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ENGLISH PURITANISM

ITS LEADERS

I'ltlNTED 1;Y WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

ENGLISH PUEITANISM AND ITS

LEADERS A**

V

SEP 19 193

CROMWELL MILTON BAXTER BUNYAN

JOHN TULLOCH, D.D.

PRINCIPAL ANP PROFES.'fOn OF THEOI.OOV, 8T MABV'S COLLEGE, IN THE UMVERSITV

OK ST ANDREH-.S, AND ONK OF HKR MAJKSTV'S CHAPLAINS

IN ORDINARY IN SCOTI^ND

Author of " Leaders of the E«formation," Sec.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXI

The Ri(jIU of Translation is reserved.

PREFATORY NOTE.

The history of English Puritanism still remains to be written. Separate aspects of the subject have been treated in detail by different \\Titers. M. Guizot, Mr Carlyle, Mr Foster, and, from an ecclesiastical point of view, Mr Marsden, have all contributed by their labours to a right understanding of the great constitu- tional and religious struggle of tlie seventeenth cen- tury. But it cannot be said that the subject, as a whole, in its strange complexity of political, military, religious, moral, and social relations, has received as yet adequate treatment. Who, for example, has pictured to us the living features of those diverse sects, whose presence meets us everywhere in surveying the period, but whose real character and influence it is so difficult to estimate?

The present volume has no pretensions to be a his- tory of Puritanism : it professes merely to give some side-glimpses into that history— openings into a wide field. If it has any peculiar merit, this will probably be found in the analysis which it presents of the moral

VI PREFATORY NOTE.

meaning and characteristics of Puritanism as exhibited in the great lives which it tries to depict. There is notliing in the subject that retains more interest ; and this feeling has been present to the writer throughout, and served to give, in his own mind, some degree of unity to the successive sketches of the volume.

St Mary's College, St Andrews, 5th February 1861.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

1550. 1553-8.

1559.

1562. 1564-5.

1567.

1571.

1572. 1572-7. 1575-83. 1585-91.

1594.

1603.

1604. 1604-10.

1620.

1610.

1622.

1625.

Character of the English Reformation,

Calvinism and Puritanism,

Epochs in the history of Puritanism,

Rise of Puritanism. Bishop Uooper,

Marian Exile, .....

Act of Uniformity. ....

Balance of parties in the Chm-ch,

Extreme policy of Elizabeth,

Sufferings of Fox, Covordale, Sampson, Humphrey

Meeting of Dissenters in Plumbei-'s Hall,

Movements in Parliament,

Admonition of Field and Wilcox, .

Cartwright and Whitgift,

Grindal's Primacy, ....

Hooker and Travcrs,

Books of Ecclesiastical Polity,

Accession of James. Millenary Petition,

Hampton Court Conference, ,

Primacy of Bancroft,

Pilgrim Fathers, ....

Primacy of Abbot, ....

Temporary retirement of Abbot, .

Change of spirit in the Clergj',

Rise of Arminianism. Laud, .

Accession of Charles I., .

PAOK 1

10 11

13 15 16 17 18 19

19-22 23

24-27 27 30. 33 35 37 38 39 40 42 45

Vlll

CONTENTS.

Political influences, ....

Progress and culmination of the struggle.

FAGS

47 49

CROMWELL.

1599. Birth at Huntingdon,

The Cromwell family,

Childhood and youth, 1616. Student at Cambridge,

Irregularities, . 1620. Marriage,

Religious change.

Devotion to the Puritan cause, 1628. Member of Parliament for Huntingdon, .

First Speech,

1631. Removal to St Ives, ....

1635. Earliest extant Letter. Piu-itan Lecturers,

1636. Settlement at Ely,

1637. Excited state of the country, ....

1638. Spiritual darkness,

Lord of the Fens,

Nov. 1640. Meeting of Long Parliament, .... 1640-2. Progress of the conflict between the King and Par

liament,

Activity of Cromwell as Jlember for Cambridge,

Aug. 1642. Outbreak of the War,

Origin of the Ironsides,

1643. Victories at Grantham, Gainsborough, Winceby,

July 1644. Battle of Marston Moor,

Cromwell and the " Godly Party,'' . Oct. 1644. Second battle of Newbmy, ....

Self-Denying Ordinance,

June 1645. Battle of Naseby,

April 1646. King's surrender. Close of the first Civil War, 1646-8. Intrigues and negotiations, .... 1648. Meeting of Ai-my Leaders at Windsor,

Cromwell's family,

1648. Second Civil War. Defeat of Hamilton at Preston Dec. 1648. Col. Pryde's Purge, Jan. 1649. Execution of Charles I Victories in Ireland, Scottish CampaigTi, Sept. 1650. Battle of Dunbar,

CONTENTS.

IX

A.D.

Sept. 1651. Battle of Worcester, . Conferences, 1653. Dismissal of the Rump, Military genius, Difficulties as a Statesman, 1653. Barebones, or Little Parliament, Dec. 1653. Lord Protector of the Commonwealth,

Ecclesiastical arrangements — System of Triers, Sept. 1654. First Protectorate Parliament,

Dissolution of Parliament — Various plots, 1655-6. The Major-Generals, ....

War with Spain,

Sept. 1656. Second Protectorate Parliament,

Negotiations as to the title of King, 1657. Dissolution of Second Parliament,

Marriages of his younger daughters. Illness of Lady Claypole, Sept. 1658. Cromwell's own illness and death.

Character,

PAGE

127 129

130-2 133 134 135 138 140 141 143 144 145 146 147 149 151 152

154-5 155-64

1625-32. 1628.

1632-8.

1638-9.

1640. 1641.

1643.

MILTOK

Dec. 1608. Birth and parentage, 1620-5. Early education — St Paul's school,

Poetical enthusiasm — Spenser and Du Bartas,

Student at Cambridge,

Prospects and the Church,

Twenty-three years of age,

Horton,

Early poems.

Continental journey, .

Paris — Grotius,

Florence — Galileo,

Rome, ....

Naples — Manso,

In love,

Geneva — Diodati, . Tutor in London, Commencement of controversial Anti-prelatic writings. Marriage, .... Return home of Mrs Milton,

career.

170 173 174

175-7 178 180 181

182-6 187

ibid. 189 190 191 193 194 196 198

200-7 208 209

CONTENTS.

Salmasius

Puritanism and Anglicanism in their domestic influence, 211 1644-5. Writings on Divorce, 213-16

Writings on Education and Liberty of Printing, 1646. Reconciliation with Mrs Milton, 1646-9. Inactivity as an author,

1649. Commencement of political writings, Secretary to the Council of State, Iconoclastes, .....

1650. First Defence for the People of England 1654. Second Defence,

Controversy with More, 1653. Blindness, 1656. Second marriage,

Milton and Cromwell, 1658-60. Political and ecclesiastical tracts,

Review of intellectual character and influence, Prose writings, 1660-74. Life after the Restoration, 1662-3. Third marriage.

Mismanagement of daughters, 1667. Paradise Lost,

Later poetic genius,

Puritan characteristics of his great poems 1671. Paradise Regained — Samson Agonistes, Treatise on Christian Doctrine, Letters and compilations. Private habits, 1674. Death, .... General character,

213-16 216-19 220 222 223 224 226 228-30 230 231 232 233 235-7 238-41 241-5 246-5lf 251 252 253-4 256 258 260-7 266-7 268-71 272 273-4 275 275-8

BAXTER.

Theologians of Puritanism, 281

Owen, 282-4

Howe, 285-7

1615. Birth of Baxter, 287

Disgraceful state of the Church in Shropshire, . 288-91

1625-30. Education and religious experience, . . . 292-6

Devotion to metaphysics, 297-8

1633. Visit to Court, 299

1634. Mother's death, 299

1636-8. Ill health, ' . . 300

CONTENTS.

XI

A.lj.		PAGE
	Views as to Conformity,	301
1638.	Ordination and first sermon at Dudley,	302
1639.	Assistant at Bridgenorth,	303
	Et Cetera Oath — Growing dislike to Prelacy, .	304
	Halation to political movements of 1640-2,	305
1641.	Call to Kidderminster,	306
	Retirement from Kidderminster, . . . .	307
1642.	Battle of Edgehill,	308
1642-5.	Settlement at Coventry,	310
	Baxter and the Ai-my,	312-13
	Relations to Cromwell,	314
	Picture of Harrison,	316
	Account of the Sects,	317-27
1646.	Ill health and withdrawal from the Army,	328-9
	Samts' Rest,	330-1
1647.	Return to Kidderminster, ....	332
1651.	Opposition to Cromwell,	333
1653.	Inter^'iew with Cromwell, ....	335
	Labours at Kidderminster, ....	337-9
	Powers as a preacher,	340-2
	"Writings at Kidderminster, ....	343
	Missionary aspu-ations,	344
1658-9.	Relation to Richard Cromwell,	345
1660.	Settlement in London,	346
	Pi-esbyterians and the Restoration,	349
	Chaplain to the King,	351
	Meeting at Sion College, ....	353
	Reformed Liturgy,	354-9
.	Royal declaration,	355
	Savoy Conference,	358
	Negotiations as to Kidderminster, .	360
May 1661	. Act of Uniformity,	362
Aug. 1662	. St Bartholomew's day,	363
	Marriage,	364
1663.	Conventicle Act,	364
1665.	Five-Mile Act,	365
	Life at Acton,	366
1672.	Dispensing declaration — Resumption of preaching.	367
1672-82.	Persecutions,	, 368-70
1685.	Trial before JeflPreys,	. 371-3
1688.	Revolution— Act of Toleration,	374
1691.	Death,	375
	Works,	376

xu

CONTENTS.

Characteristics as a theologian and preacher, Personal character, ....

PAGE

378-87 387-90

BUNIAN.

Spiritual life of Puritanism,

Relation of Bunyan to this spiritual life, 1628. Birth at Elstow,

Wildness of youth,

Religious impressions.

Providential escapes, 1645. Siege of Leicester,

Maj-riage, .

Spiritual excitement.

Poor women of Bedford,

Withdrawal from evil companions.

Ranters — Antinomianism,

New views of Scripture,

Gifford and Congregation of Baptists at Bedford

Spiritual temptations,

Luther's Commentary on the Galatians,

Further temptations,

Justification by Faith — Peace, .

Admission to Baptist Communion, . 1656. Set apart to preach, ....

Character of early preaching,

Dispute with the Quakers,

Slanders,

1660. Arrest and examination before the Bedford Justices Quarter-Sessions — Renewed examination, Imprisonment,

1661. Assizes at Bedford— Sir Matthew Hale, Bunyan' s second wife. Continued imprisonment. Origin of Pilgrini's Progress, The Holy City, or the New Jerusalem, Poems,

1672. Controversy with Bishop Fowler,

Liberation fi-om prison.

Controversy with Baptist leaders, 1678. PubUcation of Pilgrim's Progress,

Popularity as a preacher — Female admirers.

CONTENTS.

Xlll

Sermons,

1682. Publication of the Hohj War, . 1684. Second Part of Pilgrim's Progress, 1688. Journey to Reading — Death,

Character, ....

Allegories, ....

Puritan portraits in the allegories.

Pseudo-religious portraits,

Excellences and deficiencies of Puritanism

FAOE

470 472 472

473 474-6

477-81 482-4 485-6 487-8

ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS

INTEODUCTION

The history of English Puritanism is the history both of a theological movement and of a great national straggle. The spirit of which Puritanism is the sym- bol has entered deeply into the national life, and strongly coloured many of its manifestations. It has given depth and passion not only to the religion, but to the literature and patriotism of the country ; it has largely contributed alike to its intellectual lustre and heroic fame. No one, therefore, can understand the sources of our mixed civilisation without studying the great Puritanical movement of the seventeenth century. It is necessary to penetrate to the heart of this move- ment, and find some sympathetic point of connection with it, before we can appreciate some of the most powerful influences which have moulded the English people and made them what they are. Otherwise, as with some of our historians, the face of the facts may be observed and delineated, but their genuine mean- ing will be missed, and the moral forces out of which they grew and consolidated into history wiU remain unintelligible.

2 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

Britain was the national soil in which the seeds of the Eeformation were destined to take the deepest and most enduring root. Germany did far more to origin- ate and strengthen the movement in its beginnings ; France, in many of its highest minds, showed a more ready receptivity and welcome to the new religious ideas ; England could boast neitlier a Luther nor a Calvin : but the spiritual impulses out of which the movement grew, and which constituted its real life and strength, found in the Anglo-Saxon character their most congenial seat, their highest affinities, their most solid nutriment. Slowly, and under many hindrances, they spread, unaided by the powerful influence of any great teacher, but sinking always more into the depths of this character, and gaining a firmer hold of it. "While dying out in Germany, and hardly able to maintain themselves in France against the fierce odds with which they had to contend, they continued to propagate and gather force in England amidst all obstacles, and only attained, after the lapse of a cen- tury, and under many modifications of struggle and conquest, to their full development.

The English Eeformation had a double origin. It sprang at once from the people and the court. It was the effect of a renewed spiritual excitement in the Church and in society ; it was also the creature of statecraft and royal policy. Erasmus's Greek Testament, and Tyndall's Bible, were the great agents on the one side ; Henry VIII. 's matrimonial necessities, and the tradi- tional anti-Eomish policy of the Crown, were the mov- ing springs on the other. In its earlier stages, and for long, the latter element assumed and exercised the pre- dominance. The Eeform movement in England became characteristically an official movement : the sovereign

INTRODUCTION. ^

was its guide and head ; the State aimed to direct and regulate the course of innovation, and to mould the new Protestantism into conformity with the historical constitution and venerated usages of the old Catholi- cism. But, under all this official guidance, there had lived from the first a religious earnestness and active zeal for reform, impatient of control. The spiritual in- dividualism which the Eeformation everywhere called forth was in Eniiland held in check, but not extin- guished, by the jealous watchfulness of the State. Even the firmness of the Tudor policy was not able to destroy, however it restrained, this moral force. Whether, if this policy had been persevered in, it might have proved successful, and the spiritual ele- ment of the Eeformation coalesced more completely with the temporal, it is hard to say. The close of Elizabeth's life was not without some signs of such an issue. But, as it was, the spirit of religious reform gathered fresh impulse from the very circumstances which were meant to crush it ; and, after years of insult and oppression, it first matched and then mas- tered the royal policy with which it had been so long in conflict.

It was characteristic of the aggressive spirit of the English Pteformation, that it should ally itself with that branch of continental Protestantism which was most thorough and logical in its expression and re- sults. As it was the aim of the state-party, while breaking with the Pope, to preserve unbroken the con- tinuity of Catholicism, so it was the aim of the more radical Pteformers to depart as far as possible from Popery. The one side desired to preserve the histori- cal, traditions, the medieval forms of worship, and the hierarchical framework of the Church of England ; the

4 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

other side desired, in tlie spirit of the Swiss and French Protestants, to base the reformation, both of doctrine and discipline, anew and directly upon Scrip- ture. This was a natural consequence of the profound evangelical consciousness quickened by Scripture, and appearing to be everywhere reflected in its pages, out of which the deeper movement sprang. It was the consequence, also, in a great degree, of the peculiar tendencies of the time, and the special character of the Calvinistic Eeformation.

Unlike Lutheranism, Calvinism maintained a vi- gorous and progressive influence long after its first reforming excitement was spent. Less broad and mag- nanimous in its beginnings, it was far more concen- trated and impulsive in its aims. Eliciting in a far less degree the welcoming humours of a free and sympathetic humanity, it found in its very narrow- ness and inward intensity, rather than genial fulness, its chief strength. It attained to more clear and systematic aims ; it knew its own resources and hus- banded them ; while its dogmatic consistency and in- tellectual masterliness exercised a powerful charm over many minds at a distance, and gave to its prin- ciples a systematic and well-directed efficiency. The result was, that while Lutheranism, after little more than a quarter of a century's living action, was wasting itself in controversy equally violent and feeble, and rapidl}^ passing into a barren dogmatism, Calvmism was still making vigorous conquests, and drawing to itself fresh accessions of force. It came to repre- sent the cause of Protestantism abroad more promi- nently and boldly than the older movement ; and the Protestant spirit of England, amidst its conflicts, in- stinctively turned to Geneva, as its great model and

INTRODUCTION. 5

guide. Calvinism became, if not the progenitor, yet the nursing-mother of Puritanism.

This movement in England towards the Genevan Keformation was greatly accelerated and strengthened by special circumstances. On the accession of Mary, and the triumph of the medieval party, multitudes of the most active Eeformers fled to the Continent. Geneva, and other Swiss and Ehine towns, were the refuges of these Protestant emigres ; and in this manner they came into immediate contact with Cal- vinism, learned its religious and ecclesiastical spirit of independence, became accustomed to the imposing outline of its doctrine and the simple severity of its ritual, and, in many cases, adopted firmly its consti- tutional principles. In these years the influence of Calvin's personal character and mental power was at its height ; no single man exercised such a sway within the sphere of Protestantism ; and all who were brought near it carried away ineffaceable traces of the spirit which it represented and embodied.

In tracing this connection between Puritanism and Calvinism, it is necessary to notice, that it was an ecclesiastical, stiU. more peculiarly than a doctrinal sympathy, that united them. So far as doctrine was concerned, there was no division as yet in the Church of England. It might be too much to say that the English Church was in the sixteenth century uni- versally Calvinistic in its theology. Such an assertion would not allow for those Catholic peculiarities of thought which have always distinguished the highest divines of this Church, and given a certain breadth and freedom to their dogmatic views, even when these were most closely allied to the technical modes of Calvinistic opinion. Jewell and Hooker, for example,

6 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

while coinciding with this opinion in their doctrinal conclusions, are yet far more than Calvinists in a certain comprehensiveness and genial width of view. But if not exclusively or rigidly Genevan in doctrine, even under the primacy of Whitgift, the Church of England Avas yet so far from finding any cause of quarrel in this doctrine, that it embodied it substan- tially iu its thirty-nine articles ; while AVhitgift's well- known Lambeth articles* remain to testify how far more closely he and others were prepared to bring the creed of the Church of England into conformity with the Genevan theology in its most extreme forms.

The cause of quarrel, therefore, was not in this source, but in an entirely different one. It was the disciplinal and not the doctrinal element of the Genevan Eeform which, carried back to England, planted the seed of widening discord in English Protestantism. Nay, it was something far narrower in its beginning than even any general question of church discipline. Never has a great movement in a civilised country sprung from a more trivial cause. It is like tracing some gigantic river, renowned for the great cities along which it has swept, the hurrying interests which it has borne on its bosom, and the scenes of struggle and associations of interest which mark its course, to its source in some streamlet, noisy but insignificant. In its outset, Puri- tanism brings us face to face with no vital interest,

* Hooker's criticisms on these articles mark very well the difiference indicated in the text between the characteristic theology of the Chm-ch of England and Calvinism. The comprehensive mind of Hooker, with its broader and more genial survey of theological literature, at once de- tected the narro%vness of the proposed articles, and nothing can show better than his remarks the fine balance of his spiritual judgment. Whitgift's mind was acute and powerful, but narrow and polemical in comparison with Hooker s.

INTRODUCTION. 7

with no grand circumstance of dogmatic or spiritual earnestness ; it seems a mere petty thougii violent con- tention between rival bishops ; yet it grew into a great creed, a significant principle, a systematic and trium- phant policy. It did so because it masked, from the very first, principles of the broadest distinction. The "vestiary" controversy was the mere shaft into the mine in which slumbered elements of the most power- ful opposition ready to burst into flame.

It will conduce to the clearness and interest of our succeeding pages to mark briefly the progress of the controversy to the point at which our sketches begin. Up to this point, Puritanism had run through two dis- tinct stages of its career. In the first stage, which may be said to close with the reign of Elizabeth, it continued very much such a contest as it began — a contest in the main regarding church order and ceremony — in which we can trace sufficiently the opening of a deeper issue of principles, but during which it still seemed possible that these principles might find some peaceful solution. In the second stage, which lasted during the reign of James, and that of his son, to the eve of the memorable parliament so associated with the triumphs of Puritanism, the controversy, while still largely re- taining its ecclesiastical character, took at the same time a higher and wider range. Starting from the de- fined basis of the Millenary petition, it became mingled in the course of these reigns with new and exciting interests, both theological and political, and gradually passed into a great party conflict — a wide schism of thought and feeling, of manners and policy. In the ninety years that fill up the interval, a quarrel as to the dress of bishops had grown into an incurable oppo-

8 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

sition of faitli and an antagonism of constitutional principle which could only settle itself by the sword. A case of casuistry, in which prelate had encountered prelate in the antechamber of Edward VI., had waxed into a national crisis, and was fast assuming the pro- portions of a civil struggle.

The appointment of Hooper to the see of Gloucester in 1550, marks the well-known rise of the Puritan con- troversy. After his nomination, he refused to be in- ducted in the customary robes of the Eomish priest- hood, which had never been abolished. Hooper had lived abroad, and was the friend of Bullinger. His natural sensitiveness regarding the idolatrous charac- ter of the rites of the Church of Eome, had been quick- ened and exaggerated by his residence in Switzerland. He was an able and earnest man, a powerful and un- tiring preacher,* but possessed of a scrupulous and somewhat vehement temper. He not only refused to wear the robes, but he considered himself bound to preach vehemently against them. Cranmer and Eidley, especially the latter, interposed in behalf of Episcopal order ; and the dispute became so hot and intolerable, that Hooper was confined by order of the Privy Coun- cil, first to his house, and then to the Fleet. The young king, who at first sought to mediate in the con- troversy, it is said, at length " grew very angry with Mr Hooper for his unreasonable stiffness."

Two eminent foreign divines, Peter Martyr and Bucer, filled at this time the respective professorships of divinity at Oxford and Cambridge. Their counsel was sought in the case, and both strongly advised

* "He preaches four, or at least three times every day." — Letter of his wife to Bullinger, 1551. Burnet, iii.

INTRODUCTION. ' 9

Hooper to abandon his scruples ; not that they approved of the vestments — Martyr, in fact, expressed a wish that they should be abandoned — but because they did not consider their use in any way sinful or entitled to interfere with admission into his office in the usual manner. Hooper was not immediately moved, but at last he consented to a compromise. He submitted to wear the robes at liis consecration, and to appear and preach in them at least once.* Afterwards, he was to be at liberty to do as he liked.

Hooper's episcopate thus contentiously began, ter- minated ere long in martyrdom. In the sight of the cathedral to which he had been consecrated four years before, he and Pddley, his old opponent, suffered to- gether. Their differences had all vanished in the glory of the testimony which they then rejoiced to render to their common faith. They had been " two in white," in the quaint and touching language of the message that passed between them at the awful moment of their fate ; but they were now " one in red."

The excitement of the " vestiary " controversy was not extinguished in the flames of Hooper's martyr- dom. For a while, it necessarily sank out of sight during the more serious dangers that menaced Protest- antism in the reign of Mary. But the spirit out of which it sprang continued to live on and to gather strength. The national return to Eomanism, and the ease in many respects with which the transition was made, only proved to many minds an incentive to de-

* These robes, besides the surplice, consisted in the chimere, a long scarlet robe, ■worn loose down to the foot, and the rochet, a white linen vestment covering the shoulders. These garments, adapted fi'om those of the Jewish priesthood, were held by the Church of Rome to be emble- matical of the sacrificial efficacy of the Chi-istian priesthood ; and hence their peculiar obnoxiousness to the Puritan.

10 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

part further from all its iisages, and to identify Pro- testantism with a form of worship as far as possible removed from all its rites. On the other hand, there were some like Dr Cox, the well-known tutor of King Edward, who gathered from their sufferings only a deeper love for the ritual, such as it had been set forth in the preceding reign, and whose Protestantism, while it remained loyal to the policy of Cranmer, shrank from all further encroachment with extreme jealousy and distaste. With the one class, contact with the Eeformed polity abroad elicited sympathy and admir- ation— in not a few cases led to new convictions and desires ; with the other class, it only evoked a more ardent devotion to their home form of worship and all its associations. What have been called the " Frankfort Troubles," were the most significant and notable expression of this disunion during the period of the Marian Exile. These troubles were petty and discreditable to the cause of English Protestantism ; and they left behind them a bitterness which served to inflame the discords which soon again broke out in the restored Church of England.

On the accession of Elizabeth the country presented a peculiar aspect. The Catholics, although they had lost their chief support in the Crown, remained a great and powerful party — the most compact and decided party beyond doubt in the country. The Protestants re- turned from their four and a half years' exile with their hatred of Popery inflamed, and the most illustrious and able among them considerably more advanced in their views of reform. There were, indeed, men like Cox, who had little advanced ; but Jewell and Grindal, Sandys, Horn, and Parkhurst, had all learned to dis-

INTRODUCTION. 11

lilve the " ceremonies " .as savouring of Popery ; while others, such as old Miles Coverdale, and Fox the martyrologist, and Whitehead (whom Elizabeth wished to make primate, but whose conscience scrupled both at the dignity and its accompaniments), not only cherished a deep aversion to the ceremonies, but had strongly imbibed the Calvinistic principle, that nothing should be "ordered" in the Church which was not warranted and required in the word of God.

The Qaeen herself was genuinely Protestant in con- viction. She inherited not only the proud national spirit of her father against Eoine, but she understood far more than he did the grounds of theological differ- ence between the Churches, and had oiven her intelli- gent assent to the side of Protestantism. At the same time she possessed all her father's love of display and authority. She was no less strong in her admiration of the old ritual, and her determination to uphold the prerogatives of the Crown in the government of the Church, than she was strong in her opposition to Eome and her disbelief of its grosser superstitions. She preserved a crucifix in her own chapel to the last, and she had no idea of any church order that did not emanate from her own royal will and pleasure.

Elizabeth acted as might have been supposed from her circumstances and character. She strengthened her Crown against the Catholics by the Act of Supre- macy, but she reserved all power of Church reform in her own hands by the Act of Uniformity. This act not only prescribed and enforced the Booh of Common Prayer and the administration of the sacraments, as set forth 5 and 6 Edward VI., and the use of such eccle- siastical ornaments as were customary in the second year of this reign, but empowered the Queen with

\^

12 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

her commissioners to ordain and publish such further ceremonies and rites as might be "necessary for the advancement of God's glory and the edifying of His Church." It was grievous enough to some of the extreme Protestants to return to the church order of the second year of Edward, with all its superstitious usages as they deemed them ; but this power reserved to the Queen, of adding indefinitely to ecclesiastical ceremonies, was peculiarly obnoxious to them, as it proved peculiarly galling in its exercise.

Upon this "fatal rock of Uniformity," says Neale, "was the peace of the Church of England split." The most eminent of the clergy were in favour of leaving off the usages which had been the subject of so much conten- tion. Grindal and Jewell were strongly committed against the vestments. The latter had spoken of them as the " relics of the Amorites." Even Parker him- self was at first liberal, and indisposed to any violent measures. He was glad to have the assistance of old Miles Coverdale (who had been in Edward's reign Bishop of Exeter) in his consecration, although Cover- dale refused to appear in anything but his black Geneva gown. He concurred with Grindal in providing a sphere of labour — the church and parish of St Magnus, at the corner of Fish Street — for the stern old man, when no arguments would induce him to resume his episcopal duties. There was even a party at Court secretly inclined to favour the extreme Protestants. Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in the midst of his other intrigues, held close relations with some of them. He courted and patronised them, under the idea that they might be unconsciously serviceable to his criminal ambition.

It is not wonderful if, in such circumstances, manv

INTRODUCTION. 13

of the clergy exercised their freedom in the matter of the contested ceremonies. Nay, as might be ex- pected, the spirit of aggression gained ground, and not merely the vestments, but many collateral points — such as holy days, the cross at baptism, kneeling at communion, and the use of organs — were largely canvassed, and their abolition strongly urged by a vigorous and increasing party. Nothing, perhaps, can more strongly show the extent to which this aggressive spirit had spread, than the debate which took place in the Convocation which met after Eliza- beth's second Parliament in 1562, when the pro- posals of the Puritan party for reform, in such mat- ters as have been mentioned, under the leadership of Dean Nowel, the prolocutor, were only lost by a majority of one. The numbers stood 58, 59. Of those present, in fact, a majority voted in favour of the proposals,* but the scale was turned by proxies. So nearly were the parties divided within the Church. Such a state of things, it may be augured, was far

r

* The proposals, which were a modification of those originally brought in, less minute, and upon the whole less radical in their spirit, stood as follows: —

"1. That all Sundays in the year, and principal feasts of Christ, be kept holy days ; and that all other holy days be abrogated.

" 2. That in all parish churches, the minister in common-prayer turn his face towards the people, and then read distinctly the service ap- pointed, that the people may hear and be edified.

" 3. That in baptism the cross be omitted, as tending to superstition.

"4. Forasmuch as divers communicants are not able to kneel for age and sickness at the sacrament, and others kneel and think supersti- tiously, that therefore the order of kneeling may be left to the discretion of the ordinaiy.

" 5. That it be sufficient for the minister, in time of saying divine service, and ministering of the sacraments (once), to wear a surjslice ; and that no minister say service or minister the sacraments, but in a comely garment or habit.

" 6. Tliat the use of organs be removed." — Neale, vol. i. 143.

14 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

from pleasing to Elizabeth. In the prevailing dis- affection among the clergy, she saw not only her own supposed rights invaded — a right which no Tudor, and she least of all, could behold with complacency ; but she and some of her counsellors, moreover, believed that they saw in it serious danger to her state and crown. The great idea of the Church of England, being one and the same (semper eadem was her favourite eccle- siastical motto) under all the vicissitudes which it had undergone, seemed likely to fade away before the grow- ing spirit of innovation. The Catholics, many of whom, by the preservation of the ceremonies and the framework of the Church, might be supposed gradually drawn to submission and loyalty, were likely to be altogether alienated by further changes. This apprehension as to the Catholics was real and urgent, and was acknow- ledged to be such as well by the anxieties of the Puri- tans as by the fears of the Court. It was the constant argument of the former, that the retention of the Popish habits inclined the nation to Popery. " If we compel the godly to conform themselves to the Papists," wrote Whittingham, " I fear greatly lest we fall to Papism!^ " AVliile Popish superstitions have the broad seal, and while Popish pomp doth allure and awe the people, wherewithal," argued Miles Coverdale, " shall they be restrained from backsliding to Eome ?" — a view which was encouraged by reported sayings of Bonner and others, who professed to see, in the retained usages, an evident symptom that the nation would soon again relapse into Popery. " An they sup of our broth they will soon eat of our beef," was the somewhat coarse joke attributed to Bonner. Accordingly, the Puritans earnestly identified the triumph of Protestantism with the abolition of all Popish ceremonies. The offences

INTRODUCTION. 15

done to the Catholics by such an abolition, was to them one of the principal recommendations of the step. It was a blow to Antichrist which would help its downfall ; and the necessities of the State were to them a secondary and unimportant thought. But this was necessarily to Elizabeth herself, and men like Cecil — the primary consideration, to which all others must yield. The Catholics could not be outraged and driven to rebellion without peril to the Crown, and ruin to all the best interests of the nation. It is im- possible to doubt that this was a real exigency. It is perhaps too much to say that it was a defence of Eliza- beth's conduct in the repressive measures which, in conjunction with Parker, she now resolved to adopt against the aggressive or Puritan party in the Church. In the beginning of 1564-5 the Queen addressed a letter to the archbishop on the subject of " ceremonial diversities " and " novelties of rites " in the Church, which, "through the negligence of her bishops, had crept in and were on the increase." These, she said emphatically, " must needs provoke the displeasure of Almighty God, and hring danger of rtdn to the people and the country;'' and she accordingly charged him to investigate into the disorders, and to take means that "uniformity of order may be kept in every church." The result of this investigation was, that a book of articles was drawn up for enforcing uni- formity, which did not, owing to the secret opposi- tion of Dudley and others, receive the sanction of the Privy Council, but which became practically the rule of Episcopal action. The most important of its provisions was, subscription on the part of the clergy to certain promises, which placed them entirely as to preaching under the control of their bishop, and

16 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

bound them to the use of the apparel and other institu- tions as already established in the Church.

Fox the martyrologist, Coverdale, and Wliitehead, were among the most conspicuous victims of the sys- tem of repression upon which Parker now zealously entered. He had not been very forward to move, but, having once " stirred in the affair," he, and some more of the bishops, acted with a determination and vigour which outran the more cautious policy of Cecil. He professed at last to see that not only were " the rites of apparel now in danger, but all other rites univer- sally." * Fox refused to subscribe to the promises of the Book of Articles or Advertisements, as it came to be called, and was dismissed in disgrace to his quiet Salisbury prebend. Such respect was entertained for his " age, parts, and pains," that the Bishops did not venture to take any further steps against him.- Whitehead was suspended ; but the somewhat singular favour that he enjoyed with Elizabeth as '' a man of parts, but more as a clergyman unmarried" formed also a shield of protection to him. Upon " poor old Miles " the persecution fell more heavily. He was driven from his humble benefice of St Magnus, and died in a few years in great poverty. Sampson, Dean of Christ Church, and Humphrey, President of Mag- dalene College, Oxford, were also summoned before the ecclesiastical commissioners, and the former de- prived of his deanery. The harshness of this measure was aggravated by the fact that Sampson, along with his companions Humphrey, Lever, and others, were so far from being extreme in their views, that many of the ultra-Puritans looked upon them with dislike, and altogether disowned their preaching.

* Strype's Parker, 161 ; A nnals, ii. 129.

INTRODUCTION. 17

It would be impossible for us to trace minutely the course of the controversy, and the persecutions to which it gave rise in the time of Elizabeth. The subject is a history in itself. We can only briefly glance at the two main phases into which the contro- versy ran during this period. These phases mark a certain definite advance in the principles which guided both sides.

The first is represented by the dispute between Cartwright and Whitgift. This dispute had its origin in various causes. Personal bitterness between the combatants helped to inflame public animosity. They had been rival disputants at the university of Cam- bridge. Cartwright, as professor of divinity, had identified himself with the movement party, and ven- tured freely to discuss the new ecclesiastical policy in his lectures. Whitgift, as vice-chancellor of the university, keenly took the opposite side, and, by his influence, silenced and expelled from his office the professor of divinity. Cartwright was driven abroad, but his spirit survived at home, and circumstances soon occurred to draw him again into the field.

In many of the younger clergy the Protestant schism was fast spreading, and assuming a more definite and irreconcilable form. A small band of more zealous spirits even went the length of establishing themselves into a separate congregation on the basis of the Gen- evan plan of government. Plumber's Hall, in Anchor's Lane, became the scene of the first meeting of Dis- senters from the Church of England, in the month of June 1567. The appearance of the sheriffs dispersed the infant congregation, thirty-one of whom, men and women, were seized and hurried to prison. The fact of such an attempt at ecclesiastical separation was re-

B

18 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

garded with dismay. Even many among the bishops, who had hitherto befriended those opposed to the cere- monies, and especially the vestments, were shocked at such an open expression of variance from the Church, and joined with their brethren in adopting means to arrest it. Grindal, in so far, was united with Parker, although, with the mildness characteristic of him, he prevailed with Cecil and the Lords of Council to dismiss the present offenders after a brief imprison- ment, but, at the same time, with a solemn warning of greater severity should they persist in their factious conduct.

The Parliament of 1 571 met amidst continued ex- citement, and no fewer than seven bills for the " Ee- formation of Ceremonies in matters of Eeligion and Church Government " were introduced. The Com- mons showed a strong sympathy for further reforma- tion. Mr Strickland, a " grave and ancient man, of great zeal," spoke boldly. " There be abuses in the Church of England, there be also abuses of church- men— all these it were high time were corrected." He received a summons to attend the Privy Council for his plain speaking, and was temporarily detained from the House. Peter Wentworth spoke with no less freedom, and formed one of a committee of six who waited upon the archbishop touching a " model of reformation." Nothing, however, followed these ex- pressions of discontent, except a more determined zeal on the part of the Crown and the Bench to enforce the laws for uniformity. Only three of the seven bills were passed to the House of Lords, and all of them finally fell to the ground.

A new Parliament opened in May 1572, with a speech from the Lord Keeper, in which he complained

INTRODUCTION. 19

of tlie neglect of tlie " laudable rites and ceremonies of the Church, the very ornaments of our religion ; " and recommended that systematic means should be adopted by the bishops for correcting this neglect, " that thus the civil sword might support the sword ecclesiastic."* Wliile this was the temper of tlie Court, that of many of the clergy was increasing in boldness. Two of their number, of the names of Field and Wilcox, presented, after careful preparation, a document to this Parlia- ment, entitled " An Admonition for Eeformation of Church Discipline." It keenly exposed the corrup- tions of the hierarchy and the proceedings of the bishops ; and, after setting forth a new platform of Church government, craved that the Church of Eng- land might be remodelled according to it, in greater conformity to the Word of God and the foreign Eeformed Churches. Both the authors were ajDpre- hended and committed to Newgate ; but their bold- ness only served to call into the field an abler and more vigorous champion, who had already whetted his pen in the controversy.

Thomas Cartwright had lately returned from exile, with all his Puritan convictions deepened and streng- thened. He was an attentive observer of the pro- ceedings in Parliament, and when the writers of the original " Admonition " were violently withdrawn from the scene of conflict, he prepared and published a " Second Admonition," more importunate, and to the same effect, which came out, according to Heylin, "with such a flash of lightning, and such claps of thunder, as if heaven and earth were presently to have met together." Whitgift, in the mean time, had joined in the fray ; and, with the direct concurrence of Parker * D'EWES, 195.

20 ENGLISH PUEITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

and Cooper, the Bishop of Lincoln published a reply to the first "Admonition." The sight of his old ad- versary roused Cartwright's blood, and the controversy between them became a prolonged and vehement one. Cartwiight replied to his answer; Whitgift rejoined at great length, both to Cartwright's "Admonition," and his attack upon himself; and Cartwright again returned to the charge. The "untempered speeches," " hard words," "bitter reproaches " ("as it were sticks and coals"), which the Puritan hurled at the church- man, were sufficiently met by the " flouts," " oppro- bries," "slanders and disdainful phrases," which the latter imputed to the Puritan.""' On both sides rude- ness and vituperation too frequently outweigh sense and reason ; and the main drift of the argument loses itself in the muddy and wearying channel of per- sonal abuse. Each, however, contended with marked ability, and, beyond doubt, represented the most vigor- ous intellect of his party ; Cartwright displaying, per- haps, more vigorous eloquence and rough sense in details, a more pungent and superior polemical learn- ing ; Whitgift more elevation, comprehension, and thoughtful force in general reasoning.

Cartwright, under all his vehemence and bitterness, gives us the idea of a very manly and honest nature ; a man of fiery impulses, but of a free and courageous spirit. There is something, also, pathetic in the hard- ships and sadness of his fate, in comparison with that of his prosperous adversary. Pellow-students and rival theologians, they had preached from the same univer- sity pulpit ; the same career seemed before them.

* Whitgift does not even disdain to reproach his adversary with the poverty which his own harshness had inflicted. — Worh Parker Society, vol. i. pp. 45-6, 84.

INTKODUCTION. 21

But Whitgift then, as afterwards, had chosen the winnmg side. He was first made Dean of Lincoln,, then Bishop of Worcester, and finally raised to the see of Canterbury. Cartwright was twice driven abroad, " little better than a wandering beggar." On his second return he was seized and imprisoned by order of Aylmer, Bishop of London, whose character, amidst the oppressions of the time, stands out as peculiarly contemptible, in the vindictive severities with which it is associated. After his liberation he was jealously watched, forbidden to write, and again, after the death of Leicester, who had patronised him, imprisoned along with a number of other Puritan divines, till he was finally released in 1592, and allowed to die in ob- scurity. The way of the Puritan was certainly not a way of pleasantness. Only one pleasing gleam lights up the harsh relations between him and Whitgift. After the latter was made primate, he is said to have sought an interview with his old adversary, and to have offered him kindness. A softening impression was left on the minds of both. Whitgift was sufficiently severe ; but, unlike Aylmer, there was magnanimity in his severity— he harboured no petty malignity ; and after all that had passed between hmi and Cartwright, he showed the latter such friendliness as to draw from his friend and patron, the Earl of Leicester, a letter of thanks for his " favourable and courteous usage."

The principles maintained in their controversy show the deeper vein into which Puritanism was running. It was no longer merely the accessories of f worship that were in dispute, but the subjects of Church v) government and authority in themselves. Cartwright contended that Scripture was the standard of Church government and discipline as well as of doctrine — nay,

22 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

that it was the only standard of rule as of truth in the Church, and that the English hierarchy must be reduced to the Presbyterian pattern of Scriptural simplicity. The opposition was no longer merely to the Popish ceremonies, but to the whole structure of the Anglican polity, as at variance with Scripture. AVhitgift main- tained, on the other side, that Scripture was not designed as a standard of ecclesiastical polity ; that this polity, on the contrary, was a fair subject for ar- rangement on the part of the State and the superiors of the Church. The Churchman occupied the ground of expediency, destined, ere long, to a far higher elabora- tion and defence ; the Nonconformist urged the argu- ment of divine right. The latter had already taken up his full dogmatic position ; the former not yet.

During some years the controversy continued with great keenness and with various alternations of feeling towards the Puritans. After Whitgift and Cartwright had laid aside their pens, a swarm of minor writers took up the quarrel, and the famous Martin Mar- prelate's* pamphlets on the Puritan side, and others not a wdiit behind them in scurrility on the Church side, f attest the vehemence of excitement which actu- ated and convulsed the nation.

The death of Parker in 1575, and the appointment of Grindal to the primacy, were favourable to the move- ment. Grindal's well-known predilections, his natural

* "A vizored knight, behind whose shield a host of sturdy Puritans were supposed to fight." — Hallam, vol. i. p. 220.

"i" Such as " A Fig for my Godson ; or, Crack me this Nut," — that is, "A sound Box of the Ear for the Idiot Martin to hold his Peace ;" and "An Almond for a Parrot," by Cuthbert Curry -knave — the pseudonyme of Tom Nash, who was, says Walton, " a man of sharp wit, and the master of a scoffing, satirical, merry pen. " The Cobbler's Book," and " Ha' ye any work for the Cooper ? " are specimens of the titles on the Puritan .or "Martin Marprelate" side.

INTRODUCTION. 23

mildness and apostolical simplicity of character, con- duced to mitigate the rule of uniformity, and to open up the way for a temporary freedom. The " prophesy- ings," as they were called, had been begun in the pre- ceding primacy. They were designed to meet the great lack of intelligent and godly preaching through- out the land. The clergy and others in a district met together, and engaged in the exposition of Scripture, and in other exercises of religious edification. Such meetings were the expression of a prevailing spirit of religious earnestness, but also to some extent of the growing spirit of ecclesiastical freedom. They were not likely to be acceptable, therefore, in high quarters. Elizabeth frowned, and Parker put them down. But Grindal was no sooner established in his office than he took the prophesyings under his protection. The result was, that he came into collision with the Queen, fell into disgrace, and was banished the Court. He himself cared little for the royal disfavour in such a cause ; but the party who looked to him for protection experienced . in many ways the effects of his exclusion from the national counsels. Aylmer's bigoted and persecuting activity was allowed to run riot. ^

The reins of archiepiscopal authority soon passed into firmer hands. Grindal died in 1583, and Whit- gift was promoted to the primacy. "There was no danger," remarks Strype,* " of Ms Grindalising by winking at the plots and practices of the Puritan fac- tion." His character was too well established, and his ecclesiastical position taken up too definitely. Yet the Queen was not content to leave him merely to his own impulses. She "straitly" instructed "to be vigilant and careful for the reducing of all ministers to the.

* Strtpe's Whitgifi, 114.

24 ENGLISH PUEITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

settled order and government;" "to restore the dis- cipline of the Church and the uniformity in the ser- vice of God established by Parliament, which, through the connivance of the prelates, the obstinacy of the Puritans, and the power of some noblemen, was run out of square."* Whitgift was not slow to justify the expectations, and to avail himself of the ample powers, reposed in him. He devised three articles for the further enforcement of uniformity, and issued orders for their subscription throughout his province. Many clergy refused, and in consequence were suspended, and finally deprived if they continued obstinate. The primate never for a moment relaxed his watchful jeal- ousy ; the Queen was strongly assenting, even when the law was somewhat stretched to reach offenders ; repression, systematic, and far-seeing, became the order of ecclesiastical and civil policy. To " root out Puri- tanism and the favourers thereof," was the undisguised aim of her Majesty and the primate. j_J^ The powers of a great intellect working in the rec- tory of Boscum, in the diocese of Sarum, were of more weight in the struggle than all the vigilance of Whit- gift, backed by the authority of the High Court of Commission. Here Hooker was quietly preparing his great work, which deserves to mark the next and final stage of the controversy in the reign of Eliza- beth. He had retired to Boscum in 1591, after the contentions of his ministry in the Temple. The seclu- sion was welcome to one whose nature was essen- tially tranquil in its loftiness and contemplative simplicity. He had shown, indeed, that he did not shrink from the active annoyances of a struggle, the principles of which he had so deeply pondered. His * Camden, 288.

INTRODUCTION. 25

ministry in the Temple, if not a popular success, proved him of a resolute and courageous spirit, capable of maintaining his own convictions in the face of opposi- tion and amidst the heats of discussion. Travers had been conjoined with him here, and to this conjunc- tion and its consequences may be traced the bent of Hooker's thoughts to the subject in connection with which his name has become immortalised.

Travels, after Cartwright, must be reckoned the most distinguished leader of the Elizabethan Puritans. "Al- lowing Mr Cartwright for the head," says Fuller, " Mr Walter Travers might be termed the neck of the Pres- byterian I3arty, the second in honour and esteem." * He had been identified since 157-i with a "Plan of Presbyterian Government," concocted at Geneva, and especially adapted to the meridian of London. This plan, revised by Mr Cartwright and other learned ministers, had passed into popularity, and become a sort of programme of the Presbyterian policy, Travers himself stood in high esteem with Lord Treasurer Burleigh, whose domestic chaplain he was. He had resided abroad, like most of the active Puri- tans. He was a man of earnest and fixed convictions, who cherished his Presbyterianism as the Gospel itself, • and was ready to submit to any sacrifice in its defence. Like Cartwright, he was vehement, restless, and im- pulsive, animated by lofty but narrow principle, and with that tincture of harsh and rude dogmatism which distinguishes the religious spirit of the age (save in such eminent exceptions as Jewell and Hooker). Cart- wright appears to us, upon the whole, the manlier and higher character, as he was the more powerful and sys- tematic reasoner : a stronger, more living, and less

* Book ix. p. 136.

26 ENGLISH PUEITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

captious earnestness marks him as a controversialist. But Travers was evidently more polished and attractive in the pulpit. He appears, in fact, to have been one of the most popular preachers of his day.

It was as a preacher that he came in contact with Hooker. He had been sometime a lecturer in the Temple, when Hooker was appointed to the mastership. He was a great favourite with the congregation, many of whom were deeply imbued with the Puritanical spirit. In the afternoon, when he preached, crowds came to hear him, while Hooker's sermon in the fore- noon was but thinly attended. " The pulpit spoke," old Fuller says, " pure Canterbury in the morning, and Geneva in the afternoon ; " while the congregation " ebbed " in the former case, and " flowed " in the lat- ter.* The special dispute between them related to some changes in the dispensation of the Lord's Supper that Travers had introduced ; but the two men imper- sonated the opposing religious principles of their day, not in one particular only, but in the whole style and tendency of their thought. The theology of the one is intensely Calvinistic, with that narrowing polemical tone which the mere disciples of a great system are apt to adopt ; that of the other embraces but rises above

* Fuller's portraits of the rival preachers are graphic, if somewhat one- sided. " Mr Hooker : his voice was low, stature little, gesture none at all ; standing stone-still in the pulpit, as if the posture of his body were the emblem of his mind, immovable in his opinions. Where his eye was left fixed at the beginning, it was found fixed at the end of the sermon : in a word, the doctrine he delivered had nothing but itself to garnish it. His style was long and pithy, driving on a whole flock of several clauses before he came to the close of a sentence ; so that when the copiousness of his style met not with proportionable capacity in his auditors, it was unjustly censured for being perplexed, tedious, and ob- scure. . . . Mr Travers : his utterance was graceful, gesture plausible, manner profitable, method plain, and his style carried in it indolem pietaiis, a genius of grace flowing from his sanctified heart."

INTRODUCTION. 27

Calvinism. The one is wedded to tlie Genevan polity, the other has analysed and estimated the foundations of all polity in the intimations of the divine mind re- vealing itself in nature, reason, and Scripture. Travers no doubt seemed by far the more clever and successful pulpiteer ; but he was only a controversialist — Hooker was a philosopher.

The first four books of the ecclesiastical polity ap- peared in 1594; the fifth some years later, after the author had removed to Bishopsborne, near Canterbury, where he died in the last year of the sixteenth century. It is difficult to estimate the exact effects of these books upon the course of controversy. But there is reason to think that they were considerable, and that, after fifty years' conflict, the agitation somewhat recoiled under the shock of the lofty and far-reaching argument which they developed. Of this there can be no doubt, that they carried the Puritans into a region of discussion where they had difficulty in following the author, and where they certainly could not meet him. The Puri- tan's strong point, as we have seen, was the supposed warrant of Scripture for his views. Scripture, he urged, had especially laid down rules for the ordering and worship of the Church. " Those things only are to be placed in the Church which the Lord himself in His Word commandeth," was the fundamental principle laid down in the "Admonition." Whitgift had so far met this by saying, that the " substance and matter of government must indeed be taken out of the Word of God ; " yet that " the offices in the Church whereby this government is wrought, are not namely and particularly expressed in the Scriptures, but in some points left to the discretion and liberty of the Church, to be disposed according to the state of times, places, and persons." He

28 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

met tlie assertion of the Puritans by a simple negative — to wit, that the Scriptures are not the only and absolute source of ecclesiastical polity, but that there is a cer- tain discretion and liberty left in the hands of the gov- ernors of the Church for the time. He did not, how- ever, see the necessity of any higher principle to meet and absorb their special doctrine, which, in its defin- iteness, had a strong affinity for the current theological temper. He had no spirit of philosophy carrying him beyond the immediate necessities of the argument to a larger sphere of moral and political contemplation, in which the Puritan doctrine should receive at once due recognition and limitation.

It remained for Hooker to do this in the whole con- ception of his work Divine rules must be our guide, was the postulate. Granted, was Hooker's argument, divine rules must be our guide ; but it does not follow that there are no divine rules except those revealed in Scripture. All true laws, on the contrary, are equally with the rules of Scripture divine, as springing out of and resting on the same source as those of Scripture — the eternal divine reason. The supreme mind is the fountain of all law, whether its revelation be in Scrip- ture or in nature and life ; and the excellent and bind- ing character of the law does not depend upon the special medium of revelation, but on the fact that it is really a revelation or expression of the highest Order. The particular rules in dispute, therefore, whether or not they were expressly contained in Scripture, might have a clear divine sanction. They might have a valid authority, both in their substance and direct origin, in their conformity to reason, and the national will and position. For divine law might as truly approve itself in such a conformity as in any mere

INTRODUCTION, 29

verbal imitation of the letter of Scripture. The ques- tion accordingly came to be not merely what is laid down in Scripture, but what in all respects is fair and conformable, "behovefull and beautiful " in itself, in harmony with the consecrated usages of history, and the exercise and development of the Christian con- sciousness in the Church. The ground on which it must be decided, in short, is not any mere dogmatic and self-constituted Scriptural interpretation, but the tfitness and excellence of the thing in all its relations / of time and circumstance — the eternally good ground of Christian expediency against theoretical ecclesiasticism of any kind.

Of all the theologians of his age. Hooker was the most unpuritan ; he not only opposed a special church theory which then sought to dominate in Protestant- ism, but he showed how every such theory must break against the great laws of historical induction and national liberty. He was catholic in judgment and^ feeling, but he wrote not merely on the interests of Catholicism : it was the rights of reason and of free and orderly national development in the face of all preconception, of whatever kind, that he really vin- dicated. While others merely argued, he reasoned and philosophised.

The dispute was not destined to rest where Hooker wished to rest it. The age was not ripe for such views as he had expounded, even if his party had seen the right application of them. Their publica- tion tended in some degree to divert the course of controversy, and to help the pause in it which marks the close of Elizabeth's reign. But the controversy had then also bes^un to slacken of itself. As a mere

30 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

theological polemic, it was wellnigli exhausted, and men were wearied with its endless iterations on either side. It might have died out if it had not been that there were deeper principles at stake than any mere points of ecclesiastical policy. From the beginning, the ecclesiastical difficulty had masked the far greater difficulty of the liberty of the subject ; and it was only Elizabeth's vigorous and enlightened sense of her posi- tion, and the consistent pride with which she sought the national glory in its highest sense, and, notwithstanding her apparent deference to the ecclesiastical prejudices of the Catholics, yet maintained herself at the head of Protestantism in Europe, that enabled her to evade this latter difficulty. With all the restlessness of the extreme Protestants during her reign, they yet beheld in her government their only defence against the re- actionary plots that were everywhere threatening the very existence of their faith. She might thwart and oppress them, but she remained true upon the whole to the great cause which they prized, and which, but for her, might have been utterly overthrown in Eng- land and in Scotland, as it was in France. The poli- tical difficulty, therefore, did not emerge in Elizabeth's reign. The Puritans felt that, although oppressed in conscience, they were not sacrificed to any game of political intrigue. Elizabeth, in fact, was as Protest- ant as she could be ; and although they did not recog- nise this, and their whole conduct indeed protested against it, yet the fact vaguely impressed itself on the national conscience, and kept it steady and loyal amidst all its agitations.

With the accession of the Stuarts a wholly differ- ent turn was given to the political aspects of the con-

INTRODUCTION. 31

troversy ; wliile its theological spirit also, after a brief repose, awakened to fresli bitterness, and, on the Angli- can or Church side, took a new and intensely dogmatic direction.

It was natural for the Puritans to make advances to James on his first accession to the throne. A mon- arch who, in Scotland, had seemed for a while warmly to identify himself with Presbytery, and who, in his zeal, had pronounced the Anglican service " an ill-said mass in English," might well excite hopes in their breasts. They would have been untrue to their con- victions if they had not besought his countenance ; and they met him accordingly on his way to assume his new dignity with their famous Millenary petition. The heads of this petition claim our notice, as showing what were the definite objects of the Puritans after fifty years' struggle. It was their manifesto at the opening of the second great stage of the controversy. It consisted of four heads.

1. Concerning Church Service. — It prayed that the cross in baptism, the interrogatories to infants, baptism by women, and confirmation, should be done away ; that the cap and surplice should not be enforced ; that examination should precede communion ; that the ring in marriage should be dispensed with ; that the Lord's- day should be strictly observed ; that church music should be moderated and the service abridged ; that there should be no bowing at the name of Jesus ; and that none but canonical Scriptures should be read,

2. Concerning Ministers. — It prayed that none but able men who can preach be appointed ; that non-resi- dence be forbidden, and the lawfulness of the marriage of the clergy fully recognised..

3. Concerning Church Livings. — It required that

32 ENGLISH PUKITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

bishops abandon all preferment except tlieir bishop- rics ; that they be not allowed to hold additional liv- ings in commendam ; that impropriations annexed to bishoprics and colleges be converted into regular rec- torial livings ; and that lay impropriations — that is to say, livings in the possession of laymen to whom they had been given at the Eeformation — should be charged with a sixth or seventh part for the support of a preacher.

4. Concerning Church Discipline. — It required that excommunication should not be in the name of lay chancellors, nor for twelve-penny matters, without the consent of pastors.

With the exception of the first of these heads, which contains the main points which had been so long con- troverted, it will be observed how very practical is the spirit of reform displayed by the Puritans. They had profited, in some degree, from their hard experience ; they could not lay aside the old subjects of conten- tion— the cross in baptism, the ring in marriage, holy days and church music ; but these are no longer the sole, or even the chief abuses urged by them. The lack of preaching, the abuses of Church patronage and of discipline, occupy a prominent place : and in fix- ing their attention on such practical and notorious abuses, while they evaded all allusion to an entire change of ecclesiastical policy, and shut out of sight the question of Presbyterianism, they no doubt mor- ally strengthened their position, and appealed far more strongly to the common sense and intelligence of the nation. At no period, in fact, do they, as a party within the Church, stand higher. It seemed as if, in the ebb of the polemical bitterness which had so long raged, they had risen to a truer sense of their position,

INTRODUCTION. 33

and the really urgent necessities of the Church and country. All this was owing, in a great degree, to the wisdom, moderation, and thoughtfulness of their present leader, Dr Eeynolds. Distinguished by pro- found learning and elevated character — serious with- out gloom, and zealous without harshness — deeply convinced, without pedantry, or ambition, or any per- sonal interest — he stands out as one of the best eccle- siastical characters of his time ; and, in a crisis which was most solemn and memorable for the Church of England, he bears a lofty contrast to most of the dignitaries which assembled around James. He was extreme in his Calvinism, and he certainly mistook the character of the men with whom he had to deal ; but his calmness and sense never forsook him amidst all the indignities of the Hampton Court Conference ; and to one of his suggestions we owe the only valu- able result to which that Conference led — to wit, the authorised version of the Scriptures.

It was obvious, from the very first day that the divines assembled together at Hampton, what part James was resolved to take. While the archbishop and bishops went into "the presence-chamber" to consult with the King, the four representatives of the Puritans — Dr Eeynolds, Dr Sparks, Mr Knewstubs, and Mr Chaderton— were left " sitting on a form outside." A conference thus begun terminated as might have been expected. James's only interest seemed to be to exhibit his knowledge of divinity, and to browbeat the remonstrants as soon as they ventured to make any suggestions of reform. Even in Barlow's* fawn- ing account of the Conference, this is obvious ; and it

* Barlow, Dean of Chester, who was one of the seven deans present, published the Sam and Subxtance of the Conference.

C

34 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

is difficult to say whether tlie insolence of the King or the servility of the prelates is the more contemp- tible. As to the power of the Church in things indif- ferent, his Majesty said "he would not argue, but answer as kings in Parliament, Le Roy savisera." " I will have one doctrine," he added, "one discipline, one religion, in substance and ceremony." And when Eeynolds at last suggested, in default of any more extended plan of reform, that the propliesyings, such as they had been approved of by Archbishop Grindal and others, should be revived, and the clergy be al- lowed to meet in provincial constitutions and synods with the bishops, he kindled into a passion, fancying they were aiming at a Scotch Presbytery, which, he said, " agreeth as well with monarchy as God and the devil. Then Jack and Tom, and Will and Dick, shall meet, and, at their pleasure, censure me and my Council, and all our proceedings. Then Will shall stand up and say, It must be thus : then Dick shall reply, and say, Nay, marry, but we will have it thus : here I must once reiterate my former speech, Le Roy savisera,'' &c.*

It is clear that there was not much to be made of such a conference. If le Roy saviscra was to settle everything, the scruples of the Puritans would go for little ; and accordingly it was soon found that the royal will was to govern the Church as des]3otically as ever, and far more insolently. The Hampton Court

* There is a coarse and telling humour iu James's taunts about Pres- bytery, which, if they were not so utterly unbecoming, might make us Kmile. He added, in the same vein, " Pray stay one seven years before vou demand that of me, and if then you find me pursy and fat, and my windpipe stuffed, I will perhaps hearken to you — for let that govern- ment be up, and I am sure I shall be kept in breath." There is a tragic irony in the fearful reply which the Presbyterian Long Parliament made to this sarcasm of the father in the person of his son.

INTEODUCTION. 35

Conference was followed by the Convocation of 1604, and the passing of the famous hundred and forty-one canons, which enforced uniformity under more ri- gorous penalties than ever. The Puritans beheld all their burdens bound with a double and galling force upon their necks.

Bancroft, moreover, was made primate in the same year, and they well understood the significance of this fact. Ever since the notorious sermon at Paul's Cross in 1588 — a sermon, the purport of which James, then in the heat of his Presbyterian zeal, had protested against from Scotland — Bancroft was known as the leader of the extreme Prelatist party. He had an- nounced, so far back as that year, the new ground which the controversy was destined to take up on the Church side. He had struck the chord of a hos- tile dogmatism, which, however strange in its first utterance, gradually passed into a general argument and watchword. Bishops, he maintained, were a dis- tinct order from priests, and possessed superiority over them jure divino. Prelacy, in short, was of special divine appointment. This was a shaft into the ranks of the Puritans which could scarcely fail to excite commotion, considering the course which the argument had hitherto taken.

It was some time, however, before the new dogmat- ism took root in the ecclesiastical mind, and germinated into strength and consistency. It scarcely did so dur- ing the course of Bancroft's own primacy. His archi- episcopal rule was less distinguished by any intellectual change in the character of the controversy, than by its coarse and imperious system of repression. He himself proved more of an ecclesiastical dictator than anything else. Persecution was his active weapon.

36 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

In the previous reign there had no doubt been perse- cution, but there had also been argument — a fair field of debate, in which the highest intellects of the respec- tive sides were pitched against one another — by no means to the disadvantage of the Church. But mere offence and violence now became the order of the day. Hundreds of ministers were suspended, and laymen as well as clergymen imprisoned. A bencher of Gray's Inn ventured to defend a minister who had petitioned the House of Commons, and he himself, at Bancroft's instance, was apprehended and immured in jail for life. The Puritans suffered, but did not yield, and their sufferings gradually won them popular sympathy and respect.

Hitherto they had been only an insubordinate fac- tion in the Church. They had constituted an active but by no means a large party in the country. They were respected for their conscientiousness — they were influential from their clear convictions and their ener- getic combination ; but there is no evidence that in Elizabeth's reign they represented any very general national feeling. Elizabeth herself and her policy were more popular than anything else, while the old Eomanism was still in various districts substantially the prevailing religion. But it was the natural ten- dency both of James's civil and ecclesiastical policy, to invest the Puritan cause with a national and widely spread interest. The indecision of the one, and the want of magnanimity in the other, created an increas- ing sympathy for those who steadfastly upheld the principles of Protestantism, and were exposed to sacri- fices for their consistency. Such a sympathy especially spread among the burgher or citizen class, who had already begun to incline this way in the previous

INTKODUCTION. 37

reign. Many circumstances contributed to the growth of this spirit from the very accession of the Stuarts ; but it was only in the reign of Charles that it reached its full increase.

The oppression of James's reign drove many of the more zealous Puritans from the country, first to Hol- land, and then to the great Western Continent, where they were destined to plant their faith as the seed of a new and powerful civilisation. In 1620 the Mayflower and the Speedwell sailed from Delft Haven, bearing the first Saxon colonists of America, the Pilgrim Fathers. Many were disposed to follow their example. To the Puritan mind, in its stern loyalty to the Bible, and love of self-government according to its own ideal, there was something peculiarly fascinating in the thought of erecting a model state on a distant and un- explored shore. Had free egress been granted, in this and the succeeding reign, to the proud spirits that groaned restlessly under prelatic tyranny at home, it may be a question whether the dangerous element would not have been eliminated from the home society, and the shock of civil war averted. The story of the eight ships that lay in the Thames, bound for New England, in the spring of 1638, on board of which were John Hampden, Oliver Cromwell, and Arthur Haselrig, may serve at least to suggest the possibility of such a result.

It was the whole aim of Bancroft's policy, as we have said, to crush the Puritans. It was inspired by the spirit of the royal saying, "I wiU make them conform, or else I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse." And Clarendon seems to have believed that, had Bancroft lived, he would have subdued these unruly spirits, and extinguished that

38 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

fire in England that had been kindled in Geneva ; for " he understood the Church excellently well, and had almost rescued it out of the hands of the Calvinian party."

But it was the fatal destiny of the Stuarts not to be consistent even in niisgovernment. On Bancroft's death in 1610, Abbot was appointed to the primacy, and he. Clarendon adds, " unravelled all that his pre- decessors had been doing for many years. He con- sidered the Christian religion no otherwise than as it abhorred and reviled Popery, and valued those men most who did that most furiously. He inquired but little after the strict observation of the discipline of the Church, or conformity to the articles and canons estab- lished, and did not think so ill of the Presbyterian dis- cipline as he ought to have done. His house was a sanctuary to the most eminent of the factious party, and he licensed their most pernicious meetings." Abbot, in fact, was a semi-Puritan, and it is difficult to understand under what mistake James appointed him to the office. It is certainly a singular circumstance in the history of the movement, that it should twice have received a special impulse from the very quarter that was designed to check it. As Grindal undid the work of Parker, so Abbot undid the work of Ban- croft, or at least both of them acted as far as they could in the same direction. The primacy was substantially Puritan in the case of both ; and had they been per- mitted a free exercise of their functions, it is difficult to say what might have been the result to the Church of England. This, liowever, was not permitted to Abbot any more than to Grindal. Like his predecessor, the former not only soon lost the royal favour, but sank into a pitiful and half-disgraceful obscurity, as the uninten-

INTKODUCTION-. 39

tional agent in a mournful disaster. While liunting in a park of Lord Zoucli's, in Hampsliire, he unwarily let fly his arrow, and killed the keeper on the spot. James showed him personal kindness in the circum- stances ; but the primate, deeply distressed in mind, withdrew altogether from the Council board, where before " his advice was but little regarded."

During the ten years, however, that Abbot retained his place at the head of ecclesiastical affairs, there was a great relaxation in the system of prelatic oppression inaugurated by Bancroft. The Puritan was left in comparative tranquillity. The well-known character of the primate, as in Grindal's time, served as a con- scious support to him. He was still left to feel that he belonged to the Church of England, and to cherish the hope that it might one day be comformed to his desires. In any case, while the hand of actual perse- cution was lifted from him, and his principles not laid under ban, he was content to cherish them in peace, and to wait for their triumph.

That triumph was still distant ; and new principles and shapes of party were in the mean time springing up in more menacing and formidable opposition than ever. The spirit which Bancroft had introduced into the controversy thirty years before, had been silently taking root and growing up in many minds. It would be absurd to ascribe too much importance to the memor- able sermon at Paul's Cross ; but the echo of it long outlived the preacher, and sentiments in conformity with it had now begun to characterise a large portion of the Anglican clergy. A change of spirit was gra- dually creeping over the Church. The deeper thought- fulness and manlier sense of the Elizabethan age had faded away, and given place to a theological intellec-

40 ENGLISH PUEITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

tiialism, comparatively pedantic and formal. Andrews and Donne, Williams and Laud, mark the progress of this change. These men were sufficiently remarkable as preachers and as politicians ; but they had lost the comprehensive grasp of principles, and, above all, the robust vigour of sentiment and honest earnestness, that distinguished the theologians of the Eeformation. In comparison with Hooker, or even Jewell, .they had not a particle of philosophy. Their theology was a craft at Avhich they were marvellous adepts ; but it had lost the relation to life and general thought which marked that of the previous age. The higher clergy generally were become more men of system than of thought — members of an order, rather than leaders of an ad- vancing spiritual intelligence. It was only natural for such men, when they found themselves confronted with a defiant dogmatism like Puritanism, to seek their safety in the invention and support of an opposite dogma. Sacerdotalism, accordingly, became the con- tending watchword with Presbyterianism : the divine right of the bishop encountered the divine right of the Presbytery ; an Anglican jus divinum met the Puritan jus divinum. Episcopacy and ceremonialism were not merely defensible, but they were stamped with an hereditary divine sanction. The one was of apostolical succession, the other was a part of the " beauty of holiness." The external worship of the Church of England became in the hands of these men a positive divine institution, just as the Genevan discipline had been to the Puritan the handiwork of God — the very " pattern " of the things shown in the Mount. Ex- treme, as usual, called forth extreme.

Not only so, but along with this change in the ecclesiastical aspect of the controversy, a remarkable

INTRODUCTION. 41

and decisive change of doctrinal view was rapidly proceeding. Calvinism was being abandoned by the Church, and becoming the exclusive property of the Puritan. This change had been for some time work- ing beneath the surface, but it only showed itself prominent towards the close of James's reign. It is very signilicant, and lay in the conditions of the agita- tion from the very beginning. The remarkable thing is rather that it should have been so long delayed, than that it should at last have come so quickly and thoroughly. The Puritan was a Calvinist naturally and entirely. The well-spring of his peculiar thought and life — the original of his theology and church — were in Geneva. The Churchman was Calvinistic, not so much from conviction or aftinity of sentiment, as from the mere dominance of a great system over the theological mind of his time. Calvinism, more or less definite, became the reigning expression of the religious thought of the age of the Eeformation and that which immediately followed. But so soon as the character of this thought began to change, Calvinism began to lose its hold, and the very means taken to strengthen its ascendancy by a natural reaction led to its overthrow. James had come from Scotland a zealous Calvinist ; and, even after he had been some time on the throne of England, he had communicated to the States of Holland his abhorrence of the doctrines of the succes- sor of Arminius at Leyden.* The change that was creeping over other minds, however, had not left the royal mind unaffected. It was felt and acknowledged at Court, as elsewhere, that Puritanism and Calvinism had a natural and essential affinity. The convictions of the King were waxing comparatively weak under such

* Conrad Vorstius.

42 ENGLISH PUEITANISM AND ITS LEADEES.

an experience ; the last remnant of liis Scottish theo- logical education was beginning to break up. Still the process was gradual. His mind clung to the old ortho- doxy, and he sent, when requested, four representatives to the synod of Dort in 1G18. He expressed himself, moreover, delighted with the decisions of that famous synod. The Calvinistic world was everywhere excited and pleased with so triumphant a result. Notliing could well have been more summary and successful ; but, as in many other cases, the very excess of the tri- umph proved a defeat. The Arminians were rudely silenced and expelled from the synod ; but the spirit of free inquiry which, in their circumstances, these men represented, lived on and took a new start, all the more surely because of the violent and unreasoning treatment with which their opinions had been encoun- tered. The " five points " settled at Dort were debated over again in many an English parsonage, and in the halls of Oxford and Cambridge, and not always with the same result — not nnfrequently with a quite oppo- site result. Among many of the younger and more active clergy, a strong doctrinal reaction set in. The sentiments of Arminius and Episcopius were wel- comed by them as an availing counterpoise to the Cal- vinistic opinions so closely identified with Puritanism. They gladly caught the new " wind of doctrine," and trimmed their movement to catch its favouring gale.

The president of St John's College, Oxford, was the representative and chief of this rising party in the Church. From the time that he had taken his degree in 1598, he had been known in Oxford as a zealous, confident, and aspiring person ; fond of management, and devotedly attached to all the ancient Catholic usages of the Church. He was of little stature, and

INTRODUCTION, 43

the wits had dubbed him i^cl'^^cc Laus. Small he was, beyond doubt, in all his convictions and aspirations, his poor superstitions and scrupulosities ; * a man of weak but obstinate judgment, of cold though intense feel- ing, of mean yet tenacious temper, and of narrow yet indoiuitable persuasions — exactly the man to initi- ate a fanatical movement in behalf of an established cause. In this man the new Anglican movement was impersonated. He tells us that he was one of those who believed in the " divine apostolical right " of Epis- copacy ; that his predominant aim as a churchman was to secure uniformity, " being still of opinion that unity cannot long continue in the church when uni- formity is shut out at the church door." The idea of ceremonial uniformity possessed him, in fact, as a pas- sion. It was the thought in which he lived ; it was the cause, we may say, for which he died. The Church, as a positive institution, divinely prescribed in every lineament and form ; the sacraments and clergy as the sole channels of grace ; the dresses and ritual as the very "beauty of holiness" — these were to Laud no mere matters of argument, but the very essence of faith. He saw at once the meaning and value of the doctrinal change that had begn.n, and set himself at its head. Although comparatively languid in his own dogmatic sympathies, it was he who invented the name of " doctrinal Puritanism " to designate the opposition to the Church, and led the reaction against Calvinism. James was at first naturally puzzled by the new turn which the defenders of the Church were taking:.

* Laud's diary shows abundantly the supei'stitions of the man, his regard for dreams and omens, and his scrupulous and timid anxieties. It is a strange picture of the brooding of a narrow yet enthusiastic nature.

44 ENGLISH rURITANISJI AND ITS LEADERS.

He could not all at once get quit of liis strongly-pro- nounced Calvinism. Beyond doubt he had a lurking love for the Genevan dialectics in which he had been trained, and in which he himself had been no incon- siderable adept. But he loved power still more than Calvinism ; and, identifying always more the ecclesias- tical with the royal prerogative, according to his fam- ous saying, " No bishop, no king," he soon parted with any doctrinal scruples he had, and gave the full weight of his authority to the new prelatic movement. While the miserable intrigue about the Spanish match was proceeding — to the great disgust of the old national feel- ing, which had not forgot its proud resentment against Spain — and the Puritan party availed themselves of the state of affairs to inveigh strongly against Popery and Arminianism, he issued directions to j^'^^^f^chers, commanding them to abstain from such exciting dis- cussions. The deep points of election and reprobation,,^ and the universality and irresistibility of divine grace, were laid under ban, and excluded from the pulpits. The directions professed to be aimed against both parties alike, but they chiefly struck at the Calvinistic party. The pulpit had become the great support of tliis party. The system of lecturers, which attained its full growth in the succeeding reign, was rapidly spreading in the towns. It was greatly patronised by the middle classes, who could in no other way have their love for preach- ing gratified ; and to assail the freedom of the pulpit was really, therefore, to assail one of the most power- ful influences exerted in favour of Calvinistic and Puri- tan doctrine.*

* We shall hear more of the lecturers as we proceed. The people de- lighted in them ; the High Church clergy detested them. Hej-lin speaks of them as being "neither birds nor beasts, and yet both of them to-

INTRODUCTION. 45

It was not only by sucli means, however, that James showed his deepening attachment to the semi-Eomish party that was rising in the Church. Tliis party aimed, under a totally different feeling from that which impelled the early reformers, to assimilate the religious observances of the country to those that had existed in the old Catholic times. Eegular attendance in the parish church on Sundays, and the old recreations and games afterwards, was one of their favourite devices for this purpose ; and the Book of Sports was the conse- quence. There was nothing which more deeply offended the Puritan. It violated at once his profound convic- tions and his most sacred feelings. The May-pole and Sunday dance on the village green became a standing opprobrium to his conscience, as they were a dishonour to his religion ; and among all his incentives to violent action, none was stronger than his outraged feeling against a system identified to him with such desecrat- ing abominations.

After the accession of Charles in 1625, the great parties in the Church and country became more defin- itely and widely opposed to one another. A quarter of a century's renewed and embittered conflict had left traces wholly irremovable. James's selfish vanity and pedantic tyi'annies had thwarted and annoyed the popular instincts at every point, without doing any- thing to extinguish them. Beyond doubt, the powers opposed to Puritanism had lost during this period both in intellectual and moral strength. The proud earnest- ness which had distinguished the leading churchmen

gether." " The lecturers," says the more sober Selden, " get a great deal of money, because thej"- preach the people tame, as a man watches a hawk, and then they do what they list with them."

46 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

of tlie age of Elizabetli, the national sense and dignity which they had represented, had passed away ; while Puritanism itself had gro^ai, from being a mere con- tentious and unruly element, into a great moral and political as well as religious cause.

It is impossible to conceive any one more in contrast with this growing phase of the national life than the monarch who now succeeded to its guidance. Trained under the tutorship of Buckingham and Laud, he had attained to manhood without the slightest notion of liberty of conscience or liberty of any kind. His reason was a slave to the dogmas which he had been taught, and all his feelings and sympathies were enlisted on the same side. His judgment was narrow, and his will at once sanguine and perverse. Blameless in personal con- duct, and of pure and pious affections, all that was good equally with all that was evil in his nature and educa- tion, clung to the fabric of the constitution in Church and State as it had descended to him. He cared not so much for its principles — for of principles his mind did not fit him to have any clear conception — but he admired and worshipped its forms and supposed prero- gatives. He was, in short, a natural despot, with the mystic enthusiasm and deep falsehood, without the reso- lute energy and unscrupulous decision, of the race. He and Laud suited each other perfectly ; the same dicta- torial and overbearing policy in conception, the same earnestness in details, the same love of ceremonies, the same intensity in trifles, the same suppleness of prin- ciple and the same rigour of creed, the same mysti- cism and the same formalism, characterised them. Their sympathies exactly met, their views coalesced, and their ambition sought the same channels of grati- fication. Under their united action, the question

INTRODUCTION. 47

which had so long agitated the country assumed di- mensions far more serious and startling than had yet characterised it. It became a question not merely of ceremonialism and anti-ceremonialism, nor even of Episcopacy and Presbytery, but of Protestant free- dom and popular rights against Popery in the Church and absolutism in the State. The principles of the prolonged controversy had worked themselves into this broader and more fundamental opposition. The ground was taken up for the final conflict approaching between the parties.

It was the political element at length mingling in the controversy which carried it to its full height. Charles I., in his more consistent assertion of despotic power in the face of an increasing disaffection, was destined to bind up the opposing forces into a fiercer and more compact antagonism, and to precipitate them towards their great outbreak. The gap between the parties had gone on widening and changing its attitude, until they fairly confronted .each other in deadly hostility. It was not so much that any new claims were advanced on the part of the Crown — pre- cedents might be found for the most obnoxious exer- cises of the royal prerogative (although scarcely for the exact form of them) — but it was that such claims were no longer tenable in the face of the changes in public opinion, and the altered relations which the Crown and Parliament, as the representative of that opinion, now bore to one another. The absoluteness which was natural and possible to Elizabeth, which had an excuse in the comparatively disorganised condition of the national sentiment, and which rested, beyond doubt, on a great conservative interest in the State and in the Church — which, in short, had so much national life in it, and

48 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

was sustained by sucli moral dignity as to enlist in its support all tlie highest minds of the time — had ceased to have the same reality and meaning in the hands of Charles ; while, by its mere continued exercise, it had rather grown in pretension than abated any of its severity. It had lost its weight without losing its sting. The great interests on which it rested had dis- appeared, while it seemed to stand as insolently erect as ever. The Tudor spirit had fled from it, while it showed even an uglier face of tyranny than in the Tudor age.

The mere continuance of the strife had helped to aggravate its issue. Constant provocation incensed the Crown and increased its arbitrariness, while di- minishing its material and moral strength. The do- minant party in the Church suffered from the reaction of their uncontrolled privileges — especially from the withdrawal of that earnest spiritual life which, natur- ally inclining to a freer exercise of spiritual rights than the Church allowed, was absorbed in noncon- formity. There are many painful evidences of this in the social history of the time, as preserved in Baxter's account of his early years, and in Mrs Hutchison's Memoirs. Under the force of the restraint which was everywhere laid upon the movements of the religious life, great laxity of manners had sprung up under the shelter of the Church — nay, within the bosom of the Church itself The parochial clergy, who made them- selves the mere creatures of a State system, showed not merely a lack of earnestness, but frequently a de- plorable irreligion and immorality in their conduct.* The system became still more contemptible in the men who represented it, than oppressive in the agencies by

* See Sketch of Baxter s Life.

INTRODUCTION. 4Sl

which it was enforced. On the other hand, the re- ligious and social impulses which were confined and driven into obscurity gathered strength in their con- finement. Kept under control, they got hardened and disciplined instead of extinguished. A wide, though lurking, popular feeling was gradually awa- kened, which began not merely to resent the old inter- ferences with religious freedom, but to oppose itself constitutionally to the royal prerogative. Eeligious oppression was recognised as merely one aspect of a power which was inimical to the national freedom in all its manifestations. The old spirit of English independence was aroused, and looked abroad for its enemies on which to take a deadly vengeance.

It is a striking process of revolution by which a controversy about vestments passed into a great na- tional struggle. The progress, the outbreaks, and the triumph of the contest are all singularly character- istic. The patience of resentment, and yet the tena- city of conviction, on the part of the people, gradually passing in the one case beyond bounds, and, in the other case, swelling into a mighty and indomitable principle ; the vacillations and contending fanati- cisms in tlie Church ; the infatuation and blinded selfishness of the two Stuart monarchs ; the mingled heroism and caution of the Parliamentary leaders ; the disorderly humours which might have proved ruinous, and the patriotic resistance which might have been broken or wearied out, had not a great Hero stepped forward to give unity to the former, and to carry the latter forward in a splendid career of victory ; the magnanimous and apparently unselfish advance of this Hero, till, returning from the bloody glory of his

D

60 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

Irish conquest, other leaders seemed to retire, and leave him master of the field ; the blended grandeur and gloom of his usurpation and rule, as they worked themselves out amid the perplexities of his Parlia- ments, the discontents of his old friends, the mur- murs of the army, and the sorrows of his family, and yet to the glory of his country, and the renown of his name abroad as well as at home ; all make a picture — dazzling in colour, yet sober in outline — brilliant with all the wonder of romance, yet shaded by the steady and softened light of duty — such as nowhere else can be paralleled.

It is our intention to sketch a few of the main figures in this marvellous picture. The great soldier- figure that stands central and conspicuous over all in the group — in whom the spirit of the movement assumed its most heroic mould, and broke forth into its grandest and most conquering passion ; the proud poet and scholar whom we discern by his side — a less conspicuous, but a purer and more unworldly figure, in whom the same movement reached its height of moral and intellectual sublimity ; the enthusiastic theologian, who never wearied in the service of a cause which yet often filled him with misgivings ; the poet-preacher, whose experience and dreams illustrate so vividly its internal conflicts and spiritual aspira- tions. These are but prominent figures in a crowded canvass. Many others would find their place along with them in a history of the time ; but the study of these may enable us to comprehend, although not in all its variety and extent, the real meaning and charac- ter of the movement in which they were engaged.

I.

CROMWELL

CROMWELL.

Op all the representatives of Englisli Puritanism, Cromwell is the most characteristic and distinguished. No country but England, no religion but Puritan Pro- testantism, could have produced such a Hero. In his life and character he exhibits, more completely than any other, the various principles moving the popular heart of England in the reign of Charles I., — the political instincts, the social impulses, and the moral and Christian enthusiasms which, after smouldering as a slow fire for years — breaking out here and there into uneasy flame, and dying down again — had at length kindled into a raging heat, penetrating every home, and lighting up with sympathy or hostility every hearth in the kingdom. All that was deepest in the inward life of Puritanism — its spiritual struggles, its eager gropings after a living truth — and equally all that was most marked in its outward features — its gravity, severity, and strange mixture of Jewish-Chris- tian forms of speech, with the cursory and direct bu- siness of the day — find in Cromwell their appropri- ate expression. He is Puritan in spirit, Puritan in face. The lines of his portrait have all the weighty unornamental dignity, the bluff uncourtly heroism, the dreamy and somewhat dull imaginativeness, and the

54 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

depths of devotional passion, which Puritan ambition in its highest forms recalls. And if Cromwell was something more than a Puritan — if he rose, in the strength of his genius and broad worldly vision, as well as through his active experience of military and State affairs, to a higher point of view than Puritan- ism in its special character can be said to have done — there were also other points of practical virtue, sim- plicity, and self-denial, in which many will say that during his later career he fell below it. If we take him all in all, however, he is certainly its most con- spicuous, its greatest representative. The shadow of his greatness falls across the whole course of its his- tory. Ptising from the midst of its religious influences, nursed in the bosom of its spiritual earnestness, har- dened into firmness and self-conscious strength and triumph in its deadliest conflicts, he at length en- throned its principles at the head of the three king- doms, and gave them not only a national but a Euro- pean sway.

There have been various biograpliies of Cromwell, from Noble's Memoirs of the Protcctoral House of Crom- tvell, to Guizot's Life ; but it is not in any of these, even in the last, that the student will find the best and most living sources of information. These are to be found, beyond question, in his own letters and speeches, as elucidated by Mr Caiiyle in his well-known work."''

* There is none of Mr Carlyle's works better, upon the whole, than ]iis Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromu-ell. There is none certainly marked by a deeper insight, or a more true and close api^reciation of fact, with less exaggeration and wantonness of descriptive statement. Its editorial and fragmentary character admirably suits the author's genius, which is more successful in broad and vivid effects, and dashes of portraitvire, than in carefully-drawii outlines and minutely -shaded sketches of character.

CKOMWELL. 55

Here, as everywhere, tlie man's own words are Ids best biography. What he really was, what he thought, what he aimed to do, what he failed to do, how he lived, and fought, and governed, we can learn more from meditation on these words than we can in any other way. We get, if not completely to understand him, . yet to understand him better than we ever did before — to gather up the threads of his life into a more consistent tissue — to see what meaning it had, and what influence on human history it exercised.

The life of Cromwell naturally falls into three great divisions. The first extends to the close of what may be called his private life, or to the outbreak of the civil war in 1642.; the second runs from tliis period throughout the whole of his brilliant career as a Pu- ritan patriot and soldier, a space of twelve years or so, on to 1654 ; the last comprises the period of his Protectorate, when he appears as a statesman and sovereign, a brief space of scarcely four years (1654- 1658). The proportion between these several periods is remarkable : the long and well-matured discipline of more than forty silent years of home thought and common business, through which the Puritan hero was prepared for his work ; the struggle of twelve ; the triumph of four. It is well to remember that up to middle age, the man whom we see finally ruling the destinies of England, and leading in triumph the in- terests of Protestantism in Europe, was a quiet farmer in the fens of Huntingdon. This of itself were suffi- cient to show that no mere theory of restless pride or of selfish aggrandisement will gauge his character, and account for him as an historical phenomenon. To whatever degree the desire of power may have

56 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

been cherished in him by his remarkable fortunes and the ever-expanding consciousness of his genius, he must also have possessed many strongly-marked features, independently of the ambition which ab- sorbed the later energies of his career, and drew forth the imperial pomp and passion of his character.

Cromwell was born in the spring of the last year of the sixteenth century, at Huntingdon. He was the fifth child, and the only son that survived, of Eobert Crom- well, younger son of Sir Henry Cromwell, and brother of Sir Oliver Cromwell of Hinchinbrook, an excellent property in the immediate neighbourhood, now be- longing to the Montague family. It was sold by this same Sir Oliver, uncle of our hero, to this family. Sumptuous living, an easy and rejoicing hospitality on the part of both the father and the son, had reduced the fortunes of the house, and rendered such a step necessary. The father, Sir Henry, was called, from his profuse expenditure, " the Golden Knight," and Sir Oliver seems to have vied with him in this re- spect. In 1603, immediately after the accession of James, he entertained the King and his retinue with great magnificence at Hinchinbrook. Again, in 1617, when James was on his way to Scotland, with Dr Laud in his company, intent on Episcopal innovations there, he repeated his hospitality, although, on this second occasion, with diminished splendour ; and soon afterwards the property passed out of his hands. The good knight, however, continued to cherish Avarmly his Eoyalist predilections, even when his nephew had become the great Parliamentary captain. A fine old country gentleman he seems to have been, with the genuine hearty humour of the race. It is a capital

CROMWELL. 57

trait recorded of liim,* that when his eldest son — in whom the family turn for expenditure was hereditary — presented a list of his debts, craving for some aid towards their payment, Sir Oliver answered with a bland sigh, " I wish they were paid."

On his father's side Cromwell was thus of a gentle and old family t — of the same stock, in fact, from which Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, came. This famous minister of Henry VIII. , as Mr Carlyle has shown in detail, was nephew to Oliver's great-grand- father. On his mother's side a far higher but somewhat more imaginary descent has been claimed for him. His mother's name was Elizabeth Stuart ; she was the daughter of William Stuart of the city of Ely, " a kind of hereditary farmer of the cathedral tithes and church lands round that city ; " and the story is that this Stuart family in Ely was an undoubted offshoot of the royal family of Scotland, having sprung from one Walter Steward, who had accompanied Prince James into England, when he was seized and detained by Henry IV. This scion of the royal blood of Scotland is supposed to have married advantageously and settled in England ; and one of his race having been Popish Prior of Ely, on the dissolution of the monasteries, was made, in reward for his pliancy of character, the first Protestant dean, through whom came the mother of our hero.

Cromwell's father, according to the well-known popu- lar story, was a brewer. This occupation does not seem very compatible with his kindred and descent, and the hero-worshipper is apt to kindle into some indigna-

* Carlyle.

t " I was by birth a gentleman," be himself saj^s. — Speech to Parlia- nieyit, Sept. 12, 1654. "Geuere nobile atque illustri ortus," says Milton.

58 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADEES

tion at the suggestion. There seems, however, a fair foundation for the story, though Eoyalist calumny has touched it with ready exaggerations. Eobert Crom- well was evidently a farmer of certain lands of his own lying round Huntingdon. His proper business was to manage his own estate ; but as his house was conve- niently situated for the purpose, with the little brook Hinchin running through its courtyard into the Ouse, he seems to have combined brewing with agriculture, under the laudable impulse of gain. Heath's version, in fact, may not be very far from the truth — viz., that " the brew-house was managed by Oliver's mother and father's servants, without any concernment of his father therein."

Oliver Cromwell's mother was plainly a spirited, earnest, and industrious woman, who grudged no labour for the good of her family. When she was left a widow with six daughters, she gave dowries of the work of her own hands to five of them, sufficient to marry them into wealthy and honourable families. To the last — and she survived to see her son raised to the highest pinnacle of power — she cherished her simple tastes and homely sense. She desired that she might be buried without ceremony in some country churchyard — a desire, however, with which her son did not comply. There is a poii:rait of her, Mr Foster says, at Hinchin- brook, " which, if that were possible, would increase the interest she inspires, and the respect she claims ; the mouth so small and sweet, yet full and firm as the mouth of a hero — the large melancholy eyes — the light pretty hair — the expression of quiet affectionate- ness suffused over the face, which is so modestly en- veloped in a white satin hood — the simple beauty of the velvet cardinal she wears, and the richness of the

CROMWELL. 59

small jewel that clasps it, seem to present before the gazer her living and breathing character." *

Cromwell was the only son of his father's family that survived. Of his numerous sisters we know little beyond the fact of their marriage. Of his relatives, however, it may be interesting to know further, that one of his aunts on the father's side was the mother of John Hampden, who was therefore full cousin to Oliver ; and that another cousin, the son of an uncle Henry, was the famous Oliver St John, the ship-money lawyer. Cromwell's kindred, therefore, were on all hands sufficiently notable. He sprang from the gentry of England ; and if he gave to his family name an un- dying distinction, it conferred upon him, from the first, credit and reputation.

Many semi -mythical stories are told of our hero's childhood and youth. There is probably some grain of truth preserved in them, with loads of calumny and falsehood. In some, the element of fact or trait of character, from which the mythical embellishment has arisen, can be clearly traced. This is particularly the case with the singular story told by Noble and Heath, of his having, during the Christmas revels at his uncle's house, " besmeared his clothes and hands with surreverence " (whatever that may particularly mean), and in this state accosted the master of mis- rule, and " so grimed him and others upon every turn," as to create a serious disturbance, and lead to his being thrown into an adjoining pond, and there " soused over head and ears." Such a story not inaptly corresponds with his odd and somewhat coarse turn for practical jokes in after years ; and probably this well-known feature of his later character is the simple

* Foster's Lives of the Statesmen of the Commonwealth, voL i. p. 9.

60 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

explanation of the earlier tradition. So of his vision, in which, when laid down to sleep one day, tired with his youthful sports, he saw the curtains of his bed with- drawn by a gigantic figure, which told him that he should yet be the greatest man in England. Although soundly flogged by the schoolmaster, at the particular desire of his father, for entertaining such a piece of folly, it is said that the dream could not be driven out of the boy's head, and, according to the testimony of Clarendon, it passed into a popular tradition regarding him, " even from the beginning of troubles, and when he was not in a posture that promised such exalta- tion." It is even said to have had some weight with him in his decision to decline the crown, as he remem- bered that the figure had not mentioned the word hing, but only that he should be the greatest man in the kingdom. Such a story can only be considered as an evidence of the ease with which the popular mind satisfies itself as to the explanation of great facts, whose real meaning it never comprehends. The best, perhaps, of all these stories of Cromwell's boyhood, is that which relates how he fought with Prince Charles at Hinchinbrook, when he was there with his father in 1G04, on his way from Scotland to London. The tradition is that he gave the Prince a bloody nose — a circumstance, says Noble, which was looked upon " as a bad presage to that King when the civil wars commenced." Even Mr Foster seems struck with so notable an omen. "The curtain of the future was surely," he says, " for an instant upraised here." We may safely say that the story is a good one, and that, supposing Prince Charles and the youthful Cromwell did encounter each other, the stalwart " manchild of the brewer of Huntingdon " was no doubt very likely

CROMWELL. 61

then, as afterwards, to prove victor, and even to leave the impress of his prowess on the face of his victim.

The young Oliver was sent to the grammar-school at Huntingdon, at the head of which was a Dr Beard, remarkable for the severity of his pedagogic discipline. As a schoolboy he is represented to have been " noto- rious for robbery of orchards and of dove-houses, steal- ing the young pigeons, and eating and merchandising of them." Likely enough the energy of his " rank nature " found vent in a somewhat riotous indulgence in all the usual sports and escapades of boyhood; and one statement we can believe to be literally true — that he would work as " a very hard student for a week or two, and then be a truant or otiose for twice as many months."

From school at Huntingdon, Cromwell went to Cam- bridge in the end of his seventeenth year (1616), and was entered as a commoner of Sidney Sussex College. The same wild reputation follows him here. He made "no proficiency," says one of the gossips,* " in any kind of learning ; but then and afterwards sorting himself with drinking companions and the imder sort of people (being of a rough and blustering sort of disposition), he had the name of a royster among most that knew him." During his short residence at Cambridge, says another, f " he was more famous for his exercises in the fields than in the schools (in which he never had the honour of, because no worth and merit to, a degree), being one of the chief match-makers and players at football, cudgels, or any other boisterous sport or game."

Whatever truth there may be in these descriptions of his irregularities, it is by no means true that he made * Sir William Dugdale. f Heath.

62 ENGLISH PUEITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

no progress in learning. In after years lie had a fair knowledge of Latin, which he could only have acquired at this time. During his Protectorate he conversed with the Hague ambassadors in Latin;* and Waller, his kinsman, reports that he was well versed in Greek and Eoman history. His Avas not, indeed, in any sense, a scholarly nature ; but it is a mere aspersion — one of the thousand that have gathered around his name — to suppose that he was indifferent or hostile to learning. The respect which lie showed in the days of his power to his old Alma Mater, the testimony of Milton and others, are sufficient to refute any such accusation. Ac- cording to Milton, " he gathered up the literary dust of Cambridge without deepening the tracks of learning. He acquired an ordinary acquaintance with literature without being in any sense learned." He had other work to do than that of the schools. With a soaring loftiness, according to his wont, the poet-secretary continues the idea : " It did not become that hand to wax soft in literary ease which was to be inured to the use of arms, and hardened with asperity; that right hand to be wrapt up in down among the noc- turnal birds of Athens, by which thunderbolts were soon after to be hurled among the eagles which emu- late the sun."

Cromwell had scarcely been more than a year at Cambridge when his father died, and he returned home in consequence. So far as we can judge, this event terminated his scholastic education. The circum- stances of his mother — the large charge with which she was left — the loss of her father in the same year — and an alienation which had existed for some time between Sir Oliver's family and her ow^n — j^robably prevented

* Only ''very vitiously and scantily," according to Burnet's sneer.

CROMWELL. 63

Oliver continuing liis studies. He proceeded soon after to London, to commence the study of law. He is stated to have entered as a member of Lincoln's Inn, although research has failed to discover his name in the books of any of the Inns of Court.

During this period his youthful excesses are reported to have reached their height. The gossips * vie Avith one another in " strongly-coloured " stories of his wildness and debaucheries. It is impossible to say what amount of truth there may be in such stories. Mr Carlyle makes short work with them, but the uniformity of the tradi- tion woukl seem to imply some substratum of truth. Wickedly coloured they no doubt are — embellished by all the piquant inventiveness of the slander of the Eestoration — yet we " can well believe that the youth of Cromwell was one of stormy and passionate excite- ment. A nature like his is apt to give the rein to its impulses, till some special influence or event comes to arrest and turn it in a new direction.

Such a change in his life was now at hand. While in London he had become acquainted with the family of Sir James Bourcliier, " a civic gentleman " of good means and considerable property near Felsted in Essex ;

* Heath, Anthony Wood, and almost " every contemporaneous re- cord," says Mr F'oster, " combine to give a strongly-coloured picture of his uncontrouled debaucheries at this time." One extract will suffice. "The ale-wives of Huntingdon and other places, when they saw him a- coming, would nse to cry out to one another, ' Here comes young Crom- well, shut up your dores,' for he made no punctilio to invite his roysters to a barrel of drink, and give it them at the charge of his host ; and in satisfaction thereof either beat him or break his windows, if he offered any show, or gave any look or sign of refusal or discontent." There is a worse story than any mere personal debauchery, which represents him as attempting to obtain possession of his uncle. Sir Thomas Steward's property, on some plea of his uncle's imbecility ; — but the calumny has obviously originated in a misinterpretation of some family disagreement.

64 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

and on the 22d of August 1620, when he was twenty- one years and four months old, Oliver Cromwell was married to Elizabeth, daughter of this gentleman, in the Church of St Giles, Cripplegate, London. Eliza- beth Bourchier is not said to have been possessed of any remarkable personal attractions. She is not much spoken of, indeed at all, in his letters or elsewhere. Several letters, indeed, of his to her survive, written during his Scottish campaign, and one of hers to him, belonging to the same period ; but they are brief and not particularly characteristic. The impression they give of her is that of a strongly affectionate and sensible woman, but somewhat narrow-minded and exacting * — more intent on her family cares than on the great concerns in which her husband was acting a part. One has said — and the description seems to suit her very well — that she was " an excellent housewife, and as capable of descending to the kitchen as she was of acting in her exalted station with dignity."

After his marriage Cromwell settled in his father's residence at Huntingdon, and during the next eight years we scarcely know anything of his history. He appears to have farmed, as his father had done before him, and spent his life in the usual manner of a country gentleman. His own means must have been

* She says in the single letter of hers which survives (which, by the way, is extremely wretched in its spelling), almost querulously, " I should rejoice to hear yoiu- desire in seeing me — but I desire to submit to the providence of God." But she says also beautifully, and with a touch- ing strength of affection — "My life is but half a life in your absence, did not the Lord make it uj) in himself." In one of his replies, Sept. 1650, he says, characteristically, " I have not leisure to write much. But I could chide thee that in many of thy letters thou writest to me that I should not be unmindful of thee and thy little ones. Truly, if I love thee not too well, I think I err not on the other hand much. Thou art dearer to me than any creature — let that suffice."

CROMWELL. 65

limited, and his duties probably left liim but little leisure. He liad leisure, however, to think ; for it was during these years, and there is reason to suppose not long after his marriage, that the great religious change passed upon him which coloured his whole life, and, more than anything else, gave consistency and meaning to it. How this change was wrought there remains no means of tracing. There is no record of his spiritual experience at this early period ; and we cannot even say whether Sir Philip Warwick's reminiscences of his illness and hypochondria* refer to this or a later time of his life. At the best, these are but vague signs of the great crisis of his spiritual being, whose secret intensity can only be gathered from the fulness of feeling and energy of action which it called forth.

He soon showed the bent of his new impulses. Eeligious life and earnestness appeared to him all to lie with the persecuted Nonconforming party in the Church. Whether or not any of them had been instru- mental in leading him to new thoughts, his sympathies at once gathered round them. His house became a refuge of the Puritan preachers ; they met in it for wor- ship, in which he not only joined, but actively parti- cipated. He became known as one of the most active of the party, and identified himself with all their move- ments, appearing personally in their behalf before the Bishop of Lincoln.-f- From being an idle and boisterous youth, he became in a few years a zealous, religious, leader.

* Dr Simcott, physician, Huntingdon, told Sir Philip that Cromwell was very " splenetic " about this time — that he had been sent for at mid- night to see him — that he laboured under the impression he was just about to die — and had " strange fancies about the town-cross."

t Afterwards Archbishop Williams.

E

G6 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADEES.

We can well understand, altliougli we are not able clearly to trace how all this occurred to Cromwell. As soon as he began to seek a sphere of activity in connection with his new convictions, his great energy, and quick sympathies with the common social feeling around him, would naturally drive him into the ranks of Puritanism. Without frivolity, earnest and tho- rough-going even in his dissipations, with no reverence for conventionalities, but rather a fierce impatience of them, the Court or ecclesiastical party possessed no points of attraction to him. The only feeling that might have bound him to it — the old traditionary loyalty of his family, which had cost his uncle and grandfather so dear — had become weakened by various circumstances, even if its natural influence had not been broken by his disagreement with his uncle. Eoyalism had lost its old charm ; it had widely alienated the national feeling. Spanish intrigues and Laudian ceremonialism had made it especially con- temptible with ardent reforming young minds. Puri- tanism became, by mere force of contrast, the in- stinctive creed of such minds between the years 1620-30. To one like Cromwell, with a vague, un- easy sense of genius, and a profound feeling of the reality of religion stirring him, it opened up a field of active interest and ambition. Every one of its objects made a claim upon his sympathy and enthu- siasm. The privilege of preaching the gospel with as few formalities as possible — the right to a private judgment in matters of conscience — the need of de- fence against the old Papal spirit of bondage over men's souls and bodies — these were things directly calculated to interest a young Protestant gentleman in the beginning of the seventeenth century. We can-

CROMWELL. 67

not tell when the great principle of the rights of con- science first impressed Cromwell ; hut we shall see how early he was excited about Popery, and every attempt to reintroduce it ; and liow at last, in the days of his power, it was perhaps his highest honour to reach the right meaning of the doctrine of toleration, and nobly to vindicate it against the straitest sect of that very Puritanism which had first 2)ractically taught him it.

During these early years of his residence at Hunt- ingdon, six children were born unto him, four of whom were sons, but only two of whom* survived, and after- wards reappear in history. With this family growing up around him, and amidst his farming duties, and Puritan interests and associations, he spent this quiet- est period of his life. Gradually he rose to repute and credit among his fellow-townsmen. Particularly he seems to have concerned himself in the scheme at this time set agoing by some of the wealthy London Puri- tans for buying-in lay impropriations as they were offered for sale, and from such funds providing lec- turers to supply the spiritual destitution prevailing in many parts of the country. This was a favourite scheme of the Puritans ; and these lecturers, we have seen, were their favourite preachers. "It is incred- ible," says Fuller, "what large sums were advanced in a short time towards so laudable an employment." Lecturers spread themselves over the country, espe- cially in the market-towns, where they preached on market-days and on Sunday afternoons ; and we shall find immediately how great was Cromwell's interest in their maintenance and work.

* Another son (five in all), and two more daughters, of whom we shall afterwards hear, constituted his family.

68 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

His activity and talent were already, in 1625, so well recognised, that it was proposed in that year, when Charles called together his second Parliament, to send him up to Westminster as member for the borough of Huntingdon. The proposal, however, did not on this occasion take effect. In 1628, when Charles, needy for supplies, and unable to find them by other and less constitutional means, called together his third Parliament — the famous Assembly that drew up and passed the Petition of Right — Cromwell was returned as member for Huntingdon. His cousin Hampden was member of this Parliament, and other names no less celebrated — Selden, Elliot, Pym, and Holies. Long afterwards, when the rustic squire from Huntingdon had become the greatest man in England, it was remembered what a rough and clownish appearance he presented at this time ; and in the mad days of the Restoration the subject suggested itself to a divine, whose cleverness scarcely redeems the infamy of his sycophancy, as a telling point for a royal sermon. "Who that had beheld such a bankrupt beggarly fellow as Cromwell," says South, preaching before Charles II., " first entering the Parliament House with a threadbare torn coat and a greasy hat, and perhaps neither of them paid for, could have suspected that in the course of so few years he should, by the murder of one king, and the banishment of another, ascend the throne, be invested in the royal robes, and want nothing of the state of a king, but the changing of his hat into a crown ! " *

The first session of this Parliament did not last long,

* South was not yet bishop, but only chaplain to Buckingham when he thus preached before his royal patron, " Odds fish, Lory," exclaimed Charles, after the sermon, ''your chaplain must be a bishop. Put me in mind of him at the next vacancy."

CROMWELL. 69

but it had been distinguished by various important movements. Among other things that it had taken in hand, was tlie severe exposure of certain Popish practices on the part of Mainwaring, one of tlie royal chaplains. Pym led the way in this exposure ; and the chaplain, abandoned for the time by his master and Laud, had to submit to the censure of the House. The royal favour, however, was speedily extended to him in compensation. No sooner had Parliament risen than he was promoted. Other circumstances of ill omen had occurred. " Tonnage and poundage " had been levied unwarrantably without Parliamentary consent, and in the very face of the provisions of the Petition of Eight ; this great remonstrance itself was reported to have been tampered with. Parliament reassembled in the January of the following year, not in the very best of tempers it may be imagined. A committee of religion was immediately appointed, and a hot and indignant debate ensued as to the Romanising tendencies dis- played in high quarters. Hampden had spoken, and when he sat down his cousin for the first time rose and addressed the house. " A harsh and broken voice of astonishing fervour," * made a strange contrast to the mild and dignified accents of Hampden. But energy is stamped on every word of the broken and fragmentary record of this first sj)eech of CromwelL The direction which his sympathies had been taking — his association with Puritan lecturers, the impa- tience of his stern Protestant feeling, are all apparent. He said " he had heard by relation, from one Dr Beard (his old schoolmaster at Huntingdon), that Dr Ala- baster had preached flat Popery at Paul's Cross ; and that tlie Bishop of Winchester (Dr Neile), he had com- * Foster.

70 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADEES.

manded him as his diocesan he should preach nothing to the contrary. Mainwaring, so justly censured in the House for his sermons, was, by the same bishop's means, transferred to a rich living. If these are the steps to church preferment," added he, " what are we to ex- pect ? " Cromwell's statement so impressed the House, that it resolved on immediate action. In the Com- mons' Journals of the same day, there stands recorded the following notice : " Upon question ordered. Dr Beard of Huntingdon to be written to by Mr Speaker, to come up and testify against the bishop : the order for Dr Beard to be delivered to Mr Cromwell." *

The Protestant temper of the House was not to be restrained. The King, by the help of the Speaker, tried to evade its determinations. When it came to the point, Mr Speaker Finch refused repeatedly to "put the question," alleging that he had the King's orders to adjourn. But at length, after an astonishing scene, in which the Speaker gave way to tears, while the members around menaced him if he persisted in opposing the mind of the assembly, he was forcibly detained in his chair until they had passed three emphatic resolu- tions protesting against " Arminianism, Papistry, and illegal tonnage and poundage." Dissolution, of course, immediately followed these proceedings ; and Crom- well, after a brief Parliamentary experience, returned to his native Huntingdon, to remain still for some years in comparative obscurity. There can be no doubt, however, that from this time he became a man of mark in his party. Far more, jDrobably, than we can now guess, he had shown during this short period of public life, powers fitted to raise him to influence and distinc- tion ; while, at the same time, he had entered into * Carlyle.

CKOMWELL. 71

connection with the great national leaders of the move- ment. He was no longer merely the head of a pro- vincial party, hut one of a patriot band, representing a powerful national feeling. In communion with such men, he must have felt his sympathies elevated, and his convictions enlightened and strengthened.

Cromwell returned to Huntingdon in the spring of 1629. In the course of the following year he was named along with his old schoolmaster, and Eohert Barnard, Esq., a Justice of the Peace for that borough. Here he remained for three years or so, still carrying on, appa- rently in connection with his mother, his old farming operations. He seems, however, to have been but ill at ease — troubled with dark thoughts as to his own spiritual condition and the state of the country. It is to this period that Mr Forster refers his " strange fancies about the town-cross," and his hypochondriacal apprehensions of death. It can be easily imagined how his strong nature, having been caUed forth into temporary excitement by the events of the Parliament of 1G28, and having sunk back into an uneasy and tor- menting inaction, w^ould prey upon itself.

In 1631 he effected the sale of the properties in which he was interested in the neighbourhood of Hunt- ingdon, and removed to St Ives, five miles down the river, where he rented a grazing farm. His mother appears to have remained at Huntingdon, as we find that his children continued to be baptised in the old church there. At St Ives he became still more dis- tinguished than hitherto for his systematic and rigor- ous devotions, and for the religious influence which he sought to exercise over those around him. He prayed with his family and servants in the morning and even- ing. He souglit to mix up religion with the work of

72 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

the fields, just as afterwards he mixed it up with the work of iigliting. The spirit which inspired and fashioned his famous Ironsides out of ploughmen and graziers, was now working in him. He continued also, with increasing heartiness, his old concern in the Puri- tan lecturers sustained by the rich merchants of Lon- don. These lecturers had been greatly persecuted dur- ing the years succeeding the dissolution of Parliament. Laud and his accomplices had hunted them down wherever they could, and discouraged and broken up the system as far as in their power. St Ives appears to have been fortunate in possessing for its lecturer, up to the year 1635, one Dr Wells, "a man of goodness, and industry, and ability to do good in every way, not short of any man of England," says Oliver, in his first extant letter. This letter is in every way remarkable. It is addressed " to my very loving friend Mr Storie, at the sign of the Dog in the Eoyal Exchange, London ;" and after congratulating Mr Storie and his fellow-citizens on their good works in " providing for the feeding of souls," by means of the lectures which they had instituted in the county — and speaking of the excellence of Dr Wells, who had been so acceptable in his calling, and since whose coming the Lord had wrought by him much good among them — it proceeds to regret the likelihood of the lectures' discontinuance for want of funds. " And surely," he urges, " it were a piteous thing to see a lecture fall in the hands of so many able and godly men, as I am persuaded the founders of this are, in these times wherein we see they are suppressed, with too much haste and violence, by the enemies of God's truth. Far be it, that so mu<3h guilt should stick to your hands, who live in a city so renowned for the clear shining light of the gospel.

CROMWELL. 73

You know, Mr Storie, to withdraw the pay is to let fall the lecture — for who goeth to warfare at his own cost ?" — a very characteristic hint — the clear light of common sense (as always with him) shining through the most fervid expressions of religious feeling.

Amidst all his religious exercises, Oliver's farming was not prosperous. The lands seem to have been of a boggy, intractable character, yielding no return for his patient industry. It is the sneer of Hume, copy- ing Heatli as usual, that " the long prayers which he said to his family in the evening, and again in the afternoon, consumed his own time and that of his ploughman," and left no leisure for the care of his temporal affairs. No man was ever less likely than Cromwell to commit such a mistake. He had now, and always, far too practical an eye for such maunder- ing. Yet, whatever was the cause, he did not succeed at St Ives. His crops failed, and his health became disordered. The cold and damp of the district affected his throat, producing a kind of chronic inflammation in it. It was remembered long afterwards what a strange appearance he used to make at church, as he came up the aisle — his throat rolled in flannel, his rough dress ill-arranged — and the red flannel flaunting after him.

In 1636 he is found no longer at St Ives, but at Ely. Here he had succeeded to his maternal uncle. Sir Thomas Steward, who, as his fathers before him, had farmed the cathedral tithes. He took up his residence in the old glebe-house near St Mary churchyard — a house still standing, and described by Mr Carlyle in 1845 as an ale- house, with still some chance of standing ; " by no means a sumptuous mansion," he adds, "but it may have con- veniently held a man of three or four hundred a-year, with his family, in those simple times. Some quaint

74 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

air of gentility still looks tlirougii its ragged dilapida- tion." Here Cromwell spent the few remaining years of comparative inaction that still awaited him, " living neither in any considerable height nor yet in obscurity," as he told his Parliament of 1654.

The state of the country was in those years rapidly getting worse. Charles had nearly played out his scheme of self-government. The trial of Hampden, protracted for months, served to feed the popular discontent. The quiet magnanimity of the victim, the eloquence of his defence, the legality as well as righteousness of his cause, all served to stimulate the public ardour, and strengthen the rising feeling against the ministers and the Court. The bishops, too, were carrying their short- lived triumph to its most oppressive and insolent excesses. Old Palace Yard, on the 30th of June 1 637, presented a spectacle calculated to move men's hearts — not to submission, .nor even to despair, but to fierce impatience and rooted vengeance rather. Prymie, and Bastwick, and Burton — a lawyer, physician, and clergy- man— were there exhibited in three pillories, and had their ears cut off and their cheeks branded before a large crowd. This was what Laud's ingenious ecclesiastical devices had come to. These men had ventured to question not only the policy but the legality of these devices. Prynne had openly declared that he was prepared to prove them to be contrary to the law of England. This was the answer he and the rest received. Legal or not, they were to be enforced at the expense of the ears of all gainsayers. The threat was a vain one. " Cut me, tear me," cried Prynne, " I fear thee not — I fear the fire of hell, not thee ;" while Bastwick's wife, at the foot of the scaffold, received her husband's ears into her lap and kissed them.

CROMWELL. 75

This very same year, and only a montli later, scenes equally remarkable in their wayAvere transacted in Scot- land. • Jenny Geddes with her stool and ever-memor- able cry, " Deil colic the wame of thee, thou foul thief, wilt thou say mass at my lug ? " had made in old St Giles's a " beginning of the end." The fierceness of national indignation was rising high. It was getting "too hot to last." *

As Cromwell in his Ely home mused on such matters, his heart was deeply stirred in him. He was wrapped now, according to his Avont, in deep gloom, and now excited to violent energy. His thoughts were driven inwards, and lie anxiously pondered anew whether the ground of the matter was right in him. A letter of this period to his cousin, Mrs St John, the second in Mr Carlyle's list, is among the most cha- racteristic of all his compositions that have been pre- served. Amidst its wild and gropiug earnestness, and strange intensity of biblical language, it sheds a vivid light upon the inward man. A strongly-moved and earnest soul makes itself bare to us, just as it emerges from darkness and struQ'oie. He writes : " Dear cousin — I thankfully acknowledge your love in 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 ; yet to honour my God, by declaring what he hath done for my soul, in this I am confident, and will be 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 Mesech, which they say signifies

* Burton's sayinjj, as he was carried fainting from the scene of his

torture.

76 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

'prolonging — in Kedar, which signifies hlackness : 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 may honour my God by doing or by suffering, I shall be most glad. Truly, no poor creature hath more cause to put himself forth in the cause of his God than I. I have had plentiful wages beforehand, and I am sure I shall never earn the least mite. The Lord accept me as his son, and give me to walk in the light — and give us to walk in the light, as He is the light. He it is that enlighteneth our blackness, our darkness. I dare not say He hideth his face from me : He giveth me to see light in His light. One beam in a dark place hath exceeding much refreshment in it. Blessed be His name for shining upon so dark a heart as mine. You know what my manner of life hath been. Oh ! I lived in, and loved darkness, and hated light ; I was a chief, the chief of sinners. This is true : I hated god- liness, yet God had mercy on me. 0 the riches of his mercy ! praise them for me. Pray for me, that He who hath begun a good work would perfect it in the day of Christ." *

An air of singular reality, confused but vivid, is impressed upon every line of this letter — a reality not suggested by the scriptural language in which it is expressed, but which looks through all the conventional phrases of that language. It is a poor, nay, it is an unintelligible criticism, which can see nothing but hypocrisy in such a letter. It ought to be remembered that, on any other supposition than that of the down- right and awful sincerity of the writer, much more * Carltle, 141-2.

CROMWELL. 77

than hypocrisy is needed to explain it in the circum- stances— addressed as it was to his cousin, and meant for her eye alone ; we must suppose weakness and folly as well, of which not even a royalist theologian would venture to accuse Cromwell.

This is one side of the picture which our hero pre- sents to ns in these years — an earnest man concerned about his soul, and rejoicing that the light of Christ has dawned upon him. There is another side to the picture, in which we see him no less earnest, in a different capacity, as a leader of the popular feeling in a great movement which made much noise at the time in Huntingdon and its neighbourhood. The Earl of Bed- ford had some years before started a scheme for the draining of the extensive fens which covered some mil- lions of acres in that and the adjoining counties — a pro- ject long talked of. The work had proceeded so far. The great Bedford level, as it was called, for carrying the river Ouse between elevated embankments into the sea, had been completed, or nearly so ; when the Crown, by commissioners, interfered with the professed design of abetting the work, but in such a manner as to stir up a tierce strife in all others interested. Its spirit of encroachment here, as everywhere, was so obviously manifested as to provoke opposition on all hands. Oliver Cromwell threw himself heart and soul into the movement, headed the widespread disaffection, and by a " great meeting " at Huntingdon, and other- wise, effectually put a stop to the invasions of the Crown, and for the time defeated the completion of the great project. He was far, however, from being opposed to it in itself, and it is absurd to represent the matter as if he were so.* It was merely his

* So far from this, that when, in the year 1649, the Long Parliament

78 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

instinct liere, as elsewhere, to resist the domineering spirit of the Crown in defence of popular rights and pri- vileges. The notoriety he acquired in this commotion procured him among the people the appellation of the " Lord of the Fens." The great energy and decision of his character were quietly noted, and it was felt that he would make himself known in the times that were approaching. It was remarked that he was a man " that would set well at the mark."

Times sufficiently stirring were at hand. The at- tempt to re-establish Episcopacy in Scotland had produced its natural fruits. The famous Glasgow Assembly had demolished the elaborate machinery devised by Laud and his coadjutors. Charles resolved to send an army into Scotland to enforce his designs ; and the long-forgotten idea of a Parliament was once more pressed upon him as the only mode of enabling him to meet his difficulties and equip his army. A Parliament was accordingly summoned in the spring of 1640 ; Cromwell was appointed to sit in it as member for Cambridge ; but it had scarcely met when it was dismissed. The royal temper was still intract- able ; and a last desperate effort, to which Wentworth, now Earl of Strafford, gave all his influence, and con- tributed himself the large sum of £20,000, was made to raise and send forth an army without Parliamentary intervention. The attempt, however, was disastrously unsuccessful. The soldiers were ill-affected towards the cause of Episcopacy : "in various towns on their march, if the clergymen were reported Puritan, they went and gave them three cheers ; if of surplice ten- dency, they sometimes threw his furniture out of win- passed an Act for ''draining the great level of the fens," Lieutenant- General Cromwell was among its most active supporters.

CROMWELL. 79

dow." * Sucli an army was obviously not likely to set up the power of the bishops. Tlie Scottish force in the mean time penetrated England, and forcing its way toward Newcastle, the King's army retired upon Yoik, where he and Strafford were.

The war was virtually ended ; and Charles returned to his capital baffled and gloomy at the result. Sum- moning hastily a " Council of Peers," he concluded a treaty with the Scots, and was compelled once more to think of calling together a Parliament. Twelve of the Peers petitioned him to do so. The city of London would only advance money on condition that he would do so. The Scots remained at Newcastle comfortably quartered, and encouraging by its sympathy the Puritan disaffection everywhere. Charles was in straits such as he had never yet been ; and reluctantly he yielded and summoned the Commons. This, known as the Lous Parliament, was the most memorable that ever sat in England. It met on the ^/arc? of November 1640. The long-suppressed feelings of tlie country at length found vent in a persistent course of reform. Bill followed bill in rapid redress of grievances under which the Commons had long groaned. Ship-money was de- clared to be illegal ; the Star Cliamber and the High Court of Commission were abolished ; the power of arbitrary taxation was taken from the King, and the bill for triennial Parliaments passed. Laud was im- peached, and imprisoned in the tower ; Strafford was struck down from his proud and oppressive elevation. Never was monarch more hopelessly embarrassed — more violently and yet feebly inconsistent — than Charles. At one time he tried a compromise with the popular party ; then he entered into plots with the * Carlyle.

80 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

army for the rescue of Strafford from the Tower ; then, finally, he abandoned him, and signed his condemna- tion on the 10th of May 1641.

After the death of Strafford a temporary reaction set in. The secession of Hyde and Culpeper and Falk- land from the popular party, served for a while to weaken it, and strengthen the side of the King. Many as well as these known names were disposed to think that the royal concessions had proceeded far enough ; that the rights of the constitution had been amply vindicated ; and that the course of innovation should be stayed. They felt that the country was trembling on the brink of revolution ; and that a further step in advance, still more a step of violence on either side, would precipitate matters towards a crisis which must issue in a civil war. They shrunk from the fearful responsibility of such an issue. That this was the honest motive of such a man as Falkland in joining the King there can be no doubt. Personal peculiarities in him, as well as in Hyde, may have had something to do with the result ; his keen and sensitive nature, delicate and classic in its aspirations, may have oper- ated, just as Hyde's reserved dignity and coldness did, in withdrawing him from the cause of popular agita- tion. But it is clear, also, that the genuine principles of both were implicated in making the stand they did. They had been foremost in urging on the "Bill of Attainder," for they hated Straftbrd even more than Pym and Hampden ; but in his overthrow they seemed to see the security of the constitution ; and they gave themselves to the service of the King with a sincere desire to maintain the integrity of the Government, and avert the revolutionary dangers which seemed threatening.

CROMWELL. 81

But tliey mistook — even Hyde did — the character of the King, and they underrated the daring and address of the leaders of the popular cause. Following Strafford's execution, the King had gone to Scotland ; and there, in the midst of many intrigues, and in con- tact with tlie ardent courage of Montrose,* he had re- covered not only his spirits, but his old ideas of prero- gative and kingly power. He returned, inflamed with his own importance, and a sense of his outraged rights, and threw himself far more heartily into the counsels of the Queen and her secret Popish conclave, than into the deliberations of liis new supporters.

In the mean time Pym had taken a step which re- opened the whole subject of popular grievances, and struck a deadly blow at the new policy of conciliation. He had prepared and was urging forward " The Grand Eemonstrance." Whatever be the explanation of this move of the ParUamentary leaders — whether it pro- ceeded from their honest convictions that the process of reform was not by any means complete — from their fears, or their ambition — it had the effect of giving a new and decisive turn to the struggle. Their victory made them more confident, and the King more des- perate. The remonstrance was carried by a majority of eleven, on the 22d of November, after a long debate and a memorable scene, which, save for the firmness and pre- sence of mind of Hampden, might have ended in blood- shed. It was on leaving the house after this exciting struggle that Cromwell is reported to have said to Falkland, that if the remonstrance had not been carried.

* It is doubtful whether Montrose had any personal intercourse with the King, although Clarendon alleges that he had. "He" (Montrose), he says, "came privately to the King." There can be no doubt, how- ever, that communications passed between them.

F

82 PINGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

lie would have sold all that lie liad next day and gone off to America.

Other events followed in rapid succession. The long- pending attack against the bishops was unexpectedly brought to a violent issue. Through the folly of Wil- liams, the thirteen who had been impeached were arrested, and eleven of them carried to the Tower, to bear Laud company. Charles, at the same time, intoxicated by his flattering reception in the city by a Eoyalist Lord Mayor, and seduced by the evil coun- sels of the Queen and her creatures, was meditatiug designs of a dark and aggressive character. Selecting five of the leaders of the Commons and one in the Lords, he demanded their impeachment and surrender as traitors ; and when baffled in this milder effort, he made his appearance in Westminster with an armed guard to enforce his summons and arrest his victims. The step was at once impotent and fatal. The mem- bers, duly warned, had disappeared into the city ; and Parliament retreated thither also, "to be safe from armed violence."

The crisis could now no longer be delayed. The King, with the Queen and his family, left London, while the five impeached members were transported in triumphal barges from the city to Westminster. The city militia lined the banks of the Thames on both sides. Four thousand knights and gentlemen on horseback arrived from Buckingham to hail their compatriots, and carry- ing in their hats a printed oath to live or die in defence of the Parliament. The popular enthusiasm knew no bounds ; and amid this display of excited patriotism, the House of Commons took immediate and energetic resolutions for the defence of the country. An armed guard was appointed to watch the approaches to the

CROMWELL. 83

town, before a new governor of the Tower, in the con- fidence of Parliament, should be appointed ; the gover- nor of Portsmouth was ordered to receive no troops or ammunition into that town without the sanction of Parliament ; and Sir John Hotham, a gentleman of influence in Yorkshire, was commanded to take pos- session of Hull, the great northern arsenal, and pre- serve it.

The King still professed to keep up negotiations with Parliament, but his sole aim was now to o-ain time to carry out the hostile measures on which he had already resolved. He retired first to Hampton Court and then to Windsor ; and there, in a secret coun- cil, it was agreed that the Queen should proceed to Holland, taking the crown jewels with her, and do all she could to raise arms and ammunition, and excite sympathy for the royal cause. As Charles returned from Dover, where he had seen her embark, he was met by urgent messages from Parliament as to the command of the militia, which it claimed for men pos- sessing its confidence. This was almost the last point on which he held out. He had yielded the governor- ship of the Tower ; he had even, against the advice of Hyde, yielded to the tears of the Queen what his own conscience strongly repudiated — the bill of exclu- sion against the bishops ; but he would not give way on the subject of the militia. Instead of returning to Lon- don, he met the prince with his tutor at Greenwich, and immediately set out northwards. Twelve Parlia- mentary commissioners overtook him on his way, and again solicited him on the subject of the militia ; but he refused to alter his previous answer "in any point." A week later new messengers found him at Newmarket, and a long and excited conversation ensued ; Charles

84 ENGLIf^H PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

urging, with something of pathetic dignity, his com- plaints, and Lord Holland, on behalf of the Parliament, still reiterating the question of the militia. "Might not the militia be granted, as desired by Parliament, for a time?" "No, by God," was his reply, "not for an hour. You have asked that of me which was never asked of a king, and which I would not intrust to my wife and children." And so was snapped the last feeble thread of negotiation on both sides ; while parties rapidly took their sides, and the country prepared for a fierce and hitherto unexampled struggle.

During these two memorable years, Cromwell was an active although not a prominent agent. Beside Pym or Hampden, or even Strode or Haselrigge, he was not conspicuous in the Commons. He did not speak much, but he was constant on committees, zeal- ous against the bishops, and in many ways one of the most earnest, untiring, and forward of the party. We find him moving for a conference with the Lords to stay the investiture of five new bishops which Charles was foolish enough to urge forward at such a time (October 1641, just after the reassembling of the Par- liament). We find him again bringing before the House a calumny circulated by the royalists to the effect that it was offended at the entertainment given by the city to the King (27th November). But a still more important motion than either of these was made by him in the same month of November. The country had been startled and horror-struck by the news of the Papal insurrection and massacre in Ireland. It was necessary that troops should be raised for the defence of the kingdom ; and it became an obvious anxiety to the popular party that these troops should not be diverted from their proper object to the furtherance of

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the King's private designs. This was exactly a point to interest Cromwell, who was already beginning to see more deeply into the nature of the crisis than many of those around him. To the heads of a proposed confer- ence with the Lords on the state of the kingdom, it Avas accordingly added, " upon his motion," that the two Houses should unite in passing an ordinance to continue the command of the "train bands on that side Trent" in the hands of the Earl of Essex (who had been appointed to this command during the Kmg's absence in Scotland), " until Parliament should take further orders The effect of this motion was really to open the question which, in the following year, as we have seen, became the critical and final one be- tween the Parliament and the King.

These, as well as other incidents, are sufficient to prove the activity of Cromwell in the early years of the Parliamentary struggle. There have been two sketches of him, however, preserved during those years, Avhicli perhaps give a still more lively impression of the part that he took, and the zealous earnestness that he showed, in the popular cause. They are of cog- nate origin — neither of them flattering, yet both very graphic in their way. The one is from the garrulous pen of Warwick, and the other from the politely-ma- licious pen of his friend and patron, Clarendon. We subjoin them for the reader's gratification. He will note particularly the photographic impress of the out- ward features of our hero.

" The first time," says Warwick, " that I ever took notice of ]Mr Cromwell, was in the very beginning of the Parliament held in November 1640, when I " (he was member for Ptadnor) " vainly thought my- self a courtly young gentleman — for we courtiers

86 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

valued ourselves much upon our good clotlies ! I came into the House 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 have been 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 much 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 in behalf of a servant of Mr Prynne's, who had dispersed libels against the Queen for her dancing ; and he aggra- vated the imprisonment of this man by the council- table unto that height, that one would have believed the very government itself would have been in great danger by it. I sincerely profess it lessened much my reverence unto that great council, for he was very much hearkened unto. And yet I lived to see this very gentleman, whom, out of no ill-will to him, I thus describe — by multiplied good successes, and by real but usurpt power (having had a better tailor, and more converse among good company) in my own eye, when for six weeks together I was a prisoner in his sergeant's hands, and daily waited at "Wliitehall — ap- pear of a great and majestick deportment, and comely presence."

The other description, by Clarendon, is equally cha- racteristic. The scene is a private committee, which sat in the Queen's Court; the subject regarding an en- closure of certain wastes belonging to the Queen's man- ors, which had been made without consent of the

CROMWELL. 87

tenants, and transferred by tlie Queen to one of her servants " of near trust," who again had disposed of his interest to the Earl of Manchester, against which the tenants, as well as " the inhabitants of other man- ors," had petitioned with loud complaints as a great oppression. Notwithstanding Mr Hyde's courtly lan- guage, the business does not look well — was, in fact, just a case for the interference of the " Lord of the Tens," who had already, in his own district, amply vin- dicated the rights of the people against royal oppres- sion in such matters. " Oliver Cromwell being one of them," continues Hyde, " appeared much concerned to countenance the petitioners, who were numerous, to- gether with their witnesses ; the Lord Mandeville being likewise present as a party, and, by the direction of the committee, sitting covered. Cromwell, who had never before been heard to speak in the House,* ordered the witnesses and the petitioners in the method of pro- ceeding, and seconded and enlarged upon what they said with great passion ; and the witnesses and per- sons concerned, who were a very rude kind of people, interrupted the counsel and witnesses on the other side with great clamour when they said anything that did not please them; so that Mr Hyde (whose office it was, as chairman, to oblige persons of all sorts to keep order) was compelled to use some sharp reproofs, and some threats, to reduce them to such a temper that the business might be quietly heard. Cromwell, in great fury, reproached the chairman for being partial, and that he discountenanced the witnesses by threat- ening them; the other appealed to the committee, which justified him, and declared that he behaved him- self as he ought to do, wliich more inflamed him

* Not true, as we have seen.

88 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

(Cromwell), who was already too much angry. When Lord Mandeville desired to be heard, and with great modesty related what had been done, or explained what had been said, Mr Cromwell did answer and reply upon him with so much indecency and rudeness, and in language so contrary and offensive, that every man would have thought that as their natures and their manners were as opposite as it is possible, so their interest could never have been the same."

Every one has seen such portraits as that drawn by Warwick — the " stature of a good size," the " counte- nance swollen and reddish," the " voice sharp and un- tuneable," the " linen plain and not very clean," the " speck or two of blood upon his little band " (an ex- panse of shirt worn over the collar of the coat, with a view to the long hair which was then fashionable), " not much larger than the collar itself" (that is to say, un- fashionably narrow in the eyes of the " courtly young gentleman ") ; " the plain cloth suit made by an ill country tailor." The features are exactly such as the photograph stamps M-ith faithful unspirituality, while the true portrait lies behind the outer and uuillumined lines, to be called forth by the vivifying eye of the friendly imagination — to every other eye invisible. The process is not difficult in the present case ; it scarcely needs, as with the reminiscent courtier, the help of " a better tailor" to see in Warwick's literal but coarse like- ness the true image of the Puritan hero, with his proud soul lighting up his countenance, and suffusing it with indignation ; plain and bluff in his dress and manners now as at all times, but now also, under all his external coarseness, having a certain "great and majestical de- portment, and comely presence," no less than in his days of state. Under the exaggerations of both sketches,

CROMWELL. 89

and especially tlie vehemence and "passion" of manner on whicli they dwell, it is easy to trace the keen patriot, warmed more by excitement in other people's sendee, and the sense of wrong done by the strong against the weak, than by any regard to liis own interests, or by the impulses of his own ambition. There can be no doubt that, although he was not yet recognised as a Parlia- mentary leader, those who were ostensibly leaders saw and appreciated his great powers, and looked forward to his future career with interest, perhaps with awe. " Who is that man — that sloven — that spoke just now ? for 1 see that he is on our side by his speaking so warmly," asked Lord Digby of Hampden, as they left the House the same day that Sir Philip Warwick de- scribes what he saw, and how it impressed him. Con- ceited trimmers like Digby, whom the snares of the Court so soon entangled, were not likely to know any- thing of the blunt and uncouth member for Cam- bridge. " That sloven," was Hampden's reply, " if we should ever come to a breach with the King, which God forbid, will be the greatest man in England."

It was not, however, till the crisis of the war that Cromwell's peculiar and unexampled powers were shown. As soon as the King's final determination about the militia was known, he was found in his native district organising an incipient force among the servants and farmers who had formerly acknowledged and been em- boldened by his influence. His military genius showed itself from the first. The sense of a great talent awoke in him, which might for ever have lain hid in the deep background of his nature but for the exigency which called it forth. The nucleus of his famous troop of Iron- sides may be said to date from this very commencement of the war — from the first preparations which he made

90 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

with such zealous foresight to preserve in the midland counties the authority of the Parliament and extend its power. These preparations were entirely successful, effective in proportion to the quietness and decision with which they were carried out. The Midland, or what were called the Eastern Associated Counties, remained true to the ])opular cause throughout the struggle ; and from their unanimity and compact organisation, escaped comparatively the miseries of actual warfare. Of his military activity at this time we get merely glimpses, but they are very significant and characteristic glimpses. Tlie university of Oxford had already sent its plate to the King for his service. Cambridge was medi- tating a similar step when Cromwell appeared, "seized the magazine in the castle, and hindered the carry- ing of the plate from that university." His musketeers were over all the country, keeping a vigilant watch for the Parliamentary interests, " starting out of the corn and commanding stray youths to give an account of themselves." His uncle, Sir Oliver, had a visit from him. The old royalist had evidently been meditatmg help for the King in his straits, and his nephew and godson " thought it might be well to pay him a visit with a good strong party of horse." "Warwick is the gossip here, as so often elsewhere ; and there is a de- lightful piquancy in the story M'hich he tells — such a mixture of business and dutifulness — of sternness to the cause and yet reverent affection for his imcle — that we are inclined to own its truth, doubtful as is the source. " During the few hours that he was there Cromwell asked him (the imcle) liis blessing, and would not keep on his hat in his p)Tesence ; but at the same time he not only disarmed but jjhtndcrcd him, for he took away all his plate."

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On the 23d of August 164-2, Charles raised the royal standard at Nottingham, in an unpropitious storm of wind which blew it do^vn again. The Earl of Essex, at the head of the Parliamentary forces, received in- structions, " by battle or other^^'ise, to rescue the King and his sons from these perfidious counsellors, and bring them back to Parliament." The Earl of Bed- ford, a grave and moderate man, like Essex, was made general of the horse ; and Oliver Cromwell was named captain of the 67th troop.

Tlie King, accompanied by his nephew. Prince Ptupert, lately arrived from Germany, removed to the western counties, and set up his headquarters at Shrewsbury. Essex advanced towards him slowly, and Charles dreamed of marching upon London and finishing the war by a single bold stroke. He had even proceeded some days on his march, when Essex overtook him on the borders of Warwickshire, and the first battle ensued in this great struggle — the battle of Edgehill, as it was called'. The result was indecisive. Prince Eupert broke the Parliamentary horse and pursued them from the field ; but, on the other hand, the royal infantiy were dispersed, the Earl of Lindsay, com- mander-in-chief, severely wounded, and the King's standard taken.

Apparently it was after this battle, and the expe- rience he derived from it, that Cromwell had that remarkable conversation ^\ath Hampden which he him- self narrates,"' as to the quality of the Parliamentary forces, and the need of an entirely diflerent metal to meet the aristocratic gallantry opposed to them. " At my first going out into this engagement, I saw these men (the men of the Parliament) were beaten at every

* Speech to Second Parliament. Carlyle, ii. 526.

92 ENGLISH PUKITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

hand, and I desired liim (Hampden) that he would make some additions to my Lord Essex's army of some new regiments, and I told him that I could be service- able to him in bringing such men in as I thought had a spirit that would do something in the work. This is very true that I tell you ; God knows I lie not. Your troops, said I, are most of them old decayed serving- men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows, and, said I, these troops are gentlemen's sons, younger sons, and persons of quality ; do you think that the spirits of such base and mean fellows will be ever able to en- counter gentlemen that have honour and courage and resolution in them ? Truly I did tell him, you must get men of spirit." Hampden admitted the excellence of the notion, but deemed it impracticable. Cromwell set about convertiug it into a fact. He had already, in truth, made a beginning with the men he had raised in his own district. Carrying out the same plan, and seeking for men of a religious spirit, potent to meet the spirit of honour opposed to them, he formed a regiment of horse, most of them freeholders and freeholders' sons, who, " upon matter of conscience," engaged in the quarrel under his guidance ; and being " well armed within by the satisfaction of their own consciences, and without by good iro7i arms, they would as one man charge firmly and fight desperately." * " They were never beaten," he himself said, proudly, of them. And " bold as lions in fight, they were in camp tem- perate and strict in their behaviour." " Not a man swears but he pays his twelvepence," was the current remark of the day regarding them.

The great soldier of the Cominonwealth was already apparent in the captain of the 67th regiment of horse. * Whitelockh.

CROMWELL. 93

The energy, compreliensioii, and snccess of his move- ments marked him out at the first from the other Par- liamentary commanders. In comparison with the re- spectable patriotism of Essex, the ostentation of Wal- ler, and the vacillating intrepidity of Manchester, he was found steady, hopeful, self-possessed, victorious in whatever was intrusted to him. None of all then acting against the King — not even Hampden, nor Oliver St John — saw so clearly that "things must be much worse before they are better ;" and with this calm and strong conviction, he took his measures and made his preparations accordingly. While Essex hesitated, and Parliament negotiated, he acted — and acted with a decision which never returned upon itself nor questioned its aims. This decision is the great secret of his success. However we may explain it — whether, with some, as a part of a deliberate and daring scheme of ambition, formed from the beginning, or as the expression of his honest and deeply-felt convictions regarding the state of England at the time — it is the great key to the sweeping energy with which he ad- vanced from point to point in his great career. While the accidents of the strife removed men like Hampden on the one side and Falkland* on the other from the scene ; and the pressure of unforeseen and unexplain- able dangers, fast accumulating, wore out and destroyed others like Pym — more than all the others great m the senate, and capable of directing the storms of faction ; Cromwell seemed to grow in proud confidence and

* There is something very touching in Falkland's death, notwithstand- ing Mr Carlyle's sneer as to the " clean shirt." He courted and found death on the field of Newbury, "weary," as he said, of the times, and foreseeing much misery to his countiy. Clarendon's portrait of Falk- land is one of his most perfect, and must always fascinate the historical student.

94 ENGLISU PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

cheerful aud expanding consciousness of right as the struggle went on. As Essex became more desponding, and Waller .more incompetent, and Manchester more scrupulous, and the great names of Pym and Hampden remained no longer as guides amid the darkness, the rude determination and unconquerable heroism of this man made him master of every successive exigency, — and what he gained he never lost. If we could conceive Cromwell removed from the scene of struggle, and our view only rested on the divisions of the already diverg- ing parties in the Commons, or the inconsistencies and feebleness of its generalship in the field, the chances of internal dissolution would seem far more imminent than approaching triumph to the popular cause. And Crom- well himself was still labouring under this fear when, more than a year hence, he openly accused Manchester in the House of being reluctant to conquer. The rally- ing but inconsistent forces of Puritanism, he felt, needed a commander to unite them ; or, if this was impossiljle, to carry the boldest principles of the movement to triumph, and to bend the others into subordination and harmony. More obscurely, perhaps, he felt even then that he himself was that commander — that the genius of the movement was destined to culminate in him as its greatest hero.

In the early spring of 1643, Cromwell is for the first time designated colonel, and shortly afterwards {May ] 643), he obtained, to use his own words, a " glorious victory." The scene of tliis victory is supposed to have been near to Grantham, although history has failed to give any chronicle of it save his own brief and characteristic description. " Advancing, after many shots on both sides," he says, " we came on with our troops a pretty round trot, they standing firm to

CROMWELL. 95

receive iis : and our men charging fiercely upon tliem, by God's Providence tliey were immediately routed, and ran all away ; and we had the execution of them two or three miles. I believe some of our soldiers did kill two or three men apiece in the pursuit."

His next achievement was the relief of Gainsborough, which he effected after a sharp and bloody struggle, in which General Cavendish, second son of the Earl of Devonshire, and cousin of the Earl of Newcastle, then the great representative of, and the most successful com- mander for, the King in the north, was killed.* The action was close hand to hand, " horse to horse," "when we disputed it with our swords and pistols a pretty time." The steadiness of Cromwell's men, however, triumphed. " At last, they a little shrinking, our men perceived it, pressed on upon them, and immediately routed the whole body ; and our men pursuing, had chase and execution about five or six miles." This engagement was the first in which Cromwell came into notice as a military leader. " It was the beginning of his great fortunes," says Whitelock ; " now he began to appear in the world."

It was in the month of July that this achievement of Cromwell's took place. In the previous month Hampden had fallen wounded to death in a skirmish on Chalgrove Common, some miles from Oxford. He was seen " to quit the field before the action was fin- ished, contrary to his custom, with his head hanging down." Charles, at Oxford, was greatly excited by the news ; and with a pathetic courtesy, which touches us even if we may doubt its sincerity, sent to inquire for his great opponent, and to offer to send him medi-

* " My captain-lieutenant," says Cromwell, "slew him with a thrust under his short ribs."

96 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

cal assistance if he liad none at hand. All assist- ance, however, was vain. Hampden felt from the first that his wound was mortal, and busied his last hours in writing letters to his friends, and earnestly counsel- ling those active measures for the prosecution of the war that he had long had at heart. He was attended by an old friend, Dr Giles, Rector of Chinnor, and his dying words were words of prayer — " 0 Lord, save my country."

Hampden's death, and Waller's serious reverses, gave a very gloomy turn to the affairs of Parliament at this time. On all sides save in the east they wore a disastrous look. Here, notwithstanding the back- wardness of Lord Willoughby, the Parliamentary gene- ral, the vigour of Cromwell's influence was everywhere apparent. Especially he held in check the forces of Newcastle, and proved a terror to the northern Papists. He had been appointed by the Parliament governor of the Isle of Ely, and this strengthened his influence throughout the district. In this capacity he is found making a speech in Ely Cathedral, which must have astonished his auditors. An Act of Parliament had abolished the ecclesiastical usages obnoxious to the Puritans. Cromwell counted it his business to see the Acts of Parliament in this as in other things strictly enforced ; and one of the canons being so foolish as to disregard the new arrangements, and proceed in the old manner of surplice and ceremony, he was saluted with the cry, " Leave off your fooling, and come down, sir" — a cry which doubtless startled the ecclesiastic in the midst of his elaborate sanctities.

In the autumn of 1643 he had a hard fight at Winceby, in which he nearly lost his life. " His horse was killed under him at the first charge, and fell down

CROMWELL. 97

upon liim ; and as he rose up lie was knocked down again." Afterwards, however, he recovered a "poor horse in a soldier's hand, and bravely mounted him- self again."* It is evident that Cromwell had enough to do during the somewhat unhappy close of the first period of the war. There is no evidence, however, that he was for a moment desponding, or even embarrassed. His letters betray an invariable self-confidence — a steady faith.

The campaign of 1644 opened vigorously on both sides. Essex and Waller commanded for the Parlia- ment in the midland and western counties ; Manches- ter and Cromwell in the eastern counties ; and Fairfax and his father in the north co-operated with the Scots, who had entered England to the number of 20,000, under the command of the Earl of Leven. Newcastle, who had gallantly maintained the royalist cause in the north, was now besieged in York by the combined forces of the Parliament and the Scots. Prince Eupert hastened from Lancashire at the head of 20,000 men to his relief. On his approach the Parliamentary forces raised the siege, and after an ineffectual attempt to intercept him withdrew towards Tadcaster. So far Eupert had accomplished his pur- pose ; but, not content with this measure of success, he insisted on giving battle to the Parliamentary army. In spite of Newcastle's remonstrances, he carried his design into effect. The marquess felt himself insulted and overborne by the rude and impetuous prince. He evidently discredited the existence of a letter from the King, which the prince urged as his plea for fighting ; yet he yielded, declaring that he had no other ambi- tion than to live and die a royal subject. A somewhat

* Narrative by John Vicars, 1646 ; quoted by Carlyle, p. 190, vol. i.

G

98 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

similar dissension distracted the councils of the Par- liamentarians. The Scots were opposed to battle, and their timid counsels for a while prevailed, to the great disgust and indignation of Cromwell. A battle, how- ever, was inevitable. Eagerness on the one side was responded to by hope * on the other ; and although the Scots were already within a mile of Tadcaster, and Manchester's foot were also on the march, they turned at a summons from Fairfax that Eupert had drawn out his forces to meet them on Long-Marston Moor ; and there, on the evening of the 2d of July, the two armies met. After a severe and varying struggle, which at first seemed in favour of the Eoyalists, who broke and dispersed both Fairfax's men on the left, and the Scots in the centre under Leven, "vdctory declared in favour of the Parliamentary army. The Eoyalists were driven from the field with great disaster, and chased within a mile of York ; " so that their dead bodies lay three miles in length."

This decisive victory was, beyond doubt, mainly due to Cromwell, who retrieved the day with his horse, after it seemed nearly lost. There is no reason to doubt the accuracy of his own account, that " the battle had all the evidence of an absolute victory, obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the godly party principally. We never charged, but we routed the enemy. The left wing which I commanded, being my own horse, saving a few Scots f on our rear, beat all the Prince's horse. God made them as stubble to our swords." And it was after he had thus done his own share of the work on the left that he swept round

* " Hope of a battle moved our soldiers to return merrily," says a Parliamentary chronicler — AsH. t Commanded by General David Leslie.

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with his victorious horse to the right, where Fairfax and Leven had yielded to the Eoyalists, and turned there also tlie tide of battle.

The event was a signal one for Cromwell and the army, and more than justified Prince Eupert's eager inquiry at a prisoner who was taken on the eve of the engagement — " Is Cromwell there ? " It was beginning to be felt now, on all hands, that he was the great hero on the Parliamentary side of the struggle. He and the " godly party " that he represented henceforth emerge into prominence as the genuine war-party. It was evident that they had aims beyond the Presbyterians, and that they were rapidly acquiring an influence in the army which would enable them to carry out these aims. The very extremity of their views gave them strength on the field. While Essex in the south and west, and Leven in the north, were distracted in their warlike efforts by their desires of peace, and Manches- ter shared in their anxieties, Cromwell and his party had no misgivings. Their minds were not set on peace. They saw the deeper turn that the revolution was taking, and they gladly gave themselves to the current. Cromwell himself more and more felt that war was his element — that his place of power was on the battle-field. It was there that his soul kindled into greatness, and that his marvellous energies for the first time had found adequate scope. The tone in which he writes, accordingly, shows how far aU ideas of peace were from his mind at this period — how he was knit- ting himself up to a fiercer struggle than ever, and how his own side of the cause was becoming more intensely and dogmatically consecrated to his mind and imagina- tion as the cause of God.

But this very determination on the part of Cromwell

100 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

and liis followers, it may be imagined, filled moderate men all the more with distrust and apprehension. They seemed to awaken suddenly to a perception of the dangerous character of this powerful leader. Man- chester especially, perhaps from more immediate con- tact with him, and a closer cognisance of his designs, became alarmed and doubtful. The old bonds of amity between the general and lieutenant of the eastern associated counties were broken — never to be repaired. The altercation which subsequently ensued between them in Parliament was merely the expres- sion of a deep-seated misunderstanding and dis- like that had been for some time springing up. The Peer resented the forward zeal and incessant inter- ference of his lieutenant ; the latter was indignant at the indecision, and what he no doubt considered the in- competency of his general. Perhaps we may infer, from Clarendon's story of their early conflict, that there never had been any great heartiness of affection be- tween them. On one side the moderate men drew together, and held meetings as to the critical aspect of affairs, and the dangerous prominence into which a single triumphant soldier was rising. On the other, Cromwell separated himself more definitely from the Presbyterian party, taking Fairfax with him, and bent with an unflinching heart on a more energetic and conclusive prosecution of the war.

The slight results that had followed the great victory of Marston Moor, Essex's reverses in the south-west, and the submission of his troops, helped to confirm Cromwell in his views. He and all the decisive party felt that some great stroke must be struck, before the royal power could be overthrown, and the poj)ular cause, as they esteemed it, triumph. While these dis-

CROMWELL. 101

sensions were still at their height, the armies met once more on their old ground at Newbury.* Charles, inflated by the news of Montrose's triumphs in Scot- land, made a sudden resolve to march upon London. Parliament, however, collected its forces and waited his movement. Essex, ill at ease and despondent, refused to join the army and take the command ; but Man- chester took his place, and Cromwell headed, as before, the horse. After some severe skirmishing on the two previous days, the serious fight began on the 29th of October. It was long and bloody, and contested with desperate bravery on both sides. At night, when the moon rose above the field of carnage, it was unde- cided. The Eoyalist troops had not suffered more than their opponents, and still stood their ground. But Charles, apprehensive and hopeless of victory, with- drew his forces during the niglit in the direction of Oxford. The vigilant eye of Cromwell detected this movement, and he earnestly implored Manchester to allow him to fall with his cavalry upon the retreating army. But Manchester refused ; and the fruits of a virtual victory were again lost.

Cromwell returned to Parliament full of gloomy resolves. He took Vane into his counsel, and silently they formed their plans for a new organisation of the army, and the subversion of the Presbyterian generals, under whose guidance so little good had come of their fighting. In Parliament they had to proceed cau- tiously, as they were still there in a considerable minority. His indignation, however, against Man- chester could not be restrained ; and he had scarcely returned, when he openly accused him of lack of zeal, and of backwardness in the cause. Ever since the

* Where Falkland bad fallen in September 1G43.

102 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

taking of York, following the victory at Marston Moor, he had seemed afraid of decisive victory, he said, " as if he thought the King too low, and the Parliament too high." Manchester retorted in the House of Lords, and did not spare Cromwell, whom he in turn accused of disrespectful and seditious language towards both the House of Lords and the King. He did not hesitate even to bring forward an unmeaning and absurd charge of cowardice, which Cromwell's enemies had trumped up against him. Great excitement and alarm prevailed among the Presbyterians. Cromwell had become their bugbear. They held consultations as to whether they should impeach him. Essex's house was their rendez- vous ; and Wliitelocke has preserved a very graphic account of a meeting, to attend which both he and Maynard were sent for in the middle of the night. It ended in nothing, and Cromwell only grew stronger as he took a higher courage from the baffled movements of his enemies.

In the month of December he ventured openly upon the first part of the scheme which he, Vane, and others had concocted. The House of Commons was met in a grand committee, to consider the sad condition of the kingdom groaning under the intolerable burdens of the war ; and " there was a general silence for a good space of time,", every one waiting for the other to begin the unpleasant subject, when Lieutenant-General Crom- well rose to speak — " it being now high time to speak, or for ever hold the tongue," as he said. He spoke of the miserable condition of the country, and then of what the enemy, and even " those who had been friends at the beginning said, that the members of Parliament were contiuuinu; the war for their own

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private interests — having got great places and com- mands, and the sword in their hands ;" and then sug- gesting that all " strict inquiry " or recrimination should be abandoned as to past oversights, of which he admitted himself guilty as well as others ; he expressed a trust that, having true English hearts and zealous affection towards the general weal of their mother country, there were no members of either House who would scniple to deny themselves and their own private interests for the public good.

The result of this ingenious movement is well known as the " self- denying ordinance," which, after much debate, and having been rejected by the Lords, was at length passed by both Houses.

There has been a great deal of discussion as to Cromwell's particular relation to this ordinance. Did he mean honestly to include himself under its dis- qualifying clauses ? And was it merely the force of circumstances, and the necessities of Parliament, that afterwards secured him in his military command? Or was it part of the scheme from the first, that while Essex and Waller and Manchester were got rid of, he should be retained, and the way more completely opened for his ambition ? The selection of Fairfax for general, who was known to be under Cromwell's in- fluence, and the keeping open his own appointment of lieutenant-general, or second in command, are pre- sumptions in favour of the latter view. The general facts of the case — the improbability of men like Vane and Ludlow being parties to any scheme of mere personal ambition on Cromwell's part — the accidental manner in which Cromwell's services were protract- ed, and, with apparent reluctance, authorised by the

104 ENGLISH rURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

Commons — Josliiia Sprigge's empliatic statement ■"' on the subject — all favour the former opinion.

Any general argument on either side is beset by diffi- culties. It may be safely said, however, that there is no evidence that the men who assisted Cromwell to carry this measure were accomplices with him in any delibe- rately planned scheme of ambition to serve his interests. They acted mainly, no doubt, from an honest motive to serve their own designs, and bring the war to a success- ful determination. They saw that nothing but such a sweeping measure, and the reconstruction of the Parlia- mentary forces under new generals, who should be free from the jealousy and timidity of the old ones, could secure such a result. Vane and others knew Cromwell's great military genius and decision, without doubting at this time that his patriotic views w^ere similar to their own. They looked, therefore, without distrust on his continuance in his command, f Their aim was to have an efficient army, d'nd only secondarily, and with a view to this primary aim, to deprive certain officers of their command. As for Cromwell himself, we cannot believe that lie contemplated his own permanent re- tirement from the stage of military affairs. He knew his own strength and the needs of his country too well to allow us to suppose that he could have delibe- rately entertained such an idea. Essex and Waller and Manchester might pass from the scene. The ac- cidents of their lot, more than anything else, had placed them where they were ; and, unambitious as

* See extract from his Anglia Bediviva, afterwards quoted, and found at length in Carls le, vol. i. p. 206. Sprigge was ehajjlain to Fairfax, and has left in this work a " florid but authentic " account of the new model army, by whose exertions the war was brought to a triumphant close.

+ There is evidence of this, Carlyle says, p. 208, vol. i.

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both Essex and Manchester were, they laid down their command probably with more pleasure than they ever took it up. But Cromwell's charac- ter and position were altogether different. Of all men he was the genius of the crisis, and he could only pass away with it. To suppose that his retention of his command was a result of his own elaborate deception, consciously worked to this end, is to mistake his character, and to contradict certain undeniable facts ; but to suppose, on the other hand, that he doubted that his services could be retained, is to credit him with a dulness from which no man was more free. He knew all the circumstances of the case, and no doubt calculated on the issue. These circumstances, far more than any plot or direct schem- ing on his part or others, had the real settling of the business.

The story is, and it seems perfectly credible, that he came to Windsor " to kiss the general's hand, and take leave of him, when, in the morning, ere he was gone forth of his chamber," certain commands were received by him, " than which he thought of nothing less in all the world," * to pursue and attack a convoy sent by Prince Paipert to transport the King from Oxford to Worcester. The connnands were from the committee of both kingdoms ; and immediately on receiving them Cromwell took horse, and not merely attacked the con- voy successfully, but, after his wonted manner, per- formed various gallant exploits in succession. Fairfax no doubt honestly felt that he could not want him ; and he and other officers accordingly petitioned Parlia- ment that he might be appointed lieutenant-general, and commander-in-chief of the horse. The Commons * Sprigge.

106 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

continued his services for " forty clays," and then for " three months," and so on, until at last, in the glory of his exploits, and the need of his guidance, no one challenged his position, and he assumed his natural supremacy as the real head of the army of the Com- monwealth.

After various deeds in his old district, he is found on the memorable field of ISTaseby. Fairfax, who had laid siege to Oxford, suddenly raised it at the com- mand of Parliament to go in search of the King, and try the new army in a decisive contest. Consciously reliant on the stronger genius of his friend, it was then that he sent the message to the Commons about Crom- well, and that the latter, at his invitation, hastened to join him. They came up with the King's forces at Naseby, a small hamlet near Northampton ; . and here, on the 14th of June 1645, after three hours' fight very doubtful, and conspicuous deeds of bravery on both sides, Eupert's wonted heedlessness in pursuit, and Cromwell's steadiness, self-control, and his final charge at the head of his dragoons, decided the fate of the day. ]S]"ever did soldiers fight better than Cromwell's troopers on this great day, and he was not slow to improve the occasion. " Sir," wrote Cromwell to the Speaker of the Commons House of Parliament, on the very field of battle, a day before the despatch of Fairfax, " this is none other but the hand of God ; and to Him alone belongs the glory wherein none are to share with Him. The general served you with all faithfulness and hon- our ; and the best commendation I can give him is, that I dare say he attributes all to God, and would rather perish than assume to himself — which is an honest and a thriving way ; and yet as much for bravery may be given to him in this action as to a man. Honest

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men served you faithfully in this action. Sir, they are trusty ; I beseech you in the name of God not to dis- courage them. He that ventures his life for the liberty of his country, I wish he trust God for the liberty of his conscience, and you for the liberty he fights for."

The Eoyalist power was completely broken by the battle of Naseby. Charles in vain tried to rally new forces in Wales ; he in vain looked towards Scotland, where Montrose, after a succession of brilliant skir- mishes, had at length been utterly vanquished at Philips- haugh by Leslie. Discomfited and discouraged on all sides, he again withdrew into Oxford for a while. In the mean time, the Parliamentary forces under Crom- well pursued their career of victory. After having re- duced the " clubmen " m the south-west — for the most part " poor silly creatures," whom the hardships in the war on both sides had goaded to an active resistance in their own behalf — he marched towards Bristol, which had been lost to the Parliament in the first year of the war. After a vigorous storm, and obstinate resistance, the Parliamentary forces made themselves masters of its outer forts, and Prince Eupert was glad to capitu- late for a free exit. This may be said to have been the last great stroke of the war. With the fall of Bristol, the hopes of Eoyalism were extinguished. Eupert was driven forth a wanderer without an army, and Charles himself left without succour.

From Bristol the triumphant Puritans marched southward, reducing every stronghold on their way — Winchester, Basing House, Wallop. In the south and in the west, where they had hitherto been strongest, the remains of the Eoyalist forces were entirely crushed. Sir Ealph Ilopton, one of the most honourable of all the commanders on the side of the King, was driven

108 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

into Cornwall, and finally, in the following spring, compelled to surrender the wreck of his army, and betake himself to the Continent.

The King, shut up in Oxford, moodily contemplated the ruin of his adherents everywhere. Sir Jacob Astley, almost the very last of those who kept the field for him, was surrounded and captured on his way to join him at Oxford, on the 22d of March 1646. He is reported to have said, as he fell into the hands of the enemy, " You have now done your work, and may go to play, unless you fall out among yourselves." Charles saw no rescue ; and in the end of the following month at midnight, on the 27th of April, he left Oxford in disguise, and sought shelter in the Scottish camp at Newcastle.

This closed the "First Civil War;" four years of bloody and varying struggle, in which one man, more than any other, amidst all its vicissitudes, had been seen to rise step by step. At the opening of the war his name had been little more than heard of within the precincts of Westminster, — at its close, his fame was second to none in England. The Parliament hastened to do honour to him. He was welcomed with state, and received the thanks of the House for his " great and many services." A pension of .£'2500 was settled on himself and family, and certain land granted to him as a security for the allowance.

It is no part of our plan to endeavour to trace the thread of movements and negotiations which fol- lowed Charles's retirement to the Scottish camp — his continued refusal to come under the conditions of the Covenant — his attempts to play off the Presbyterians against the Independents and the Independents against the Presbyterians — the failure of the treaty of New-

' CROMWELL. 109

castle — the King's surrender into the hands of the Par- liament— and the further train of negotiations which sprang from this event. These two years' intrigues, in all their meaning and aims, remain still very intricate and baffling to the historical student. In all that concerns Cromwell especially, the entanglement is extreme ; and it cannot be said that the most recent elucidations clear up anything here. To what extent Cromwell deliberately encouraged and abetted the schemes of the army — to what extent he was drawn along unwillingly into these schemes, and forced by the necessity of his position to act as he did — as the only condition of saving himself and his compatriots — it is difficult to say. The more we look at all the cir- cumstances, the more does the idea of conscious design on the part of Cromwell to guide the conflict to its issue recede into the background ; and that issue itself appear as a terrible retribution waiting on the hopeless jealousies of rival interests, as yet inflamed rather than satisfied by the blood that had been shed on both sides. The result long hung in the balance. The Parliament, backed by the city, was really bent on settlement with the King, if he would only adopt the Covenant and authorise the Presbyterian form of Church government. The army, confident in its own strength, and especially in the thoroughness and earnestness of its fanatical convictions, had no thoughts of com- promise. As between the two, Cromwell and others seemed to mediate ; but all his sympathies and all his convictions were with the army. He knew them and they knew him. He himself may have been really anxious to treat with Charles ; there may have been even some foundation for the alleged agreement be- tween them, whereby he was to receive an earldom

110 ENGLISH PURITANISM AND ITS LEADERS.

and the government of Ireland ; there can be no doubt that his frequent presence at Hampton had nearly excited to outbreak the jealous fanaticism of the army. But he could, nevertheless, have scarcely be- lieved in the possibility of a reconcilement at this time ; he saw with too open an eye all the difficulties of the position.

Whatever sincerity may have animated Cromwell in the various projects for a settlement, there was no sincerity on Charles's part. His duplicity strength- ened as his weakness increased. It had become a part of his nature, nay, of his religion ; and while with the one hand he professed to yield, with the other he communicated to the Queen that she might be entirely easy as to his concessions which he made, as he had no intention of observing them when the time came. The story of Cromwell and Ireton discovering the King's secret correspondence with the Queen sewed up in a saddle on the way to Dover, may be apocryphal, but it is perfectly conceivable. And even, as a story, it symbolised the universal feeling as to Charles's in- veterate and hopeless falsehood. This feeling, that it was impossible to bmd him — that after all that had been gained nothing was really secure if he was only restored to power — coupled with the mounting fana- ticism and proud resentment of the army, which had already begun to look on the King as the great criminal whose arbitrary ambition had been the cause of so much bloodshed in the country, effectually rendered all projects of treaty impracticable, and was fast pre- paring the way for the tragedy which was to end the struggle.

The great meeting at Windsor, in the beginning of 1648, bears a marked significance in this point of view.

CKOMWELL. 1 1 1

It is plain that the idea of Charles's fate had then be- come fixed in the minds of the leaders of the army. The picture is an awful and exciting one — lurid with the wild gleam of religious passion, and darkened by the clouds of political hatred. There is a peculiar mystery of horror, now as at all times, in the mixture of divine ideas with men's hates, jealousies, and revenges. " After one whole day spent in prayer, on the next day, after many had spoken from the word and prayed, Lieutenant-General Cromwell did press very earnestly on all present to a thorough consideration of our actions as an army, and of our ways, particularly as private Christians, to see if any iniquity could be found in them, and what it was, that if possible we might find it out, and so remove the cause of such sad rebukes as were upon us." . . . Then after another day's self-examination and prayer, and " bitter weeping, so that