Cromwell joined the army because he wished to prevent the outbreak of anarchy or civil war. War was inevitable, if the Presbyterian leaders were allowed to bring Scottish forces into England to suppress the Independent army. Anarchy was inevitable, unless the Independent army was held in by a strong hand. If Cromwell remained passive, the mutiny would become a military revolution, and a bloody collision would take place between Independents and Presbyterians. He could prevent these things only by immediate action. It was too late now to attempt mediation, for with or without his aid the Agitators had determined to act. “If he would not forthwith come and head them,” they told Cromwell, “they would go their own way without him.”
As soon as Cromwell’s mind was made up, he struck with swiftness and decision. The King was the key of the situation, and the possession of his person was to either party nine points of the law. 165His co-operation was indispensable to the success of the Presbyterian scheme, for unless they completed their agreement with Charles, the Scots would not cross the border, the English Royalists would not rise, and the citizens of London would not fight. At Holmby House, Charles was guarded by the regiment of Colonel Graves, who was an ardent Presbyterian, and Graves was under the orders of four Presbyterian commissioners appointed by Parliament. The danger was that Graves, either of his own accord or by order of the commissioners, might remove the King to Scotland or to London.
On May 31, 1647, Cromwell ordered Cornet Joyce, an officer in Fairfax’s life-guard, to get together a party of horse, and to prevent the King’s removal from Holmby. About midnight on June 2nd, Joyce reached Holmby, and posted his men round the house. Next morning the troopers of the King’s guard threw open the gates and fraternised with his men, while Graves took flight, leaving King and commissioners in Joyce’s hands. Cromwell had given no orders for the King’s removal, but next day there were rumours that Graves was returning with a strong force to regain possession of the King, and Joyce’s men urged him to remove Charles to some place of security in the quarters of the army. Charles, who was offered his choice, selected Newmarket, and leaving Holmby on Friday, June 4th, Joyce and the King reached Hinchinbrook that evening. On Saturday, Joyce was met during his march by Colonel Whalley, whom Fairfax had sent to take command of the King’s guard and convey the King 166himself back to Holmby. But Charles refused to return to what he regarded as his prison, and persisted in going to Newmarket, where the headquarters of the army were now established.
On the same Friday and Saturday, a general rendezvous of the army was held at Kentford Heath, near Newmarket, during which Cromwell arrived from London. At the rendezvous, a full statement of the grievances of the soldiers was presented, and all bound themselves by a solemn engagement not to disband or divide till their rights were secured. A council was instituted, consisting of the general officers, with two officers and two privates chosen from each regiment, which was to negotiate with Parliament on behalf of the soldiers, and to represent the army in political matters. The experiment was a dangerous one, but to limit the functions of the Agitators and to induce them to co-operate with their officers was the only way to bring them under control. In military matters, however, the General and his council of war remained supreme, and in that body Cromwell was the ruling spirit. Adversaries described the Lieutenant-General as the “primum mobile,” and “the principal wheel” which moved the whole machine. Under his influence subordination and discipline were rapidly restored, and in a few weeks the real direction of the army passed into the hands of the council of war, while the General Council sank into the position of a debating society. No one doubted that this was Cromwell’s work. “You have robbed,” complained Lilburn in July, “by your unjust subtlety and 167shifting tricks, the honest and gallant Agitators of all their power and authority, and solely placed it in a thing called a council of war.”
From Newmarket, the army advanced toward London. Parliament promised the soldiers all their arrears, and cancelled their offensive declarations. But the soldiers now required guarantees for the future as well as satisfaction for the past. They insisted on the exclusion of the Presbyterian leaders from power, and claimed a voice in the settlement of the nation. A letter to the City of London, signed by all the chief officers, but probably written by Cromwell himself, explained the change in their attitude.
“As Englishmen—and surely our being soldiers hath not stripped us of that interest, though our malicious enemies would have it so—we desire a settlement of the peace of the kingdom and of the liberties of the subject, according to the votes and declarations of Parliament, which, before we took arms, were by the Parliament used as arguments to invite us and divers of our dear friends out; some of whom have lost their lives in this war. Which being now by God’s blessing finished, we think we have as much right to demand and desire to see a happy settlement, as we have to our money and the other common interests of soldiers we have insisted upon.”
Cromwell asserted that the army had no wish either for a civil or an ecclesiastical revolution, but reiterated the demand for toleration.
“We have said before and we profess it now, we desire no alteration of the civil government. As little do we 168desire to interrupt, or in the least to intermeddle with, the settling of the Presbyterial government. Nor did we seek to open a way for licentious liberty under pretence of obtaining ease for tender consciences. We profess as ever in these things, when once the State has made a settlement, we have nothing to say but to submit or suffer. Only we could wish that every good citizen, and every man who walks peaceably in a blameless conversation, and is beneficial to the Commonwealth, might have liberty and encouragement; this being according to the true policy of all states, and even to justice itself.”
To Cromwell, it is evident, the acquisition of freedom of conscience seemed more important than any possible change in the constitution of Church or State. The task of formulating the political programme of the army fell to his son-in-law Ireton, who had more definite views than Cromwell as to the constitutional changes needed. Arbitrary power, Ireton asserted in the army’s Declaration of June 14th, was the root of all evil. The absolutism of Parliament must be guarded against as well as the absolutism of the King, and parliamentary privilege might become as dangerous to popular liberties as royal prerogative had been. The way to make the rights of the people secure was to make Parliament more really representative. Henceforward the demand for the speedy termination of the existing Parliament was accompanied by demands for equalisation of the constituencies, short Parliaments, and the vindication of the right to petition.
HENRY IRETON.
(From a painting by Robert Walker, in the National Portrait Gallery.)
The Long Parliament was not disposed to accept such democratic changes, but it was obliged to 169temporise. News came that the ten thousand men of the northern army under General Poyntz were on the verge of mutiny, and ready to join the forces under Fairfax. The eleven Presbyterian leaders impeached by the army saved the dignity of the House by a voluntary withdrawal, and negotiations were opened at Wycombe on July 1st. After a fortnight of negotiating, the Agitators murmured at the delay, and urged the immediate resumption of the march on London, and the enforcement of their demands. Cromwell and the higher officers opposed. “Whatsoever we get by a treaty,” argued Cromwell, “will be firm and durable. It will be conveyed over to posterity.” The friends of the army were daily gaining ground in the House.
“What we and they gain in a free way is better than twice so much in a forced way, and will be more truly ours and our posterity’s.... That you have by force I look upon as nothing. I do not know that force is to be used except we cannot get what is for the good of the kingdom without it.”
In Cromwell’s opinion, it would be sufficient peremptorily to demand certain concessions as a guarantee that the treaty was seriously meant, and to leave the terms of the political settlement for negotiation. Above all things it was essential that the army should be united. “You may be in the right and I in the wrong, but if we be divided I doubt we shall both be in the wrong.”
Cromwell’s plan was adopted, and the Long Parliament yielded. All preparations for armed resistance 170were abandoned. Parliament appointed Fairfax commander-in-chief of all the forces in England, including those lately under General Poyntz; it disbanded all the soldiers it had enlisted to oppose Fairfax; it restored the control of the London militia to the old committee, which the army trusted, in place of the exclusively Presbyterian committee appointed in the spring. But if Parliament saw the necessity of yielding, London did not. On July 21st, crowds of citizens signed an engagement for the maintenance of the Covenant, and the restoration of the King on his own terms, though both Houses united in denouncing their engagement. On the 26th, crowds of apprentices and discharged soldiers besieged the Houses and threatened their members with violence unless the command of the City forces were given back to the Presbyterians. The Lords gave way first; the Commons resisted some hours longer, but in the end they too obeyed the mob, and repealed their votes. The rioters also extorted from them a vote inviting the King to London. After this both Houses adjourned till the 30th of July, but before that day came the two Speakers, followed by eight Peers and fifty-seven members of the Commons, had taken refuge with the army, declaring that Parliament was not free, and the army, pledged to restore the freedom of Parliament, was marching on London. The Presbyterians prepared to fight, and placed the forces of the City under the command of Major-General Massey. The eleven impeached Presbyterian leaders took their places in Parliament again, assumed the direction of the 171movement, and appointed a Committee of Safety. But citizen militia and undisciplined volunteers would have stood a poor chance against the veterans of Naseby. Even the fanatical mob of the City knew it, and when Fairfax arrived at Hounslow with twenty thousand men, their courage fell to zero.
Crowds gathered outside Guildhall, where the City fathers were deliberating whether to fight or yield. “When a scout came in, and brought news that the army made a halt, or other good intelligence, they cried, ‘One and all.’ But if the scouts brought intelligence that the army advanced nearer to them, then they would cry as loud ‘Treat, Treat, Treat.’” On August 4th, London submitted unconditionally, and two days later the army escorted the fugitive members to Westminster, and made a triumphal progress through the City. The Agitators talked loudly of purging the House of Commons by expelling all members who had sat during the absence of the Speakers, but Cromwell and the officers contented themselves with demanding that the proceedings of the last ten days should be declared null and void. Even this could not be obtained till Cromwell threatened to use force, and drew up a regiment of cavalry in Hyde Park to give weight to his arguments. For the Presbyterians were still a majority in Parliament, though their leaders had now fled to the continent.
The army now rested its hopes on the King rather than on the Parliament. During the march on London it had published its proposals “for clearing and securing the rights of the kingdom, and settling a just 172and lasting peace.” The “Heads of the Proposals,” like the Newcastle Propositions, demanded that for the next ten years Parliament should have the control of the militia and the appointment of officers of State, but they were more lenient to the King’s party. Royalists were to be for a time incapacitated from office, but their fines were to be reduced, the number of exceptions from pardon diminished, and a general amnesty passed. Besides these temporary measures of security there were to be three permanent changes in the constitution. The religious settlement was to be based on toleration, not on the enforcement of Presbyterianism. No man was to be obliged to take the Covenant, bishops and ecclesiastical officials were to be deprived of all coercive power, and the statutes enforcing attendance at church or use of the Prayer-book were to be abolished. In future the royal power was to be limited by the institution of a Council of State which would share with the King the control of the military forces and the conduct of foreign affairs. Parliaments were to meet every two years, to sit for a limited space of time, and to be elected by more equal constituencies, while the existing Parliament was to end within a year.
Ireton was the chief author of these proposals, but Cromwell was equally eager for an agreement between the army and the King.
“Whatever the world might judge of them,” said Cromwell to one of the King’s agents, “the army would be found no Seekers of themselves, further than to have leave to live as subjects ought to do and to preserve their own consciences; and they thought no men could enjoy 173their lives and estates quietly without the King had his rights.”
When Charles raised objections to the first draught of the “Proposals,” Cromwell and Ireton persuaded the Council of the Army to lower their demands, and to make important alterations in the scheme finally published. If the King accepted it the army leaders assured him that no further concessions should be demanded. And supposing that after he had accepted it Parliament refused its assent, they would purge the Houses of opponents “till they had made them of such a temper as to do his Majesty’s business.”
Such was the talk amongst the officers, but it soon became evident they had reckoned without their host. The King was little inclined to submit to the permanent restrictions on his royal power which the army demanded, and thought he could avail himself of the quarrel between it and the Parliament to impose his will on both. He avowed it frankly. “You cannot do without me. You will fall to ruin if I do not sustain you,” he told the officers, when the “Proposals” were first offered to him. “Sir,” answered Ireton, “you have an intention to be the arbitrator between the Parliament and us, and we mean to be it between your Majesty and the Parliament.” Another time Charles answered Ireton’s remonstrances with the defiant announcement: “I shall play my game as well as I can.” “If your Majesty have a game to play,” replied Ireton, “you must give us also the leave to play ours.”
174They could come to no agreement. Charles persisted in his policy of playing off one party against another, confident that his diplomatic skill would secure his ultimate victory. In September, the Parliament once more offered the King the Newcastle Propositions, to which he answered that the “Proposals” of the army offered a better foundation for a lasting peace, and asked for a personal treaty. The advanced party amongst the Independents, headed by Harry Marten and Colonel Rainsborough, urged that Parliament should proceed to the settlement of the kingdom without consulting the King. They compared Charles to Ahab, whose heart God hardened, and to a Jonah who must be thrown overboard if the ship of the state was to come safe to port. Cromwell, backed by Ireton and Vane, argued in favour of a new application to the King, and by eighty-four votes to thirty-four the House decided to draw up fresh propositions. It seemed to Cromwell that the re-establishment of monarchy was the only way to avoid anarchy. Already an officer had been expelled from the Council of the Army for declaring that there was now no visible authority in England but the power of the sword, and Cromwell warned Parliament that men who thought the sword ought to rule all were rapidly growing more numerous amongst the soldiers. He argued that a speedy agreement with the King was necessary, but to persuade the Parliament to reduce its demands proved beyond his power. The new terms it proceeded to draw up showed no sign of any willingness for a compromise. As before, all the leading Royalists were to be 175excluded from pardon, the establishment of Presbyterianism for an indefinite period was once more insisted upon, and toleration was refused not only to Catholics, but to all who used the liturgy. Cromwell’s efforts to limit the duration of Presbyterianism to three or to seven years were unsuccessful. Parliament was as impracticable as the King, and while it was fruitlessly discussing proposals which could produce no agreement, the progress of the democratic movement in the army threatened a new revolution.
Cromwell’s negotiations with the King, his speeches in favour of monarchy, his modification of the terms offered by the army to Charles, and his attempt to moderate the terms offered by Parliament, all exposed him to suspicion. While Charles distrusted Cromwell and Ireton because they asked for no personal favours or advantages for themselves, both were freely accused of having made a private bargain with the King for their own advancement. Cromwell, it was said, was to be made Earl of Essex as his kinsman had been, Captain of the King’s guard, and a Knight of the Garter; Ireton was to be Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Royalists spread these stories in order to sow division between Cromwell and the army; the soldiers swallowed them because they feared the restoration of the monarchy. The pamphleteers of the Levellers, as the extreme Radicals were popularly termed, published broadcast vague charges of treachery and double-dealing against the army leaders. Sometimes Cromwell was described as an honest man led astray by the ambitious Ireton; at other times the two were regarded 176as confederates in evil, whose occasional differences of opinion were merely a device to throw dust in the eyes of the world. In their appeals to Cromwell there was a touch of surprise and sorrow. “O my once much honoured Cromwell,” wrote Wildman, “can that breast of yours—the quondam palace of freedom—harbour such a monster of wickedness as this regal principle?” While Wildman hoped “to waken Cromwell’s conscience from the dead,” Lilburn, confessing that his good thoughts of Cromwell were not yet wholly gone, threatened to pull him down from his fancied greatness before he was three months older.
These attacks shook the confidence of the soldiers in their chiefs, and fanned the sparks of discontent into a flame. The Agitators, once ardent for an agreement with the King, began to demand the immediate rupture of the negotiations with him. Let the army, said they, take the settlement of the nation into its own hands, since neither their generals nor the Parliament could accomplish it. In October, five regiments of horse cashiered their old representatives as too moderate, elected fresh Agents, and laid their demands before Fairfax.
The existing Parliament was to be dissolved within a year, and in future there were to be biennial parliaments, equal constituencies, and manhood suffrage. Nothing was said of King or House of Lords, but the abolition of both was tacitly assumed. A declaration accompanied this draught constitution, by which freedom of conscience, freedom from impressment, and equality before the law 177were asserted to be the native rights of every Englishman—rights which no Parliament or Government had power to diminish or to take away. The officers had proposed a more limited monarchy—an adaptation of the old constitution to the new conditions which the Civil War had created. What the soldiers demanded was a democratic republic, based on a written constitution drawn up in accordance with abstract principles new to English politics.
The soldiers asked that their scheme, which they termed “The Agreement of the People,” should be at once submitted to the nation for its acceptance. Parliament was to be set aside by a direct appeal to the people as the only lawful source of all political authority. Against this, Cromwell and Ireton protested. The army, they said, had entered into certain engagements in its recent declarations to the nation, and the pledges made in them must be observed. Both declared that unless these public promises were kept they would lay down their commissions, and act no longer with the army. Equally strong were their objections to some of the principles which the “Agreement” contained, and the method in which it was proposed to impose it upon the nation. “This paper,” said Cromwell, “doth contain in it very great alterations of the government of the kingdom—alterations of that government it hath been under ever since it was a nation. What the consequences of such an alteration as this would be, even if there were nothing else to be considered, wise and godly men ought to consider.” The proposed constitution contained much that was specious and 178plausible, but also much that was very debatable. And while they were debating it, other schemes equally plausible might be put forward by other parties.
“And not only another and another, but many of this kind. And if so, what do you think the consequences of that would be? Would it not be confusion? Would it not be utter confusion? Would it not make England like Switzerland, one canton of the Swiss against another, and one county against another? And what would that produce but an absolute desolation to the nation? I ask you,” he concluded, “whether it be not fit for every honest man seriously to lay that upon his heart?”
Moreover, not only the consequences but the ways and means of accomplishing a thing ought to be considered. Granted that this was the best possible constitution for the people of England, still the difficulty of its attainment was a very real objection.
“I know,” said he, “a man may answer all difficulties with faith, and faith will answer all difficulties where it really is; but we are very ap............