CHAP. LXVII. 1648 Cromwell's distrust of Charles. cates offence demanded by the Levellers, were anxious to come. to an understanding with the King on the basis of moderate Episcopacy and toleration. It was to this state of opinion that he now addressed himself. "Dear Robin," wrote Cromwell, "I trust the same spirit that guided thee heretofore is still with thee. Look to thy heart; thou art where temptations multiply. I fear lest our friends should burn their fingers, as some others did not long since, He depre- whose hearts have ached for it. How easy it is to find arguments for what we would have; how easy being to take offence at things called Levellers, and run Levellers, into an extremity on the other hand, meddling with an accursed thing. Peace is only good when we receive it out of our Father's hand, most dangerous to go against the will of God to attain it. War is good, when led to it by our Father; most evil when it comes from the lusts that are in our members. We wait upon the Lord who will teach us and lead us, taken with to accept King's with Episco whether to doing or suffering. Tell my brother and objects Heron,2 I smiled at his expression concerning wise ing the friend's opinion, who thinks that the enthroning the restoration King with Presbytery brings spiritual slavery, but moderate with a moderate Episcopacy works a good peace. Both are a hard choice; I trust there's no necessity of either, except our base unbelief and fleshly wisdom make it so; but if I have any logic it will be easier to tyrannise having that he likes and serves his turn, than what you know and all believe he so much dislikes; but, as to my brother himself, tell him pacy. 4 1 Probably alluding to his own and Ireton's efforts to win the King in 1647. 2 i.e. Vane. 3 Probably Pierrepont. Both Vane and Pierrepont were at Newport as commissioners for the treaty. 4i.e. easier for the King to tyrannise with Episcopacy than with Presbytery. CROMWELL'S VIEW OF THE SITUATION. indeed I think some of my friends have advanced too far, and need make an honourable retreat." 513 CHAP. LXVII. 1648 terians Cromwell was influenced by his own experience An alliance in Scotland. If he had come so easily to an under- Presby standing with Argyle, why should it be difficult to preferable. come to an understanding with the Presbyterians in England? "I hope," he continued, "the same experience will keep thy heart and hands from him against whom God hath so witnessed, though reason should suggest things never so plausible. I pray thee tell my brother Heron thus much from me, and if a mistake concerning our compliance with Presbytery perplex an evil business-for so I account it-and make the wheels of such a chariot go heavy, I can be passive and let it go, knowing that innocency and integrity lose nothing by a patient waiting upon the Lord." justifies with Evidently some of Cromwell's Independent friends Cromwell had been blaming him for coming to terms with his alliance Argyle. "Our papers," he continues in self-justifi- Argyle. cation, "are public. Let us be judged by them. Answers do not involve us.1 I profess to thee I desire from my heart—I have prayed for it—I have waited for the day to see union and right understanding between the godly people-Scots, English, Jews, Gentiles, Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists, and all. Our brothers of Scotland-really 2 Presbyterians-were our greatest enemies. God hath justified us in their sight-caused us to requite good for evil-caused them to acknowledge it publicly by acts of State and privately, and the thing is true in the sight of the sun; it is a high conviction upon 1 i.e. We are bound by our own words, not by the answers made by the Scots. Cromwell perhaps refers to the answer made by the Committee of Estates on Oct. 6, in which they speak of these covenanted kingdoms.' E. 468, 19. 2 i.e. not merely politically. III. LL CHAP. 1648 New elections in The example one to be con sidered. them. Was it not fit to be civil, to profess love, to deal with clearness with them for the removing of prejudice; to ask them what they had against us, and to give them an honest answer? This we have done, and no more; and herein is a more glorious work in our eyes than if we had gotten the sacking and plunder of Edinburgh, the strong castle into our hands, and made a conquest from the Tweed to the Orcades; and we can say, through God, we have left such a witness amongst them, as if it work not yet, by reason the poor souls are so wedded to their government, yet there is that conviction upon them that will undoubtedly have its fruit in due time.” One lesson more Cromwell drew from his exScotland. perience in Scotland. The new Committee of Estates had taken on itself to dissolve the late Parliament and to order fresh elections. "I have," wrote Cromwell, "one word more to say. Thy friends, dear Robin, are in heart and profession what they were; have not dissembled their principles at all. Are not they a little justified in this, that a lesser party of a Parliament hath made it lawful to declare the greater part a faction, and made a Parliament null and called a new one, and to do this by force, and this by the same mouths that condemned it in others? Think of the example and of the consequence, and let others think of it too, if they be not drenched too deep in their own reason and opinion." To cut the knot of the constitutional difficulty in England not by a mere forcible expulsion of members, but by a forcible dissolution followed by new elections, was the expedient which, at least for the moment, commended itself to Cromwell's mind. 1i.e. the Presbyterian government of the Church. CROMWELL INDIGNANT, 515 CHAP. 1648 change of tone. In this letter, written by Cromwell on November 6, there is no indication whatever of any wish to bring the King to trial, and no definite indication of any Nov. 20. wish even to dethrone him. A fortnight later all Cromwell's was changed. On the 20th, after Cromwell had had time to digest the answer given by Charles on the 17th to the army's demand for security,' he forwarded to Fairfax a bundle of regimental petitions couched in what was now the usual style. "I find," He asks he wrote, "a very great sense in the officers without for the sufferings and the ruin of this poor kingdom, persons. and in them all a very great zeal to have impartial justice done upon offenders; and I must confess I do in all, from my heart, concur with them, and I verily think and am persuaded they are things which God puts into our hearts." "2 for justice respect of Order removal of for the Sir John Owen. By this time, too, Cromwell was growing impatient of the proceedings of the Presbyterians at Westminster. Amongst the prisoners in his custody was Sir John Owen, who had headed a rising in North Wales, and had in consequence been voted a traitor. Cromwell now received an order to send this man up to London that he might, in accordance with the vote of the 18th, be banished on making his composition. He at once flamed up in wrath. "If Cromwell's I be not mistaken," he wrote to two members of the remonHouse, "the House of Commons did vote all those traitors that did adhere to or bring in the Scots in their late invading of this kingdom under Duke Hamilton; and not without very clear justice, this being a more prodigious treason than any that had 1 See p. 507. 2 Cromwell to Fairfax, Nov. 20, Rushw. vii. 1,339. The letter is reprinted by Carlyle (Letter lxxxiii.) with unnecessary changes of 4 See p. 510. form. 3 See p. 393. angry strance. CHAP. 1648 The root of Cromwell's cry for justice on delinquents. Nov. 25. Another letter to Hammond. been perfected before; because the former quarrel was that Englishmen might rule over one another, this to vassalise us to a foreign nation; and their fault who have appeared in this summer's business is certainly double to theirs who were in the first, because it is the repetition of the same offence against all the witnesses that God has borne, by making and abetting a second war." 1 Here, then, and not in any constitutional ideas about limited monarchy, lay the root of Cromwell's cry for justice on delinquents, in which, after long hesitation, he had at last included a cry for justice on the King. The men who had invited foreigners 'to vassalise us' must die, without respect of persons, in expiation of so great a crime. In a second letter to Hammond, written on the 25th, Cromwell strove to justify his change of ground in the spirit of one who argues because he has made. up his mind, not in that of one who has resolved to follow the argument whithersoever it may lead him. With the Remonstrance itself he deals somewhat slightingly, not being much concerned with constitutional considerations, though he is thoroughly in accordance with its general conclusions. "God," argument. Hammond had argued, "hath appointed authorities among the nations, to which active or passive obedience is to be yielded. This resides in England in the Parliament. Therefore active or passive Cromwell's resistance is forbidden." 2 "All," replies Cromwell, "agree that there are cases in which it is lawful to resist." The only question is 'whether ours be such a case.' Then follow suggestions rather than argu Ham mond's reply. 1 Cromwell to Jenner and Ashe, Nov. 20, Carlyle, Letter lxxxii. 2 "is forbidden" is only suggested as representing "&c." in the original. |