Cromwell also concluded peace with the Dutch. Before the Long Parliament
was dissolved it had become evident that the navy would ultimately
conquer this peace for England; but the stubborn Dutch had to undergo
several additional defeats before they would come to terms. Blake, the
great admiral, had no particular admiration for Cromwell, but finally
threw in his lot with him on the ground that the fleet had no concern
with politics, and should limit itself strictly to the effort “to keep
foreigners from fooling us.” Monk was the admiral most in view in the
later stages of the Dutch War. When it was over, he was sent back to
keep the Highlands in order, which he and his fellow-Cromwellians did,
with a thoroughness not afterward approached for a century. Scotland was
now definitely united to England.
The new Parliament consisted of 400 members from England, 30 from
Scotland, and 30 from Ireland. They were elected by a general suffrage,
based on the possession of property to the value £200. The Parliament
thus gathered was representative in a very wide sense. Nearly two
hundred years were to elapse before any other as truly representative
was to sit in England. The classes whose inclusion would certainly have
made trouble were excluded; and, while the suffrage had been extended,
and gross inequalities of representation abolished, there had been no
such revolutionary action as suddenly to introduce masses of men
unaccustomed to the exercise of self-government. Indeed, the house had
arbitrarily erased from its roll of membership the names of a few
ultra-Republicans. It was chiefly Cromwell’s own fault that he failed to
get along with this Parliament, and, therefore, failed to put the
government on a permanent basis of orderly liberty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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