Oliver Cromwell

by Theodore Roosevelt

Cromwell’s exertions had been so severe that he could not follow the flying Royalists with his usual rapidity. The army had been long without pay; they had not a penny with which to get their horses shod, and so many horses had been slain and were lamed or done out that a large number of the troopers were on foot, and the others could hardly spur their jaded mounts into a trot. Munro was not only a ruthless plunderer, but a hard fighter, and on his arrival in Scotland Argyle felt doubtful as to his capacity to cope with him, and sent to Cromwell for assistance. Cromwell promptly invaded Scotland, being careful to pose as the ally of Argyle and the Kirk, and therefore the true friend of the Scottish nation. According to his custom, he rigorously suppressed plundering. All resistance withered away before him. He was received at Edinburgh as a powerful and honored ally, and before he recrossed the border the Scotch were again avowed supporters, for the time being at least, of the Parliament.

The enemy in arms had been defeated. It remained to deal with the Parliament and the Presbyterian party. Some had been active for the King; most had been lukewarm; the victory had been a victory for the army, and therefore for the Independents. Neither Cromwell nor the army was of a temper to refrain from finishing matters. Before the struggle was decided Cromwell had written Fairfax: “I pray God teach this nation and those that are over us ... what the mind of God may be in all this, and what our duty is. Surely it is not that the poor, godly people of this Kingdom should still be made the object of wrath and anger, nor that our God would have our necks under a yoke of bondage. For these things that have lately come to pass have been the wonderful works of God, breaking the rod of the oppressor.”

He was not in the least a doctrinaire Republican or Parliamentarian; he believed as little in the divine right of majorities as in the divine right of kings. Neither would he have admitted such a right as existing in an army, or, as yet, in himself. But it was impossible to stand still. He had to act with some party, though with none was he in entire accord; for one was hostile, another hopelessly undecided, the third prone to extreme measures and representing only a minority in the nation. He could only act with the last, and yet this meant an overturn of the recognized governmental authorities. Whether he would or not, he had to proceed along the path of revolution.

The Presbyterians—the men who controlled Parliament—were halting between two burdens. They would not push far enough against the King to make the Revolution a success, or to put a permanent end to despotism; and they would not eat their past words and deeds by turning wholly to his support. The King himself was obstinately bent on keeping the supreme power in his hands and setting the people under his feet, whatever he might promise; and this was the attitude of the large Royalist and Episcopalian party, which had showed, in supporting him, either that it cared little for liberty and eagerly championed a servility which it misnamed loyalty, or else that it feared disorder more than tyranny.

On the other hand, the determined foes of Absolutism, the armed Independents, were even more cut off from the bulk of the nation by their good qualities than by their shortcomings. Their advocacy of toleration for every creed, their desire for legal reform, and their strong democratic tendencies, all put them so far in advance of the rest of the nation as to be completely out of touch with it; and they offended it even more than their harshness and narrowness, and the behavior of the bands of fantastic enthusiasts in their ranks. Moreover, the sincerity of their convictions, at a time when the practical application of belief in the rule of the majority was entirely new and strange, drove them to rely on their strong right arms, instead of upon the votes of a people which was mainly hostile or apathetic. When Cromwell acted with them, heedless of what the majority might think, he was making ready for a time when he might choose in turn to disregard the majority within their own ranks.

Though neither Cromwell nor the Independents believed in the abstract in employing the army as an instrument of government, they were face to face with a condition of affairs in which, partly because of their own shortcomings, but very much more because of the shortcomings of their antagonists, they were driven to adopt this as the only possible course. Doubtless Cromwell was still acting as he sincerely believed the interests of the nation demanded. In the complex tissue of motives which go to determine a man’s deeds it is rarely possible to say that there is not some, and mayhap even a strong, element of self-interest and of desire for personal aggrandizement; yet Cromwell’s conduct toward the King goes to show that he would gladly have saved him had not the behavior of this typical Stuart been such as to render it impossible for an upright and far-seeing friend of English liberty longer to remain his ally.

Parliament had no sooner been relieved by the action of the army from all danger from the King’s adherents, than in September it proceeded to open negotiations with the King. These negotiations in effect aimed at the destruction of the army by uniting Parliament and King against it; among other things, they expressly excluded any toleration for the sects which made up the strength of the army. It would have been inexcusable folly for the men who had won the victory to submit to such action. The army, headed by Ireton, demanded a purge of the House which would rid it of the members so treacherous to the interests of the nation. Ireton and his followers then laid before Fairfax a remonstrance, which included a demand that the King should be brought to justice for the “treason,” “blood,” and “mischief” of which he had been guilty. Fairfax opposed this and carried the army with him in favor of a substitute which merely requested the King to assent to a constitutional plan which would have limited his powers precisely as those of Queen Victoria are now limited, and would have made the Constitution of England what it now is. A more moderate proposal was never made by victorious revolutionists, and it shows conclusively that the fault was not with Cromwell and his followers when they were forced to overturn the King and the Parliament. But Charles promptly rejected the proposals and thereby signed his own death-warrant. He had just sought, in Cromwell’s words, “to vassalize us to a foreign nation,” and now, after having twice plunged England into Civil War, and shown himself eager to submit her to the power of the alien, he obstinately refused a plan which would not merely have left him unpunished, but would have given him all the power of a constitutional monarch; a power greater than that which the House of Orange at that time enjoyed in Holland.

The House of Commons stood firm in its position, and against the position of the army, which thereupon marched into London; and on December 6th, Colonel Pride carried through the famous “Pride’s Purge.” He stood with a military guard at the door of the House, and turned back or arrested the members who had voted for a continuation of the negotiations with the the King. This was, of course, a purely revolutionary measure, with no warrant, save as Ireton and Harrison—the Republican generals—had said, “the height of necessity to save the Kingdom from a new War.” It was but the second step; the all-important one had been taken long before, when the army first marched into London to see that the Parliament did its liking.

Pride’s Purge.
Colonel Pride, who commanded the guard stationed in the lobby of the House, had in his hand a list on which were the names of certain members, while Lord Grey, of Groby, himself a member of the House, stood at his side, ready to point out to him the members in question. As each one of these approached the door of the House he was turned back.