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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: History
Topic: The English Revolution

Speech of the Protector, April 8, 1657 - Sir William Clarke, The Clarke Papers. Selections from the Papers of William Clarke, vol. 3 [1899]

Edition used:

The Clarke Papers. Selections from the Papers of William Clarke, Secretary to the Council of the Army, 1647-1649, and to General Monck and the Commanders of the Army in Scotland, 1651-1660, ed. C.H. Firth (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899). 4 vols.

Part of: The Clarke Papers. Selections from the Papers of William Clarke, 4 vols.

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Speech of the Protector, April 8, 1657

This speech is number ix. in Carlyle’s ‘Cromwell.’ Carlyle’s version is based on that printed in the ‘Old Parliamentary History,’ xxiii. 164. The copy of the speech sent by Downing to General Monck, and enclosed in this letter, differs very little from that in the ‘Parliamentary History.’ The following are the only important variations.

Compared with p. 164, the ‘Clarke MS.’ reads: ‘this common cause wherein wee have bin engaged’ . . . ‘and therefore I do most readily acknowledge the authority advising these thinges’ . . . ‘as being thinges tending to the settlement’ . . . ‘big with the expectation of anything that may adde to their better being’ . . . ‘and so I have had of this Instrument and I hope as I have exprest.’

Compared with p. 165, ‘a man that is conscious to his own infirmityes and disabilityes, and doth make some measure of counsell that may seeme to come from heaven, counsell in the word of God who leaves a roome for charity’ . . . ‘I hope it will bee noe evill to measure your advice and mine owne infirmitie together’ . . . ‘conscience in him that received talents’ . . . ‘Truly, Mr. Speaker it has been heretofore a matter of (I thinke) but philosophicall discourse, that a great place, great authority, is a greate burthen. I know it is, and I know a man that is convinced in his conscience that nothinge lesse will enable him to the discharge of it then to have assistance from above’ . . . ‘in such undertakings’ . . . ‘I had and I have hesitation as to that individual thing if undertaken anything not in faith’ . . . ‘nor do I take it that you lay any upon mee’ . . . ‘Truely the same answer that I have as to this point of duety one way the same consideration have I as to duety.’

Compared with p. 166, it omits ‘another way’ and ‘surely you have provided for liberty,’ and reads ‘the word hath provided that a man’s conscience’ . . . ‘that deserves very much information to my judgment it is you and none but you that can capacitate me’ . . . ‘if you will, I say, capacitate mee to give it to your selfes to receive it and as in the other thinges that may informe mee a little more particularlie’ . . . ‘but for the good of the nations’ . . . ‘our duties to these nations whom we serve.’