By far the most valuable contribution, however, to the biography of Cromwell, and the history of his government, is beyond all question, his "Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations; by Thomas Carlyle." It forms a new era in the history of the man and his times. Men, in general, cannot go in search of the evidence: even more diligent students, earnestly desirous of forming a just estimate of Cromwell, have not always the unwieldy treasures of the British Museum at their disposal, nor the time to avail themselves of them, if they had. They are compelled to turn to Clarendon, or Hallam, or Vaughan, or Forster; and accept of arguments and opinions often in lieu of evidence. Carlyle, however, places us on altogether higher ground. His evidence is now before us, arranged and sifted, in chronological order, and with clear references to the circumstances under which each fact transpired. If the reader like not his "elucidations," he is welcome to elucidate them better for himself, if he can. Already this work produces fruits. A foreign divine, in high esteem for piety and literary attainments, stimulated to the task by a grateful sense of benefits conferred on his Huguenot fathers by the Protector of the English Commonwealth, has stepped into the arena, and become the vindicator of Cromwell; with what success it would be out of place here to judge. Others, no doubt, will appeal to the jury of the English nation, now that the evidence is before them; and it is only as such an unpretending popular appeal, that this little sketch is offered. As one volume of a series, I have been bound down as to space, and limited in its production as to time. The reader is not therefore to expect from it what it makes no pretensions to. Where it has seemed necessary, points have been occasionally illustrated by reference to early authorities, and to sources beyond the reach of the general reader; but original research into the vast fields of contemporary controversy and pamphleteering has not been attempted, nor is it now greatly needed, in order to form a just estimate of Cromwell. It is not from want of evidence that he has been misjudged hitherto, but rather, because the evidence has been from the first so overlaid with extraneous prejudices and opinions, that it has required far more labour and ingenuity than ordinary readers are in the habit of exercising, to separate the one from the other. Above all, rejection of false evidence has been far more needed than the accumulation of any additional and trustworthy materials. In coming to a new trial of the question, it has been necessary, not only to receive all prejudiced evidence with caution, but, as a preliminary step, to dismiss altogether certain witnesses from the court, as convicted perjurers, whose evidence has heretofore been considered the most valuable and trustworthy. Even by such convictions, a great point is gained. When all false evidence has been got rid of, the admirers of Cromwell will have little to fear. The more he is known, the greater will be the admiration with which his character will be viewed by all thinking men. To be the leader of a great popular movement, he had probably as little of the vulgar attributes of a popular hero as any man that ever lived. Names, and forms, and shadows of things were altogether intolerable to him. He drove right on to the heart of the matter. Good government was with him the supremacy of order, not the mere realization of the popular will. Toleration was, with him, genuine liberty of conscience to every man who was not prepared to make his religion a cloak for anarchy and treason. Dissimulation!—I do think, after a careful study of his character, that of dissimulation, in its bad sense, Cromwell was incapable. He was a man scarcely ever equalled in decision and self-reliance, and therefore he kept his own counsel without an effort. But in his dealings with the King, with the Scottish Presbyterians, with his own parliaments, and with foreign courts, there is such a dogged straightforwardness; and in his very breaches of constitutional forms, such a steadiness of purpose in going by the very shortest way to the end he aimed at, that I cannot but think it will yet become matter of astonishment that such a charge should ever have been entertained. But the reader has now the argument before him, and the evidence at his command, Truth, not victory, is the aim of the historian, and truth is the daughter of time. EDINBURGH, 18tn APRIL, 1648. D. W. OLIVER CROMWELL AND THE PROTECTORATE. "England! the time is come when thou should'st wean Thy heart from its emasculating food; The truth should now be better understood; Old things have been unsettled; we have seen WORDSWORTH. CHAPTER I. EARLY YEARS. N the 5th of April, 1603, James VI. of Scotland, the Stuart heir to the crown of England, vacant by the death of the great Elizabeth,-after tearful partings with his subjects in the old Church of St. Giles at Edinburgh, and elsewhere, at length set out in un wonted pomp, to take possession of the long-coveted crown. Whatever were the mournings and forebodings of the Scots at so unwonted an alliance with their old southern foe, the Scottish King was elated beyond measure by his fortune, and by the profuse hospitality and largess with which his new subjects |