General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

The Little Parliament sat only a few months, during which time, however, it really did some excellent work, particularly in the way of suggesting important reforms. It at length resigned all its powers into the hands of Cromwell; and shortly afterwards his council of army officers, fearing the country would fall into anarchy, persuaded him—though manifesting reluctance, he probably was quite willing to be persuaded—to accept the title of "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth."

[Illustration: OLIVER CROMWELL]

THE PROTECTORATE (1653-1659).—Cromwell's power was now almost unlimited. He was virtually a dictator. His administration was harsh and despotic. He summoned, prorogued, and dissolved parliaments. The nation was really under martial law. Royalists and active Roman Catholics were treated with the utmost rigor. A censorship of the Press was established. Scotland was overawed by strong garrisons. The Irish Royalists, rising against the "usurper," were crushed with remorseless severity. Thousands were massacred, and thousands more were transported to the West Indies to be sold as slaves.

While the resolute and despotic character of Cromwell's government secured obedience at home, its strength and vigor awakened the fear as well as the admiration of foreign nations. He gave England the strongest, and in many respects the best, government she had had since the days of Henry VIII and Elizabeth.

CROMWELL'S DEATH.—Notwithstanding Cromwell was a man of immovable resolution and iron spirit, he felt sorely the burdens of his government, and was deeply troubled by the perplexities of his position. With his constitution undermined by overwork and anxiety, fever attacked him, and with gloomy apprehensions as to the terrible dangers into which England might drift after his hand had fallen from the helm of affairs, he lay down to die, passing away on the day which he had always called his "fortunate day"—the anniversary of his birth, and also the anniversary of his great victories of Dunbar and Worcester (Sept. 3, 1658).

RICHARD CROMWELL (1658-1659).—Cromwell with his dying breath had designated his son Richard as his successor in the office of the Protectorate. Richard was exactly the opposite of his father,—timid, irresolute, and irreligious. The control of affairs that had taxed to the utmost the genius and resources of the father was altogether too great an undertaking for the incapacity and inexperience of the son. No one was quicker to realize this than Richard himself, and after a rule of a few months, yielding to the pressure of the army, whose displeasure he had incurred, he resigned the Protectorate. Had he possessed one-half the energy and practical genius that characterized his father, the crown would probably have become hereditary in the family of the Cromwells, and their house might have been numbered among the royal houses of England.

THE RESTORATION (1660).—For some months after the fall of the Protectorate the country trembled on the verge of anarchy. The gloomy outlook into the future, and the unsatisfactory experiment of the Commonwealth, caused the great mass of the English people earnestly to desire the restoration of the Monarchy. Prince Charles, towards whom the tide of returning royalty was running, was now in Holland. A race was actually run between Monk, the leader of the army, and Parliament, to see which should first present him with the invitation to return to his people, and take his place upon the throne of his ancestors. Amid the wildest demonstrations of joy, Charles stepped ashore on the island from which he had been for nine years an exile. As he observed the preparations made for his reception, and received from all parties the warmest congratulations, he remarked with pleasant satire, "It is my own fault that I did not come back sooner, for I find nobody who does not tell me he has always longed for my return."

1. Puritan Literature.

IT LIGHTS UP THE RELIGIOUS SIDE OF THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION.—No epoch in history receives a fresher illustration from the study of its literature than that of the Puritan Commonwealth. To neglect this, and yet hope to gain a true conception of that wonderful episode in the life of the English people by an examination of its outer events and incidents alone, would, as Green declares, be like trying to form an idea of the life and work of ancient Israel from the Kings and the Chronicles, without the Psalms and the Prophets. The true character of the English Revolution, especially upon its religious side, must be sought in the magnificent Epic of Milton and the unequalled Allegory of Bunyan.

Both of these great works, it is true, were written after the Restoration, but they were both inspired by the same spirit that had struck down Despotism and set up the Commonwealth. The Epic was the work of a lonely, disappointed Republican; the Allegory, of a captive Puritan.