OLIVER CROMWELL (1599–1658)
From a painting in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
The weariness of civil war felt by the Londoners was further displayed in the autumn of 1650 when a contingent of recruits was marched from London to the North to join the army in Scotland. Half of them deserted by the way. In the following year the City remonstrated on the heavy taxation from which they suffered, stating that the City was assessed at a fifteenth part of the whole kingdom; that the foreign trade had suffered grievously from Prince Rupert’s piracies; that the wealthier citizens were withdrawing from London to the suburbs, and so evading taxation. The last clause is remarkable. The time had not yet come when the wealthier merchants desired to leave the City and to live outside; the practice shows simply that in this way they avoided taxation.
The battle of Worcester, September 3, 1651, put an end to the Civil War. A few days later the unhappy Scottish prisoners were marched through the City, ragged, barefoot, bareheaded, starving—a terrible spectacle. Meal was collected for them from house to house; they were taken to Tothill Fields in Westminster, where they lay in the open under rain and suffering from the cold winds of autumn. Twelve hundred of them died. The rest were sent away to the Gold Coast, whence none ever came back.
War with Holland broke out in 1652 and a subscription of £1071:9:5 for the wounded sailors and soldiers was raised in the City.
On December 16, 1653, the Lord Mayor carried the City Sword at the installation of Cromwell as Lord Protector. Two months later he dined with the Mayor and Corporation at Grocers’ Hall. This interchange of courtesies continued during the rest of Cromwell’s rule.
The connection of the City with the Protector offers very little of importance. When the proclamation was made, six weeks after the execution of the King, abolishing monarchy, the City made no protest either by its Common Council or by any popular movement. When a Commonwealth was proclaimed in May there were many refusals among the clergy and others to promise fidelity to the new order, but no remonstrance came from the City. When Cromwell dissolved the Rump “not a dog barked” either in the City or outside.
The Fifth Monarchy men, a small minority, gave some trouble in the City. They were fanatics of the deepest dye. They would have no King but Jesus Christ, and no Parliament but a Sanhedrin of Saints—meaning themselves.
Among all the sects which drove men mad perhaps the most mischievous was that of the “Fifth Monarchy” men. It was a sect whose adherents were principally found in London. At one time they were numerous enough to be important. They supported Cromwell’s Government at first in the faith that it would become the “Fifth Monarchy,” in succession, that is, to the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. During the Fifth Monarchy, they thought, Christ would reign, with the saints, for a thousand years. Their leader was one Venner, a wine cooper, but among them were certain officers, as Major-General Harrison, Colonel Rich, and others. When the proposal that Cromwell should assume the title of King was first brought forward, the Fifth Monarchy men, being disappointed in their hopes and acknowledging no King but Christ, prepared for a rising; they were to meet at Mile End Green, where they expected to be joined by thousands from the country as well as from the City. They were arrested with arms in their hands and sent to the Tower, but none were executed. The man Venner gave more trouble afterwards. There were, however, signs of Royalist disaffection, rumours of proposed risings and the suppression of actual risings, both before and after Cromwell’s death, in which the apprentices of London were more or less implicated.
What followed Cromwell’s death belongs to the general history of the country. Lambert treated the Parliament with the greatest insolence and arrogance. Monk marched south, pretending to vindicate the rights of Parliament; the apprentices rose and rushed about the streets clamouring for a free Parliament; Colonel Heron with a company of soldiers fired upon them. The Aldermen exchanged explanations on the subject with the Committee of Safety. The Common Council petitioned Fleetwood for a Parliament as in 1642; the petition was returned. The City Remembrancer was sent to expostulate with Fleetwood, who finally promised a free Parliament. It is difficult to understand what else he could do; there was no second Cromwell; the City called out six regiments of its own militia, commanded by its officers nominated by the Common Council.