Before recording what was done by the Council of State, it is fitting to notice somewhat further the character and opinions of the men who mainly guided its deliberations and plans. Marten, who was as distant as possible from being a Puritan, had little liking for the sermons and prayers which at times would be forced upon him, and he most enjoyed himself whilst entertaining friends in the Vale of the White Horse, with hospitalities which must have appeared scandalous in the eyes of his staid and sober compatriots. A man of the world, and, if report speaks justly, a man of licentious habits, he was at the same time honest and genial, and, like many shrewd folks of his class, knew how to behave in the presence of religious people so as not to shock their sensibilities. Cromwell and Vane--in this respect the opposite of Marten--were sincerely religious. The question in reference to the former has been set at rest by the publication of his speeches and correspondence, all of which are plainly animated by a spirit of devout earnestness. Not only on state occasions, when performing his part before the world, not only in intercourse with men of strong puritan feeling, from whom it might be supposed he had some point to gain, but also in the most retired privacies of domestic life, Cromwell expressed sentiments of evangelical piety. That hypocrisy should be carried to such a length, that a man should be so cunning as always to wear a veil of apparent religious sincerity in his most private correspondence, without ever betraying himself, is simply incredible; and besides, the incidental way in which religion is introduced into his letters, shews that it was nothing patched upon a character of a different kind, but something which was part of the very texture of his whole being and his entire life. It is not our province to solve the problem, how certain acts of the puritan general and certain habits of the puritan statesman are to be reconciled with the possession of sincere Christianity; yet we may be allowed, in passing, to observe that such an ugly fact as the Drogheda massacre would be less terrible to Cromwell's contemporaries--to men familiar with the barbarities of the Thirty Years' War and the exploits of Count Tilly--than it is to us. Fanaticism, and what may be termed a fierce prudential policy, had, doubtless, more to do with Cromwell's deeds in Ireland than cruelty of disposition. "I am persuaded," he says, "that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood, and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future." No one can help seeing in these words a revengeful justice excited by the Popish massacres of 1641, like that which would nerve the arm of an English officer when fighting with Sepoys by the well of Cawnpore. There are some parts of Cromwell's political conduct which we will not attempt to defend; we would not