The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 - Thomas Babington Macaulay (novel books to read TXT) 📗

who made up what was

contemptuously called the Rump of the House of Commons had no

more claim than the military chiefs to be esteemed the

representatives of the nation. The dispute was soon brought to a

decisive issue. Cromwell filled the House with armed men. The

Speaker was pulled out of his chair, the mace taken from the

table, the room cleared, and the door locked. The nation, which

loved neither of the contending parties, but which was forced, in

its own despite, to respect the capacity and resolution of the

General, looked on with patience, if not with complacency.


King, Lords, and Commons, had now in turn been vanquished and

destroyed; and Cromwell seemed to be left the sole heir of the

powers of all three. Yet were certain limitations still imposed

on him by the very army to which he owed his immense authority.

That singular body of men was, for the most part, composed of

zealous republicans. In the act of enslaving their country, they

had deceived themselves into the belief that they were

emancipating her. The book which they venerated furnished them

with a precedent which was frequently in their mouths. It was

true that the ignorant and ungrateful nation murmured against its

deliverers. Even so had another chosen nation murmured against

the leader who brought it, by painful and dreary paths, from the

house of bondage to the land flowing with milk and honey. Yet had

that leader rescued his brethren in spite of themselves; nor had

he shrunk from making terrible examples of those who contemned

the proffered freedom, and pined for the fleshpots, the

taskmasters, and the idolatries of Egypt. The object of the

warlike saints who surrounded Cromwell was the settlement of a

free and pious commonwealth. For that end they were ready to

employ, without scruple, any means, however violent and lawless.

It was not impossible, therefore, to establish by their aid a

dictatorship such as no King had ever exercised: but it was

probable that their aid would be at once withdrawn from a ruler

who, even under strict constitutional restraints, should venture

to assume the kingly name and dignity.


The sentiments of Cromwell were widely different. He was not what

he had been; nor would it be just to consider the change which

his views had undergone as the effect merely of selfish ambition.

He had, when he came up to the Long Parliament, brought with him

from his rural retreat little knowledge of books, no experience

of great affairs, and a temper galled by the long tyranny of the

government and of the hierarchy. He had, during the thirteen

years which followed, gone through a political education of no

common kind. He had been a chief actor in a succession of

revolutions. He had been long the soul, and at last the head, of

a party. He had commanded armies, won battles, negotiated

treaties, subdued, pacified, and regulated kingdoms. It would

have been strange indeed if his notions had been still the same

as in the days when his mind was principally occupied by his

fields and his religion, and when the greatest events which

diversified the course of his life were a cattle fair or a prayer

meeting at Huntingdon. He saw that some schemes of innovation for

which he had once been zealous, whether good or bad in

themselves, were opposed to the general feeling of the country,

and that, if he persevered in those schemes, he had nothing

before him but constant troubles, which must he suppressed by the

constant use of the sword. He therefore wished to restore, in all

essentials, that ancient constitution which the majority of the

people had always loved, and for which they now pined. The course

afterwards taken by Monk was not open to Cromwell. The memory of

one terrible day separated the great regicide for ever from the

House of Stuart. What remained was that he should mount the

ancient English throne, and reign according to the ancient

English polity. If he could effect this, he might hope that the

wounds of the lacerated State would heal fast. Great numbers of

honest and quiet men would speedily rally round him. Those

Royalists whose attachment was rather to institutions than to

persons, to the kingly office than to King Charles the First or

King Charles the Second, would soon kiss the hand of King Oliver.

The peers, who now remained sullenly at their country houses, and

refused to take any part in public affairs, would, when summoned

to their House by the writ of a King in possession, gladly resume

their ancient functions. Northumberland and Bedford, Manchester

and Pembroke, would be proud to bear the crown and the spurs, the

sceptre and the globe, before the restorer of aristocracy. A

sentiment of loyalty would gradually bind the people to the new

dynasty; and, on the decease of the founder of that dynasty, the

royal dignity might descend with general acquiescence to his

posterity.


The ablest Royalists were of opinion that these views were

correct, and that, if Cromwell had been permitted to follow his

own judgment, the exiled line would never have been restored. But

his plan was directly opposed to the feelings of the only class

which he dared not offend. The name of King was hateful to the

soldiers. Some of them were indeed unwilling to see the

administration in the hands of any single person. The great

majority, however, were disposed to support their general, as

elective first magistrate of a commonwealth, against all factions

which might resist his authority: but they would not consent that

he should assume the regal title, or that the dignity, which was

the just reward of his personal merit, should be declared

hereditary in his family. All that was left to him was to give to

the new republic a constitution as like the constitution of the

old monarchy as the army would bear. That his elevation to power

might not seem to be merely his own act, he convoked a council,

composed partly of persons on whose support he could depend, and

partly of persons whose opposition he might safely defy. This

assembly, which he called a Parliament, and which the populace

nicknamed, from one of the most conspicuous members, Barebonesa's

Parliament, after exposing itself during a short time to the

public contempt, surrendered back to the General the powers which

it had received from him, and left him at liberty to frame a plan

of government.


His plan bore, from the first, a considerable resemblance to the

old English constitution: but, in a few years, he thought it safe

to proceed further, and to restore almost every part of the

ancient system under hew names and forms. The title of King was

not revived; but the kingly prerogatives were intrusted to a Lord

High Protector. The sovereign was called not His Majesty, but His

Highness. He was not crowned and anointed in Westminster Abbey,

but was solemnly enthroned, girt with a sword of state, clad in a

robe of purple, and presented with a rich Bible, in Westminster

Hall. His office was not declared hereditary: but he was

permitted to name his successor; and none could doubt that he

would name his Son.


A House of Commons was a necessary part of the new polity. In

constituting this body, the Protector showed a wisdom and a

public spirit which were not duly appreciated by his

contemporaries. The vices of the old representative system,

though by no means so serious as they afterwards became, had

already been remarked by farsighted men. Cromwell reformed that

system on the same principles on which Mr. Pitt, a hundred and

thirty years later, attempted to reform it, and on which it was

at length reformed in our own times. Small boroughs were

disfranchised even more unsparingly than in 1832; and the number

of county members was greatly increased. Very few unrepresented

towns had yet grown into importance. Of those towns the most

considerable were Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax. Representatives

were given to all three. An addition was made to the number of

the members for the capital. The elective franchise was placed on

such a footing that every man of substance, whether possessed of

freehold estates in land or not, had a vote for the county in

which he resided. A few Scotchmen and a few of the English

colonists settled in Ireland were summoned to the assembly which

was to legislate, at Westminster, for every part of the British

isles.


To create a House of Lords was a less easy task. Democracy does

not require the support of prescription. Monarchy has often stood

without that support. But a patrician order is the work of time.

Oliver found already existing a nobility, opulent, highly

considered, and as popular with the commonalty as any nobility

has ever been. Had he, as King of England, commanded the peers to

meet him in Parliament according to the old usage of the realm,

many of them would undoubtedly have obeyed the call. This he

could not do; and it was to no purpose that he offered to the

chiefs of illustrious families seats in his new senate. They

conceived that they could not accept a nomination to an upstart

assembly without renouncing their birthright and betraying their

order. The Protector was, therefore, under the necessity of

filling his Upper House with new men who, during the late

stirring times, had made themselves conspicuous. This was the

least happy of his contrivances, and displeased all parties. The

Levellers were angry with him for instituting a privileged class.

The multitude, which felt respect and fondness for the great

historical names of the land, laughed without restraint at a

House of Lords, in which lucky draymen and shoemakers were

seated, to which few of the old nobles were invited, and from

which almost all those old nobles who were invited turned

disdainfully away.


How Oliver's Parliaments were constituted, however, was

practically of little moment: for he possessed the means of

conducting the administration without their support, and in

defiance of their opposition. His wish seems to have been to

govern constitutionally, and to substitute the empire of the laws

for that of the sword. But he soon found that, hated as he was,

both by Royalists and Presbyterians, he could be safe only by

being absolute. The first House of Commons which the people

elected by his command, questioned his authority, and was

dissolved without having passed a single act. His second House of

Commons, though it recognised him as Protector, and would gladly

have made him King, obstinately refused to acknowledge his new

Lords. He had no course left but to dissolve the Parliament.

"God," he exclaimed, at parting, "be judge between you and me!"


Yet was the energy of the Protector's administration in nowise

relaxed