OLIVER
CROMWELL

A Play

By

John Drinkwater

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

TO

BERNARD SHAW

WITH HOMAGE TO THE
MASTER DRAMATIST OF HIS AGE
AND WITH THE GRATITUDE THAT IS HIS DUE
FROM EVERY YOUNGER WRITER FOR
THE ENGLISH THEATRE

Contents

[Characters]

[Scene I]
Ely, 1639

[Scene II]
The Commons, November 1641

[Scene III]
Ely, 1642

[Scene IV]
Naseby, after dawn, July 14, 1645

[Scene V]
Naseby, night, July 14, 1645

[Scene VI]
Hampton Court, November 1647

[Scene VII]
London, January 30, 1649

[Scene VIII]
Whitehall, November 1654

[Copyright Notice (1921)]

[THE CHARACTERS ARE]

[SCENE I]

Cromwell's house at Ely, about the year 1639. An early summer evening. The window of the room opens on to a smooth lawn, used for bowling, and a garden full of flowers.

Oliver's wife, Elizabeth Cromwell, is sitting at the table, sewing. In a chair by the open window Mrs. Cromwell, his mother, is reading. She is eighty years of age.

Mrs. Cromwell:

Oliver troubles me, persuading everywhere. Restless like this.

Elizabeth:

He says that the time is uneasy, and that we are part of it.

Mrs. Cromwell:

There's a man's house. It's enough surely.

Elizabeth:

I know. But Oliver must be doing. You know how when he took the magistracy he would listen to none of us. He knows best.

Mrs. Cromwell:

What time is John coming?

Elizabeth:

By nightfall he said. Henry Ireton is coming with him.

Mrs. Cromwell:

John Hampden is like that, too. He excites the boy.

Elizabeth:

Yes, but mother, you will do nothing with Oliver by thinking of him as a boy.

Mrs. Cromwell:

Of course he's a boy.

Elizabeth:

He's forty.

Mrs. Cromwell:

Methuselah.

Elizabeth:

What?

Mrs. Cromwell:

I said Methuselah.

Elizabeth:

He says John's the bravest man in England.

Mrs. Cromwell:

Just because he won't pay a tax. How if everybody refused to pay taxes? If you don't have taxes, I don't see how you are to have a government. Though I can't see that it governs anybody, except those that don't need it.

Elizabeth:

Oliver says it's a wrong tax, this ship money.

Mrs. Cromwell:

There's always something wrong. It keeps men busy, I suppose.

Elizabeth:

But it was brave of John.

Mrs. Cromwell:

I know, I know. But why must he come here to-night of all in the year? Oliver's like somebody out of the Bible about to-morrow as it is. This will make him worse. I wish John no harm, but—well, I hope he's got a bad horse.

Elizabeth:

Oliver's mind is made up about the common, whatever happens. John will make no difference.

Mrs. Cromwell:

You can't pretend he'll make him more temperate.

Elizabeth:

It's very wrong to take away the common from the people. I think Oliver is right.

Mrs. Cromwell:

Of course he's right. But I'm too old. I've seen too many broken heads. He'll be no righter for a broken head.

(Bridget Cromwell, a girl, comes. She takes some eggs from her apron and puts them on a dish on a shelf.)

Bridget:

Why, grandmother, whose head is to be broken?

Mrs. Cromwell:

Your father's is like to be.

Bridget:

You mean to-morrow?

Elizabeth:

At the meeting, yes.

Bridget:

But he must do it. Why, the people have fished and kept cattle there longer than any one can remember. Who is an Earl of Bedford to take it away from them? I know I would let my head be broken first.

Elizabeth:

It is said that the King gave leave.

Bridget:

Then the King gave what wasn't his to give.

Mrs. Cromwell:

Now, child, don't you encourage your father, too. He's eager enough without that.

Bridget:

But I must, grandmother. There's too much of this kind of interference everywhere. Father says that Cousin John Hampden says—

Mrs. Cromwell:

And that's three of you in one house. And this young Mr. Ireton has ideas, too, I believe.

Bridget:

Mr. Ireton is twenty-eight.

Mrs. Cromwell:

That accounts for it.

Bridget:

You don't think they just ought to be allowed to take the common away, do you, grandmother?

Mrs. Cromwell:

It makes no matter what I think.

Bridget:

Of course you don't. None of us do. We couldn't.

Elizabeth:

You mustn't tease your grandmother, Bridget.

Mrs. Cromwell:

She's a very old lady, and can't speak for herself.

Bridget:

I meant no ill manners, grandmother.

Mrs. Cromwell:

Never mind your manners child. But don't encourage your father. He doesn't need it. This house is all commotion as it is.

Bridget:

I can't help it. There's so much going on everywhere. The King doesn't deal fairly by people, I'm sure. Men like father must say it.

Elizabeth:

Have you put the lavender in the rooms?

Bridget:

No. I'll take it now.

(She takes a tray from the window and goes out.)

Mrs. Cromwell:

I don't know what will happen. I sometimes think the world isn't worth quarrelling about at all. And yet I'm a silly old woman to talk like that. But Oliver is a brave fellow—and John, all of them. I want them to be brave in peace—that's the way you think at eighty.

(Reading.)

This Mr. Donne is a very good poet, but he's rather hard to understand. I suppose that is being eighty, too. Mr. Herrick is very simple. John Hampden sent me some copies from a friend who knows Mr. Herrick. I like them better than John does.

(She takes up a manuscript book and reads:)

Lord, Thou hast given me a cell
Wherein to dwell;

A little house, whose humble roof
Is waterproof;

Under the spars of which I lie
Both soft and dry....

But Mr. Shakespeare was best of all, I do believe. A very civil gentleman, too. I spoke to him once—that was forty years ago, the year Oliver was born, I remember. He didn't hold with all this talk against kings.

Elizabeth:

There are kings and kings. Oliver finds no offence in kings—it's in a king.

Mrs. Cromwell:

Well, it's all very dangerous, and I'm too old for it. Not but what Oliver's brain is better than mine. But we have to sit still and watch. However

(reading)—

Lord, 'tis thy plenty-dropping hand
That sows my land:

All this, and better, dost thou send
Me for this end:

That I should render for my part
A thankful heart,

Which, fired with incense, I resign
As wholly Thine:

But the acceptance—that must be,
O Lord, by Thee.

Mr. Herrick has chosen a nice name for his book. Hesperides. He has taste as well as understanding.

(The sound of horsemen arriving is heard.)

Elizabeth:

That will be John and Mr. Ireton.

(She looks from the window, puts her work into a box, and goes out.)

Mrs. Cromwell

(turning her pages):

Ye have been fresh and green,
Ye have been filled with flowers,

And ye the walks have been
Where maids have spent their hours.

Like unthrifts, having spent
Your stock, and needy grown,

You're left here to lament
Your poor estates alone.

(Elizabeth comes back with John Hampden, aged forty-four, and Henry Ireton, twenty-eight. They both shake hands with Mrs. Cromwell.)

Hampden:

How do you do, ma'am?

Mrs. Cromwell:

Well, John.

Ireton:

Good-evening, ma'am.

Mrs. Cromwell:

You're welcome, Master Ireton, I'm sure. If you behave yourself, young man.

Ireton:

How may that be, ma'am?

Mrs. Cromwell:

No, don't ask me. Only don't you and John come putting more notions into Oliver's head. I'm sure he's got more than he can rightly manage as it is.

Hampden:

We were told down there that it's to-morrow that my Lord of Bedford and his like are to claim the common rights.

Elizabeth:

Yes.

Ireton:

Mr. Cromwell is to resist, they said.

Mrs. Cromwell:

Now, young man, Oliver doesn't need any urging to it. He needs holding back.

Hampden:

But that's fine for Oliver. Every man must speak to-day—and do as well, if it comes to it.

Mrs. Cromwell:

Yes, but don't be so proud about it, John.

Elizabeth:

I think they should be proud.

Mrs. Cromwell:

Remember what Mr. Herbert says—

A servant with this clause
Makes drudgerie divine.

Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
Makes that and th' action fine.

As for thy laws, remember.

Hampden:

Surely, we shall remember that always.

(Bridget comes in.)

Bridget:

Cousin John.

Hampden:

Well, Bridget, my girl.

(He kisses her.)

Bridget:

How do you do, Mr. Ireton?

Ireton

(shaking hands):

Well, I thank you, mistress.

Bridget:

Does father know, mother?

Elizabeth:

I've sent down to the field.

Mrs. Cromwell:

He'll be here soon enough. I'm sorry the judges were against you, John. I don't know what else you could expect, though. They are the King's judges, I suppose.

Hampden:

That's what we dispute, ma'am. The King says that they should serve him. We say that they should serve the laws.

Ireton:

It was just when Mr. Hampden was being heard. The law they said was the King's old and loyal servant: that lex was not rex, but that none could gainsay that rex was lex.

Hampden:

That's what we shall have to decide, and before long, I think.

Bridget:

Father says that.

Mrs. Cromwell:

This house is ready for any kind of revolution, John.

Ireton:

But you find it everywhere, ma'am. All along the countryside, in the markets, in the church porches—everywhere.

Elizabeth:

Is the vine doing well this year, John?

Hampden:

It's the best year I remember.

Elizabeth:

Ours, too.

Bridget:

Were you there, Mr. Ireton, when Cousin John's case was tried?

Ireton:

Yes.

Bridget:

It was splendid, wasn't it—although he lost, I mean?

Ireton:

It was the note of deliverance.

Bridget:

I wish I could have been there, Cousin John.

Mrs. Cromwell:

Will you give me my shawl, Henry Ireton.

(He does so.)

There's Oliver coming. Now you can all be thunder.

Bridget:

Now, grandmother, you know you don't think it's just that.

Mrs. Cromwell:

So you have hope for me yet, miss?

Bridget:

Grandmother.

(Cromwell comes in. He is in plain country dress. His age is forty.)

Cromwell:

John—it's good to see you. You're an hour before reckoning.

(Taking Hampden's hand.)

Hampden:

Yes, Oliver. Is all well?

Cromwell:

Not that—but our courage is well enough. You are very welcome, Henry.

(Taking his hand.)

Was it good travelling?

Ireton:

Not a bad mile on the journey.

Bridget:

Father, Mr. Ireton heard Cousin John's case tried. Wasn't he lucky?

Cromwell:

Whoever heard that heard history being made, John. It was a great example to set.

Hampden:

One works from the spirit, Oliver.

Cromwell:

That's what we must do. You've heard about this affair down here?

Hampden:

The common? Yes.

Cromwell:

There's to be no yielding about that.

Hampden:

I'm glad of it, Oliver.

Mrs. Cromwell:

What will it all come to, John?

Cromwell:

There are times, mother, when we may not count the cost.

Mrs. Cromwell:

You're very vexatious sometimes, Oliver.

Cromwell:

But you know I'm right in this, mother.

Mrs. Cromwell:

Being right doesn't make you less vexatious.

Elizabeth:

Have they finished in Long Close?

Cromwell:

Yes. They will be here soon.

Bridget:

They all come up from the field for prayers, Mr. Ireton, at the day's end.

Hampden:

Is your hay good, Oliver?

Cromwell:

I haven't much down this year. What there is, is good.

Hampden:

We got the floods too late. But it has mended well enough.

Bridget:

The dancers came for some money, father.

Elizabeth:

Shall I give them something?

Cromwell:

To be sure.

Elizabeth:

How much?

Cromwell:

Oh—a crown or two.

Hampden:

Dancers?

Cromwell: