Cromwell, the Lord Protector

by Antonia Fraser

  The paradox of this situation – a party whose real strength lay in saying no, rather than suggesting anything viable in its place, was neatly summed up by Cromwell himself in conversation with Sir Philip Warwick and Sir Thomas Chichely the year before, when he observed: “I can tell you, Sirs, what I would not have; tho’ I cannot, what I would.”29 It was easy to enumerate these “would nots” including the Star Chamber, shipmoney and other actions which he regarded as assaults on the rights of the subject, or the new grievances induced by Laudian Church government, headed by the position of bishops. Although even here Cromwell seems to have been at this point personally rather uncertain as to what form of national Church he wanted, beyond the abolition of episcopacy on which he felt clearly and strongly.

  But what then of the “woulds”? Above all what of the position of the monarchy? For although the form of monarchy presupposed by the Grand Remonstrance, limited in all its actions and advisers by Parliament, has no particularly extraordinary ring to modern ears, in 1642 it was a very radical concept, and hardly acceptable had it gone through, to many who still considered themselves on the side of Parliament. The clue to the monarchy and Parliament’s attitude to it, at this date, lay in the person of the monarch himself. It was not political theory but the practical consequences of arbitrary rule by a man of Charles’s temperament which concerned Pym and his party. It was this pragmatic attitude which animated Pym’s actions rather than a more profound theory of limited monarchy. Indeed, it was easier in such perplexing circumstances to concentrate on practical actions also – such as the suppression of the Irish rebellion or the arming of the country – where there was more satisfaction to be found, than on abstract discussion on monarchical right, whether divine or otherwise. Yet the effect of these basic uncertainties at the root of Parliament’s endeavours was to spread confusion in the country as a whole, as some sort of armed conflict manifestly drew near. If one supported Parliament, what did the support of Parliament mean? At least the King, on the advice of Hyde, took his stand on the total legality of his own position, and the total illegality of that of Parliament, in mounting such treasonable attacks upon him.

  On 2 June, however, the so-called Nineteen Propositions, presented to the King who was now in the North at loyal York, did provide some indication at least of what Pym and his associates believed should be fought over. Edmund Ludlow later called them “the principal foundations of the ensuing war”. Charles, however, described the propositions when he read them as “a mockery and a scorn”, a judgement which was indeed hard to refute by the standards of monarchical authority in reigns gone by. An indignity, he said, had been offered to him in the delivery of them. Some clauses were extremely personal”- the King’s children were to be educated by, and married to those of whom Parliament approved. Some were religious – the King should accept the reforms of the Church advised by Parliament, laws against Catholics should be carried out strictly, and Catholic peers disqualified from sitting in the House of Lords. Some were political – the privy councillors, the great officers of state should be appointed with Parliament’s approval. Some concerned defence governors of fortifications were also to be appointed with Parliament’s approval, and the King was to sign the militia ordinance. In reply Charles actually showed a shift to a position of “mixed monarchy” which would have shocked his father. But officially he took his stand once more on the past – and the law: Nolumus leges Angliae mutari – we will not have the laws of England changed. His Answer specifically condemned the intoxication which sweeping new powers would bring first to the Commons and ultimately to the people themselves with possible consequences of anarchy. Better far was the “ancient equal happy well-poised and never-enoughcommended constitution of the Government of this Kingdom”.30

  Action often eliminates the need for reflection as well as the opportunity. It was action which occupied Oliver Cromwell during the late spring of 1642. How many committees claimed him, how many official messages were borne by him from the House of Commons to the House of Lords: his heavy untidily dressed figure with its shambling gait moving purposefully about Parliament’s business, became a familiar aspect of the scene at Westminster. A portion of this activity was concerned with the progress of the Adventurers, for in Ireland the suppression of the rebels was proving lengthy and expensive. Other activities concerned more directly the preparations for a conflict in England, symbolized by Parliament’s proclamation raising the militia, and placing the resultant forces under its own control. In June and July the pace did not slacken. Among other duties Oliver Cromwell sat on the committee set up to consider answers from the King to the Nineteen Propositions; he was one of those to confer with the Lieutenant of the Tower of London concerning its safety, and was appointed to confer with the Lords on the question of the Lord Mayor of London, the subversive Sir Richard Gurney. Once again he took part in a number of conferences and committees with the aim of sending more money and troops to Ireland. On 1 August the Commissioners for Irish affairs resolved that four of their number, with Cromwell’s assistance, should prepare a plan for the speedy despatch of volunteers thither.31

  There was as yet no question of Cromwell being named among the leading men of the Parliamentary party as far as the outside world was concerned. But he had acquired some reputation beyond the mere confines of Westminster, particularly as a supporter of the Puritan ministers. At the end of July, Sir William Brereton, already the leader of the opposition movement in Cheshire, wished to protest the severity being shown locally to these divines by the King’s Commissioners of Array (in charge of raising his troops). Brereton wrote three letters on the subject, to the Speaker of the House, to his cousin the MP Ralph Assheton, and to Oliver Cromwell.32

  Brereton certainly gave Cromwell a graphic picture of the sufferings of these unfortunate men, who badly needed protection against this harassment. “Indeed it is most apparent,” wrote Brereton, “they (the King’s men) intend so much to enawe the country as that none should dare oppose, discover or speak against their courses.” All of which was much encouraged by the prospect of the King’s arrival in that part of the country, as a result of which Brereton’s Deputy-Lieutenants were being rapidly outclassed by the Commissioners of Array. Brereton and Cromwell had no particular connexion, beyond the fact that Cromwell with two others had helped draft an official letter from the Speaker congratulating Brereton and his allies on “the cheerful obedience” of the county of Chester to the Militia Ordinance, earlier in the month. Clearly Cromwell was already known as one much committed to the proposed changes in the national Church.

  But as so often in Cromwell’s career it was action, precipitate action, which masked his inward thoughts. As both sides sought the support of the country and as in an elaborate cumbersome old-fashioned dance, England somehow took the steps to prepare herself for war in the summer of 1642, much of the population still scarcely believed it was possible as they performed the unaccustomed ritual movements. At this point the position of the universities, Oxford and Cambridge, from both of whom the King hoped for a loyal response financially as well as politically, became of considerable importance. In a letter from Leicester of 24 July, he suggested that some of the rich college plate might be sent to him at York, although he was careful to phrase the request in terms of saving the plate from the rebels, rather than a direct command for its requisition. At Cambridge some plate was certainly massed together: the contribution of St John’s College for instance was two thousand ounces of silver. But in the end it seems none of it was actually despatched to York, with the exception of a few pieces from Magdalene College, and those were intercepted by Parliament.* (* See F. J. Varley, Cambridge during the Civil War 1642-1646, pp. 79-83 for a reassessment of this incident, correcting the Royalist records from those of the Colleges.)

  For the strong hand of the MP for Cambridge, Oliver Cromwell, already lay on the city, the shadow of his fist athwart of this Royalist tribute. Already he had shown a natural interest in the military train
ing of his constituents: on 15 July he had moved that the town be authorized to raise and officer two companies of volunteers, and he had forwarded the money to send down arms to them. Now himself in Cambridge, and with the aid of his brother-in-law Valentine Walton at Huntingdon, he was determined that this golden Trojan Horse should not leave – rather than enter – the town. In this respect he set himself to outwit the Royalists, who were equally determined that an adequate convoy of their supporters should ensure its safe journey through Cambridgeshire. Cromwell marched on King’s College with drums beating and flags flying, to ensure that any treasure there amassed fell to Parliament rather than to King.

  When Captain James Dowcra, sent by the King to lead the convoy to York, arrived in mid-August, there was actually a furious foray in the quiet lanes of East Anglia. And it was typical of the atmosphere of the times in a country teetering on the edge of war, but not yet plunged into it, that some families were already split down the middle, including the Cromwells. Oliver’s first cousin Henry Cromwell, son of Sir Oliver, brought fifty men to help protect the plate; Walton on the other hand sent out warrants for two hundred men to seize it. It was a sensational incident, and those people of Cambridge who neither wished to protect nor to seize the plate, and may perhaps secretly have vowed a plague on both their houses, were nevertheless sufficiently conscious of the drama of it all to rush out and watch the fight.

  Cromwell lined the fields of the Great North Road with hidden musketeers; orders were given to stop and question all wayfarers. Although the sons of a neighbour, Sir John Bramston, who were duly halted and requested to go and give an account of themselves in front of “Mr Cromwell”, on learning that the resolute commander was about twelve miles away, hastily and sensibly bribed their interrogator with twelve pence, and were allowed to go on their way. The plate did not pass to the King. The amount saved by Cromwell was reported in Parliament as worth .Ł20,000 or thereabouts, and his exploit was considered sufficiently important for Cromwell and his companions to be officially indemnified by the House of Commons for their behaviour. A further order was given to put strong watches on the various bridges round Cambridge and King’s Lynn, in order to seize all stores and money which might be intended for the King.

  On 22 August the King raised his standard at Nottingham, with a company of princes beside him, including the Prince of Wales and his nephew Prince Rupert of the Rhine, newly arrived from the Continent. For those who liked historical coincidences, it was the anniversary of the day on which Henry vn had won the crown at Bosworth Field, the birth of the Tudor monarchy.* (* Perez Zagorin in The Court and the Country, 1969 in his Conclusion calls it “one of those singular correspondences that figuratively declare the passing of things… in a very real sense what began in 1485 [i.e. the realm’s subjection to monarchical authority as established by the Tudors] was ending in 1642”.33) Or was it more practically significant that just as a flourish of trumpets outside Nottingham Castle preluded the reading of the proclamation, the King halted the proceedings out of fear that some of the wording might be miscalculated? Taking the piece of paper, he corrected it hastily, so that the herald had some difficulty making it out, and only read extremely limpingly. The lack of clear-cut aim on either side, and additional lack of clarity about the composition of these sides themselves, was demonstrated by the confusion. Lastly, the heavy Royal Standard, which had been erected so long in England’s feudal history, to signify the summoning of his host to the King, their tenant-in-chief, required twenty men to manipulate it. There was a third piece of symbolism to be found in the fact that it had already blown down by 6 September, and a more mobile, more modern flag had been set up in its place.34

  Only the loyal cry which followed: “God save King Charles and hang up the Roundheads” revealed that the parties had at least polarized in terms of nicknames. “Roundheads” alluded to the short-lived fashion of the apprentices who deliberately cropped their hair in scorn of the “unloveliness of love-locks” (the title incidentally of an early pamphlet by William Prynne). A craze for short hair at the beginning of the war did not last. As Lucy Hutchinson observed, a few years after the war began a stranger would have wondered at the meaning of the term. For contrary to popular impression the Parliamentary leaders were not to be distinguished by their short hair. Nearly all of them wore their hair long, as can be seen from their portraits, following in this of course the habits of their own social class, rather than those of the apprentices: Oliver Cromwell certainly had loose-flowing hair, nearly shoulder-length, throughout his life. The counter cry of the “Cavaliers”, which has a charming and dashing connotation to modern ears, originally derived from the Spanish word cabalkros and mocked the alleged allegiance of the English Court to foreign Spanish Catholic ways.35

  Clarendon wrote later of a country punished for its sins by civil war, having brought the conflict upon itself by unlawful resistance to its King: “the whole business of the matter was whether the King was above Parliament, or Parliament, in ruling, above the King”. If Clarendon believed that the rebellion had been about power, Cromwell himself looking back after twelve years saw it differently. Although the contestants had at the time believed they were fighting for liberty, to make Parliament the supreme trustee of the law in England, another cause had finally emerged – the manner of the worship of God. “Religion was not the thing at first contested for, but God brought it to that issue at last… and at last it proved that which was most dear to us.” But in those stirring days in late August 1642, Cromwell was neither indulging in introspection nor was he one of those who shrank back in fear from the black prospect of strife. On the contrary, it was all part of an inevitable, deeply disturbing, deeply exciting process by which the way of the Lord had to be fought out, in order to be discovered. His last action before the war, a wellplanned, successful pirate’s raid, showed how far Mayerne’s melancholy introverted patient had progressed, whether in the House of Commons, on committees, raising troops or simply plundering royal plate.

  After all, it was in military action, in the cannon’s mouth, that it would be supremely possible to find the certainty of God’s favour. How more dramatically could divine approval for the godly be demonstrated, in this “Theatre of God’s Judgements” as Dr Beard had designated the world on earth below in his famous book, handbook of Puritans, than in the triumphant winning of a battle? It recalled those Biblical skirmishes, long ago but not forgotten, quoted by Dr Beard, the outcome of each one of which revealed God’s attitude to the respective sides. Although therefore there was much lack of enthusiasm for the war, much regret”with what a sad sense I go upon this service” wrote the Parliamentary commander Sir William Waller to his Royalist counterpart Hopton later – at the outbreak of the war Cromwell, the agitator, the worker and now the soldier, had no time to share this sadness as he set about his service. Had he not for many years unconsciously been preparing for this great crusade in the service of the Lord? It was Milton who later summed up percipiently this early but not insignificant phase of Cromwell’s life:36 “He first acquired the government of himself, and over himself acquired the most signal victories, so that on the first day he took the field against the external enemy, he was a veteran in arms, consummately practised in the toils and exigencies of war.”

  PART TWO

  War and Peace

  Pax Quaeritur Bello – Let Peace be sought through War

  Oliver Cromwell’s personal motto

  5 Noble and active Colonel Cromwell

  I had rather have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else. I honour a gentleman that is so ‘.” indeed.

  OLIVER CROMWELL IN August 1643

  Cromwell’s first action after the King had officially opened the war by raising the standard at Nottingham was characteristic of his whole approach to the early phases of the Civil War – vigorous, effective and brisk. On 29 August he mustered a troop of horse at Hun
tingdon, probably made up of volunteers from Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire; his name was among the eighty Captains paid .Ł1,104 each by Parliament for such a task, and his brother-in-law John Desborough was named as his Quartermaster. The cavalry at this date was raised customarily in single troops, not regiments, their numbers varying considerably, but averaging about a hundred men. Cromwell’s approach was essentially blunt, showing that he at least was not suffering the agonies of those who could not quite accept that it would ever be lawful to fight the King. It was in deference to such feelings that Parliament’s commission to raise a troop read, with undoubted possibilities of confusion, that the men should be ready to fight “for King and Parliament”. Parliamentary loyalties were still nailed to the old mast of ancient liberties, the status quo of Britain as it had long existed, in which it was assumed that the person of the King was somehow attacking the institution of a properly controlled monarchy. According to Clarendon, however, Cromwell assured his hearers at Huntingdon that he would neither deceive nor woo them by “this perplexed and cozened expression”. Therefore if the King happened to be in the midst of the ranks of the enemy as they charged, he, Cromwell, would discharge his pistol as at any other private individual. And if their consciences would not permit them to do likewise, then he advised them not to enlist in his troop or under his command.

  Much later when Cromwell was Lord Protector, one who called himself “Theauro John” challenged him to make good the oath he had heard him swear on that occasion: “You sought not ours but us and our welfare, and to stand with us for the liberty of the gospel and the laws of the land.”1 However it was now the military means of standing for these worthy ends which constituted the problem, rather than the nature of these ends themselves. It was a problem which applied equally to both sides in a land singularly unprepared for war, let alone civil war. It was true that a number of English commanders, including Sir Thomas Fairfax, the Earl of Essex and George Monk had served in the Dutch armies and in the Thirty Years War, thus deriving some experience of professional soldiery. This applied more particularly to the Scots, a number of whose officers had served abroad in the great tradition of Scottish soldiers of fortune. But it is worth emphasizing that Oliver Cromwell belonged on the contrary to the far larger proportion of those who would now take up arms in earnest for the first time.