But now Parliament is busy carrying its Presbyterian uniformity platform.  London city and the Parliament are crying out to apply the shears against sectaries and schismatics; the army is less drastic; shows, indeed, an undue tolerance to Presbyterian alarm.  With Cromwell’s approval the army is to be quartered not less than twenty-five miles from London.  This quarrel between army and Parliament waxes; the army gains strength by securing the person of the king, finally marches onto London, and gets its way.  All is turmoil again, however, when Charles escapes from Hampton Court, where they have lodged him, but is detained at Carisbrooke.  When 40,000 Scots are coming to liberate the king, the army’s patience breaks down.  Hitherto, Cromwell has striven for an honest settlement.  Now we of the army conclude, with prayer and tears, that these troubles are a penalty for our backslidings, conferences, compromises, and the like; that “if the Lord bring us back in peace,” Charles Stuart, the Man of Blood, must be called to account.

The eastern counties and Wales are up; the Scots are coming.  Fairfax goes to Colchester, Cromwell to Wales, where Pembroke keeps him a month; thence, to cut up the Scots army in detail in the straggling battle called Preston, of which he gives account, as also does “Dugald Dalgetty” Turner.  The clearance of the north detains him for some time, during which he deals sternly with soldiers who plunder.  In November he is returning from Scotland, writing, too, a suitable letter to Colonel Hammond, the king’s custodian at Carisbrooke.  Matters also are coming to a head between army and the Parliament, which means to make concessions—­fatal in the judgement of the army—­and to ignore the said army; which, on the other hand, regards itself as an authority called into being by God and having responsibilities, and purges the Parliament, Cromwell arriving in town on the evening of the first day of purging.  Whereby the minority of the members is become majority.  And this chapter of history is grimly closed eight weeks later with a certain death warrant.

The Rump Parliament becomes concerned with establishment of the Commonwealth Council of State; appoints Mr. Milton Secretary for Foreign Languages, and nominates Lieutenant-general Cromwell to quell rebellion in Ireland.  Oliver’s extant letters are concerned with domestic matters—­marriage of Richard.  While the army for Ireland is getting prepared, there is trouble with the Levellers, sansculottism of a sort; shooting of valiant but misguided mutineers having notions as to Millennium.

On August 15, Cromwell is in Ireland.  His later letters have been full of gentle domesticities and pieties, strangely contrasted with the fiery savagery and iron grimness of the next batch.  Derry and Dublin are the only two cities held for the Commonwealth.  The Lord-lieutenant comes offering submission with law and order, or death.  The Irish have no faith in promises; will not submit.  Therefore, in the dispatches which tell the story, we find a noteworthy phenomenon—­an armed soldier, solemnly conscious to himself that he is the soldier of God the Just, terrible as death, relentless as doom, doing God’s judgements on the enemies of God.