the term "Commonwealth" may be objected to as somewhat ambiguous, for the reasons already stated,1 nevertheless it will be convenient to entitle this work, "A History of England under the Government called the Commonwealth,”—a Government which began on the death of King Charles I., and ended on the expulsion of the Parliament by Cromwell.

The new materials which I have used in the composition of this and the preceding volume are the Minutes of the Council of State, contained in forty MS. volumes of the original draft Order Books of that Council. It may, I trust, not be deemed impertinent to state here that my attention was first directed some years ago to these MS. minutes of the proceedings of the Council of State by the kindness of the English historian of Greece, Mr. Grote, who then said that when, some years before, he went through the State Paper Office, the gentlemen who showed him these volumes of original MS. minutes told him that they to Harrington's Commonwealth of Oceana," which work Harrington dedicated "To His Highness the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland." A commonwealth in the sense of a republic with such "a Protector" is a contradiction in terms. The Cæsars might as well be called "Protectors of the Roman Republic," or the boa-constrictor the protector of the rabbit he has swallowed. The truth of the assertion by which Cromwell qualifies his disapproval of "the government of a single person," that he " forced to take upon him the office of a high constable, to preserve the peace among the several parties of the nation," is involved in the other assertion that Cromwell governed better than the Long Parliament. Indeed,

was

one foreign writer on English History
asserts that no party could govern
like Cromwell. This remark is only
true as applied to the state of things
after Cromwell's death, when it was
found, by those who attempted to
cause the public affairs to revert to
their former channel, that, as the
writer of the preface to Ludlow's
Memoirs observes, "Oliver had so
choked the springs that the torrent
took another course;" and after a
short period of struggle among parties,
Monk performed his part, and sold the
nation to Charles II. But the remark
above cited is totally inapplicable with
regard to the Parliament and Council
of State which Cromwell expelled on
April 20, 1653, and which governed
infinitely better than Cromwell.
1 See Vol. I. p. 33.

had never yet been examined (as far as he knew) by any English historian.

There are one or two features of the present volume to which I wish to advert. In the first place, it appears a duty to truth to make the limits of the duration of the Government called the Commonwealth thoroughly understood, inasmuch as, that Government having been confounded with the usurped military despotisin of Cromwell, nearly all the English historians have thus given to Cromwell all the credit due to the good government of the statesmen of the Commonwealth, and to the statesmen of the Commonwealth all the discredit due to the bad government of Cromwell. These two volumes being devoted to the history of the Government called the Commonwealth, strictly define the limits of its duration—namely, from February 1, 1648, to April 20, 1653, a period of four years and somewhat less than three months. During that period, if they had done nothing else, they created a navy which defeated the most powerful navy, commanded by the greatest admirals, the world at that time had ever seen. And during the last ten months of their existence their great Admiral, Blake, besides minor achievements, such as the destruction of the French fleet under the Duke de Vendôme, fought four great pitched battles, three of which he won; and the defeat in the fourth, when he maintained for many hours, with thirty-seven ships, a fight against ninety-five, commanded by Tromp, tended rather to raise than to lower his own and his country's naval renown. So that, even by writers not favourable to the Commonwealth, this has been called "the annus mirabilis of the English navy." To the credit of all this, as well as to the credit of the battles won against the Dutch in June and July 1653, after his

expulsion of the Parliament, Cromwell has not the shadow of a claim.

In the second place, a comparison of the preparations made by the Government of Queen Elizabeth against the Spanish Armada, with the preparations made by the Council of State of the Commonwealth against the aggression of the Dutch naval power (really far greater than the Spanish), and also against a projected invasion of England, about the time of the invasion of the Scots which led to the Battle of Worcester, by the forces of some of the Continental despots, under the command of the Duke of Lorraine (evidence of which I have found in the MS. minutes of the Council of State), leads to a clear demonstration of the vast superiority of the statesmanship of the Council of State of the Commonwealth over that of Queen Elizabeth, and her much-lauded Lord Treasurer and other councillors.

i

HISTORY

OF THE

COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND

FROM THE DEATH OF CHARLES I. TO THE EXPULSION

OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT BY CROMWELL:

BEING

OMITTED CHAPTERS OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

BY ANDREW BISSET.

IN TWO VOLUMES-VOL. II.

LONDON:

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

| The right of translation is reserved.]