1st cousin of Sir Thomas Barrington, 9th Gg-f.

Great Seal

(A) Of England from 1648-1651

(1) The cross of St George with, in base, a shield of the arms of Ireland.

(2) The same

(B) Oliver Cromwell, Protector

Quarterly 1 and 4, A cross (England), 2 A saltire (Scotland), 3. A harp (Ireland)
with, over all, an escutcheon Sa a Lion rampant Argent (Cromwell).

(C) Richard Cromwell, Protector

Same arms.
____________________________

“Catalogue of Seals” by  W de G Birch pub by the British Museum in 1887, vol I, pp. 65-66.

Cromwell, Oliver 1599-1658

Name: Cromwell, Oliver
Dates: 1599-1658
Active Date: 1639
Gender: Male

Field of Interest: Miscellaneous
Occupation: The Protector
Place of
    Birth: Huntingdon
    Education: Free school attached to the hospital of St. John, Huntingdon,   Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
    Death: Whitehall
    Burial: Westminster Abbey,   The head was then set up on a pole on the top of Westminster Hall, and the trunk buried under the gallows
Spouse: Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Bourchier
Likenesses: 1...,   2...,   3...,   4...
Sources: I. The earliest lives of Cromwell were either brief chronicles of...
Contributor: C. H. F. [Charles Harding Firth]

Article
Cromwell, Oliver 1599-1658, the Protector, second son of Robert Cromwell and Elizabeth Steward, was born at Huntingdon on 25 April 1599, baptised on the 29th of the same month, and named Oliver after his uncle, Sir Oliver Cromwell of Hinchinbrook. His father was the second son of Sir Henry Cromwell of Hinchinbrook, and grandson of a certain Richard Williams, who rose to fortune by the protection of Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex, and adopted the name of his patron. Morgan Williams, the father of Richard Williams, was a Welshman from Glamorganshire, who married Katherine, the elder sister of Thomas Cromwell, and appears in the records of the manor of Wimbledon as an ale-brewer and innkeeper residing at Putney (Phillips, The Cromwells of Putney; The Antiquary, ii. 164; Noble, House of Cromwell, i. 1, 82). In his letters Richard styles himself the `most bounden nephew' of Thomas Cromwell. In the will of the latter he is styled `nephew' (which may perhaps be taken to define the exact degree of relationship) and `cousin,' which was probably used to express kinship by blood in general. Elizabeth Steward, the mother of Oliver, was the daughter of William Steward, whose family had for several generations farmed the tithes of the abbey of Ely. It has been asserted that these Stewards were a branch of the royal house of Scotland, but they can be traced no further than a family named Styward, and settled in Norfolk (Rye, The Steward Genealogy and Cromwell's Royal Descent; The Genealogist, 1885, p. 34). The early life of Oliver Cromwell has been the subject of many fables, which have been carefully collected and sifted by Mr. Sanford (Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion, pp. 174-268).
Cromwell received his education at the free school attached to the hospital of St. John, Huntingdon, during the mastership of Dr. Thomas Beard. At the age of seventeen, on 23 April 1616, he matriculated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, one of the colleges complained of by Laud in 1628 as a nursery of puritanism. Royalist writers assert that both at school and the university he `made no proficiency in any kind of learning' (Dugdale). But Edmund Waller testifies that he was `well read in Greek and Roman story,' and when protector he frequently talked with foreign ambassadors in Latin. The statement of Bates is doubtless true that `he was quickly satiated with study, taking more delight in horse and field exercise,' or, as Heath expresses it, `was more famous for his exercises in the fields than in the schools, being one of the chief matchmakers and players at football, cudgels, or any other boisterous sport or game' (Flagellum, p. 8). The graver charges of early debauchery which they bring against him may safely be dismissed. On the death of his father in June 1617, Cromwell seems to have left the university and betaken himself to London to obtain the general knowledge of law which every country gentleman required. According to Heath he became a member of Lincoln's Inn, but his name does not appear in the books of any of the Inns of Court. In London, at St. Giles's Church, Cripplegate, he married, on 22 Aug. 1620, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Bourchier. Sir James is described as `of Tower Hill, London,' was one of a family of city merchants, and possessed property near Felstead in Essex. It is noticeable that in a settlement drawn up immediately after the marriage, the bridegroom is described as `Oliver Cromwell, alias Williams' (Noble, i. 123-4). After his marriage Cromwell took up his residence at Huntingdon, and occupied himself with the management of his paternal estate. Robert Cromwell, by his will, had left two-thirds of his property to his widow for twenty-one years for the benefit of his daughters, so that the actual income of his eldest son cannot have been large. The fortunes of the Cromwell family were now declining, for Sir Oliver Cromwell, burdened with debts, was forced in 1627 to sell Hinchinbrook to Sir Sydney Montague, and the Montagues succeeded to the local influence once enjoyed by the Cromwells (ib. i. 43). It is therefore probable that the election of the younger Oliver as member for Huntingdon in 1628 was due as much to personal qualities as to any family interest.
In parliament Cromwell's only reported speech was delivered on behalf of the free preaching of puritan doctrine, and against the silence which the king sought to impose on religious controversy (11 Feb. 1629). The Bishop of Winchester, he complained, had sent for Dr. Beard, prohibited him from controverting the popish tenets preached by Dr. Alabaster at Paul's Cross, and reprehended him for disobeying the prohibition (Gardiner, History of England, vii. 55). Of Cromwell's action in public matters during the eleven years' intermission of parliaments there is only one authentic fact recorded. In 1630 the borough of Huntingdon obtained a new charter, which vested the government of the town and the management of the town property in the hands of the mayor and twelve aldermen. Cromwell was named one of the three justices of the peace for the borough, and gave his consent to the proposed change (Duke of Manchester, Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne, i. 338). Afterwards, however, he raised the objection that the new charter enabled the aldermen to deal with the common property as they pleased, to the detriment of the poorer members of the community, and used strong language on the subject to Robert Barnard, mayor of the town and chief instigator of the change. On the complaint of the latter, his adversary was summoned to appear before the council, and the dispute was there referred to the arbitration of the Earl of Manchester. Cromwell owned that he had spoken in `heat and passion,' and apologised to Barnard, but Manchester sustained Cromwell's objections and ordered that the charter should be altered in three particulars to meet the risk which he had pointed out (preface to Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1629-31, p. viii). A later legend, based chiefly on a passage in the memoir of Sir Philip Warwick (p. 250), represents Cromwell as successfully opposing the king on the question of the drainage of the fens, but it is not supported by any contemporary evidence. If Cromwell took any part in the dispute between the king and the undertakers, which occurred in 1636, he probably, as at Huntingdon, defended the rights of the poor commoners, and therefore sided for the moment with the king and against the undertakers (Gardiner, History of England, viii. 297). The nickname of `Lord of the Fens,' which has been supposed to refer to this incident, is first given to Cromwell by a royalist newspaper (Mercurius Aulicus, 6 Nov. 1643), in a series of comments on the names of the persons composing the council for the government of the foreign plantations of England appointed by parliament on 2 Nov. 1643. In the same way the legend which represents Cromwell as attempting to emigrate to America and stopped by an order in council cannot be true as it is usually related, though it is by no means improbable that Cromwell may have thought of emigrating. According to Clarendon, he told him in 1641 that if the Remonstrance had not passed `he would have sold all he had the next morning, and never have seen England more' (Rebellion, iv. 52). In May 1631 Cromwell disposed of the greater part of his property at Huntingdon, and with the sum of 1,800l. which he thus realised rented some grazing lands at St. Ives. In 1636, on the death of his uncle, Sir Thomas Steward, who made him his heir, he removed to Ely, and succeeded his uncle as farmer of the cathedral tithes.
During this period an important change seems to have taken place in Cromwell's character. His first letter, like his first speech, shows him solicitous for the teaching of puritan theology, and watching with anxiety the development of Laud's ecclesiastical policy. From the first he seems to have been a puritan in doctrine and profession, but by 1638 he had become something more. After a long period of religious depression, which caused one physician to describe him as `valde melancholicus,' and another as `splenetic and full of fancies,' he had, as he expressed it, been `given to see light.' Looking back on his past life, he accused himself of having `lived in and loved darkness,' of having been `the chief of sinners.' Some biographers have supposed these words to refer to early excesses. They describe rather the mental struggles by which a formal Calvinist became a perfect enthusiast. They should be compared with the similar utterances of Bunyan or `the exceeding self-debasing words, annihilating and judging himself,' which Cromwell spoke during his last illness. In the letter to Mrs. St. John in which Cromwell thus revealed himself he expressed the desire to show by his acts his thankfulness for this spiritual change. `If here I may honour my God either by doing or suffering, I shall be most glad. Truly no poor creature hath more cause to put himself forth in the cause of God than I. I have had plentiful wages beforehand' (Carlyle, Letter ii.). In the two parliaments called in 1640 Cromwell was one of the members for the town of Cambridge (O. Cromwell, Life of O. Cromwell, p. 263). His connection with Hampden and St. John secured him a certain intimacy with the leaders of the advanced party in the Long parliament, and both in the House of Commons itself and in the committees he was very active. During the first session Cromwell was `specially appointed to eighteen committees, exclusive of various appointments amongst the knights and burgesses generally of the eastern counties' (Sanford, 306). On 9 Nov., three days after business began, he presented the petition of John Lilburn, who had been imprisoned for selling Prynne's pamphlets. It was on this occasion that Sir Philip Warwick first saw Cromwell, and noted that in spite of his being `very ordinarily apparelled' he was `very much hearkened unto.' `His stature,' says Warwick, `was of good size, his countenance swollen and reddish, his voice sharp and untuneable, and his eloquence full of fervour' (Memoirs, 247). On another committee, appointed to consider the grants made from the queen's jointure, the question of the enclosure of the soke of Somersham in Huntingdonshire arose, and Cromwell zealously defended the rights of the commoners against the encloser, the Earl of Manchester, and against the House of Lords, who supported his action (Sanford, 370). Cromwell's name is also associated with two important public bills. On 30 Dec. 1640 he moved the second reading of Strode's bill for reviving the old law of Edward III for annual parliaments. He spoke earnestly for the reception of the London petition against episcopacy, and was one of the originators of the `Root and Branch' Bill introduced by Dering on 21 May 1641 (Dering, Speeches, p. 62). In the second session Cromwell brought forward motions to prevent the bishops from voting on the question of their own exclusion from the House of Lords, and for the removal of the Earl of Bristol from the king's councils. Still more prominent was he when the parliament began to lay hands on the executive power. On 6 Nov. 1641 he moved to entrust Essex with the command of the trainbands south of Trent until parliament should take further order. On 14 Jan. 1642 he proposed the appointment of a committee to put the kingdom in a posture of defence (Gardiner, History of England, x. 41, 59, 119; Sanford, 474). The journals of the House of Commons during the early summer of 1642 are full of notices attesting the activity of Cromwell in taking practical measures for the defence of England and Ireland. Though he was not rich, he subscribed 600l. for the recovery of Ireland, and 500l. for the defence of the parliament (Rushworth, iv. 564). On 15 July the commons ordered that he should be repaid 100l. which he had expended in arming the county of Cambridge, and on the 15th of the following month Sir Philip Stapleton reported to them that Cromwell had seized the magazine in the castle at Cambridge, and hindered the carrying of the university plate to the king. Ably seconded by Valentine Walton, husband of his sister Margaret, and John Desborough, who had married his sister Jane, Cromwell effectually secured Cambridgeshire for the parliament.
As soon as Essex's army took the field, Cromwell joined it as captain of a troop of horse, and his eldest surviving son, Oliver, served in it also as cornet in the troop of Lord St. John. At the battle of Edgehill Cromwell's troop formed part of Essex's own regiment and, under the command of Sir Philip Stapleton, helped to turn the fortune of the day. Fiennes in his account mentions Captain Cromwell in the list of officers who `never stirred from their troops, but they and their troops fought to the last minute' (Fiennes, True and Exact Relation, &c., 1642). In December the formation of the eastern association and the similar association of the midland counties recalled Cromwell from the army of Essex to his own country. In the first of these associations he was a member of the committee for Cambridge, in the latter one of the committee for Huntingdon. Seizing the royalist sheriff of Hertfordshire and disarming the royalists of Huntingdonshire on his way, he established himself at Cambridge at the end of January 1643, and made that place his headquarters for the rest of the spring. We hear of him busily engaged in fortifying Cambridge and collecting men to resist a threatened inroad by Lord Capel. But his most important business was the conversion of his own troop of horse into a regiment. A letter written in January 1643 seems to show that he was still only a captain at that date (Carlyle, Letter iv.), and he is first styled `colonel' in a newspaper of 2 March 1643 (Cromwelliana, 2). By September 1643 his single troop of sixty men had increased to ten troops, and it rose to fourteen double troops before the formation of the `New Model' (Husband, Ordinances, f. 1646, p. 331; Reliqui‘ Baxterian‘, 98). His soldiers were men of the same spirit as himself. From the very beginning of the war Cromwell had noted the inferiority of the parliamentary cavalry, and in a memorable conversation set forth to Hampden the necessity of raising men of religion to oppose men of honour. `You must get men of a spirit that is likely to go on as far as gentlemen will go, or you will be beaten still' (Speech xi.). Other commanders besides Cromwell attempted to fill their regiments with pious men, but he alone succeeded (Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, i. 180). In September he was able to write to St. John and describe his regiment as `a lovely company,' `no anabaptists, but honest, sober christians.' The officers were selected with the same care as the men. `If you choose godly, honest men to be captains of horse, honest men will follow them,' wrote Cromwell to the committee of Suffolk. `I had rather have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for and loves what he knows, than what you call a gentleman and nothing else. ¬ It had been well that men of honour and birth had entered into these employments, but seeing it was necessary the work should go on, better plain men than none' (Carlyle, Letters xvi. xviii.).
So far as it lay in Cromwell's own power the work did go on, in spite of every difficulty. On 14 March he suppressed a rising at Lowestoft, at the beginning of April disarmed the Huntingdonshire royalists, and on the 28th of the same month retook Crowland. At Grantham on 13 May he defeated with twelve troops double that number of royalists (Letter x.), and before the end of May was at Nottingham engaged on `the great design' of marching into Yorkshire to join the Fairfaxes. The plan failed through the disagreements of the local commanders and the treachery of Captain John Hotham, whose intrigues Cromwell detected and whose arrest he helped to secure (Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, i. 187; Life of Colonel Hutchinson, ed. 1885, i. 220, 363). The repeated failure of the local authorities to provide for the payment of his forces added to Cromwell's difficulties. `Lay not too much,' he wrote to one of the defaulters, `on the back of a poor gentleman who desires, without much noise, to lay down his life and bleed the last drop to serve the cause and you' (Carlyle, Letter xi.). Obliged to return to the defence of the associated counties themselves, Cromwell recaptured Stamford, stormed Burleigh House (24 July), and took a leading part in the victory of Gainsborough (28 July). He it was who, with his disciplined troopers, routed Charles Cavendish and his reserve when they seemed about to turn the fortune of the fight, and covered the retreat of the parliamentarians when the main body of Newcastle's army came up (ib. Letter xii. app. 5). On the same day that Cromwell thus distinguished himself he was appointed by the House of Commons governor of the Isle of Ely, and a fortnight later became one of the four colonels of horse in the new army to be raised by the Earl of Manchester (Husband, Ordinances, 10 Aug. 1643). Though not yet bearing the title of lieutenant-general, he was practically Manchester's second in command; and while the earl himself besieged Lynn with the foot, Cromwell and the cavalry were despatched into Lincolnshire to assist Lord Willoughby in the defence of the small portion of that county still under the rule of the parliament. The victory of Winceby on 11 Oct. 1643, gained by the combined forces of Lord Willoughby, Sir Thomas Fairfax, and the Earl of Manchester, was followed by the reconquest of the entire county. In the battle Cromwell led the van in person, and narrowly escaped with his life. `Colonel Cromwell,' says a contemporary narrative, `charged at some distance before his regiment, when his horse was killed under him. He recovered himself, however, from under his horse, but afterwards was again knocked down, yet by God's good providence he got up again' (Fairfax Correspondence, iii. 64). Lincolnshire was won, but Cromwell saw clearly that it could not be held unless a change took place in the conduct of the local forces and the character of the local commander. From his fellow-officers as from his subordinates he exacted efficiency and devotion to the cause. He had not hesitated to accuse Hotham of treachery, and he did not shrink now from charging Lord Willoughby with misconduct, and brought forward in parliament a series of complaints against him which led to his resignation of his post (22 Jan. 1644; Sanford, 580). About the same time, though the exact date is not known, Cromwell received his formal commission as lieutenant-general in the Earl of Manchester's army, and he was also appointed one of the committee of both kingdoms (9 Feb. 1644). The former appointment obliged him to register his acceptance of the `solemn league and covenant' (5 Feb.), which he appears to have delayed as long as possible (Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, i. 365). The spring of 1644 was as full of action as that of 1643. On 4 March Cromwell captured Hilsden House in Buckinghamshire (Sanford, app. B). At the beginning of May he took part in the siege of Lincoln, and while Manchester's foot stormed the walls of the city Cromwell and the horse repulsed Goring's attempt to come to its relief (6 May 1644; Rushworth, v. 621). The army of the eastern association then proceeded to join the two armies under Fairfax and Leven, which were besieging York. Cromwell's only account of Marston Moor is contained in a letter which he wrote to Valentine Walton to condole with him on the death of young Walton in that battle (Carlyle, Letter xxi.). Cromwell was in command of the left wing of the parliamentary army, consisting of his own troopers from the eastern association and three regiments of Scotch horse under David Leslie, who numbered twenty-two out of the seventy troops of which his force consisted. These he mentions somewhat contemptuously as `a few Scots in our rear,' and makes no mention of their share in securing the victory; but it should be remembered that he expressly says he does not undertake to relate the particulars of the battle, and sums up the whole in four sentences. Scout-master Watson, who terms Cromwell `the chief agent in the victory,' thus describes the beginning of the fight: `Lieutenant-general Cromwell's division of three hundred horse, in which himself was in person, charged the front division of Prince Rupert's, in which himself was in person. Cromwell's own division had a hard pull of it; for they were charged by Rupert's bravest men both in front and flank. They stood at the sword's point a pretty while, hacking one another, but at last he brake through them, scattering them like a little dust' (A more exact Relation of the late Battle near York, 1644). In this struggle Cromwell received a slight wound in the neck, and his onset was for a moment checked; but the charge was admirably supported by David Leslie, and Rupert's men made no second stand. Leaving Leslie to attack the infantry of the royalist centre, Cromwell pressed behind them, and, pushing to the extreme east of the royalist position, occupied the ground originally held by Goring. As Goring's cavalry returned from the pursuit of Sir Thomas Fairfax's division, they were charged and routed by Cromwell, and the victory was completed by the destruction of the royalist foot. How much of the merit of the success was due to Cromwell was a question that was violently disputed. `The independents,' complained Baillie, `sent up Major Harrison to trumpet over all the city their own praises, making believe that Cromwell alone, with his unspeakably valorous regiments, had done all that service.' He asserted that, on the contrary, David Leslie was throughout the real leader, and even repeated a story that Cromwell was not so much as present at the decisive charge (Letters, ii. 203, 209, 218). Denzil Holles, writing in 1648, went still further, and, on the authority only of Major-general Crawford, charged Cromwell with personal cowardice during the battle (Memoirs, 15). Soldiers like David Leslie and Rupert, however, recognised him as the best leader of cavalry in the parliamentary army. When Leslie and Cromwell's forces joined at the end of May 1644, Leslie waived in his favour the command to which he was entitled, and `would have Lieutenant-general Cromwell chief' (Parliament Scout, 30 May-6 June). `Is Cromwell there?' asked Rupert eagerly of a prisoner whom chance threw into his hands an hour or two before Marston Moor, and a couple of months after the battle a parliamentary newspaper mentions Cromwell by the nickname of `Ironside; for that title was given him by Prince Rupert after his defeat near York' (Mercurius Civicus, 16-26 Sept. 1644; Gardiner, Great Civil War, i. 449). The name Ironside or Ironsides speedily became popular with the army, and was in later times extended from the commander to his troopers.
But Cromwell was now something more than a mere military leader. The last few months had made him the head of a political party also. As early as April 1644 Baillie distinguishes him by the title of `the great independent' (Baillie, Letters, ii. 153). In his government of the Isle of Ely Cromwell, while he suppressed the choral service of the cathedral as `unedifying and offensive' (Carlyle, Letter xix.), had allowed his soldiers and their ministers the largest license of preaching and worship. `It is become a mere Amsterdam,' complained an incensed presbyterian (Manchester's Quarrel with Cromwell, 73).
In Manchester's councils also Cromwell had used the great influence his position gave him on behalf of the independents. `Manchester himself,' writes Baillie, `a sweet, meek man, permitted his lieutenant-general Cromwell to guide all the army at his pleasure; the man is a very wise and active head, universally well beloved, as religious and stout; being a known independent, the most of the soldiers who loved new ways put themselves under his command' (Letters, ii. 229). Even Cromwell's influence was hardly sufficient to protect them. In December 1643 a presbyterian colonel at Lincoln imprisoned a number of Cromwell's troopers for attending a conventicle. In March 1644 Major-general Crawford cashiered a lieutenant-colonel on the ground that he was an anabaptist. `Admit he be,' wrote Cromwell, `shall that render him incapable to serve the public? Sir, the state in choosing men to serve it takes no notice of their opinions; if they be willing faithfully to serve it, that satisfies' (Carlyle, Letter xx.). Manchester's army was split into two factions_the presbyterians headed by Crawford, the independents headed by Cromwell, struggling with each other for the guidance of their commander. A political difference between Cromwell and Manchester seems to have decided the contest in favour of Crawford. In June, while the combined armies were besieging York, Vane appeared in the camp on a secret mission from the committee of both kingdoms to gain the consent of the generals to a plan for the actual or virtual deposition of Charles as the necessary preliminary of a satisfactory settlement. All three refused, but Leven and the Scots are mentioned as specially hostile to the proposal. `Though no actual evidence exists on the subject, it is in the highest degree probable that Cromwell was won over to Vane's side, and that his quarrel with the Scots and with Manchester as the supporter of the Scots dates from these discussions outside the walls of York' (Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, i. 432). Manchester's inactivity during the two months which followed the capture of York still further alienated Cromwell from him. Believing that if Crawford's evil influence were removed Manchester's inactivity and the dissensions of the army would be ended, he demanded Crawford's removal. Manchester and his two subordinates came to London in September 1644 to lay the case before the committee of both kingdoms. At first Cromwell peremptorily demanded Crawford's dismissal, and threatened that his colonels would lay down their arms if this were refused; but he speedily recognised that he had gone too far, and changed his tactics. Abandoning the personal attack on Crawford, he devoted himself to the attainment of the aims which had caused the quarrel. From Manchester he obtained a declaration of his resolution to push on with all speed against the common enemy. From the House of Commons he secured the appointment of a committee `to consider the means of uniting presbyterians and independents, and, in case that cannot be done, to endeavour the finding out some way how far tender consciences, who cannot in all things submit to the common rule which shall be established, may be borne with according to the word and as may stand with the public peace' (13 Sept. 1644; Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, i. 482). This, though hardly, as Baillie terms it, `really an act of parliament for the toleration of the sectaries,' was the most important step towards toleration taken since the war began.
At the second battle of Newbury in the following month Cromwell was one of the commanders of the division which was sent to storm Prince Maurice's entrenchments at Speen, on the west of the king's position, while Manchester was to attack it on its northern face at Shaw House. But Manchester delayed his attack till an hour and a half after the other force was engaged, wasted the results of their successes, and effected nothing himself. The same slowness or incapacity marked his movements before and after the battle, and Cromwell, putting together his actions and his sayings, came to believe that `these miscarriages were caused not by accident or carelessness only, but through backwardness to all action, and that backwardness grounded ¬ on some principle of unwillingness to have the war prosecuted to a full victory.' On 25 Nov. he laid before the House of Commons a charge to that effect, supporting it by an account of Manchester's operations from the battle of Marston Moor to the relief of Donnington Castle (Rushworth, v. 732; Manchester's Quarrel with Cromwell, 78). Manchester replied by a narrative vindicating his generalship (Rushworth, v. 733-6), and by bringing before the lords a countercharge against Cromwell for offensive and incendiary language on various occasions. His expressions were sometimes against the nobility; he said that he hoped to live to see never a nobleman in England. He had expressed himself with contempt of the assembly of divines, and said that they persecuted honester men than themselves. His animosity against the Scots was such that he told Manchester that `in the way they now carried themselves pressing for their discipline, he could as soon draw his sword against them as against any in the king's army.' Finally he had avowed that he desired to have none but independents in the army of the eastern association, `that in case there should be propositions for peace, or any conclusion of a peace such as might not stand with those ends that honest men should aim at, this army might prevent such a mischief' (Camden Miscellany, viii.). These sayings should not be considered as the malignant exaggerations of an enemy; there can be little doubt that they represent genuine specimens of the plain speaking in which Cromwell was wont to indulge.
The publication of Cromwell's sayings was at the moment an effective answer to his narrative of Manchester's conduct. It enlisted on his side the Scots, the presbyterians, and the House of Lords. The Scots and the English presbyterians immediately took counsel together on the possibility of indicting Cromwell as an `incendiary' who strove to break the union of the two nations (Whitelocke, Memorials, f. 116). `We must crave reason of that darling of the sectaries and obtain his removal from the army,' wrote Baillie to Scotland (Letters, ii. 245). Just as the commons had appointed a committee to inquire into Manchester's conduct, so the lords appointed one to inquire into that of Cromwell, and a quarrel between the two houses on the question of privilege was on the point of breaking out. Once more Cromwell drew back, for to press his accusation was to risk not only himself but also his cause. As in the case of Crawford, he abandoned his attack on the individual to concentrate his efforts on the attainment of the principle. The idea of the necessity of a professional army under a professional general had already occurred to others. The first suggestion of the New Model is to be traced in a letter of Sir William Waller to Essex (Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, i. 454). Only a few days earlier the House of Commons had referred to the committee of both kingdoms `upon the consideration of the state and condition of the armies, as now disposed and commanded, to consider of a frame or model of the whole militia and present it to the house, as may put the forces into such posture as may be most advantageous for the service of the public' (Commons' Journals, 23 Nov. 1644).
Seizing the opportunity thus afforded, Cromwell on 9 Dec. urged the House of Commons to consider rather the remedies than the causes of recent miscarriages. He reduced the charge against Manchester from intentional backwardness to accidental oversights, which could rarely be avoided in military affairs, on which he begged the house not to insist. The one thing needful was to save a bleeding, almost dying, kingdom by a more speedy, vigorous, and effectual prosecution of the war, which was to be obtained by removing members of both houses from command, and by putting the army `into another method.' `I hope,' he concluded, `that no members of either house will scruple to deny themselves and their own private interests for the public good' (Rushworth, vi. 6). These words struck the keynote of the debate which closed with the vote that no member of either house should hold military command during the rest of the war.
Before the Self-denying Ordinance had struggled through the upper house, but after the lords had accepted the bill for new modelling the army, Cromwell was again in the field. Under Waller's command he was ordered into the west (27 Feb. 1645) to relieve Taunton, succeeded in temporarily effecting that object, and captured a regiment of the king's horse in Wiltshire (Commons' Journals; Vicars, Burning Bush, 123). Waller has left an interesting account of Cromwell's behaviour as a subordinate. `At this time he had never shown extraordinary parts, nor do I think he did himself believe that he had them; for although he was blunt he did not bear himself with pride or disdain. As an officer he was obedient, and did never dispute my orders or argue upon them' (Recollections).
Immediately on Cromwell's return to the headquarters of the army at Windsor (22 April), Fairfax, at the order of the committee of both kingdoms, despatched him into Oxfordshire to interrupt the king's preparations for taking the field (Sprigge, Anglia Rediviva, p. 11, ed. 1854). His success was rapid and complete. On 24 April he defeated a brigade of horse at Islip and took two hundred prisoners, captured Bletchingdon House the same night, gained another victory at Bampton in the Bush on the 26th, and failed only before the walls of Farringdon (30 April). The king was obliged to summon Goring's cavalry from the west to cover his removal from Oxford. Cromwell and Richard Brown were ordered to follow the king's motions, but recalled in a few days to take part in the siege of Oxford. Free from their pursuit, the king stormed Leicester and threatened to break into the eastern association. At once Cromwell, with but three troops of horse, was sent to the point of danger, with instructions to secure Ely and raise the local levies (Rushworth, vi. 34).
According to the Self-denying Ordinance Cromwell's employment in the army should ere this have ended, for the date fixed for the expiration of commissions held by members of parliament was 13 May. But when the time came Cromwell was in pursuit of the king, and on 10 May his commission was extended for forty days longer. On 5 June a petition from the city of London to the lords demanded that Cromwell should be sent to command the associated counties, and on 8 June Fairfax and his officers sent a letter to the commons asking that Cromwell might be continued in command of the horse, `being as great a body as ever the parliament had together in one army, and yet having no general officer to command them.' It can hardly have been by accident that those who nominated the officers of the New Model had left vacant that post of lieutenant-general which the council of war thus proposed to fill. The House of Commons took the hint, and ordered that Cromwell should command the horse during such a time as the house should dispense with his attendance (10 June), and the lords were obliged reluctantly to concur, though they took care to limit the period of his employment to three months. It was afterwards again prolonged for terms of four and six months successively (Journals of the House of Commons, 18 June, 8 Aug., 17 Oct. 1645, 26 Jan. 1646).
In obedience to the summons of Fairfax Cromwell returned from the eastern counties, and rejoined the army the day before the battle of Naseby (Rushworth, vi. 21). In that battle Cromwell commanded in person the right wing, and Fairfax entrusted to his charge the ordering of the cavalry throughout the whole army. Before his task was completed the royalists advanced to the attack. In a letter written about a month later, Cromwell says: `When I saw the enemy draw up and march in gallant order towards us, and we a company of poor ignorant men to seek how to order our battle, the general having commissioned me to order all the horse, I could not, riding alone about my business, but smile out to God, in praises, in assurance of victory, because God would by things that are not bring to nought things that are' (Carlyle, app. 9). The parliamentary right routed the division opposed to it, and Cromwell, leaving a detachment to prevent the broken troops from rallying, fell on the king's foot in the centre and completed their defeat. He followed the chase of the flying cavaliers as far as the suburbs of Leicester. At the victory of Langport also, on 10 July 1645, Cromwell was conspicuous both in the battle and the pursuit, and he took part in the sieges of Bridgewater, Sherborne, and Bristol. After the surrender of the last place, he was detached by Fairfax in order to secure the communications between London and the west, and captured in succession Devizes (23 Sept.), Winchester (5 Oct.), Basing (14 Oct.), and Langford House (17 Oct. 1645). At the end of October he rejoined Fairfax at Crediton, and remained with the army during the whole of the winter.
On 9 Jan. he opened the campaign of 1646 by the surprise of Lord Wentworth at Bovey Tracy, and shared in the battle of Torrington (16 Feb.) and the siege of Exeter. Then, at Fairfax's request, Cromwell undertook to go to London, in order to give the parliament an account of the state of the west of England. On 23 April he received the thanks of the House of Commons for his services; rewards of another nature they had already conferred upon him. On 1 Dec. 1645, the commons, in drawing up the peace propositions to be offered to the king, had resolved that an estate of 2,500l. a year should be conferred on Cromwell, and that the king should be requested to make him a baron. After the failure of the negotiations, an ordinance of parliament had settled upon him lands to the value named, taken chiefly from the property of the Marquis of Worcester (Parliamentary History, xiv. 139, 252; Thurloe Papers, l. 75).
Cromwell returned to the army in time to assist in the negotiations for the surrender of Oxford. The leniency of the terms granted to the royalists both here and at Exeter, `base, scurvy propositions' as Baillie describes them, is attributed by him to the influence of Cromwell, and to a design to set the army free to oppose the Scots if it should be necessary (Baillie, ii. 376). It is certain that Cromwell's influence was constantly used to procure the fair and moderate treatment of the conquered party, and he more than once urged on the parliament the necessity of punctually carrying out the Oxford articles and preserving `the faith of the army.' With the fall of Oxford the war was practically over, and Cromwell returned to his parliamentary duties. His family removed from Ely and followed him to London, with the exception of his eldest daughter Bridget, who had married Ireton a few days before the surrender of Oxford (15 June 1646). During the last eighteen months parliament had voted all the essentials for a presbyterian church, and the question of the amount of toleration to be legally granted to dissentients was more urgent than ever. Cromwell had not ceased to remind parliament of the necessity of establishing the toleration promised in the vote of September 1644. `Honest men served you faithfully in this action,' he wrote after Naseby; `I beseech you not to discourage them. He that ventures his life for the liberty of his country, I wish he trust God for the liberty of his conscience and you for the liberty he fights for' (Letter xxix.). Again, after the capture of Bristol, writing by the special commission of Fairfax and the council of war, he warned the house: `For being united in forms commonly called uniformity, every christian will for peace sake study and do as far as conscience will permit. ¨ In things of the mind we look for no compulsion but that of light and reason.' The presbyterian party in the commons turned a deaf ear to these reminders, and suppressed these passages in the letters published by its order. When Cromwell returned to his seat in the House of Commons, the question of toleration was still undecided; the recruiting of the parliament by fresh elections inclined the balance against the presbyterians, but the flight of the king to the Scots gave them again the ascendency. Of Cromwell's views and actions during the latter half of 1646 and the spring of 1647 we have extremely little information.
Two letters to Fairfax show the anxiety with which he regarded the king's negotiations with the Scots and the satisfaction with which he hailed the conclusion of the arrangement by which he was handed over to the commissioners of parliament. With even greater anxiety he watched the increasing dissensions within the parliament, and the growing hostility of the city to the army. `We are full of faction and worse,' he writes in August 1646; and in March 1647, `There want not in all places those who have so much malice against the army as besots them. Never were the spirits of men more embittered than now' (Letters xxxviii. xliii.). Cromwell's attitude at the commencement of the quarrel between the army and the parliament has been distorted by fable and misrepresentation. Thoroughly convinced of the justice of the army's claims, he restrained the soldiers as long as possible, because he saw more clearly than they did the danger of a breach with the only constitutional authority the war had left standing. He risked his influence with them by his perseverance in this course of action. `I have looked upon you,' wrote Lilburn to Cromwell on 25 March 1647, `as the most absolute singlehearted great man in England, untainted and unbiassed with ends of your own. ¨ Your actions and carriages for many months together have struck me into an amaze. I am informed this day by an officer, and was informed by another knowing man yesterday, that you will not suffer the army to petition till they have laid down their arms, because you have engaged to the house that they shall lay them down whenever the house shall command.' This conduct Lilburn proceeds to attribute to the influence of Cromwell's parliamentary associates, `the politic men,' `the sons of Machiavel,' `Vane and St. John' (Lilburn, Jonah's Cry, p. 3; a similar account of Cromwell's behaviour at this juncture is given by John Wildman in a tract called Putney Projects published in November 1647). Angered by the reserve of their superiors, the agitators of eight regiments addressed a letter to Fairfax, Cromwell, and Skippon, adjuring them in the strongest language to plead the cause of the soldiers in parliament (Declarations, &c. of the Army, 4to, 1647, p. 5). Skippon laid his copy of the letter before the House of Commons, and the house, now thoroughly alarmed, sent down Cromwell, Skippon, and other officers to examine into the grievances of the army (Rushworth, vi. 474). But the concessions which parliament offered were too small and too late, and the failure of Cromwell's mission gave colour to the theory of his double dealing, which his opponents were only too ready to accept. There seems to be no reason to doubt the truth of the common story that they were on the point of arresting him, when he suddenly left London and joined the army (3 June 1647). Whether before leaving Cromwell planned the seizure of the king by Joyce is a more doubtful question. Hollis definitely asserts that Joyce received his orders to secure the king's person at a meeting at Cromwell's house on 30 May (Hollis; Maseres, Tracts, i. 246). Major Huntingdon makes a similar statement, with the addition that Joyce's orders were only to secure the king at Holmby, not to take him thence, and that Cromwell said that if this had not been done the king would have been fetched away by order of parliament, or carried to London by his presbyterian keepers (Maseres, Tracts, i. 399). Although the evidence of Huntingdon is not free from suspicion, this statement is to some extent supported by independent contemporary evidence, and is in harmony with the circumstances of the case and the character of Cromwell. So long as it was possible he had striven to restrain the army and to mediate between it and the parliament; when that was no longer possible he took its part with vigour and decision. The effect of Cromwell's presence at the army was immediately perceptible. Discipline and subordination were restored, and the authority of the officers superseded that of the agitators. As early as 1 July Lilburn wrote to Cromwell complaining: `You have robbed by your unjust subtlety and shifting tricks the honest and gallant agitators of all their power and authority, and solely placed it in a thing called a council of war' (Jonah's Cry, p. 9). In the council itself Fairfax was a cipher, as he himself admits, and the influence of Cromwell predominant; his adversaries spoke of him as `the principal wheel,' the `primum mobile' which moved the whole machine (A Copy of a Letter to be sent to Lieutenant-general Cromwell from the well affected Party in the City, 1647). Hitherto the manifestos of the army had set forth simply their grievance as soldiers; now they began to insist on their claim as citizens to demand a settlement of the peace of the kingdom and the liberties of the subject. In the letter to the city of 10 June, which Carlyle judges by the evidence of its style to be of Cromwell's own writing, the willingness of the army to subordinate the question of their pay to the question of the settlement of the kingdom is very plainly stated, and special stress is also laid on the demand for toleration (Rushworth, vi. 554). Cromwell shared the general opinion of the army that a settlement could best be obtained by negotiation with the king. Whatever the world might judge of them, he said to Berkeley, they would be found no seekers of themselves, further than to have leave to live as subjects ought to do, and to preserve their consciences, and they thought that no men could enjoy their lives and estates quietly without the king had his rights (Maseres, Tracts, i. 360). Accordingly he exerted all his influence to render the propositions of the army acceptable to the king; and, when Charles made objections to the first draft of those proposals, introduced important alterations in the scheme for the settlement of the kingdom, which was finally made public on 1 Aug. In this Cromwell acted with the assent of the council of war; but the extreme party in the army held him specially responsible for this policy, and accused him of `prostituting the liberties and persons of all the people at the foot of the king's interest' (Wildman, Putney Projects). The same willingness to accept a compromise showed itself in the line of conduct adopted towards the parliament after the entry of the army into London. Cromwell and the council of war were satisfied with the retirement of the eleven accused members, and did not insist on their prosecution or on the complete `purging' of the House of Commons, as many of their followers in the army desired (ib.). The king did not accept the proposals of the army, and definitely refused those offered him by the parliament (9 Sept. 1647). A considerable party opposed the making of any further application to the king, but after three days' discussion (21-3 Sept.) Cromwell and Ireton succeeded in carrying a vote that fresh terms should be offered to him (Masson, Life of Milton, iii. 565; Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. 179). Cromwell's most important inttervention in the debates on the new propositions took place on the question of the duration of the presbyterian church settlement. The army leaders had expressed, in their declaration to the city, their willingness to accept the establishment of presbyterianism, and, in their proposals to the king, to submit to the retention of episcopacy; in each case they had required legal security for the toleration of dissent. What Cromwell sought now was to limit the duration of the presbyterian settlement, and, failing to fix the term at three or seven years, he succeeded in fixing as its limit the end of the parliament next after that then sitting (13 Oct., Commons' Journals). Before the new proposals could be presented to the king, the flight of the latter to the Isle of Wight took place (11 Nov.). The charge that the king's flight was contrived by Cromwell in order to forward his own ambitious designs is frequently made by contemporaries. It is expressed in the well-known lines of Marvell, which describe how_
   ´iªTwining subtle fears with hope,
   He wove a net of such a scope
   That Charles himself might chase
   To Carisbrook's narrow case,
   That thence the royal actor borne
   The tragic scaffold might adorn.
   (Marvell, Works, ed. Grosart, i. 163.)´i0ª
But the testimony of Sir John Berkeley shows clearly that the persons who worked on the king's fears were the Scotch envoys; they instigated the flight, and reaped the fruit of it in the agreement they concluded with the king on 26 Dec. 1647. Moreover, so long as the king remained at Hampton Court he was in the charge of Colonel Whalley, Cromwell's cousin, and throughout one of his most trusted adherents. At Carisbrook, on the other hand, the king was in the charge of Robert Hammond, a connection of Cromwell by his marriage with a daughter of John Hampden, but a man as to whose action under the great temptation of the king's appeal to him Cromwell was painfully uncertain (Carlyle, Letter lii.). At the time the king's flight greatly increased the difficulties of Cromwell's position. His policy for the last few months had been based on the assumption that it was possible to arrive at a permanent settlement by treaty with the king. To secure that end he had made concessions and compromises which had created a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction and distrust in the ranks of the army. Rumours had been persistently circulated by royalist intriguers that Cromwell was to be made Earl of Essex, and to receive the order of the Garter, as the price of the king's restoration, and among the levellers these slanders had been generally believed. In consequence, his influence in the army had greatly decreased, and even his life was threatened (Berkeley, Memoirs; Maseres, Tracts, i. 371).
The change in Cromwell's policy which now took place has been explained by the theory that he was afraid of assassination, and by the story of an intercepted letter from the king to the queen (Carte, Ormonde, bk. v.  18). It was due rather to the fact that the king's flight, and the revelations of his intrigues with the Scots which followed, showed Cromwell on what a rotten foundation he had based his policy.
For the moment the most pressing business was the restoration of discipline in the army. In three great reviews Fairfax and Cromwell reduced the waverers to obedience (15-18 Nov. 1647), and the general entered into a solemn engagement with the soldiers for the redress of their military grievances and the reform of parliament, while the soldiers engaged to obey the orders of the general and the council of war (Old Parliamentary History, xvi. 340). Cromwell especially distinguished himself by quelling the mutiny of Colonel Lilburn's regiment in the rendezvous at Ware; one of the mutineers was tried on the field and shot, and others arrested and reserved for future punishment (15 Nov.; Ludlow, Memoirs, ed. 1751, p. 86). On the 19th Cromwell was able to report to the commons that the army was in a very good condition, and received the thanks of the house for his services (Rushworth, vii. 880).
During December a series of meetings of the council of the army took place at Windsor, in which dissensions were composed, reconciliations effected, and the re-establishment of union sealed by a great fast day, when Cromwell and Ireton `prayed very fervently and very pathetically' (23 Dec. 1647; Cromwelliana, p. 37). As the authorised spokesman of the army, Cromwell took a leading part in the debate on the king's rejection of the four bills which the parliament had presented to him as their ultimatum (3 Jan. 1648). `The army now expected,' he said, `that parliament should govern and defend the kingdom by their own power and resolution, and not teach the people any longer to expect safety and government from an obstinate man whose heart God had hardened' (Walker, History of Independency, ed. 1661, pt. i. p. 71). He added that in such a policy the army would stand by the parliament against all opposition, but if the parliament neglected to provide for their own safety and that of the kingdom the army would be forced to seek its own preservation by other means. Under the influence of this speech, and similar one from Ireton, parliament voted that no further addresses should be made to the king, and excluded the representatives of Scotland from the committee of both kingdoms. The conviction that this course alone afforded security to the cause for which he had fought was the motive which led Cromwell thus to advocate a final rupture with the king. Had he been already aiming at supreme power, he would hardly have chosen the very moment when events had opened the widest field to ambition to begin negotiations for the marriage of his eldest son with the daughter of a private gentleman (Carlyle, Letters liii. lv.). The contribution of a thousand a year for the recovery of Ireland from the lands which parliament had just settled on him, and the renunciation of the arrears due to him by the state, are smaller proofs of his disinterestedness (21 March 1648; Commons' Journals, v. 513).
Cromwell's chief occupation during the months of March and April 1648 was to prepare for the impending war by uniting all sections of the popular party. For that purpose he moved and spoke in the House of Commons, and endeavoured to arrange an agreement with the city (Walker, p. 83). With the same object he procured conferences between the leaders of the independent and presbyterian parties, and between the `grandees' and the `commonwealthsmen' (Ludlow, Memoirs, p. 92). The commonwealthsmen declared openly for a republic, but Cromwell declined to pledge himself; not, as he explained to Ludlow, because he did not think it desirable, but because he did not think it feasible. What troubled him still more than the failure of these conferences was the distrust with which so many of his old friends had come to regard him. On 19 Jan. 1648 John Lilburn, at the bar of the House of Commons, had accused him of apostasy, and denounced his underhand dealings with the king (Rushworth, vii. 969; Lilburn, An Impeachment of High Treason against Oliver Cromwell). These charges bore fruit in the jealousy and suspicion of which he so bitterly complained to Ludlow, and must have confirmed him in the resolve to make no terms with the king (Ludlow, Memoirs, p. 95). The outbreak of a second civil war in consequence of the king's alliance with the presbyterians converted this resolve into a determination to punish the king for his faithlessness. In the three days' prayer-meeting which took place at Windsor in April 1648 Cromwell took a leading part. The army leaders reviewed their past political action and decided that `those cursed carnal conferences with the king' were the cause of their present perplexities. They resolved `that it was their duty, if ever the Lord brought them back in peace, to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to account for all the blood he had shed and the mischief he had done' (Allen, Faithful Memorial, &c.; Somers Tracts, vi. 501). A few days later (1 May 1648) Cromwell was despatched by Fairfax to subdue the insurrection in Wales; on 11 May he captured the town of Chepstow, and, leaving a regiment to besiege the castle, established himself before Pembroke on 21 May. For six weeks Pembroke held out, and it was not till the beginning of August that he was able to join the little corps with which Lambert disputed the advance of the great Scotch army under Hamilton. Marching across the Yorkshire hills, and down the valley of the Ribble, Cromwell fell on the flank of the Scots as they marched carelessly through Lancashire, and in a three days' battle routed them, with the loss of more than half their number (17-19 Aug.). Then he turned north to recover the border fortresses, expel Hamilton's rearguard from English soil, and take measures for the prevention of future invasions. In this task he was much aided by an internal revolution in Scotland which placed the Argyll party in power. To assist them Cromwell marched into Scotland, and obtained without difficulty the restoration of Carlisle and Berwick, and the exclusion from power of those who had taken part in the late invasion (October 1648). Then he returned to Yorkshire to besiege Pontefract. Like the army which he commanded, Cromwell came back highly exasperated against all who had taken part in this second war. `This,' he said, `is a more prodigious treason than any that had been perfected before; because the former quarrel was that Englishmen might rule over one another; this to vassalise us to a foreign nation. And their fault that appeared in this summer's business is certainly double to theirs who were in the first, because it is the repetition of the same offence against all the witnesses that God has borne' (Carlyle, Letter lxxxii.). `Take courage,' he wrote to the parliament after Preston, `to do the work of the Lord in fulfilling the end of your magistracy, in seeking the peace and welfare of the land_that all that will live peaceably may have countenance from you, and that they that are incapable and will not leave troubling the land may speedily be destroyed out of the land' (ib. lxiv.). But several weeks before this letter was written parliament had reopened negotiations with the king, and when Cromwell re-entered England the treaty of Newport was in progress. Moreover, the House of Lords had favourably received, and recorded for future use, a series of charges against Cromwell, which a late subordinate of his had laid before them (Lords' Journals, 2 Aug. 1648; Major Huntingdon's Reasons for laying down his Commission). His recent victories had now removed the personal danger, but there still remained the danger of seeing those victories made useless by the surrender of all he had fought for. In his letter to Hammond, Cromwell describes the Newport treaty as `this ruining hypocritical agreement,' and asks if `the whole fruit of the war is not like to be frustrated, and all most like to turn to what it was, and worse' (Carlyle, Letter lxxxv.). He refers to it again in a later speech as `the treaty that was endeavoured with the king whereby they would have put into his hands all that we had engaged for, and all our security should have been a little bit of paper' (ib. Speech i.). Accordingly, Cromwell expressed his entire concurrence with the petitions of the northern army against the treaty, which he forwarded to Fairfax, and approved the stronger measures adopted by the southern army (Rushworth, vii. 1399). `We have read your declaration here,' he wrote to Fairfax, `and see in it nothing but what is honest and becoming honest men to say and offer' (Engl. Historical Review, ii. 149). To Hammond he wrote that the northern army could have wished that the southern army would have delayed their remonstrance till after the treaty had been completed, but seeing that it had been presented they thought it right to support it (Carlyle, Letter lxxxv.).
The arguments by which Cromwell justified the action of the army in putting force upon the parliament are fully stated in the long letter in which he attempted to convince the wavering Hammond. `Fleshly reasonings' convinced him that if resistance was lawful at all, it was as lawful to oppose the parliament as the king, `one name of authority as well as another,' since it was the cause alone which made the quarrel just. But he laid more stress on higher considerations, on those `outward dispensations' of which he elsewhere owns he was inclined to make too much (ib. Letter lxvii.). Every battle was, in his eyes, an `appeal to God'_indeed he many times uses that phrase as a synonym for fighting_and each victory was a judgment of God in his favour. `Providences so constant, clear, and unclouded' as his successes could not have been designed to end in the sacrifice of God's people and God's cause. In the army's determination to intervene to prevent this he imagined that he saw `God disposing their hearts,' as in the war He had `framed their actions.' `I verily think, and am persuaded, they are things which God puts into our hearts,' and he was convinced not merely of the lawfulness but of the duty of obeying this belief (Letters lxxxiii-lxxxv.).
The southern army took the lead in its acts as it had done in its petitions, nor did Cromwell arrive in London until Pride had already begun the work of purging the House of Commons (6 Dec.). He showed his approval of that act by taking his seat in the house the next day, and was then thanked by it for his `very great and eminently faithful services' (Commons' Journals, 7 Dec. 1648). What share he took in the proceedings of the next few days is uncertain, but he seems to have been more active outside parliament than within it. With Whitelocke and other lawyers he discussed in several conferences the future settlement of the kingdom, and with the council of war revised the constitutional proposals known as the Agreement of the People (Whitelocke, ff. 362-4; Lilburn, Legal and Fundamental Liberties, p. 38). Walker represents Cromwell as saying, when the trial of the king was first moved in the commons, that if any man had designed this he should think him the greatest traitor in the world, but since Providence and necessity had cast them upon it he should pray God to bless their counsel (Walker, History of Independency, ii. 54).

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