the presence of his Maker, in this manner.
I, for one, will not call the man a Hypocrite! Hypocrite, mummer, the life

of him a mere theatricality; empty barren quack, hungry for the shouts of
mobs? The man had made obscurity do very well for him till his head was

gray; and now he _was_, there as he stood recognized unblamed, the virtual
King of England. Cannot a man do without King's Coaches and Cloaks? Is it

such a blessedness to have clerks forever pestering you with bundles of
papers in red tape? A simple Diocletian prefers planting of cabbages; a

George Washington, no very immeasurable man, does the like. One would say,
it is what any genuine man could do; and would do. The instant his real

work were out in the matter of Kingship,--away with it!
Let us remark, meanwhile, how indispensable everywhere a _King_ is, in all

movements of men. It is strikingly shown, in this very War, what becomes
of men when they cannot find a Chief Man, and their enemies can. The

Scotch Nation was all but unanimous in Puritanism; zealous and of one mind
about it, as in this English end of the Island was always far from being

the case. But there was no great Cromwell among them; poor tremulous,
hesitating, diplomatic Argyles and such like: none of them had a heart

true enough for the truth, or durst commit himself to the truth. They had
no leader; and the scattered Cavalier party in that country had one:

Montrose, the noblest of all the Cavaliers; an accomplished,
gallant-hearted, splendid man; what one may call the Hero-Cavalier. Well,

look at it; on the one hand subjects without a King; on the other a King
without subjects! The subjects without King can do nothing; the

subjectless King can do something. This Montrose, with a handful of Irish
or Highland savages, few of them so much as guns in their hands, dashes at

the drilled Puritan armies like a wild whirlwind; sweeps them, time after
time, some five times over, from the field before him. He was at one

period, for a short while, master of all Scotland. One man; but he was a
man; a million zealous men, but without the one; they against him were

powerless! Perhaps of all the persons in that Puritan struggle, from first
to last, the single indispensable one was verily Cromwell. To see and

dare, and decide; to be a fixed pillar in the welter of uncertainty;--a
King among them, whether they called him so or not.

Precisely here, however, lies the rub for Cromwell. His other proceedings
have all found advocates, and stand generally justified; but this dismissal

of the Rump Parliament and assumption of the Protectorship, is what no one
can pardon him. He had fairly grown to be King in England; Chief Man of

the victorious party in England: but it seems he could not do without the
King's Cloak, and sold himself to perdition in order to get it. Let us see

a little how this was.
England, Scotland, Ireland, all lying now subdued at the feet of the

Puritan Parliament, the practical question arose, What was to be done with
it? How will you govern these Nations, which Providence in a wondrous way

has given up to your disposal? Clearly those hundred surviving members of
the Long Parliament, who sit there as supreme authority, cannot continue

forever to sit. What _is_ to be done?--It was a question which theoretical
constitution-builders may find easy to answer; but to Cromwell, looking

there into the real practical facts of it, there could be none more
complicated. He asked of the Parliament, What it was they would decide

upon? It was for the Parliament to say. Yet the Soldiers too, however
contrary to Formula, they who had purchased this victory with their blood,

it seemed to them that they also should have something to say in it! We
will not "for all our fighting have nothing but a little piece of paper."

We understand that the Law of God's Gospel, to which He through us has
given the victory, shall establish itself, or try to establish itself, in

this land!
For three years, Cromwell says, this question had been sounded in the ears

of the Parliament. They could make no answer; nothing but talk, talk.
Perhaps it lies in the nature of parliamentary bodies; perhaps no

Parliament could in such case make any answer but even that of talk, talk!
Nevertheless the question must and shall be answered. You sixty men there,

becoming fast odious, even despicable, to the whole nation, whom the nation
already calls Rump Parliament, you cannot continue to sit there: who or

what then is to follow? "Free Parliament," right of Election,
Constitutional Formulas of one sort or the other,--the thing is a hungry

Fact coming on us, which we must answer or be devoured by it! And who are
you that prate of Constitutional Formulas, rights of Parliament? You have

had to kill your King, to make Pride's Purges, to expel and banish by the
law of the stronger whosoever would not let your Cause prosper: there are

but fifty or threescore of you left there, debating in these days. Tell us
what we shall do; not in the way of Formula, but of practicable Fact!

How they did finally answer, remains obscure to this day. The diligent
Godwin himself admits that he cannot make it out. The likeliest is, that

this poor Parliament still would not, and indeed could not dissolve and
disperse; that when it came to the point of actually dispersing, they

again, for the tenth or twentieth time, adjourned it,--and Cromwell's
patience failed him. But we will take the favorablest hypothesis ever

started for the Parliament; the favorablest, though I believe it is not the
true one, but too favorable.

According to this version: At the uttermostcrisis, when Cromwell and his
Officers were met on the one hand, and the fifty or sixty Rump Members on

the other, it was suddenly told Cromwell that the Rump in its despair _was_
answering in a very singular way; that in their splenetic enviousdespair,

to keep out the Army at least, these men were hurrying through the House a
kind of Reform Bill,--Parliament to be chosen by the whole of England;

equable electoral division into districts; free suffrage, and the rest of
it! A very questionable, or indeed for _them_ an unquestionable thing.

Reform Bill, free suffrage of Englishmen? Why, the Royalists themselves,
silenced indeed but not exterminated, perhaps _outnumber_ us; the great

numerical majority of England was always indifferent to our Cause, merely
looked at it and submitted to it. It is in weight and force, not by

counting of heads, that we are the majority! And now with your Formulas
and Reform Bills, the whole matter, sorely won by our swords, shall again

launch itself to sea; become a mere hope, and likelihood, _small_ even as a
likelihood? And it is not a likelihood; it is a certainty, which we have

won, by God's strength and our own right hands, and do now hold _here_.
Cromwell walked down to these refractory Members; interrupted them in that

rapid speed of their Reform Bill;--ordered them to begone, and talk there
no more.--Can we not forgive him? Can we not understand him? John Milton,

who looked on it all near at hand, could applaud him. The Reality had
swept the Formulas away before it. I fancy, most men who were realities in

England might see into the necessity of that.
The strong daring man, therefore, has set all manner of Formulas and

logical superficialities against him; has dared appeal to the genuine Fact
of this England, Whether it will support him or not? It is curious to see

how he struggles to govern in some constitutional way; find some Parliament
to support him; but cannot. His first Parliament, the one they call

Barebones's Parliament, is, so to speak, a _Convocation of the Notables_.
From all quarters of England the leading Ministers and chief Puritan

Officials nominate the men most distinguished by religious reputation,
influence and attachment to the true Cause: these are assembled to shape

out a plan. They sanctioned what was past; shaped as they could what was
to come. They were scornfully called _Barebones's Parliament_: the man's

name, it seems, was not _Barebones_, but Barbone,--a good enough man. Nor
was it a jest, their work; it was a most serious reality,--a trial on the

part of these Puritan Notables how far the Law of Christ could become the
Law of this England. There were men of sense among them, men of some

quality; men of deep piety I suppose the most of them were. They failed,
it seems, and broke down, endeavoring to reform the Court of Chancery!

They dissolved themselves, as incompetent; delivered up their power again
into the hands of the Lord General Cromwell, to do with it what he liked

and could.
What _will_ he do with it? The Lord General Cromwell, "Commander-in-chief

of all the Forces raised and to be raised;" he hereby sees himself, at this
unexampled juncture, as it were the one available Authority left in

England, nothing between England and utter Anarchy but him alone. Such is
the undeniable Fact of his position and England's, there and then. What

will he do with it? After deliberation, he decides that he will _accept_
it; will formally, with public solemnity, say and vow before God and men,

"Yes, the Fact is so, and I will do the best I can with it!"
Protectorship, Instrument of Government,--these are the external forms of

the thing; worked out and sanctioned as they could in the circumstances be,
by the Judges, by the leading Official people, "Council of Officers and

Persons of interest in the Nation:" and as for the thing itself,