It was a day in November; the brambles in the hedges had sparse fox-coloured leaves; the trees in the orchard and archery ground were bare; the elms and oaks were hung with thin scattered gold leaves against a pale blue and frosty sky; the ground was hard with a thin ice in the ruts where yesterday had been mud; above the empty Palace, which might be plainly glimpsed through the bare trees, a solitary white cloud floated, like a forlorn banner. The Lord-General often looked at this cloud while he spoke: he had a habit of gazing much at the sky.
He wore a black suit and grey worsted hose, broad leathern shoes with wide steel buckles, sword, band, collar, and hat as plain as might be. There was nothing about his person to indicate the profession which he represented; he was in every way as plain as the plain lawyer to whom he talked. He opened with what was in his mind, but gently, indirectly and vaguely, after his usual manner.
"Where is the cause? Where is this for which we all fought? Lord Whitelocke, did so many poor people die to this end? Was the glorious climax of the war, the death of the tyrant to lead to no better conclusion than this? Hath the Lord led us out of Egypt to abandon us now? Truly, sir, I do not think it, yet I ask you where is the cause? I say that the cause is overlaid with jars, with jealousies, with confusion, and this must not be. The Lord will not have it—it is not as it should be, sir, in a Commonwealth."
Bulstrode Whitelocke hesitated a moment and struck at the frozen ground with his cane; he was a shrewd, prosaic man, a keen lawyer, and a fearless patriot. After his little pause he resolved on boldness: his quick, direct speech was a contrast to Cromwell's involved phrases.
"The peril we are in, sir, cometh from the arrogance of the army, from their high pretensions and unruly ways and desire for dominance."
The Lord-General gave him a long glance.
"Say you so?" he returned mildly. "Yet methinks they are a lovely company, worthy of all honour."
"They have had all honour and all profit too," returned Whitelocke grimly, "and now they would have all power as well, under your favour, sir."
"Nay," returned Cromwell, "this is not so. The army is the poor instrument by which the Lord saved England; they did some little service at Naseby—at Preston—at Dunbar and Winchester, and though I dare say they would sooner die than take any of the glory of these mercies, yet the Lord chose them as His instruments, and that must be accounted to them as an honour. Sir, the army hath laboured much, sweated in your service; sir, without the army"—he pointed to Whitehall—"that Palace would now be the dwelling-place of the young man, Charles Stewart. I pray you consider these things."
"Yet I repeat," insisted the Lord Whitelocke, who was voicing the feeling of the entire Parliament and a great portion of the nation, "that the army is the cause of these present jars—their imperious carriage is hard to be borne, sir, and from it arises the confusions and jealousies which oppress us. As to their merits, the Council of State hath done somewhat too—the war with the Dutch——"