Historical and Political Notes on the Life of Oliver Cromwell

...with increased stipends, they could hardly hope for greater, as if they were practicing warfare in leisure; he always held them so bound to him that they never refused any labor for stabilizing the Protector's power. To which, finally, by way of a finishing touch, he added that, whether maimed by chance or exhausted by old age and labors, they would at last pass their old age tranquilly at public expense. But that he seems to give from his own property is a cunning way of diverting to himself the grace that is owed to the Republic.

Ad §. XI.

He boasts with great words about having taken the helm of the kingdom at that time when no one sat at the steering oar of the Republic. But do you praise this, my Author? I thought your state was Aristocratic, and that the people enjoyed plenary liberty. But in an Aristocratic or popular state, does one man, and he alone, sit at the helm of the Republic, and does he drive it around at the whim of his own emotions, himself whirled around by a whirlwind of passions? I have heard that these are infallible signs of a Monarchical State; but I will easily concede that no one was more capable than Cromwell of changing it and transferring the kingdom to himself; however, by way of an addition, I will explain in very few words by what arts he ascended to such a height.

In human affairs, by a lamentable chance, with England as an example, there was a sad face of things everywhere: Britain was completely ablaze with hatreds, envy, emulation, and religious dissensions. For the Scots, exasperated, had elected the royal son as King themselves, and intending to expiate the betrayal with constant obedience into the bloody hands of the Protector, had openly taken up arms; the Irish, clinging with the greatest persistence to the royalist parties out of fear of religion, were both harassing the English as common enemies; England itself was split by diverse religions—the Independents, whose head was Cromwell; the Presbyterians, whose chief was Harrison Correcting "Horrifonius" to the historical figure Major-General Thomas Harrison.; and the old reformers, who were not unfavorable to the royalist faction—it seemed that the kingdom itself was distracted into as many parts. The common people, the populace, and the popular estate were murmuring and that the session and vote in the assemblies had been snatched away from them after the King (for the lower house, which consisted mostly of the tribes, had been entirely removed), all things toward...