would fain have me die; Lord, pardon them; and pardon thy foolish people; forgive their sins, and do not forsake them; but love and bless them; and give them rest, and bring them to a consistency, and give me rest, for Jesus Christ's sake." There is but one more anecdote relating to this, the last scene in Cromwell's drama, which we venture to give. Throughout life he had ever professed himself a high Calvinist; and, as a necessary consequence, a believer in the doctrine called the final perseverance of the saints. In a moment of more than usual depression, he begged of one of his chaplains to say, whether the doctrine were really sound; and whether he who had once been in a "state of grace could ever fall back into reprobation. The divine assured him that no such event could occur. "Then," exclaimed he, "I am safe; for I am sure I was once in a state of grace.".

In the midst of these ravings, and while his spiritual attendants predicted a speedy recovery, the hand of death fell heavy upon Cromwell. On the 3d of Sept. 1658, a day considered by himself as particularly fortunate, he gave up the ghost, having, in a voice scarcely audible, named his son Richard as his successor in the protectorial chair. But as if nature herself had taken an interest in the fate of this extraordinary person, he breathed not his last as other men do. A furious tempest swept from one side of the island to the other. The largest trees in St. James's park were torn up by the roots; houses were unroofed or thrown down, and men, even of strong minds, seriously doubted, whether the strife of the elements were produced by ordinary causes. His adherents, of course, spoke of the occurrence as manifesting the interest taken by the Deity himself in the character and services of the deceased, while the royalists ascribed it to a dispute among the evil spirits which rule the air, as to which should enjoy the honour of conducting the usurper's soul to the place of punishment. These speculations were, no doubt, equally absurd; yet was there less of impiety in them than in the conduct of his favourite chaplain, Stury.--"Dry up your tears,” said he to the protector's relatives and attendants; "ye have more reason to rejoice than to weep. He was your protector here, he will prove a still more powerful protector now that he is with Christ at the right hand of the Father."

Cromwell's condition of body at his decease was not such as to permit his being laid out, as it is called, in state; but a waxen image, made to represent him, received all the honours usually bestowed upon royal clay. His funeral, likewise, was performed amid a greater display of pageantry, and at an expense far exceeding that lavished upon the obsequies of any monarch. "He was carried," says Evelyn," from Somerset House on a velvet bed of state, drawn by six horses, harnessed with the same; the pall was held up by his new lords; Oliver lying in effigie in royall robes, and crowned with a crown, sceptre, and globe,

like a king. The pendants and guerdons were carried by the officers of the army; the imperial banners, achievements, &c., by the heraulds in their coates; a rich-caparisoned horse, embroidered all over with gold; a knight of honour armed cap-à-pie; and after all, his guards and souldiers, and innumerable mourners. In this equipage they proceeded to Westminster; but it was the joyfullest funeral I ever saw; for there was none that cried but dogs, which the souldiers hooted away with a barbarous noise, drinking and taking tobacco in the streets as they went."

:

The remains of Cromwell were deposited for a season in Henry VII.'s chapel, amid the dust of the kings of England, being enclosed in a superb coffin, which bore the following inscription "Oliverus Protector Reipublicæ Angliæ, Scotia, et Hiberniæ; natus 250 Aprilis, anno 1599; inauguratus 16° Decembris, 1653; mortuus 3° Septembris, 1658, hic situs est." Of the contumelies afterwards offered to them we are not called upon to say more, than that they have covered with disgrace those only by whom they were commanded and executed.

It has been our great object in the foregoing sketch to regard Oliver Cromwell in the single light of a distinguished military commander. In adhering to this design we have not unfrequently been compelled to suppress details full both of interest and instruction, and to impose serious restraints upon our own opinions touching the true end even of professional biography. The plan, however, which we had chalked out for ourselves arbitrarily requiring these sacrifices, they have without hesitation been made; nor in drawing up a general estimate of his character as a public man shall we permit ourselves to indulge in greater liberties. To some other pen will doubtless be intrusted the task of determining, the niche which Cromwell must fill among the statesmen of England. Let it be our business to give, as far as some little knowledge of such matters will allow, a brief estimate of his qualifications as the leader of an army.

Oliver Cromwell belonged to that limited number of mortals, of whom it may with justice be said, that they came from the hands of nature ready-made soldiers. Bold, active, robust in frame, with nerves of the firmest texture, no dangers could affright, nor any accidents deprive him of self-command, while a thorough confidence in his own resources sufficed in every emergency to carry him through difficulties, under which a more modest man would have given way. The great quality, however, which distinguished him from almost every other general of his day, was his intimate acquaintance with human nature, and the consequent readiness with which he selected fitting instruments, and moulded them on all occasions to his own purposes. Of this, the mode which he adopted to fill up the ranks of his first regiment affords the most satisfactory proof; and

nis treatment of these very men after they were mixed up with others, and so formed a portion of a large body, amply confirms it. No man knew better than he where to draw the line between proper indulgence and its excess; no man could better temper familiarity with respect, easy and kind treatment, with the most rigid discipline. The consequence was, that his soldiers, however stubborn with others, were to him pliant and tractable; not only because they reposed in his abilities the most absolute confidence, but because they personally loved and respected himself.

Undaunted bravery, however, the capability of more than common bodily exertions, and a presence of mind which is never to be taken by surprise, though each and all necessary ingredients, do not suffice, even when accompained by a thorough knowledge of human nature, to complete the character of a great general. There must, in addition, be the power of rapid, and, at the same time, accurate calculation; a judgment clear, and profound; a foresight to imagine all probable difficulties, in order that they may be anticipated; and a moral courage which shall not pass over any, whether it be great or small. If, again, to these be added the principle of order by which masses of men are moved like the pieces on a chess-board, then is the structure of a great military mind complete. Such men were Hannibal, Cæsar, Marlborough, and, for a time at least, Napoleon Bonaparte; and such a man is the duke of Wellington; how far the like assertion may be hazarded with respect to Cromwell we entertain serious doubts.

Cromwell lived in an age when the art of war, properly so called, was very little understood and, with one exception, he never measured himself against an officer either of talent or experience. His early career, therefore, though very brilliant, was that of an active partisan rather than of a general; while it was not till the year 1649 that he ever enjoyed the opportunity of commanding a large army in person. His first campaigns in the capacity of general in chief were in Ireland, where he certainly gained many and important advantages: yet when it is recollected that he fought against men disheartened, and at variance among themselves; that there was no army in the field to oppose him; and that the war was one of sieges only, our admiration of his genius will necessarily degenerate into an admission that he was active, resolute, and ruthless. The terrible executions which he sanctioned in the first towns attacked intimidated the garrisons of other places; and hence the terror of his name did more towards securing their surrender than the skill of his dispositions, or the vigour of his assaults. In Ireland, therefore, we see only the indefatigable guerilla chief enlarged into the leader of a band of ferocious veterans, from whose cruelty the royalists were glad to take shelter, by abandoning the posts which they had been appointed to hold.

Of all the campaigns which Cromwell conducted, that against the Scots in 1650-1 deserves to be considered as the most regular and the most scientific. When he reached the border, instead of a raw army in his front, he beheld a scene of devastation and loneliness around him; for the people were driven from their houses; the corn and cattle were removed, and such measures adopted as would, even now, when the mode of maintaining a mountainous country is better understood, he approved. It would appear that Cromwell had not omitted from his calculations the possible occurrence of these events. A fleet of victuallers and store-ships moved along the coast, from which supplies might be derived; and trusting to these, he pushed boldly forward to the attack of the capital. It has been said that Cromwell was out-generalled here by Leslie. We have no wish to detract from the merits of that able officer, whose system of defence was exactly such as the circumstances of the case required. Trained in the Belgic school, he was not ignorant that raw levies, however individually brave, cannot, with any chance of success, be opposed to veterans on what is termed a fair field; he, therefore, selected a position naturally strong, entrenched it on every weak point, and having devastated the country in its front, waited patiently to be attacked. In all this, however, the single quality displayed was firmness; for there was no manoeuvring on either side, as there was no occasion for it. Cromwell, therefore, is as little to be accused of a deficiency in skill, because he failed to penetrate the lines in front of Edinburgh, as Massena deserves to be accounted a weak man, because the lines of Torres Vedras arrested his march into Lisbon.

Having exhausted every device to turn this position, Cromwell determined on a retreat; and here again he has been accused of improvidence, because he preferred the coast to the inland road. It is very true that the position at Dunbar was a perilous one; but let the perils attending the adoption of a different plan be considered. Whence was Cromwell, in the event of his falling back through the interior, to derive his supplies. There was no food in the country; he depended on his ships for every thing: had he suffered his communications with them to be interrupted, his destruction was inevitable. In a choice of difficulties, he accordingly selected that course which seemed to be the least encumbered with them: what man in his senses would act otherwise? Again, it is urged, that his retreat was disorderly; and that he ran himself into a snare, from which the flagrant mismanagement of his enemies could alone deliver him. To a certain extent there is truth in both assertions. His retreat was not conducted with all the steadiness which might have been exhibited; yet was it the reverse of disastrous: for as often as the Scots hazarded an attack, they were repulsed with a loss more heavy than they inflicted.

167

In the description already given of the relative positions of the two armies at Dunbar, it will be seen, that the prospects of Cromwell must have been for a time exceedingly gloomy. Hemmed in between a range of hills and the sea, a more desponding general would have given up all for lost, yet Cromwell's confidence never forsook him. He calculated upon the possible occurrence of one of those lucky chances to the operations of which all military movements are liable, and the event demonstrated that he had not erred in so doing. Far be it from us to recommend his conduct here as worthy of universal adoption; yet were it folly to talk of carrying on war in every situation by rule. War is a game of chance, the broad principles of which are alone matters for disquisition, its minuter details being much more frequently swayed by accident than by previous consideration. And it is by the promptitude with which he takes advantage of such accidents, more than by any other proceeding, that the great general is distinguished from the mere theorist. How Cromwell contrived to extricate himself from the toils, and to defeat the army which encircled him, we have already shown: we can now only repeat, that his doing so more than redeemed any errors which he may have previously committed.

We come now to his march westward, and its consequences. The plan of operations pursued by the king manifestly indicated, that of his communications with the more northern and western counties he was peculiarly jealous; and it became, of course, the object of Cromwell to dissever these. And here it was, that the greatest displays of generalship were exhibited on both sides. Leslie's position in the Tor-wood was admirably chosen. His movement to the right, by which he blocked up the road to Lanarkshire, was prompt and able; it may be questioned whether he displayed equal alacrity afterwards. His information being excellent he was not long left in ignorance that the English had detached largely into Fifeshire. Had he advanced upon the corps in his front, and forced it to give battle, the chances are, that he would have overthrown it. This, however, he neglected to do; either because his own genius was rather passive than active, or because his troops were not sufficiently manageable, and the consequence was, that Cromwell turned him with his whole army. It is true that the march of Cromwell upon Perth laid open the road to England; but on a southward movement, in such a crisis, no human being could have calculated. Nay, so little was that movement approved at the head-quarters of the royal army, that a threat of desertion by the English cavaliers alone induced Leslie to consent to it. There is, therefore, no blame justly attributable to Cromwell, as if he had left England exposed to invasion; because the invasion itself was a rash and a desperate step, which men disposed to cast all upon the hazard of a die would alone have taken.

Respecting the dispositions made, so soon as the truth became known, for a rapid and effective pursuit, only one opinion can be formed. They were all of them excellent; whether we look to the prompt detaching of the cavalry by the great north road, to the calling out of the militias, or to the close and tenacious chase undertaken by Cromwell himself. It may be that the king loitered a little by the way; and it is certain that, having determined to risk all upon a single manœuvre, he ought to have pushed it to the extreme; yet the very slackness of his friends to join, which caused these delays, bears the best testimony to the prudence with which Cromwell had taken his measures. Finally, the battle of Worcester, though undertaken with very superior numbers, might of itself suffice to place Cromwell high upon the list of military commanders. To pass even one deep river in the face of an enemy is not an easy matter: Cromwell passed two, and the royalists were totally destroyed.

Were we to set up a comparison between Oliver Cromwell and any of the renowned generals of modern times, we should do flagrant injustice to both parties. A man can be fairly estimated only when brought into contrast with those who were his personal rivals in the art which they severally practised, because in all arts, and in the art of war more, perhaps, than in others, such changes occur from age to age, that between those who were accounted masters in each, few points of resemblance are to be found. There may be great activity displayed by both, great foresight and prudence; yet the instruments which they respectively wielded are in their nature so dissimilar, that you cannot place the artists themselves in legitimate contrariety. No man would think of comparing the ship-builder of Charles I.'s time with the ship-builder of the 19th century; and as little may the military leader in the civil wars be contrasted with the late emperor of the French, or the duke of Wellington. But if we confine our attention to the times in which he lived,-if we compare Cromwell with prince Rupert, with Charles himself, with Massey, and even with Leslie,-it will be found that he far excelled them all in every point necessary to the formation of a great military character. He was not less brave than the bravest of them; he fell short of none in activity; he was more vigilant than any; calculated more justly; and, above all, surpassed them in an extraordinary degree in his powers of reading the workings of men's passions. Yet we do not hesitate to avow our persuasions that nature, though she gave to him all the qualifications required to produce a soldier, intended Cromwell for a politician or a statesman, rather than for a general.

Cromwell's personal appearance is so well known, that we shall not waste much time in describing it. To a figure which conveyed the idea rather of strength than of symmetry, he united a countenance full indeed of expression, but exhi

biting none of the lines of beauty. His nose, uncommonly large and red, became the subject of much low wit among his adversaries; and his weatherbeaten and sallow complexion has been commemorated in more than one ribald epigram. His manners, again, varied according to the society into which he chanced to be thrown, and the circumstances which surrounded him. Among his soldiers he was generally familiar and easy, seizing the men by their buttons, and, like Napoleon indicating his good humour by a slight tap on the ear; yet could he draw himself up in a moment, and even assume an air of excessive haughtiness. In like manner, it was with him no unusual practice to intermingle, in the most extraordinary degree, levity with seriousness. In the midst of the grave discussions of his council he would suddenly play off some practical joke; either pulling off the wigs of such as sat next him, or throwing a cushion at their heads. One or two instances of such conduct have been given in the course of this narrative; and there are many besides which rest on evidence not less satisfactory.

We abstain from noticing the ability with which Cromwell wielded the army, for the purpose first of securing, and afterwards of preserving, his own civil greatness. The consideration of that point

in his character lies beyond our present province, as does the review of his general policy, both foreign and domestic. Nevertheless, he who examines these subjects will find in them strong corroborative proofs, that the mind of the protector was more that of a politician than of a warrior. It is, indeed, true, that no man can attain to the high renown of a general of the first order unless he be at the same time largely endowed with those qualities which are supposed to belong exclusively to the statesman, because the guidance of an army, and especially of an English army, requires much more than an intimate acquaintance with strategy. But as we have already hinted, it is with us a matter of considerable doubt, whether Cromwell can be classed in the very first rank of military commanders; and it is of men belonging to that rank, and to that rank alone, that we would be understood as asserting that they have been found ever to unite the sagacity of the politician with the skill of the general.

Cromwell's wife survived him, as did five of his children, two sons, and three daughters. His dying wish was immediately carried into effect, and Richard, the elder of his sons, held for a brief space, and with a feeble hand, the reins of govern

ment.

6*

169

Ir is said by general Foy, in his history of the Peninsular war, that the condition of the British soldier never retrogrades; but that, retaining all the good qualities which his predecessors had acquired, he superadds to these, from generation to generation, whatever of improvement each may have happened to produce. The history of the British army, from its establishment as a recognised body under Cromwell, down to the present times, fully bears out the assertion of the French writer; but, perhaps, at no period was the great truth more fully illustrated than in the age immediately succeeding that of the protector. At Cromwell's decease, the ranks of almost all the regiments in the service were filled by practised veterans,-by men inured to war, and confident alike in themselves and in their leaders. These were gradually weeded out after the restoration; yet were the raw levies brought in to supply their places far from exhibiting any falling off in the qualities which gave a professional character to the victors of Marsden Moor and Worcester field. There was the same steadiness under arms, the same indomitable intrepidity, the same moral courage, which, though exhibiting itself under a different aspect, was not less influential in the soldier of the king, than in the guardian of the commonwealth. It is true, that the reigns of Charles and James afforded little opportunity for the display of great military skill in their generals; yet that even in this particular there was no real deficiency, it needed but the lapse of a few years to demonstrate.

The man, who raised the glory of the British arms to a height never till now surpassed, lived under both the princes of the restored line, though the field of action was not prepared for him till after the accession of the prince of Orange.

John Churchill, afterwards duke of Marlborough, was born at Ashe, in Devonshire, on the 24th of June, 1650. He was the second son of sir Winston Churchill, a gentleman of good family, and high tory principles, whose zeal in the cause of royalty was displayed both by personal exertions in the field, and the ruin of his fortunes under the usurpation of the commonwealth. His mother's name was Elizabeth Drake. She was the daughter of sir John Drake, the proprietor of the mansion in which the subject of this memoir was born; sir John Drake being connected not remotely with the noble houses of Boteler Leigh, and Villiers. 170

It has been generally asserted, and not less generally believed, that the education of the duke of Marlborough was grossly neglected. His early entrance on the stage of active life, as well as the peculiar style and orthography observable in his correspondence, furnish strong ground for asserting that the opinion is correct; yet his father's taste for literature would induce a persuasion, that the circumstance originated not in carelessness, but in necessity. The truth, indeed, appears to be, that sir Winston Churchill, like many other cavaliers, found his loyalty of small avail towards the re-establishment of pecuniary affairs, which an excess of the same principle had embarrassed. Though gratified by an especial grant of an augmentation to his arms, and advanced to the honour of knighthood, he obtained from the restored monarch little besides the favour of a personal regard, and the temporary enjoyment of certain offices, from which a slender revenue accrued.* The consequence was, that he found himself in no condition to incur heavy expense in the education of his children; for whom, on the contrary, he was glad to accept the protection of such patrons as appeared willing to provide for them. Hence his son John, who received the first rudiments of knowledge from a worthy clergyman in the neighbourhood of Ashe, was, after a brief sojourn in St. Paul's School, sent to court, where, at the green age of twelve years, he was appointed page of honour to James duke of York.

There are a variety of rumours extant touching the more immediate causes of the favour in which the young page was undeniably held by his master; of these, one, to which the spirit of party has given a wide circulation, assigns the fact to the personal charms of his sister Arabella, at that time lady of the bedchamber to the duchess. It is by no means impossible that there may be some truth in the insinuation; for Arabella Churchill became, in the end, the avowed mistress of the

* Sir Winston Churchill was, indeed, restored to the enjoyment of his paternal property, but found the lands so encumbered with debts and mortgages as to produce a very slender revenue. He acted as one of the commissioners of the Court of Claims in Ireland in 1664, and was, on his return, constituted a clerk controller of the Board of Green Cloth. The publication of his "Divi Britannici," however, a sort of historical essay, inculcative of the highest monarchical tenets.— raised against him a host of enemies, whom it was found expedient to gratify by his dismissal. He died in 1688, exceedingly poor, though honoured to the last with the friendship of his royal master.