ESTIMATES OF THE ENGLISH KINGS.
XXVI.—RICHARD, LORD PROTECTOR.
WE have had occasion to notice more than once how un- favourable to greatness, or at least the recognition of greatness, is the position of the son of a distinguished man. The continuity of greatness which seems to be expected is seldom carried out, for even if the amount of ability in the second gene- ration at all approaches that in the preceding, it is often of so different a type that public expectation is almost as much dis- appointed as if there had been no succession of ability at all. In the case of Richard Cromwell, however, there was an entire absence of genius in any form, and the effect of the contrast which is naturally suggested between him and his father has teen such, that he has been denied the possession of even the amount of mental acquirements to which he can really lay claim. The circumstance that he was the least energetic, if not also the least able, of the sons of the Protector Oliver would not, perhaps, have been so fatal to his qualifications for retaining the supreme power in the Kingdom, if he had keen from the first the eldest son. But two brothers who attained to youth and early manhood enjoyed successively this position before their death made Richard the heir of the family. Robert, the eldest son, as Mr. Forster has proved, did not die till May, 1639, when he was in his eighteenth year ; 'Oliver, the second son, certainly survived long enough to take a 'commission in the Parliamentary Army when he had nearly com- pleted his twentieth year, and not improbably lived for some gears longer. Richard was nearly four years younger than this -second eldest son, and at the time of the breaking out of the Civil War was only a boy who had not completed his sixteenth year. Writers have speculated very much as to the cause of his not taking a more active part in the events of the Civil War, forgetting how young he was ; and unless he had exhibited a marked amount of enterprise and capacity, it is not likely that there would be any attempt made to put forward prematurely a younger son. The first Civil war, indeed, which was the one the exigencies of which might have demanded his active co-operation, -ended before he was twenty. His eldest brother Robert had been the favourite and hope of his father, and the younger Oliver must then, as the soldier head of the family and the Protector's com- panion in his campaigns, have necessarily held the first place. Richard, naturally unaspiring, and contented with the happy life he led in the home circle and the mixed society of London, was not likely to thrust himself on the attention of his father, wrapped up as the latter was in the absorbing affairs of public life. It seems un- likely that he was the son of Lieutenant-General Cromwell who is described as being, in October, 1647, " Captain of the General's Life Guard," or the "other son" who is mentioned as then "captain of a troop in Colonel Harrison's regiment," for in the May of that year, when nearly twenty-one years of age, he was entered at Lincoln's Inn (Thurloe, his future Secretary of State, being .one of his sureties),—and there had been no special call to active • service in the meantime. His father's serious atten- tion was probably first directed to him when negotiations for a marriage were entered into on his behalf at the be- ginning of the year 1648—first, with the Hungerfords, and afterwards (successfully) with the Maiiors of Hursley, in Hamp- shire. Till that time his character would be of secondary import- ance, and he would be looked upon in his family as a mere boy. From the fact of the negotiations being in behalf of Richard, young Oliver seems to have been then already dead. The atten- tion of the father was then drawn to the fact that Richard, what- ever were his merits, was wholly wanting in that weight of character which befitted, in his opinion, every Englishman, and which certainly he would wish to see in any son of his own, and particularly in the future head of the family. This made him, no doubt, especially careful as to the choice he made for his son—the offer of the Hungerfords, a family half Royalist, half Presbyterian, though much greater than that of the Maiirs, being rejected on account of " difference of ties," and not the same "assurance of godliness" in parents and daughter. The negotiation with Mr. Maiior, however, was a protracted one, being much interrupted by the campaign of 1648, as well as by the necessity of providing in the marriage arrangements against evil days in a family so precariously situated as that of the Cromwells. But Richard, we learn from his father's letters, had " a great desire to come .clown and wait on" Dorothy Maiior, and "minded that more than to attend to business" at home ; Oliver himself was desirous to complete the matter before he started on his Irish campaign, and on the 1st of May, 1649, the marriage was solemnized. The letters which passed during the succeeding years in the new family circle thus formed give us the only insight we possess into Richard's character at this period of his life. We have already referred to the advice conveyed in one or two of them respecting his pursuits and mode of life, and have seen how his father endeavoured to rouse him to a stronger sense of the demands of his situation in life and to the higher purposes of existence. In the midst of his most serious affairs of State, Oliver never ceases to reiterate his counsels, and to repeat his entreaties to Mr. Maiior to second his efforts with Richard. "Idleness" seems to be the established characteristic of the latter in his father's eyes, who, however, writes playfully rather than seriously on that point. He was not without some encouragement in his efforts—some letters from Richard " had a good savour,"—the father " took them kindly, and liked expressions when they came plainly from the heart, and were not strained or affected ;" but he "needed good counsel ; he was in the dangerous time of his age, and it was a very vain world." Oliver uses every variety of tone, from the most playful banter to the most solemn adjuration, and endeavours to enlist Dorothy also in the efforts he is making for her husband's guidance. But Richard, though excellent in his intentions, was careless and extravagant ; he got into debt and borrowed money from his father-in-law, and in the middle of the year 1651 his con- duct elicited the following observations from his father addressed to Mr. Maiior :—" I hear my son hath exceeded his allowance, and is in debt. Truly I cannot commend him therein ; wisdom requir- ing his living within compass, and calling for it at his hands. And, in my judgment, the reputation arising from thence would have been more real honour than what is attained the other way. I believe vain men will speak well of him that does W. I desire to be understood that I grudge him not laudable recreations, nor an honourable carriage of himself in them ; nor is any matter of charge like to fall to my share a stick with me. Truly I can find in my heart to allow him not only a sufficiency, but more for his good. But if pleasure and self-satisfaction be made the business of a man's life, so much cost laid out upon it, so much time spent on it, as rather answers appetite than the will of God, or is comely before his saints, I scruple to feed this humour ; and God forbid that his being my son should be his claim to live not pleasingly to our heavenly Father, who hath raised me out of the dust to be what I am. I desire your faithfulness (he being also your concernment as well as mine) to advise him to approve himself to the Lord in his course of life, and to search his statutes for a rule to conscience, and to seek grace from Christ to enable him to walk therein. This hath life in it, and will come to somewhat ; what is a poor creature without this'? This will not abridge of lawful pleasures, but teach such a use of them as will have the peace of a good con- science going along with it. Sir, I write what is in my heart ; I pray you communicate my mind herein to my son, and be his remembrancer in these things. Truly I love him ; he is dear to me, and so is his wife, and for their sakes do I thus write. They shall not want comfort or encouragement from me, so far as I may afford it. But indeed I cannot think I do well to feed a voluptu- ous humour in my son, if he should make pleasure the business of his life, in a time when some precious saints are bleeding and breathing out their last for the safety of the rest. Sir, I beseech you believe I here say not this to save my purse, for I shall willingly do what is convenient to satisfy his occasions as I have opportunity. But as I pray he may not walk in a course not pleasing to the Lord, so it lieth upon me to give him in love the best counsel I may, and I know not how better to convey it to him than by so good a hand as yours. Sir, I pray you acquaint him with these thoughts of mine. And remember my love to my daughter, for whose sake I shall be induced to do any reasonable thing."
We have quoted this admonition of the Protector Oliver at some length, because it exhibits more clearly than any other statement the real defects in Richard's character, and the anxiety which they produced in his father's mind. He had not a spark of genius, and he had no sustained elevation of purpose ; but he was neither the fool nor the poor-spirited, cowardly man that is commonly supposed. He was only an easy-tempered pococurante, thoroughly contented with any situation in which he found himself placed by circum- stances or the will of others, seeking only to avoid the necessity of change or decided action as long as possible, and though not unmindful of the course of events, and well acquainted with the facts of the situation, always hoping that something would arise which might prevent the necessity of his acting, or of his taking any but the least irksome and most pleasant line of action. He had considerable pleasantry and dry humour, but as little bril- liancy in his wit as he had of capacity to command the political situation in more serious matters. He was universally popular among his neighbours in Hampshire as a genial and accomplished country gentleman. His horses and his dogs were his great delight, and his constant occupations were hawking and hunting and the ordinary pleasures of a country life. These tastes he pre- served to the close of his long life, keeping his harriers after his return to Huraley from the Continent and Cheshunt, and riding out with the hounds, it is said, with unabated spirit when he was eighty years of age. He made no distinction of parties in his social intercourse,—his father's example would tend to confirm his natural disposition in this respect—but he lived so much on the same friendly terms with all, that it is not surprising that he was thought to possess no fixed political or religious views of
his own. Yet he was not a thoughtless man on such matters. He fully appreciated his father's principles, both religious and political, and had a great tenacity in such matters, which con- trasts curiously with his want of enterprise when their in- terests were at stake, and when it lay with him to secure those interests. There seems to be no foundation for the stories of his being licentious in his morals, and it is clear from his father's letter that no rumour of anything of that sort had reached him. All the testimony which has been preserved as to his doings at Hursley, from those who knew him there, represents him as leading a per- fectly innocent, if unmeaning life. At a subsequent period of his life he is said to have attended on Sundays at the single service given at the parish church of Hursley, and at another time of the day at the Baptist chapel at Romsey. Long after the Restoration of the King he maintained an intimate friendship with his former chaplain, Mr. Howe, and visited him on his death-bed, the part- ing between them being described as very affecting. When his father was on his death-bed, and just before the cares of sove- reignty were transferred to his own shoulders, he wrote a letter to his friend and connection by marriage, Captain John Dunch, on the death of two common friends, which is not wanting in dignity, and shows a spirit sufficiently serious and thoughtful when his mind was directed to such topics. " I received your last sad intelligence," he writes, "of the death of St. Barbs and his lady. I am persuaded they are out of a troublesome world, and certainly happy ; the loss is not so mach theirs as their neighbours'. The stroke of death is so forcible that the strongest cannot stand against it ; no weapons of the flesh to encounter the grave ; they must be spiritual. Such I hope they had (by the grace of God) to make a victory, to charge through into the place of their wishes and glory. His friendship will make me to rejoice in his and his wife's happiness. It is a providential stroke, and ought to teach the moat healthy and happy. I am fully persuaded the country hath a loss in him, and I also,—they as wanting one that would assist them in difficulties ; / as a friend." He then refers to the dan- gerous state in which his father lay, and the slight hopes raised by a fit of ague, "shall it please Gods to go on with his gentle hand, and bring him temperately out of this fit ;" which result, he says, would be " a new life to his Highness, and the affairs as they now stand of this nation, with the Protestant interest of Christendom. I believe," he continues, " the rumour of this dangerous illness hath flown into all parts of this nation, and hath caused several persons of ill-affection to prick up their ears, which will cause friends to be vigilant, for they will hope they have a game to play. It is a time that will discover all colours, and much of the disposition of the nation may be now gathered. I hear that those that:have been enemies, others that have been no friends, some of both, are startled, fearing their pos- sessions, and worser conditions, not considering their affection, in this hazard his Highness is in. It must be the goodness of God that shall save him, and his knowledge of the state of England and of Christendom ; the spirit of prayer which is poured out for him, and the faith which is acted on behalf of him, give us the best comfort and hopes."
This is not the letter of one who was a fool, or who was unac- quainted with the nature and bearings of the crisis in which he would have to take the principal part, should his father's illness terminate fatally. But the position of Richard at the death of the Protector Oliver was one which demanded a rare combination of qualities to enable him to maintain his power. He, on the contrary, had little more than the passive virtues. Per- sonally he would rouse dislike nowhere, but when it was roused against his Government there was nothing in him to resist or overcome it, unless it were the mere persistence of inertia. The successor to a newly-founded dynasty is always in a precarious position, for that feeling of a distinct and superior caste which is the great secret of the authority of an hereditary king, as such, over the nation he is called to govern, has not had yet time to root itself in the popular mind, while the other sup- port to a new throne, the personal ascendanc4of the great founder, is gone. The successor is still looked upon as one of the caste from which the founder raised himself, and, as is well known, every caste in society is distrustful and intolerant of the rule of one of its own members. The artizan prefers the leadership of the employer of labour ; the middle-class man (however he may call for middle-class rule) has more satisfaction in the ascendancy and more consideration for the shortcoming of the aristocrat ; and the nation, as a whole, prefers and bears with much more from the heir of its hereditary kings than from auy scion of a new reigning family. What was looked upon as natural indifference in Charles Stuart the younger would be criticized as indolent in-
capacity in Richard Cromwell, and the pleasant, personal man- ners which were the source of unbounded popularity in the case of the former, would be underrated in the latter, and regarded as the condesension of a parvenu from the proper dignity of a. king. Oliver had probably been long distracted in his resolution as; to the successor he should name. On the one side were the- elements of authority attaching to even the first step in an. hereditary descent of the Crown ; on the other hand, was the- character of Richard himself. Yet even this, as it would not pro-. yoke opposition, might conciliate public opinion by a judicious. distribution of the Administrative and Cabinet appointments, and by a balance of the conflicting powers of the Puritan party. Stich. a scheme constituted probably the contents of the paper which, Oliver is said to have mentioned on his death-bed, as his final dis- position, but which could not be found. He had then at that dying. moment nothing further to say than that " Richard" was to be- the new head of the Government; the paper might be discovered if not, the result must be left in the hands of Providence.
Richard, on his accession, had a natural party, but no personal adherents. His natural supporters were the old advisers of his. father, and the men whom Oliver had gathered around him out of nearly every political and religious section of the nation. But over these Richard had no personal hold but that of their sense of than public and their own interest, and any feeling of attachment they might have for the memory of his father. He had lived, as we have seen, with men of all parties, and though he was never a Cavalier in his feelings or opinions, some of the Cavaliers even had persuaded themselves that he would hasten to restore the King,— so little had been the impression left by him of his personal opinions- With the Army, even if he ever held more than a nominal authority in their ranks, he had no special ties and no individual influence_ Withthe officers the feeling respecting him was divided between" jealousy of the other councillors, and perhaps the older nobility,. whom Richard might prefer to place in the high posts of the- Government, distrust of his earnestness in their cause, and Ow the case of his uncles Desborough and Jones and his brother-in- law Fleetwood) the unrespectful and invidious patronage of relatives., The Republican element in the Army and among the class of states- men retained their aversion to the office of Protector, while they lost their fear of its possessor, and also the controlling restraints of old associations, which had at times half disarmed their antagonism, and their anger in the case of Oliver. The Presbyterians were will- ing enough to adopt Richard as a temporary head, but they were- desirous to clip his independent power, until they had seen. whether they could not find a more suitable head for a. new dynasty. One man only might have saved him, if he had not- also been disqualified by his antecedents and personal character.- This was his younger brother, Henry.
Henry Cromwell was an able man, and an admirable- administrator, full of the spirit of his father's wisest policy in many respects, and equal to any occasion on which his judgment made him resolve to take effective action. He had agreeable manners and a love of mixed society, though there was. probably no truth in the scandalous rumours which reached England and his family, and which he seems to have refuted by unexceptionable testimony to the contrary. As far as the naturab opponents of his father's government were concerned, he took a wise and large view of the situation ; and the effect of his tolerant conciliation was very evident in the tranquillity and satisfaction of the Irish people under his rule. But he was not equally tolerant of the alienated sections of the Puritan party and of disaffected friends. He had no old associations such as those of his father- with the Republicans and "Anabaptists," of the Army and the- Parliament, and did not, like him, "understand the men," and see- the common elements and sympathies which still might form a bond of future union. He could only see in Vane "a rotten member of the Commonwealth," in the Army only a dangerous agent of arbi- trary power, and in the Sectaries only unreasonable and fanatic men.. He had no natural insight into character, and his own prejudices- and his anger at the personal attacks on his father, to whose memory he was devoted, and whose government he thought the ideal of the "Good Old Cause," prevented him from availing himself of his undoubted powers of observation and discernment. He had excellent sense and a sound judgment as to the natural and? probable issues of events, but his ability was not sufficiently com- manding, as a whole, to overawe opposition and control the situation. He could act himself, if in his judgment he seemed, called on to do so ; but he could not see clearly enough into the- condition of affairs at a distance to be able to give more than general advice. He complained to his friends that he had been. left quite unacquainted with the inner workings of affairs
England ; and he had not the resources of genius in himself to make up for the deficiency. He was an agreeable companion, but he had not the sweet temper of Richard, and his more strongly pronounced opinions and actions often excited personal dislike. But what was most disqualifying in Henry at this crisis was the fact that he had no enterprise and was of a despondent spirit. Where he should have animated his inert brother to action by pointing out the advantages he actually pos- sessed, he could only dwell sorrowfully on the dangers and difficulties, and lament his own inability to assist him by advice or personal co-operation. All he could do was to promise to maintain his own government in Ireland, and to write excellent -admonitory letters to his mischievously " compliant " brother-in- law Fleetwood. He had no self-confidence, and his very absence of personal ambition and dislike of arbitrary measures and blood- -shed made him untrue to his adherents and his own cause when the crisis came. He succumbed tamely to the Republicans when his brother was deposed ; and his conduct on the eve of the Restoration, if personally dignified, was deficient in duty to his cesponsibilities as a trustee and centre of power for the " Good 'Old Cause." In his fall, England lost a wise and right-minded administrator, but hardly a great statesman.
The serious and repeated illnesses of Thurloe, the best in- -formed of Oliver's old advisers, in the very crisis of the situation, -accelerated the downfall of Richard. One moment's breathless 'calm and quiet acquiescence in his government had followed his accession ; but this was rather because his enemies of all parties .expected the Government to fall of itself with the death of the Protector Oliver. But when it remained erect and unassailed, -there was a disposition to exaggerate its strength, and to rejoice in its unexpected persistency. That would have been the moment for the personal action of the new Protector. But it was lost, and when he did act, it was not by balancing contending parties, and so becoming the master of the position ; but by resorting to -successive and conflicting lines of policy, which roused all parties against him, and disheartened and disarmed his friends. He allowed the Parliament to curtail his powers, to lower his authority, -and then to alienate and irritate to the utmost the Army and the -officers. He then dissolved the Parliament at the dictation of the -officers, and then, deserted by all parties alike, wee himself deposed -without a struggle, unless we call that a struggle which consisted in the menace of his continued residence (notwithstanding the orders -of Parliament) in the royal palaces. He fell, not because he did not see what ought to be done, but because he did it too late, and at the wrong moment. Had he interposed sooner with the Parliament in behalf of the Army, the Army would have afterwards supported him even against its own officers, if the appeal had been made to them in the name of their old General. Even at the last, had he boldly resumed his authority on the quarrel of the Army with the restored Long Parliament, and issued writs for a new Parlia- ment, pledging himself to the officers to defend their just interests -as well as the common public cause, they would have probably -acquiesced, and the nation would have welcomed and supported him. But such was not to be the case with "idle Dick Cromwell," and he retired into private life, once again to reappear in our State Tapers as the willing head of a conspiracy for his restoration, during the angry state of public opinion caused by the humilia- tions of the Dutch war, and to disappoint even that doubtful .opening of fortune by his dilatory inaction ; and once again in Westminster Hall, as a suitor against his own daughters. The suit was a just one, but it proved most painfully that the kind- hearted old country gentleman had no moral control over his own household, and finally had forfeited the respect of his own children.
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