Historical and Political Notes on the Life of Oliver Cromwell

the most ferocious had fallen in battle, or through the most atrocious inquiry or proscription: as for the rest of the nobility, the more prompt one was in servitude, elated by wealth and honors, and increased by new affairs, the more he followed safe and present things rather than ancient and dangerous ones. Furthermore, with the people conniving—naturally suspicious of the Senate's rule due to the struggles of the powerful, and because of the weak aid of laws which were disturbed by force, bribery, and finally money and corruption—having foreseen all these things and arranged the order of events, he greedily converted what chance offered into wisdom, nor was he lacking when fortune offered itself. But with an army of at least twelve thousand, prompt to the extreme and living by his nod, he entered London in the month of December in the year 1653. By surrounding the parliament house with soldiers, he instilled such a Panic terror that he removed Harrison original: "Horriſonium" with certain followers suspected by him under various names from the number and consultation of Parliament with armed force with impunity, and immediately substituted other tribunes and leaders of known military ferocity at his whim. Having thus ordered the Parliament from those who were favorers, and those who were liable due to benefits and offenses, he extorted the Protectorate while no one resisted. Conducted into the palace with more than royal pomp, he received everything exhausted by discord into an Empire under the sweet name of Protector; and he confirmed the heads of said Protectorate by an Oath (which was at his disposal, as it transferred royal power). Which being done, he immediately dissolved the kingdom's senate, which would be of no use to him in the future with all power transferred to himself, and delayed their assembly until September of the following year. During which space of time, the royalist parties having been destroyed to the point of annihilation, and those to whom this recent power was hateful and were contemplating a plan according to the situation having been either removed under various pretexts or terrified by fear, with the most faithful obedience of the army added, he laid such firm foundations of his Dominion that he afterwards always eluded parliaments at his whim and ruled more licentiously than any King. Thus established on this height, as if from a watchtower, he looked down upon the emotions of the surrounding kingdoms. And he was anxiously concerned to contain the various revolutions of minds and the tides of hope and fear of those newly subjugated and not yet sufficiently accustomed to the fresh yoke within the prisons of obedience. From the beginning, the envy and jealousy of mortals, looking at one another with harsher eyes, rendered him more secure. For human kind is so hostile to itself that it does not rescue anyone from danger unless it pursues the attacker with envy. Nor is the cause of justice and equity itself so powerful as to force anyone to bring aid to the oppressed, and take them out of the lot of the miserable, unless it accompanies the invader. Or is assumed into a share of the booty. Certainly, later histories testify that no deed is any longer so dire that, by the nature of its atrocity, it exposes any mortal to vengeance through the public hatred of men; he became bolder because he saw that not only kings, whose name he had nonetheless profaned with such brutality, had not flared into anger, but, beyond that, they had rushed voluntarily to treaties and friendships, forgiving the greatest crimes for the sake of utility and emulation. Freed from the care and fear of outsiders, he applied his concern to where, secure from his subjects, he might stabilize the foundations of a Dominion not yet complete in all respects. And since he was taught by experience that men do not conduct themselves rightly unless they are compelled by some necessity, and convincing himself that he needed a standing army, he strained every nerve on how he might impose it on his Britons without weariness. He found no more convenient means for this than an external war. For he flattered himself that not only would they become more patient in tolerating tributes due to the fear of outsiders; but also that those whose minds were inflated with pride and ferocity would have a field of virtue outside the fatherland. Or finally, that the Republic would be purged of the insolent, the impatient of laws, the idle, and the turbulent, as if of dross and waste. From which source (whatever causes are gathered from everywhere, among which I place principles, occasions, and pretexts) the war with the allied Belgium flowed. For with an eye turned askew, as it were, the English had long looked into the trade of Belgium, and had been rivals in the dominion of the sea: which occasion having been seized, he engaged his Britons against the Belgians, who were not unwilling. And since things were not proceeding sufficiently according to his desire, and there was a lurking fear that both, imbued with the same religion and suckled by the appearance of liberty, might associate their counsels in a sweet conspiracy, he settled it with a glorious peace. Then, with treaties and friendships connected under any condition, he moved France—from whom, due to proximity and the kinship of the murdered King, the greatest fear arose—to take up arms against the Spaniard, who deserved no such thing, by showing his Britons the hope of profit and golden mountains (but situated in another world), not without the mark of violated faith.