CROMWELL PROTECTOR.

NOBODY was sorry that Cromwell had driven out the remaining members of the Long Parliament; "We did not hear a dog bark at their going," he said afterwards. King, Lords, and Commons having now disappeared, the army was the only power left in the land. The captain-general and commander-in-chief" of the army summoned a hundred and forty "persons fearing God, and of approved 1fidelity and honesty," to meet at Whitehall, in order that they should provide for the "peace, safety, and good government of the Commonwealth. A hundred and thirty-eight obeyed, among them a leather-seller named Praise-God Barebone, from whom the assembly is generally known as "Barebone's Parliament." This body sat for about five months, passed a number of very good laws, tried to pass a number of others well meant but impracticable, and finally resigned its powers into the hands of Cromwell.

He thereupon called "a council of officers and other persons of interest in the nation," and they appointed him "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland." He summoned a Parliament, but as it spent most of its time in discussing the extent of his authority, he dissolved it. He governed as 2 absolute ruler for nearly a year, and then summoned another Parliament, which proved as unsatisfactory as the first, and, like it, was dissolved. For the rest of his life his authority depended upon the army alone.

His second Parliament had asked him to take the title of king, but he refused. Still, though not a king in name, he was more than a king in might; no English sovereign had ever possessed such unlimited power. 3 Clarendon, devoted Royalist as he was, owns that

Cromwell reduced 4"three nations to an entire obedience to all his 5 dictates," and that "his greatness at home was but a shadow of the glory he had abroad. It was hard to discover which feared him most, France, Spain, or the 6 Low Countries, where his friendship was 7 current at the value he put upon it. As they did all sacrifice their honour and their interest to his pleasure,

RESTORED 163 IN THE STHI

BLESSING REST

so there is nothing he could have demanded that either of them would have denied him."

Yet the position of the great Protector was one of solitary glory. He had striven sincerely for the good of the country as he understood it,-and he understood it better than most men of his time,-but he had earned unto himself the hate of Royalists and Presbyterians; he kept order as order had never been kept

before, but all whose lawlessness he had put down disliked him; he possessed the love only of his family and immediate followers.

His immense labours, his overwhelming responsibilities, his unceasing anxieties, told upon his strong frame, and cut short his life. Seven months after the dissolution of his second Parliament, on the third of September, the day of Dunbar and of Worcester, during a storm which tore the roofs from houses and uprooted trees in every wood, his mighty spirit passed away.

8

"While he lived, his power stood firm, an object of mingled aversion, admiration, and dread to his subjects. Few indeed loved his government, but those who hated it most, hated it less than they feared it. Had it been a worse government, it might perhaps have been overthrown in spite of all its strength. Had it been a weaker government, it would certainly have been overthrown in spite of all its merits. But it had moderation enough to abstain from those oppressions which drive men mad, and it had a force and energy which none but men driven mad by oppression would venture to encounter."*

1

1 Fidelity, faithfulness. 2 absolute, uncontrolled. 3 Clarendon. See note on p. 161. three nations, the English, Scotch, and Irish. 5 dictate, command. the Low Countries, or the Netherlands, now Holland and Belgium. 7 current at the value, etc. They would be glad to have his friendship at his own price. 8 aversion, hatred.

THE RESTORATION OF THE STUARTS. OLIVER CROMWELL was succeeded as Protector by his son Richard. He was a quiet, good-natured man, who

might very worthily have filled some positions,-the position of ruler of three nations, each ready to fall into disorder, was not one of them. The people were tired of military sway; hence the Parliament which Richard Cromwell summoned was ready to submit to him because he was not a soldier. For the same reason the army, in whose toils and triumphs he had borne no part, despised him. The officers claimed the right of appointing their own commander, and when this was refused they dissolved the Parliament, and did away with the Protectorate.

During the next twelvemonth the government was in a state of wild confusion. In May the soldiers set up the wretched remnant of the Long Parliament which had been expelled by Cromwell; in October they turned it out of doors again, and in December called it together once more. But the army was not now what it had been; after losing the master mind which controlled it it had fallen to pieces. Some of the regiments wanted one thing, some another; some of the officers were trying to promote the interests of a party, while some were trying to promote their own.

Under these circumstances, men began to think that the best way to restore order would be to restore the Stuart line. The son of Charles I. was ready and anxious to come back. He was a man of whom little bad was known, and from whom much good might be expected. The country, after experiencing the tyranny of a king without an army, had experienced the tyranny of an army without a king. The last seemed the greater evil, if for no other reason than that it was the last; besides which it was thought that Charles must have learnt from his father's fate the wisdom of governing according to law.

BOOK III.

M

The English force in Scotland was under the command of George Monk. Displeased to find the officers stationed in the south setting up and pulling down governments he refused to acknowledge their authority, and at the head of seven thousand 2 veterans, marched into England. As he moved towards the capital the

gentry flocked around him, beseeching him to use hi power for the purpose of restoring peace and liberty to the distracted nation. When he reached London he declared for a free parliament. To that small remnant of the Long Parliament which had been summoned in December by the English officers he added the Presbyterian members who had been excluded in the days of