Six years have come and gone since the execution of Charles the First, and England has had no king in the interval. The great, strong man, Oliver Cromwell, who by his military genius has overthrown the king and made the army supreme, has crushed all opposition by the weight of his iron hand. At the head of his buff-coated Ironsides—men with psalms on their lips and ruth in their hearts—he has stamped the very life out of Ireland, and by a happy accident, which he believes to be an interposition of Providence, he has reduced Scotland to impotence. Now he is master of three kingdoms, and only the remnant of an old Parliament stands in his way. The “Rump,” as it is contemptuously called, refuses to dissolve, so Cromwell strides into the House and, after roundly rating the members, stamps on the floor. At the signal armed men enter and proceed to drive out the occupants of the chamber. The Speaker refuses to leave the chair, and tries to speak, but his voice is drowned in the uproar. Then one of Cromwell’s friends offers to lend him a hand to come down, and the Speaker, yielding to force, does so. Pointing to the mace, the symbol of the authority of the House of Commons, Cromwell cries, “What shall we do with this bauble? Here, take it away!” and a soldier removes it. Then he locks the door and strides away with the key in his pocket, while a wag chalks up on the building, “This house to let.”

Six weeks later he summons another Parliament, and finds it composed of fanatics and doctrinaires who are passionate admirers of his, but propose to overturn every established custom. Under the leadership of “Praise-God Barebone” it actually suggests that the law of England shall be superseded in favour of the law of Moses! The members quarrel fiercely, and at last give up to the Lord-General the powers which they have received from him. The Council of State begs him to become Lord Protector, with rights and duties which differ very little from those of a king, and he accepts the proffered honour. Nine months elapse, and another Parliament is called; but it is a hindrance to the Lord Protector’s schemes, and is dissolved. Another takes its place, and offers to make Cromwell king. He refuses, for the name of king is loathsome to him, and he is already king in all but name. Then this Parliament goes the way of the others, and Cromwell never calls another.

You see him now an even more absolute ruler than “martyred Charles:” he is a despot, but with a difference. Whatever his detractors may say of him, this cannot be disputed, that never was the sceptre of England wielded by a more vigorous or sagacious hand. His protectorship, compared with any preceding age, or with several ages succeeding it, was an era of toleration, justice, and law. Weakened though she was by the Civil Wars, England rose to respect and greatness abroad, and foreign tyrants and persecutors trembled at her name. “We always reckon,” said a Royalist bishop, “those eight years of the usurpation as a time of great peace and prosperity.” Trade and commerce increased, and the land grew wealthy and great; yet all the while Cromwell was bitterly hated, and his life was always in peril. He wore mail beneath his clothes, and slept in a different room almost every night. Despite his ever-present danger, he went his way fearlessly, though expecting a pistol-shot from every dark corner.

Now let us witness a scene which shows Cromwell at his best. You see before you the interior of a room in the palace of Whitehall. Seated carelessly on a table is the Lord Protector. He is a man of massive build, with a “figure of sufficient impressiveness: not lovely to the man-milliner species, nor pretending to be so.” A massive “head so shaped as you might see in it a storehouse and shop of a vast treasury of natural parts.... On the whole, a right noble lion-face and hero-face; and to me royal enough.” He is careless in his dress, utterly indifferent to externals, and wholly without affectation. He is the man who warned Lely, when painting his picture, to put in all the roughnesses, pimples, and warts of his countenance, or he would not pay a farthing for the work. Hard, stern, implacable in warfare, he is nevertheless simple, loving, and pure in his private life, sincerely and ardently religious, and convinced to the bottom of his soul that he is a chosen instrument “to do God’s people some good.” True, he owes his power to the sword; but he wields that power so well, and stoops to so little that is mean or base, that future generations will have good cause to rejoice that the guidance of the state was for a brief space of years entrusted to him.

At the other end of the table sits John Milton, that inspired poet of whom Wordsworth wrote:——

Look at his noble face, which reflects in its every expression the splendid mind with which he is gifted and the noble thoughts which flit through it. No man ever served the Muses with such exquisite devotion. He comes to his desk as a knight to his vigil, believing that no man can worthily write of great things unless his life is worthily lived. He loves virtue with all the passion of his nature——

And now he is engaged on a task which enlists all his sympathy, and sends a throb of righteous indignation through his veins.

He is Latin Secretary to the Council, and it is his task to Latinize all communications to foreign states. Cromwell has heard that in the valleys of Piedmont the Waldenses, a body of dogged Puritans, are being persecuted by the Duke of Savoy, who is harrying them with savage cruelty, and has already slain thousands of them. Cromwell is greatly moved by the news, and his anger breaks forth in a torrent of inconsequent words. The upshot, however, is clear to Milton: France shall receive those attentions which have made the English fleet the terror of the Mediterranean, unless an immediate end is put to the persecution. Milton has already written the most sublime of all his sonnets on this subject:——

Cromwell has already sent £2,000 out of his own purse to the sufferers. Now he dictates his stern message, and Milton translates it into resounding Latin of such force and fervour that Cardinal Mazarin dare not ignore its purport. The Duke of Savoy and the cardinal may gnash their teeth with rage, but, with the whole power of France at their command, they dare not again lift a finger against the Waldenses while Cromwell lives. No incident in the whole history of the Commonwealth reveals more clearly the salutary fear which the name of Cromwell excites on the Continent.

But his days are numbered. In three short years he will go hence, and in two years more a Stuart will sit on the throne, and at his coming England will be “reduced to a nullity”—aye, and worse, to reproach and shame. Worn out with constant anxiety, the death of a favourite daughter brings him speedily to the valley of the shadow. “I would be willing to live,” murmurs the dying man, “to be further serviceable to God and His people; but my work is done.” He lies on his deathbed while a great storm rages over England. In the morning calm succeeds tempest, and on the anniversary of his great victories at Dunbar and Worcester he breathes his last. They bury him in Westminster Abbey, amidst the kings; but his bones are not long to rest in that hallowed fane. The Stuart king, to his everlasting shame, will tear the unoffending body from its coffin and gibbet it in unavailing contempt. But ages to come will do him tardy justice, and men will come to honour his memory even while they lift their hats and pray, “God save the king!”