The course of the Protectorate was by no means smooth; but by 1658 the prospect of the return of the monarchy was remote indeed, stability had re-appeared, prosperity was returning. With a spirit of compromise and goodwill, it could surely survive Cromwell’s death.  Had enough been done to reconcile old factions, was there a desire for compromise for the greater good?

 

Download Podcast - AAG 1654-1660 Protectorate and Restoration (Right Click and select Save Link As)

 

Transcript

 

Hello everyone and welcome back to the History of England at a Gallop, ****, which covers the story of the English Protectorate as described in episodes 419 to 431. You can use AAG to give yourself a framework for the detailed episodes that follow, if you so choose; or if you are not interested in the detail, that’s fine, AAG is also for you to just gallop through English history.

Last time on At A Gallop then, we heard the story of the English republic after the execution of the king for his crimes, a Republic based on the House of Commons, as the sole representative of the English people – not house of Lords, not any single person – king or president or whatever. We heard how the Republic foundered on a basic problem – a absence of a proper free election, for fear that the People in their Supremacy, would vote against the religious and moral reformation the Republic pursued, and vote instead for the return of the ancient constitution. We heard how when Cromwell tried to chivvy them along in to legitimate elections, dissolving them by force, the resulting wildly radical interim Barebones parliament was even worse. This lead the more sober and conservative MPs to ally with General John Lambert to mount a coup of their own. The result was one of the world’s first Constitutions, the Instruments of Government. Which brought  back the idea of a single person, a head of state – the Lord Protector.

This episode is about the efforts of the Protectorate to turn itself into the heart and foundation of the Commonwealth, the natural State to whom all would willingly owe their loyalty. It started in factional discord, which is not the ideal place to start. But it also started with an exceptional head of State – the first person since the mists of time to win that office entirely through his own efforts. Could he make the difference?

It is a common complaint that popular history these days assumes everything about the English revolution and republic was all about Cromwell. Well it wasn’t and you know that now if you didn’t before. But with the arrival of the Protectorate in 1654, it is at last permissible – Cromwell is indeed driving the bus. A new personal seal was made for him, which made great play of his Welsh roots, because he was very proud of being able to trace his ancestry back to ancient Welsh royal houses, through the Williams side of the family. He establishes a court, which oscillates between Hampton Court and Whitehall Palace, and it even looks a bit like a royal court. There are some differences. It was far cheaper, a fraction; Charles’ court had cost about £380,000, Cromwell’s cost £100,000; and that was despite a national budget three and a half times bigger than under Charles. Snooty royalists mocked Elizabeth Cromwell for her thrift and the Cromwell family for their lack of royal grandeur.

In addition, it was much less formal than the rigid protocol and hierarchy of Charles court. The Chamberlain lamented at the lack of enthusiasm at supper for sophisticated nosh – the lack of interest in what he described as French Quelque chose. Every week, Cromwell held a dinner for his Army generals, and when off duty he would pull up a few seats to share a pipe and favourite riddles & word plays with his confidentes, such as secretary of state John Thurloe, or Bulstrode Whitelocke. The Cromwell family loved music, and an organ was installed, there were dances and celebrations when the young Cromwells were married.

Cromwell was famously open to all, whatever their religious or political persuasion; he had a firm belief that talking could resolve differences. He struck up a close and enthusiastic friendship with the Catholic Kenhelm Digby, inventor of the wine bottle among other things; he also met several times with the founder of one of the most influential religious movements in English history – George Fox.

The Quaker movement was founded and expanded rapidly in the 1650s. It was not the quietist movement we know and admire these days; they were, in brief, a cussed lot, much given to causing outrage in the parish ‘steeple houses’ as they called them. But more to the point, these folks talked about an ‘inner light’ in all people; they denied the primacy of any doctrine including the Trinity. There were many who feared and hated them, and wanted them gone.

Cromwell disliked the uproar and discord the Quakers created; but he and the Independents held liberty of conscience dear. Under the Protectorate, then, although the BCP was officially banned, a blind eye was usually turned; the Presbyterian Directory of Worship was never imposed so in practice there was no national church. Even Catholics were not pursued in Britain – there were only a couple of executions for religious reasons, and they were made by the parliament, which was always less tolerant than the Protector. The experience we discussed in the last episode in Ireland may prompt a hollow laugh at that, and as we discussed despite Cromwell’s protestations that he had no argument with the ordinary Irish, only royalists and rebels, it would be foolish in the extreme to ignore his actions at Drogheda and Wexford, and the legion of English and Scottish military leaders who did indeed wreak vicious violence on the Irish, motivated by both racial and religious hatred.

Cromwell’s personal reputation for religious toleration was borne out by the note in John Evelyn’s diary in 1655

Now are the jews admitted

Cromwell had set up a parliamentary commission to consider the proposal, and there was a deal of support – some on the grounds that Christ’s second coming could not happen until the Jewish nation was converted. But parliament could not decide; and it was left to Cromwell to accept a Petition for Jews to live peacefully and worship ‘without fear of molestation’  and for the first Synagogue since 1290 to be set up in 1656 in Creechurch Street, London.

So, as Lord Protector in January 1654, what did Cromwell want? He would lay this out in his first parliament, which was held in September 1654. What Cromwell wanted was ‘healing and settling’. Cromwell wanted to give the people what they craved – peace, stability. To the disgust of Marxist historians, Cromwell was no social radical; he was in many ways an Elizabethan, who talked approving of

The ranks and orders of men, whereby England hath been known for hundreds of years: a nobleman, a gentleman a yeoman.

In the furtherance of this aim he would increasingly compromise political reform, with a gradual though partial return to the old politics of two houses. Part of the reason for that was that the immortal soul was immeasurably more important to him than constitutions; and to prepare for heaven, the Protectorate must promote moral probity; sober, responsible, support for the poor, and it must turn away from vice.

And before parliament could arrive, he and the council of state made hay, passing a veritable blizzard of practical, business like orders. Among these was Cromwell’s other Elizabethan dream; a grand protestant alliance and an empire of trade. The first step was peace with the Dutch, which had been made possible by the victories of Admirals Robert Blake and, less well known for his naval career, George Monck, before he became Governor of Scotland. Our Bulstrode was sent, grumbling and whining, to Sweden where he struck up a friendship with the famous Queen Christina and concluded a trade agreement. Over the next few years, the Protectorate went from strength to strength internationally; trade treaties were agreed with Denmark and Portugal as well. In 1656 Blake raided the slave traders of the Barbery coast and gained the release of English slaves held there, and in 1657 he carried out an audacious raid on the Canaries. A few months later he was dead, and given a magnificent state funeral.

Robert Blake has been described as one of the 3 greatest English admirals – Drake, Blake and Nelson. The republic invested in and expanded the English navy, Blake is credited with turning it into a professional force, with better disciplined, paid & supported sailors, clear regulations, a fresh command structure – and most of all, Captains trained to follow orders and strategy, rather than state sanctioned pirates out for the best prize they could find. But maybe the greatest compliment came from France. Mazarin saw that Cromwell had made the English a power to be feared and courted in France’s perpetual struggle with Spain, and sought an alliance. Cromwell extracted a prize; protection for the Waldensians in Savoy, which brought to a close the persecution which had seen 6000 massacred; and in addition join action against Spanish held Dunkirk. Dunkirk, and its nest, its nest of pirates, would become an English possession after an Anglo French siege in 1658. Vive l’entente cordiale!

All this talk of military glory, but we haven’t covered the Western design yet – so, watch this space.

Cromwell’s first Protectorate parliament opened with high hopes. Hopes that didn’t last long. Back into parliament came a large contingent of the irreconciled, the political radicals, who were furious at the end of the sole rule of the Commons. Principle among them was Arthur Haselrig, and he will fight for the Single Chamber republic tooth and nail. Now one job of the parliament was to confirm the constitution, the Instruments of Government. That was surely a rubber stamping exercise in Cromwell’s mind, afterall it had been imposed on him by Lambert and the Army. Well – not in Haselrig’s book it wasn’t. Slowly at first and with gathering pace the Radicals raised objection after objection about the instruments; at heart, they hated having an executive head of state; parliament should rule alone.

In this, they disagreed with one of the great thinkers of the age – if you will permit me a swift digression-ette for one of the great intellectual achievements of the Republic. Thomas Hobbes had been living in exile, but in 1651 he had a mind to return. To prepare the way, he put pen to paper because, as he wrote, his homeland was

Burning with the questions of the rights of rulers and the duties of subjects[1]

The book in question was Leviathan, one of the most famous works of political philosophy and 180 degrees in opposition to the likes of John Lilburne and the Levellers. He saw Cromwell’s arrival with great satisfaction; the rule of the people was for the fairies. Since every person’s inalienable right was to do everything required to preserve their own life, what was needed was a supreme power who could maintain order, otherwise the result would be – I guess you probably know what I am going to say –

No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short

Well, Haselrig and the radicals begged to differ. They never achieved a majority, but were able to tie the parliament in knots and no progress could be made as they heckled. Under the instruments, a parliament was supposed to last 5 months. Well, Cromwell put on his best King Charles pants, and interpreted that not as calendar months, but lunar months. He stormed down to the house, and laid them by their ears. They had brought nothing but

weeds and nettles, briars and thorns…disettlement and division[2]

Parliament was dissolved.

1655 was a dangerous year for Cromwell. I think it is true to say that many royalists did not fully approve of him, and I am sorry to say, gentle listeners that some of them plotted.  A secret organisation called the Sealed Knot was formed. Meanwhile there was a proud of tradition female royalists extracting valuable intelligence to help Charles in Exile – one fine example is Elizabeth Dysart of Ham house who struck up a friendship with the Protector, until he saw through her schemes. In general, it has to be said that the mainly feckless younger sons of the aristocrats did most plotting, and they had one shining characteristic in common; incompetence. If their brain cells were all gathered up and put in a pile, it could be smoked in one pipe session by their nemesis – John Thurloe, Cromwell’s spymaster and his ‘little secretary’ – and his good friend. Still, their plots did enough to perpetuate a sense of danger, and two assassination attempts on Cromwell which failed. And in 1655 there was planned a full scale national rising from multiple places across the country to throw off Leviathan’s hand.

It failed. With varying levels of embarrassment; but the best that could be done was done by John Penruddock, who did manage to raise an army in the west, but it dribbled away before a battle was necessary. England was tired. Rebellion was yesterday’s news, today’s news was getting on with life. Even most workaday, run of the mill royalists were done with all the fighting; the king was great & all, but whatevs. This Cromwell geezer’s not doing such a bad job.

Cromwell meanwhile had grand plans of his own. A protestant alliance weas one side of the coin – the other was the common, Elizabethan Catholic enemy – Spain. He had a plan – hit Spain where it hurt, hit it hard in the customs and excise, take over its trading empire, just like good queen Bess had done. One of the great engines of Spanish wealth was built on the back of the enslaved – in the great sugar island of Hispaniola. Let us destroy that wealth and take the island from them.

To give him his due, General John Lambert, architect of the Protectorate and a general every bit as good as his boss, he argued against it. Risky business fighting all those miles away, in the tropics with those weird diseases. But Cromwell would hear nothing of that. Pshaw, Lambio my friend, hush thy noise, shut thy puss, The Lord my shepherd is and he points his crook westwards young man.

Well, the great Western Design was a failure more miserable than words can wield the matter. John Desborough messed up the logistics, General Venables and Admiral Penn landed on Hispaniola with an army largely raised from the down and outs of the English slaving island of Barbados, and it was embarrassing. They retreated. But they retreated to Jamaica, which was defended by a donkey and a venetian blind salesman, and so the Protectorate was handed a consolation prize, and one which will in the end form a rich part of what makes England England. But in between – there will be, of course 180 years of a hell on earth on the island.

Cromwell did not see any compensation. For him, the western design was not just the first military failure of his career; it was the terrifying prospect that God’s favour, which had been at his side at  Winceby, had held its hand over him at Marston Moor, had guided him to triumph at Naseby and Dunbar– that favour was gone. This new world was cold, and friendless. He, and more importantly the nation, must have displeased its God.

The lord hath greatly humbled us in that sad loss…we have provoked the Lord, and it is good for us to know and to be abased for the same

He wrote.

The result was one of the greatest bloomers of Cromwell’s career. He and the Council of State brought into existence a new post; the Major General. There would be ten of them, and their job was to work with the local powers with two objectives. Make sure there were no more royalist uprisings; and stamp down on vice such as unlicensed alehouses, or celebrations on Sunday when people should be contemplating God & stuff. Afterall, as Oliver himself said,

The suppressing of vice and encouragement of virtue were the very end of magistracy[3]

Worse, though, each MG would have a militia to work with them and implement their good works. And they needed paying, and there was no extra cash going around given the war with Spain, and so came an even greater bloomer; there would be a 10% tax on all known royalists, unless they were enthusiastic supporters of the regime. A Decimation Tax. So much, then, for ‘healing and settling’.

The impact of these Major Generals varied a lot according to the personnel involved; overall most historians agree that the power of the local hierarchy was too well entrenched for them to really get in the way of the normal operation of the state. Because one thing Cromwell and the republic had finally achieved, is that the old ways of local government were back – county committees were gone, the JPs and gentry back in control. Also, taxes, although still based on the newfangled monthly assessments, had at least fallen back – to half what they had reached at the height of the war. Ineffective they might have been, though, but wherever they went, the MGs were roundly detested and despised by a good proportion of the population. Puritans welcomed them, the majority were horrified.

By October 1656, though, the M Generals on the Council of State such as John Lambert were pressing Cromwell for a new election, and new parliament, to legitimise the militia tax and continue the rule of the Major Generals, and deal with a growing budget problem. So elections were held under the constitution with its new constituencies and once again many radicals elected; but this time, Lambert and the Council applied the rules of said constitution which allowed them to exclude undesirables – over a hundred, including Haselrig, were so excluded., There was a deal of outrage, even Cromwell thought they had gone too far.

None the less, the Second protectorate Parliament had its own views on life, and the trouble came from a different quarter; Cromwellian conservatives, like our very own Bulstrode Whitlocke, and the Irish Peer and friend of Cromwell, Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill. They hated the influence of the army on the council. They were not royalists, they were convinced republicans but they wanted a return to the ancient ways of three estates – a second House like the House of Lords to restrain the radicalism of the Commons. And a King, because everyone knew what a king’s powers were, and it would also reconcile the Three Kingdoms to the Commonwealth.

Now  don’t get me wrong; parliament gets on with the important matters of the day, but there is a big creature with a long prehensile nose in the room, and it’s reminding everyone – what are we going to do about the Major Generals? There was no way that the conservatives would pass a militia bill to keep the MGs going, never in a month of Sundays. Which I suppose means 6 months does it? Never really worked it out. Anyway – you know what I mean, them guys ain’t keen.

So Lambert and the Generals on the Council decide to do something politicians almost never do. They decide to play the system, and cheat. I am shocked, gentle listeners – shocked. So They introduce a new Militia Bill on Christmas day for the first of its three readings. Ethel, pass the smelling salts dear.

Now Christmas Day, as you know, isn’t a festival in the bible and so is just another working day, the festival has been banned by parliament – not Oliver as you know – in 1644 and in Scotland in 1640. But spookily – and I know you will again need to reach for the smelling salts – loads of shops were closed and only puritans were in the house. How that can be I don’t know and yet it was. Now the puritans liked the MGs so yup pass the Militia Bill with its Decimation Tax double quick time. Then a few days later the second reading faced the same house and – yup through you go – a bit more argument now though, some other MPs coming back in from the illegal Christmas break, looking as though they’d put on a few pounds for some reason. Well third reading time – the house was a bit fuller, this was going to be close. But just as the vote was going to be taken – John Thurloe interrupted them all and made an announcement. There was an assassination plot on Cromwell’s life. All debate was suspended. Uproar, mayhem.

The plot came not only from royalists but from disappointed Levellers – masterminded by Edward Sexby, who had published a tract, ’killing no murder’. The plot almost succeeded, until one of the assassins, one of Cromwell’s guards, had a change of heart and fessed up to the boss.

Well, by the time that was all sorted, all the MPs were back in the commons, and when the Militia bill came up again Conservatives like Broghill and Whitlocke had the strength of sink it. The Major Generals had lasted about 18 months, and they were finished, never to return thankfully. But for the conservatives, this was not enough. Sexby’s plot had made it clear to everyone that the health of the republic depended on one man. A better constitution was needed to make sure that there were controls on the radicals, that the power of the army was forever shackled. So they presented a new constitution – the Humble Petition and Advice. There would be a second, nominated house of parliament. The Council would be mainly civil, removing most of the generals. And there would be a king, and a hereditary succession. We are essentially back to the ancient constitution, without this sacred, absolutist king and with a second house based on merit not birth.

It is often said that Cromwell was attracted and dithered. In fact he refused the crown within three days. But Broghill and Whitlocke and others worked on him, and there were other details to be worked out concerning the constitution, and the discussion restarted. A few weeks later, the answer Cromwell gave was the same – he accepted the constitution, but rejected the role of king. It’s also commonly said that Cromwell only turned down the crown because the army would not let him accept it. And indeed Lambert led a powerful delegation of officers to a meeting with Cromwell, telling him to reject it. Oliver roasted them. He broke Lambert and cashiered him; Cromwell knew full well that he was the darling of both the ordinary soldier and the officers. Old Noll had been through the fire with them, and they knew it. He had always looked after them as their own and respected them, and they knew it. He was tough, but fair and always victorious. He shared their religious beliefs and they would follow him to sit on the right hand of the father almighty.

Cromwell turned it down for the reasons he gave, none else.

I will not seek to set up that which Providence hath destroyed and laid in the dust. I would not build Jericho again.

And anyway as he said to the officers, it is but

A feather in a man’s hat

There are some that think he was wrong; that with a comfort of a monarchy and resonance with the old ways, maybe the Commonwealth could have survived, in the comfort of an amended, but more shackled monarchy. Certainly the likes of Broghill were gutted and retired from politics. But, the Protectorate now had a new constitution, and one that had been developed and approved by parliament. A new parliament was called to meet in January 1658, and now surely everyone could get down to the work of concentrating on good and Godly governance.

Now then everyone, with apologies for the plot spoilers, we now are in the end game of this, one of  greatest of all stories in English history. We have to talk of Cromwell’s death and what comes after. But I want to pause for a moment, to talk of other things. Of the great changes and ideas brought in England by the revolutionary period.

There are many things to regret about the popular history of the English Revolution one being the over emphasis of Cromwell, another being its image as a grey, joyless puritanical period. Now there’s no doubt there’s an element of that; some of the puritan social legislation around Adultery and the Act against Profane Walking have not aged well, the rule of the MGs is impossible to sell as a good idea. But in fact this period of the world turned upside down, the loosening of the old social hierarchy, censorship and certainties, unleashed blizzard, a cascade, a celebration of intellectual creativity which no amount of royal suppression could put back in the box.

We have talked about the explosion of religious debate, so let’s not go over that again, except to note that despite the vicious attempts of the cavalier parliament to re-instate a national church, non conformism was now here to stay and to play a vibrant part in our national culture for the next 350 years. But there is great cultural and intellectual change too. It’s true to say that theatres were closed down; but popular plays at country fairs and so on keep going, and even in London it adapts; we see the arrival of Drolls, plays cut into short phases so that if the soldiers arrive no one misses the great denouement. But interestingly in May 1656, the playwright William Davenant pitches a new form from Italy to the Protectorate, the Opera; it’ll be uplifting and approving he says. Alright then comes the official reply and so the first Opera in Britain is played in 1656 the Siege of Rhodes, it’s a great success, so more are put on and we are now stuck with Opera and all that for good.

The story is a bit the same with dancing; all but the most extreme of puritans were happy enough with a good dance, unless it was on a Sunday. For ‘the most extreme’ though, read William Prynne, who thundered that is was certain that ‘we will not dance into heaven’. But dancing is central to society, and it’s in the 1650s that John Playford published the first edition of The Dancing Master, a hugely popular and constantly updated set of dances with music, words and simple instructions.

In the literary world it’s a period of great creativity as well; some of which was inspired by royalist laments; the poems of Katherine Philips and one of the most popular books ever written in English – Isaac Walton’s Compleat Angler, a gentle parable of the love of the old ways and of the permanence of nature, told through the noble craft of fishing. But creativity was also encouraged by the explosion of print media that followed the destruction of the courts of Star Chamber and High Commission. We’ve heard about the religious works of Katherine Chidley and Edwards and many others; and the wild arrival of newsbooks, and the start of modern journalism with the likes of Marchamont Needham. But it’s the time when Margaret Cavendish very unusually starts her publishing career, in 1653 with Poems and Fancies, a vanishingly rare example of publishing by a named, aristocratic female author that would turn her into a celebrity who Samuel Pepys would chase around London just for a glimpse.

Despite the decimation, the Protectorate does see the return of stability, and peace, and the shattered economy starts to recover. Nowhere is this more evident than in London of course, and international trade recovers with it, and as London expands eastwards,  With all this trade, the black and Asian population grew, including a sizable Asian community who arrived by working on East Indiamen – Lascars as they were called. Sadly also, there was the return of traders in enslaved people, although the Guinea company went bust in 1657.

That growing wealth, trade and stability may be one reason for the arrival of a new tradition often attributed to the Restoration, the arrival of the Coffeehouse. In 1650, as the diarist Anthony Wood noted

in this year Jacob the Jew opened a coffee house at The Angel in the parish of St. Peter, in the East Oxford; and there coffee was drank by some, who delighted in novelty

Puritans liked coffee and coffee houses; they encouraged lively debate, without the negative effect of alcohol. Owners used to provide free newsbooks and broadsheets in return for a small entrance fee, and the idea of Coffeehouses sold like warm buns. In 1652 one appears in London, and by 1660, a Covent Garden baker called Thomas Rugg said that practically every street had one, and he used them as

A market place for news.

One of the most enthusiastic uses of coffeehouses, was for the constant and effervescent debate about political reform and quality which is not over yet. We’ve heard about Thomas Hobbes, and Harry Vane has not gone away either, and in the 1650s his tract coined a phrase that would run for centuries – the Good Old Cause, of parliamentary sovereignty. But possibly more influential was James Harrington’s political theories in Oceana, admired for its belief that liberty came from civic virtue, a work which would inspire Radicals in the French Revolution.[4] In the late 1650s, the Rota club was a hive of activity discussing such ideas, with luminaries such as John Aubry, Christopher Wren, Wiiliam Petty, John Milton, Andrew Marvell, Samuel Pepys debating ideas and voting in what they called their ‘wooden oracle’ – a ballot box.

But probably the most exciting new ideas came not from political Philosophy, but from Natural Philosophy. This is another phenomenon attributed to the Restoration which should really be rooted in the intellectual hothouse of the Republic, where many of the names we all know did some of their best work and research – people like Seth Ward, William Petty, Christopher Wren, Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle. These are famous names – but it’s very important to talk about less famous people who encouraged and enabled these folks to develop their ideas, fund them, bring them together and provide a network to share and discuss their ideas.

I am going to talk about three folks. The first was a polish immigrant, Samuel Hartlib, and for me, he is one of the characters that symbolises the English Revolutionary period best. He believed that all human kind, everyone, had a talent, which needed to be brought forth for the common good and for a better, protestant society. And the engine of this reformation would be education, a model college of learning; he dreamed of a ‘Solomon’s House’ as envisaged in his hero’s work, Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis[5]. Hartlib connected everyone with his library and network, throughout England but also throughout Europe. He had a thirst for knowledge that enabled not only the new science, but agriculture, education, philosophy. After the Restoration his face no longer fit – such work was supposed to be the preserve of the aristocrat; but those he influenced carried his ideas on.

 

 

 

 

One of those was Katherine Boyle, Viscountess Ranlegh, one of the remarkable Anglo Irish Boyle family. She also connected everyone, had a constant enquiring intelligence, provided rooms and funds, employed Milton as her son’s tutor, and provided laboratories for her more famous brother, Robert Boyle. Her mission she wrote, was to work

For the good of the learned Commonwealth

And finally on the subject of enablers, let me tell you about John Wilkins. He was an enthusiast for natural philosophy, and by 1645 had formed a shadowy association of scientists together with Gresham College called the Invisible College. Under the Protectorate he became the Master of Wadham College and would marry Cromwell’s daughter, and it was he that created a new society at Oxford – the Experimental Philosophy club. The club drew all the most brilliant minds into its patronage. Seth Ward, Christopher Wren, William Petty and more. But most famously again, Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle, two of the most brilliant scientists of their age.

They were a proper society, with formal meetings, minutes, papers experiments; they would often gather together in the gardens at Wadham college, carrying out mad experiments with bladders and machines, with the thrill and exciting opening up of new possibilities and horizons. William Petty was a great one for practical applications, Hooke a genius at mechanics and constructing mechanisms for experiments; Boyle of course famous for so many advances in our understanding of the world around us. It is in the 1650s that he carried out his most famous work that would be published in 1660 and 1661 – and be claimed for posterity by the Restoration. These include The Sceptical Chymist, which attacked the doctrine of four elements and was published in 1661 and Touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects, which wrote up his experiments with Hooke, and demonstrated that it was perfectly possible to create a vacuum and that air had weight. These are many of the people who would meet in London after the Restoration, and win Charles II’s patronage to set up the Royal Society.

 

 

 

 

Ok that’s enough fun and games. We have to move to the end game, capital E, capital G. We are in January 1658, at the meeting of the Second Protectorate parliament. And surely now it would all work. Wrong again. Haselrig, Vane, Ashley Cooper and other radicals were no more reconciled to this constitution than they had been to the last; and they hated the idea of a second, nominated house. Again, although they could not raise a majority, by constant pamphleteering and sniping in parliament they were able to prevent any business being completed. Cromwell was by now ill and tired. He dissolved parliament. In August 1658 George Fox visited him and wrote

I saw and felt a waft of death go forth against him, and he looked like a dead man

Cromwell was famously a loving family man, and he was particularly devoted to his daughter Elizabeth. And in that same month, she died. It broke Cromwell. By the end of August he was clearly on his last legs.

Now John Thurloe and the Council were laying eggs. Because under the constitution, the Protector was supposed to name his successor; the idea I have sometimes heard that Cromwell was an ambitious man trying to establish a dynasty is clearly not so, because Cromwell had given no sign as to his successor, and groomed none of his children to follow him. So on his deathbed, on 3rd September, over a semi comatose Protector, the Council gathered round and Richard Cromwell’s name was suggested. Supposedly Cromwell nodded – but who knows.

Cromwell then died on his special day of 3rd September, his last words showing a characteristic focus on the next life rather than this

my design is to make what haste I can to be gone

So Cromwell is gone, a man whose reputation now is almost as low in the popular memory as it’s ever been I would have thought, caught between the narrative of a joyless puritan and being held  personally responsible for everything that the English did in Ireland. Neither of these things are true, while he without doubt does shoulder a share of the blame for Ireland. I did not expect to like Cromwell; I find I like and respect him more than otherwise.  I think he cannot be held entirely at his own word, he was perfectly capable of spinning things, but I absolve him of Machiavellian ambition, I see a man learning and changing from experience and always trying to find a practical working solution which prioritised order. I like him for his energy and commitment, for the respect he held for all classes of people. I find it admirable as did Pepys and therefore in the words of his diary

he was a brave fellow and did owe his crown he got to himself, as much as any man that ever got one

Why did he not name a successor though? We’ll never know, but it feels to me quite like his hero Elizabeth, of not wanting to believe it, or not wanting to be a lame duck Protector. Or being Cromwell, maybe he just thought that God would provide. Why did the Council choose Richard, a man with wafer thing experience of any kind of public office? There were other candidates – the leading Army Generals, who were also married to the Cromwell family – Charles Fleetwood and John Desborough. Or, Henry Cromwell, who had proved himself in Ireland, bringing the radicals of the army to heal, bringing the land settlement to an end. The reason probably is that the conservatives around Cromwell wanted to get as close to a traditional monarchy as possible; and core to that was a hereditary succession, to the eldest child.

So Richard it was, probably the most unprepared man in English history to be head of State. He goes down in history as Tumbledown Dick, a no-hoper, but that is harsh. He was a good speaker, religiously tolerant, uninterested in personal power and exploitation, and a good diplomat. And indeed the handover in power was completely peaceful; and seemingly complete – the professions of loyalty flooded in. As 1659 started and the Third Protectorate parliament met, there seemed hardly a cloud in the sky. Well I exaggerate a little, but not much.

Now I have to say that these last 18 months are compelling political history, which almost always get passed over quickly; and I am forced to do that here as well, for lack of time, but there are two full episodes on the period if you are interested. For now, let me just make one point; the Protectorate was not doomed to fail. As far as the English, Welsh and Scottish people were concerned, while there’s no doubt many still carried a candle for the monarchy, but in the hands of a competent government there was no way back for the Stuarts; they were gone, almost nobody was willing to shed any more blood in their cause, there was stability and prosperity. If there had been compromise, goodwill, and willingness to play the long game, England would be a republic still. But compromise was in short supply. There were chasms between views of the past, present and future, and it was to prove that there were no bridge long enough to cover the abyss into which the Republic fell.

One group were the Cromwellian loyalists, among whom initially were the senior generals Fleetwood, Desborough – and in Scotland, General George Monk. Monk will be the key figure, but it is important that you know that he had no love for the monarchy. He agreed with Cromwell and his friends that return to civil rule was the priority, which Oliver had never managed to achieve, but must be achieved for a stable Protectorate. Civil authority, based on the voice of the people as represented in parliament – that is Monk’s priority.

When Richard Cromwell stood in front of parliament he faced the same problem as his Dad. There was a majority of Cromwellian loyalists and Conservatives, but a powerful, utterly uncompromising minority of those single chamber radicals his father had faced, Haselrig and crew, and even Henry Marten had returned to take up a seat as MP. They talked loudly of the Good Old Cause, which had been betrayed by the Protectorate with its two-bit Other House; they wanted the army grandees that supported Richard gone, and out of politics.  Oliver always held the trump card – complete control of the army and unequalled personal prestige. Richard thought he did have the first, the support of the army. Turns out he did not.

So the architects of the fall of the Protectorate were the Senior Generals Fleetwood and Desborough. Now they felt less inclined to knuckle under and toe the line than they’d been forced to under Oliver; they resented the civilian loyalists round Richard who seemed to rule the roost now, like Whitelock, Edward Montague and Broghill. And at the same time, they were feeling the heat from their Junior officers. Those were re-discovering their radical and religious New Model Army roots and passions, were raising petitions and threatening mutiny if their political and religious demands were not met. They resented the conservatives that dominated parliament, and complained that

The Good Old Cause is very frequently and publicly derided

They also were owed months of back pay, since the finances of the Protectorate were now dire. This is proof that no one learns from history. Pay the army, then tell them to go home. In that order. Pants first then trousers. Telling them to go home and that the pay is in the post is the wrong order.

 

 

 

Fairfax or Cromwell would have squashed them and sent them back to their regiments, as they had eventually squashed the Levellers. Fleetwood and Desborough were not of their quality or resolve. They oscillated between resentment and panic. As the political radicals turned the heat up, and made common cause with the radical junior army officers, Fleetwood began to feel they had to make a choice.

They could remain loyal to Richard the Protector, who after all was family, and the conservatives who surrounded him, and face down the Radicals in parliament. That would mean they would need to squash their Junior Officers. But they didn’t have the personal prestige or resolve Cromwell had possessed. They feared the Junior officers and their men would simply refuse to obey them, and then where would they be?

Or – they could become the champion of their junior officers, and re-establish the army as the driver of politics, restore the influence which had been destroyed by the new constitution of 1657. That would mean destroying the power of the conservatives who dominated parliament, making Richard their pawn. And hope that would allow them to placate and retain control of their junior officers, and they, Fleetwood and Desborough, they would then hold the reins of power.

The crisis point was reached in April 1659 when the junior Officers, egged on by the parliamentary radicals and rumours that the army was to be disbanded before it was properly paid, demanded the return to power of the General Army Council just like the Good old days of 1647. Richard and the Council told them there would be no such thing, this was now a civil state. The Junior officers threatened the Grandees with mutiny and Fleetwood and Desborough made their choice. In defiance of Richard and the Council they ordered an Army muster.

Richard knew immediately he had been betrayed by his own family. He did not go quietly. He ordered a muster of his own to take control of the army away from the Grandees, and Richard wrote to Montagu the admiral, to Monk the General in Scotland to his brother Henry in Ireland to come and save the Protectorate. But his muster was attended by more tumbleweed than soldiers. Montagu was far way on Station in the Baltic. Henry was too far away with too few men. Monk was not confident of leading his own army against their fellow soldiers in London.

Richard was alone

All the world is false. My friends, my council and my relations having all forsaken me.

He wrote bitterly to brother Henry. Fleetwood and Desborough demanded he dissolve parliament. He refused. Fleetwood And Desborough demanded he dissolve parliament. Richard had no choice. He dissolved parliament, and the Cromwellian Conservatives were gone from power.

I thought those, whom, my father had raised from nothing, would not so soon have forgot him, and endeavour to destroy his family

Replied Henry to brother Richard’s letter.

Fleetwood meant to simply re-assert his authority and keep Richard as his creature. But he could not control the wild horse on whose back he had jumped. Now there arose a storm, a pamphleting campaign worthy of the good old days. Haselrig, Vane, Marten, demanded a return to the Good Old Cause. Independent preachers thundered about the need for the moral reformation and religious freedom demanded by the religious army radicals. Lambert returned, and led the Junior officers in picking up the cry, an end to the tyrannical Protectorate, and a return to the Good Old Cause, and the return of the body who had epitomised it – the Return of the Rump, would you believe. Rump 2.0. Rump the Reboot.

The storm swept Richard away, and in May 1659 he resigned, the Cromwells left Whitehall Palace. Richard would eventually return and live in obscurity, the longest lived head of state. Fleetwood and Desborough formally remained in place, but were now powerless. The MPs of the Rump returned to parliament – all 78 of them still living, last elected in 1640. There was an awkward moment; what would Monk do? Well, George Monk believed in the supremacy of civilian power, and now that this meant the Rump, he declared his loyalty to it. But George did learn the lessons of history; he purged his army in Scotland of radical officers, made sure his men were paid, well fed and shod, and would answer to him any only him. Note, that Monk has made no move Charles Stuart-wards whatsoever.

 

 

 

The Rump was never popular. Most ordinary people wanted stability and order above all now, and were reconciled to the Protectorate. The City, the paymaster of any government, they wanted an end to this chaos so they could trade, and yet were being told by the Rump to pay more & more to help them out. The Rump’s powerbase was wafer thin. A tightrope between factions. As thin as the skin on a rice pudding. Although to be fair I like quite a thick, browned skin on mine, but I’m splitting hairs.

The biggest problem is that while radicalism had brought Rumpers and Army back together, their aims were fundamentally at odds. The Rumpers wanted civilian government based on the will of the people…as soon as the people’s will agreed with the will of the Rumpers of course.  They needed to repair public finances, and to do that they needed to disband the army – but were not prepared to pay. Does this remind you of 1647 at all? maybe? Maybe not? The Army meanwhile wanted a voice in the running of the country to ensure religious liberty, and they wanted their money please. Does that ring any bells for anyone?

For a while the fear of a royalist uprising held them together. But when it came, George Booth’s rebellion was a squib so damp it had a flood warning on it, and Lambert’s army supressed it with a flick of the hand. Then the gloves were off, Seconds away, round 1. Lambert was now fully back, and he demanded a constitution that protected the rights of the army. Haselrig and the Rump demanded the army bow unconditionally before civil authority, even if it meant they should be disbanded.  In the background new voices from the past began to be heard once more; from the Presbyterians like William Prynne who had been expelled from the Long Parliament by Pride’s purge. From Royalists of all religious persuasions. They said that neither Rump nor Army had any moral or political authority any more. That the only way forward was for full and free elections and if that meant the king returned, so be it. Now the cat has poked it’s little nosey from its little bagsy, and the pigeons are looking nervous.

It came to blows. Lambert ordered the Army in London to surround and besiege parliament until the Rumper agreed. But the Rumpers refused to yield to force, and they had one more card to play; the King of Monks. They called for Monk and Monk came. At the start of January 1660, George Monk set off from Edinburgh, and from London, John Lambert set off with the main army to squish another rebellion – as he saw it. In fact I think it qualifies as a fourth civil war. Monk had prepared the ground; when he arrived at York, who should greet him but General Thomas Fairfax, who had agreed to raise Yorkshire against Lambert’s army. Monk had written to him, promising that he would

reduce the military power in obedience to the civil’

This was Fairfax’s greatest wish also, an end to the military rule. So now Thomas the talisman was back.

Lambert’s army was big. Lambert’s army was unpaid, poorly supplied, barely even had shoes. They had come from a London that was in open revolt against the Army and the taxes they caused.  In the face of Monk’s disciplined army and Thomas Fairfax, they just disappeared, melted away, without a fight. Lambert fled.

Haselrig and the Rump were delighted as they resumed their seats, and Monk returned to the city. They should have been a little less pleased. Because Monk was appalled by the chaos and the unpopularity of the Rump; libels about the roasting of the rump were everywhere, there were open parties where Rumps were ostentatiously hung up and barbequed. Monk still hadn’t spoken to Charles’ representatives, but he wanted a proper election, the Rump knew that in a proper election they would be toast. They needed time to make the republic work. But Monk had a plan on how to square the circle – force the Rump to elections, without a military purge.

On 11th February 1660, Samuel Pepys stood outside parliament and watched as Haselrig left a parliamentary session with George Monk. He was not looking pleased any more, he was looking furious. We found out why on 21st February, when Monk led the secluded members, those Presbyterians expelled by Pride’s Purge of the Long Parliament, back to the house – again Pepys was watching, because Pepys’ curiosity knew no bounds, and saw Prynne there, with his old style basket hilt sword, walking to take up his seat once more. The restored Long Parliament voted for the restoration of the House of Lords, and a full and free election; it was the end of the Rump, and in all probability, the end of the Republic. Pepys saw his city celebrate

But the common joy that was everywhere to be seen! The number of bonfires…at Strand Bridge I could tell 31 fires….and all along burning and roasting and drinking for rumps

The day after, is the first evidence we have of George Monk meeting the representatives of Charles Stuart. It could be that he had decided this was the route before that, we just do not know. Monk was the sort of military man who held his cards close, and played with a straight bat, just to mix my sporting metaphor. Do cards count as a sport? However, ‘plain hearted George’ as his friend Oliver Cromwell had called him, was deeper than he was given credit for, and had at his side in Anne Monk a woman of his own mind; together they made decisions, and stuck to them. And for Monk that told him that this chaos must end, and the if the will of the people dictated, in the words of Wishbone Ash, the king will come.

Monk dictated to Charles’ representative what he should do. He should put Parliament at the heart of everything; they would decide the land redistribution. There would be a free pardon to everyone, and only parliament could agree exceptions, there would be toleration for all protestants. And the Army should be paid in full.

That is exactly what Charles duly promised, in his Declaration of Breda in the Netherlands on 4th April 1660. When elections were held only 16 Rumpers won seats, it was dominated by cavaliers and Presbyterians. The public mood was mad for the return of the king now, sick of all the chaos; a few hardy souls said look, we must surely make a deal with the king, put some conditions on his return. They were shouted down. Marchamont Needham and John Milton wrote in protest at the absurdity of this. Many in the army despaired

God knows we take up arms in judgement and for consciences’ sake, not to serve the arbitrary lusts and will of whatsoever

Well arbitrary lusts and the will of Charles were on the way back. About 30% of the army gave up their chance of back pay and left, unwilling to be part of such an abject end to the glorious hopes of the Revolution.

On 26th May, King Charles II stepped ashore his restored realm at Dover. A few days later there was a procession through London, to wild celebrations. John Evelyn was so happy, a little wee came out

I beheld it and blessed God – and all this without a drop of blood & by that very army which rebelled against him

Lucy Hutchinson’s feelings towards the king and his return were a bit more subtle

Where were his enemies? For he saw nothing but prostrates, expressing all the love that could make a prince happy…

 

 

 

Well that’s it – we are done with the British Revolutionary period, at least until the next round. One more thing though. Was it all for nothing? Looking back from the 1670s, the parliamentarian poet John Dryden thought so, writing

Thy wars brought nothing about

The political gains on paper were slim indeed. The Cavalier parliament declared that any acts since 1642 were null; all that was gained were the Triennial acts, a parliament every three years at least, and the abolition of the courts of Star Chamber and the High Commission. Yet the Three Kingdoms were changed for ever. Disastrously so in Ireland. The impact on Scotland is fiercely debated – certainly the Covenanters became a dirty word; some historians though it destroyed Scottish confidence and made Union more likely; others that the failure of a union brought by force dictated an understanding that lasting union could only come through negotiation.

In England the idea of religious unity was busted for ever, that genie could not be put back in the bottle no matter how hard the Cavalier parliament tried, and they did try. Non Conformism was here to stay, and the future dichotomy of church and chapel beckoned. Political debate was another liberated genie; Charles tried to put it back, lord did he try, with licensing acts, but without Star Chamber the free press borne under the Revolution could never again be contained.

More prosaically, the size of the state was transformed, the start of an interventionist state, and this was enabled buy a transformation of government income; by 1700 government income was about 10 times higher than in 1600. It meant the arrival of the military fiscal state, England would increasingly be able to compete with those continental big bad boys, France, Empire and Spain, Cromwell had given it a reputation transformed, and the Republic had forged a navy that was on the way to being unassailable – albeit the Dutch would do plenty of quite successful assailing under Charles. Meanwhile, the New Model Army inspired in English hearts a dread of standing armies – and made sure that no army could ever be called into existence to dictate the will of the people without the express approval of parliament.

And whereas in 1600 40% of national income came through the hand of parliament, by 1660 that was 90%. The Revolution gave birth to a much more assertive Parliament which now controlled national wealth and could not be ignored. Together with this was the birth of a radical tradition; all those ideas which will last forever however much they come and go in the national consciousness. The Levellers, Gerald Winstanley continue to inspire a radical tradition. On the other hand, England had definitively decided that Monarchy was its chosen form of government. But a different kind of monarchy, one with limits. The Revolution that started in 1640 from a mix of religious and political grievances and aspirations will not really come to an end until tested by another monarch in the name of Catholicism and absolutism.

Now then, you might want to dig into the story of the Protectorate a little more, and if so here are some notes. If Cromwell is your thing, then Episode 219 is all about Cromwell’s historiography, and we also have an episode with Miranda Malins of the Cromwell Association. 420 to 424 take you through the political details of the Protectorate, including the western design, major generals and Crown. And then I gathered all the cultural stuff and science into three episodes, 425 to 427, then 428 to 430 is the death of Cromwell, and the death throes of the republic. I did two 431a episodes; one talking about what happened to all the people whose stories we followed, and 431b on what the Revolution did for us.

[1] Tuck, R: ‘Hobbes: A Very Short Introduction’, p29

[2] Woolwrych, A: ‘Britain in Revolution’, p614

[3] Woolrych, A: ‘Britain in Revolution’p625

[4] H. M. Höpfl: ‘James Harrington’, ODNB

[5] Greengrass, M: ‘Samuel Hartlib’, ODNB