In what did these conversions consist? One authority has aptly written that the root of the matter was always a new birth. The experience was nearly always in itself climactic. Thomas Goodwin for example, compared himself vividly to a traitor whom the King had pardoned and then raised to the position of friend and favourite. There was generally much that was vivid about such conversions: a Yorkshire gentleman, Thomas Bourchier, wrote touchingly of his own experience that “in the beginning of my conversion my soul was so abundantly ravished with the beauty of the Lamb, that truly I was scarce well when my tongue was not speaking of the infiniteness of that mercy to me, so unworthy a wretch”. One member of the Elect who could not date his conversion very precisely, beyond the reading of a particular book when he was fifteen – Richard Baxter – was always worried by his lack of exact knowledge. John Winthrop, on the other hand, the leader of the Puritan flight to the New World, was careful to note in his autobiography, written nineteen years later, that his own conversion came to him at the age of thirty.26 Oliver’s own letter, with its colourful phrases, its references to the Scriptures in an earlier passage, its shuddering allusion to a hideous past now swallowed up in a godly present, exhibits the classic symptoms of such an experience. Indeed, if the tumultuous meaning of a conversion to Puritans is borne in mind, it is hardly a wonder that the years preceding it should be remembered as steeped in “darkness”.
If it is accepted that it was Oliver’s spiritual conversion, rather than his transformation from a roue, which was at the root of his self-doubts and mysterious illnesses, with their suggestion of the psychosomatic, then it remains to try and establish the date of this cataclysmic event in his early life. It seems evident that this only occurred after Cromwell’s return to Huntingdon some time after the prorogation of Parliament in 1629 and before his move to St Ives in 1631, since the process of self-analysis was clearly in full swing during his visit to London, when the appointment with Sir Theodore Mayerne which can only have been as a result of extreme stress was sought in September 1628. It is true that Dr Beard recommended Oliver for Parliament in 1628 which, it has been argued, he would scarcely have agreed to do had Oliver not already undergone his spiritual “rebirth”. But this is to identify too closely Oliver’s inner cogitations with the outward excesses of earlier years: it was after all perfectly possible to lead an upright life without being a member of the Elect, and this we must assume that Oliver did from 1620 onwards, even if his inward darkness was not as yet formally lightened. It was generally agreed that once the rebirth had taken place Oliver led not only a good life but a sternly religious one. Bishop Burnet recorded in his History, having had the opportunity to pick up the story from Cromwell’s contemporaries, that he “led a very strict life for about eight years before the war”. Since Burnet, a Scot, dated the end of peace from 1638 when the Scottish war broke out, thi: produces a credible date around 1630. 27
Undoubtedly there was a change in Oliver’s manner of conduct around this date: future years will show a more formed resolution in his management of affairs, as though self-examination had been canalized into consultation with the Almighty, a dialogue in which God furnished at least some answers in the shape of signs and “providences” as opposed to the previous torturing unhappy monologue of the soul in anguish. A change of worldly residence also lay ahead. But even before Cromwell left Huntingdon, he had become further involved in embattled local politics, as though the stimulating but restless-making drug of politics, once entered into his veins, would not allow him to rest from further action. The two issues which occupied him on his return to his native town both illustrated certain regrettable aspects of the contemporary scene. One concerned local government: Cromwell was among the leaders of a body who protested vociferously in the course of 1630 against proposed changes in the structure of the government of Huntingdon. The question was whether the bailiffs and burgesses of Huntingdon should be allowed, as they desired, a new charter for the administration of the Corporation. By this a body of Aldermen and a Recorder chosen for life, with only a Mayor chosen annually, would replace the old body of two bailiffs and a common council of twenty-four freely elected year by year. The bailiffs eventually had their way, and the process of transforming Huntingdon to what was in effect a “rotten borough” was not stayed.
But victory was not achieved before the Lord Privy Seal had been obliged to issue a report on the affair, not least of the violent manner in which Cromwell and his comrades had conducted their opposition. The basis of it was the fact that the new arrangement enabled the Mayor and Aldermen to deprive the burgesses of their rights in the common lands, and also to levy large fines. “Disgraceful and unseemly speeches” had been used by Mr Cromwell of Huntingdon against the Mayor of Huntingdon and a counsellor-at-law (barrister) named Bernard. It was true that the Lord Privy Seal now reported peace to be made: “as they [Cromwell’s speeches] were ill, so they are acknowledged to be spoken in heat and passion, and desired to be forgotten; and I found Mr Cromwell very willing to hold friendship with Mr Barnard, who, with a good will, remitting the unkind passages past, entertained the same.”28 Cromwell’s early capacity for impetuous self-expression is one lesson to be learned for the future from the incident; his spirited sympathy with local grievances is another.
The second protest touched on one of the broader issues which had concerned him at Westminster – the sinister means used by the Crown to raise money. A rule had been set up by which any freeholder whose estate was worth more than Ł40 a year was compelled either to attend the King’s coronation and have the expensive honour of knighthood thrust upon him, or pay a fine or “composition” for his absence. Oliver fell into the fairly large category of those who had ignored the obligation at the coronation of King Charles in 1625, and had neither been knighted nor paid up. When commissioners were appointed to chase up defaulters locally, in order to ameliorate the royal finances, Oliver’s name appeared on their black list of those who must first make their composition and then take the tally of their payment to the commissioners of the Exchequer. The penalty of refusal was to be summoned before the Court of Exchequer for contempt. But in the first instance Oliver still declined to make payment. Even when the composition was finally made in April 1631, the manuscript of the records shows that Cromwell’s name was added subsequently to the list of those who had recanted, so that it is even possible, as has been suggested, that the fine was paid by somebody else.29 Although Cromwell did not therefore in the end suffer for his refusal to bend before the royal will, there is clearly a connexion between his preliminary refusal to take part in this financial charade and what he had witnessed in years previously at Westminster.
About the same date as the final composition was made, Oliver wrote to a Warwickshire gentleman, John Newdigate, about a more personal matter – a stray hawk which Newdigate had taken in and identified by its “varvell” or ring as being Cromwell’s own. Oliver apologized to Newdigate for the delay in seeing to the whole matter (“I do confess that I have neglected you in that I have received two letters from you without sending any answer”), and explained that the hawk was not his (“This poor man, the owner of the hawk, living in the same town with me, made use of my varvells”). Oliver’s love of hawking was to become well known as he himself rose to power and news of this personal predilection reached international circles: would-be flatterers fawned upon him with gifts of hawks and falcons. Robert Lilburne, one of his commanders in Scotland who wrote in 1654 enquiring about his chances of future advancement, was careful to end his letter with an offer of hawks for the great man’s diversion. From the opposite angle, one satirist of the Interregnum wrote bitterly: “Do you not hawk? Why mayn’t we have a play?”30 As for Oliver himself in late life, a taste for hawking in a man continued to attract his friendship, even in a Royalist. According to Aubrey, Oliver the Protector “fell in love” with the company of Sir James Long, having first met him hawking on Hounslow Heath. He commanded Long to “wear his sword, and to meet him
a hawkeing” – all of which caused the stricter Cavaliers to raise their eyebrows. And he actually stopped off to hawk in the fields near Aylesbury on his way back from the great victory of Worcester.31
This kind of deep-held English country taste, allied to Cromwell’s constant enjoyment of hunting and equally abiding love of horses, later to receive friendly foreign attention as tempting equine gifts emanated from many obscure corners of Europe, combined to make Oliver in many outward ways the pattern of the English country gentleman. The fact that fame and responsibility did not remove these tastes but only quickened the pleasure of the relaxation is in itself very typical of the style of many English political leaders who have clung sincerely to their early love of “country matters” and in doing so certainly increased, rather than decreased, their links with the people whom they govern. But although Marvell and later eulogists seized on this pleasing bucolic streak in Oliver - “his delight in horse fierce, wild deer …” – and praised it, and the essential Englishness of Cromwell has been commented on by many writers, it would be a mistake to suppose that in his early thirties, Oliver Cromwell still believed that his “own fields” literally consisted of the flat green fertile meadows of Cambridgeshire on which he could hawk and hunt so agreeably. There was considerable later emphasis on the rural secrecy of his early development: Carrington’s comparison to David lying “dormant tending his flocks until his country needed him” is a typical example.32 Nevertheless this polarization between early and late owes too much to the demands of literary effect to be totally acceptable.
By the age of thirty-two Cromwell had taken three great steps forward. Firstly he had married happily by good fortune or good judgement, and set himself on that path of domestic tranquillity which was to prove the least winding of all his routes. It was a momentous decision which should not be overlooked simply because the results were on the whole negative, and because it is inevitably easier to consider a marriage from outside in the breach rather than in the observance. Secondly, Cromwell had been through a profound spiritual crisis, had suffered enormously in the course of it but, like Bunyan’s Pilgrim, had derived strength from his adversities. Thirdly, Cromwell had tasted national politics at Westminster, and had taken part in the culmination of the most important constitutional struggle in England for a century – the presentation of the Petition of Right, showing in his first speech how far his own sympathies lay from the established authority of the time, whether King or Church. This political passion once roused had not been stifled by the suspension of Parliament, but had manifested itself in a persistent championship of local rights. In the fermenting state of England in the 16305, as one historian has described it, with too many subjects “united … in the same resentments and the same fears”,33 there was much indeed for Huntingdon’s Village David to ponder as he tended his flocks, both political and pastoral.
3 Growing to authority
Yet as he grew to place and authority, his parts seemed to be renewed,
as if he had concealed faculties till he had the occasion to use them.
CLARENDON ON CROMWELL IN HIS History of the Great Rebellion
The next stage in the life of Oliver Cromwell had the appearance at least of a decline in his worldly fortunes. The dispute at Huntingdon and Cromwell’s immoderate language in the course of it, could not fail to affect his political future there, even if the quarrel had subsequently been patched up. For example Cromwell’s chances of being elected as a burgess there in the future must have been considerably diminished by his outspoken attack on the very Corporation responsible for the administration of such an election. Perhaps social relationships in Huntingdon were likewise impaired. In 1631 the freehold house at Huntingdon in which he had been born was sold and Cromwell became merely the tenant of a farm at St Ives, another similar small Huntingdonshire town about five miles away.
St Ives is pleasantly situated on the Ouse, with a narrow bridge spanning the meandering river; around it lie meadows, green and lush in summer, grey, watery and swept by the wind in winter. Cromwell’s lands were grouped to the south-east of the town where tradition still associates Cromwell’s Barn with his residence there. Although much like Huntingdon, St Ives was still more of a backwater, being not even the chief town of the tiny county. But here Cromwell was to live for the next five years, farming his cattle, bringing up his family, and also showing himself a solid local man by his activities in the election of a keeper for the “green”, the “street” or the “highways” of St Ives. And if these were of a somewhat tamer nature than those formerly within his scope as a freeholder, burgess and justice of the peace at Huntingdon, at least the records show that Cromwell participated in them with his usual energy.*1 (* In one of these parish records Oliver Cromwell’s signature has met its usual fate of being in some way defaced – in this case cut out by an eighteenth-century church warden. But in the town of St Ives today a commanding statue of Cromwell has been erected in the main street (see Plate X), finger pointing towards the wayfarer, which although regularly disfigured with red paint is nevertheless an imposing memorial to his sojourn there.)
This social decline was not paralleled by a diminution in Cromwell’s spiritual progress. On the contrary, during these outwardly quiet years at St Ives, Cromwell’s inner religious interests much deepened following the earlier traumatic experience of his conversion: in which connexion it must be noted that his old friend from Cambridge, Henry Downhall, godfather to his son Richard, became vicar of St Ives about the time that Cromwell moved there, so that he certainly did not lack companions to discuss spiritual matters. The 1630s were a crucial time to those of Puritan persuasion. In 1633, at the age of sixty, William Laud was made Archbishop of Canterbury by the King who, on hearing of the death of his predecessor, broke the first news of his appointment to Laud with the following gracious words: “My lord of Canterbury, you are very welcome.” It was not a sentiment echoed by the Puritans, who feared that Laud’s appointment concealed a deep-laid plan to reintroduce Roman Catholicism into England, of which the fact that Queen Henrietta Maria was a practising Catholic, with her own priests, Masses and chapel, was regarded as an ominous harbinger. The words “popish” and “papistical”, so often applied by Puritans in this period to what they regarded as extravagant innovations in the ritual of the Church of England, were an expression of this fear. The practice of Roman Catholicism itself was against the law, severe penalties remained on the statute books for those who did not actually subscribe to the practices of the Church of England, while a Catholic priest discovered in England was liable to be put to death for treason. Nevertheless in certain “Arminian” tendencies within the national Church, the Puritans discerned the fearful possibility of “popish” corruption. The word was taken originally from a Dutch theologian, known as Arminius, who had much attacked such Calvinist concepts as predestination, but it had come to be associated with certain elaborations and ornamentations of churches and their services. The battle therefore tended to be joined on certain specific usages within the Church or related to religious worship, which taken one by one and in a very different climate of opinion might seem to be of only minor importance.
Sabbath-day sports were one issue on which the Puritans immediately clashed with Laud: on this delicate subject of the “defilement” of the Lord’s Day, as they put it, where the Puritans certainly did not command the sympathies of the ordinary people of England, there had been instances of the Puritans calling Sunday roisterers to account. The Book of Sports of James I which defined the control of the State over such pastimes, was reissued in 1633. Laud forbade these punishments to take place in the future: and here the public spectacle of Queen Henrietta Maria enjoying herself at Court on Sunday only rubbed the unpleasant message home. With her innocent Gallic desire to dance and play generally, she even watched the very theatricals the Puritans so much disliked. The position and ornamentation of the Communion Table was another vexed issue candles and rich tapestries were already held to be signs o
f incipient “popery” by the Puritans. Bowing at the name of Jesus, the use of the sign of the cross, especially at the baptismal service, were others. John Owen, subsequently chaplain to Cromwell, once said in a sermon to Parliament that all such “paintings, crossings, crucifixes, bowings, cringings, altars, tapers, wafers, organs, anthems, litany rails, images, copes, vestments” were to be regarded as mere “Roman varnish” on the English religion.2
The attitude of Laud himself and those clergy who followed him, the number of Arminians naturally increasing after his appointment to Archbishop, was not calculated to defuse this potentially inflammatory situation. Nor did Puritan intolerance meet with Anglican tolerance. Laud, seeing in these practices merely rituals belonging since ancient times to the Church of England, met the protests with an equally fierce determination to root out the protesters’ own habits of worship. Uniformity was to be the watchword, and it should be made clear once and for all that the Church of England, not the individual (Puritan) conscience, was the body authorized to lay down in what such uniformity should consist. Had King Charles appointed an archbishop of a less legalistic nature, showing something of the spirit of “pray and let pray”, some kind of working compromise such as occurs in the Church of England today, based on local variations according to the feeling of the people and their minister, might have persisted. As it was, the spirit of Laud and that of the Puritans were irrevocably opposed to each other.
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