ndoubtedly of a very bewildering character. They
are the only speeches of Cromwell of which it can be said that their
meaning is not clearly, and even forcibly expressed. And in this case it
is quite evident, that he had no distinct meaning to express; he had no
definite answer to give the Parliament who were petitioning him to take
the title of king. He was anxious to gain time--he was talking _against
time_--an art which we moderns only have thoroughly mastered. How could
Cromwell, who was no great rhetorician, be otherwise than palpably
confused, and dubious and intricate? Nothing can be clearer than that he
himself leant towards the opinion of the Parliament, that it would be
good policy to adopt the royal title. It was so connected with the old
attachments and associations of Englishmen, it had so long given force
to the language of the law, its claims were so much better known, its
prerogatives so much better understood than those of the new title of
Protector, that the resumption of it must have appeared very advisable.
But the army had been all along fighting against _the King_. Whilst to
the lawyer and the citizen the title was still the most honourable and
ever to be venerated, to the soldier of the Commonwealth it had become a
term of reproach, of execration, of unsparing hostility. Oliver Cromwell
might well hesitate before assuming a title which might forfeit for him
the allegiance of a great portion of the army. He deferred his answer,
to have an opportunity for estimating the nature and amount of the
resistance he might expect from that quarter; and he came to the
conclusion, that the risk of unsettling the affections of the army was
not to be incurred for either any personal gratification to himself
(which we take to have not weighed much with him) in assuming the title
of king, or for the advantages which might accrue from it in the
ultimate settlement of the nation. His addresses, therefore, to the
Parliament on this occasion not being definite answers to the
Parliament, nor intended to be such, but mere postponements of his
answer, were necessarily distinguished by indecision, uncertainty, and
all sorts of obscurities. But, these excepted, his speeches, however
deficient in what pertains to the _art of composition_, in terseness, or
method, or elegance of phrase, are never wanting in the great
essentials--the expression of his meaning in a very earnest and forcible
manner. The mixture of sermon and spee