CHAPTER IV. CROMWELL, "THE LORD OF THE FENS," AND FIRST APPEARANCE IN PARLIAMENT. ROM our discursive view of the times and charac FROM ter of James and the earlier and obscure years of the life of Cromwell, we now enter upon his more public career. The first occasion of his appearance in any service connected with the public, was upon the attempt made by the needy Charles to wrest, for the purposes of his exchequer, from the Earl of Bedford and the people, the fens which had been drained. The case has been variously stated. The brief history is somewhat as follows: In those days some millions of acres of the finest plains in the counties of Cambridge, Huntingdon, Northampton, and Lincoln, lay undrained. Several years before the period to which we now refer, the Earl of Oxford and other noblemen of that day had proposed to drain large portions of them, and in fact had done so. The Bedford Level, containing nearly 400,000 acres, had been completed, when it was found necessary to call in other aid; and a proposition was made to the Crown, offering a fair proportion of the land for its assistance and authority in the completion of the whole. Until now all had gone on well; but hungry Charles saw here an opportunity of gratifying his cupidity. A number of commissioners came from the king to Huntingdon; they, instructed by the king's own letter, proceeded to lay claim under various pretexts, such as corrupt and servile ministers know how to use, to 95,000 acres of land already drained. Cromwell stepped upon the stage of action, and the draining of the fens was entirely stopped. Many writers affect to put a bad construction upon this first public act of Cromwell's; while, to any but horny eyes, the reason of the whole business is most obvious. "The Protector's enemies would persuade us, that his opposition to Charles's interference arose out of the popular objection, supported by him, to the project itself; and, that the end he proposed to himself, and obtained, was its hindrance; forgetting, that if his, or the general wish, had been to impede the work, the time that would have been chosen for the attempt would have been at the revival of the idea, some seven or eight years previously, and not that, when so large a portion of it was accomplished in the completion (nearly) of the real Bedford Level. But the obvious utility of the undertaking would alone render the idea of extended opposition to it, grounded on its own merits, unlikely; and particularly as to Cromwell, from his known approbation and encouragement afterwards afforded to all such public-spirited schemes, and the thanks he actually received from William, the next Earl of Bedford, for his promotion of this identical one. It is proper to observe, that though the above-given account of this whole transaction is from Nalson Cole, who as "Register to the Corporation of Bedford Level,” was doubtless generally well informed, yet that it differs from that writer in stating the drainage of the Level to have been nearly, and not fully, completed at the time of the king's interposition. That it was not then fully completed appears from an Act, much forwarded by Cromwell, in 1649, which runs: “And whereas Francis, late Earl of Bedford, did undertake the said work, and had ninety-five thousand acres, parcel of the said great level, decreed and set forth, in the thirteenth of the late King Charles, in recompense thereof; and he and his participators, and their heirs and assigns had made a good progress therein." 1 Even Mr. Forster puts a forced construction upon Cromwell's opposition to the king; for he roused up the country, and the draining now became impossible. His name was sounded to and fro as a second Hereward. He was long after, and is to this day, called "the Lord of the Fens." Why was this? There could be nothing in the mere fact of opposing the making the watery wastes habitable calculated to arouse so stormy an opposition. The thing was most desirable; but, to drain them so-to give additional 1 Thomas Cromwell's "Life of Cromwell," pp. 70, 71: |