one.

There was no longer an eager hand dipping into the pockets of the
people, compelling the poor to share his scanty earnings with the King.
There was safety, and there was prosperity. But there was rage and
detestation, as Cromwell's soldiers with gibes and jeers, hewed and
hacked at venerable altars and pictures, and insulted the religious
sentiment of one-half the people. Empty niches, mutilated carvings,
and fragments of stained glass, from

"Windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light,"

show us to-day the track of those profane fanatics.

{120}

When the remnant of the House of Commons calling itself a Parliament
was not alert enough in its obedience, Cromwell marched into the Hall
with a company of musketeers, and calling them names neither choice nor
flattering, ordered them to "get out," then locked the door, and put
the key into his pocket. Such was the "dissolution" of a Parliament
which had been strong enough to overthrow a Government, and to send a
King to the Scaffold! This might be fittingly described as a
_personal_ Government!

He was loved by none but the Army. There was no strong current of
popular sentiment to uphold him as he carried out his arbitrary
purposes; no engines of cruelty to fortify his authority; no "Star
Chamber" to enforce his order. Men were not being nailed by the ears
to the pillory, nor mutilated and branded, for resisting his will. But
the spectacle was for that reason all the more astonishing: a great
nation, full of rage, hate and bitterness, but silent and submissive
under the spell of one dominating personality.

{121}

He had no experience in diplomatic usages, no skilled ministers to
counsel and warn, but by his foreign policy he made himself the terror
of Europe; Spain, France, and the United Provinces courting his
friendship, while Protestantism had protection at home and abroad.

That the man who did this had a commanding genius, all must be agreed.
But whether he was the incarnation of evil, or of righteousness, must
ever remain in dispute. We shall never know whether or not his death,
in 1658, cut short a career which might have passed from a justifiable
to an unjustifiable tyranny.

A fabric held up by one sustaining hand, must fall when that hand is
withdrawn. Cromwell left none who could support his burden. Charles
II., who had been more than once foiled in trying to get in by the back
door of his father's kingdom, was now invi