CROMWELL AND LESLEY. 413 Scottish camp, and the army descending towards the river. Cromwell said to the major-general, who was standing by him: 'God is delivering them into our hands; they are coming down.' Lambert immediately replied that he was about to make the same remark. 'So it pleased the Lord,' writes Cromwell, to set this apprehension upon both our hearts at the same instant.' They called for Colonel Monk, and showed him what was taking place, and he likewise agreed with them. When they returned to the quarters at night, they set the case before the other officers, who all cheerfully concurred. The plan of battle was forthwith resolved upon for the following day before dawn. "The night was wet and stormy. Many prayers were raised to God in the English tents, and every one prepared himself for the conflict. About four o'clock the first order came out to mount and march. As Major Hodgson was riding along in the dark, he heard a cornet praying. It was a company of Christian men worshipping under the void heaven before battle. The major, giving his charge to a brother officer, turned aside to listen for a minute, and worship along with them. The cornet prayed with such unction that he imparted strength to every one who heard him. "And now the battle began, the English word being The Lord of Hosts, and that of the Scots, The Covenant. Before the foot could come up, the enemy made a gallant resistance, and there was a very sharp struggle at the sword's point between the Scotch and the English horse. The first English foot, after they had discharged their duty, being overpowered by the enemy, received a slight check, but soon recovered. Cromwell's own regiment came up very seasonably, and by push of pike repelled the stoutest regiment the enemy had there. In the mean time the cavalry with great courage and spirit beat back all opposition, charging through the bodies of the enemy's horse and foot, 'who were, after the first repulse given, made by the Lord of Hosts as stubble to their swords,' wrote Cromwell. Some of the Scotch horsemen fled towards Copperspath, but most across their own foot; and their whole army being thrown into confusion, it became a total rout. Above three thousand were killed on the spot. When the charge succeeded, Oliver was heard to exclaim: 'They run! I profess they run!' Just then the first beams of the sun burst over the ocean. Looking to its bright orb, Oliver said in David's words: "Let God arise, and scattered Let all His enemies be; And let all those that do Him hate Thus, on the field of battle was raised a hymn of thanksgiving to the Lord of Hosts. The chase was immediately resumed; the English having the execution of the Scots for nearly eight miles. They took 10,000 prisoners. This was one of Cromwell's most important victories: it placed Scotland at his feet." And has the present age nothing to learn from the true causes which introduced that terrible catastrophe, the ruin of the Stuart dynasty? The same spirit is now rampant in our native country, and, unless put down, will lead to perils incalculable. "When Charles I. sought a French wife," says the historian of the Reformation, "he sought also a new policy. Henrietta brought to the court of England the manners, amusements, and spirit of France. Nor was that all: she desired also to give it a king after the French model. That was the main point. The monarch was to become a sort of deity placed on a lofty pedestal, and the people, crowding around its base, were to fall down, admire, and worship. Charles earnestly applied to the task, and some of his first exploits were, as we have seen, to silence the representatives of the people, to levy taxes forbidden by the Commons, and to govern without a parliament. He would, indeed, have allowed a few petitions-very humble petitions; but that was all. There must be no opposition. There must be in England, as in France, but one will. Magna Charta was banished to the State-paper office, and the barons found a master. Absolutism had ascended the English throne. The esta "Thus it was a real revolution which Charles I. undertook to effect; and the English people, by opposing it, opposed a revolt against the oldest institutions of the country. The Cavaliers were the revolutionists, the Roundheads the conservatives. blishment of the democratical system was a necessary reaction against the invasion of the absolute system. The founder of the English republic was not Cromwell, but in reality Charles the First. "Not only liberty, but nationality also was at stake. The Cavaliers were Versailles courtiers with British faces and an English tongue. The Roundheads were good, honest old Englishmen. Charles's efforts to establish Richelieu's system in England were a French invasion, which, if it had succeeded, would have been far more disastrous than that of William the Conqueror. The arms of the English were more successful in the seventeenth century than Harold's had been. There was not then a battle of Hastings, but there was, alas! a battle of Whitehall; and in this struggle also a king perished. The king of Hastings contended with his people against the foreigner; the king of Whitehall fought with the foreigner against his own people. The result of the one was CROMWELL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 415 the subjugation of England; of the other, its deliverance. The contest which ruined the Stuarts was the defeat of modern despotism, of the French spirit, and of the Papal supremacy. The onset of absolutism awoke English liberty, which lay sleeping, and which would have slept longer still, and all Europe with it. But this violent blow aroused her she rose, she stood erect, as she is to this day, and will remain so, Deo juvante, until the end of time. : "The Protector's ruling passion was religious liberty, and its establishment was his work. Among all the men of past ages, and even of the times present, there is not one who has done so much as he in this cause. It has almost triumphed in every Protestant nation; its great victory is yet to come among those which profess the Romish creed: and, under God, it is to Cromwell in particular that men's consciences are beholden. "It frequently happens that those who advocate liberty when they are in opposition, no sooner attain power than they employ it to oppress the freedom of others. It was not thus that Oliver acted. "The Protector realized in his life that wide catholicity which he expressed in his public speeches. He was a Protestant Christian, but did not join himself to any party. Although an Independent by principle, he thought that all the reformed churches were part of the Catholic Church, and he looked with equal favour upon Independents, Presbyterians, and Baptists: his chaplains belonged to these several denominations. “He had, indeed, other passions not less noble than that of religious liberty. The greatness, prosperity, and glory of England was a no less potent necessity in him, and he worthily acted up to it. He said one day in council: 'I hope to make the name of an Englishman as great as ever that of a Roman has been.' And in effect he so augmented the general resources and maritime power of the nation, that he procured for it a more extensive European celebrity and influence than it had ever possessed under any of its kings. "The army was subjected to an admirable moral discipline, which, with the piety that animated most of the officers and soldiers, concurred in keeping up a purity of manners till then unknown, especially in the garrison and in the camp. "The same morality prevailed at the Protector's court. Everything was becoming and honourable; everything in strong contrast with the levity and debauchery that surrounded the unfortunate son of Charles I. in a foreign country, and of which the Catholic court of France ere long presented so deplorable an example. "Cromwell's court was free from vice,' says Doctor Harris. 'All there had an air of sobriety and decency; nothing of riot or debauch was seen or heard of.' "The moral purity which distinguished the epoch of the Protectorate is a fact of great importance. We are here, in truth, called upon to apply the rule given in the Word of God: Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. When unbelievers and libertines pronounce for the reign of Charles II.,—a reign characterized by great public licentiousness, and against the Commonwealth, so remarkable for its Christian virtues, we can easily understand them. But when moral and religious people do the same, we are at a loss to account for their motives. "The superior morality which characterized England in the time of Cromwell showed itself abroad by incontestable proofs. "The English nation, which, under the first two Stuarts, foreigners had begun to regard as pusillanimous, suddenly displayed the most striking valour both by land and sea. Freedom and piety, equally dear both to the soldiers and sailors, gave them fresh energy, and urged them on to fight everywhere, as if in defence of the most sacred rights. 'His maintaining the honour of the nation in all foreign countries,' says Burnet, gratified the vanity which is very natural to Englishmen. He was so very careful of it, that though he was not a crowned head, yet his ambassadors had all the respects paid them which our kings' ambassadors ever had'1 6 "We shall not recount all the high deeds of arms by which England gave token to the world of the renewal of her power. We are not writing a history of Great Britain. The victories gained over Holland by the English fleets under the command of Blake and Monk; the gallant Van Tromp, shot to the heart with a musket bullet, and his shattered fleet escaping in disorder to the Texel; Cromwell in person reading to parliament the account of these victories, and proposing a national recompense to the successful admirals; the United Provinces acknowledging the supremacy of the British flag, making to the English a tardy reparation for old injuries, and even excluding the house of Orange from the stadtholdership, because of its alliance with the Stuarts; Spain the first to come forward and do homage to the Protector, and even urging him openly to seize upon the crown of England,-a flattery to which his only reply was a disdainful silence; Portugal, France, the elector of Brandenburg, at that time almost unknown in Europe, all the other states, and even Christina of Sweden, then 1 Burnet's Own Times, i. 113. GRANDEUR OF CROMWELL'S POLICY. 417 on her way to Rome, laying at the feet of Britain and of her chief the tribute of their respect and admiration; the fleets of Spain beaten again and again; the viceroy of Mexico, surrounded with his treasures, expiring on the deck of his burning ship; millions of ingots of gold carried to London as a monument of triumph; other ships and other galleons bringing fresh treasures from the New World, burned and sunk a second time in the Bay of Teneriffe ; Gibraltar attracting the eagle eye of the Protector—'the town and castle of Gibraltar, if possessed and made tenable by us, would be both an advantage to our trade and an annoyance to the Spaniard ;' -these are some of the facts which show how the Protector exalted and maintained in the sight of the foreigner the might and the glory of England. "The admiration was general. 'Cromwell,' says an historian, 'appeared like a blazing star, raised up by Providence to exalt this nation to a distinguished pitch of glory, and to strike terror into the rest of Europe.' "France and Spain contended for his alliance; he did not hesitate, and united with France. The treaty was signed on the 23rd of October, 1655. Such were the respect and fear then inspired by England, that in this treaty he assumed among his other titles that of Protector of the kingdom of France; and his name preceded Louis the Fourteenth's, who was allowed tos tyle himself merely king of the French. "Cromwell was the great obstacle which in the seventeenth century, that epoch of the victories of Rome, opposed in the world the encroachments of Popery. It was his sincere belief that in this power he saw the influence of the Prince of this world, and he thought it his duty to obey the apostolic precept: Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James iv. 7.) "While the Protector made war upon Spain, he was in reality fighting against Rome. This he did in England most essentially by the development of the evangelical spirit. But he disdained not to cause her other alarms, and took advantage of every opportunity to make her sensible of his power. Admiral Blake was sent with a fleet into the Mediterranean to obtain satisfaction from the bey of Tunis for the losses of the British merchants from Turkish pirates. He sailed right into the harbour, and though the shore was planted with heavy guns, he burned nine of the Turkish vessels, and brought the tyrant to reason. But he did not confine himself to this mission: he spread the terror of the English name over allItaly, even to Rome itself. The alarmed citizens, every moment fearfully expecting the arrival of Blake and his twenty-four ships, hastily put Civita Vecchia in a state of defence. At the same time |