fond to talk of being weary of the burden their own virtues, or their own party, may have imposed upon them. We now behold such, by the help of Whitelocke, among the members of the house who supported Vane; and can we doubt that that statesman, who would have thought it treason to his country to consult the convenience of her enemies, and have sunk lifeless in his place, before he indulged the luxury of being "weary" in her service, can we doubt that he suffered, far more than by the worst difficulties, dangers, or toils of the cause, from the holiday sensibilities and delicate indifference of such gentlemen as these? It matters seldom that they happen to be few. The example goes forth to the great body of the people, who find it hard to discriminate, in such circumstances, between service and betrayal.

More treacherous enemies, at the same time, beset Vane and his party, even among the civil members of that house for whose independence they were now perilling all that makes life dear to man. Whitelocke describes them also, in the same passage of apparent self-reference already quoted. "Neither," he continues, as if to excuse the views of the moderate men,— "neither could it clearly be foreseen, that the design of Cromwell and his officers was to rout the present power, and so set up themselves; against the which they were advised, as pulling down the foundation of their own interest and power, and the way to weaken themselves, and to hazard both their cause and persons. Yet still they seemed zealous, upon their common pretensions of 'right,' and 'justice,' and 'public liberty,' to put a period to this parliament, and that if the parliament would not shortly do it themselves, that then the soldiers must do it. Some who earnestly declared their judgment against this, as the most dangerous and the most ungrateful thing that could be practised,' by this freedom gained no favour with Cromwell and his officers. But there wanted not some parliament men, perhaps to flatter with them, who soothed them in this unhandsome de

sign, and were complotting with them to ruin them. selves, as by the consequence will appear."

One of Cromwell's falsest pretences is shadowed forth in this extract but it is a pretence which has unhappily passed into history, and claims therefore serious disproof. This, it may be here remarked, is the first time that the testimonies of living witnesses as to these memorable occurrences have been brought face to face; and it is not an ungratifying circumstance to note what a perfect agreement there is as to all the main considerations they suggest, in the relations of men of such different parties, writing at such different times, and only alike in the fact of having themselves witnessed what they thus record. The result will show, among other things, that the only reasonable pretext by which history has attempted to justify the usurpation of Cromwell is based upon a falsehood.

The question of dissolution is stated by Whitelocke to have been urged by the soldiers as of "right," "justice," and "public liberty," and to have left a reasonable alternative to those friends of freedom who had not lost faith in that sacred thing. "You must put a period to this parliament," urge the soldiers. "If, however, you do not shortly do this yourselves, then the soldiers must do it." Now it is quite true that this tone was for a time adopted in the councils of Cromwell, but only for such a time as might render feasible a subsequent mean perversion of the truth to the English people. Ludlow states some singular facts on this head. While Cromwell, he says, was 'making the most solemn professions of fidelity to the parliament, assuring them that, if they would command the army to break their swords over their heads, and to throw them into the sea, he would undertake they should do it—he privately engaged the officers of the army to draw up a petition to the parliament, that, for the satisfaction of the nation, they would put that vote which they had made for fixing a period to their sitting into an act; which, whilst the officers were forming and debating, the general having, it seems,

VOL. VII.

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for that time altered his counsels, sent colonel Desborough, one of his instruments, to the council of officers, who told them, that they were a sort of men whom nothing could satisfy that the parliament were more ready to do any good than they to desire it that they ought to rely upon their word and promise to dissolve themselves by the time prefixedand that to petition

them to put their vote into an act would manifest a diffidence of them, and lessen their authority, which was so necessary to the army. The general coming into the council whilst Desborough was speaking, seconded him; to which some of the officers took the liberty to reply that they had the same opinion of the parliament and petition with them, and that the chief argument that moved them to take this matter into consideration, was the intimation they had received, that it was according to the desires of those who had now spoken against it, and whose latter motion they were much more ready to comply with than their former."

Quite true it was that it had once been, for good reasons, according to the desires of those who now, for better reasons, spoke against it. In such curious details we behold each fluctuation of the struggle; for at this moment, the very crisis of all, Vane had baffled Cromwell upon his own ground, and with his own weapons; and it was nothing more nor less than a sudden discovery of that circumstance which "altered the counsels of the general." Ludlow describes what Vane had done in a general remark on the sudden change in the policy of the parliament. "Now perceiving to what kind of excesses the madness of the army was like to carry them, the parliament resolved to leave as a legacy to the people the government of a commonwealth by their representatives, when assembled in parliament, and in the intervals thereof by a council of state chosen by them, and to continue till the meeting of the next succeeding parliament, to whom they were to give an account of their conduct and management. To this end they resolved, without any further delay, to pass the act for their own

dissolution." Vane had within the last few days, in fact, by his own individual and almost unaided exertions, hastened to its latter stages the memorable bill for a new representative." Thus, as the sharp crisis approached, there appeared even an activity and energy that could cope with Cromwell's own. Silently but resolutely Vane had achieved the major part of the amendments recommended in his own report*, and little now remained save the final sanction of the house to give to the measure the force of law. Cromwell then, for the first time, while in absolute triumphal progress on the strongest position of the war he had engaged in, looked up and saw it in firm possession of the enemy.

The aspect of the contest between the parliament and their general changes from this instant. It loses, on the side of Cromwell, every element, or even pretence, of fairness. It at once became evident that the musket could arbitrate it only, and even Cromwell's most plausible craft was unmasked suddenly into a bare image of tyranny and force. Up to this point he had a certain hollow case to rest upon with the people, and was at least going forward to his aim with a stealthier step and the help of a less startling falsehood. The very circumstances which had justified to the statesmen even their share in the existence of that popular discontent now spread in various directions, and which clamoured in its less scrupulous quarters of the "despotism" of many, would have served to justify, in some sort also, Cromwell's subtle measures for the substitution of a despotism of one. All that was now at an end. Truth took its stand on one side, falsehood fronted it on the other, and the most momentous interests of humanity, present and future, trembled in the impending issue. Religion and liberty, the right of action and of thought, honours won upon earth, deliverances vouchsafed from heaven - all that had rendered the English people a praise and wonder to the earth during their contest with their kingwere now committed in this struggle for the existence of * See Life of Vane, p. 151-162.

representation in our country. The example of the rulers of England had, during all that time, been the life of virtue in her people. It was by the Eliots, the Pyms, the Hampdens, and the Vanes, that an enlightening influence, as from heaven itself, had pierced into the humblest and remotest corners of the land. To blight this as suddenly as it had risen, and to promote a second growth of ignorance and of slavery, only less bad because less enduring than the first, it was simply necessary to exhibit once more in the high places of England that very oppression, coercion, and arbitrary rule, from which she had been freed so lately. And this was the miserable work which Cromwell had now in hand, and for which he was content to peril greater and purer fame than had fallen within the grasp of Englishman before him.

The first thing to be noted in the closing scenes of the struggle, so far as we are able to penetrate the obscurity which unhappily has veiled them too long, is the fierce contempt exhibited by Cromwell for the popular pretences on which he rested first. As soon as he saw that Vane had resolved to test them, he flung them scornfully to the wind. In the life of Henry Nevile, for example, a virtuous and exemplary man, a scene of this exact time is given as from Nevile's lips. "Cromwell upon this great occasion sent for some of the chief city divines, as if he made it a matter of conscience to be determined by their advice. Among these was the leading Mr. Calamy, who very boldly opposed Mr. Cromwell's project, and offered to prove it both unlawful and impracticable. Cromwell answered readily upon the first head of unlawful, and appealed to the safety of the nation being the supreme law. But,' says he, 'pray Mr. Calamy, why impracticable?' Calamy replied, 'Oh! 't is against the voice of the nation, there will be nine in ten against you.' 'Very well,' says Cromwell, ' but what if I should disarm the nine, and put a sword into the tenth man's hand, would not that do the busi