Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England

by C. H. Firth

Was it not true that the safety of the people was the supreme law? Was it not certain that this treaty would undo all that had been gained by the war, and make things worse than before the war began? If resistance to authority was lawful at all, was it not as lawful to oppose the Parliament as it was to oppose the King?

“Consider,” he urged, “whether this army be not a lawful power called by God to oppose and fight against the King upon some stated grounds; and being in power to such ends, may not oppose one name of authority for those ends as well as another name,—since it was not the outward authority summoning them that by its power made the quarrel lawful, but the quarrel that was lawful in itself.”

These, however, were but “fleshly reasonings,” and there were higher arguments. “Let us look into providences; surely they mean somewhat. They hang so together; have been so constant, so clear, unclouded.”

The victories God had given could not be meant to end in such a sacrifice of His cause and His people as “this ruining hypocritical agreement.” “Thinkest thou in thy heart that the glorious dispensations of God point to this?” The determination of the army to prevent the treaty was also God’s doing. “What think you of Providence disposing the hearts of so many of God’s people this way? We trust the same Lord who hath framed our minds in our actings is with us in this also.” There were difficulties to be encountered and enemies not few—“appearance of united names, titles, and authorities”; yet they were not terrified, “desiring only to fear our great God that we do nothing against His will.”

Briefly stated, Cromwell’s argument was that the victories of the army, and the convictions of the godly, were external and internal evidence of God’s will, to be obeyed as a duty. It was dangerous reasoning, and not less dangerous that secular and political motives coincided with the dictates of religious enthusiasm. Similar arguments might be held to justify not merely the temporary intervention of the army, but its permanent assumption of the government of England. Practical good sense and conservative instincts prevented Cromwell from adopting the extreme consequences of his theory; with most of his comrades the logic of fanaticism was qualified by no such considerations.

As Parliament continued the treaty without attending to their Remonstrance, the army determined to employ force. On December 1st, officers sent by Fairfax seized Charles at Newport and removed him to Hurst Castle in Hampshire. The next day, Fairfax and his troops occupied London. Undeterred, the House of Commons resolved by 129 votes to eighty-three that the King’s answers were a ground to proceed upon for the settlement of the kingdom. The same evening, the commanders of the army and the leaders of the parliamentary minority held a conference to decide what was to be done. On their march, the officers had declared their intention of dissolving the Long Parliament, and constituting the faithful minority a provisional government until a new Parliament could meet. But now, in deference to the wishes of their friends in Parliament, they resolved, instead, to expel the Presbyterian majority from the House, and to leave the Independent minority in possession of the name and authority of a Parliament. On December 6th, accordingly, Colonel Pride and a body of musketeers beset the doors of the House of Commons, seized some members as they sought to enter, and turned others back by force. The same process continued on the 7th, till forty-five members were under arrest, and some ninety-six others excluded.

Cromwell arrived at London on the night after “Pride’s Purge” began, and took his seat next day amongst the fifty or sixty members who continued to sit in the House. Like the rest of the officers, he had contemplated a forcible dissolution and the calling of a new Parliament. But seeing that a different plan had been adopted by his friends on the spot, he did not hesitate to accept it. He said, “that he had not been acquainted with this design, but since it was done he was glad of it, and would endeavour to maintain it.”

On the question of the King, a difference of opinion between Cromwell and the bulk of the officers soon showed itself. He approved of their seizure of Charles, and had no doubt of the justice of bringing him to trial. But he doubted the policy of the King’s trial and condemnation, if any other satisfactory expedient could be devised to secure the rights of the nation. It might be that the King’s deposition would be sufficient, or that he would at last make the concessions which he had hitherto refused. Of the discussions which went on in the council of officers during the next three weeks very little is known. There are vague rumours of a great division of opinion amongst them, of one party sternly insisting on the King’s punishment, of another willing to be content with his deposition or imprisonment. We get glimpses of Cromwell negotiating with lawyers and judges about the settlement of the nation, inspiring a final attempt to come to terms with Charles, and arguing that it would be safe to spare the King’s life, if he would accept the conditions now offered him. All these attempted compromises failed. The King preferred to part with his life rather than with his regal power, and unless he yielded no constitutional settlement was possible. So the military revolution, for a moment arrested in its progress, moved inevitably forward, and Cromwell went with it.

On December 23rd, Charles was brought to Windsor. “The Lord be with you and bless you in this great charge,” wrote Cromwell to the governor, sending him therewith minute instructions for the safe-keeping of his captive. On the same day, the House of Commons appointed a committee “to consider how to proceed in the way of justice against the King.” “If any man,” Cromwell is reported to have said, “had deliberately designed such a thing, he would be the greatest traitor in the world, but ‘the Providence of God’ had cast it upon them.”

Five days later an ordinance was introduced erecting a tribunal to try the King, to consist of three judges and a jury of 150 commissioners. On January 2, 1649, the ordinance was transmitted to the Lords, with a resolution declaring that “by the fundamental laws of this kingdom it is treason in the King of England for the time being to levy war against the Parliament and the kingdom of England.” The unanimous rejection of this ordinance, and the discovery that the judges would refuse the part assigned to them, did not make the Commons draw back. A new ordinance was brought in, creating a court of 135 commissioners, who were to act both as judge and jury, and omitting the three judges. Fresh resolutions declared the people the original of all just power, the House of Commons the supreme power in the nation, and the laws passed by the Commons binding without consent of King or Lords. This ordinance, or, as it was now termed, act, was passed on January 6, 1649. It set forth that Charles Stuart had wickedly designed totally to subvert the ancient and fundamental laws of this nation, and in their place to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government; that he had levied and maintained a cruel war against Parliament and kingdom; and that new commotions had arisen from the remissness of Parliament to prosecute him. Wherefore that for the future “no chief officer or magistrate whatsoever may presume to imagine or contrive the enslaving or destroying of the English nation, and to expect impunity for trying or doing the same,” the persons whose names followed were appointed to try the said Charles Stuart. On the 19th of January, the King was brought from Windsor to St. James’s, guarded by troops of horse.