to be king: others blame him for not having desired it..... Both are wrong. He evidently thought that monarchy was a form necessary to Great Britain; but it must be a constitutional monarchy, such as exists in the present day. He would have nothing to do with the republic of one party, or with the despotism of another. He could not establish this form of government during his lifetime; but he did establish it after his death. Oliver is the real founder of the constitutional monarchy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

It is in this portion of Cromwell's life that writers have been the most active in search of hypocrisy, although on many other occasions, both before and after, the same reproach has been made against him. But he could say with St. Paul: Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward. At the very beginning of his public life, he said to his friend Mr St. John (11th September 1643), "I desire not "to seek myself." At a season when all minds were the most disturbed, and insults the most frequent, he remained calm, and, opening his heart to Fairfax, wrote to him with christian serenity and firmness: "Never were the spirits "of men more imbittered than now. Surely the devil "hath but a short time. Sir, it's good the heart be fixed "against all this. The naked simplicity of Christ, with "that wisdom He is pleased to give, and patience, will overcome all this." (11th March 1647.) Oliver never lost his assurance in God: he never doubted that, sooner or later, the just Judge would vindicate him. "Though it may be for the present a cloud may lie over our actions "to those who are not acquainted with the grounds of "them," wrote he to Colonel Jones on the 14th of September 1647; 66 yet we doubt not that God will clear our "integrity and innocency from any other ends we aim at "but His glory and the public good." The cloud has long hung over Cromwell's memory; but God has cleared it away at last, and the most prejudiced eyes will now look -not upon the "monster" which their own imaginations

had created, but-upon an upright and sincere man, upon a Christian, and at the same time upon a hero.

He

Let

Oliver knew how to profit by the abuse of men. was not puffed up by it, as is frequently the case; it rather made him feel more keenly his own poverty and weakness: but it did not crush him. "When we think "of our God, what are we?" he wrote to Lord Wharton, on the 2d of September 1648. Oh, His mercy to the "whole society of saints,-despised, jeered saints! "them mock on. Would we were all saints! The best "of us are, God knows, poor weak saints; yet saints; "if not sheep, yet lambs; and must be fed. We have daily bread, and shall have it, in despite of all enemies. "There's enough in our Father's house, and he dispenseth " it."

66

Was there no ambitious sentiment in the Protector, especially in this affair of the kingship? To deny this absolutely would be making him superior to the conditions of mortal existence. There is no man that sinneth not, says the Scripture. Oliver was not exempt from this general rule. All that we would say is, that he was conscientious throughout the struggle, and that if the flesh lusted against the spirit, the spirit fought against the flesh. Cromwell possessed a living faith; and that faith is a power which every day grows stronger in the heart. The object for which God places this heavenly and divine power in man is to overcome the evil, the earthly, and the sensual powers that have taken up their abode in his bosom. The question, therefore, is not whether these two contrary elements, the new man and the old man,—do not exist together in the same individual; but whether the struggle between them is sincere and loyal.

In Oliver the struggle was indeed sincere.

Cromwell's ambition has been the favourite theme of nearly all the writers who have treated of this great man. But for some time past, a very simple truth appears to have been gaining ground,-that in the appreciation of history we must, as Cicero says, ex bono et æquo judicare. We think we may regard the following words as the judgment of an impartial posterity.

"The ambition of Oliver was of no vulgar kind. He never seems to have coveted despotic power. He at "first fought sincerely and manfully for the Parliament, "and never deserted it, till it had deserted its duty...... "But even when thus placed by violence at the head of affairs, he did not assume unlimited power. He gave "the country a constitution far more perfect than any "which had at that time been known in the world...... "For himself he demanded indeed the first place in the "Commonwealth, but with powers scarcely so great as "those of a Dutch stadtholder or an American president. "He gave the Parliament a voice in the appointment of "ministers, and left to it the whole legislative authority, "not even reserving to himself a veto on its enactments " and he did not require that the chief magistracy should "be hereditary in his family. Thus far, we think, if the "circumstances of the time, and the opportunities which "he had of aggrandizing himself be fairly considered, "he will not lose by comparison with Washington or "Bolivar."

CHAPTER XIV.

LAST PARLIAMENT, AND DEATH OF THE PROTECTOR.

The Installation-Two Houses of Parliament-The grand DesignPetty Quarrels-Parliament dissolved-Conspiracies - Domestic Trials--Death of Mr Rich-A pious Son of a pious Father-Death of Lady Claypole-Consolations-Feyer-George Fox at Hampton Court-Cromwell's Words on his Deathbed-Christ our Righteousness-Confidence-The Storm-Cromwell's Successor-His Prayer and Last Words-His Death-Mourning-Cromwell's Christian Character-Oliver and the Pope-Restoration of Mankind-The Protestant Way-Oliver's Principles-The Pope's Policy-Conflicts and Dangers of the State-The Two Men of the Seventeenth Century-Conclusion.

On the 26th of June 1657, Cromwell, after his refusal of the kingship, was again solemnly inaugurated Protector. The Speaker in the name of the parliament presented to him in succession a robe of purple velvet, a bible, a sword, and a sceptre of massive gold. The parliament was afterwards prorogued until the 20th of January in the following year.

On its reassembling it consisted of two houses. The Protector had told the Commons that he would not undertake the government unless there was some body which, by interposing between him and the lower house, would be able to keep seditious and turbulent persons in check. This was readily granted; and as soon as the regulating power was established, Oliver thought himself bound to revoke the exceptionable measure by which he had supplied its place at the time of the first meeting of the Commons. Their number was augmented by the hundred excluded members,......a bold and dangerous concession. The other house (as the lords were called) consisted of

sixty-one hereditary members, nominated by the Protector, among whom were his two sons and his two sons-in-law.

Cromwell opened this new parliament on the 20th of January 1658, beginning with the usual form, My Lords and Gentlemen of the House of Commons. He returned thanks to God for His favours, at the head of which he reckoned peace and the blessings of peace, namely, the possession of political and spiritual liberty. As religion was always the first of interests in his estimation, Oliver, when speaking of this power, which is the strength of nations, called to their remembrance "that England had now a godly ministry [clergy], a knowing ministry; "such a one as, without vanity be it spoken, the world "has not......If God," added he in conclusion, "should "bless you in this work, and make this meeting happy on this account, the generations to come will bless us."

The proceedings of this parliament did not answer to the Protector's expectations. The Commons would have no other house. One republican, Haselrig, refused to be made a peer, and took his seat in the Commons. Cromwell endeavoured to raise the attention of parliament above all these trivialities, and direct it to the great questions which concerned the country.

Summoning_both houses before him on the 25th of January, the Protector said to them :-"Look at affairs "abroad. The grand design not on foot, in comparison "with which all other designs are but low things, is, "whether the Christian world shall be all Popery? Is "it not true that the Protestant cause and interest abroad "is quite under foot, trodden down? The money you "parted with in that noble charity which was exercised "in this nation, and the just sense you had of those poor "Piedmonts, was satisfaction enough to yourselves of this, "That if all the Protestants in Europe had had but that "head, that head had been cut off, and so an end of the "whole.

"But is this of Piedmont all? No. Look how the "house of Austria, on both sides of Christendom, both in