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In the Short Parliament Cromwell sat, so far as we know, as a silent member. Of his appearance in the Long Parliament we have the often-quoted description of his personal appearance from a young courtier. I came into the House," wrote Sir Philip Warwick, one morning well clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking whom I knew not, very ordinarily apparelled, for it was a plain cloth suit which seemed to be made by an ill country tailor; his linen was plain, and not very clean; and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his little band, which was not larger than his collar. His hat was without a hat-band. His stature was of a good size; his sword stuck close to his side; his countenance swollen and reddish, his voice sharp and untuneable, and his eloquence full of fervour, for the subject matter would not bear much of reason, it being on behalf of a servant of Mr. Prynne's who had dispersed libels against the Queen for her dancing and such like innocent and courtly sports; and he aggravated the imprisonment of this man by the council-table unto that height that one would have believed the very Government itself had been in great danger by it. I sincerely profess it lessened much my reverence unto that great council, for he much hearkened unto; and yet I lived to see see this very gentleman whom, by mutiplied good escapes, and by real but usurped power, having had a better tailor, and more converse among good company, appear of great and majestic deportment and comely presence. Curiously enough the so-called servant of Prynne-he was never actually in Prynne's service at all-was no other than John Lilburne, who was such a thorn in the flesh of Cromwell in later years. In undertaking the defence of of the who had been sentenced to scourge and imprisonment for disseminating books held to be libels by Charles and his ministers, Cromwell announced to his fellow-members his Own political position. In life and above all in political life-it is not possible to satisfy those who expect the actions of any man to be absolutely consistent. Later generations may be convinced not only that Charles was sincere in following a course which he believed to be the

was very

man

right one, but that this course commended itself to certain elements of human nature, and was, therefore, no mere emanation of his own personal character. It nevertheless remains that he was far from being strong enough for the place which he had inherited from his predecessors, and that in wearing the garments of the Elizabethan monarchy, he was all too unconscious of the work which the new generation. required of him—all too ready to claim the rights of Elizabeth, without a particle of the skill in the art of government which she derived from her intimate familiarity with the people over which she had been called to rule.

to the

Charles's unskilfulness was the more disastrous, as he came throne during a crisis when few men would have been able to maintain the prestige of the monarchy. On the one hand the special powers entrusted to the Tudor sovereigns were no longer needed after the domestic and foreign dangers which occupied their reigns had been successfully met. On the other hand, a strife between religious parties. had arisen which called for action on quite different lines from those which had commended themselves to Elizabeth. In throwing off the authority of the Roman See, Elizabeth had the national spirit of England at her back, whilst in resisting the claims of the Presbyterian clergy, she had the support of the great majority of the laity. By the end of By her reign she had succeeded in establishing establishing that special form of ecclesiastical government which she favoured. Yet though the clergy had ceased to cry out for the supersession of episcopacy by the Presbyterian discipline, the bulk of the clergy and of the religious laity were Puritan to the core. So much had been effected by the long struggle against Rome and Spain, and the resulting detestation of any form of belief which savoured of Rome and Spain. During the twenty-two years of the peace-loving James, religious thought ceased to be influenced by a sense of national danger. First one, and then another-a Bancroft, an Andrewes, or a Laud, men of the college or the cathedral -began to think their own thoughts, to welcome a wider interpretation

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