HISTORIC SKETCHES. 



House by seizing some two hundred of the members inimical to 



, and allowing no more than some sixty of the most 



ui-like to remain. It was by a High Court of Jiintin- 



iipi'iiintfil l>y this " Bump " Parliament that King Charles was 



brought to trial in Westminster Hall, and by a sentence of that 



riuirt, Hignod, amongst others, by Oliver Cromwell, he was 



[iiihlii'ly executed "in the open space before Whitehall," on the 



Kiry, 1648-9. There was no other way in the state to 



which things had come; it was war to the knife, and so wide 



had become the difference in political and religious feeling 



11 the opposed parties, that the intolerant absolutism of 



one of them was inevitable. 



For four years after this event the government of England 

 was nominally republican, and really a sort of parliamentary 

 oxec'utivo under the control of the army. The prime mover, 

 though he kept himself in the background, was Oliver Crom- 

 \\vll, whoso will made itself law, and whose policy guided the 

 state. Ireland, the state of which was more wretched and 

 deplorable, perhaps, than at any other time ir. her history, was 

 to bo " tranquillised," and Cromwell marched through it in 

 inexorable fashion, putting whole garrisons to the sword, burn- 

 ing, killing, and destroying, in pursuance of what his stern, 

 strong nature conceived to be the only efficacious way of 

 dealing with her. Ireland was tranquil in the sleep of death, 

 and never again was able to trouble the sister .island with her 

 aspirations after life. It was an awful opiate the Puritan 

 leader gave her, and deadly and bitter was the hatred with 

 which she woke from the effects of it. With no worse maledic- 

 tion can an Irishman curse to-day than with "the curse of 

 Crom'ell." 



The Dutch were punished for the aid they gave to the king's 

 cause by a naval war, which was singularly brilliant, and in 

 which the names of De Ruyter, De Witt, Van Tromp, Blake, 

 Ayscne, Venables, and Monk, shine out in bold relief. Scotland, 

 which had espoused the cause of Charles IL, and had proclaimed 

 him king, was overrun by the same irresistible man who had 

 crushed the opponents of the Commonwealth and Puritanism 

 in Ireland. At Dunbar, at Stirling, and then at Worcester, 

 whither the Scots' army had penetrated in order to be over- 

 thrown, the strong hand and wise head of Oliver Cromwell pre- 

 vailed, and the royal cause was irretrievably lost. 



In 1653 it became obvious to the army, or to the man who 

 commanded it, that parliamentary government must cease in 

 form as well as in reality. The exceptional state of England 

 rendered it impossible to have a divided government, and in 

 divisions and petty squabbles the Parliament, mutilated as it 

 was, was only strong. Every day the civil and the military 

 powers were coming into collision. In the face of smouldering 

 war at home, avowed hostility abroad, and the still unsettled 

 state of the realm, this sort of thing would not do. Cromwell 

 resolved to take the helm himself, and alone to steer the 

 ship of the state. On the 20th of April, 1653, he dismissed the 

 sham Parliament, over which Praise God Barebones presided, 

 and was forthwith made Protector of the Commonwealth of 

 England. 



From that moment England rose to be a first-rate power in 

 Europe. The Dutch were ruinously beaten in a two days' naval 

 battle, in which Van Tromp, their great admiral, was killed. 

 Spain, the greatest power in Europe, was victoriously with- 

 stood, and lost, among other possessions, the island of Jamaica ; 

 France, under Cardinal Mazarin, was glad to be well with the 

 Republic of England ; and Portugal received condign punish- 

 ment for some assistance she gave to the exiled prince. At home 

 a firm and disinterested rule served to heal many of the 

 wounds from which poor England bled ; and with a commerce 

 protected afloat, and industry encouraged on shore, the English 

 people grew prosperous, wealthy, and in some sort contented. 

 Now and again the royalists, and those enemies of theirs who 

 were enemies of the Commonwealth also, gave the government 

 trouble ; and it was seriously proposed, in order to put an end to 

 their hopes, that Cromwell should make himself king, and found 

 a new dynasty. In 1657 the crown was actually offered to him, 

 but ho firmly refused it, and accepted instead "the humble 

 petition and advice," wherein were laid down rules for his 

 guidance in the government, and in which his authority was 

 defined. 



For twelve months he continued to carry on his work, hoping 

 against hope that it might be an abiding one ; welding the dis- 



integrated masses of English society into a strong, united com* 

 innuity ; striving to do jiutioo to all, though many would not 

 suffer him ; making the country be had been called upon to 

 govern prosperous at home and respected abroad. Space fail* 

 to tell of all he did, or to seek out a knowledge of the intentions 

 he was not allowed to fulfil. Regarded with respectful hatred 

 by the royalists, with envy by those whom he had outstripped 

 in the race, with admiration by those who loved their country 

 more than themselves, and prized the objects for which England 

 had struggled and fought ; loved by very few, unhappy in him- 

 self, Cromwell sank to rest ; and enough has been said here to 

 make it intelligible why to many of his countrymen a funeral 

 and a tomb less than the most splendid seemed all unworthy of 

 him, and also why, when Charles II. was restored to his father's 

 throne, there were found men to suggest and approve the sense- 

 less barbarity which led to the exposure of his dead body on 

 Tyburn gallows. Perhaps even these men, after " the merry 

 monarch " hod reigned a few years, might have looked back and 

 said when they saw the Dutch in the Medway, the French all- 

 powerful through money, the Spaniards insulting the English 

 flag in all places in the world, and the revenues of the kingdom 

 squandered on mistresses and frivolity, while the servants of the 

 state died of hunger that sombre, harsh, ungenial as Cromwell 

 might have been, he never allowed an Englishman to have cause 

 to blush for his nationality, never made the state interests sub- 

 servient to his own, never gave the people such provocation as 

 did the restored line of princes, that in less than thirty years 

 after the day of their unfortunate restoration they hurled them 

 off the throne, and forbade firmly and for ever their re-accession 

 to it. 



SOVEREIGNS CONTEMPORARY WITH OLIVES AND RICHARD 

 CROMWELL. 



SYNOPSIS OF EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF OLIVER CROMWELL, 

 LORD PROTECTOR OF THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH. 



Oliver Cromwell, who virtually held supreme sway over 

 England from the surrender of Charles I. by the Scotch in 1647, 

 was the son of a gentleman of Huntingdonshire, and grandson 

 of Sir Henry Cromwell, of Hinchinbrcok. By his wife, Elizabeth 

 Bourchier, daughter of Sir John Bourchier, he had two sons 

 and six daughters. 



Born at Huntingdon April 25, 1599 



Elected Member of Parlia- 

 ment for Huntingdon . . 1628 



Prevented from emigrating to 

 New England by Charles I. 1637 



Elected Member of Parlia- 

 ment for Cambridge . . 1640 



Civil War between the King 

 and Parliament began 



August 25, 1642 



[For Event* and Battltt in 

 Civil War, ut pag* 122.] 



Members expelled from the 

 House of Commons by 

 " Pride's Purge " Dec. 6, 1648 



" Bump " or Barebones' Par- 

 liament 1648 



Charles I. executed Jan. 30, 1649 



Temporary Abolition of House 

 of Lords 1649 



Cromwell goes to Ireland. . 1649 



Proclamation of Charles IL 

 by the Scots 1649 



Execution of Montrose, May 21 1650 

 Battle of Dunbar . Sept. 3, 1650 

 Charles II. crowned at Scone 



January 1, ir-M 



Battle of Worcester, Sept. 3, 1651 

 Navigation Laws enacted 



October, 1651 

 Dutch Admiral Van Tromp 



defeats the English Fleet 



in the Channel . Nov. 29, 1658 

 Blake defeats the Dutch Fleet 



off Portsmouth, Feb. 18-20, 1653 

 " Long Parliament " ended 



by Cromwell . . /pril 20, 1G53 

 Blake defeats the Dutch off 



the North Foreland, June 2, 1653 

 Blake defeats the Dutch off 



the coast of Holland, Jnly, 1653 

 Cromwell made Lord Pro- 



teotor . . December 16, 1653 

 Expedition under Blake sent 



against the Pirates of the 



Mediterranean . ... 1654 



