93-103;
Hutchinson, 313.]
employed every expedient to win their affections, to make them the blind
unconscious tools of his policy. For this purpose he asked questions, or
threw out insinuations in their hearing; now kept them aloof with an air of
reserve and dignity; now put them off their guard by condescension, perhaps
by buffoonery;[1] at one time, addressed himself to their vanity or
avarice; at another, exposed to them with tears (for tears he had at will),
the calamities of the nation; and then, when he found them moulded to his
purpose, instead of assenting to the advice which he had himself suggested,
feigned reluctance, urged objections, and pleaded scruples of conscience.
At length he yielded; but it was not till he had acquired by his resistance
the praise of moderation, and the right of attributing his acquiescence to
the importunity of others instead of his own ambition.[2]
Exposed as he was to the continued machinations of the royalists and
Levellers, both equally eager to precipitate him from the height to which
he had attained, Cromwell made it his great object to secure to himself the
attachment of the army. To it he owed the acquisition, through it alone
could he insure the permanence, of his power. Now, fortunately for this
purpose, that army, composed as never was army before or since, revered in
the lord-protector what it valued mostly in itself, the cant and practice
of religious enthusiasm.
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