Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England

by C. H. Firth

“I know,” said he, “a man may answer all difficulties with faith, and faith will answer all difficulties where it really is; but we are very apt all of us to call that faith which perhaps may be but carnal imagination and carnal reasoning.” Faith could remove mountains, “but give me leave to say there will be very great mountains in the way of this.”

Cromwell’s mention of difficulties called up Colonel Rainsborough, the leader of the democratic party amongst the officers.

“If ever we had looked upon difficulties,” cried Rainsborough, “I do not know that ever we should have looked an enemy in the face. Let difficulties be round about you, though you have death before you, and the sea on each side of you and behind you; if you are convinced that the thing is just, I think you are bound in consequence to carry it on; and I think at the last day it can never be answered to God that you did not do it. For it is a poor service to God and the kingdom to take their pay and to decline their work.”

“Perhaps,” answered Cromwell with quiet dignity, “we have all of us done our parts not affrighted with difficulties, one as well as another, and I hope all purpose henceforward to do so still. I do not think that any man here wants courage to do that which becomes an honest man and an Englishman to do. But we speak as men that desire to have the fear of God before our eyes, and men that may not resolve to do that which we do in the power of a fleshly strength, but to lay this as the foundation of all our actions, to do that which is the will of God.”

When it came to a discussion of the details of the Proposals the fiercest debate arose on the question of manhood suffrage.

“Every man born in England,” argued Rainsborough, “the poor man, the meanest man in the kingdom,” ought to have a voice in choosing those who made the laws under which he was to live and die. It was a natural right, part of every Englishman’s birthright, and part of the liberty for which the soldiers had shed their blood. “It was the ground that we took up arms,” said one of them, “and it is the ground which we shall maintain.”

Ireton answered that to give a vote to men who had no stake in the country would endanger both liberty and property. Logically, he argued, the theory of natural rights implied a claim to property as well as a claim to political power. Cromwell, while agreeing that universal suffrage “did tend very much to anarchy,” dismissed abstract principles altogether, and expressed his willingness to assent to a reasonable extension of the franchise.

Next came a struggle on the question of the King and the Lords. Cromwell protested that he had no private pledges to either, and no wish to preserve them, if their preservation was incompatible with the safety of the nation. The democratic party in the council held that both the monarchy and the Upper House must be abolished, and that their retention in any shape was dangerous. Cromwell’s view was that at present, considering its public engagements, the army could not with justice and honesty either abolish them or set them aside, and therefore he desired to maintain both so far as it could be done without hazard to the public interest. Some boldly asserted that the power of King and Lords was part of that Babylon which God would destroy, and pleaded their own convictions to that effect as a revelation from heaven. Cromwell replied with a warning against “imaginary revelations.” Like them, he said, he believed in the fulfilment of the prophecies in the Bible. “I am one of those whose heart God hath drawn out to wait for some extraordinary dispensations, according to those promises that He hath held forth of things to be accomplished in the later times, and I cannot but think that God is beginning of them.” He was inclined to agree with those who held that God would overthrow King and Lords. Yet let them not make those things a rule to them which they could not clearly know to be the mind of God. Let them not say, “This is the mind of God, we must work to it.” If it was God’s purpose to destroy the power of King and Lords, He could do it without necessitating the army to dishonour itself by breaking its engagements. Let them wait for God’s time, and do their plain, immediate duty. “Surely what God would have us do He does not desire we should step out of the way for it.”

In these discussions Fairfax was absent or silent. Ireton’s readiness in debate and knowledge of constitutional law and political theory made him the spokesman of the superior officers. He had a firm grasp of the principles involved, possessed great logical acuteness, and spoke with clearness, vigour, and even eloquence. But he was too dogmatic and too unconciliatory to convince opponents. With less dialectical skill and much less facility in expressing himself, Cromwell was an infinitely more effective speaker. What distinguished his speeches was an unfailing moderation and good sense which even the visionaries and demagogues whom he combated were forced to acknowledge. Neither religious nor political formulas blinded him to facts. Avowing that the good of the people was the proper end of government, and admitting that all political power was properly derived from the people, he denied the conclusion of the democrats that a republic was the only legitimate government for England. At the very outset of these debates he laid down the rule that in proposing any important political change the first thing to consider was “whether the spirit and temper of the people of this nation are prepared to go along with it.” For that reason he declared his preference for monarchy. “In the government of nations that which is to be looked after is the affections of the people, and that I find which satisfies my conscience in the present thing.” The particular form of government seemed to him quite unimportant compared with its acceptability to the people. Consider, he argued, the example of the Jews. They were governed successively by patriarchs, by judges, and by kings, and under all these different kinds of government they were happy and contented. Moreover there were things more important than the civil government of a state. Even if you change the government to the best possible kind of government, “it is but a moral thing.” Less important, Cromwell meant, than religious freedom. “It is but, as Paul says, dross and dung in comparison with Christ.” Why then should they contest so much for merely temporal things? If every man in the kingdom should insist on fighting to realise what he thought the best form of government, “I think the State will come to desolation.”

In the background of Cromwell’s mind there was always this desire to avoid a new civil war, and this dread of anarchy. It determined him now to put a stop to the spread of insubordination amongst the soldiers, and to limit the political action of the army to a minimum. Without obedience to its officers, he declared, the army would cease to exist. It was intolerable that private men, such as the Agents were, should take upon themselves to issue orders and call a rendezvous of a troop or a regiment. “This way is destructive to the army and to every man in it. I have been informed by some of the King’s party that if they give us rope enough we shall hang ourselves.” Soldiers must obey their officers: officers must submit to the decisions of Parliament. The army should leave Parliament to decide what government was fittest for the nation, and content itself with requiring that Parliaments should be fairly elected, frequently summoned, and dissolved in due season. As it needed the support of some civil authority, it must own the authority of Parliament. For his own part, he added, he would lay hold of anything, “if it had but the face of authority,” rather than have none.