Cromwell

by Antonia Fraser

  The first enterprises of the new Parliament were if not particularly earth-shaking, not harmful either. Cromwell and other members of the Council including Lambert were formally invited to join their number (although Lambert seems to have attended only one sitting). Two committees were set up for legal improvements such as the Rump had failed to achieve. As a result civil marriage was instituted, and the fines on bills and writs abolished. Fees in prison were also tabled to prevent the extortion of the jailers. An Act was set in progress to get rid of the unpopular Chancery altogether. But in the acknowledged absence of all but a few professional lawyers, it was hardly surprising that the delicate question of setting up a new High Court was most incompetently handled. Indeed, the criticisms that this assembly soon began to arouse for achieving so little of what had been expected of it, were centred at least as much on its ineptitude as on its wilfulness. “I am more troubled with the fool than the knave,” Cromwell groaned.

  In mid-July John Lilburne was back on the London scene like the proverbial bad penny, to endure yet another trial. This time it was over the question of an earlier exile, to which he had been condemned as a result of prolonged attacks on Sir Arthur Haselrig. He returned to England in 1653, but was straightway put into prison. Once more in flooded the familiar petitions that he should be freed: the popular discontent with the whole business, and with its new Government, for which once again Lilburne provided the convenient catalyst, was expressed by the Hiring rhyme:

  And what shall then honest John Lilburne die?

  Three score thousand will know the reason why*

  (* Thus anticipating the similar rhyme about Trekwney and the Cornishmen by some thirty years.)

  However honest John Lilburne was not in the end condemned to die, although Cromwell could not have been blamed if he wished sometimes in his heart to be rid of this egregious nuisance. At his trial a verdict was secured which was almost an acquittal, to show what the jury thought of governmental control.

  But the real failure of the Barebones Parliament to produce that nearcelestial state of millennium to which Cromwell had so much looked forward was over the eternally vexed question of the tithes. Cromwell, as has been seen, had a year earlier voted for the preservation of these debatable stipends as the most convenient method of paying the ministers for the time being. Now he had risen to new heights, and displayed such enthusiasm for cozening people of all shades of opinion into one polity, that much was hoped fromhim in the way of tolerant ecclesiastic settlement, even from those who did not share his views. Godfrey Goodman, for example, the former Bishop of Gloucester, dedicated to him in 1653 a book on The Two Great Mysteries of the Christian Religion in order to petition Cromwell on the subject of himself and his brother dispossessed clergy, sequestrated from their freeholds. As John Fisher had once petitioned Thomas Cromwell, Goodman now hoped to petition Oliver, if only he would grant him one half-hour interview (and he believed he would convince him in a quarter). But quite early on, Barebones Parliament showed its teeth in this respect, and by 15 July it was already being suggested that tithes should be abolished as a means of ministerial support – a motion defeated by only twenty-five votes.

  As the sects increased their demands for the abolition of tithes, the connexion between these stipends and the maintenance of those stable values perennially desired by property-owners, alluded to in the previous chapter, seemed ever closer. A pamphlet of 1654 entitled Lawless Tithe Robbers discovered contained the clarion call: “landlords rent and tithe rent will stand and fall together . . .” This in turn explained much of the hysterical interest in the subject on behalf of the propertied classes, which might be compared to the attitude of the rich to a capital levy in modern times, feared not so much for itself as for its implications of ultimate total (and revolutionary) confiscation. By September, people were sufficiently alerted to the way the thoughts of the Barebones Parliament were tending for the Common Council of the City to send petitioners asking for the preservation of tithes, and referring to them as an ancient institution confirmed by Magna Carta.26 The issue of the tithes was coming by degrees to stand for a stable society, against unpopular changing values.

  By now the stately music of European acclaim could not drown in Oliver’s ears the more discordant sounds of his own nominated gathering. His depression at the outcome of Barebones was great, the measure of his former cheerful hopes. By late August the familiar tone of despair, to which he had fallen however from greater heights than usual, was beginning to well up in a letter to Fleetwood in Ireland. “Truly I never more needed all helps from my Christian friends than now!” he wrote, and he compared himself feelingly to Moses when the two Hebrews were rebuked. One of these had turned on Moses with the words: “Who made thee a Prince and a Judge over us?” It was evident that Cromwell was beginning to feel the cares of his new position. Oh, if only “everyone (instead of contending) would justify his form ‘of judgement’ by love and meekness, wisdom would be justified of her children”, he sighed. “But, alas, I am in my temptation, ready to say, Oh, would I had wings like a dove, then would I etc. .. ,”27 The implication of the quotation was clear for Fleetwood to read: Oliver, even for a moment, was playing with that prerogative of any statesman, the thought of early retirement to the wilderness. Like many another statesman, he did not actually go.

  About the same time, Sir Roger L’Estrange painted an even more affecting picture of Cromwell the lonely wanderer, a Wotan of St James’s Park, drawn to the sound of music through the open windows of the rooms of a Mr Hickson. Sir Roger himself had been lured earlier by the sound of the organ, and on entering had found five or six people present, who asked him to take a viol and sing a part. “Bye and bye, without the least colour of design or expectation, in comes Cromwell. He found us playing, and as I remember, so he left us.” Sir Roger’s personal situation was however slightly more complicated than this innocent, curiously touching little vignette might suggest. A Royalist, he had recently returned from abroad, duly notifying the Council of State to that effect as was the law; he wanted to get permission to visit his dying father in the country. Although L’Estrange was subsequently rather cruelly nicknamed “Cromwell’s Fiddler” as a result of this musical rencontre, and accused of spying, it seems rather to have been Cromwell who sought him out.28 Cromwell assured him of his friendliness, obtained the necessary pass to see his father, and confided to L’Estrange of his own dislike of the rigours now being shown to Royalists. So Cromwell, in the melancholy and conflict of the ruin of his great hopes for his chosen body, turned not only to his favourite music, but also to the comfort of men of quite other shades of opinion. No longer by the autumn did he refer to Barebones as being on the edge of prophecies, let alone of promises.

  Protestant union, another dream, remained as yet uncontaminated by the acrid pollution of reality. On 23 September Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, that veteran of the Fen drainage schemes, was employed by Cromwell personally on a highly confidential mission to the Dutch, the initial object of which was to suggest a combined offensive and defensive alliance between the two Governments, and whose long-term aim was to divide the world between these two great (Protestant) powers. All commercial privileges and civil rights were to be shared, and two commissions should be set up, each consisting of four English and four Dutchmen to conclude alliances for them abroad. Not only that, but so that the religious emphasis of the whole project should not be missed, the two Governments should combine to send Protestant missionaries together. Van der Perre was despatched back to the Netherlands with the details. As a result of Oliver’s adventurous overtures, there were to be a series of Anglo-Dutch conferences on 18 and 19 November. Quite apart from the Dutch reaction, the melting-pot of English politics was by this time bubbling too fiercely for any satisfactory outcome to be expected. Nevertheless the whole episode was instructive in revealing the curious curtain of naivete which still hung heavily over all Cromwell’s dealings with foreign powers.

  Sitting in a red velvet ch
air he presided broodingly over the proceedings on the first day, his sense of unease perhaps increased by the fact that the language used in the first instance was French. On the second day, at Cromwell’s request, a mixture of Latin and English had to be used, since few prominent Englishmen of the day spoke French fluently,* (* *Just as few Frenchmen spoke English, it was thought absurd to learn English at the French Court, and the French Ambassadors’ spelling of English names was often a travesty.29) and Cromwell was certainly not among them. But in his two long discourses, the second of which, as a Dutch reporter pointed out, was very much a repetition of the first, it is difficult to avoid the impression that Oliver was entering into some dream kingdom of his own. The union of which he spoke was to be not so much an interim alliance as a true and full conjunction: although under the circumstances of continuing official hostility between the two countries, a more prudent man might have paved the way with the former, rather than sprung fully-armed to the promulgation of the latter. He waved aside the protests of the Dutch that there was a considerable difference between a coalition and a union: “those special words of sovereignty” he said grandly, were not very important, merely “a feather in the hat”.* ( * A phrase of which Cromwell seems to have been particularly fond when overruling the practical objections of others to a scheme of his own, as will be seen later over the business of the kingship)

  Cromwell’s second but equally dominant thesis was the superiority of England to the Netherlands. Here he spoke out of deep personal conviction, but once again it was perhaps tactless, to say the least of it, to stress this belief with quite such vehemence to a fellow power whose goodwill he was in theory trying to win. “The English could say without boasting that God our Lord had brought their country in such a state that they could do without us …” so ran a Dutchman’s report of Cromwell’s speech. But the Dutch, said Cromwell, could hardly do without the English. He lectured the Dutch endlessly on the advantages and riches of England so that in the end Dutch delegates were stung to reply – not without a certain cool irony – that though they clearly understood the mercy shown to the English by Almighty God, thanks to the same God “they enjoyed many commodities themselves!”30 In the end quite apart from the political furore now overtaking Whitehall, the terms of peace suggested by the English proved impossible to accept, negotiations were broken off, and the war dragged on until the next year.

  The Swedish mission of the autumn was another diplomatic project in which Cromwell took an immediate personal interest: the mission was of some importance since it was hoped that some kind of commercial alliance would follow, and it was in any case the first full embassy of the Commonwealth. Bulstrode Whitelocke, who was designated for the role, but displayed reluctance, found himself being pelted by Cromwell with a series of arguments to convince him to accept it. Certainly the existence of Mrs Whitelocke and twelve little Whitelockes was not to be entertained as an adequate excuse: “I know your lady very well,” replied Cromwell, “and that she is a good woman and a religious woman … in a matter of this nature, wherein the interest of God and his people is concerned … I dare say my lady will not oppose it.” To this Whitelocke responded desperately that although his wife was all Cromwell believed in desiring the general promotion of God’s interests “she hopes it may be done as much, if not more, by some other person”.31

  Mrs Whitelocke’s hopes were however blighted. Cromwell got his way. Elaborate arrangements were made for Whitelocke’s mission: he was equipped with rich presents including a sword and inlaid spurs. In April 1654 there was a portrait of Cromwell for Queen Christina – a gesture which much recalled the habits of royalty in a previous era – beneath which Marvell helpfully inscribed some verses, addressed to the Bellipotens Virgo who sat on the Swedish throne:

  Haec est quae toties inimices Umbra fugavit

  At sub qua Gives Otia knta terunt*

  (* This is the shade from which the bad men fled

  While better fellows took their ease instead.)

  In response to a delicate inquiry from Whitelocke, Cromwell assured him that bills would be promptly met, which seemed to show that the new State was beginning to understand the uses of display in international relationships. However, it turned out that the Commonwealth, so touchy about its own titles, had not yet got the important knack of getting those of other people right. Sir Robert Stapylton was found writing from Upsala to point out that Christina’s titles had been described wrongly: although the Queen had shown tolerance, in future the English should be “exactly careful in such punctilios in all their overtures to foreign states”.32

  It was in October too that Cromwell turned his attentions again to the intricate situation in France. The celebrated German-born engineer Joachim Hane, who had been last heard of advising on the new Scottish fortresses, was despatched by Cromwell on a secret mission to France, to see what help if any could be given to the French Protestants. Travelling as the merchant Israeli Bernhard, he was supposed to make contact with them for the further propagation of religion, and also to report on those bases of La Rochelle and Bordeaux, with the use of which Conde was trying to inveigle Cromwell into assisting him. Unfortunately Hane was captured after being recognized by someone who had seen him in Scotland, and after some unpleasant adventures including torture at French hands, only managed to escape to England by the skin of his teeth. He left a vivid Journal of his experiences (which incidentally gives the lie to the later charge by Cromwell’s critic Slingsby Bethel that Cromwell actually betrayed Hane: quite apart from the pointlessness of such an exercise, Hane made no mention of it).33 However by this time another of Cromwell’s emissaries, Jean Baptiste Stouppe, had convinced him as a result of conferences with the French Protestants, that Conde’s motives were mixed, and his overtures not to be trusted. The problem of France, those waiting fellow Protestants, who should surely be assisted to spiritual satisfaction and national gain, remained to trouble and tease Cromwell for another time.

  Autumn in England brought only an exacerbation of the political crisis, of which the action of the Barebones Parliament over tithes in high summer had already provided a sour foretaste. There is evidence that Cromwell himself maintained until a comparatively late date hopes of papering over the divisions in ecclesiastical policy. He initiated for instance in October joint conferences of Independent ministers and Fifth Monarchists, including John Owen and Stephen Marshall. His own chaplain Sterry was instructed to bring in such fiery preachers as Christopher Feake. But like King Canute, Cromwell found himself incapable of stemming the increasingly turbulent waves of religious disagreement in the pulpits and anti-clericalism in the Parliament itself. These in turn reacted on those members, the moderates, who continued to support tithes and all they stood for. Nor was the old Army party, now led by Lambert, likely to sit tamely by while their objectives were thus impudently brushed aside by the radicals.

  The rivalry between Lambert and Harrison had been the subject of popular comment as soon as the dissolution was performed: Lambert was described as being more popular than Harrison, “his interest was more universal. . . both in the army and the country; he is a gentleman born, learned, well qualified, of courage, conduct, good nature and discretion”. In the Council elections of i November, Harrison reached only thirteenth place; nevertheless his opposition and that of his group to any settlement outside the demands of the Fifth Monarchists remained inflexible. That the situation was heading fast for a new clash, was recognized by outsiders at the time. On 2 December the Venetian Ambassador repeated the general rumours that there would soon be a change of government. Nor were the populace in a much happier state: unpaid sailors now occupied the previous stance of the unpaid soldiers, and a body of them even managed to accost Cromwell and Monk in Whitehall, demanding loudly “justice and right”.34

  It was on 2 December that the plan of the moderates for the future settlement of the tithe question was put forward in the Barebones assembly. The legal ownership of tithes was not to be called in qu
estion, and anyone who scrupled to pay them should go before the Justices of the Peace. Unsuitable ministers on the other hand were to be ejected. But on 10 December these provisions were defeated in the Parliament by a narrow majority. That left a fresh vote regarding the continued appropriation of the tithes to the ministers two days later: and that too was generally expected to be defeated. The situation had reached the point of crisis. Action, if there was to be action, must be swift: n December was a Sunday. Throughout the day Lambert and his associates worked like holy beavers, and by the Monday morning were certainly confident of the support of the Speaker, Rous, as well as a number of other weighty members of the assembly.

  On the Monday morning, 12 December, before the question of tithes could be raised, Sir Charles Wolseley was given the floor by the Speaker. Although springing from a Royalist family, he had married a daughter of the Puritan Lord Saye and Sele, and become a passionate personal admirer of Cromwell. Immediately and obviously by prearrangement, Wolseley launched into a great diatribe against the existing assembly. The abolition of tithes, he said, was an attack on property itself. With at least eighty members by now in the plot, it was not difficult to get the dissolution of Parliament moved, seconded and passed, all at breakneck speed. At this moment the radicals, although their cause was clearly lost, rallied to show in their turn a defiant spirit. While the mace, that newly peregrinating symbol of Parliamentary authority, was formally delivered to Cromwell in the Horse Chamber, certain of the members stubbornly refused to move. Alexander Jaffray from Scotland was one of them: there was even an attempt on the part of the remnant to get the proceedings going again under Harrison’s colleague, Samuel Moyer, of the East India Company, in the Chair. So once more it was out with the musketeers. These lastditchers in their turn were forced from the chamber less than nine months since the forced dissolution of the Rump.