374 



THE POPULAE EDUCATOE. 



Cardinal Wolsey's favourite secretary, who was made Earl of 

 Essex by Henry VIII., and was afterwards beheaded by him. 

 Oliver was sent to the University, where he made but small 

 proficiency in his studies, and fell, it is said, into some wild 

 courses. Reforming his mode of life, however, on a sudden but 

 sincere conviction that it was a wrong one, Cromwell married, 

 and at the same time warmly embraced the puritanical faith, 

 which was then beginning 1 to acquire great influence throughout 

 the country. For reasons of economy he gave up housekeeping 

 as a country gentleman, and farmed some land which he took 

 near St. Ives ; but his operations in this direction were not 

 successful, the duties of the farmer being probably neglected 

 for those of the religious politician. In conjunction with his 

 kinsman, John Hampden, ho formed a project of emigrating to 

 America, believing- that there alone he could live in the enjoy- 

 ment of that freedom of conscience and of political action which 

 was denied to him and his brethren here. How that project was 

 frustrated by royal order, on the very eve of completion, has 

 been already shown at length in No. VII. of the present series 

 of Historic Sketches (page 222). 



Soon after the veto was put on his emigration, Cromwell was 

 sent to Parliament as member for the town of Cambridge, and 

 though he seldom spoke, and when he did, not in a way to cap- 

 tivate or lead the house, his vote was invariably to be found in 

 the lists of those who had maintained the popular right against 

 the kingly power. He did not take a prominent part in the 

 political and domestic matters which brought about the rupture 

 between the King cind the Parliament, but he made good use of 

 his time, and of his great powers of observation and reflection, 

 to make up his mind thoroughly both as to the righteousness of 

 the common cause, and as to the integrity and capacity of the 

 men engaged on both sides of it. Having formed very strong 

 opinions upon the most important questions of the day, he 

 cleaved to them as a strongly persuaded man does with uncom- 

 promising intensity ; and the shape of the quarrel in the state, 

 and the peculiar habit of his mind, caused him to see plainly a 

 great gulf fixed between what ho believed to be on one side the 

 cause of God himself, and on the other the cause of God's 

 enemies. 



In all important points before the breaking out of civil war we 

 find him voting on the popular side, lending whatever weight his 

 influence had to the cause of liberty ; and when by the flight of 

 the king from London, and by the rearing of the royal standard 

 at Nottingham, August 25, 1642, war became inevitable, 

 Cromwell, then in his forty- third year, was among the first to 

 offer his sword to the Parliament, and. he was forthwith com- 

 missioned to raise a troop of horsemen to serve in the Parlia- 

 mentary army. This troop, which he soon increased to a regi- 

 ment, he raised from among the yeomdh and well-to-do farmers 

 in Cambridgeshire and the neighbouring counties, ensuring 

 thereby a certain amount of education among his men, and a 

 large admixture of that free spirit which cannot grow but in an 

 independent atmosphere. He severely disciplined his recruits 

 till they became the famous " Ironsides," dreadful in battle ; he 

 prayed with them, preached to them, fought with them, and by 

 cool courage and fervent zeal succeeded in inspiring them with a 

 belief that a prophet had risen up among them. 



First at Gainsborough, and then at Horncastle, in Yorkshire, 

 Cromwell displayed his military ability as a general, by de- 

 feating with severe loss some divisions of the Royalist army 

 under the Marquis of Newcastle; and soon afterwards, in 1644, 

 ho was appointed second in command of the Parliamentary 

 nrmy operating in the Eastern counties under the Earl of Man- 

 chester. In conjunction with Fairfax and Lambert, the Earl of 

 Manchester, having been victorious in the east, marched to York 

 and besieged it, the issue being the battle of Marston Moor, 

 where the cavalry and infantry under the command of Oliver 

 Cromwell broke the serried ranks of Prince Rupert, and carried 

 llie day "for God and the Houses." 



At Dennington Castle, near Newbury, where King Charles 

 had left his baggage and artillery after the rout of his army at 

 the latter place, a difference arose between Cromwell and the 

 Earl of Manchester which first showed the firmness and dorni- 

 nancy of the spirit which actuated the future Protector. Crom- 

 well was for taking the castle and the guns, the earl was for 

 marching elsewhere, and upon this question the two men split, 

 Cromwell thereafter taking his own independent line across the 

 difficult country of politics which was before him. It matters 



not now to follow him through all his military achievements 

 prior to the death of the king : suifice it to say that he was 

 incessantly employed, retaining by stratagem his seat as a 

 member of Parliament the while, and that he figured in all the 

 great battles of the war, including Naseby, June 14, 1645, and 

 always was attended by success. 



Thoroughly persuaded of the dishonesty of the king ; con- 

 vinced that, unless he were completely overthrown, the last 

 state of England would be worse than the first ; persuaded also 

 that there was not any man, or any set of men on the Parlia- 

 mentary side, who could prevent this except himself, he deter- 

 mined, about the time King Charles was given up by the Scots, 

 with whom he had taken refuge, to gather up the reins into his 

 own hands, and to drive the chariot of the state along the only 

 road which in his opinion was a safe one. Firmly, harshly, 

 perseveringly, prayerfully, he addressed himself to his task, 

 which was to overthrow the power namely, the Parliament 

 which had overthrown the king, to subject the king utterly, 

 even by death if need be, and to bring under obedience those rival 

 chiefs and commanders, who, he foresaw, would never tolerate 

 quietly the assumption of power by one whom they looked on 

 as their equal or inferior. 



It was by Cromwell's orders ; or at least with his concurrence, 

 that Cornet Joyce, with a strong party of cavalry, made a sort 

 of raid on the captive king's guard at Holdenby, in Yorkshire, 

 where he was on his way to bo given up to the Parliament, and 

 snatching the king from the hands of the Scots' and Parliamen- 

 tary commissioners, brought him to the head-quarters of the 

 army. The army at that time was in open quarrel with the 

 Parliament on the subject of the limitations which that body 

 had thought fit to place upon the authority and influence of the 

 military. The Parliament itself was divided into many factions, 

 all pulling a different way, none of them seeking the general 

 good, but only the advancement of their own petty interests. 

 Cromwell, whose influence with the army was at this time para- 

 mount, resolved to crush the rival but divided power, and know- 

 ing the immense importance of the possession of the king's 

 person, gladly acquiesced in, if he did not order, the violent 

 taking of Charles from the custody of the Parliamentary com- 

 missioners. 



Immediately he heard of. the king's re-arrest he left London, 

 hastened to the army, and putting himself at its head, marched 

 to St. Albans, where he opened negotiations with the Parliament 

 in London. The nation looked on approvingly, being disgusted 

 with the way in which the Houses had used their power, with 

 the taxes they levied, the harsh laws they enacted, and the 

 tyrannical manner in which the executive was carried on ; and 

 though London held out in favour of the Parliament, the army 

 marched up and demanded admittance, which was conceded to 

 them without show of resistance. This was in June, 1647. 



On November 11, in the same year, King Charles, who was a 

 sort of prisoner at large at Hampton Court Palace, fled to the 

 Isle of Wight, where he was detained at Carisbrook Castle by the 

 governor, Colonel Hammond. Meantime the army, represented 

 by Cromwell, had completely overawed the Parliament, which 

 was allowed, however, still to exist till the dictator had used 

 them for his purposes. The negotiations between it and the 

 king having proved futile, Cromwell summoned a council of the 

 principal officers of the army to devise some means of settling 

 the nation. At this council it was resolved, after much prayer 

 and much deliberation, to bring the king to trial for having com- 

 mitted treason against the people by levying war upon them. 



Plots and counterplots now took place, some having in view 

 the overthrow of the officers, some of the Parliament, some the 

 restoration of the king, the result being that a second civil war 

 broke out, aided by the Scots, and England was ablaze again 

 from end to end. Promptly, skilfully, successfully, Cromwell 

 and his friends crushed the rebellion and the invasion ; and that 

 being done, they resolved to bring the king to punishment for 

 the part he had had in them. The Parliament resisting, the 

 army came to London ; and the Houses having still declared tkeir 

 willingness to treat with the king, and their entire disapproval of 

 the course taken by the army, Cromwell resolved to coerce them 

 still more, and on the 6th of December, 1648, " purged " the 

 House by seizing some two hundred of the members inimical to 

 his interests, and allowing no more than some sixty of the most 

 partisan-like to remain. It was by a High Court of Justice 

 appointed by this " Rump" Parliament that King Charles waa 



