non-conformist. After the Restoration, he was imprisoned for twelve years in Bedford jail, on account of non-conformity to the established worship. It was during this dreary confinement that he wrote his Pilgrim's Progress, the most admirable allegory in English literature. The habit of the Puritan, from constant study of the Bible, to employ in all forms of discourse its language and imagery, is best illustrated in the pages of this remarkable work.