The Lion's Whelp

CHAPTER IX

CROMWELL INTERFERES

Daylight came with that soft radiance of sunshine over fresh green things which makes spring so delightful. Israel, who had slept his usual six hours, was in the garden to enjoy it, and his heart was full of praise. He watched the little brown song sparrows building their nests, and twittering secrets among the hawthorns. He saw the white lilies of the valley lifting their moonlight bells above the black earth, and he took into his heart the sweet sermon they preached to him. Then suddenly, and quite unawares, a waft of enthralling perfume led him to stoop to where at the foot of a huge oak tree a cluster of violets was flinging incense into the air. He smiled at his big hands among them, he was going to gather a few for Jane, and then he could not break their fragile stems. "Praise the Lord where He set you growing," he said softly; "my hands are not worthy to touch such heavenly things, they have been washed in blood too often." And his heart was silent and could find no prayer to utter, but the conscience-stricken cry of the man of war centuries before him, "Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy holy spirit from me."

Softened by such exquisite matins, he went in to breakfast. He was seldom inclined to talk on public affairs, and this morning he said not a word about the Council of the previous night, nor of the self-humiliation which he felt certain would be demanded of the Parliament that day. He eat his portion cheerfully, listening to Jane, who was more talkative and light-hearted than usual. She told her father she was going with Alice Heneage and a number of young people to Hampton Court. They were to picnic in the park and come home in the gloaming by the river; and as she dwelt on what was to be done and seen that happy day, Israel looked at her with a tender scrutiny. He said to himself, "She is more beautiful than she used to be;" and he watched with pleasure her soul-lit eyes and speaking face, not oblivious, either, of the neatness of her shining hair and the exquisite purity of her light gown of India calico, with its crimped rufflings and spotless stomacher of embroidery. "She might have worn the violets on her breast," he thought; and then he rose hastily and called in the household, and read a psalm, and made a short, fervid prayer with them.

And this morning he looked at the men and maids afterwards, and was not pleased at what he saw. "Tabitha," he said sternly, "you come to worship with too little care. Both you and the other wenches may well wash your faces, and put on clean brats when you are going to sit down and listen to the Word of the Lord;" then observing a grin on one of the men's faces, he turned on them with still more anger, and rated them for their want of respect to God and man for their uncombed hair and soiled garments and unblacked shoes, and so sent all of them away with shame in their red faces and not a little wrath in their hearts. And he had no idea that Jane's delicious freshness and purity had really been the text prompting his household homily.

Soon after General Swaffham's departure for Whitehall, Jane's friends called for her, and they went away together full of youth's enthusiasm and anticipation. They took the road to the river, and to the sound of music and the falling and dipping of the oars they reached Richmond and soon spread the contents of their hampers upon the grass under some great oaks in the secluded park. Jane was disappointed at Cluny's absence; he had certainly been expected, and no word explaining his failure to keep his engagement had been received. But the general tone of the company was so full of innocent gayety, that she could not, and did not, wish to resist it.

After a happy, leisurely meal, they spent the rest of their holiday in wandering through the palace, until its melancholy, monastic grandeur subdued them almost to silence. Captain Desborough, a young officer who waited on Alice Heneage, was familiar with the building, and as he led them through the rooms he told them stories, good and ill, connected with the various apartments. Finally they came to one on the ground floor, that had been the private parlour of King Charles – a gloomy room furnished with a sombre magnificence – and here the young man drew the company closer to him, and said —

"I can tell you something true and strange about this room. There were two prophecies made in it, and one of them has come to pass. King Charles stood at this window one day, just where we are now standing, and his three eldest children were with him. And a woman, swart as an Indian savage, with eyes full of a strange, glazing light, came suddenly before them. And she said to the King, 'Let me read the future of your children. It may comfort you when you will need comfort.' But the King, being in one of his melancholy tempers, answered her haughtily, 'No mortal man or woman can foresee the future;' and she looked scornfully at him, and putting a small steel mirror before his face said, 'Look!' and the King cast down his eyes and saw his own head lying on a bloody sheet; and he shuddered and reeled as if he would have fallen. Then a look of pity came into the woman's face, and she put aside the mirror, and said in a strange, far-off voice – as if she was already a long way distant – 'When a dog dies in this room, your son will come to the throne again.' And the King called loudly for his attendant, but when the officer came, the woman had disappeared, nor could any trace or tidings of her be found or heard tell of."

And every one was strangely silent; they walked away separately and examined the fine tapestry hangings, but they said not a word to each other about the uncanny incident. It seemed only a fit sequence that their next visit should be through the low, narrow portals to the gloomy subterranean apartments, which had been the guard rooms, and which were still decorated with dusty battle flags and old arms and armour. A singular sensation of having been in these vault-like rooms before, a sense of far-backness, of existence stretching behind everlastingly, of sorrows great and unavailing, permeated the atmosphere. Jane felt that here, if anywhere, men of war might understand the barrenness of their lives, and anticipate the small, and gloomy harvest of their tremendous pilgrimage.

It was like passing from death unto life to come out of these caverns of the sword into the light and glory of the westering sun, to feel its warmth, and see its brave colours, and hear the cuckoo, like a wandering voice, among the trees. Jane was the first to speak. "How beautiful is life and light!" she cried. "Let us get far away from this woeful palace. I felt such sorrowful Presence in every room; I thought I heard sighs following me, and soft steps. Who would live in such a home? To do so, it is to say to Misfortune, 'Come and live with me.'"

The spirits of the little party, so gay in the morning, had sunk to the level of their surroundings: the damp river with its twinkling lights, the gray gloaming, the laboured dip of the traveling oars. They were near the city when Mary Former said a few words about the evil-omened parlour and the two prophecies; then she wondered, "If it was really in the power of any one to reveal the future." And Philip Calamy, a very devout young man, who was in attendance upon Jane, answered,

"The Book of the Future, in whatever language it may be written, is a perilous one to read. We should go mad with too much learning there."

"Yet," said Jane, "it is most sure that certain signs precede certain events; and I see not why the good man, being related to heavenly beings – a little lower than the angels – may not foresee and foretell; and by the same token, the evil being, related to evil angels, might have a like intelligence."

The discussion was not continued, for they were at the river stairs, and as they passed through the city they were instantly aware of great excitement. The rabble were gathered round the men of news, and were listening with open mouths; the tradesmen were talking in groups at their shop doors; they heard the name of Cromwell repeatedly, sometimes in pride, sometimes in anger; and small bodies of the army were very much in evidence. It was impossible not to feel that something of great moment had happened, or was going to happen; and when Jane entered the hall at Sandys and saw Doctor Verity's hat and cloak there, she expected that he had come with information. The next moment Mrs. Swaffham came hurriedly forward, and when she saw Jane, she raised her eyes and threw up her hands with the palms outward, to express her huge astonishment and dismay.

"Mother," cried Jane, "what is the matter? What has happened?" and Mrs. Swaffham answered —

"The strangest thing that ever happened in England."

Even while she spoke they heard General Swaffham coming up the steps, the clatter of his arms emphasising his perturbed feelings. He was very little inclined to parade his military importance, so that the rattle of swords and spurs meant something more than usual to those who understood him. He had scarcely entered the door ere Doctor Verity came into the hall crying —

"Is it true, Israel? Is it true?"

"Quite true."

"And well done?"

"Well done. I am sure of it."

Men and women went into the parlour together, and a servant began to remove the General's cavalry boots and spurs. "I told you, Doctor, this morning, that a settlement of some kind must come to-day. When I reached Whitehall I found the Lord General waiting for Sir Harry Vane and the members who had promised to come and continue the conference relating to the bill early in the day. The General was occupying himself with a book, but as the hours went by he grew restless and laid it down. Then he turned to me and said, 'Truly these men are long in coming; are you ready, General?' and before I could answer he asked again 'ready and willing?' I told him a word would move my troop as one man, if that word came from himself; and he waited silently a little longer. Then Lord Cluny Neville came in very hastily, and said a few words, I know not what they were; and he had scarce gone when Colonel Ingoldsby entered, and there was no secrecy then —

"'My lord!' he cried, 'Parliament is sitting at this moment; and Sir Harry Vane, Sidney, and Henry Marten are urging the immediate passage of the bill so hateful to the whole nation.'

"Then Cromwell roused himself like an angry lion. His passion at this perfidious conduct leaped into flame; he shouted to Lambert and his own troop of Ironsides. He gave me the signal I understood, and we went quickly to the Parliament House. In the lobby St. John was standing, and he said to Cromwell, 'Are you come down to the House, my lord, this morning? It was thought you were safe at the Cockpit?' and Cromwell answered, 'I have somewhat to do at the House. I am grieved to my soul to do it. I have sought the Lord with tears to lay the work on some other man. I would to God I could innocently escape it – but there is a necessity!' and he spoke with force and anger, and so went into the House."

"But what then?" asked Doctor Verity, his face burning with the eager soul behind it.

"I stood at the door watching him, my men being in the lobby. He went to his usual seat, but in a very great and majestic manner, and for a little while he listened to the debate. Then he beckoned Major General Harrison and told him he judged 'it was high time to dissolve this Parliament.' And Harrison told me this afternoon, that he advised Cromwell to consider what he would do, for it was a work great and dangerous; and who, he asked, 'is sufficient for it?' And Cromwell answered, 'The Servant of the Lord, he is sufficient;' yet he sat down again, looking at me as he did so, and I looked back straight into his eyes that I and mine could be depended on.

"In a few minutes the question for passing the bill was put, and the man could be restrained no longer. He stood up, took off his hat, and looked round the House, and it quailed under his eyes; every man in it shifted on his seat and was uneasy. He began to speak, and it was with a tongue of flame. He reproached them for their self-seeking and their hypocrisy and oppression; and as he went on, there was the roar of a lion in his voice, and the members, being condemned of their own consciences, cowered before him."

"Did no one open their mouth against him?"

"No one but Sir Peter Wentworth. He said, 'My Lord General, this Parliament has done great things for England;' and Cromwell answered, 'The spoke in the wheel that creaks most does not bear the burden in the cart!' Then Sir Peter told Cromwell his abuse of the Parliament was the more horrid because it came from the servant of the Parliament, the man they had trusted and obliged."

At these words Dr. Verity laughed loudly – "Cromwell, the servant of such a Parliament!" he cried. "Not he; what then, Israel?"

"He told Wentworth to be quiet. He said he had heard enough of such talk, and putting on his hat, he took the floor of the House. I watched him as he did so. He breathed inward, like one who has a business of life and death in hand. I could see on his face that he was going to do the deed that had been the secret of his breast for many days; and his walk was that quick stride with which he ever went to meet an enemy. He stood in the middle of the House, and began to accuse the members personally. His words were swords. He flung them at the men as if they were javelins; shot them in their faces as if from a pistol; and while rivers run to the sea, I can never think of Oliver Cromwell as I saw him this day but as one of the Immortals. He did not look as you and I look. He filled the House, though a less man in bulk and stature than either of us. He told the members to empty themselves of Self, and then they would find room for Christ, and for England. He told them the Lord had done with them. He said they were no Parliament, and that he had been sent to put an end to their sitting and their prating.

"And at these words, Cluny Neville spoke to the Serjeant, and he opened the doors, and some musketeers entered the House. Then Sir Harry Vane cried out, 'This is not honest;' and Cromwell reminded him of his own broken promise. And so, to one and all, he brought Judgment Day; for their private lives were well known to him, and he could glance at Tom Challoner and say, 'Some of you are drunkards;' and at Henry Marten, and give the text about lewd livers; and at the bribe-takers he had only to point his finger, and say in a voice of thunder 'Depart,' and they began to go out, at first slowly, and then in a hurry, treading on the heels of each other."

"What of Lenthall? He has a stubborn will."

"He sat still in the Speaker's chair, until Cromwell ordered him to come down. For a moment he hesitated, but General Harrison said, 'I will lend you my hand, sir;' and so he also went out."

"But was there no attempt to stay such dismissals? I am amazed, dumbfounded!" said Doctor Verity.

"Alderman Allen, the Treasurer of the Army, as he went out said something to Cromwell which angered him very much; and he then and there charged Allen with a shortage of one hundred thousand pounds, and committed him to the care of a musketeer for examination. And as Sir Harry Vane passed him, he told him reproachfully that his own treacherous conduct had brought affairs to their present necessity; for, he added, 'if Sir Harry Vane had been at the Cockpit according to his words, Oliver Cromwell had not been in the Parliament House.' But I tell you, there was no gainsaying the Cromwell of this hour. He was more than mortal man; and Vane and the others knew, if they had not known before, why he was never defeated in battle."

"After the Speaker had left, what then?"

"His eye fell upon the Mace, and he said scornfully to some of the Ironsides, 'Take that bauble away!' Then he ordered the musketeers to clear the House, he himself walking up to its Clerk and taking from under his arm the bill which had caused the trouble, and which was ready to pass. He ordered the man to go home, and he slipped away without a question. Cromwell was the last soul to leave the Chamber, and as he went out of it he locked the door and put the key in his pocket. He then walked quietly back to his rooms in the Cockpit, and I dare say he was more troubled to meet Mistress Cromwell than he was to meet Sir Harry Vane and his company."

"Oh, no!" said Jane. "Mistress Cromwell is in all her husband's counsels. He would go to her for comfort, for whatever he may have said and done. I know he is this hour sorrowful and disturbed, and that he will neither eat nor drink till he has justified himself in the sight of God."

"He will need God on his right hand and on his left," said Doctor Verity. "More than we can tell will come of this – implacable hostility, rancorous jealousy, everlasting envy and spite. The members – "

"The members," interrupted General Swaffham, "have tied themselves, hands and feet, with cords of their own spinning, and Oliver Cromwell holds the ends of them. They will not dare to open their mouths. Sir Harry Vane said something about the business being 'unconstitutional,' and Cromwell answered him roughly enough, after this fashion: 'Unconstitutional? A very accommodating word, Sir Harry Vane. Give me leave to say you have played fast and loose with it long enough. I will not have it any longer! England will not have it! You are no friend of England. I do say, sir, you are no friend of England!' And his passion gathered and blazed till he spurned the floor with his feet, just as I have seen my big red bull at Swaffham paw the ground on which he stood."

"This is all very fine indeed," said Mrs. Swaffham, almost weeping in her anger; "but you need not praise this man to me. He has slain the King of England, and turned out the English Parliament, and pray what next? He will make himself King, and Elizabeth Cromwell Queen. Shall we indeed bow down to them? Not I, for one."

"He wants no such homage, Martha," said the Doctor, "and if I judge Madame Cromwell rightly, she is quite as far from any such desire."

"You know nothing of the Cromwell women, Doctor – I know. Yes, I know them!"

"Dear mother – "

"Jane, there is no use 'dear mothering' me. I know the Cromwells. Many a receipt for puddings and comfits I have given Elizabeth Cromwell, and shown her how to dye silk and stuffs; yes, and loaned her my silver sconces when Elizabeth married Mr. Claypole; and now to think of her in the King's palace, and people bowing down to her, and hand-kissing, and what not! And as for Oliver Cromwell's passions, we know all about them down in Cambridgeshire," she continued. "He stamped in that way when some one preached in St. Mary's what he thought rank popery; and about the draining of the Fens, he kicked enough, God knows! Oh, yes, I can see him in steel and buff, sword in hand, and musketeers behind him, getting his way – for his way he will have – if he turn England hurly-burly for it."

"Martha, he wore neither steel nor buff, and his sword was far from him. He went down to the House in a black cloth suit and gray worsted stockings, which, no doubt, were of his wife's knitting; and his shoes were those made by Benjamin Cudlip, country fashion, low-cut, with steel latchets. He had not even a falling collar on, just a band of stitched linen round his neck."

"I wonder, oh, I hope!" said Jane, "that it was one of the bands I stitched when I was last staying at Whitehall."

"Find it out, Jane; settle your mind that it was one of them," answered Doctor Verity; "and then, Jane, you may tell it to your children, and grandchildren, God willing."

"At any rate," continued General Swaffham, "Cromwell at this hour owed nothing to his dress. I have seen him in the fields by St. Ives, and in Ely Market, in the same kind of clothing. What would you? And what did it matter? His spirit clothed his flesh, and the power of the spirit was on him, so that the men in velvet and fine lace wilted away in his presence."

"No one minds the Lord General's having power, no one minds giving him honour for what he has done for England, but the Cromwell women! What have they done more than others?" asked Mrs. Swaffham.

"Be at peace, Martha," said General Swaffham; "here are things to consider of far greater import than the Cromwell women. How the nation will take this affair, remains to be seen. 'Tis true the Lord General was cheered all through the city, but he knows – and no man better – what a fickle heart the populace have. As like as not, it will be, as he said to me, 'Overturn, overturn, and great tasks on all sides.'"