The History of England Volume VI. David Hume

      1653.

      Cromwel’s birth and private life.

      OLIVER CROMWEL, in whose hands the dissolution of the parliament had left the whole power, civil and military, of three kingdoms, was born at Huntingdon, the last year of the former century, of a good family; though he himself, being the son of a second brother, inherited but a small estate from his father. In the course of his education he had been sent to the university; but his genius was found little fitted for the calm and elegant occupations of learning; and he made small proficiencies in his studies. He even threw himself into a dissolute and disorderly course of life; and he consumed, in gaming, drinking, debauchery, and country riots, the more early years of his youth, and dissipated part of his patrimony. All of a sudden, the spirit of reformation seized him; he married, affected a grave and composed behaviour, entered into all the zeal and rigour of the puritanical party, and offered to restore to every one whatever sums he had formerly gained by gaming. The same vehemence of temper, which had transported him into the extremes of pleasure, now distinguished his religious habits. His house was the resort of all the zealous clergy of the party; and his hospitality, as well as his liberalities to the silenced and deprived ministers, proved as chargeable as his former debaucheries. Though he had acquired a tolerable fortune by a maternal uncle, he found his affairs so injured by his expences, that he was obliged to take a farm at St. Ives, and apply himself, for some years, to agriculture as a profession. But this expedient served rather to involve him in farther debts and difficulties. The long prayers, which he said to his family in the morning, and again in the afternoon, consumed his own time and that of his ploughmen; and he reserved no leisure for the care of his temporal affairs. His active mind, superior to the low occupations, to which he was condemned, preyed upon itself; and he indulged his imagination in visions, illuminations, revelations; the great nourishment of that hypocondriacal temper, to which he was ever subject. Urged by his wants and his piety, he had made a party with Hambden, his near kinsman, who was pressed only by the latter motive, to transport himself into New England, now become the retreat of the more zealous among the puritanical party; and it was an order of council, which obliged them to disembark and remain in England. The earl of Bedford, who possessed a large estate in the Fen Country, near the isle of Ely, having undertaken to drain these morasses, was obliged to apply to the king; and by the powers of the prerogative, he got commissioners appointed, who conducted that work, and divided the new acquired land among the several proprietors. He met with opposition from many, among whom Cromwel distinguished himself; and this was the first public opportunity, which he had met with, of discovering the factious zeal and obstinacy of his character.

      From accident and intrigue he was chosen by the town of Cambridge member of the long parliament. His domestic affairs were then in great disorder; and he seemed not to possess any talents, which could qualify him to rise in that public sphere, into which he was now at last entered. His person was ungraceful, his dress slovenly, his voice untunable, his elocution homely, tedious, obscure, and embarrassed. The fervor of his spirit frequently prompted him to rise in the house; but he was not heard with attention: His name, for above two years, is not to be found oftner than twice in any committee; and those committees, into which he was admitted, were chosen for affairs, which would more interest the zealots than the men of business. In comparison of the eloquent speakers and fine gentlemen of the house, he was entirely overlooked; and his friend Hambden alone was acquainted with the depth of his genius, and foretold, that, if a civil war should ensue, he would soon rise to eminence and distinction.

      Cromwel himself seems to have been conscious where his strength lay; and partly from that motive, partly from the uncontrolable fury of his zeal, he always joined that party, which pushed every thing to extremities against the king. He was active in promoting the famous remonstrance, which was the signal for all the ensuing commotions; and when, after a long debate, it was carried by a small majority, he told lord Falkland, that, if the question had been lost, he was resolved next day to have converted into ready money the remains of his fortune, and immediately to have left the kingdom. Nor was this resolution, he said, peculiar to himself: Many others of his party he knew to be equally determined.

      He was no less than forty-three years of age, when he first embraced the military profession; and by force of genius, without any master, he soon became an excellent officer; though perhaps he never reached the fame of a consummate commander. He raised a troop of horse; fixed his quarters in Cambridge; exerted great severity towards that university, which zealously adhered to the royal party; and showed himself a man who would go all lengths in favour of that cause, which he had espoused. He would not allow his soldiers to perplex their heads with those subtilties, of fighting by the king’s authority against his person, and of obeying his majesty’s commands signified by both houses of parliament: He plainly told them, that, if he met the king in battle, he would fire a pistol in his face as readily as against any other man. His troop of horse he soon augmented to a regiment; and he first instituted that discipline and inspired that spirit, which rendered the parliamentary armies in the end victorious. “Your troops,” said he to Hambden, according to his own account,^k “are most of them old decayed serving men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows; the king’s forces are composed of gentlemen’s younger sons and persons of good quality. And do you think, that the mean spirits of such base and low fellows as ours will ever be able to encounter gentlemen, that have honour and courage and resolution in them? You must get men of spirit, and take it not ill that I say, of a spirit, that is likely to go as far as gentlemen will go, or else I am sure you will still be beaten, as you have hitherto been, in every encounter.” He did as he proposed. He enlisted the sons of freeholders and farmers. He carefully invited into his regiment all the zealous fanatics throughout England. When they were collected in a body, their enthusiastic spirit still rose to a higher pitch. Their colonel, from his own natural character, as well as from policy, was sufficiently inclined to encrease the flame. He preached, he prayed, he fought, he punished, he rewarded. The wild enthusiasm, together with valour and discipline, still propagated itself; and all men cast their eyes on so pious and so successful a leader. From low commands he rose with great rapidity to be really the first, though in appearance only the second, in the army.