Oliver Cromwell

by Samuel Rawson Gardiner

That the Church thus constituted was but a Puritan Church is the charge commonly brought against the system of the Protectorate. That it was so is certainly not to be denied, but, after all, it must be remembered that, so far as opposition to Puritanism was based on definite religious grounds, and not merely on moral slackness, it was confined to a comparatively small number of Englishmen. Before the days of Laud, the clergy of the Church had been for the most part, so far as their teaching was concerned, Puritan in their ideas, and lax in their ceremonial observances, and thus the ecclesiastical changes initiated by the Long Parliament had been received by the bulk of the laity rather as the removal of innovations than as the establishment of something entirely new. The honour in which episcopacy and the Prayer Book were now held was mainly confined to the Royalist gentry and to scholars expelled from the Universities, and was therefore understood to be closely connected with political aims. Even so, there was no attempt as yet on the part of the Government to suppress the use of the Prayer Book in private houses, and there is reason to suppose that if no political disturbances had followed, no such attempt would have been made at a later time. The system of the Protectorate was undoubtedly the most tolerant yet known in England—more tolerant, indeed, than public opinion would, if left to itself, have sanctioned.

Not only by its legal reforms did the Protectorate strive to commend itself to the nation. Oliver had never thrown his heart into the Dutch war, and a little before he dissolved the Long Parliament, a great English victory in a battle which began off Portland and ended under Cape Grisnez, had secured the mastery over the Channel to the English fleet. That fleet rallied to the new Government; even Blake, who was hostile at first, accepting the result of political changes, and finally throwing in his lot with the Protectorate, on the ground that it was the business of the navy to leave politics alone, and—though the expression is not traceable on sufficient evidence to Blake's lips—'to keep foreigners from fooling us'. The wound that Blake received off Portland incapacitated him from taking a considerable part in the later battles of the war, the burden lying for the most part on Monk, who won victories off the Gabbard in June and off the Texel in July, not long after the nominated Parliament had entered on its unlucky career. In the latter conflict, Tromp, the great Dutch admiral whose ill success was due not to any failure of his powers or to any want of manliness in his crews, but to the inefficiency of the Government he served, was killed by a shot as he was entering into the battle. Even whilst the nominated Parliament was still in session, a negotiation with the Dutch had been opened, and this negotiation, which was countenanced by Oliver from the first and carried on earnestly by him as Protector, ended in a peace signed on April 5, 1654.

Those who wish to estimate the value of Oliver's foreign policy and its bearing upon the fortunes of the government he hoped to establish will do well to study at length the story of his negotiation with the Dutch, and of his contemporary excursions into the domain of Continental affairs. It is beyond doubt that he was desirous of peace with the Dutch on the ground that they were Protestants, and that he was also desirous of allying himself with other Protestant States for the protection of Protestants under persecution by Roman Catholic Governments. Yet, not only did this fail to hinder him from exacting hard terms from the Dutch, but the motive of his diplomacy is revealed in his eagerness to make an agreement with his actual enemies a step to immediate hostilities with other nations. At one time he proposed a plan for the partition between England and the Netherlands of so much of the globe as lies outside Europe whilst he was at the same time negotiating with the Governments of France and Spain, offering to make common cause with one or the other in the war then raging between them. No doubt some religious element could be imported into either quarrel. To help Spain against France, at least in the way he proposed, was to vindicate the French Protestants against a persecution to which they were to some extent exposed, in spite of the acceptance by their Government of the Edict of Nantes. To assist France against Spain was to weaken the most bigoted Roman Catholic Government in existence.

What we are here concerned with, however, is not the details of Oliver's foreign policy, but its conception as a whole. It is true that the existing position of affairs in Europe,—in which France and Spain were neutralising the forces of one another—was almost an invitation to the strong military and naval power of the Protectorate to extend its influence at the expense of one or other of the rivals; but, so far as this consideration may have played its part in bringing Oliver to a decision, it has left no traces in his recorded words. Obviously, when he undertook the negotiation with the Dutch, he had two courses before him, either to lay the foundations of a general peace, or to leave himself free to push military and naval enterprises in other directions. It was the latter course on which he resolved—a course which has gained him the admiration of a posterity prompt to recognise in Oliver the ruler who, having received from the Commonwealth an excellently organised army and navy, was the first to apply those potent instruments of conquest to the acquisition of over-sea dominion. What posterity has failed to observe is that this design was incompatible with his other design of settling the government of England on a constitutional basis. By his resolve to seek military employment for the magnificent force that he had welded together, and to find reasons for going to war with some nation or other, rather than be driven into war by the necessity of upholding the honour and interests of the country, Oliver was compelled to keep up a military and naval establishment which may not have been in excess of the taxable capacity of the nation; but which at all events imposed a burden much heavier than that to which Englishmen had been accustomed to submit. Before Parliament met, after many hesitations he had resolved to send out one fleet under Blake into the Mediterranean to enforce the release of English prisoners taken by the pirates of the Barbary coast, and another fleet under Penn to seize upon Hispaniola or some other West Indian island as a response to the refusal of Spain to allow English merchantmen to trade even with English colonies in the West Indies, as well as to various acts of violence already committed by Spanish officials in American waters.

That in both these cases Oliver was justified in seeking redress can hardly be denied. As regards Spain, he had already made a twofold demand on Cardenas, the Spanish ambassador, first, for liberty of trade in the Indies—not necessarily, so far as our information goes, for liberty of trade with Spanish possessions—and, secondly, for entire liberty of religion for English merchants and sailors in their own houses on Spanish soil and in their ships in Spanish ports—he not being satisfied with the offer of Spain to renew the stipulations of the treaty signed by Charles I., in which the Inquisition was debarred from acting against English Protestants so long as they created no scandal. Both demands were promptly rejected. "It is," replied Cardenas, "to ask my master's two eyes." Oliver's notion that he could attack a Spanish colony in the West Indies and yet remain at peace with Spain can only be explained by his admiration for Elizabethan methods, which led him to suppose that the existing Spanish Government would be as ready as that of Philip II. to put up with a system which kept peace in Europe whilst war was being waged in America. It is not, however, with problems of international morality that we are at present concerned. Before Blake could sail for the Mediterranean or Penn for the West Indies, Parliament would meet, and would be confronted with the fact that, in addition to his fleets, the Protector had on foot a land force of 57,000 men, a number exceeding by no less than 27,000 the 30,000 which the Instrument itself had laid down as the normal strength of the army. It is true that he could hardly have met his engagements with a smaller force. Ireland was only recently subdued; an insurrection against the English conquerors—known as Glencairn's rising—was in full swing in Scotland; the dread of a Royalist movement in England required the maintenance of more troops than would be needed in quieter times, whilst other regiments were already preparing for embarkation in the West Indian fleet. On the other hand, when it is remembered that it was through his command of the services of these soldiers that Oliver had been raised to power, that he could still count on their support to maintain him in it, and that he was calling upon the nation to bear the burden of enterprises which he had originated without asking its consent, can it be matter of wonder that at such a time there should be some effort on the part of a Parliament which had come to look upon itself as representing the nation to impose limits upon the burdens which had already far outgrown even the prescriptions of the Instrument itself?

The elections to the first Protectorate Parliament were held under peculiar conditions. In the boroughs still permitted to return members the old conditions existed, but in the counties to which a redistribution of seats had transferred the electoral power, hitherto possessed by small villages under the influence of the neighbouring landowners, the Instrument had established a uniform franchise of the ownership of real or personal property worth £200. So far as we can trace any direct issue before the constituencies, the elections turned on the approval or renunciation of the policy of the advanced party in the nominated Parliament, and on this the electorate gave no uncertain sound. That party was practically swept away, and a full approbation thereby accorded to the conservative policy which had been the main strength of the appeal made to the country by the new government. It did not follow that the new constitution would meet with the same approbation. A not inconsiderable number of the Commonwealth men, such as Bradshaw and Hazlerigg, sore at their expulsion from the benches of the Long Parliament, had been returned, together with a goodly company of political Presbyterians, who might be expected to do their best to free Parliament from the shackles of the Instrument.

Under these circumstances, Oliver's speech at the opening of Parliament was a masterpiece of skill. Dwelling on the points on which he and the majority of his hearers were in agreement, he kept out of sight those on which differences might arise. He called for healing and settlement, for orderly government which might replace the confusions of the past and stem the tide of fanaticism in the present. He dwelt not on the extent of the liberty of conscience proclaimed in the Instrument, but on the restrictions imposed in that document, especially on such teachers as 'under the profession of Christ, hold forth and practise licentiousness'. He held up for acceptance the doctrine that, when such a result was to be feared, it was the duty of the magistrate to intervene. He protested against the notion that it was antichristian for a minister to receive ordination, and also against the notion that the Fifth Monarchy was about to commence, and that it was 'for men, on this principle, to betitle themselves that they are the only men to rule kingdoms, govern nations, and give laws to people, and determine of property and liberty and everything else'. Then came Oliver's appeal for support on the grounds of the difficulties he had inherited from his predecessors—troubles in Ireland and Scotland, trade with Portugal and France interrupted, as well as a war with the Dutch; after which he set forth the benefits of the Instrument, the legal and ecclesiastical reforms it had rendered possible, the peace with the Dutch, and the commercial treaties concluded with Sweden and Denmark. Finally came a hint that Parliament might well be liberal with its supplies, as in spite of the enormous burdens weighing upon it, the Government had diminished, by no less than £30,000 a month, the assessment tax by which army and navy were in part supported. It has often been doubted whether Oliver had in him the making of a Parliamentary tactician. Those who reply in the affirmative may point to this speech in defence of their opinion, especially if we accept the evidence of the Dutch ambassadors that Oliver—in words subsequently omitted from the published speech—concluded by a direct invitation to the House to take into consideration the Instrument, no doubt expecting its easy acceptance by men who were as desirous of order as himself. Confirmatory of this conclusion is the fact that when the Parliamentary debates opened and the question was asked whether the House was prepared to leave the government under the control of a single man, it was a member of the Council who demanded that all other business should be laid aside till the Instrument had been submitted to the approval of the House.

When this demand had been complied with, it became evident that the majority of the members were in favour of imposing further restrictions on the Protector which would make him no more than a tool in the hands of Parliament. Such a position Oliver absolutely declined to accept, and on its being known that Harrison had been seeking the advantage of his own party by stirring up confusion at Westminster, and had boasted that he would have 20,000 men at his back, he struck firmly and sharply. Harrison was sent for under guard, and Parliament was ordered to attend the Protector in the Painted Chamber.

The speech which the Protector delivered to the members may rank as the ablest which is known to have fallen from his lips. There can be no doubt that he would personally have preferred the retention of the Instrument as it stood, but he was aware of the objections taken to it, and all that we know leads us to believe that those objections were shared by members of his own Council. At all events, after a justification of his own conduct in relation to the preparation of the Instrument, and an argument that it had been accepted by the electors who had been bound by its terms to acknowledge the settlement of the Government in a single person and Parliament, he proceeded to offer a compromise. He was prepared to substitute for the Instrument a Parliamentary constitution, provided that four conditions were admitted as fundamentals to be handed down to posterity as unassailable. The first was that the country was to be governed by a single person and a Parliament; the second, that Parliaments were not to make themselves perpetual; the third, that liberty of conscience should be respected; the fourth, that neither Protector nor Parliament should have absolute power over the militia. It speaks volumes for Oliver's power of seeing into the heart of a situation, that whilst the Instrument of Government, and the absolute supremacy of a single House with power to defy dissolution, have alike passed into the realms of unrealised theory, every one of Oliver's fundamentals has been adopted by the nation—not indeed in any written constitution, but with the stronger and more enduring guarantee of a practice accepted beyond dispute by the conscience of the people itself. The four fundamentals on behalf of which he now appealed to the House formed the political legacy bequeathed by him to posterity.

To obtain acquiescence in this compromise, Oliver directed that no member should take his seat who refused to sign the following declaration: "I do hereby freely promise and engage to be true and faithful to the Lord Protector and the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, and shall not, according to the tenor of the indentures whereby I am returned to serve in this present Parliament, propose or give my consent to alter the Government as it is settled in one person and a Parliament". Those who refused subscription were excluded from all participation in the business of the House.