Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England

by C. H. Firth

FACSIMILE SIGNATURE OF OLIVER CROMWELL.
OCTOBER 19, 1651.

FACSIMILE SIGNATURE OF OLIVER CROMWELL.
AUGUST 11, 1657.

He met each new difficulty with his old resourcefulness and courage, but when one was overcome another rose before him, and the incessant struggle made increasing demands upon his vital forces. In the opinion of his steward, Maidston, “being compelled to wrestle with the difficulties of his place as well as he could without parliamentary assistance,” after the dissolution of his second Parliament, was a fatal addition to his burdens. “I doubt not to say it drank up his spirits, of which his natural constitution afforded a vast stock, and brought him to his grave.”

Private griefs also contributed their share to his load. In February, 1658, Robert Rich died, the husband of Cromwell’s youngest daughter Frances, married only four months earlier. On the 6th of August following, died Elizabeth Claypole, his favourite daughter, after a long and painful illness. The Protector was much with her in her last days, and his “sense of her outward misery in the pains she endured took deep impression upon him.”

A little time after his daughter’s funeral, Cromwell fell ill of an ague, or intermittent fever, but in a few days he seemed to shake it off and to regain strength. On August 20th, George Fox, going to Hampton Court to plead with the Protector “about the sufferings of Friends,” met him riding in the Park at the head of his guards. “Before I came to him,” says Fox, “I saw and felt a waft of death go forth against him, and when I came to him he looked like a dead man.” The next day Cromwell fell sick again, but he felt certain that the prayers put up for him would be answered, and was assured that he would recover. “Banish all sadness from your looks, and deal with me as you would with a serving man,” he said to a doubting physician. “You may have skill in the nature of things, yet nature can do more than all physicians put together; and God is far above nature.” When the fit was past, his physicians ordered him to remove to Whitehall, thinking that he would be benefited by the change of air.

At Whitehall, his condition became worse instead of better: he was racked by alternate heats and chills; all recognised that the danger was great; “our fears are more than our hopes,” wrote Thurloe to Henry Cromwell. On Tuesday, the last day of August, the French Ambassador told his Government that the Protector was at death’s door, but the same evening he rallied, and hope gained the upper hand again. That night, one who watched in Cromwell’s bedchamber heard him praying, and remarked that “a public spirit to God’s cause did breathe in him to the very last.” For he prayed, not for himself or for his family, but for Puritanism and for all Puritans—for “God’s cause” and “God’s people.” “Thou hast made me,” he said, “though very unworthy, a mean instrument to do them some good, and Thee service. And many of them have set too high a value upon me, though others wish and would be glad of my death. But, Lord, however Thou dost dispose of me, continue and go on to do good for them. Give them consistency of judgment, one heart, and mutual love, and go on to deliver them.... Teach those who look too much upon Thy instruments to depend more upon Thyself. Pardon such as desire to trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy people too. And pardon the folly of this short prayer, even for Jesus Christ’s sake, and give us a good night, if it be Thy pleasure.”

Cromwell hourly grew weaker. Through the night of Thursday, the 2nd of September, he was very restless, speaking often to himself in broken sentences difficult to hear. “I would be willing,” he said once, “to live to be further serviceable to God and His people, but my work is done.” “God will be with His people.” He resigned himself to die.

A physician offered him something to drink, bidding him to take it, and to endeavour to sleep, but he answered: “It is not my design to drink or to sleep, but my design is to make what haste I can to be gone.” Towards morning he spoke again “using divers holy expressions, implying much inward consolation and peace,” and with them he mingled “some exceeding self-debasing words, annihilating and judging himself.” After that he was silent, and at four o’clock on the afternoon of Friday he died.

It was the 3rd of September, his fortunate day, the anniversary of Dunbar and Worcester.