Cromwell, the Lord Protector

by Antonia Fraser

  As for the Major-Generals, on 24 February, immediately after Packe’s appeal, they flocked to the Protector to complain of Parliament’s action in rejecting the Militia Bill. The result merely demonstrated the extent of Cromwell’s disillusion with their work. Answering them “hastily”, a word which in Cromwell’s case can always be interpreted with foreboding, he asked: “What would you have me do? Are not they [the members of Parliament] of your own garbling [i.e. selecting] ? Did you not admit whom you pleased and keep out whom you pleased? And now do you complain to me? Did I meddle with it?” Three days later, when a hundred officers visited him at Whitehall to protest against Packe’s proposals, this proved to be the occasion when Cromwell reminded them with indignation that once they had not boggled at the word King. And in a long tirade, he virtually accused the Major-Generals of failing to keep the bargain which led to their institution. They had neither kept the “three nations” peaceable and free, nor guaranteed the liberties of the people, nor had they even obtained the majority in the new Parliament which they themselves had aimed at. As for himself, he said, employing that same metaphor for the sovereignty which he used to the Dutch over the details of union, “he loved not the title [of King], a feather in a hat, as little as they did”.27 But the inference was clear: how else was the country to be kept at peace, the work of Christ to go forward, and the settlement of the nation maintained in a manner all parties surely desired? In these observations of Cromwell there was much demonstrable truth. Assuredly it was these arguments which were now swaying him remorselessly in the direction of the throne, rather than any feeble desire for personal glory and the title of King Oliver, a romantic wish perhaps, but one from which he had shown himself singularly free throughout his career. It was the office not the title which interested him. And his words made many converts among his listeners; Colonels Howard and Ingoldsby and many Irish officers withdrew their opposition. Throughout March then the campaign for the kingship gathered rather than lost momentum.

  Only the hard core of Army antagonists remained under Lambert and Desborough. That same day of the interview, Thurloe alerted Henry in Ireland, in a letter written in code, to the dangers of Lambert who he believed would if he could “push the army towards a distemper”. Yet some of their remaining opposition was extremely poignant; one letter of 4 March from Captain William Bradford pointed out the sad contrast between Cromwell’s new supporters, once his enemies, and his old friends, who had attended him through the critical wartime phases of his career:

  My lord, those that are for a crown, I fear have little experience of them; the other, most of them, have attended your greatest hazards… I am of that number, my Lord, that still loves you, and greatly desires to do so, I having gone along with you from Edge-hill to Dunbar … The experiences you have had of the power of God at these two places, and betwixt them, methinks, should often make shrink and be at a stand in this thwarting, threatened change . . . My Lord, when we were in our lowest condition, your tears and prayers much satisfied many. (I was of that number.) Nay, I am confident many of your tears was bottled by God himself. I desire your present business, against oaths and engagements, may not provoke the vials of God’s wrath to break the glasses where your tears yet are…

  Such a letter could hardly have failed to rack the old General’s heart. About this time George Fox made one of his Cassandra-like appearances in St James’s Park, accosted the Protector, and warned him that “they that sought to put him on a crown would take away his life”, while bidding him pay more attention to another immortal crown.28 On behalf of the Fifth Monarchists, Anna Trapnel, the northern prophetess, put her predictably hostile visions on the subject into rhyme:

  Spirit and Voice hath made a league

  Against Cromwell and his Crown

  The which I am confident the Lord

  Will ere so long strike down …

  But the latter manifestations could be ignored. One must suppose that it was Bradford’s arguments rather than those of Fox and Anna Trapnel which concerned Oliver. And even Bradford’s hour had not yet come. As for Lambert’s opposition in Parliament, Thurloe noted that although it was still strong, it was now having scant effect there. “A little time” wrote Morland to Pell, “may produce great matters.”29

  24 March was marked by “a pitched battle” in the House of Commons on the vital first clause of Packe’s Remonstrance by which Cromwell was invited to accept the title and office of King-that clause which had been held over for further discussion while the question of the House of Lords was decided favourably; it was also conceded in advance that Cromwell should choose his own successor. The next day the House voted by one hundred and twenty-three to sixty-two that the invitation should be extended, for all that poor Fleetwood, a lifelong opponent of the principle of monarchy, had issued a long invective against the institution, “in full Parliament” in the course of which he could not hold back his tears. Nevertheless at the end of it all he did not “mutiny” so much as “lament”. There was a difference. Five days later a party of officers told Oliver that they too were beginning to see Providence in it all. This newly favourable providentialist point of view was put well by Colonel Thomas Cooper in a letter to Henry Cromwell at the end of March. Cooper’s new support for the idea of monarchy – “this do I not upon a politic but a Christian account, well knowing that if a hair of a man’s head fall not to the ground without the lord’s providence, much less do so great things as the governments of the world suffer alteration without special providence”. Yet in all this it was important, he felt, that there should be no violence or hurry, but on the contrary “a patient waiting upon the Lord [for] the issue of things, and a close dependence upon him for light and guidance in things of doubtfulness is most safe”.30

  It was advice which Oliver Cromwell, finally offered the kingship on 31 March by the Speaker of the House of Commons at the Banqueting House in Whitehall, seemed inclined to take. The Humble Petition and Advice, as it had now become, was presented by the Speaker in a long speech whose object was “to commend the title and office of a King in this nation; as that a King first settled Christianity in this Island; that it had been long received and approved by our ancestors, who by experience found it to be consisting with their liberties, that it was a title best known to our laws, most agreeable to their constitution, and to the temper of the people.” But Oliver’s speech in reply showed every public sign of genuine indecision, as well as incorporating some flowery compliments: “he observed the rich treasure of the best people of the world being involved therein, it [the invitation] ought to beget in him the greatest reverence and fear of God that ever possessed a man in the world”. But after all “The thing is of weight, the greatest weight of anything that was ever laid upon a man.” Considering this weight: “I think I have no more to desire of you at this time, but that you will give me time to deliberate and consider what particular answer I may return to so great a business as this.” In short, the Protector wanted a brief time “to ask counsel of God and of my own heart”.31 It remained to be seen what advice these two powerful organs were likely to give. In the meantime a committee was to be set up to discuss the matter with him further.

  The first point put to this committee by the Protector, on 3 April, was a vital one. Was the offer.he enquired, indivisible: did all the “ingredients”, meaning the title and office of King, the new powers therein, go together? Must his answer be “categorical”; if he rejected one, must he reject all? This enquiry in itself, while pointing to the turmoil of indecision and discussion now raging wherever the subject of the kingship arose, also pointed to the very genuine sediment of objections to the title of King itself. It had its advantages undoubtedly, but if the office could be distinguished from the title in some clever way, might not the best of both worlds be had: Cromwell’s own views on the subject are murky, for characteristically he argued the subject both ways in public, testing not only his opponents’ views but also perhaps his own. But Henry Cromwell at least
thought it a pity that the excellent new proposals of Parliament should be “so inseparably affix’d to the name of King”, even if it was generally said “that the title of King is more suitable to the laws etc.”. He himself gave vent to a phrase similar to that of his father’s on the subject of the kingship, yet even more vivid: it was, he wrote, “abroad in the world, a gaudy feather in the hat of authority”. But Henry after all was tucked away in Ireland: his father in the centre of it all, was less certain that the two could be distinguished. As indecision raged, in another speech to the committee on 8 April once, again in the Banqueting House, the Protector’s views were more obscure than ever. The main message was simply that he asked for more time to resolve “my own doubts and mine own fears, and mine own scruples”.32

  On 13 April the reply came from the committee that the kingship was not merely a title but an office, and as such it was interwoven with the fundamental laws of the nation. This reply obviously ran parallel to the advice of the monarchists, being extended with force behind the scenes to Cromwell at this time; in the words of Broghill “the law knows no Protector” and above all “this nation loves a Monarchy”. Thurloe himself put the same point in a letter to Henry: “The title is not the question,” he wrote, “but It’s the office, which is known to the laws and this people. They know their duty to a king and his to them. Whatever else there is will be wholly new and be nothing else but a probationer, and upon the next occasion will be changed again.”33

  Oliver did not deny the committee’s answer, but he did none the less reply that these arguments were not conclusive. Parliament could easily make another title “run through the laws” with equal efficiency. At the same time he gave further clues to his indecision, by referring to certain just men in the nation” whom God would not wish him to offend: I deal plainly and faithfully with you, I cannot think that God would bless me in the undertaking of anything that would justly and with cause grieve them.” As for himself, he emphasized that the kingship as such meant little to him: “That is I do not think the thing necessary: I would not that you should lose a friend for it.” Paraphrased, that answer obviously meant that Oliver would only accept the kingship if he was quite convinced that he was being drafted at the general wish of the godly: there must be no possibility of him being accused of acceptance for reasons of personal glory. He needed to be quite sure of the direction in which Providence was pointing.

  At this juncture, the Protector’s unreliable health began to play a part in the proceedings, and several planned meetings with the committee had to be cancelled at the last minute in consequence of his indisposition. Whether it was indeed ill-health or whether the equivalent agonies of simple indecision were the cause of his illness, at all events the whole atmosphere was fraught with tension. And when the Protector did meet the committee again on 20 April, they found him half-dressed, in his gown, with a black scarf tied roughly round his neck. The next day another visit was marked by the production of a long paper from Cromwell commenting on certain aspects of the Humble Petition. He regretted for example the omission of anything pertaining to “the reformation of manners”, bewailing the dissolute nature of Cavalier society with a sudden side swipe at the idea of their youth travelling abroad to France to “return with all the licentiousness of that nation”. But for all he ended that “I speak not this to evade; but I speak it in the fear and reverence of God”, his final words could scarcely be construed as decisive. Once these matters had been cleared up, “I shall be very ready, freely, and honestly and plainly, to discharge myself of what in the whole, upon the whole, may reasonably be expected from me.. ,”34 The question remained whether further matters might not emerge, to be cleared up in their turn. So this Penelope of Whitehall continued to hold off his Parliamentary suitors with a series of unpicked and delaying tapestries.

  The long-drawn-out drama of it all held everyone in London and indeed far abroad enthralled. The day-to-day letters of those involved reporting the twists and turns of the Protector’s mood began to take on the quality of a thrilling if agonizing story of suspense. Oliver through it all smoked heavily. On 16 April Morland wrote to Pell: “My lord has not yet accepted the crown, but gives dubious answers, so that we know nothing as yet.” He at least added: “I beseech the Lord to bless him; if ever man deserved a crown, I think he does.” The same day the French Ambassador told Mazarin that Oliver was likely to accept for all the hostility of the officers. The next day after that, on 17 April, the Venetian Ambassador was equally confident in the other direction, that the prospect of “awaking some sleeping dog by assuming the crown prevents him from placing it on his head”.35 On 21 April, the day of the last unsatisfactory interview with the committee, Thurloe told Henry of how his father had them all hanging in uncertainty and “certainly his Highness hath very great difficulties in his own mind, although he had the clearest call that ever man had …” Yet six days later Sir Francis Russell, Henry Cromwell’s father-in-law, gave him reliably to understand that his father was on the verge of accepting: “I do in this [I think] desire to take leave of your lordship,” he wrote off archly to his son-in-law, “for my next [letter] is likely to be to the Duke of York. Your father begins to come out of the clouds, and it appears to us that he will take the kingly power upon him.” Some weight must be placed on Sir Francis’s evidence, even allowing for the natural optimism which set his mind a-wandering towards his son-in-law’s future royal title; for not only as a family connexion and also an old military comrade of the Protector’s, was he even then within the precincts of Whitehall itself, but he had also had an interview with the Protector that very day – “some discourse with your father about this great business” as he put it; the Protector had been “very cheerful and his troubled thoughts seem to be over”, his concentration chiefly on the Rich-Frances romance.36

  Nevertheless two days later on 29 April the pendulum seems to have swung back. Thurloe reported that the Protector was keeping himself reserved from everyone he knew, so that even he, Thurloe, professed himself unable to know the measure of his mind. On 30 April Samuel Morland described to Pell how the Protector was still keeping them all in suspense, but was now expected to give his final answer “very suddenly” a prediction he had already made a week earlier without success. On i May the House of Commons gave an answer to some more questions Cromwell had raised, and once again he promised them a speedy reply. In fact it was perfectly possible at this point to sympathize with the hostile comment of Colonel Hewson: this Parliament was worse than the Devil, for he had only offered Christ the Kingdoms of the World once, whereas they were doing it twice – the only point being that the repetition was scarcely this “Devil’s” fault. Around this time Bordeaux revealed the true depths of the Protector’s irresolution to Mazarin, how on one occasion at 10.00 p.m. the Protector had excused himself to his friends from accepting the crown, and yet by midnight had changed his mind. Still on 5 May Thurloe was able to write away to Henry: “What his answer will be, God and his own heart only knows (as I believe) having not yet declared himself.” The best way still was “to refer all to the disposition of the Lord, and to acquiesce in whatsoever shall be his pleasure”.37

  In this same letter however Thurloe referred to the continuing opposition to the idea being exerted by Fleetwood and Lambert – how they were speaking of nothing but giving up their commands and all employments if he accepted the title. And it was just about this date that a crucial dinnerparty took place, recounted by Ludlow, between Oliver, Fleetwood and Desborough. It was instigated by the Protector himself, first inviting himself to dinner with Desborough and then bringing Fleetwood along. Shortly he began to joke or “droll” with them on the subject of the monarchy, speaking slightingly of it, calling it but “a feather in a man’s cap” (the same comparison again). Under the circumstances he really wondered that “men would not please the children, and permit them to enjoy the rattle”. These words, once again testing the water, marked a significant advance in Cromwell’s thought pr
ocesses: the kingship, from having been something of no account which he was not therefore concerned to accept, had now on the reverse become a title he might just as well accept simply because it was of so little account, and yet would “please the children” – or the people. The officers’ answer to his cautious jests was unsatisfactory: “for they assured him, that there was more in this matter than he perceived …” Many of those who were putting him up to it had in fact the interests of Charles Stuart at heart, “and that if he accepted of it, he would infallibly draw ruin on himself and his friends”.38 So Oliver departed, disconsolate if we may believe Ludlow, and telling his erstwhile friends that they were a couple of scrupulous fellows.

  For all that, the answer, finally, was to be yes. That we must believe, on the definite testimony of Thurloe who reported that on Wednesday, 6 May Cromwell told several people, including the Secretary himself, that he intended to accept. To this may be added the evidence of Whitelocke that Cromwell had communicated his favourable decision to various members of his family.39 And the long-suffering committee of the House of Commons (which had been put off once more from a meeting on the Wednesday afternoon) was duly appointed to meet the Protector in the Painted Chamber at 11.00 a.m. on Thursday, 7 May – a date which at that point seemed inexorably destined to become the Accession Day of King Oliver I. For two broad streams of argument had now joined as one, after all these prolonged heart-searchings. On the one hand in the realm of government itself, Cromwell had moved round to the weary point of view of Hobbes in Leviathan – that since “the estate of Man can never be without some incommodity or other”, the best that could be done by any form of government for the sake of the people was to preserve peace, law and order. This he himself could probably best guarantee by accepting the title and office of kingship. But on the other hand the ancient philosophy of the man was not forgotten. It was a series of mighty providences that had brought the obscure country gentleman from Huntingdon within touching distance of the royal sceptre. Those earnest searchings after the ways of the Lord in days just gone by were no mere form intended to cloak his ultimate ambition. He had to be sure that Providence pointed in the direction of the throne.