Cromwell's Experiments in Government (1654-1658)

Cromwell tried a great many ways of governing England, but he did not succeed very well with any of them. He got rid of the Rump Parliament in 1653, and substituted for it the Bare-bones Parliament in the same year. But that experiment failed, and he accepted the constitution of 1654, the Instrument of Government, and tried to work with a parliament elected under the provisions of that constitution. But this parliament, composed mostly of Presbyterians and moderate Independents, insisted on amending the constitution ; whereas Cromwell felt that it was their business, not to waste time talking about a new constitution, but to govern England as well as possible with the constitution they already possessed. The time was critical, because the Levellers, or extreme republicans, were ready to combine with the royalists in overthrowing the protectorate. Therefore, in January, 1655, Cromwell dismissed parliament,' and until September, 1656, governed without it, but in strict accord with the constitution. He overthrew one leveller insurrection in February, 1655, and two royalist movements in March of the same year.

For greater security he divided England into twelve military districts, and in November, 1655, placed each under the administration of a major-general. It was the duty of these men (1) to prevent uprisings, disarm Roman Catholics, and confiscate weapons; (2) to levy a ten per cent tax; (3) to stop horse-racing and gambling, and to check swearing and drunkenness; (4) to execute the poor laws and compel the idle to work ; (5) to register all householders, and to know what every suspected person was doing; (6) and to license taverns and ale-houses. The system proved very efficient, but was hated by the English people, because it represented the rule of the army. In fact, before the rule of the major-generals was half over, England was ready to return to constitutional government, and the cause of monarchy found many new supporters.

Need of money compelled Cromwell to call another parliament, in January, 1657 ; and in return for a grant of supplies he consented to abolish the office of the major-generals. Taking advantage of this opportunity, certain merchants and lawyers, opponents of the army, succeeded in passing a bill, asking Cromwell to accept a new constitution and to assume the name and office of king.' This request was embodied in what is known as the Humble Petition and Advice. Cromwell rejected the royal title, but accepted the new constitution, and in so doing helped to bring England back to the form of government which she had had before. 1649. Between 1649 and 1657 England had been governed by a legislative body consisting of only one chamber; but the new scheme provided for two; an upper and a lower house. In forming the upper house, Cromwell called about forty of his chief supporters from the lower house, and so weakened his party there as to throw the control of affairs into the hands of his leading republican opponents. The two houses came at once into conflict over the question as to whether or not the upper house should be called a House of Lords; and Cromwell, growing angry because of the dispute, put an end to the parliament, on February 4, 1658. "Let God be judge between you and me," he said, and the defiant republicans responded, "Amen."

This was the last of the Protector's experiments in constitutional government. Had he lived, he undoubtedly would have persevered in the attempt to establish a stable government. But his end was near. On September 3, 1658, the anniversary of Dunbar and Worcester, he died, worn out with anxiety, care, and family affliction.

Cromwell's Place in History

The work of Cromwell was finished. By his genius as a soldier, he had checked the absolutism of the Stuarts and had brought England, a compact and united state, out of the dangers of the civil war. By his vigor as a statesman, he had raised England's prestige abroad and had prepared the way for the greater England that was to come. At home he had fought for liberty of conscience, had set before the people a high standard of morals and justice, and had effected a union of Scotland and Ireland with England. In these three particulars his ideals found little support in the reaction that followed, though they were destined to become in the end a part of England's inheritance.

But Cromwell cannot be called a great statesman, because he did not consistently plan for the future, and because he did not adapt his government to the wishes of the people of all England.

He believed that power should lie in the hands of the “godly men," whose duty it was to rule for the good of the people. He was, therefore, always the leader of a minority, never of England as a whole. His experiments in constitutional government were a failure, because they were made in the interest of the Puritan party and never of the nation. When, therefore, after his death, the people had an opportunity of expressing their, opinion in the election of a parliament, they voted for the overthrow of the system of government that he had tried so carefully to establish.

The Restoration of the Stuarts

Cromwell's eldest son, Richard, succeeded his father as Protector. But he was wholly incompetent to meet the difficult situation; and in May, 1659, the army officers united with the extreme republicans and forced him to abdicate. In the same month the soldiers restored the Rump Parliament, the only body that seemed to possess any constitutional character. But this body at once came into conflict with the army that restored it, and the confusion became so great that no one knew where to turn for safety and the preservation of order. In December, General Monk, who commanded the army in Scotland, took matters into his own hands, and having marched to London, forced the Rump Parliament to admit again the Presbyterian members whom Pride had driven out in 1648. He then demanded that this restored parliament should vote its own dissolution and issue writs for the summoning of a convention, the members of which were to be fairly and freely elected by all who had the right to vote. Thus Monk not only saved England from anarchy and possibly a third civil war, but he made it possible for the kingdom to return peaceably to constitutional government.

Each step thus far taken since 1657 had brought England nearer the constitutional system rejected in 1649, and only the monarchy and the Stuarts needed to be restored to make the old system, to all outward appearances, complete. With Prince Charles, Monk was already negotiating; for he knew, as the majority of Englishmen knew, that the return of Charles as king of England was now inevitable. In a declaration issued from Breda, April 4, 1660, Charles promised pardon, liberty of conscience, and freedom from all confiscation of property; and in May the Convention, which had been duly elected, invited him to return to England. On May 25, 1660, Charles landed at Dover and immediately entered on his reign. To all appearances England was accepting once more the system of government that had been established by the Long Parliament in 1641.

Character of the Reign of Charles II

Though Charles was now king of England, his position was very different from that occupied by his father and grandfather. He had been placed on the throne by the nation, not by a party; and during the twenty years preceding his accession the nation had learned many lessons regarding kings. It was evident that the English people would no longer tolerate a personal rule, or levies of ship money and other arbitrary measures. The middle classes; merchants, lawyers, inhabitants of towns and boroughs,

had taken part in a successful revolution. They had measured their strength with a king in civil war, and had made experiments in the drafting of constitutions that had taught them many lessons as to what they could and could not do. Voluntarily they had called a Stuart to rule over them; but they were determined that he should reign in no other way than according to the constitution as it had been shaped by the important reforms of 1641.

In fact, the revolution had not yet ended, for the question as to whether the sovereign power lay in the king or in the representatives of the nation had not been settled. The people had been frightened by the despotic rule of Cromwell's army, by the anarchy in government that followed Cromwell's death, and by the apparent overthrow of the old constitution. To escape anarchy, they welcomed Charles II as their king; but should he prove to be as blind and obstinate as his father had been, they were prepared to depose him also.

CHARLES II.

From a photograph of a painting by Mrs. Beals.

The restoration, therefore, represents only a compromise, and the entire reign of Charles II was politically only an experiment made to prove whether or not a Stuart could be a constitutional king. By tact and shrewdness Charles II was able to play off one party against another and to keep his throne. The second revolution did not take place until a second restored Stuart, James II, by blindly and obstinately disregarding the law of the constitution and the wishes of the nation, made a continuation of the struggle inevitable.