recommend him to English sympathies, as regarded either Church or State. He pretended to despise the memory of his illustrious predecessor, Elizabeth! Cromwell, on his part, greatly admired and reverenced it. To his Second Parliament he made use of these words, "Queen Elizabeth of famous memory-wo need not be ashamed to call her so." James thought quite too much of himself to suppose that he could learn anything from Queen Elizabeth. Many enormities of cruelty which had fallen into hopeful disuse in her reign were revived by him. Some Puritan gentlemen came to urge upon him the claims of conscience; and though they pleaded with all meekness and respect, he answered them with rudeness. "If this be all your party hath to say, I will make them conform themselves, or else harrie them out of the land, or else do worse." It was time that the Stuart family should receive some lessons on the limitation of "royal prerogative." He inherited, "in all their coarseness, the worst vices of every member of his family. He was not without some claim to the pretensions he made to learning; but such learning as he possessed exhibited itself in intolerable pedantry, and a foolish and offensive parade of what amounted to a little more than grammatical precision.

On the whole, it is scarcely too much to say that the reign of James I. is, for the most part, a dark blot in the history of our country. And such was the English monarch and monarchy when Oliver Cromwell was a boy."

And now Charles reigned in "Old Jemmy's" stead; and it is not too much to say that in many particulars the son, who had hated the coarseness and confusion of his father's Court, his want of dignity, and foolish familiarity, went to the opposite and most perilous extremes. He was punctilious and proud; and though sweeping statements have been made as to the acclamations which greeted Charles on ascending the throne, the nation was certainly in a dangerous temper. He was speedily involved in disputes with his Parliament; the concessions made to the Popish Queen offended the Protestant feeling of the nation; alarm was widely awakened, suspicion was on the alert. Buckingham, the royal favourite, was distrusted and disliked.

Never for one week did Charles succeed with his Parliaments. "Imperious, vainglorious, devoid of sagacity and savoir faire, he irritated where he ought to have studiously soothed." He declared in plain words that if the Commons did not vote him supplies, he would take them. He believed stoutly in "Divine Right," and he seems to have made a sort of religion of asserting his " prerogative." He was an Anglican, too, of Laud's own type; he really believed those who resisted him to be "damnable sinners."

Says Dr. Peter Bayne, in his great work before quoted-the

greatest, we think, that he has yet produced-"It was the illusion in which he was wrapped by Laud that gave a martyr's serenity to his sad and weary face, a fortitude not less than heroic to his bearing in many an hour of tribulation; but if it supported him and promoted the purposes of Vandyke, it was infinitely baneful to England. The vices of weak men become subtly and powerfully noxious only when they are consecrated, for themselves and others, into virtues."

Under peculiar disadvantages the deluded monarch, from the very commencement of his reign, carried on his Government. "He had all his father's difficulties, and most formidable difficulties of his own. He was unpopular from the very first."

And while all these elements of strife were speeding to an explosion-to an inevitable collision between King and Parliament -Oliver Cromwell was, all unconsciously, in training for his mighty task. "Being now," writes his eloquent panegyrist, Milton, "arrived at a ripe and mature age, all of which time he had spent as a private person, noted for nothing so much as the cultivation of pure religion and integrity of life, enlarging his hopes with reliance in God, for any, the most exalted times, he nursed his great soul silently within his own breast."

Cromwell made his first appearance in Parliament, as member for Huntingdon, in 1628. His slovenly appearance has often been remarked on. His features were coarse, his eye-brows huge and shaggy, his eyes full of depth and meaning, and piercing through and through those who met his gaze. In company with him was his cousin, Hampden, of a mild and gentle deportment; a countenance at once expressive of dignity, intellect, and sweetness; and carefully and scrupulously dressed. That Cromwell was really negligent in his attire is scarcely doubtful. That, at least, is not a figment invented by his hydra-mouthed traducers. Lord Digby one day, going down the stairs of the Parliament House, inquired of Hampden who "that sloven" was, to which Hampden replied, "That sloven whom you see before you that sloven, I say, if we should ever come to a breach with the King, which God forbid ! -in such a case, I say, that sloven will be the greatest man in England."

In this famous, world-renowned Parliament, besides Cromwell and Hampden-those two great stars in a cloudy firmament-were Sir John Eliot, Sir Robert Philips, and Pym. On its sudden and ominous dissolution, Cromwell returned to Huntingdon; but he had chosen his side, and thenceforth maintained frequent intercourse with his cousin Hampden, and other patriot leaders. For

* Vide CHRISTIAN WORLD MAGAZINE, Nov. and Dec., 1882, "A Champion of English Freedom."

eleven years following the spring of 1629, no Parliament was called in England, and the King reigned as best he could, establishing "ship-money" and other illegal imposts, as seemed most expedient; and while Charles and his advisers were imposing-or trying to impose Episcopacy and the Anglican liturgy upon Scotland, persecuting and harrying the unfortunate Puritans, barbarously punishing Prynne and Leighton; doing, in short, all they possibly could to drive the kingdom to desperation, to bring matters to a crisis, Oliver Cromwell lived peaceably at home, which now was St. Ives, and now Ely, exercising a good influence over the yeomanry and tenantry of the district where he resided. All the famous doctrines of his later years were tried and tested on his little farm at St. Ives. It was during this period of comparative seclusion that he acquired his title of "Lord of the Fens," on account of his righteous interference with the drainage of the swampy land about the Isle of Ely, whither he removed, for the better performance of several duties which about this time required attention. We can scarcely attempt to explain, in our limited space, the policy which led him to oppose Charles in the matter of those famous "Bedford-levels; but it is easy to see that he would not consent to any project which should give additional power to the Crown, nor to the dishonest forfeiture of the lands of the very men who had laboured first at this highly desirable scheme. The claim of the King was unjust, and that was sufficient cause for Oliver's stalwart opposition. He was long afterwards-and is to this day, we are told-called "the Lord of the Fens," and at the time his name was "sounded to and fro, as a second Hereward!" Cromwell's last child-of nine-was born at Ely, in December, 1638. His mother, who had remained among her own relatives, at Huntingdon, came previously to little Frances's birth, to live once more with her son, and she formed one of his numerous household to the end of her long life.

In 1639 Oliver lost his eldest son, Robert, who was a scholar at Felsted School. He was buried at Felsted Church on May 31st, as the register still shows. He was eighteen years of age, and it is noted by the rector of the parish that "Robert was a remarkably pious youth, fearing God above many." The loss of their firstborn was a terrible blow to Oliver and Elizabeth Cromwell; but they sorrowed not as those without hope.

The "Short Parliament," as Charles's fourth Parliament came to be called, met on the 13th of April, and was dissolved at the end of three weeks and one day. Oliver was returned for Cambridge by the majority of a single vote, his election being most obstinately contested. His chief antagonist exclaimed, "That vote hath rained both Church and kingdom."

But eleven years of tyranny had not broken the spirit of Englishmen. The poor, weak King had barely taken the rash step before he repented of it, and he consulted with his more temperate advisers whether the dissolution could not be recalled. But it was too late. Charles dreamed of substituting a "Council of Peers " for Parliament, but this might not be; and he was obliged, in November of the same year, to call another Parliament, the most fateful, perhaps, that English history has ever known. On the 3rd of November, 1640, then, the celebrated Long Parliament assembled at Westminster, and Cromwell once more sat for Cambridge.

All things now pointed to a crisis. The Scots had made no halfresistance to Laud's hated Service-book, and to the whole Anglican system, and they had formed a national league for the defence of their religion. Charles was full of indignation against "those rebel Scots." Both parties appealed to arms, and then ensued what has been styled the Bishop's war. The soldiers sacked the houses of such parish clergy as had favoured Laud's papistical extravagancies, while the parsonages of clergymen of Puritan tendencies were greeted with hearty cheers. The whole nation rose, as of old, when the beacon-fires warned them of Southern invasion

The new Parliament met with a consciousness of recovered power. At the very beginning of the Session a decisive blow was struck, proving at once the power and the determination of that renowned assembly "to right the nation's wrongs." The Star Chamber and the Court of High Commissioners were arraigned, and both and all extraordinary tribunals were abolished, and the unfortunate Strafford was impeached and sent to the Tower, and finally to the block! Land, also, was impeached, and finally executed. He was not, as Daniel Wilson tells us, so much feared as detested for a fanatic bigotry that carried him through every act of despotic cruelty and intolerance, with an untroubled conscience. Haughty and insolent, even to his equals when in power, he yet seemed astonished that any one should harbour a feeling of dislike against him. He seems, indeed, to have had as lively a faith in his claim to canonisation, as the most bigoted of those who have made a martyr and saint of this English inquisitor!"

When Dr. Leighton was condemned to be set in the pillory for publishing his "Zion's Plea against Prelacy," to be subjected to awful barbarities, such as having his nostrils slit, his ears cropped, his cheeks branded, &c., Laud exulted, and afterwards, during the sitting of the Long Parliament, when a petition for his deliverance from eleven years' imprisonment in a noisome dungeon was presented, and members wept as his cruel tortures were enumerated;

Laud, who had sat by to hear his victim condemned, pulled off his hat, and lifting up his hands, gave thanks to God, who had given him the victory over his enemies! It has been well said of Laud, that, "fitted to rule a college, he was selected to govern a kingdom." So, doubly and trebly unfortunate was Charles I. in his choice of bosom-friends and councillors. And bitterly they paid for it who were promoted to the dishonour of being his advisers and favourites. Buckingham fell by the knife of the assassin; Strafford and Laud expiated their treason on the scaffold.

And now the friction between King and Parliament slowly smouldered into open war. On December 1, 1641, the "Grand Remonstrance," which was neither more nor less than a guarantee for a Constitutional Government, was presented to Charles at Hampton Court, and received by him with expressions of anger and impatience. The King would hold on his "suicidal way," and rapidly now came on the tug of war. He impeached some of the most popular members of both Houses, and, lastly, attempted to seize by force those he had denounced. Reconciliation between King and Parliament was no longer to be hoped for. "The privileges of the House had been violated in a manner in which no monarch had dared to violate them before. And such a Parliament-men of the most distinguished courage and intelligence in the kingdom. The members he sought had escaped through the window; they fled in haste to the City. Thither the most distinguished members of the House followed them. They were protected by the Common Council from the King, who himself followed them to the City, demanding their bodies-but in vain." He had filled up the measure of contempt with which he was regarded—he had straggled unsuccessfully!

From all parts of the land there poured in, from vast bodies of people, petitions, and assurances that they would stand by the Parliament. Charles quitted Whitehall on the 10th of January, never to return thither till the final scene of his life's tragedy; he retired to Hampton Court, and afterwards to York, and, attempting to surprise Hull, where was deposited a large quantity of military stores, he himself began the work of insurrection.

The House of Commons at once proceeded to take measures of defence, and Charles retorted by issuing a proclamation for suppressing the rebellion. And at Nottingham, in August, 1642, the royal standard was raised on the Castle Hill, and blown down again in a violent storm the same evening! And thus was inaugurated The Civil War.

Cromwell was now over forty-three years of age; his circumstances were not embarrassed, as certain of his slanderers have endeavoured to maintain; there is no pretence for calling him a