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HISTORY OP ENGLAND,

chap. ; n S pJte of themselves; nor had he shrunk from making ter-

-rible examples of those who contemned the proffered free-dom, and pined for the flesh-pots, the task-masters, and theidolatries of Egypt. The object of the warlike saints whosurrounded Cromwell was the settlement of a free and piouscommonwealth. For that end they were ready to employ,

' without scruple, any means, however violent and lawless.It was not impossible, therefore, to establish by their aida monarchy absolute in effect: but it was probable that theiraid would be at once withdrawn from a ruler who, even understrict constitutional restraints, should venture to assume theregal name and dignity.

The sentiments of Cromwell were widely different. He■was not what he had been; nor would it be just to considerthe change which his views had undergone as the effectmerely of selfish ambition. When he came up to the LongParliament, he brought with him from his rural retreat littleknowledge of books, no experience of great affairs, and atemper galled by the long tyranny of the government and ofthe hierarchy. He had, during the thirteen years which fol-lowed, gone through a political education of no common kind.He had been a chief actor in a succession of revolutions. Hehad been long the soul, and at last the head, of a party.He had commanded armies, won battles, negotiated treaties,subdued, pacified, and regulated kingdoms. It would havebeen strange indeed if his notions had been still the same asin the days when his mind was principally occupied by hisfields and his religion, and when the greatest events whichdiversified the course of his life were a cattle fair or a prayermeeting at Huntingdon. He saw that some schemes of in-novation for which he had once been zealous, whether goodor bad in themselves, were opposed to the general feelingof the country, and that, if he persevered in those schemes,he had nothing before him but constant troubles, which must