THE SALUTARY FASCIST INTERLUDE:

In his delegation as Lord Protector he was not always wise; the rule of the Major-Generals in the middle of the Protectorate allowed some of the most serious fanatics in the Kingdom to exercise power; sometimes Cromwell would call time on their activities, but on other occasions their fanaticism was allowed to run its full course. Lay's account of the trial and punishment of the self-advertising Quaker James Nayler -- who called himself the "Prince of Peace" and of whom Lay says "humility was not prominent in his make-up" -- reminds us of the savagery of the period, and how Cromwell's belief in freedom of conscience was not shared by many who acted in his name, nor enforced by him.

When, in the summer of 1653, Cromwell dismissed the Rump, telling them (in one of his nest jokes) that "ye have no more religion than my horse" and, anticipating modern times, that they were "sordid prostitutes", he considered Providence had given him that power; Lay says he might just as easily have said "convenience". Certainly England had to be governed, and in the vacuum that exist- ed after the end of the monarchy and, now, after the end of the Rump, a Protector was perhaps the easiest way to do it. [...]

Great questions remain, which seem beyond the scope of Lay's book to answer. By the standards of the time, was the regicide that was essential to the conception of the Protectorate justified? Many thought not; but Charles Stuart's behaviour throughout his reign, and his determination even when worsted in the First Civil War to turn the tables on his opponents made it hard to keep him alive. As it was, after his death there was a non-stop succession of conspiracies to bring the Protector down and put Charles II back in power.

Was Cromwell a good leader? He had his faults, and Lay denominates them; but the mess in which England found itself was of Charles I's making, and whoever had to clear it up had an unenviable job. Cromwell, thanks to his natural authority, and whatever the shortcomings in his natural ability, was undoubtedly the right choice at the time.

And, as would be seen within 30 years of the Stuarts returning to the throne, they were just in- capable of behaving themselves. Perhaps the finest legacy of the regicides and the Protectorate was that the Glorious Revolution proceeded without a King being decapitated (even though James II and VII probably asked for it far more than his errant father had), and -- the minor irritations of 1715 and 1745 notwithstanding -- at last settled the question of the English Reformation that had started in 1534.

The growth of British power and prosperity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was in great measure built on those secure foundations. Cromwell's part in leading the great change of culture was absolutely fundamental to that.

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