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Cromwell (OLIVER LORD PRO- TECTOR)

OLIVER, LORD PRO- TECTOR OF ENGLAND, born in Huntingdon, England, April 25, 1599. His father was Robert Cromwell, of a family possessed of a baronetcy, and his mother being a daughter of Sir Thomas Stewart.

When 21 years old he married Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Thomas Bourchier, and thus, both by descent and alliance, he was a member of the higher class of country gentlemen. Though he had been elected to the brief Parliament of 1628, it was not till 1640 that he was known in the House of Commons.

He had been for some years establishing an influence with the Puritan party, who frequented his house and bowed to his strong judgment. He showed his great business capacities in the struggle of the Long Parliament, but it was not until the Parliament raised a military force, to which he brought a troop of horse, that his powers of organization and command were fully developed. He speedily rose to authority as lieutenantgeneral of the horse; and when he was specially exempted from the self-denying ordinance, so that he could both deliberate in Parliament and hold command, he became the most powerful man in the country. He showed his eminent sagacity constructing the army, and infusing into it high spirit along with stern discipline. At the battle of Naseby, in 1645, it was seen in the signal destruction brought on the well-officered royal army how effectually he could strike with the weapon he had constructed. His military policy throughout was to despise secondary means and ends, but to invest himself with overwhelming power and crush his enemy. He saw the large share which artillery must bear in warfare, and anticipated anticipated mode modern generals in fostering that destructive arm. His repeated victories over the Royalists, his establishment of the predomi predominance of the army over Parliament, and of the Independents over the Presbyterians; his relentless CROMWELL exertions to bring Charles I. to the block, and his dismissal of the Parliament, are all great events in the history of the day, which cannot be narrated with sufficient distinctness without much detail.

In 1649 he conducted an exterminating war in Ireland, instigated by the ferocious principle that whatever human being opposed him should be put to death. In Scotland, where he saw there were more suitable materials for the sort of government he desired, he was rather a pacificator than an oppressor. It was on Dec. 16, 1653, that he took the title of Lord Protector, and became virtually King of Britain, and a king who submitted to very little constitutional restraint. How far he was sincere in the religious convictions by which he professed to be led, has been matter of endless debate. That he was under powerful religious impulses cannot be doubted- 101 OLIVER CROMWELL the question arises as to the extent to which he really believed that by their power alone, and by no promptings of worldliness, he was driven on in his ambitious career. He was an enlightened internal reformer, showed himself equal to the hard task he had undertaken, and, by a magnanimous foreign policy, left England greater and more honored than he had found her. He did not succeed with his Parliaments, and had to rule mostly without them. At last care, anxiety, and growing perplexities wore him out; he became gloomy and suspicious; was overwhelmed by sorrow at CRONJE the death of his favorite daughter, Elizabeth, Lady Claypole; fell sick, and died about a month after her, Sept. 3, 1658.