Cromwell

by Antonia Fraser

  The signs, however, had not finished with Oliver Cromwell. It was a further providence which finally swung him for ever in the other direction. And as Thurloe said, it happened “in the nick of time”. For on Wednesday, 6 May, his mind made up, Oliver took one of those walks in St James’s Park, habitual to him, in this case vital to the course of history. There he encountered what Thurloe termed “the three great men” Lambert, Fleetwood and Desborough. It matters little that their presence there could hardly have been coincidental, and that like the three Kings of the Gospels, they must surely have followed deliberately the star of the Protector into the Park on hearing the news that he intended to accept formally the next day. It was the import of their message which was momentous: for here was no idle joking on the subject of the monarchy, but a definite announcement from all three that they would not tolerate its acceptance. They would not go into opposition against him but they would resign all their employments. It was as though Julius Caesar, on his way to the Capitol, had been greeted not by a soothsayer but by the triumvirate of Brutus, Cassius and Mark Antony warning him of their intentions. Into the myserious shadowyrealms of the mind of Oliver Cromwell, this straightforward decision came like bright, clear, if searing light.

  The projected meeting with the committee for the morrow was put off till the evening. Thursday, 7 May, which might have been his Accession Day, was spent by the Protector in deliberate relaxation. When the committee did arrive panting at Whitehall in the evening – the House had risen before his message was received, but the constituted committee on the kingship thought it their duty to attend none the less – they were not even granted an audience. Cooling their heels for over two hours, they were finally rewarded by a sight of the Protector passing through the chamber on the way to inspect a new Barbary horse. He appeared to ignore them. One messenger then boldly reminded him both of their presence and the reason for it, what was more, “they had attended very long”. The Protector excused himself airily: he thought the House had risen before they got his message and had thus not been able to appoint any envoys to come to him. So finally it was on Friday, 8 May at n.oo a.m. that the Protector met with the committee in the Painted Chamber. Here, after a delay of nearly two and a half months since the first official proposals of Sir Christopher Packe, Parliament at last got its answer with regard to Oliver Cromwell: “he cannot undertake this government with the title of King”40

  He did indeed make a graceful allusion to the time he had taken: “only I could have wished I had done it sooner, for the sake of the House, who hath laid so infinite obligations on me, I wish I had done it sooner for your sake, and for saving time and trouble; and indeed, for the Committee’s sake, to whom I must acknowledge publicly I have been unreasonably troublesome.” The Government proposed consisted of excellent parts, “in all but that one thing, the title …” But he would not be an honest man if he did not tell them that he could not take it: in short “I say, I am persuaded to return this answer to you, that I cannot undertake this Government with that title of King. And that’s my answer to this great weighty business.”

  It was true that Desborough and his comrades had not been idle after their pronouncement, since they could hardly be expected to see into the Protector’s mind, a mind whose workings had long baffled his contemporaries, to appreciate the irrevocability of his decision. On returning home, Desborough found Colonel Pride, that man of iron, and told him of Cromwell’s intention to become King. With his usual vigour, Pride declared: “He shall not.” “Why? how wilt thou hinder of it?” asked Desborough. “Get a petition drawn,” replied Pride. “And I will prevent it.” And forthwith a petition was drawn up, with the active help of John Owen, Cromwell’s friend and former chaplain, who had accompanied him to both Ireland and Scotland, and was now much integrated into every corner of the establishment of the State, having preached the opening sermon before Parliament in September; Owen’s presence illustrated how republicanism died hard in many quarters. The next day, the morning of Friday, this petition was due to be discussed in the House of Commons, suggesting that Oliver should not accept the crown against the petition of the Army. Oliver, hearing of it, and not liking the sound of such stirrings, persuaded Fleetwood to go down to the House and get the matter postponed. Fleetwood was a quarter of an hour too late to prevent discussion altogether, but did succeed in getting the matter postponed.41 By the evening of course the petition was no longer necessary: the crown had been refused.

  For all the significance of Pride’s (and Owen’s) actions, they are more relevant to the speculative point whether Oliver could have held on to the crown against the Army’s wishes, than to his actual decision. They might or might not have been strong enough to oblige him to reverse it. The timing however shows that he had already changed his mind by the Friday morning, and in this context the rumblings of the officers were an irritant rather than a clinching argument. It was the Providence which had for so long guided or haunted Oliver Cromwell which finally galvanized him into rejection.

  * * *

  The general reaction was one of amazement. But Jephson at least bore witness to the fact that at any rate among Puritans, Cromwell’s decision was put down to a sign from heaven, not fear of those on earth. Sir Francis Russell had a philosophical word to say on the subject to Henry Cromwell, still, alas, to be addressed as “your lordship” rather than the Duke of York. “I suppose if I should tell you he [Oliver] often knows not his own mind twere but to affirm he is but a man, and like unto many of his friends and servants who truly love him.” Like many men who have passed through a crisis and are convinced of the Tightness of their ultimate decision, Oliver himself now appeared generally cheerful and relaxed, with the smokeridden days of perplexity put behind him. “He laughs and is merry,” wrote Sir Francis, while the many wise men who had been made to look fools hung down their heads. With Oliver’s capacity for meandering over choices beforehand, went an enviable lack of regret for the abandoned path, once the choice was made. A month later, he was still “very soberly cheerful”, a temper Sir Francis confessed that he liked very much.42 With the rejection of the kingship, as with the death of the former King, there is no evidence that Oliver ever looked back and wondered if he had followed the right course. That certainty at least, his following of providences assured him.

  Now there remained the problem of picking up the rest of the package proposed in the Humble Petition and Advice and disentangling what could be left of a new method of government if the principal clause was extricated. On 19 May the debate on a new Instrument began in the House of Commons, and on 25 May Cromwell finally agreed to its proposals. By these he was to be solemnly invested as Lord Protector. He might name his own successor; and the power of Parliament was to be enlarged at the expense of that of the Council. In future Council members would have to take a new oath ensuring their loyalty. Throughout June preparations were made for the projected new ceremony of Investiture which was to take place at the end of the month. Naturally some sorting out of reputations and allegiances also took place. The children of the Protector were generally supposed to be suffering a reverse, although Richard was made Chancellor of Oxford University at the end of July, which with the prospect of being his father’s nominated successor still before him, meant that his future was still potentially bright.

  Frances Cromwell was however to a certain extent a gainer. There was no more talk of a royal bridegroom now, and it was in June that her sister Mary reported that the determined girl was gradually overcoming objections to the match, by proving that the original stories concerning Rich’s lack of moral fibre had been spread by those who wished to force them apart.* ( * Guizot, Cromwell & the Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 346, note I, is surely right in suggesting that this letter should be dated 23 June 1657 not as bound in the Thurloe Papers, Vol. V, 23 June 1656; it looks forward to the engagement, which occurred in October 1657. The 1656 dating allows for much too long a gap.) Everyone, sisters and friends, was being lobbied on her behalf,
to speak to Oliver, and he was gradually succumbing. In Mary’s view it was just as well: “to tell the truth they were so much engaged in affection before this, that she could not think of breaking it off”. This decision – was it one to anticipate the marriage ceremony as Mary appears to hint? – had been communicated by Frances to no one before she took it. “Dear brother,” wrote Mary to Henry, “this is as far as I can tell the state of the business. The Lord direct them what to do; and all I think to beg of God to pardon her in the doing of this thing, which I must say truly, she was put upon by the [slowness] of things.”43 Both Fleetwood and Desborough, son in-law and brother-in-law respectively of the Protector, resumed their place within the fabric of Cromwell’s supporters, thus providing proof if proof were needed of the genuineness of their objection to the royal title as such, rather than Cromwell’s regime generally. Both now took the oath required of the Council with despatch.

  For Lambert however there was to be no place in the new world. He neither took the oath, nor resigned his commissions, showing yet another sign of wounded vanity as like Achilles he went through the motions of sulking in his tent. Eventually an interview took place between the two men, once so close, one of whom had expected to succeed the other, and one who had been denied the crown by his comrade’s action. The tenor of the conversation was never known, but the upshot of it was the surrender of Lambert’s commissions to the clerk of the Council, at the Protector’s request. Lambert’s reply was to say simply that “he desired nothing more than a retired life in his own house”. So to his delightful spacious property at Wimbledon, once part of Queen Henrietta Maria’s estate, with Frances and his ten children, Lambert retreated. Here he was able to indulge his love of gardening – Lambert was later supposed to have introduced the Guernsey lily to England – and here too he painted, often flower pictures. For all these diversions, he looked, reported Sir Francis Russell “but sadly”. (In happier days, Lambert was even said to have painted a portrait of Cromwell himself: his eldest son John, described as “a most excellent limner” also inherited his father’s talent.)44 Nevertheless Cromwell did not lose all his fondness for him: understanding the severe financial loss incurred in the surrender of his commissions – about .Ł6,000 a year altogether-Cromwell allowed him .Ł2,000 a year still out of his personal monies. It was as though he could not hold great resentment against a man who, if he had wrecked one Cromwellian prospect, had nevertheless reminded him at the last minute as Captain Bradford had tried to tell him in March: “Good my Lord, remember you are but a man, and must die, and come to judgement.” Ultimately Cromwell was sure that the voice of his conscience had spoken.

  The investiture of the Lord Protector when it came indeed lacked nothing in kingliness except the person of a King himself, although the moving of the orders for some of the accoutrements gave the opportunity for some characteristic House of Commons’ pleasantries. For when one Lister objected to the idea of a sword, on the grounds that His Highness had a sword already, he added: “I would have presented him with a robe.” Some of those in the chamber pretended to understand from this “rope” and there was laughter. Lister replied that he had spoken as plainly as he could, and he meant a robe: “You are making his Highness a great prince, a King indeed . . . Ceremonies signify much of the substance in such cases, as a shell preserves a kernel or a casket a jewel,” he concluded. “I would have him endowed with a robe of honour.”45

  Lister however could well have been proud of the programme which followed. For on Friday, 26 June in Westminster Hall where Charles I had been tried only eight years previously for trying to exert powers certainly not much more than those now possessed by the Lord Protector, a weird ceremony was enacted.* ( * But among the many plaques in Westminster Hall, including of course one to the trial of Charles I, there is no plaque to this unique event in English history, the investiture of the Lord Protector.) The similarities to previous coronation services in some details were so marked as to make it clear they were deliberate. The coronation chair for example, “the chair of Scotland”, was brought out of Westminster Abbey “for that and only time”. Under the great window, a rich cloth of state was set up. Draperies for the dais were of pink Genoese velvet adorned with gold fringes. Before the throne lay a table, on which ready prepared lay objects such as a Bible, gilt and bossed, to recall the coronation of Edward VI, another Protestant prince, a Sword of state, and lastly even a sceptre, the last being of “massy gold”’ Most striking of all was a robe of purple velvet lined with ermine, being as Mercurius Politicus most truly said afterwards “the habit anciently used at the solemn investiture of princes”.46 Around, there was a chair for the Speaker, and on either side raised seats for MPs, Judges and on the other side for the Aldermen of the City. Nor was this impressive spectacle for British eyes alone: Ambassadors too were duly summoned by Sir Oliver Fleming, that invaluable Master of Ceremonies.

  About two o’clock in the afternoon, Oliver Cromwell arrived to be inducted into this solemn scene; he came by water, landing at Parliament stairs, and was then taken for a brief retirement to the Lords’ House before meeting in the Painted Chamber a party of MPs, his Council in attendance, officers of State and Judges. To these he gave his assent formally to the Humble Petition and Advice with its certain additional clauses. With the Speaker and MPs duly returned to the Great Hall, and Oliver back in the Lords’ House, he was now in a position to process formally towards Westminster Hall. First there were his gentlemen-in-waiting and other people of quality, then the full panoply of the heralds including Norroy King of Arms and Garter who walked before the Earl of Warwick, bearing the sword. Finally there came the Lord Mayor bearing the sword of the City, and then Oliver himself. Once beneath his cloth of State and on his ornate dais, it was rime for the Speaker to invest the Lord Protector with his purple ermine-trimmed robe, to girt him with his sword and hand him his sceptre. Thus royally – it is hard to avoid the word – attired, the Lord Protector took a solemn oath beginning: “I do in the presence and by the name of God Almighty, promise and swear, that to the uttermost of my power, I will uphold and maintain, the true reformed Protestant Christian Religion, in the purity thereof, as it is contained in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, to the utmost of my power and understanding; and encourage the profession and professors of the same.” And it included these words: “I will endeavour, as chief Magistrate of these three nations, the maintenance and preservation of the peace and safety, and just rights and privileges of the people thereof.”

  Thus Cromwell “standing thus adorned in princely state” as Mercurius Politicus put it “according to his merit and dignity”, looked up to the altar, listened to a sermon of Mr Manton, and heard too the sound of the trumpets acclaiming him, and the shouts of at least some of the people, in answer to the heralds: “God Save the Lord Protector!” From here, his purple train borne up by three pages, another grandson of Lord Warwick, Lord Sherwood and the eldest son of Lord Robertes of Truro, Cromwell proceeded to the New Palace Yard, and here, still in his magnificent robes, entered his coach with Richard Cromwell and Whitelocke on one side of him, Lisle and Montagu on the other. The horse of honour “in rich caparisons” was led by John Claypole. The next day the Lord Protector was again proclaimed with great solemnity in the City, accompanied once more by lifeguards, heralds including Garter King of Arms, trumpeters and members of the Council who were met at Temple Bar by the Lord Mayor on horseback, in crimson velvet gown, accompanied by Aldermen who conducted the Lord Protector for three proclamations at Chancery Lane, at Cheapside and finally at the Royal Exchange.

  So was carried out with every conceivable panoply, save that of actually placing the crown itself on Cromwell’s head – for even Waller’s royal sceptre had not been lacking – the ritual of instituting Oliver in what was to be his last and greatest office. Parliament was adjourned; the Lord Protector and his Council were once more left in control. But for a narrow squeak of one man’s conscience, it might have been a King’
s sway. When all was said and done, it was not an office that Oliver Cromwell would have disgraced, taking into account the fullness of British history. Although the manner of his assumption of power was scarcely perfect, this in itself would have harked back to the Middle Ages, where there were plenty of historical precedents. By ascending the throne as one whose position had been won by force of arms and consolidated by force of personality, Cromwell’s actions would have been at least reminiscent of those of William the Conqueror, Stephen of Blois, Henry VII, Richard in and above all Henry vn in an age not so very far from his own, all of whom had swept aside contenders with better theoretical claims than their own, on the tide of their own strength. It is true that Cromwell, unlike these named, could not claim for himself a fraction of royal blood. Yet it was curious in British history how justifications of lineage and blood could often be rearranged after the event to fit the coming age.* (* And in history generally up till the present time. SeeJ. H. Plumb, The Death of the Past.)