Cromwell, the Lord Protector

by Antonia Fraser

  The case of John Biddle provided another illustration of the workings of Cromwell’s essentially pragmatic policy. Biddle, as a Unitarian and disseminator of Socinian doctrines, including the dispensing of catechisms for both adults and children, quickly came up against the Government laws against blasphemy since among other doctrines he denied the divinity of Christ. He was imprisoned, but in a petition of September 1655 pleaded that the Instrument of Government in its Thirty-sixth Article had laid it down that no one should be forced into orthodoxy. Cromwell was at first inclined to listen favourably to the petition, until he discovered that it had been added to after some signatures had been secured; coming to the conclusion that Biddle was merely a stalking-horse for dissidents, he pronounced angrily that the Instrument had never been intended to maintain and protect blasphemers from the punishment of the laws in force against them, and neither would he. Biddle was banished to imprisonment in the Scilly Isles, but here he did receive an allowance of one hundred crowns from the Protector, for which he wrote a number of letters of personal thanks. Cromwell’s own boast was that “I have plucked many out of the raging fire of persecution which did tyrannize over their consciences, and encroached by an arbitrariness of power upon their estates.” It was certainly justified by his record and his actions. Yet equally the fact could not be gainsaid that the prayer-book had been forbidden once more by the proclamation of October 1655, and that many Anglican clergy, who fell under the axe of the Triers and Ejectors for their opinions, experienced not only rejection but suffering. This was particularly true after the Penruddock rising as a result of which the Anglican loyalties to the existing regime were newly suspect. Oliver, as he himself said on another occasion, wished to let all live in peace enjoying freedom of religion and conscience “but not to make religion a pretence for blood and arms”.27 But the problem of allowing liberty without letting it lead to outright subversion was one he was incapable of solving.

  In no instance was this more apparent than in his prolonged battles with the newly risen force of the Friends,* ( * In the first documentary reference to the Society, the Children of Light, then Truth’s Friends or the Friends of Truth, and so abbreviated to Friends. A meeting was first noted in 1648.) wittily nicknamed by a Derby magistrate in late 1650 “the Quakers” when George Fox, their founder, bade the whole bench tremble at the name of the Lord. As agitators on their own the Fifth Monarchists were now a spent force, although they continued to make sporadic demonstrations of discontent. The Baptists on the other hand were still capable of causing considerable disturbance from the point of view of the civil authority; there were numbers of Baptists in the ranks of the Army, and Henry Cromwell’s problems with them in Ireland were much enhanced by his father’s increasing habit of despatching the tiresome Baptist element thither. It made sense for England, perhaps, but added another contentious element to the divided Irish society with which Henry Cromwell was so gallantly struggling. But as a source of civil disturbance, the Quakers took over where the Fifth Monarchists had abandoned the stage, spreading rapidly from 1653 onwards, and in view of the strong hysterical element in the early manifestations of their religion, were enthusiasts to be dreaded by local magistrates and justices – or indeed to make them quake and tremble. For concentration on the subsequent strong pacifist traditions of the religion of the Friends gives a misleading impression of the very real disturbance which the early Quakers were capable of causing – it was indeed their aim to do so, once they had been “moved” by the Lord to interrupt any particular service or piece of preaching, as Anne Blacklyn was suddenly inspired to call the minister of Haverhill Church from the midst of the congregation, a “hireling” and “a deceiver”.28

  The revelations of John Gilpin, a self-confessed ex-member of the society, in a pamphlet of 1653 entitled Quakers Shaken: or A Fire-Brand snach’d out of the Fire give a remarkable picture of the wild, even hypnotic, enthusiasm that could be engendered, albeit from the hostile point of view. At his first meeting, in the late evening, Gilpin had listened to a speaker denounce all ministerial teaching and all knowledge gained therein, in order to “lay a new ground work vis. to be taught of God within ourselves by waiting upon an inward light”. After the third meeting Gilpin himself was seized, trembled and quaked extremely, fell on his bed, howled and cried to the astonishment of his family. After five meetings he was grabbing a bass viol and playing on it, dancing (things never done by him before) and finally running through the streets of the town proclaiming “I am the way, the truth and the life” (to which activity the same observation no doubt applied). And the “devil” as he put it, did not leave him before he had believed two swallows in the chimney to be angels, had nearly knifed himself in the throat, and had fallen on the floor to lick the dust. This fanatical element was one the Quakers’ brilliant and forceful leader George Fox generally aimed to calm down. A generation younger than Cromwell, Fox was a man of exceptional qualities, from his capacity for ceaseless travel, aided by his lack of need for sleep, to his talent for selfexpression displayed by his Journal. But the disruptive actions of some of his early followers, many of them women, does much to explain why the Quakers became generally unpopular, not only with the Government, but also with their compatriots, who believed, with some reason as it was noted in Cornwall, “the carriage of the seduced ones is suddenly and strangely altered”.

  In effect, it was the old civil problem of a religion which based itself on revelation to the individual: if all outsiders were considered powerless to argue concerning the nature of this revelation, and if at the same time it impelled the individual towards virtual anarchy, then the Government of the 16505 could hardly be expected to sit by. Nouvelles Ordinaires for example explained the Quakers to Europe as people deprived of all modesty, morality and civility, running from Assembly to Assembly troubling the ministers;29 Ralph Josselin termed them “men whose work it is to revile the ministry . . .” before complaining pertinently that “an infallible spirit once granted them, what lies may they not utter, and what delusions may not men be given up unto”. It was typical of the contemporary attitude to the Quakers as potential enemies of the peace, that in 1658 John Pell, hearing of their antics, suggested helpfully to Thurloe from Switzerland that many of them were probably Jesuits in disguise!30

  Nevertheless Cromwell at first contented himself with a spirit of not unfriendly caution towards the Quakers, or at least their leaders. Perhaps his familiar inquisitiveness played a part. At any rate in 1654 when George Fox had been brought before him after his arrest in Leicestershire, the Protector had been satisfied by his promise not “to take up a carnal sword or weapon” against the regime; thereafter the atmosphere was warm enough for Cromwell to part with him on a note of further invitation (according to Fox’s version in his Journal). With tears in his eyes, the Protector urged Fox: “Come again to my house: for if thou and I were but an hour together we should be nearer one another.” And he assured Fox that he wished him no more ill than he did his own soul.

  Having been given his freedom, Fox was subsequently offered dinner in the Protector’s hall, which he rejected. At this Oliver was supposed to have declared: “Now I see is a people risen and come up that I cannot win either with gifts, honours, offices or places; but all other sects and people I can.”31 The declaration is somewhat suspect, since Fox could hardly have overheard it himself. No doubt the Protector in his “very loving” welcome to him was being wise in his generation, and seeing whether cordiality and welcome might bring peace. Yet he showed other signs of genuine curiosity and sympathy for the movement. In 1654 two Friends took it upon themselves to try and convert him to Quakerism, and were received courteously, if ultimately put off by the argument that the Protector stood for “every man’s liberty and none to disturb another”. But Cromwell did ask after Fox’s remarkable associate Margaret Fell. Described as “a tender nursing mother to many” by an early Quaker, she was the wife of a judge at Ulverston and her Lancashire home became the headquarters of th
e travelling Quaker preachers; fifteen years later as a widow of long standing she was to marry Fox. Cromwell now enquired after her if she had needs and even offered her money. Another uninvited Quaker guest at Whitehall, in July, Anthony Pearson, encountered the Protector on his way back from chapel: Cromwell led him into a gallery and “kindly asked me how I did, with his hat pulled off”. Pearson, who according to the customs of the Quakers kept his hat on, responded to this greeting with a long and mystical denunciation of the Protector as a persecutor. In vain Oliver tried to pose the Quaker some direct questions: Pearson, by his account, persisted in answering “to all”. “Answer directly” called the Protector. And he laboured heartily to convince Pearson’s audience “against what I said, and told them the Light of Christ was natural, and that the Light within had led the Ranters and all that followed it into all manners of wildnesses”. Still Pearson paid no attention. It was only after some time of what must have been weary listening (and which certainly provided a remarkable example of tolerance on the part of a head of State) that Cromwell felt compelled to cut him short.32

  By 1655 however the actions of the Quakers in public had grown to the pitch where Governmental patience had worn thin. The proclamation of February which made it illegal to disturb “Ministers and other Christians in their Assemblies and Meetings” not only marked the rise of this menace, but also had much popular support from non-Quakers. Still Cromwell personally made attempts to mitigate the rigours which some of them now began to suffer at the hands of those who implemented the law. Those Quakers of Horsham who wrote to him because they had heard of his declaration “that none in this nation shall suffer for conscience” were rewarded by an enquiry into their case at the Protector’s direct instigation, and eventually by release. Describing themselves as “prisoners for conscience’ sake”, their offences consisted of such things as not removing their hats in church, refusing to take the oath at country sessions (Quakers were forbidden to swear) and owning Quaker books. In addition Margaret Wilkinson and Frances Richman complained that they had been taken away from their children, merely for being moved by the Lord to speak “a word to two priests”. Cromwell took the line that not only were the crimes insufficient to justify the penalties, but that in any case they were matters of religious practice. And there were other instances of his leniency, as at Launceston Assizes, where the Clerk of the Assize was forbidden to estreat the Quakers for any of their fines till further orders.33

  When George Fox, bearing in mind perhaps Cromwell’s previous open invitation, approached Cromwell’s coach in Hyde Park in 1656, it was Oliver who waved him forward, when the lifeguards tried to push him away. So Fox rode by the Protector’s side, keeping up a steady stream of revelations from the Lord on the subject of the Quakers and their sufferings, all “contrary to Christ”, until they reached the gates of St James’s Park. Once more Cromwell in Fox’s words “desired me to come to his house”. It so happened that one of the Lady Protectress’s maids Mary Sanders was a Quaker sympathizer, and to her Oliver reported his encounter thereafter, saying that “he could tell her some good news . . . and he said unto her G. Fox was come to town”. At this encouragement, Fox with his fellow Friend Edward Pigott hastened to Whitehall where they met with Oliver and John Owen. Here they were moved at some length to adjure the Protector concerning the persecution of the Quakers, until finally Fox felt the power of the Lord rise further in him, “and I was moved to bid him lay down his crown at the feet of Jesus; several times I spoke to him to the same effect”. Whereupon, in Fox’s account of this dramatic scene, Cromwell got up from the table where he was sitting, and perched on the table close by where Fox was standing. Fox took advantage of his superior stance to declare that Cromwell would be as high as he was when the Lord’s power came over him.34

  Such incidents all point to a sincere dilemma on the part of the Protector between the claims of conscience and those of civil order, which he attempted in vain to solve by methods of soothing and palliation. These admirable instincts of his own could not disguise the fact that true freedom of conscience did not exist in England under Oliver’s Protectorate, but only a limited freedom for those whose religion did not inconvenience the objectives of the Government. Thus Oliver was irretrievably destined to tangle with the Quakers as his reign proceeded: yet as he well knew and tacitly acknowledged either by his interviews or acts of mercy, these were at heart mostly men of sincerity and anxious desire to fulfil the precepts of the Lord, much as he himself was. This in turn led on to the grave difficulties Oliver experienced in establishing the kind of national Church at which he had once aimed. He had a dream of a national Church in which all moderate parties would take part, whose provisions would lead to the coming of that pious land of Britain on which he had long set his heart. But this kind of Church was attacked from two directions: to some, in their pursuit of the dictates of the Elect, such a Church was not rigid enough. To others it was manifestly too rigid.35 So Oliver also found himself in a personal quandary whereby his own theology, the deep-held conviction that only the Elect would be saved, was in contradiction to his political and humanitarian instincts which wanted a much looser form of organization.

  In his political attitudes he had effectively abandoned the stricter notions implicit in Calvinism: as he repeatedly emphasized, all those who would live peaceably were welcome under his protection. “The Protector sleeps upon no easy pillow,” said Hugh Peter. “If ‘twas such a matter for King Charles to be Defender of the Faith, the Protector has a thousand faiths to protect.”36 In a sense, he had been moving inexorably in that direction since his first angry entanglements with the military Presbyterians who wanted orthodox belief to be the test of a soldier. That still left him with the other half of the problem. The minorities he was now arguing with were not so unlike his own earnest Puritan clique of the 1630s. Some conscious or unconscious sense of the paradox of his situation, persecuting those who stood up for his own first principle of religious freedom, may well have haunted the Protector as now, manfully but ineffectively, he continued to tackle the eternal problem of any liberal Government: how to tolerate sincere opposition without forfeiting civil order. What sign, what dispensation covered these new difficulties? Certainly it was getting sadly difficult to discern any outstanding success in his attempts to deal with the dissenters. At home, as a result, it was becoming easier to concentrate on the daily administrative duties of which there were quite enough to preoccupy him. While signs and dispensations were left for the seeking further afield, in the more visionary realms of his foreign policy.

  * * *

  Contributing to the pressure was the decline in the Protector’s health. Indeed, the winter of 1655 sawthe tightly-knit Cromwell family circle undergoing a series of disabilities. The Lady Protectress was sick. Bettie Claypole was seriously ill (probably with the first manifestation of the cruel cancer that was ultimately to kill her) and both her parents were distracted in consequence. Oliver had a series of bladder troubles including the specific and unendurable agonies of the stone, for which he was reported to have written off to “an excellent chirurgeon” of the Faubourg St Germain in Paris, in search of a cure. This gentleman however would only cross the Channel if paid one thousand pistoles in advance and so the suggestion lapsed. A London surgeon, James Moleyns, who was also called in to treat him for his condition of a stone in the bladder, showed more humanity. Moleyns held the special office of surgeon for the stone to the Royal Hospitals of St Bartholomew and St Thomas, and was called in by Cromwell’s physicians, including Bate. Moleyns managed to effect a cure, but as an avowed Royalist, refused to take payment on the grounds that he had not attended his patient out of love, but because he could not do otherwise. He did however ask for something to drink, and on being taken down to the cellars, proceeded to drink a provocative toast to King Charles. But Cromwell, rating good health above politics, refused to take umbrage. With the words “let him alone, he is mad, but he has done me good and I don’t want to harm him
” the next day he had sent Moleyns Ł1,000 which he asked him to acceptinthenameof King Charles.37

  Gout hovered round the Lord Protector, a disease of which the physician Sir Theodore Mayerne was wont to quote meaningfully the saying of his earlier master King Henry IV of France: “Sometimes he had the gout and sometimes the gout had him.” And in January 1656 Cromwell was in addition suffering from the highly unpleasant effects of a boil on the breast, as a result of which it was reported back to Scotland that no business had been done in that month. Archbishop Ussher, whose audience took place at the time Oliver’s surgeon was dressing his boil, certainly found him in great pain, while swearing: “If this sore were once out, I should be soon well.” To this Ussher reflected piously if pessimistically: “I doubt the core lies deeper, there is a core in the heart, which must be taken out, or else it will not be well.” Oliver to this answered: “Ah… so there is indeed.” And a long sigh followed.38

  A boil was an irritation indeed, but it was the stone which caused the purest torment: indeed the nature of the pain inflicted may be judged by the fact that men in a pre-anaesthetic age actually allowed themselves to be “cut” for the stone, a difficult and often fatal operation, rather than endure it further. Dr Bate, another of his doctors, gave testimony of Oliver’s troubles in this respect, how he was for ever swilling down different kinds of liquor in an attempt to get relief; and at other times he would try the violent motion of the horse and coach in order to try and stir the stone from his bladder.