[454] Whitelock, 665. They were to have a judicial power, much like that of the real House of Lords. Journals, March.
[455] Whitelock; Parl. Hist. The former says this was done against his advice. These debates about the other house are to be traced in the Journals, and are mentioned by Thurloe, vi. 107, etc.; and Ludlow, 597. Not one of the true peers, except Lord Eure, took his seat in this house; and Haslerig, who had been nominated merely to weaken his influence, chose to retain his place in the Commons. The list of these pretended lords in Thurloe, vi. 668, is not quite the same as that in Whitelock.
[456] This junto of nine debated how they might be secure against the cavaliers. One scheme was an oath of abjuration; but this it was thought they would all take: another was to lay a heavy tax on them: "a moiety of their estates was spoken of; but this, I suppose, will not down with all the nine, and least of all will it be swallowed by the parliament, who will not be persuaded to punish both nocent and innocent without distinction." 22nd June, Thurloe, vol. vii. p. 198. And again, p. 269: "I believe we are out of danger of our junto, and I think also of ever having such another. As I take it, the report was made to his highness upon Thursday. After much consideration, the major part voted that succession in the government was indifferent whether it were by election or hereditary; but afterwards some would needs add that it was desirable to have it continued elective; that is, that the chief magistrate should always name his successor; and that of hereditary avoided; and I fear the word 'desirable' will be made 'necessary,' if ever it come upon the trial. His highness finding he can have no advice from those he most expected it from, saith he will take his own resolutions, and that he can no longer satisfy himself to sit still, and make himself guilty of the loss of all the honest party and of the nation itself."
[457] Harris, p. 348, has collected some curious instances of the servility of crowned heads to Cromwell.
[458] See Clarendon, vii. 297. He saved Nismes from military execution on account of a riot, wherein the Huguenots seem to have been much to blame. In the treaty between England and France, 1654, the French, in agreeing to the secret article about the exclusion of the royalists, endeavoured to make it reciprocal, that the commissioners of rebels in France should not be admitted in England. This did not seem very outrageous—but Cromwell objected that the French protestants would be thus excluded from imploring the assistance of England, if they were persecuted; protesting, however, that he was very far from having any thought to draw them from their obedience, as had been imputed to him, and that he would arm against them, if they should offer frivolously and without a cause to disturb the peace of France. Thurloe, iii. 6. In fact, the French protestants were in the habit of writing to Thurloe, as this collection testifies, whenever they thought themselves injured, which happened frequently enough. Cromwell's noble zeal in behalf of the Vaudois is well known. See this volume of Thurloe, p. 412, etc. Mazarin and the catholic powers in general endeavoured to lye down that massacre; but the usurper had too much protestant spirit to believe them. Id. 536.
[459] Ludlow, 607; Thurloe, i. and ii. passim.
[460] Mrs. Macauley, who had nothing of compromise or conciliation in her temper, and breathed the entire spirit of Vane and Ludlow, makes some vigorous and just animadversions on the favour shown to Cromwell by some professors of a regard for liberty. The dissenting writers, such as Neal, and in some measure Harris, were particularly open to this reproach. He long continued (perhaps the present tense is more appropriate) to be revered by the independents. One who well knew the manners he paints, has described the secret idolatry of that sect to their hero-saint. See Crabbe's Tale of the Frank Courtship.
Slingsly Bethell, an exception perhaps to the general politics of this sect, published in 1667 a tract, entitled "The World's Mistake in Oliver Cromwell," with the purpose of decrying his policy and depreciating his genius. Harleian Miscellany, i. 280. But he who goes about to prove the world mistaken in its estimate of a public character has always a difficult cause to maintain. Bethell, like Mrs. Macauley and others, labours to set up the Rump parliament against the soldier who kicked them; and asserts that Cromwell, having found £500,000 in ready money, with the value of £700,000 in stores, and the army in advance of their pay (subject, however, to a debt of near £500,000); the customs and excise bringing in nearly a million annually, left a debt which, in Richard's parliament, was given in at £1,900,000, though he believes this to have been purposely exaggerated in order to procure supplies. I cannot say how far these sums are correct; but it is to be kept in mind, that one great resource of the parliament, confiscation, sequestration, composition, could not be repeated for ever. Neither of these governments, it will be found on inquiry, were economical, especially in respect to the emoluments of those concerned in them.
[461] Whitelock, 674; Ludlow, 611, 624. Lord Fauconberg writes in cipher to Henry Cromwell, on Aug. 30, that "Thurloe has seemed resolved to press him in his intervals to such a nomination (of a successor); but whether out of apprehensions to displease him if recovering, or others hereafter, if it should not succeed, he has not yet done it, nor do I believe will." Thurloe, however, announces on Sept. 4, that "his highness was pleased before his death to declare my Lord Richard successor. He did it on Monday; and the Lord hath so ordered it, that the council and army hath received him with all manner of affection. He is this day proclaimed, and hitherto there seems great face of peace; the Lord continue it." Thurloe State Papers, vii. 365, 372. Lord Fauconberg afterwards confirms the fact of Richard's nomination. P. 375; and see 415.
[462] "Many sober men that called his father no better than a traitorous hypocrite, did begin to think that they owed him [R. C.] subjection," etc. Baxter, 100.