“Mr. Lely,” said Cromwell to the painter, “I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything, otherwise I never will pay a farthing for it.” Doubtless the Protector would have given a similar charge to his biographers, but their task is more difficult; much contemporary evidence is merely worthless gossip, much is vitiated by party spirit, and on many points the authorities are silent.
John Maidston, the steward of Cromwell’s household, supplies us with what he terms “a character of his person:”
“His body was well compact and strong, his stature under six foot (I believe about two inches), his head so shaped as you might see it a storehouse and a shop both of a vast treasury of natural parts. His temper exceeding fiery, as I have known, but the flame of it kept down for the most part, or soon allayed with those moral endowments he had. He was naturally compassionate 454towards objects in distress, even to an effeminate measure; though God had made him a heart, wherein was left little room for fear but what was due to himself, of which there was a large proportion, yet did he exceed in tenderness towards sufferers. A larger soul I think hath seldom dwelt in house of clay than his was. I believe if his story were impartially transmitted, and the unprejudiced world well possessed with it, she would add him to her nine worthies.”
The numerous portraits of Cromwell help to complete Maidston’s description. Like most Puritan gentlemen he wore his hair long; the thick light brown locks which began to grow grey before he became Protector covered his collar and almost reached his shoulders. His eyes, according to Cooper’s and Walker’s portraits, were blue or grey, and his eyebrows strongly marked. His nose was long, thick, and slightly arched, with full nostrils—the beak of a vulture, said royalist pamphleteers, and even political friends jested about its size. “If you prove false,” said the downright Haslerig to Cromwell, “I will never trust a fellow with a big nose again.” The mouth was large, firm, and full-lipped. Strength, not grace, marked both face and figure. But the rough-hewn features have an air of kindness and sagacity mingled with the resolution and energy which are their most marked characteristics. In some portraits there is an air of melancholy.
The dignity of the Protector’s outward bearing was admitted even by opponents:
(From a miniature by Cooper, in the Baptist College at Bristol.)
“When he appeared first in Parliament,” writes Clarendon, “he seemed to have a person in no degree gracious, 455no ornament of discourse, none of those talents which use to reconcile the affections of the standers by; yet as he grew into place and authority his parts seemed to be renewed, as if he had concealed faculties till he had occasion to use them; and when he was to act the part of a great man, he did it without any indecency through the want of custom.”
To another Royalist, Sir Philip Warwick, he appeared “of a great and majestic deportment and comely presence,” and he made a similar impression on foreign observers.
When the Protector gave audience to ambassadors or received official deputations an elaborate ceremonial of a quasi-regal character was strictly observed. Sir Oliver Fleming, who had been one of the continental agents of Charles I., and was skilled in all the niceties of diplomatic etiquette, acted as Cromwell’s master of the ceremonies. But the Protector transacted much important business in less formal interviews with the representatives of foreign states. He was easily accessible to his subjects in general, and petitioners found no great difficulty in putting their grievances before him. Opponents of his policy were allowed opportunity to set forth their objections, and he argued with them freely in reply. Even religious enthusiasts contrived to deliver their messages from the Lord or, like Fox, to explain what their religious views really were. About three times a month the Protector took part in the proceedings of the Council of State, but most of his political or administrative work was transacted with small 456committees or with Secretary Thurloe alone. With these trusted councillors he freely unbent.
“He would sometimes be very cheerful with us,” says Whitelocke, “and laying aside his greatness he would be exceeding familiar with us, and by way of diversion would make verses with us, and everyone must try his fancy. He commonly called for tobacco, pipes, and a candle, and would now and then take tobacco himself; then he would fall again to his serious and great business.”
Whitelocke also gives some account of the Protector’s recreations. Cromwell retained throughout his life the tastes of a country gentleman. At Hampton Court he often amused himself with bowls, but his favourite sports were hunting and hawking. As he rode from Worcester to London after his victory in 1651, he diverted himself, on the way, with hawking, and he sometimes practised the same sport on Hounslow Heath after he was Protector. When he entertained the Swedish Ambassador at Hampton Court in 1654, after dinner was over the Protector, the ambassador, and the rest of the company “coursed and killed a fat buck” in the park. Cromwell was a bold jumper, and it was noticed that the ambassador “would not adventure to leap ditches after the Protector, but was more wary.”
Good horses of every kind were always Cromwell’s delight. English diplomatic agents in the Levant were employed to procure Arabs and Barbs for his riding or for breeding purposes. “Six gallant Flanders mares, reddish grey,” had drawn the General’s 457coach when he set out for the reconquest of Ireland, and six white horses drew the Protector’s coach when it conveyed the Spanish Ambassador to his place of embarkation. Of these white horses it was said that they were a finer team than any king of England had ever possessed. Another team of six horses—presented by the Count of Oldenburg in 1654—ran away in Hyde Park when the Protector himself was driving them. Cromwell, who was flung off the box upon the pole, got entangled in the harness, and was dragged for some distance by one foot, but he escaped in the end with nothing more than a few bruises. Andrew Marvell and George Wither both published poems celebrating the Protector’s deliverance, and the incident furnished several royalist wits with a theme for satires and epigrams.
Another recreation which found great favour with Cromwell was music. When he gave a banquet to foreign ambassadors or members of the House of Commons, “rare music, both of instruments and voices,” was always an important part of the entertainment. The same thing took place in hours of relaxation or domestic festivities, for the Protector, according to a contemporary biographer, was “a great lover of music, and entertained the most skilful in that science in his pay and family.” In the great hall at Hampton Court he had two organs, and his organist, John Hingston, was a pupil of Orlando Gibbons. James Quin, a student of Christ Church, Oxford, who had been deprived of his place by the Puritan visitors of that university, obtained his restoration to it through the Protector’s love of music. 458Quin was not a very skilful singer, but he had a bass voice “very strong and exceeding trolling.” Some of his friends brought him into the company of the Protector, “who loved a good voice, and instrumental music well.” Cromwell “heard him sing with very great delight, liquored him with sack, and in conclusion said, ‘Mr. Quin, you have done well; what shall I do for you?’ To which Quin made answer, with great compliments, that his Highness would be pleased to restore him to his student’s place, which he did accordingly.”
A few other notices of the Protector’s personal habits may be gleaned from contemporary sources. In his diet his tastes were very simple; according to a contemporary pamphleteer, it was “spare and not curious”; no “French quelquechoses” were to be found on his table, but plain, substantial dishes. His ordinary drink, according to the same authority, consisted of “a very small ale” known by the name of “Morning Dew.” He also drank freely a light wine which his physicians had recommended to him as good for his health.
In dress Cromwell’s tastes were marked by the same simplicity. When he expelled the Long Parliament in 1653, he was wearing “plain black clothes with grey worsted stockings.” At his installation in the following December he had on “a plain black suit and cloak,” though a few weeks later when he was entertained by the Lord Mayor he wore “a musk colour suit and coat richly embroidered with gold.” When Protector, his dress was naturally more sumptuous than it had been before, and Sir 459Philip Warwick, who had so contemptuously criticised the cut of his clothes in 1640, attributed the improvement in his appearance to a better tailor as well as to converse with better company. But even then a young Royalist fresh from the French Court described the Protector as “plain in his apparell,” and “rather affecting a negligence than a genteel garb.”
The Protector’s household was naturally organised on a more magnificent scale than that which had sufficed him as General. The sum allowed for its maintenance was sixty thousand pounds during the first Protectorate, and a hundred thousand pounds during the second. But many other expenses were defrayed from this fund, and Cromwell spent a large amount in charity; according to one biographer as much as forty thousand pounds a year. Speaking of the Protector’s second installation, and the increased state which was its consequence, Sir Philip Warwick says: “Now he models his household so that it might have some resemblance to a Court, and his liveries, lackies, and yeomen of the guard are known whom they belong to by their habit.” The forty or fifty gentlemen employed in the internal service of Whitehall and Hampton Court, or in attendance upon the Protector’s person, wore coats of grey cloth with black velvet collars, and black velvet or silver lace trimming. And besides these “yeomen of the guard” he had the life-guard of horse which has been mentioned before. All this show and state offended many rigid Puritans, to whom even the semblance of a Court was hateful. Others held that it was “necessary for the honour of 460the English nation” that its head should be surrounded by a certain amount of pomp, and this opinion was generally accepted.
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