Cromwell before the war
Cromwell belonged to the class of landowners with no pedigree who stood far from the splendor of the court, yet paid, with discontent, for its upkeep. Even so, he too had respectable forebears. His father, Robert Cromwell, had a small estate at Huntingdon that yielded 100 pounds a year (the book's figure). His great-grandfather, Richard Williams, a nephew of Thomas Cromwell, the minister of Henry VIII, had taken the name Cromwell and received from the minister or the king castles and revenues seized by force from the Catholic church. Oliver was one of ten children and the only one to reach maturity (as the source puts it). His grammar-school teacher was a fervent preacher who wrote one tract calling the Pope the Antichrist, and another listing famous sinners whom God had punished.
In 1616 Oliver entered Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge. Its master, Samuel Ward, died in prison in 1643 for his thorough loyalty to Puritan principles, his criticism of Laud's innovations and his stand against the 'Declaration of Sports' issued by Charles's order. Oliver apparently left Cambridge before finishing his studies. Later, in 1638, he judged himself a sinner for the follies of his youth. You know, he wrote, what my manner of life has been: I lived in darkness, loved it and hated the light; I was the chief, indeed the chief of sinners. I hated godliness, yet God had mercy on me. Praise Him for me, and pray that He who has begun a good work will perfect it in the day of Jesus Christ.
Cromwell knew the rapture of repentance, pictured death in his mind and passed through other terrors of the spirit, so that he always seemed depressed and gloomy, and to the end of his life all he said rested on the Puritans' principles of piety and virtue. Little by little he settled down, married, had children and became so exemplary a citizen that at twenty-eight (1628) he was elected for Huntingdon. He then sold his Huntingdon property for 1,800 pounds (the book's figure) and moved first to St. Ives and then to Ely. When he was elected for Cambridge (1640), one member of Parliament remarked on his very plain clothes, linen not very clean, and a drop or two of blood on his little collar. His face was swollen and reddish, his voice high and harsh, his temper 'exceedingly fiery', yet he was in himself restrained. He never hurried, he talked with God, and he had the strength of ten men. Yet God raised up other means.
Strafford and Laud brought down
John Pym was the first to give voice to Parliament's anger. He called Strafford a secret agent of the Pope and accused him of wishing to bring an army from Ireland to destroy Parliament and 'change law and religion'. On 11 November 1640 the Commons, who had not forgotten Strafford's support of the king, declared him a traitor and sent him to prison, and on 16 December, after declaring the new Anglican canons illegal, they accused Laud of popery and treason and sent him to prison as well. Selden later confessed: we charge the bishops with popery to make them hated, though we know they are guilty of no such thing. Charles was so astonished at these grave steps that he made no move to save his helpers. The queen asked her confessor to seek help from the Pope, and in so doing showed that Parliament's fear was not groundless.
The war over bishops
Feeling blazed up on both sides. Among the advocates of basic reform in London was a party that included Milton. It asked Parliament to end the rule of bishops and give the government of the church to the people, and declared abominable the view of some bishops that the Pope is not Antichrist and that salvation lies in the Catholic religion alone. The Commons did not accept this petition, but it opposed the clergy's holding judicial and legislative office. The Lords accepted it on condition that the bishops keep their seats in the Lords. The Commons strongly opposed that condition, knowing that bishops in the Lords would always vote for the king.
Pamphlets in defense and criticism of the bishops' rule fanned the quarrel. Bishop Joseph Hall held the office sacred because it came from the apostles or from Jesus, but five Presbyterians replied in a famous pamphlet under the pen name 'Smectymnuus', formed from the initials of their names. Milton later attacked Hall's view in five tracts. On 27 May 1641 Cromwell again called for the complete abolition of bishops. The Commons rejected the bill and the Lords passed it (the source's order seems reversed). On 1 September the Commons declared that all 'scandalous pictures' of the Trinity, all images of the Virgin Mary, and all crosses and 'superstitious forms' should be removed from the churches of England, and that all 'recreational dancing' on Sunday be forbidden. The iconoclast movement revived in England: rails and screens were torn down, stained glass was broken, statues smashed and pictures torn. On 23 October the Commons again passed a bill to expel the bishops. The king appealed to the Lords and said he was resolved to stand by the principles of the Church of England even at the cost of his life, and he did so. His intervention defeated the bill, but crowds opposed to the bishops kept them from entering Parliament. Twelve bishops wrote a protest declaring that any law passed in their absence would be invalid. Parliament charged and jailed them. In the end the Lords passed the bill excluding the bishops (5 February 1642), and from then on bishops could not sit in Parliament.
Reform turns toward revolution
The Commons then went on in triumph to strengthen their hold. To meet their needs they borrowed money from the City of London. They passed bills that fixed the length of each Parliament at three years (the source's wording, which is imprecise, since the Triennial Act required a new Parliament to be summoned within three years), and that forbade dissolving Parliament within fifty days of its meeting, or dissolving the existing Parliament without its own consent. They reformed the tax and legal system, and abolished the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission. They also ended monopolies and ship money, annulled the judgment against Hampden, and left the king free to collect the duties on ships' tonnage, but only for a limited period. Charles agreed to these measures, and Parliament moved from reform to revolution.
The death of Strafford
In March 1641 Parliament called Strafford to trial. In April it charged him with treason and sent the king a bill depriving him of his civil rights, to be signed. Despite Laud's advice, Charles appeared in the Lords and said that although he was willing to remove Strafford from office, he would never allow him to be condemned for treason. The Commons held the king's presence in the Lords contrary to parliamentary privilege and freedom. Next day 'a great crowd' gathered around the Commons and the king's palace, crying 'Justice! Justice!' and demanding Strafford's death. In fear, the privy council advised Charles to give way, but he refused. The Archbishop of York begged him to sign. The nobles warned him that his life, the queen's and the children's were in danger. Still he stood by his refusal. At last the condemned man himself sent word advising Charles to sign, to prevent a riot by the mob. Charles signed, but never forgave himself. On 12 May 1641 Strafford was taken to his death. As he passed, Laud put his hands out through the bars of his window and blessed him. Strafford died without a groan before a crowd that was against him.
His death sharpened the dispute that later arose in the Commons between the rival parties of Whigs and Tories (the source projects the later party names back to this time), the one for and the other against a gradual transfer of the king's power to Parliament. Men like Lucius Cary (Viscount Falkland) and Edward Hyde (the future Earl of Clarendon), who had sided with Parliament, told themselves that the king, so severely punished, might now be a good barrier against government by the London commons and against Puritan control of religion, and might check Parliament's steps that threatened to shake the standing of the church, endanger private property and overturn the whole social structure of England. Pym, Hampden and Cromwell may also have been aware of these dangers, but another factor governed their fate: they had gone so far that they feared for their own lives if Charles regained power. It was possible that at any moment the king might raise a half-Catholic army from Ireland, as Strafford had suggested. So, for its own defense, Parliament tried to keep the allied Scottish army in the north of England, and for this purpose first paid it a gift of 300,000 pounds and promised to pay 25,000 pounds every month (the book's figures).