4O Oliver Cromwell [1629-
a confirmation of the charges which royalist writers brought against Cromwell's early life. They refer to spiritual rather than moral failings, perhaps to the love of the world and its vanities against which he so often warns his children. They denote a change of feeling rather than a change of conduct, a rise from coldness to enthusiasm, from dejection to exaltation.
Full of thankfulness for this deliverance, Cromwell longed to testify to his faith. " If here I may honour my God, either by doing or suffering, I shall be most glad. Truly no poor creature hath more cause to put himself forth in the cause of his God than I have. I have had plentiful wages beforehand, and I am sure I shall never earn the least mite/* The time for doing was near at hand, for when he wrote the resistance of the Scots had begun. The friend quoted before points out how strangely the turning-point in Cromwell's spiritual life coincided with the turning-point in the history of his cause. " The time of his extreme suffering was when this cause of religion in which we are now engaged was at its lowest ebb." When the cause began to prosper, "he came forth into comfort of spirit and enlargement of estate." And so " he suffered and rose with the cause, as if he had one life with it."
The year 1638 was the turning-point in the history of English Puritanism. When it began, the King's power seemed as firmly established as his heart could desire. The decision of the judges that Ship-money was lawful gave absolute monarchy a legal basis, and a vantage-ground for any future demands. The arguments which proved that the King had a right to