as appeared, and indeed almost a pain to the eye limit, in the family and still wider circles, might -and too probably to the mind. Poring in which, ensue.-On the whole, he would consider of it; nevertheless, my unknown correspondent professed was heartily disposed to do for me, and for the to have discovered various things. Strange, un-interests of truth (with what peril soever) all in his known aspects of affairs, moving accidents, adven-power;;-hoped, for the rest, to be in London soon, tures, such as the fortune of war in the obscure where, it appeared, the papers were then lying in Eastern Association (of Lincoln, Norfolk &c.) in some repository of his; would there see me, and the early obscure part of Oliver's career, hitherto do as good will guided by wise caution might entirely vacant and dark in all histories, had dis- direct. closed themselves to my unknown correspondent, To all which I could only answer with thanks painfully spelling in the rear of that destructive for the small valuable hint concerning young Olivermin: onslaughts, seizures, surprises; endless ver's death; with a desire to know more about activity, audacity, rapidity on the part of Oliver; those old papers; with astonishment at my corstrict general integrity too, nay rhadamanthine jus- respondent's apprehension as to publishing them, tice, and traits of implacable severity connected which I professed was inconceivable, and likely to therewith, which had rather shocked the otherwise fly away as a night-dream if he spoke of it in strong but modern nerves of my unknown corre- intelligent circles;-and finally with an eager wish spondent. Interspersed, as I could dimly gather, for new light of any authentic kind on Oliver Cromwere certain Letters, from Oliver and others, well and his acts or sayings, and an engagement (known or hitherto unknown, was not said;) kept, that whatever of that sort my correspondent did presumably, by Auditor Squire, the ironside sub- please to favor me with, should be thankfully altern, as narrative documents, or out of private turned to use, under such conditions as he might fondness. As proof what curious and to me see good to prescribe. And here, after a second interesting matter lay in those old papers, journals or perhaps even a third letter and answer, (for sevor journal, as my unknown correspondent indis-eral of these missives, judged at first to be without criminately named them, he gave me the following importance, are now lost,) which produced no new small excerpt; illuminating completely a point on which I had otherwise sought light in vain. See, in Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, Letter 5th July, 1644; which gives account of Marston-Moor Battle, and contains an allusion to Oliver's own late loss, Sir, you know my own trials this way,"-touching allusion, as it now proves; dark hitherto for all readers :-Meeting Colonel Cromwell again after some absence, just on the edge of Marston Battle, (it is Auditor Squire that writes,) "I thought he looked sad and wearied; for he had had a sad loss; young Oliver got killed to death not long before, I heard it was near Knaresborough, and 30 more got killed.' 66 information to me, nor any change in my correspondent's resolutions, the matter had to rest. To an intelligent friend, partly acquainted in my correspondent's country, I transmitted his letters; with request that he would visit this remarkable possessor of old manuscripts; ascertain for me, more precisely, what he was, and what they were; and, if possible, persuade him that it would be safe, for himself and for the universe, to let me have some brief perusal of them! This friend unfortunately did not visit those my correspondent's localities at the time intended: so, hearing nothing more of the affair, I had to wait patiently its ulterior developments; the arrival, namely, of my Interesting papers beyond doubt, my unknown correspondent in town, and the opening of his correspondent thought. On one most essential mysterious repositories there. Not without surpoint, however, he professed himself at a painful mises that perhaps, after all, there might be little, pause: How far, or whether at all, these papers or even nothing of available, in them; for me ought to be communicated to the public, or even nothing, but new dreary labor, ending in new disto myself? Part of my correspondent's old kin- appointment and disgust; tragic experience being dred had been roundheads, part had been royalists; already long and frequent, of astonishingly curious of both which sorts plentiful representatives yet old papers on Oliver, vouchsafed me, with an effort remained, at present all united in kindly oblivion and from favor, by ardent patriotic correspondents of those old sorrows and animosities; but capable-which, after painful examination, proved only to yet, as my correspondent feared, of blazing up be astonishing old bundles of inanity, dusty desointo one knew not what fierce contradictions, should lation, and extinct stupidity, worthy of oblivion the question be renewed. That was his persua- and combustion: surmises tending naturally to sion, that was his amiable fear. I could perceive, moderate very much my eagerness, and render indeed, that my correspondent, evidently a simple patience easy. and honorable man, felt obscurely as if, in his own So had some months passed, and the affair been new conviction about Oliver's character, he pos- pretty well forgotten, when, one afternoon in June sessed a dangerous secret, which ought in nowise last, a heavy packet came by post; recognizable even to be lightly divulged. Should he once inconsid- on the exterior as my unknown correspondent's : erately blab it, this heterodox, almost criminal and hereby, sooner than anticipation, and little as secret, like a fire-spark among tinder and dry flax; I could at first discern it, had the catastrophe —how much more if, by publishing those private arrived. For within there lay only, in the meanpapers, confirmatory of the same, he deliberately while, copied accurately in my correspondent's shot it forth as mere flame! Explosion without hand, those five-and-thirty letters of Oliver Crom well which the public are now to read this, with | which I, and mankind in general, might now make here and there some diligent though rather indis- whatsoever we pleased. tinct annotation by my correspondent, where needful; and, on a note from himself, some vague hint of his having been in town that very day, and even on the point of calling on me, had not haste and the rigor of railways hindered; hints too about the old dangers from royalist kindred being now happily surmounted-formed the contents of my heavy packet. 66 With my unknown correspondent I have not yet personally met; nor can I yet sufficiently explain to myself this strange procedure of his, which naturally excites curiosity, amid one's other graver feelings. The friend above alluded to, who has now paid that visit, alas too late, describes him to me as a gentleman of honorable, frank aspect and manners; still in his best years, and of robust manful qualities; by no means, in any way, the feeble, chimerical, or distracted entity, dug up from the seventeenth century and set to live in this nineteenth, which some of my readers might fancy him. Well acquainted with that old journal, "which went to 200 folio pages;" and which he had carefully, though not with much other knowledge, read and again read. It is suggested to me, as some abatement of wonder: "He has lived, he and his, for 300 years, under the shadow of a cathedral city: you know not what kind of sleepy hollow that is, and how Oliver Cromwell is related to it, in the minds of all men and nightbirds who inhabit there! This gentleman had felt that, one way or other, you would inevitably in the end get this MS. from him, and make it public; which, what would it amount to but a new Guy-Faux cellar, and infernal machine, to almost dissolve nature for the time being? Hence he resolved to burn his papers, and avoid catastrophes." The reading of these old Cromwell letters, by far the most curious that had ever come to me from such a source, produced an immediate earnest, almost passionate request to have sight of that old "Journal by Samuel Squire," under any terms, on any guarantee I could offer. Why should my respectable, obliging correspondent still hesitate? These letters, I assured him, if he but sold the originals as autographs, were worth hundreds of pounds; the old Journal of an Ironside, since such it really seemed to be, for he had named it definitely in the singular, not " journals" and "papers" as heretofore I prized as probably the most curious document in the archives of England, a piece not to be estimated in tens of thousands. It had become possible, it seemed probable and almost certain, that by diligent study of those old papers, by examination of them as with microscopes, in all varieties of lights, the veritable figure of Crom-explode his cathedral city and all its coteries, and well's Ironsides might be called into day, to be seen by men once more, face to face, in the lineaments of very life! A journey in chase of this unknown correspondent and his hidden papers; But what chiefly, or indeed exclusively, concerns any journey, or effort, seemed easy for such a us here, is that, from the first, and by all subseprize. quent evidence, I have seen this gentleman to be Alas, alas, by return of post, there arrived a a person of perfect veracity, and even of scrupuletter beginning with these words: "What you lous exactitude in details: so that not only can his ask is impossible, if you offered me the Bank of copies of the Cromwell letters be taken as correct, England for security: the journal is ashes,"-all or the correctest he could give, but any remark or was ashes! My wonderful unknown correspon- statement of his concerning them is also to be dent had at last, it would appear, having screwed entirely relied on. Let me add, for my own sake his courage to the sticking place, rushed up to and his, that, with all my regrets and condemnatown by rail; proceeded straight to his hidden tions, I cannot but dimly construe him as a man of repositories here; sat down, with closed lips, with much real worth; and even (though strangely concentred faculty, and copied me exactly the inarticulate, and sunk in strange environments) Cromwell letters, all words of Cromwell's own of a certain honest intelligence, energy, generosity, (these he had generously considered mine by a which ought not to escape recognition, while passkind of right;)—which once done he, still with ing sentence;-least of all by one who is forced closed lips, with sacrificial eyes, and terrible hand unwillingly to relate these things, and whom, as and mood, had gathered all his old puritan papers is clear, he has taken great pains, and made a great and small, Ironside "journal," Cromwell strong effort over himself, to oblige even so far. autographs, and whatever else there might be, and And this is what I had to say by way of introducsternly consumed them with fire. Let royalist tion to these new letters of Oliver Cromwell, which quarrels, in the family or wider circles, arise now are now all that remains to the world or me from if they could;-" much evil," said he mildly to that adventure. me, "hereby lies buried." The element of resolution," one may well add, "is strong in our family;" unchangeable by men, scarcely by the very gods! And so all was ashes; and a strange speaking apparition of the past, and of a past more precious than any other is or can be, had sunk again into the dead depths of night. Irrecoverable; all the royal exchequer could not buy it back! That, once for all, was the fact; of 66 With regard to the letters themselves, they may now be read without further preface. As will be seen, they relate wholly to the early part of Oliver's career; to that obscure period, hitherto vacant or nearly so in all histories, while "Colonel Cromwell" still fought and struggled in the Eastern Association, under Lord Grey of Groby, under the Earl of Manchester, or left much to his own shifts; and was not yet distinguished by the public NOS. 1.-VI. The first six letters are of dates prior to the actual breaking out of the civil war, but while its rapid approach was too evident; and bring to view, strange lugubrious chiaroscuro, committees of "association for mutual defence," (or however they phrased it,) and zealous individuals, Samuel Squire among others, tremulously sitting in various localities-tremulous under the shadow of high treason other;-to whom of course the honorable memon the one hand, and of Irish massacre on the ber's communications, in such a season, were of breathless interest. The king has quitted his parliament; and is moving northward, towards York tude. as it proved, in a more and more menacing atti NO. I. The address, if there ever was any except a verbal one by the bearer, is entirely gone, and the date also; but may be supplied by probable con "To the Committee of Association at Huntingdon.' 'LONDON, March, 1641.' from a hundred other colonels. They present to us the same old Oliver whom we knew, but in still more distinct lineaments and physiognomy; the features deeply, even coarsely marked-or, as it were, enlarged to the gigantic by unexpected near-in ness. It is Oliver left to himself; stript bare of all conventional draperies; toiling, wrestling as for life and death, in his obscure element; none looking over him but Heaven only. He " can stand no nonsenses;" he is terribly in carnest; will have his work done-will have God's justice done too, and the everlasting laws observed, which shall help, not hinder, all manner of work! The Almighty God's commandments, these, of which this work is one, are great and awful to him; all else is rather small, and not awful. He has pity -pity as of a woman, of a mother, we have known in Oliver;—and rage also as of a wild lion, where need is. He rushes direct to his point: "If resistance is made, pistol him;" "Wear them, (these uniforms,) or go home:" "Hang him out of hand; he wantonly killed the poor widow's boy;jecture: God and man will be well pleased to see him punished!" The attentive reader will catch not only curious minute features of the old civil war, in these rude letters; but more clearly than elsewhere significant glimpses of Oliver's character and ways; and if any reader's nerves, like my correspondent's, be too modern—all effeminated in this universal, very dreary, very portentous babble of "abolishing capital punishments," &c. &c., and sending Judas Iscariot, Courvoisier, Praslin, Tawell, and Nature's own scoundrels, teachable by no hellebore, to the school-master," instead of to the hangman, or to the cesspool, or somewhere swiftly out of the way (said "school-master" having not yet overtaken all his other hopefuller work, by any manner of means!)—perhaps the sight of a great natural human soul once more, in whom the stamp of the divinity is not quite abolished by ages of cant, and hallow wiggery of every kind, ending now in an age of "abolition principles," may do such reader some good! I understand one of my correspondent's more minute reasons for burning the The date exists, though wrong written, from Ironside Journal was, that it showed Cromwell un-haste; but the address must be supplied : commonly impatient of scoundrels, from time to time; and might have shocked some people! 64 I print these letters according to their date, so far as the date is given; or as the unwritten date can be ascertained or inferred-which of course is not always possible; more especially since the accompanying "journal" was destroyed. With some hesitation, I decide to print with modern spelling and punctuation, there being no evidence that the partially ill-spelt copies furnished me are exact to Oliver's ill-spelling; which at all events is insignificant, the sense having nowhere been at all doubtful. Commentary, except what Auditor Squire and his transcriber have afforded, I cannot undertake to give; nor perhaps will much be needed. Supplementary words added by myself are marked by single commas, as was the former wont; annotations, if inserted in the body of the letter, are in Italics within brackets. And now to business, with all brevity. DEAR FRIENDS, It is not improbable that the King may go through Huntingdon on his way to Stamford. Pray keep all steady, and let no peace be broken. Beg of all to be silent; or it may mar our peaceable settling this sad business. Such as are on the County Array bid go; all of you protect, at cost of deed-as you love the Cause. From life, the King from harm, or foul usage by word or Yours faithfully, OLIVER CROMWELL. The transcriber, my unknown correspondent, "Journal adds from the burnt journal this note: mentioned a sad riot at Peterborough on the king's going to Stamford, between the townsmen and the array." March, 1641, as is known, means 1642, according to the modern style; new-years-day is 25th March. NO. II. 'To the Committee of Association at Stilton.' ELY, April 11th day, 1641 [for 1642; miswritten, Newyears-day being still recent.] DEAR FRIENDS, The Lord has hardened his [the King's] heart more and more; he has' refused to hear reason, or to care for our Cause or Religion or Peace. Let our Friends have notice of the sad news. I will be with you at Oundle, if possible, early next week; say Wednesday, as I return now to London this day. Things go on as we all said they would. We are all on the point of now openly declaring ourselves; now may the Lord prosper us in the good Cause! Commend me in brotherly love to our chosen Friends and vessels of the Lord: I name no one, to all the same. I write myself Your Friend in the Lord's Cause, 0. P. S. Be sure and put up with no affronts. Be as a bundle of sticks; let the offence to one be as to | brated Tawnies or Ironsides. They wore brown all. The Parliament will back us. coats, as did most farmers, and little country freeholders; and so do now, as you or me may NO. III. To Mr. Samuel Squire [subsequently Cornet and see any day.-Oliver had some 200 foot also Auditor Squire.] armed by him, who did great service." DEAR FRIEND, LONDON, 3 May, 1642. I heard from our good Friend W. [Wildman?] how zealous in the good Cause you were. We are all alive here, and sweating hard to beat those Papists may the Lord send to us His holy aid to overcome them, and the Devils who seek to do evil. Say to your Friends that we have made up our Demands to the control of the Navy, and Trainbands of the Counties' Militia, also all Forts and Castles; and, with God's aid, we will have them if he [the King] likes or dislikes. For he is more shifty every day. We must do more also, unless he does that which is right in the sight of God and man to his people. I shall come to Oundle, in my way down, this time; as I learn you live there a great time now. So may you prosper in all your undertakings, and may the Lord God protect and watch over you. Let them all know our mind.-From GENTLEMEN, I have sent you, by Hobbes' Wain, those you know of. You must get lead as you may : -the Churches have enough and to spare on them! We shall see the Lord will supply us. Heed well your motions [learn well your drill-exercise] and laugh not at Rose's Dutch tongue; he is a zealous servant; and we may go further and get worse man to our hand than he is. I learn from R. you get offences from the Bullards (?) at Stamford. Let them heed what they are about, or they may get a cake more than they bargain for for their penny. V. says that many come ill to the time fixed for muster: pray heed well their loss of time; for I assure you, if once we let time pass by, we shall seek in vain to recover it. The Lord helpeth those who heed His commandments and those who are not punctual in small matters, of what account are they when it shall please Him to call us forth, if we be not watchful and ready? Pray beat up those slug gards. I shall be over, if it please God, next Tuesday or Wednesday. I rest, till then, : Your Friend and Well-wisher, NO. V. No date, no address now left. Probably addressed to the committee at Cambridge, or whichever was the central committee of those associations; and to judge by the glorious ripeness to which matters have come, dated about the beginWe have ning of July. A very curious letter. prospered to miracle; the Eastern Fen regions are all up or rising, and royalism quite put down there, impossible as that once seemed. Miraculous success; and greater is yet coming, if we knew it ! 'To DEAR FRIENDS, 'LONDON, July, 1642.' Your Letters gave me great joy at reading your great progress in behalf of our great Cause. Verily I do think the Lord is with me! I do undertake strange things, yet do I go through with them, to great profit and gladness, and furtherance of the Lord's great Work. I do feel myself lifted on by a strange force, I cannot tell why. By night As sure as God appeared to Joseph in a dream, aland by day I am urged forward on the great work. so to Jacob, He also has directed--[some words eaten out by moths]-Therefore I shall not fear what man can do unto me. I feel He giveth me the light to see the great darkness that surrounds us at noonday. -to my-ht-ly [five words gone, by moths,] I have been a stray sheep from the Fold: but I feel I am born again; I have cast offmoths again; nearly three lines lost)Snaphances; also 300 Lances, which when com'I have' sent you 300 more Carbines, and 600 plete I shall send down by the Wain with 16 bar rels Powder. and raise an Army forthwith: Essex and Bedford We [of the Parliament] declare ourselves now, are our men. Throw off fear, as I shall be with you. I get a Troop ready to begin; and they will Lord; my soul is with you in the Cause. I sought shew the others. Truly I feel I am Siloam of the the Lord; and found this written in the First Chapter of Zephaniah, the 3d verse: See, I will consume &c. [Here is the rest of the passage; Consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord.' O. C. My correspondent, who rather guesses this letter to have gone to Huntingdon, subjoins in reference to it the following very curious note gath-seek daily, and do nothing without first so seeking Surely it is a sign for us. So I read it. For I ered from his recollections of the burnt journal: the Lord.] -"Huntingdon regiment of Horse. Each armed and horsed himself; except Mr. Ol Cromwell's Troop of Slepe Dragoons, of some 30 to 40 men, mostly poor men or very small freeholders: these the journal mentioned often; I mean the Slepe Troop of hard-handed fellows, who did as he told them, and asked no questions. The others, despite all that has been said and written, armed themselves and horsed also. I mean the cele I have much to say to you all, when I do see you. Till I so do, the Lord be with you may His grace abound in all your houses. Peace be among you, loving Friends: so do I pray daily for your souls' health. I pray also, as I know you also do,' for His mercy to soften the heart of the King.[moth-ruins to the end; the signature itself halfcaten; indistinctly guessable to have been :] I'shall be at' Godmanchester, if it please the Lord, on,' Monday. OLIVER CROMwell. NO. VI. To Mr. Samuel Squire, at his Quarters at Stan ground. are curious glimpses into that old house by Ely No date; presumably, August, 1642, at Ely or Cathedral, too, and the Mother' and the 'Dame' somewhere in that region; where Parliament there!musters or surveys' are going on, and brabbles with recusant royalists are rife, in one of which the excellent Mr. Sprigg has got a stroke. My correspondent, the transcriber, thinks house at Peterborough' must mean merely quarters in a house there, the house or home of Squire pearing in a late letter to be at Oundle. DEAR FRIEND, 29 November, 1642. I have not at this moment Five Pieces by ap-man is as nought. Pray now open thy pocket, and me; loan I can get none; and without money a lend me 150 Pieces until my rent-day, when I will repay, or say 100 Pieces until then. Pray send me them by Alister your Music; he is a cautious man. Tell W. I will not have his men cut folk's grass without compensation. If you pass mine, say to my Dame I have gone into Essex: my house is open to you; make no scruple; do as at your house at Oundle, or I shall be cross.-If you please ride over to Chatteris, and order the quartering of those [that] Suffolk Troop,-I hear they have been very bad; -and let no more such doings be. Bid R. horse* any who offend; say it is my order, and shew him this. Pray do not forget the 100 Pieces; and bid Alister ride haste. I shall be at Biggleswade at 11. Send me the accounts of the week, if possible by the Trumpet; if not, send them on by one of the Troopers. It were well he rode to Bury, and wait [waited] my coming. I hope you have forwarded my Mother the silks OLIVER CROMWELL. Keinton or Edgehill Battle, the first clear bursting into flame of all these long-smouldering elements, was fought on Sunday, 23 October, 1642. The following eighteen letters, dated or approximately dateable all but some two or three, bring us on, in a glimmering fitful manner, along the as 'W.' I suppose means Wildman, R.' Rainsyet quite obscure and subterranean course of Col-borough. My correspondent annotates here:onel Cromwell, to within sight of the skirmish at Gainsborough, where he dared to beat and even to slay the Hon. Charles Cavendish, and first began to appear to the world. : "The Journal often mentioned trouble they" (the officers generally) "got into from the men taking, without leave, hay and corn from Malignants, whom Oliver never allowed to be robbed,-but paid for all justly to friend and foe." NO. X. To Cornet Squire, at his Quarters, Tansor: These. SIR, I have ill news of the men under my Son: tell him from me I must not have it. Bring me over those Papers you know of. Desborow has come in with good spoil,-some £3,000 I reckon. Your Friend, O. ['C' rotted off.] Dated on the morrow after this, is the celebrated letter to Robert Barnard, Esquire, now in the possession of Lord Gosford :† " subtlety may deceive you, integrity never will!" *That is, wooden-horse, (used as a verb.)-" Do military men of these times understand the wooden-horse? He is a mere triangular ridge or roof of wood, set on four sticks, with absurd head and tail superadded: and you ride him bare-backed, in face of the world, frequently with muskets tied to your feet,-in a very uneasy manner!" Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, second edition, ii. 22.) f Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, i. 59. |