Cromwell

Cromwell kept quiet during the years in which Charles was governing without a parliament. He is not heard oí as resisting the payment of ship money or even as setting at defiance the ecclesiastical courts. Clearly he was no ambitious flrebrand, but a man under authority, whose aim it was to carry obedience to the utmost limits consistent with his personal duty. This, too, is characteristic of the man and displays itself again and again in his prolouged hesitations to break with established authority. In his conservativa dislike to hasty changes, combined with religión influencing the conduct as well as the creed, Cromwell was a fair representativa oi' the better part of England, none the less because when once his relr.ctance to step forward had vanished he was capa ble of administeriug heavy blows against those who blocked the way too persistently even for his patience and because when once he ba-d broken with the past no goiug back was any longer