It must also be remembered, before we read the story of “Woodstock,” that the party which controlled the Parliament of England and finally brought the king to the scaffold, was divided into two factions: Presbyterians and Independents. Among the Independents were Sir Harry Vane, John Milton and Oliver Cromwell. So much for the introduction to “Woodstock,” which opens with a picture showing the cavaliers crushed under the iron heel of Cromwell. The time of the tale is 1652; and the story begins with a rather discordant service in the church or chapel of St. John. The defaced walls and broken windows reveal the fanaticism or spite which too often attends the spirit of liberty. We are presented with a rude scuffle between a Presbyterian and Independent preacher in a pulpit formerly belonging to the Established Church, in which the Independent preacher wins the victory; and the chapter is symbolic of the great struggle, not only in the religious, but also in the political condition of Britain. The incident is a fitting preface to the book, in which Independent, Presbyterian and Royalist are shaken together as in a kaleidoscope.
The story humorously gives us the old-time belief that Woodstock was a haunted spot; and Scott refers in his preface to a book, printed in London in the year 1660, bearing the sombre title of “The Just Devil of Woodstock; or a true narrative of the several apparitions, the fights and punishments inflicted upon the rumpish commissioners sent thither to survey the manors and houses belonging to his Magestie.” The sad story of the fair Rosamond, murdered here by Queen Eleanor, was well calculated to make the ghostly apparitions more real; at least, the place was tragic enough to impress the superstitious of that generation. But the great value of this novel, apart from the picture of the times, consists in the portrayal of a living, breathing Cromwell; such a Cromwell as no history gives, but _the_ Cromwell who appears as the resultant of them all; a man of deep emotion, wary in council and unwavering in execution, a man without a single grace of oratory, who, by the force of character, assumed and kept the leadership of the House of Commons; in whose presence the bravest men stood lost in fear and wonder. Or, as Scott beautifully puts it: “So true it is, that as greater lights swallow up and extinguish the display of those which are less, so men of great, capacious, and overruling minds, bear aside and subdue, in their climax of passion, the more feeble wills and passions of others; as, when a river joins a brook, the fiercer torrent shoulders aside the smaller stream.”