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CROMWELL.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STANDARD.

Sir,—As author of the play entitled Charles I., at present being performed at the Lyceum, I beg to support my view of Cromwell's character—from a literary and historical standpoint alone—by a few statements and quotations, which last I shall select from Liberal authorities. “Good wine needs no bush,” and the character of Oliver Cromwell may bear a little good-humoured discussion without alarming his most jealous admirers. I amy be allowed to premise by saying that in the obnoxious interview between King and Cromwell I have only endeavoured to portray the humble yet influential burgess of Cambridge, not the Protector, whose sagacity was in effect almost equivalent to principle, and whose despotism grew to a sort of grandeur. The play is of Charles, and not of Cromwell. The degrading terms which Cromwell is supposed to advance to the King—namely, an offer of his support in consideration of an earldom (almost his hereditary right)— awakens a chorus of indignation against me, and I am accredited with a slanderous invention. I really supposed the matter to be familiar to all readers of history. Numerous contemporary pamphlets attest the statement, which I have only antedated, and certainly warrant the dramatist, if not the historian, in accenting it as fact. All histories, favourable or unfavourable to Cromwell admit that at Hampton Court he had frequent conferences with Charles, and it was generally believed that the gist of his proposals amounted to this, that he should govern and the King might live. Furthermore, considering the unblushing rapacity which he displayed at this very period, in accepting from the Government the confiscated estates of a loyal nobleman—the Marquis of Worcester—it seems to me that in exclaiming against the petty charge above we swallow the camel and strain at a gnat. In the character which figures in my play I have endeavoured, with one exception, to bring forward the popular qualities of a demagogue—a fearless front, bluff independence, pithy expression, and a certain command of the situation. His affection for this daughter displays itself, and, instead of the hideous levity of the great regicide, a measure of remorse for his contemplated crime. In the Cromwell of history I find everywhere, behind those vast public qualities which we all admit, duplicity, greed, cruelty, and tyranny. In support of this view, which I confess, with many old truths, is somewhat out of fashion to-day, I shall begin by quoting from an ultra-Republican author, Godwin, a staunch admirer of Cromwell. Where shall we seek for a stronger instance of meanness and duplicity in all history?—a duplicity which was to that of Charles as night to twilight. “Cromwell considered this as the occasion (when suspected of being at the bottom of the army's discontent) to bring forward his masterpiece of dissimulation. He stood up in his place in Parliament and protested that to his knowledge the army was greatly misunderstood and calumniated. They willingly put themselves into the hands of the national representatives, and would conform to anything Parliament would please to ordain. If the House of Commons commanded them to disband they would obey without a murmur, and pile up their arms at the door of that assembly. For himself, he entreated them to accept his assurance of his entire submission and obedience,” &c. This from the man who presently outrages all privilege, all fealty, all this saintly outcry, by turning Parliament out of doors and packing the benches with his regicides! Parliament voted, by a majority of one hundred and twenty-nine to eighty-three, to come to terms with the King. The next day every man of the majority was imprisoned or flown; of the remaining minority only fifty-three voted for the death of Charles. Was this, then, the verdict of the nation, or murder upon the responsibility of one man? For the rapacity of Cromwell I need only refer to the numerous confiscated estates he appropriated, so that he was enabled to settle upon one of his daughters, at an early period in his career, nearly ten thousand a year of our money. For his cruelty, I am embarrassed by the multitude of examples, and have only room for an ordinary passage. “We refused them quarter,” writes Cromwell, referring to the siege of Drogheda. “I believe we put them all to the sword, the whole number of defendants. I do not think a hundred escaped with their lives. Those that did are in safe custody for the Barbadoes—i.e., slavery. The war was a struggle for religious liberty.”

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Again, “The Governor, Sir Arthur Ashton, and divers considerable officers, being there, our men getting up to them were ordered by me to put them all to the sword, and, indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any under arms in the town.” Why do we Englishmen revile Tilly and Wallenstein, Alva and Palmer rma, if this man be the idol of Englishmen? “It hath been a marvellous great mercy,” he continues; “I wish that all honest hearts may give the glory of this to God alone, to whom, indeed, the praise of this mercy belongs.” This is the man who stabled his horses at St. Paul's, and turned our most venerable cathedrals into barracks. For the last five years of his life he governed England without a Parliament, and by martial law. “To govern according to law,” writes Hallam, a Liberal, “may sometimes be the usurper's wish, but can seldom be in his power. The Protector abandoned all thought of it. Dividing the kingdom into districts, he placed at the head of each major general as a sort of military magistrate responsible for the subjection of his prefecture. These were eleven in number—men bitterly hostile to the Royalist party and insolent towards all civil authority. All illusion was now gone as to the pretended benefit of the civil war. This unparalleled tyranny had ended in a despotism, compared to which all the illegal practices of former reigns, all that had cost Charles his life and crown, appeared but as dust in the balance.” These quotations are familiar; but we forget their import in our worship of this “new-born” historical “god,” gawd

“And give to dust that is a little gilt More praise than gilt o'er-dusted.”

I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, W. G. Wills.