by the mere beauty or offensiveness of its accidents. Crime or not, the death of Charles seemed, beyond doubt, to those who were concerned in it, the inevitable issue of the great struggle in which they had been engaged. It was the ending of the tragedy-the Nemesis of long years of suffering and tyranny. The pathos of it must ever move our pity; but even our horror of it forms no ground on which utterly to condemn it.

Cromwell was now virtually master of England. As head of the army, he was the head of the nation. It is true that Fairfax still continued nominally first in command; and that Cromwell, even some time after this, professed not only a willingness, but apparent eagerness, to serve under his old friend, saying he would rather do so than command the greatest army in Europe.* But while this nominal precedence was still conceded to Fairfax, the real power and supremacy lay with our hero. A Council of State was appointed to manage the executive in civil affairs; and Cromwell consented to go with the flower of his veterans to Ireland, and reduce that kingdom to civil order and obedience.

A stern duty, however, awaited him in the first instance. The spirit of insubordination continued to spread in the army. So far, he had yielded to this spirit, and identified himself with it. The King's death had been hastened on and accomplished under its exciting influence, sweeping all before it, and really controlling the organisation of Parliament, while the latter yet professed to act in some measure independently and according to its lawful forms. It was clear, however, that unless the spirit of agitation was checked, the bonds of all order would be dissolved, and government rendered RUSSEL'S Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 45.

impossible. Cromwell saw and appreciated the crisis ; and, secure of the main leaders, who had been actively concurring with him in the King's death, and whose ambition and vengeance were fully satiated for the time, he resolved to strike a swift and effective blow on the first reappearance of disorder. Accordingly, a mutiny having broken out in Whalley's regiment, the prominent disturbers were seized, tried by court-martial, and one of the most vehement of them shot down forthwith in St Paul's Churchyard. The disturbance spreading to the regiments quartered in the country, the same effective measures were adopted. Lilburne, a particularly noisy agitator of the time, was securely imprisoned, other ringleaders were shot, and the "levellers" everywhere quelled. It was a moment of imminent danger; and what it might have come to, save for the energy of the Lieutenant-General, it is difficult to say. But here, as everywhere, he was master of the moment; and while he saved his country from anarchy, he raised his own fortunes to a higher pedestal.

The career of victory on which he now entered-at the head of an army that had learned respect, as well as affection for him-first in Ireland, and then in Scotland, is written broadly in the history of his country. The mingled glory and carnage of his Irish campaign have formed a theme for the eulogy of his admirers, and the detractions of his enemies almost equally. The military genius which it displayed, the swift energy and decision of his movements, the terrible grandeur of his work, all admit; while there are few who can read without horror the indiscriminate slaughter which he not only permitted, but encouraged and authorised. The single defence that can be offered for his cruelty

was its necessity. He had undertaken the task of pacifying Ireland; and this task could only be accomplished by the exhibition of a power calculated to overawe and subdue the unruly elements which then everywhere raged in that country. Cromwell knew this. He knew that nothing short of an example of resistless determination and might could effect his purpose. This is his own excuse; and in war it is and must ever be held a valid excuse. Severity is, then, truly mercy in the end. As he himself says, "Truly, I believe this bitterness" (putting every man of the garrison of Drogheda to death) "will save much effusion of blood, through the goodness of God." One shudders indeed to read of the goodness of God in connection with such carnage, and still more to read the explanations which he gives more at length in his communication to the Speaker of the Commons. "It was set upon some of our hearts that a great thing should be done, not by power or might, but by the Spirit of God. And is it not so clearly? That which caused your men to storm so courageously, it was the Spirit of God, who gave your men courage." Such words breathe more than the vengeance of the old Theocracy against the Canaanites; and it was the same spirit, no doubt, that animated these Puritan warriors, and made them march to siege and battle with Bible watchwords in their mouths, and the fury of unholy wrath in their hearts. There is nothing to be said in defence of the spirit from any Scriptural point of view. Every such defence must proceed upon utterly mistaken grounds; but if the spirit cannot be defended, the policy which employed it, and made it subservient, not merely to the physical subjugation, but the moral ordering of a kingdom, may be excused, and even vindicated.

In the course of nine months, Ireland was all but subdued, and Cromwell, leaving the completion of the work to Ireton, hastened back to London in connection with the pressing state of matters in Scotland. There Puritanism had renewed the alliance with Royalty. Charles II. had taken, or professed to take, the Covenant; and the Scottish nation, with its religious conscience thus dubiously quieted, had armed itself to maintain his rights, and set up again the fabric of sovereign authority in the two kingdoms. The existence of the Commonwealth was seriously threatened, and a blow must be struck immediately before the threatening evil spread into England. Cromwell was the only man to strike this blow. He and the Council, indeed, professed to urge the command upon Fairfax. It is difficult to suppose that he could have been sincere in this; yet we need not suppose that he merely acted a part. His real intention, probably, was to bring Fairfax to a point; to force him either to an active service, which he knew was far from congenial to him, or to compel him to give up his commission-a result which he accomplished. He set out for Scotland, for the first time, "Captain-general and commanderin-chief of all the forces raised, or to be raised, by authority of Parliament, within the Commonwealth of England."

*

No part of Cromwell's career is more exciting, picturesque, and instructive as to his character, than his Scottish campaign. His long letters to the clergy; the zeal and effect with which he criticises their arguments, and assails their position; his respect for the religious earnestness opposed to him, and yet his

* Ludlow, in his sneering, deprecatory way, says, "Cromwell acted his part so to the life, that I really thought he wished Fairfax to go."

scorn for its narrowness; the wisdom of many of his remarks on Christian liberty and Church policy, are all deeply interesting. Presbyterianism then, and always has, shown but a slight capacity to see through its own formulæ to the living truth beyond. With what smiling yet strong irony does the great soldier try to raise it to a higher point of view! Addressing the "Commissioners of the Kirk," he asks, "Is it therefore infallibly agreeable to the word of God all that you say? I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken. Precept may be upon precept, line may be upon line, and yet the word of the Lord may be to some a word of judgment, that they may fall backward and be broken, and be snared and taken." * Again, a month later, in a letter to "the Governor of Edinburgh Castle," who had written on behalf of the ministers: "Are you troubled that Christ is preached? Is preaching so exclusively your function? Is it against the Covenant? Away with the Covenant if this be so! . . . Where do you find in the Scriptures a ground to warrant such an assertion, that preaching is exclusively your function? Though an approbation from men hath order in it, and may do well, yet he that hath no better warrant than that hath none at all. Approbation is an act of conveniency in respect of order-not of necessity to give faculty to preach the gospel. Your pretended fear, lest error should step in, is like the man who would keep all the wine out of the country, lest men should be drunk.”† Yet again, in the same letters: "We look at ministers as helpers of, not lords over, God's people. I appeal to their consciences whether any person, trying their doctrines and dissenting, shall not incur the censure of * CARLYLE, ii. 20. + CARLYLE, ii. 64.