Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon, vol 2 | Page 2

nothing of that sound traditional frame of government which it was the aim of Hyde religiously to conserve. Few statesmen have had a task more hard, more thankless, and more hopeless than that which fell to him during these troubled months.
Hyde was saved from despair only by the intense dramatic instinct of the historian that was implanted in him. He could, or--what came to the same thing--he believed that he could, discern the greater issues of the time, and what interested him above all was the vast influence upon those issues of personal forces. When he recalled the events of his time, in the enforced leisure of later years, it was to the action of great personalities that he gave his chief attention, and the passing incidents grouped themselves in his memory as mere accessories to the play of individual character. All through his history it is this which chiefly attracts us, and nowhere is it more striking than when he records the passing of the greatest personal force of the age in Cromwell. It did not occur to Hyde--and, to their credit be it said, it did not occur to any even of the more friendly spectators on the other side--to regard Cromwell as the embodiment of a mighty purifying force in which defects were to be ignored or even justified on account of the heaven-inspired dictates under which he was presumed to have acted. Just as little could Hyde conceive of Cromwell as the great precursor of modern ideas, demanding the obedient homage of every ardent partisan of popular rights. These were eccentricities reserved for later historians under impulses of later origin. Hyde was compelled by all his strongest traditions and most cherished principles to regard Cromwell's work as utterly destructive, and he never pretended to have anything but the bitterest prejudice against him. To his mind, Cromwell was sent as a punishment from Heaven for national defection, and he never concealed his hatred for Cromwell's profound dissimulation or his abhorrence for the tyranny which the Protector succeeded in imposing on the nation. To have assumed an impartial attitude would only have been, to Hyde, an effort of insincerity. It is precisely this which gives its weight to the measured estimate which Hyde forms of his stupendous powers. His appreciation of Cromwell is a pendant to that which he gives of Charles I. The latter is inspired with a clear flame of loyalty; but this does not blind him to the defects of the master for whom he had such a sincere regard. His deadly hatred of Cromwell leaves him equally clear-sighted as to the Protector's supreme ability.
"He was one of those men whom his very enemies could not condemn without commending him at the same time; for he could never have done half that mischief without great parts of courage, industry, and judgment." "He achieved those things in which none but a valiant and great man could have succeeded." "Wickedness as great as his could never have accomplished these trophies without the assistance of a great spirit, an admirable circumspection and sagacity, and a most magnanimous resolution." "When he was to act the part of a great man, he did it without any indecency, notwithstanding the want of custom." "He extorted obedience from those who were not willing to yield it." "In all matters which did not concern the life of his jurisdiction, he seemed to have great reverence for the law." "As he proceeded with indignation and haughtiness with those who were refractory and dared to contend with his greatness, so towards all who complied with his good pleasure and courted his protection, he used a wonderful civility, generosity, and bounty." "His greatness at home was but a shadow of the glory he had abroad." "He was not a man of blood, and totally declined Machiavel's method." When a massacre of Royalists was suggested, "Cromwell would never consent to it; it may be out of too much contempt of his enemies." "In a word, as he had all the wickedness against which damnation is denounced, and for which hell-fire is prepared, so he had some virtues which have caused the memory of some men in all ages to be celebrated; and he will be looked upon by posterity as a brave bad man."
These fierce words are inspired by exceeding hatred. But in spite of that, we can see that Hyde felt himself in the presence of a greatness that compelled respect. He was himself to exercise, in conformity with law, and with a profound respect for it, very considerable power for a few years to come, and was to leave his impress upon a century and a half of English history. But that influence was only to come after a greater and a more forceful spirit