[436] Thurloe, vol. iv. passim. The unpopularity of Cromwell's government appears strongly in the letters of this collection. Duckinfield, a Cheshire gentleman, writes: "Charles Stuart hath 500 friends in these adjacent counties for every one friend to you amongst them." Vol. iii. 294.
[437] It may be fair towards Cromwell to give his own apology for the decimation of the royalists, in a declaration, published 1655. "It is a trouble to us to be still rubbing upon the old sore, disobliging those whom we hoped time and patience might make friends; but we can with comfort appeal to God, and dare also to their own consciences, whether this way of proceeding with them hath been the matter of our choice, or that which we have sought an occasion for; or whether, contrary to our own inclinations and the constant course of our carriage towards them, which hath been to oblige them by kindness to forsake their former principles, which God hath so often and so eminently bore witness against, we have not been constrained and necessitated hereunto, and without the doing whereof we should have been wanting to our duty to God and these nations.
"That character of difference between them and the rest of the people which is now put upon them is occasioned by themselves, not by us. There is nothing they have more industriously laboured in than this; to keep themselves distinguished from the well-affected of this nation: To which end they have kept their conversation apart; as if they would avoid the very beginnings of union, have bred and educated their children by the sequestered and ejected clergy, and very much confined their marriages and alliances within their own party, as if they meant to entail their quarrel, and prevent the means to reconcile posterity; which with the great pains they take upon all occasions to lessen and suppress the esteem and honour of the English nation in all their actions and undertakings abroad, striving withal to make other nations distinguish their interest from it, gives us ground to judge that they have separated themselves from the body of the nation; and therefore we leave it to all mankind to judge whether we ought not to be timely jealous of that separation, and to proceed so against them as they may be at the charge of those remedies which are required against the dangers they have bred."
[438] Ludlow, 528; Clarendon, etc. Clarendon relates the same story, with additional circumstances of Cromwell's audacious contempt for the courts of justice, and for the very name of magna charta.
[439] State Trials, vi.; Whitelock advised the protector to proceed according to law against Hewit and Slingsby; "but his highness was too much in love with the new way."—P. 673.
[440] The late editor of the State Trials, v. 935, has introduced a sort of episodical dissertation on the administration of justice during the commonwealth, with the view, as far as appears, of setting Cromwell in a favourable light. For this purpose he quotes several passages of vague commendation from different authors, and among others one from Burke, written in haste, to serve an immediate purpose, and evidently from a very superficial recollection of our history. It has been said that Cromwell sought out men of character from the party most opposite to his designs. The proof given is the appointment of Hale to be a puisné judge. But Hale had not been a royalist, that is, an adherent of Charles, and had taken the engagement as well as the covenant. It was no great effort of virtue to place an eminent lawyer and worthy man on the bench. And it is to be remembered that Hale fell under the usurper's displeasure for administering justice with an impartiality that did not suit his government; and ceased to go the circuit, because the criminal law was not allowed to have its course.
[441] Thurloe writes to Montague (Carte's Letters, ii. 110) that he cannot give him the reasons for calling this parliament, except in cipher. He says in the same place of the committal of Ludlow, Vane, and others, "There was a necessity not only for peace sake to do this, but to let the nation see those that govern are in good earnest, and intend not to quit the government wholly into the hands of the parliament, as some would needs make the world believe."—P. 112. His first direct allusion to the projected change is in writing to Henry Cromwell, 9th Dec. 1656. Thurl. Papers, v. 194. The influence exerted by his legates, the major-generals, appears in Thurloe, v. 299 et post. But they complained of the elections. Id. 302, 341, 371.
[442] Whitelock, 650; Parl. Hist. 1486. On a letter to the speaker from the members who had been refused admittance at the door of the lobby, Sept. 18, the house ordered the clerk of the commonwealth to attend next day with all the indentures. The deputy clerk came accordingly, with an excuse for his principal, and brought the indentures; but on being asked why the names of certain members were not returned to the house, answered that he had no certificate of approbation for them. The house on this sent to inquire of the council why these members had not been approved. They returned for answer, that whereas it is ordained by a clause in the instrument of government that the persons who shall be elected to serve in parliament shall be such and no other than such as are persons of known integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation; that the council, in pursuance of their duty, and according to the trust reposed in them, have examined the said returns, and have not refused to approve any who have appeared to them to be persons of integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation; and those who are not approved, his highness hath given order to some persons to take care that they do not come into the house. Upon this answer, an adjournment was proposed, but lost by 115 to 80: and it being moved that the persons, who have been returned from the several counties, cities, and boroughs to serve in this parliament, and have not been approved, be referred to the council for approbation, and that the house do proceed with the great affairs of the nation; the question was carried by 125 to 29. Journals, Sept. 22.
[443] Clar. State Papers, iii. 201, etc.
[444] The whole conference that took place at Whitehall, between Cromwell and the committee of parliament on this subject, was published by authority, and may be read in the Somers Tracts, vi. 349. It is very interesting. The lawyers did not hesitate to support the proposition, on the ground of the more definite and legal character of a king's authority. "The king's prerogative," says Glyn, "is known by law; he (King Charles) did expatiate beyond the duty; that's the evil of the man: but in Westminster Hall the king's prerogative was under the courts of justice, and is bounded as well as any acre of land, or anything a man hath, as much as any controversy between party and party: and therefore the office being lawful in its nature, known to the nation, certain in itself, and confined and regulated by the law, and the other office not being so, that was a great ground of the reason why the parliament did so much insist upon this office and title, not as circumstantial, but as essential."—P. 359. See also what Lenthall says (p. 356) against the indefiniteness of the protector's authority.