BEFORE THE RESTORATION.

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themselves for ever from the great body of their countrymen.England was declared a commonwealth. The House of Com-mons, reduced to a small number of members, was nominallythe supreme power in the State. In fact, the army and itsgreat chief governed every thing. Oliver had made his choice.He had kept the hearts of his soldiers, and had broken withalmost every other class of his fellow-citizens. Beyond thelimits of his camps and fortresses he could scarcely be said tohave a party. Those elements of force which, when the civilwar broke out, had appeared arrayed against each other,were combined against him; all the Cavaliers, the greatmajority of the Roundheads, the Anglican Church, the Pres-byterian Church, the Roman Catholic Church, England, Scot-land, Ireland. Yet such was his genius and resolution thathe was able to overpower and crush everything that crossedhis path, to make himself more absolute master of his countrythan any of her legitimate Kings had been, and to make hiscountry more dreaded and respected than she had beenduring many generations under the rule of her legitimateKings.

England had already ceased to struggle. But the twoother kingdoms which had been governed by the Stuarts werehostile to the new republic. The Independent party wasequally odious to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, and to thePresbyterians of Scotland. Both those countries, lately inrebellion against Charles the First, now acknowledged theauthority of Charles the Second.

But everything yielded to the vigour and ability of Crom-well. In a few months he subjugated Ireland, as Ireland hadnever been subjugated during the five centuries of slaughterwhich had elapsed since the landing of the first Normansettlers. He resolved to put an end to that conflict of racesand religions which had so long distracted the island, bymaking the English and Protestant population decidedly

CHAP.

l.

Subjuga-tion ofIrelandand Scot-land.