Sir Oliver and the members of the royal party looked with holy horror at the boy who had laid his hands on the Lord’s anointed. Some of them thought young Oliver ought to be imprisoned in the Tower of London or even beheaded for his wickedness. But King James had sense enough to see that it was well for the prince to get “tit for tat” once in a while; so he only looked hard at little Oliver and said:
“Thou art a bold lad; and if thou live to be a man, my son Charlie would do wisely to be friends with thee.” Then he turned to Sir Oliver and the frightened friends standing there, saying, “Harm not the lad. He has taught my son a good lesson, if heaven do but give him grace to profit by it. If he be tempted to play the tyrant over the stubborn English, let him remember little Oliver Cromwell.”
Young Oliver went to Free School and then to a Puritan college in Cambridge University; but he had to leave school on account of the death of his father. Before he was thirty Cromwell was elected to Parliament, of which his cousin, John Hampden, was also a member.
Meanwhile King James died and his son, the prince with whom Oliver had quarreled when a boy, became King Charles the First. King James had been so sensible at times and so foolish at others that he has been called “the wisest fool in Europe.” But Charles had even less sense than his royal father. He tried to abolish Parliament, thus setting up his own will against the will of the people of all England and Scotland.
Parliament, led by such men as Cromwell and Hampden, stood up for the rights of the people against tyranny. All lovers of liberty and human rights are greatly in debt to these two brave men who risked their lives to save their country from the selfish wilfulness of kings. Englishmen now were divided into two parties. The king’s party were the Cavaliers, or Church of England men, who wore wigs or long curls and dressed in velvets, silks, and laces like grown-up Lord Fauntleroys. The parliamentary party were called Roundheads, so named because they cut their hair short, as men do to-day. Oliver Cromwell, who never saw an army until he was forty, was suddenly found to be a great general. Because of their stern, unyielding courage, Cromwell’s soldiers were called “Ironsides.” They often went into battle with a prayer on their lips, or, in a grand chorus, sang a psalm of David while striking valiantly for the right.