The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-06-19
AIM OF OLIVER CROMWELL
NOT TRU7RFULLY SET FORTH IN
 HISTORY SAYS GSTON.

HISTORY SAYS KINGSTON.
 Historians Have Set Up Topsy-Turvy
 Picture, Showing Only That at Which the Great Leader Did Not Aim Not
 Prompted by Ambition.
 For more than two hundred years until the second half of the nineteenth century, in fact-the popular mind had been trained through a succession of school histories and in other ways, to look upon Oliver Cromwell along the old lines of historical perspective which only allow you to see the figure heads" in great movement. Martyr King" and 'Usurper" have been convenient labels to save the trouble of thinking very much about what was behind them, Yet the Pretenders of history have been numerous enough without adding to their number by setting up topsy-tur- " picture showing only that at which  Oliver Cromwell did not aim, and for getting that at which he did undoubted- ly aim, viz, at giving effect to the great force of conviction behind him, rather than the ambition within him.
 The Tercentenary Commemoration, which is just now focusing the Cronl- well of history, will have done some thing if it gives a clearer idea of what it was that made Oliver Cromwell possi- be as well as what made the perma- hence of his rule impossible, Who shall say what was meant for England by the influence of Oliver Cromwe!rs sur roundings in his early manhood, and his personal contact with the remarkable band of Puritan neighbors in his own county of Huntingdon and in the neigh boring county of Cambridge, when the quarrel between king and parliament began? At any rate, 1t is interesting to take note of what, in this very cradle of the Ironsides, was the influence of sur- roundings and position for a man of such temperament as Oliver CromWells'
 In the first glimpse Of Cromwell in public life in relation to his neighbors, we see him as member of parliament for Huntingdon before select commit tee on Fenand Enclosures daring, somewhat rudely, to oppose the powerful influence of the House of Kimboton. Lord of the Fens," as he became known, Cromwell, after leaving his na- tive town of Huntingdon, and hiring grazing lands at St. Ives, was coming Cor. n his own and neighboring counties, whose life and influence have not always been taken sufficiently into account in consld- erng the great protection which Crom- well was destined to push to such eX- tremes. When Oliver Cromwell took leave of his neighbors al St. Ives in that letter to MT. Storie-"They that build lip spiritual temples, they are the men truly pious"-and took up his abode in the tthe-keeper's house close by the bish- on's palace at Ely, there to assert the same principle under the shadow Of the cathedral, a number of other things were happening in England. John Tampden, cousin of Cromwell, was on the same day standing up with his neighbors in the parish church of Great
 
 fusing to pay ship-money. Two years later. things ecclesiastical and civil hao come to such a pass that Oliver Cron- we'll and John Hampden had actually got their belongings on to one of num- Der of ships lying in the Thames, ready to follow the men of the MayhoWer' when the king jealous of this Puritan colonisng, and little thinking how much was banging upon the issue, forbade the departure of the ships One year latef' a number of Cromwells own friends Tn Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire- younn men of education and of religious convictions like himself, were parting with home and kindred for the same reason.
 Among the neighbors of Cromwell who distinp,lished themselves in that branch of the great Puritan protest which transferred itself beyond the seas, were two families whose names are linked with an interesting chapter ot New England story. At Eltisl6y, on the bor- ders of Cambridgeshire, only q rev miles from Cromwell's home at St. lVes' lived the family of James Desboroush' of the Manor House there. TWO or ms sons-,John, who married CromWell y sister and became one of his famous maior-generals, and Samuela younger sou--were studying law together Wll- liam T,eete, son of John Leete. of Dod- dinston. Hunts was also getting a legal training at Cambridge While in de- fault of parliament in which to repre- sent his neighbors, Cromwell was at- tending to local affairs at St. Ives ana Ely. young Leete was acting as clerk in the bishops court, and thus had oppor- tunitv of seeing the inner working of the ecclesiastical tendency of the times. ln fact, Leete became so Impressed with the expressions and crueties practlsed upou the conscientious and Vlrtuous puritans." that he was led to examine their doctrines with the result that he became one of them, threw up his ap- nointment in the bishops court ana joined young Samuel Desborough ln seeking a home beyond the seas. They joined a party of about forty young men. under Mr. Henry Whitfield, Surrey minister, and went out to New Haven. Ieete went out in a spirit worthy to become a successor of such men as Winthrop, for, having married Anne Payne daughter of the minister or Southoe, Hunts, he took out his young bride with him; and not only that, but engaged a man to serve him for three wears "as house builder in New Eng land" and, like Samuel Desborough he
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