And Cromwell was now virtually sovereign of England and Ireland also. After disbanding, with taunts and insults, the Long Parliament,—as a servant of which he had risen to power,—and playing for a little while with a mock parliament, composed of his own adherents, he found himself strong enough to govern without a parliament. At an assembly of notables—1653—General Lambert, in the name of the army and the three kingdoms, asked him to accept the office of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. With real or assumed reluctance he gave his consent; he took the oath of office, put on his hat, sat down in a chair of state, and Lambert, on his knees, presented to him the great seal. With more ample authority than had ever been possessed by their legitimate monarchs, he governed these islands till his death. This event occurred in 1658, on the 3rd of September, the anniversary of his Dunbar and Worcester victories.
And so this great personality departed. He was only in his sixtieth year, and up to his last year he had appeared strong and healthy. But as Carlyle says,—“Incessant toil, inconceivable labour of head, and heart, and hand; toil, peril, and sorrow manifold, continued for near twenty years now, had done their part; those robust life-energies had been gradually eaten out. Like a tower strong to the eye, but with its foundations undermined, the fall of which on any shock may be sudden.” We might add to the above causes for what seemed premature decline, his knowledge that he had a host of bitter and deadly enemies, ever plotting against his life. To live in constant dread of assassination, will eat as a canker into the bravest of hearts.
His character has been diversely estimated, according to the standpoint of the critic. To a strong believer in force of will and energy of purpose, like the writer quoted above, he is England’s greatest soldier, statesman, and ruler. Others have called him hypocrite,—dogmatic, vindictive, cruel to ferocity. Of his administrative abilities, his unswerving resolution, and his military genius, there can hardly be two opinions. Under his government there was peace and order, social progress, and comparative freedom at home; abroad, the Commonwealth achieved high honour and respect. As a victorious soldier, Cromwell shewed little magnanimity towards the vanquished. Retaliation and revenge were common faults of the times—say his apologists; yes, but a truly noble character will rise above the sins and shortcomings of his times; he will be the prophet and pioneer of better times.
As to Cromwell’s religious professions, they were doubtless sincere, but men make their gods after their own hearts, and his god was the Jehovah of the old Hebrews; a god of war and of vengeance, rather than the All-Merciful Father of the Sermon on the Mount. Macaulay has said of the theologically-flavoured political writings of the Puritans, that one might think their authors had never read the New Testament at all, so full were they of “smiting the Amalekites,” of “hewing Agag to pieces,” and of the hard and bitter spirit of the older times. Can we wonder that the mind of the Prince of the Puritans had, unconsciously perhaps, run in the same narrow groove?
Of the Scottish rule of “His Highness, the Lord Protector,” it may be said that after a long period of conflict and general unsettledness, it was a time of peace. The laws were administered, even amongst highland hills and border wastelands. Monk, with a small army, and a few forts garrisoned by English troops, managed, after their several defeats, to keep a brave, and naturally a patriotic and freedom-loving people, in thorough subjection. They did not love the man; but, although he would not allow the General Assembly to sit, their church had that freedom of worship which under a Covenanted king they had failed to accomplish. There were two leading Presbyterian parties, the Resolutionists, who had placed the Scottish crown on the head of Charles, and still called themselves king’s men, praying for him in the public devotions; and the Remonstrators, who had never, in spite of all his oaths and promises, adopted or believed in Charles, and studiously kept him out of their prayers. (One might have thought that the worse a man he was, the more he needed praying for). Cromwell favoured the latter party, making a certificate from three or four of its ministers the condition of a minister, although he might be called to a church, being paid his stipend. Cromwell taxed the Scots very heavily, but perhaps, all considered, they got fair value for their money. On the whole, so far as Scotland was concerned, we may indorse what, in his History of his own Time, Bishop Burnet says of the Protectorate generally:—“There was good justice done, and vice was suppressed and punished. So that we always reckon those eight years of Usurpation a time of great peace and prosperity.”
Scotland under Charles the Second.
At the death of Cromwell there was not, in the general aspect of political matters, any definite forecast of what twelve months after would be the form of government; certainly an easy and unopposed restoration of the Stuart monarchy was about the last idea, warranted by the history of the previous fifteen years. But one man, the still-tongued, close-minded General Monk, solved the question. By his influence as head of the army, and his tact and sagacity in party wire-pulling, he so managed that within eight months of the Protector’s death, Charles II. was quietly proclaimed King of Great Britain and Ireland. It was a twenty-seven years of as mean rule, as has ever darkened the pages of British history. Retaliations and persecutions—one long attempt to turn back the stream of progress—a corrupt court, leavening the national life with foulness and frivolity, such might be the general headings of the chapters chronicling the reign of the “Merry Monarch.”
The restoration was in England baptized in blood. Ten “regicides” were hanged at Charing Cross. This was harsh—revengeful; but not despicable or unprecedented. But it is with disgust, with shame for our common humanity, that we learn that the bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were taken from their graves in Westminster Abbey, and on the death anniversary (30th January) of “King Charles the Martyr,” drawn on hurdles to Tyburn, and there hung on the gallows; then the heads cut off and fixed on Westminster Hall.
And Scotland must not be left without examples of severity. The Marquis of Argyle was the first victim. At the coronation of Charles at Scone, he was the noble who placed the crown on the king’s head. But Charles hated him as a leader of the presbyterians, who then held him in irksome tutelage. After a most unfair trial, nothing tangible being found against him except some private letters to General Monk, in which he expressed himself favourable to Cromwell, he was found guilty, and condemned to death. He met his fate with great firmness, saying that if he could not brave death like a Roman, he could submit to it like a Christian.