_Smiting with iron heel_; The terrorism of the Protector's government, and the almost universal hatred which it inspired, are powerfully painted by Hallam. 'To govern according to law may sometimes be an usurper's wish, but can seldom be in his power. The protector abandoned all thought of it. . . . All illusion was now (1655) gone, as to the pretended benefits of the civil war. It had ended in a despotism, compared to which all the illegal practices of former kings, all that had cost Charles his life and crown, appeared as dust in the balance.' _The blood-path_; The trials under which Gerard and Vowel were executed in 1654, Slingsby and Hewit in 1658, are the most flagrant instances of Cromwell's perversion of justice, and contempt for the old liberties of England. But they do not stand alone. _Guile and coarseness_; 'A certain coarse good nature and affability that covered the want of conscience, honour, and humanity: quick in passion, but not vindictive, and averse to unnecessary crimes,' is the deliberate summing-up of Hallam,--in the love of liberty inferior to none of our historians, and eminent above all for courageous impartiality,--_iustissimus unus_. _With glory he gilt_; See _Appendix_ C. _Success, the vulgar test_; See Matthew Arnold's finely discriminative _Essay_ on Falkland. MARSTON MOOR July 2: 1644 O, summer-high that day the sun His chariot drove o'er Marston wold: A rippling sea of amber wheat That floods the moorland vale with gold. With harvest light the valley laughs, The sheaves in mellow sunshine sleep; --Too rathe the crop, too red the swathes Ere night the scythe of Death shall reap! Then thick and fast o'er all the moor The crimson'd sabre-lightnings fly; And thick and fast the death-bolts dash, And thunder-peals to peals reply. Where Evening arched her fiery dome Went up the roar of mortal foes:-- Then o'er a deathly peace the moon In silver silence sailing rose. Sweet hour, when heaven is nearest home, And children's kisses close the day! O disaccord with nature's calm, Unholy requiem of the fray! White maiden Queen that sail'st above, Thy dew-tears on the fallen fling,-- The blighted wreaths of civil strife, The war that can no triumph bring! --O pale with that deep pain of those Who cannot save, yet must foresee,-- Surveying all the ills to flow From that too-victor victory; When 'gainst the unwisely guided King The dark self-centred Captain stood, And law and right and peace went down In that red sea of brothers' blood;-- O long, long, long the years, fair Maid, Before thy patient eye shall view The shrine of England's law restored, Her homes their native peace renew! _That day_; The actual fight lay between 7 and 9 p.m. _Too-victor victory_; At Naseby, says Hallam,--and the remark, (though Charles was not personally present), is equally true of Marston Moor--'Fairfax and Cromwell triumphed, not only over the king and the monarchy, but over the parliament and the nation.'