Even those violent expedients themselves, which occasioned the complaint that the constitution was subverted, had been all of them conducted, so far as appeared, without his counsel or assistance. And whatever his private advice might be, this salutary maxim he failed not, often and publicly, to inculcate in the king’s presence, that if any [Illustration: OLIVER CROMWELL.] inevitable necessity ever obliged the sovereign to violate the laws, this license ought to be practiced with extreme reserve, and as soon as possible a just atonement be made to the constitution for any injury which it might sustain from such dangerous precedents. The first Parliament after the restoration reversed the bill of attainder; and even a few weeks after Strafford’s execution this very Parliament remitted to his children the more severe consequences of his sentence, as if conscious of the violence with which the prosecution had been conducted. OLIVER CROMWELL. BY THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. [Lord Protector of the English Commonwealth, and leader of the Revolution of 1640, born 1599, died 1658. Descended from a good race, connected with some of the best families in England, he became identified with the Puritan cause in the contest with King Charles I. He took active part in hostilities from the first, formed the famous Ironsides, and reorganized the parliamentary army, of which he soon became the chief general. He was active in the formation of the High Commission, which tried and condemned the king, and thenceforward was the ruler of England. It was not till 1651, however, that he became the titular Lord Protector, and reorganized the government mainly on the lines of monarchy.]