Parliament will be an awakening. "It was
notorious," he records, "that many members who entered the House poor
were now rolling in wealth." From Gardiner's references and quotations,
it is not a strained inference that in subjection to lobbying, in
log-rolling and corruption, this Parliament would hardly be surpassed by
a corrupt American legislature. As to personal morality, he by
implication confirms the truth of Cromwell's bitter speech on the
memorable day when he forced the dissolution of the Long Parliament.
"Some of you," he said, "are whoremasters. Others," he continued,
pointing to one and another with his hands, "are drunkards, and some
corrupt and unjust men, and scandalous to the profession of the gospel.
It is not fit that you should sit as a Parliament any longer."

While I am well aware that to him, who makes but a casual study of any
historic period, matters will appear fresh that to the master of it are
well-worn inferences and generalizations, and while therefore I can
pretend to offer only a shallow experience, I confess that on the points
to which I have referred I received new light, and it prepared me for
the overturning of the view of Cromwell which I had derived from the
Puritanical instruction of my early days and from Macaulay.

In his foreign policy Cromwell was irresolute, vacillating and tricky.
"A study of the foreign policy of the Protectorate," writes Mr.
Gardiner, "reveals a distracting maze of fluctuations. Oliver is seen
alternately courting France and Spain, constant only in inconstancy."

Cromwell lacked constructive statesmanship. "The tragedy of his career
lies in the inevitable result that his efforts to establish religion and
morality melted away as the morning mist, whilst his abiding influence
was built upon the vigor with which he promoted the material aims of his
countrymen." In another place Mr. Gardiner says: "Cromwell's negative
work lasted; his positive work vanished away. His constitutions perished
with him, his Protectorate descended from the proud position to which he
had raised it, his peace with the Dutch Republic was followed by two
wars with the United Provinces, his alliance with the French monarchy
only led to a succession of wars with France lasting into the nineteenth
century. All that lasted was the support given by him to maritime
enterprise, and in that he followed the tradition of the governments
preceding him."

What is Cromwell's place in history? Thus