The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Letter 36

by Thomas Carlyle

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PART THIRD

BETWEEN THE TWO CIVIL WARS

1646-1648

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LETTERS XXXVI—XLII

The conquering of the King had been a difficult operation; but to make a Treaty with him now when he was conquered, proved an impossible one. The Scots, to whom he had fled, entreated him, at last, ‘with tears’ and ‘on their knees,’ to take the Covenant, and sanction the Presbyterian worship, if he could not adopt it: on that condition they would fight to the last man for him; on no other condition durst or would a man of them fight for him. The English Presbyterians, as yet the dominant party, earnestly entreated to the same effect. In vain, both of them. The King had other schemes: the King, writing privately to Digby before quitting Oxford, when he had some mind to venture privately on London, as he ultimately did on the Scotch Camp, to raise Treaties and Caballings there, had said, ‘—endeavouring to get to London; being not without hope that I shall be able so to draw either the Presbyterians or the Independents to side with me for extirpating one another, that I shall be really King again.’^[1] Such a man is not easy to make a Treaty with,—on the word of a King! In fact, his Majesty, though a belligerent party who had not now one soldier on foot, considered himself still a tower of strength; as indeed he was; all men having a to us inconceivable reverence for him, till bitter Necessity and he together drove them away from it. Equivocations, spasmodic obstinacies, and blindness to the real state of facts, must have an end.—

The following Seven Letters, of little or no significance for illustrating public affairs, are to carry us over a period of most intricate negotiation; negotiation with the Scots, managed manfully on both sides, otherwise it had ended in quarrel; negotiations with the King; infinite public and private negotiations;—which issue at last in the Scots marching home with 200,000l. as ‘a fair instalment of their arrears, in their pocket; and the King marching, under escort of Parliamentary Commissioners, to Holmby House in Northamptonshire, to continue in strict though very stately seclusion, ‘on 50l. a day,’^[2] and await the destinies there.

LETTER XXXVI

Knyvett, of Ashwellthorpe in Norfolk, is one of the unfortunate Royalist Gentlemen whom Cromwell laid sudden hold of at Lowestoff some years ago, and lodged in the Castle of Cambridge,—suddenly snuffing-out their Royalist light in that quarter. Knyvett, we conclude, paid his ‘contribution,’ or due fine, for the business; got safe home again; and has lived quieter ever since. Of whom we promised the reader some transitory glimpse once more.^[3]

Here accordingly is a remarkable Letter to him, now first adjusted to its right place in this Series. The Letter used to be in the possession of the Lords Berners, whose ancestor this Knyvett was, one of whose seats this Ashwellthorpe in Norfolk still is. With them, however, there remains nothing but a Copy now, and that without date, and otherwise not quite correct. Happily it had already gone forth in print with date and address in full;—has been found among the lumber and innocent marine-stores of Sylvanus Urban, communicated, in an incidental way, by ‘a Gentleman at Shrewsbury,’ who, in 1787, had got possession of it,—honestly, we hope; and to the comfort of readers here.

 

FOR MY NOBLE FRIEND THOMAS KNYVETT, ESQUIRE, AT HIS HOUSE AT ASHWELLTHORPE: THESE

London, 27th July 1646.

Sir,—I cannot pretend any interest in you for anything I have done, nor ask any favour for any service I may do you. But because I am conscious to myself of a readiness to serve any gentleman in all possible civilities, I am bold to be beforehand with you to ask your favour on behalf of your honest poor neighbours of Hapton, who, as I am informed, are in some trouble, and are likely to be put to more, by one Robert Browne your Tenant, who, not well pleased with the way of these men, seeks their disquiet all he may.

Truly nothing moves me to desire this more than the pity I bear them in respect of their honesties, and the trouble I hear they are likely to suffer for their consciences. And however the world interprets it, I am not ashamed to solicit for such as are anywhere under pressure of this kind; doing even as I would be done by. Sir, this is a quarrelsome age; and the anger seems to me to be the worse, where the ground is difference of opinion;—which to cure, to hurt men in their names, persons or estates, will not be found an apt remedy. Sir, it will not repent you to protect those poor men of Hapton from injury and oppression: which that you would is the effect of this Letter. Sir, you will not want the grateful acknowledgment, nor utmost endeavours of requital from your most humble servant,

OLIVER CROMWELL.^[4]

 

Hapton is a Parish and Hamlet some seven or eight miles south of Norwich, in the Hundred of Depwade; it is within a mile or two of this Ashwellthorpe; which was Knyvett’s residence at that time. What ‘Robert Browne your Tenant’ had in hand or view against these poor Parishioners of Hapton, must, as the adjoining circumstances are all obliterated, remain somewhat indistinct to us. We gather in general that the Parishioners of Hapton were a little given to Sectarian, Independent notions; which Browne, a respectable Christian of the Presbyterian strain, could not away with. ‘The oppressed poor Tenants have contrived to make their case credible to Lieutenant-General Cromwell, now in his place in Parliament again;—have written to him; perhaps clubbed some poor sixpences, and sent up a rustic Deputation to him: and he, ‘however the respectable Presbyterian world may interpret it, is not ashamed to solicit for them’: with effect, either now or soon.

1. Oxford, 26th March 1646; Carte’s Life of Ormond, iii. Lond., 1735), p. 452
2. Whitlocke, p. 244.
3. Antea, p. 137.
4. Gentleman’s Magazine (1787), liv. 337.