That the enthusiasm of this letter is sincere it would be hard to dispute; that it might be a dangerous cover for self-deceit, not less so. That in Cromwell, as a matter of fact, it was an expansive element, in which a sympathy with the ‘waiting spirit’ of the sectaries, such as was necessary for their guidance, went along with a prevailing zeal for the ‘_salus populi_’ and a clear judgment of its needs, is the only interpretation that will explain the history as a whole. To the guidance of a man possessing such a strange compound of qualities, it is due that our great religious war ended not simply in blood, but in a real step forwards of English society. ‘God’s providence and necessity, not his own choice,’ as he solemnly said, having forced him to pull down monarchy and put the republic in its place, he once more pressed forward his plan for a general adjustment of interests under a new parliament. The possibility of a settlement, however, which should secure the ‘godly interest,’ was very different now from what it would have been if Charles’s spleen and superstition had permitted him honestly to come to terms in 1647. Then Cromwell had hoped by restoring the king with a council, which might have been under his own direction, to obtain that unity of initiative under a familiar name, which, important at all times, is specially necessary when order is to be rebuilt out of a chaos of factions heated with civil war. {352} Henceforward there could but be two alternatives. The familiar unity might be obtained, as it was ultimately to be at the blessed Restoration, but only at the cost of an absolute suppression of the ‘godly interest’: or an unfamiliar unity might take its place, but only on the condition of its maintenance by a hand that could hold the sword, and a temper that by either force or sympathy could control the sectaries, a condition which death might at any time remove. The military ecstasy, however, was still strong upon Cromwell, and he had a spirit for the work. In Whitelock’s journal of February 25, [1] not quite a month after the execution of Charles, we read, ‘From the council of state Cromwell and his son Ireton went home with me to supper; where they were very cheerful, and seemed extremely well-pleased; we discoursed together till twelve o’clock at night, and they told me wonderful observations of God’s providence in the affairs of the war, and in the business of the army’s coming to London and seizing the members; in all which were miraculous passages.’ [1] [ii. 540.] Cromwell had yet to learn that the providence on which he waited wrought by a longer method, because it had a wider comprehension than was dreamt of in the puritan philosophy.