A history of England

by Charles Oman

Cromwell Lord Protector.—His reforms.

For nine months Cromwell ruled as "Lord Protector" without any check on his power, for the Parliament was not to assemble till September, 1654. Pending its arrival, the Protector began to introduce many reforms; he recast the Courts of Justice, and introduced his favourite scheme for the government of the Church. This was the toleration of all Protestant sects, and the distribution of Church patronage among them by a committee of selection called "Triers." This body was only to inquire whether the candidate for a living was of a good life, and held the essential doctrines of Christianity. It was not to inquire whether he was Presbyterian, Independent, or Episcopalian; only Romanists were formally excluded. But, unfortunately for the content of the land, Cromwell's ordinance that the old Church of England Prayer-book was not to be used, effectually prevented any conscientious Episcopalian from applying to the "Triers." The Churchmen could only meet by stealth to celebrate their sacraments, and they formed at least half the nation. Cromwell's well-meant arrangements were gall and bitterness to them, and discontent was always rife.

The New-Model Parliament.

Cromwell's New-Model Parliament met on September 3, 1654, the third anniversary of Worcester fight. It was a body that well expressed the wishes of the Puritan half of the nation, but the Royalists were, of course, excluded. The sense that it was a strong and representative body made it confident and haughty; it at once began to discuss the legality of the "Instrument of Government," and to pass bills restricting the Protector's power. Cromwell with some difficulty kept his temper for the statutory five months, and then dissolved it (January 22, 1655).

Autocracy of Cromwell.—Attempted assassination.

Once more the Lord Protector was left alone as autocrat of Great Britain. He was not happy in the position; the dissolution of the New-Model Parliament had angered Independents and Presbyterians alike. They murmured that a despotic Protector was no better than a despotic King. Conspiracies began to be formed against Cromwell, both by Royalists and extreme republicans. Some were for open rebellion, some for secret murder, for autocrats are easy to make away with. No one save Guy Fawkes ever tried to slay a whole Parliament, but the power of the individual despot is often tempered by assassination. Cromwell promptly got the better of a few wild spirits who tried to raise open war, for the army was still devotedly loyal to him. But his spirit was sorely tried by the assassination plots; the pamphlet which Colonel Sexby, the Leveller, published, under the title of Killing no Murder, especially incensed him. For the future he went on his way resolute, but nervously expecting a pistol-shot from every dark corner.

Military despotism established.

For eighteen months after the dissolution of the New-Model Parliament Cromwell ruled as autocrat without any House of Commons to check him (January, 1655, to September, 1656). This time he tried another unconstitutional experiment for the governance of the realm. He divided England into twelve districts, and set over them twelve major-generals picked from the army, whose despotic power replaced that of lords-lieutenant and sheriffs. This expedient made even more evident than before the fact that the army was holding down the nation by force, and provoked much adverse comment. As a matter of fact, Cromwell's rule, though utterly illegal, was very efficient. He gathered around him many capable men: the poet Milton—though a convinced republican—served as his foreign secretary; Thurlow, a very able man, was his Secretary of State. Both Monk, who governed Scotland, and Henry Cromwell, the Lord-Deputy of Ireland, the Protector's youngest son, were skilled administrators; and Blake, who had charge of the fleet, was the greatest admiral that England had yet seen. But no amount of good governance suffices to content a nation held down by armed force against its will, and Cromwell's rule could never be popular.

Scotland and Ireland.

It was, however, successful and glorious, both in neighbouring lands and far abroad, if it was hated at home. Scotland was orderly and prosperous; Cromwell had much in common with the Covenanters, though he had suppressed them so sternly, and after 1651 there was not much opposition to him. In Ireland the matter was very different; Cromwell loathed Romanists with the hatred of the old Protestants of the Elizabethan age. His scheme of government for that realm was the drastic and cruel expedient of thrusting all the native Irish into the single province of Connaught, and of dividing up the rest of the land among English and Scots settlers, just as Ulster had been treated in the time of James I. The expulsion was carried out with merciless rigour, and thousands of Cromwell's discharged veterans and other colonists were planted in Munster and Leinster. But the settlement was only to be a very partial success; the old soldiers did not make good farmers in a pastoral country, and the native Irish gradually crept back to act as the servants and labourers of the conquerors, so that a homogeneous English and Protestant colony was never established. When the Protector died a few years later, many of the colonists departed, others were merged in the Irish masses, and only in limited districts did traces of his cruel work survive. But the "curse of Cromwell" remained the bitterest oath in the Irish peasant's mouth.