MR. PALGRAVE'S "OLIVER CROMWELL." rTo THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—As no animosity against Cromwell inspired the investi- gation which led to the production of this book, and as to agree with the conclusions reached by its accomplished reviewer in the Spectator would give me pleasure, that happy accord might be attained if we could agree upon a harmonious interpretation of the words and acts of Cromwell and of his contemporaries.
For instance, the opinion that "government by Major- Generals " was the Protector's "invention," and that he subsequently " abandoned " that mode of government "in deference to their wishes," might be readily accepted had not Cromwell called upon the military party to bear witness that it was "you who thought it was necessary to have Major.
Generals," and had not the summons of Parliament been forced on him by the Major-Generals that they might by statute perpetuate their rule; had they not fought tooth and mail to get that Bill passed; and had not their endeavour been frustrated mainly by Cromwell's Parliamentary influence.
Again, Cromwell's refusal of the crown might justly be credited to his sympathy with "godly men of the same spirit" as the " Ironsides," if the memorable passage which the reviewer quotes had been Cromwell's last word on "King- ship." But having spoken thus in April, in the following May "H. H.," on two occasions, "was pleased to declare to several of the House that he was resolved to accept that title." Nor can Lambert, Fleetwood, and Disbrowe, whose interference at the last moment enforced Cromwell's abstention, be reckoned among the "godly," for the "three great ones" were the leaders of that military junto who merited Cromwell's sneer that "time was" when they "boggled not at the word King.' "
To publish a book which does " belittle " the "great chief" of my brother's "Visions," or a great chief in anybody's vision, was to me an ungrateful business : "the pity of it" would have restrained me altogether, had not the whole history of the Protectorate turned on Cromwell's conduct, especially on those plots which, as the Venetian Ambassador remarked, the Government so often invented. In that belief lies the interpretation of the Protectorate history. Even if the Ambassador's remark was not fully justified, Cromwell's repeated declaration that his subjects slandered him, accused him falsely of creating "feigned necessities" "to persuade agreement and consent, and to draw money out of people's purses," shows how he had shrunk and dwindled in their esteem, and accounts for Mazarin's astounding proposal to furnish the man who had stamped victory all over the map of England, Scotland, and Ireland, with "eight thousand men" to keep down London, "for whose fidelity and zeal for your service he will answer."
To explain the fall of the Cromwell of Dunbar to the Crom- well of Whitehall was the sole object of my book ; and I kept strictly within my record, acknowledging that the Protector sought to do his beat for England, with no sordid motives nor "shallow hypocrisy."—I am, Sir, &c.,
REGn,TALD F. D. PA.LGRAVE.
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