At the moment, however, the only opposition there was came from the Fifth Monarchy men—hostile to anything which resembled a monarchy or an established Church. Harrison refused to act under the Protector’s Government, and was deprived of his commission. Fifth Monarchy preachers raged against the Protector from the pulpit. One called him “the dissemblingest perjured villain in the world.” Another identified him with the Little Horn in Daniel’s prophecy, which was to make war against the Saints and to be destroyed by them.
Their ravings only strengthened Cromwell’s position. What England wanted was a government which would maintain order and preserve property. The interests which the Little Parliament had imperilled welcomed Cromwell’s accession to power. His elevation was a bargain, says Ludlow, with the corrupt part of the clergy and the lawyers; he became their Protector and they the humble supporters of his tyranny. So evident was the advantage which Cromwell derived from the events of the last few months that what had happened was freely attributed to his profound statecraft. All was a pageant played by Cromwell, thought Baxter, in order to make his soldiers out of love with democracy and to render his usurpation necessary. He was resolved we should be saved by him or perish.
“He made more use of the wild-headed sectaries than barely to fight for him. They now serve him as much by their heresies, their enmity to learning and ministry, their pernicious demands which tend to confusion, as they had done before by their valour in the field. He can now conjure up at pleasure some terrible apparition of Agitators, Levellers, and such like, who, as they affrighted the King from Hampton Court, shall affright the people to fly to him for refuge: that the hand that wounded may heal them.”
Hitherto Cromwell had been the destroyer of old institutions. Now he came forward as the saviour of society. England, therefore, submitted to his government without resistance and without enthusiasm, but with a general feeling of relief. The conversion of the monarchy into a republic had been violent and bloody; the transition from the Republic to the Protectorate was as peaceful as one of the ordinary operations of nature. As such, Waller celebrated it in his poem to Cromwell.
“Still as you rise, the State exalted too
Finds no distemper while ’tis changed by you,
Changed like the world’s great scene when without noise
The rising sun night’s vulgar lights destroys.”
