Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England

by C. H. Firth

At home, however, the Royalists were crushed and subdued. Some of their leaders were prisoners; others had suffered under the Republic’s High Court of Justice. As a rule, the penalties inflicted on the defeated party were limited to pecuniary fines. Early in the war, the Parliament had resolved to sequestrate all the property of those in arms against it. Subsequently it adopted the plan of compounding with delinquents; that is, allowing a Royalist to redeem his estate on paying a certain proportion of its value. These compositions varied in amount from one-half to one-tenth of the capital value of the property, and were determined according to the position and the criminality of the owner. Under this system, large sums were raised to pay the expenses of the war, but it was less effective as a means of raising revenue than as a method of punishing Royalists. A country gentleman who had melted his plate and felled his oaks to succour the King found himself forced to raise money when money was scarce and land had immensely fallen in value. The fixing of his fine was a long and cumbrous process, and till it was fixed his estate was under sequestration. If he failed to pay his instalments at the right time, or was found to have understated his property, there came a re-assessment of the fine, or a fresh sequestration of the estate. He might long as fervently as ever to see the day when the King would enjoy his own again, but, disarmed and impoverished as he was, he could do little to bring it nearer. Yet many Cavaliers were willing to risk their lives again in the attempt. This section of the party maintained an active correspondence with the exiled Court, and by 1650 a central royalist council was established with agents in every county. But the most sanguine plotters admitted that without some assistance from abroad the party in general was “too extremely awed” to take up arms.

In England their possible allies against the government were the Presbyterians and the Levellers. The Presbyterians were numerous, rich, and powerful. Their strength lay in London, in the large towns, and in Lancashire, but most of the middle classes and the bulk of the beneficed clergy belonged to their party. The Presbyterian clergy had protested loudly against the King’s trial; many of them preached against the Republic, and some were bold enough to pray for Charles II. They condemned the Commonwealth as “an heretical democracy,” and refused the engagement to be faithful to it which Parliament imposed. But beyond this passive resistance few of them went. Cordial co-operation between Presbyterians and Royalists was impossible, for the desires of the parties differed widely. What the Presbyterians wanted was a constitutional monarchy on the basis of the terms offered the King in the Newport treaty; what the Royalists wanted was the restoration of monarchy as it had existed before the war began. One party demanded the establishment of some form of Presbyterianism, the other the maintenance of Episcopacy. In 1648, the distrust and apathy of the Presbyterians had prevented the success of the Royalists, and the same cause prevented their union now. The Royalists distrusted the Presbyterians quite as much. To men like Hyde, they seemed traitors and rebels, whose penitence was hollow, and whose principles were as fatal to monarchy and religion as those of the Independents. By depriving Charles of his kingly power they had made it possible for the Independents to deprive him of his life. A Royalist summed up the share of the two parties by saying that the Independents cut off the King’s head, but the Presbyterians brought him to the block. Adversity might draw Presbyterians and Royalists together; but not till hatred of military rule and dread of anarchy had effaced the memories of the war was their joint action possible.

As little prospect was there of the union of the Levellers with the Royalists. Under the name of Levellers two distinct parties were included, neither of which, however hostile to the existing government, was favourable to monarchy. A small section, calling themselves the true Levellers, demanded sweeping social changes. Without these, said they, the Republic is a mockery. “Unless we that are poor have some part of the land to live upon freely as well as the gentry, it cannot be a free Commonwealth.” At present, they asked for the right to establish themselves on the commons and waste lands, but they dreamed of a socialistic republic in which there would be no private property in land, no buying or selling, and neither rich nor poor.

The majority of the Levellers demanded political changes only, and protested they had no desire “to level men’s estates, destroy property, or make all things common.” What they wanted was to limit the powers of the Government and extend the rights of the individual. The three chief points in their programme were manhood suffrage, annual Parliaments, and complete religious liberty. Their complaint was that the revolution of 1648 had stopped too soon, and that the Republic was not an absolute democracy.

The socialists were harmless dreamers whose doctrines fell on stony ground, but the teaching of the democrats bore abundant fruit. Lilburn, their spokesman, was an effective pamphleteer, a vigorous orator, and a party leader of singular pertinacity and courage. In his struggle with the Government he gave voice not only to the aspirations of his own party, but to the feelings of all the opponents of the Republic. The Government seized his pamphlets, threw him in prison, and put him on trial for treason. It only increased his popularity. When “honest John” denied the right of the sword to dictate laws, and demanded the liberty which was the birthright of every Englishman, no London jury would agree to convict him. He was imprisoned time after time, but it was impossible to suppress him till Parliament passed an act for his banishment (December, 1651).

With so many enemies around them, the founders of the Republic had to deal with a task of extraordinary difficulty. But all the machinery of government was in their hands, and although their supporters were a minority, energy and enthusiasm compensated for lack of numbers. The Council of State consisted of country gentlemen of military or political experience, with a few lawyers, a few merchants, besides three or four professional soldiers. It contained a number of able men, and several statesmen, than whom, as Milton says of Vane, better Senators ne’er held the helm of Rome when the Roman Senate beat back Pyrrhus and Hannibal. The system of governing through committees and boards made it possible to add to each of the bodies entrusted with the management of a department a certain number of outsiders of special knowledge or skill. The administrative business of the Republic was consequently far better conducted than that of the Long Parliament or the monarchy. Royalist pamphleteers represented the men in power as universally corrupt and self-seeking; but with some few exceptions they were men of high character and great disinterestedness. To a foreign observer, hostile rather than friendly, they seemed worthy to exercise power, however defective their title to it might be.

“Not only are they powerful by sea and land,” wrote one of Mazarin’s agents, “but they live without ostentation, without pomp, and without mutual rivalry. They are economical in their private affairs and prodigal in their devotion to public affairs, for which each man toils as if for his private interest. They handle large sums of money, which they administer honestly, observing a strict discipline. They reward well and punish severely.”

SIR HENRY VANE (THE YOUNGER).
(From a painting by William Dobson, in the National Portrait Gallery.)

The pecuniary resources of the Republic were far greater than any of the Stuarts had ever possessed. The revenue of Charles I., in 1633, was estimated at £618,000. The revenue of the Republic, in 1649, from monthly assessments, customs, excise, fines from delinquents, and sales of confiscated lands amounted to about two millions. But the demands upon the revenue were greater still. The safety of the seas and the possibility of a foreign war made the reorganisation of the navy an immediate necessity. Accordingly, Warwick’s commission as Lord High Admiral was revoked, and the command of the fleet given to three Generals at Sea, Blake, Deane, and Popham. In place of Warwick, the Admiralty Committee of the Council of State exercised a general supervision over naval affairs, but the building of ships, the care of their crews, and all the practical management of the navy were given to a Board of Navy Commissioners taught by service at sea what a fighting fleet required. During the next three years, forty-one new men-of-war were added to the navy, which was further increased by hired merchantmen. The sailors were better fed, better paid, and better cared for than they had been under Charles I., and, moreover, their zeal was stimulated by giving them a third of all the prizes they took. Invasion rapidly became an impossibility, and the dominion of the seas a reality instead of an empty claim.