“And I will!” exclaimed the good little boy, ashamed that he had been ungrateful and thoughtless. “Come, Ellen, we will jump up and say our prayers; and,” he added in a whisper, “we’ll speak for Dash too.”
Cromwell at Croyden palace.
Oliver Cromwell.
This individual was one of the most wonderful men that ever lived. He was born at Huntingdon, in England, April 28, 1599. It is related of him, that, when an infant, a large ape seized him, and ran with him up to the top of a barn; there the creature held him, and refused, for a long time, to give him up, frightening the people with the idea that he should let him fall. It is said that, while he was still young, a gigantic female figure appeared at his bedside, and foretold his future greatness.
Cromwell was well educated; but, after quitting the university, he became very dissipated. At twenty-one, he married Elizabeth Bouchire, from which time he became regular in his life.
In 1625 he was chosen to parliament; and thus began, at twenty-six years of age, that public career which ended in his becoming the sole ruler of England, and one of the most energetic and powerful sovereigns of Europe. He was soon distinguished as a speaker in parliament, always taking part against the court and the established church. In 1642, when civil war was about to commence, he raised a troop of horse, and seizing the plate of the university of Cambridge, appropriated it to the paying of the expenses of the army. He was engaged in several battles, where he displayed the utmost skill and courage. In 1645, the famous battle of Naseby was won by his valor and good management; and, in consideration of his services, parliament voted him the annual sum of £25,000 during his life.
King Charles I., against whom Cromwell and his party were acting, was betrayed into their hands by the Scotch. By the intrigues of Cromwell, he was tried, condemned, and beheaded. Cromwell himself became, soon after, the ruler of the kingdom, under the title of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. Though he had obtained his power by a series of violent acts, and by the practice of every species of hypocrisy, Cromwell now set himself about promoting the strength, power, and prosperity of his kingdom. Though this was done harshly, yet it was with wisdom and energy. The country flourished at home, and the name of England was much respected abroad.
But though Cromwell had risen to the utmost height of honor and power, he was a miserable man. He was perpetually haunted with superstitious fears, the promptings of a conscience ill at ease. The death of the king, which was effected by his management, weighed upon his spirit like a murder. He went constantly armed, and yet he was constantly in fear. At last, when Col. Titus wrote a book, entitled, Killing no Murder, in which he attempted to prove that it was a duty of the citizens to kill Cromwell, he was thrown into a fever, and died, Sept. 3, 1658, leaving his weak brother, Richard, to wield the sceptre for a few years, and then surrender it to a son of the murdered Charles I. Cromwell was buried in Westminster Abbey; but, after Charles II. came to the throne, his body was dug up and hung on a gibbet, beneath which it was buried!