Oliver Cromwell

by Samuel Rawson Gardiner

Nevertheless, when Cromwell reappeared in the House on May 21, and read out the joint report of the deputation, he was able to declare his belief that the army would disband, though it would refuse to volunteer for Ireland. At first the House seemed ready to take the reasonable course, approving of an ordinance granting the required indemnity, and favourably considering another to provide a real and visible security for so much of the arrears as was left unpaid. At the same time the arrears to be given in hand were raised from the pay of six weeks to that of eight. Yet whatever the Presbyterians might offer, they were unable to trust the army, and on the 23rd they discussed with Lauderdale, who was in England as a Scottish member of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, and Bellièvre, who was the Ambassador of the King of France, a scheme for bringing a Scottish army into England. Talk about securing the King's person, which had prevailed in some regiments a short time before, had come to their ears, and furnished them with the excuse that they were but anticipating their opponents. They accordingly proposed to counteract this design by removing Charles either to some English town, or even to Scotland. Their hopes of being able to carry out this daring project were the higher as Colonel Graves, who commanded the guard at Holmby, was himself a Presbyterian on whom they could depend to carry out their instructions.

Though nothing was absolutely settled, the conduct of the House of Commons reflected the policy of its leaders. It dropped its consideration of the ordinance assigning security for the soldiers' arrears and resolved to proceed at once to disband the army, beginning on June 1. The announcement of this resolution brought consternation to those who were doing their best to keep the soldiers within the bounds of obedience. "I doubt," wrote the author of a letter which was probably addressed by Ireton to his father-in-law, "the disobliging of so faithful an army will be repented of; provocation and exasperation make men think of what they never intended. They are possessed, as far as I can discern, with this opinion that if they be thus scornfully dealt with for their faithful services whilst the sword is in their hands, what shall their usage be when they are dissolved?" Two days later, another writer, speaking of the commissioners appointed by Parliament to disband the regiments, added the prophetic words: "They may as well send them among so many bears to take away their whelps". It was perfectly true. When on June 1 the commissioners attempted to disband Fairfax's regiment at Chelmsford, it broke into mutiny and marched for Newmarket, where Fairfax had appointed a rendezvous to consider the situation. It was not that the mass of the army had any inclination to interfere in politics. "Many of the soldiers," wrote the commissioners, "being dealt with, profess that money is the only thing they insist upon, and that four months' pay would have given satisfaction."

Such an event could not but drive Cromwell to reconsider his position. Whether he liked it or not, the army had, through the bungling of the Presbyterian leaders, broken loose from the authority of Parliament. It was impossible for him to give his support to Parliament when it was about, with the aid of the Scottish army, to restore the King on terms which, whether the King or the Presbyterians gained the upper hand in the game of intrigue which was sure to follow, could only end in the destruction of that religious liberty for the sects which, though without legal sanction, had been gained as a matter of fact. Yet the alternative seemed to be the abandonment of the country to military anarchy, or if that were averted to the sway of the army over the State. Only one way of escape from the dilemma presented itself, and that way Cromwell seized.

Cromwell, it must once more be said, was no Republican or Parliamentary theorist. Parliament was to him mainly an authority under which he had fought for the great ends he had in view. Now that it had sunk to be no more than a tool in the hands of politicians who, aiming at the establishment of an ecclesiastical despotism, could think of no better means wherewith to compass their evil ends than the rekindling of the conflagration of civil war with the aid of a Scottish army and of French diplomacy, and who had proved themselves bunglers in their own noxious work, it was necessary to look about for some fresh basis of authority, which would save England from the danger of falling under the sway of a Prætorian guard. Nor was that basis far to seek. Cromwell had fought the King unsparingly—not to destroy him, but to reduce him to the acceptance of honourable terms. The terms which the Presbyterians had offered to Charles had not been honourable. They had demanded that he should proscribe his own religion and impose upon his subjects an ecclesiastical system which he believed to be hateful to God and man. Was this to be the result of all the blood and treasure that had been expended? What if the King could be won to bring back peace and good government to the land by fairer treatment and by the restoration of his beneficent authority? The call for a restoration of the King to power did not arise merely from the monarchical theories of a few enthusiasts. It was deeply rooted in the consciousness of generations. A few years before it had been inconceivable to Englishmen that order could be maintained without a king, and with the great mass of Englishmen this view was still prevalent. We can hardly go wrong if we suppose that Cromwell shared the hope that Charles, by more generous treatment than that which Parliament had accorded to him, would allow the chiefs of the army to mediate between him and Parliament, and consent to accept the restitution of so much of his authority as would safeguard the religious and political development of the country on the lines of reform rather than on those of revolution. If this, or anything like this, was to be accomplished, the conjuncture would admit of no delay. In a few days—perhaps in a few hours—the plans of the Presbyterian leaders would be matured, and Charles would be spirited away from Holmby, either to be hurried off to Scotland, or to be placed under the care of the new Presbyterian militia in London. The commander of the guard at Holmby, Colonel Graves, was prepared to carry out any instructions which might reach him from his leaders at Westminster. Not only this, but on May 31, the day before the meeting at Chelmsford, a Parliamentary committee had issued orders to seize the artillery of the army at Oxford, and thus to weaken its powers of action as a military force. The situation was one which, by the necessity of the case, must have occupied the attention of the Agitators, and though no certainty is to be reached, it is probable that it was with them that the plan adopted originated rather than with Cromwell. Again and again in the course of his career he will be found hanging back from decisive action involving a change of front in his political action, and there is every indication that, on this occasion too, he accepted—and that not without considerable hesitation—a design which had been formed by others.

Such hesitation, however, was with him perfectly consistent with the promptest and most determined action when the time for hesitation was at an end. On May 31, the day on which the order for seizing the artillery at Oxford was despatched from London, a meeting was held at Cromwell's house in Drury Lane, at which was present a certain Cornet Joyce, who had apparently been authorised by the Agitators to secure the artillery at Oxford, and then to proceed to Holmby to hinder the removal of the King by the Presbyterians, if not to carry him off to safer quarters. For such an action as this the Agitators, as they well knew, had no military authority to give, and for that authority it was useless to apply to Fairfax, who, much as he sympathised with the soldiers in their grievances, had none of the revolutionary decision required by the situation. Cromwell, whose general approbation had probably been secured beforehand, now gave the required instructions, and Joyce was able to set out with the assurance that he was about to act under the orders of the Lieutenant-General.

There is reason to believe that Cromwell's instructions only gave authority for the removal of the King from Holmby conditionally on its appearing that he could in no other way be preserved from abduction by the Presbyterians. When on June 1 Joyce arrived at Oxford, he found that the garrison had resolved to refuse the delivery of the guns, and on the following day he marched on to Holmby with some 500 horsemen at his back. On his arrival Graves took to flight, and the garrison of the place at once fraternised with the new-comers. In the early morning of the 3rd Joyce, followed by his men, was let in by a back door asserting that he had come to hinder a plot 'to convey the King to London without directions of the Parliament'. "His mission," he further stated, was "to prevent a second war discovered by the design of some men privately to take away the King, to the end he might side with that intended army to be raised; which, if effected, would be the utter undoing of the kingdom." To this profession his actions were suitable. During the whole of the day he remained quiet, never hinting for an instant that he had any intention of doing more than preserve the King's person against violence. In the course of the day, however, he took alarm at some rumours of an impending attack, and made up his mind, probably nothing loth, that the danger could only be met by removing the King to safer quarters. About half-past ten at night he roused Charles from his slumbers, invited him to follow him on the following morning, and on giving assurances that no harm would follow received the promise he required. On the morning of the 4th, as Charles stepped from the door of the house, he was confronted by Joyce and his 500 troopers. The King at once asked whether Joyce had any commission for what he was doing. "Here," replied Joyce, turning in the saddle as he spoke, and pointing to the soldiers he headed, "is my commission. It is behind me." "It is a fair commission," replied Charles, "and as well written as I have seen a commission in my life: a company of handsome, proper gentlemen, as I have seen a great while." Having selected Newmarket as his place of residence, Charles not unwillingly, as it seemed, set out in this strange companionship. On that very morning, or on the previous evening, Cromwell, feeling himself no longer safe at Westminster, slipped away and rode off to join the army at Newmarket. Both Fairfax and Cromwell declared for the King's return to Holmby, no doubt considering Joyce's removal of the King to be unnecessary, and, under the circumstances, unauthorised. It was only on Charles's positive refusal to return that he was allowed to continue his journey.

It would not be long before the army would have to experience the difficulties which beset a negotiation with Charles. It had first to come to an understanding with Parliament. Before Cromwell's arrival, the Agitators had presented to Fairfax a representation of their old complaints, accompanied with a reminder to Parliament that some particular persons—the Presbyterian leaders were evidently aimed at—had been to blame. In another declaration, known as A Solemn Engagement of the Army, these complaints were more forcibly reiterated, with the addition, first of a demand for the erection of a Council of the army, composed partly of officers and partly of Agitators; and secondly, of a vindication of the army from harbouring wild schemes, 'such as to the overthrow of magistracy, the suppression or hindering of Presbytery, the establishment of Independent government, or the upholding of a general licentiousness in religion under pretence of liberty of conscience'. That these two clauses were added under Cromwell's influence—if not by his own pen—can hardly be doubted. On the one hand, if the army was to intervene in politics, it must speak through some organ, having, as far as possible, the character of a political assembly; and, on the other hand, it must be made clear to all that its aims were as little subversive as possible. If the Presbyterians would acknowledge that their designs had met with an insuperable obstacle, and would resign power into hands more likely to use it with prudence, the crisis might be tided over without leaving behind it more evil consequences than were necessarily connected with the intervention of an armed force.

Unhappily the Presbyterians were the most unlikely persons in the world to grasp the realities of the situation. They firmly believed, not only that their cause was just, but that the army—without a shadow of excuse—had deliberately, even before the London militia had been reorganised, plotted the seizure of the King's person, with the object of establishing anarchy in the Church and military despotism in the State. Each party, in short, was convinced that it was acting on the defensive; and, in politics, as in all other spheres of life, results are to be traced less to facts which actually exist than to the assumptions relating to those facts in the minds of the actors. Parliament actively pursued its preparations for resistance, planning the formation of the nucleus of a fresh army at Worcester, and granting permission to the City to raise cavalry as well as infantry. The soldiers were undoubtedly right in holding that nothing less than the outbreak of another civil war was impending.

Before the irrevocable step was taken, Parliament sent commissioners to persuade the army to disband on the payment of an additional £10,000. On the 10th, the commissioners finding the soldiers at a rendezvous on Triploe Heath were received by a general refusal to accept the terms till they had been examined by the new Army Council. The army then significantly marched to Royston, several miles on the road to London. In the evening a letter was sent off to the magistrates of the City, the chief supporters of the new Presbyterian military organisation. It can hardly be questioned that this letter represented the ideas at that time entertained by Cromwell, or that in great part, if not entirely, it was written by him. Striving to blind himself to the fact that he was heading military resistance to the civil power, he announced that those in whose name he spoke were acting, not as soldiers, but as Englishmen. "We desire," he proceeded, "a settlement of the kingdom and of the liberties of the subject according to the votes and declarations of Parliament which, before we took up arms, were by Parliament used as arguments and inducements to invite us and divers of our dear friends out—some of whom have lost their lives in this war, which being by God's blessing finished, we think we have as much right to demand and see a happy settlement, as we have to our money, or the other common interest of soldiers that we have insisted upon." Then followed a renewal of the protest that the army had no wish to introduce licentious liberty, or to subvert the Civil Government. "We profess," continued Cromwell, "as ever in these things, when the State has once made a settlement, we have nothing to say, but submit or suffer. Only we could wish that every good citizen and every man that walks peacefully in a blameless conversation, may have liberties and encouragements, it being according to the just policy of all States, even to justice itself." Then followed the practical conclusion. "These things are our desires—beyond which we shall not go, and for the obtaining these things we are drawing near your city—declaring with all confidence and assurance that, if you appear not against us in these our just desires, to assist that wicked party that would embroil us and the kingdom, neither we nor our soldiers shall give you the least offence." Should things proceed otherwise, it would not be the army that would give way. "If after all this," continued Cromwell, "you, or a considerable number of you, be seduced to take up arms in opposition to, or hindrance of these our just undertakings, we hope, by this brotherly premonition, we have freed ourselves from all that ruin which may befall that great and populous city; having hereby washed our hands thereof."

The army marched, and the City at once made its submission. The bare facts of the case told heavily against Cromwell in the eyes of those whose schemes he had frustrated. In May he had protested that the army would disband at a word from Parliament, and had renounced all thought of bringing military force to control affairs of State. In June he had made himself the leader of the army to disperse a force which was being raised by the orders of Parliament. The very words in which he, writing in the army's name, had announced his decision must also have told against him. It would have been far better if he had simply announced that the new circumstances which had arisen had forced upon him the conviction that he had gone too far and had driven him to acknowledge to himself and others that obedience to a Parliament might have its limits, and that those limits had now been reached. The line, it would have been easy to say, must be drawn when Parliament was preparing civil war, not in defence of the rights of Englishmen, but to impose upon the country a system alien to its habits with the assistance of a Scottish army. Unhappily it was in Cromwell's nature to meet the difficulty in another way. When most inconsistent he loved to persuade himself that he had always been consistent, and in taking refuge in the statement that the army put forward its claim to be heard as Englishmen rather than as soldiers, he committed himself to a doctrine so manifestly absurd that it could only be received with a smile of contemptuous disbelief. Cromwell, in fact, stood at the parting of the ways. For him there was but one choice—the choice between entire submission to Parliamentary authority and the establishment of military control. No wonder that he instinctively shrunk from acknowledging, even to himself, the enormous importance of the step he was taking: still less wonder that he did not recognise in advance the unavoidable consequences of the choice—the temporary success which follows in the wake of superior force, and the ultimate downfall of the cause which owes its acceptance to such means.