Part 8

As a military commander Cromwell was as prompt as Gustavus, as ardent as Conde, as exact as Turenne. These, moreover, were soldiers from their earliest years. Conde's fame was established in his twenty-second year, Gustavus was twenty-seven and Turenne thirty-three at the beginning of their careers as commanders-in-chief. Cromwell, on the other hand, was forty-three when he fought in his first battle. In less than two years he had taken his rank as one of the great cavalry leaders of history. His campaigns of 1648 and 1651 placed him still higher as a great commander. Worcester, his crowning victory, has been indicated by a German critic as the prototype of Sedan. Yet his early military education could have consisted at most of the perusal of the _Swedish Intelligencer_ and the practice of riding. It is not, therefore, strange that Cromwell's first essays in war were characterised more by energy than technical skill. It was some time before he realized the spirit of cavalry tactics, of which he was later so complete a master. At first he speaks with complacence of a _melee_, and reports that he and his men "agreed to charge" the enemy. But before long he came to understand, as no other commander of the age save Gustavus understood it, the value of true "shock-action." Of Marston Moor he writes, "we never charged but we routed them"; and thereafter his battles were decided by the shock of closed squadrons, the fresh impulse of a second and even a third line, and above all by the unquestioning discipline and complete control over their horses to which he trained his men. This gave them not merely greater steadiness, but, what was far more important, the power of rallying and reforming for a second effort. The Royalist cavalry was disorganized by victory as often as by defeat, and illustrated on numerous fields the now discredited maxim that cavalry cannot charge twice in one day. Cromwell shares with Frederick the Great the credit of founding the modern cavalry spirit. As a horsemaster he was far superior to Murat. His marches in the eastern campaign of 1643 show a daily average at one time of 28 m. as against the 21 of Murat's cavalry in the celebrated pursuit after Jena. And this result he achieved with men of less than two years' service, men, too, more heavily equipped and worse mounted than the veterans of the _Grande Armee_. It has been said that his battles were decided by shock action; the real emphasis should be laid upon the word "decided." The swift, unhesitating charge was more than unusual in the wars of the time, and was possible only because of the peculiar earnestness of the men who fought the English war. The professional soldiers of the Continent could rarely be brought to force a decision; but the English, contending for a cause, were imbued with the spirit of the modern "nation in arms"; and having taken up arms wished to decide the quarrel by arms. This feeling was not less conspicuous in the far-ranging rides, or raids, of the Cromwellian cavalry. At one time, as in the case of Blechingdon, they would perform strange exploits worthy of the most daring hussars; at another their speed and tenacity paralyses armies. Not even Sheridan's horsemen in 1864-65 did their work more effectively than did the English squadrons in the Preston campaign. Cromwell appreciated this feeling at its exact worth, and his pre-eminence in the Civil War was due to this highest gift of a general, the power of feeling the pulse of his army. Resolution, vigour and clear sight marked his conduct as a commander-in-chief. He aimed at nothing less than the annihilation of the enemy's forces, which Clausewitz was the first to define, a hundred and fifty years later, as the true objective of military operations. Not merely as exemplifying the tactical envelopment, but also as embodying the central idea of grand strategy, was Worcester the prototype of Sedan. The contrast between a campaign of Cromwell's and one of Turenne's is far more than remarkable, and the observation of a military critic who maintains that Cromwell's art of war was two centuries in advance of its time, finds universal acceptance.

At a time when throughout the rest of Europe armies were manoeuvring against one another with no more than a formal result, the English and Scots were fighting decisive battles; and Cromwell's battles were more decisive than those of any other leader. Until his fiery energy made itself felt, hardly any army on either side actually suffered rout; but at Marston Moor and Naseby the troops of the defeated party were completely dissolved, while at Worcester the royalist army was annihilated. Dunbar attested his constancy and gave proof that Cromwell was a master of the tactics of all arms. Preston was an example like Austerlitz of the two stages of a battle as defined by Napoleon, the first _flottante_, the second _foudroyante_.

Cromwell's strategic manoeuvres, if less adroit than those of Turenne or Montecucculi, were, in accordance with his own genius and the temper of his army, directed always to forcing a decisive battle. That he was also capable of strategy of the other type was clear from his conduct of the Irish War. But his chief work was of a different kind and done on a different scale. The greatest feat of Turenne was the rescue of one province in 1674-1675; Cromwell, in 1648 and again in 1651, had two-thirds of England and half of Scotland for his theatre of war. Turenne levelled down his methods to suit the ends which he had in view. The task of Cromwell was far greater. Any comparison between the generalship of these two great commanders would therefore be misleading, for want of a common basis. It is when he is contrasted with other commanders, not of the age of Louis XIV., but of the Civil War, that Cromwell's greatness is most conspicuous. Whilst others busied themselves with the application of the accepted rules of the Dutch, the German, and other formal schools of tactical thought, Cromwell almost alone saw clearly into the heart of the questions at issue, and evolved the strategy, the tactics, and the training suited to the work to which he had set his hand.

Cromwell's statesmanship.

Cromwell's career as a statesman has been already traced in its different spheres, and an endeavour has been made to show the breadth and wisdom of his conceptions and at the same time the cause of the immediate failure of his constructive policy. Whether if Cromwell had survived he would have succeeded in gradually establishing legal government is a question which can never be answered. His administration as it stands in history is undoubtedly open to the charge that after abolishing the absolutism of the ancient monarchy he substituted for it, not law and liberty, but a military tyranny far more despotic than the most arbitrary administration of Charles I. The statement of Vane and Ludlow, when they refused to acknowledge Cromwell's government, that it was "in substance a re-establishment of that which we all engaged against," was true. The levy of ship money and customs by Charles sinks into insignificance beside Cromwell's wholesale taxation by ordinances; the inquisitional methods of the major-generals and the unjust and exceptional taxation of royalists outdid the scandals of the extra-legal courts of the Stuarts; the shipment of British subjects by Cromwell as slaves to Barbados has no parallel in the Stuart administration; while the prying into morals, the encouragement of informers, the attempt to make the people religious by force, were the counterpart of the Laudian system, and Cromwell's drastic treatment of the Irish exceeded anything dreamed of by Strafford. He discovered that parliamentary government after all was not the easy and plain task that Pym and Vane had imagined, and Cromwell had in the end no better justification of his rule than that which Strafford had suggested to Charles I.,--"parliament refusing (to give support and co-operation in carrying on the government) you are acquitted before God and man." The fault was no doubt partly Cromwell's own. He had neither the patience nor the tact for managing loquacious parliamentary pedants. But the chief responsibility was not his but theirs. John Morley (_Oliver Cromwell_, p. 297) has truly observed of the execution of Charles I., that it was "an act of war, and was just as defensible or just as assailable, and on the same grounds, as the war itself." The parliamentary party took leave of legality when they took up arms against the sovereign, and it was therefore idle to dream of a formally legal sanction for any of their subsequent revolutionary proceedings. An entirely fresh start had to be made. A new foundation had to be laid on which a new system of legality might be reared. It was for this that Cromwell strove. If the Rump or the Little Parliament had in a business-like spirit assumed and discharged the functions of a constituent assembly, such a foundation might have been provided. It was only when five years had passed since the death of the king without any "settlement of the nation" being arrived at, that Cromwell at last accepted a constitution drafted by his military officers, and attempted to impose it on the parliament. And it was not until the parliament refused to acknowledge the Instrument as the required starting point for the new legality, that Cromwell in the last resort took arbitrary power into his hands as the only method remaining for carrying on the government. For much as he hated arbitrariness, he hated anarchy still more. While therefore Cromwell's administration became in practice little different from that of Strafford, the aims and ideals of the two statesmen had nothing in common. It is therefore profoundly true, as observed by S. R. Gardiner (_Cromwell_, p. 315), that "what makes Cromwell's biography so interesting in his perpetual effort to walk in the paths of legality--an effort always frustrated by the necessities of the situation. The man--it is ever so with the noblest--was greater than his work." The nature of Cromwell's statesmanship is to be seen rather in his struggles against the retrograde influences and opinions of his time, in the many political reforms anticipated though not originated or established by himself, and in his religious, perhaps fanatical, enthusiasm, than in the outward character of his administration, which, however, in spite of its despotism shows itself in its inner spirit of justice, patriotism and self-sacrifice, so immeasurably superior to that of the Stuarts.

Personal character.

Cromwell's personal character has been inevitably the subject of unceasing controversy. According to Clarendon he was "a brave bad man," with "all the wickedness against which damnation is pronounced and for which hell fire is prepared." Yet he cannot deny that "he had some virtues which have caused the memory of some men in all ages to be celebrated"; and admits that "he was not a man of blood," and that he possessed "a wonderful understanding in the natures and humour of men," and "a great spirit, an admirable circumspection and sagacity and a most magnanimous resolution." According to contemporary republicans he was a mere selfish adventurer, sacrificing the national cause "to the idol of his own ambition." Richard Baxter thought him a good man who fell before a great temptation. The writers of the next century generally condemned him as a mixture of knave, fanatic and hypocrite, and in 1839 John Forster endorsed Landor's verdict that Cromwell lived a hypocrite and died a traitor. These crude ideas of Cromwell's character were extinguished by Macaulay's irresistible logic, by the publication of Cromwell's letters by Carlyle in 1845, which showed Cromwell clearly to be "not a man of falsehoods, but a man of truth"; and by Gardiner, whom, however, it is somewhat difficult to follow when he represents Cromwell as "a typical Englishman." In particular that conception which regarded "ambition" as the guiding motive in his career has been dispelled by a more intimate and accurate knowledge of his life; this shows him to have been very little the creator of his own career, which was largely the result of circumstances outside his control, the influence of past events and of the actions of others, the pressure of the national will, the natural superiority of his own genius. "A man never mounts so high," Cromwell said to the French ambassador in 1647, "as when he does not know where he is going." "These issues and events," he said in 1656, "have not been forecast, but were providences in things." His "hypocrisy" consists principally in the Biblical language he employed, which with Cromwell, as with many of his contemporaries, was the most natural way of expressing his feelings, and in the ascription of every incident to the direct intervention of God's providence, which was really Cromwell's sincere belief and conviction. In later times Cromwell's character and administration have been the subject of almost too indiscriminate eulogy, which has found tangible shape in the statue erected to his memory at Westminster in 1899. Here Cromwell's effigy stands in the midst of the sanctuaries of the law, the church, and the parliament, the three foundations of the state which he subverted, and in sight of Whitehall where he destroyed the monarchy in blood. Yet Cromwell's monument is not altogether misplaced in such surroundings, for in him are found the true principles of piety, of justice, of liberty and of governance.

John Maidston, Cromwell's steward, gives the "character of his person." "His body was compact and strong, his stature under six foot (I believe about two inches), his head so shaped as you might see it a storehouse and a shop both of a vast treasury of natural parts." "His temper exceeding fiery, as I have known, but the flame of it, ... kept down for the most part, was soon allayed with those moral endowments he had. He was naturally compassionate towards objects in distress even to an effeminate measure; though God had made him a heart wherein was left little room for fear, ... yet did he exceed in tenderness towards sufferers. A larger soul I think hath seldom dwelt in a house of clay than his was. I believe if his story were impartially transmitted and the unprejudiced world well possessed with it, she would add him to her nine worthies." By his wife Elizabeth Bourchier, Cromwell had four sons, Robert (who died in 1639), Oliver (who died in 1644 while serving in his father's regiment), Richard, who succeeded him as Protector, and Henry. He also had four daughters. Of these Bridget was the wife successively of Ireton and Fleetwood, Elizabeth married John Claypole, Mary was wife of Thomas Belasyse, Lord Fauconberg; and Frances was the wife of Sir Robert Rich, and secondly of Sir John Russell. The last male descendant of the Protector was his great-great-grandson, Oliver Cromwell of Cheshunt, who died in 1821. By the female line, through his children Henry, Bridget and Frances, the Protector has had numerous descendants, and is the ancestor of many well-known families.[6]

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--A detailed bibliography, with the chief authorities for particular periods, will be found in the article in the _Dict. of Nat. Biography_, by C. H. Firth (1888). The following works may be mentioned: S. R. Gardiner's _Hist. of England_ (1883-1884) and of the _Great Civil War_ (1886), _Cromwell's Place in History_ (1897), _Oliver Cromwell_ (1901), and _History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate_ (1894-1903); _Cromwell_, by C. H. Firth (1900); _Oliver Cromwell_, by J. Morley (1904); _The Last Years of the Protectorate, 1656-1658_, 2 vols., by C. H. Firth (1909); _Oliver Cromwell_, by Fred. Harrison (1903); _Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell_, by T. Carlyle, ed. by S. C. Lomas, with an introd. by C. H. Firth (the best edition, rejecting the spurious Squire papers, 1904); _Oliver Cromwell_, by F. Hoenig (1887); _Oliver Cromwell, the Protector_, by R. F. D. Palgrave (1890); _Oliver Cromwell ... and the Royalist Insurrection ... of March 1655_, by the same author (1903); _Oliver Cromwell_, by Theodore Roosevelt (1900); _Oliver Cromwell_, by R. Pauli (tr. 1888); _Cromwell, a Speech delivered at the Cromwell Tercentenary Celebration 1899_, by Lord Rosebery (1900); _The Two Protectors_, by Sir Richard Tangye (valuable for its illustrations, 1899); _Life of Sir Henry Vane_, by W. W. Ireland (1905); _Die Politik des Protectors Oliver Cromwell in der Auffassung und Tatigkeit ... des Staatssekretars John Thurloe_, by Freiherr v. Bischofshausen (1899); _Cromwell as a Soldier_, by T. S. Baldock (1899); _Cromwell's Army_, by C. H. Firth (1902); _The Diplomatic Relations between Cromwell and Charles X. of Sweden_, by G. Jones (1897); _The Interregnum_, by F. A. Inderwick (dealing with the legal aspect of Cromwell's rule, 1891); _Administration of the Royal Navy_, by M. Oppenheim (1896); _History of the English Church during the Civil Wars_, by W. Shaw (1900); _The Protestant Interest in Cromwell's Foreign Relations_, by J. N. Bowman (1900); _Cromwell's Jewish Intelligencies_ (1891), _Crypto-Jews under the Commonwealth_ (1894), _Menasseh Ben Israel's Mission to Oliver Cromwell_ (1901), by L. Wolf. (P. C. Y.; C. F. A.; R. J. M.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] _Life of Sir H. Vane_, by W. W. Ireland, 222.

[2] C. H. Firth, Cromwell, p. 324.

[3] John Morley, Oliver Cromwell, p. 393.

[4] Frederic Harrison, _Oliver Cromwell_, p. 214.

[5] John Morley, _Oliver Cromwell_, p. 483.

[6] Frederic Harrison, _Cromwell_, p. 34.

CROMWELL, RICHARD (1626-1712), lord protector of England, eldest surviving son of Oliver Cromwell and of Elizabeth Bourchier, was born on the 4th of October 1626. He served in the parliamentary army, and in 1647 was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn. In 1649 he married Dorothy, daughter of Richard Mayor, or Major, of Hursley in Hampshire. He represented Hampshire in the parliament of 1654, and Cambridge University in that of 1656, and in November 1655 was appointed one of the council of trade. But he was not brought forward by his father or prepared in any way for his future greatness, and lived in the country occupied with field sports, till after the institution of the second protectorate in 1657 and the recognition of Oliver's right to name his successor. On the 18th of July he succeeded his father as chancellor of the university of Oxford, on the 31st of December he was made a member of the council of state, and about the same time obtained a regiment and a seat in Cromwell's House of Lords. He was received generally as his father's successor, and was nominated by him as such on his death-bed. He was proclaimed on the 3rd of September 1658, and at first his accession was acclaimed with general favour both at home and abroad. Dissensions, however, soon broke out between the military faction and the civilians. Richard's elevation, not being "general of the army as his father was," was distasteful to the officers, who desired the appointment of a commander-in-chief from among themselves, a request refused by Richard. The officers in the council, moreover, showed jealousy of the civil members, and to settle these difficulties and to provide money a parliament was summoned on the 27th of January 1659, which declared Richard protector, and incurred the hostility of the army by criticizing severely the arbitrary military government of Oliver's last two years, and by impeaching one of the major-generals. A council of the army accordingly established itself in opposition to the parliament, and demanded on the 6th of April a justification and confirmation of former proceedings, to which the parliament replied by forbidding meetings of the army council without the permission of the protector, and insisting that all officers should take an oath not to disturb the proceedings in parliament. The army now broke into open rebellion and assembled at St James's. Richard was completely in their power; he identified himself with their cause, and the same night dissolved the parliament. The Long Parliament (which re-assembled on the 7th of May) and the heads of the army came to an agreement to effect his dismissal; and in the subsequent events Richard appears to have played a purely passive part, refusing to make any attempt to keep his power or to forward a restoration of the monarchy. On the 25th of May his submission was communicated to the House. He retired into private life, heavily burdened with debts incurred during his tenure of office and narrowly escaping arrest even before he quitted Whitehall. In the summer of 1660 he left England for France, where he lived in seclusion under the name of John Clarke, subsequently removing elsewhere, either (for the accounts differ) to Spain, to Italy, or to Geneva. He was long regarded by the government as a dangerous person, and in 1671 a strict search was made for him but without avail. He returned to England about 1680 and lived at Cheshunt, in the house of Sergeant Pengelly, where he died on the 12th of July 1712, being buried in Hursley church in Hampshire. Richard Cromwell was treated with general contempt by his contemporaries, and invidiously compared with his great father. According to Mrs Hutchinson he was "gentle and virtuous but a peasant in his nature and became not greatness." He was nevertheless a man of respectable abilities, of an irreproachable private character, and a good speaker.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--See the article in the _Dict. of Nat. Biography_, and authorities there cited; Noble's _Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell_ (1787); _Memoirs of the Protector ... and of his Sons_, by O. Cromwell (1820); _The Two Protectors_, by Sir R. Tangye (1899); _Kebleland and a Short Life of Richard Cromwell_, by W. T. Warren (1900); _Letters and Speeches of O. Cromwell_, by T. Carlyle (1904); _Eng. Hist. Review_, xiii. 93 (letters) and xviii. 79; _Cal. of State Papers, Domestic, Lansdowne MSS._ in British Museum. (P. C. Y.)

CROMWELL, THOMAS, EARL OF ESSEX (1485?-1540), born probably not later than 1485 and possibly a year or two earlier, was the only son of Walter Cromwell, _alias_ Smyth, a brewer, smith and fuller of Putney. His grandfather, John Cromwell, seems to have belonged to the Nottinghamshire family, of whom the most distinguished member was Ralph, Lord Cromwell (1394?-1456), lord treasurer; and he migrated from Norwell, Co. Notts, to Wimbledon some time before 1461. John's son, Walter, seems to have acquired the _alias_ Smyth from being apprenticed to his uncle, William Smyth, "armourer," of Wimbledon. He was of a turbulent, vicious disposition, perpetually being fined in the manor-court for drunkenness, for evading the assize of beer, and for turning more than his proper number of beasts on to Putney Common. Once he was punished for a sanguinary assault, and his connexion with Wimbledon ceased in 1514 when he "falsely and fraudulently erased the evidences and terrures of the lord." Till that time he had flourished like the bay-tree.