(s) Parliaentary Hiftory, P. 437. other like offenders, and every of their adherents, and with them to fight; and them to invade, refift, reprefs, fubdue, purfue, flay, kill, and put in execution of death by all ways and means (s).This paffed the house of lords April 1. after the Earl of Ef Voor Sex had declared he would yield up his commiffion, as he did the day following, as well as the Lords Manchefter, Denbigh and Warwick very foon after Thus almost all those men, by whofe intereft, power and authority the war with the King had been undertaken, and without whom no oppofition, of any weight, could poffibly have been raifed, were, in a fhort time, deprived of their power and influence over their own army, and obliged, as we fhall foon fee, to truckle before them! So little can men fee into futurity! fo different are the turns things take from what men are apt to expect and depend on. The felf denying ordinance was very fpecious, as are all bills for excluding the members of parliament, whether lords or commons, from places of truft and profit; and they are generally received favourably, without doors, by all ranks of people. Whether the enacting of them would be right; whether confiftent with the liberty of the fubject; whether they could be carried into execution; or, whether they would be productive of moft good or ill, are diftinct queftions, which politicians will long debate on, and find difficult, perhaps, after all, to come to a conclufion among themselves. But, with refpect to the fubject now before us, it appears to have been a very dangerous experiment the parliament made. Here was an army put folely under the command of one man; a power granted him to give out commiffions, and to order his armies in a good meafure according to his own discretion. What was this but to put it in his power to give the law to the parliament whenever he thought fit? To depend on men's characters, in matters where the well-being of the community, and even the being of the parliament itfelf might be at ftake, was furely a great piece of weaknefs, if fuch it can be called, and liable to very fevere cenfure. Soldiers foon for forget to be citizens: they overlook, they contemn laws. a queftion, fays he, whether civil and military employments ought to be conferred on the fame perfon? In a republic, I fhould think, they ought to be joined, but in monarchies feparated. In republics it would be extreamly dangerous to make the profeffion of arms a particular state, diftinct from that of civil functions; and in monarchies no lefs dangerous would it be to confer thefe two employments on the fame perfon. In republics a perfon takes up arms only with a view to defend his country and its laws; it is because he is a citizen he makes himself for a while a foldier. Were thefe two diftinct ftates, the perfon, " who, under arms, thinks himself a citizen, would foon be made fenfible he is only a foldier. In monarchies military men have nothing but glory, or at leaft honour or fortune, in view. To men, therefore, like thefe, the prince fhould never give any civil. employments; on the contrary, they ought to be checked by the civil magiftrates, and care fhould be taken that the fame men may not have, at the same time, the confidence of the people, and the power to abuse it. We need only turn our eyes to a nation [England] that may be justly called a republic difguifed ' under the form of monarchy, and there we shall see how jealous they are of a separate state of the gentle- ' men of the army, and how the military state is conftantly allied with that of the citizen, and even fometimes of the magistrate, to the end that these quali- () Spirit of ties may be a pledge for their country, which fhould Laws, vol. ་ never be forgotten (1) I 4 i. p. 98. 8vo. Lond. By 1750. tune or art (x) peculiar to himself, he was dif (x) By a fo tune or art peculiar to himself, he was dif pened with pay ng obedience to the flf-denying ordinance.] No man pushed more, we fee, the paffing of this than Cromwell. He declared it neceffary to fatisfy the people, and to put an end to the war. Probably many honest men were induced to join with him in it, from thefe confiderations. It could, therefore, never have entered into the heads of thefe, that the very fame perfon fhould either defire or accept an exemption from a law, which he himself had moved for with fo great zeal and earnestnefs. Nor did thofe who knew him to be a man of art, and were fearful of his devices, seem to entertain the leaft fufpicion of him upon this head. So that his conduct was a masterpiece on this occafion, and fhewed him more than a match for his chief opponents in the houses, who had too much openness, and were too little upon the referve to conteft with him. Lord Hiles, after fpeaking of this ordinance, which turned out himself and his friends from their commands, and of the obedience the army paid to the parliament, notwithstanding their love to their officers, whom they looked on as ill used for their fervices; proceeds thus: the next work was how again to get in my friend Cromwell; for he was to have the power, Sir Thomas Fairfax only the name of general; he to be the figure, the other the cypher. This was fo grofs and di metrically against the letter of the felf-denying ordinance, that it put them to fome trouble how to bring it about. For this Cromwell's foldiers, forfooth, muft mutiny, and fay, they will have their Cromwell, It appears, however, from the Journals of the house of commons, that many of the inferior officers and foldiers mutinied before the ordinance had paffed the houfe of lords. In the Journal of March 4, 1644. O. S. is a declaration of both houfes, promifing pardon to fuch as returned to their duty before the 15th of that inftant, and threatning, in cafe of difobedience, to proceed against them as traitors and enemies to the commonwealth. '_or difpenfed with paying obedience to it. He, there or they will not ftir. Hereupon he must be fent down. they must have their wills. Yet for thefe very • men had Cromwell undertaken before, when, upon debate, the inconveniency was objected which might follow by difcontenting the common foldiers, who would hardly be drawn to leave their old officers and go under new; he could fay, that his foldiers had learned to obey the parliament, to go or stay, fight or lay by the fword, upon their command; which, I know, prevailed with a great many to give their vote with that ordinance. By this trick a little beginning was made towards the breach of it, which was foon made greater. For they caused a report to be spread, that the King was bending with his forces towards the Inle of Ely, but none could fave but Cromwell, who • must be sent in all hafte for that fervice; and an order of difpenfation is made for a very few months, two or three (I remember not well whether) but with fuch proteftations of that party, that this was only for that exigency, and that for the world they would not have the ordinance impeached, as Mr. Sollicitor faid; and that if no body would move for the calling him home at the expiration of that time, he would. But all this was to gull the house. Mr. Sollicitor had forgot his proteftation, and, before that was out, there is ⚫ another order for more months, and fo renewed from • time to time, that at last this great commander is rivetted in the army, and so fast rivetted, as, after all his orders of continuance were at an end, he would keep his command ftill, which he has done for feveral months, and does yet, notwithstanding that ordi- () Me'nance, without any order at all of the house for it (u).' -Lord Clarendon's account of Cromwell's keeping his command is too remarkable to be omitted; not by reafon of its containing any fo extraordinary a matter, as to fhew how much his lordfhip wrote at random concerning the transactions of the parliament. By this · felf moirs, p. 34. therefore, applied himself in good earnest to felf-denying ordinance, together with the Earl of Ef 6 fex, the Earl of Manchester, Sir William Waller, the Earl of Denbigh, major-general Maffey, loft their ' commands, as Cromwell fhould likewife have done. But as foon as the ordinance was paffed, and before the refignation of the Earl of Effex, the party that fteered had caufed him to be fent with a body of horse into the weft, to relieve Taunton, that he might ⚫ be abfent at the time when the other officers delivered their commiffions; which was quickly observed; and thereupon orders were given, to require his prefent attendance in parliament, and that their new general 'fhould fend fome other officer to attend that fervice; which was pretended to be done; and the very day named, by which it was averred that he would be in the house. A rendezvous was then appointed, for their new general to take a view of their troops, that he might appoint officers to fucceed thofe who had left their commands by virtue of their ordinance; and likewife in their places, who gave up their commands, and refused to ferve in the new model, who were a great number of their beft commanders. From this rendezvous the general fent to defire the parliament, that they would give lieutenant-general Cromwell leave to stay with him for fome few days, for his better information, without which he should not be able to perform what they expected from him. The request feeming fo reafonable, and being for fo fhort a time, little oppofition was made to it: and shortly after, by another letter, he defired, with much earnestness, that they would allow Cremwell to ferve for that • campaign. Thus they compaffed their whole defign, in being rid of all thofe whofe affections they knew were not agreeable to theirs, and keeping Cromwell in command, who, in the name of Fairfax, modelled the army, and placed fuch officers as were well known to him, and to no body elfe; and abfolutely governed 6 |