The tyranny of Charles had alienated the feelings of his subjects. Believing in the divine right of kings, and the almost unlimited extent of the royal authority, he set no bounds to his arbitrary measures. Dissenters from the established church were persecuted. To enjoy liberty of conscience, the Puritans had fled across the Atlantic and sought an asylum on the wild New England shores. Freedom of speech against the tyrannical misdoings of Charles and his minions was punished by fines, the pillory, cropping the ears, &c. The high spirit of the English nation could not endure this long. Murmurs of discontent soon grew into clamorous indignation, and at length a manly resistance was opposed to the arbitrary usurpations of the crown. John Hampden refused to pay the illegal assessment of ship-money, and was prosecuted in the Court of Exchequer. The judges pronounced against him, but all England was aroused by the proceeding, and the result was a popular victory. The people saw that their liberties were menaced.

Parliament took strong ground in favor of popular rights. The king, finding them intractable, attempted to rule without them, but this only hastened the crisis. Cromwell was returned a member of the parliament which met in 1640, and which, from the length of time it continued, obtained the name of the Long Parliament. Here opportunities presented themselves of displaying his abilities. He studied the characters of parties and individuals, and obtained that perfect knowledge of the state and the prospect of affairs which gave him shortly afterward so remarkable an ascendency. The king and parliament could no longer keep terms with each other. Charles set up his standard at Oxford, and

the civil war began. The two parties nicknamed each other "Cavaliers" and "Round-heads," "the latter phrase being applied to the Puritans from their custom of cropping their hair.

Cromwell entered with great zeal into the rebellion. When the parliament first decided to levy forces against the king, he raised by his own exertions a troop of horse, and took the command by a commission from the Earl of Essex, general-in-chief of the parliamentary armies. The military talents, which he had never dreamed of possessing, quickly began to appear. He undertook many spirited and successful enterprises on his own responsibility. He was made a colonel, and his regiment soon became the best in the service. His method of discipline may be understood from one particular. To try the courage and presence of mind of his recruits, he placed a dozen troopers in ambuscade, who suddenly rushed upon them. About twenty of the recruits galloped off the field at full speed. These he cashiered, and enlisted bolder men in their place. By such means his ranks were purged of all cowards.

By his important services, Cromwell soon attracted general notice and acquired the confidence of parliament. He was appointed lieutenant-general of cavalry, and at the battle of Marston Moor, in 1644, turned the fortune of the day, and caused the first great defeat of the royalists. He again distinguished himself at the battle of Newbury; and, the eyes of the whole nation being now turned upon him, he was called by his party the Saviour of the Nation. The opponents of the king were divided into several parties. Cromwell

was a member of the sect denominated " Independents." By the management of this party, an act called "the Self-denying Ordinance" was sanctioned by the parliament, which provided that no member of that body should hold any military command. By this crafty manœuvre, many officers who stood in the way of Cromwell's elevation were excluded; while Cromwell himself, from his extraordinary influence over the parliament, the people, and the soldiery, was specially exempted from the operation of the act. The army was under the command of Fairfax, a brave and honest man, but no match for the superior ability, craft, and ambition of Cromwell, who was now promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general in the army. By his skill and bravery, the decisive battle of Naseby was gained in June, 1645. For his services in this exploit, and others which immediately followed, parliament voted him £ 2500 a year. Through his exertions, the royalists were defeated in every quarter, and the king fled to Scotland.

Cromwell's great fame and overgrown influence now began to excite the jealousy of the parliament, although he continued to profess the most profound submission to their authority. They proposed to reduce the army, designing to disband his corps; but he had the address to counteract this scheme, and turned the plot to his own advantage, by preserving himself in the command and getting rid of many rivals and enemies. By his management, the king was made prisoner and carried to the head-quarters of the army; and from this time till the trial and execution of Charles, Cromwell practised a most extraordinary and successful scheme

of policy, deceiving and overreaching the king, the parliament, and the army.

The second civil war, in which the Scots joined the royalists, called Cromwell again into the field. We have no room to specify his various successes. Charles the First, after escaping, was again captured, put on trial before the parliament, and condemned to die. Cromwell, with forty members of the Lower House, signed the death-warrant, and the king was beheaded in front of his own palace of Whitehall, on the 30th of January, 1649.

Cromwell, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, invaded that country in 1649. He conquered the island, and returned the next year. The Scots now threatened an invasion of England in favor of Charles the Second. Cromwell marched into that country with twenty thousand troops, gave the Scots a signal overthrow at the decisive battle of Dunbar, captured Edinburgh, and obliged the young king to make a desperate attempt to retrieve his affairs in England. Cromwell marched in pursuit of the royal army, and at the battle of Worcester, on the 3d of September, 1651, obtained a victory which he called his crowning mercy. The royalists were defeated and utterly dispersed, and Cromwell made his triumphal entry into London, with all the pomp of a conqueror and deliverer. The measure of his glory was now full and his influence supreme; without an equal or a competitor, the path opened to his ambition was boundless.

The parliament had now become unpopular, yet they found pretexts for delaying their dissolution. Cromwell resolved upon the bold expedient of dis

solving them by force; and this, the most extraordinary act of his life, was immediately accomplished. With a guard of three hundred men, he proceeded to the parliament-house, where, leaving his soldiers at the door, he entered and took his seat. After listening to the debates a short time, he started up, bade the speaker leave the chair, and told the members they had sat long enough unless they did more good. "Come, come!" said he, "I will put an end to your prating. You are no parliament: I say you are no parliament.” Then, stamping with his foot, he ordered them for shame to "Be gone and give place to honest men." The soldiers, at this signal, entered the house. Cromwell pointed at the mace, the symbol of authority, which always lay on the table in front of the speaker, and exclaimed, “Take away that bawble!" At the same time an officer took the speaker by the arm and led him down from his seat. Cromwell, again addressing the members, said, "It is you that forced me to this; for I have besought the Lord, night and day, that he would rather slay me than put me upon the doing of this work." He then seized the papers, turned the members out of the house, and locked the doors. Such was the end of the Long Parliament, on the 19th of April, 1653.

Cromwell was now supreme ruler of England, and on the 16th of December, 1653, formally assumed the title of Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. But to keep up the external form of a popular government, he convened a parliament, which, from the name of one of its members, became known as "Barebone's Parliament." This body,