concealed several days. Then he escaped to Heale, near Salisbury;
where, in the house of a widow lady, he was hidden five days, until
the master of a collier lying off Shoreham in Sussex, undertook to
convey a 'gentleman' to France. On the night of the fifteenth of
October, accompanied by two colonels and a merchant, the King rode
to Brighton, then a little fishing village, to give the captain of
the ship a supper before going on board; but, so many people knew
him, that this captain knew him too, and not only he, but the
landlord and landlady also. Before he went away, the landlord came
behind his chair, kissed his hand, and said he hoped to live to be
a lord and to see his wife a lady; at which Charles laughed. They
had had a good supper by this time, and plenty of smoking and
drinking, at which the King was a first-rate hand; so, the captain
assured him that he would stand by him, and he did. It was agreed
that the captain should pretend to sail to Deal, and that Charles
should address the sailors and say he was a gentleman in debt who
was running away from his creditors, and that he hoped they would
join him in persuading the captain to put him ashore in France. As
the King acted his part very well indeed, and gave the sailors
twenty shillings to drink, they begged the captain to do what such
a worthy gentleman asked. He pretended to yield to their
entreaties, and the King got safe to Normandy.
Ireland being now subdued, and Scotland kept quiet by plenty of
forts and soldiers put there by Oliver, the Parliament would have
gone on quietly enough, as far as fighting with any foreign enemy
went, but for getting into trouble with the Dutch, who in the
spring of the year one thousand six hundred and fifty-one sent a
fleet into the Downs under their ADMIRAL VAN TROMP, to call upon
the bold English ADMIRAL BLAKE (who was there with half as many
ships as the Dutch) to strike his flag. Blake fired a raging
broadside instead, and beat off Van Tromp; who, in the autumn, came
back again with seventy ships, and challenged the bold Blake - who
still was only half as strong - to fight him. Blake fought him all
day; but, finding that the Dutch were too many for him, got quietly
off at night. What does Van Tromp upon this, but goes cruising and
Page 221
Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England
boasting about the Channel, between the North Foreland and the Isle
of Wight, with a great Dutch broom tied to his masthead, as a sign
that he could and would sweep the English of the sea! Within three
months, Blake lowered his tone though, and his broom too; for, he
and two other bold commanders, DEAN and MONK, fought him three
whole days, took twenty-three of his ships, shivered his broom to
pieces, and settled his business.
Things were no sooner quiet again, than the army began to complain
to the Parliament that they were not governing the nation properly,
and to hint that they thought they could do it better themselves.
Oliver, who had now made up his mind to be the head of the state,
or nothing at all, supported them in this, and called a meeting of
officers and his own Parliamentary friends, at his lodgings in
Whitehall, to consider the best way of getting rid of the
Parliament. It had now lasted just as many years as the King's
unbridled power had lasted, before it came into existence. The end
of the deliberation was, that Oliver went down to the House in his
usual plain black dress, with his usual grey worsted stockings, but
with an unusual party of soldiers behind him. These last he left
in the lobby, and then went in and sat down. Presently he got up,
made the Parliament a speech, told them that the Lord had done with
them, stamped his foot and said, 'You are no Parliament. Bring
them in! Bring them in!' At this signal the door flew open, and
the soldiers appeared. 'This is not honest,' said Sir Harry Vane,
one of the members. 'Sir Harry Vane!' cried Cromwell; 'O, Sir
Harry Vane! The Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane!' Then he
pointed out members one by one, and said this man was a drunkard,
and that man a dissipated fellow, and that man a liar, and so on.
Then he caused the Speaker to be walked out of his chair, told the
guard to clear the House, called the mace upon the table - which is
a sign that the House is sitting - 'a fool's bauble,' and said,
'here, carry it away!' Being obeyed in all these orders, he
quietly locked the door, put the key in his pocket, walked back to
Whitehall again, and told his friends, who were still assembled
there, what he had done.
They formed a new Council of State after this extraordinary
proceeding, and got a new Parliament together in their own way:
which Oliver himself opened in a sort of sermon, and which he said
was the beginning of a perfect heaven upon earth. In this
Parliament there sat a well-known leather-seller, who had taken the
singular name of Praise God Barebones, and from whom it was called,
for a joke, Barebones's Parliament, though its general name was the
Little Parliament. As it soon appeared that it was not going to
put Oliver in the first place, it turned out to be not at all like
the beginning of heaven upon earth, and Oliver said it really was
not to be borne with. So he cleared off that Parliament in much
the same way as he had disposed of the other; and then the council
of officers decided that he must be made the supreme authority of
the kingdom, under the title of the Lord Protector of the
Commonwealth.
So, on the sixteenth of December, one thousand six hundred and
fifty-three, a great procession was formed at Oliver's door, and he
came out in a black velvet suit and a big pair of boots, and got
into his coach and went down to Westminster, attended by the
judges, and the lord mayor, and the aldermen, and all the other
great and wonderful personages of the country. There, in the Court
of Chancery, he publicly accepted the office of Lord Protector.
Then he was sworn, and the City sword was handed to him, and the
seal was handed to him, and all the other things were handed to him
which are usually handed to Kings and Queens on state occasions.
When Oliver had handed them all back, he was quite made and
Page 222
Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England
completely finished off as Lord Protector; and several of the
Ironsides preached about it at great length, all the evening.
SECOND PART
OLIVER CROMWELL - whom the people long called OLD NOLL - in
accepting the office of Protector, had bound himself by a certain
paper which was handed to him, called 'the Instrument,' to summon a
Parliament, consisting of between four and five hundred members, in
the election of which neither the Royalists nor the Catholics were
to have any share. He had also pledged himself that this
Parliament should not be dissolved without its own consent until it
had sat five months.
When this Parliament met, Olive
r made a speech to them of three
hours long, very wisely advising them what to do for the credit and
happiness of the country. To keep down the more violent members,
he required them to sign a recognition of what they were forbidden
by 'the Instrument' to do; which was, chiefly, to take the power
from one single person at the head of the state or to command the
army. Then he dismissed them to go to work. With his usual vigour
and resolution he went to work himself with some frantic preachers
- who were rather overdoing their sermons in calling him a villain
and a tyrant - by shutting up their chapels, and sending a few of
them off to prison.
There was not at that time, in England or anywhere else, a man so
able to govern the country as Oliver Cromwell. Although he ruled
with a strong hand, and levied a very heavy tax on the Royalists
(but not until they had plotted against his life), he ruled wisely,
and as the times required. He caused England to be so respected
abroad, that I wish some lords and gentlemen who have governed it
under kings and queens in later days would have taken a leaf out of
Oliver Cromwell's book. He sent bold Admiral Blake to the
Mediterranean Sea, to make the Duke of Tuscany pay sixty thousand
pounds for injuries he had done to British subjects, and spoliation
he had committed on English merchants. He further despatched him
and his fleet to Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, to have every English
ship and every English man delivered up to him that had been taken
by pirates in those parts. All this was gloriously done; and it
began to be thoroughly well known, all over the world, that England
was governed by a man in earnest, who would not allow the English
name to be insulted or slighted anywhere.
These were not all his foreign triumphs. He sent a fleet to sea
against the Dutch; and the two powers, each with one hundred ships
upon its side, met in the English Channel off the North Foreland,
where the fight lasted all day long. Dean was killed in this
fight; but Monk, who commanded in the same ship with him, threw his
cloak over his body, that the sailors might not know of his death,
and be disheartened. Nor were they. The English broadsides so
exceedingly astonished the Dutch that they sheered off at last,
though the redoubtable Van Tromp fired upon them with his own guns
for deserting their flag. Soon afterwards, the two fleets engaged
again, off the coast of Holland. There, the valiant Van Tromp was
shot through the heart, and the Dutch gave in, and peace was made.
Further than this, Oliver resolved not to bear the domineering and
bigoted conduct of Spain, which country not only claimed a right to
all the gold and silver that could be found in South America, and
treated the ships of all other countries who visited those regions,
as pirates, but put English subjects into the horrible Spanish
Page 223
Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England
prisons of the Inquisition. So, Oliver told the Spanish ambassador
that English ships must be free to go wherever they would, and that
English merchants must not be thrown into those same dungeons, no,
not for the pleasure of all the priests in Spain. To this, the
Spanish ambassador replied that the gold and silver country, and
the Holy Inquisition, were his King's two eyes, neither of which he
could submit to have put out. Very well, said Oliver, then he was
afraid he (Oliver) must damage those two eyes directly.
So, another fleet was despatched under two commanders, PENN and
VENABLES, for Hispaniola; where, however, the Spaniards got the
better of the fight. Consequently, the fleet came home again,
after taking Jamaica on the way. Oliver, indignant with the two
commanders who had not done what bold Admiral Blake would have
done, clapped them both into prison, declared war against Spain,
and made a treaty with France, in virtue of which it was to shelter
the King and his brother the Duke of York no longer. Then, he sent
a fleet abroad under bold Admiral Blake, which brought the King of
Portugal to his senses - just to keep its hand in - and then
engaged a Spanish fleet, sunk four great ships, and took two more,
laden with silver to the value of two millions of pounds: which
dazzling prize was brought from Portsmouth to London in waggons,
with the populace of all the towns and villages through which the
waggons passed, shouting with all their might. After this victory,
bold Admiral Blake sailed away to the port of Santa Cruz to cut off
the Spanish treasure-ships coming from Mexico. There, he found
them, ten in number, with seven others to take care of them, and a
big castle, and seven batteries, all roaring and blazing away at
him with great guns. Blake cared no more for great guns than for
pop-guns - no more for their hot iron balls than for snow-balls.
He dashed into the harbour, captured and burnt every one of the
ships, and came sailing out again triumphantly, with the victorious
English flag flying at his masthead. This was the last triumph of
this great commander, who had sailed and fought until he was quite
worn out. He died, as his successful ship was coming into Plymouth
Harbour amidst the joyful acclamations of the people, and was
buried in state in Westminster Abbey. Not to lie there, long.
Over and above all this, Oliver found that the VAUDOIS, or
Protestant people of the valleys of Lucerne, were insolently
treated by the Catholic powers, and were even put to death for
their religion, in an audacious and bloody manner. Instantly, he
informed those powers that this was a thing which Protestant
England would not allow; and he speedily carried his point, through
the might of his great name, and established their right to worship
God in peace after their own harmless manner.
Lastly, his English army won such admiration in fighting with the
French against the Spaniards, that, after they had assaulted the
town of Dunkirk together, the French King in person gave it up to
the English, that it might be a token to them of their might and
valour.
There were plots enough against Oliver among the frantic
religionists (who called themselves Fifth Monarchy Men), and among
the disappointed Republicans. He had a difficult game to play, for
the Royalists were always ready to side with either party against
him. The 'King over the water,' too, as Charles was called, had no
scruples about plotting with any one against his life; although
there is reason to suppose that he would willingly have married one
of his daughters, if Oliver would have had such a son-in-law.
There was a certain COLONEL SAXBY of the army, once a great
supporter of Oliver's but now turned against him, who was a
grievous trouble to him through all this part of his career; and
Page 224
Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England
who came and went between the discontented in England and Spain,
and Charles who put himself in alliance with Spain on being thr
own
off by France. This man died in prison at last; but not until
there had been very serious plots between the Royalists and
Republicans, and an actual rising of them in England, when they
burst into the city of Salisbury, on a Sunday night, seized the
judges who were going to hold the assizes there next day, and would
have hanged them but for the merciful objections of the more
temperate of their number. Oliver was so vigorous and shrewd that
he soon put this revolt down, as he did most other conspiracies;
and it was well for one of its chief managers - that same Lord
Wilmot who had assisted in Charles's flight, and was now EARL OF
ROCHESTER - that he made his escape. Oliver seemed to have eyes
and ears everywhere, and secured such sources of information as his
enemies little dreamed of. There was a chosen body of six persons,
called the Sealed Knot, who were in the closest and most secret
confidence of Charles. One of the foremost of these very men, a
SIR RICHARD WILLIS, reported to Oliver everything that passed among
them, and had two hundred a year for it.
MILES SYNDARCOMB, also of the old army, was another conspirator
against the Protector. He and a man named CECIL, bribed one of his
Life Guards to let them have good notice when he was going out -
intending to shoot him from a window. But, owing either to his
caution or his good fortune, they could never get an aim at him.
Disappointed in this design, they got into the chapel in Whitehall,
with a basketful of combustibles, which were to explode by means of
a slow match in six hours; then, in the noise and confusion of the
fire, they hoped to kill Oliver. But, the Life Guardsman himself
disclosed this plot; and they were seized, and Miles died (or
killed himself in prison) a little while before he was ordered for
execution. A few such plotters Oliver caused to be beheaded, a few
more to be hanged, and many more, including those who rose in arms
against him, to be sent as slaves to the West Indies. If he were
rigid, he was impartial too, in asserting the laws of England.
When a Portuguese nobleman, the brother of the Portuguese
ambassador, killed a London citizen in mistake for another man with
whom he had had a quarrel, Oliver caused him to be tried before a
jury of Englishmen and foreigners, and had him executed in spite of
A Child's History of England Page 52
