Cromwell, the Lord Protector

by Antonia Fraser

  In turn Oliver commended his Government for the protection and quiet the people as a whole enjoyed under it. Ludlow objected to the bloodshed which had taken place: there was, he said, a distinction to be made between a sword in the hands of a Parliament to restore the people to their ancient rights, and a sword in the hands of a tyrant to rob and despoil them of these same rights. Oliver, said Ludlow, could not appreciate the difference. But perhaps it was not so much that the Protector could not appreciate it, as that the evidence of his own eyes was constantly assuring him that he himself did more for the people than any abstract concept of “ancient rights”. As it happened, his Major-Generals did not even secure for him the meek Parliament of his expectations: in certain cases elections of Oliver’s supporters could be attributed directly to their influence, as Martin Noell was now elected via Major-General Worsley for Stafford. Desborough had given a wry report from Launceston in advance: despite his consultation with the “honest people of every county”, he had to confess that everywhere “I hear of their making parties, and undoubtedly their designs are to overthrow all”. While Desborough acknowledged that his specific business was “to break all such contrivances”, the evidence of the returns, and indeed the subsequent behaviour of this Parliament, shows that the Major-Generals did not succeed in maintaining any kind of successful electoral stranglehold. Whalley for example boasted that Nottingham Corporation would make no choice without his advice yet another Whalley, a known Royalist, was actually returned for the shire. In general, these elections showed the returning power of the great country magnates, stirring again like great sea-creatures on the ocean bed after a time of quiescence. At Whitehall Oliver was said by the Venetian Ambassador to be taking the elections extremely seriously: “As his highness wishes the assembly to be composed entirely of his partisans and supporters,” he wrote, “he tries to captivate some who are less inclined to him by blandishment and flattery, entertaining them at sumptuous banquets, and heaping infinite courtesies on them to win them to his side.”49 But blandishments at the centre could not prevent some ugly cries of “no soldiers, no courtiers” being heard in London itself, which once again might have provided a sinister echo of the 1640s to the historically minded.

  The final proof of the return of the crypto-Royalists was provided at the moment of assembly of Parliament itself. It was significant that only eight of the returned members had taken part in Barebones Parliament: two hundred and thirty had sat in the 1654 Parliament, and one hundred and eighty had never before sat in any Parliament. At this point certainly the mixture was not considered sufficiently satisfactory by the Council until they had exercised the right given to them by the Instrument of Government to approve the choice of members. As a result tickets were prepared by the Clerk of the Commonwealth in Chancery, after the indentures had been scrutinized for each member. Any member lacking “a certain ticket” to present at the door, was “kept out by the soldiers”. In this manner it seems that about one hundred and twenty elected members were excluded.50 Oliver later referred to this piece of blatant if theoretically justifiable interference as having been done at the instigation of the Council by “the officers” rather than at his own wish, which was probably true. Nevertheless it could hardly be argued that the Second Parliament of the Protectorate had got off to a very promising start.

  Oliver’s own incursion at the opening was equally fraught with drama. As before, he rode in solemn procession in his coach, surrounded by members of the Council, gentlemen in attendance and lifeguards. As usual the first event was to be a sermon in Westminster Abbey, given by John Owen. Little was the Protector aware that secret agents, inspired by a visit from the former Leveller soldier Sexby, were planning to assassinate him as he left the church. The chief conspirator in it all was one Miles Sindercombe, who had already been involved in that plot against Monk in Scotland which had resulted in Overton’s arrest; he was aided by another Royalist called Boyes and an old soldier named John Cecil. The assassins duly hired a room in King Street, Westminster, belonging to a tailor, and from there moved on the critical day to the house of a Royalist sympathizer, Colonel Mydhope, which lay just next to the east door of the Abbey, with plenty of back doors of its own for easy egress. To this vantage point the three men repaired “about sermon-time” carrying a viol case which contained a blunderbuss and some slugs.

  But unfortunately for Sindercombe and his associates, subsequent events only proved the truth of the cruel rule concerning the assassination of individuals: it is not necessarily particularly difficult to kill a single public figure, but it is very difficult for the killer to be certain of escaping free thereafter. If his escape is made a prerequisite of the assassination, then the odds on the killing succeeding are greatly lengthened. So despite their favourable position, the enormous crowds surrounding Oliver prevented Sindercombe and his men taking aim from the window and they feared to mingle with the people. It was said afterwards that had Sexby himself been there, he would have made the attempt and the deed would have been done. Oliver himself referred to such attempts afterwards magnificently as “little fiddling things”, giving the lie, if any confirmation was needed concerning his personal physical courage, to the tales spread by the Royalists to the effect that he was drinking himself to death for fear of assassination.51 But the truth was that even such a fiddling little thing, in more ruthless hands, could one day end the life of the Protector. As for the Sealed Knot, although Thurloe had by now converted one of its members Sir Richard Willys into a highly valuable double agent able to lead him to preventive Royalist arrests, the fact remained that the Spanish alliance of King Charles n had once more raised the nightmare of a foreign invasion. Was it right to leave this Stuart representative – “the young man” as Cromwell called him – in sole possession still of all the aura, constitutional as well as loyalist, which still surrounded the person of a King?

  A year previously Marvell had published anonymously his great poem on the First Anniversary of the government under the Lord Protector then the epitome of the heroic figure to his supporters.

  If these be the Times, then this must be the Man…

  he had begun sublimely, and on the subject of Cromwell’s ambivalent personal title had commented with equal confidence:

  For to be Cromwell was a greater thing

  Than ought below, or yet above a King…

  But now the Times at least had changed, the Man himself had been much changed by them, and perhaps the title too should change. Was it still a great thing to be merely “Cromwell” when so many advantages pointed the way to becoming also “King”?

  21 A royal sceptre

  Let the rich ore be forthwith melted down

  And the state fixed by making him a crown

  With ermine clad and purple, let him hold

  A royal sceptre, made of Spanish gold

  EDMUND WALLER TO OLIVER CROMWELL ON THE SEIZURE OF THE SPANISH TREASURE-FLEET 1656

  Oliver Cromwell marked the inception of the Second Protectoral Parliament on 17 September 1656 with his customary address.1 Its opening was characteristic: he did not pretend to be a rhetorician, he said, nor like them, to speak “words. Truly our business is to speak Things; the dispensations of God that are upon us do require it.” And speak of Things he now proceeded to do, in a speech of whose length contemporary estimates ranged from two to three hours, and whose structure, even allowing for difficulties of reporting, was somewhat diffused. The Protector touched amongst other subjects on the Spanish War, which had provided the immediate cause of Parliament’s calling, the Catholics who were blamed for it, the Cavaliers and their plots against his rule, to say nothing of the state ofEngland itself; here he not only praised the freedom of conscience now prevailing, but also the work of the Major-Generals together with that of the Triers, in promoting a new society. These latter had even managed to effect an increase in calls among youthful scholars, if to the possible detriment of their work: “And I do verily believe, that God hath for the Mini
stry a very great seed in the youth of the Universities, who instead of studying books, study in their own hearts.” As for the reformation of manners, “and those abuses that are in this nation through disorder” he had hinted to them already that it was a thing that should be much in their hearts: “I am confident,” he asserted, “that the liberty and prosperity of this nation depend upon reformation, to make it a shame to see men to be held in sin and profaneness… The mind is the man. If that be kept pure, a man signifies somewhat; if not, I would very fain see what difference there is betwixt him and a beast.”

  And so on and so forth, a speech undoubtedly turgid in parts yet providing some valuable glimpses of the Protector’s continuing obsession with his self-ordained task of bringing about a more generally godly state in England. Indeed on his own role in this, and his conviction of its Tightness, he urged his Parliament to “look up to God! Have peace amongst yourselves I Know assuredly, that, if I have interest, I am by the voice of the people the Supreme Magistrate.” None the less Parliament also had its part to play in their great task, “both of us united in faith and love to Jesus Christ, and to his peculiar interest in the world, that must ground this work”. The Psalms were brought into play like heavy guns. There was the eighty-fifth Psalm he had recommended to them beforehand as “very instructive and significant”, the one hundred and eighteenth Psalm and another Psalm he described as Luther’s (actually the forty-sixth, beginning “God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble”) which he called “a rare Psalm for a Christian”. This Cromwell proceeded to quote more or less perfectly from memory including the great verse “We will not fear though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the middle of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled” and the final repeated injunction which he especially cornmended: “The Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.” But perhaps the most admirable passage of his speech was that in which he urged Parliament to be merciful as well as orthodox,* ( * In his insistence on mercy, Cromwell even referred to the famous text on charity of 1. Corinthians … as though it applied to mercy: “we know that it is saith that if a man could ‘speak with the tongue of men and angels’ and yet want that [mercy] ‘he is but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal’,” he said.) before finally urging them to pray that God might bless them with his presence, and go together to choose their Speaker.

  For all Cromwell’s adjurations this Parliament was to provide little of the holy strength and calm which he so vividly desired, nor indeed much evidence of a union towards Christ’s work with the Protector himself. It was true that by January it had duly voted .Ł400,000 for the continuance of the Spanish War, in accordance with the purpose of its summons, but otherwise it was marked by increasing discordances. Parallel with the way the militaristic rule of the Major-Generals had only grown in unpopularity in the country with use, was the fact that those members of Parliament who were not of their clique also much resented them. Moreover such incidents as the crude rejection of elected members at the door of the House had left a further unpleasant impression of arbitrary sword-supported rule. In October the Venetian Ambassador commented jokingly on the military face of London: “here are no mosca [patches] on the ladies’ faces but moschetto [muskets] on the men’s shoulders”. So many troops, he said, might assure Cromwell’s power but they were ruining the country and exhausting it: the machine might be strong but – “it is violent”.2 And in the House itself the new membership was marked by an increase in exRoyalists now interested in a more stable settlement of society, less dependent on the Army’s favours. In Cromwell’s own counsels, lawyers and men like Lord Broghill, with a predisposition towards the return of some kind of monarchy, were beginning to play a more important part.

  It was in this context that the first open suggestion in Parliament was made that the Protectoral office should be made hereditary in Cromwell’s favour. The proposal, on 28 October, in the form of an amendment to the Instrument of Government which had established the elective office, came from William Jephson. A former Cromwellian Colonel who had fallen at one point out of favour, he was now returned to Parliament as member for Cork. On 14 November the Protector received a deputation on the subject but declined the suggestion; on 19 November however it was again discussed. Although Broghill argued strongly for it, Desborough, Cromwell’s own brother-in-law as well as a Major-General, was typical of those leading Army men who professed themselves equally vigorous in opposition. The most that Desborough would concede in argument later in the month, was that Cromwell might name his own successor: that would prevent the anarchy on his death which was the increasing dread of informed men of goodwill, yet it would not offend the republicans. As for Cromwell’s private thoughts on the subject, Ludlow (who must however be treated as a hostile source throughout all the long-drawn-out business of the kingship) tells a story of Cromwell playfully clapping Jephson on the shoulder at the suggestion that he might become King: “Get thee gone for a mad fellow,” he was supposed to have replied lightly. But, wrote Ludlow significantly, it soon appeared with what madness Jephson was possessed, “for he immediately obtained a foot company for his son, then a scholar at Oxford, and a troop of horse for himself”.3 Later indeed Jephson was to be made Cromwell’s special envoy to the King of Sweden before the Treaty of Roskilde.

  The fact was that Jephson’s nattering or at least outspoken suggestion only brought out into the open what was being muttered in dark corners, in council chambers, and wherever there was gossip to be found in Whitehall and elsewhere in England that autumn. Of course the scandalous notion of Cromwell as King on the malicious tongues of his enemies at least was not a new one. As early as 1649 a Dutch cartoon had crowned him, and a pamphlet in its title had referred to a crown for Cromwell in the same breath as a coffin for King Charles. Rumours of kingship had swept Europe at the time of the dissolution of the Rump, and again at the time of the creation of the Protectorate, when, as has been seen, there is good reason to suppose that some of the soldiers actually suggested that Cromwell might become King. Nor had the establishment of the Protectoral office put an end to all speculation: in the summer of 1655 Ralph Josselin heard talk that the office of Emperor might be revived. By the autumn of 1656, although much of the action was taking place under cover, it was undoubtedly true that some kind of re-examination of the form of government was taking place. Perhaps, as Giavarina the new Venetian Ambassador suggested, officials were even now busy searching through ancient papers for previous solutions to such problems.4 It will be recalled that there had been those who had preferred the title of Emperor to that of King in the autumn of 1653, because, unlike its later grander connotations, it was in the seventeenth century considered less majestic. Meanwhile there were others, Cromwell’s admirers, who did not scruple to put into poetry what others did not yet put on paper. Edmund Waller, saluting the capture of the Spanish treasure-fleet by Captain Stayner in September 1656, suggested the best use this hoard of gold could be put to, in a way which was scarcely equivocal:

  Let the rich ore be forthwith melted down

  And the state fixed by making him a crown

  With ermine clad and purple, let him hold

  A royal sceptre, made of Spanish gold…

  In fact one use to which the bullion was put did in its own way contribute to the making of a royal – or imperial – image for the Protector. In 1656 some new Protectoral coins were commissioned from Thomas Simon although not approved by the Council till June 1657; they were to be struck by the “ingenious” Pierre Blondeau according to a new process he had perfected with letters milled along the edges to prevent their spoliation by clipping. Blondeau, a Frenchman who understandably jealously guarded the secrets of his process from inquisitive English eyes, equally understandably encountered some hostility from the supporters of the native Mint: at one point he was reminded unpleasantly of the fate of the French coiner Philip Mestrel condemned to death in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
But Simon’s work was attended by no such traumatic xenophobic demonstrations: for the coins he produced a profile of the Protector crowned by a laurel wreath, which in its imperial conception would not have disgraced the loftiest of the Roman Emperors. Moreover the likeness was later to impress both Pepys and Evelyn as being very pronounced, or as the former recorded: “Upon my word,” it was, “more like in my mind than the King’s.” The reverse of the coin contained the Protectoral arms, and the respective mottoes read OLIVA: D.G.R. PVB. ANG. sco. ET HIB. PROTEC. on the one side, and Pax Quaeritur Bello, Cromwell’s personal motto on the other. Blondeau’s work was to add the lettering round the edges: Has. Nisi. Periturus. Mihi. Adimat. Neo (These let no man spoil unless he wishes to perish). Altogether a total of about Ł2,000 in milled money seems to have been prepared, with further orders in the summer of 1658, stopped at the Protector’s death. (See plate facing p. yoi.)*5 ( * It is however the modern view that these coins although struck were never actually circulated. No Cromwell coin figures in the Trial of the Pyx of 1657. Arguments to the contrary were advanced by H. W. Henfrey in Numismata Cromwelliana, on the grounds that surviving coins show great signs of wear. But this could be explained by their retention as souvenirs, and in any case the wear exhibited is often disproportionate to the length of time they could possibly have been circulated. The popularity of such coins as souvenirs is attested in Pepys’s Diary; and a series of copies were even made as a result in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in England and Holland. But the proclamation of Charles n after the Restoration demonetizing coin struck under the Commonwealth does not mention the Protectoral coinage.) So in some measure Waller’s hopes for the gold were fulfilled.