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The 'audacious and intrepid sower of sedition,' nothing daunted by the experience of the past, was scarcely clear of the Tower, before he re-commenced his attacks on the government by the publication of a political discourse, entitled, 'The Legal Fundamental Liberties of the People of England, revived, asserted, and vindicated.' In this piece he calls the commons "a company of bloody and inhuman butchers;" and, towards the close, he addresses the heads of the government in these terms: "Oh Cromwell, Fairfax, Ireton, Haselrig, I will answer you as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, of old, answered your brothertyrant, Nebuchadnezzar!" This invective was followed up by another, equally bitter, entitled, An Impeachment of High Treason against Cromwell and Ireton;' and, on the back of this, came a still more dangerous piece, entitled, 'The Outcry of the Apprentices.' In this last, Lilburne renewed his tampering with the soldiery. The government was now driven upon strong measures. A commission of oyer and terminer for the trial of such persons as were concerned in the publication of the 'Outcry' was issued, and, three days after, Lilburne was re-conducted to the Tower. He now, for the first time, seems to have become alarmed for himself, and made an offer to withdraw to America on payment of the arrears of compensation-money due to him. Of this offer no notice was taken, and his trial was allowed to proceed. It lasted two days, and terminated with a verdict of acquittal. His defence was bold and ingenious, but the conduct of the judges, in refusing to allow him counsel, and their unjust and overbearing manner towards him, seems to have disgusted the minds of the jury, and to have determined them to acquit the prisoner.

The arch-agitator remained quiet after this for the extraordinary period of two years. At the end of this period, he attacked Sir Arthur Haselrig in a virulent tract, for some proceedings of the committee of sequestration, of which Sir Arthur was chairman. Haselrig was a man highly respected and beloved by the leading republicans; and a committee being appointed to examine into Lilburne's charges, they pronounced them defamatory. The conclusion of the business was, that Lilburne was sentenced to pay a severe fine, and to be banished for life. This occurred in January, 1652.

The place of retreat which the exiled demagogue made choice of was Holland. Here he found himself surrounded by royalists,-the very men whom of all others he had most reason to dread. The fear of assassination was now perpetually haunting him, and at last he resolved to sacrifice character to personal safety, and flung himself fairly and at once into the hands of the royalists, by making a proposition to them to overturn the existing government of England, provided the requisite means were furnished him. These means were only £10,000; with this sum, he said, he could get a number of tracts printed at Amsterdam and dispersed over England, before the influence of which, Cromwell and his party would not be able to stand six months. His proposals were not accepted; and he next applied himself to obtain a repeal of the sentence of banishment by addressing a respectful and conciliatory letter to Cromwell. But his entire character and conduct had disgusted the man who had often before exhibited much generosity of temper towards him, and he treated the application with scornful silence. Disappointed in this, Lilburne resolved to brave all conse

quences, and proceeded to London without permission. The next day he was apprehended and committed to Newgate. His trial came on at the Old Bailey on the 13th of July, 1653, and continued with various interruptions to the 20th of the following month. The jury again acquitted the prisoner, but he was remanded to prison on the charge of correspondence with the royalists, and was sent to Elizabeth castle in the isle of Jersey; here he behaved with great contumacy; but was finally liberated when far gone in consumption. His death took place immediately after in August 1657. Godwin has ably contrasted the characters of Lilburne and Cromwell in the following remarks: "Cromwell always acted like a politician; he had certain ends in view, and he modified his measures in the way that he conceived would be most conducive to those ends. At this time we have no reason to think that Cromwell had any sinister views. His object was the public welfare according to the ideas he entertained respecting it; and he steadily adopted such proceedings as he judged would best promote that object. Individuals were with him but implements in constructing the edifices of the public good: and in such a man the private passions of love and hatred could scarcely be said to bear sway; he chose those persons whom he conceived best adapted to the purposes he proposed; he treated them upon a principle correspondent with these views; he spared no man from ideas of personal respect; he made no man an enemy that he might gratify any feelings of resentment and indignation. Lilburne, with perhaps equal integrity,' was in many respects the reverse of this. He looked at principles and men as they were in themselves, rather than as links in the great chain of causes and consequences. He chose a cause, and he adhered to it, unterrified by menaces or suffering; though, as we shall see, when his exertions appeared to him entirely hopeless, he was not inflexibly bent against all compromise, but was willing by retreat to save the shattered wrecks of his own peace. In the same manner he chose an adversary, satisfying himself that the man against whom he drew out the powers of his hostility, was worthless, a traitor to the principles he had avowed to support and a foe to the public welfare; and resolving in that case never to quit the prosecution of his crimes, till they had received an ample retribution. Lilburne was therefore fiercer, and in that sense of a more unalterable temperament than Cromwell, who, while he never shrunk from any means the cause in which he was engaged rendered indispensable, was largely imbued with sentiments of clemency, forbearance and philanthropy. In the contrast here presented to us it is some disadvantage, that the adherent of what we may denominate the better principle, afterwards turned apostate, and was then urged by sinister views, if he were not now. But the historian treats of facts, not of fictions; and these two men, such as they were, stand together as striking examples of two opposing forms of public conduct."

The historian is speaking of Lilburne before his flight to Holland.

Oliver Cromwell.

BORN A. D. 1599.-DIED A. D. 1658.

OLIVER CROMWELL, Protector of the Commonwealth of England from the year 1653 to his death in 1658, was unquestionably one of the most distinguished individuals whose names figure in the page of British history. His biography, both personal and public, is full of interest and instruction. It is, however, necessary to premise, that the true delineation of his character is no easy task, owing to the unmerited obloquy or the extravagant praise which have been alternately attached to his name by friends and foes. Some parts of his life are involved in much obscurity. Malicious attempts to degrade his character were deemed so meritorious, and found so acceptable in the age succeeding his own, that many falsehoods have become current, and many facts have been misrepresented. We shall attempt, as far as our means and limits will allow, to sift the true from the false, and shall set down nothing to his credit or disgrace that is of questionable authority.

He was born April 25, 1599, in the parish of St John, Huntingdon. His father, Robert Cromwell, was the second son of Sir John Cromwell of Hinchinbrook, in the county of Huntingdon; and his mother was Elizabeth, sister of Sir Thomas Stewart of Ely, both ancient and honourable families. At the time of Oliver's birth his father was engaged in the trade of a brewer in the town of Huntingdon. Oliver was educated first in the grammar-school of his native town, and was then sent at the age of seventeen to Cambridge, where he entered as fellow-commoner in Sidney college. His youthful and boyish years have been scrutinized with an evil eye, and some charges of a morose, turbulent, and ill-starred disposition have been founded upon them; but we cannot find that there is any clear authority for indicting him upon any gross charge at that early period, at least not beyond the delinquencies of other robust and spirited young gentlemen. He was neither remarkably dull nor eminently clever,-neither essayed juvenile rebellions nor enacted in embryo the deposition of a tyrant, by leading his playmates to overturn the throne of their pedagogue,—but appears to have passed through the period of his education with average decorum and respectability. From all that has been alleged respecting his boyish days it appears that he was thoughtful and meditative above most of his companions, and that his natural courage prompted him to defend himself whenever he felt the hand of petty oppression. Probably his bodily strength was answerable to his courage, and made him thereby the terror of those who attempted to insult him, or play off the tyrant.

About one year after he took up his residence at college, his father died, and he is said to have been recalled to his mother's house. But there is no certain evidence of his having forsaken his studies at this time. It has been stated, without any adequate foundation, that he was sent by his mother to Lincoln's inn, and entered as a student of law, and that during his residence there he lived a most dissolute life.

' Memoirs of Cromwell, by Noble, and by O. Cromwell.

But this too is unsupported by evidence, and most probably is a mere tale invented by malignant enemies. If he ever fell into vicious habits in his youth, they were not of long continuance, for his marriage took place at the age of 21, and he was not deprived of his father's care and control till his 19th year. His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Bourchier of Fitsted, Essex, descended from the earls of Essex of that name. He had not yet embraced the principles of the puritans, but continued a zealous episcopalian, and if he had been a licentious man, undoubtedly became reformed before he embraced puritanism, for his private life after marriage was one of exemplary virtue both as a husband and father. But we suspect the whole charge of having lived dissolutely in his youth was founded upon his use of that language of self-abasement, common to the puritans, in which he indulged when he embraced their principles, as may be seen in a letter he wrote to Mrs St John, preserved by Thurloe. All his biographers agree that from the period of his marriage he lived a very sober and harmless life. By the death of his uncle Sir Thomas Stewart, he came into the possession of an estate of £400 per annum, and in consequence took up his abode in the isle of Ely, between 1636 and 1638.

Cromwell first entered parliament in the year 1625, for the town of Huntingdon, and again in 1627, for the same place. His third election was for the borough of Cambridge, a fact which sufficiently speaks his respectability and influence at this period. This third election took place in 1640, but the parliament was of short duration. His popularity in his own district of the country seems in the first instance to have arisen from the spirited opposition he made to the drainage of the Lincolnshire fens. This has been set down to the score of his factious disposition, and has been construed into a want of public spirit. But it has been clearly proved that his opposition to the measure, attached not to the undertaking in the abstract, but to the job which its projectors intended to make of it.

In Charles's third parliament, which met in 1628, Cromwell took an active part in defence of the protestant cause, against Bishop Neile, and others, who seemed anxious to revive popery or at least to favour it. About this period the king seemed resolved on governing without a parliament, and the long intervals and frequent interruptions which now occurred, seem to have induced him, in company with Hampden and many others, to quit their native country for New England. This determination on the part of Cromwell, has been by most of the biographers attributed to the state of his private affairs, which they almost uniformly represent as ruined and desperate. But there does not appear any ground for such an insinuation. If there had been, the failure of his scheme, through the order of the king, would inevitably have brought it to light. Cromwell, with Hampden, continued in England-as we have stated at length in the introductory chapter to this part of our work—and without the slightest evidence of being crippled in his private fortune.

He was chosen for Cambridge in the parliament which first assembled in November 3d, 1640, known as the long parliament, and in which he became so distinguished a member. He is represented as a constant attendant in his place, and a frequent speaker in this parliaIndeed, the affairs of the nation were now assuming a character which called forth into vigorous action all the heroic and manly spirits

ment.

of the age. He is stated to have been slovenly in his appearance, coarse and rude in his oratory, and withal fiery in his temper. Speaking of grievances in no way soft or courtly terms, but, we suppose, as became a Briton and a member of parliament, his oratory may not have been of the first order, neither could it have been very inferior or so rude as his enemies state, otherwise it never could have produced such effects as it manifestly did. His ability both for speech and action rose with the exigencies of the time. To deny to him great genius for the management of public affairs, and great powers of persuasion and command, would be to contradict the testimony of history. To admit that he rose to a station of proud pre-eminence in an age distinguished by every kind of human greatness, and yet to represent him as a man of inferior talents, were to court a paradox and affect an absurdity. Yet such have been the base and blind and false asseverations of the courtly advocates that wrote in the following age.

About the year 1641, affairs began to wear a more threatening aspect. It was evident that a collision must take place. The king was resolved against concession, and every act did but betray more fully to the nation the fatuity which attended all his counsels. In 1642, the parliament resolved upon raising forces. Then first Cromwell commenced his military career. He went immediately to Cambridge and raised a troop of horse of which he was appointed commander. His services at Cambridge proved highly advantageous to the popular cause. But his first bold enterprize was made against Sir Thomas Coningsby, whom the king had recently appointed sheriff of Hertfordshire, commanding him to proclaim the earl of Essex and his army traitors. Coningsby had so done but Cromwell came suddenly upon him at St Albans, and having made him prisoner, brought him to London. For this spirited action the parliament returned him their thanks, and soon after gave him a colonel's commission with the command of a regiment of cavalry. From this period, his military career became conspicuous, and even splendid. In six associated counties, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, he established the power of the parliament, and then advanced against the royal garrison of Newark. After this he checked the king's troops under the earl of Newcastle, and performed many other important and distinguished services. Soon after this period the house of parliament passed the self-denying ordinance, which was directed to the exclusion of all members of parliament from military command, with the exception of Cromwell. In consequence of this step, the earl of Manchester retired from the head of the army, and Sir Thomas Fairfax was appointed in his place. Cromwell was made lieutenant-general of cavalry, and speedily distinguished himself by the most brilliant actions. At the battle of Marston-moor, which took place July 3d, 1644, Cromwell's management of the cavalry is said to have turned the fortunes of the day in favour of the parliamentary army. In the autumn of the same year, at the second battle of Newbury, he charged the king's guards with such skill and courage that he had nearly taken him prisoner. From the command of the cavalry he now rose to be lieutenant-general of the army, and in almost every movement displayed consummate skill and courage. It may

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