Cromwell

by Antonia Fraser

  Meanwhile in the South, it was becoming increasingly clear to the Council of the Army that little could be expected from King and Parliament except wily procrastination on the one hand, and pusillanimity towards the authors of the Second Civil War on the other. In this Henry Ireton who had, wrote Burnet, “the principles and temper of a Cassius in him”, played a decisive role in Cromwell’s absence. Charles indeed had a vested interest in neither accepting nor denying the Treaty of Newport (although called a treaty, the term in fact covered negotiations) while the prospects of outside assistance in the future loomed brightly. Not only was there Europe as a subject for optimism, but also Ireland where as usual there had been a total reversal of alliances and the energetic Ormonde was on the verge of concluding an agreement with the Catholics on Charles’s behalf, to the rage of the English Parliament. “Though you will hear that this treaty is near or at least more likely to be concluded,” wrote Charles to Ormonde, “yet believe it not, but pursue the way you are in with all possible vigour; deliver also that my command to all your friends, but not in public way.” The admonition was characteristic of the King. It meant for example that his subsequent public concession to Parliament to order Ormonde to cease these negotiations was quite worthless. To him all duplicity was justifiable in the higher cause of salvaging the essential rights of the Crown, such as the “negative voice” to the acts of Parliament. At the same time Charles’s conception of kingship seemed to have been altered not one whit by the exhibition of the temper of the nation which he had witnessed over the last six years, which demonstrated that some greater participation must and would be catered for. On the Isle of Wight he had copied down with approval the verses of the poet Claudian at the Court of the Roman Emperor Honorius declaring that it was an error to give the name of slavery to the service of a distinguished prince, since there was never sweeter liberty than under a worthy King – nunquam Hbertas gratior extatjQuam sub Rege pio. It was a doctrine almost ludicrously out of tune with the views of his most vocal subjects. Even Clarendon wrote afterwards of the downfall of the King that so many miraculous circumstances surrounded it “that men might well think … that the stars designed it”.2

  The mood of the soldiers could be seen by the tenor of their Remonstrance, for whose initiation Ireton was probably largely responsible. Called by Whitelocke “the beginning of the design against the King”, it was first discussed by the Army in draft at St Albans on 7 November. It was from the first a vicious and explicit document, aimed not only at the purging of the present Parliament, but also at the trial of the King, together with other major offenders of the recent war. Key phrases accused Charles of having betrayed his trust, and declared him “guilty of all the bloodshed in these intestine wars”, together with those who had been his “contrivers and abetters”. Despite this, a party of creatures in Parliament were endeavouring to “re-inthrone” him. The only solution was justice, and justice in this case should be impartial, or as an ominous sentence had it, “the same fault may have the same punishment, in the person of King or Lord, as in the person of the poorest commoner”. It was not until 16 November that Ireton secured its general adoption since there were those in the Army who were still animated by a spirit of compromise as opposed to the more radical feelings of the soldiers – as at Putney a year earlier – while Fairfax continued worried and hostile to any plan which involved the overthrow of the existing Government. But the northern army showed itself amongst those who were favourable to its tenets. On 2 November a letter from Cromwell’s secretary Robert Spavin, at Pontefract, had cried optimistically: “I verily think God will break that great idol the Parliament, and that old job-trot form of government of King, Lords and Commons.” On 10 November representatives of the northern regiments met to endorse the petitions of the southern regiments.3

  But of Cromwell’s own feelings there was much less certainty. One interesting sidelight on his frame of mind at this stage was provided by the account of John Lilburne who, freed from the Tower since August, decided to allow himself the pleasure of a visit to Cromwell at Pontefract while in the North on his own business. To Lilburne’s disquiet, the man to whom he had just freely offered the last drop of his heart’s blood if only he would return to truth and justice, was not in a particularly radical mood. Cromwell, wrote Lilburne, “savoured more of intended self-exalting” than of enthusiasm for anything he had heard him advocate formerly concerning “the Liberties and Freedoms of the Nation”. For all Lilburne’s fears, it seems that it was Cromwell who thought it worthwhile setting in train conferences between Levellers and Independents in London. No doubt his experiences at Putney had taught him that it was better to have the Levellers with him than against him; at all events on 15 November representatives of the Levellers met Ireton, Hugh Peter and Colonel Harrison at the Nag’s Head Tavern and some important last-minute changes were made to the details of the Remonstrance along the lines of the Levellers’ own Agreement.4

  More personal in its revelations, but still deeply uncertain, was the first of two intimate letters Cromwell wrote on 6 November to his cousin “Robin” Hammond on the Isle of Wight guarding the King.5 In some ways the letter is a positive morass of obscurity, since caution dictated the use of a series of code-names or nicknames, not all of which can be reliably identified. Nevertheless several pointers to Cromwell’s thinking emerge. First, he was by no means so hostile to the Levellers as he had been, influenced presumably by the Presbyterian reaction: “how easy to take offence at things called Levellers, and run into an extremity on the other hand, meddling with an accursed thing. ...”

  At the same time Cromwell’s complicated second paragraph makes it clear that he still preferred presbytery to moderate episcopacy, because presbytery would restrain the King more effectively: “If I have any logic it will be easier [for Charles] to tyrannize having that he likes and serves his turn [i.e. episcopacy] than what you know and all believe he so much dislikes.” The Scottish alliance is then heartily defended against those who have evidently attacked him for being too soft towards the Presbyterians on the grounds that this was on the contrary the consummation of a religious dream. “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).” Was it not fitting then, when the Scots acknowledged their mistakes, to accept their union: “And herein is a more glorious work in our eyes than if we had gotten the sacking and plunder of Edinburgh, the strong castles into our hands, and made conquests from Tweed to Orcades.” The annihilation of the Scots suggested by one friend was “not only very unfeasible but I think not Christian”. It is noticeable that there is nothing in the letter specifically against acceptance of the Treaty of Newport, if it could be achieved, for all the veiled language and phrases like “Peace is only good when we receive it out of our Father’s hand …” Nor indeed is there any mention of a trial for the King. Indeed the letter taken as a whole gives no evidence of a mind thoroughly made up on any of die vital issues being decided in the South. In general, Cromwell’s attitude is best summed up by one phrase applied to the Scots: “Innocence and integrity loses nothing by a patient waiting upon the Lord.”

  By 20 November however, the date on which the Remonstrance was presented to the Commons, taking four hours to read aloud, Cromwell’s letter to Fairfax forwarding some supporting petitions from the Army, showed that he had moved, albeit cautiously, towards their own more radical views:6 “I find a very great sense in the office of the regiments of the sufferings and the ruin of this poor kingdom,” he wrote, “and in them all a very great zeal to have impartial justice done upon Offenders; and I must confess, I do in all, from me heart, concur with them; and I verily think and am persuaded they are things which God puts into our hearts.”

  Five days later, the second of his two surviving private letters to Hammond showed that some kind of decision was indeed being hammered out on
the anvil of his conscience.7 In part the letter must have been inspired by Hammond’s own soul-searchings – for Hammond was reluctantly parting company with the arguments of the Army – but it also contains the most explicit avowal so far of Oliver’s belief in the doctrine of signs or providences as clues to the will of God. He began with a plea to Hammond to examine them: “As to outward dispensations, if we may so call them, we have not been without our share of beholding some remarkable providences, and appearances of the Lord. His presence hath been amongst us, and by the light of His countenance we have prevailed.” Then Hammond is adjured to remember how God deliberately sought him out for a new task after he sought to retire to the Isle of Wight, by sending the King in flight there into his charge. Why then should such a “chain of providence” come about? Cromwell’s answer: “I dare be positive to say, it is not that the wicked should be exalted …”

  Cromwell then turns to the political question. Can it ever be lawful to resist the lawfully constituted authority, which is Parliament? But no authority has the right to perform any actions it pleases whatever the consequences: “all agree there are cases in which it is lawful to resist”. Hammond must therefore ask himself these questions: first, whether Salus Populi (or the safety of the people as the supreme law) was not a sound proposition.* ( * Much use was made of this doctrine, in full Salus Populi Suprema Lex in the Remonstrance to provide moral authority for the attack of the Army on the King; it claimed that ultimate sovereignty lay with the people, there being merely a contract between ruler and ruled, which if broken (as Charles had done) entitled them to revolt.8) Secondly, whether in the treaty before them this was being taken properly into account, or whether on the contrary “the whole fruit of the war” was not likely to be frustrated, “and all most like to turn to what it was, and worse?” Thirdly, Cromwell suggested that the Army might even be a lawful power in itself, called by God to oppose and fight against the King, in which case the actions of the Army would be justified in foro humano – in the interests of humanity.

  This thinking-aloud is followed by a return to the whole subject of the signs and the import of the Second Civil War victories: “My dear friend, let us look into providences; surely they mean somewhat. They hang so together; have been so constant, so clear and unclouded. Malice, swoln malice, against God’s people, now called Saints, to root out their name; and yet they, by providence, having arms, and therein blessed with defence and more.” Even the growth of disaffection among the soldiers cannot be ignored as another sign: “What think you of Providence disposing the hearts of so many of God’s people this way, especially in this poor Army, wherein the great God has vouchsafed to appear …?” In a significant phrase, Cromwell described how “we in this Northern Army were in a waiting posture, desiring to see what the Lord would lead us to”. They had now been guided, and for all Cromwell’s own feeling that the Treaty should perhaps have preceded the Remonstrance: “yet seeing it is come out, we trust to rejoice in the will of the Lord, waiting His further pleasure”. He ends on a grim note concerning the King, and those that would “judge not”. Have not some of their friends by “their passive principle”, overlooked what is just and honest, in their erroneous belief that good could be done in one way as well as another? “Good by this Man!” Charles I – expostulated Cromwell, against whom the Lord had witnessed, and whose character Hammond knew so well.

  Thus Cromwell in the North maintained his waiting attitude, although evidently from this letter travelling in his opinion steadily forward as the Army demarche drew nearer, as though drawn intellectually onwards by the success of their positive demands. But in the South, there was to be no waiting, and long before Hammond could ever have received this letter, the revolutionary turn of events there had provided Cromwell with many more dispensations to consider and interpret.

  The final form of the Remonstrance had presented the House of commons with a radical challenge which could not long be ignored. It was true that the demand for the trial of Charles, whom the Army believed guilty of starting the war, did not necessarily postulate the extinction of the monarchy as such. Although it was suggested that its expensive pomp should be set aside for a few years at least to pay for the cost of the wars, the door was left open for some later monarchical form, possibly a regency for the little Duke of York. To the apprehensive Commons, ever casting glances over their shoulders at the soldiery, it was more to the point that the stern demand for the dissolution of this Parliament was paralleled by demands for a much more democratic system of election; here the influence of the Levellers being felt. Under the circumstances, the Commons, with more optimism than wisdom, decided to put off a proper consideration of the Remonstrance for a week in the hope that the King would in the meantime have strengthened their hands with a favourable response to the Treaty. But Charles’s latest answer when it came still would not contemplate the permanent abolition of the episcopacy, and the House had to content itself with weakly extending the period of negotiation allowed to him.

  The Army, like time and tide, was now inexorably on the move. Its patience was exhausted. On 26 November the General Council sitting at Windsor considered “the great business now in hand” after their prayers. On the question of whether Parliament should be dissolved altogether or merely purged (which would leave behind a radical minority who had originally been constitutionally elected) it seems that this minority overrode the opposition of Ireton. It was to be purgation. On 27 November the Commons once more adjourned the discussion of the Remonstrance, and the next day the General Council at Windsor decided that the Army should move on London. It was on I December that the fatal march was carried out, to the accompaniment of the same wave of fear on the part of the capital’s inhabitants which had marked the previous summer’s military incursion. It was on i December, too, that the Army had the King moved from the Isle of Wight to Hurst Castle on the mainland, having recently replaced the worried Hammond by a more determined jailer in the shape of Colonel Ewer.

  Now, as Charles occupied himself with walks along the freezing winter shores of the Solent, the House of Commons rushed to its final doom with the speed of the Gadarene herd, showing however a sort of crazy courage in that it finally rejected the Remonstrance by a vote of 125 to 58. It was not enough to bow to Fairfax’s demand, originally made to the Lord Mayor, for .Ł40,000 owed to the Army, needed for quartering; their temper was more surely shown by the debates on the King’s answers which followed, in which a substantial body of opinion suggested that Charles had made sufficient concessions to provide a basis of peace. The Army were now quite ready to strike, and on Tuesday, 5 December, a day of torrential rain, were camping in Hyde Park.

  And where was Cromwell while such vital councils of Army and Parliament were enacted? His artless maintenance of his “waiting posture” in the North must by this time have been deliberate. The Remonstrance had been published on 22 November, and would have been received at Knottingley around 23 and 24 November; Cromwell replied to Fairfax on the subject in an undated letter which has recently been convincingly re-assigned to somewhere between the 23rd and 25th:* ( * See David Underdown. Pride’s Purge p. 149 and footnote 17 which corrects W. S. Abbott’s tentative dating of 29 November; this not only allows for too long a gap between Cromwell’s reception of the Remonstrance and his comment to Fairfax, but also by making the Tuesday of his letter 5 December, ignores the fact that Cromwell actually left on i December.) “We have read your declaration here, and see in it nothing but what is honest and becoming Christians and honest men to say and offer. It’s good to look up to God, who alone is able to sway hearts to agree to the good and just things contained therein .. ,”9 And he expressed his hope of waiting “speedily” upon Fairfax, departing the following Tuesday – 28 November. But by the 28th Cromwell had not gone, and it was on that day that Fairfax sent an express message, which could not have taken longer than fortyeight hours to reach him, up to Knottingley asking him to join them at Windsor “with all convenient and speed po
ssible”. He apparently finally left on Friday, i December, leaving the siege to be completed by another hand. Yet despite this urgent command from his superior officer, despite the fact that various contemporary reports indicate that Cromwell was actually expected at Windsor on the 2nd, he still did not arrive in London till the evening of Wednesday, 6 December. The inference of this leisurely five-day journey at such a tumultuous period is obvious, and it was one that Cromwell’s contemporaries did not hesitate to draw: he simply did not wish to arrive in London before the momentous deed of purgation had been initiated.

  The most likely explanation of this mysterious delay is that Cromwell still hoped desperately that the Commons might reform themselves. He had after all, in contrast to some of the Army officers, a dual role as member of Parliament and Army leader, and throughout his life was certainly not without consideration for the Parliamentary principle, even if exasperation led him to violate it from time to time. The use of force on a representative body was a delicate subject indeed, and although Ireton’s correspondence with Cromwell on the topic beforehand has vanished – no doubt for good reasons of security – it must surely have existed. Cromwell for all his geographical absence must have been sufficiently aware of what was being proposed to have had some genuine troubles of the spirit. In January in argument with Ireton over the setting of a term for Parliament, it was he who thought it would be “honourable and convenient” for the Commons to decide it themselves. That the theme of desirable self-purgation was one on which he felt strongly can be judged from a reference to it after the end of the Rump, how he had wished “these men might quit their places with honour” and had himself as member exerted endless pressures on them to do so “once and again, and again, and ten nay twenty times over”.10 To this hope he could of course always add his characteristic convenient acceptance of anything which had actually taken place as signifying the will of the Lord in that direction.