CHAPTER VI.

As soon as the English Parliament heard that the eldest son of the late king of England had arrived in Scotland, they prepared for war with that country. Cromwell, who had been summoned home from Ireland by the Parliament some months before, had taken his seat in the House on the 4th of June.1 His entry into London almost resembled a Roman triumph. Many members of the Parliament and Council of State, among whom was Fairfax the Lord General, guarded by a troop of horse and a regiment of foot, and attended by a large concourse of citizens, went out two miles to meet him. When Cromwell came to Tyburn, the place of public execution, where a great crowd of spectators was assembled, a certain flatterer pointing with his finger to the multitude exclaimed: "Good God, sir, come to welcome you home!" Cromwell smiling replied"But how many more, do you think, would flock together to see me hanged, if that should happen?" The con temporary writer who relates this incident adds, "there was nothing more unlikely at that time, and yet there was a presage in these words, which he often repeated and used in discourse." 2

1 Parl. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 1345, 1347.

2 Bates-Rise and Progress of the

what a number of people

late Troubles in England-(Translation of the Elenchus Motuum)-Part ii.

P. 97.

Fairfax, though not himself a presbyterian, being as has been commonly supposed persuaded by his wife and her presbyterian chaplains, declined the command of the English army and threw up his commission. The Council of State sent a deputation consisting of St. John, Whitelock, Cromwell, Harrison and Lambert, to Fairfax to endeavour to prevail on him to take the command of the army destined to march into Scotland. The main argument of Fairfax for resiguing his command was that the invasion of Scotland could not be justified, as the Scots had proclaimed no war with England, and it was contrary to the Solemn League and Covenant for the one country to commence war against the other. To this the answer was that the Scots had already broken the Covenant by the Engagement; and that, though the Engagement had been disavowed by a subsequent Parliament or party, yet their whole conduct latterly had manifested a determination to support the cause of Charles Stuart against the people of England; that therefore war was inevitable, and the only question was whether Scotland should be the seat of war, or the Scots should be allowed to organize their forces, to march into England, and be joined by a party there. Fairfax declared his willingness to march against the Scots if they entered England, but he was against hostilities till that event occurred. It being however resolved to carry the war into Scotland, he resigned his command.1

An act was passed on the 26th of June repealing the act whereby Thomas Lord Fairfax had been appointed captain general and commander-in-chief of all the forces of the English Parliament; and another act was passed the same day, nemine contradicente, constituting and

1 Whitelock, p. 460. Ludlow, vol. i. p. 314.

appointing Oliver Cromwell, Esquire, to be captain general and commander-in-chief of all the forces raised and to be raised by authority of Parliament within the Commonwealth of England. By the 29th of June Cromwell had left London and was on his march to Scotland.1 He was desired by the Council of State to assume the title of "General of the forces of the Parliament of England," and to receive no letters from Scotland without such address.2

8

Mrs. Hutchinson affirms that what many said that Cromwell undermined Fairfax, was false; for in Colonel Hutchinson's presence he most earnestly importuned Fairfax to keep his commission, lest his resignation should discourage the army and the people in that juncture of time, but by no means prevail, although he laboured almost all the night with most earnest endeavours. Ludlow says "he acted his part so to the life that I thought him sincere." The opinion that Cromwell was sincere was entertained at the time by all those who formed the deputation sent by the Council of State to Fairfax. Subsequent events however induced them to alter their opinion, and to think that Cromwell did not wish to succeed in persuading Fairfax to retain his commission, but already regarded his appointment to Fairfax's place as a step to the absolute power he aimed at. But in all these persons this opinion as to Cromwell's sincerity in trying to persuade Fairfax to retain his commission was an afterthought; and I think it not improbable that their first opinion was correct, and that Cromwell was sincere. Neither would his sincerity on this point affect the question of any ulterior designs he might then have

1 Whitelock, p. 460. Parl. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 1350, 1351, 1352.

2 Order Book of the Council of State, 29 June, 1650. MS. State Paper

Office.

3 Mrs. Hutchinson's Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, p. 344. Bohn's edition. London, 1854.

1

formed, for he had found by long experience that Fairfax's being commander-in-chief did not prevent him, the lieutenant-general, from doing nearly what he liked in and with the army. Besides, independently of the question of his sincerity or insincerity on this occasion, there are several contemporary witnesses who affirm that by that time he had begun his operation of moulding the army to his mind by weeding out of it the godly and uprighthearted men, both officers and soldiers, and filling their places partly with cavaliers, partly with personal friends and relatives and others who would "make no question for conscience' sake." These last words are Mrs. Hutchinson's, who joins them with some others which, being rather more than "almost scolding," do not mend her argument. Her testimony however is supported by that of Richard Baxter, and by that of Ludlow. But then their memoirs like hers were written after the event; and we may be permitted to doubt whether the event did not, perhaps involuntarily, colour their recollections of the past. In fact Ludlow, like Harrison and many others, discovered Cromwell's designs somewhat of the latest-that is, after they were executed. Moreover Cromwell was a man who rather watched and took advantage of opportunities than sought to make them. It is therefore improbable that he had any designs of a definite character at this time or indeed long after. And though Mrs. Hutchinson takes credit afterwards for penetration in seeing what Cromwell was about when she says that his mode of proceeding "was unperceived by all that were not of very penetrating eyes, anyone who takes a comprehensive view of the

1 Memoirs of Col. Hutchinson, p. 342. Bohn's edn. London, 1854.

2 Whitelock's description of the

terms of the women's petition to the parliament in behalf of John Lilburne. 3 Memoirs, p. 342.

whole business must see that the deeper designs of a man of the capacity of Cromwell were not likely to be so laid as to be discovered by so common-place a man as Colonel Hutchinson, or by a woman, who however praiseworthy in her character of a wife, evinced so little penetration as to mistake her husband for a hero. Honest Ludlow was almost as little likely to penetrate and countermine such a man as Cromwell as Colonel Hutchinson. Ludlow indeed in after days, when in poverty and in exile he wrote his memoirs, sad and disenchanted though still unsubdued, having indeed if any man ever had a "soul invincible," noted that at a certain time the grand moral distinction between the parliamentary and all other armies began to be destroyed—“ and then the troops of the Parliament," he says "who were not raised out of the meanest of the people and without distinction, as other armies had been, but consisted of such as had engaged themselves from a spirit of liberty in the defence of their rights and religion, were corrupted by him, kept as a standing force against the people, taught to forget their first engagements and rendered as mercenary as other troops are accustomed to be." 1

Whether or not those who mention what they call Cromwell's designs of usurpation in their subsequently written memoirs penetrated Cromwell's designs at the time, there is sufficient evidence that he was not only suspected but publicly charged with such designs at an early period by John Lilburne and other discontented officers of the army. But then the very fact of such charges being made by such men, whatever degree of penetration the making of them might show, rather tended to strengthen Cromwell's power than to shake it. than to shake it. For even assuming that Lilburne's charges were proved, and Cromwell dis

1 Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 21.