BOOKS.

EDMUND LUDLOW'S MEMOIRS.*

THE publication during the last half-century of a number of documents bearing on the memoirs of the staunch old Regi-

cide, such as Professor Stern's Briefe Englischer Flflchtlinge in der Schweiz, Mr. W. D. Christie's Life of Shaftesbury, con- taining suppressed passages of the memoirs from Lockers papers in the possession of the Earl of Lovelace ; but above all of the Calendars of State papers relating to the period, has for some time now rendered the issue of a fresh edition of the Memoirs a. matter of real historical need in our litera- ture. In undertaking the task, Mr. Firth (already the editor of Mrs. Hutchinson's Memoirs) has prefixed a valuable intro- duction, illustrated the work with notes, and appended to it copies of various documents recently published or unearthed which bear upon his subject, so that this edition must stand henceforth as the standard one.

It is to be feared, indeed, that since the publication of Car- lyle's Cromwell most readers are content to take Ludlow at Carlyle's estimate, as a " common handfast, dull, and indeed partly wooden man,"—the last epithet being one that he can scarcely fling often enough at Ludlow. Any one who will look at his portrait (at the age of 72) from the first edition prefixed to that of Mr. Firth, will probably feel that the face is anything but a " dull" one,—that it shows considerable shrewdness as well as decision, to use no stronger term. How carelessly Carlyle must have studied and used the Memoirs will be shown by the following parallel extracts, the first of them taken from Carlyle's chapter (or whatever one ought to call it), headed " Prayer Meeting " :—

CARLYLE. LUDLOW.

" Ludlow reports how ill the " Lieutenant-General Crom- Lieutenant-General sped when well procured a meeting of he brought the Army and Par- divers leading men amongst liament grandees to a dinner' the Presbyterians and Inde- nt his own house ' in King pendents, both Members of Street,' and urged a cordial Parliament and ministers, at a agreement ; they would not draw dinner in Westminster, under together at all. Parliament pretence of endeavouring a re- would not agree with Army ; conciliation between the two hardly Parliament with itself." parties : but he found it a work

(Vol. I., p. 311.) too difficult for him to compose U" Many conferences held by the differences between these my Lord General have broken up two ecclesiaitical interests.

so. Four years ago, he ended Another conference he one in King Street by playfully procured to be held in King flinging a cushion' at a certain Street between those called the solid head of our acquaintance, grandees of the House and Army and running downstairs." (Vol. and the Commonwealths men,

II., p. 166.)] in which the grandees, of whom

Lieutenant-General Cromwell was the head, kept themselves in the clouds Lieutenant-General Cromwell professed

• The Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, Lieutenant-General of the Horse in the Army of the Commonwealth of England, 16254672. Edited, with Appendices of Letters and Contemporary Documents, by 0: A. Firth, M.A. Di 2 vols. Oxford,: Clarendon Press. 1894.

himself unresolved, and having learned what he could of the principles and inclinations of those present at the conference, took up a cushion and flung it at my head, and then ran down the stairs; but I overtook him with another which made him hasten down faster than he desired."

It is clear from the above (1) that Carlyle confounds a dinner given " in Westminster "—not stated to have been at Cromwell's house in King Street, and very likely given at a tavern—to " divers leading men amongst the Presbyterians and the Independents, both Members of Parliament and ministers," with a " conference " (in all likelihood not a dinner) at his house in King Street between "the grandees of the House and Army and the Commonwealths men ; " (2) that thus confounding the two, he represents Cromwell as having urged a cordial agreement at the conference, which Ludlow only represents him to have done as between Presbyterians and Independents at the dinner, expressly stating that at the conference Cromwell was the head of the grandees, and implying, as the object of the conference, that he might "learn what he could of the principles and inclinations of those present ; " (3) that he entirely misunderstands what Ludlow says of the conference itself, representing it as one between the Army on the one side and the Parliament on the other, whereas the parties were, on the one side, the " grandees of the House and Army," and on the other, the " Common- wealths men," or Republicans, so that the words " Parliament would not agree with Army" are an absolute misstatement.

Not less remarkable is the suppression of the characteristic cushion-duel at the conference,—deliberate, since Carlyle refers to it in his second volume, but only so far as relates to Cromwell's cushion, and not to Ludlow's, which made Cromwell "hasten down faster than he desired." Had the case been reversed, with what triumph would not Carlyle have expatiated on the sight of Ludlow tumbling downstairs beneath the cushion of great Oliver !

The fact is that, but for the existence of Oliver Cromwell, Ludlow would have been just one of Carlyle's heroes, strong, shrewd, single-hearted, resolute, ruggedly tender, a man every inch of him. But with Carlyle's view of history and of the universe, in which heroes are substituted for God, instead of being looked on as His chosen instruments, there can be no heroes on two sides at once. Of course Ludlow can never be put on the same level of intellectual greatness as Cromwell. He was as blind to the nobler sides of Cromwell's character, his high purpose and high faith, as Carlyle is forced to be to the ambition, the insincerity, and the intrigue, which were the alloy to these, and which alone were seen by Ludlow. But next to Cromwell and Strafford, Ludlow remains, for all his narrowness, the strongest man of the English Revolution. It cannot reasonably be doubted that it was in order to get rid of him as his most dangerous enemy that Cromwell sent him to Ireland, superseding him by Fleetwood in the chief command as soon as the work of reducing the country was practically completed, and then having him arrested and imprisoned on his return, with Fleetwood's written permission, to England. Nor can there be any doubt that during the Restoration period Ludlow was looked to by his party, dreaded by the Court, as the Repub- lican leader. The publication of the Calendar of State papers for the period proves this abundantly, and throws a vivid sidelight on the original third volume of his Memoirs. He was evidently the soul of all the plots that were constantly being formed against the Stuarts—plots, it must be said at once, invariably for " risings," not for kidnappings and assas- sinations like those of the Royalists—although (no doubt in order not to compromise any of his fellow-countrymen) be only mentions those for his own assassination or for that of his comrades in exile. The mention of him in the State papers is continual (so far as they have been calendared). He has been seen here, there, and everywhere,—often in two places at once. Warrant after warrant is issued for his apprehension, to search houses for him. In short, apocryphal as every tale of his presence in England appears to be, Bishop Parker's statement that " the head and even the dictator of all conspiracies was Ludlow, who, though driven into banish- ment, did yet govern all their counsels," is abundantly justi- fied. Ludlow's enemies did not look upon him as a mere "wooden head."

Yet the last known scene in Ludlow's life shows that, relentless as he was towards the Stuarts, and notwithstand- ing his Republicanism, Ludlow was no rabid opponent to monarchy. He hailed William III.'s accession as that of "our Gideon, miraculously raised up to deliver us out of the house of bondage, and to demolish Baal's altar," and came over—it is said at the King's own invitation—to offer him his sword for the reducing of Ireland. But an address was voted by the House of Commons to the King, with a view to his apprehen- sion, and presented by Sir E. Seymour, the grantee of his Wiltshire estates. He was however, no doubt purposely, allowed to escape, returning to Vevay, the home of his exile, where he died three years afterwards.

Ludlow was no littgrateur. His narration is often clumsy. Writing mainly from memory, he often interchanges events ;

makes not unfrequent mistakes in dates, sometimes as to persons. In quoting documents, he seldom troubles himself

about literal accuracy, giving the substance often without the form. Once or twice his prejudices against the two bates noires of his life, Cromwell and Monk, prevent him from giving them due credit as respects actions in which they were engaged. On the other hand, he is singularly free from

vanity. Of his own personality he really tells us nothing. Even in military matters he will be found to pass over two

brilliant little successes of his, for which we have to look in Whitelocke, because apparently he considered them

to have had no influence on the campaign which he was narrating. If he dwells with what some have considered undue length on the siege of Wardour Castle—though probably no reader of the Memoirs has ever wished the nar- rative shortened—it is, no doubt, because no event was more vividly impressed on his memory than the command entrusted to him at six-and-twenty, a young captain of less than a year's service, and which soon threw upon him the whole and sole responsibility of an obstinate defence. That it was not vanity which made him relate his leaguer at such length is shown by the succinctness with which he afterwards relates much more considerable actions of his during his command in Ireland. If he was stern to the point of cruelty towards Irish savages (were they anything better ?) he is never found to palliate anything that savoured of treachery or unfairness. He is always courteous whenever he can be towards Royalist opponents. That he was loved by those who knew him is clearly shown by that episode of the death of his cousin, Gabriel Ludlow, which the late J. Y. Akerman used to com- pare with the " Kiss me, Hardy," of Nelson, expressing his wonder that no artist had chosen it for the subject of a picture. The cornet lay mortally wounded :—

" His belly broken, and bowels torn, his hip-bone broken all to

shivers, and the bullet lodged in it In this condition he desired me to kiss him, and I not presently doing it, thinking he had talked lightly, he pressed me again to do him that favour; whereby observing him to be sensible, I kissed him ; and soon after, having recommended his mother, brother, and sisters to my care, he died."

If the marriage brokage bond, mentioned by Mr. Firth, be genuine—though how it came among State papers baffles

conception—it shows Ludlow, no doubt, in a singularly unromantic light. But of his family affections, and especially of his reverence for Sir Henry Ludlow, his father, there can be no doubt.

Mr. Firth's annotations might have been usefully carried further. He has made, for instance, singularly little use, for the earlier part of the work at least, of Sir Philip Warwick, the most brilliant, and almost the only honest among the contemporary Royalist writers, and whose narrative is often remarkably confirmative of Ludlow's. It is to be regretted that he did not reproduce the profile portrait which Hollis had engraved, belonging to a much earlier period of Ludlow's life than the bewigged full-faced one of 1689, made while he yet wore his own hair, and that long (Roundhead as we should be apt to call him), and which has a look of rugged pathos wanting to the later one.

Ludlow, no doubt, made two great mistakes in his life, one moral, one political. The moral one was the taking part in Pride's Purge. Not only did he therein do Cromwell's work, and make himself unintentionally his catspaw, but he out the ground from under all his subsequent efforts to maintain the authority of Parliament against military encroachments. His political mistake was in combating the conferment of the title of King on Cromwell, when he had already all kingly power. Had Ludlow studied law a little more deeply, and sided with the lawyers on this occasion, the history of England might possibly not have been polluted by a Stuart Restoration.