prepossessions and prejudices of the author of Buonaparte and the Bourbons. The imperfect work now submitted to the reader has no pretensions to be a more correct biography of the Protector: its sole aim is to indicate, especially to continental Protestants, that it is a page of history which ought to be written anew. My first idea was simply to publish in French some of Cromwell's most Christian letters, with a running commentary on the whole. But I have gradually been led farther than I originally intended. I asked myself, what is the worth of all the fine phrases used by this great ruler, if they are contradicted by facts? In consequence of this I was compelled to take his actions also into account, to weigh them impartially, to distinguish between good and evil, and above all to examine deeply into his mind in order to find out the law,—a law that easily escapes the observation of the inattentive eye,—which, by an invisible bond, unites great errors with great piety. I have endeavoured to ascertain his character as a whole: it was my wish to reconstruct an entire existence, and not offer merely a few fragments and startling contradictions of his life. The majority of historians, indeed, have also sought for this unity, and have easily discovered it: according to their views, it is found in his deep hypocrisy. But the documents now before us are a striking contradiction to this hypothesis; and no writer, who possesses the smallest portion of good faith, will ever venture to put it forward again. There is no man in history who has a better title than Cromwell to say with Saint Paul,-as deceivers and yet true. We must therefore seek for some other explanation. To this task I applied myself; and in the chapter on the death of the king I have more fully set forth the result of my inquiries. Of the authors who have treated of Cromwell, some justify not only his principles, but even the worst of his actions: this is going too far. Others, on the contrary, censure not only all his acts, but his character; and in this they commit a serious injustice. These are indeed summary ways of rendering a man's life consistent. By adopting such methods the historian's task is soon ended; but to them I could not have recourse. I was compelled to blame some of this great man's actions, and to vindicate his christian morality. This I have done. The solution I have given seems to be the correct one; but I do not know whether it will produce the same effect on others. May I be allowed to direct attention to a circumstance of which I had not thought when I began this work, but which may in some measure be its justification? Cromwell, during the season of his power, was really Protector of European, and, in particular, of French Protestantism. As I am myself descended from Huguenot refugees, it appeared to me that I had a debt to pay to this illustrious man. There were, perhaps, some of my forefathers among those inhabitants of Nismes, whom the powerful intervention of the English chief rescued from the vengeance of the soldiers of Louis XIV., already marching against that city to execute the orders of the court to the last extremity.* "No"body can wonder," said Clarendon, a man who, it is well known, had no great love for the Protector, and who wrote shortly after the event, "that Cromwell's memory still "remains in those parts and with those people in great "veneration." Even King James was struck with the esteem which the French Protestants in general entertained towards Oliver. "Upon this occasion he told me," says Burnet, "that among other prejudices he had at the Pro"testant religion, this was one, that both his brother and himself, being in many companies in Paris incognito, "where they met many Protestants, he found they were "all alienated from them, and were great admirers of "Cromwell." Gratitude is a debt that no lapse of time should cancel. I hope that no person, in the nineteenth century, will feel that wonder from which the prime-minister of Charles II. was exempt: and what he considered very natural then, in the midst of party feelings, will doubtless be thought so still by an unimpassioned posterity. 66 The vindication, or rather the restoration, of the Protector's memory, has already begun; and perhaps no one can do more for it than Mr Carlyle has accomplished. I * One of the Author's ancestors quitted Nismes a few years after Cromwell's intervention, and found a refuge at Geneva. + Burnet's Own Times, i. p. 102. think, however, that there is yet room for many labourers in the same field. Oliver has been presented as a hero to the world; I present him as a Christian to Christians-to Protestant Christians; and I claim boldly on his behalf the benefit of that passage of Scripture: Every one that loveth God that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of Him. Although these pages will bear no comparison with the work of the writer I have just named, they may, notwithstanding, advance the same object in some degree, particularly when considered under a religious point of view. Others, I hope, will hereafter throw a still greater light on one of the most astonishing problems that time has handed down to us. It is only gradually and by slow degrees that darkness is scattered in history, as well as in the natural world. I am well aware that the task I have undertaken is a difficult one. We have so deeply imbibed in early youth the falsehoods set forth by Cromwell's enemies, that they have become in our eyes indisputable truths. I know it by my own experience, by the lengthened resistance which I made to the light that has recently sprung up, and illuminated, as with a new day, the obscure image of one of the greatest men of modern times. It was only after deep consideration that I submitted to the evidence of irresistible facts. I have no desire to write a literary work, but to perform an act of justice. I do not forget the maxim of pagan antiquity, that we should render to every person his due: I feel that among all the good things a man may possess, there is one which, according to the saying of the wisest of Eastern kings, surpasses all the rest: a good name is better than precious ointment; and above all, I remember, that if a Christian ought to confess the Lord upon earth in order that he may be one day confessed before the angels in heaven, it is also his duty to confess the disciples of the Lord, particularly when they are disowned, calumniated, and despised by the multitude Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. CHAPTER I. CROMWELL'S PRIVATE LIFE. Tendency of the Stuarts-The Protestant Interest-Letter from a Country Gentleman-A Family on the Banks of the Ouse-The Earl of Essex-Oliver-His Birth and Parentage-A Hunting Match-James I.-Oliver at the University, and in London-His Morality His Marriage - His Conversion-His Connexions— Pleasantry-Charles I.-His Marriage, and the Twelve Capuchin Friars-Influence of the Queen-Oliver's Conscientiousness. THE Tudors, and particularly Elizabeth, had exalted England by maintaining the cause of the Reformation; but subsequently to the year 1603, and especially after 1625, the Stuarts, and principally Charles the First, had weakened it by inclining anew towards Roman-catholicism. Not only did they desert their stations as the chiefs of European Protestantism; not only did they cease to withstand fanatic Spain; but a Romish princess, Henrietta of France, was placed upon the throne. That, however, was of little moment: another power than theirs prevented this mighty country from being placed by its monarchs under the yoke of the Italian pontiff. The people no longer walked with their princes. The cause of the Reformation was dear to them; and they were ready to abandon their kings rather than the Gospel. This unhappy family, by wishing to exalt a traditional power in the Church, destroyed their own. While the monarchical authority was increasing everywhere on the Continent, it gradually declined in England; and a new force, the Commons, the middle classes, daily acquired greater strength, liberty, and courage. The ancient charters of England contained extensive guarantees in favour of the national independence. But these institutions had long been, as it were, dead and ne glected; yet they still existed, and the skeleton, so long motionless, was about to be reanimated with a new life. If England had been a nation devoted merely to secular policy, these charters might for ever have remained little better than old parchments; but a new motive powerevangelical faith and the interest of Protestantism-was about to revivify these great institutions, and, by saving England from the abyss towards which the Stuarts were rapidly hurrying her, raise her erelong to the highest degree of influence and glory. This evangelical spirit possessed great strength among the English people: godly families, lovers of the Bible and of liberty, peopled its cities and its fields. The following letter, written by a country gentleman, the father of a numerous family, may reasonably be considered one of the many symptoms of that christian life, which, in that age as in all others, alone possessed sufficient strength to withstand the encroachments of Popery "To my beloved Cousin, Mrs St. John, at Sir William "DEAR COUSIN, Ely, 13th October 1638. "I thankfully acknowledge your love in 66 your kind remembrance of me upon this opportunity. Alas, you do too highly prize my lines and my company. "I may be ashamed to own your expressions, considering "how unprofitable I am, and the mean improvement of my talent. แ "Yet to honour my God, by declaring what He hath "done for my soul, in this I am confident and I will be แ so. Truly, then, this I find: that He giveth springs in a dry barren wilderness where no water is. I live, you "know where, in Meshec, which they say signifies Pro"longing; in Kedar, which signifies Blackness: yet the "Lord forsaketh me not. Though He do prolong, yet He "will, I trust, bring me to His tabernacle, to His resting"place. My soul is with the congregation of the First"born, my body rests in hope: and if here I honour may |