HARCOMBE NEAR LYME
September: 1878
Before me with one happy heaveOf golden green the hillside curves,Where slowly, smoothly, rounding swervesThe shadow of each perfect tree,By slanting shafts of eveFlame-fringed and bathed in pale transparency.
And that long ridge that crowns the hillStands fir-dark ’gainst the falling rays;Above, a waft of pearly hazeLies on the sapphire field of air,So radiant and so stillAs though a star-cloud took its station there.
Up wold and wild the valley goes,’Mid heath and mounded slopes of oak,And light ash-thicket, where the smokeWreathes high in evening’s air serene,Floating in white reposeO’er the blue reek of cottage-hearths unseen.
Another landscape at my feetUnfolds its nearer grace the while,Where gorses gleam with golden smile;Where Inula lifts a russet headThe shepherd’s spikenard sweet;And closing Centaury points her rosy red.
One light cicada’s simmering cry,Survivor of the summer heat,Chimes faint; the robin, shrill and sweet,Pipes from green holly; whilst from farThe rookery croaks reply,Hoarse, deep, as veterans readying for war.
—Grief on a happier future dwells;The happy present haunts the past;And those old minstrels who outlastOur looser-textured webs of song,Nursed in Hellenic dells,Sicilian, or Italian, hither throng.
Why care if Turk and Tartar fume,Barbarian ’gainst barbarian set,Or how our politic prophets fret,When on this tapestry-thyme and heath,Fresh work of Nature’s loom,Thus, thus, we can diffuse ourselves, and breathe
Autumnal sparkling freshness?—whileThe page by some bless’d miracle savedWhen Goth and Frank ’gainst Hellas raved.Paints how the wanderer-chief divine,Snatch’d from Circaean guile,Led by Nausicaa past Athéné’s shrine,
In that delicious garden sateWhere summer link’d to summer glows,Grapes ever ripe, and rose on rose;And all the wonders of thy tale—O greatest of the great—Whose splendour ne’er can fade, nor beauty fail!
Or by the city of God aboveIn rose-red meadows, where the dayEternal burns, the bless’d ones stray;The harp lets loose its silver showersFrom the dark incense-grove;And happiness blooms forth with all her flowers.
O Theban strain,—remote and pure,Voice of the higher soul, that shamesOur downward, dry, material aims,The bestial creed of earth-to-earth,—Owning with insight sureThe signs that speak of Man’s celestial birth!
Or white Colonos here through greenGreen Dorset winds his holy vale,Where the divine deep nightingaleHeaps note on note and love on love,In ivy thick unseen,While goddesses with Dionysos rove.
Another music then we hear,A cry from the Sicilian dell,‘Here ’mid sweet grapes and laurel dwell;Slips by from wood-girt Aetna’s domeSnow-cold the stream and clear:—Hither to me, come, Galataea, come!’
—Voices and dreams long fled and gone!And other echoes make reply,The low Maenalian melody‘’Twas in our garth, a twelve-year child,I saw thee, little one,Pick the red fruit that to thy fancy smiled,
‘Thee and thy mother: I, your guide:’—O sweet magician! Happy heart!Content with that unrivall’d art,—The soul of grace in music shrined,—And notes of modest pride,To sing the life he loved to all mankind!
There, shading pine and torrent-songBreathe midday slumber, sudden, sweet;Deep meadows woo the wayward feet;In giant elm the ring-doves moan;There, peace secure from wrong,The life that keeps its promise, there, alone!
—O loftier than the wordy strifeThat floats o’er capitals; the chaseOf florid pleasure; the blind raceOf gold for gold by gamblers run,This fair Vergilian life,Where heaven and we and nature are at one!
On that deep soil great Rome was sown;Our England her foundations laid:—Hence, while the nations, change-dismay’d,To tyrant or to quack repair,A healthier heart we own,And the plant Man grows stronger than elsewhere.
Should changeful commerce shun the shore,And newer, mightier races meetTo push us from our empire-seat,England will round her call her own,And as in days of yoreThe sea-girt Isle be Freedom’s central throne.
Freedom, fair daughter-wife of Law;One bright face on the future cast,One reverent fix’d upon the past,And that for Hope, for Wisdom this:—While counsels wild and rawFly those keen eyes, and leave the land to bliss:—
Dear land, where new is one with old:Land of green hillside and of plain,Gray tower and grange and tree-fringed lane,Red crag and silver streamlet sweet,Wild wood and ruin bold,And this repose of beauty at my feet:—
Fair Vale, for summer day-dreams high,For reverie in solitudeFashion’d in Nature’s finest mood;Or, sweeter yet, for fond excessOf glee, and vivid cry,Whilst happy children find more happiness
Ranging the brambled hollows freeFor purple feast;—till, light as Hope,The little footsteps scale the slope;And from the highest height we viewOur island-girdling seaBar the green valley with a wall of blue.
The poets whose landscape-pictures are here contrasted with English scenery, are Homer, Pindar, Sophocles, Theocritus, and Vergil.
1840-1861
Thrice fortunate heWho, in the palace born, has early learn’dThe lore of sweet simplicity:From smiling gold his eyes inviolate turn’d,Turn’d unreturning:—Who the people’s cause,The sovereign-levelling laws,
Above the throne,—He made for them, not they for him,—has set;Life-lavish for his land alone,Whether she crown with gratitude, or forget:—He, who in courts beneath the purple weightOf precedence moves sedate,
By all that glareOf needful pageantry less stirr’d than still’d,Bringing a waft of natural airThrough halls with pomp and flattering incense fill’d;And in the central heart’s calm secret, waitsThe closure of the gates,
The music mute,The darkling lamps, the festal tables clear:—Then,—glad as one who from pursuitBreathes safe, and lets himself himself appear,—Turns to the fireside jest, the laughing eyes,The love without disguise,—
On home alone,The loyal partnership of man with wife,Building a throne beyond the throne;All happiness in that common household lifeBy peasant shared with prince,—when toil and health,True parents of true wealth,
To its fair closeRound the long day, and all are in the nest,And care relaxes to repose,And the blithe restless nursery lulls to rest;Prayer at the mother’s knee; and on their bedsWe kiss the shining heads!
—Thrice fortunate heWho o’er himself thus won his masterdom,Earning that rare felicityE’en in the palace walls to find the Home!Who shaped his life in calmness, firm and true,Each day, and all day through,
To that high goalWhere self, for England’s sake, was self-effaced,In silence reining-in his soulOn the strait difficult line by wisdom traced,’Twixt gulf and siren, avalanche and ravine,Guarding the golden mean.
Hence, as the daysWent by, with insight time-enrich’d and true,O’er Europe’s policy-tangled mazeHe glanced, and touch’d the central shining clue:And when the tides of party roar’d and surged,’Gainst the state-bulwarks urged
By factious aimMasquing beneath some specious patriot cloke,Or flaunting a time-honour’d name,—Athwart the flood he held an even stroke;Between extremes on her old compass straightAiding to steer the state.
With equal mind,Hence,—sure of those he loved on earth, and thenHis loved ones sure again to find,—For Christ’s and England’s cause, Goodwill to men,To the end he strove, and put the fever by,—Ready to live or die.
—And if in deathWe were not so alone, who might not quit,Smiling, this tediousness of breath,These bubble joys that flash and burst and flit,—This tragicomedy of life, where scarceWe know if it be farce,
A puppet-sightOf nerve-pull’d dolls that o’er the world dance by,Or Good in that unequal fightWith Ill . . . who from such theatre would not fly?—But those dear faces round the bed disarmDeath of his natural charm!
—O Prince, to HerFirst placed, first honour’d in our love and faith,True stay, true constant counseller,From that first love of boyhood’s prime,—to death!O if thy soul on earth permitted gazeIn these less-fortunate days
When, hour by hour,The million armaments of the world are setSkill-weapon’d with new demon-power,Mouthing around this little isle, . . . and yetOn dream-security our fate we cast,Of all that glory-past
With light fool-heartOblivious! . . . O in spirit again restored,Insoul us to the nobler part,The chivalrous loyalty of thy life and word!Thou, who in Her to whom first love was due,Didst love her England too,
If earthly careIn that eternal home, where thou dost waitRenewal of the days that were,Move thee at all,—upon the realm estateThe wisdom of thy virtue, the full storeThy life’s experience bore!
O known when lost,Lost, yet not fully known, in all thy graceOf bloom by cruel early frost,Best prized and most by Her, to whom thy faceWas love and life and counsel:—If this strainRenew not all in vain
The bitter cryOf yearning for the loss we yet deplore,—Yet for her heart, who stood too nighFor comfort, till God’s hour thy face restore.Man has no lenitive! He, who wrought the grief, . . .Alone commands relief.
—Thou, as the roseLies buried in her fragrance, when on earthThe summer-loosen’d blossom flows,Art sepulchred and embalm’d in native worth:While to thy grave, in England’s anxious years,We bring our useless tears.
Above the throne; ‘He knows that if Princes exist, it is for the good of the people. . . . Well for him that he does so,’ was the remark made by an observing foreigner on Prince Albert: (Martin:Life of H.R.H. the Prince Consort: ch. xi).
On home alone; ‘She who reigns over us,’ said the then Mr. Disraeli when seconding the Address on the death of the Duchess of Kent, (March, 1861), ‘She who reigns over us has elected, amid all the splendour of empire, to establish her life on the principle of domestic love’ (Martin: ch. cxi).
Firm and true, ‘Treu und Fest’ is the motto of the Saxe-Coburg family.
Goodwill to men; A revision of the despatch to the Cabinet of the United States, remonstrating on the ‘Trent affair,’ whilst the fatal fever was on him, was the last of Prince Albert’s many services (Nov. 30, 1861) to England. To the temperate and conciliatory tone which he gave to this message, its success in the promotion of peace between the two countries was largely due: (Martin: ch. cxvi).
FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST OF JUNE1887
. . .Sunt hic sua praemia laudi,Sunt lacrimae rerum. . .
As when the snowdrop from the snowy groundLifting a maiden face, foretells the flowersThat lurk and listen, till the chaffinch soundSpring’s advent with the glistening willow crown’d,Sheathed in their silken bowers:—E’en so the promise of her life appearsThrough those white childhood-years;—Whether in seaside happiness, and airRosing the fair cheek,—sand, and spade, and shell,—Or race with sister-feet, that flash’d and fellPrinting the beach, while the gay comrade-windPlay’d in the soft light hair:—Or if with sunbeam-smile and kindSmall hand at cottage-doorHer simple alms she tender’d to the poor:Love’s healthy happy heart in all her steps was seen,And God, in life’s fresh springtime, bless’d our Queen.
Lo! the quick months their order’d dance pursue,And Spring’s bright apple-blossoms flush to fruit;The bay-tree thrives ’neath Heaven’s own gracious dew,And her young shoots the parent-life renewAround the fostering root.—The Girl from care in youth’s sweet sleep withdrawnWakes to a crown at dawn!But Love is at her side, strong, faithful, wise,To share the world-wide burden of command,The sceptre’s weight in the unlesson’d hand;To aid each nursery inmate,—each in turnDear pride of watchful eyes,—To clasp the innocent hands, and learnThe words of love and grace,Lifting their souls to the compassionate Face:—While o’er the fortunate fold the Shepherd watch’d unseen;And home, in all its beauty, bless’d a Queen.
Ah! Happy she, who wedded finds in oneWisest and dearest! happy, happy years!But summer whirlwinds wait on summer’s sun;Where the Five Rivers from Himala run,His snow where Everest rears,Or Alma’s echoing crags with war-cry wakeThe wind-vext Euxine lake.—O Death in myriad forms! O brutal roarOf battle! throes of race, and crash of thrones!Imploring hands, and wreck of whitening bonesIn Khyber pass;—Or woman’s stifled cry,And that dark pit of gore!—Yet night had light; for He was by,Her heart, her strength, her shield,Twin-star in the Throne’s radiance self-conceal’d;Love’s hand laid light on hers, guiding the ship unseen—For God’s best grace in Albert bless’d the Queen.
But at man’s side each hour with ambush’d swordDeath hurries, nor for prayer nor love delays;In God’s own time His harvest-sheaves are stored,‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts,’ saith the Lord,‘Nor are your ways My ways.’He Who spared not the Son His bitter cup,The broken heart binds upIn His fit hour, All-Merciful!—And she,The desolate faithful Mother, in the nestBy children’s love soft-woven, has found rest;Some constant to her side, if some have flownThe Angels’ road, and seeThe Vision of the Eternal Throne:—With them, ’tis well!—But thou,Strong through submission, to His will dost bow,Till God renew the home in that far realm unseen,And bless with all her lost ones England’s Queen.
Yet in great Nature’s changeful mystic danceJoy circles grief, gay dawn outsmiles the night:’Tis meet our song should build its radianceLike some high palace-porch, and walls that glanceWith gold and marble light:Now fifty suns ’neath one firm patriot swayHave whirl’d their shining way.—Lo Commerce with the golden girdling chainThat links all nations for the good of each;While Science boasts her silent lightning speechSwifter than thought; and how her patience rein’dTo post o’er earth and mainThe panting white-breath’d Titan, chain’dBondslave to man:—and wonThe magic spark o’erdazzling star and sunFrom its dark cave: for He, the all-seeing Lord unseenEnlightening, bless’d the years of England’s Queen.
Freedom of England! from thy sacred sourceWhere Alfred arm’d in Athelney, welling pure,With hero-blood dyed in thy widening course,—What loyaler hand than her’s to guide thy forceDown ancient channels sure?Honour of England! in what bosom stirsThy soul more quick than her’s?Yet in her days . . . O greater grief, than whenIn years of woe, the years of happinessFlash o’er us,—to behold,—and no redress,—Some deed of shame we cannot cure nor stay!Our best, our man of men,Martyr’d inch-meal by dull delay!Ah, sacred, hidden grave!Ah gallant comrade feet, love-wing’d to save,Too late, too late!—But Thou, Whose counsels work unseen,Spare us henceforth such pangs, spare England’s Queen
O much enduring, much revered! To theeBring sun-dyed millions love more sweet than fame,And happy isles that star the purple seaHomage;—and children at the mother’s kneeWith her’s unite thy name;And faithful hearts, that throb ’neath palm and pine,From East to West, are thine.For as some pillar-star o’er sea and stormWhole fleets to haven guides, so from that heightOne great example points the path of Right,And purifies the home; with gracious aidLifting the fallen form.See Death by finer skill delay’d;Kind hearts to wait on woe,And feet of Love that in Christ’s footsteps go;Wild wastes of life reclaim’d by Woman’s hand unseen:All England bless’d with England’s Empress Queen.
And now, as one who through some fruitful fieldHas urged the fifty furrows of the grain,—Look round with joy, and know thy care will yieldA thousandfold in its due day reveal’d,The harvest laugh again:—E’en now thy great crown’d ancestors on highWatch with exultant eyeThy hundred Englands o’er the broad earth sown,And Arthur lives anew to hail his heir!—O then for her and us we chant the prayer,—Keep Thou this sea-girt citadel of the freeSafe ’neath her ancient throne,Love-link’d in loyal unity;Let eve’s calm after-glowArch all the heaven with Hope’s wide roseate bow:Till in Time’s fulness Thou, Almighty Lord unseen,With glory and life immortal crown the Queen.
Published (June, 1887) under sanction of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, Oxford; and intended as an humble offering of loyalty and hearty good-wishes on the part of the University.
Old if this England beThe Ship at heart is sound,And the fairest she and gallantestThat ever sail’d earth round!And children’s children in the yearsFar off will live to seeHer silver wings fly round the world,Free heralds of the free!While now on Him who long has bless’dTo bless her as of yore,Once more we cry for England,England once more!
They are firm and fine, the masts;And the keel is straight and true;Her ancient cross of gloryRides burning through the blue:—And that red sign o’er all the seasThe nations fear and know,And the strong and stubborn hero-soulsThat underneath it go:—While now on Him who long has bless’dTo bless her as of yore,Once more we cry for England,England once more!
Prophets of dread and shame,There is no place for you,Weak-kneed and craven-breasted,Amongst this English crew!Bluff hearts that cannot learn to yield,But as the waves run high,And they can almost touch the night,Behind it see the sky.While now on Him who long has bless’dTo bless her as of yore,Once more we cry for England,England once more!
As Past in Present hid,As old transfused to new,Through change she lives unchanging,To self and glory true;From Alfred’s and from Edward’s dayWho still has kept the seas,To him who on his death-morn spokeHer watchword on the breeze!While now on Him who long has bless’dTo bless her as of yore,Once more we cry for England,England once more!
What blasts from East and North,What storms that swept the landHave borne her from her bearingsSince Caesar seized the strand!Yet that strong loyal heart through allHas steer’d her sage and free,—Hope’s armour’d Ark in glooming years,And whole world’s sanctuary!While now on Him who long has bless’dTo bless her as of yore,Once more we cry for England,England once more!
Old keel, old heart of oak,Though round thee roar and chafeAll storms of life, thy helmsmanShall make the haven safe!Then with Honour at the head, and Faith,And Peace along the wake,Law blazon’d fair on Freedom’s flag,Thy stately voyage take:—While now on Him who long has bless’dTo bless Thee as of yore,Once more we cry for England,England once more!
Till the terrible Day unreveal’d; Much of course is and will probably remain unknown among the details of that fatal and fascinating drama, Mary’s life. But all hitherto ascertained evidence has now, mainly by Mr. Hosack, been sifted so closely and so ably that the main turning points in her career seem to have reached that twilight certainty beyond which History can rarely hope to go, and are placed beyond the reach of reasonable controversy. Such, (not to enter upon the Queen’s life as Elizabeth’s captive), is the more than Macchiavellian—the almost incredible—perfidy of the leading Scottish politicians, united with a hypocrisy more revolting still, and enabled to do its wicked work, (with regret we must confess), by the shortsighted bigotry of Knox:—The gradual forgery of the letters by which the Queen’s death was finally obtained from the too-willing hands of Elizabeth’s Cabinet:—The all but legally proved innocence of Mary in regard to Darnley’s death, and the Bothwell marriage. Taking her life as a whole, it may be fairly doubted whether any woman has ever been exposed to trials and temptations more severe, or has suffered more shamefully from false witness and fanatical hatred. But the prejudices which have been hence aroused are so strong, such great interests, religious and political, are involved in their maintenance, that they will doubtless prevail in the popular mind until our literature receives,—what an age of research and of the scientific spirit should at last be prepared to give us,—a tolerably truthful history of the Elizabethan period. (1889)
Heroes both;—Each his side;—In regard to the main issue at stake in the Civil War, and the view taken of it throughout this book, let me here once for all remark that no competent and impartial student of our history can deny a fair cause to each side, whatever errors may have been committed by Charles and by the Parliament, or however fatal for some fifteen years to liberty and national happiness were the excesses and the tyranny into which the victorious party gradually, and as it were inevitably, drifted. ‘No one,’ says Ranke (whom I must often quote, because to this distinguished foreigner we owe the single, though too brief, narrative of this period in which history has been hitherto, treated historically, that is, without judging of the events by the light either of their remote results, or of modern political party), ‘will make any very heavy political charge against Strafford on the score of his government of Ireland, or of the partisan attitude which he had taken up in the intestine struggle in England in general; for the ideas for which he contended were as much to be found in the past history of England as were those which he attacked:’—and Hampden’s conduct may claim analogous justification. If the Parliament could appeal to those mediaeval precedents which admitted the right of the people through their representatives, to control taxation and (more or less) direct national policy, Charles, (and Strafford with him), might as lawfully affirm that they too were standing ‘on the ancient ways’; on the royal supremacy undeniably exercised by Henry II or Edward I. by Henry VIII and by Elizabeth. Both parties could equally put forward the prosperity of England under these opposed modes of government: Patriotism, honour, conscience, were watchwords which either might use with truth or abuse with profit. If the great struggle be patiently studied, the moral praise and censure so freely given, according to a reader’s personal bias, will be found very rarely justified. There was far, very far, less of tyranny or of liberty involved in the contest, up to 1642, than partisans aver. To the actual actors (nor, as retrospectively criticized by us) it is a fair battle on both sides, not a contest ‘between light and darkness.’
We, looking back after two centuries, are of course free to recognize, that one effect of the Tudor despotism had been to train Englishmen towards ruling themselves;—we may agree that the time had come for Lords and Commons to take their part in the Kingdom. But no proof, I think it may be said, can be shown that this great idea, in any conscious sense, governed the Parliaments of James and Charles. It is we who,—reviewing our history since the definite establishment of the constitutional balance after 1688, and the many blessings the land has enjoyed,—can perceive what in the seventeenth century was wholly hidden from Commonwealth and from King. And even if in accordance with the common belief, we ascribe English freedom and prosperity and good government to the final triumph of the popular side, yet deeper consideration should suggest that such retrospective judgments are always inevitably made under our human entire ignorance what might have been the result had the opposite party prevailed. Who should say how often, in case of these long and wide extended struggles,—political and dynastic,—the effects which we confidently claim aspropter hoc, are onlypost hocin the last reality?
Waiving however these somewhat remote and what many will judge over-sceptical considerations, this is certain, that unless we can purify our judgment from reading into the history of the past the long results of time;—from ascribing to the men of the seventeenth century prophetic insight into the nineteenth;—unless, in short, we can free ourselves from the chain of present or personal prepossessions;—no approach can be made to a fair or philosophical judgment upon such periods of strife and crisis as our Civil War preeminently offers.
With glory he gilt; Yet to readers, (if such readers there be) who can look with an undazzled eye on military success, or hear the still small voice of truth through the tempest of rhetoric, Cromwell’s foreign policy, (excepting the isolated case of his interference with the then comparatively feeble powers of Savoy and the Papacy on behalf of the persecuted Waldenses), will be far from supporting the credit with which politico-theological partisanship has invested it.
Holland was beyond question the natural ally on political and religious grounds of puritan England. But a mischievous war against her in 1652-3 was caused by the arrogant restrictions of the NavigationAct of 1651. The successful English demand in 1653 that the Orange family, as connected closely with that of Stuart, should be excluded from the Stadtholdership, was in a high degree to the prejudice of the United Provinces.
In 1654 Cromwell was negotiating with France and Spain. From the latter he arrogantly asked wholly unreasonable terms, whilst Mazarin, on the part of France, offered Dunkirk as a bribe. News opportunely arriving that certain Spanish possessions in America were feebly armed, Cromwell at once declared war: and now, supplementing unscrupulous policy by false theology, announced ‘the Spaniards to be the natural and ordained enemies of England, whom to fight was a duty both to country and to religion:’ (Ranke: xii. 6).
The piratical war which followed, in many ways similar to that which the ‘wise Walpole’ tried to avert in 1739, was hardly less impolitic than immoral. It alienated Holland, it sanctioned French aggression on Flanders (xii. 7), it ended by giving Mazarin and Lewis XIV that supremacy in Western Europe for which England had to pay in the wars of William III and Anne; whilst, as soon as it was over, France naturally allied herself with Spain, on a basis which might have caused the union of the two crowns (xii. 8) and which allowed Spain at once to support Charles II. As the result of the Protector’s ‘spirited policy’ England thus figured as the catspaw of France, and the enemy of European liberty.
It is satisfactory, however, to find that, in Ranke’s judgment, the common modern opinion that Cromwell’s despotism was favourably regarded in England because of his foreign enterprize, is exaggerated. Even against the conquest of Jamaica,—his single signal gain,—unanswerable arguments were popularly urged at the time: (xii. 4, 8)—But the Protectorate, in the light of modern research,—like the reign of Elizabeth,—still awaits its historian.
The sky by a veil; ‘A spiritual world,’ says a critic of deep insight, ‘over and above this invisible one, is a most important addition to our idea of the universe; but it does not of itself touch our moral nature. . . . Its moral effect depends entirely upon what we make that world to be.’—Cromwell’s religion, which may be profitably studied in his letters and speeches, (much better known of, than read) reveals itself there as the simple reflex of his personal views: it had great power to animate, little or none to regulate or control his impulses. He had, indeed, a most real and pervading ‘natural turn for the invisible; he thought of the invisible till he died; but the cloudy arch only canopied a field of human aim and will.’
The horrible sacrament; The summary of Cromwell’s conduct at Drogheda by a writer of so much research, impartiality, and philosophic liberality as Mr. Lecky deserves to be well considered.
‘The sieges of Drogheda and Wexford, and the massacres that accompanied them, deserve to rank in horror with the most atrocious exploits of Tilly and Wallenstein, and they made the name of Cromwell eternally hated in Ireland. It even now acts as a spell upon the Irish mind, and has a powerful and living influence in sustaining the hatred both of England and Protestantism. The massacre of Drogheda acquired a deeper horror and a special significance from the saintly professions and the religious phraseology of its perpetrators, and the townwhere it took place is, to the present day, distinguished in Ireland for the vehemence of its Catholicism:’ (Hist. of Eighteenth Cent. ch. vi).
Mortal failure; The ever-increasing unsuccess of Cromwell’s career is forcibly set forth by Ranke (xii. 8). He had ‘crushed every enemy,—the Scottish and the Presbyterian system, the peers and the king, the Long Parliament and the Cavalier insurgents,—but to create . . . an organization consistent with the authority which had fallen to his own lot, was beyond his power. Even among his old’ Anabaptist and Independent ‘friends, his comrades in the field, his colleagues in the establishment of the Commonwealth, he encountered the most obstinate resistance. . . . At no time were the prisons fuller; the number of political prisoners was estimated at 12,000 . . . The failure of his plans soured and distracted him.’ It was, in fact, wholly ‘beyond his power to consolidate a tolerably durable political constitution.’—To the disquiet caused by constant attempts against Cromwell’s life, Ranke adds the death of his favourite daughter, Lady Claypole, whose last words of agony ‘were of the right of the king, the blood that had been shed, the revenge to come.’
Unheirlike heir; Richard Cromwell has received double measure of that censure which the world’s judgment too readily gives to unsuccess, finding favour neither from Royalists nor Cromwellians. Macaulay, with more justice, remarks, ‘That he was a good man he evinced by proofs more satisfactory than deep groans or long sermons, by humility and suavity when he was at the height of human greatness, and by cheerful resignation under cruel wrongs and misfortunes.’ . . . ‘He did nothing amiss during his short administration.’
His fall may be traced to several causes: to the fact that the puritan party proper, who supported him, the ‘sober men’ mentioned by Baxter ‘that called his father no better than a traitorous hypocrite,’ had not power to resist the fanatic cabal of army chiefs: to the necessity he was under of protecting some justly-odious confederates of Oliver: his own want of ability or energy to govern,—a point fully recognized during Oliver’s supremacy; and to his own honourable decision not to ‘have a drop of blood shed on his poor account.’ Yet there is ample evidence to show that Richard, had he chosen, might have made a struggle to retain the throne,—sufficient, at least, to have thus deluged the kingdom.
Richard’s life was passed in great quiet after 1660: Charles II, according to Clarendon, with a wise and humorous lenity, not thinking it ‘necessary to inquire after a man so long forgotten.’ His letters reveal a man of affectionate and honest disposition; he uses the Puritan phraseology of the day without leaving a sense of nausea in the reader’s mind. At Hursley he was buried at a good old age in 1712.
A nation’s craven rage; The want of public spirit in England shown during the war of 1745-6 is astonishing. ‘England,’ wrote Henry Fox, ‘is for the first comer . . . Had 5,000 [French troops] landed in any part of this island a week ago, I verily believe the entire conquest of it would not have cost them a battle.’ And other weighty testimonies might be added, in support of Lord Mahon’s view as to the greatprobability of the Prince’s success, had he been allowed by his followers to march upon London from Derby.
This apathy and the panic which followed found their natural issue in the sanguinary punishment of the followers of Prince Charles. ‘The city and the generality,’ wrote H. Walpole in August, 1746, ‘are very angry that so many rebels have been pardoned.’ The vindictive cruelty then shown makes, in truth (if we compare the magnitude and duration of the rebellion for which punishment was to be exacted), an unsatisfactory contrast to the leniency of 1660. But History supplies only too numerous proofs that a century’s march in civilisation may be always undone at once by the demons of Panic or of Party in the hour of their respective triumphs.
Ripe to wed with Liberty; Looking at the American War of Independence without party-passion and distortion, as should now at least be possible to Englishmen, the main cause must be acknowledged to lie simply in the growth and geographical position of the Colonies, which had brought them to the age of natural liberty, and had begun to fit them for its exercise:—facts which it was equally in accordance with nature that the Fatherland should fail to perceive. For the causes which gradually determined American resistance we must look, (as regards us), not to the blundering English legislation after 1760,—to the formalism of Grenville, the subterfuges of Franklin,—but to the whole course of our commercial policy since the Revolution: As regards the Colonies, to the extinction of the power of France in America by the Treaty of Paris in 1763: (Lecky: ch. v; Mahon: ch. xliii).
The Stamp Act of 1765 brought home, indeed, to a rapidly-developing people the supremacy claimed across the Atlantic; but the obnoxious taxation which it imposed, (despite the splendid sophistry of Chatham), cannot be shown to differ essentially from the trade restrictions and monopolies enacted in long series after 1688, as the result of the predominance obtained at the Revolution by the commercial classes in this country, and which so far as 1765 the colonies openly recognized as legal.
Going, however, beyond these minor motives, the true cause was unquestionably that the time for separate life, for America to be herself, had come. This was a crisis which home-legislation could do little to create or to avert: a natural law, which only worked itself out ostensibly by political manœuvres and military operations, so ill-managed as to be rarely creditable to either side;—and, regarded simply as a ‘struggle for existence,’ is, in the eye of impartial history, hardly within the scope of praise or censure.
But it was a neutrally tinted background like this, which could most effectually bring into full relief the great qualities of the one great man who was prominent in the conflict.
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