Part 18

An account of the 'great and signal disappointment, as great as any this age can produce,' which the 'goodness of God' inflicted upon that 'smaller party,' 'who' according to Cromwell, 'designed the surprise of the castle' of Chester, forms an appropriate close to this portion of our narrative. An 'exceeding poor' dupe, Francis Pickering, tells the story, and the duper was a Colonel Worthing. After enticing Pickering into the plot by assurances of a general rising against the Protector, on the night of the 8th of March, Worthing announced that his part in the design 'was principally to surprise the Castle of Chester;' and as related by Pickering, while he and the Colonel remained quietly at home.

'Accordingly that night three or four went, sent by Col. Worthing' to seize the Castle: they were all inhabitants of Chester, and one of them is commonly known by the name of Alexander, the tobacco-pipe-maker. These persons brought back word to Col. Worthing that at the place where they intended to raise a ladder to surprise the Castle, they heard a sentinel walk and cough. At which report Col. Worthing was very much startled! and sent them back again to seize any other convenient place; and they brought back word that they had centinels walking.'[53]

No third attempt was made by Mr. Alexander and his friends; and next day Pickering was told by Worthing 'that he was much troubled, for that he could not contrive how to take said Castle;' and, in due time, Pickering found himself in custody.

In singular contrast to the vague and absurd stories told by 'exceeding poor' and foolish men, such as Mr. Pickering and his fellow plotters, are the numerous and positive assurances that Cromwell received from his own officers, that all was well with England both before, during, and after the Insurrection of March 1655. Headed by Thurloe, they are all unanimous in reporting 'that the nation was much more ready to rise against, than for Charles Stuart;' that, in the town of Leeds, 'not thirty men were disaffected to the present Government;' and that 'there was no design on foot' even in 'the most corrupt and rotten places of the Nation,' such as Hampshire, Dorsetshire, Kent, and the Eastern Counties. From Bristol to York all was quiet, or wished to be so, during February, March, and April, 1655.[54]

Further illustration of this statement is needless. For, if Cromwell had thought otherwise, even though he might in his wisdom have admitted the Earl of Rochester and his associates into England, he certainly would not have allowed them to remain here, apparently as long as they chose, after their enterprise was over. That the Protector gave them this freedom of action is made singularly clear by the Thurloe Papers': they contain repeated indications of the 'whereabouts' of the Earl of Rochester, the leader of the revolt. He and Major Armourer did not, after the Marston Moor failure, fly to the coast, or seek separate hiding-places. They journeyed together, with two servants, leisurely through England towards London: and to guard his safety, Rochester would not disturb his bedtime, or his dinner-hour. After the outbreak, people were naturally anxious to pick up what they could, by arresting 'the great ones.' Of these, Rochester was the greatest; and he and Armourer were arrested at Aylesbury. The resident magistrate gave a warrant to the constable, desiring him to keep safely the bodies of the Earl and his three companions, 'in the name of my Lord Protector.' The warrant was acted upon; the prisoners evidently were 'persons of great quality.' Yet somehow, both magistrate and constable left the Earl and the Major in charge of the innkeeper 'where they lay;' and naturally enough, 'when the constable came in the morning, he found that the innkeeper had let the two chiefs escape,' taking with them 'all their rich apparel.'[55] Had this been merely a sample of Aylesbury carelessness, the incident need not have been noticed. But the example of the magistrate and constable was followed by Cromwell. Although the escape of Rochester and Armourer was promptly known, and their course was closely tracked, and though Cromwell was informed where they might be found, they 'wrote very comfortably from London;' and they endeavoured 'to lay the foundation of some new design.' And at last, as if he were an ordinary traveller, sending his servants before him, Rochester left England for the Continent, having been a resident here for about five months; and the latter part of his stay in England was a season of extraordinary severity against the Royalists. In like manner, every one of his thirteen comrades returned 'weekly without difficulty' to their King's presence, apparently at their pleasure; whilst Cromwell's continental informers repeated their warnings that 'Day, the Clerk of the Passage,' is 'a rogue,' and that if the Protector had 'been ruled' by them 'all these had not escaped.'[56]

In this matter, and indeed throughout his connection with the Insurrection of March 1655, Cromwell was not his own master. The conditions under which he obtained the espial of one of the King's most trusted friends, and a member of the 'Sealed Knot,' formed a complete protection to the Earl of Rochester and his associates. Nor for his own sake could he touch those conspirators. Their seizure would have disclosed the fact, that 'persons in the very bosom of our enemies' gave him 'intelligence;' and hence, if 'he once discovered the grounds, he would destroy the intelligence.'[57] Anyhow, it is evident that Cromwell could with entire safety allow his most determined enemies to remain in England, and lay foundations for new projects against him.

Having seen Cromwell's conspirators safe home again, tribute must be paid to his amazing dexterity. The Prince of Wire-Pullers, he made his puppets perform what part he chose. Some jerked the royal doll Charles, against his liking, from Cologne to Middleburg, and some warned him to keep quiet, and others seemed to fight against the manager of the show, though in reality they fought in his behalf: all played Cromwell's game, whilst they thought they were playing their own; and even the most innocent outsiders were pressed into his service. With comic audacity he assured his audience that the more trivial was the scene at Salisbury, the more they ought to recognize its dramatic force. 'Observe,' he said, 'when this Attempt was made--it was made when nothing but a well-formed Power could hope to put us into disorder. Do you think that' such a company of mean fellows 'would have attacked Us, if they had not been supported by vast unseen forces behind the scenes.'[58] With what cruel craft, but seeming indifference, the artful old showman treated his manikins! He cut off the heads of some amongst those who responded most vigorously to his touch; whilst others, not less free upon the wire, were carefully packed up, and sent home safe. By seizing and boxing up in the Tower mere bystanders, wholly unconcerned in the sport, he made his 'little tin soldiers' fancy that he did not see their antics. The only hitch in his 'knavish piece of work' arose when, too assured, he placed upon the boards a real live judge, who refused to take the bench in the manager's sham Court of Justice. In every other respect the mystery play was a complete success; everybody was puzzled, players, spectators, and the gentlemen of the press; not one even guessed at the true meaning of the performance; though a few 'men of wicked spirits' would try to peep behind the curtain. But they never found him out; they all danced to Cromwell's tune, but none discovered that the pipe they heard was in their Protector's mouth. Even Ludlow, with all the proverbial opportunities of a bystander, though most anxious to know his great opponent's game, never guessed that he had patched up the Insurrection of March 1655, from the beginning to the end.

And such was Cromwell's power of deception, that though dead, he still deceived; his works did follow him, as he desired, out of sight. He seems to have anticipated that the records of his detective department might remain as a witness against him, and to have cast over the 'Thurloe Papers' a spell, that has hitherto rendered them invisible. For nearly 150 years these evidences of his 'hidden works of darkness' have been before the world; but Cromwell has preserved his secret; he has humbugged every historian as effectually as he hoodwinked his contemporaries. The 'Thurloe Papers' were published in 1742, well edited and indexed; they contain the documents which Cromwell himself read and handled, the notes of his speeches, the information of his spies, the letters of his enemies and of his clerks. Though called after Thurloe, those papers are, in fact, Cromwell's own. Yet such is the glamour that he has cast over all that has approached him, that they have accepted his words without question, or, if they have read his writings, they have read them according to his inspiration.

Yet there was much even in that Insurrection itself to arouse suspicion. Cromwell, in January 1655, assured his Parliament that he had crushed the various conspiracies which were then on foot against him, all most 'real dangers,' and that he had disarmed and rendered powerless those conspirators; yet within six weeks they had organized a universal revolt, and had secreted stores of arms and ammunition all over England. This universal revolt broke out at Salisbury, 'bold and dangerous'; and it was put down by a single troop of horsemen, after the rebels had paraded, disheartened and deserted, across England. Except on that occasion, the vast design was suppressed without the aid of a single soldier or even a beadle. And, strangely enough, the Protector himself supplied a hint which might have provoked some curiosity about the nature of that 'Rebellion.'

For surely it is odd that 'such a terrible Protector this; no getting of him overset!' should have been compelled to contend with the notorious and obstinate incredulity of the members of his Parliament regarding the late attempt to overset him? Yet Cromwell's speech of September 1656 is pervaded with expressions such as these, regarding the 'bold and dangerous Insurrection' of March 1655,--'I think the world must know and acknowledge, that it was a general design,'--'I doubt if it be believed, that there was any rising,' either in North Wales or at Shrewsbury, or on Marston Moor, 'at the very time when there was an Insurrection at Salisbury'--' therefore, how men of wicked spirits may traduce Us in that matter--I leave it!'[59] Surely 'sluggish mortals, saved from destruction,' not caused by secret agencies, but from an actual 'Rebellion,' which threatened to bring every one of them into 'blood and confusion,' need not be required to believe in the very existence of so great and conspicuous a danger!

And Cromwell felt that he could not afford to leave that 'matter' untouched. A suspicion was prevalent, during the whole of Cromwell's reign, that plots were manufactured to suit his purposes. He knew that full well; he knew also the danger of such a suspicion. The surmises of the 'men of wicked spirits,' were those 'half tales,' that 'be truths.' It had been hoped that such a 'real plot' as 'the late Insurrection,' would give that suspicion a quietus. When it was safely transacted, Thurloe and his associates congratulated each other over that hope.[60] But it was not fulfilled. Hence arises the tone of angered honesty, which Cromwell so repeatedly assumed when he addressed his Parliament, and Carlyle's indignant protest--'What a position for a hero, to be reduced continually to say he does not lie!'

But what was Cromwell's motive in the fabrication of this Insurrection of March, 1655? It was not, as might be suggested, a device to thwart by a premature explosion, a dangerous conspiracy during a critical moment in the Protectorate. Cromwell himself asserts in his 'Declaration,' that 'this Attempt was made, when nothing but a well-formed Power could hope to put Us into disorder; Scotland and Ireland being perfectly reduced; Differences with most Neighbour Nations composed; our Forces, both by Sea and Land, in order and consistency.' Nay, he artfully converted the very security of his Government into a proof that 'the pretended King' would not have sent over his servants, and that the Royalists would not 'have actually risen' at Salisbury, had the insurrection been other than 'a general design,' based on a vast secret organization. No one in all England possessed more certain knowledge, than did Cromwell, that such was not the case, and that he could not plead in his behalf the poor excuse, that the Nation as a Nation needed a severe lesson, or that it was to save England from civil war that he had sacrificed the lives of those fourteen victims of his deception, and consigned that band of seventy or eighty Englishmen to the horrors of West Indian slavery.

But if Cromwell could not claim that excuse, what then was his motive? Dark as was the light within him, he was not in such utter darkness as to encompass himself about with written, spoken, and acted lies merely to gratify caprice, or that he might indulge in causeless cruelty. His motive was a very simple one. He was forced to obey his servant, the Army. The men whom he had made, and who had made him, demanded a visible share in the power and profit that he enjoyed. Reverting to the autumn of 1654, much had then occurred to disquiet the Army. Cromwell had taken a distinct step towards Kingship, by attempting to persuade Parliament to make the Protectorate hereditary. Parliament had made a distinct movement towards a large reduction in the Army and Navy. If rumour be evidence, there was, during November, 'a great division in the army.' And it is certain that, at the close of that month, Cromwell and his military men came to terms. At a meeting held in St. James's Palace, the staff of the army agreed 'to live and die with Cromwell.'[61] And a train of events, occurring in direct sequence after that meeting, proves that it was at this conjuncture that Cromwell agreed to parcel out his Protectorship among the leading officers of the Army. Parliament was dissolved 22nd January, 1655, on the pretext that under its shadow, conspiracy and discontent had thriven; and Cromwell gave an alarming account of the 'real dangers,' of imminent insurrection and anarchy, that threatened England. That speech was the prologue; then came the tragedy itself, the Insurrection of March, 1655; then came its consequence, the appointment of the Major-Generals. And in the end, the reason why they were appointed, was brought to light by a state of affairs, very identical with that which had raised them to power.

Cromwell had renewed the attempt that he had made in the autumn of 1654, and in his quest after Kingship he had come, during February 1657, almost within sight of the throne. Again the army officers interfered; and again Cromwell was forced to meet them face to face; to receive, on this occasion, their protest against his acceptance of the Crown. He made a compromise as he had done before; but in speech, he was not conciliatory. If the Protectorate had been a failure, he told his former comrades, it was their fault. It was they, and not he who had governed; as for himself, 'they had made him their drudge upon all occasions: to dissolve the Long Parliament,' and 'to call a Parliament or Convention of their naming,' which proved so unsuccessful; and then another Parliament, alike in unsuccess; and he concluded that catalogue of their untoward interferences with his government, by reminding his hearers that they thought it was necessary to have Major-Generals; adding that so they 'might have gone on,' if they had not insisted on his calling the Parliament of 1656, against his will, which had given them 'a foil.'[62]

That speech is the most exceptional, in some respects the most important, of all Cromwell's speeches. Spoken if not 'in haste,' certainly 'out of the fulness of the heart,' that is caused by anger, it is, though unusually brief, delightfully incautious. Being addressed to men who could not well be deceived, the speech must be true, at least so far as they are concerned, in every particular; it does not contain a single appeal to God; and of no other among Cromwell's speeches, are the original MS. notes in existence. This speech, of the utmost historic importance, is essentially unheroic in tone and circumstance,--the querulous complaint of a master against servants who have overmastered him,--an assertion of supremacy made by a man, who felt that he was not really supreme. But the singularity that attends the address to the recalcitrant officers is not yet exhausted. Surprise may well be felt that Carlyle, with this speech before him, ventured on the construction of his false image of Cromwell, the Hero. Judged even as an ordinary ruler, he must have been a very sorry Protector who, according to his own showing, was only a sham supreme magistrate,--the minister, the 'drudge,' of his servants but real masters--who had compelled him to call, and to dissolve Parliaments, and to impose on England those military despots.

Carlyle has endowed his ideal Protector 'with the virtue to create belief,' by the force of self-assertion, which still finds its imitators, by pouring out contempt on all who differ from him, and by implying that, as all other Cromwellian authorities are 'stupidities and falsities,' he alone was wise and true. This was but a risky basis on which to exhibit 'this Oliver' to the world, as the noblest Hero 'among the noblest of Human Heroisms, this English Puritanism of ours,' and as 'not a Man of falsehoods, but a Man of truths.' But reading over these words, and calling to mind the confidence with which Carlyle compels all to join with him in his Cromwell-worship, it is impossible to resist the conviction, that it was with good faith that he could see in Cromwell 'the glimpses,' even the revelation 'of the god-like,' and that he would not attend to aught that disclosed Cromwell 'not' as 'august and divine, but hypocritical, pitiable, detestable.' Even though he claimed a familiar acquaintance with the 'Thurloe Papers,' he must have been ignorant, it is impossible to think otherwise, of the black stories which Cromwell's 'expertest of secretaries' could publish against his master.

And passing from the worshipper to the Idol; surely it is but in accordance with common sense and common charity to hope that, as with Carlyle, so also with his Oliver, the real Cromwell was wholly shrouded from Cromwell's sight. That hope might, indeed, be forbidden by some. It might be argued that, although many a wrong-doing, such as bloodshed, oppression, or even treachery, has been committed by men in the sincere belief that they were doing God service, Cromwell cannot be placed among that group of self-deceivers: that he stands by himself, and on a lower level. It was to save himself, to propitiate a gang of mutinous servants, that Cromwell contrived and wrought out the deception of March, 1655, and obtained in the bloodshed that it produced, the essential result that he desired. And then, to give validity to his imposture, to grace it with the Divine sanction, he ascribed his course of acted and uttered lies, and the cruelty and misery they had engendered, to God himself.

Undoubtedly that statement is true. But yet on the other hand it may be pleaded, that nothing but an intense living conviction, that God was with him in all his ways, could have enabled Cromwell to make 'with comfort' his 'appeal to God, whether' the Insurrection of March 1655 'hath been the matter of Our Choice' or 'according to Our own inclinations?'

This is but a sorry plea to urge in Cromwell's behalf. The blackness and the fury of the storm, which roared across England during his dying hours, cannot have exceeded the blinding energy of that strong delusion, that ever drove him onward, through his cruel and crooked devices, fully persuaded that 'God was even such a one as' himself. Though all may agree in believing that it was not from the lips, but truly from the heart--not to cheat his hearers, but in a veritable ecstasy--that Cromwell claimed to stand before God, as one who 'had learned too much of God, to dally with him,' still it must be felt, that such an assertion, coming from such a Protector, reveals a mental condition that baffles the understanding. But as man, when he shrinks from passing judgment on another, ever takes the better part; and as even with the best amongst us, the relation of the soul to God is a question which, of all others, should not be intermeddled with, assuredly we must leave Cromwell, whose being is one of 'the deep things of God,' to His judgment.--'Hell and destruction are before the Lord: how much more then the hearts of the children of men?'

FOOTNOTES:

[30] 'Report of French Ambassador in Holland.' Thurloe, iii. 322.

[31] 'Clarendon' (Bodleian Papers), iii. II.

[32] 'Clarendon,' ed. 1839, 871. 'Clarendon' (Bodleian Papers), Cal. iii. 13 Egerton MSS., Brit. Mus. 2535. fo. 637.

[33] We thus found this conjecture: Cromwell held an intercepted letter from the King to Mr. Roles, addressed to him under his alias, Mr. Upton, expressed in terms of entire confidence (Thurl. iii. 75); but Roles was not arrested. And the suspicion inspired by the immunity which Cromwell granted to such a conspicuous Royalist, was confirmed by finding that Thurloe in a letter (dated 6th April, 1655) to Manning the spy, refers to 'Mr. Upton' as their common friend. (Egerton MSS., Brit. Mus. 2542. fo. 166.)

[34] Masonet. See Note, 'Clarendon Papers' (Bodleian) Cal. iii. 14 Carlyle, iv. 108.

[35] Information of J. Dallington, R. Glover, J. Stradling, E. Turner.' Thurloe iii. 35, 74, 146, 181, 222.

[36] Several Proceedings, &c. Thurs., 8th Feb.--15th Feb. 1655. 'Clarendon Papers' (Bodleian Cal.) iii. 16.

[37] Thurloe, iii. 164.

[38] Thurloe, iii. 137, 180, 190, 198, 224.

[39] Egerton MSS., Brit. Mus. 2535, fo. 637. This communication appears in an anonymous letter addressed to Nicholas. Mr. Warner, with that ready help that he and his department afford, by a comparison of the handwriting, attributes that letter to Col. Price, who shared in Rochester's expedition.

[40] 'Clarendon Papers' (Bodleian), Cal. iii. 23.

[41] Thurloe, iii. 573.

[42] Ibid., iv. 344.

[43] Thurloe, iii. 122, 182. Egerton MSS., Brit. Mus., 2535, fo. 627

[44] Whitlock, 625. Thurloe, iii. 359, 382.

[45] Thurloe, iii. 391.

[46] Thurloe, iii. 162 172, 177, 182, 219, 243, Rolls Cal. (1655), 73.

[47] Thurloe, iii. 238, 243.

[48] Heath's Chronicle, 367.

[49] Thurloe, iii. 176, 181, 191.

[50] 'Rolls Cal.' (1655), p. 216; Baynes Coll., Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 21,424 fo. 50; Thurloe, iii. 226.

[51] Thurloe, iii. 210, 222, 228, 241, 253.

[52] Ibid., iii. 298, 356. In addition to constant terror of 'the Barbadoes,' to which all Cromwell's prisoners were subject, a Royalist in the Tower mentions, in a pencilled letter, that he had been threatened with torture; and that the Protector himself used the menace of the rack rests on the evidence of another prisoner's brother.--'Clarendon Papers,' Bodleian Cal., iii. 82, 87.

[53] Thurloe, iii. 676.

[54] Pell Coll. Landsdowne MSS., 752. fo. 275, 282. Baynes Coll. Add. MSS. 21, 423, fo. 74. Thurloe, iii. 170, 224, 246, 248, 253, 281, 284. 'Rolls Cal., 1655, 81, 84, 88, 99, 200.

[55] Thurloe, iii. 281, 335.

[56] 'Clarendon Papers,' Bodleian Cal., iii. 27, 34, 36. 'Rolls Cal' (1655), 193, 245. Thurloe, iii. 358, 530, 561, 659.

[57] Whalley's Statement; Burton, iv, 155.

[58] Adapted from the 'Declaration' of Oct. 1655, and Speech. Carlyle, iv. 107, Vol. 162.--_No. 324_

[59] Carlyle, iv. 108, 111.