probable that Cromwell in this point took for his model. He had been most strict and severe in chastising all irregularities, "insomuch," says Clarendon, "that sure there was never any such body of men, so without rapine, swearing, drinking, or any other debauchery-but the wickedness of their hearts." He had brought them to this state by means of religious enthusiasm, the most powerful and the most perilous of all principles which an ambitious man can call into action. When the parliamentary army first took the field, every regiment had its preacher, who beat the drum ecclesiastic, and detorted Scripture to serve the purposes of rebellion. The battle of Edgehill [23 Oct. 1642] sickened them of service in the field; almost all of them went home after that action: and when the tide of success set in against the King, they had little inclination to return to their posts, because the other sectaries with whom the army swarmed beat them at their own weapons. Baxter says it was the ministers that lost all, by forsaking the army and betaking themselves to an easier and quieter way of life; and he especially repented that he had not accepted the chaplainship of that famous troop with which Cromwell began his army; persuading himself that if he had been among them he might have prevented the spreading of that fire which was then in one spark. Baxter is one of those men whose lives exemplify the strength and the weakness of the human mind. He fancied that the bellows which had been used for kindling the fire, could blow it out when the house was in flames! He might as well have supposed that he could put out Etna with an extinguisher, or have stilled an earthquake by setting his foot upon the ground.

In the anarchy which the war produced, some of the preachers acted as officers; and, on the other hand, officers, with at least as much propriety, acted as preachers. Cromwell himself edified the army by his discourses, and every common soldier who carried a voluble tongue, and either was or pretended to be a fanatic, held forth from a pulpit or a tub. The land was overrun with

66 a various rout

Of petulant capricious sects,

The maggots of corrupted texts,"

but they bred in the army; and this licence in things spiritual

led by a sure process to the wildest notions of political liberty, to which also the constitution of the army was favourable: a mercenary army, Hollis calls it, "all of them, from the general (except what he may have in expectation after his father's death) to the meanest sentinel, not able to make a thousand pounds a year lands, most of the colonels and officers mean tradesmen, brewers, tailors, goldsmiths, shoemakers, and the like—a notable dunghill if one would rake into it to find out their several pedigrees." According to him these "bloodsuckers had conceived a mortal hatred" against his party, "and, in truth, against all gentlemen, as those who had too great an interest and too large a stake of their own in the kingdom, to engage with them in their design of perpetuating the war to an absolute confusion." It was by such instruments that Cromwell had made himself, ostensibly the second person in the army, really the first: but he was not yet their master, and was compelled to court them still by professing a fellowship in opinions which he had ceased to hold. Had he espoused the King's cause heartily and honestly, which probably he desired to do, the very men upon whom his power rested would have turned against him, and have pursued him with as murderous a hatred as that which Pym had avowed against Strafford, and had gratified in his blood. Both in and out of the army he needed the co-operation of men some of whom were his equals in cunning, others in audacity: Vane and perhaps St. John were as crafty, Ludlow, Hazlerigg, and many others were as bold. But these men were bent upon trying the experiment of a republic, to which the King's destruction was a necessary prelude. And he who afterwards controlled three nations, is said himself to have stood in some awe of his son-inlaw Ireton, a man of great talents and inflexible character, and sincere in those political opinions which Cromwell held only while they were instrumental to his advancement.

Ludlow, who knew Ireton well, and was the more likely to understand the motives of his conduct because he entirely coincided with him in his political desires, believed that it was never his intention to come to any agreement with the King, but only to delude the Loyalists while the army were contesting with the Presbyterian interest in Parliament: and he relates that Ireton once said to the King, "Sir, you have an intention to be arbi

I

trator between the Parliament and us, and we mean to be so between you and the Parliament.". Cromwell, on the other hand, is said to have declared that the interview between Charles and his children, when they were first allowed to visit him, was "the tenderest sight that ever his eyes beheld;" to have wept plenti fully when he spoke of it (which he might well have done without hypocrisy, for in private life he was a man of kind feelings and of a generous nature); to have confessed that " never man was so abused as he in his sinister opinion of the King, who, he thought, was the most upright and conscientious of his kingdom; and to have imprecated" that God would be pleased to look upon him according to the sincerity of his heart towards the King." There are men so habitually insincere that they seem to delight in acts of gratuitous duplicity, as if their vanity was gratified by the easy triumph over those who are too upright to suspect deceit. Cromwell was a hypocrite, then, only when hypocrisy was useful; there are anecdotes enough which prove that he was well pleased when he could lay aside the mask. In his conduct towards Charles, while that poor persecuted king was with the army, there is no reason to suspect him of any sinister intention; the most probable solution is that also which is most creditable to him, and which is imputed to him by those persons who aspersed him most. Hollis and Ludlow, who hated him with as much inveteracy as if they had not equally hated each other, agree in believing that he would willingly have taken part with the King; and that he was deterred from this better course by the fear that the army would desert him. They agree also that when he was certain of this, he, by taking measures for alarming the King, instigated him to make his escape from Hampton Court [11 Nov., 1647]. Concerning his further* purpose there are different opinions. Hollis, who would allow him

*One of the very few errors which M. Villemain has committed is that of saying that Ashburnham is charged by Clarendon with having betrayed his master on this occasion; whereas Clarendon, though he perceived with what fatal and unaccountable mismanagement they proceeded, entirely acquits him of any intention to mislead the king. M. Villemain writes New York for Newark-from a mistaken etymology we supposé. These trifling mistakes are pointed out for correction, not from the desire of detecting faults, but in respect for a work of great sagacity, perfect candour, and exemplary diligence,-being by far the most able history of Cromwell that has yet been written.

no merit, supposes that he directed him to Carisbrook because he knew that Hammond might be depended upon as a jailer; Ludlow supposes that he thought Hammond a man on whom the King might rely; and Hobbes, with more probability than either, affirms that he meant to let him escape from the kingdom, which, with common prudence on the part of his companions, he might have done, and which, when Cromwell had made his choice to act with the Commonwealth's-men, would have served their purpose better than his death.

He did not, however, join them hastily, nor from his own feelings, but as if yielding, rather than consenting, to circumstances. Conferences were held between some of the heads of the manyheaded anarchy-members, officers, and preachers--to determine what form of government was best for the nation, whether monarchical, aristocratical, or democratical. The ablest leaders of the Presbyterian party had been expelled the House, and some of them driven into exile by the preponderating influence of the army, who availed themselves of the King's presence to obtain that object. These persons, more from their hatred of the Independents than from any other principle, would have defended the monarchy, which was now but weakly and insincerely defended by Cromwell and those who were called the Grandees of the House and army. Either form of government, they said, might be good in itself, and for them, as Providence should direct; this being interpreted meant that they were ready to support any form which might be most advantageous to themselves. On the other hand, the political and religious zealots insisted that monarchy was in itself an evil, and that the Jews had committed a great sin against the Lord in choosing it; and they, apparently now for the first time, avowed their desire of putting the King to death and establishing an equal commonwealth. Cromwell, who was then acknowledged as the head of the Grandees, professed himself to be unresolved; he had learnt however the temper of his tools, and with that coarse levity which is one of the strongest features in his character, he concluded the conference by flinging a cushion at Ludlow's head, and then running down stairs; but not fast enough to escape a similar missile which was sent after him. The next day he told Ludlow he was convinced of the desirableness of what that party had proposed,

have submitted, and the army were not yet so completely lords of the ascendant as to have prevented such an accommodation. But that party had brought on the civil war; had slandered the King in the foulest spirit of calumny; and on every occasion had acted towards him precisely in that manner which would wound and insult him most:—it is impossible to know what catastrophe they designed for the tragedy which they had planned and carried on thus far; but it is not possible that they intended a termination which should have been compatible with the honour and well-being of the sovereign whom they had so bitterly injured. With that brutality which characterized all their proceedings towards him, they refused to let any of his chaplains attend him at this time. There is no subject upon which the King, in his lonely meditations, has expressed himself with more feeling than upon this. He says, "When Providence was pleased to deprive me of all other civil comforts and secular attendants, I thought the absence of them all might best be supplied by the attendance of some of my chaplains, whom for their functions I reverence, and for their fidelity I have cause to love. By their learning, piety, and prayers, I hoped to be either better enabled to sustain the want of all other enjoyments, or better fitted for the recovery and use of them in God's good time. The solitude they have confined me unto adds the wilderness to my temptation; for the company they obtrude upon me is more sad than any solitude can be. If I had asked my revenues, my power of the militia, or any one of my kingdoms, it had been no wonder to have been denied in those things, where the evil policy of men forbids all just restitution, lest they should confess an injurious usurpation: but to deny me the ghostly comfort of my chaplains seems a greater rigour and barbarity than is ever used by Christians to the meanest prisoners and greatest malefactors. But my agony must not be relieved with the presence of any one good angel; for such I account a learned, godly, and discreet divine: and such I would have all mine to be.-To Thee, therefore, O God, do I direct my now solitary prayers! What I want of others' help, supply with the more immediate assistance of thy Spirit: in Thee is all fulness: from Thee is all sufficiency by Thee is all acceptance. Thou art company enough and comfort enough. Thou art my King, be also my