Of a truth, that same sincerity, it would appear, is no kingly virtue!
Cromwell loved justice as he loved his own life, and wherever he was
compelled to be arbitrary, it was only where his authority was
controverted, which, as things then were, it was not only right to
establish for his own sake, but for the peace and security of the
country over whose proud destinies he had been called to govern. "The
dignity of the crown," to quote his own words, "was upon the account of
the nation, of which the king was only the representative head, and
therefore, the nation being still the same, he would have the same
respect paid to his ministers as if he had been a king." England ought
to write the name of Cromwell in letters of gold, when she remembers
that, within a space of four or five years, he avenged all the insults
that had been lavishly flung upon her by every country in Europe
throughout a long, disastrous, and most perplexing civil war. Gloriously
did he retrieve the credit that had been mouldering and decaying during
two weak and discreditable reigns of nearly fifty years'
continuance--gloriously did he establish and extend his country's
authority and influence in remote nations--gloriously acquire the real
mastery of the British Channel--gloriously send forth fleets that went
and conquered, and never sullied the union-flag by an act of dishonour
or dissimulation!
Not a single Briton, during the Protectorate, but could demand and
receive either reparation or revenge for injury, whether it came from
France, from Spain, from any open foe or treacherous ally;--not an
oppressed foreigner claimed his protection but it was immediately and
effectually granted. Were things to be compared to this in the reign of
either Charles? England may blush at the remembrance of the insults she
sustained during the reigns of the first most amiable, yet most weak--of
the second most admired, yet most contemptible--of these legal kings.
What must she think of the treatment received by the Elector Palatine,
though he was son-in-law to King James? And let her ask herself how the
Duke of Rohan was assisted in the Protestant war at Rochelle,
notwithstanding the solemn engagement of King Charles under his own
hand! But we are treading too fearlessly upon ground on which, in our
humble capacity, we have scarcely the right to enter. Alas! alas! the
page of History is but a sad one! and the Stuarts and the Cromwells, the
Roundheads and the Cavaliers, the pennons and the drums, are but part
and parcel of the same dust--the dust we, who are made of dust, animated
for a time by a living spirit, now tread upon! Their words, that
wrestled with the winds and mounted on the air, have left no trace along
that air whereon they sported;--the clouds in all their beauty cap our
isle with their magnificence, as in those by-gone days;--the rivers are
as blue, the seas as salt;--the flowers, those sweet things! remain
fresh within our fields as when God called them into existence in
Paradise--and are bright as ever. But the change is over us, as it has
been over them: we, too, are passing. O England! what should this teach?
Even three things--wisdom, justice, and mercy. Wisdom to watch
ourselves, and then our rulers, so that we neither do nor suffer
wrong;--justice to the memory of the mighty dead, whether born to
thrones or footstools;--mercy, inasmuch as we shall deeply need it from
our successors.