Cromwell, the Lord Protector

by Antonia Fraser

  Cromwell’s words to Ludlow, when he finally rode into London on the evening of Wednesday, 6 December, to find that the dreaded purge had taken place in dramatic form that very day, did indeed point to this providentialist attitude: he declared that he had not “been acquainted with this design; yet, since it was done, he was glad of it, and would endeavour to maintain it.”11 And so last-minute had been some of the arrangements for the purge, that it was quite possible that Cromwell’s words were literally accurate; dissolution had only been finally rejected by the committee of officers the day before. This was too late for the news to reach Cromwell who was on his way; therefore, if he did derive most of his information from his son-in-law and chief colleague Ireton, he might well have expected a dissolution.

  There was certainly much of improvisation about the arrangements for the purge as they were carried out. At seven o’clock in the morning the soldiers were stationed round the House, and as the members started to arrive, there was Colonel Pride (a stalwart of the Army radical cause, said to have begun life as a drayman or a brewer, who had fought at Naseby and Preston with Cromwell) with a list in his hand to debar those proscribed by the Army. In this task he was ably assisted by Lord Grey of Groby, a peer ever active in the Roundhead cause, described as having “credulous good nature”, qualities which no doubt enabled him to take part in this extraordinary ritual. The obstreperous William Prynne was told that Pride’s commission was the power of the sword as he pointed out the members whose faces were unknown to Pride, a strange echo of Joyce’s words to the King a year back. Prynne however did not think it a “fair commission”. Some members were simply turned away, but those who resisted were locked up together in a chamber, and thirty-nine of these spent the night in a near-by tavern known as “Hell”, even the seven older men present, who were offered parole, refusing it for the sake of their outraged honour.

  Roughly eighty members were left in this purged body of the commons. Their first action on the morrow was curiously inappropriate. It was of course Cromwell’s first appearance in the House for many months, and in the interval he had won the signal victory of Preston. Henry Marten, ever quick-witted, took the opportunity to observe in connexion with the imprisoned members that since Tophet was prepared for Kings, it was fitting that their friends should go to Hell. He then suggested, possibly as a jest, that Cromwell should be thanked for his deserts. But Sir Henry Vane took up the suggestion and the House solemnly congratulated Cromwell. This Parliamentary remnant did now try to show some sort of independence, by protesting against the continued imprisonment of some of the members. Although they had to abandon the ploy, they did succeed in holding over the further discussion of the Remonstrance till 10 December. Numbers of attendance were sinking all the time thereafter, and if Royalist sources were to be trusted, the once proud House sometimes had difficulty in even securing a quorum of forty members.

  Side by side with this decline of Parliamentary influence came the rise of hostility to the King, egged on, given a voice indeed, by the preachers who now resumed their previous role as inciters of violence. Their language was vitriolic as before: the expedient of the weekly fast and sermon had been taken up again, and allowed George Cockayne, minister of St Pancras, to preach vehemently on the old anti-monarchical texts. There were the familiar references to Saul and Ahab, leaders who had wrongly failed to execute Kings; “Woe to them, whose King is a Child, whose Princes eat in the morning” was another convenient text. Above all the message came through clearly that there should be no delay in judgement since there was now no point in compromise: “Honourable and worthy,” cried Cockayne, “if God do not lead you to do Justice upon those that have been the great Actors in shedding Blood, never think to gain their love by sparing them.”12

  Yet it would be a mistake to assume that Cromwell at this point, in knuckling in to the dictates of the radical fringe of the Army – or of divine Providence as he preferred to interpret them – had also abandoned himself totally to the concept of the King’s execution. It was trial rather than sentence that currently preoccupied him, and on the subject of trial, he was also much concerned over the fates of those other abettors and contrivers, English Presbyterians and Scottish leaders, who were also responsible with the King for the Second War. The next three weeks from 7 December onwards – encompassed it is true the final change in his attitude. But they were weeks of manoeuvre and negotiation, in the course of which Cromwell set in train sufficient attempts at parley with the King to convince at least one great authority that he still hoped to save his life.

  Parliament now dutifully reinstated the Vote of No Addresses to Charles (by revoking its repeal) and annulled the votes in favour of regarding Charles’s answers to the Newport proposals as a basis for negotiation. But it was then considered enough to let off Hamilton, Goring and other military leaders with fines and banishment. This was scarcely to the taste of the Army. Shortly afterwards a body of former Army officers who were also Presbyterians, including Sir William Waller and Sir John Clotworthy were arrested on the charge of inviting the Scots to invade England. For this type of trial, evidence was imperative, and it seems that Cromwell made it his business to try and secure some substantiation of the charge from the Duke of Hamilton, now a prisoner at Windsor. Hamilton however held firm, for all the libellous rumour spread by Mercurius Pragmaticus supported by Mercurius Elenticus on 14 December that the “cunning coward” had told tales to “Duke Oliver”. Four days later the newsletters had to eat their words: Hamilton had continued to aver that he had not been invited to England either by the King or any member of the English Parliament. Possibly Cromwell offered Hamilton bribes to provide the vital assurances, for Hamilton was said to have warned his brother against falling into the same trap in a secret letter written in lemon juice. Hamilton certainly understood only too well the issues at stake. He wrote pathetically back to Scotland on 23 December: “It is for obeying their commands (i.e. those of the Scottish Parliament) that I now suffer; and so I trust in God to be looked on, and not as an enemy to either kingdom .. ,”13

  Taken up perhaps with his visits to Hamilton, Cromwell at this point occupied a much less prominent position in the counsels of the Army. A new Agreement of the People was now under discussion there, but Cromwell only attended two of the consequent debates inDecember, those of the I5th and the 29th. It was on the 15th however that the crucial decision was taken to bring the King to Windsor Castle “and there to be secured in order to the bringing of him safely to justice”. A committee of seven was formed to meet from day to day in order to discuss the best ways of doing this, as also to contemplate the fate of the leaders including Hamilton, Goring and Lord Capel. It was Colonel Harrison (confirming in his rich dress the theory that in the Puritan house there were many mansions) who conducted Charles from Hurst Castle to Windsor, where he arrived on 23 December. The previous day the Governor, Colonel Whichcote, had been blessed with a long and detailed series of instructions signed jointly by Cromwell and Ireton on the subject of the precautions he was to take with his royal prisoner. Nothing was to be left to chance, lest Charles elude justice by what was likely to be the last method left to him – escape at the hands of some of his still loyal subjects. Amid details pf horse guards in the Upper Castle, a company of foot perpetually on guard there, bridges drawn up at night, and Charles’s isolation from all other prisoners, one sentence read: “It is thought convenient that (during the King’s stay with you) you turn out of the Castle all malignant or Cavalierish inhabitants” – except, the writers add hastily, the prisoners themselves. The letter ended: “The Lord be with you and bless you in this great charge.”14

  The next day it was the turn of the Council of Officers to draw up stringent rules for dealing with Charles, of which the fifth article read: “You are not to admit any private discourse betwixt him and any other person, save what one of yourselves or one of the aforesaid Gentlemen (officers of the guard) shall hear.” It was significant that one member of the Council pres
ent, and one only, objected to this article – Oliver Cromwell. His objection cannot be without relevance to the secret but none the less positive negotiations in which he was now involved on the subject of Charles. What was their object? It is difficult to be certain at such a stretch of time, particularly as the evidence is in the main second hand. One view held at the time was that Cromwell himself was very much cooling on the aims of the “petty ones of the levelling conspiracy” who were so eager for the death of the King. As a Royalist agent wrote on 21 December: “Strange to tell – I have been assured that Cromwell is retreating from them, his designs and theirs being incompatible as fire and water, they driving at a pure democracy and himself at an oligarchy.” The agent believed that Cromwell was only adhering to “the present design of taking away the King’s life” in order to draw the Levellers’ fire and expose them for the wild men they were.15

  Such straws of evidence, which point at least to some little wind of compromise on the part of Cromwell and Ireton, also fit into the attempts at mediation of Whitelocke and his fellow-commissioner Sir Thomas Widdrington around the end of the third week of December. Having met Cromwell at the house of Speaker Lenthall on 19 December, Whitelocke together with Widdrington had a further meeting with him the next day he found Cromwell lying at ease in one of the King’s rich beds in Whitehall, like many leaders of a new regime capable of enjoying some of the luxuries of the old. At the “earnest desire” of Cromwell and Lenthall, the two commissioners now drew up a paper, ready on 22 December, which was intended “to endeavour to bring the army into some better temper”. It is true that by the Monday it seems that Whitelocke and Widdrington had realized that nothing would induce the soldiers to spare the King’s life, and had withdrawn disheartened from their attempts at mediation.16 But Cromwell was still separated from the fanatical temper of the main body of the Army.

  On 22 December for example, Hugh Peter gave a fire-raising sermon in public, which began with him standing in the pulpit apparently fast asleep, surrounded by soldiers. He was woken with a start by the voice from heaven, which revealed to him that the monarchy was about to be rooted up by the Army, not only in England but in France and other kingdoms. Peter passed on his message with gusto: the powers of the earth were to be dashed to pieces by this Army, “the cornerstone cut out of the mountain”. A few days later he termed Charles “this great Barabbas at Windsor” – a robber who would be released, leaving the soldiers like Christ to be crucified in his place, unless some violent action were taken. This was not the language of Cromwell. Although it has been suggested that his main objective in his tortuous manoeuvres was merely to bring about the trials of the lesser offenders first, in order to confront Charles with their evidence – in short “to bring him to justice with some plausible appearance of legality and consent”17 – there seems no real reason to doubt what many of Cromwell’s contemporaries believed: that he was making genuine attempts to settle the kingdom without cutting off the head of the King.

  Monday, 25 December – a Puritan, working Christmas Day – saw yet another of these obscure approaches in the shape of a visit from Lord Denbigh to Windsor. Denbigh was a prominent Roundhead who had already been employed on various missions to the King. He had a readymade excuse to go down to Windsor in that Hamilton’s late wife had been his sister; but it was said that his real purpose was to put some secret proposals to the King from Cromwell. However, for some reason which is obscure, Charles never saw Denbigh and so the mysterious mission was never accomplished. The King may have rejected him or may have simply been unaware of the true purpose of his visit.18 Whatever the truth of this odd little episode, Cromwell’s speech to the Army Council on the same day as Denbigh made his abortive visit to Windsor, shows how little his mind was yet made up on execution. According to the acid-penned Mercurius Melancholicus, on Christmas Day, when the Army should have been at church thanking God for His memorable and unspeakable mercy in sending His son to save mankind, they preferred to discuss in Council the grimmer subject of the King’s trial. It was Ireton who wanted the King, “the capital enemy”, brought to “speedy justice”, for that they had “conquered the kingdom twice”. Cromwell on the other hand “had more wit in his anger, and told them there was no policy in taking away his life”. His reasons were purely practical, and the most cogent one argued that if at any point they lost the day, they could always produce the King as “their stake”, and “by his means work their peace”.19 „

  Yet the next day, Tuesday, 26 December, as the House of Commons debated the King’s trial, Cromwell was reported in Parliament as singing a very different tune. On this date he made his crucial speech of rejection of the King. According to one version: “When it was first moved in the House of Commons to proceed capitally against the King, Cromwell stood up and told them, that if any man moved this upon design, he should think him the greatest Traitor in the world, but since providence and necessity had cast them upon it, he should pray God to bless their councils” although, he added, “he were not provided on the sudden to give them council”. Another version of the speech makes the reasons for Cromwell’s change of heart even clearer: “Since the Providence of God hath cast this upon us, I cannot but submit to Providence, though I am not yet provided to give you my advice.”* ( * This second speech is dated by its reporter 2 January, but it clearly covers the same occasion as the first, and it was on 26 December that the House first moved to “proceed capitally against the King”.20) Cromwell had thrown in his hand and from now on would make no more efforts to save the King.

  Indeed, so marked is his change of heart from the Army Council speech of the day before as to lead one to infer one of Cromwell’s dramatic turnabouts along the lines of his revulsion against Charles about the time of the Saddle Letter in the autumn of 1647. It may well have been the failure of the Denbigh Mission which decided him, perhaps one of those chance misunderstandings in history which have momentous consequences. But clearly whatever the ultimate cause that secured his passive adherence to the active principle of proceeding against the King capitally, it was Providence which had once more pointed the way. The signs were now leading in a new direction – towards the death of the King. The next day, 27 December, it was agreed in the House of Commons that Charles’s royal state was to be drastically reduced; no longer should he be served on bended knee, and he was to have fewer and cheaper servants. In practice it was a petty humiliation which Charles had the innate dignity to rise above; but in theory it was a dangerous indication of how the position of the monarch was now regarded. “Stamp! Stamp! on Royal Majesty” cried the pejorative Mecurius Pragmaticus indignantly to Cromwell in its last issue of the year: “and as you stamp him down, stamp your own image in his dust”.21

  * * *

  Now things began to move fast. On 28 December the House of Commons read for the first time the ordinance setting up a special court for the trial of the King, which was finally passed on i January 1649. But the enormous contradictions inherent in setting up a court – any court – for trying a sovereign lord of a country were fully demonstrated by the reactions of the House of Lords. By now a tiny body, estimates varying between eleven and sixteen, it nevertheless with some courage rejected the court out of hand. The Earl of Northumberland put the problem in a nutshell: the Commons were clinging heavily to the thesis that the King had wrongly levied war against Parliament and the kingdom of England. But not only, said Northumberland, could they not be sure that it was the King who had levied war first, but even if he had, they had no law extant which could be produced to make it treason in him to do so. That was the nub of the matter: by what law, by what remotest gloss of legality, could a sovereign be tried for high treason, when the definition of treason was of an offence against the sovereign? The trial of Charles’s grandmother, Mary Queen of Scots, had been marked by something of the same difficulty, precedents being sought back into the days of Conradin Hohenstaufen to justify the trial of one who as a sovereign of another country could hardly be sai
d to be within the English law, even if that law contained a measure as wide-ranging as the Act of Association. But Charles was actually the King within his own country. He could not possibly be tried under the Common Law as a subject, to say nothing of the obvious impossibility of producing a jury of his peers or equals. The truth was that no adequate machinery existed for the trial of a King. The machinery that was now hastily thrown together by a narrow majority of a House of Commons forcibly depleted by brute force could hardly fail to incur the censure of those thinking people who inspected it.

  Evidence of this general feeling could be seen in the fact that the original ordinance of the Commons had provided for Chief Justices Rolle and St John, with Chief Baron Wilde, to act as judges; there were to be one hundred and fifty Commissioners as a jury, with fifty to make a quorum. But in a new ordinance brought in on 3 January that idea was abandoned, probably because the judiciary were unwilling to take part in such a charade; the new High Court of Justice was to contain only one hundred and thirty-five Commissioners who were to act as both judge and jury. Three memorable resolutions were added the next day: “That the people are, under God, the original of all just power”, that the Commons of England “in Parliament assembled” had the supreme power in the nation; and that anything enacted by this Commons had the force of law, to be obeyed by the people – “although the consent and concurrence of King or House of Peers be not had thereunto”.22 It was a sweeping declaration of all that men had hitherto been confusedly and vaguely fighting over; with the Commons arrogating to themselves the supreme of power, with King and Lords robbed once and for all of their negative voice.