, had no
more claim than the military chiefs to be esteemed the representatives
of the nation. The dispute was soon brought to a decisive issue.
Cromwell filled the house with armed men. The speaker was pulled out of
his chair, the mace taken from the table, the room cleared, and the door
locked. The nation, which loved neither of the contending parties, but
which was forced, in its own despite, to respect the capacity and
resolution of the general, looked on with patience, if not with
complacency.

King, Lords, and Commons had now, in turn, been vanquished and
destroyed, and Cromwell seemed to be left the sole heir of the powers of
all three. Yet were certain limitations still imposed on him by the very
army to which he owed his immense authority. That singular body of men
was, for the most part, composed of zealous republicans. In the act of
enslaving their country, they had deceived themselves into the belief
that they were emancipating her. The book which they most venerated
furnished them with a precedent which was frequently in their mouths. It
was true that the ignorant and ungrateful nation murmured against its
deliverers; even so had another chosen nation murmured against the
leader who brought it, by painful and dreary paths, from the house of
bondage to the land flowing with milk and honey. Yet had that leader
rescued his brethren in spite of themselves; nor had he shrunk from
making terrible examples of those who contemned the proffered freedom,
and pined for the flesh-pots, the task-masters, and the idolatries of
Egypt. The object of the warlike saints who surrounded Cromwell was the
settlement of a free and pious commonwealth. For that end they were
ready to employ, without scruple, any means, however violent and
lawless. It was not impossible, therefore, to establish by their aid a
monarchy absolute in effect; but it was probable that their aid would be
at once withdrawn from a ruler who, even under strict constitutional
restraints, should venture to assume the regal name and dignity.

The sentiments of Cromwell were widely different. He was not what he had
been; nor would it be just to consider the change which his views had
undergone as the effect merely of selfish ambition. When he came up to
the Long Parliament, he brought with him from his rural retreat little
knowledge of books, no experience of great affairs, and a temper galled
by the long tyranny of the government and of the hierarchy. He had,