And by thus uniting in his person the most opposite talents, he was enabled to combine the most contrary interests in a subserviency to his secret purposes.
The parliament, though at present defenceless, was possessed of many resources; and time might easily enable them to resist that violence with which they were threatened.

Without further deliberation, therefore, Cromwell advanced the army upon them, and arrived in a few days at St.Albans.
Nothing could be more popular than this hostility which the army commenced against the parliament.

As much as that assembly was once the idol of the nation, as much was it now become the object of general hatred and aversion.
The self-denying ordinance had no longer been put in execution, than till Essex, Manchester, Waller, and the other officers of that party, had resigned their commission: immediately after, it was laid aside by tacit consent; and the members, sharing all offices of power and profit among them, proceeded with impunity in exercising acts of oppression on the helpless nation.

Though the necessity of their situation might serve as an apology for many of their measures, the people, not accustomed to such a species of government, were not disposed to make the requisite allowances.
A small supply of one hundred thousand pounds a year could never be obtained by former kings from the jealous humor of parliaments; and the English, of all nations in Europe, were the least accustomed to taxes; but this parliament, from the commencement of the war, according to some computations, had levied, in five years, above forty millions;[*] yet were loaded with debts and incumbrances, which, during that age, were regarded as prodigious.

If these computations should be thought much exaggerated, as they probably are,[**] the taxes and impositions were certainly far higher than in any former state of the English government; and such popular exaggerations are at least a proof of popular discontents.
* Clement Walker's History of the two Juntos, prefixed to his History of Independency, p.8.This is an author of spirit and ingenuity; and being a zealous parliamentarian, his authority is very considerable, notwithstanding the air of satire which prevails in his writings.