When Cromwell, in January, 1655, dismissed the first Protectorate Parliament, he left himself nothing to do but to establish his own personal rule; in other words, he became a tyrant. Of course the word cannot be used in the sense we use it in describing Ivan the Terrible, or Agathokles. As each country must, sooner or later, obtain exactly that measure of political freedom to which it is entitled, so, when it falls under a tyranny, the tyranny must be strictly conditioned by the character of the people. Cromwell ruled over Englishmen, not Russians or Greeks, and no Englishman would have tolerated for twenty-four hours what was groaningly borne by Muscovites, who had lost every vestige of manhood beneath the Tartar yoke, or by Syracusans, in the days of the rapid decadence of the Hellenistic world. Cromwell’s government was a tyranny because it was based on his own personal rule, his personal decision as to what taxes should be levied, what ordinances issued, what police measures decreed and carried out, what foreign policy adopted or rejected. He was influenced very much by public opinion, when public opinion found definite expression in the action of a body of legislators or of an assembly of officers; but even in such cases he was only influenced, not controlled. In other words, he had gone back to the theory of government professed by the man he had executed, and by that man’s predecessors. There was, however, the tremendous and far-reaching difference, that, whereas the Stuart kings clung to absolute power for the sake of rewarding favorites and of carrying out policies that were hostile to the honor and interest of England, Cromwell seized it with the sincere purpose of exalting the moral law at home and increasing the honor of England’s name abroad. Moreover, he was in fact what no Stuart was, in anything but name: a “king among men,” and his mighty strength enabled him, at least partially, to realize his purpose. [Illustration: The Second Installation of Cromwell as Protector, in Westminster Hall, June 26, 1657. ] Cromwell doubtless persuaded himself that he was endeavoring to secure what would now be called a constitutional government: one which, in his own words, “should avoid alike the extremes of monarchy and democracy.” He was desirous of paying heed to the wishes of those whom he esteemed the wisest and most honest among the people. He had somewhat of that gift for personal popularity which was so marked a feature of Queen Elizabeth—seemingly the only sovereign whom he admired, among all his predecessors. To the last he kept stirring vaguely for a constitutional system; and he sincerely disliked merely arbitrary rule.