Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VI. PERSONAL RULE. WHEN Cromwell, in January, 1655, dismissed the first Protectorate Parliament, he left himself nothing to do but to establish his own personal rule; in other words, he became a tyrant. Of course the word cannot be used in the sense we use it in describing Ivan the Terrible, or Agathokles. As each country must, sooner or later, obtain exactly that measure of political freedom to which it is entitled, so, when it falls under a tyranny, the tyranny must be strictly conditioned by the character of the people. Cromwell ruled over Englishmen, not Russians or Greeks, and no Englishman would have tolerated for twenty-four hours what was groaningly borne by Muscovites, who had lost every vestige of manhood beneath the Tartar yoke, or by Syracusans, in the days of the rapid decadence of the Hellenistic world. Cromwell's government was a tyranny because it was based on his own personal rule, his personal decision as to what taxes should be levied, what ordinances issued, what police measures decreed and carried out, what foreign policy adopted or rejected. He was influenced very much by public opinion, when public opinion found definite expression in the action of a body of legislators or of an assembly of officers; but even in such cases he was only influenced, not controlled. In other words, he had gone back to the theory of government professed by the man he had executed, and by that man's predecessors. There was, however, the tremendous and far-reaching difference, that, whereas the Stuart kings clung to absolute power for the sake of rewarding favorites and of carrying out policies that were hostile to the honor and interest of England, Cromwell seized it with the sincere purpose of exalting the moral law at home and...
