Peace Hath Her Victories
Lord Protectors of the United Kingdom:
1653-1658:
Oliver Cromwell (Military)
defeated in battle, 1653-4: William Cunningham, 9th Earl of Glencairn (Royalist Uprising)
surpressed revolt of, 1655: John Penruddock (Royalist Uprising)
1658-1661:
Henry Cromwell (Military)
defeated in battle, 1658: John Mordaunt, 1st Viscount Mordaunt (Royalist Uprising)
defeated mutinty of, 1659: Edmund Ludlow ("Commonwealthman" Military)
1661-1687:
Henry Cromwell (New Model)
defeated mutiny of, 1662: Charles Fleetwood ("Grandee" Military)
surpressed revolt of, 1666: Thomas Venner (Fifth Monarchy Men)
surpressed revolt of, 1668: Hester Biddle (True Levellers/"Diggers")
defeated in battle, 1675-9: Charles II Stuart (Royalist, backed by Kingdom of France)
defeated mutiny of, 1682: John Wildman (Levellers/"Pay-In-Silver Army")
1687-1689: disputed between
Thomas Belasyse (New Model), Charles Worsley (Military), John Ayloffe (Levellers)
1689-1691: disputed between Thomas Belasyse (New Model), Ezerel Tonge (Good Old Cause)
When last we left our narrative, the brothers Totney had been thoroughly split up by events. Matthew Totney was in Ireland, putting down revolts and feuding with Anabaptists. Mark Totney was in Jamaica, winning glory for the Protectorate and working with Maroons. Luke Totney was in France, shining the shoes of Royal leaders and bowing to Frenchmen. Only John Totney remained in Britain, lodging in London with his half-crazed father, drawing his meagre pension, and dreaming of a better world to come.
The events that split them up, however, will find a way to force them back together again.
Even if his father had been an ordinary leader of Britain, Henry Cromwell, a sensitive ditherer who spent his administration of Ireland shying away from the burdens of power, would have felt himself ill-suited to succeed him. His father, however, was far beyond ordinary--he was Old Ironsides. The general who won the war for Parliament, who swept away the throne of England and made crowned heads roll. A man who turned the world upside down. Small wonder, then, that that many should attribute to Henry the turn of phrase "what shall men think, when CROMWELL is announced, and none but the Lord of Ireland comes in?". Nearly everyone agreed at the time he was the wrong choice, but Fleetwood refused the post in favour of waiting and seeing, Ireton was long buried, and Henry's own older brother had taken ill of the same malaria that slew his father. England needed a ruler, and there was simply no-one else.
In a Biblical twist Oliver no doubt would have relished, this stone rejected by the builders became the capstone. Henry might have been far less of a soldier and more of a conciliator than his father, but conciliation was the one thing the strife-ridden nation now needed. England chafed under the harshness of military rule, turning to royalism and republicanism in equal measure, and it took someone outside of the Grandees who dominated the general staff to notice this. While the Levellers may have been right in decrying the new parliament as nothing more than a model of a parliament, to be manipulated at will by the same small party of court, it represented a lightening of the yoke, the idea that the new Cromwell would listen to all and govern for all. Soon Henry would be acclaimed in the streets as the Young Ironsides, an equal to Oliver himself. He would need that support in the days ahead.
The second Protectorate might be more stable, but the "New Model of Britain" the Young Ironsides had founded, a careful balance of military and civil leaders acting for some rarefied national good, was still far from secure. On all sides, foes waited for a mistake. In country manors, the Grandees, rallying around a bitter Charles Fleetwood who remembered well that the throne was in his grasp, sought to maintain the near-dictatorial power of the major-generals against that of Parliament. Over the sea, the mock-court of Charles Stuart watched and waited for the right moment, believing that they'd be welcomed back with open arms even as they slipped further into being a limb of France and Popery. Through the streets of London, radical dreamers published pamphlets and preached from soapboxes in spite of the laws, dreaming of imminent apocalypses, or merely of full bellies and raised voices. Behind the walls of Westminster, Henry and his supporters watched the tumult, and tried to forge a middle way that justified itself with more than their own self-interest.
Every one of these groups hated the other, and every one of them sustained themselves the same way. Some recruited them based on self-interest--promotion to Whitehall and the ear of the Council of State, pre-eminence over demanding civilians, wages in real money rather than promissory notes. Others made appeals to higer values--the comforting embrace of the Crown, salvation and purification in the name of Christ, the ancient liberties they were supposedly fighting for. Whatever the appeal, it was always made to the same group of men, the ones who real power laid in. A group of men that still, narrowly, contained every single Totney brother.
There was no Pope to lay down judgement. No throne to appeal to. No Parliament to petition. Even, finally, no Cromwell to cut through the chaos. Power lay in one place, and one place only. During the Second Protectorate, the period of this novel, preachers read from the Soldier's Catechism, radicals swore on The Cause of the Armie, and for all they snubbed the Grandees, the New-Modellers were just as flush with generals as their opponents. Even the Stuarts would appeal to crypto-Royalists like Monck to mutiny, when they arrived for war. Without the Army, no-one could govern Britain. Yet the Army did not yet govern itself--its generals loomed over the ranks and scorned the things the common soldiers held so dear. This contradiction would, after another Ironside was claimed by the soil, work itself out in a war more bloody, and more radical, than either of the last two struggles combined, the final culmination of the Civil Wars...
...but we are getting ahead of ourselves.
The year is 1659. Matthew Totney is ensconcing himself in Henry Cromwell's court, puzzling over the tasks of administration. Mark Totney is sailing home at Fleetwood's side, swearing always to be loyal to his general. Luke Totney is bringing good news to Charles Stuart, sending notes back and forth across the Channel. John Totney is talking his father down from proclaiming himself a prophet, wondering just what it was he even fought for.
The reforging of a country awaits.
Well may they strive to leave them to their Son/For one Thing never was by one King done...
--Introduction to A Throne of Muskets, Book 3 of the Totney Cycle, by Edward Ram
