BY Til E R E V? R .CATTE RMO L E , B '.!). " ' AT ^ THE GREAT CIYIL WAR CHARLES I. AND THE PARLIAMENT. REV. RICHARD CATTERMOLE, B.D. jptfteen f)tgf)Ig=fims!)e& lEngrabings, from IBrafotngs bp GEORGE CATTERMOLE, ESQ. UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OP MR. CHARLES HEATH. VOL. I. SECOND EDITION. LONDON: PUBLISHED FOR THE PROPRIETOR, BY LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS; APPLETON and retorted the crime of treason on all those by whom it had been advised, and by whom it should be abetted or obeyed. Both parties appealed to God and the people, as witnesses that not they, but their opponents, were the authors of the impending war ; both, finally, abandoned all pretence of expecting a settlement of their differences by any but the arbitrement of the sword. By these proceed- ings the whole kingdom was thrown into confusion. In every county, almost in every town, the recruiting drum of either party summoning the inhabitants to muster beneath the standard of Essex, Bedford, and Kimbolton, or that of Lindsey, Newcastle, and Hert- ford, mingled its harsh notes with those of its war- like rival. Strife and variance, hatred and all evil THE RAISING OF THE STANDARD, 97 passions, soon found a consecration and an open avowal in every neighbourhood and on every hearth. The father was divided against the son, the son against the father; brother was separated from brother, never, it might be, to meet again, unless in mutual oppo- sition amid the conflict of battle. Many, and those not the least conscientious, torn with doubts, hesi- tated ; not daring to choose, where both sides ap- pealed, with equal confidence, to justice and the laws. But neutrality was the one crime which both avenged; and he who was plundered to-day for being neutral, by the royalists, might to-morrow be carried before the parliament for the same offence, committed to prison, and there perish. Yet it was within the walls of the house of Commons, that the voice of moderation was still raised by two or three individuals ; endured, from invincible respect for truth and honesty, but unregarded, and having indeed, with their pure and prudential virtues, no longer " any business " in that agitated convention. From the speeches of such men, among whom Rudyard and Whitelocke were the chief, we select that of Whitelocke, as eloquently and most prophetically descriptive of the miseries which were actually suspended over the nation. After adverting to the restless attempts of popery, as the alleged origin of those divisions which dis- tracted the country, he thus continued: "But I look upon another beginning of our troubles. God blessed us with a long and flourishing peace, and we turned his grace into wantonness, and peace would not satisfy us without luxury, nor our plenty without 98 THE RAfSING OF THE STANDARD. debauchery; instead of sobriety and thankfulness for our mercies, we provoked the Giver of them by our sins and wickedness to punish us, as we may fear, by a civil war, to make us executioners of the Divine ven- geance upon ourselves. " It is strange to note how we have insensibly slid into this beginning of a civil war, by one unexpected accident following after another, as waves of the sea, which have brought us to this point. But what may be the progress of it, the poet tells you: ' Jusque datum sceleri canimus : populutnque potentum In sua victrici conversum viscera dextra.' We must surrender up our lives into the hands of inso- lent mercenaries, whose rage and violence will com- mand us and all we have ; and reason, honour, and justice, will quit our land : the ignoble will rule the noble, baseness will be preferred before virtue, profane- ness before piety. Of a potent people we shall make ourselves weak, and be the instruments of our own ruin; we shall burn our own houses, lay waste our own fields, pillage our own goods, open our own veins, devour our own bowels. You will hear other sounds besides those of drums and trumpets, the clattering of armour, the roaring of guns, the groans of wounded and dying men, the shrieks of deflowered women, the cries of widows and orphans; and all on your account, which makes it to be the most lamented. Pardon the warmth of my expressions : I would prevent a flame which I see kindled in the midst of us, that may con- sume us to ashes. THE RAISING OF THE STANDARD. 99 "The sum of the progress of civil war is the rage of fire and sword, and (which is worse) of brutish men. What the issue of it will be, no man alive can tell; probably few of us now here may live to see the end of it. It has been said, ' He that draws his sword against his prince, must throw away the scabbard.' Those differences are scarce to be reconciled. Those commotions are like the deep seas: being once stirred, they are not soon appeased. I wish the observation of .he Duke de Rohan may prove a caution, not a pro- phecy. He saith of England, that it is 'a great crea- ture, which cannot be destroyed but by its own hand.' And there is not a more likely hand than that of civil war to do it. The best issue that can be expected of a civil war, is, 'Ubi victor flet, et victus perit;' which of these will be our portion is uncertain, and the choice should be avoided. " Yet, though I have said this, I am not for a tame resignation of our religion, lives, and liberties, into the hands of our adversaries, who seek to devour us. Nor do I think it inconsistent with your great wisdom to prepare for a just and necessary defence of them. But I humbly move you to consider, whether it be not yet loo soon to come to it. We have tried by proposals of peace to his majesty, and they have been rejected. Let us try again; let us review our former propositions; and where the matter of them (as our affairs now are) is found fit to be altered, let alterations be made; that, as far as may consist with the security of ourselves and our cause, we may unite our endeavours to prevent those miseries which look black upon us: so that there H 2 100 THE RAISING OF THE STANDARD. may be no strife between us and those of the other party, 'for we are brethren.'" The speech of Sir Henry Killigrew, on the same occasion, though in a different strain, was equally characteristic. When, says Clarendon, the mem- bers of the house stood up, and declared what horse they would raise and maintain, and that they would live and die with their general, one saying he would raise ten horses, another twenty, that frank and couragous royalist rose with the rest: " When," said he, " I see occasion, I will provide a good horse, and a good buff coat, and a good pair of pistols ; and then I make no question but I shall find a good cause." Perceiving that after so blunt and unexpected a de- claration his presence was little desired, either on the benches of the Commons or in the streets of London, he took horse for Cornwall, where his estate lay, and was among the first who distinguished themselves in the brillant actions of the king's friends in the west. But the members did not depend on their indivi- dual resources. The parliament had the whole reve- nues of the kingdom at their command. They im- mediately applied to the purposes of the war one hundred thousand pounds of the money raised for the relief of Ireland; the same sum was lent them by the authorities of the City, whose liberality was eagerly seconded by the popular enthusiasm. Plate, money, jewels, were poured out before the committee of trea- surers, until hands were wanting to receive and room to lay up the profuse, but, in some instances, cum- brous offerings of the poor people; some of whom THE RAISING OF THE STANDARD. 101 attended again and again, to purchase, with property which they could ill spare, the unknown miseries of years of bloodshed. Yet this abundant voluntary aid from the capital did not preclude the employment of other means in the country, and wherever a less willing disposition prevailed; one of the first exploits of Cromwell was to plunder the house of his uncle, Sir Oliver Cromwell, at Ramsey, of his arms and plate. On the royalist side the sinews of war were not so easily strung. Far from having means to levy or pay soldiers, Charles found himself reduced so low, at this time, by the seizure of his revenues, that one table, at which his children ate with him, was all he could afford. Some arms and ammunition had with difficulty found their way to the coast of Yorkshire, from the queen, but no money. A few contributions, however, came in from the nobility and gentry. Ox- ford sent the University plate to be coined for the king's use ; Cambridge also was following the ex- ample, when the vigilance of Cromwell succeeded in arresting the valuable treasure on its way. Eager for the carnage to come, the sword of this restless and robust puritan had, in fact, already left its scabbard. Before any commissions were issued, he had trained and armed, at his own expense, the fearless yeomanry of his native neighbourhood; and had begun to exercise their activity and valour in such exploits as those above related. Hampden, be- neath his " breezy hills" and among the " ancient woods" that surround, at this day, his mansion in Buckinghamshire, and other patriots in their several 102 THE RAISING OF THE STANDARD. counties, were similarly engaged. Some trifling skir- mishes had already occurred, in the north, between comparatively large bodies of men on both sides; whom, not want of daring or of mutual animosity, but awe at the thought of being the first to shed blood in that unnatural strife, withheld, for a time, from serious conflict; when, at Portsmouth, the war actually com- menced. Goring, the governor of that town, an officer of ability and experience, was raised by the parlia- ment to the rank of lieutenant-general, and appointed to organize and discipline the army for the Earl of Essex. On various pretences he delayed, as long as he could, to appear in that service; and, on receiving peremptory orders from Lord Kimbolton, replied, that he held Portsmouth from the king, and could not, without his majesty's permission, absent himself from his government. He then administered an oath of allegiance to the garrison and inhabitants, and shut the gates. Sir William Waller immediately advanced to besiege him ; while, at the same time, some ships were brought to blockade the town by sea. On hearing this, Charles judged that the time was come, when he could no longer delay a solemn appeal to the sword ; he therefore published a proclamation, requiring all his subjects who could bear arms to meet him at Not- tingham by the twenty-third of August, on which day he designed to set up his royal standard. When the day arrived, Charles, with his shadow of an army, consisting of a few troops of horse, was lying near Coventry; into which place he had been refused admittance by the parliamentarian party THE RAISING OF THE STANDARD. 103 within. Leaving his forces there, he rode over to Nottingham, where preparations had been made for his reception, attended only by a small party of his family and adherents. The weather was sullen and tempestuous ; the greater part of the day had been consumed in the journey ; and evening began to draw in, and when Sir Thomas Brooks, Sir Arthur Hopton, Sir Francis Wortley, and Sir Robert Dading- ton, the knights chosen to bear the royal standard, proceeded with it from the castle to the adjoining hill, followed by his majesty, the Prince of Wales, Prince Rupert, and other lords and gentlemen who had joined the king. A numerous company, mounted and on foot, had likewise come in from the surrounding country; rather, indeed, as afterwards appeared, to indulge their curiosity with respect to the mode of conducting an ancient ceremony, never before wit- nessed in the memory of man, than to offer loyal assistance to their sovereign. On the hill, three troops of horse and a corps of about six hundred foot were drawn up, to guard the standard. As soon as it was brought to the summit, the king directed a herald to read his proclamation, declaring the ground and cause of that act of warlike solemnity. Just as the herald was about to begin, a scruple seemed to cross Charles's mind. He de- sired to see the proclamation; and, calling for pen and ink, placed the paper on his knee, as he sat in the saddle, and made several alterations with his own hand; afterwards returning it to the herald. That officer then read it, but, on coming to the pas- 104 THE RAISING OF THE STANDARD. sages which the king had corrected, with some embar- rassment. Immediately the trumpets sounded, the standard was advanced, and the spectators threw up their hats, shouting, "God save the king!" The standard was a large blood-red ensign, or streamer, bearing the royal arms quartered, with a hand pointing to the crown, which stood above, and inscribed with the motto, " Give to Caesar his due." Farther on, towards the point, were represented, at intervals, the rose, the fleur-de-lis, and the harp, each surmounted by the royal crown. A more stirring legend, than that cold appeal to justice might, perhaps, have been wisely chosen ; yet its temperate demand was calculated to rouse in English bosoms a thought which the wild course of events had been sweeping towards oblivion viz. while all besides were clamouring for rights, real or feigned, had not the king his rights also; rights which never should have been regarded as hostile to those of the people? Some delay now took place. It was with diffi- culty the standard could be fixed in this place, the ground being a solid rock, and no instrument to pierce it having been provided. Scarcely had this object been accomplished, by means of digging into the firm stone with the daggers and halberd-points of the sol- diers, when a fierce gush of wind, sweeping with a wild moan across the face of the hill, laid prostrate the emblem of sovereignty. Many persons regarded this accident as a presage of evil, and a general melan- choly overspread the assembly. That day no further attempt was made. The louring sky of evening sym- THE RAISING OF THE STANDARD. 105 pathised with the shadow that lay on men's spirits ; and the standard was borne back into the castle, with the same state as had attended it to the field, but nearly in silence. Whispers, and words low and dubious, as of suppressed apprehension, passed from man to man; and if, now and then, some faint acclamations rose from the people, their effect was rather to startle than to animate. The next day, indeed, the ceremony was repeated, with less gloomy auspices; again, like- wise, the day following; his majesty and his train presenting themselves, each time, as at first. Within three or four days, however, the news arriving that the important town of Portsmouth had been sur- rendered to his enemies, that royal solemnity, by which the horrors of intestine strife were sanctified, and a charter given to impetuous passions and wasting calamity to riot through the land, became associated in the mind of Charles himself with a gloom neither visionary nor transient. CHAPTER VI. THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. THE reader may adopt which side he please, in the much-contested and interminable question, so inter- esting to the fame of both the two great belligerent parties, " Who began the civil war?" But, one thing is beyond question, that the forces of the parliament were actually in the field earlier than those of Charles. At the time when the king set up his standard, he had with him scarcely troops sufficient to guard it, or to protect his own person; his slender stock of arms and ammunition was still lying at York; and the troops he had left before Coventry, neither in numbers, nor in any other respect, deserved the name of an army. It was, indeed, the common belief of his adversaries, both in and out of parlia- ment, that he would be wholly without means to oppose their successful levies ; and would consequently be obliged, after all, to submit to their terms without drawing the sword. In the majority of counties, they were able to prevent the commissioners of array from carrying the royal proclamation into effect; while, at the same time, their own levies proceeded without THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. 107 interruption. Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and the southern counties in general, chose the popular side; the vigi- lance and activity of Cromwell, in Norfolk, Suffolk, Huntingdonshire, and Cambridgeshire, crushed, at a blow, the whole interest of the royal party in the east; Middlesex, including London, was entirely at their command. Such indeed, was the eargerness of the capital to serve under Essex, that, immediately on the issuing of the commissions, four thousand citizens pre- sented themselves in one day, at the Artillery Ground, for enlistment. On both sides, the raising of troops was undertaken by the zealous friends of the cause, chiefly in their own neighbourhoods, where their interest was greatest. On both sides also, but not to an equal extent, the expense of the levies and equipments was defrayed by those individuals who raised their respective regi- ments, and by whom they were afterward, in most instances, commanded. The king, in effect, was wholly dependent on the wealthy royalists for the sup- port of his troops; but the parliament, having the command of the national revenues, and beginning already to seize for the public service the property of delinquents, had, from the first, the means of pro- posing a regular scale of pay, extending from ten pounds per day for the lord-general, to eightpence per day for the privates in infantry regiments. Those noblemen and gentlemen were in general the most active in collecting troops, whose names acquired the chief celebrity during the earlier periods of the war. On the part of the parliament, Sir Thomas 108 THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. Fairfax, in the north; Sir William Waller, at Exeter; the Earl of Bedford, in Bedfordshire; Lord Brooke, in Warwickshire; Lord Kimbolton and Cromwell, in Huntingdonshire and the adjoining counties; Sir Arthur Haslerigg, in Leicestershire; Lord Say and his sons, in Oxfordshire; Lord Wharton and Hamp- den, in Buckinghamshire ; Hollis, Stapleton, and Skippon, in Middlesex, distinguished themselves by their exertions in this service. The recruits were placed at the disposal of the Committee of safety, the parliamentary executive, and supplied the rein- forcements for the army under Essex, mustering at Nor- thampton. England, the loud beating of whose warlike pulse had, since the great dispute arose, wholly drowned the faint, decaying traditions of those miseries that attended her ancient domestic feuds, had likewise happily forgotten military tactics, and their very nomenclature had become an unknown language. To drill their zealous recruits, withdrawn suddenly from the plough, the anvil, or the loom, the parliament employed officers who had served in the wars of Ger- many: the fortifications and management of the artil- lery were chiefly confided to foreign soldiers of fortune, German or French. The proper equipment of the men was, for the same reason, a difficulty which it required time to surmount. The rude but picturesque match- locks, or muskets, of the period, and, when these could not be had, pikes and poleaxes, supplied the arms of the infantry; the long heavy sword, the carbine and pistols, the back and breast plates, with the steel cap, THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. 109 common to both horse and foot, presented the supe- rior accoutrement of the cavalry or troopers. Both armies, but especially the king's, were at first but imperfectly furnished with arms of any kind: Crom- well's " Ironsides" obtained that well-known title as well on account of the more " complete steel" in which they were belted, as for their invincible daring; and every one has heard of Haslerigg's regiment, nick- named, by the Cavaliers, " lobsters," " because of their bright iron shells, with which they are covered, being perfect cuirrassiers." The colours of the regi- ments were various, according to the fancy, or, more frequently, agreeing with the household livery, of the respective leaders. This mark of distinction was the more important, because, at the outbreak of the war, it was sometimes the only means of recognition by which, in battle, friend could be discerned from foe, no distinctive field-word having been adopted. "Hollis's," Lord Nugent, in his life of Hampden, in- forms us, " were the London red coats; Lord Brooke's, the purple; Hampden's, the green coats; Lord Say's and Lord Mandeville's the blue; the orange which had long been the colour of Lord Essex's household, and now that of his body guard, was worn in a scarf over the armour of all the officers of the parliament army, as the distinguishing symbol of their cause." The king's famous regiment likewise adopted red ; the Earl of Newcastle's regiment of Northumbrians were termed, from the white colour of their coats (or, as some say, with reference to their fierce cour- age), " Newcastle's lambs." It was only by degrees, 110 THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE- HILL. however, that any thing like uniformity was attained: the choice of clothing and arras was, in the first instance, often decided by the taste or circumstances of the individual wearer. Each regiment or each troop had its standard, or cornet, bearing, on one side, the watchword of the parliament, " God with us," and on the other the device of its commander, with his motto. The inscription on the Earl of Essex's was "Cave, adsum;" the better-chosen and more characteristic words which waved, in battle, over the head of Hampden, were " Vestigia nulla retrorsum;" later in the war, Algernon Sidney, one of the steadiest adherents to the cause, thus expressed in the motto of the regiment which he commanded, the source of his devotedness to the service : " Sanctus amor patriae dat animum." The force which Essex, shortly after the com- mencment of hostilities, was enabled to bring into the field, consisted of about 15,000 infantry and 4500 cavalry. The cavalry were distributed into seventy- five troops; of the infantry, there were twenty regi- ments. Under him, the commanders of highest rank were, the Earl of Bedford, general of the horse, assisted by Sir William Balfour; the Earl of Peter- borough, general of the ordnance; and Sir John Meyrick, serjeant-major, or (in the language of that day) serjeant-major-general. Such was the constitution of the army, to put him- self at the head of which, that noble commander passed through London on the 4th of September, 1642. Essex was, at this period, in the highest favour with both THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. 1 1 1 parliament and people. His journey resembled a tri- umphal procession. Accompanied by all the military officers in London, by a long retinue of peers and gentlemen, and by the trained bands, who officiated as his guard, he traversed the City ; from whence to Highgate, " a hedge of people" lined the road on each side, and saluted him with acclamations, crying out, " God bless my lord-general ! Long life to the lord- general !" Meantime the king's affairs wore still a depressed aspect few adherents coming in, and no money; hesitation and uncertainty pervading the minds of his council; a general gloom louring on men's counte- nances. Charles's resolution was not overcome; for he was confident in the righteousness of his quarrel, naturally sanguine, and inclined to that romantic temper, which is roused and supported by the diffi- culties attending great enterprises. He was advised to make yet one more attempt to negotiate with the parliament; not with any expectation that his proposals would meet with acceptance, but that, in the event of their rejection, the people might be disabused of the opinjon that it was he whose obstinacy was the true cause of the war. This advice was ungrateful to him ; but he yielded to the importunity of his council, and despatched propositions for a treaty, by the Earl of Southampton, Sir John Colepepper, and Sir William Uvedale. The event was as had been expected. Conscious of their strength, the parliament treated the messengers with incivility, and haughtily returned THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. for answer, that until the king withdrew his procla- mation, and took down his standard, they could treat no more with him. Charles promised to consent to those conditions, provided the parliament would recall their votes against his friends. They refused; and voted, that they would not lay down their arms till delinquents were brought to justice, and their estates made to defray the debts of the commonwealth. A few days later he sent a third message, in which he solemnly conjured them to reflect what blood would be shed, and referred his cause to the God of heaven : the parliament replied by retorting on him the charge of indifference to the bloodshed that must follow. This correspondence was of prodigious advantage to the king's cause. The sincerity of Charles's wish to retain the sword still in the sheath, if it were possible, consist- ently with security and honour, was now admitted by many who had doubted it hitherto: concession could go no farther; sufficient barriers against the encroach- ments of regal power had now been erected; adversity likewise had begun to produce its usual, softening effect upon the king: there must be, at the least, a better prospect of safety to individuals in supporting their sovereign, than in extending the already enor- mous and illegal power of a party who had declared their purpose to vote whom they pleased delinquents, and seize on their estates for their own purposes. Led, therefore, on the one hand by reviving loyalty, on the other by interest, numbers now hastily sought the royal standard; and when the king prepared to leave THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. 113 Nottingham, which he did presently after, about the middle of September, his affairs already began to wear a much more cheering appearance. The royal army having been increased by reinforce- ments from the west and north, contributions from several sources having come in, and Charles's military stores and little train of artillery being brought up from York, he marched across Derbyshire towards the Welsh borders, designing to fix his head quarters at Shrewsbury. Between Stafford and Wellington the king halted his army, placed himself in the centre, and, after the reading of his orders of war, reminded his followers of their duty to obey them, and of the probability of an immediate engagement with the enemy. He then proceeded thus ; " In the presence of Almighty God, and as I hope for his blessing and protection, I de- clare that I have no other design, no other wish, but to maintain, in life and death, the Protestant religion as established in the Church of England; to govern according to the known laws of the land ; and, in par- ticular, to observe the statutes enacted in the present parliament. Should I wilfully fail in any one of these particulars, I renounce equally all claim to assistance from man, or protection from heaven. If, however, I should be driven, by my present difficulties, and by the dire necessities of war, to any unwilling violation of this engagement, I trust it will be imputed by God and men to the true authors of the war, and not to me, who have earnestly laboured for the preservation of the peace of this kingdom. But as long as I remain i 114 THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. faithful to this promise, I hope for cheerful aid from all good subjects, and am confident of obtaining the blessing of heaven." The solemnity of this protestation, and the affecting circumstances in which it was made, produced a strong impression, throughout England, in favour of the king; and at Shrewsbury the neighbouring gentry and inhabitants received him with enthusiasm. Here his army presently swelled to the number of about 10,000 foot and between 3000 and 4000 horse. The great bulk of these consisted of the nobility and landed gentry, their tenants and retainers, those classes on whom the fine magic of loyalty was not yet powerless, and those who were linked to the cause of ancient right and order, by kindred, though less distinguished, ties of duty and dependence. In point of equipment the royal troops were inferior to those of the parliament; but their arms, both offensive and defensive, were nearly similar. Among the most emi- nent of those royalists, to whose efforts Charles was indebted for the means of taking the field, were the Earl of Newcastle in the north ; the Earl of Lindsey, and his son Lord Willoughby, in Lincoln- shire ; John (afterwards Lord) Bellasis, son of Lord Falconbridge, in Yorkshire ; Lord Strange in Lan- cashire ; the Earl of Northampton, in Warwickshire ; in Cornwall, Sir Bevil Grenvil, his younger brother Sir Richard, and his son Sir John Grenvil, Sir Ralph Hopton, and Sir Nicholas Slanning. In the Earl of Lindsey, for too short a period general of his army, the king possessed a brave officer and a THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. 115 generous subject; the wise and noble-minded Hert- ford he made lieutenant-general of the west ; his com- missary-general was Henry (subsequently Lord) Wil- mot; in the office of major-general he was well served by the blunt Sir Jacob Ashley ; Sir John Heydon, a good officer, was general of the ordinance ; and Sir Arthur Aston, "of whose soldiery there was a very great esteem," was made colonel-general of dragoons. Prince Rupert's name has come down to us as almost a synonyme for impetuous daring, as dis- tinguished from sedate and manly courage ; and for intolerable haughtiness, unsupported by real superi- ority. A more striking instance Charles never gave and his life exhibits not a few of his blindness to the faults of those he loved, or who stood to him in a relation which in his opinion entitled them to his love, than when he presented that headlong youth with his commission as general of the horse, inserting the strange concession to his vanity, that he should receive orders from no one but himself. Yet, in the very first considerable skirmish of the war, the youthful German prince performed a part which seemed, for a time, in the eyes of both armies, to justify the favour of his royal uncle. Rupert, with his brother Maurice, Wilmot, and other officers, had been despatched by the king to watch the move- ments of Essex, now on his march from Northamp- ton towards Worcester, and at the same time to sup- port Sir John Byron, who was on his way from Oxford, with a convoy of plate and money. Byron had already reached Worcester; where Nathaniel i 2 116 THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. Fiennes and Edwin Sandys, with a party of the troops raised by Lord Say, had formed a plan to seize and carry him off. In the meantime, Rupert, after a long and rapid march, arrived under the walls of that place. The greater part of his wearied men he permitted to go into the town for refreshment; but intending to retire as soon as they returned with such intelligence as they could meet with, he remained in the field, and, dismounting, threw himself on the grass, in the midst of his officers, without suspicion that any of the enemy's forces were near the spot. On a sudden, a body of about five hundred horse made their ap- pearance, marching in good order up a lane within musket-shot of the reposing party. No time was there to consult what should be done, or put themselves at the head of their respective troops. Scarcely had they, in their confusion, mounted, when Rupert, crying out, " Let us charge them ! " dashed on with . his group of officers, followed at intervals by the men ; and came upon the advancing party as they were in the act of issuing from the lane. The parlia- mentarians were well armed, splendidly mounted, and gallantly led by Colonel Sandys ; yet, so fierce and unexpected was the onset of the royalists, that the whole body was at once routed, fled, and were pursued by the conquerors. Between forty and fifty, chiefly officers, were killed. Sandys himself was taken prisoner, and shortly afterwards died of his wounds. Six or seven colours were likewise captured, with many good horses, and some arms. "This rencounter," remarks Lord Clarendon, "proved of great advantage to the THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. 117 king. For it being the first action his horse had been brought into, and that party of the enemy being the most picked and choice men, it gave his troops great courage, and rendered the name of Prince Rupert very terrible, and exceedingly appalled the adversary ; insomuch that they had not, in a long time after, any confidence in their horse, and their numbers were much lessened by it. For that whole party being routed, and the chief officers of name and reputation either killed or taken, many of those who escaped never returned to the service ; and, which was worse, for their own excuse talked aloud, wherever they went, of the incredible and irresistible courage of Prince Rupert and the king's horse." The Earl of Essex's orders were, about this time, forwarded to him by the parliament. He was directed " to march with his forces against the king's army, and by battle, or otherwise, to rescue his person, and the persons of the prince and Duke of York, out of the hands of the ' desperate' men by whom they were surrounded; to offer a free pardon to all who, within ten days, should return to their duty, except the Earls of Richmond, Cumberland, Newcastle, Car- narvon, and Rivers, Viscounts Newark and Falkland, Secretary Nicholas, Endimion Porter, and Edward Hyde ; and to forward to the king a petition that he would withdraw himself from his wicked counsellors, and once more rely on the loyalty and obedience of his parliament. As far as regarded the petition, the earl lost no time in discharging his trust. Immediately on his arrival at Worcester, he signified to the Duke 118 THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. of Dorset, then in attendance upon the king at Shrewsbury, that such a paper was intrusted to him to deliver. Charles replied that he ever had been, and would be, ready to receive any petition from his two houses of parliament ; but that he would not receive the petition out of the hands of a traitor. With respect to the more substantial part of his commission, the general of the parliament appeared dilatory and wavering. The impatient energies of Hampden, and Hollis, and Brooke, could not endure a detention of three weeks within the crumbling walls of Worcester : they sought, and found opportunities of breathing their valour, in encounters, far and near, with such detachments of the enemy as were to be met with at a distance from the main body. It was not lack of courage, or of ambition, or of honourable fidelity to the solemn duty he had undertaken, that withheld Essex from advancing. That noble person* in common with many on both sides, was perplexed with the contest in his soul between his old habitual feelings and his new engagements. Owing to the misfortunes of his early life, the earl had at no time been held in that consideration at the court which his merits, as well as his rank might fairly challenge. By Charles himself he had been coldly, nay, unkindly treated. But for the alienation caused by these circumstances in the mind of a nobleman and soldier, conscious of what was due to himself, the par- liament might have had to seek some other for their general. And still the uneradicable sense of loyalty and honour had held him back, but for that subtle THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. 119 distinction between " the king in his corporate and his personal capacity, which had decided stronger heads than his own to arm in the king's name against the king." Such was then the distracted condition of the noblest and manliest minds. In that unhappy period these adverse wrenchings of a " divided duty" were a source of misery, compared with which im- prisonment and forfeiture, proscription, or even death itself, were tolerable. This torn state of feeling was experienced on both sides, but especially on the side of the parliament; the mere novelty of whose position was sufficient to harass the conscience with misgivings. Hence, when the critical, the trying hour arrived, not a few who, up to that hour, had striven resolvedly with the parliament against the king, now sought relief by passing over to cool their fevered thoughts beneath the shelter of the royal banner. There it was better with them, yet not well. The worm was gnawing still, though its fangs were fastened in a less vital part; for, to men of high honour and true re- ligion the ennobling characteristics of so many in that generation at once to cast off allegiance to the sovereign, and to trample on the church, was felt as a doubled parricide. The oppressed bosom yielded to melancholy forebodings of its own fate, or vented itself in vain and womanly reproaches on those it regarded as the authors of its agonies. Thus the once vivacious, but now broken-hearted Falkland, "sitting among his friends, often, after a deep silence and fre- quent sighs, would, with a shrill and sad accent, in- geminate the word Peace ! peace !" and thus the 120 THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. stronger, but equally foreboding heart of Sir Bevil Grenvil, poured its burning indignation over his own neighbours who had turned " traitors," and raked into the sad story of Essex's early life for a scornful epithet to level against " the great cuckold who is forced to shut himself up within the walls of Worcester." Charles had been able to raise his army to a more respectable state of numbers, discipline, and equip- ment, than, in so short a time, could have seemed possible. Encouraged by the reviving sentiment in his favour, by the success of his skirmishing parties, and by the inaction of the enemy, he resolved to march from Shrewsbury directly on London, at once to terminate the war. Two days elapsed before Essex had put his forces in motion to follow. Great surprise pervaded the parliament at the unlocked for manner in which their urgent entreaties for the king's return to London seemed now about to be granted; while the people, who had been taught to expect no more to see the sovereign, except as the submissive thrall of " his faithful parliament," were in the greatest consternation. Not vainly, however, did they look to that energetic convention, for direction and support in their apprehended danger; nor did the " malignants," who now began to emerge from con- cealment, find that peril had relaxed the arm of the self- appointed guardians of the nation's safety. All persons who had neglected to contribute to the charges of the army were ordered to be secured and disarmed; all the horses fit for service in the city and suburbs were seized; chains were drawn across the outlets of the THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. 121 city, and barricades erected in the streets. Men, women, and children, worked together at these rude defences; and the citizens cheerfully obeyed the order of parliament to close their shops and manufactories, and place their time and their property at its disposal. On the morning of the 23d of October, the capital was agitated by a sudden rumour that a fatal battle had been fought. Fugitives from the field had been seen, breathless with haste and fright, hurrying along the roads, and proclaiming that all was lost. The news was circulated in a thousand varied but terrific shapes. Essex had perished, and with his dying words exhorted every man to shift for himself: the king's army was terrible, and resistance utterly vain. All Monday the city continued a prey to these rumours. At length came despatches from Essex; but fear had, by this time, taken complete possession of men's minds; the earl's report was favourable, and could not be true. The Lord Hastings had entered the house, with ghastly looks, during the reading of the despatches, and de- clared that he had himself been an eye-witness to the defeat. Hastings had indeed been among the foremost to run away; but the last messenger that arrived was the most trusted, more particularly if his report con- firmed the worst. In the horror and consternation of eight-and-forty hours, writes the royalist historian, every man underwent a full penance and mortification for the hopes and insolence of three months before. This must be understood of the honest citizens of Lon- don. The great assembly at Westminster seems to have been but little moved. On that very day they voted, 122 THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE HILL. indeed, an order for the trained bands to put them- selves in motion ; but proceeded quietly, at the same time, with the ordinary business of parliament. On the third day, two members, Wharton and Strode, arrived from the army, and gave a circum- stantial statement of the occurrences there, first in their places in parliament, and afterwards to the citi- zens in the common hall. Their narratives, as might have been foreseen, were partial and confused; nor was that afterwards ordered by the houses to be printed and circulated, free from the same defects. The plainer relation of the king presents a more correct, though meagre, outline of the main incidents which signalised that day, so memorable in English annals as that the first battle of the GREAT CIVIL WAR. Charles had received intelligence of Essex's march, and had turned to face his pursuer. It was early in the morning of the 23d day of October, 1642, when Prince Rupert, dashing on, as usual, with his gallant cuirassiers, found himself on the brow of the wild ridge of Edge-hill, which overlooks the " vale of the Red Horse," near Kineton, in Warwickshire. His quick eye caught at once the object of its search the army of the Earl of Essex; its dark masses drawn up along the vale below, in compact order of battle. At this sight, the prince checked his career; for the van of the king's infantry was left far behind, and his artillery was at a distance of not less than three hours' march: noon had, therefore, long passed, ere the royalists had wound their march, which they were permitted to do without interruption, down the THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. 123 declivity of the hill, and confronted, on even ground, their expectant adversaries. Charles assembled round him his lords and cap- tains, and addressed them with feeling and dignity. " My lords, and all here present," he said, " the foe is in sight. Your king is both your cause, your quarrel, and your captain. I have written and declared that I intended always to maintain the Protestant religion, the privileges of the parliament, and the liberties of the subject; and now I must prove my words by the convincing argument of the sword. Let Heaven show his power by this day's victory to declare me just, and as a lawful, so a loving king to my subjects. Come life or death, your king will bear your company, and ever keep this field, this place, and this day's service in his grateful remembrance." He then rode through the ranks clad in shining steel armour, and wearing a mantle of black velvet, on the front of which glittered his brilliant star and George, and thus continued: " Friends and soldiers ! you are called cavaliers and royalists, in a disgraceful sense. If I suffer in my fame, needs must you do likewise. Now shew your- selves no malignants, but declare what courage and fidelity is within you. Fight for the peace of the kingdom and the Protestant religion. The valour of cavaliers hath honoured that name both in France and other countries, and now let it be known in England, as well as horseman or trooper. The name of cavalier, which our enemies have striven to make odious, sig- nifies no more than a gentleman serving his king on horseback. Show yourselves, therefore, now courage- 124 THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. ous cavaliers, and beat back all opprobrious aspersions cast upon you. "Friends and soldiers! I look upon you with joy to behold an army as great as ever king of England had in these later times. I thank your loves offered to your king, to hazard your lives and fortunes with me in my urgent necessity. I feel at this time that no father can leave his son, no subject his lawful king. But matters are not now to be decided by words, but by swords. You all think our thoughts, while I reign over your affections as well as your persons. My reso- lution is to try the doubtful chance of war, while with much grief I must stand to and endure the hazards. I desire not the effusion of blood, but since Heaven hath so decreed, and that so much preparation hath been made, we must needs accept of the present occasion for an honourable victory and glory to our crown, since reputation is that which gilds over the richest gold, and shall ever be the endeavour of our whole reign. Your king bids you all be courageous, and Heaven make you victorious!" Already the fatal cause in Prince Rupert's com- mission, which placed the officer above the orders of his general, had begun to produce its malignant fruits. Lindsey's plan for the disposition of the army was dis- approved by the prince. Ruthen, afterwards Earl of Brentford, to whom the king had given a field-mar- shal's staff at Shrewsbury, having been trained in the same school of tactics, supported the royal hussar. Charles approved. With a grieved heart, the generous veteran, who bore the name, without having the autho- THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. 125 rity, of general, retired to the head of his regiment ; where he declared he would fight, and there die, as a private colonel. When the signal to engage was given, he encouraged his men with a few cheerful words ; then, grasping a pike, gallantly led them forward to the charge, on foot. With equal bravery, Essex advanced, in the same manner, on the other side ; and the cannon from both hosts " having dis- charged their choleric errands," the battle closed, the king, giving the word with solemnity. " Go in the name of God, and I will lay my bones with yours." The command of the royalists' right wing was taken by Prince Rupert ; of their left, by Commissary- general Wilmot. To Rupert was immediately op- posed the chief strength of the parliament's horse ; in which force they were inferior to the king. Here it was that the fight began. Rupert, his strength aug- mented by the accession of a regiment which, at the instant of charging, came over and joined him, fell upon the enemy with his characteristic impetuosity, and bore down all before him. In a moment their entire left wing gave way, and was dispersed. On the king's left wing, Wilmot, following, with corre- sponding success, the example of the prince, drove the parliament's horse opposed to him through a body of musketeers which had been drawn up for their sup- port. Every other consideration was now lost sight of by the victors, in the pursuit, which they continued as far as Kineton, a distance of between two and three miles. There Hampden, hastening forward with his own and another regiment and some pieces of artillery, 126 THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. found them engaged in pillaging the rich baggage of Essex and his officers; and, by his unexpected ap- pearance, first reminded Rupert, and his ill-employed followers, of returning to the scene they had so im prudently abandoned. Night was closing in upon the field of civil carnage, when Prince Rupert returned to witness the effects of his rash conduct. He found the royal army harassed and broken, and the king himself exposed to imminent danger, while riding to the foremost ranks, he ani- mated the few troops that yet stood firm, by his words and his example. Charles's own "red regiment," at their earnest request, had obtained leave to be absent that day from his person, and to charge in front among the horse. Against this, and the Earl of Lindsey's, the king's next best regiment, were directed the suc- cessive charges of the powerful brigades of Essex's foot, commanded by the general in person, by Hollis, and by Colonel Charles Essex ; while Sir William Balfour, bringing up his reserve of horse, which had not shared in the general rout of the parliament's cavalry, broke in with terrible execution upon the main body of the royalists. It was now that Lindsey fell, severely wounded, and was instantly surrounded and made prisoner ; which Lord Willoughby per- ceiving, rushed into the midst of the enemy, and voluntarily surrendered himself, to attend on his barve parent. Sir Edmund Varney, the king's standard- bearer, was slain, and the standard taken and retaken : two regiments only maintained their ground. The king and Prince Rupert made every effort to prevail THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. 127 on such squadrons of cavalry as had now returned, to charge afresh ; but without success. Their reappear- ance, however, put a stop to the slackened movements of the parliamentarians ; and the shadows of night descended on the motionless hosts, where they stood gazing on each other, as if struck with silent remorse, neither side daring to believe that they had gained the first fratricidal victory of the war. Charles now commanded the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, who had hitherto been by his side, to retire from the field ; but refused to yield to the entreaties of his officers to abandon it himself. He had shown himself equal, in gallantry and firmness, to the great and unexampled circumstances in which he that day stood: he determined to risk nothing now ; " well knowing," observes Clarendon, " that as that army was raised by his person and presence only, so it could by no other means be kept together ; and he thought it unprincely to forsake them who had forsaken all they had to serve him." Doubtful of his actual position, and of what might follow, the sove- reign merely dismounted from his horse, and seated himself by such a fire as could be kindled with the furze and scanty brushwood which grew on the barren heath. It was a keen autumn night; and a freezing wind sighed along the unsheltered slopes of Edge-hill. Essex's camp was well furnished with pro- visions ; but the king's troops, who had had nothing to eat for many hours, were in danger of perishing with cold and hunger : for the peasantry of the sur- rounding country, zealously devoted to the interests 128 THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. of the parliament, refused to supply provisions for the "papistical cavaliers and malignants" who fough) with King Charles. More than once, during the night, a report arose that the rebels had retreated ; but when day appeared, they were seen standing in the same spot. Morning advanced, yet neither army moved from its position. The king having received intelligence, some dayt before, that many officers and soldiers of the enemy were ready to lay down their arms, and come ovei to him, upon assurance of a good reception, hac prepared a proclamation to that effect. With this proclamation, he, about noon, sent one of his heralds, Sir William le Neve, to the Earl of Essex ; rather, indeed, to observe the enemy's condition, and to ascertain what prisoners had fallen into their hands, than with much hope of its producing the effect originally contemplated. Clarendon's account of Sir William's reception is amusing. " Before Sir Wil- liam came to the army he was received by the out- guards, and conducted with such strictness, that he could say or publish nothing among the soldiers, to the Earl of Essex ; who, when he offered to read the proclamation aloud, that he might be heard by those who were present, rebuked him with some roughness, and charged him, ' as he loved his life, not to presume to speak a word to the soldiers ; ' and, after some few questions, sent him presently back, well guarded, through the army, without any answer at all. At his return he had so great and feeling a sense of the danger he had passed, that he made little THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. 129 observation of the posture or number of the enemy ; only, he seemed to have seen or apprehended so much trouble and disorder in the faces of the Earl of Essex, and the principal officers about him, and so much dejection in the common soldiers, that they looked like men who had no further ambition than to keep what they had left." The king and Essex were both ujsirous of renewing the engagement, but were pre- vented ; Essex, by the advice of Dalbier and the other mercenaries, by whom, chiefly, his brigades were offi- cered ; the king, by the exhausted condition of his troops. Charles drew out his horse at the foot of the hill ; brought off his cannon, including several of the parliament's, without disturbance; lingered till evening upon the summit ; then moved forward his standard, which, in that conspicuous position, had all day long tossed its defying streamers in the breeze ; and led his wearied followers to their previous quarters at Edgcot, where they obtained food and rest. In this first great action there fell between 5000 and 6000 men, of whom two thirds were parliamen- tarians. On that side two colonels, Charles Essex, reputed the ablest officer under the earl, and the Lord St. John, were slain. Of the king's party, there died on the field of battle, besides Sir Edmund Varney, Lord Aubigny, one of three brave sons of the Duke of Lenox, who that day fought for the king, and Colonel Monroe, "a great commander." General Lindsey was borne, profusely bleeding, from the fight, by the pious assiduity of Lord Willoughby, to the rude shed of a neighbouring farm. In the heat 130 THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. and distraction of the engagement, Essex, "among whose faults, however, want of civility and courtesy was none," forgot to send surgeons to tend his unfortunate antagonist. It was midnight when one arrived, with Sir William Balfour, and other officers, whom the par- liament's general had sent to tender Lindsey such as- sistance as was at his command, designing himself to visit the wounded commander. They found him stretched on a little straw, pale from loss of blood, but with looks full of animation. " Gentlemen," he said, I am sorry to see so many of you, and among you some of my old friends, engaged in so foul a rebellion." Then directing his discourse particularly to Balfour, he put that knight in mind of the great obligations he was under to the king. His majesty had incurred the dis- pleasure of the whole nation by giving him the com- mand of the Tower of London : was it not odious ingra- titude to make his royal master the return he had that day made? " Gentlemen/' continues the dying earl, " tell my Lord Essex that he ought to throw himself at the king's feet, and implore forgiveness ; speedily let him do it, if he would not have his name a word of re_ proach among his countrymen ! " The passionate ear- nestness of the loyal veteran quickened the exhausting flow of blood. The parliamentary officers retired in silence. Ere morning dawned, Lord Willoughby, amid his unavailing services by that forlorn bed of death, had become Earl of Lindsey. Charles made earnest efforts for the immediate release of the .victim of filial affec- tion ; but the parliament refused to accept any exchange for young Lindsey, and he remained nearly a year their THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. 131 prisoner. Other scenes, no less sad, were passing nigh at hand : the following is related, as one of the affecting incidents of this bloody field. " A parliamentary soldier, dying of his wounds, declared that his deepest grief was having received his death from the hand of his brother. Him he had recognized among the royal troops, and turned aside ; but the carbine was impetuously dis- charged by the hand which had never before been raised but in affection." As soon as the armies had quitted the ground, other parties took possession of it. The fugitive soldiers who had skulked in the neighbouring villages, returned with the rude rustics to rifle the dying and the dead. The clergy of the vicinity assembled their more charitable parishioners to register and give sepulture to those earliest sacrifices to the Moloch of intestine strife. Brother sought out brother, and sons their fathers, to snatch the remains of those they loved from an undistin- guished grave, or it might be, to cherish and rekindle the yet lingering spark of life. The name of more than one son, of knightly race, is preserved, who, after a search of days, found his parent, naked, covered with wounds, and well nigh frozen in his blood ; and had his pious cares repaid by the sufferer's recovery. Both sides claimed the victory at Edge-hill, which, in fact, neither obtained. The parliament voted that their army had been victorious, and ordered a solemn thanksgiving. The king published a " declaration" of his acts and motives ; and forwarded a proclamation, offering a free pardon to the cities of London and West- 132 THE FIRST BATTLE EDGE-HILL. minster, if they would lay down their arms, in which it is implied that his majesty had been prosperous in the late action. With Charles rested, at all events, the ad- vantages of victory. While Essex, his rear harassed by the royal horse, retreated on Warwick and Coventry, the king's army pushed forward towards the metropolis ; took Banbury, with Lord Peterborough's regiment of six hun- dred men, quartered in the town ; and continued its march, without interruption, to Oxford. CHAPTER VII. PARTISAN WARFARE LORDS BROOKE AND NORTHAMPTON. WHILE, after the battle of Edge-hill, the operations of the two great armies were suspended, or conducted with languor, the warfare of partisans, in the more remote provinces, grew every day sharper and more general. There the movements of the leaders were unembarrassed by public responsibility or political views ; and the private feuds of families and indi- viduals stimulated their zeal, or even determined their choice of a party. The means of commencing and carrying on those little insulated wars, into which every man, even in the remotest corners of the country, if he failed to be drawn by his inclinations, was never- theless cruelly forced by the circumstances of the time, were obtained in two ways. In the one case, the pre- dominant disposition of a district, of a county, or even of several adjoining counties, influenced and directed probably by one or more distinguished proprietors, embodied itself in an application to the parliament or the king, respectively, for authority to raise troops, and enforce contributions for their maintenance. 134 PARTISAN WARFARE : Such authority was readily given ; a chief or chiefs appointed, or sanctioned, on the recommendation of the applicants, free from all control, except the duty of now and then communicating to the great belli- gerent parties at Westminster or at Oxford a state- ment of their operations; or if need arose, of asking advice or assistance. Of these associations, the earliest were those of the northern counties, under the Earl of Newcastle ; of the eastern counties, under the Earl of Manchester and Cromwell ; of the midland counties, under the Lord Brooke. In the other case, a single bold and zealous individual raised, equipped, and supported, at his own expense, his little band of guerilla warriors, drawn from among his tenantry and neighbours ; and carried on the war, as occasion offered, either single-handed, or in con- junction with other adventurers like himself, until his forces became absorbed in some more considerable armament. Of such bodies, the strength, the posi- tion, the objects, were continually changing from day to day. One thing alone was permanent, and common to all to imitate on a smaller scale, but with greater freedom from constraint, the deeds and vices of more numerous armies. Yet the generous nature of the objects of contention, loyalty, liberty, religion, in which selfishness had no part, rendered the explosion of the coarser passions in acts of heart- less or wanton violence comparatively rare. The English have proved that revolution and civil war, while they rouse honour from the embrace of luxury, and awaken slumbering genius in high and low, are LORDS BROOKE AND NORTHAMPTON. 135 not necessarily the worst of public evils. Englishmen, in the deadliest conflicts of the Civil War, seldom forgot that they were such; nor was there any one circum- stance which contributed more to injure Charles's repu- tation with this partially misled, but, upon the whole, sound-hearted people, than the powers and indulgences lavished on an individual of a different temper. The unfeeling insolence and predatory fierceness of Rupert were qualities of the foreign soldier of fortune, which darkly distinguished the royal trooper from every other general in the service ; and they reflected on the cause for which he fought, a portion of that prejudice wherewith he was himself regarded, partly as a foreigner by birth, but more as foreign in character and manners to the manly and humane temper with which the English mingled in that awful contest. Various movements occurred in the north between the chivalrous Earl of Newcastle, the king's general for those parts, and Fairfax, whom the parliament had appointed to the chief command of their northern forces. Sir Hugh Cholmondeley defeated and killed Slingsby, the gallant secretary of Lord Strafford, at Gisborough. Lancashire and Cheshire yielded alter- nately to Sir William Brereton's garrison at Nantwich, and to the royalists at Chester, under Sir Nicholas Byron. In the south, Sir William Waller took Chi- chester ; but this success was more than counterbalanced by the fall of Cirencester, which yielded with its strong garrison to Prince Rupert Eleven hundred prisoners taken in that place are said by Whitelocke to have been marched into Oxford, in a wretched plight, in 13G PARTISAN WARFARE: the presence of Charles and his lords ; and the memori- alist adds an anecdote of a remarkably handsome soldier, who, as he was led along on horsehack, on account of the state of exhaustion he was in from his wounds, dropped down and expired while in the act of rallying his sinking strength for an angry reply to some reproachful words addressed to him by one of the spectators. In the county of Cornwall a romantic and successful spirit of resistance started up, which the parliament, who were strong in the adjoining counties, by no means expected. " There was in this county," ob- serves Clarendon, " as throughout the whole kingdom, a wonderful and superstitious reverence towards the name of a parliament, and a prejudice against the power of the court ; yet a full submission to, and love of, the established government of Church and State, especially as concerned the Liturgy, which was a general object of veneration with the people." An observation from which, as indeed from a thousand other sources, we may understand how men were torn by the unhappy events of that period, not only from each other, but from themselves ; and, even, within themselves, were divided, not merely by the frequent crossing of their interests and their attachments, but by adverse duties and conflicting principles. The gallant Sir Ralph Hopton, aided by the Grenvils and Sir Nicholas Scanning lighted a fire of loyalty in those remote regions which rapidly spread through the whole west of England. Launceston, Saltash, with a garri- son of Scots, opened their gates to the king's forces. LORDS BROOKE AND NORTHAMPTON. 137 In the famous fight at Bradockdown, Hopton beat an army sent against Cornwall, under the orders of Colonel Ruthen ; and with the loss of very few common men, and no officer of name, took 1200 prisoners, most of the colours, and all the ordnance, of the enemy. Ruthen again occupied Saltash, and within three days found means to raise works before that place, fortified with cannon taken from a vessel which he had brought up to the side of the town; but Hopton with his Cornish men coming up, drove the Scot from his fortifications, and then out of the town, with the loss of most of his followers. Ruthen himself with difficulty escaped by water to Plymouth, leaving his artillery, his remaining colours, and 1300 prisoners, in the hands of the enemy. Hopton, who distinguished himself in this action, no less by his humanity than his ability and courage, now remained undisputed master of Cornwall. The next march of this gallant chief was upon Tavistock ; where the leading gentlemen of Devonshire laid before him a proposition, designed to avert from their county the miseries of a contest, in which they foresaw the two parties, being nearly balanced, would injure each other without materially affecting the general result. To the plea of humanity Hopton listened, and a solemn engagement was entered into for the two counties. The example of such confederations had already been set in York and Cheshire. The counties agreed to disband the troops already on foot, within their respective jurisdictions, and to oppose the raising or introduction of any others, without the joint consent of the king and the 138 PARTISAN WARFARE: parliament. Both the belligerents, however, natu- rally declared against the authority of contracts which, if generally adopted, must have at once put an end to all prospect of that supremacy which each had in view. They were, therefore, quickly laid aside and forgotten ; and the demon of Civil War, having shaken from him these ineffectual shackles, traversed, unim- peded and unresting the length and breadth of fair England. As the English imported republicanism in religion from Geneva, where it existed because the Helvetians could get no bishops ; so they brought in republic- anism in government from Holland, where it had been adopted because the Dutch could get no king. In our island, republican principles of both kinds (they have both one root) prospered surprisingly, for this, beyond all other reasons, that England and Scotland had too severely felt the authority both of kings and of bishops. One of the earliest and least virtuous of English republicans was the Lord Say, who with his sons performed so conspicuous a part in the great revo- lutionary drama of the seventeenth century. The next of note was Sir Henry Vane the younger. The con- stitutional disposition (for such it may be termed) of that gifted and admired individual, to the wildest political fancies, was generated by a religious fanaticism so eager, that English puritanism, though in the freshness of youth and the fervour of suffering, was found too tame a stimulant : he sought the intoxicating draught in its more genuine purity, by the waters of Lake Leman, LORDS BROOKE AND NORTHAMPTON. 139 and amid the " obscure wildernesses of Massachusetts." The third was Vane's contemporary, the second Lord Brooke. Church and king, with whatsoever appertained to them, this nobleman " hated with a perfect hatred ; " and as his honesty was thorough, and his intellectual re- sources, natural and acquired, hardly inferior to the greatest of that illustrious age, he neither concealed his sentiments, nor, when the opportunity presented itself, was found wanting in energy and ability to clothe them in action. A party of the inhabitants of Lichfield and its vicinity had taken possession of their beautiful cathe- dral, a place easily defensible ; and held it for the king. The Lord Brooke, who had at this time under his command the greater part of the counties of Warwick, Leicester, Stafford, and Derby, resolved to dislodge this inexperienced band of royalists before they should have had time materially to increase the natural strength of their fortress. On the first of March he appeared before the town, at the head of 1200 men, drawn from the Earl of Essex's army, from the garrison at Derby commanded by Sir John Gell, and from his own determined band of followers at Warwick Castle. With- in a short space of the city, the noble republican halted, drew up his forces, and addressed them in a solemn ex- hortation. He avowed his purpose to destroy that stronghold of popery and superstition, the Cathedral ; whose richly decorated arches and clustering spires, rising high above the fortifications and fair prebendal dwellings in the Close, presented a prospect calcu- lated to win admiration and reverence from sectarian HO PARTISAN WARFARE : prejudice itself. Long shouts of applause followed the announcement. He then lifted up his voice in prayer, desiring that God would by some special token manifest his approbation of their design. Afterwards, the whole army joined in singing the 149th Psalm. The concluding verse, " To execute on them the doom That written was before ; This honour all the saints shall have : Praise ye the Lord, therefore, " was still sounding through the ranks, when, the word being given, they marched forward upon the town. Lichfield had no exterior defence, except its feeble gates, which at once giving way before the cannon of the par- liamentarians they took possession of the town ; driving before them into the Close the Lord Chesterfield, who had brought in a small party the day before from Bretby, with such of the citizens as were disposed to take part with the garrison, or to throw themselves into the consecrated fortress for protection. The following day began the siege of Lichfield Close ; an occurrence memorable in the annals of that pleasant city, and not without special interest, as a link in the great chain of similar events which then, like the connected explosions of a thunder-clap, were bursting out, suc- cessively or simultaneously, in every quarter of Eng- land. The Close was separated from the town by a broad moat, or pool, traversed by two causeways, which offered the only means of access on that side. The LORDS BROOKE AND NORTHAMPTON. 141 available defences of the fortress had been prepared, with some care, to resist an attack. " Mounds had been thrown up between the cathedral and the moat; the old houses had been pierced with loopholes and embrasures; and the bastions of the south gate and the battlements of the Lady Chapel had been lined with musketeers and marksmen, who were protected partly by the battlements, partly by woolsacks carried up to the roofs of the buildings for that purpose. Some of the long iron guns, called * drakes,' had also been mounted on the great central tower of the Cathe- dral." The besiegers having brought up their artillery as near as they could, opened their fire briskly upon the fortress. It was returned with spirit. Though unequal in numbers and military resources to the task they had undertaken, and impeded in their operations by the crowds of people, herds of cattle, and various property deposited for safety in the enclo- sure, the garrison entered on their defence with great courage and determination. "Under cover of their guns, they made a vigorous sally from the south gate, and captured a large piece of ordnance ; but were over- powered by numbers, and obliged to draw off again into the Close without their prize, and content them- selves with annoying the besiegers by their fire from the battlements," A group who had taken possession of the top of the centre tower of the Cathedral, imme- diately under the great spire, caused great annoyance to the assailants, by being enabled, from their elevated position, to fire over the breastwork upon the gunners. 2 PARTISAN WARFARE: One of this little party was a son of Sir Richard Dyott, a gentleman of property and consideration in the town ; who, though deaf and dumb, entered with the utmost animation into the royalist cause, and from his un- common skill as a marksman was able to serve it, on this occasion, by a singular exploit. Lord Brooke had taken up his quarters in a house near the spot where his battery was placed. This nobleman was accustomed to pray aloud in public, even in the presence of his chaplain. He this day in- tended to storm the Close: he had therefore performed his devotions with more than usual fervour, desiring a sign from heaven to mark the divine approbation of his enterprise, and wishing that if the cause he was engaged in were not the righteous cause, he might presently be cut off; if it were, that his eyes might witness the ruin of that proud edifice, as the prelude to the destruction of all the other cathedrals in the land. Shortly after the utterance of this fana- tical petition, the party in the centre tower perceived a distinguished person issue from one of the houses, with some attendants, and advance as if to give or- ders to the gunners. He wore a complete suit of plated steel armour; a tall plume, springing from a chaplet of laurel, nodded in his shining helmet. This warlike figure pointed upwards to the spire, he raised his visor, as if to descry more plainly the object against which he seemed to be commanding the sol- diers to direct their fire. At that instant the keen- eyed Dyott discharged his fowling-piece; and Lord Brooke fell dead, pierced by the bullet in his brain. LORDS BROOKE AND NORTHAMPTON. 143 The cry of triumph, that rang from roof to roof, and was quickly taken up by the multitude in the Close below, and the answering silence of consternation with- out, were both prolonged through England. The en- ergy, integrity, and determined zeal of Lord Brooke were universally known: every royalist, therefore, re- joiced in the destruction of an irreconcilable foe to the church and crown: every parliamentarian lamented his fallen champion, and vowed revenge. The fu- rious animosity displayed by this brave but unhappy young nobleman against the ecclesiastical government, with the peculiar circumstances of his death, not un- naturally, in that age, gave rise to the opinion that his fall was a judgment of heaven. He himself, indeed, while ostentatiously defying such superstitious conclusions, in reality gave countenance to them: for he had chosen the day on which he fell, for the assault, as being that of the saint to whom the Ca- thedral was dedicated, from contempt for his supposed tutelary power. The particulars which, at the time, lent currency to such an opinion, are thus quaintly brought together in a letter of the period, printed by Mr. Gresley; to whose arrangement of the incidents, in The Siege of Lichfield Close) we are indebted in this part of our narrative. " That enemy to our church," says the contemporary writer, "was slain in his quarrel against our church, by the God of our church, with a shot out of the Cathedral, by a bullet made of church lead, through the mouth which reviled our church" (mouth for eye, a 'modest adjustment of facts to the theory): "and," continues he, "(if this be worth your reading), 144 PARTISAN WARFARE: this cathedral being dedicated to an old holy Saxon man, called Ceadda (commonly Chad), the blow of death came from St. Chad's church upon St. Chad's day." Brief, however, was the respite to Lichfield. Sir John Cell had brought over from Derby, where he commanded for the parliament, to reinforce Lord Brooke, a party of his "good, stout, fighting men; but the most licentious, ungovernable wretches, that belonged to the parliament." The remainder of that day pass- ed in sorrow and inaction. Before day-break, however, the next morning, the besiegers, enraged by the loss of their noble leader, assaulted the fortress on both sides at once; but were repulsed with great bravery; and in a sortie from the western gate many of them were slain or drowned in the moat, -and several made prisoners. In his attack, Sir John Gell's men made good their claim to the unfavourable charac- ter which the memorials of the time have handed down, by the dastardly contrivance of lining their files of soldiers, while advancing, with the help- less relatives and dependants of the besiegers, who remained in the town; thereby rendering it impos- sible for them to return the fire of their assail- ants. That day nothing further was attempted; but on the third, the intrepid little garrison found them- selves attacked from a new quarter. Gell, having received a reinforcement of artillery from Coventry, including a terrible mortar " to shoot grenadoes," planted his guns, amounting now to a very consi- derable battery, in the gardens along the side of the pool. From this point their fire was directed with LORDS BROOKE AND NORTHAMPTON. 145 deadly effect upon the buildings in the Close, now thronged with the best families in the neighbourhood, upon the Close itself, and upon the Cathedral, the peculiar object of animosity to the assailants. The great spire had been seriously injured on the first day of the siege ; and a shot now carrying away a portion of the tower beneath, it fell down suddenly through the roof into the choir, only a few minutes after the clergy had concluded the afternoon services, and retired to the equally becoming employment of tending the wounded in the nave. The following morning, March 5th, the enemy still " proceeding with all imaginable vigour in their attacks upon the Close, and having thrown over many grenadoes, and being ready to blow up the wall," farther resistance was deemed hopeless, and the garrison surrendered, on condition of quarter to all persons in the place. Lord Chesterfield, his son, and other gentlemen of dis- tinction, were among the prisoners ; and the plate and money, the arms, ammunition, and horses, fell into the hands of the victors. Blame has been cast on Lord Chesterfield for so early a surrender; and it is probable that an effort would have been made to hold out some time longer, had the distressed garrison known that relief was nigh at hand. The Earl of Northampton, whom the king had left in Banbury, was already on his march, with a strong party of horse and dragoons, to relieve Lichfield ; when, hearing of its fall, and that some of the royalists in the vicinity had taken refuge in Stafford, he threw himself into the latter town. 146 PARTISAN WARFARE: In the brief military career of this gallant noble- man we find an illustration of the fact, that war, even in its most deplorable form, as it now raged through our country, is not an unmixed evil. Independently of those great results which a war of principle may ulti- mately secure, the horrors of a great contest of a civil contest, perhaps, more than any other' are in some degree mitigated in the view of humanity, by the opportunities its progress may open for the deve- lopement of personal as well as national energies. Families hitherto obscure or insignificant, throw out, through the fissures caused by such political earth- quakes, shoots of genius and virtue, which else had never struggled into the light. Individuals, sunk in luxury and sloth by the security of a passionless and protracted peace, start from their slumber ; with new-strung vigour snatch from their ancestral walls the armour of their forefathers ; and, by being roused as men, to battle with men, for a possession dear to all mankind, renew their nobility in something nobler than the name : or else, it may be, perish by such an honourable fall as every generous nature would prefer to the long lethargy of corrupting enjoyment. Not till some few months before his death did the world, or himself, become acquainted with half the virtues of the Earl of Northampton. During the long period of ease and luxury which preceded, he partook largely of " that license which was then thought neces- sary to great fortunes." But, "when the blast of war blew in his ears," the earl, like so many others, became a new man. Before the king's standard was set up, LORDS BROOKE AND NORTHAMPTON. 147 his neighbour, Lord Brooke, had found him, in some encounters that occurred between them, more than a match for himself in courage, promptitude, and zeal. We will not wrong at once the noble historian of the Rebellion, and this gallant subject of his pen, by farther varying from the original draught of the cha- racter of Northampton. " As soon as an army was to be raised, he levied, with the first, upon his own charge, a troop of horse, and a regiment of foot, and (not like some other men, who warily distributed their family to both sides, one son to serve the king, whilst his father, or another son, engaged as far for the par- liament) entirely dedicated all his children to the quarrel, having four sons officers under him ; and, from the time he submitted himself to the profession of a soldier, no man more punctual upon command, no man more diligent and vigilant in duty. All dis- tresses he bore like a common man, and all wants and hardnesses as if he had never known plenty or ease ; most prodigal of his person to danger; and he would often say, that if he outlived these wars, he was certain never to have so noble a death." Knowing himself in no condition to cope with the earl, Sir John Cell retired towards Nantwich, and formed a junction with Sir William Brewerton, who advanced from that place to meet him. The two knights then fell back with their joint forces, num- bering about three thousand horse and foot, with a good train of artillery, upon Stafford. Northampton had notice of their approach ; and instantly marched out to meet them, with less than a thousand men L 2 148 PARTISAN WARFARE : expecting to find only Sir John Gell, whose numbers he knew, and for whose courage he had some con- tempt. When the earl came within view of the enemy, who were drawn up to receive him on Hopton Heath, two miles from Stafford, he at once perceived his mis- take. But his resolution to engage them did not change. The heath was spacious, and appeared well adapted to the movements of cavalry ; he saw, like- wise, that his great inferiority lay in his foot. The parliamentarian horse were posted in two bodies, in front of the infantry. He charged the more advanced body, and dispersed them; the second likewise, with such complete success that scarcely a horse of theirs remained on the field. At the same time eight pieces of cannon were captured by the royalists. Dear, how- ever, was the cost of the victory. The earl's cavalry, pursuing their advantage with that rashness and preci- pitation, of which Prince Rupert had set the example, threw themselves among the ranks of the enemy's foot. While thus engaged, his horse was killed under him, and he found himself alone on the ground, surrounded by furious enemies. The colonel of the regiment, among whose ranks he fell, advancing to encounter him, the men drew back, only to see their commander fall, slain by the earl. The enraged sol- diers now closed round the gallant nobleman, striking at him on all sides. One of them, with his heavy matchlock, smote off his helm. They now such was their own report offered him quarter; which, it was said, he refused, exclaiming that he scorned to take LORDS BROOKE AND NORTHAMPTON. 149 quarter at the base hands of rebels. A ruffian hal- berdier then dashed his weapon into his brain behind, and he fell covered with wounds. Sir Thomas Byron, colonel of the prince's regiment, now followed up the impression made by his commander, in a successful charge upon the infantry of the parliamentarians. But the victory that day was turned into mourning. " They who had all the ensigns of victory but their general, thought themselves undone; while the other side, who escaped in the night, and made a hard shift to carry his dead body with them, hardly believed they were losers." They refused to give it up on any other terms than the restitution of all their prisoners, can_ non, and ammunition ; they even, with what a writer not apt to censure that party with severity terms an "incredible baseness," denied to the filial piety of the young earl (who, with two of his brothers, had charged by his father's side at Hopton Heath) permission to send surgeons to embalm the mangled remains. In less than a month the walls of Lichfield Ca- thedral objects, during that period, of the ruthless violence, and witnesses to the insolent profaneness, of the puritan soldiers once again echoed to the roar of the besiegers' cannon. Prince Rupert, with a strong body of horse and seven hundred foot, marched from Oxford to recover that singular fortress to the king; and being joined by some of the troops which had lately been victorious under the Earl of Northampton, entered the town on the 8th of April, without oppo- sition, and immediately laid siege to the Close. It was now strongly garrisoned, commanded by a resolute 150 PARTISAN WARFARE. officer, and supplied with every thing necessary to a protracted resistance. For several days the fire of the royalist batteries made no impression. The prince now opened a mine under the walls ; it was met by a counter-mine on the side of the besiegers: the hostile parties met, and fought with fury, in the bowels of the earth. A second mine was sprung, in a place where the besieged were least prepared for it. A tower, with a party of the defenders in it, was blown up ; and a breach of twenty feet in width being made in the walls, the prince assaulted it with his whole avail- able force, but was ultimately forced to retire with the loss of many officers and men. A second time he prepared for the assault; when the garrison, knowing that the king's orders to his highness were to grant them honourable terms, surrendered, and marched out the following day, under a convoy, to Coventry. Prince Rupert left a powerful garrison in Lichfield, and com- mitted the government of it to Colonel Bagot. Then directing his army to follow him with all possible expedition, he immediately hastened off, with only a few attendants, to rejoin his majesty. CHAPTER VIII. QUEEN HENRIETTA. A MODERN historian, speaking of the lively consort of Charles I., styles her " that pernicious woman ; " Warburton is severe even to rancour, in his strictures upon her conduct : in short, poor Henrietta is exposed to nearly equal censures from both friend and foe of her husband. The daughter of Henri IV. was, it is true, the most unfit of princesses to be, in that age, queen of England. The English disliked her country, despised her manners, and abhorred her religion, all of which appeared to herself perfec- tion. Her numerous foreign attendants; the spies who lurked about her in the guise of ambassadors ; the evil counsellors who enjoyed her unlimited con- fidence under the character of chaplains and confes- sors, did unspeakable mischief to the royal cause. Their insolent behaviour was among the most palpable means of disgusting the people, of inflaming the mis- understandings between the court and the country, and hence, of hurrying on the nation into the vortex of civil war. Charles, while he had an extreme con- tempt for all those parties, was fretted so much by 152 QUEEN HENRIETTA. nothing else as by their impertinences, and proved both by the manner in which he at length freed him- self from the annoyance ; yet the people, instead of pitying him, believed him to be in league with his tormentors. He was tender of his consort's honour, and intent on what he deemed her happiness ; but the moral English nation visited this virtuous behaviour as a crime, because the fair object of it was a daughter of France, and a bigoted Roman Catholic. He was as firm and enlightened a foe to her religion, as any in his dominions ; but she was his wife ; she was known to have great influence over the monarch, and to use it unsparingly : could he, whatever were his professions, be, in heart, less than a papist ? Finally, the parliament, as if at once to direct against her the full measure of the popular dislike, rewarded the most commendable action of her life by impeaching her of high treason ! But we are anticipating the course of events. Before the queen's departure from England, in the spring of 1642, it had become obvious to both parties, though both were far from making the avowal, that the sword must ultimately decide their differences. At that time, however, Charles had not the means of raising a single regiment. The great object of Hen- rietta was, therefore, to strengthen her husband's in- terest in Holland, whither she had retired; and, in particular, to procure arms and ammunition, to be transported to England as his necessities might require. Her activity and address surmounted the repugnance which was naturally felt by the States QUEEN HENRIETTA. 153 (with whose assertion of their freedom England had warmly sympathized), to favour any design which might impede the struggles of the English in winning their own. It was to little purpose that the parliament sent over an ambassador armed with declarations and remon- strances, to desire at least a complete neutrality. The States affected compliance ; but the queen's preparations went on as before. It was chiefly owing to her exer- tions, that Charles had been enabled to bring an army into the field. She had repeatedly sent him arms and ammunition, and, what he equally wanted, officers of ex- perience, to train and discipline his forces. At length, after a year's absence from England, she herself sailed, with a convoy of four vessels supplied by her son-in-law, the Prince of Orange ; eluded the vigilance of Batten, the parliament's vice-admiral, who had received orders to intercept her ; and landed safely at Bur- lington, in Yorkshire on the 22nd day of February, 1643. The Earl of Newcastle, with a detachment of those forces, which, on account of the favour he was in with her majesty, and because they had, from time to time, been reinforced by her means, was styled by the parliament, " the Queen's army of Papists," had drawn toward the coast, for the purpose of conducting her to York. Designing, however, to rest a day or two from the fatigues and anxieties of the voyage, she took up her residence in a house on the quay. The second night Batten arrived, unperceived, with his fleet, anchored in the road, and, enraged at his disappointment, exposed the 154 QUEEN HENRIETTA. adventurous princess to a new danger, by an out- rage the particulars of which are preserved in her own spirited narrative. "About five of the clock in the morning, the ships began to ply us so fast with their ordnance that they made us all rise out of our beds and leave the village. One of them did me the favour to flank upon the house where I lay, and before I was out of my bed the cannon bullets whistled so loud about me, that all the company press- ed me earnestly to go out of the house, their cannon having totally beaten down all the neighbour houses, and two cannon bullets falling from the top to the bottom of the house where I was ; so that, clothed as well as in haste I could be, I went on foot some little distance out of the town, under the shelter of a ditch, like that of Newmarket, whither before I could get, the cannon bullets fell thick about us, and a servant was killed within seventy paces of me. We in the end gained the ditch, and stayed there two hours, whilst their cannon played all the while on us. The bullets flew, for the most part, over our heads; some few only grazing on (he ditch, covered us with earth, &c., till the ebbing of the tide, and the threats of the Holland admiral, put an end to that danger." In- formation of these particulars was sent to the par- liament, and the Lords voted an order to the Earl of Warwick to inquire into their truth; but no further notice was taken of the outrage. On the contrary, it was for this act of romantic obedience to the senti- ments of the heart and the laws of society, that the Queen of England was charged by the Commons QUEEN HENRIETTA, 155 with the crime of high treason. The impeachment was, as uusal, carried up to the bar of the house of Lords by Pym; and this odious attempt was the last effort, in his peculiar province, of the now failing patriot. Could the statesman, who thus sacrificed all other considerations at the shrine of a daring policy, be indeed the same, who, really in the great con- test for the Petition of Right, and ostensibly in the prosecution of StrafFord, contended for freedom, the blessing which both enables men to enjoy, and teaches them to venerate, the great moral duties of mankind; and for law, and that imprescriptible justice, which is its fathomless source ? The displeasure of the parliament was so far jus- tified, that the arrival of the queen certainly imparted a new impulse to the king's affairs, and contributed in no small degree to the successful issue of the en- suing campaign, It was the signal for fresh exertions among his adherents ; and supplied a point for the discussion of new projects, and the diffusion of a more general spirit of loyalty. The balanced successes of that noble commander, and his able opponents, the Fairfaxes, father and son, which had so long de- vastated the northern counties without any decisive result, now preponderated in favour of the royal cause. Sir Hugh Cholmondeley, who had served the parlia- ment with great courage and vigour against the earl, attracted by the new aspect of affairs, or yielding to the contagion of chivalrous feeling, offered his allegiance to the queen ; delivered up the castle of Scarborough ; and received again the command of that fortress 156 QUEEN HENRIETTA. for the king. Proposals to raise a party for Charles in Scotland were earnestly made to her majesty by Mon- trose, but defeated, for the present, by the craft, or pru- dence of Hamilton. Even Sir John Hotham seemed not indisposed to admit Henrietta within the fortress whose gates he had formerly closed against her royal lord ; and it was one of the charges on the trial of his unfortunate son, that he had suffered the royal convoy to pass unmo- lested from Burlington to York. Four months the queen, in the enjoyment of the sunny prospects thus opened before her, held her court in the capital of the northern counties ; her ambition taking de- light in the exercise of an independent power, and the affability and liveliness of her manner imparting it to all around her. Immediately after her landing, she had for- warded a part of her supply of arms and ammunition under a strong convoy to the king ; but to have pursued her journey towards him at that time, would have been to throw herself into the power of her enraged enemies. CHAPTER IX. THE TREATY HYDE. WINTER was approaching when King Charles en- tered Oxford, intending to fix his court, for a sea- son, with the Muses; whose charms, had peace and leisure waited on his steps in life, few princes could have better appreciated than himself. The boiling blood of Rupert, however, was impatient of a day's inaction. From his head-quarters at Abingdon, the prince made many successful incursions with his cava- liers into the adjacent counties, each time approach- ing near to the capital. In one of these expeditions he attempted Reading; where the parliament had placed a garrison, under the command of the fan- tastic republican Henry Marten. At sight of Prince Rupert and his fiery cuirassiers, governor and gar- rison precipitately abandoned the town; and such were the accounts of the terror and disaffection in and near the capital, which the prince received from the inhabitants, that he prevailed on Charles, always too ready to give way to the views of those about him, to advance with his army towards London. The parliament were now seriously alarmed. They 158 THE TREATY HYDE. ordered Essex to bring up his army to the metropolis; and, by a vote of thanks for the victory at Edge-hill, and a present of 5000/., engaged him to pursue the war with activity and decision. They proposed to invite the Scotch to their assistance; resolved to raise another army, to be placed under the command of the Earl of Warwick; and ordered that all apprentices who would enlist, should have the period for which they served reckoned towards their freedom. For the means of carrying on the war with increased energy, they ap- plied, as usual, to the city, and levied assessments by oppressive and arbitrary methods ; declaring it legal, not only to sieze the goods of those who refused to contribute one-twentieth part of their estates, but also to imprison their persons, and expel their families from the metropolis and its vicinity. They hastily voted a petition to the king for peace; but while their commissioners were attending at Colnbrook to present it, hostile movements were, on both sides, renewed. The general received orders to draw his army west- ward from the city; the military were commanded, under the strictest penalties, to repair instantly to their colours; and a committee of both houses was sent to encourage the citizens to renewed resolutions " of de- fending and maintaining their liberties and religion with their lives and fortunes." Essex advanced toward Brentford, and occupied that town with Hollis's regiment. There Prince Rupert, with some troops of horse and several pieces of ar- tillery, fell suddenly upon them, intending, it was said, to cut his way through to London; when Hamp- THE TREATY HYDE. 159 den's and another regiment coming to the rescue, a more equal contest followed. After repeated charges on both sides, in which great numbers were slain, and many prisoners taken, the parliament's forces were driven from the town, and it was taken possession of by the king. But reinforcements were sent in, from all quarters, to the earl. " Bands and regiments of armed men sprung up in succession, as if out of the earth," says a patriotic writer. An effectual appeal was made to the trained bands to march out, and protect their municipal wealth, and household hearths, from the avidity and license of the cavaliers. These sub- stantial troops were led on by the brave but coarse Skippon; who, passing from company to company, cheered his unfleshed battalions with familiar talk; "and the soldiers," observes Whitelocke, "seemed to be more taken with it than with a set, formal oration." Essex's army consisted of full 24,000 " stout, gallant, proper men, as well habited and armed as were ever seen." The general, however, was averse to engage; the "old soldiers of fortune," whose pacific advice coincided with his own inclinations, averred that it was honour and safety enough to stop the march of the king. Hampden, mortified by this coldness, proposed to march a body of men to Hounslow, and cut off Charles's retreat, while the main army assailed him in front. This was agreed to; but they had not pro- ceeded a mile when they were recalled. For one whole day the army stood drawn up on the side of Turnham Green; while its columns were confronted, on the opposite side, by those of the king. At length 160 THE TREATY HYDE. a movement appeared in the royalist ranks. On this, two or three hundred lookers-on from the city turned their horses' bridles, and galloped homewards, followed by some of the soldiers. It was the king preparing to quit the field. Either for want of ammunition, or because he dreaded the discredit of interposing farther difficulties to the proposed treaty, Charles had resolved on a retreat. The citizen-soldiers now directed a fierce attack upon the provisions, the wines, and tobacco, which their wives and daughters had forwarded to them in abundance, from the markets and cellars of the city; and confidence and hilarity once more pre- vailed in the parliamentarian ranks. The king, in the meantime, marched, by Colnbrook, to Reading; where he left a garrison of 3000 men under the command of Sir Arthur Aston, and presently re-entered his winter quarters at Oxford. From many parts, a loud cry was now heard for peace. The city of London, by an order of common council, presented a petition to that effect to the houses of parliament; in which was enclosed another to the king. The parliament rejected that addressed to themselves, but voted that the petition to the king should be presented. By the advice of the houses, a deputation from the common council proceeded with it to Oxford. When a passage of this document was read in which the petitioners earnestly besought his majesty "to return to his parliament, accompanied with his royal, not his martial, attendance," engaging " to preserve his majesty and the two houses from all tumults," Charles smiled : " You seem to me," he THE TREATY HYDE. 161 said, "gentlemen, to promise more than you are able to perform ; for I hear you cannot maintain peace and quiet among yourselves." He promised, however, to give a full answer, which he desired should be read out publicly in the city of London. The largest confluence of liverymen ever remem- bered, met on this occasion. A committee of both houses were present. The petition was first read, and was received with such tumultuous applause, that the gentleman by whom the king had sent his answer, alarmed at the cries of the citizens, sought to evade the reading of it, alleging, in excuse, the weakness of his voice. The assembly insisted ; and the abashed messenger was required to read it a second time, from a place where he could be better heard. This time a small party of royalists attempted to raise a shout ; but finding none to second them, desisted. Lord Man- chester then addressed the hall. He was followed by Pym, " that worthy member of the house of Commons, and patriot of his country" (as the reporter styles him), in a speech containing the usual evidences of his mental vigour and unbending repugnancy to the king. " At the end of every period, the applause was so great, that he was fain to rest till silence was again made." The concluding " words were no sooner uttered, but the citizens, with one joint harmony of minds and voices, gave such an acclamation as would have drowned all the former ; which, after a long continuance, resolved itself into this more articulate and distinct cry : ' We will live and die with the parliament! We will live and die with the parliament ! ' " 162 THE TREATY HYDE. Such was the report of one of their thorough -going admirers. But the people were weary of the burdens laid upon them to support the parliament's army ; the citizens also began to feel the effect of an interruption of trade, and dreaded, besides, another visit from Rupert and his cavaliers. Giving way to these dis- positions without, to the demands of the Lords, and of a powerful minority in their own house, the leaders of the Commons consented to discuss propo- sitions for a treaty. Their adoption of this vote is supposed to have been obtained partly by the elo- quence of Sir Benjamin Rudyard, who failed not to appear on the scene as often as the warning voice of wisdom and humanity might be expected, in some momentary calm of the passionate elements, to find attention. " We have already," said that true patriot, " tasted the bitter, bloody fruits of war: if we persist, there will be such a confluence of mischiefs break in upon us as, I am afraid, will ruin the king, the kingdom, the nation. I have long and thoughtfully expected that the cup of trembling, which has gone round about us to other nations, would at length come in amongst us : it is now come at last, and we may have to drink the dregs of it, which God avert! There is yet some comfort left that our miseries are not likely to last long, for we cannot fight here as they do in Germany ; in that vast continent where, although there be war in some parts of it, yet there are many other remote quiet places for trade and tillage. We must fight as in a cock-pit ; we are surrounded by the sea. We THE TREATY HYDE. 163 have no stronger holds than our own skulls and our own ribs to keep out enemies ; so that the whole kingdom will quickly be but one flame. " It hath been said in this house," he continued, " that we are bound in conscience to punish the shed- ding of innocent blood ; but who shall be answerable for all the innocent blood which shall be spilt hereafter if we do not endeavour a peace, by a speedy treaty? Certainly God is as much to be trusted in a treaty as in a war. It is he that gives wisdom to treat, as well as courage to fight, and success to both, as it pleases him. Blood is a crying sin, it pollutes a land : why should we defile this land any longer ?" Early in March, 1643, the Earl of Northumberland? with four members of the Commons' house, Pierre- point, Armyn, Holland, and Whitelock, commission- ers appointed by the parliament to treat of a pacifi- cation, proceeded to the king at Oxford. Lord Say had also been named, as a second commissioner on the part of the Lords ; but Charles excepted against his lordship, as being one of those individuals whom he had publicly proclaimed traitors, some months be- fore. Charles had his residence in Christ Church. It was in the gardens of that noble college, where he daily walked, accompanied by the prince and the lords of his court, that the commissioners first had access to him. They were most favourably received ; and their intercourse with the court was, throughout, distin- guished by a tone of mutual frankness and honour. The Earl of Northumberland displayed, in his style of M 2 164 THE TREATY HYDE. living, unusual splendour ; his plate, his furniture, his wine, and other provisions, were all sent from his house in London. The lords and gentlemen of the court appeared often at the earl's table ; the king him- self condescended to accept from him some presents for his own. On the other hand, the commissioners had unrestricted approach to his majesty, and were allowed all possible freedom of discourse. In fact, it was a part of their instructions to treat with no one but the king in person. That Charles, on his part, was competent to the task laid upon him, is thus testified by one of the commissioners. " In this treaty the king manifested his great parts and abilities, strength of reason, and quickness of apprehension, with much patience in hearing what was objected against him ; wherein he allowed all freedom, and would himself sum up the arguments, and give a most clear judgment upon them. The lords of the council never debated any thing with the commissioners, but gave their opinions to the king in those things which he demanded of them, and sometimes would put the king in mind of some particular things ; but otherwise they did not speak." But the hands of the commissioners were absolutely tied. Their instructions did not so much as leave to their discretion the interpretation of a doubtful phrase. " I am sorry," observed Charles, when this was explained to him, "that you have no more trust reposed in you: the parliament might as well have sent their demands to me by the common carrier, THE TREATY HYDE. 165 as by commissioners so restrained." The proposals brought by them were substantially the same which were embodied in the " nineteen propositions," and had already been rejected before a sword was drawn : abolition of episcopacy, and command of the militia to remain with the parliament. But before coming to the conditions of peace, they were to treat about a cessation of arms. To finish the whole treaty, only twenty days were allowed. Six they might employ on the cessation ; and then, whether that point were determined or not, they were to enter upon the terms of pacification. If these were not concluded before the end of the twenty days, the whole negoti- ation was to cease, and they were to return to the parliament. The most valuable servant King Charles ever had was Edward Hyde, lord chancellor after the Restor- ation ; and author of the admirable, though extremely imperfect, History of the Rebellion. It was to Hyde that Charles was indebted for that information respecting the plans and movements of his opponents, by which, during the appalling interval that followed his return from Scotland, he was enabled, in some degree, to counteract their efforts. It was he who, with the aid of his accomplished friend Falkland, composed those eloquent public manifestoes which were poured forth so profusely, and with such effect, in the king's name. The sense they entertained of the value of Hyde's exer- tions, in these and other points, the parliament marked by naming him with ten others, in their instructions to the Earl of Essex, as incapable of being ever admitted 166 THE TREATY HYDE. to pardon. But Hyde had no official station at court : his appointment to one, at the time of the treaty, fur- nishes no unpleasing court anecdote. When the com- missioners came to Oxford, some one of their company brought a copy of a letter of the king's to the queen, which had been intercepted by the parliament, and printed. In this letter he adverted to a promise which he "had given her, on the eve of her departure for Holland, not to dispose of places at court without her advice ; but excepting from that promise the offices of state, and such other changes as the urgency of his affairs might require to be made without delay. In particular, he observed, " I must make Hyde secretary of state; for the truth is, I can trust nobody else." The next morning when Hyde, as was his custom, joined the king in his walk, Charles in- quired if he had seen his letter to the queen, which had been intercepted and printed. Hyde answered, he had not. Charles gave it him to read; and, after he had read it, said, " I wish it were as much in my power to make every one else amends as I can you. I am resolved, this afternoon, to swear you secretary of state." Hyde refused the secretaryship, but was made chancellor of the exchequer. He would, at all events, have had a share in the treaty, as the king's secret adviser ; he now took his place also at the board, in his official character as a member of the privy council. Owing as well to the restrictions on the commis- sioners, in consequence of which every proposal or demand which arose had to be referred to the parlia- THE TREATY HYDE. 167 merit, and debated by both houses, as to the real in- difference of both the parliament and the king to the success of the negotiations, no progress was made. The period fixed for the committee's return was nearly expired, and only two articles, viz. the first demand on either side, had yet been brought into discussion. The commissioners were not to blame. They were govern- ed, upon the whole, by just and honourable views ; and so earnestly desired the success of their labours, that, perceiving the insuperable difficulties which surrounded them, while they complied in all their public pro- ceedings with the letter of their instructions, they nevertheless privately intimated to the king, that if he would submit to some sacrifices, they might possibly find means to obtain a corresponding concession on the other side. The Church was the point on which, be- yond all others, Charles was inflexible. Would he, in order to secure it, surrender the command of the militia an advantage which the parliament deemed indispensable to their security ? The discussion of this point had been, on one occasion, protracted till mid- night. The committee indulged a belief that the king had been won over ; but at so late an hour they would not ask his written consent. It was agreed to defer it to the morning. Morning came ; and the eager com- missioners made their appearance earlier than usual. But the king's mind was changed. He had been pre- vailed on, during the night, to prepare a totally dif- ferent answer. The disappointed commissioners now suggested, that if Northumberland were restored to 168 THE TREATY HYDE. the office of Lord High Admiral, which Charles had taken from him in consequence of his having appointed Warwick to the command of the fleet, that nobleman's influence might be found available to soften the obsti- nacy of his opponents. But Charles was stung with the ingratitude of the earl; whom, to use his own words, he " had ever sought to live with as his friend, and courted as his mistress." The eloquent importunity of Hyde and Falkland was of no avail: the king would merely promise, that he might one day restore Northumber- land's commission, when he had performed some such service as should atone for the past. Still Charles desired that the negotiations should proceed, and pro- posed a prolongation of the term. The parliament refused ; at the same time instructing their commis- sioners to press his majesty to name a day for disband- ing the armies, and to return to his parliament. He replied, that when the command of his revenue, maga- zines, ships, and forts, should be restored to him; when all the members of the two houses, with the exception of the bishops, should be allowed to return to their seats, as they held them at the opening of the parlia- ment; and when the houses should be secured from tumultuary assemblies, which could only be done by adjournment to some place twenty miles distant from London, he would consent to the immediate disband- ing of the armies, and return to his parliament. No answer was returned to these proposals; but on the 19th day, the commissioners received peremptory orders to quit Oxford the next morning. They THE TREATY HYDE. 169 obeyed; and from that time all communication be- tween that city and London was interdicted by the parliament. Clarendon assigns as the true cause of Charles's haughty refusal of all concession, the famous promise to the queen, that he would neither give away any office nor consent to a peace except by her mediation. The noble historian likewise asserts, that at her land- ing she wrote to Oxford, expressing apprehension on the subject of the treaty; and that the king's motive for desiring a prolongation of the treaty was, that she might have time to reach Oxford before its conclusion. But we have seen that he did not regard the first part of this promise as binding, in the sense commonly understood; and of the other (if it ever were made), the most rational and probable interpretation seems to be that of Lingard. " As far as I can judge," writes that historian, " it only meant that whenever he made peace, he would put her forward as mediatrix; to the end that, since she had been calumniated as being the cause of the rupture between him and his people, she might also have, in the eyes of the public, the merit of effecting the reconciliation." The truth is, the wound had long become immedicable. The faults of both the leading parties in the nation perhaps, the sins of the nation itself demanded, at the hand of a corrective Providence, the excision of the " ulcerous part" by the sword; and peace was impossible till one of them had fallen. War was renewed amidst the mournful apprehensions of the good and wise, who clearly saw that, whichsoever side should now prevail, the liberty 170 THE TREATY HYDE. as well as the prosperity of the country must inevit- ably suffer. On the very day the commissioners returned to London, the Earl of Essex quitted it; and, rejoining his army, laid siege to Reading. CHAPTER X HAMPDEN. THE parliament passed the winter in devising schemes for raising money to carry on the war. The assess- ments were rigidly enforced; the estates of delin- quents and the lands of the church were sequestered ; an excise was, for the first time in our country, im- posed on a great number of commodities. Neither these designs, nor their efforts to recruit the army, were for a moment relaxed during the negotiations at Oxford. The army of Essex when he sat down be- fore Reading on the 17th of April, was the finest that had yet been seen in this unhappy war. It consisted of about 16,000 foot and about 3000 horse, all well armed, and abundantly supplied with every thing necessary for the siege. Under the command of Sir Arthur Aston, there were few short of 4000 excel- lent troops; but he had very little ammunition; and the slight defences of the town were not capable of being long maintained against a powerful enemy. Essex resolved to reduce it by the cautious method of approach. The indefatigable Skippon, to whom 172 HAMPDEN. the operations were committed, had already planted his batteries within less than musket-shot of the out- works, in doing which the besiegers succeeded in beating back the garrison in several sorties; when Hampden, whose influence in the army was now of nearly equal weight with the authority of the lord- general, impatient any longer to wait the issue of that dilatory procedure, determined to attempt the walls by assault. Advancing silently from the trenches with 400 picked men, seconded by Colonel Hurry, he passed the ditches in the grey twilight of the morning, and, mounting the rampart, seized upon the northernmost bastion. They met with a brave resist- ance, and were driven back. Hampden, calling for- ward his reserves, immediately placed himself at the head of a second attack; and, again struggling up the well-defended walls, renewed the fight. The governor had previosuly been disabled by a shot. Colonel Fielding, who had supplied his place, now brought forward the main strength of the garrison, and a bloody conflict ensued. Both leaders fought, hand to hand, on the ramparts, each at the head of his party. Overpowered by the numbers and determined valour of the royalists, Hampden was on the point of once more retiring, when Hurry, by a sudden move- ment, threw himself between the royalists and the town. The inhabitants, ill-affected to the royal cause, at once ceased firing; and, after a severe struggle, a parley was demanded by Fielding, and a truce followed. Meantime the king, who had no intention to retain HAMPDEN. 173 the permanent occupation of Reading, reluctantly ad- vanced to its relief, with some divisions of his array hastily drawn together ; designing only to force one of the besieger's quarters, and withdraw the garrison. But Essex had drawn the principal strength of his army to the west side of the town, towards Oxford. On that side there was no pass, except over Caversham Bridge. To protect that place, a body of the parliamentary troops was posted : against which the king, understand- ing them to consist of only two regiments, the Lord Robert's and Colonel Berkeley's detached two of his own, the green and the red, commanded by General Ruthen in person. The parliamentarians, however, were immediately supported by strong reinforcements. The skirmish that followed was sanguinary ; and the royalist troops suffering severely, and perceiving no movement at- tempted from the town, retired, in the end, to their main body. In the night came Fielding to the king, and as- sured him that neither could he, on his part, hold out the town, nor would the small force which Charles had brought suffice to raise the siege ; but that if the king agreed to his surrendering, good terms might be granted. Charles, who only desired to secure the safety of his troops, consented. The next morning, the town was given up on honourable conditions ; the garrison joined the army at Wallingford ; and the king once more retired to Oxford. Essex lingered in the neighbourhood of Reading. There his army was wasted with disease and desertion ; and his counsels, at the same time, thwarted both by his great masters in Westminster, and by dis- satisfied officers in the camp. 174 HAMPDEN. Six weeks Essex lay at Reading. It was in this interval the famous Waller plot was discovered. This plot was a design on the part of some royalist politicians in London to satisfy the general desire for peace, and for the prevention of farther and direr calamities to the country, by forcibly promoting an accommodation between the king and the parliament. Its results were the expul- sion from the House of Commons, the fining, and ban- ishment of the principal conspirator, the execution of two of his friends, and a great accession of strength to the war faction. Again Pym was the safeguard of his party; the genius who laid open their dangers, the thunderer who struck down their foes. With his usual happy blending of adroitness and force the great secret of popular in- fluence he so told the tale of his great discovery to the citizens, as effectually to scatter to the winds the dull ashes which had been gathering, of late, upon their zeal. He introduced an oath against similar designs ; an engagement nominally optional, but in reality im- posed on every member of the Peers and Commons, on the army, and on all citizens. After a terrible pre- amble, asserting that " there has been, and now is on foot in this kingdom, a popish and traitorous plot for the subversion of the true protestant religion, &c., in pursuance whereof a popish army hath been raised, and is now on foot in various parts of the kingdom, " the subscribers bound themselves never to lay down arms so long as the papists now carrying on war should be protected from the justice of the parliament ; and never to adhere to, or willingly assist, the forces raised by the king, without the consent of both houses. " The popish plot and popish HAMPDEN. 175 army," observes a modern historian, "were fictions of their own to madden the passions of their adherents." At length the parliamentarian general, being enabled to advance, fixed his head-quarters at Thame. And now occurred one of the most eventful actions of the war. Hurry, a Scotch mercenary, bred in the German wars, had led the attack on Reading, under Hampden ; and had before done good service for the parliament at Edge-hill, and under Waller. Having, from discon- tent with his employers, thrown up his commission of colonel of horse in their army, this man came over to Oxford, and offered to Prince Rupert to lead an ex- pedition against an exposed quarter of the enemy. Knowing Hurry to be an able officer, receiving good assurance of his sincerity in the cause he had adopted, and aware of his thorough acquaintance with the habits and condition of the army he had left, Rupert accepted his proposals, put himself at the head of a powerful body of cavaliers, and, late in the evening, marched out of Oxford, under the guidance of the renegade. At Post- combe, the expedition came unexpectedly upon a regi- ment of dragoons, and killed, or took them prisoners to a man. At Chinnor, a second regiment was annihilated, and the place itself set on fire. The party then marched back upon Oxford, intending to fall in with a body of infantry, which Rupert had ordered out to meet them by the pass at Chiselhampton Bridge, the point where he would have to recross the river. The army lay in Hampden's country, where every " dingle and bosky bourne" was familiar to him from 176 HAMPDEN. childhood. Sagacious, and dissatisfied with his excel- lency's arrangements, the Buckinghamshire gentleman, now a veteran colonel, for in his year's service he had, by day, seldom quitted the saddle, or allowed his sword to rest in its scabbard, had already perceived, and had pointed out to Essex, the exposed condition of his lines. That night he lay at Watlington, where the alarm of Rupert's irruption quickly roused him. In- stantly he despatched the only trooper that attended him, to the lord-general, to recommend his moving a competent force upon the pass at Chiselhampton ; and s at the same moment, a body of the parliament's horse, consisting of Sheffield and Cross's troops coming up, he volunteered to put himself at their head, and by attacking the prince's rear-guard to impede his re- treat and give time for Essex to draw out his troops towards the river. " Whereupon the officers and sol- diers freely consented, and shewed much cheerfulness that they could have the honour to be led by so noble a captain." By this time, being joined by Colonel Dalbier and several other officers, they amounted to a body of horse not greatly inferior to Rupert's. The prince, meantime, hastened on through Tets- worth, his rear constantly threatened by the pursuing party. On Chalgrove Field, from which a lane led down to the bridge of Chiselhampton, he fell in with his infantry. This spot, made famous that day in English history, was then, and still is, an uninclosed plain, of several hundred acres. Here, among the green corn which covered it, Rupert drew up his forces in order of battle ; directing the parly who guarded HAMPDEN. 177 his prisoners and booty to move forward to the bridge. The parliamentarians now came fiercely on, in three bodies. Tired and harassed as his men were with a march of twenty miles, and frequent skirmishing, Rupert resolved, notwithstanding, to anticipate the attack. The first body which reached the ground was led by Colonel Gunter; it consisted of several troops of horse and dragoons, and bore down upon his right wing. Rupert charged ; and the long rapiers of his life-guards did terrible execution. Gunter's party, though at once reinforced by the troops of Colonel Neale and General Percy, gave way and fled, leaving their commander dead upon the field. At this junc- ture, Hampden arriving eagerly advanced to rally the broken squadrons. Essex, too, was at hand with his main body. Hampden, relates Lord Nugent, at once put himself at the head of the attack : but in the first charge he received his death-wound. He was struck in the shoulder with two carbine bullets, which, breaking the bone, entered his body, and his arm fell powerless and shattered by his side. Sheffield, who charged with him, was severely wounded, and fell into the hands of the enemy. Sir Samuel Luke was three times made prisoner. Duller,, a captain under Sir Philip Stapleton, received a shot in the neck, and was also taken : in no fight, hitherto, had the parliament lost so many soldiers of name. Overwhelmed by numbers, their best officers killed or taken, their great leader and the hope of their cause retiring in a dying con- dition from the field, and the day absolutely lost, the forces of the parliament gave way and fled towards 178 HAMPDEN. Essex's now unavailing squadrons. Rupert, though not able to pursue, made good his retreat across the river; and about noon entered Oxford, with near two hundred prisoners, seven cornets of horse, and four ensigns of foot, bringing back most of the men who had marched out with him : some officers had been taken prisoners, but none killed. The first accounts of this eventful day, published by the parliamentarians, spoke with confidence of their great champion's recovery : " his wound was more likely to be a badge of honour than any danger of life." But these hopes were quickly dissipated. On moving from the scene of conflict, Hampden was first observed to make for the house of a relation in the neighbourhood. But Rupert's cavalry were covering the plain between. Turning his horse, therefore, he rode back in the way to Thame. When he came to a brook which divides the plain, he paused a while; but it being impossible for him, in his wounded state, to remount, if he had alighted to turn his horse over, he suddenly summoned his strength, clapped spurs, and cleared the leap. Through such particulars the recent biographer of this eminent person naturally delights to carry his reader. But what must have been Hamp- den's thoughts, as he crossed the field of his youthful remembrances, staining the green blades that glittered in the sun of a bright morn of May with no ignoble blood? There he had first practised his confiding neighbours, and his admiring tenants and serving-men, in the use of those pikes which they were to level at the crown and the mitres of England; and there the HAMPDEN. 179 avenging ball of the royalist had shivered his vigorous right arm ! The cause was, to all appearance, declin- ing: the army weakened, and commanded by a cold and vacillating partisan ; the enemy victorious, and every day gathering new strength ; the parliament rapidly losing the confidence of the people ; Pym, his great fellow-champion, lying on his death-bed the most sentient nerve of Freedom, the toughest sinew in the whole body of Rebellion, shrivelling like a parched scroll ! Yet, could he have looked further, and with prophetic eyes beheld Naseby Carisbrook White- hall defiled with the blood of a king, and the residence of an usurper, more appalling would have been that contemplation of its triumph. Where would he have discovered the laws which he had vindicated the Liberty, at whose shrine he had sacrificed so much, besides what was his own or even a free field for that sly but strong ambition, which, more, it may be, than he was himself aware, directed the movements of his life ? In great pain, and nearly exhausted, Hamp- den reached Thame. The surgeons who dressed his wounds encouraged his grieving fellow-patriots and brothers-in-arms with hopes of recovery; but his own impression from the first was, that his hurt was mortal. It was too true an one. After six days of intense suffering, Hampden breathed his last. The prosperous appearance of Charles's affairs, and the contrast exhibited in the depressed condition of the parliament's, became more obvious after the occurrence of this event. So reduced was Essex's army by sick- ness, defeat, and destitution, that he no longer deemed 180 HAMPDEN. it safe to remain in the vicinity of his restless enemies. Yet the difficulties which surrounded the cause of the patriots had not the effect of relaxing their determined tone. When Charles, feeling himself fully prepared to meet any forces which his opponents could call into the field, once more sent a message for peace, intimating that the calamities which would follow a renewal of hostilities between the main armies would, if they obstinately re- fused all accommodation, be solely chargeable on them, the houses answered merely by committing the messenger to prison ; and with a view to close the door against all farther attempts at negotiation, the Commons carried up to the Lords the impeachment of the queen, already mentioned. The king replied to this insult by a declara- tion, that the two houses at Westminster were no longer a real and free parliament ; and forbade his subjects to obey their ordinances. The houses, on their side, resolve to impart legal warranty to their acts, by making a new great seal ; appoint an assembly of divines to consult in affairs of religion ; vote the despatch of a second embassy for advice and assistance into Scotland ; and, finding much inconvenience from the " multitudes of scandalous books, pamphlets, and papers," with which the whole country swarmed, pass an ordinance to restrain " the liberty of the press ! " CHAPTER XI. THE ROYALISTS VICTORIOUS. HITHERTO Essex was treated with external respect; but his popularity, both in and out of parliament, was rivalled by more active and decided, though less important, chiefs. Hampden, indeed, could no longer dispute his laurels; but Fairfax and his father in the north, and Cromwell in the east, were already more stirring names in the ears of the patriots. The favourite general of parliament and people, however, was Sir William Waller. Waller had served abroad, and, on his return to his own country, obtained an office under the crown. But having engaged in an indiscreet quarrel which brought him under the severe notice of the Star Chamber, and his resentment being quickened by the puritan zeal of his wife, he went over to the patriots ; and was among the first who took out commissions to raise troops for the parliament. The cautious temper of Essex served as a foil to the rapidity and irregular daring of the general of the horse; and while the im- patience of eager partisans sickened at the dull and indecisive movements of the grand army, they followed 182 THE ROYALISTS VICTORIOUS. with exultation the meteoric flashing of the sword of Waller. His successes at Portsmouth and Chichester, at the close of 1642, have been referred to already. About the same time, he recovered Winchester for the parliament. Shortly afterwards, Lord Herbert of Rag- land having raised a large body of troops for the king, Waller detached himself from Essex's army, dashed through Wiltshire, and surprised and took the whole prisoners, under the walls of Gloucester. Hereford, Tewkesbury, Chepstow, Monmouth, successively re- ceived his victorious bands. From Worcester he was repulsed; but, avoiding the more numerous forces of Prince Maurice, who had been sent by the Marquess of Hertford to intercept him, he led his party safe back; and rejoined Essex, with a dazzling reputation, which was acknowledged in the quaint appellation, popularly given him of William the Conqueror. But the conquests of Waller only interrupted the growth of the royalists' strength in the west, as the arrow cuts the air, which, behind it, closes again. The towns he had entered immediately re-opened their gates to the enemy; for he left in them no garrisons. These hasty successes, however, determined the par- liament to make an attempt, by sending out an expe- dition under his command, to maintain their waning influence in those parts; while Essex, who was un- able to obtain for his diminished forces such supplies of clothing and ammunition as would enable them once more to take the field, had yet the mortification to see an army of 8000 men prepared, on a liberal and effective scale, for his rival. THE ROYALISTS VICTORIOUS. 183 At the time when Waller was marching out of Lon- don, the Marquess of Hertford, with Prince Maurice, effected a junction, on the borders of Devonshire and Somersetshire, with the Cornish men, victorious from the fight at Stratton, in their own county, who had advanced to meet them, under the command of the brave and virtuous Hopton. The king's army, hearing that Waller was already at Bath, marched through Wells to give them battle. Waller drew out his forces on Lansdown Hill; from whence, on the approach of the enemy, he dispatched Haslerigg, with his famous regiment of cuirassiers, to charge their horse. At first, the cavaliers, who, till now, had charged the cavalry of the parliament with con- tempt, gave ground, in some dismay, before this novel armament; but, on being brought a second time to the charge, they completely routed, and chased them to the foot of the hill. The summit of Lansdown Hill was crested with breastworks, which were mount- ed with cannon, and flanked on each side by a wood lined with musketeers ; the reserves of the parlia- ment's horse and foot being drawn up behind. Un- appalled by this disadvantage, the valiant Cornish men modestly asked permission "to fetch off those cannon." The ascent in that spot was deemed in- accessible ; but order to attempt it being, after some hesitation, given, Sir Bevil Grenvil charged fiercely up with his dauntless Britons; drove the whole body from their ground ; and the king's troops took quiet possession of it. The two shattered armies now faced each other on level ground, neither shewing any dis- 184 THE ROYALISTS VICTORIOUS. position to renew the fight ; " so that exchanging only some shot from their ordnance, they looked upon one another till the night interposed." About midnight Waller silently withdrew into Bath ; and when day appeared the royalists found themselves in possession of the field, some arms and ammunition, and the dead. Those who fell, on the royalist side, were chiefly officers and gentlemen; among them, Sir Bevil Grenvil, " whose loss/' observes Clarendon, " would have clouded any victory. He was indeed," the his- torian continues, " an excellent person; whose activity, and reputation, were the foundation of what had been done in Cornwall; and his temper and affections so public, that no accident which happened could make any impressions in him," unfavourable to the royal cause. "In a word, a brighter courage, and a gen- tler disposition, were never married together to make the most cheerful and innocent conversation." The Lord Arundel of Wardour was carried off the field severely wounded, and died soon afterwards at Ox- ford ; having just survived long enough to be made acquainted with the surrender of his beautiful fortress to the forces of the parliament, after a short but spirited resistance by his heroic lady. Waller's army was rather dispersed than mate- rially weakened. Collecting, therefore, his scattered squadrons, and being reinforced from Bristol and the adjoining counties, he pursued the royalists, who had marched towards Devizes, engaging their rear- guard in skirmishes, till they entered the town. The same night, the Prince and the Marquess marched out THE ROYALISTS VICTORIOUS. 185 with the horse to Oxford, leaving Hopton shut up in Devizes with the infantry; where it was hoped they might be able to defend themselves, for a few days, till relief should be brought. The next morning Waller assaulted the town with horse, foot, and cannon ; but was repulsed. Having intercepted a party march- ing in with powder and shot, of which he knew the besieged were in extreme need, he thought it a fair op- portunity to propose high terms of surrender. Hopton consented to a cessation of a few hours ; when, his soldiers having obtained a little rest, and found means to supply their immediate want of ammunition, both sides again fell to their arms. Waller had resolved on a general assault ; he had even written to the parlia- ment that " their work was done, and by the next post he would send the number and rank of his prisoners ;" when the startling news was brought, that Lord Wilmot had been sent from Oxford with a large body of horse to raise the siege, and was already within a few miles of the town. Instantly, the parliamentarian general drew off " without drum or, trumpet," to Roundway Down, an open space, two miles to- wards Oxford, over which the king's forces must pass ; where he ranged his columns very advantageously, in order of battle; the besieged wondering what the sudden silence around them imported, for they could not believe that, in two days, relief could be at hand. Waller, seeing the royalists less numerous than he expected, from pure contempt threw away the ad- vantage of his position ; and, putting Haslerigg and 186 THE ROYALISTS VICTORIOUS. his cuirassiers in front, advanced with his cavalry alone to the attack. So well was the onset of that hitherto invincible regiment met, on the other side, by Sir John Byron, that they were forced back in full career upon the main body of the parliament's horse. There, for a moment, they rallied ; when Wilmot made such an effectual charge upon the whole body, defeat- ing it division after division, that it was entirely routed and dispersed, and not a trooper remained in sight upon the Down. Still the foot stood firm ; but, by this time, the Cornish regiments making their appearance from the town, and Wilmot, who had got possession of their ordnance, turning it upon themselves, they also broke their ranks, and fled in every direction. All the cannon, arms, and ammunition, colours, and baggage of Waller, with 900 prisoners, fell into the victors' hands. On the side of the parliament, the slain amounted to 600: the king's army lost few common men, and only one soldier of rank. Sir William Waller, Sir Arthur Haslerigg (who had received several wounds), Colonels Strode and Popham, and other commanders, took refuge in Bristol, whither their arrival brought the first news of that disastrous fight. This was a terrible blow for the garrison of that city, a great part of whose strength had been lost in the defeat ; but worse apprehensions assailed them, when, ten days later, on the 22d of July, two hosts sat down before their walls Prince Rupert, with his Oxford forces, on the Gloucestershire side; the Marquess of Hert- ford and Prince Maurice, with the victorious Cornish army, on the side of Somersetshire. THE ROYALISTS VICTORIOUS. 187 The first step taken by the royalists was to seize on the ships in the harbour ; in which were many persons of consideration, who had prepared to avoid the horrors of the siege, by escaping, with their families and treasure, to London. The next was to determine on the method of attack. Rupert's opinion, according with his hot and impatient temper, that it should be by storm, ultimately prevailed. The garrison of Bristol consisted of about 2500 infantry and a regi- ment of dragoons. The town had a line of fortifications drawn entirely round it. At daybreak on the 24th day of July, the besieged beheld from their walls, on either side of the town, at the same moment, their enemies advancing to the assault, in three separate divisions. Each division was crowded with officers, eager for the glory, and disdainful of the danger, of seizing so im- portant a prize. On the west side, the middle division was led by Sir Nicholas Slanning and Sir John Tre- vannion, " the life and soul of the Cornish regiments." The second, on the right, was brought up by Colonel Buck, and Colonel Bernard Ashley, who commanded Hertford's own regiment. Sir Thomas Basset, major- general of the Cornish regiments, advanced with the third division, on the left. The moat in this part was deep, the lines well flanked, and the ground level and exposed; over which the divisions now poured at once, though provided with hardly any other means of assault besides their ordinary weapons and determined courage. They filled the moat, and some of them mounted the wall; but the defenders behaved like men of the same mould with their assailants. 188 THE ROYALISTS VICTORIOUS. Seeing Buck precipitated from the rampart to perish in the foss; the noble friends, Slanning and Trevannion, also fallen together; and useless slaughter mowing down their ranks in all directions the besiegers, on this side, quickly retired in disorder from their bootless attempt. The attack was made on Rupert's side, under more favourable auspices ; for here the ditch was shallow^ the walls low and weak, and the ground rocky and uneven. His three divisions were conducted by the virtuous and pious Lord Grandison, by Colonel John Bellasis, and Colonel Washington. Of these officers, the first two were quickly wounded, Grandison mor- tally. Meantime, Washington, who headed the centre division, surmounting the outworks, effects a breach in the wall, enters the line, and is followed by Rupert with a party of his horse and a body of the Cornish foot, who had come round to retrieve their honour on this side; the besieged retreating before them through the suburbs, or assailing them from the houses. Hav- ing reached the gate of the city, with the loss of several other officers, and many men, they prepare for a second, and, apparently, no less difficult assault, on that barrier, before they can enter ; when the go- vernor, Nathaniel Fiennes, demands a parley. Host- ages are given, a treaty commenced; and evening closes the events of a sanguinary day, by the surrender of the second English city to the arms of its sovereign. Nor was this prosperous condition of the king's affairs confined to the west. The chivalry of the Earl of Newcastle had by this time reduced the whole THE ROYALISTS VICTORIOUS. 189 north, as far as York, and driven the scattered ad- herents of the parliament to take refuge in the strong fortress of Hull. By placing a garrison at Newark, the earl had cut off the communication between Fairfax and the parliamentary forces which were overrunning Lincolnshire. He had already penetrated into the latter county. A light army of horse and dragoons, levied by General Charles Cavendish, younger brother of the Earl of Devonshire, had bravely assaulted and taken the parliament's garrison at Grantham, with above 300 prisoners, all their officers, arms, and ammunition. Early in June, the perils of a southward march being now lessened, the queen set out from York to join her husband at Oxford, escorted by a large body of horse and foot, under the command of Cavendish. That gallant young nobleman attended her as far as Burton-upon-Trent ; through which town he opened a passage for her by storming it across the river, which he swam, at the head of his troops. Here the queen and Cavendish parted; to their mutual regret, if we may judge from the language of Henrietta, in her letter, written at the time, to the king. That lively despatch thus describes the amount and ar- rangements of her convoy. " I carry with me," she writes, " 3000 foot, 30 companies of horse and dragoons, six pieces of cannon, and two mortars. Harry Jermyn commands the forces which go with me, as colonel of my guard; Sir Alexander Lesly, the foot under him; Gerard, the horse ; and Robin Legge, the artillery : her she-majesty generallissimo, and an extremely 190 THE ROYALISTS VICTORIOUS. diligent one, with 150 waggons of baggage to govern in case of a battle. Have a care that Essex's troops incommode us not; for I hope that for the rest we shall be strong enough." With Cavendish she left, for securing Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, 2000 foot, with arms for 500 more, and twenty troops of horse. All these forces properly belonged to Newcastle's army. The earl was, about this time, farther weak- ened by the capture of Goring, and his garrison, at Wakefield. Still prosperity attended his operations. At Atherton Moor, near Bradford, he gained a great victory over Fairfax, in which 700 of the parliament's troops were slain, and 300 made prisoners ; on so considerable a scale was that northern, and, mostly, least-noted, branch of the great contest conducted! Fairfax fled to the stronghold at Hull ; while New- cas.tle marched forward into Lincolnshire, and laid siege to Gainsborough, which the Lord Willoughby of Par- ham had seized for the parliament. It was in a skirmish near Gainsborough, that the first military exploit occurred by which Cromwell made his name a familiar word throughout England. Enough, indeed, had already been seen of his character, to enable discerning observers to perceive that it em- bodied, in a shape of prodigious but coarse energy, the spirit of the age, its serious eloquence, running, in him, into affected mysticalness and heavy verbiage : its steady valour, changed to calculating fierceness ; its in- tense religious affections, perverted to stern fanaticism. Into the deep focus of his strong and ambitious mind THE ROYALISTS VICTORIOUS. 191 Cromwell had gathered those characteristics ; and now sought to send them forth again, in a form moulded by his will, and made subservient to his designs. He saw around, and felt no less convincingly within himself, that the age of loyalty was gone ; and that religion, as a social and political force, was to supply the place of loyalty : but religion, uninformed and unregulated by the church, and therefore (such will ever be the case, when it is thrown wholly upon individual feeling) taking the characteristics of fanaticism ; religion tor- tured, at least in words, to every vulgar appliance, and hence often no more than the cloak of the hypocrite. These were the elements that composed this extra- ordinary person ; and to this model he effectually moulded his instruments. Collecting about him a band, from those classes among whom, in every age, such dispositions most readily meet, and in whom the thirst of freedom is generated by a sense of inde- pendence, the sturdy yeoman, the easy, thriftful, conceited burgher, he wrought them, by the master- power of his energy and genius, into an engine, which he doubted not, and he was not deceived, would effectually resist, and finally explode, the dreaded chi- valry of the cavaliers, animated as it was by the lin- gering breath of fealty in the nobles, and by piety, if by little else, in the sovereign. These stout-hearted associates he armed, mounted, trained, and disciplined, himself. He was their comrade, as well as their chief; associating with them at all seasons, and in all moods, he could lay by the part of the drill-serjeant and, equally for their behoof, assume the office of the preacher. 192 THE ROYALISTS VICTORIOUS. Crafty and stringent was the creed he taught them. The gospel as exhibited in puritanism, liberty as exemplified in the parliament, constituted the cause of God. The king had allied himself with popery and malignancy: to fight against him, while fettered by those fiendish confederates, was to fight, not for them- selves, not for their families and country, only, but for God and Truth. Should they conquer, they would be glorious and happy ; should they fall, it was good to forfeit life in such a cause ! Faith grew, as confidence increased, with increasing strength. Here was the germ of a military and religious despotism. From this little fulcrum was launched the power which, finally, scattered all that remained of church and parliament, including the first instigators of the war themselves ; frighted this great nation into submissive, dumb de- spair ; and "hewed the throne Down to a block ! " Cromwell, in his march to relieve the garrison at Gainsborough, at the head of his Huntingdonshire troopers, joined with some regiments from Lincoln- shire and Nottingham, fell in with the first division of Newcastle's army, under the command of young Cavendish. The royalists were first perceived on the summit of an acclivity ; towards which when Crom- well advanced, he found his progress impeded by a fence, running along at the foot of the hill, with only one narrow opening. Through this passage he deliberately filed his men, while exposed to the fire of THE ROYALISTS VICTORIOUS. 193 the enemy; and then led them on to the top of the eminence. Here a large body of the royalists charged them ; but, meeting with such resistance as that army had never before encountered, were borne down, after a short but determined fight with swords and pistols, and fell back upon their reserve of cavalry. Caven- dish, unable to rally his main body, now put himself at the head of the reserve, fell upon and put to flight the Lincoln and Nottingham troops ; but was, in his turn, attacked, in his rear, by Cromwell, who by this time had formed his men afresh. The onset was fierce and unexpected ; and Cavendish's troops giving way before it, were forced into a marsh, at the foot of the acclivity, where, unable either to fight or to fly, they were savagely butchered, with their chivalrous com- mander, by the Huntingdonshire troopers. It was fruitless bloodshed ; for the army now making its appearance, Cromwell brought off his men, and re- treated into the town ; from thence falling back to Lin- coln ; which also he abandoned at the approach of the royalists, and took refuge in Boston. Cavendish was among the most lamented victims of this deplorable contest. When his body was brought to Newark, where he had commanded, the people would not suffer it to be interred, till for some days they had feasted their eyes with the sight of it, " and embalmed it with their tears." Even at the distance of many years, when the remains were removed to Derby, fresh lamen- tations were made by those who had known him, and by others who had been taught from infancy to revere his name ; and the whole town, as one man, expressed the 194 THE ROYALISTS VICTORIOUS. most sorrowful unwillingness to part with the reliques of so dear a person, who had been the ornament and defence of that place." Another striking incident occurred, in connexion with the occupation of Gainsborough. At its first capture by the parliament's forces, several persons of rank were made prisoners ; in particular, the Earl of Kingston. This nobleman was one of those moderate persons, who, like Falkland and Rudyard, bitterly deprecated the war : it is related by the anecdotists of the time, that being urged to declare himself for either parliament or king, he uttered a passionate wish that, whenever he took part with either against the other, a cannon ball might divide his body between them. When Lord Willoughby under- stood that the Earl of Newcastle was advancing against the town, he sent away his noble prisoner, in a pinnace, to Hull. The vessel was fired at on the passage, by the royalist troops ; and though she got clear, the good Earl of Kingston, as he was called, perished from a cannon shot, divided so say the admirers of fatalism in precise accordance with his imprecation. By this time, the queen had pursued her journey southward ; the towns yielding at her approach, and the nobility and gentry flocking to her standard. At Strat- ford-on-Avon she was met by Rupert; and Charles, having received information of her advance to the borders of Ox- fordshire, proceeded with his sons to give her welcome. The joy of the meeting was enhanced by two most pleas- ing circumstances : -it occurred in the same field, under the height of Edge-hill, where, a few months before, Charles had valiantly fought his first battle ; and hardly THE ROYALISTS VICTORIOUS. 195 was the first embrace, endeared by long separation, much suffering, and mutual peril, over, when a breathless mes- senger broke in upon the royal pair, with the news of the great victory gained that day at Roundway Down. Their entry into Oxford was a triumph. The effects of Stratton, of Lansdown, of Roundway Down, and of Bristol, were now felt, in all directions. Exeter was surrendered to Prince Maurice, by the Earl of Stamford. Dorchester, Portland, Wey mouth, sub- mitted to the brave Earl of Carnarvon. Barnstaple and Bideford yielded to Colonel Digby. Taunton, Bridge- water, and Bath had likewise, by this time, opened their gates to the forces of the king. The prosperity of the royal cause amazed Charles's adversaries : it equally sur- prised his friends. Gloucester excepted, all the inland parts of the west had now returned to their allegiance. The north, from Berwick to Newark, was for the king. And now the chivalry of Newcastle was striking through the grand association of the east, the largest and com- pactest surface on which the parliamentarian interest moved. But, what seemed of more importance, this prosperous condition of the king's affairs was the means of daily bringing over converts to his cause. Beneath the royal banner, the timid now began to think there was the most safety ; the selfish, that there was most to gain ; the idolaters of power, that there the object of their worship was the most worthy of it ; the lovers of peace, that by throwing themselves and their fortunes into that descend- ing scale, they might soonest obtain their benevolent de- CHAPTER XII. THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. THE war-party in the parliament were not men to despair. But on the news of the last of the great successes of the king's armies, the victory at Atherton Moor, reaching them, they determined on an expe- dient, which nothing but the present failure of all other resources could have led them to adopt. The nation had seen so much of the Scots, in their two recent inroads into the south, and in the conduct of their commissioners, that not even the popular sym- pathy on the score of religion, nor the gratitude of the party for their services against the king, could prevent a revival of the ancient hostile prejudice against that people. An intelligent Scotchman, writ- ing from London in June, complains bitterly of the contempt and ill-usage which his countrymen met with. In fact, Hurry's revolt, which led to the defeat at Chalgrave Field, and to the death of Hampden, originated in just discontent with the treatment of the Scots by the parliamentarians. " The name of a Scot," observes the letter-writer alluded to, " is grown as odious amongst the Londoners, as the THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 197 name of Satan is to the soul of a saint : yet," he adds, " they are still longing and praying for our help. " Such was the fact : notwithstanding this prevalent dislike, no other expedient appearing to promise safety in the present terrible crisis, it was resolved, at a conference of the two houses, instantly to send a committee for aid from Scotland. The patriots were enabled to obtain the consent of the Lords to this proposal, in consequence of the offence taken by them at the declaration, recently received from Oxford, denying the legality of the parliament. But the measure was unpopular. Only a few days earlier, the Lords had passed a solemn protestation of loyalty to the king, and prepared a petition for peace. A letter arrived at this very juncture, from the Earl of Essex, describing his want of means to carry on the war, and advising the parliament to send propositions to the king for such a peace as would secure the reli- gion, the laws, and liberties of the nation. No mem- ber of the house of Peers could, therefore, be induced personally to engage in the proposed mission to Scot- land. The Lord Grey of Werke, their speaker, hitherto the unflinching agent of his party, refused ; and was committed to the Tower for contempt. The Earl of Rutland was then named : but eluded the employment on pretence of ill health. At length, it was resolved to send only members of the Commons ; and on the 20th of July the committee, consisting of Sir Henry Vane and Sir William Armyn, with two other mem- bers, and Marshall and Nye, the one a presbyterian, the other an independent minister, were dismissed 198 THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. from London by sea, it being impossible to reach Edin- burgh by land, except through the quarters of the Earl of Newcastle. On Vane, the projectors of the scheme wholly de- pended for success. As the bearing of this measure upon the events which followed was in a high degree important, it will be proper to show the state of opinion in the parliament, with respect to the great question it involved, and the difficulties with which its authors had to contend. For this purpose, we shall transfer a paragraph from the recent Life of Vane, by Mr. Forster. " The Scots," observes that spirited advocate of the parliament, "were known to be bigoted to their own persuasions of narrow and exclusive church govern- ment, while the greatest men of the English parlia- ment had proclaimed the sacred maxim, that every man who worshipped God according to the dictates of his conscience was entitled to the protection of the state. But these men, Vane, Cromwell, Marten, and St. John, though the difficulties of the common cause had brought them into the acknowledged position of leaders and directors of affairs, were in a minority of the house of Commons ; and the party who were their superiors in number were as bigoted to the most ex- clusive principles of presbyterianism as the Scots themselves. Denzil Hollis stood at the head of this inferior class of patriots ; Glyn, the recorder of London, and Maynard, were among its ablest sup- porters. Waller and Massey in the army, Sir Philip Stapleton and Sir John Clotworthy, ranged themselves THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 199 under the same banners. The most eminent of the parliamentary nobility, particularly Northumberland, Essex, and Manchester, belonged also to this body; while the London clergy, and the metropolis itself, were almost entirely presbyterian. These things con- sidered, there was indeed great reason to apprehend that this party, backed by the Scots, and supported with a Scottish army, would be strong enough to overpower the advocates of free conscience, and set up a tyranny, not less to be deplored than that of Laud and his hierarchy, which had proved one of the main occasions of bringing on the war. Yet, opposing to all this danger only their own high purposes and dauntless courage, the smaller party of more consum- mate statesmen were the first to propose the embassy to Scotland." Leaving, then, Vane to his tedious voyage of twen- ty days from London to Leith, and to the deep and difficult part afterwards, which none, like him, could play ; let us glance at the equally critical and perplexed position in which his colleagues in the capital were placed, after his departure. Every day brought an account of some fresh skir- mish, in which the royalists were victorious ; or some application to parliament, for relief from the hardships which pressed upon their armies. Waller, after having departed from London, a few weeks before, with a fine army, and in so confident a temper that in every town upon his route he left orders for the reception of his prisoners, had re-entered the capital a solitary fugitive. Essex also was returned to Kingston, with his troops in 200 THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. so broken and destitute a condition, that he himself declared they were not worthy the name of an army. He, at the same time, demanded redress for his own injured honour: his troops had been defrauded of credit and supplies, for the benefit of another army ; yet the very parties by whose misconduct that army had been ruined, and the west lost to the parliament, had aspersed the general-in-chief as the author of these reverses. At the moment when these ill-timed dissensions occurred, came forth a new and more gra- cious declaration from the king. A door of pacifi- cation seemed again thrown open. On the 4th of August, the Lords seized the occasion to desire a con- ference with the other house ; in which they submitted some propositions for a treaty, of a more moderate tenour than any yet brought forward. They proposed the immediate disbanding of both armies ; that the members who had been expelled for absence should be recalled ; that all questions relating to the church and the militia should be reserved for future considera- tion, the first in a synod of divines, the others in parliament. The moderation of these articles was terrible to the men of root and branch. The prospect they held out of accommodation was, to the last de- gree, alarming. Pyrn was now far gone in that sick- ness which shortly after laid his slumbering body in the grave; but the dying lion roused up at the dan- ger which threatened the darling object of his life's struggles, Republican Liberty. A hot debate ensued upon the conference; at ten at night it was resolved, by a majority of twenty-nine voices (ninety-six to THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 201 sixty-five the house, at that time, could muster no more !), to adopt the propositions. This was on Satur- day. " Unparalleled efforts" were to be made. The next day all the pulpits resounded with prophecies of destruction to the city, if a peace were now offered to the king ; the citizens were exhorted to rise, as one man, and come down, the next morning, to the house of Commons. Twenty thousand Irish rebels, it was averred, were landed, and on their march to London. Inflammatory placards were stuck up, and printed papers scattered abroad, with a celerity and effect never imagined until the war of pamphlets and libels, which, from the beginning of this distracted period, kept pace with the nobler strife of the senate and the field. Pennington, lord mayor of London, assembled a common council, the same evening, at Guildhall ; in which was passed a petition to the Com- mons against any accommodation. In the morning a deputation of citizens made their appearance before the Commons with the petition, and, annexed to it, a draft of an ordinance, empowering a committee to raise means for a vigorous prosecution of the war. An immense concourse of people, brought together for that purpose, demanded, with cries that penetrated through both houses, a favourable answer to their prayer. The Lords sent to acquaint the Commons, that they had resolved on an adjournment till the tumults were put down : the Commons took no notice of this intimation, but thanked the petitioners for their zeal and attachment. The propositions were again brought forward, in 202 THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. the midst of great disorder and excitement ; and after a very long debate, a division being called for, the tellers counted eighty votes for sending them to the king, and seventy-nine against that proposition. A fearful uproar followed the announcement of the num- bers. The Pyms, Vanes, and St. Johns, loudly insisted on a second division. Some terrified members escaped in the confusion ; for now the last vote was found to be reversed by a majority of seven ! The next morning a counter-petition was brought from the City, not by the men, for the recent exe- cution of the associates of Waller had taught the male population to be cautious ; but by the women. Two or three thousand of that sex, wearing white ribands, the emblem of peace, in their hats, came with their petition to the door of the house of Commons. It was received, read, and an answer returned ; though not, in the former instance of a ladies' petition, by the leader of the Commons, or in equally favourable terms. The petitioners, not satisfied with the answer, remained about the house. By noon, their numbers were nearly doubled. Some men in women's clothes now appeared in the throng, and, mounting to the door, set up a shout of (t Peace ! Peace !" The guard, a party of the City trained bands, endeavoured to re- pulse these troublesome suitors; and, having succeeded in clearing the stairs, fired their muskets, loaded with powder only, to fright them away. But this merely increased the violence of the mob : " Give us." they exclaimed, " the traitors who will have no peace, that we may tear them to pieces! Give us the dog Pym!" THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 203 On this a troop of horse was ordered forward, who dispersed them with great cruelty : " killing some three or four women," as Baillie alleges, "hurting some, and imprisoning many." Immense exertions were now made by the patriots to confirm their hard-won victory. The greater part of the members of the assembly of divines, which had now commenced its sittings, visited, by order of the parliament, their respected parishes, for the purpose of stimulating the people to new efforts in the cause. Waller, who, notwithstanding his total defeat, had been received on his return "as if he had brought the king prisoner with him," was appointed commander- in-chief of the militia and defences of London, and preparations were made for enabling him again to take the field. An ordinance was passed for an army to be put under the command of the Earl of Manchester; and another, empowering the committees in the counties to press soldiers, gunners, and surgeons. Having given the lord-general this practical intimation, that they did not depend on his excellency alone for the con- duct of the war, they next plied every artifice to fix him in their interests, and to urge him to exertions worthy of himself and of the common cause. Pym, Say, and St. John (it was Pym's last public labour), visited the camp, as a committee of the two houses. They assured Essex of the cordial support and confi- dence of the parliament ; asserted that ingratitude was the reward with which Charles acknowledged the services of his ablest generals ; and hinted that he nourished peculiar feelings of resentment against the 204- THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. earl. Essex now as plainly indicated a want of intel- lectual firmness, in the readiness of his convictions, as, by his wavering conduct, he had before done of the strength of his conscientiousness. Pym, by his dex- terous arguments and insinuations, wholly changed him, and wrought him to that resolved temper which he afterwards continued to retain. In three days, he said, he would begin his march to meet the king ; and at twelve o'clock that very day, would draw his troops to the rendezvous on Hounslow Heath ; where he besought the commissioners to attend and inspect them. The fortifications around London were also now completed. Great part of the labour required to construct these defences was supplied by the voluntary enthusiasm of the people. An esprit de corps, merged, in our days, in sentiments either narrower or more diffused, animated, in those times, the separate guilds of citizens. Those bodies rivalled each other in the alacrity with which they engaged in this novel em- ployment. The trades marched out to the work in separate parties, bearing mattocks, shovels, and other tools, with drums beating, colours flying, and swords girded. Mixed with most of those companies were to be seen women and girls, some of them ladies of rank and education, two and two, carrying baskets filled with earth ; many of whom wrought in the trenches, till they fell ill from the effect of unusual exertion. Of the works thus patriotically raised, an interesting description remains; and though long ago, every vestige of their existence has been swept THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 205 away, by the hand of time, or the march of Im- provement, they appear to have been, for that age, of respectable efficiency. The stranger on approaching the capital by water, before he found himself en- closed between those dense ranks of merchantmen, which, even then, covered both banks of the Thames, was frowned upon, from either shore, by a stern multangular fort, with its deep trench and bristling palisades ; surmounted by cannon, and guarded by many a steel-capped musketeer, sworn foes to cava- liers and malignants. From Limehouse, where they commenced, the lines stretched on to Whitechapel, to Shoreditch, to Hoxton ; then along, by Holborn, to St. Giles's and Marylebone, to Tyburn and Hyde Park ; whence bending round by Tothill-fields, the river was again commanded by two forts, the one erected at that station, and the other at Nine Elms, on the opposite side ; from which point they stretched across the angle of Surrey, through Newington, to Redriff, where they again terminated upon the stream. At each of these, and of many intervening angles, a fort commanded the adjoining approaches. There were, in all, twenty-four forts, besides redoubts, counterscarps, and half-moons, along the trenches, between; the whole planted with 212 pieces of ord- nance : a circuit of twelve miles, enclosing great wealth, and swarming with a various and eager popu- lation. At each chief central point, within this wide circumference, was placed a corps-de-garde, in the City, in Southwark, by the houses of Parliament, at Whitehall. The writer, from whose curious details, 206 THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. we copy the present sketch, though a Scotchman, a presbyterian, and a devoted admirer of the Parliament, unconsciously throws in a natural touch of loyal feeling, which finishes the grand but melancholy picture of a mighty capital in rebellion against its sovereign : " I found," says he, " the grass growing deep in the royal courts of the king's house ; which, indeed, was a lament- able sight." When Charles engaged the sons of his sister, the Queen of Bohemia, in the prosecution of the quarrel with his parliament, he introduced into his cause ele- ments of dissension, which materially contributed to its defeat and ruin. Bristol was the chief city inclu- ded in the brave Marquess of Hertford's commission, as lieutenant-general of the West ; and the marquess was chief in command at the siege; nevertheless, Prince Rupert had not only engaged in the treaty without his advice, but concluded the articles of capitulation without naming him, or noticing his presence. This was not to be borne by a nobleman, who, though "of the most gentle nature to the gentle," was equally " rough and resolute to the imperious. " In return, Hertford, with as little cere- mony proceeded to the choice of a governor for that important place ; selecting for that office the unex- ceptionable Sir Ralph Hopton. Rupert, on the other hand, proceeding upon the right of conquest, which he arrogated to himself, wished to reserve the appoint- ment in his own disposal : and, understanding what the marquess designed, in the same despatch by which he acquainted the king with his success, besought him THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 207 to bestow the government of it on himself, as its captor. Charles, perplexed by the incident, and more so by the factious temper which it indicated, endeavoured to solve the difficulty by himself going to Bristol, and conferring the government on his nephew, upon his agreeing to grant a commission to Hopton, as his lieu- tenant ; and by lavishing many personal attentions upon the marquess. To this arrangement Hertford submitted, from a sense of duty to his sovereign; but the army rang with murmurs that a rude young foreigner, whose best quality was animal courage, and whose highest merit consisted in the nepotic partiality of the king, should contemptuously step before one of the prime nobility of England into the government of the capital of the West. A second motive was like- wise forced upon Charles, for keeping the Marquess of Hertford about his person ; notwithstanding that, all this time, the heroic army of Cornwall was eagerly demanding back their leader. Rupert had inspired his brother Maurice with his own petulant disposition: it was too much that the king's nephew should be the lieutenant of a marquess. Hence, while the magnani- mous and experienced Hertford was retained, an un- willing satellite in the royal tent, the temperate heroes of the West were submitted to the command of a youthful prince, unacquainted with English man- ners, and ignorant of the merits of the cause in which he drew his sword. The consequences were soon appa- rent. The gallant Earl of Carnarvon, than whom no man had contributed more to the successes of the royal arms at Mendip Hill, at Lansdown, and at Round- 208 THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. way Down, and to whom Dorchester, Weymouth, Portland, had successively yielded, was driven from that army by disgust ; and from this time the previous terror of the enemy at the sight of its banners so far subsided, that the little burghs of Lyme and Poole now laughed at its summons with impunity. The advantage secured to the patriots by their great and irreversible triumph, was not lessened by its dimi- nishing the numbers of their adherents ; yet the king, by the reception given, on his part, to the seceders, strangely overlooked his own. Charles was recalled from before Gloucester to Oxford, by the consequences of this event. Seven peers more than a third of the Lords' house with several Commoners, the most eminent of the advocates of peace, had quitted West- minster ; most of them for the king's quarters. The Earl of Northumberland, with characteristic prudence, obtained leave to retire to his house at Petworth, designing to wait there till he should be enabled to decide his movements from observing the reception given to his friends by the court. The Earl of Clare went into Worcestershire ; the Earl of Portland, and the Lords Conway and Lovelace, directly to Oxford. The Earls of Bedford and Holland, being suspected, reached, with some difficulty, the royalist garrison at Wallingford; from whence notice of their arrival was forwarded to the king. A generous, nay, a sound policy, would have dictated a cordial reception to the seceders, tardy as their repentance had been. But Charles had his own feelings, always strong against undutifulness, to consult ; while his council, to whom, THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 209 with seeming indifference, he referred back the ques- tion, had their own selfish views. Bedford had served against the king, as general of the parliament's horse ; Holland, by his repeated treachery and ingratitude, had still more deeply offended. The court was ex- travagantly elated with the successes of the royal arms, and considered it no season for concession. Perhaps, the baser minds among its adherents were already calculating the plunder of the vanquished, and were unwilling to let the wealthiest of the expected prey deliver their estates from the forfeiture of treason. Never had so warm a debate shaken the council-board, though nearly all the members were unanimous against the pi-oselyte earls. Some suggested, that since they had come into the king's quarters without leave, they ought to be made prisoners of war. Others as vehe- mently urged that they should be permitted to live within the king's quarter, but not be suffered to come to Oxford, until by some good service they had mani- fested the sincerity of their repentance. A third party thought so much severity impolitic : these proposed that the peers should be suffered to come to Oxford, that thereby they might be kept from returning to the parliament ; but that they should neither be allowed to appear at court, nor be visited by any member of the king's council. Wiser too wise for the occa- sion was the unseconded advice of Hyde. " My advice," said that honest counsellor, " is, that they should be very graciously received by both their ma- jesties, and visited and well-treated by every body ; that by their treatment others may be encouraged 210 THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. to follow their example. On what disadvantageous ground will the king and his cause stand," he con- tinued, " if, while the parliament is using every effort and every artifice to corrupt the duty and affection of his majesty's subjects, and receiving all with open arms who come to them, he should himself close all return against those who have been faulty, or have not come so soon as they should have done ? If the king were disposed to gratify and oblige his enemies, he could not do it more to their hearts desire than by rejecting the application of these lords, or allowing it to pass unregarded." Charles listened to the debate, without taking any part in it; but did not conceal his satisfaction, when any expressions of peculiar severity reflected on the Earl of Holland. At the close, he said, he agreed that it would be unwise, at the present juncture, to treat any persons with extreme rigour ; and thereupon gave command, that the governor of Wallingford should permit the lords to prosecute their journey to Oxford. " When here," observed the king, " all of you may visit them, or not, as you please. For myself and the queen, we intend to regulate our behaviour to them by their own conduct." From this chilling half-measure nothing but evil followed. Though the royal fiat was wholly unaccom- panied by any sign of favour, it cast a cloud over the hostile council-table. As little satisfactory was it to the converts. The necessity of withdrawing from a party with whom we have been engaged, is in itself humiliating it reflects self-condemnation on the past: THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 211 a cold and repulsive welcome among those, from re- gard to whom, or whose cause, we either do, or flatter ourselves we do, go over to them, at once wounds us with the tooth of ingratitude, opens all the springs of self-reproach, and revives regretful memories of the path we have deserted. The two earls remained some months at the court; but though they accompanied the king, and fought by his side, in the ensuing cam- paign, the contemptuous treatment they met with from the courtiers became insupportable : they therefore seized the first opportunity to return secretly to the parliament The Earl of Clare, a nobleman of a higher spirit, asked, and obtained permission to re- tire into the country for his private affairs : while Northumberland, judging from the bad success of his friends what he might expect at Oxford, again threw the weight of his great fortune and respectable cha- racter into the opposite scale. Jealousy and discontent began to pervade the whole army, and rapidly increased with that decline in the king's affairs, which gave the factious and discontented, on all hands, an opportunity for mutual charges and recriminations. Thus was the right hand of the king's power becoming palsied, and his ruin prepared. The army was also exceedingly unpopular. The con- dition of the country was indeed lamentable. Alter- nately exposed, in many places, to the aggressions of the royalist and parliamentarian troops, the harassed people often did not know which masters to obey: only they were sure that whichever party went, or came, those who quitted them would carry away the plun- p 2 212 THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. dered wealth of their fields, their stalls, and home- steads ; and that those who succeeded would wring from them what remained, perhaps accompanying their acts of rapine with blows and execrations, on account of having been forestalled. These oppressions were incident to the movements of the armies on both sides, great and small alike. But Rupert's troops were distinguished for license and rapacity ; and, by de- grees, as the authority of Hertford and Hopton gave way before the influence of the two princes, Rupert and Maurice, the evil report which followed them began to attach equally to all the forces of the royalists. Nor was the army the only scene of those factions and disorders, which were among the main causes of Charles's overthrow. They divided the council, and shook the mutual confidence of the sovereign and his consort. Even in the cabinet, the intemperate sugges- tions of the royal brothers were too often preferred to the advice of Colepepper, of Falkland, and of Hyde ; and Charles had actually to make a journey from the West to allay the jealous apprehensions of Henrietta, that either or both , parties would trench upon the right to interfere in public affairs, which she claimed, and which the king was but too much disposed to yield, as legitimately her own. A third party, the mere creatures of the court, every day added to the vexa- tions of the royal pair, by demands of place, honours, and emolument ; which the manifest inability of the king and queen, in the present circumstances, to satis- fy, had in no degree the effect of relaxing. The THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 213 vices and the meanness of the mean and vicious fol- lowers of a court, are never more apparent than in exile, or amid the tumultuous vicissitudes of a war of parties Two methods of prosecuting the war, with an appa- rent prospect of success, lay open to the king, at the time when he left Bristol with his victorious army. The first was to march directly to London, and fall upon his enemies in their state of dissension and un- preparedness. To lay siege to Gloucester, the only considerable place in the west of England, still held by the forces of the parliament, was the second. Charles would gladly have followed the first, had he found his strength sufficient. On the fall of Bristol, he had written to the victorious Earl of Newcastle, who was then preparing to invest Hull, to leave a sufficient force before that place to block it up, and, with the bulk of his forces, to march through the asso- ciated eastern counties, where no serious obstruction to his progress was to be expected ; and, joining the royal army in its advance from the West, enable the king to follow up that design. Newcastle excused himself, on the plea that many of his officers, being gentlemen whose estates lay in the north, refused to march from their homes with the troops of the enemy in their rear. This pretence was not groundless : the volun- tary nature of the service on either ride, often, by desertion or refusal to march, deprived the commanders of both troops and officers, in moments of the most pressing exigency. But the truth was, that this high- spirited and independent nobleman, having the example 214 THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. of the Marquess of Hertford before his eyes, was re- solved " to avoid the mortification of receiving orders and perhaps insolence from Rupert," The king pre- sented himself before Gloucester. Arriving, on the tenth of August, he sent two heralds to the town with a summons, requiring it to receive a governor and garrison of his appointing. Charles demanded a positive answer before the expir- ation of two hours. Within that space, two citizens, Pudsey, a serjeant-major in the garrison, and another, returned with the king's heralds, bringing the answer of Massey, its determined governor. The noble histo- rian makes himself merry with the figures of this worthy pair of presbyterian burghers, and the effect which their appearance produced upon the excitable cavaliers. Expressing defiance in every angle of their harsh, lean visages, their gestures, and even their garb, they " at once," he says, " made the most severe coun- tenances merry, and the most cheerful hearts sad. The men, without any circumstance of duty or good manners, in a pert, shrill, undismayed accent, said, 'We have brought an answer from the godly city of Gloucester to the king : '" in short, they conducted themselves with a kind of insolence so peculiar, that they seemed as if their orders had been chiefly to pro- voke him to violate his own safe conduct. The an- swer they brought was in writing, and in these words : "We the inhabitants, magistrates, officers, and sol- diers, within this garrison of Gloucester, unto his ma- jesty's gracious message return this humble answer : That we do keep this city, according to our oaths and THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 215 allegiance, to and for the use of his majesty and his royal posterity; and do accordingly conceive ourselves wholly bound to obey the commands of his majesty, signified by both houses of parliament : and are re- solved, by God's help, to keep this city accordingly ;" an answer, which, though like all such documents on the side of the parliament, couched in odiously hypo- critical terms, wronging and insulting the king to his face, under a show of duty, was yet a brave defiance, from a garrison of 1400 men, a great proportion of them raw militia, almost destitute of ordnance and ammunition, and occupying a vast compass of ill- constructed lines, to send to the commander of a powerful army, flushed with the insolence of recent victory. Charles received it without any expression of displeasure, yet with manifest wonder. " Gentlemen," he asked, " on what hope of relief does your confidence rest? Waller is extinct, and Essex cannot come." He at once dismissed them ; and had hardly seen the gates close on those uncouth visitors of a king, when the large and well-built suburbs of the city were ob- served to be on fire ; and some cannon placed over the west gate, being discharged upon a body of horse, which had been drawn up on that side, within range of shot, forced them to retire. The king's army immediately set about their entrenchments. Thus, a respite from immediate attack was granted to the parties in London ; which was all they were now in need of ; for there, whatever had caused the change, all slackness, if not all dissension, was at an end ; and, starting from a state of inactivity and despondence, they at once rose to 216 THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. a point of energetic unanimity which they never after- wards abandoned. Essex undertook to raise the siege of Gloucester. On the 24th of August, to the astonishment of the par- ties themselves, he was able, in the presence of many members of both houses of parliament, to muster an army of 10,000 men, at Hounslow ; and being joined, at Aylesbury, by several regiments of trained bands from the City, some troops of horse, and a train of artillery, he, finally, marched for Gloucester on the 29th. The king's horse amounted to no less than 8000 men ; but as no person in his camp would believe that the expresses, forwarded to London by Massey, could really put an army in motion for his relief, the enemy was allowed to march a distance of thirty miles, through an open country, admirably suited to the evolutions of cavalry, without any other annoyance than some skir- mishing with a few light troops. On the 5th day of September, when the siege had lasted just twenty-six days, the thunder of the parliamentarian cannon, from Presbury hills, put an end to all doubt by announcing Essex's arrival. Scarcely could the besieged have held out a few hours longer. When, therefore, Charles had received certain information of the lord-general's approach, he attempted, by sending a herald with pro- positions of peace, to delay his march, at least for that space. The earl replied, that he had no com- mission to treat, but to relieve the beleaguered city : and relieve it, he added, he would, or perish in the attempt. The purport of the herald's visit being known through the ranks, the soldiers saluted him, as he passed THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 217 along, on his return, with cries of "No propositions! No propositions ! " Essex presently after discovered the huts on fire in the king's camp. Charles had retired in haste and some confusion, intending to dispute his enemy's return. That day, the besieged had set apart for a public fast ; but on Essex's entering the city, it was turned to a day of ardent rejoicing. The most passionate expressions of gratitude to their deliverer were mingled with solemn thanksgiving to God, by whose special providence they believed that relief to have been sent. The earl, in return, acknowledged the signal service rendered to the cause of the par- liament by the heroic defence of Gloucester. During the twenty-eight days, that the siege lasted, several brave sallies had been made, in which the garrison took a great number of prisoners, and slew many of their assailants. They were reduced at last to two or three barrels of powder, and had no provisions of any kind remaining. Essex brought supplies into the town, remained two days to refresh his troops, and then marched out, intending to manoeuvre his way back to London, without risking a battle. With the view of dividing the king's forces, he made demonstrations as if he had intended to proceed northward to Worcester ; but, changing his route on a sudden, marched to Tewkesbury ; from whence, with the advantage of a dark night, he reached Cirencester. Arriving there before daybreak, he surprised a convoy of provisions, intended for the royalist army before Gloucester, and made prisoners about 400 of the king's troops, raw levies, who had the charge of it; most of 218 THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. whom were taken in their beds, and their horses feed- ing in the stables. At the foot of the Auburn Hills, as the army was passing through that deep, enclosed country towards Newbury, Rupert came suddenly upon the rear-guard, and routed them, forcing them to retire in great disorder to the main army. Here they formed again ; but were a second time attacked : and now the skirmish became fierce and general, continuing with great slaughter till the parliamentarians took shelter in Hungerford. At length, the next day, the earl came within sight of Newbury ; but found, to his surprise, that the king had already been there two hours, and was prepared to dispute his farther passage. The royalist army was advantageously posted ; it had possession of the town, and the adjoining hill called Bigg's Hill ; Wallingford was at hand, and Oxford itself within a convenient distance for the supply of whatever reinforcements should be wanting. Charles sent a formal challenge to his adversary, which Essex had no alternative but to accept. Robert Codrington, a parliamentary officer, has left a narrative of this memorable fight; which, though greatly superior in clearness and force to the usual flat and confused accounts, and though printed in so common a book as the 'Harleian Miscellany, seems to have escaped the notice of historians, until recently quoted by Mr. Forster, in his Life of Crom- well, from the original tract. The partiality of this narrative we may readily excuse, for the sake of its beauty and general faithfulness. "All that night," says Codrington, who was evi- THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 219 dently an eye-witness, " our army lay in the fields, impatient of the sloth of darkness, and wishing for the morning's light, to exercise their valour ; and the rather, because the king had sent a challenge over- night to the lord-general, to give him battle the next morning. A great part of the enemy's army con- tinued also in the field, incapable of sleep, their enemy being so nigh ; and, sometimes looking on the ground, they thought of the melancholy element of which they were composed, and to which they must return ; and sometimes looking up, they observed the silent marches of the stars and the moving scene of heaven. The day no sooner appeared but they were marshalled into order, and advanced to the brow of the hill ; and not long after, the ordnance was planted, and the whole body of their horse and foot stood in battalia. The officers and commanders of their foot, many of them, left off their doublets, and, with daring reso- lution, brought on their men; and, as if they came rather to triumph than to fight, they, in their shirts, did lead them up to the battle. The first that gave the charge was the most noble Lord Roberts, whose actions speak him higher than our epithets. He per- formed it with great resolution ; and by his own ex- ample, shewed excellent demonstrations of valour to his regiment. The cavalry of the enemy performed also their charge most bravely, and gave in with a mighty impression upon him. A prepared body of our army made haste to relieve him. Upon this, two regiments of the king's horse, with a fierce charge, saluted the blue regiment of the London trained bands, 220 THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. who gallantly discharged upon them, and did beat them back ; but they, being no whit daunted at it, wheeled about, and on a sudden charged them : our musketeers did again discharge, and that with so much violence and success, that they sent them now, not wheeling, but reeling from them ; and yet, for all that, they made a third assault, and coming in full squadrons, they did the utmost of their endeavours to break through their ranks ; but a cloud of bullets came at once so thick from our muskets, and made such havoc amongst them, both of men and horse, that, in a fear, full of confused speed, they did fly before us, and did no more adventure upon so warm a service. "In the meantime, Sir Philip Stapleton performed excellent service with the lord-general's regiment of horse, and five times together did charge the enemy: but, above all, the renown and glory of this day is most justly due unto the resolution and conduct of our general ; for, before the battle was begun, he did ride from one regiment to another, and did inflame them with courage, and perceiving in them all an eager desire to battle with their enemies, he collected to himself a sure presage of victory to come. I have heard, that when, in the heat and tempest of the fight, some friends of his did advise him to leave off" his white hat, because it rendered him an object too remarkable to the enemy, ' No, ' replied the earl, ' it is not the hat but the heart ; the hat is not capable either of fear or honour." He, himself, being foremost in person, did lead up the city regiment, and when a vast body of the THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 221 enemy's horse had given so violent a charge, that they had broken quite through it, he quickly rallied his men together, and, with undaunted courage, did lead them up the hill. In his way he did beat the infantry of the king from hedge to hedge, and did so scatter them, that hardly any of the foot appeared to keep to- gether in a body. After six hours' long fight, with the assistance of his horse, he gained those advantages which the enemy possessed in the morning, which were the hill, the hedges, and the river. In the meantime, a party of the enemy's horse, in a great body, wheeled about, and about three-quarters of a mile below the hill, they did fall upon the rear of our army, where our carriages were placed. To relieve which, his excel- lency sent a selected party from the hill to assist their friends, who were deeply engaged in the fight. These forces, marching down the hill, did meet a regiment of horse of the enemy's, who in their hats had branches of furze and broom, which our army did that day wear, for distinction sake, to be known by one another from their adversaries, and they cried out to our men, ' Friends, friends ;' but, they being dis- covered to be enemies, our men gave fire upon them, and having some horse to second the execution, they did force them farther from them : our men being now marched to the bottom of the hill, they increased the courage of their friends, and, after a sharp conflict, they forced the king's horse to fly with remarkable loss, having left the ground strewed with the carcasses of their horses and riders. " His excellency, having now planted his ordnance 222 THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. on the top of the hill, did thunder against the enemy ; where he found their numbers to be thickest ; and the king's ordnance, being yet on the same hill, did play with the like fury against the forces of his excellency : the cannon on each side did dispute with one another, as if the battle was but new begun. The trained bands of the City of London endured the chiefest heat of the day, and had the honour to win it; for being now upon the brow of the hill, they lay not only open to the horse, but the cannon of the enemy ; yet they stood undaunted, and conquerors, against all ; and like a grove of pines in a day of wind and tempest, they only moved their heads or arms, but kept their foot sure, unless, by an improvement of honour, they advanced forward to pursue their advantage on their enemies. "Although the night did now draw on, yet neither of the armies did draw off: the enemy's horse, in a great body, did stand on the farthest side of the hill, and the broken remainders of their foot behind them, and having made some pillage about the middle of the night, they drew off their ordnance, and retreated unto Newbury : on the next morning, his excellency, being absolute master of the field, did marshal again his soldiers into order to receive the enemy, if he had any stomach in the field, and to that purpose dis- charged a piece of ordnance, but, no enemy appearing, he marched towards Reading." The battle of Newbury, like that of Edge-hill, was followed by no decided results. It was fought, says Clarendon, all day, without any such notable turn, as that either party could think they had much the THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 223 better : the night parted them, when nothing else could. The parliamentarians, indeed, loudly claimed the victory; and not without reason; since the king's army suffered them, with the morning light, to take quiet possession of the town, and to march forward, unmolested, towards London. Technically considered, it appears, there were errors and oversights on both sides in the conduct of this great encounter ; but it was marked throughout by those nobler characteristics than mere calculating skill, which distinguished the whole course of this fatal war undaunted bravery and inflexible resolution. Rupert's charges were never more fierce or frequent, never had they been so admirably sustained. Upon the immovable rampart presented by the pikes of the London trained bands, again and again the stormy valour of his choicest cavaliers broke in vain. Those regiments, " of whose inexperience of danger, or any kind of service be- yond the easy practice of their postures in the Artil- lery Garden, men had till then too cheap an esti- mation, behaved themselves to wonder ; and were, in truth, the preservation of the army of the parliament that day." In this sanguinary field, "according to the unequal fate that attended all conflicts with such an adversary," the loss of known and distinguished individuals was chiefly on the king's side; "for whilst some obscure, unheard-of colonel or officer was missing from the ranks of the parliament, and some citizen's wife be- wailed the death of her husband, there were, on the king's side, above twenty field-officers, and persons of 224" THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. rank and public name, slain upon the spot, and more of the same quality wounded." Three noblemen of high rank and estimable cha- racter were of the number. The young Earl of Sun- derland was struck down by a cannon bullet. The brave and enlightened Earl of Carnarvon, on his return from a victorious charge of a body of the enemy's horse, passing carelessly among some of the scattered troopers, was, by one of them, who recognised him, run through the body. But the loss most deeply and generally deplored was that of Lord Falkland, " a loss which no time will suffer to be forgotton, and no suc- cess of good fortune could repair." So wrote the affec- tionate and eloquent Clarendon, in the commencement of that eulogium, which will be read with delight as long as friendship exists, and excellence excites admi- ration. He was "a person," continues the noble his- torian, " of such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive sim- plicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war than that single loss, it must be most infamous and exe- crable to all posterity. He was a great cherisher of wit, and fancy, and good parts, in any man ; and, if he found them clouded with poverty or want, a most liberal and bountiful patron towards them, even above his fortune. . . His house being within little more than ten miles of Oxford, he contracted familiarity and friendship with the most polite and accurate men of THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 225 that University; who found such an immenseness of wit, and such a solidity of judgment, in him ; so infinite a fancy bound in by a most logical ratiocination : such a vast knowledge, that he was not ignorant of any thing, yet such an excessive humility, as if he had known nothing ; that they frequently resorted and dwelt with him, in a college situated in a purer air: so that his house was a university in a less volume, whither they came not so much to repose as study, and to examine and refine those grosser propositions which laziness and content made current in vulgar conversation . . . He was guilty of no other ambition than of knowledge, and to be reputed a lover of all good men. He was so jealous of the least imagination that he should incline to preferment, that he affected even a moroseness to the court and to the courtiers. And if any thing but not doing his duty could have kept him from receiving a testimony of the king's grace, he had not been called to his council. Not that he was, in truth, averse from public employment ; for he had a great devotion to the king's person ; but he abhorred that an imagination or doubt should sink into the thoughts of any man, that in the discharge of his trust and duty in parliament he had any bias to the court, or that the king himself should apprehend that be looked for a reward for being honest . . . For as he had a full appetite of fame by just and generous actions, so he had an equal con- tempt of it by any servile expedients . . . For these reasons he submitted to the king's command, and be- came his secretary, with as humble and devoted an acknowledgment of the greatness of the obligation, as Q XSJO THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. could be expressed, and as true a sense of it in his heart ... He had a courage of the most clear and keen temper; and therefore upon any occasion of action, he always engaged his person in those troops which he thought, by the forwardness of the com- manders, to be most likely to be farthest engaged ; and in all such encounters he had about him an extra- ordinary cheerfulness, without at all affecting the exe- cution that usually attended them, in which he took no delight, but took pains to prevent it, where it was not, by resistance, made necessary : insomuch that at Edge-hill, when the enemy was routed, he was like to have incurred great peril, by interposing to save those who had thrown away their arms ; so that a man might think he came into the field chiefly out of curiosity to see the face of danger, and charity to prevent the shed- ding of blood. Yet in his natural inclination he was addicted to the profession of a soldier. "From the first entrance into this unnatural war, his natural cheerfulness and vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spirit stole upon him, which he had never been used to; yet being one of those who believed that one battle would end all differ- ences, and that there would be so great a victory on one side, that the other would be compelled to submit to any conditions from the victor, he resisted those indispositions. But after the king's return from Brent- ford, and the furious resolution of the two houses, not to admit any treaty for peace, those indispositions, which had before touched him, grew into a perfect habit of uncheerfulness ; and he, who had been so THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. 227 exactly easy and affable to all men, and held any cloudiness and less pleasantness of visage a kind of rudeness and incivility, became on a sudden less com- municable ; and thence very sad, pale, and exceed- ingly affected with spleen. When there was any over- ture or hope of peace, he would be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press any thing which he thought might promote it; and sitting among his friends, often, after a deep silence and frequent sighs, would, with a shrill and sad accent, ingeminate the word ' Peace ! Peace !' and would passionately profess, that the view of the calamities and desolation the kingdom did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and would shortly break his heart. This made some think, or pretend to think, that he was so much enamoured of peace, that he would have been glad the king should have bought it at any price ; which was a most unreasonable calumny: as if a man that was himself the most punctual and precise in every cir- cumstance that might reflect upon conscience or honour, could have wished the king to have committed a tres- pass against either. And yet this scandal made some impression upon him, or at least he used it for an excuse of the daringness of his spirit. For, at the leaguer before Gloucester, when his friends passion- ately reprehended him for exposing his person un- necessarily to danger (for he delighted to visit the trenches and nearest .approaches, to discover what the enemy did), as being so much beside the duty of his place, that it might be understood rather to be against it, he would say merrily, that his office could 228 THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. not take away the privilege of his age; and that a secretary in war might be present at the greatest secret of danger; but withal alleged seriously, that it con- cerned him to be more active in enterprises of hazard than other men ; that all might see that his impatience for peace proceeded not from pusillanimity, or fear to adventure his own person." The noble historian pours out " his love and grief," at still greater length, on the death of his admired friend, both in his great work, and in the memoirs of his own life ; but we can afford room only for one characteristic anecdote. " He was so ill a dissembler of his dislike and disinclination to all men," relates Clarendon, " that it was not possible for such not to discern it. There was once, in the house of Com- mons, such a declared acceptation of the good service an eminent member had done to them, and, as they said, to the whole kingdom, that it was moved, he being present, 'that the speaker might, in the name of the whole house, give him thanks ; and then, that every member might, as a testimony of his particular acknowledgment, stir or move his hat towards him ;' the which (though not ordered), when very many did, the Lord Falkland (who believed the service itself not to be of that moment, and that an honourable and generous person could not have stooped to it for any recompence), instead of moving his hat, stretched both his arms out, and clasped his hands together upon the crown of his hat, and held it close down to his head ; that all men might see, how odious that flattery was to him, and THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. &) the very approbation of the person, though at that time most popular." Other contemporary writers concur, though in more condensed language, in the eulogium of Falkland, and confirm Clarendon's account of the circumstances which attended his death. On the morning of the fight, we are told, by Whitelocke and Rushworth, he dressed himself with a degree of nicety, which, though for- merly habitual to him, had, since his period of gloom, given way to negligence; telling his friends, with an air of gaiety, that if he were slain in battle they should not find his body in foul linen. In answer to their earnest and affectionate entreaties to take no part in the fight, as not being a military man, he replied, while returning sadness again overspread his expres- sive countenance, that he was weary of looking upon his country's misery, "and did believe he should be out of it ere night." He then put himself into the first rank of the Lord Byron's regiment; and, advancing upon the enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sides with musketeers, presently received a shot from a musket, and fell from his horse to the ground, where his body lay undiscovered till the next morning. "Thus," concludes Clarendon, "fell that incomparable young man, in the four-and-thirtieth year of his age; having so much despatched the true business of life, that the eldest rarely attain to that immense know- ledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with more innocency : whosoever leads such a life, needs be the less anxious upon how short warning it is taken from him." 230 THE CRISIS OF THE WAR. The Earl of Essex pursued his march towards Reading, unmolested by the king's army, until he entered an enclosed country, within a few miles of that place ; when Rupert, with a strong party of horse and musketeers, fell upon his rear, and threw them into great disorder, killing many, and taking many prisoners. At Reading, a committee of the Lords and Commons met their victorious general, to congratulate him on the great service he had done the parliament, and to learn the wants of his army, with an assurance that they should be all forthwith supplied. He then moved forward towards the capital, leaving Reading to be occupied by a garrison of royalists. In London, a form of solemn thanksgiving was appointed; the day after his arrival, the earl received a visit of thanks from the speaker and the whole house of Commons; the City rang with notes of triumph ; all thoughts of peace were banished ; and the mutual jealousies which had long existed between his excellency and Waller were reconciled, by the politic submission of Sir William to his placable and triumphant rival. King Charles, meantime, and his nephew, retired with their army to Oxford, more dispirited than, in reality, the events of the campaign of 1643 appeared to warrant. CHAPTER XIII. THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. THOUGH the most prominent actors in that great national tragedy, the eventful progress of which we have so far sketched, were, with one exception, only statesmen and soldiers; yet the conflict which engaged their energies, was, in reality, a religious conflict. " The quarrel," observed a contemporary writer, " dependeth only and absolutely between the Papists and the Protes- tants (he meant, between the Church and the Puritans) for either must the gospel prevail with us, or else their idolatry will overtrample all." Hence, those mea- sures which tended to the entire destruction of the Church of England kept pace with the growth of the parliamentary power, in the houses of Lords and Com- mons, and in the field. It was no more than common gratitude, on the part of the parliament, to compliment Prynne and his compeers with an oration, and to reward them with a share of the fines imposed on the Star Chamber judges; since (if we except the indiscretions of the bishops them- selves) the first serious mischief to the church came from the hands of that indefatigable libeller. Assaults, in- 232 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. deed, more formidable followed, from the press and the pulpit, before the loosened fabric was ready for the finishing stroke of the parliamentary levellers. "The Histrio-Mastix, " and "Sion's Plea against Prelacy," were succeeded by the famous " Smectymnuus, " which Calamy, one of its writers, asserted to have been the first deadly blow to episcopacy; and again, the con- troversy opened by " Smectymnuus " drew forth Mil- ton, in his least admirable character, as a religious partisan, with such terrible effect, that a writer, well acquainted with the controversies of that age, avers his belief, that the "great talents, the learning, the blame- less lives, the powerful arguments, of Usher and Hall, would have preserved the church, if Milton had not descended, with all his overwhelming might of learn- ing, eloquence, and scorn, into the contest." Pre- sently, the prelates' benches were exposed, naked, to the mockery of the people ; the bishops themselves, fined and imprisoned for an act of fatuity, by party exaggeration absurdly called treason, were dismissed unheeded to obscurity and want. By this time, seques- tration, fine, and imprisonment, had, in like manner, cleared the pulpits of London and the other large towns, of " malignant ministers ; " and had made way for preachers of a different temper, who, not alone silently submissive to the will of their patrons, were pre- pared on all occasions to sound, on their behalf, in the the popular ear, the trumpet of alarm and agitation. From removing those persons out of sacred offices who had obstructed the march of the new reformation, it was a natural step to proceed to sweep away also such THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. 233 holy things, likewise, as had been discovered to be offen- sive. In the month of August, 1643, the Lords at length concurred in the Commons' ordinance " for demolishing and taking away all monuments of idolatry and super- stition." The beautiful crosses at Cheapside and Char- ing Cross were among the earliest objects which fell a prey to this Gothic enactment. The cross at Cheap, commonly known, on account of its magnificence, by the name of " the Golden Cross," was the first to perish. First of all, the images were broken down ; " the sequel day," we are told, the whole was rased to the ground. " It was a monumental ornament," writes an eye-witness, a Scotch Covenanter one not likely, therefore, to own excessive sympathy in such a case, "worthy of a royal city, and the beautiful ob- ject of admiration to all beholders and strangers. The third day thereafter," he continues, "they caused to take down all the new and old crosses on churches and steeple-tops." The next step began that war upon the cathedrals, which was revived, from time to time, through succeeding years ; until, at length, in a mo- ment of panic terror, lest extinct episcopacy should once more lift its head, the entire demolition of those sublime monuments of the nation's ancient piety was gravely recommended, in a committee, upon the pru- dential maxim, that " if you tear down the nests, the birds will be sure not to return." The noblest eccle- siastical structures were plundered and defaced. Aided by the rabble, who always regard with a feeling of hos- tile superstition those prodigious edifices, whose magni- ficence amazes, and whose grandeur awes, them ; and 234 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. by the soldiery, whose habits of indiscriminate ravage were exasperated by puritan animosity ; the coarse zea- lots, to whom the work of destruction was intrusted, set about their task in delighted earnest. Cromwell, at Peterborough, "in pursuance of the thorough reformation, " set the example of desecrating the cathedrals. At Canterbury, the soldiers and people overthrew the communion-table, tore the velvet cover- ing, violated the monuments of the dead, broke down " the rarest windows in Christendom," destroyed the organ, the ancient wood-work, and the brazen eagle which supported the bible ; tore up, or took away, the service-books and vestments, and strewed the pave- ment with fragments. Observing, in the arras hang- ings of the choir, some figures of the Saviour, they drew, their daggers, and, with many oaths and execra- tions, pierced them through and through. A statue of the same Divine Person, in a niche of the exterior, was exposed to similar outrage. They discharged their muskets at it, " triumphing much " when the shots took effect upon the head and face of the figure. Still worse enormities are reported to have occurred, during the occupation of Lichfield by the profligate followers of Sir John Gell. The carvings, the rich windows, the curious pavement, the costly tombs, the records belong- ing to the Close and city, were all destroyed or muti- lated. The governor set the example of spoliation by appropriating to himself the communion-plate and linen. The soldiers kept courts of guard in the aisles, and made the lofty roofs echo to their lewd revelry. The pulpit was occupied from time to time by various THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. 235 fanatical preachers, who encouraged these acts of pro- fanation. Here, as well as, among other places, at Sudley, they established a slaughter-house within the consecrated building, and cut up the carcasses upon the altar. At Sudley, they threw the offal into the burial vault of the noble family of Chandos. St. Paul's was converted into a stable for the cavalry horses. In several churches, they brought calves, swine, and other animals to the fonts ; where they sprinkled them with water, and named them, in derision of the holy sacrament of baptism. At West- minster, under the very eyes of the parliament, the soldiers sat drinking and smoking at the altar, lived in the abbey, and converted its sacred precincts to the vilest uses. In the chapel at Lambeth, Parker's monu- ment was thrown down, the remains of the prelate buried in a dunghill, and the leaden coffin which enclosed them sold. Though it be true that of these, and the num- berless other enormities of the same kind recorded, some were merely the natural outbursts of vulgar wantonness, in a period of reaction and excitement, for which the governing powers ought not to be held responsible ; yet the same excuse cannot be alleged in regard to others. Can the warmest friends of freedom, political or religious, defend that course of cruel "statesmanship," to which all nobler princi- ples were sacrificed, in the case of the unhappy but courageous Laud ? Besides the fines imposed upon the archbishop, as one of the judges of Prynne and his fellows, he was fined 20,000/. for his share in $36 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. the proceedings of the convocation of 1640. If we are without proof that this enormous mulct was ever paid, the reason is, because before it could be levied other means were found to deprive the imprisoned primate of all he had. Some months after his palace had been converted into a prison for delinquents, over whom, to render the insult more galling, Leighton, one of the victims of Star Chamber severity, was ap- pointed keeper, there was presented to the house of Lords the following " humble petition of William, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, shewing : That he hath neither lands, lease, nor money ; that the small store of plate he had is long since melted down for his necessary support and expenses, caused by his present troubles ; that his rents and profits are sequestered, and now all his goods taken from him, and no maintenance at all allowed him ; insomuch that if some friends of his had not had compassion on his wants, and sent him some little supply, he had not been able to subsist till this present; and now this supply is at the last. He humbly prays that your lordships would take his sad condition into your considerations, that somewhat may be allowed him out of his estate to supply the ne- cessities of life ; assuring himself that your lordships will not, in honour and justice, suffer him either to beg or starve." At the reading of this affecting ap- peal, the Lords appear to have been touched with some feelings of compassion. They resolved to allow their venerable prisoner and former compeer some- thing, for charity, to supply his wants; they even recommended his petition to the consideration of the THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. 237 other house. The Commons replied, that they would send an answer by messengers of their own ; " but," remarks the parliamentary historian, " we hear no more of it from that quarter." We hear, some time after, of very different measures. Two members of the Commons' house went over to Lambeth, with a file of musketeers to search for treasure. A sum amounting to 78/. was discovered, and taken away "for the maintenance of the king's children;" "God, in his mercy, " said the primate, " look favourably upon the king, and bless his children from needing any such poor maintenance ! " A previous search had been made for arms ; it having been reported, that the archbishop had provided himself with arms suffi- cient for 2000 men. The messengers remained long in the palace : examined every room ; and when at length they withdrew, paraded through the streets, amid shouts of popular execration, a quantity suffi- cient for about 200 ; the whole of which had passed into Laud's possession by purchase from his puritanical predecessor, Abbot. Nor did the walls of the Tower protect the grey- haired primate from personal insult. The preachers appointed to officiate before him, of whom one was captain of a troop of horse, as well as the incumbent of a parish, and who appeared in the pulpit in his buff coat and scarf, under his gown, made their sermons the vehicles of such unseemly invective against him, that the congregation would rise up in their seats to observe whether he could endure their taunts with patience. His imprisonment had already continued 238 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. between two and three years, when the house of Commons at length resolved to proceed with the im- peachment. In order to strengthen as much as pos- sible the evidence against him, it was determined to seize his private papers and memorandums. The person employed for this purpose was his implacable enemy, Prynne. It was unfortunate for his own repu- tation, as well as for the poor, defenceless archbishop, when the natural sense of injury in the bosom of that individual was put to so severe a test. Prynne burst upon his present victim and former prosecutor, before the infirm prelate had left his bed ; and proceeded, with ruffian insolence, to search the pockets of his apparel. He carried off all the papers which Laud had prepared for his defence, including his diary, and his book of private devotions ; although the archbishop pleaded hard for the sacredness, at all events, of the last. Terrible things, the Presbyterian pulpit announced, had been brought to light in this search. An ordi- nance was now passed for the perpetual sequestration of all the temporalities of the see of Canterbury, and for transferring the patronage to the parliament. It is worthy of remark, that the final determination to proceed with this " interrupted sacrifice," coincided with the vote for the embassy to Scotland : it had become necessary, observes a republican writer, to do something effectual for the encouragement of the Scots. That nation was, from the beginning of the unhappy disputes in the south, sufficiently alive to the important influence upon the fate of England which circumstances, THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. 239 or treachery, had thrown into their hands. Far were they from being really indifferent, though they might affect to be so, to the applications which had been made to them by the parliament, for sympathy and aid. Hitherto the messages of their English friends had contained none of those explicit propositions in favour of the ecclesiastical polity of Scotland, which they had expected. When, however, the committee of parlia- ment arrived, with full power to satisfy them on this as well as on all other points, that coyness, by which the leaders in England had been so much disconcerted, vanished at once. The convention of estates, and the assembly of the kirk, to either or both of whom Vane and his colleagues were instructed to address them- selves, had been long ready to receive their proposals. The arrival of the committee was celebrated as a triumph ; and their credentials, in separate letters, to the convention and the assembly, were read with enthusiasm. Vane's subtility was not confined to his mystic theological treatises. The agent of an independent faction, and himself more extravagant and inflexible in his religious views than his associates, yet aware that the Scots, on the other hand, though eager to do all that could be required of them, on condition of being allowed to impose their system of church dis- cipline on England, would on no other condition be induced to move this statesman, so much vaunted for his purity and loftiness of mind, determined by bare finesse to surmount all difficulties. He insisted that the engagement, which was to cement the two 240 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. nations in bonds of brotherhood and religion, should not, like the previous national vows of the Scots, among themselves, be termed a covenant merely, but a " solemn league and covenant ; " for the ulte- rior objects of the party required that it might be broken, whenever its violation should be found con- venient: which a league might be, but not a mere covenant. Again, in the famous article which pro- vided for the security of the Kirk of Scotland, and for the reformation of the Church of England on the same model, after the following words, as originally proposed by the Scots, " according to the example of the best reformed churches " (by which they intended their own), he procured the insertion of the clause, "and according to the word of God," thereby opening a retreat for the Independents. With these,* and some other amendments of the same kind, this memorable instrument was finally brought before the synod. Some of the leading speakers, whom Vane had gained over, commended it in terms of lavish eulogium ; the assembly failed to detect the juggle ; and immediately, with one voice, voted for all its provisions. A desirable bait was, indeed, held before the eyes of the Scots, in a treaty founded, upon the " solemn league and covenant," and negotiated at the same time. Among the stipulations of this treaty it was agreed that the Scotch forces, to be supplied for the more effectual prosecution of the war, should be paid by England 30,000/. per month ; and should receive for their outfit an advance of 100,000/., with satisfaction THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. 241 for all arrears due to the Scots for their exertions in 1640 and 1641, besides a reasonable recompense on the conclusion of peace ; that, meantime, they should have assigned to them, as security, the lands and estates of papists, prelates, malignants, and their adherents ; lastly, that no pacification should be en- tered into without the advice of the Scots, who should have an equal power in conducting the negotiations. This last important stipulation was effectually followed out, when, in the ensuing February, the Scotch com- missioners in London sat down, with joint authority, by the side of the most conspicuous members of the two houses, in the great committee for administering public affairs. The draught of the covenant was quickly brought to Westminster ; was referred, as a case of conscience, to the consideration of the assembly of divines ; being by them approved, was adopted by both houses of parliament ; and the 21st of September was fixed for the memorable solemnity of its public adoption. Never had the cause been in so promising a condi- tion. Never had sectarian freedom enjoyed so glorious a field day. The scene was St. Margaret's Church, where both houses, with the assembly of divines and the Scotch commissioners, assembled at an early hour. First of all, Mr. White, one of the Assembly, "prayed an hour to prepare the audience." Nye then mounted the pulpit, and made an oration in praise of the covenant, " shewing the warrant of it from Scripture, the examples of it since the creation, and the benefit of it to the church. The oath," he said, " was such, 242 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. and in the matter and consequence of such concern- ment, as it was truly worthy of them, yea, of those kingdoms, yea, of all the kingdoms of the world. It could be no other but the result and answer of such prayers and tears, of such sincerity and sufferings, as theirs, that three kingdoms should be thus new- born in a day. They were entering upon a work of the greatest moment and concernment to themselves, and to their posterities after them, that ever was undertaken by any of them, or any of their fathers before them. It was a duty of the first command- ment, and therefore of the highest and noblest order and rank of duties ; it therefore must come forth attended with choicest graces, as fear and humility, and in the greatest simplicity and plainness of spirit, and respect of those with whom they covenanted : it was to advance the kingdom of Christ here upon earth, and make Jerusalem once more the praise of the whole earth." Dr. Gouge then took his turn, in prayer. Next Nye read the covenant from the pulpit, and gave notice that every person present should im- mediately, by swearing thereto, worship the great name of God, and testify his doing so by lifting up his hands. Immediately a forest of hands rose up. The whole assembly then, by turn, advanced to the chancel, where a transcript of the covenant had been prepared, and subscribed it into the following order, first, the assembly of divines, then the Scotch commissioners, afterwards the Lords and Commons of England. The ceremony was concluded by an address from Hender- son, the moderator of the synod of Scotland, and one THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. 243 of the commissioners for that country for this occa- sion. He took up the strain in which Nye had pre- ceded; and foretold, from the experience of Scotland, what prodigious benefits would follow that day's solem- nity: his nation had found nothing hard, to which they had bound themselves by their covenants ; they would, no doubt, by their assistance, enable the par- liament of England to destroy the popish authors of her miseries. " Were that covenant," exclaimed the orator, " now painted upon the walls of the pope's palace, it would, without doubt, put him into the quaking condition of Belshazzar, when he beheld the sentence which foretold his downfal." The nature of a covenant implies a voluntary ad- hesion, or none ; and the noblemen, barons, knights, burgesses, and others, who held up their hands in St. Margaret's Church, may be considered as having freely engaged themselves. But on other persons, on all officers, civil and military, on the ministers of the church, and the people in general, it was imposed by the authority of parliament. Previously, however, an exhortation was published, for the information and encouragement of the people; it not being thought safe to leave that business wholly to the clergy, on whom notwithstanding it was enjoined. This docu- ment was chiefly designed to prove the consistency of the covenant with the oaths of supremacy and alle- giance, and with the peculiar engagements of the clergy. Safely, nevertheless, may we assert, though some good and wise men led the way in adhesion to this monstrous oath, that sophistry more insulting R 2 244 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. was never offered to the intellect of a community. In fact, the " exhortation" openly recommends perjury, as a duty; and so grossly had the habitual hypocrisy, which the course of events had imposed on the nation, now clouded men's minds, that the Earl of Lincoln, who openly in the house of Lords protested against the covenant, three or four more of the peers, and a few commoners, who did not make their appear- ance in the assembly at St. Margaret's Church, are the only persons, except the clergy, known to have demurred. A grand stroke of statesmanship, it might be, on the part of Pym and Vane, of Say and St. John, who now neither would nor could roll back the mighty current on which they had ridden so far ; but, had no other mischiefs followed, it was not a light one, that a festering wound was thereby fixed in the moral sense of the nation. This peculiar mischief of the covenant is pointed out by a pamphlet of the time, in which one of the subscribing peers is thus addressed : " Have your consciences, my lord, grown so dead to Scripture, and your understandings so dull to rules of law, that in plain English you promise God Almighty to assist any body to kill the king, and set up new covenants of your own, point blank against your oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and publish all this to the people, as the articles of your new creed ; and yet, that your lordship should tell me that your affection and duty to the king continues still the same, that you have still not only the same desire, but the same hope of peace ? You tell me of a trick your lordships have found out to save you harmless from any obligation by this oath a THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. &45 salvo to all your other oaths lawfully taken, and those being diametrically contrary to this, you have upon the matter engaged yourselves to nothing by this new covenant, and so have cunningly evaded the design of the contrivers. Oh, my lord, can you please your- selves with these shifts? Is this the wisdom, vigilance, integrity, and courage of the highest court of judica- ture, to lead the people by their example to so solemn an act as a covenant with God Almighty, which, at the instant you took it, you intended should signify no- thing? Will the poor people of England, whereof, it may be, many have looked up to your example with reverence, and thought many things fit or lawful only because you did them, when they shall find that you have 'vowed in the presence of Almighty God, the Searcher of all hearts, as you shall answer at the great day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that you will, according to your power, assist the forces raised and continued by the parliament, against the forces raised by the king' will they, I say, think that your lordship intended nothing by this vow, but what you were obliged to by your oaths of allegiance and supremacy ; that is, ' to defend the king to the utmost of your power, against all conspiracies and attempts whatsoever, which shall be made against his person, his crown, and dignity, and to do your best endeavour to disclose and make known to him all treasons and conspiracies which shall be against him, to assist all jurisdictions, privileges, pre-eminences, and authority, belonging to him, or united to the imperial crown of this realm,' and, indeed, to do all things 246 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. which by this your new sacred vow you have forsworn to do? Will this salvo reconcile all these contradic- tions ? And is this subtility the first-fruits of your ' humility, and reverence of the Divine Majesty, your hearty sorrow for your own sins and the sins of the nation, and your true intention to endeavour the amendment of your own ways ?' For God's sake, my lord, talk not of preserving the true reformed pro- testant religion, and opposing papists and popery, when your actions destroy the elements of Chris- tianity !" The class on whom the imposition of the covenant pressed, as it was designed to press, more heavily than on any other, was the clergy. The second article runs thus : " We shall, without respect of persons, en- deavour the extirpation of popery and prelacy, (that is, church-government, by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, deans, deans and chap- ters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy.)" " It grieved them/' observed Fuller, " to see prelacy so unequally yoked ; superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness" (such is, in fact, the order of enumeration), " following after." But a worse evil than insult was inflicted, when all who re- fused by this appeal of lawful solemnity to engage for the destruction of that form of church government, which they believed to be of Divine institution, and had already bound themselves by oaths and subscrip- tions to maintain, were thrust out, with their families, to beggary, or shut up in dungeons. Such was already the fate of numbers of their brethren. The THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. 247 parliamentary committee for the removal of scandal- ous ministers, and the subordinate committees in corre- spondence with them, had been all this time prosecuting their objects with earnest zeal. Some of the deprived clergymen were ejected on charges of immorality and incompetence ; but the greater part, for superstition or malignancy ; that is, for attachment to the ordinances of the church, or for loyalty to the king. It is sur- prising that, with so many facilities and inducements, the work proceeded no faster; since the doors of the committees were never closed against the represent- ations of faction or mistake ; and since the desire of providing " godly " ministers with livings, and neglected congregations with such approved pastors from their own party, must be supposed to have naturally stimu- lated their zeal. But the covenant supplied a test which it was impossible for the clergy to evade: even the puritans among them those individuals who were dissatisfied only with the rites and doctrines, but not disposed to quarrel with the constitution, of the church, and Vhose vehement outcries against the popish tendency of the former had so largely assisted in its destruction were now, in many cases, involved in the same ruin with their brethren, and vainly re- gretted the course they had pursued. In fact, the more strict and conscientious of puritan churchmen must have largely shared in the general amount of suffering ; for as almost every enormity, on which part soever begun, was quickly answered by some corre- sponding abuse on the other, we have no reason to question the truth of those statements that remain, 248 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. of the oppressions to which the stricter ministers were exposed when they chanced to be found within the king's quarters. The clergy were, indeed, on all sides, in a condition so deplorable, being, as Mr. Hallam allows, " utterly ruined," that the phrase " persecutio undecima" the eleventh persecution applied to that melancholy period, seems to imply no exaggeration. It is creditable to themselves, though matter of regret to us, that so few contemporary records of the sufferings of the clergy, in that period, exist: for the most part, they endured in dignified silence. Bishop Hall's relation of his own " Hard Measure," as one of the imprisoned and deprived bishops, is nearly unique, as an autobiographical memoir of an ejected church- man. Yet not a few of the sufferers were too illus- trious to escape the notice of history. Among such } Hammond and Jeremy Taylor, it is true, found shelter with friends ; but Lydiat was dismissed to penury ; and Walton completed, in indigence, his prodigious labours, designed for a generation who had deprived him of bread, and who decried all human learning as savouring of ungodliness. Persecution and want short- ened the life of the "ever-memorable Hales." The melancholy story of the great Chillingworth is related by Cheynell, his persecutor in life and death, to en- hance his credit with his presbyterian brethren. That scholar, so eminent, to use the words of Cheynell him- self, for " the excellency of his gifts and the depth of his learning," had fallen into the hands of Waller at the surrender of Arundel Castle ; and being unable, from the infirm state of his health, to bear a journey THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. 249 to London with his fellow-prisoners, was removed to Chichester. There this man Cheynell (who gravely charges himself with " foolish pity" towards his victim), and other violent presbyterians, so harassed him with the insolence of unseasonable controversy, that within a fortnight he expired ; although, with tender treat- ment, as the inflated zealot himself acknowledges, he might have recovered. But here the inhumanity of his gaolers did not cease. Chillingworth s friends, says Cheynell, were, " out of mere charity," permitted to afford him " the civility of a funeral," though " nothing which belongs to the superstition of a funeral ;" i. e. the use of the burial-service was prohibited. " It was favour enough," continues this stern adherent of the presbytery, " to permit Master Chillingworth 's disciples or followers, the malignants of the city, to attend the hearse and inter his body.' "The malignants" attended accordingly ; and were met, at the grave pre- pared for the illustrious dead, by Cheynell, with Chil- lingworth's immortal work in his hand ; which, after having pronounced a speech full of rancorous abuse, he flung into the grave, apostrophising it thus : " Get thee gone, thou cursed book, which hast seduced so many precious souls ! Get thee gone, thou corrupt, rotten book, earth to earth, and dust to dust ; get thee gone into the place of rottenness, that thou mayest rot with thy author, and see corruption." The lively picture of sectarian spite here set before us admitted of one touch more: "So much," concluded the iron-hearted bigot, "so much for the burial of his errors! Touching 250 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. the burial of his corpse, I need say no more than this ; it will be most proper for the men of his persuasion to commit the body of their deceased friend brother master to the dust; and it will be most proper for me to hearken to that counsel of my Saviour, 'Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God!' And so," says he, finishing, with great self-applause, this hateful portrait of himself, "I went from the grave to the pulpit, and preached on that text to the congregation." The case of Dr. Featly was peculiar, but charac- teristic. The Doctor was a man of moderation and learning ; a doctrinal puritan, and one of the few epis- copalian clergymen nominated to seats in the assembly of divines, who consented to sit : he was, indeed, the only one of his class who continued long to attend the meetings of that body. In consequence, however, of opposing himself to such measures as the abolition of bishoprics and the sale of church lands, he was brought before one of the committees of the house of Commons, who proposed to dispossess him of his preferment. But Featly's abilities and integrity reflecting some credit on the synod, the house refused to confirm this vote of the committee. Shortly afterwards, however, a corre- spondence of his with the great Archbishop Usher, at that time in Oxford, was betrayed to the parliament. Upon this, the house again took up the inquiry. Featly was charged with "adhering to the enemy." Lam- beth, and another living which he had in the coun- try, were both sequestered, his estate and library seized, THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. 251 and himself committed to a common gaol, where he remained till want and misery sank him to the grave. But the most lamentable effect of the temper which governed those persons who imposed the covenant on the people of England perhaps, the most disgraceful blot on the history of the Long Parliament was the destruction of Laud. It is a woful story, justly ap- preciated by posterity ; and one which the warmest foes of episcopacy and monarchy, in our times are willing to pass over in silence. But the salutary lesson it affords, history will not dispense with ; and here (for to this place they naturally belong) we will insert on our busy canvass the few touches, which cannot be refused to so grand and affecting an exhibition of bravely- endured oppression. To the articles formerly exhibited against the arch- bishop, ten others were added on the 24th of October 1643 ; when he also received an order to put in his answer to the whole, in writing, on the 30th of that month. They relate chiefly to two heads of charges to popish innovations in the church, and endeavouring to establish an arbitrary and tyrannical government. An extension of time, for a fortnight, was, on his petition, granted to the primate. He farther applied for the re- storation of his papers : the answer was, that he might have copies of them at his own charge, when his judges had already reduced him to a state of absolute penury ! Left, thus, at the mercy of his revengeful and unprin- cipled prosecutor Prynne, he requested funds suffi- cient for employing counsel : this, too, was refused. 252 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. Counsel were, however, assigned him, of whom Hale was one. The trial was again adjourned; but on the 12th of March 1644, the archbishop was brought by the lieu- tenant of the Tower, and the usher of the black-rod, to the bar of the Lords. The process commenced by a speech from Sergeant Wilde, who, with Maynard, and others, had been appointed to conduct the prose- cution. He began with a Latin quotation : Repertum est hodierno die facinus, quod nee poeta fingere, nee histrio sonare, nee mimus imitari, potuerit "this day is an atrocity brought to light, such as no poet could feign, no actor represent, no mimic imitate!" Aware what usage he might expect, Laud had at one time thought of declining to defend himself; but he con- quered this weakness, and " resolved to undergo all scorn and whatsoever else might happen to him, rather than betray his own innocency." To the charge of attempting to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government, he replied by alleging, that in his judg- ments, and his advice, as a privy councillor, he had, to the best of his knowledge, regulated his course according to the laws, and had done nothing without the concurrence of his colleagues. The charge of popery he met by adducing a list of two-and-twenty persons, whom he had converted from the Romish re- ligion to protestantism. The method of conducting this cause tried equally the courage and the health of the aged and infirm churchman. Each day, at about two o'clock, the charge against the prisoner was concluded. From THE CHUKCH IN DESOLATION. 253 that time till four, he was allowed to prepare his answer ; but was not permitted to converse with his counsel until after it had been made. One or more of the committee then replied ; and it was evening before the wearied archbishop was dismissed from the presence of his unfeeling peers, to return, by water, for the night, to his gloomy residence in the Tower. Several of the miserable band of ten or twelve mem- bers, to which that noble house was now reduced, would retire even before the completion of the charge. " I never had," writes Laud, " any one day, the same lords all the morning. And no one lord was present at my whole trial, but the Lord Grey of Werke, the speaker." He was exposed to insult from his enemies, both within the house, and without. On one occasion, Hugh Peters followed, and pestered him with abuse, until the Earl of Essex coming up freed him from his merciless tormentor : at another time, Nicholas, one of the committee of managers, applied to him language of intolerable brutality. Then, only, Laud gave way to feelings of indignation. " If," he ex- claimed, " my crimes are such that I may not be used like an archbishop, yet let me be used like a Christian !" The lords felt shame, and reproved the ruffian pleader. Yet in the teeth of these discouraging circumstances, the prisoner defended himself with such consummate ability and unaffected courage, as extorted admiration and bitter praise even from Prynne. At the conclusion of the trial, the archbishop was allowed to make his general defence to the whole charge. On arriving at the bar of the lords, he im- 254 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. mediately perceived that each of his judges was busied with the examination of a book laid before him : these were so many copies of his diary ; which Prynne had printed, in an imperfect and interpolated form, and pro- duced in this unexpected manner, if possible to silence and confound him. The scheme failed ; undauntedly he proceeded with his defence. His counsel replied to the matter of law ; the judges, when referred to, pro- nounced, " in their timid way," that no proofs of legal treason had been adduced. All was useless. Laud's doom, like Stafford's, had been fixed. The machi- nery of petitions for "justice" was once more put in motion. The primate of England was now dragged before the house of Commons. An ordinance for his attainder was sent up thence to the Lords ; where, to the eternal disgrace of that house, as far as any act of the cowardly creatures who then represented the peers, could disgrace the greatest English court of justice, it found advocates and compliance. Why harrow up the depths of honest indignation, by pur- suing farther this hideous, this unholy farce? We hasten to the conclusion ! On the 10th of January 1645, after a hard struggle for the privileges of the axe, to be substituted for the gallows, this being the death insisted upon by the house of Commons, those deliverers of England from the yoke of her ancient monarchy, those vindicators of conscience against the terrible persecutors of the order of Taylor, Hall, and Morley, were gratified with the sight of Laud of Laud, the grateful founder of the almshouses at Reading the munificent benefactor of St. John's THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. 255 College, and the Bodleian Library the converter of Buckingham and Chillingworth ascending, with the " tottering step of eld," but with a countenance ruddy and serene, to the same platform which, four years before, had streamed with the noble blood of his friend Strafford ! His " sermon-speech, " as Fuller terms it for he began with the encouraging and sublime text, Hebrews xii. 2, with its tone of deep, quiet pathos, is well known. So composedly did he speak, that, observes Sir Philip Warwick, " he appeared to make his own funeral sermon with less passion than he had in former times made the like for a friend." Like Strafford, he, in concluding, utterly denied the charge of his enmity to that part of the constitution, under whose ven- geance he suffered. " I know the uses of parliaments," he said, " too well to be their enemy. But I likewise know that parliaments have sometimes been guilty of misgovernment and abuse ; and that no corruption is so bad, as the corruption of that, which, in itself, is excellent. But I have done," he concluded ; " I forgive all the world ; all and every of those bitter enemies which have persecuted me. And I humbly desire to be forgiven of God first, and then of every man, whether I have offended him or not, if he do but conceive that I have ; Lord do Thou forgive me, and I beg forgiveness of him. And so I heartily desire you to join in prayer with me." The dying archbishop then knelt down, and with awful impres- siveness repeated that memorable prayer, so often 256 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. printed, but with which, nevertheless, we cannot refuse to recommend these pages : " O eternal God and merciful Father ! look down upon me in mercy; in the riches and fulness of all thy mercies, look down upon me ; but not till thou hast nailed my sins to the cross of Christ, not till thou hast bathed me in the blood of Christ, not till I have hid myself in the wounds of Christ, that so the punishment due unto my sins may pass over me. And since Thou art pleased to try me to the utmost, I humbly beseech Thee, give me now in this great instant, full patience, proportionable comfort, and a heart ready to die for thine honour, the king's happiness, and the Church's preservation. And my zeal to this (far from arro- gancy be it spoken ! ) is all the sin (human frailty excepted, and all the incidents thereunto) which is yet known to me in this particular, for which I now come to suffer ; I say, in this particular of treason. But otherwise my sins are many and great: Lord, pardon them all ; and those especially (whatever they are) which have drawn down this present judgment upon me ! And when Thou hast given me strength to bear it, do with me as seems best in thine own eyes ; and carry me through death, that I may look upon it in what visage soever it shall appear to me. Amen ! And that there may be a stop of this issue of blood in this more than miserable kingdom (I shall desire that I may pray for the people too as well as for myself) ; O Lord, I beseech thee, give grace of repentance to all blood-thirsty people. But if they will not repent, O THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. 257 Lord, confound all their devices, defeat and frustrate their designs and endeavours upon them, which are or shall be contrary to the glory of thy great name, the truth and sincerity of religion, the establishment of the king, and his posterity after him in their just rights and privileges, the honour and conservation of parlia- ments in their just power, the preservation of this poor church in her truth, peace, and patrimony, and the settle- ment of this distracted and distressed people under their ancient laws, and in their native liberty. And when Thou hast done all this, in mere mercy to them, O Lord, fill their hearts with thankfulness, and with religious, dutiful obedience to thee, and thy commandments, all their days. Amen, Lord Jesus ; Amen. And receive my soul into thy bosom ! Amen." The archbishop had petitioned that three of his chaplains might be with him before and at his death : he was allowed only one it was Dr. Sterne; with whom the parliament sent Sir John Clotworthy and another of their presbyterian friends. To Dr. Sterne, having concluded his prayer, he delivered the paper ; and begged of him to communicate it to his brother chaplains, that they might see in what manner he had left this world; and he prayed to God to bless them. Observing a person employed in taking down his speech and prayer, he besought him not to misreport what he had uttered ; " a phrase," he remarked, " might do wrong to one who was going from the world, and would have no means to set himself right." Then he advanced towards the block ; but finding that part of the scaffold crowded with spectators, he desired 258 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. that they would give him room to die. " Let me," said he, " escape from these miseries which I have endured so long. God's will be done ! I am willing to leave the world; no man can be more willing to dis- miss me, than I am to be gone." And perceiving through the crevices of the platform, that some per- sons were standing beneath, immediately under the block, he requested that they might be removed, or that dust might be spread over the crevices : it was no part of his desire that his blood should fall upon the heads of the people. All this he did as collectedly "as if he rather had been taking order for some nobleman's funeral, than preparing for his own." The zeal of Clotworthy could no longer respect this awful moment, or the sublime propriety with which the archbishop performed his great part. He demanded of the dying prelate, what was the most comfortable saying for a man at the point of death ? Laud replied : " Cupio dissolvi, et esse cum Christo, I desire to depart and to be with Christ." " A good desire," admitted the inquisi- tor ; " but then, how shall a dying man find assur- ance ? " The primate answered, that such assurance was to be found within, but that it could not fitly be expressed in words. The assurance, however. Clot- worthy still insisted, " was founded upon a word ; and that word should be known." " It is founded on the knowledge of Jesus Christ," was the reply, " and on that alone." Laud now turned to the executioner, "as the gentler and discreeter person of the two;" and putting some money into his hands, with the same un- affected composure which he had preserved throughout, THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. 259 said, "Here, honest friend; God forgive thee, as I do. Do thine office upon me with mercy." He then fell again upon his knees, and, having pronounced a brief but expressive prayer, laid his head upon the block. A moment's pause he gave the signal " Lord Jesus receive my spirit ! " At one blow the axe did its fearful office; and instantly the sufferer's countenance, which, up to that moment, had retained the animated flush, that, through life, was peculiar to it, became pale as ashes; to the confusion of some present, who affirmed that he had painted his cheeks, in order that, by his complexion at least, he might obtain the credit of fortitude. Thus fell Laud ; and with him fell the Church of England ; for the same day that the house of Lords passed the ordinance for his destruction, they likewise passed an act for the suppression of the Liturgy, and for setting up the Directory for public Worship a meagre formulary, prepared by the as- sembly of divines, in which no place is found for the creed, the Lord's prayer, or the commandments. The body of the primate was interred, in the church of All-hallows, Barking, near the Tower. The Direc- toi-y, in which burials are ordered to be without any religious observance was already in use ; yet the sor- rowing friends of Laud enjoyed the mournful consola- tion of depositing his remains in the grave, according to the majestic rites of that church for which he lived and died, and whose funeral they might be said to have solemnized at the same time with the primate's. 260 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. This is not the place to speak of the schisms and reli- gious confusion which followed; yet the noisome weeds did not wait to spring up till the tree that supplied life to the national morals was laid low : every stroke that before thinned its branches, had opened a fresh space for them to overspread. Already the assembly of divines had applied to the Lords and Commons in parliament for powers to correct the " brutish ignorance," and root out the gross vices, which contempt of the church and per- secution of the clergy, had let in upon the people. We will once more have recourse here to the very words of those who saw, with their own eyes, the evils they describe. From the numerous contemporary tracts, we select, for quotation, one which, though occasionally defective in taste, seems free from the exaggerations of party. The writer imagines himself to hear England deploring her condition in regard to morality and re- ligion : " I should traduce and much wrong religion, " he says, " if T should cast this war upon her : yet me- thinks I hear her lament that she is not also without her grievances. Some of her chiefest governors, for want of moderation, could not be content to walk upon the battlements of the church, but they must mount also to the turrets of civil policy ; some of her preachers grew to be mere parasites some to the court, some to the country ; some would have nothing in their mouths but prerogative, others nothing but privilege : some would give the crown all, some no- thing ; some, to feed zeal would famish the under- THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. 261 standing ; others to feast the understanding, and tickle the outward ear with essays and flourishes of rhetoric, would quite starve the soul of her true food. " But the principal thing that I hear that reverend lady, that queen of souls, complain of, is, that that seamless garment of unity and love, which our Saviour left her for a legacy, should be torn and rent into so many scissures and sects. I hear her cry out at the monstrous exorbitant liberty, that almost every capri- cious mechanic takes to himself to shape and form what religion he lists. For the world is come to that pass, that the tailor and shoemaker may cut out what religion they please ; the vintner and tapster may broach what religion they please ; the dyer may put what" colour, the painter may put what face upon her he pleases ; the blacksmith may forge what religion he pleases, and so every artisan, according to his profes- sion and fancy, may form her as he pleases. Methinks I hear that venerable matron complain, how her pul- pits are become beacons ; how, for lights, her churches are full of firebands ; how every caprice of the brain is termed tenderness of conscience, every frantic fancy, or rather frenzy, of some shallow-brained sciolist ; and whereas others have been used to go mad from excess of knowledge, men grow mad now-a-days from excess of ignorance. It stands upon record in my story, that when the Norman had got firm footing within my realm, he did demolish many churches and cha- pels in the New Forest, to make fitter for his plea- sure ; but amongst other judgments which fell upon this sacrilege, one was, that tame fowl grew wild : I 62 THE CHURCH IN DESOLATION. fear God Almighty is more angry with me now than then, and that I am guilty of worse crimes; for not my fowl but my folk and people are grown, in many places half wild ; they would not worry one another so in that wolfish belluine manner, else. They would not precipitate themselves else into such a mixed mongrel war; a war which makes strangers cry out, that I am turned into a kind of great bedlam, that Barbary is come into the midst of me, that my children are grown so savage, so fleshed in slaughter, and become so inhuman and obdurate, that with the same tender- ness of sense they can see a man fall, as a horse, or some other brute animal; they have so lost all reve- rence to the image of their Creator, which was used to be more valued in me than among other nations." CHAPTER XIV. CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. THE return of the Earl of Essex to London, and the king's retirement to Oxford, after the fight at New- bury, though those movements terminated the cam- paign of 1643, as it regarded the two main armies, did not put an end to the military operations of the year. The greater part of England was alive with a ceaseless war of skirmishes and sieges. Prince Rupert, in the midland counties, maintained his reputation for cour- age and activity, for severity and rapine. In the west, his brother Maurice, after receiving the submission of several garrisons, which the brilliant successes of the royal arms at Round way Down and Bristol had fright- ened into ready submission, besieged Plymouth, with- out taking it; and then sat down with a large force before the paltry ditches of the little town of Lyme. The war in the north presented features of more interest. The Earl of Manchester, having reduced Lynn, drew his forces into Lincolnshire, and on the llth of October, was joined by Cromwell, now his lieutenant- general, and by Sir Thomas Fairfax. The following 264 CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. day, they were attacked by a strong body of cavalry, from the royalists garrisons of Lincoln, Newark, and Gainsborough, at Waisby field, near Horncastle. That spirit of religious enthusiasm, which was the secret of Cromwell's extraordinary influence over his own un- conquered regiments of troopers, had by this time widely diffused its electric sympathy through the ranks of the army in which he commanded. On the ap- pearance of the enemy, he gave the word of onset " Truth and Peace ;" called on his soldiers to charge, in the name of the Highest; uplifted his loud harsh voice in a psalm, which officers and men, column after column, took up with hearty zeal; and, while it was yet sounding through their ranks, bore fiercely down upon the startled enemy. Midway, a volley met them from the royalist dragoons: they answered it by a louder note of that solemn defiance. A second dis- charge saluted them, when within a few paces of the hostile column. Cromwell's horse was shot dead, and fell upon him ; and when, after a moment's struggle, he rose from the ground, he was again struck down, by an officer who had, at first, singled him out for the charge. Stunned for a moment, he presently rose a second time from among the slain, mounted the horse of a common soldier, which chanced to be at hand, and plunged forward into the fight. But by this time a regiment, commanded by Sir William Savile, which had received the first overwhelming shock of the parliamentarians, giving ground, disor- dered and put to flight the whole van of the royalists. The rout quickly became general. Manchester, has- CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. 265 tening up with the infantry, found Waisby Field, and the road towards Lincoln, strewed with the royalist dead and dying ; the survivors were utterly dispersed. A thousand of the king's troops are said to have perished in this short but terrible action. The next day the Marquess of Newcastle raised the siege of Hull. Now began the splendid and more decisive cam- paign of 1644. Vainly had Charles sought to pre- vent, what he had long foreseen, the irruption of the Scots. In his name, though contrary to his proclam- ation, those levies were raised, whose entrance on the field was to turn against him the balanced scale of fortune; and on the 19th of January, 21,000 men of that nation, led by Lesley, Earl of Leven, marched, knee-deep in snow, upon the soil of England; the same Lesley, who, on receiving that title (such was the faith of those who were never weary of charging the king with faithlessness !) had solemnly promised his sove- reign never more to bear arms against him. Passing Alnwick, after a summons to the brave Sir Thomas Glemham, who, with many of the gentry of Northum- berland, was shut up in that fortress, they came before Newcastle, into which place the marquess had thrown himself the day before. Disappointed in their hope of surprising the town, they continued their march south- ward, skirmishing, now and then, with small parties of the royalists ; and, some days later, were discovered by the marquess, who had gone in pursuit of them, occu- pying a strong position by the sea, near Sunderland. For weeks, the two armies kept each other at bay ; till 266 CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. at length the marquess, " seeing no possibility" of forcing the Scots to an engagement, drew off towards Durham. Had he resolved on creating such a possi- bility and vigorously followed it up, Newcastle might now have risen from the dubious reputation of a gallant amateur commander, to the fame of a great general ; and if he had not arrested the final triumph of the parliament, might at least have forced it into a more honourable path to victory, than one carved out by the swords of hypocritical mercenaries. Unable, in the distracted state of affairs in Eng- land, to reduce the Irish rebels to obedience, Charles had consented to a truce, and had invited the veteran soldiers of that country to join his forces in England. Numbers flocked over; but nothing was accomplished by those auxiliaries, to compensate for the odium of employing men practised in such barbarities as had disgraced the savage contest in Ireland, and many of them suspected, at the least, of Popery. So generally hateful was the name of Irishmen, that many of the king's adherents, in Newcastle's army and elsewhere, laid down their arms, as soon as it became known that the king had proposed to accept the services of that people ; and the parliament passed an ordinance for the massacre of Irish prisoners of war, without any appa- rent shock to the public feeling. Some parties of these veterans having made their appearance in the county of Chester, the gallant Lord Byron, who commanded there for the king, united them with the forces already under his command, and laid siege to Nantwich, the only garrison in those parts which still held out for CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON-MOOR. 267 the parliament. This incident gave occasion to one of those brilliant actions, which marked the dawn of Sir Thomas Fairfax's military fame. In the depth of that inclement winter he marched across from Lincolnshire, joined the forces of Sir William Brereton, from the county of Leicester, and, appearing unexpectedly be- fore Nantwich, forced the besiegers to draw off, and routed them with a severe loss. Of 3000 foot, com- manded by Byron, more than half were slain or cap- tured. This defeat was a severe blow to the king's cause. His Irish auxiliaries, on whom he had mainly depended to enable him to take the field early in the spring, never came together again, but were all cut off in detail. Fairfax's despatch, written after the battle, mentions, as having been captured in the camp, 120 Irish women, of whom a great proportion were armed with long knives. Among the prisoners taken, was also the famous Colonel George Monk, after- wards the instrument of restoring the Stuart family to the throne. He was sent up to London, and impri- soned in the Tower ; but consented to transfer his services to the parliament, and by his courage and activity soon took a distinguished part in the military affairs of the period. Fairfax, in obedience to the orders of the parlia- ment, marched back again into Yorkshire, and joined his father, Lord Fairfax, at Selby, to co-operate with the Scots. Falling in, near that town, with a party commanded by Colonel Bellasis, the governor of York, who had marched out to prevent the junction, he totally defeated them, and captured their officers and 268 CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON-MOOR. cannon, including Bellasis himself. York was now seriously endangered ; the Marquess of Newcastle, therefore, yielding to the solicitations of the alarmed - inhabitants, broke up his position at Durham, and en- tered that city on the 19th of April. The next day, the Scots came to Wetherby. There, the day following, they were joined by the Fairfaxes, and proceeded at once to besiege the marquess. The wide extent of the walls of York, and the facilities of annoying the besiegers, which the river afforded to so strong a garrison as was now enclosed within their circuit, for Newcastle's horse was between 4000 and 5000 strong, rendered the investment merely an irregular blockade, and exposed the besiegers to continual sorties. But these incon- veniences were presently remedied by the advance of the Earl of Manchester's forces, out of Lincolnshire, to the support of his friends. That commander was now at the head of the completest army yet brought into the field by either party. Tt consisted of 14,000 men, chiefly disciplined on Cromwell's plan, splendidly armed, and liberally furnished with all necessary supplies. Their general was likewise stimu- lated by the daring genius of his lieutenant, and by the presence of a parliamentary committee, at the head of whom was the subtle Vane since Pym's death, acknowledged leader of the house of Commons. On his march, Manchester possessed himself, by storm, of Lincoln; and with the help of Cromwell's " Invin- cibles," drove back Goring, whom the Marquess of New- castle had despatched with the greater part of his cavalry, to attempt the relief of that place. The CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON-MOOR. 269 arrival of a third army before York was the signal for breaking off negotiations for an armistice, then pending between the marquess and Fairfax ; and it immediately enabled the besiegers, by means of a large additional force, to press the siege with a degree of vigour which seriously distressed the marquess, and obliged him to send and acquaint the king with his perilous condition. The parliamentarians now drew their lines close up to the walls ; erected batteries, which overlooked the town : took possession of the suburbs, in the midst of the flames which the garrison had set to them ; and repulsed with equal valour, the frequent sallies of the fearless enemy within. The king, to return to the occurrences of the winter, while waiting for the season when he must resume, in the field, a contest, every day growing more unequal, adopted two expedients, I'rom which he hoped either to derive some advantages in car- rying on the war, or at least to prepare the way for peace upon endurable terms. He had long felt, that the strongest ally of his enemies was in the witchery that accompanied the very sound of the word parliament, to the ears of Englishmen. Of this spell he now tried to get possession. The anti-parlia- ment, composed of those peers and commoners who had deserted, or had been expelled, from the houses at Westminster, was assembled at Oxford, about the time that the Scots passed the Tweed. The numbers which met in this convention, were respect- able more than half as many in the lower, and full three times as many in the upper house, as appeared 270 CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. at the rival assembly, which still laid exclusive claim to the name and rights of the parliament of England. Their proceedings evinced that moderation which became the friends of their bleeding country, in the distracted circumstances of the time. Without dis- playing any extreme warmth of loyalty, or indulging in a tone of exasperation towards their brethren at Westminster, they earnestly sought peace, and would have purchased it by large concessions ; but the other side now repelled all advances, in the sovereign style of conquerors. They forwarded the covenant to Ox- ford, declaring that engagement to be the immediate work of God, for the furtherance, by their means, of " his own truth and cause against the heresy, super- stition, and tyranny of antichrist;" proclaimed their solemn determination never to lay down their arms, till they had made peace on their own terms ; gave warning that they would henceforth endure no luke- warmness, in their cause ; and finally, offered a pardon to all who should, before a certain day, desert the king, give in their adherence to the parliament, and take the covenant. The existence of the parliament at Oxford they did not acknowledge. Frustrated in its object of a pacification, that assembly now turned its attention to the means of prosecuting the war. Those means, notwithstanding the generous loyalty of multitudes, who impoverished their families to their last acre, to lay the produce at the king's feet, were by this time miserably exhausted. The principal measure proposed by the Oxford parliament, with this view, was, in imitation of their opponents, to levy an excise. When the mem- CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON-MOOR. 271 bers separated, they had scarcely to reckon among their acts any greater benefit to the royal cause, than the absorption, though but for a season, of the mean passions and paltry discontents of a contemptible court, in the interest excited by the nobler endeavours even of that which the king himself termed his "mongrel parliament." Charles's second expedient proved no less abortive. Cardinal Richelieu, who, from the beginning of the troubles, had encouraged the enemies of the crown, both in England and Scotland, was now dead; his master, Louis XIII., had followed ; and Cardinal Maza- rine, the new prime minister of France, was thought willing to second the friendly disposition of the regent towards the English court. Great hopes were there- fore entertained by Charles of successful consequences from the mediation of the new French envoy, who now made his appearance, in the person of the Count of Harcourt. But the suspicions of the parliament were excited. The count had scarcely set foot on English ground, when his retinue was searched by a messenger from the Commons, who arrested Mon- tague, an accredited agent of the king and queen of England at Paris, disguised among his attendants, and committed him to the tower. In London, the ambassador was received with apparent respect, and allowed to proceed to Oxford. Charles was soon un- deceived, with regard to the authority of this person to negotiate for aid from France. On the other hand, the parliament, to whom Harcourt now returned, de- clined his offered mediation, on the ground of his 272 CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. bringing no credentials to either house. They even intercepted his despatches ; among which, a letter from Goring to the queen disclosed that the embassy was planned and arranged by her majesty. On the part of the French government, it was, in fact, a diplomatic man- oeuvre, designed to amuse both parties ; it ended without any other result, than to confirm the confidence of the parliament, and to leave the king, as it found him, to his own precarious resources. As the season of warlike activity approached, Charles looked on with anxious uncertainty, while his enemies employed their utmost efforts to send into the field a force sufficient to realise their professed intention of over- whelming him at one blow. While their levies were proceeding in London, the usual speeches were made to the citizens, to per- suade them freely to part with their contributions ; and after the preparations were completed, the cus- tomary fast was appointed to pray for success. Such was the effect of the eloquence of Essex and War- wick, of Vane, Hollis, and Glyn, upon the citizens assembled in Guildhall, that even the loss of Pym threw no observable damp over the public zeal. How the more solemn business of the fast-day was conducted in the assembly of divines, we are in- formed, in a passage of inimitably rich na'ivete, by Baillie. " We spent from nine to five graciously," writes the complacent commissioner. " After Doctor Twiss had begun with a brief prayer, Mr. Marshall prayed large for two hours, most divinely confessing the sins of the assembly, in a wonderful pathetic and pru- CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. 273 dent way. After, Mr. Arrowsraith preached an hour, then a psalm ; thereafter Mr. Vines prayed near two hours, and Mr. Palmer preached an hour, and Mr. Seaman prayed near two hours, then a psalm ; after, Mr. Henderson brought them to a sweet conference of the heat confessed in the assembly, and other seen faults to be remedied, and the conveniency to preach, against all sects, especially anabaptists and antinomians. Dr. Twiss closed with a short prayer and blessing. God was so evidently in all this exercise, that we ex- pect certainly a blessing." The Earl of Manchester's army has been men- tioned already : in the middle of May, Essex and Waller likewise marched from London, each at the head of 10,000 men. As soon as the former had reached Windsor, and the latter had encamped at Basing, the king advanced from Newbury, where his army had mustered, to Reading ; raised the fortifications of that town, in order to augment his forces with the troops of the garrison ; and again retired to Oxford, to ob- serve the movements of his enemies. The parliamentarian armies now pushed on, and oc- cupied Reading; Abingdon, which the royalists had likewise abandoned ; and, in effect, the whole of Berk- shire. The situation of Charles was, indeed, become critical. Waller forced a passage across the Isis; the Thames was crossed by Essex ; and thus Charles found himself and his troops shut up in a narrow isthmus between two powerful armies. In London, a report prevailed, that Oxford was already taken, and the king a prisoner. The court was in consternation, T 274 CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. apprehending all the dismal horrors of a siege. Essex, on his march to Islip, at which town he designed to fix his quarters, drew up his army upon an open space, where those in the city had a full view of it; while, with his train of officers, he rode round, and surveyed, without molestation, nearly the whole circuit of its defences. The only means left to Charles of saving that venerable seat of learning from the destruc- tive miseries of war, was to withdraw himself, if possible, to a distance ; for he was aware that the object now chiefly aimed at by his enemies, was the possession of his person. Accordingly, on the 3rd of June, he visited his quarters at Woodstock ; brought his army close under the walls of Oxford, there to wait his farther pleasure ; ordered out a body of foot with can- non, on the road towards Abingdon, in order to divert the attention of his pursuers from his real purpose ; and prepared every thing for his escape. As soon as night fell, he summoned the prince and their attendants, and, escorted by his own regiment of cavalry, passed, in silence, the north gate, accompanied by many lords and gentlemen of the court, and followed by a long train of equipages crowded with ladies. The Duke of York, with most of the lords of the privy council, re- mained behind; some troops of horse, a regiment of foot, and all the heavy ordnance, under the command of the Earl of Peterborough, being left for their defence. Charles gave orders, that the services in his chapel at Christ Church should be continued on Sundays and Tuesdays, as if he still were present. Already, several weeks before, the queen had fled from Oxford, CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. 275 to seek, in the loyal capital of Devonshire, a re- treat where the cradle of her expected royal infant might be secure from the ungenial clangour of rebel arms. Marching between the two armies of the enemy, the king arrived, by daybreak on the 4th of June, at Hanborough ; and, in the afternoon, at Burford, where he halted. By this time, Waller had knowledge of his flight, and had pushed on in pursuit as far as Witney ; when, presently, the scouts of the royal army came galloping in with the intelligence ; a general cry of " to horse ! to horse ! " was heard through the town ; and Charles, with his sword drawn, was seen riding about to hasten away his followers. At Eve- sham he designed to rest; but hearing that both ar- mies were pursuing by forced marches, he advanced to Worcester. Such, however, was not the fact ; for, on arriving at Burford, Essex resolved that Waller should pursue the king, while he himself penetrated into the west, to relieve Lyme, and reduce those loyal regions to the power of the parliament. To this arrangement Waller submitted with reluc- tance, alleging against it a previous command of their common masters, that if the two armies separated, the west was to be assigned to himself; but finding it necessary to yield, he executed the order with charac- teristic dispatch. By the way, he took possession of Sudley, the seat of the Lord Chandos ; and finding, on his arrival at Worcester, that the king had marched out to Bewdley, he concluded that Charles' object was T 2 276 CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. to entrench himself within the walls of Shrewsbury, and therefore advanced northward without resting, till he had passed the royal army. In truth, Charles, as his famous letter, written about this time to Prince Rupert, evinces, was in the greatest perplexity, without any fixed plan, having no other design in his marches than merely to avoid his pursuer, " with whom he could not, with such a handful of foot, and without cannon, reasonably propose to fight." It is to the un- fortunate monarch's condition at this time, that Claren- don pathetically applies the complaint of King David^ when pursued by Saul, that he was hunted like " a partridge on the mountains and knew not whither to resort, or to what place to repair to rest." Some of those affecting incidents in the military life of the king which are preserved in the royal itinerary, quoted by D'Israeli, apply to this period. The following appear among the entries in that " brief chronicle." The king and his party sometimes lodged in a bishop's palace, or at the seat of a lord, at a country gentleman's, clergy- man's, or merchant's abode; but not unusually at a yeoman's house; and on one occasion, the record says, at "a very poor man's house." "Dinner in the field," observes the pleasant commentator, is an usual entry, but the melancholy one of ' no dinner this day,' is re- peated for successive days. ' Sunday no dinner, supper at Worcester a cruel day.' ' This march lasted from six in the morning till midnight.' 'His majesty lay in ' the field all night, in his coach.' ' The king had his meat and drink dressed at a poor widow's/ Such was the life of Charles the First, during several years." CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. 277 Finding that he had deceived Waller, the king now marched back with all expedition to Worcester, thence again to Evesham, and the same night to Broadway, where he quartered his army. " From thence," says Clarendon, in his picturesque narrative of this inter- esting expedition, " they mounted the hills near Cam- den ; and there they had time to breathe, and to look down with pleasure on the places they had passed through ; having now left Waller, and the ill ways he must pass through, far behind ; for even in that season of the year, the ways in that vale were very deep.'' Charles now sent messengers to Oxford, with orders to the troops left there to join him, with his cannon, at Burford. The alacrity and joy evinced in obe}ing this order, enhanced the satisfaction with which he once more found himself in his old quarters, sur- rounded by his loyal cavaliers, after a harassing and wearisome march of seventeen days ; during which his fortitude had been tried by "accidents and perplexi- ties to which majesty has been seldom exposed," and his abilities in the field put to a test which entitles them to respect. The king had no intention to remain idle. Having shortly rested and recruited his army, he marched to meet Waller, now on his return to seek him ; and, upon the 28th of June, discovered that general's army, which had by this time been strengthened by a rein- forcement of about 1000 horse and foot from Warwick and Coventry, drawn up, in order of battle, at the foot of a hill on the west of Banbury. Both parties spent the night in the field, separated from each other 278 CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. by the river Charwell. The following day occurred the series of spirited skirmishes, known as the fight at Copredy Bridge. The brunt of that irregular action lay chiefly between the Earl of Cleveland, and Mid- dleton, Waller's lieutenant-general. The ultimate ad- vantage was evidently on the royalist side; for Waller lost all his ordnance, and was so weakened by the capture and dispersion of his forces, that he presently returned, without making any further attempt, to London. The king, meantime, marched westward, in pursuit of Essex. The celebrated letter, already alluded to, in which Charles, in great alarm at the intelligence from York, " commanded and conjured" his nephew to march to the relief of that city, found Rupert surrounded by a fresh halo of military glory. A short time before, he had relieved Newark, besieged by Sir John Meldrum one of the most brilliant exploits, of that kind, per- formed in the whole war ; had taken Stockport, Bolton, and Liverpool ; and had raised the siege of Lathom House, the mansion of the Earl of Derby, so gal- lantly defended against the parliament's forces, by the countess. It is impossible, even in the midst of the attraction and hurry of more important actions, to omit the particulars of this heroic defence. The earl had gone over to protect his hereditary dominions in the Isle of Man, from the threatened invasion of the parliamentarians. Scarcely had he reached the isle, when the countess, whom he had left in charge of Lathom, received secret intelligence that her house would shortly be attacked. She instantly CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. 279 called in the aid of the gentlemen of the county, and made all provisions requisite for a defence, with so much secresy and dispatch, that when, shortly after- wards, Fairfax appeared before the place, he was surprised to find that resistance was contemplated. He sent a trumpet to require a conference with the countess ; to this she agreed, but detained the mes- senger, while, " to make the best show she could, she placed her inefficient and unarmed men on the walls and tops of the towers, and marshalled all her soldiers in good order, with their respective officers, from the main guard in the first court to the great hall," where she calmly awaited the visit of her enemy. The meeting was conducted, on both sides, with much courtesy and apparent respect. Fairfax pro- posed to her an honourable and secure removal, with her family and retinue, to Knowsley Hall ; an engage- ment that she should remain there free from molesta- tion; and half the earl's revenues for her support. She replied, "I am here under a double trust of faith to my lord, and of allegiance to my king: give me a month to consider my answer." Fairfax refused. " Then I hope, sir, that you will excuse me," rejoined the countess, " if I preserve my honour and obedience, though it be to my ruin." A fortnight passed, before the general had decided on his method of attack. He then sent in military form to demand an immediate surrender. The countess answered, that " she had not yet forgotten what she owed to the church of England, to her prince, and to her lord; and that till she had lost her honour, or her life, she would defend that 280 CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. place. Scarcely had the besiegers began their trenches, when the noble lady ordered a body of 200 men to sally out upon them, who slew sixty, and returned with a loss of only two of their own party. The assailants now proceeded more warily, but were so often interrupted by the defenders, in the formation of their lines, that little progress was made. At length, after having spent three months before the place, they -approached the moat, and planted a powerful battery. Among the guns on this battery was a mortar of un- usual dimensions. A shot thrown from this piece fell into an apartment where the countess and her children were at dinner. The heroine rose from the table, ascertained that no one was hurt, and instantly ordered another sally; in which all the guns of the enemy were spiked or flung into the moat, except the huge mortar, which the brave garrison dragged in triumph into the fortress. In the midst of incessant annoyance from the enemy, the besiegers contrived to repair their battery: the work was no sooner completed than they were once more dispersed, their cannon spiked, and the intrepid party of royalists again retired, almost unhurt, within their walls, leaving a hundred parlia- mentarians dead upon the spot. In all these actions the admirable countess encouraged the soldiers by her presence, and frequently exposed herself to personal danger. Nor did the inspiring example of her piety less contribute to maintain their valour : no action was attempted without previous prayer for success ; no success was received without solemn thanksgiving. At length Fairfax, accustomed to victory, lost all patience. CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. 281 He now appointed Colonel Rigby to conduct the siege, whom his private enmity to the Earl of Derby recom- mended to that office. The colonel made known his arrival by a fresh summons to Lathom House to sur- render. It was conveyed in insulting terms : " Trum- peter," answered the countess to the messenger, "tell that insolvent rebel Rigby, that if he presume to send another summons within these walls, I will have his messenger hanged up at the gates." The garrison, however, was by this time reduced to extremity ; when they had the happiness to descry from the towers the banners of Prince Rupert, who, on the earnest repre- sentations of the Earl of Derby, had turned aside for their relief in his march towards York. Rigby instantly raised the siege, and retreated, with his forces to Stockport Prince Rupert had taken in so many reinforcements in his way, that when, on the 1st of July, he came in sight of York, his army numbered about 20,000 men. The combined forces before that city broke up at his approach, and after an attempt to intercept him, which he avoided by a skilful disposition of his army, they withdrew their forces to Hessey Moor, near the village of Marston, where they met in a council of war to deliberate what course should be pursued. Irrecon- cilable jealousies and dissensions already distracted the confederacy ; and the question, whether they should fight with the prince, which the English generals de- sired, or draw off their armies from the neighbourhood of the city, which the Scots were inclined to, seems to have been practically decided by the advance of 282 CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. the Scotch army some miles on the road towards Tad- caster. The deliberations on the great crisis that had arrived, in the council of the Marquess of Newcastle, within the walls of York, were marked by equal, and, in their results, more fatal dissensions. The marquess, in accordance with his higher views, and better know- ledge of the state of the enemy's camp, delivered his opinion, after his courteous and ceremonious man- ner, for delay. Why renew, by instantly forcing on a battle, that union already dissolving ? The mere arrival of the prince was already doing the work of the royalists, without risk ; the ripening of the enemy's dissensions, by time, would soon accomplish the rest. At least, let them avoid a battle till the arrival of rein- forcements from the north, which he daily expected. The haughty Rupert chafed equally at the calm, refined tone, and the cold considerate advice; he would not argue the point. He had a letter from the king, abso- lutely commanding him to give the enemy battle. That order superseded deliberation : he had only to obey. The marquess replied, that if that was his highness' resolve, he, for his part, was ready to submit to his orders as strictly as if they were the king's in person. After the prince had retired, some of Newcastle's friends be- sought him not to take part in the battle, since, it appeared the command was taken from him. His reply was, that happen what might, he would not shun an engagement; his sole ambition having ever been to live and die a loyal subject of the king. Accordingly, early in the morning of the 2nd, when the foot and artillery of the parliament were already in CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. 283 motion to follow the Scots on the roads towards Tad- caster, Rupert, with a powerful body of horse, ap- pearing on the edge of Marston Moor, threatened their rear, while the columns of his foot were seen in the distance, steadily advancing as if to choose their ground for battle. At once the march of the parlia- mentarians was countermanded, their advanced divi- sions recalled, and a position taken as rapidly as the nature of the ground permitted, fronting that already occupied by the prince. The royalists being in possession of the moor, the enemy drew up, among cornfields, upon a rising ground, which skirted its northern boundary; a ditch and slight embankment running along between the opposed fronts of the two hosts. While Rupert waited the arrival of his infantry, the parliamentarians formed in view. In the centre rose the dense masses of their foot, commanded by Lord Fairfax and the Earl of Leven. Sir Thomas Fairfax with his cavalry, formed the right wing, Man- chester and Cromwell the left. The prince opposed the great strength of his army to the columns of the younger Fairfax, and there, at the head of his cavaliers, selected his own position ; Goring and Sir Charles Lucas he placed in the centre ; on the left, Newcastle fought valiantly at the head of his devoted "white coats," but what share he took in the command is uncertain. For the narrative of the fatal fight of Marston Moor, we recur to Mr. Forster's Life of Cromwell, already quoted. Whether in regard to careful research 284 CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. among authorities, or to the vivid colouring which the author has given to his vigorous conception, it is a pas- sage that discourages rivalry. "Gazing with silent and inveterate determination at each other, these 46,000 subjects of one king, stood upon Marston Moor, eight miles from a city wherein every boom of the distant cannon would strike upon the inhabitants as the death-knell of a friend or bro- ther. The lines of the parliamentarians had begun to from as early as ten in the morning the royalists' preparations were complete at five o'clock in the after- noon it was now within a quarter to seven. Yet there still stood these formidable armies, each awaiting from the other, with a silent and awful suspense, the signal of battle. " A stir was seen at last in a dark quarter of Manchester's and Cromwell's Independents, and a part of their infantry moved forwards. Secure from behind the ditch, Rupert's musketeers at once poured out upon the advancing column a heavy and mur- derous fire, and it was in vain the parliamentarians at- tempted to form under the plunging batteries directed against them simultaneously from the rear. At that moment was seen the genius of Cromwell. With a passionate exclamation to his Ironsides, he ordered them to sweep round the ditch to their right, clear the broken ground, and fall in with himself upon the cavalry of the dissolute Goring. The movement occu- pied some time, and a fearful slaughter was meanwhile suffered by Manchester's infantry ; but, having once emerged, these inveterate republicans stood, for an CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. 285 instant, to receive, like a rock, the onset of Goring's horse, and then, ' like a rock tumbled from its basis by an earthquake,' rolled back upon them. Nothing could withstand the astonishing charge. The cavaliers who survived, offered no further resistance, but wheeled off to join the horse of Rupert. Cromwell and his men next struck the guns and sabred the artillerymen beside them, and then, with as much leisurely order as at parade, rode towards the drain. Every place was de- serted as they advanced. One spot of ground only still held upon it, for an instant, the Marquess of New- castle's unflinching regiment of old tenants and re- tainers, and was covered the instant after with an " unbroken line " of honourable dead. Their victory was complete, and the right wing of the royalists irrevocably broken. " Rupert and his cavalry had meanwhile obtained as great a victory on the left. The encumbered ground on which Fairfax stood was most unfavourable to an advancing movement. Rupert accordingly stood keenly by till he saw the parliamentary forces stagger under the heavy charges poured upon them as they emerged in narrow columns through ditches and lanes, and then, with his characteristic impetuosity, charged, over- threw, routed, and dispersed both foot and cavalry, with tremendous slaughter. " The after meeting of the two victors decided the day. While the centres were unsteadily engaged, Cromwell, who had held his triumphant Ironsides steadily in hand, and checked their pursuit, in the very nick of time ordered them suddenly to face 286 CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. round and wheel upon their centre to the left. Rupert had given a similar order to his conquering cavalry to wheel round on their centre to the right; and now with a shock more terrible than any of this terrible day, these desperate leaders, each supposing himself the victor, dashed each in front of a victorious foe ! Cromwell received a wound in the neck, and the alarm for his safety gave a slight appearance of moment- ary unsteadiness even to his gallant Ironsides, but they rallied with redoubled fury, and, in conjunction with Lesley, an accomplished Scotch officer, who led up at the moment a brilliant attack, fairly swept Rupert off the field. " It was now ten o'clock, and by the melancholy dusk which enveloped the moor, might be seen a fear- ful sight. Five thousand dead bodies of Englishmen lay heaped upon that fatal ground. The distinctions which separated in life these sons of a common country seemed trifling now ! The plumed helmet embraced the strong steel cap as they rolled on the heath together, and the loose love-lock of the careless cavalier lay drenched in the dark blood of the enthusiastic republican. " But it is not with such thoughts the victors trouble themselves now. They have achieved the greatest con- quest of the war, and the whole of the northern counties are open to the parliament's sway. The headstrong Ru- pert has received a memorable lesson, and retreats in calamity and disgrace towards Chester. The Marquess of Newcastle, weary of a strife never suited to his taste, but hateful to him now, crosses the sea an exile. Fifteen hundred prisoners remain with Manchester, Fairfax, Le- CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. '287 ven, and Cromwell; the valuable ordnance of the van- quished artillery, small arms, tents, baggage, and mili- tary chest all have been left in their victorious hands ! " Nearly a hundred colours are said to have been captured, including the prince's own standard, bearing a red cross, with the arms of the palatinate. Of some others, the quaint devices displayed little taste or human- ity. Many of them the soldiers tore up, and stuck the fragments for trophies in their caps. Others were recovered and forwarded to Westminster ; where, at the reception of ambassadors from Holland, a ceremony at which the houses affected unusual pomp, forty-eight of these blood- stained ensigns of defeated royalty were displayed upon the table to regale, perchance to awe, those representa- tives of the maritime republic. With the relation of the great battle of Marston Moor, the first volume of these sketches naturally con- cludes. From this fatal point, the great contest no more the struggle of freedom with arbitrary power, but of republican ambition, battling in the youthful grandeur of its lawless strength against the throne and the laws bears another aspect. Into the second divi- sion of the work, in which King Charles will be ex- hibited rather as suffering than contending, will, nevertheless, properly fall, the departure of Montrose on his romantic, but sanguinary enterprise ; the expe- dition of Essex into the west pursued by the king ; the 288 CAMPAIGN OF 1644 MARSTON MOOR. passage of Essex's cavalry through the quarters of the careless, convivial Goring ; the general's flight, and the surrender of his infantry ; with all the thronging incidents that diversify the later scenes of that great campaign. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. LONDON: .1. HADDON, PRINTER, CASTLE-STREET, FINSBUI THE GREAT CIVIL WAR CHARLES THE FIRST AND THE PARLIAMENT. Star BY TS1E REV? Ti .CATTERMOLE.B.D. .. THE GREAT CIVIL WAR CHARLES I. AND THE PARLIAMENT. REV. RICHARD CATTERMOLE, B.D. fwteen f)tgf)lB=fimsf)rt)i lEngrabmgs, from Brafotngs GEORGE CATTERMOLE, ESQ. AND PORTRAITS OF f * aiH (late (EtaimtiiH ate UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OP MR. CHARLES HEATH. VOL. II. BEING HEATH'S PICTURESQUE ANNUAL FOR 1845. LONDON: PUBLISHED FOR THE PROPRIETOR, BY LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS; APPLETON & CO. NEW YORK ; AND FISHER, SON, & CO. PARIS. MDCCCXLV. LONDON : J. IIADDON, PRINTER, CASTLW STREET, FINSBURY. PREFACE. THE first volume of the HISTORICAL ANNUAL appeared in the spring of 1841, and was prefaced by the following advertisement : " This volume, the first of a proposed series on the same and like subjects, is the result of consi- derable reflection on the possible means of raising a very attractive class of publications into a higher field of literary design, without depriving them of those charms of novelty and grace which have so long secured to them the public favour. " The author wishes to add, that though it did not come within his purpose to encumber his page with authorities, yet strict and conscientious historical accuracy was the first object at which he aimed. In endeavouring to set before the reader History in action in avoiding, as much as PREFACE. possible, all formal or dry detail, and giving pro- minence and amplitude only to those heroic deeds, those eloquent discussions, and those noble traits of personal character which distinguish all great events or eras in the world, he has sought to avoid those extreme differences of opinion, and partisan views, that have unhappily entered so largely into most works respecting the Great Civil War of the seventeenth century. For he cannot acknowledge indifference to any cause which has inspired high achievements among mankind. He looks upon the great drama of human events as, in all its provinces, the work of One who assigns no prominent part whatever to minds undeserving of earnest regard. Great qualities still find a sanctuary in the heart, even though the ends to which they were devoted may be disapproved by the principles and judgment ; and history, in common with all true knowledge, promotes the noblest charities of our nature." That the work has been so long suspended, is owing, not to a want of encouragement on the part of the public; since a degree of success, adequate to the expectations of its projectors, attended the publication of the volume which originally bore the above notice ; but to circum- stances of a private nature. To enter into detail PREFACE. Vll on this point would now be wholly useless and impertinent. Suffice it that the parties whom, primarily, it interests, have been enabled to re- sume their pleasant and (they trust) not unprofit- able task, with every prospect of realising in future their promise of regularly continuing the series as an annual. Those readers who are acquainted and who is riot in some degree acquainted ? with the events of the Great Civil War, will not be surprised to find the present volume marked by a more rapid variety of incident and vicissitude ' than its predecessor. Should it fail to satisfy, in this respect, the most fastidious admirers of the stirring and eventful in story, the author is aware that the blame must attach exclusively to his want of power to do justice to his theme; he, at the same time, feels it due to himself to request the reader, who may discover any want of relative proportion between the earlier and later chapters, to impute it to the exigencies of his mode of publication, rather than to his own defective foresight and arrangement. LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. PACK. QUEEN HENRIETTA INTERCEDING FOR THE KING (FRONTISPIECE). PLUNDERING OF A ROYALIST'S MANSION (VIGNETTE) CHARLES 1 26 OLIVER CROMWELL : 80 DESTRUCTION OF ROYALISTS' PROPERTY 71 BATTLE OF NASEBY 89 MONTROSE'S RETREAT TO THE HIGHLANDS. 120 THE KING ON HIS JOURNEY TO THE SCOTS 152 SEIZURE OF THE KING AT HOLDENBY 197 EXCLUDING PRESBYTERIAN MEMBERS FROM THE HOUSE 211 THE RETREAT OF THE SCOTS FROM PRESTON 281 TREATY IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT 284 CHARLES'S DEFEATED ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE FROM CARISBROOKE. 292 CROMWELL CONFERRING WITH THE LAWYERS 298 CROMWELL VIEWING THE BODY OF THE KING 310 Erratum. Page 38, line 9, dele of. GREAT CIVIL WAR. CHAPTER I. THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. IT has already been told, that the king, finding him- self freed, by the result of the action at Cropredy Bridge, on the 29th of June, from all likelihood of being further molested by Waller, directed his march westward in pursuit of the Earl of Essex. To this course he was determined by various considerations ; but particularly by his anxiety for the queen, now, with the infant princess Henrietta, exposed to the annoy- ances of a siege in Exeter, and by the apparent strength of his cause in the western counties, not only in the amount of organised forces, but also in the general loyalty of the people. Essex's advance to Weymouth had already left Prince Maurice at liberty to unite the most considerable royalist force in the west with the main army under the king, by compelling that youthful and indiscreet commander to raise the siege of Lyme, The spirited resistance 2 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. made by the garrison and inhabitants of this little town, during the two months wasted in its blockade, was the subject of repeated votes of thanks in the parliament, and of lively interest in the capital; and is not unworthy of special mention, even at the dis- tance of two centuries, in a narrative which professes to rest its peculiar claim to attention on an earnest sympathy with whatever, in this protracted and extra- ordinary struggle, is eminently calculated to engage the sympathy of Englishmen. Charles had entered Gloucestershire, when the first true account reached him of the issue of the fatal battle of Marston Moor, of the retirement of the Marquess of Newcastle and his friends to the continent, and the dispersion of Rupert's fine army. This grievous news must have been felt the more poignantly, because it followed a succession of rumours which ascribed to the prince a brilliant victory; it nevertheless appears to have produced no other effect upon the spirits and designs of the king, than that of adding firmness and alacrity to his present purpose. It demonstrated, in fact, that the prosecution of the campaign in the west was the only important military undertaking now open to him. He hastened on to Bath ; and, receiving some accession of strength in his passage through Somersetshire, reached Exeter on the 26th of July. His royal consort, however, was no longer there. On the first rumour of Essex's approach, Henrietta, alarmed by the rancorous personal hostility with which the parliamentarians regarded her, had quitted the town, leaving behind her the royal infant, scarcely a THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. 3 fortnight old ; had withdrawn, under Prince Maurice's protection, into Cornwall, and embarked in a Dutch vessel of war for France, " not without some barbarous but vain interruption of the rebels." Hastily embracing the new pledge of an affection more faithful and devoted, in the opinion of some writers, than became a king, Charles reviewed the troops of his nephew assembled in the vicinity, and immediately resumed his march. In the meantime the object of his pursuit was already far in advance. After lying for some days near the army of Prince Maurice, the lord general had driven from before Plymouth an insufficient force, left there by the prince under the command of Sir Richard Grenvil (brother of Sir Bevil Grenvil, who fell in the previous year at Lansdown fight), and had marched forward into Cornwall ; a step forced upon him by his officers, contrary to his own better judgment. For the leaven of republicanism was already working in the councils of the main army of the parliament ; though not to the same extent as in that under Manchester, in which the dark machinations and daring soldiership of Cromwell had by this time made him absolute. That movement, with its dishonourable consequences, is at- tributed chiefly to the counsel of Lord Roberts (a person of weight in the army by his intimate alliance with Vane and his party, as well as by his own activity and zeal), who possessed estates, and pretended to vast influence, in Cornwall. The discontents which distracted the parliamentarians were more than equalled among the royalists. The liveliest jealousy prevailed between the king's council B 2 4 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. and his military officers. Among the cavaliers, wit and conviviality could not fail to be popular : to the influence which Lord Wilmot, who was in command of the horse, had acquired by his excellence in these qualities, he added an ambitious temper and a strong disposition to overrate his own claims to distinction. Charles had other grounds also of dislike to Wilmot ; for, though blinded to the fact in the case of his nephews by family affection, he could not be ignorant that by entrusting offices of the highest moment to men of reckless dispositions and irregular lives, he both discredited his cause and weakened his resources. He had consequently resolved to rid himself of his troublesome lieutenant-general of the cavalry. Of this design Wilmot had probably gained some intimation, which so exasperated his usual arrogance and indis- cretion, that the king was provoked to carry his plan into effect in a rougher and more hasty manner than he at first intended. It was now the month of August. Essex, unable either to advance farther, or to retreat, had seized the little port of Fowey, to prevent his being blocked up by sea as well as by land, and fixed his head quarters at Lostwithiel, where they were over- looked by the king's at Boconnock. Here Wilmot, while in the act of delivering one of his turbulent harangues, was arrested on a charge of high treason, dismounted at the head of his troops, and sent under guard to Exeter. The next morning Charles ordered the cavalry to be drawn out ; and, visiting in person each division, acquainted them, that at the request of his nephew, Prince Rupert, and upon THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. 5 his resignation, he appointed Colonel Goring their general, whom he had accordingly sent for to the army, and commanded them all to obey him. " With respect to Lord Wilmot," he continued, " I have for very good reasons put him under present restraint." The following day a petition was presented by the officers, requesting to be made acquainted with the particulars of the charge against their general. The request was granted. A copy was at the same time forwarded to Wilmot himself, who returned an answer sufficient to clear him in the opinion of his admirers ; but on learning that his old enemy and superior officer Goring, was already in possession of the command, he obtained leave to retire into France. Wilmot's dis- missal involved also that of Lord Percy, the partner of his irregularities, and now the partaker of his voluntary exile. To him succeeded the tried and gallant Lord Hopton. Another and a more important change, which was made about the same time, proved of more doubt- ful character and result. This was the substitution of Prince Rupert for the Earl of Brentford, as com- mander-in-chief. The earl was incompetent indeed from age and infirmity, but so was his highness from passion, impetuosity, and high-born insolence. Rupert was brave the bravest of the brave j but little can be hoped from an army in which the hot courage of a life-guardsman, with the abused privileges of birth, forms the general's only qualification for command. Always the foremost of the great contending parties to desire peace, twice within the last two months had the king attempted to open negociations for obtaining D THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. it. His first message was addressed to Waller, after the fight at Cropredy; whose answer ran, that "he had no power to receive any proposal on that sub- ject, without the consent of the two houses of parliament at Westminster, to whom he accordingly referred his majesty." Presently afterwards Charles renewed the attempt, in a letter to the parliament, which was delivered by Sabran the diplomatic agent of France ; no notice, however, was taken of it. He now addressed himself to Essex, in a letter written with his own hand, and in terms of much frankness and esteem. But, though delivered by the earl's nephew, Lord Beauchamp, then on his way through the enemy's quarters to France, and containing warm appeals to Essex's honour and patriotism, with earnest assurances that by engaging in "that blessed work," the restoration of peace to the distracted and bleeding country, he would secure for himself and his army the highest marks of the writer's personal regard, the royal autograph failed of its object. The general bluntly reminded his nephew that he was employed by the parliament to fight, not to treat; declared that he would enter into no negotiations without their consent; and immediately dispatched the king's letter to Westminster, enclosed in one from himself, representing the extremity to which he was reduced, and urgently entreating succour. A part of the duty undertaken, and punctually dis- charged by Lord Beauchamp, was to acquaint Essex with the unanimous concurrence of the officers, and the army in general, in the wish expressed by the king. But as no answer was returned to the royal message, a THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. 7 resolution was adopted by the majority of the officers to second it by one in their own names. To this step, though indicating a want of respect for the sovereign, while his own letter remained still unnoticed, Charles nevertheless gave his consent. The manifesto received from Essex what Clarendon calls a "surly answer; which," continues the historian, "produced the effect the king wished and expected : they who had been most active in preparing the address, were now the most ashamed of their folly; and the whole army seemed well composed to obtain that by their swords, which they could not by their pen." That Charles should have employed, or concurred in these repeated urgent appeals to the patriotism and humanity of his enemies, at a moment when he already had their main army at such manifest disadvantage, when he was daily expecting a large reinforcement, and had no reason to apprehend the probability of relief arriving in the enemy's quarters seems to denote a sincere anxiety on his part to put a stop to the public calamities. By the arrival of the expected reinforcement, con- sisting of about 2000 horse and foot commanded by Grenvil, the king was enabled more effectually to dis- tress the parliamentarians. One after another their posts were occupied by his troops. At length Beacon Hill, a rising ground adjoining the town on the land- side, and Pernon Castle, a fort at the harbour's mouth, which commanded the sea and the line of coast, were seized by his advanced parties. The game was mani- festly now in the king's hands ; and so cool a tactician was not likely at the critical moment to dismiss that 8 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. patient wisdom, which, in all that depended im- mediately on himself, marked the conduct of the campaign. For more than a week both armies remained in a state of inactivity, each in expectation of the other's movements. "All the action, or rather recreation we had," writes Sir Edward Walker, the king's historio- grapher, "being every day to see ours and their parties relieve their advanced guards ; and sometimes a man or horse was slain." Intelligence at length reaching the king, that Middleton, whom Waller had left in command of his shattered army, was marching into the west, at the head of a force which the small parties of royalists left in his rear were unable to check ; he resolved without farther loss of time to resume active operations. Orders had already been issued for a general attack, when the king directed its suspension, while Goring, with the greater part of the cavalry and a body of fifteen hundred foot, making a circuit to the west, occupied St. Blase, a little town at the head of the nearest creek in that direction; a movement which cut Essex off from the only remaining point of coast, on which supplies for his army could be landed. The space where he was now confined measuring only about three miles by two, and all prospect of relief from Middleton being precluded by the advance of a royalist corps against him, from the north of Devon, the earl became painfully sensible of the hopelessness of farther maintaining himself in his position. A council of war, assembled in this emergency, re- THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. 9 solved that the cavalry should endeavour to save them- selves by cutting their way through the quarters of the royalists ; and that the general himself should at the same time escape with the infantry on board such vessels of war as were then lying in Fowey harbour. Information of this design was immediately brought to the king, who sent orders to Goring to move in the direction of the intended flight by land, and kept his whole remaining forces under arms all night to prevent it. From these precautions, however, nothing followed. The night proved hazy and dark : an hour before dawn the entire body of Essex's horse, led by Sir William Balfour, stealthily marched out; passed between the king's and Prince Maurice's quar- ters ; and were permitted to gain the open country, without any further annoyance than a few straggling shots which did no execution. When day broke, and distinctly showed the fugitives, a party of royalist horse mustered in pursuit ; but as the retreating squadrons amounted to four times the number of their pursuers, they were able to repulse every assault by turning upon them in overwhelming force. In the end, only a score or two of wounded remained with the king's troops, who, on their part, lost several men, and some standards. This disgraceful failure was chiefly owing to the misconduct of Goring. That jovial and reckless officer being engaged in a drinking-party when he received the announcement of Balfour's design, with the king's order to intercept him, treated the whole matter as a groundless alarm, and prolonged the festivities 10 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. of the night till the fugitives had fairly got beyond the reach of effectual pursuit. A different fate awaited the foot. In the morning Essex quitted his position at Lostwithiel, and drew all his remaining forces into Fowey. Lostwithiel was im- mediately occupied by the royalists : all this day (August 31st) partial skirmishes took place. The next morning an officer came from the earl and demanded a parley ; but before he could carry back the king's answer, Essex, with Lord Roberts, Sir John Merrick, and other officers, was on his way to Plymouth by sea, leaving the veteran Skippon, to procure such terms as he could. The king, as usual, manifested the clemency of his disposition, and his regard for the lives of his people, by granting conditions which even the writers on the side of the parliament, acknowledge to have been " very honourable " to their side. All their artillery and ammunition, consisting of forty pieces of ordnance, about one thousand stand of arms, and two hundred barrels of gunpowder, were delivered up; but the men were allowed to march out with their colours, the officers to wear their swords and to be accompanied by their servants, horses, and bag- gage. A guard was likewise granted to protect the disarmed soldiers on their way towards Southampton; it proved, however, either insufficient for that duty, or unwilling to discharge it. At Lostwithiel, and other towns, where the unfortunate men had shortly before committed various acts of oppression and rapine, a severe retaliation was now practised. The inhabitants, pretending to discover their own apparel and other THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. 11 property upon their persons, stripped and otherwise ill-treated many of them. In these barbarities the royalist troops also took part. A contemporary writer has preserved a remarkable anecdote relating to this subject, which he says he had often heard. He asserts, "that Skippon being despoiled of his scarlet coat, his case of pistols, and rapier, did ride up unto the king, and very roundly told him of the violation of the articles by his soldiers. The king, not well remembering him, did ask him who he was ; he replied, that his name was Skippon. The king demanded, who were those soldiers who had thus injured him? He showed them to his majesty, for as yet they continued within the reach of his eye ; they were about nine in number. Immediately the marshal was called, and these soldiers were apprehended ; seven of the nine were condemned to the tree, and suffered according to their sentence." This story, though de- riving some apparent probability from Charles's well- known compassion and sense of justice, is inconsistent with other and more authentic statements. Sir Henry Slingsby, a competent authority, tells us, that he " never observed any great severity in the king, used either towards the enemy when he had him in his power, or to the soldiers in his own army, except only at Wing, a house of my Lord Caernarvon's" (near Up- pingham), "where he commanded a soldier to be hanged upon a sign-post for stealing a chalice out of the church." The true relation is, most likely, that given by Sir Edward Walker, who simply records that, " after the soldiers of Essex's army had passed by the place where 12 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644- his majesty stood, some of the king's soldiers rudely fell on and stripped many of them ; which his majesty hearing, he sent presently his own guards and chief officers to prevent it. And when," continues Sir Edward, "in my manuscript I used this light phrase, 'our sol- diers freed them from the burden of their clothes,' on reading it to his majesty, he suddenly interrupted me, saying, * Fie, that is ill said, and it was worse done,' and gave me order to alter that expression." In truth, the king's compassion blinded his judgment, in this instance, to the evil of too much consideration for his rebellious subjects. He by no means reaped those advantages which he had a right to reap, from so signal a discomfiture of the enemy "a great and glorious victory, gotten without blood." He obtained indeed a useful supply of military stores, but few men ; not above a hundred of the disbanded soldiers offering themselves for the royal service; while his an- tagonists at Westminster lost only, of both, what they had so little difficulty in supplying, that six weeks had not elapsed before they were again in a condition to give battle to their sovereign, with a force superior to his own. So contemptible a close to the military career of Essex (for he scarcely appeared in the field any more), though the subject of popular censure and complaint, does not seem to have sunk him much below his previous level in the opinion of his employers. At all events, in dealing with one of the few men of high rank who actively promoted the rebellion, the parliament felt it, the best policy to conceal their dis- THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. 13 pleasure; and the fugitive general was, to all appear- ance, as well received at Westminster as if he had entered the city covered with laurels. The commons assured him that their opinion of his fidelity remained unshaken, and immediately took measures for repairing his losses. But at the same time they sent orders to both Manchester and Waller to join him as soon as the army should be reconstructed; and, according to their wont, " appointed a day of public humiliation." Charles, in the meantime, yielding to his usual san- guine temper, greatly overrated the effect of Essex's surrender. Expecting that event to produce con- sternation in the metropolis, he renewed, in more confident language, his message to the parliament for peace. He flattered himself that the people, no longer beguiled by the prestige of success on the side of his enemies, would flock to the royal standard in its pro- gress to London, whither, as he informed the houses, it was now his intention to proceed. No farther in- dication appeared, however, of the fulfilment of these expectations, than a petition from the inhabitants of Somersetshire, echoing his own desire for peace, and promising, if it should be refused by the parliament, " to spend their lives and fortunes in assisting him to compass by the sword what by fair means could not be effected." But this prospective assurance was accom- panied neither by reinforcements of men, nor by supplies of necessaries for the army, whose wants were by this time grown urgent. The infantry were " naked and unshod ;" the cavalry murmuring both at the dismissal of their late commander, and at their long arrears of 14 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. pay; the whole army, now for many months on con- stant duty, was worn by fatigue and reduced in numbers. Charles's march towards London was made tedious and irksome by these hindrances. He re- covered indeed most of the towns which Essex had taken, except Plymouth, where the earl, landing on his way to Southampton, had placed Lord Roberts in command. The king drew up before the walls, and summoned the garrison to surrender; but, on receiving a determined refusal, withdrew, leaving Grenvil with some troops to invest the place. Goring, who, when too late, had pursued the cavalry of Essex as far as Tiverton, afterwards, in some degree to compensate his negligence, dashed on northward and made himself master of the rebel town of Barnstaple. Blandford likewise was captured, with the expulsion of Waller, again at this time in arms at the head of a considerable force, which hovered about the king, rather to observe than to interrupt his movements, and constantly dis- lodging at the approach of such parties as were sent against them. The relief of the brave garrisons at Don- nington, Banbury, and Basing, which now anxiously engaged the king's thoughts, was an object of greater importance. The first of these places obtains frequent mention in the records of the present campaign. Though known by the name of Donnington "Castle," it was in fact one of those numerous private residences,which in the course of the civil wars were fortified, and became the scenes of deeds of bravery and devotedness, worthy of a larger sphere and more extensive celebrity. Waller's THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. 15 orders to Middleton were, to watch the king's move- ments ; but first to take Donnington, then occupied by Sir John Boys, with only a company or two of foot ; a design which, it was supposed, would not detain him long. The event, however, proved otherwise. Boys, a brave and determined loyalist, was so well sup- ported by his little band, that Middleton, after losing three hundred officers and men, devolved the enterprise on Colonel Horton, who commanded at Abingdon, and marched forward to the support of Essex. Towards the end of September, Horton advanced with a large force. No notice being taken of his summons he raised batteries, and opened a fire, which, at the end of twelve days, had levelled a great part of the structure with the ground. He was now joined by a part of Manchester's troops, and immediately sent a second and more peremptory message. To show the temper of the war ; the insolence displayed on the one side, and the firmness on the other; this document is here inserted, with the governor's answer : " SIR, " We have formerly testified our clemency in tendering you quarter, upon your surrender of the castle for the service of the king (!) and parliament ; and now again we being desirous (notwithstanding our increase of powers) to manifest our mercy, do hereby once for all freely offer yourself and men fair quarter, in case you yield the castle for the use above-said, before Wednesday next at ten o'clock in the forenoon : and farther, we here testify, in the presence of God, 16 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. that if this our favour be not accepted, and the castle surrendered, there shall no active man among you have his life, if God shall ever please to yield them to our mercy. " Yours, "JEREMY HORTON." " SIR, " Neither your new addition of forces, nor your high threatening language shall deter me, nor the rest of these honest men with me, from our loyalty to our sovereign ; but we do resolve to maintain this place to the uttermost of our powers ; and for the matter of quarter, yours may expect the like on Wednesday, or sooner if you please. This is the answer of, " Sir, your servant, " Jo. BOYS." Manchester himself soon after appeared before Don- nington, and meeting with a smilar reception, fixed the following day for storming the castle. His troops, aware of the spirit which animated the garrison, shrank from the dangerous service. A fresh battery was then constructed, the cannonade recommenced with great vigour, and an attempt was made to approach the walls by mining. The besiegers, however, were pre- sently driven from their works, with the loss of many of their number, including the officer in command of the battery, and a large quantity of arms and ammu- nition. On the king's approach, the earl drew off his baffled forces. During the last nineteen days of the THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. 17 siege, one thousand great shots were expended upon the walls of Donnington. The history of Basing House is not less remarkable. In the family of the loyal and gallant Marquess of Winchester, who defended it for the king, was found a traitor that nobleman's brother, Lord Edward Paulet. With him Grenvil entered into a correspondence, the object of which was to deliver up Basing to Waller. Thither Grenvil, then in the service of the parliament, was to proceed with a troop of horse, in advance of Waller, in order to make everything ready for the enterprise. On the day appointed Grenvil left London, joined his troop at Bagshot, and, conducting them to Oxford, acquainted his majesty with the plot. Charles instantly despatched an express to the marquess. Paulet and his confederates being seized, confessed every thing ; while Grenvil, though not immediately entrusted with a command by the royalists, joined Lord Digby in the west, and was afterwards employed in the blockade of Plymouth. In the mean time a strong parliamentarian force appeared before Basing House, and commenced opera- tions, early in May. The siege was sustained with much gallantry and the endurance of many hardships, by the marquess and his followers, till September; on the llth of which month the assailants were repulsed, and the garrison relieved, by Colonel Gage and a party of royalists from Oxford. At Banbury Castle, the commander on the parlia- ment's side was Colonel John Fiennes, son of Lord Say: it was defended by Sir William Compton, brother to the loyal Earl of Northampton. The siege, which 18 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. began in August, is memorable for numerous fierce assaults gallantly repelled by the garrison, and for many vigorous sallies resolutely sustained by the be- siegers. During the latter part of it, Cromwell was present. The king, affected by the accounts succes- sively brought him, of the extremity to which Compton and his brave associates were reduced, and, at the same time, not sufficiently considering all the dif- ficulties of his own position, in the midst of hostile armies, readily agreed to the proposal of Northamp- ton, to proceed, with some regiments of horse, to his brother's aid. The expedition proved completely successful, the besiegers being routed and dispersed with great loss; but in the mean time events occurred which occasioned the earl's absence, with his numerous followers, to be felt as a serious detriment to the king's affairs. Had Charles still retained his purpose of marching upon the metropolis, it would have been the height of imprudence to waste time and strength in enterprises of such trivial moment, however interesting to his feel- ings, as the recovery or relief of a few inconsiderable fortresses. But, in fact, this design, at no time enter- tained on sufficient grounds, he had found it necessary to abandon. For the space of six weeks after Skippon's surrender, Charles was detained by the necessities and discontents of his army in the counties of Devon, Somerset, and Wilts. The middle of October found him advanced no farther than Salisbury. There he learned from Rupert, to whom he had sent orders to join Sir Marmaduke Langdale and Colonel Gerrard THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. 19 with the forces out of Wales, and hasten to his support, that they would not at present be in a condition to move forward. He therefore determined to close the campaign, and return without delay to winter quarters at Oxford. Even this, however, the enemy purposed not to let him effect without interruption. Essex's army had by this time been reorganized, and reinforced by the addition of the city regiments, five thousand strong, besides numerous recruits. Waller continued to attend the motions of the royal army, while the vic- torious forces of Manchester and Cromwell, no longer needed in the north, where York had surrendered to the parliament, and the Scots remained in force sufficient to keep down the royalists, were at hand, ready to form a junction. Such, in effect, were the orders of the par- liament to the commanders of the three armies; and then to bring the king to an engagement. The united forces of the parliamentarians mustered near Basing- stoke, amounting to eight thousand infantry, and nearly an equal number of horse : the king's were much less numerous, even before the Earl of Northampton had been detached to the relief of Banbury Castle. With this circumstance the enemy was made acquainted by Hurry, the Scot, formerly mentioned as a renegade from the republican party, at Chalgrave Field. This man seized the present moment to consummate a double treason; under pretence of retiring to the continent, he obtained leave to withdraw from the royal army, in which it is probable he considered his services not sufficiently valued; availed himself of his pass to hasten to London ; and there sought to make his peace c 2 20 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. by betraying the unprovided condition and diminished numbers of the king. The immediate consequence was the battle of Newbury. Charles had posted his army advantageously, near that town, his skill in the disposition of troops being seconded, in this instance, by his intimate knowledge of the ground ; on which, a year before, he had met his foes in a sanguinary conflict. Through the town of Newbury, in an eastern direction, runs the river Kennet, and is joined just below it by another stream (the Lambourne), which, in its course from the north- west, washes, at half mile's distance, the walls of Donnington Castle. A little farther west than Don- nington, lies the village of Speen ; it was occupied by the army of Prince Maurice, and was protected by the guns of the castle, and by works at the entrance of a heath lying still farther to the west. The chief strength of the royal forces was disposed in the op- posite direction, north and north-east of the town, fronting the London road ; on which, at the distance of a mile or two, the enemy made their appearance, about noon on the 25th, and immediately attempted to get possession of an advantageous post on an adjacent hill. In this attempt, though repulsed in the first instance, they on the following morning succeeded. The king's front was strengthened by a breast-work, and by oc- cupying with musketeers several detached country- houses, in and near the village of Shaw. One dwelling in particular, "a strong stone house," obtained ce- lebrity as the scene of the deadliest struggle in the ensuing fight; it was filled by a determined party of THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. 21 riflemen, while others were distributed in considerable force among the surrounding gardens. The engagement began on the 26th with a smart exchange of shot between the artillery of the town, and a party of the enemy; who were now in possession of the hill before-mentioned, on which they had planted a battery. It was not, however, till the afternoon of that day, that any serious effort was made on either side; then the royalists, having brought two of their guns round to the south of the river, opposite the hill, the slopes of which were at that time covered by the regiment of Ludlow, the republican memorialist, swept the eminence with * fatal effect. Ludlow has de- scribed, among his losses on this occasion, the affecting death of a young officer of the regiment, his cousin. The plan of the parliamentarians was, at once to attempt both of the principal royalist positions, and thereby nearly to surround the king. It was late in the afternoon ere any movement indicated their pur- pose. Suddenly, under cover of an active cannonade along their whole line, the army was seen emerging, in two columns, from behind the protecting eminence. The right column, consisting of the forces under Essex and Waller, (the former crying out, that the time was now come "to revenge the business of Cornwall") with a large body of horse commanded by Cromwell, passed along the king's left, crossed the stream near Don- nington Castle, got possession of a wood at the head of the heath, instantly drove in and dispersed the force of Prince Maurice, and made themselves masters of the artillery and village. Of the defeated royalists, 22 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. part took refuge within the works at Donnington; others fled in confusion towards the town, followed down the hill, at Speen, by Cromwell's victorious horse. In the open space, which intervened between Speen and Newbury (now, and perhaps then, known as Speenhamland), stood the king, with the young Prince Charles, surrounded by the royal guards. Here the tide of republican victory was checked. Charles, by the interposition of his personal authority, arrested the precipitate flight of the soldiers. At the same moment the two regiments of the king's and queen's guards gallantly charging the pursuers, the latter fell back to the hill at Speen, the possession of which they quietly retained. Meantime the second column, which comprised Manchester's battalions, after pausing on the slope of the eminence to observe the effect of the move- ment on Speen, animated by the proofs of its suc- cessful result, descended to the more difficult work of forcing the strong position at the villa, already described, called Doleman's house. The music of the republican warriors as they marched down the hill, was a solemn psalm, resounding along the steady lines. At the first they were met by prince Charles's regiment of horse, who, having received and returned the fire of the advancing column, withdrew to the entrenchments in the neighbouring gardens. It was among these pleasant retreats of the modest luxury of a country town in the 17th century, that the severest conflict and most terrible slaughter took place. File after file of the republicans strove to force their way THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. 23 into this suburban fortress ; but instantly fell, leaving the lawns and hedge rows covered with dead and wounded. Three hours had elapsed while the infantry of the parliament were thus engaged, the cavalry standing all the time drawn up for their support, exposed to a galling fire, from which Ludlow's regiment again suffered most severely. At length a reserve of the enemy coming up, they retreated towards the hill ; to the top of which the royalists pursued them with great execution, and bringing off two pieces of ordnance, retired with them to their entrenchments. One more attempt was made, by an overwhelming mass of ca- valry, to force the position : it failed ; and the silence and solemnity of an autumnal moonlight reigned over the second field of Newbury. The king had been a personal witness to that part of the conflict from which his army had suffered most. He resolved not to expose it to a second encounter with a force so superior, till he had reinforced his ranks. An hour, therefore, before midnight, the artillery and military stores were, by his order, secured beneath the walls of Donnington Castle; the several divisions at the same time quitted their ground, and mustered in silence on the heath. These movements did not pass unobserved by the enemy; who, however, offered no interruption. Dawn discovered the main force of the royalists far advanced on their march to Oxford. Charles himself, with his immediate attendants, and a squadron of lifeguards, had taken the western road, with a design to hasten the Welsh and northern re- inforcements, whose expected junction under Rupert 24 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. had so long detained the prince in the west. The uncle and nephew met at Bath. In the meantime the parliament's forces entered Newbury. They summoned Donnington Castle to sur- render, threatening Colonel Boys that if he did not instantly comply, they would not leave one stone upon another. "If so, I am not bound to repair it," was the governor's scornful reply. Being urged, a second and a third time, with the offer that he should be permitted to march out with all the arms, ammunition, and stores deposited in the castle "Carry away," he said, "the castle walls themselves, if you can; but, with God's help, I am resolved to defend the ground they stand on, till I have orders from the king, my master, to quit it, or will die upon the spot." An assault was con- sequently determined, but the officer who led the storming party having fallen at their head, and great differences prevailing among the generals, nothing farther was done. From Bath the king returned without delay to Oxford, attended by Rupert, and his reinforcements. On the 6th of November, the whole army mustered near that city; and on the 8th Charles surprised his enemies by appearing once more in sight of Newbury, at the head of full six thousand foot and five thousand horse. The day following he took possession of the heath behind Donnington Castle; and, resuming his former position between Speen and Newbury, offered the enemy battle. A sufficient space of time was allowed them to quit the town, without any indication appearing that the challenge was accepted. A herald THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST 1644. 25 was then sent forward to announce, that the king's design was now to retire. Another pause ensued, when the army, with drums beating, and trumpets sounding, repassed the river unmolested, and took up their quarters for the night under Donnington Castle : the king slept within the fortress. The next morning he marched out, followed by the train of artillery and equipages, which he had deposited there at the close of the battle of Newbury ; proceeded leisurely towards Oxford ; and on the 23rd, reached once more the deanery at Christ Church, then the only palace of the sovereign of three kingdoms. CHAPTER II. TREATY OF UXBRIDGE. THREE several times, during the western campaign of 1644, we have seen the king offering to open ne- gociations for a peace. That he was now sincerely desirous of peace, if that "blessing," as he emphatically termed it, could have been obtained on terms com- patible with his conscientious views of duty and honour, no unprejudiced reader of the history of the time can doubt ; that he continued to press the subject upon the attention of the parliament from any serious expectation of being able, by such means, to put a close to the devastating contest, is a point more ques- tionable. The parliament had gone too far to be safe, as individuals, from the vengeance of the violated laws, unless they could find means to restrain the sovereign executive within limits, to which neither the king's con- science nor his just pride would allow him to submit. Nevertheless, though he had little reason to hope for any good from a negociation, it became not the father of his people to turn a deaf ear to the cry which now rose on all sides from hut and castle, from the lord and the peasant alike for a termination to be put to the useless calamities of that protracted, bloody, and unnatural war. TREATY OF UXBRIDQE. 27 Sensible of the same pressure from public feeling, the weight of which, on this point, now began to lie chiefly upon their side; hoping, moreover, to be able more readily afterwards to throw the blame upon the king, in the estimation of the multitude, who were less capable of judging what either party might or might not concede, than of their apparent willingness to enter on a treaty the parliament also at length yielded. From time to time, ever since the transmission of the king's message after the discomfiture of Essex, we meet, in the records of their proceedings, with motions made and votes passed to consider of propositions for a treaty. Propositions on their part were at length framed, and commissioners (two from the Lords, four from the Commons, and three for Scotland), were named to carry them to the King. They left London on the 20th of November. Whitelocke, who was one of them, has left an amusing account of their journey. At Wallingford, where they at first expected to find the king, they apprehended some risk from the rude loyalty of the governor, with whom they dined ; again, on their arrival at Oxford, the insolence of some of Charles's officers moved the commissioners' indignation. By the populace they seem to have been regarded with as little favour : " As we passed along the streets," says the memorialist, " the rude multitude, the people part of that people of England for whom we underwent so many hazards of our lives, and fortunes, to preserve them in their rights and liberties, and from slavery and popery, reviled us with the names of traitors, rogues, and rebels, and the like, and threw stones and dirt into 28 TREATY OF UXBRIDGE. our coaches : a great encouragement and reward for our service for them !" The reception of the commissioners by the king him- self seems to have been tolerably satisfactory, except to the three who appeared for Scotland. That to them he " was less civil than to their brethren," cannot ex- cite surprise; for not only had the rebellion, which now wasted the realm, first broken out among the Scots, but that people had, likewise, by means of the covenant, and the intrigues of their commissioners in London, gained a degree of influence which they unre- lentingly employed for his destruction. The very pro- positions now submitted to him, had derived no small part of their harshness from suggestions made north of the Tweed, to which the authorities at Westminster yielded a slavish consent. It was Sunday, when the commissioners were admitted to the royal presence, and presented the propositions. They were read by the Earl of Denbigh. At the reading of the names of those persons whom the parliament proposed to be excepted from pardon which the earl pronounced "with great courage and temper," the Princes Rupert and Maurice, hearing their names among the number, "fell into a laughter;" at which the king seemed displeased, and desired them to be quiet. "Have you power," said he, addressing the com- missioners, " to treat ?" " No, " they replied ; " our commission is merely to receive your majesty's answer in writing." "Then," rejoined the king, "a letter-carrier would have done as well." " I suppose your majesty," retorted Lord Denbigh, " looks upon us as persons of TREATY OF UXBRIDGE. 29 another condition than letter-carriers?" "I know your condition," was the reply; "but I mean, that your commission gives you power to do no more than a letter-carrier might have done." This hasty remark appears afterwards to have been regretted on all sides. While the commissioners were waiting in the town for the royal answer, Lord Lindsey, who was confined by his wounds, invited Whitelocke, and Hollis, two of their number, to visit him. Presently after their arrival, the King, Prince Rupert, and several other persons of high rank entered ; when his majesty began an earnest conversation with Whitelocke and Hollis, on the business of their mission. In reply to his repeated request, that they would advise him what answer it were best to return to the parliament's mes- sage, they expressed their conviction that his appearance in person at Westminster, would, more than anything else, promote the attainment of peace. By Charles's desire they then withdrew into a private room, where Whitelocke wrote down what both agreed to recommend to the king as the substance of his answer. The paper, written in a disguised hand, and without a signature, was left on the table; " and the king went in, and took it, and then with much favour and civility bid us fare- well." This singular transaction was kept secret by the two commissioners, from their colleagues, and can only be excused as springing from an earnest desire for the success of their negotiation. A charge of high treason, founded upon it, was some months afterwards brought against them in the parliament by Lord Savile, one of 30 TREATY OF UXBRIDGE. the lords then at Oxford with the king, who, on the failure of the treaty, went over to the rebels. The king's letter by the commissioners contained merely a request, that a safe conduct might be for- warded for the Duke of Lenox and the Earl of South- ampton, by whom he would send his reply; and it bore no superscription. The safe conduct was re- fused, until it should be formally applied for to " the parliament of England and Scotland assembled at Westminster." This demand the king conceded, though with reluctance; and the result of the visit of those noblemen to London was an agreement to appoint com- missioners on both sides for a treaty, to be held at Uxbridge, the place selected by the parliament. The commissioners nominated by the parliament con- sisted of four for the Lords, viz. the Earls of North- umberland, Pembroke, Salisbury, and Denbigh; eight for the Commons, viz. Pierrepoint, Hollis, Lord Wenman, Sir Harry Vane, St. John, Whitelocke, Crew, Prideaux ; four Scotch lords, and three divines, Marshall, Vines, Cheynell, and the famous Alexander Henderson ; with eighty attendants. The king's commissioners, at the head of whom were the Duke of Richmond and the Marquis of Hertford, amounted, with their retinue, to one hundred and eight persons. In this number were included, with a view to the affairs of the church, Drs. Stewart, Sheldon, Feme, Hammond, Potter, Lany, and other learned divines. Such of the royal com- missioners as had received any honours from the king, " since the great seal was carried away from the parliament," the Commons refused to acknowledge TREATY OF UXBRIDGE. 31 by their new titles. This they did, not so much from personal dislike to the individuals, as in defence of one of their own most remarkable acts. When, by the persuasion of Hyde, Lord Keeper Littleton had forwarded the great seal to his master at York, the houses passed a declaration, that "whatever should, from that time, pass under the great seal, should be null and void ;" and shortly afterwards ordered a copy of it to be made, which they applied, in such matters transacted on their sole authority as by law required the attestation of the great seal. To this impediment, however, Charles quickly put an end by declaring, that " he waved the matter of honour, and was content that his commissioners should treat under those titles that were admitted by the parliament." The king's com- missioners were, probably without exception, most anxious for the success of the treaty. Such unanimity the opposite party were far from entertaining. A small number, principally Hollis and Whitelocke, sincerely wished for an accommodation; the majority, however, neither sought nor desired the establishment of peace; while some, in particular Vane, St. John, and Prideaux, were there expressly to prevent it, and to act as spies upon the conduct of those who might be willing to obtain it at the cost of the slightest secession from the unreasonable demands of the parliament. We adopt, in regard to the further preparatory steps, Whitelocke's lively narrative, as the account of an eye- witness. "January 29th," writes the memorialist, "the commissioners for the treaty on both parts met at Uxbridge, and had their several quarters ; those for the 32 TREATY OF UXB RIDGE. parliament and all their retinue on the north side of the town, and those for the king on the south side: the best inn of the one side was the rendezvous of the parliament's commissioners, and the best inn of the other side of the street was for the king's commis- sioners. "The evening that we came to town several visits passed between particular commissioners of either party, who had long discourses together to the furtherance of the business of the treaty. "The place being within the parliament's quarters, they appointed Sir John Bennet's house, at the farther end of the town, to be fitted for the place of meeting for the treaty. The foreway into the house was ap- pointed for the king's commissioners to come in at, and the back way for the parliament's commissioners; in the middle of the house was a fair great chamber, where they (the parliament's commissioners) caused a large table to be made, like that heretofore in the Star- chamber, almost square. The king's commissioners had one end and one side of the table for them ; the other end and side were for the parliament's com- missioners, and for the Scot's commissioners, to sit by themselves. Behind the chairs of the commissioners, on both sides, sat the divines and secretaries. At each end of the great chamber was a fair withdrawing room, and inner chamber; one for the king's, the other for the parliament's commissioners, to retire to and consult when they pleased." After the settlement of some disputes about pre- cedence, raised by the Scottish commissioners, (whom TREATY OF UXBRIDGE. 33 the parliament had by this time discovered to be very arrogant and troublesome coadjutors), the powers and instructions to negotiate were, on each side, de- livered up to the opposite party; and on the 1st of February the business of the treaty began by the ne- gotiators for the parliament producing the propositions with which they were entrusted. Up to this point affairs had been conducted with something like a mutual acknowledgment of equality; as soon however as essentials, not forms, came to be mooted, it was found that the parliament, "though they had not yet con- quered, were determined to treat only as conquerors." The momentous subjects to be settled were all ranged under three striking and popular heads Re- ligion, the command of the military, the truce in Ireland. Referrible to each of these were several propositions, amounting together to twenty -eight; neither from the substance nor the form of which, as already fixed by the votes of the houses, were their agents permitted in any degree to deviate. Thus all discussion of the reasonableness of the parliament's demands was precluded ; nothing farther being yielded in this respect than an intimation from the com- missioners, that they were ready to explain, in private, the grounds on which they held them to be reasonable and just. To crown the absurdity, they were com- manded to insist that each of the three great questions was to occupy successively the term of three days, and again in rotation to be resumed, till the twenty days, already fixed for the continuance of the treaty, had 34 TREATY OF UXBRIDGE. expired; when, unless all the propositions had been agreed upon, the treaty was to close. Not less magisterial was the substance of the pro- positions. It comprised, under the first head, the following particulars, the abolition of the episcopal and the establishment of the presbyterian form of church government ; that the Directory should be substituted for the Book of Common Prayer; that the assembly of divines should be confirmed, and that the king himself should take the covenant : under the second, that the command of the army and navy should be vested absolutely in the par- liament ; under the third, that the cessation in Ireland should be declared void, and hostilities be immediately renewed. On the king's part it was re- plied, that he could not consent to the abolition of episcopacy, which he conscientiously believed to be essential to the existence of a church, but that he was willing to have the episcopal authority confined within the narrow limits prescribed to it in the scheme of Archbishop Usher. Some other particulars he was likewise prepared to yield ; such as, freedom of worship to nonconformists, and the payment of a sum of 100,000 by the church into the public treasury. The power of the sword, the next point in discussion, the king was persuaded to say he would resign, for the space of three years, into the hands of commissioners, half of whom should be nominated by himself, the other half by the parliament : subsequently, with strong reluctance, he enlarged the period to seven years. On the third head he was inflexible. One of the charges TEEATY OF UXBRIDGE. 35 most frequently brought against Charles by his ad- versaries, and most extensively believed by the people, was that, for the purpose of attaching the Roman Catholics to his cause, he had instigated and en- couraged the rebellion in Ireland ; and that the armistice agreed upon in that country was not the result of necessity on his part, but a contrivance to enable him to avail himself of the services of the rebels in England. On this argument, Clarendon represents himself as speaking to the following effect before the commissioners : " He put them in mind of their (the parliament's) bringing those very troops which were levied by the royal authority for the suppression of the rebellion in Ireland, to fight against the king at Edgehill; of their having given over the prosecution of that war, or sending any supply of arms, money, or ammunition thither ; and having, on the contrary, employed those magazines which were provided for that service against his majesty; in consequence of which the privy-council of Ireland had written home, that unless other means were provided for the pre- servation of that kingdom, they would not be able any longer to carry on the war against the rebels. That notwithstanding, it was not till the sum of 100,000, raised for that express purpose, had been sent in one entire sum into Scotland, to dispose and enable the Scots to raise an army to invade England, that the king had swerved in the least degree from the ob- servation of the act of parliament which had been passed for reducing the insurgents. But when he saw that the parliament themselves, instead of prosecuting D 2 36 TREATY OF UXBRIDGE. the end and intention of that statute, only took ad- vantage of it for the purpose of carrying on the war against himself, he thought himself absolved before God and man if he did all he could to rescue and defend himself against their violence, by making a cessation with the rebels in Ireland, and by drawing over some regiments of his own army from thence to assist him in England ; to which measure was owing the preservation of the defenceless protestants of that kingdom. Those unjustifiable proceedings of the par- liament, though they had compelled the king to yield to a cessation, yet could not prevail with him to make peace with the rebels. His majesty did indeed," he continued, " admit commissioners from them to attend him with propositions for that purpose. But when he found those propositions so unreasonable that he could not in conscience consent to them, and that they were inconsistent with the security of his Protestant subjects there, he totally rejected them, and dismissed the commissioners with severe animadversions. He nevertheless gave authority to the Lord Lieutenant and council to prolong the cessation, in the hope that the rebels might be brought to a better temper. Should it turn out otherwise, his majesty trusts to be enabled through the establishment of a happy peace here, by means of the present treaty, to chastise their odious and obstinate rebellion ; and if now the parliament will give his majesty sufficient security, that the war in Ireland shall be prosecuted with vigour, by sending over the requisite supplies of men and money, he will put an end to the truce." TREATY OF UXBRIDGE. 3? Thus those propositions which came into discussion under the three general heads of the church, the army, and Ireland, admitting as they did, in the instructions given by the parliament to their commissioners, of no modification, offered (for so they were designed to do) insuperable obstacles to the procuring of peace. Had the possible result, however, been different, had the difficulties presented in them been found surmount- able, the enemies of peace, viz. the independents and the entire party of the movement, were provided with others equally unpalatable though less prominent, on which they were, in that case, to fall back. Such, for example, was the exception from pardon of the king's best friends and most loyal subjects, including among them some of the most eminent individuals in the realm, his two nephews, the princes Rupert and Maurice, being placed at the head of the list ; such also was the con- fiscation of the estates of all persons, in any degree obnoxious to the parliament, under the title of de- linquents, for the purpose of defraying the expenses of the war. An accommodation, in such circumstances, was clearly hopeless. Nevertheless the commissioners, on Charles's part, desirous that their fellow-subjects should understand that no unreasonable impediment to their just desire of peace arose from the king, applied for an extension of the period allowed for the treaty it was refused, notwithstanding the interposition, by letter, of the agent of the French government, and of the ambassadors of the United States in a per- sonal appeal to both the houses. So resolved, in fact, were the parliament to make no concession in 38 TREATY OF UXBRIDGE. this particular, that the royal commissioners judged it necessary to observe the letter of their safe conduct, and precipitately returned to Oxford on the last day for which their safety was guaranteed, wearied with the fruitless labour of twenty anxious days and broken nights. A formal seal was thus put to that hopelessness of a peaceful arrangement of the quarrel between Charles the First and his rebel parliament, of which, previously to the negotiation, the one party had fixed, and the other too truly apprehended : the certainty of victory in the field, with the consequent power to dictate, to crush, or extinguish, was henceforth to be the only peacemaker. The king had foreseen this result, and sanguinely be- lieved himself prepared for the consequences; the late campaign had added no presage of final success to the prospects of his adversaries ; he had received pro- mises of continental aid ; while a diversion in his favour, of most flattering brilliancy, had lately been made by means of the rapid exploits of Montrose in Scotland. At Westminster, in justification, politically speaking, of the course pursued in the treaty, a more subtle design was in agitation a design carried on by the boldest and ablest men, based on solid expectations, and sup- ported by the command of the chief resources of the empire. The third great party, the suffering and deluded people, who had had no voice in the late momentous but undeliberative assembly, were, as they always are, the last to comprehend the true nature of their own position; they were in consternation at learning the abortive close of the negotiations, and that TREATY OF UXBRIDGE. OiJ the sword was not to be returned to the scabbard till blood of theirs had dyed it yet more deeply; but they were as little disposed as ever to distrust those who had so long led them to the sacrifice, encouraging their self-immolation with the cry, abused in every age, but in none so grossly as in this, of religion and liberty ! CHAPTER III. NEW MODEL OF THE PARLIAMENTARIAN ARMY MONTROSE. THE civil wars of the seventeenth century, though in effect political, had their origin in the deeper sources of religious discontent. Puritanism had long been pre- paring the people for resistance, when that injudicious attempt, already described, to force upon the rude and fearless sects an ecclesiastical polity which they abhorred, recoiled upon its authors, and English dissent acquired consistency, and ripened into rebellion, be- neath the cold but vigorous influences of Scotch presbyterianism. Political disaffection and personal ambition eagerly availed themselves of the alliance, at once to cover and effectually to promote their darker purposes. For a time common hatred of a church become, in self-defence, somewhat intolerant, and a monarchy constitutional in its nature, but despotically administered, bound together as harmoniously as could be expected of such a principle, the distinct though not heterogeneous elements of the great movement; long, indeed, after their mutual hostility had grown deadly, either side continued to wear the semblance of unani- mity, the more effectually to secure the ruin of that ancient authority, ecclesiastical and monarchical, which PARLIAMENTARIAN ARMY MONTROSE. 41 both had made, by many insults and wrongs, a more intolerable if not more dangerous foe. Yet the grave nonconformist, who had no objection to a servile monarch, and the unflinching republican leveller who sought to be sole monarch, at least of himself; the in- dependent who insisted on constructing his own church, or, rather, on having none; and the presbyterian who in- sisted on intolerantly forcing on all other men a church which he found divinely framed in his interpretation of scripture, began early to feel alike the uneasiness of that copartnership into which prejudice, passion, worldly interest, and some sense of common wrong, had com- bined to hurry them. We have already hinted at the existence of in- subordination in the parliamentarian army. Before the point of time at which we have now arrived, similar jealousies and discontents had begun to explode in the more central arena of the parliament. The critical moment was now near when the younger-born of those confederates was to seize, with youthful but giant grasp, that power which the elder deemed his birth- right. Yet the seizure was to be made, in the first instance, furtively, and under the purest pretences. The decent veil of unquestionable patriotism, the affectation of a personal sacrifice for the sake of the public good, was to shroud the step which in- cluded disloyalty to the covenanted partnership of the rebel allies, and the final throwing away of the scabbard, into which it was hitherto pretended the sword of rebellion was ever ready to be returned. In seasons of commotion no act is to be done which has 42 NEW MODEL OF THE long to wait its agent. To make the first great step towards republican domination, only one man in England was fit; but that one man was so in the most consummate sense. For this work both courage and dissimulation were needed, and in Cromwell daring without parallel was united to a depth of hypocrisy not to be fathomed even by himself. In order to understand the subsequent history of the civil wars of the seventeenth century, we must keep our attention fixed on Cromwell and his knot of friends at first the associates, then the submissive creatures but, from first to last, able and variously gifted as they were, the dupes, or the tools, of that inscrutable person. With this faction, but in particular with the bold republican theorist, young Vane, Cromwell had by this time come to the conclusion that the epoch was arrived when the first commanders of the parliamentarian armies must be set aside for men more suited to ex- isting circumstances. Of those qualifications, on the ground of which they had originally been appointed, some were now discovered to have no existence, while others actually unfitted their possessors for present command. The military talents of Essex had been overrated, and even his courage now appeared dubious ; the successes of Manchester's army were chiefly to be ascribed to the ability and vigilance of his officers ; the high civil rank of Warwick and Denbigh did not prevent their insignificance as generals; in fine, the interest such men had in the security of the throne, and their personal sympathy, as peers, with the sovereign, had rendered them heartless and inactive PARLIAMENTARIAN ARMY MONTROSE. 43 in a cause, the success of which must involve the com- plete humiliation if not the destruction of the monarchy. The Scotch and presbyterian party had attempted, by means of a charge of cowardice, deposed to by Craw- ford, a Scot, and major-general under Manchester, to wither the laurels won by Cromwell at Marston Moor : the recent occurrences before Donnington Castle pre- sented a favourable occasion for re-opening the quarrel, with a prospect at once of effectual advantage to the cause of independency, and of satisfactory vengeance for the lieutenant-general. Having procured himself to be called upon in the House of Commons to explain why the king's challenge to a second battle had been disregarded by the conjoined army, and his sub- sequent march to Oxford permitted without any attempt at interruption, Cromwell threw the blame on Manchester's unwillingness to obtain such a victory in the field as must have proved an obstacle to the establishment of peace. " I showed him evidently," he said, " how this success might be obtained ; and only desired leave with my own brigade of horse, to charge the king's army in their retreat, leaving it in the earl's choice, if he thought proper, to remain neutral with the rest of his forces. But, notwithstanding my impor- tunity, he positively refused his consent, and gave no other reason, but, that if we met with a defeat, there was an end of our pretensions we should all be rebels and traitors, and be executed and forfeited by law." These charges were immediately met by Manchester in the House of Lords. Having vindicated his own con- duct in the war, he retorted upon Cromwell himself the 44 NEW MODEL OF THE accusation of inefficiency at the battle of Newbury. He proceeded to advance proofs of the lieutenant- general's republican schemes and disaffection to the covenant ; in one of his few unguarded moments, Cromwell had told his superior officer that "it would never be well with England till he were made plain Mr. Montague meaning, till the privileges of peers were abolished ; that the Scots had crossed the Tweed for no other purpose than to establish a religious despotism, and that in that cause he would as soon draw his sword against them as against the king; and lastly, that it was his purpose to form an army of independents, which should compel both king and parliament to submit to such conditions as he should dictate." To this proceeding of Manchester's Essex was a party, and a consultation was held in the lord general's house, between the Scotch commissioners and the English leaders of the presbyterian faction, of which the result would have been the public denunciation of Cromwell in parliament as an incendiary, and an enemy of both nations, had not Whitelocke and Maynard, who attended the conference in the capacity of legal ad- visers, declared their opinion that the proofs were not sufficient to sustain such a charge against " a gentleman of his subtle parts and great interest in the two houses." But a scheme was now ready for the light a master- contrivance of republican policy which, if it could not silence the voice of parliamentary censure, would at least place the army in a great degree beyond its reach. Under the conduct of the managers of this scheme, PARLIAMENTARIAN ARMY MONTROSE. 45 on the 9th of November, the House of Commons re- solved itself into a committee to consider of the sad condition of the kingdom, in reference to the intolerable burden of the war, and the little prospect there was of its being brought to a conclusion without some altera- tion in the state of the army. In the committee a general silence was observed for a space, each member looking upon others as if not knowing who was to begin the debate. Cromwell at length rose. " The occasion of his rising," he said, " was of no less im- portance than to save the nation out of its present bleeding, nay almost dying condition. Without a more speedy, vigorous, and effectual prosecution of the war, casting off all lingering proceedings like soldiers of fortune beyond the sea to spin out the contest, we shall make the kingdom weary of us, and hate the name of a parliament. For, what do the enemy say ? nay, what do many say, that at the beginning of the war were friends ? Even this : that the members of both houses have got great places and commands, and the sword into their hands ; and what by interest in the parliament, and what by power in the army, will per- petually continue themselves in grandeur, and not permit the war speedily to end, lest their own power should determine with it. This I speak here to our own faces, is but what others do utter abroad behind our backs. I am far from reflecting on any; I know the worth of those commanders, members of both houses, who are yet in power." "And especially," he proceeded, " I recommend it to your prudence, not to insist upon a complaint of oversight on the part of any 46 NEW MODEL OF THE commander-in-chief upon any occasion whatsoever. For as I must acknowledge myself guilty of oversights, so I know they can rarely be avoided in military affairs. Therefore, waving a strict inquiry into the causes of the present state of things, let us apply ourselves to the remedy which is most necessary; for I am per- suaded, that if the army be not put into a better method, and the war more vigorously prosecuted, the people will enforce you to a dishonourable peace." He expressed a confident belief, that the parliament was composed of such true English hearts men of such zealous affections towards the general weal, that no member of either house would scruple to perform a great act of self-denial for the public good; and he concluded by proposing the following resolution: "That no member of either house of parliament shall, during the war, enjoy or execute any office or command, military or civil, and that an ordinance be brought in to that purpose." On the important point of supply- ing, and in a more efficient manner, the places of those whom this resolution was designed to dismiss, the same speaker, in a subsequent debate, thus significantly ex- pressed himself: "God," he reminded the house, "had so blessed their army, that there had grown up with it, and under it, very many excellent officers who were fit for much greater charges than they were now possessed of; and he desired them not to be terrified with an imagination, that if the highest offices were vacant, they would not be able to put as fit men into them ; for, besides that it was not good to put so much trust in any arm of flesh, as to think such a cause as this PARLIAMENTARIAN ARMY MONTROSE. 47 depended upon any one man, he took upon him to assure them, that they had officers in their army who were fit to be generals in any enterprise in Christendom." Vane, in whose mind this resolution was probably first framed, spoke in support of it with all the force of his peculiar eloquence. Whitelocke, though generally siding with the movement, aware of the real object in view, acted with Hollis as its chief opponent, and was followed by the whole body of the presbyterians. On its reaching the House of Lords, where the great ma- jority were of that party, and where every member plainly perceived that the ordinance was designed to operate as a disqualification of the entire hereditary nobility of the country for exercising the privileges immemorially attached to their order, a stand was made, in ap- pearance more successful. Three several messages were successively sent up from the lower house, de- siring expedition, and setting forth the danger of delay in passing the ordinance, yet with so little disposition to recommend the measure by any concession, that a proposal to exempt from its operation the lord general, was lost on a division. The Lords persevered, however; but in throwing out the bill intimated in a conference that they would be willing to enter- tain one of similar, but less extensive import, on being made acquainted with the particulars of the second great measure then in preparation, namely, the re- construction of the army. The managers in the Commons allowed them not long to wait : the very day after the delivery of the 48 NEW MODEL OF THE reasons for rejecting the bill in the Lords' house, the committee of both kingdoms reported to the Commons the scheme for " new model." The concurrence of this committee, which included that of the four Scotch commissioners, is said to have been obtained by means of Vane's influence over the great head of the cove- nanters, the Marquess of Argyle ; that influence being probably fortified by the prospect of getting rid of Cromwell, whom, with the instinctive sagacity of the bird watching the eye of the serpent destined to swallow it, they had long regarded as their worst enemy. They would naturally also be farther conciliated by finding that, in the room of Essex and Manchester, whose method of carrying out their purposes was not cal- culated to satisfy any party, it was proposed to place in the chief command Sir Thomas Fairfax, a pres- byterian, and a popular officer among the Scots who had served in England. By the proposed "new model," the three armies of the parliament, nominally of 10,000 men each, were re-constructed into one army of 22,000, viz. 7,600 cavalry, and 14,400 infantry. Under Fairfax, selected for the chief command, the next officer appointed was Skippon, the new major-general. A list of twenty colonels, in charge of as many regiments, followed; in which occur the names of Algernon Sidney, Fleet- wood, Middleton, Ingoldsby, Rainsborough, and others of historical note. Among the inferior of- ficers were the names, not less known, of Ireton, Desborough, Harrison. But the general roll of of- ficers, as finally voted by the parliament, presented PARLIAMENTARIAN ARMY MONTROSE. 49 a remarkable omission ; the second place in command, that of lieutenant-general, was left blank, for the in- sertion, at a more convenient opportunity, of a name which the contrivers of this whole admirably pre- pared stroke of political intrigue, had no intention to dispense with; to secure whose almost unlimited power and influence, the whole scheme had indeed been concocted. On the subject of the list, the filling up of which was left entirely to Fairfax, the doomed upper house made a stand against the demands of the Commons, as well as on that of additional powers granted to the general. Finding, however, that they were likely to gain nothing in the end by resistance but popular odium, and soothed by a vague com- pliment to the rights and privileges of Peers, and as vague a promise from the Commons to maintain them, they yielded to a force which they were in no con- dition to control ; the self-denying ordinance, limited in its enactments to the present time, instead of being, as in the former instance, prospective to the close of the war, was quickly passed, in conjunction with the ordinance for the new model. By that enactment, every member of either house was discharged from all civil and military offices after the expiration of forty days. Essex, Manchester, Denbigh, and Warwick had already appeared in the House of Lords, and reluctantly laid down their commissions. Fairfax, conducted into the Commons' house by four mem- bers, received the congratulations of the speaker. The independents were already triumphant. Sup- ported by a majority in the parliament, and cheered 50 NEW MODEL OF THE on their reckless march of destruction, this small band of hot republicans, with religion and freedom in their mouths, and, some few enthusiasts excepted, fanatic selfishness and hatred in their hearts, were thus enabled to launch, at will, their " thunderbolt of war" an army 22,000 strong; the men drafted as the ablest and fittest for their purpose from the old, well- trained regiments; the officers nominated by a com- mander-in-chief, himself of good military talents but moderate intellect and unsuspicious temper, whom it was designed to hoodwink and overrule by means of the blushless hypocrisy and unhesitating soldier- ship of Cromwell. To crown the efficiency of the scheme, Fairfax's commission studiously avoids all mention of the existence of regal authority in the realm ; it contains no clause providing for the safety of the king's person ; but he is directed to " lead his armies against all and singular enemies, rebels, traitors, and other like offenders, and every of their adherents ; with them to fight, and them to invade, resist, repress, subdue, pursue, slay, kill, and put in execution of death, by all ways and means." But, before we pursue farther the main course of our "great argument," it will be necessary to glance at that brilliant episode which diversified it, while the events lately narrated were passing. Allusion was made, in a former page, to a proposal from the Earl of Montrose, through queen Henrietta, to raise a di- version in favour of the royal cause in Scotland ; where, in spite of the known loyalty of a great proportion of the people, the despotism of the covenant prevailed PARLIAMENTARIAN ARMY MONTROSE. 51 almost without opposition. The offer met with no encouragement; and the valour and genius of the earl found, for a season, no wider sphere than some de- sultory command, on the Scottish borders, under the Marquess of Newcastle. But the influence of Hamilton, by whom that proposal had been defeated, rapidly de- clined, till Charles at length became so convinced of his late favourite's perfidy, as, towards the close of the year (1643), to cause him to be arrested at Oxford, with his brother Laneric, and confined in Pendennis Castle. This step was the result of in- formation laid before the king by Montrose, who in the beginning of the troubles had served with the cove- nantersin Scotland ; who since his return to loyalty had followed all their movements with keen and hostile observation ; and hence was thoroughly acquainted with the secret springs, both of danger and of hope, at work in that calculating and intriguing faction. The plan of this adventurous nobleman for reviving the ancient Scottish loyalty from its ashes, was now favourably re- ceived by his sovereign. He was appointed lieutenant- general, under Prince Maurice, of all the royal forces north of the Tweed ; the Earl of Antrim, an Irish noble- man of Scotch descent, who had married the widow of the famous Duke of Buckingham, being associated with him in the enterprise. Antrim, a weak vainglorious person, had no other requisite for the undertaking, besides a double share of Montrose's hatred to Argyle, which in him was hereditary; with the possession of estates in that savage part of the province of Ulster, whence a descent could most conveniently be made 52 NEW MODEL OF THE upon the opposite coast. He, nevertheless, promised to raise there, in a short time, a force of 10,000 men, and carry them across, to form the basis of a royalist army. Montrose received his commission, and was created a marquess, in the spring of 1644. This was all that the impoverished king was able to do towards the further- ance of the project. The marquess left the court accom- panied only by a few gentlemen, his attendants, and attempted to raise, in the northern counties, a force sufficient to penetrate into Scotland, and join the pro- mised succours from the Earl of Antrim. He surprised Dumfries, but was repulsed, and forced to retreat upon Carlisle. The disastrous battle of Marston Moor fol- lowed, and extinguished all hope of his obtaining means in England to renew the attempt. The whole of Scotland was now in the hands of the rebels, nor was any thing heard of the Irish auxiliaries. Montrose held a consultation with his friends, the issue of which was, that, considering further efforts to be useless, the party marched out of Carlisle, purposing to return to the king at Oxford. At the end, however, of the second day's march, the undaunted leader, attended by two faithful followers, Sir William Rollock and another officer, privately quitted the cavalcade, determining, in pursuance of his original plan, to endeavour to pass the border in secret. "There is not in the annals of fiction," writes Mr. Napier, the recent biographer of the heroic marquess, " a more interesting and romantic incident than this undoubted historical fact, that Montrose, disguised as the groom of two covenanting troopers, whom Rollock PARLIAMENTARIAN ARMY MONTROSE. 53 and Sibbald personated, mounted on a sorry nag, and leading another in his hand, rode in the rear of his two companions, to the borders, where he narrowly escaped a detection that would have brought him instantly to the scaffold. Their first peril was a conversation with a servant of Sir Richard Graham's, who, mistaking the trio for soldiers of Lesly's army, entertained them with the information that his master, Sir Richard, had un- dertaken to act as a spy upon the borders for the very purpose of conveying to the covenanters intelligence of the motions of the royalists, and of making prisoners any of Montrose's adherents who might be returning to Scotland. This troublesome companion at length se- parated from our adventurers, without having observed any thing to excite his suspicions, far less to inform him that it was Montrose himself with whom he had been conversing. No sooner, however, was this peril past than a greater occurred. They were suddenly accosted by a Scotch soldier, who had formerly served under the Marquess of Newcastle, and who was well acquainted with the person of Montrose. Against the scrutiny of this old campaigner no masquerade was availing. Montrose's 'quick and piercing eye,' and ' singular grace in riding,' were not to be disguised ; and, accordingly, this soldier, passing the seeming officers, at once addressed himself to their servant, and respect- fully saluted him as my Lord of Montrose. In vain the latter endeavoured to evade the compliment and sustain his part. 'What,' exclaimed the soldier, still preserving the utmost respect in his countenance and manner, 'do I not know my Lord Marquess of Montrose ? Go your 54 NEW MODEL OF THE way, and God be with you wheresoever you go.' Mon- trose bestowed a few crowns upon his unwelcome admirer, who left them to their journey, and never betrayed the secret, though he might have made his own fortune by the discovery." These incidents materially quickened the pace of the travellers, who pushed on almost without resting their horses, till Montrose found himself at the house of Tillibelton, the residence of his cousin Patrick Graham, of Inchbrakie. In this vicinity he passed some days, endeavouring to ascertain the state of parties in Scot- land ; concealing himself by day in an obscure cottage near the mansion, and passing the night with the shepherds among the mountains haunts well known to him from his youth during the night. From these rude companions of his concealment he learned some vague reports respecting a party of Irish, lately landed upon the isles and western coast of Scotland ; and his conjecture that these might be a portion of the pro- mised army from the Marquess of Antrim, was confirmed by the contents of a letter, secretly put into his cousin's hands to be forwarded to him at Carlisle, where he was still believed in Scotland to be staying. This epistle was from Alaster Macdonald, a cousin of Antrim's, known in the history of Montrose's wars as Kolkitto (i.e. Coll Keitache, or the left-handed). It acquainted Montrose that the writer had landed, by Antrim's orders, in Argyleshire, with about 1200 of the Ulster Caterans, or wild Irish of Scotch descent ; that his transports had been burnt by a fleet dispatched for that purpose by Argyle ; that he had taken the castle PARLIAMENTARIAN ARMY MONTROSE. 55 of Mingary, and burnt and plundered an extensive line of coast. The letter was written from Badenoch, and concluded with the farther information that Argyle, with a well-appointed army, was then following in his rear, and that, though letters and commissions brought over by him had been forwarded to several of the king's friends, not a man had hitherto joined the expe- dition. This news, as the total issue of Antrim's pro- mises, and of many concurrent assurances that the loyal clans would appear in arms, the instant the cry of "The King and the Graham" should be raised in the highlands, was sufficiently discouraging. Nevertheless, Montrose returned an instant answer, as if from Car- lisle, appointing a rendezvous with Macdonald. Ac- cordingly, two days later, the chieftain met his wild allies at Blair-Athol, not with the imposing insignia and attendance befitting his title of lieutenant-general of the kingdom, but furnished with his bare commission, and accompanied only by his cousin Patrick Graham, with whom he had travelled on foot over the mountains. Yet, his martial figure and noble bearing were studiously recommended to the band of Scoto-Irish by the garb of the Gael, the plaid, the trouse, the bonnet ; the broadsword by his side, the pike and target in hand. The next day he was joined by eight hundred of the Athol highlanders, numbering, with their brethren of the sister isle, about 2,000 men, armed with battle-axes, broad-swords, pikes, bows and arrows ; many, with no better weapons than clubs or stones, and the few muskets they possessed being nearly useless for want of ammunition. It was in the presence of such an 56 NEW MODEL OF THE army if so it may be called that, in the month of August, 1644, the Marquess of Montrose fearlessly unfurled the royal standard among the crags and torrents of Athol, in the heart of a land held in thraldom by a powerful rebel faction, and on a spot lacerated by the despotic severity of Argyle, his own, and, as he deemed him, his country's foe. No time was lost by the committee of Estates in raising levies to oppose, and, if possible, at once to crush, the attempt of Montrose. Lord Elcho, and the Earl of Tullibardine, assembled the armed covenanters of Perthshire, Fife, and Angus ; the young Lord Kilpont was directed to join them with levies from Monteith. But Kilpont, falling in with the Marquess's advanced guard, and ascertaining that he bore a commission from the king, at once transferred his division, amounting to about four hundred men, to the royalist ranks. The army of the covenanters was discovered by Montrose drawn up in order of battle on Tippermuir, a wide plain, a few miles from Perth. It consisted of between 6000 and 7000 foot, supported by 700 or 800 horse, and covered by nine pieces of cannon. Upon this vastly superior force his half-naked band, the men of Athol in the van, rushed impetuously down. The cavalry of the covenanters instantly fled in the direction of Perth; their example was followed by the terrified infantry; and the motley adherents of the royal standard "fleshed" their mingled weapons upon the less active lowlanders, and the heavy burgesses of " St. John's town," from morning to nightfall, when the capture of the whole of the enemy's guns, ammunition, baggage, and colours, PARLIAMENTARIAN ARMY MONTROSE. 57 with the undisputed possession of the town, rewarded their tumultuary valour. In Perth the victors found provisions, clothing, and military stores in abundance. But these fruits of conquest proved by no means an unmixed advantage to Montrose ; a great proportion of the Athol men, according to the usual practice of the clans, deeming the expedition at an end, and retiring to the mountains with their share of spoil. After a repose of three days in Perth, the lieutenant- general, rinding that but few of those friends came in who were expected to gather round the royal standard, crossed the Tay and marched eastward. His encamp- ment at Collace, near Cupar, was signalized by an event which deeply affected him, and marks the bar- barity of the age. Among those adherents who had been brought over (unwillingly, as it afterwards ap- peared,) by Kilpont, was his clansman, Stewart of Ardvoirlich, a man of fierce passions and gigantic strength, whom he imprudently treated with the fa- miliarity of an equal friend. This man, intending to rejoin the covenanters, either bribed by them, or at least willing to make himself acceptable to their party, resolved to assassinate Montrose, or some one of his principal officers. Imagining that he had sufficient influence over Kilpont to extort his concurrence, he conducted him to a solitary quarter of the camp, and there acquainted him with his detestable purpose. Kilpont indignantly rejected the proposal, when the other with his dirk suddenly struck him dead. The murderer fled cut down two sentinels, who threw themselves across his path to arrest him and event- 5 NEW MODEL OF THE ually escaped through the thick haze of an autumnal morning. But the base treachery which marked these assassinations did not prevent the attainment of their object. The Scottish parliament justified and rewarded them by a vote of pardon and thanks to the perpetrator, for "his good service to the kingdom;" and Argyle, without a blush, made the assassin an officer in his own regiment. After this tragedy, Stewart's friends, with the other followers of Kilpont, deserted the royal standard. With numbers diminished to less than 3,000 men though now, it is true, possessing a small party of horse, an arm which at Tippermuir he was absolutely without the noble adventurer pursued his march through Angus to Aberdeen. There a force far su- perior to his own, under the command of Lord Burleigh, was assembled to oppose him. Montrose, in an en- gagement which took place on the 13th, routed them nevertheless, with little loss, and took forcible pos- session of the town, where his soldiers committed many acts of cruelty and pillage which he vainly exerted himself to prevent. Spoil was, in fact, their only pay, and bloodshed familiar to their habits. In the mean time Argyle, with overwhelming numbers, continued to track his course : Perth and Aberdeen had beeu in succession no sooner evacuated by the royalists, than they were occupied by the enemy. At Aberdeen a proclamation was issued by the general of the Estates, denouncing the king's lieutenant, and all his followers, as traitors to religion, their country, and their sovereign, and offer- ing a reward of twenty thousand pounds for Montrose's person, alive or dead. PARLIAMENTARIAN ARMY MONTROSE. 59 And now it was, that, to adopt the language of the modern admirer and vindicator of Montrose, "he entered upon that almost incredible round of forced marches, sudden onfalls, and rapid and masterly re- treats ; again and again retracing his steps, even as the winter was setting in, through the wildest and most untrodden districts, and over the most inaccessible mountains of Scotland, rarely in a beaten track, and continually struggling through snow-wreaths, rocks, and mists, and inland seas ; which, even in the opinion of those who question both the principle and the pru- dence of his undertaking, must stamp the first campaign of Montrose in Scotland, as among the most striking recorded efforts of military genius and enterprise." "Thrice," says Baillie in astonishment, "he wound about from Spey to Athol." Throughout the greater part of these " coursings," Argyle followed, but at a cautious distance ; fearing, though the pursuer, that con- flict, which he who seemed the fugitive did not desire to shun. For the tie that bound together the desultory parties of which Montrose's army consisted, was not discipline, nor, perhaps, loyalty, but rather that constant spirit of enterprise, which even victory would have re- laxed ; his object was, not immediate partial conflict, but, by rousing the loyal districts of Scotland with a sight of the king's standard, and the war-cry of a known leader, to prepare the way for shaking off from his country the whole incubus of rebellion. Once, but once only, he avoided battle. Macdonald had been detached, with a division of his Kerns, on a separate expedition to the western highlands, when Montrose fell in with 00 NEW MODEL OF THE the army of the Estates, augmented, by the recent junction of the northern covenanters, to 15,000 foot and above 1 ,000 horse. To engage, in a general attack, an army whose strength in cavalry alone nearly equalled that of his own entire force, was impossible. He there- fore availed himself of the shelter of a wood, on the skirts of which some skirmishing took place, for several successive days, with no advantage to the more nu- merous party. At length Argyle adopted a mode of warfare more suited to his genius; he succeeded, by means of bribes and persuasions, in detaching the majority of his enemy's lowland followers, who were mostly, indeed, unequal to the tremendous hardships of a winter campaign in those inhospitable regions. But the defection made no change in the purposes of Graham. He now, in turn, at the end of November, became the pursuer. Learning that Argyle had dis- missed his horse to winter-quarters, and was marching southward with his infantry, he again traversed the mountains, now clothed in all their wintry horrors, with the purpose of forcing him to fight ; but the wary covenanter, getting timely notice, left his army to shift for itself, hastened to Perth, and thence to Edinburgh ; where, moved by his own shame, or by the dis- satisfaction of his employers, he resigned his com- mission. At Blair-Athol, their original place of rendezvous, Alaster Macdonald rejoined the expedition with a re- inforcement of 500 royalists. Montrose now resolved to retaliate upon his foe the severities which Argyle had in- flicted on those districts called "malignant," by carrying PARLIAMENTARIAN ARMY MONTROSE. 61 the war into the heart of that chieftain's country. Advancing through Breadalbane, and along the borders of Loch Tay, he marched right upon the Campbell's strong hold of Inverary, deemed by himself inac- cessible to an enemy. The great Mac Cailinmore, who stretched the despotism of rebellion over all Scotland, fled affrighted before the leader of a little tumultuary band, on whose head he had so lately set a price. Throwing himself into a fishing-boat, he made his escape to Dumbarton, leaving his broad inheritance to be wasted by fire and rapine. Nor was the work of destruction negligently done. " From Inverary to Lorn and Glenco, and thence through Lochaber to Glengarry and Loch Ness," the flocks and herds were all swept away, every thing combustible committed to the flames, and the whole country reduced to " a howling wilderness." No blood, however, flowed in this fierce fray; "in regard," drily remarks the con- temporary historian, " that all the people also, following their lord's example, had delivered themselves by flight." Argyle's staff was given to General Baillie, under whom the renegade Hurry was appointed second in command. Marching westward from Perth, Baillie found Argyle at Dumbarton, and proceeded under his guidance to encounter Montrose, who was now pursuing the work of devastation in Lochaber. " And the marquess, knowing well that the enemy was gone, went home with pomp and convened all his friends from their lurking-places to follow upon Montrose's rear. And, to make his power the more formidable, 62 NEW MODEL OF THE he called over from Ireland Sir Duncan Campbell of Auchinbrech, a colonel in the Scotch army there, and divers other commanders of his name. The project was, that when Baillie's army did charge Montrose in the front, Argyle and his men (who were till then to march slowly, and keep at a distance) should come up and fall upon his rear, whereby he might inevitably be swallowed up." It was Montrose's first intention, with a view to avoid the obvious danger of being enclosed between two armies, to advance eastward, and at once give battle to the general. Suddenly, however, he learned that Argyle, pursuing his accustomed caution, had posted his army securely under the walls of Inverlochy, there to wait the issue of the expected conflict. By a rapid and secret march across the mountains of Lochaber, exceeding in difficulty all that had gone before, he brought his little army, at sunset on the second day, within sight of the frowning towers of that ancient castle. On the first alarm, that a division of the royalists had appeared in the vicinity of In- verlochy, the chief of the Campbells, taking with him his most intimate friends (and among them, says bishop Guthry, " Mr. Mungo Law, minister of Edinburgh, whom he had invited to go along with him to bear witness to the wonders he meant to perform,") em- barked in his galley on the loch. The sun had just risen, when, springing from the foot of Ben Nevis, where, " wet and weary, in frost and snow," they had passed the night in arms, Montrose's rude battalions poured down upon Inverlochy. His right consisted of an Irish PARLIAMENTARIAN ARMY MONTROSE. 63 regiment led by Alaster Macdonald ; his left, of a similar corps commanded by a gallant Hibernian gen- tleman, named O'Kyan ; in the centre advanced the noble Graham himself, accompanied by a few horse, and supported by the highlanders of Athol and Glenco. From the boat, whence he issued his orders, Argyle beheld, in the very first charge, his standard captured, and his whole army thrown into irretrievable confusion. Numbers of the Campbells, though deserted by their chief, fell bravely fighting, claymore in hand, where they stood ; but the greater part, cut down in the pursuit, strewed the banks or stained the waters of the loch, for the space of many miles. It would appear hardly credible, did not the records of that decisive day agree in the statement, that while the slain on the Campbell's side amounted to full fifteen hundred, on the part of the loyalists no more than four individuals perished ; of whom, however, one was Sir Thomas Ogilvy, the dearest friend of Montrose, whose prowess had greatly contributed to the result. The battle of Inverlochy was fought on the 2nd day of February. On the 12th Argyle appeared before the parliament at Edinburgh, " having," writes Guthry, " his left arm tied up in a scarf, as if he had been at a bones-breaking ;" and there, with a degree of veracity proportioned to his courage, narrated the disastrous close of his expedition. Meanwhile the victor trans- mitted to Oxford a manly and soldier-like despatch, in which, after giving an account of his successes, he encouraged Charles's hopes of a triumphant issue to the great contest in which he was engaged, and implored 64 NEW MODEL OP THE him not to make peace with the rebel parliament till they had laid down their arms. This letter reached the king just before the expiration of the treaty at Ux- bridge, and may have helped to encourage him in that stedfast adherence to the great principles he had laid down for his guidance, which some writers have branded as "infatuated obstinacy;" but it can scarcely have had any thing to do with the breaking up of the negotiations. That Charles had become a thorough convert to Montrose's views with regard to Scotland, and expected his lieutenant's brilliant exploits to have the effect of ultimately turning the scale of fortune in his favour, is evident from his letters written about, this time. We may blame the sanguine temper and ready confidence which betrayed the king; for in the main object of rousing Scotland to a sense of loyal duty to her sovereign, little or no progress had been made; while all that had been achieved besides was likely to prove worthless, if not injurious to the royal cause. The motives of Montrose himself were not believed free from the stimulus of private hatred ; the names of Antrim and his popish Caterans excited the most virulent abhorrence throughout the whole covenanting community ; the mode of carrying on the war was both barbarous in itself and futile in its results. Flaming villages, and devastated fields, and towns plundered, or choked with the carcases of helpless burghers; but neither affections conciliated, nor military positions established : these were trophies worse than useless to a monarch engaged in a contest with his subjects. In short, the wars of Montrose, even while victory PARLIAMENTARIAN ARMY MONTROSE. 65 followed without a check the standard he so bravely bore, could afford no solid benefits to compensate the facilities presented by them, for the malicious com- ments of the king's enemies, or the regrets they occasioned to the judicious among his friends. It is for this reason that we have passed so hastily over a history, the romantic details of which might have been expected to be found in a work which professes to bring into prominence the heroic features of the history of the civil wars. Montrose's ardour did not, however, in the least betray his judgment, when, in the dispatch referred to, he thus spoke of the parliament. "The more your majesty grants, the more will be asked, and I have too much reason to know that they will not rest satisfied with less than making your majesty a king of straw." CHAPTER IV. OXFORD SUFFERINGS OF THE COUNTRY. CHARLES had quickly occasion to perceive, notwith- standing the comparatively favourable issue of the late campaign, the fitful lustre thrown upon his arms by the actions of Montrose, and the divided state of the enemy, that the cause of monarchy, in his view so sacred, (and, because sacred, therefore ultimately sure), had, since the failure of the Uxbridge treaty, grievously sunk in the estimation even of his own court. The anti-parliament, which, on the occasion of their first sitting at Oxford, in the winter of 1643-4, advocated peace, but in a tone of respect and moderation, was now, at its re-assembling, disturbed by a faction re- solved to force the king to continue his attempts to procure an accommodation on any terms. " Base and mutinous motions," as Charles himself characterized them, were brought forward by this party to effect their object : among others, one for the impeachment of Digby, the strenuous opponent of dishonourable com- promise, on whose advice the king, at this time, placed much dependence. He therefore prorogued the untractable assembly, and deprived the leaders of the faction of their power to obstruct his measures, by sending them into honourable exile in attendance on the queen. It was with reference to these occurrences OXFORD SUFFERINGS OF THE COUNTRY. 67 that, in a letter to Henrietta, he let fall the expression "mongrel parliament," so frequently harped upon by those who themselves vehemently denied the right of that "junto," as they styled it, to be regarded as legitimate. His use of that contemptuous epithet is reasonably enough explained by the king. " The truth is," he writes to secretary Nicholas, in August, 1645, " that Sussex's factiousness at that time put me some- what out of patience, which made me freely vent my displeasure against those of his party, to my wife ; and the intention of that phrase was, that his faction did what they could to make it come to that, by their raising and fomenting of base propositions." The clamour for peace, to be purchased by whatever sacrifice, nevertheless continued loud in Oxford. In the pleasant, but somewhat anomalous head quarters of the belligerent monarch, were assembled nearly all those who, from motives of fear or self-interest, most dreaded a disastrous termination, or even a longer con- tinuance, of the war. Courtiers, whose large hereditary rentals were now unequal to supply the demands of fashionable luxury, or even of modest need, while their princely mansions and "immemorial woods," yielding their ancient honours to the destroying hand of seques- tration, swelled the rebel treasury at Goldsmith's Hall, and strung the sinews of that war which consumed themselves : ladies, who looked forward with terror to another campaign, when the necessities of the king would oblige him at once to reduce the garrison, and to leave Oxford exposed to inroads from the advanced posts of the enemy, or even from fresh armies which F 2 68 OXFORD SUFFERINGS OF THE COUNTRY. they might pour westward out of the capital : the un- warlike tribe of university doctors and professors, at this time numerously reinforced by loyal country clergy- men, who had sought security from military violence and agrarian insult beneath the segis of the Christian Athena : such, mingled with the men of diplomacy, the gallant cavaliers, and the coarser soldiery, con- stituted the multifarious and thronging population of those fanes consecrated to learning, those "awful cells," the dim retreats raised for piety and meditation. Of necessity, the ordinary calm pursuits of the university were interrupted, or wholly suspended. The progress of the great contest the news of every hour presented a subject too exciting, not to take precedence of, or to exclude, every ordinary topic. The unwonted and incongruous multitude required extraordinary supplies of provision, which had often to be brought from a distance; and, many times, waggons laden with flour and country produce were intercepted, herds of cattle, col- lected with no gentle hand by the royalists, were swept off by bolder or more numerous bands, within the parliamentarian lines, to fatten the London citizens, or to supply Fairfax's sturdy troopers with that vigour which they displayed equally in devotion and in fight- ing. No marvel, that in the university and city, as thus circumstanced, were found those who anxiously joined the common cry for peace. In their united petition for it, in 1644, they represent to the king " the study of good literature, for so many ages famously extant in this ancient university, neglected our city reduced to great distresses ;" and crave a termination OXFORD SUFFERINGS OF THE COUNTRY. 69 to the cruel contest between himself and his parlia- ment, " that the schools of good learning in the king- dom, especially this famous university, may again flourish, and bring forth painful labourers and pious instructors into the Lord's vineyard." The terrors and uneasiness of the more numerous, and less informed, were at the same time encouraged by the desertion to the parliament of several peers and other eminent persons, whose selfishness took alarm at the growing difficulties of the king. Dering led the way ; Savile, Andover, Mowbray, followed. "What a running disease," sneered the scurrilous London mercuries, " possesses these Oxford lords ! It is a sign the building is ready to fall, when the pillars slip away." Oxford, however, notwithstanding its inconveniences and its fears, both of which were immeasurably aug- mented when the dreaded departure of the king became the signal for the approach of a parliamentarian army to within musketshot of its walls, was among the few places in the kingdom that enjoyed an exemption from the more formidable evils attendant on a state of civil warfare. Every county, and a large proportion of the towns, of England, had been the scene of bloodshed and rapine. The occasional barbarities, and habitual license and oppression, of which the troops and even the officers, of the royalist army, were guilty, are con- fessed and deplored on many occasions by the noble historian : on the other hand, the entries in the ruder but not less honest record of Whitelocke, frequently relate, about this time in particular, to the criminal atrocities of the parliamentarian soldiers. On this 70 OXFORD SUFFERINGS OF THE COUNTRY. painful subject a distinction has been drawn. It is alleged, that the disorders in the rebel armies were at- tributable only to the coarse passions of the common soldiers, and were perpetrated in spite of the exertions of their officers to preserve strict discipline ; that in the king's armies, on the contrary, the brutal excesses of the men were countenanced by the laxity, insolence, and irreligion of the chiefs. In this remark there appears to be, unhappily, some truth ; but any degree of odium which it may seem to withdraw from those in authority on the parliamentarian side, returns with double force when we contemplate the parliament itself, the pretended fountain of authority, sanctioning and commanding atrocities, which, without prompting, the army would scarcely have hazarded. By an ordinance of Oct. 24, 1644, all Irishmen taken in arms were to be put to death ; a decree which the subordinate ge- nerals of the parliament lost no time in rigorously executing : only the humane mind of Fairfax revolted from this barbarity. It was the custom on board their fleet to bind back to back and throw into the sea, without distinction, seamen or soldiers found in captured vessels belonging to Ireland ; and an instance will pre- sently be related, in which, on pretence of obedience to this barbarous law, a multitude of defenceless women were cut to pieces by Cromwell's troopers. In connexion with crimes so atrocious and disgrace- ful, the destruction of property, the suspension of trade and social intercourse, the dreary blank and the un- christian bitterness, thrown over the surface, or diffused through the familiar channels of daily life, may appear OXFORD SUFFERINGS OF THE COUNTRY. 71 less worthy of notice. Yet these too were grievous evils ; and, like the others, the more formidable, as both springing from, and reproducing, a demoralization of the national mind. The country houses of the no- bility and gentry, often curious examples of ancient magnificence, or splendid proofs of more recent taste, were mostly converted into fortresses ; and, in that capacity, were subject to every form of destruction incident to a state of war to plunder, defacement, burning, demolition. And these were sometimes per- petrated in mere wantonness. Both Clarendon and Walker record, with indignant regret, the unnecessary burning of Cambden House, between Stow and Eve- sham, by order of Prince Rupert ; an edifice which, not many years before, had cost above thirty thousand pounds. The destruction of the woods on delinquents' estates was a practice to which the parliament had recourse continually, and on any pretext : for the use of the navy, to raise funds for pensioning officers' widows, for provisioning the garrison of one place, or undertaking the siege of another. The plundering and desecration of churches was another practice, which continued throughout the war : the entrance of the parliament's forces into a cathedral town was usually followed by the despatching of a waggon-load of sur- plices, hoods, communion-plate, &c., to Westminster, or by a distribution of clerical plunder among the soldiers. For these spoils a market was found on the continent : the curiosity shops of Holland were glutted with the pillage of our English temples and palaces. Referring to the interruption of the ordinary affairs of life by 72 OXFORD SUFFERINGS OF THE COUNTRY. this protracted contest, the pamphlet before cited, en- titled, " England's Fears," presents us with the follow- ing animated lamentation : " Behold " (it is England who is personified as speaking) " how my plundered yeoman wants hinds and horses to plough up my fer- tile soil ; the poor labourer, who used to mingle the morning dew with his annealed sweat, shakes at his work for fear of pressing ; the tradesman shuts up his shop, and keeps more holidays than willingly he would; the merchant walks to the exchange only to learn news, not to negotiate. Sweet Peace! thou which wast used to make princes' courts triumph with tilt and tournaments, and other gallantries ; to make them re- ceive lustre by foreign ambassadors ; to make the arts and sciences flourish ; to make cities and suburbs shine with goodly structures ; to make the country ring with the huntsman's horn, and the shepherd's pipe : how comes it to pass that blood-thirsty discord now usurps thy place, and flings about her snakes in every corner?" In such a deplorable state of things, notwithstanding- all the parade which one side, at least, made of reli- gion, neither unaffected piety nor true morality could flourish. Far from repenting of those sins on account of which divine Providence had permitted the scourge of rebellion and war to ravage the nation, new crimes were introduced. In the midst of prolix details of trivial political occurrences, we meet with this naked, unnoted record, " twenty witches executed in Norfolk." The kidnapping of children, probably for sale in the plantations, grew so frequent a practice, that at length the parliament passed an ordinance for its suppression, OXFORD SUFFERINGS OF THE COUNTRY. 73 under the name of " spiriting." Ministers of the gospel habitually perverted the pulpit (to the use of which the public service of God was now wholly restricted) to the purposes of strife and bloodshed : the famous sermon delivered at Uxbridge by Robert Love, on the assem- bling of the commissioners there to treat of peace, in which he encouraged the rebels to the slaughter of their opponents as " the Lord's work," was singular, not for its anti-christian spirit, but merely for the audacity implied in the occasion. Respecting the de- moralization introduced into families, we have abun- dance of contemporary testimony. "Alas," exclaims a writer of the time, " in this intestine war of ours we are so desperately wicked and void of all natural affec- tion, that divers gentlemen, of both parties, have looked upon their nearest kinsmen that were wallowing in their own blood, without offering them their aid, or casting a sigh of compassion for them. Nay, some have been so cruel, and deprived of all natural affection, that they and their abettors have ridden twenty miles in a dark night to surprise their father, uncle, or bro- ther, to carry them away to their own garrison, to wring out of their hands some considerable ransom; which being refused, they have deprived them in an- other night of all their cattle and means, and reduced them (that were knights' fellows) to Job's case, without any compassion or reluctation." The neglect and ill-treatment to which ordinary prisoners of war were exposed, is another frightful feature of the times. The story of the soldiers and others taken at Cirencester, early in the war, which 74 OXFORD SUFFERINGS OF THE COUNTRY. deeply implicates the king himself in a charge of in- humanity, is, no doubt, a gross exaggeration. But it is too certain, that in the crowded fortresses and other depots belonging to both parties, humanity was not unfrequently outraged. Yet these deep shadows in the great picture of calamity, are relieved by some touches of light : the struggles and sacrifices made by the friends of captives, in negociating exchanges, and in other methods for their deliverance, present incidents consolatory to the lover of mankind. Nor was benefi- cence of a more public sort wholly wanting; an in- stance of which was witnessed in the congregation at Carfax Church, Oxford, where a collection was made, every Sunday, for the support of the numerous un- happy victims of the war confined in that city. A remarkable and ominous circumstance was the number of executions which marked the period of the decline of the Presbyterian, and the sudden growth of the Independent influence. Sir Alexander Carew, who in the beginning of the war had distinguished himself by his enmity to the king, but who afterwards became a sincere convert to loyalty, and was detected in an attempt to surrender the fort at Plymouth to the royalists, was beheaded December the 23rd on Tower Hill. The Hothams, father and son, whose crime was similar to Carew's, and the elder of whom, by closing the gates of Hull against his sovereign, may be said to have been the immediate cause of commencing the war, suffered upon the same fatal spot, the one on the 1st, the other on the 2nd of January. Clarendon strikingly describes the unpitied fall of these persons OXFORD SUFFERINGS OF THE COUNTRY. 75 as " an act of divine justice, executed by those at Westminster." The next victim flung to the devouring Moloch of civil and religious strife, was the brave, the venerable, and learned Laud. More than four years of his advanced age had " shed their snows " upon the prelate's head, since the agonizing day when Straftbrd, then on his passage to eternity, knelt be- neath the grating of that honoured cell, to receive a last blessing from his deeply conscientious, but too zealous, spiritual and political father; a long, and, to the sufferer, harassing suspension of the blow, but arguing no forgetfulness on the part of his execution- ers, who, in patient confidence of the end, stood all the while uplifting " that two-handed engine at the door." Laud's execution took place January 10th. On the 20th of the month following, occurred that of Macguire, an Irishman of rank, sentenced for his share in his country's rebellion. In the case of this man, there was little to engage sympathy, if we except the persecution which, in common with the archbishop, he encountered on the scaffold. The part acted in Laud's case by the zealous puritan Sir John Clotworthy, was performed in the instance of the Irish baron by Gibbs, sheriff of London, and the Presbyterian minister Sibbald. He persisted in denying that he had acted as an agent in the rebellion, either under a commission from the king, or in reliance on any promise of absolution from the pope ; and he declined the attendance of Dr. Sibbald, on the ground of his own religion being the Roman Catholic. The poor fellow sought earnestly to prepare himself for death his own way. " Since I am here to 76 OXFORD SUFFERINGS OF THE COUNTRY. die," he said, " I desire to depart with a quiet mind, and with the marks of a good Christian ; that is, asking forgiveness first of God, and next of the world. And I do, from the bottom of my heart, forgive all my enemies, even those that have a hand in my death." He concluded with a request, which he had before urged, " I beseech you, gentlemen, let me have a little time to say my prayers." The zeal of his tormentors was, however, inexorable. His beads and crucifix, with some papers containing his confessor's directions for his behaviour on the scaffold, were rudely taken from him, by the hands of those champions of law, liberty, and toleration ; and nearly the last words of the wretched man were still the petition, in vain repeated, " For Jesus Christ's sake, I beseech you to give me a little time to prepare myself for death !" The growing vigour of the Independent party was evinced in many other ways. The Assembly of Divines, a copy of the national assembly of the Scottish kirk, though, in the first instance, composed almost exclu- sively of Presbyterians, rapidly yielded to the lawless impulses which swayed without, and was filled with antinomians, anabaptists, millenarians, with adherents, in short, of almost all those multifarious sects, whom the fanatical temper of the period, and the nature of the contest in which the country was engaged, had called into existence. These anomalous factions, united however by the common aim of freedom for conscience, readily lent their aid in the work of ecclesiastical ruin ; in stripping away copes and surplices, in demolishing and mutilating ancient monuments, in pulling down OXFORD SUFFERINGS OF THE COUNTRY. 77 organs ; but to the business of reconstruction, in any shape, they were utterly opposed, and set themselves as earnestly against the proposed government by pres- byters, classes, and synods, as both the Presbyterians and their discordant colleagues had before done against the existing authority of archbishops, bishops, and deans. " The opposition between them," writes a modern historian, " grew fierce and obstinate : day after day, week after week, was consumed in unavail- ing debates. The lords Say and Wharton, Sir Henry Vane, and Mr. St. John, contended warmly in favour of toleration : they were as warmly opposed by ' the divine eloquence of the chancellor ' of Scotland, the commissioners from the kirk, and several eminent members of the English parliament. Eighteen months had elapsed since the assembly was first convened, and yet it had accomplished nothing of importance, except the composition of a Directory for the public worship." The once flourishing church of England had indeed been levelled with the ground, but its root still sur- vived in the affections and habits of the people; spurned, trampled, drained of all but its divine vitality, it was yet ready, when the allotted period of its judicial ruin, and the ripened purposes of Providence, should be complete, to raise its stately head and extend its shel- tering branches ; while the discipline of the Directory was from the first a thing void of every element of life. At no time more than very partially observed, its au- thors quickly saw it wholly neglected a naked and uncouth monument of their presumption. CHAPTER V. CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NA8EBY. THE prosecution of the war, as far as the nature of the season allowed, had not been in any degree intermitted during the conference at Uxbridge. In the middle of the treaty the town of Weymouth was surprised, and partly occupied by the king's troops; on the other side, Shrewsbury, one of Charles's most important garrisons, was betrayed to the parliament on the very day of its expiration. Great exertions were made by the parliament to give effect to their new model, by voting abundant military supplies for the approaching campaign. Nor was the king less anxiously engaged in preparations for the decisive struggle which he fore- saw. But the total want of pecuniary resources, to which he was by this time reduced, presented a most embarrassing difficulty. He endeavoured, by means of negotiations conducted through the queen's agency at Paris, to obtain aid from the French king and the Duke of Lorraine ; the latter of whom appears to have pro- mised to bring over 10,000 men to his assistance. He also directed the Duke of Ormond to settle, on any terms he chose, the differences in Ireland, that he might be enabled to avail himself of the support of his Roman catholic subjects in that country. Apprehensive, in the mean time, that Oxford, towards CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. 79 which the enemy had of late made threatening ad- vances, must, sooner or later, undergo the dangers of a siege, he determined to provide for the security of the prince of Wales, by sending him into the west, where the royal authority was still paramount. The place chosen for his royal highness's residence, as pro- mising both safety and convenience, was Bristol. Thither accordingly the young prince proceeded, early in the month of March, with two regiments of guards, under the command of Lord Capel and the Marquess of Hertford, attended by Lord Colepepper, Hyde, and others of the king's council. The establishment of a court for the prince, separate from that of his royal parent, tended to the increase of those feuds among the royalists, which have been, in some degree, described. His majesty's authority at Oxford, already extremely weak, was farther lessened by it, without the least prospect of vigour being com- municated to that of his youthful representative. It was Charles's original intention not to invest the prince with a military command, because he foresaw that the necessary delegation of the duties of the office to others, in consequence of his youth, would not fail to aggravate the existing jealousies and disputes. But Rupert, when, in an evil hour, he was offered the chief com- mand of the army, had touched a string in the king's heart which never vibrated without pleasure, by refusing to accept it unless in quality of lieutenant to his cousin. Accordingly, Prince Charles was appointed generalissimo of all the king's armies; and a deputation of noblemen and gentlemen coming at this time to solicit the king's 80 CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NA8EBY. approval of an association of the four western counties, which they desired to place under the prince's imme- diate direction; at the same time offering to provide for his dignity, and to raise troops for the defence of his person; the king consented farther to nominate him its general. In the end, this double command, conferred on a youth of eighteen, became either wholly insignificant, or absolutely injurious to the royal cause. A wiser policy, both projected and executed by one master-intellect, directed the affairs of the parliament. From this time, during a long succession of years, the destinies of England, as far as they were com- mitted to the operation of second causes, are mainly beheld in the career of Cromwell. Under the direction, secret or acknowledged, of that extraordinary person, the reconstruction of the army was completed, without mutinies, and almost without discontents among the soldiery : wherever any such occurred, his activity and decision were effectual to repress them. The stern sobriety, or solemn religious fervour of that officer's own regiments; their familiar association of the bible and the sword; their steady use of the one, and their licentious handling of the other, became the common pattern for the regenerated forces of the parliament. Each man could contend, in discourse, for his own views in religion ; every one was ready to conquer or die, in battle, for the common cause. Still, the utmost skill and vigilance could not altogether prevent the weakness and uncertainty incident to such a military revolution as the New Model. But the king was himself in no condition to take advantage of the unprepared state of his adversaries. CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. 81 The significant omission which has been noticed, in the list of officers, was well understood by the parties. Fairfax, the parliament above all, Cromwell himself, knew perfectly, that he who was the originator and life of this great plan, was not to be excluded from the advantages of its practical operation. Or, if from any one of them the real object was concealed, it was as- suredly not from the astute Cromwell, but the confiding Fairfax. From the day when the ordinance for the New Model passed the House of Commons, Cromwell was no longer to be seen within its walls. The ter- mination of the prescribed period of forty days ap- proached, but the lieutenant-general appeared not, with the other officers who sat in the parliament, to deliver up his commission. The public service, it was hinted, demanded his absence ; it was allowed for a second period of forty days. Orders were then issued by the parliament (but never designed to be obeyed) that he should attend in his place, and that the new general should appoint some other officer to his command. Fairfax replied by a humble request, " that they would give lieutenant-general Cromwell leave to stay with him some few days longer, for his better information, with- out which he should not be able to perform what they expected from him." The petition was too reasonable to be denied. At length, when nearly another month had elapsed, the following letter was read in the Commons from Sir Thomas Fairfax, and divers of the chief officers of his army: "Upon serious consideration how the horse of this army may be managed to the best advantage of the public, which are at present 82 CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. without any general officer to command them, though as considerable a body as any you have had since the beginning of these unhappy troubles; we have taken the boldness, humbly to desire that this house would be pleased to appoint lieutenant-general Cromwell to this service, while this honourable house shall think fit to spare him from his attendance in parliament. The ge- neral esteem and affection which he hath both with the officers and soldiers of this whole army ; his own per- sonal worth and ability for the employment; his great care, diligence, courage, and faithfulness in the service you have already employed him [in], with the constant presence and blessing of God that have accompanied him, make us look upon it as the duty we owe to you and the public, to make it our humble and earnest suit (if it may seem good to you), to appoint him unto this employment, which shall be received by us with that thankfulness and acknowledgment of your favour, which may best express how sensible we are of so great an obligation, and how much devoted to your and the kingdom's service." On this it was resolved, that Sir Thomas Fairfax be desired, if he thinks fit, " to appoint lieutenant-general Cromwell to command the horse, as lieutenant-general, during such time as this house shall please to dispense with his attendance." Of course, notwithstanding some subsequent renewals of the dis- pensation, by way of blind, there was an end of the matter : and, as Clarendon remarks, " from this time Cromwell absolutely governed the whole martial affairs" of the parliament. His first exploit after the passing of the celebrated CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. 83 ordinance, was performed at Islip-bridge, near Oxford. Having received orders to intercept a party of horse, (consisting of the queen's and two other regiments, under the command of the Earl of* Northampton,) marching to join the king at Oxford, he put himself at the head of some of his choice troops ; attacked and routed them ; took two hundred prisoners, and got possession of her majesty's standard. From Islip he marched to Blechingdon Place, then a fortified post under the command of Colonel Windebank. The house happened to contain a party of ladies, on a visit to the colonel's wife, at the moment when the dreaded " Invincibles" made their appearance ; and Windebank, softened by the sight of female terrors, agreed, at Cromwell's summons, to a surrender. His weakness cost him his life. The indignant king ordered him to be tried at Oxford by a court-martial, in pursuance of whose sentence he was shot in the Castle-yard. In a subsequent encounter, however, with Goring, an officer of bravery equal to his own, though in conduct griev- ously inferior, Cromwell received a severe reverse the only one which befell him during the war. The occasion was this : By the surrender of Essex's army, and Charles's unobstructed march back to Newbury, the interest of the parliament in the western counties suffered greatly. Cornwall became wholly the king's. In Devonshire they held only Plymouth itself in a state of siege. In Dorsetshire, Poole was theirs, and Lyme. Of Wey- mouth, a place of more importance, one moiety, as was before intimated, comprising the forts and the upper G 2 84 CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. town, had been taken possession of by the king's troops, under the command of Sir Walter Hastings, governor of Portland ; but it was lost again by Goring. That brave, but desultory and dissatisfied officer, was engaged in an intrigue, with the double object of being removed as far as possible from Rupert, with whom he was in continual strife, and of obtaining the general command of the west, under the Prince of Wales. With this design, he procured the king's order to proceed with a strong force to complete the occupation of Weymouth, and then to prevent the relief of Taunton, the only vestige of the parliament's power in Somersetshire, which the royalists were vigor- ously besieging, while the enemy were as anxiously exerting themselves for its relief. Goring failed on both points ; the siege of Taunton having been raised while he lingered idly in Wiltshire, and Weymouth, through his treachery, or negligence, being " retaken by that contemptible number of the rebels, who had been beaten at the lower town, and who were looked upon as prisoners at mercy." These failures the king's general of cavalry in some degree balanced by two brilliant and successful attacks, both in one week, on the quarters of Waller, whose period of service had not yet expired. But the king, having by this time com- pleted such other preparations as he was able to make for the field, sent orders to Rupert, then at Worcester, to rejoin him with his forces, and, at the same time, recalled Goring also with the cavalry to Oxford. Goring obeyed; with no good will, but with his accustomed celerity of movement. In this march it was that he CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. 85 fell unexpectedly upon a party of Cromwell's horse, as, late in the evening, they were in the act of passing the Isis at Woodstock. The attack was instant, and ad- mirably executed. Cromwell's powerful squadrons were thrown into confusion, and defeated with great slaugh- ter; and, on the following day, May 7th, the king and Rupert marched out of Oxford, cheered by presages of victory, destined to signal disappointment. At the place of rendezvous appointed for the royalist forces, on the borders of Gloucestershire, the king's army mustered 5UOO foot and 6000 horse. The general opinion of Charles's officers was, that with this force he ought to follow Fairfax, who had previously marched westward for the purpose of raising the siege of Taun- ton ; and prevent the accomplishment of that object by forcing him to fight, before Cromwell, whom he had left to follow, could come up to his support. But Rupert, who had a plan of his own, overruled this advice. Still smarting from his defeat at Marston Moor, the prince no sooner found himself in a con- dition to be revenged on the Scots, to whom chiefly he ascribed the loss of that famous battle, than his hot impetuous temper scorned to brook delay. Goring, therefore, was ordered back to Taunton, with 3000 of his horse, the most efficient corps in the king's service, to join with Sir Richard Grenvil and renew the siege ; while the main army, thus formidably re- duced in strength, proceeded in a northerly direction. At Tutbury Castle, intelligence was brought to the king, that, on his majesty's departure being known, Fairfax had detached a party to the relief of Taunton, 86 CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. and had himself marched back and sat down before Oxford. Charles now returned also, intending to dispose his army in such a manner, that, if there should be occasion, he might advance to the immediate relief of that city ; in the interval, he resolved to at- tempt the recovery of Leicester, then held by a strong rebel garrison. It was the evening of May 30th when the royalists drew up before the town : the next morn- ing a battery was constructed, a breach opened, and within a few hours the place stormed, and taken at the sword's point. The garrison made a gallant defence, covering the breach with the bodies of their assailants, of whom above two hundred officers and men perished ; but in the end were all made prisoners, and the place given up to those atrocities which commonly attend the sudden storm and capture of a town. No distinc- tion was made of royalist from republican, though the king had many loyal subjects within the walls ; nor were even the churches or hospitals exempted from the general pillage. The perpetration of these acts of violence is attributed, chiefly, to the northern regiments brought down by Sir Marmaduke Langdale. Leicester, however, presents but one among many instances which show that the cavaliers, and the royal- ist soldiers generally, assumed, after the adoption of the New Model, a greater height of licentiousness; as if in scornful contrast with their enemies, who affected to regard themselves as the soldiers of God, and to ob- serve a severity of discipline, as well as a gravity of demeanour, consistent with that lofty claim. But all the advantages of this victory were fatally CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NA8EBY. 87 thrown away. The king quickly repaired the fortifi- cations of Leicester ; but, instead of remaining in this post till he had been reinforced, either by General Gerrard, who had orders to advance for that purpose, from Worcester, with his corps of 3000 men; by Goring's return from his western expedition ; or, at the least, till he had supplied by some more immediate means the loss sustained in the late assault, and replaced the troops required for garrisoning the works, he was persuaded, after a repose of only five days, to resume his march towards Oxford, at the head of an army wholly " insufficient to fight a battle for the crown." On the evening of the first day, he learned that Fairfax had already retired. The general of the parliament had been reminded by his masters, that " the policy resolved on at the constitution of the new model, and openly declared by Cromwell, was, to strike at the king, and keep him constantly in pursuit." And now it was, that he solicited from the House of Com- mons the appointment of that indispensable officer to the post of lieutenant-general. On receiving their favourable reply, he forwarded the commission to Cromwell, then in the associated eastern counties, with an earnest request that he would join him without delay. The summons was by no means unexpected ; within two days, that faithful colleague and stimulating- adviser was at his side. At nightfall of the same even- ing an alarm ran through the royal camp, that an out- post had been forced, and the sentinels slain or carried off, by a party of the enemy's horse. This was the exploit of Ireton, whom Fairfax had sent out to recon- 88 CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. noitre the king's position : he himself, with Cromwell, was quartered six miles off, at Northampton. At this unlooked-for announcement, the king instantly assem- bled a council of war. In the morning he had yielded to the forcible suggestions of prudence, and had marched northward in order to strengthen himself by reinforce- ments before risking an engagement : it was now resolved, on the instant, with that rash, impetuous gallantry which characterized the royalist officers whenever the enemy was at hand, not only to risk, but to advance and offer battle. Accordingly, at break of day (the fatal 14th of June, 1645) the royal army was drawn up on a rising ground about a mile south from. Harborough; a position afford- ing every requisite advantage. The main body of the infantry, numbering about 2500 men, was led by the king in person, and under him by the lord Ashley ; the right wing, of horse, amounting to 2000, was led by Prince Rupert ; the left wing, consisting of cavalry from the northern counties, with some detachments from Newark, in all not exceeding 1600, was entrusted to Sir Marmaduke Langdale. In the reserve, which altogether might be about 1300 strong, were the king's life-guards commanded by the Earl of Lindsey, Prince Rupert's regiment of foot, and the royal horse-guards under Lord Bernard Stuart, lately created Earl of Lichfield. In this order the army had already been standing for some time, in expectation of the enemy, when, no sign appearing of their approach, the king began to doubt the correctness of the last night's intelligence. Reports brought in by the scouts threw no certain light on CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. 89 Fairfax's designs. "They are retreating before us," was now whispered along the ranks. Urged by his cus- tomary impatience, Prince Rupert galloped forward a distance of about two miles, to ascertain the truth, and then sent word that it was true the enemy seemed about to turn their backs, and that a rapid movement of the royalists onward to the attack would have the effect of at once dispersing them. The word was given to ad- vance ; the king put his army in motion; and, relin- quishing the favourable ground they had occupied, led forward his columns into the plain, a fallow field about a mile in breadth, which lay between Harborough and the village of Naseby. Along the crest of a gentle eminence, terminating this open space towards JVaseby, lay the army of the parliament. Here the infantry had sat down, with their arms in their hands, composedly waiting the conflict ; while Cromwell, availing himself of the leisure and opportunity afforded him by the march of the royal forces in the plain below, was ordering some movements of cavalry on the wings. It was the indistinct and broken view he ob- tained of these movements, which deceived the prince into the opinion that Fairfax was retiring. In the centre of this enthusiastic host, Fairfax and Skippon commanded; on the right wing, Cromwell; the left was given in charge to Ireton, on whom the general had, upon the field, conferred the rank of commissary- general. The word was, on either side, characteristic; that of the cavaliers being "Queen Mary" (Henrietta Maria); that of the parliamentarians, "God our strength." Such had been the arrangements, deliberate 90 CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. and complete on the republican side, but disordered and imperfect on the king's, for " the army was engaged before the cannon was turned, or the ground chosen by the royalists," when, at ten o'clock, that decisive and disastrous fight began. It began with shouts of alacrity and delight from the combatants on both sides; for, on both, an im- pression prevailed among them, that they were on " the edge" of a battle which was at length to decide the destinies of their common country. The first charge was, as usual, given by Rupert. The movement was performed with a force and impetuosity, against which Ireton, with all his bravery and steadiness, found him- self utterly unable to stand. His division was broken by the shock, and the commander himself, transfixed with two severe wounds, and having his horse killed under him, was taken prisoner; but, in the confusion of the melee, afterwards escaped to his party. The prince, regardless, according to his custom, of the fate of the main body of the army in which he commanded, pursued the scattered fugitives, drove them through their astonished reserves, made himself master, for a time, of some of their guns, and never thought of re- calling his jaded horsemen until they had themselves fallen into irrecoverable disorder. While this was going on, the royal centre advanced, at a quick pace, up the hill, where the van of the parliamentarians gave way before their onset, and fell back upon the rear. Old Skippon, to whom, in the scarcity of experienced officers, fell a disproportionate share of the danger and exertion of the day, was, at CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NA8EBY. 91 the beginning of the conflict, sharply wounded in the side ; " the brave old man " refused however, when entreated, to quit the field, exclaiming " that he would not stir so long as a man would stand " by him. Fair- fax now advanced to his support; and, animated by the personal activity and daring of the general, the fight in the centre was more equally maintained. At every point of the field he was to be seen, rallying his broken ranks, cheering on the discouraged, and, by his dauntless example, inflaming to a higher pitch the valour of the boldest. As he thus hurried through the thickest of the fray, his helmet was struck off ; but he continued to ride about bareheaded ; and in this state coming up with his body-guard, their commander, Colonel Charles D'Oyley, remonstrated with him on exposing a life so valuable to such hazard, at the same time respectfully offering him his own helmet. " It is well enough, Charles," said Fairfax, refusing it, and again galloped on. But now Cromwell, with equal execution, but far different result, was performing, on the parliamentarians' right wing, an exploit similar to that which Rupert had fruitlessly accomplished on the right of the royalists. On the royal left, Langdale, at the head of his northern and Newark horse, charged after the example of Prince Rupert, encountering the whole strength of Cromwell's regiments, now augmented by some troops of Ireton's corps, whom their officers had succeeded in rallying, and bringing up a second time. The attack, less energetically conducted than was the wont of those hardy northerns, on account of the disadvantage of 92 CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. the ground, which obliged them to advance up hill, was endured without flinching by Cromwell's massy and more numerous bands of Ironsides. The re- publican hero now in turn became the assailant. Charging them at once in front and flank, first with a heavy fire of carbines, then at the sword's point, he routed the whole body, and drove them down the hill. Seven squadrons were under his command, and never soldiers more steadily and cheerfully obeyed their leader. Four he ordered to continue the pursuit, and prevent the broken royalists rallying ; with the other three he wheeled rapidly round to the centre, where the infantry had been long fiercely engaged, on both sides alternately retreating and rallying, but with a preponderating disadvantage on the side of the par- liamentarians, which did not escape the anxious ob- servation of Cromwell. By this movement was the victory secured. The king's battalions, already harassed with the doubtful struggle, wavered, gave way, and finding themselves surrounded by the enemy, and de- serted by their own cavalry, successively threw down their arms, and fled, or yielded themselves prisoners. One regiment only stood its ground, unmoved as a rock, amid the broken surges of the battle. Fairfax, again addressing his colonel of the guard, demanded, whether that regiment had been charged ? " Twice," D'Oyley replied ; " but they moved not an inch." Fairfax then, directing the officer to make a third charge in front, himself attacked them simultaneously in the rear; and the devoted band being cut through in all directions, the two met in the centre of the ground CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. 93 they had just before occupied ; Fairfax bearing in his hand the colours which he had seized, after slaying the ensign, and now gave to a trooper to hold. By and by the soldier began to boast that it was he who had seized those colours ; and when the circumstance was reported to Fairfax, he forbade the public exposure of the vainglorious falsehood, saying, " Let him have the honour : I have enough beside." Ever among the most intrepid in battle, the king excelled himself by his admirable conduct on this fatal day. Again and again he rallied his broken columns, riding from regiment to regiment, and encouraging the men with voice and gesture. In the midst of these efforts, perceiving the defeat of his left wing, he had already given the word, and was on the point of charging with his guards into the midst of Cromwell's triumphant squadrons, " when the Earl of Carneworth, a Scottish nobleman, who chanced to ride next to him, cried out, with two or three full-mouthed Scottish oaths: 'What, Sir, would you rush upon instant death ?' and, at the same moment, seizing the bridle of Charles's horse, turned him round," before the king understood what it was he meant. By this unhappy interference of well- intentioned loyalty, all was lost. Imagining that the command had been given to retreat, the whole re- giment turned, and rode upon the spur the distance of a quarter of a mile. The mistake was then discovered, and the word to "stand," arrested them, but too late to restore order in their ranks. Some few galloped back to the king, whom they found with his staff still in the midst of the field, where Rupert had now joined 94 CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. him, with large numbers of the victorious but disordered right wing. Vain however was every effort to induce them again to form and renew the contest. They had done their part : the victory they had won, others had thrown away. "One charge more, friends," exclaimed the king, "and we recover the day!" It availed not; and Charles and Rupert, with the brave cavaliers that surrounded him, fought their way out of that fatal field, where, as Clarendon mournfully says, " the king and the kingdom were both lost." The defeated sovereign left in the hands of the victor 5,000 prisoners; all his artillery; 9,000 stand of arms; the royal standard, with a hundred stand of colours besides; his private carriages and baggage, with the cabinet containing his cor- respondence with the queen; jewels, gold, in short, every thing that could enrich the conquerors, glut their desire of vengeance, and stamp the victory as complete. That night the fugitives passed through Leicester, fol- lowed to the walls by the horse of the parliamentarians, and next day by their infantry. Respecting the numbers slain in this decisive battle, the accounts differ, but all make them under 2,000 ; a result less sanguinary than might have been expected from the numbers engaged, and the determined cha- racter of the contest. As usual in the king's battles, the proportion of officers killed was excessive ; those gallant and loyal cavaliers choosing rather to fall where they stood, than to submit or fly, and the common soldiers being frequently raw recruits, little hearty in the cause. While not more than ten officers or gentlemen of quality surrendered, above one hundred CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. 95 and fifty lay dead upon the spot, whose memories, says Clarendon, ought to be preserved. On the parliament's side an unpardonable enormity was committed in the pursuit. A hundred women, some of them the wives of officers of distinction, were cut to pieces, or mi- serably wounded, under pretence that they were Irish. Whether the benefit of this excuse, such as it is, really belongs to the fanatical soldiers who perpetrated that deed of cruelty, or not, cannot be ascertained; but we have already seen, with what savage ferocity the natives of Ireland were treated by the parliament and their military commanders. A more serious blow to the king's cause, than even the loss of so many of his devoted subjects, was the use made by his enemies of the mass of secret papers which came into their possession with the spoil of Naseby ; a " barbarous use," it is not unnaturally styled by Cla- rendon. On the other hand, "to conceal those evidences" would, they themselves asserted, have been " a great sin against the mercies of God." But the calmer, though not unbiassed historian of our own times, has justly said, that " if their contents were of a nature to justify the conduct of the parliament, one sees not on what ground it could be expected that they should be sup- pressed." Respecting the publication, Charles himself never complained ; the charge of forgery, advanced by some over zealous loyalists, he himself silenced by a candid admission of the genuineness of those portions of the papers which were produced ; but he also main- tained that others, which would have served to explain ambiguous points, were designedly kept back. Twenty- 96 CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. two additional papers were actually added by the Lords to the selection which the Commons sent up to them in the first instance, after the whole mass, with the other contents of the king's cabinet, had already been many days in their hands, and in those of their officers. As to the unfair, and even false light, in which the whole were exhibited in print to the coarse and pre- judiced eyes of the multitude, it would have been idle to complain. The charges against the king, that have been founded on these celebrated documents, are of two classes : such as affect his general character for veracity ; those which refer to the nature of the facts disclosed. The former, for obvious reasons, have, in modern times, been chiefly insisted on by the king's enemies. That they should have been so insisted on, without the smallest allow- ance, nay, with vehement invective arid rancorous abuse, proves, at least, the deathless interest taken by passion and prejudice, as well as reason, in those portions of our country's history, which, beyond others, involve great moral questions. As Englishmen of the nineteenth century, we need not blush to range our- selves on either side in that majestic controversy of opinion, by which the realm was torn and desolated in the seventeenth century ; but, assuredly, powers of countenance quite marvellous must have been at the command of men, who could come forward with a solemn charge of falsehood against their sovereign for having occasional recourse to the arts of policy and subterfuge, in order to maintain himself in a position of unexampled difficulty and hardship, while the entire CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NASEBY. 97 system of their own policy was mendacious; while they slew the king's loyal subjects in his name ; struck at his own life, and had raised up, for their glory, though ultimately for their scourge, the most renowned of hypocrites. Among the particular facts alleged, a favourite ground of contemptuous accusation is Charles's imputed subserviency to the counsels of his queen. Had this existed, even to the degree of an unbecoming uxoriousness, one might have looked for more toleration of such a foible on the part of those very strict asserters of Christian purity; and the singular spectacle of a king who could affirm (not on his death-bed, for a death-bed he was not allowed, but in the immediate view of death), that he had never been unfaithful, in deed or thought, to his marriage vows, might have expected to conciliate respect. But the charge is, in a great degree, unfounded. The king had few sincere or judi- cious advisers; and when he endeavoured to supply the want by accepting the suggestions of Henrietta, it was generally on subjects, respecting which it seems natural that a wife, in such circumstances, should be allowed to be heard : such were the appointments in the prince's household ; the care of the king's personal safety ; sufficient stipulations, in treating for peace, " in favour of those who have served you, as well the bishops as the poor catholics." In a country, the constitution and laws of which admit, while the people warmly welcome, the accession of a woman to the entire responsibility of the regal office, this loud outcry against interference so moderate as that of the queen of Charles I. in the affairs of government, sounds more like the clamour of H 98 CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NA8EBY. faction than the voice of reason. Advice like the follow- ing, from whatever quarter it might come, could hardly be unworthy of the king's attention : "I have nothing to say, but that you have a care of your honour ; and that if you have a peace, it may be such as may hold ; and if it fall out otherwise, that you do not abandon those who have served you, for fear they do forsake you in your need. Also, I do not see how you can be in safety, without a regiment of guards. In my opi- nion, religion should be the last thing upon which you should treat [viz. at Uxbridge]. For if you do agree upon strictness against the catholics, it would discourage them to serve you ; and, if afterwards there should be no peace, you could never expect succours, either from Ireland or any other catholic prince; for they would believe you would abandon them, after you had served yourself." The employment of papists in his army, a grievance much dwelt upon by his ad- versaries, has been pronounced, even by an unfriendly judgment, to be among those "things for which no one can rationally blame Charles;" an exculpation, which might as properly have been extended to the in- troduction of his Irish subjects, or even of foreign mercenaries, into the royal service. The only point, in all this published correspondence, which Charles ap- pears to have been himself solicitous to clear up, and one which, strange to say, the friends of the rebel party still continue to allege, is that regarding the use of disrespectful terms in characterizing his parliament assembled at Oxford : on this point the king's defence has been already quoted. CAMPAIGN OF 1645 NA8EBY. 99 Cromwell, who had returned to Harborough after pursuing the king, wrote thence the same night to the Speaker of the House of Commons an account of the victory. In the despatching of his letter, as in all things else, he took care to have the pre- cedence of the general. It is blunt and brief, and evidently designed to inspire his party in the parliament with that exultation, and that contempt of their po- litical enemies, which he himself so strongly felt. " Honest men served you faithfully in this action, Sir ; they are trusty : I beseech you, in the name of God, not to discourage them He that ventures life for the liberty of his country, I wish to trust God for the liberty of his conscience, and you for the liberty he fights for." On the 17th, the day following the receipt of Fairfax's despatches, containing the official news of the victory, both houses were sumptuously feasted by the City of London at Grocer's-hall ; and before taking leave in the evening, sang the forty-sixth psalm; in the version, probably, of the Kirk of Scotland. The convoy of the prisoners, standards, guns, carriages, and such other portions of the rich booty as had escaped the hands of the soldiers, was entrusted to Colonel John Fiennes, who was ordered to march with them through the city to Westminster. Arrived at the door of the Commons' house, he was called in, and there, in the midst of the triumph of the promoters of the new model, and the astonishment of the disconcerted pres- byterians, delivered " a particular narration of the fight." The standards were ordered to be hung up in Westminster Hall ; and the prisoners being mustered H 2 100 CAMPAIGN OP 1645 NASEBY. in the Artillery-ground, near Tothill-fields, such of them as gave satisfactory pledges to the committee appointed to examine them, that they would henceforth be the faithful slaves of the parliament, were set at large ; but much the greater number " were shipped off to serve in foreign parts upon conditions ;" a mode of disposing of "malignants" well understood and largely practised by the patrons of the new " liberty of the subject." CHAPTER VI. DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. WHAT supported the king under the calamitous con- sequences of the defeat at Naseby, will be best under- stood from the insertion in this place of an extract from that eloquent letter to Prince Rupert, which Clarendon has described as " containing so lively an expression of his very soul, that no pen else could have written it." The date of this emphatic production is indeed several weeks later than the point of time which we have now reached, namely, the beginning of August, 1645, when Charles's position had be- come considerably worse ; it nevertheless presents a correct transcript of his sentiments and resolves while under the immediate effect of that great blow, and may indeed be regarded as the key to his future public acts. " As for the opinion of my business, and your council thereupon, if I had any other quarrel but the defence of my religion, crown, and friends, you had full reason for your advice. For I confess, that speak- ing either as a mere soldier or statesman, I must say, there is no probability but of my ruin ; but as a Chris- tian, I must tell you, that God will not suffer rebels to prosper, or his cause to be overthrown ; and whatsoever personal punishment it shall please him to inflict upon 102 DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. me must not make me repine, much less to give over this quarrel, which, by the grace of God, I am resolved against, whatsoever it cost me : for I know my obliga- tions to be, both in conscience and honour, neither to abandon God's cause, injure my successors, nor forsake my friends. Indeed, I cannot flatter myself with ex- pectation of good success, more than this, to end my days with honour and a good conscience; which obliges me to continue my endeavour, as not despairing that God may in due time avenge his own cause. Though I must avow to all my friends, that he that will stay with me at this time must expect, and resolve, either to die for a good cause, or, which is worse, to live as miserable in the maintaining it, as the violence of in- sulting rebels can make him. Having thus truly and impartially stated my case unto you, and plainly told you my positive resolutions, which, by the grace of God, I will not alter, they being neither lightly nor suddenly grounded, I earnestly desire you not in any ways to hearken after treaties ; assuring you, as low as I am, I will not go less than what was offered in my name at Uxbridge ; confessing that it were as great a miracle that they should agree to so much reason, as that I should be, within a month, in the same condition that I was immediately before the battle of Naseby. Therefore, for God's sake, let us not flatter ourselves with these conceits." The reader will have collected, from the tenor of this noble letter, that Rupert was infected with that eager desire of peace, which, after the loss of Naseby, per- vaded the minds of the king's friends generally, and DECLINE OP THE FIRST WAR. 103 gave rise to combinations and cabals among the mili- tary officers, local commissioners, and others, to obtain it at whatever cost. In fact, the prince was weary of the duties of field, and still more so of that increasing want of success to which no one had con- tributed so largely as himself. Incapable of self- control, the outward restraints of discipline were in- tolerable to him, and the nobler restraints of a mag- nanimous sense of duty he was unable to appreciate. This reckless and insubordinate temper of their chief prevailed extensively among the cavaliers. Sir Richard Grenvil, who was still possessed of a powerful com- mand in Cornwall and Devonshire, had rendered his own name odious, and discredited the cause of which he was in some respects an able supporter, by an oppressive and presumptuous use of his authority. The conduct of Goring, who affected a kind of military dictatorship in the west, was still more injurious to the king, in consequence of that officer's superior abilities, more po- pular manners, and more considerable charge. By his in- solence, violence, and rapacity, it was he who first gave occasion to extensive associations of clubmen ; and afterwards, through his supine negligence, connived at their excesses. To those faults, which were calculated to occasion general disgust, was added a degree of moral profligacy and profaneness in conversation which justly offended pious persons. It was, in short, the state of lawlessness and disaffection to which, from being originally the most loyal division of England, the western counties had been brought by the license indulged in by Rupert and Maurice, Grenvil and 104 DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. Goring, which seems to have determined the king, when flying before Cromwell's victorious squadrons, instead of adopting the more obvious plan of uniting the scattered remains of his late army with the corps under the command of the two latter, to march at once into Wales, with the unpromising design of at- tempting to raise fresh forces beyond the Severn. At Hereford, Prince Rupert separated from the king, to attend to the security of his garrison at Bristol, while Charles proceeded through Abergavenny to Rag- land Castle, then a splendid baronial residence, which its owner, the Marquis of Worcester, had strongly for- tified and garrisoned. Here while waiting the issue of such directions as he had given to the local authorities for levying troops, the king passed three weeks with his learned and loyal host, in pursuits apparently so little suited to the exigencies of the time, as to draw forth bitter animadversion from his military historian : " As if," exclaims the secretary at war, " the genius of that place had conspired with our fates, we were there all lulled asleep with sports and entertainments ; as though no crown had been at stake, or in danger to be lost." The king, however, was constantly engaged in negotiating with those parties who were, or pretended to be, at work to raise levies for a new army ; he like- wise inspected all the neighbouring garrisons, including Cardiff, where Colonel Tyrrel, son-in-law of Archbishop Usher, had the command, and whither the venerable primate had retired for security. In the midst of these occupations, the king was startled by calamitous intelligence from the seat of DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. 105 active warfare. Fairfax and Cromwell had retaken Lei- cester, two days after Charles's march through it ; had encountered and defeated Goring at Langport, whither he had retired before the parliamentarians from the siege of Taunton ; and had subsequently advanced against Bridgwater. At the same time, the Scots, having after a tedious siege reduced Carlisle, advanced to Worcester, and, presently after, as far as Hereford, to which they laid siege. To add to the king's embarrass- ment, the disaffection of the Welsh was now found to be so complete, as not only to put an end to all hope of raising levies in Wales, but even to countenance the current rumours that a plot was in agitation among them to seize the king's person, and deliver him up to the parliament. To join Goring and Rupert beyond the Severn, in the face of two armies, was not prac- ticable : the only other direction which offered safety was towards the north. Charles consequently resolved to attempt the accomplishment of a purpose which, for some time, had dwelt in glowing colours on his fancy. He proposed by a rapid march to penetrate into Scot- land, and effect a junction with Montrose, whose ro- mantic career of victory was still proceeding unchecked. Having been joined by the Gordons, and other clans, that brilliant adventurer had added to the list of his achievements, in May, the defeat of Hurry, and on the 2nd of July, that of Bayley; who had been sent out, each at the head of a separate army, to suppress him. The king's march northward was over the mountains, by Brecknock and Radnor, to Ludlow. At Welbeck, a garrisoned house belonging to the Marquis of New- 106 DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. castle, he was met by the cavaliers of Lincoln and Nottingham, by Sir Richard Willis, governor of Newark, and by many gentlemen from Pomfret Castle, which had lately surrendered to the rebels ; in pursuance of whose advice, measures were taken to raise in that vicinity some regiments of infantry for the royal service. A second and enlarged commission was at the same time forwarded to Montrose, with orders to conduct his forces to the border to co-operate with Charles's army. But this plan likewise was doomed to frustration. The Scottish Committee of Estates, alarmed at the successes of Montrose, had sent for assistance from the Earl of Leven's army before Hereford. That commander in- stantly despatched Lesley to their aid, with the greater part of his cavalry. Charles was lying at Doncaster when intelligence reached him of this unexpected move- ment. After a long day's march, Lesley had halted his tired soldiers for the night at Rotheram, about ten miles distant, in ignorance of the king's proximity, and by no means in a condition to resist an attack. Mean- while the intelligence brought to the king imported, that the purpose of the Scots was to intercept the royal party, and that their own comprised the whole strength of the Scottish horse. Charles had before learned, that Pointz and Rossiter, two of the par- liament's colonels, each in command of a numerous corps of cavalry, were drawing towards him with the same view. Persuaded that these combined impediments to his advance were insuperable, he relinquished his favourite design ; fell back to Newark; and thence traversing the associated counties, where he had some DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. 107 smart and successful skirmishing with parties of the enemy, re-entered Oxford on the 29th of August, his steps having been tracked all the way, at a distance, by Pointz. Bridgwater, though one of the strongest fortifications in England, did not impede the victorious progress of Fairfax's army. It was carried by storm in two days. A fortnight later Sherborne Castle was won in the same manner. Cromwell next marched against the club-men, who had assembled, to the number of several thousands, near Shaftesbury : they were obstinate in their resistance, but, after two or three hundred of their number had fallen beneath the swords of the " Invincibles," the rest quickly dispersed. The siege of Bristol followed. Rupert occupied that city with scarcely less than 5000 horse and foot; it was well stored with provisions ; and he had promised the king to hold it against all attempts, for four months at least. Nor could less have been expected from his courage and loyalty, on an occasion so important. Hardly had the army approached the lines, when Cromwell, impatient of delay, advised the general-in-chief to attempt Bristol also by storm. At midnight, on the 9th, the assault was made with great fury ; when the assailants, having succeeded in getting possession of some of the principal works, and the town being set on fire in several places, the prince, impetuous in onset, but wholly deficient in the patient fortitude necessary for defensive warfare, presently agreed to a surrender. Charles's astonish- ment and indignation were extreme, on learning the fall of this important fortress, which included the loss of 108 DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. a large proportion of his magazines and warlike stores. He instantly wrote his nephew a letter, full of cutting but dignified reproaches ; he revoked all the prince's com- missions; commanded him to quit the country, for which purpose he supplied him with a pass ; and, to prevent any intrigue in his favour at Oxford, whither he had withdrawn, ordered Legge, the governor of that city, a warm partisan of Rupert's, to be put under arrest and deprived of his command. " Tell my son," said the king, in the postscript to his letter on this painful subject to Secretary Nicholas, " that I shall less grieve to hear that he is knocked on the head, than that he should do so mean an action as is the rendering of Bristol Castle and Fort, upon the terms it was." A few days, however, only elapsed ere the gentler affections, more natural to Charles's bosom, resumed their ascendency; and in pity to both his nephews (for, powerless as he now was, the dependence of both was wholly on himself), he wrote as follows to the younger. "Newtowne, 20th Sept. 1645. " NEPHEW, What through want of time or unwilling- ness to speak to you of so unpleasant a subject, I have not yet (which now I must supply) spoken to you freely of your brother Rupert's present condition. The truth is, that his unhandsome quitting the castle and fort of Bristol hath enforced me to put him off those com- mands which he had in my army, and I have sent him a pass to go beyond the sea. Now, though I could do no DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. 109 less than this ; for which, believe me, I have too much reason upon strict examination; yet I assure you that I am most confident that this great error of his, which indeed hath given me more grief than any misfortune since this damnable rebellion, hath no way proceeded from his change of affection to me or my cause, but merely by having his judgment seduced; and I am resolved so little to forget his former services, that whenever it shall please God to enable me to look upon my friends like a king, he shall thank God for the pains he hath spent in my armies. So much for him, now for yourself. I know you to be so free from his present misfortune, that it no way staggers me in that good opinion which I have ever had of you ; and so long as you shall not be weary of your employments under me, I will give you all the encouragement and content- ment that lies in my power. However, you shall always find me " Your loving uncle, and most assured friend, " CHARLES R." For the purpose of more completely securing the submission of the western counties, which would, in effect, comprize that of the whole kingdom, Cromwell now separated from the main army, and marched back to reduce those loyal garrisons in the south, which blocked up the communication with London. Devizes was the first place he summoned : "Win it and wear it," was the answer of the governor, Sir Charles Lloyd ; but the gallantry of Sir Charles's language did not extend to his soldiership, for in less than two days he sur- 110 DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. rendered. Berkeley and Winchester Castles were the next gems added to Cromwell's wreath of conquest. From Winchester the conqueror marched to Basing. So many sieges had been sustained, so many assaults repelled, by this stronghold of determined loyalty, that it had acquired, through all the land, the reputation of being impregnable. Cromwell carried it by storm, and sent its owner, the Marquis of Winchester, with two hundred inferior officers and soldiers taken in it, pri- soners to the metropolis. "Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently!" the frequent war- cry of the fanatics, both in the pulpit and in the field of battle, was conspicuously heard amid the slaughter of those devoted royalists who fell at Basing. Of the like tenor was Cromwell's letter to the speaker, an- nouncing the event. "God," he wrote, "exceedingly abounds in his goodness to us, and will not be weary until righteousness and peace meet, and that he hath brought forth a glorious work for the happiness of this poor kingdom." Turning then once more towards the west, Langford House, a post of the same description, near Salisbury, was surrendered to him. Near Exeter, he came up with Fairfax; who, having left a division of his army to invest that city, was advancing to en- counter the royalists, then mustering their scattered strength in the heart of the county. Impatient of the general's slow progress, Cromwell dashed forward be- yond the main army, attacked a royalist post near Ashburton, commanded by Lord Wentworth, and took four hundred horse, with several standards, one of which was the king's. DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. Ill While victory every where attended the movements of the king's opponents, scarcely any efforts were made by those who called themselves his friends, to which rational judgments could attach the prospect of success. Devonshire and Cornwall still contained royalist troops in number sufficient to form an effective army ; but many of them were discouraged by successive defeats, some in a state of mutiny, and all ill provided, and objects of hatred to the inhabitants, whose loyalty they had exhausted by oppression and insolent licence. Of the generals who surrounded Prince Charles, Hopton and Capel alone had virtue and conduct; the others, Goring, Grenvil, Wentworth, either appropriated or despised his authority ; and, in proportion as misfortune crowded upon misfortune, became more deeply and inextricably involved in mutual jealousies and a common ambition. At length these selfish and pernicious dissensions being in some degree appeased by the sudden retirement of Goring into France, a force was drawn together under Lord Hopton deemed adequate to relieve Exeter, and check the victorious progress of Fairfax and Crom- well. The surrender of Dartmouth to the parliament- arian generals, proclaimed the futility of this opinion. Marching from thence with all their strength, they surprised Hopton at Torrington. The slight entrench- ments of the royalists were easily forced; and the army, heartless, disaffected, and ill-officered, was utterly routed and dispersed at the first onset, leaving about five hundred of their number dead on the field. Hopton fought with all his accustomed gallantry, but having received a wound in the face, having had his horse 112 DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. killed under him, and being deserted by nearly all his troops, he threw himself upon a fresh horse, and, fol- lowed by some broken squadrons of cavaliers, crossed the Tamar, and took refuge in Cornwall, into which remote county Prince Charles had previously re- tired. The king had no sooner foreseen to what fatal period his affairs were tending, than he provided for the re- moval of the prince to the continent, the instant his longer stay in England should become inconsistent with safety. The defeat of Hopton brought on this crisis. At Truro, whither that brave and virtuous nobleman retreated, he found himself reduced to the last extremity ; hemmed in by a powerful and victorious enemy, surrounded by disaffection in the people, and confronted by open mutiny among his few remaining troops. His officers attempted to force him to sur- render; one only supporting him in a resolution to accept no terms from Fairfax, at least until he had the express command of the Prince of Wales, " from whom his forlorn charge had been delegated." They then resolved unanimously, if the general persisted in his refusal, to negotiate terms for themselves. From this time all show of discipline was abandoned ; not a man mounted guard, or performed any military duty, but officers and privates alike mixed indiscriminately with those of Fairfax's army. The general, by great exertion, secured his military stores within the forts of Pendennis and St. Michael's Mount ; and, once more protesting, that neither for himself, nor any of the garrisons, would he solicit or accept terms from the rebels, he followed DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. 113 the prince to Scilly, where his royal highness had taken refuge on the entrance of Cromwell and Fairfax into Cornwall. The disorganized troops, left to them- selves, submitted and were disbanded. We left the king at Oxford. Two days had not elapsed before he was again at the head qf his troops, leaving behind the Duke of Richmond, with many other noblemen and gentlemen, whom the late unfortunate campaign had wearied of an irksome service and a sinking cause. His present design was to avert from Oxford the miseries of a siege, and at the same time to avail himself of the efforts of his friends in the more loyal, counties. He directed his march, through Wor- cester, once more to Ragland, a spot endeared to him, not only by the security it afforded in his misfortunes, but as the abode of learning, of piety, and honour, which he so well knew how to prize. This second visit of the king to the castle of Ragland, was signalized by a discussion between himself and his noble entertainer, the Marquess of Worcester, on the Romish controversy. The venerable marquess was a papist, ardent alike in attachment to his church, and in loyalty to his sovereign; and he devoutly believed that his royal master's misfortunes might have been averted by a timely return to the ancestral faith of the Stuarts. The conference was conducted, on both sides, with a degree of ability, erudition, and temper, seldom united; but with more of warmth and eloquence on the marquess's part, and more of cool- ness and judgment on the king's. Charles's share in it proves both his perfect mastery of the subject, and 114 DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. (what is otherwise clear from accumulated proofs) his firm adherence to the reformed church of England; the marquess's well-ordered array of arguments making no impression, though urged with pathetic sincerity, and at a moment when his favourite opinion, that the king's ruin was oijly to be prevented by his relinquishment of protestantism, seemed shrewdly seconded by events. " My lord," observed Charles, "I cannot so much blame as pity your zeal ; the soundness of religion is not to be tried by dint of sword, nor must we judge of her truths by the prosperity of events, for then of all men Christians would be the most miserable ; we are not to be thought followers of Christ, or not, by observations drawn from what is prosperous, or otherwise, but by taking up our cross and following Christ." The umpire in this interesting dispute was Dr. Bayley, subdean of Wales. The doctor himself published a report of the conference; and it would be difficult to name another publication, in which the questions in dispute are handled at once with so much discernment and liberality, so mildly but so convincingly. The fol- lowing is Dr. Bayley's account of the conclusion of this remarkable incident in the king's life : "'I have one request more unto your majesty,' said the marquess ; ' that you would make one prayer to God, to direct you in the right way, and that you would lay aside all prejudice and self-interest, and that you will not so much fear the subject, as the superior, who is over all ; and then you cannot do amiss.' ' My lord,' replied the king, ' all this shall be done, by the grace of God.'" DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. 115 "Whereupon," continues the doctor, "the marquess called upon us to help him, so that he might kneel; and being upon his knees, he desired to kiss his majesty's hand, which he did ; saying, ' Sir, I have not a thought in my heart that tends not to the service of my God and you; and if I could have resisted the motion of his Spirit, I had desisted long ago; but I could not. Wherefore, on both my knees, I pray to his divine Majesty, that he will not be wanting to his own ordinance, but will direct your understanding to those things which may make you a happy king upon earth, and a saint in heaven.' And thereupon he fell a weep- ing, bidding to light his majesty to his chamber. As the king was going, he said to the marquess, 'My lord, it is great pity that you should be in the wrong.' Whereat the marquess replied, ' It is greater pity that you should not be in the right.' The king said, ' God direct us both.' The marquess answered, 'Amen, amen, I pray God.' Thus they both parted ; ' and as I was lighting his majesty to his chamber, his majesty told me, that he did not think to have found the old man so ready at it; and that he believed he was a long time putting on his armour, yet it was hardly proof.' To which," concludes Bayley, "I made answer, that I believed his lordship had more reason to wonder how his majesty, so unprepared, could withstand the onset." It was at this time that the king received the astound- ing intelligence of the loss of Bristol. He had been arranging his plans, during the late march from Oxford, in full confidence of success, for the relief of that loyal and important city: he now determined to attempt i2 116 DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. raising the siege of Hereford. At Worcester he learned that Leven had already abandoned the works be- fore Hereford, and begun his retreat ; weary of a pro- tracted and hopeless siege, and deprived of the greater part of his cavalry by Lesly's return to Scotland, he judged it prudent not to wait the king's approach. The next day Charles entered the city, welcomed by its inhabitants with acclamations, but a prey, under this gleam of success, to the most serious perplexities. The reports which he continued to receive from Scot- land, turned his thoughts once more towards that division of his distracted realms. At Kilsyth, another victory had been obtained by Montrose over the Duke of Argyle; not more decisive than the victory of In- verlochy that was impossible but on a larger scale, and with more important results ; the combined armies of the covenant having been completely defeated and destroyed in this engagement, and all Scotland re- covered for the king. To attempt to join the victorious marquess would, however, be an undertaking full of difficulty and hazard. The north of England had every where submitted to the parliament their infantry held its garrisons, their parties of cavalry swept the open country. Beyond the Tweed, Lesley, with his horse, was interposed. While deliberating on these and other obstacles, Charles heard that Pointz, with the whole strength of the enemy's cavalry in the north, amounting to above 3,000 men, had posted himself in the way to Wor- cester, whither it would be his object, in the first in- stance, to proceed. To avoid the manifest hazard of DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. 117 an engagement, the royalists manoeuvred with the design of misleading their pursuers. But Pointz was faithful to his orders, constantly to keep near the king ; and when, on the evening of the second day, the cavaliers expected to enter the town without inter- ruption, they again beheld with surprise the vigilant foe planted in their path. They now transferred their de- sign to Chester, which they hoped to reach by a circuitous route over the Welsh mountains ; intending, thence, to make their way northward by Lancashire and Cumberland. The ensuing march of five days, through those rough, inhospitable regions, exposed the party to hardships and privations which the king, burdened as he was with the peculiar cares of his station, cheerfully shared with his harassed followers. The city of Chester had been regarded as beyond the probability of hostile attack; they found it in a state of alarm and consternation. A powerful body of troops, collected from the nearest rebel garrisons, had, just before, surprised and in part occupied the suburbs. Receiving this intelligence as he approached the town, Charles ordered Sir Marmaduke Langdale to cross the Dee eastward above Chester, while himself with the remainder of his force entered the town on the west ; intending to dislodge the enemy by a simultaneous attack in front and rear. But before these movements could be executed, the indefatigable Pointz again made his appearance. He was immediately attacked by Langdale, and repulsed with loss. While this was passing, the besiegers issued from the works, joined the defeated corps, and thus enabled Pointz to rally 118 DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. and renew the fight. Langdale's horse were now in turn overpowered, and sought shelter under the walls ; where the royal guards, commanded by the Earl of Lichfield, stood drawn up to support them. Here the contest became fierce and general. Again the cavaliers drove back the republican leader, but Langdale's flying troopers, mingling with their ranks, began a degree of confusion, which the steady volleys of the rebel foot, who lined the surrounding lanes and hedges, com- pleted. The king, who, from the walls of Chester, had witnessed the fluctuating progress of this last effort for the maintenance of the royal power, saw his gallant kinsman, the Earl of Lichfield, with many gentlemen besides, fall dead at his feet, and all that had hitherto survived of his broken remnant of a host, either taken prisoners, or driven in headlong rout and ruin from the field. Thenceforth the king's sword was a useless bauble, less significant than the george upon his breast. The preservation of Chester was an object of great moment, no other port remaining open at which the expected reinforcements from Ireland could land. To allow himself, however, to be shut up in that remote spot, would have been to Charles a worse evil than its loss. He chose rather to retreat to Denbigh Castle, " one of the strongest and noblest places," writes his historiographer and companion, " I ever saw. The governor," the same authority continues, "was Mr. Salisbury, a gentleman of that county, who, under the cover of a countryman, had more experience, courage, and loyalty, than many that made far greater show." At Denbigh, after waiting some days for stragglers to DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. 1 19 collect, the king was enabled to muster about 2400 cavaliers. Again, and with an intenser and more painful interest than ever, the question was to be agitated, whither the betrayed and discomfited sovereign should betake himself. To pursue the intended march north- ward, even had his present force sufficed for the under- taking, it were now too late. It was impossible that Montrose, with such ma- terials only as were in his power, could keep on foot a regular and efficient army. In a state so profoundly torn with factions, political and religious, it was almost equally difficult to renew the semblance of royal authority. He had, indeed, got possession of the capital, overrun the country in all directions, and was preparing, as the king's captain-general and deputy in Scotland, to assemble a parliament in Glasgow. At this crisis, the weapon with which he had obtained these astonishing successes, crumbled in his grasp. Of his highland followers, many had, as usual, retired to the mountains after the battle of Kilsyth ; on the first hint of an advance to the border, the remainder followed their example ; the Gordons likewise deserted the king's standard to follow petty feuds at home. Lesley was now at Berwick with 5000 or 6000 men, the flower of Scotland's cavalry, trained in the English war. While Montrose was yet undecided whether to obey the king's orders without delay, or to retreat northward till joined by reinforcements, Lesley, favoured by a dense fog, and by the negligence of Montrose's officers, succeeded in surprising the unprepared royalists. The action took 120 DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. place at Philiphaugh, near Selkirk, on the 18th day of September. The greater part of Montrose's infantry, consisting of raw lowland levies, fled at the first onset of Lesley's steel-clad troopers ; the rest, after a brief but gallant resistance, laid down their arms on receiving a promise of quarter. Montrose himself, yielding to the persuasions of his officers, cut his way through the enemy, at the head of about one hundred and fifty noble- men and gentlemen, the whole of his cavalry. Some of the retreating party lost their way, and were seized by the country people, and given up to the victor ; but the greater number, with the general, reached the highlands in safety, and there continued the war. Such of the unfortunate captives as were of eminent rank, were reserved to glut the vengeance of the covenanters on the scaffold. The common soldiers, being chiefly Irish, notwithstanding their conditional surrender, were penned up in a field, and there massacred in cold blood ; the fanatical clergy who accompanied the army of the covenanters, proclaiming it an act of enormous impiety to spare those sanguinary foes, whom the God of battles had put in their power. In England, therefore, it was necessary to seek an asylum; and Newark, one of the few strong places still held for the king, was finally selected. The vigilance of Pointz being for a moment diverted by his desire to get possession of Chester, the fugitive party were enabled to secure a day's advance. At Chirk, the king was joined by a party of Prince Rupert's cavalry from Bristol. At Bridgenorth, and again at Lichfield, he indulged a day's halt ; but much of this melancholy DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. 121 expedition is described, by one of his attendants, as leading them "through unknown ways and passages, with many dark and late marches." A more formidable evil to the king, than darkness, cold, or hunger, was the mortification of hearing, wherever he came, of some fresh disaster by the seizure of his remaining garrisons and military posts. Charles bore all, however, with a mix- ture of magnanimity and good humour which recalls to mind his illustrious predecessor, the Fifth Harry, when environed with nearly the like circumstances : " Upon his royal face there is no note How dread a peril hath enrounded him ; Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour Unto the weary and all- watched night : But freshly looks, and overbears attaint, With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty." Some of the king's most serious perplexities were aggravated, if not caused, by a too modest preference of other men's views to the dictates of his own quick perception and clear judgment. The fact is alluded to by his noble historian, while referring to the preference given, on this occasion, to Newark over Worcester, which had been first chosen for the king's retirement. This was attributed to the influence of Lord Digby, by whose advice Charles was at this time chiefly guided. For it was Digby who had suggested the king's severity towards Prince Rupert, after the fall of Bristol,- and Worcester was not only easy of access from Oxford, whence the prince was expected to come and ex- postulate with his uncle, before retiring to the continent, 122 DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. but that garrison was under the command of Prince Maurice, who was said keenly to resent his brother's treatment. Hardly was Charles beginning to enjoy some degree of repose at Newark, when intelligence arrived that Rupert was already on his way, and had been joined by Maurice. Digby now sought to place himself beyond the reach of the storm, by persuading the king to move farther north, and even to renew his cherished design of penetrating into Scotland. In this last object he failed, in consequence of the arrival of a messenger with in- telligence that Montrose had been forced to retreat into the highlands ; but he obtained the same end, by getting himself placed at the head of a separate expedition. The design was suddenly broken to his officers by the king, at a rendezvous of the troops in Worksop Park. Although, he said, it was now too late for himself to march into Scotland, he nevertheless proposed that Sir Marmaduke Langdale, with the northern horse, should proceed thither to aid the struggling marquess. " Willingly, your majesty," interposed Langdale, prepared with his reply; "but on one condition. It is, that Lord Digby may command in chief, and myself under him." To the surprise of those not in the secret, Digby. a nobleman hitherto employed in none but civil affairs, frankly assented. A commission was drawn up on the spot, appointing the noble secretary general of all the forces already raised, or to be raised, for the king, north of Trent ; and he immediately began his march, at the head of 1500 cavalry, and accompanied, besides Langdale, by the earls of Carneworth and Nid- desdale, and other noblemen and gentlemen from Scotland and the north of England. The issue of this expedition, DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. 123 the last sent out by Charles, will presently be told: we follow, for the moment, the personal fortunes of the king. The next few days were among the most mortifying, though not the most calamitous, in the life of King Charles the First. They constituted part of that am- biguous, that tormenting period, at which those who are born to greatness, but doomed to misfortune, experience some of the worst evils of both, without enjoying the beneficial compensations of either. Already, the loss of power had marred his regal character in the view of the selfish and the base; but not yet had suffering hung its consecrating halo round that " discrowned head," nor had the contemplation of his kingly and Christian patience yet forced the world to pity those unexampled misfortunes, which "Lent his life the dignity of woe." At Belvoir Castle, Rupert received a command from the king to proceed no farther without his majesty's orders. Next day, however, the contumacious prince came to Newark, and was met, beyond the gates, by Sir Richard Willis the governor, by Lord Gerrard, and other officers and troops ; an attention which the factious governor had never shown to the king himself. Ac- companied by this escort, and by a numerous party of his own officers who had attended him from Oxford, he made his way into the presence, without any of the usual ceremonies, which hitherto had been punctually observed in that fugitive court, and roughly told the king 124 DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. that he was come to justify his conduct Charles re- plied coldly and evasively, conversed for a time with Prince Maurice, and, to avoid further discourse, re- tired for the night. The next day he invited the prince to make his defence, when the king declared himself satisfied that his nephew had not been guilty of treason, or disloyalty ; but added, that he could not acquit him of indiscretion. Their mutual confidence was not, how- ever, restored. The king had resolved on an immediate return to Oxford. But, previously to his departure, he judged it essential to the security of Newark to remove from the office of governor, Sir Richard Willis, who was involved in continual disputes with the royal commissioners, and to appoint Lord Bellasis in his room. This design Charles privately intimated to Willis, in terms of earnest and affectionate regard ; but, though coupled with the offer of the command of the life-guards, vacant by the death of the gallant Earl of Lichfield, an office, says Clarendon, fit for any nobleman the communication was received by Willis with undissembled displeasure. Rupert took up his friend's cause. As if the former intrusion had not sufficiently demonstrated into how great contempt the king's authority was fallen, the same parties, a second time, burst suddenly into the royal presence. Willis first spoke : The king, he said, had, by what he had before imparted to him, dishonoured him in the eyes of the whole garrison. Rupert followed, asserting, that the king had resolved to deprive Willis of his office, not for any fault, but because he was his friend ; to which Lord Gerrard added, that it was all a plot of Digby's, whom he DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. 125 would prove a traitor. Charles now rose in anger, and would have had Willis withdraw with him for more privacy, but he insolently replied "No: I have received a public injury, and expect a public satisfaction." With one voice they then exclaimed, that, finding themselves no longer trusted, they desired to have passes to go beyond the seas. "Your passes," retorted the king, with concentrated indignation, " shall be granted you ; with orders not only to leave my service, but never again to make use of the swords you wear." Intimidated by the unusual tones, gesture, and language of their sove- reign, the intruders withdrew. Charles was presently surrounded by the loyal cavaliers and officers in the town, who called on him to punish this outbreak of insolent disaffection, as the only way to prevent a mutiny in the town ; the prince's troops being already drawn up in the market-place, whither he and his party had like- wise returned. The king then armed himself, mounted his horse, and, issuing orders to the guards to charge his nephew and his adherents, if necessary, repaired to the spot. Finding the party there drawn up, as had been reported to him, he advanced, sword in hand, before his officers, and addressing the prince, said : "Nephew! for what purpose are you thus in arms?" "To defend our- selves against our enemies," replied Rupert "I command you," continued the king, " to march out immediately to Belvoir Castle, and there stay till your passes are sent you." The prince obeyed, and presently marched off his followers. Becoming afterwards more sensible of the impropriety of their behaviour, and finding that their commissions were really taken from them, these factious 126 DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. cavaliers sent in a petition to the king, desiring, in terms indicative of some contrition, to be tried by a court- martial. " Having met," they observe, " to make our several grievances known, we find we have drawn upon us some misconstruction by the manner, by reason your majesty thought that appeared as a mutiny." The king remarked, that "he would not christen it, but it looked very like one." As to the demand of a court-martial, he could not, he said, submit his decisions to the judg- ment of any court. The prince, soon afterwards, made his submission, "acknowledging his errors;" and, though he had actually obtained passes also from the par- liament to go beyond sea, he made no immediate use of them, but, in a little time, returned to the court and was entirely reconciled to the king. Charles, however, would not again permit Willis to come into his pre- sence. The king left Newark on the 3rd of November. At ten o'clock at night all the cavalry, comprising the remains of the life-guards, mixed with some broken squadrons of other regiments, in all about 500 men, mustered in the market-place. At eleven the king mounted, put himself at the head of his guards, in the centre of the cavalcade, and issued from the gates. As the royal party passed Belvoir Castle, the commandant, Sir Gervas Lucas, came noiselessly forth with his cavaliers, and attended the king till break of day. The line of march was beset with hostile garrisons ; and from Burleigh, and from Rocking- ham, the enemy's horse hurried out in pursuit. In the evening, the tired fugitives indulged themselves with a few hours' rest, in an obscure village. Once more, by DECLINE OF THE FIRST WAR. 127 ten o'clock, Charles was in the saddle ; he passed through Daventry as the day broke; and, arriving before noon at Banbury, was met by his cavalry from Oxford, whom he had ordered there to attend him, and, under their escort, safely entered that city in the evening. "And so," writes his affectionate historian, "he finished the most tedious and grievous march that ever king was exercised in, having been almost in perpetual motion from the loss of the battle of Naseby to this hour, with such a variety of dismal accidents as must have broken the spirits of any man who had not been the most mag- nanimous person in the world." CHAPTER VII. GLAMORGAN CLOSE OF THE FIRST WAR. EVERYTHING which the king or his friends now at- tempted, was sure to bear upon it the fatal marks of a failing, or utterly fallen, cause. What indiscretion planned, rashness undertook; and both seemed to la- bour for no other end than to supply imbecility, or ill fortune, with occasions to complete the work of ruin. At Doncaster, Lord Digby surprised and routed a party of about 1000 foot, lately raised in that neighbour- hood for the parliament ; but being himself attacked at Sherborne by Colonel Copley, who commanded a power- ful detachment of the enemy's horse, he was, in turn, defeated, with the loss of a considerable number of his troops. A circumstance which greatly aggravated the calamitous result of this action, was the capture of Digby's cabinet of official correspondence ; of which, as in the similar misfortune of the king at Naseby, the parliament hesitated not to take the most ungenerous advantage. Some of the papers taken related to Charles's negotiations with the Irish, and were peculiarly open to interpretations injurious to the royal character and in- terests. In no less than two subsequent instances, both in like manner connected with the affairs of Ireland, the GLAMORGAN CLOSE OF THE WAR. 129 same indiscretion in exposing state documents to all the chances of war, was productive of similar prejudice to the king. About the middle of October, the titular archbishop of Tuam was killed near Sligo ; when du- plicates of the important negotiation then in progress were found on his person ; and again, at the commence- ment of the following year, many letters and papers of moment, relating to the same transactions, came into the possession of the parliament, by means of the capture, at Padstow, of a vessel from Ireland. Digby rallied his dispersed followers at Skipton, and continued his march through Westmoreland and Cumberland, as far as Dum- fries. Unable there to obtain intelligence of Montrose, and equally unable, if he returned, to elude the vigilance of the Scottish army, he disbanded his troops near Carlisle, and transported himself and his officers to the Isle of Man : there, the fugitives were hospitably entertained by the loyal Earl and heroic Countess of Derby, till they could cross over to Dublin. In Ireland a new and curious scene of this eventful drama was opened, in which Digby performed a conspicuous part. That the king should be willing to receive aid from any quarter of his dominions, or from any class of his subjects, in the obstinate and unequal contest in which he was engaged, can surely be matter neither of surprise nor blame. The truce with the Roman catholic insur- gents in Ireland, though the reason alleged for it, on the king's part, was want of means to continue the war, was in reality designed to enable him to recall the loyal part of his own troops, and to avail himself besides of the services of such of the rebel party as might be willing 130 GLAMORGAN CLOSE OF THE WAR. to postpone their more immediate objects, and follow the royal standard in the English war. Very little, however, was gained to compensate for the odium which attached to that moderate and plausible measure. As the truce itself never took effect universally, the king dared not call home the bulk of his army; and the few troops belonging to either party who passed over into England were quickly scattered and destroyed. In the meantime the Irish demanded, as the conditions of peace and the price of their support, such concessions on the score of religion as neither the prejudices of his English subjects, nor his own conscience, would allow him to grant. Vague promises were abundantly at the king's command ; but the insurgents knew their own strength and their sove- reign's weakness ; they had before them the example of the successful rebellion of the Scots for religious free- dom ; and they determined to accept nothing less than the legal establishment of equal privileges for them- selves. Hitherto these negotiations had been carried on at Oxford, by means of deputies from Ireland: they were now transferred to the management of the Marquess of Ormond, at Dublin. For a time, the king's lieutenant was left to his own discretion, regarding the stipulations to be granted. He was unwearied in his labours to effect the object entrusted to him, and even endangered his personal safety by appearing in a conference at Kilkenny with the self-constituted supreme council of Ireland. Finding, however, that the obstinacy of the Irish, on the point of religion, was not to be overcome, and urged at the same time by his daily increasing difficulties, Charles expressly enlarged the powers of his GLAMORGAN CLOSE OF THE WAR. 131 lieutenant. Ormond was authorised to stipulate for the present suspension of the penal laws against the Roman catholics, and for their abolition on the establishment of peace ; or, if nothing less would suffice, to agree to their immediate repeal. But the negotiation, even on these terms, not keeping pace with the necessities or the impatience of the king, another minister was to be chosen, of less prudence, or more unhesitating zeal. Such a negotiator was found in Lord Herbert of Ragland, son of the good old Marquess of Worcester, and himself afterwards possessor of that title ; but better known in history as Earl of Glamorgan, a dignity conferred upon him with a view to his services in this negotiation. " Herbert felt the most devoted attachment to his sovereign. He had lived with him for twenty years in habits of intimacy; in conjunction with his father he had spent above 200,000 in support of the royal cause ; and both had repeatedly and publicly avowed their determination to stand or fall with the throne." To his tried and san- guine devotion to his master's service, Glamorgan like- wise added the valuable qualification of fitness on the score of religion; as himself a papist, he was likely to conciliate the goodwill of those with whom it would be his business to treat. Thus prepared, the earl cheerfully undertook to crown the services by which his family had already evinced their zeal in the cause of the crown, by proceeding to Ireland on a secret mission to the con- federates. He was to demand an immediate aid of 10,000 men ; in return for which he was to agree to such con- cessions, on the grand point of religious toleration, as K 2 iO GLAMORGAN CLOSE OF THE WAR. the king dared not through any public channel propose ; and, in case of a disclosure before the success of the undertaking should have enabled Charles to disregard opinion, the chivalrous agent was willing to submit to all the consequences of a public disavowal of his acts, as far as might be necessary for the royal interests. The chief warrant with which Glamorgan was furnished, bears date Oxford, March 12th, 1645 ; and is of such an am- plitude as strikingly demonstrates the king's confidence in the loyalty of his agent, his strong conviction of the desperate state of his affairs, after the failure of the Uxbridge treaty, and the discovery of his enemies' in- tentions which then came to light, and the excess of that sanguine temper, or that fondness for the perilous intricacies of political intrigue, which could induce him to build expectancies so large on so narrow and insecure a foundation. Glamorgan, after some stay in Wales, to raise money for his enterprise, and to receive his final instructions and credentials, with difficulty reached Ireland. A short time he passed at Dublin, freely communicating with Ormond, and joining in the negotiations still publicly carried on with the popish deputies. He then proceeded to Kilkenny; and having satisfied the supreme council respecting his authority, by the production of several warrants and commissions, bearing the king's private seal, besides letters accrediting him to the pope, to Cardinal Spada, and to the papal nuncio expected in the island, he concluded a treaty, by which it was stipu- lated, that the Roman catholics should not only enjoy the free exercise of their religion, but should retain GLAMORGAN CLOSE OF THE WAR. 133 possession of all those churches, with their privileges and revenues, which had been seized by them since the outbreak of the rebellion in 1641 : in effect, that popery should become the established religion throughout the greater part of the kingdom. In return for so liberal a concession, it was agreed that they should, by a day named, furnish the ten thousand troops required for the king, and should assign to his use, for three years, a large proportion of the ecclesiastical revenue. The discovery of this transaction, which both Charles and his agent had apprehended as probable, actually took place, in consequence of the fate that, as has been already intimated, befell the popish archbishop of Tuam before Sligo. For a time it was suppressed ; but a second copy of the documents being transmitted to the government at Dublin, with an intimation that the English parliament were already in possession of the originals, it became requisite to take some decisive step for the pur- pose of vindicating the king to his protestant subjects ; who, by the bare rumour of what had been going on, were, in both countries, thrown into a state of extra- ordinary excitement. Many asserted it to be impossible that his majesty could have consented to a step seemingly so irreconcileable both with their sense of what was right, and with his own repeated declarations ; by others, royalists as well as republicans, the report was received with unmixed indignation at what they termed Charles's perfidy. Digby, who was now in Dublin, and who perhaps had been no party to the secret instructions of Glamorgan, inveighed loudly against the earl's presump- tion in concluding such a treaty; and Ormond, in a 134 GLAMORGAN CLOSE OF THE WAR. council called on this emergency, yielding to that noble- man's demand, ordered him into custody on a charge of treason. A check was thus put to the scandal ; but, in order to its effectual suppression, it was necessary to follow up the decisive act of the council by some demonstration from the king. Accordingly, in a mes- sage to the two houses, the king denied that he had authorised Glamorgan to enter into any treaty what- ever, or furnished him with credentials beyond a com- mission to raise troops for his service. To Ormond, who was more perfectly acquainted with the facts, he adopted an evasive style ; and Glamorgan himself, after the lapse of a few weeks, he encouraged, not only with assurances of his continued favour and esteem, but with hints of "revenge and reparation" for the indignity that had been put upon him. In truth, the earl was at no time appre- hensive for his safety; and long before the king's dis- avowal had been laid before the parliament, he was liberated, and had returned to Kilkenny, with the ap- probation of the lord lieutenant, to continue the public negotiations for peace. This ravelled story of unkingly intrigue it is impos- sible to contemplate without sentiments of melancholy and humiliation. And its entanglements are rendered more complicated, though more intelligible, by the con- sideration, that the Irish papists, for the sake of securing whose unavailing assistance the integrity of truth was thus violated, and the protestant zeal of the three king- doms insulted, were themselves the party ultimately meant to be deceived. Charles I., if a martyr, was a martyr for the principles of the church of England, as GLAMORGAN CLOSE OF THE WAR. 135 contradistinguished equally from popery on the one hand, and from sectarianism on the other. Had Gla- morgan fully succeeded, the king would have availed himself of the services of the Roman catholics of Ire- land ; but he must of necessity have yielded to the stern and universal demands of that vast protestant majority by which alone he could reign, and have refused the stipulated reward of those services. The only point, in these transactions, on which the mind can rest with satisfaction, is the romantic loyalty of Glamorgan ; and even this virtue is divested of the character of heroism by the debasing admixture of duplicity and contrivance. Glamorgan at length succeeded in concluding a treaty, and received an immediate aid of 6000 men, with a promise that the remaining 4000 should be presently furnished. He assembled his troops at Waterford, in- tending from thence to attempt the relief of Chester ; but while waiting for transports, he received intelligence that Chester, after suffering great extremities, had surren- dered. No port on all that coast now remained, at which the Irish forces could be landed with any hope of suc- cess. Few indeed of the royal garrisons still held out. Peters, Cromwell's favourite preacher, whom the hero of the deluded republicans usually employed, after every victory, to adorn it with those peculiar flowers of rhetoric which were most grateful to his patron, now found in this function continual employment for his activity and zeal. The fall of Tiverton, of Exeter, and other places in the west, followed the dissolution of Lord Hopton's army. The principality in general had by this time declared for the parliament : only Ragland and Harlech 136 GLAMORGAN CLOSE OF THE WAR. for some months longer defied the conqueror. Glamor- gan's now useless forces were dispersed. Two or three hundred men accompanied Lord Digby to the coast of Cornwall, and thence to Jersey, to form a guard for the Prince of Wales ; a more considerable body proceeded to Scotland, to aid Montrose; the remainder he sent back to their cantonments in the interior. Still, in the midst of his distresses, the king continued, as if under a spell, to look hopefully towards Ireland. Expectation in that quarter failed him, as it had ever done. The peace concluded, through Glamorgan's agency, with the council of the nation, was opposed by the clergy, fol- lowing the instigation of the pope's nuncio, Rinuccini. War was renewed ; and Ormond, helplessly shut up in Dublin, found himself, in the end, forced to make terms either with the popish or with the parliamentarian party. He preferred the latter, and returned to England. Before the king left Newark, the garrison was already threatened by Pointz and Rossiter, each with a force superior to that within the walls ; scarcely was he gone, when Leven also, in obedience to the mandate of the parliament, once more marched southward, and the united Scotch and English armies sat down before that loyal fortress. The only other place of strength remaining to the king, north of Oxford, was Worcester. Here, in the month of March, the brave old Lord Ashley, on whom had now fallen the chief command for the crown in the northern counties, got together a body of about 2000 horse and foot, with whom he proceeded to join the king at Oxford. The enemy, however, getting notice of his purpose, he was attacked at the end of the first day's GLAMORGAN CLOSE OF THE WAR. 137 march, on the borders of Gloucestershire, defeated, and, with the majority of his troops, taken prisoner. The few that escaped were utterly dispersed. And now not an enemy to the parliament remained any where in the field. " You have done your work," said the captive nobleman to his conquerors, " and may now go play ; unless" (a sagacious reservation!) "you fall out among yourselves." All, indeed, was over for the king. For, what could have availed now a few thousands of mer- cenary auxiliaries Dutch, Lorrainers, Danes, or French with whom, even for their sovereign, and under more hopeful auspices, hardly would the most devoted English loyalists have fought side by side. The sanguine and courageous Henrietta Maria herself, after having ex- hausted her interest and invention in diplomatic schemes and correspondence, after crossing and recrossing the sea, to rouse the tardy loyalist or to urge the reluctant ally, to become the messenger of intelligence or the angel of an ever-deceiving hope, forgetting, for a time, in the mother, the consort and the queen, now confined her chief anxieties to her children; and sought no greater happiness, than to be assured of Prince Charles's safety in the islets of the channel, or to provide for his be- coming reception among his indifferent kindred in the French court. On the other side all was commensurate triumph. The sentiments of the parliamentarians on the fortunate termination of the war, are well conveyed in the follow- ing paragraphs, which describe the reception of Fairfax and Cromwell in London. " The war being now quite finished," writes the contem- 138 GLAMORGAN CLOSE OF THE WAR. porary historian May, " Fairfax, the victorious preserver of the English parliament, returned to London about the middle of November. All good men longed to see that great soldier, whom they could not but admire, by whose valour they were delivered from the worst of evils, and were now in expectation of a happy peace. The next day after he came to London, that he might see the gratitude of the parliament, the House of Peers sent their speaker, Manchester, whom the earls of Northumberland, Pem- broke, and many other nobles accompanied; who con- gratulated his return, and gave him great thanks for his most faithful and happy service to the commonwealth. When the Lords were gone, Lenthall, the speaker of the House of Commons, with almost three hundred members of that house, came to congratulate the general ; to whom Lenthall made a speech, wherein he discoursed of the greatness of his actions, extolling them by ex- amples of the most great and famous heroes of ancient times. ' You,' said he, 'noble general, shall all posterity admire and honour ; and the people of England, since they can give you no thanks equal to your merits, do freely confess themselves for ever indebted to you, as the happy instrument of God, and finisher of our wars with incredible success.' To which the modest Fairfax made a short reply, acknowledging himself unworthy of so great an honour, and giving most humble thanks to the parliament ; accounting it his greatest happiness in this world to be made by God instrumental for the good of his country." Respecting Cromwell we are told, in Mr. Forster's life of that remarkable man, the motley hero of the GLAMORGAN CLOSE OF THE WAR. 139 Civil Wars, that he also was "received in London with very extraordinary honours. The instant he entered the house the members rose and welcomed him, and the speaker in their name, after an elaborate eulogium, de- livered the hearty thanks of the house for his many and great services." But the gratitude of parliament, it is added, was not confined to such demonstrations of their confidence and esteem. They voted that Sir Thomas Fairfax should be created a baron, and an annuity of 5000 per annum settled on him, and that the elder Fairfax should be made an earl. An annual grant of half that amount was like- wise conferred on Cromwell; and in the beginning of the year 1646, an ordinance passed the Commons, "that all the lands of the Earl of Worcester, Lord Herbert, and Sir John Somerset, his sons, in the county of Southamp- ton, should be settled upon lieutenant-general Cromwell, and his heirs, to be accounted as part of the 2500 per annum formerly appointed him by this house." With such facility did that revolutionary senate apportion out among those who were at once their creatures and their masters, the inheritance of ancient and honourable fami- lies, whose only crime was to recognise, and fearlessly to discharge, the duty of subjects to their sovereign ! " So ended," observes one of Cromwell's early bio- graphers, " the first war ; with the praises and triumphs of this man of war, adored and worshipped by his party, who stuck not to blaspheme God and his scriptures, attributing all those hosannas, and psalms, and songs of deliverance and victory to this their champion in effect, making a mere idol of him; which fanatic religious 140 GLAMORGAN CLOSE OF THE WAR. veneration he missed not to improve, though, for the present, he covered his ambition with modesty and hu- mility, ascribing all things, in a canting way of expres- sion, to the goodness and omnipotence of God, which he frequently and impiously abused, intituling it to all his wicked and villanous designs and actions." CHAPTER VIII. THE SCOTTISH CAMP. CHARLES I., unhappy in war, was still more unhappy in the business of diplomacy. Passion, singleness of purpose, and recklessness of means, impart, even to men of moderate intellect, both vigour in action and the ap- pearance of great mental power. No one, acquainted with the history of the domestic troubles in England in the seventeenth century, will be disposed to underrate the capacity of several among those who raised the storm, and directed its terrors. But they had the advantages of launching upon an impulse already in action, and of standing, with respect to the king, in the relation of the assailant to the defendant, of the revolutionist to the conservative. Cromwell derived energy from his restless ambition ; Vane, from passionate admiration of his own political theories ; the commonwealth men and indepen- dents in general, from that scorn of restraint and hatred of authority, which is a passion native to every heart ; the presbyterians, from bigotted idolatry of their self- devised form of church government. To withstand these fierce conjoined motives, Charles had little besides a calm sense of duty to God, to his kingly state, and to posterity a sustaining principle indeed; and hence he rises in our estimation, in exact proportion as the gloom THE SCOTTISH CAMP. of adversity gathers round him ; but little fitted to impart practical energy to the character. Defeated, betrayed, powerless, almost friendless can we wonder that he should be baffled in those conflicts of cunning statesman- ship, into which, by the unfortunate exigencies of his position, he was now forced ? Charles was assured, that by this time the hearts of his subjects, beginning to awake from their delusions, had, even within the rebel camp and the republican capital, turned again, in multitudes, to their king. He at no time abandoned his faith in the settled attachment of the people to the monarchy, the religion, and the laws, of their country. He believed that his presence, even among such of them as were most subservient to an affectedly popular, but really arbitrary government, and most completely beguiled by faction, would stimulate the renascent warmth of loyalty : he felt secure, that there were many friends whom the sight of him would encou- rage, and some among his worst enemies whom it would abash. Peace, moreover, peace on any terms compatible with the existence of the monarchy and the church, had now become absolutely indispensable. No sooner, then, had he found himself once more in Oxford, than he directed all his endeavours to open negotiations for this great object. Three successive messages, penned with " the most powerful persuasions imaginable," had been despatched, before his haughty victors at Westminster deigned to reply : their answer, when at length they con- descended to answer, was, a refusal to receive the king's commissioners, with an intimation that they were them- selves engaged in drawing up propositions for his majesty THE SCOTTISH CAMP. 143 to sign. Again the parliament relapsed into silence, not- withstanding the frequent renewal of the correspondence, on the king's part, " with many gracious expressions of his desire of peace, and many novel concessions." Meantime Fairfax, having reduced the western counties, was advancing to invest Oxford, and Charles was now in imminent danger of being enclosed by a hostile army, flushed with numerous victories, and too powerful to leave him any chance of successful resistance. At length, late in the month of March, he sent a message which suddenly roused the parliament from their insolent affec- tation of disregard. Charles desired, if he might have the engagement of the two Houses, the Scottish commis- sioners, and the chief officers of the English and Scottish armies, for his safety, to proceed to London, and there conduct a personal treaty. To this proposal, which he fortified by promising to concede, either absolutely or for a term of years, every thing required on the other side, except the sacrifice of his friends and the church, an answer was quickly vouchsafed. They reproached the king as the cause of all the bloodshed that had taken place, and reproved him for coupling with them in his message the military commanders, who were " subject and subordinate to their authority ;" they absolutely re- fused his request, on the ground that the king's presence in London would neither be safe for him nor convenient to themselves ; and concluded by again referring to those propositions which they were preparing, as the only con- ditions on which they would treat of peace. Among the numerous letters written by the king in the course of these transactions, the following, to Lord 144 THE SCOTTISH CAMP. Digby, is strongly indicative of his pressing danger and delusive hopes ; of the profound trouble of his royal mind, yet of its control by the enlarging magnanimity of his character. " Since my last to you," writes the afflicted monarch, "misfortunes have so multiplied upon me, that I have been forced to send this (to say no more) but strange message to London ; yet whatever becomes of me, I must not forget my friends, wherever they are. "I am endeavouring to get to London, so that the conditions may be such as a gentleman may own, and that the rebels may acknowledge me king; being not without hope that I shall be able so to draw either the presbyterians or independents to side with me for extir- pating one or the other, that I shall be really king again. " Howsoever, I desire you to assure all my friends, that if I cannot live as a king I shall die like a gentle- man, without doing that which may make honest men blush for me." In the parliament's stern refusal of a personal con- ference, there was more of policy and fear, than of hatred. A yawning gulf already divided the two great rebel parties; which both saw but too clearly, though each eagerly strove to hide the prospect. As yet neither of them could dispense with the other. In the com- mon cause against the " malignants," the republicans were still willing to tolerate the presbyterians ; the presbyterians, confident in the final elevation of their idol " platform," stolidly consented to march beneath the banners of their perilous confederates. But the reign of independency, though yet in its infant and un- THE SCOTTISH CAMP. 145 assured state, was continually receiving new accessions of support. By various circumstances, such as voluntary absence of members, votes of incapacity, &c. the House of Commons had become greatly reduced in numbers ; no new members having been elected to supply the vacancies thus occasioned. An obvious method which this circumstance suggested to the republicans for re- cruiting their strength, was, by a vote of the house at once to overleap the legal difficulties which had hitherto been opposed to fresh elections. Accordingly, in the autumn of 1645, one hundred and forty-six new members were elected, and eighty-nine in the year following; of whom it was the business of the heads of the rising party to take care that a large proportion should be fully prepared either to lead or to follow in any course which their interests required. Among those introduced into the Commons in 1645, were Sidney, Ludlow, Skippon, Hutchinson, and others of similar character and views, no regard being now had to the self-denying ordinance ; of those admitted in the early part of 1646, one was the notorious Harry Marten, who had been previously ex- pelled the House for his profligate revolutionary senti- ments, but was now recalled through the growing in- fluence of the independent party. Nor indeed were all the exertions of Cromwell and Vane, of Ireton and St. John, more than sufficient, at this time, to maintain their progressive ascendency. While Charles was thus being pushed towards the edge of the precipice, a friendly hand was at last stretched out to him by a foreign power; this once only, during his protracted struggles, and now impotently, if not in- 146 THE SCOTTISH CAMP. sidiously. In the lifetime of Richelieu, and down to the fatal overthrow at Naseby, France, the only con- tinental power from which Charles I. could reasonably expect effectual aid, was, on the contrary, secretly leagued against him. From the first outbreak of the tumults in Scotland, they were insidiously fomented by that wily and implacable politician; and those agents whom he sent over to England, on pretence of promoting an accommodation, were in reality employed to lend encouragement to the rebels, or, at best, while apparently favouring the royal cause, to perform a part wholly in- significant. But that tremendous blow startled France from her course of policy. To Mazarine, the new abso- lute minister, it appeared that matters were proceeding too far. It might carry some danger to the continental despotisms of Europe, farther to aid, or even idly to look on, while a huge democracy reared its head on the ruins of one of her ancient monarchies. From such misgivings proceeded the famous mission of Montreuil. The in- structions which this envoy brought over from the queen regent of France (or the cardinal, in her name), and from Charles's consort, Henrietta, as the basis of his negotia- tions, were, by every argument in his power to persuade the king to yield to the demands of the presbyterians, as the less hostile of the two parties into the arms of one of which he must inevitably throw himself. A pledge, that the unhappy king would no longer refuse his consent, appears already to have been conveyed to the Scots, on the authority of the Queen of England and her two advisers, Jermyn and Culpeper. It is perhaps not greatly surprising, that a bigoted Roman catholic (to whom all THE SCOTTISH CAMP. 147 forms of Christianity but her own were alike indifferent), the mere butterfly of a court, and a moderately-informed soldier and statesman, should jointly misapprehend the degree of Charles's constancy on such a point as the primitive and inalienable authority of English bishops. Temperately, but firmly, he signified to Montreuil his absolute refusal ; an unexpected decision, the king's per- severing in which, ultimately occasioned the recall and disgrace of the too sanguine envoy ; and when Sir Wil- liam Davenant brought over from the queen and her council a distinct proposal to the same effect, attempting to recommend it by arguments more suitable for a court poet to urge than for a religious monarch to hear, the offended king forbade him his presence. In the meantime, the danger of being shut up in Oxford grew imminent ; Fairfax's officers having already blockaded the neighbouring garrisons of Wallingford and Woodstock, and the investing of Oxford itself being suspended only till the general, now released from the siege of Exeter, had completed his survey of the ground, and issued orders for its circumvallation. Of the selfish- ness and intolerance of the presbyterians, Charles had had ample experience ; with respect to the independents, as a body, no such painful advantage had, as yet, fallen to his lot. A personal knowledge of some eminent in- dividuals, of apparently enlarged and generous sentiments, had impressed him with a too favourable opinion of that party. Such a mistake would be more discreditable to the royal sagacity, could the king have read the page of futurity as we now read the records of history; but Charles had to collect the opinions of the independents as he 148 THE SCOTTISH CAMP. could, from the specious professions of Cromwell, and through the cloudy metaphysics of the younger Vane. In his present extreme need he made trial of their loyalty, or generosity. Two letters exist, written to Vane by the hands of Ashburnham, one of the grooms of the king's bed- chamber, in one of which Charles solicits the good office of that influential statesman in the following earnest terms: " Be very confident that all things shall be performed according to my promise. By all that is good I conjure you to despatch that courtesy for me with all speed, or it will be too late ; I shall perish before I receive the fruits of it. I may not tell you my necessities, but if it were necessary so to do, I am sure you would lay all other considerations aside, and fulfil my desires. This is all ; trust me, I will repay the favour to the full. I have done. If I have not an answer within four days, I shall be necessitated to find some other expedient. God direct you ! I have discharged my duty." The favour thus pathetically implored, was that of permission to repair to London. He had renewed his application for a personal conference, in a letter which, being unfortunately produced when the house were " not in the vein," was thrown by, and neglected. For aught that appears, the parliamentary leader of the independents treated the fallen monarch's private correspondence with the like contemptuous silence. Montreuil's earliest reports from the Scottish camp before Newark, sounded favourably. Charles's perti- nacious refusal to countenance their idolized form of church government, gave offence, but the possession of the king's person, which the envoy was instructed to hold THE SCOTTISH CAMP. 149 out to the commissioners, seemed a prospective advantage over their enemies in the English parliament, which was not to be neglected. After some time spent in communi- cating with their brethren at Westminster, they offered the king an asylum, on condition that he made his ap- pearance attended only by two individuals, and let himself fall, as it were by accident, into the hands of a party of cavalry, to be stationed in the way for this purpose. Charles, however, did not emit the needful precaution of previously sending a trusty person to ascer- tain that all had been arranged according to agreement. The messenger selected for this purpose was Hudson, his " plain-spoken " chaplain, as the king familiarly styled him one of those ecclesiastics whom the rude iniquity of the times had thrust into employments alien to their education and former habits. Hudson had filled the office of the king's scoutmaster-general in the north, and was well acquainted with every road and bypath of those regions. He found Montreuil in an altered mood. The Scottish commissioners in London differed in their view of the project in hand from the officers and the commissioners of the Estates before Newark. Mon- treuil had now lost all confidence in the parties, and presaged ill for the design. But the king's situation was become desperate. Oxford, strong by natural position, had been made, by the skill and cost bestowed on its fortifications, almost impregnable; it was besides well garrisoned and provisioned, and might therefore be suc- cessfully defended for several months. One, nevertheless, of two alternatives, could alone save the king, from the certain captivity, to which, at the termination of that 150 THE SCOTTISH CAMP. period, famine would compel him to submit, if he lingered there. The first was, to procure more favourable terms by an immediate surrender. He attempted it, and failed. Neither Ireton nor Rainsborough, who both lay with their divisions in the neighbourhood, would engage to protect their sovereign, and conduct him in safety to the parliament. The king was therefore forced to fall back on the Scots as his only resource. At this moment a mes- senger came in from Newark, with the intelligence that the commissioners had settled their differences on the proposed arrangement, and that Lesley's promised escort was actually ordered out. Charles hastily acquainted his council that it was his intention, without delay, to quit Oxford, but not on what design ; leaving them to surmise that he meant to put in practice a romantic scheme which had sometimes been the subject of his discourse, viz. to throw himself naked into the midst of friends and foes in London, and leave the rest to Providence, and the re- mains of the ancient English loyalty. At dead of night, April 27, 1645, he took a final farewell of that spot so dear to his heart ; the solemn groves, the antique towers, the noiseless streets of Oxford fit capital for the empire of a learned and sorrow-stricken king I The stroke of three was quivering through the keen atmosphere of the early spring morning, when the same number of horsemen, crossing Magdalene bridge, reached the gateway that opened upon the London road. Here the party halted, and one of them spoke, in low tones, to a military personage, apparently in charge of the portal. " Let not a post," he said, " be opened, until five days be past." The other returned an earnest assent; it was THE SCOTTISH CAMP. 151 the king, giving his last order to Sir Thomas Glemham, governor of Oxford. The three cavaliers passed on. " Farewell, Harry !" exclaimed the governor. Nor could any thing be observed in the king's appearance which betrayed inconsistency in this familiar adieu. For Charles, habited as a serving man, with clipped beard and shorn locks, wearing a Spanish cap of the period, and having in charge a cloak-bag, followed his favourite attendant, Ashburnham ; while Hudson, covered with a military mantle, personated a captain going to London about his composition in those times a traveller's frequent errand. Only Hudson and Ashburnham were armed. Notwithstanding this dangerously decisive step, Charles was still unresolved in what direction to proceed ; whether, in pursuance of the plan lately in agitation, to cast him- self upon the protection of the Scots ; to revive the favourite project of attempting to join Montrose ; or to dare the greater hazard of making his appearance in the metropolis. The choice among these fearful projects, he left to be decided by such information as he might casually pick up on the road. To what dangers the king's unprotected flight exposed his person, soon began to be apparent. The travellers encountered a party of the parliamentarian troopers, who inquired to whom they belonged? "To the honourable House of Commons," was the satisfactory reply. Another soldier coming up with them, and observing Ashburnham unusually free in the distribution of money "Is your master," he de- manded of the king, " one of the lords of parliament ?" " No," answered the counterfeit groom, " my master is of the lower house." 152 THE SCOTTISH CAMP. While stopping to bait at the village inn of Hillingdon, near Uxbridge, the question of their destination was anxiously debated among the fugitives. They looked over the "Mercuries" and "news-books;" from these they learned, that the parliament had already notice from before Oxford of the king's escape : in what temper the intelligence was received, may be gathered from two ordinances, published presently afterwards. The first of these insolent proclamations decreed, that, if the sovereign should appear in his capital without the parliament's consent, his person should be apprehended, and his followers imprisoned; that all who "harboured or con- cealed" the king, or knew of his being harboured or concealed, and did not instantly reveal it to the speakers of the two houses, should be capitally proceeded against. By the second ordinance it was commanded, that every person who had borne arms for the king should depart beyond the lines of communication, on pain of forfeiting his life as a spy. The intelligence now collected was decisive against entering the metropolis. The party turned out of the high road, northward, through Harrow and St. Alban's ; frequently meeting with soldiers, whose inquiries they were enabled to satisfy with a ready answer, and a moderate donation. At Harborough, the place appointed, they sought the promised troop of Scottish horse, but could learn nothing of them. The brave divine, who now saw his worst suspicions of the Scots realized, offered to proceed alone to London, and negotiate with the heads of the parties for the king's honourable re- ception. This proposal was overruled, and the king THE SCOTTISH CAMP. 153 resolved to persevere in proceeding northward, but by a circuitous route. Charles's disguise being now known, it became necessary to change it, and he assumed the character of a clergyman. The aid of a barber was required ; when the man's persevering inquiries about the unworthy brother craftsman who had last operated upon the tresses of the king, were likely to prove dan- gerous. It was the unpractised hand of Ashburnham which had hastily performed that office, on the night of the flight from Oxford. At Downham, in Norfolk, the king and Ashburnham passed four days, while Dr. Hud- son was dispatched to Montreuil for information and advice. The Frenchman, whose whole conduct in his difficult and unfortunate embassy, denoted an honest pur- pose to serve the king, advised that, although the cautious determination of the Scots not to appear implicated in his escape, made them still evade subscription to any engagement, and had prevented their dispatching the escort promised, the king should nevertheless deliver himself up to them as the most eligible choice now remaining. Accordingly, as Hudson farther brought back with him a solemn confirmation, by their com- missioners, of the verbal agreement previously made, the king no longer hesitated. Charles had left Oxford on the 26th of April; and, late on the 5th of May, he arrived at Southwell, where Montreuil resided. Thus, records Ashburnham (who assumes the responsibility of this transaction) "in obedience to his majesty's pleasure, I performed my duty ; and with humble acknowledgments to God's protection (after nine days' travel upon the way, and in that time having passed through fourteen guards 154 THE SCOTTISH CAMP. and garrisons of the enemy) we arrived safe at the Scots' army before Newark." From Montreuil's residence, the king proceeded to the head-quarters of General Leven, by whom he was conducted to Kelham House, where a guard was assigned him by the commissioners. That this ceremony was intended rather for his security as a captive, and to prevent all communication with the officers, than to do him honour as their prince, the king at once satisfied himself by attempting to give the word. He was immediately interrupted by Leven : " I am the older soldier, Sir," said the Scot : " your majesty had better leave that office to me." Thus, from the first moment, it was sufficiently ap- parent, that not loyalty but self-interest directed the conduct of the Scots. Having the king safe among them, their policy was to exhibit the strongest marks of sur- prise as well as of joy, " that he had so far honoured their army, as to think it worthy his presence after so much opposition." The general raised his hands in amazement on Charles's making his appearance in his quarters, and the Earl of Lothian exhibited equal sur- prise when the deluded prince referred to the conditions on which he had come among them. "For himself, he had been privy to nothing of the kind, and he believed the same of the other commissioners residing with the army." It was now the king's turn to be astonished. " How came I then," he asked, " to be invited hither, with an assurance that all differences we re reconciled, and with a promise that David Lesley was to meet and bring me here with a troop of cavalry ?" He confronted them with Montreuil. The negotiations they could no THE SCOTTISH CAMP. 155 longer deny, but affected to assign no other meaning to all that had passed, than an indication that " they approved of his majesty's confidence in them, and ho- nouring their army with his residence, while he settled a peace with his two kingdoms." What the peace meant, Lothian took care to explain by limiting all his discourse upon the subject to the taking of the covenant, and sub- scribing the propositions magisterially to be laid before him by the parliament. They crowned their duplicity by a letter addressed to the committee of both kingdoms, at Westminster, in which the general and committee of estates, gave the parliament the following account of "that strange providence" that had befallen them. "The king," asserts this veracious document, " came into our army yesterday in so private a way, that, after we had made search for him upon the surmises of some persons who pretended to know his face, yet we could not find him out in sundry houses. And we believe your lordships will think it was matter of much astonishment to us, seeing we did not expect he would have come in any place under our power. We conceived it not fit," they dutifully and piously continue, " to inquire into the causes that per- suaded him to come hither, but to endeavour that his being here might be improved to the best advantage, for promoting the work of uniformity, and for settling of religion and righteousness, and attaining of peace ac- cording to the league and covenant." On the 6th of May the parliament was startled by the news of the king's arrival in the Scotch camp. The commonwealth-men instantly perceived that this important circumstance, though the completion of their triumph 156 THE SCOTTISH CAMP. over the royalists was likely to retard the growing superiority of their party in the struggle with the more powerful presbyterians. After a protracted debate, they carried a vote in the Commons, that the Scots should order their general to conduct the king to Warwick Castle; and that Ashburnham and Hudson should be delivered up to the parliament as delinquents. The Scots, drawing confidence from the serious in- terest at stake, contested both parts of this vote. To the parliament's argument, that, as mercenaries in English pay, they could claim no share in the disposal of the king, they opposed their national right in him as sove- reign of Scotland no less than of England. They farther alleged the claim he had established to their protection, by having come voluntarily into the Scottish camp. The latter plea they likewise extended to the persons who had accompanied the king. Charles, how- ever, foreseeing that they would probably soon yield this point, commanded Ashburnham to make his escape, and go over to the queen ; but Hudson was given up, inter- rogated at Westminster, and imprisoned. At the same time, as all motive for prolonging the struggle was now at an end, the king attested the sincerity of his pacific in- tentions, by ordering Lord Bellasis to deliver Newark to the parliament, and disband his troops. The like orders he sent respectively to the governors of Oxford, Lich- field, Worcester, and all other fortresses which yet held out for him in England. The Irish garrisons, in like manner, were soon afterwards given up. Finally, Mon- trose, who had hitherto continued to display the royal banner among his native mountains, submitted to the THE SCOTTISH CAMP. 157 king's orders, sheathed the last and bravest sword drawn in the royal cause, and sought shelter on a foreign soil. The Scots were most anxious to avoid a rupture with the parliament, but were resolved, nevertheless, to hold their prize. The day following the surrender of Newark beheld the king riding with Lesley, in the van of the Scottish army, on its march towards Newcastle. In this order, within little more than a week from his first ap- pearance in the camp before Newark, Charles was con- ducted, along a street lined with troops, to the general's quarters in that garrison ; his residence to speak more correctly, his prison through a dreary space of nine months. Great was now the ire of the parliament. They directed Pointz, with a brigade of 5000 horse, to observe the motions of those contumacious auxiliaries ; at the same time, Fairfax likewise received orders to move towards the north. No longer courted as dear brethren in the bonds of the covenant, the Scots, long since declining in favour, became at once the objects of mea- sures and invectives alike severe. Their free quarters, pillaging, and various other forms of oppression, had become intolerable. The old grievance, their placing garrisons in Newcastle, Berwick, and Carlisle, in viola- tion of their engagements, was urged with fresh asperity. Their dismissal out of the kingdom was voted, together with a grant of 100,000 for unsettled claims, provided they immediately surrendered those posts and departed. But those allies of the parliament were no longer in haste. In "a declaration of the lord general, the officers, and soldiers of their army," they mildly answered, that they 158 THE SCOTTISH CAMP. had come into the kingdom at the earnest desire of their brethren, not for any mercenary ends; that they were most willing to return home in peace, nor should the matter of money, or want of just recompence for the services performed, be an argument of delay. This declaration is dated June 29th. On the 6th of July, the vote of dismission was nevertheless repeated in sharper terms. The parliament declared "that the king- dom had no farther need of the Scotch army, and was unable to pay them longer." Ceasing now to profess that they were no mercenaries, and that, having discharged a friendly office, they desired nothing so much as to retire from the kingdom, the Scots suddenly remembered, that, " according to the large treaty," certain arrears were due to them "for their pains, hazards, charges, and suf- ferings ; whereof " they desire " a competent proportion to be presently paid, and security to be given for the remainder." Their first estimate raises this demand to two millions, of which, however, they acknowledged, 700,000 had already been received, "in monies, pro- visions, assessments, quarters, and otherwise." The settlement of the enormous balance they were not indeed in a condition to enforce at the sword's point, against the numerous, brave, and victorious army of their English brethren; but, in the possession of the king's person, they had a pledge, that at least some reasonable com- promise would be allowed. They lowered their claim to 500,000 ; and the House of Commons finally agreed to the immediate payment of 200,000, to be raised from the sale of lands taken from the bishops and other delinquents, and that a second sum of 200,000 should THE SCOTTISH CAMP. 159 also be paid within two years, to be secured, in the mean- time, not, as the Scots desired, in the same manner as the first, but " on the public faith of the nation." This large grant of money it may not be just to describe as the price of the king, though loyal men called it so, and though Charles himself declared, when he heard of it, that he " was bought and sold ;" but the negotiations for its liquidation certainly kept exact pace with those for the transfer of that anointed head from the one party to the other ; and granting it to have been due, as affirmed, to the Scots, that people (" who would not," they had declared, "suffer any private respect of this kind to retard the advancement of the cause ") did nevertheless use their advantage in the possession of the royal person, as the means of enforcing payment. The whole trans- action is one which charity and patriotism would gladly unite to blot from our history, did not severe truth keep watch over the record ! Other, and, to the king, not less painful negotiations, were at the same time in progress. The presbyterian party in England, and with them the Scots, were willing that Charles should retain the name of king, and the shadow of royal authority. The condition on which they were disposed to grant these the act whereby he was required to declare his acceptance of so much, and nothing more was his signing the solemn League and Covenant. From the hope that they would be able to force this step upon him, proceeded all the satisfaction with which his proposal to come among them was at first received by his northern subjects ; and, notwithstanding the positive declarations of the king, on this point, to 160 THE SCOTTISH CAMP. Montreuil, they still cherished the belief that the loss of three kingdoms, the absence of all he loved and trusted, and the infinite uneasir. esses and regrets attached to his present situation, would yet bend the stubborn conscience in their view, the kingly wilfulness of Charles, to yield all that Mazarine and Henrietta had promised. With this impression they began, from the day of their unfortunate sovereign's arrival at Newark, to attempt his conversion to the presbyterian creed ; the great indis- pensable preliminary to his taking the covenant, as this latter was the farther needful step to his acceptance of the parliament's proposals, so long in preparation. Charles had pledged his word, before leaving Oxford, that if he came among them he would hear their ministers, and make all such concessions on the score of religion as his conscience would allow. Nor did considerations of deli- cacy, or respect, prevent the Scots from taking the full advantage both of his promise and his helplessness. The same fervid bigotry raged among men of all orders and professions in Scotland. Whether the persons with whom, from choice or necessity, he conversed, were divines, or statesmen, or soldiers, still the covenant and the kirk formed the theme of discourse ; and of the only instance related, in which any party interposed between the persecuted king and vulgar urgency, or even insult, on this topic, the credit is due to the multitude. " A Scotch minister," says Whitelocke, " preached boldly before the king at Newcastle, and after his sermon, called for the fifty-second Psalm, ' Why dost thou, tyrant, boast thyself, thy wicked works to praise ?' His majesty there- upon stood up, and called for the fifty-sixth Psalm, which THE SCOTTISH CAMP. 161 begins, " Have mercy, Lord, on me I pray, for men would me devour. 1 The people waved [refused] the minister's psalm, and sang that which the king called for." At length, the great champion of the presbyterian form of church government, Henderson, who had attended the Uxbridge conference for the purpose of arguing for the divine authority of that scheme, made his appearance at Newcastle. Charles readily consented to listen to a man so celebrated ; and a controversy, in writing, ensued, which exhausts the subject, and remains a mo- nument of polemic skill honourable to the combatants. Those modern writers who take the unfriendly view of Charles I.'s character endeavour to discredit the state- ment, that the king was the unaided author of the papers produced by him on this occasion. A higher degree of confidence, however, appears justly due to the judgment of a hostile, but not uncandid contemporary, Rushworth, who tells us that " these papers show his majesty's great ability in those controversies, being [drawn up] at a time when he could not have the assistance of his chaplains." The general views by which Charles's conduct was governed, with relation to the subject of episcopal au- thority, are laid down in the following paragraph, with which he introduces the subject: " No one thing made me more reverence the Reforma- tion of my mother, the church of England, than that it was done (according to the apostle's defence, Acts xxiv. 18), 'neither with multitude nor with tumult,' but legally and orderly, and by those whom I conceive to have the reforming power ; which, with many other inducements, made me always confident that the work was very perfect M 162 THE SCOTTISH CAMP. as to essentials ; of which number church government being undoubtedly one, I put no question but that would have been likewise altered if there had been cause. Which opinion of mine was soon turned into more than confidence, when I perceived that in this particular (as I must say of all the rest) we retained nothing, but ac- cording as it was deduced from the apostles to be the constant universal custom of the primitive church ; and that it was of such consequence, as by the alteration of it we should deprive ourselves of a lawful priesthood ; and then, how the sacraments can be duly administered, is easy to judge. These are the principal reasons which make me believe that bishops are necessary for a church, and, I think, sufficient for me (if I had no more) not to give my consent for their expulsion out of England. But I have another obligation, that to my particular is a no less tie of conscience, which is, my coronation oath. Now if (as St. Paul saith, Rom. xiv. 23) he that doubt- eth is damned if he eat,' what can I expect, if I should not only give way knowingly to my people's sinning, but likewise be perjured myself?" The controversy opened at the close of May, and, in the middle of July, was terminated by the illness of the Scottish divine, who retired to Edinburgh, and died there in August. " Some said," records Whitelocke, " he died of grief, because he could not persuade the king to sign the propositions." This famous document was presented to the king, towards the close of July. It was the same, with some aggravations, as the list of propositions brought forward, the year before, at Uxbridge : by it Charles was required THE SCOTTISH CAMP. 163 to take the covenant, and consent to the abolition of epis- copal government ; absolutely to resign the command of the military force of the empire into the hands of the par- liament; to agree to the proscription of all the most distinguished loyalists ; and to acknowledge the legality of every thing that had been done by his enemies. The commissioners, who presented these articles, had no power to debate allowed them : they were simply to take back the king's answer, at the end of ten days : " A trum- peter," he is said to have again remarked, " had done as well." They, however, earnestly pressed him to sign, as the only means that now remained of settling the kingdom. The Scottish leaders were more urgent probably, on this point, more sincere. " The people,'' said the Earl of Loudon, " weary of war, and groaning under taxes, though they desire peace, yet are so much against the pulling down of monarchy, under which they have long flourished, that they which are weary of your government, dare not go about to throw it off, until they have, once at least, offered propositions of peace to your majesty; lest the vulgar, without whose concurrence they cannot perfect the work, should fall upon them." These were the honest sentiments both of the Scotch nation and the English presbyterians. Having extinguished the fire of loyalty in their bosoms, and cast off all decent respect for the person of the sovereign, they nevertheless perceived the convenience of retaining him as an instru- ment in their power, and indulged a secret pride in the prospect of treating their monarch as their slave. They incessantly harassed the king with menaces of the ruin that must follow the rejection of their stern advice. " The 164 THE SCOTTISH CAMP. parliament," continued London, "is in possession of your navy, of all the towns, castles, and forts of England. They enjoy (besides sequestration) your revenue. Sol- diers and monies are raised by their authority ; and after so many victories and successes, they have a standing army, so strong as to be able to act any thing in church or state at their pleasure." The alternative of restoration to a constitutional, though not an absolute throne, de- pended on the king's present decision. The parliament, who had the power, might by refusal, or even by delay, be provoked to adopt the determination of excluding him from the throne. For themselves, they had given him abundant warning; to him alone would be attributable the consequences of his choice. Charles had strong reasons of a political nature for rejecting this advice. His distrust of the presbyterians was hereditary and profound ; and could he fail to bear in mind the sad confirmation, afforded in his own career, of his father's maxim, " no bishop, no king ?" He still clung to the belief, that, notwithstanding the seeming unanimity of the two great factions, they would presently be divided, even on the one question that most nearly concerned himself. In believing that the royal authority was still sufficient, at the least, to adjust the balance between the presbyterian and commonwealth factions, he was, doubtless, mistaken; for with them, bare political power, not attachment or the sense of duty, was allowed any weight; and power he had none. He never ceased also to place some degree of reliance on the returning loyalty of the multitudes. It was, nevertheless, sincere regard for the religious polity of England, blended with a solemn THE SCOTTISH CAMP. 165 conviction that his duty was, to risk all things for its maintenance, which chiefly dictated his answer to the propositions. "He was ready cheerfully to grant and give his assent to all such measures as should be really for the good and peace of his people, without respect to his own particular interests ; but never could he consent to what was absolutely destructive to that just power, which, by the laws of God and the land, he was born to." He added, that many of the propositions were such, that their exact meaning and extent could not be ascertained otherwise than in a personal conference ; for which purpose he desired to repair to his capital, as soon as he had the assurance of the two Houses and the Scotch commissioners, that he might appear there with freedom, honour, and safety. The death of his theological opponent afforded the king no respite from controversy on the proposed surrender of the church. A correspondence with Jermyn, Colepepper, and Ashburnham, now in attendance on the queen at St. Germain's, furnished painful occupation for several successive weeks. It was an easy task for the pen of Charles a pen which had foiled the learned Scotch divine to sport at pleasure with the arguments of such polemics ; but the pertinacity of the courtiers, in return- ing incessantly to the point, was proportioned to the sense they entertained of the difficulty and danger of the king's position, to their incapacity to appreciate his motives, and to the strength of their less generous reasons for desiring peace at whatever sacrifice on his part. Again and again, Charles condescended to repeat the grounds of his inflexibility. He was no less firmly 166 THE SCOTTISH CAMP. convinced that episcopacy is of divine institution, than the Scots that their synodical government was so ; he could not dispense with his coronation-oath, which obliged him to maintain the Church of England ; he farther believed, from the experience of his father's and his own reigns, that, through the church, the presbyterians really struck at the monarchy, and that their cherished polity is essentially hostile to kingly government. "Believe it," he writes, "religion is the only firm foundation of all power. That cast loose, or depraved, no government can be stable." And, in a letter to the prince, written about this time, he lays it down as " the chief particular duty of a king to maintain the true religion." The three courtiers, however, still persevered. And, although Charles was so little moved by their arguments, that he declared " they were not only against his conscience, but absolutely destructive to the end" of those who adduced them, " viz. the maintenance of monarchy ;" although he "conjures them, as they are Christians, no more thus to torture him," assuring them, that " the more (hey pressed him on this subject, the more they would contribute to his ruin ;" yet, urged on every side, with entreaty, argument, and menace, Charles's resolution at length staggered. He consulted Juxon and Duppa, bishops of London and Salisbury, whether Tie might lawfully "yield a compliance with the iniquity of the times," on the subject of church government. The re- sult was a proposition, authorised to be made privately by an agent in London, to the leaders of the presbyterian party, to allow of their church discipline for five years, and to resign the command of the militia for ten years, THE SCOTTISH CAMP. 167 or even for the term of his reign, on their agreeing to the re-establishment of episcopacy, on a moderated scale, at the close of the former period. But the parties with whom he had to deal, were resolved to enforce their "bond." The Scots refused to yield any tittle of the covenant; nor would either parliament or Scots abate one iota of the propositions. Like the rest of the king's concessions, therefore, this also was regarded merely as a further indication of weakness, and set aside as un- worthy of consideration. Many months had now been consumed at Newcastle in endless discussions on the covenant and propositions ; at London, in debates in parliament, and disputes between that assembly and the Scots, respecting the disposal of the refractory king, and the tacit, if not avowed, condition of his surrender. At length, towards the middle of December, the Scots' commissioners intimated to their captive what course they had determined to pursue, by laying before him a resolution of the parliament at Edin- burgh, not to allow the king to enter Scotland. Charles perceived the crisis to be near, and once more vainly renewed his petition to be heard in the metropolis a petition, he said, "which, if refused to a subject by a king, he would be thought a tyrant for it." The same day on which the vote against admitting the king into Scotland passed in the parliament at Edinburgh, also witnessed the departure from London of a numerous train of military carriages, laden with coin to the value of 200,000, the first instalment of the sum to be paid to the Scots. On Christmas-day (a sacred festival, not now for the first time devoted by them to public busi- 168 THE SCOTTISH CAMP. ness), the Commons passed a resolution in which the Lords also concurred, that the king's house at Holdenby, in Northamptonshire, should be the place of his con- finement. In the meantime, that serviceable officer, Skippon, who, with a strong force under his com- mand, had been ordered to convey the money to the Scots, arrived at Northallerton with his valuable charge, transferred it to the care of their commis- sioners, and "received their acquittance." In addition to this form of acknowledgment, the commissioners pre- sented a request, voted by the parliament at Edinburgh, that no violence should be offered to the person of the royal captive, and that no obstacle should be opposed to the legal succession in his family. The Scotch army then marched out of Newcastle, and Skippon immediately took possession of it with his troops. On the 23rd day of January, the lords Pembroke, Denbigh, and Montague, with Sir William Armyn, and five other members of the Commons, attended by a strong escort of horse, entered Newcastle from London, to take charge of the king. Their arrival was com- municated to him by the commissioners of Scotland. " I came among you," said Charles, " for protection, which you had already guaranteed: what is the reason that you now deny it me, by preventing my accompanying your army into Scotland." " It is because your majesty refuses to sign the covenant and the propositions. We are therefore to deliver you to the commissioners of the parliament of England, who will conduct you to your manor of Holdenby." Charles received the English commissioners with great cheerfulness and THE SCOTTISH CAMP. 169 affability, distinguishing, with special kindness, the old Earl of Pembroke, who had formerly been high in office at court, and was believed to retain still some affection for his master. The king was glad, he said, to see that the earl's advanced years had not prevented his under- taking that long and winterly journey. But the com- missioners were not to be moved by courtesies from what they regarded as points of duty. Charles requested that he might now be allowed the attendance of two of his chaplains, a comfort of which he had so long been de- prived: he was answered, that they had brought down with them two learned ministers, and that " the attend- ance of any other chaplains would not be for his majesty's benefit." In the way to Holdenby, the people flocked about the king, with acclamations, tears, and prayers ; and many diseased persons solicited and received the royal touch. In these indications of unextinguished or re- viving loyalty, they received no disturbance from the troops. The army, at this time, lay at Nottingham ; and as the king's cavalcade approached the gates, Fairfax came out to meet it, alighted, kissed the king's hand, and, remounting, accompanied and conversed with him through the town. "Dethronement," "commonwealth," and other such portentous words, had already been heard, like the mut.ering of distant thunder, in the rebel horizon. But they found no echo in the hearts of the people ; no recognition in the ear of Fairfax. Whatever dark purposes might already be engendered in bosoms subsequently stained with regicidal guilt, it could not be difficult to impose on that undiscerning frankness, which 170 THE SCOTTISH CAMP. Cromwell's hypocrisy sported with, even while the head of the royal victim was extended on the block. As the procession drew near the place of its destination, it was met by the noblemen and gentlemen of the county, who, with a multitude of the inferior classes, had assembled to express their duty to their sovereign, and to welcome his entrance once more beneath a royal roof. It was on the 16th of February, 1646-7, that King Charles alighted at the door of his magnificent mansion of Holdenby. CHAPTER IX. THE K I N G'S FAMILY. IT were vain to speculate, what might have been the effect on the fortunes of the king himself, and on the future settlement of the nation, had Charles, instead of repairing to the Scots, chosen one of those other courses, which, at an earlier period, were open to him : had he, for example, sought in person to rouse the sympathy of France or Holland, or thrown himself upon the ge- nerosity of his enemies at Westminster. One other resource there was besides, which his highminded Chancellor of the Exchequer, had he been then present with his master, would have recommended. " I would rather," said Hyde, "he should have stayed in Oxford, and after defending it to the last biscuit, been taken prisoner with his honest retinue about him, and then relied upon his own virtue in imprisonment, than to have thrown himself into the arms of the Scots. Not that I imagined they could have done what every body con- cludes they have or will do; but that I thought it an unkingly thing to ask relief of those who had done all the mischief." Nor was this method of putting a close to the contest, strange to the king's contemplations, or un- suited to his temper. He shrank, however, from the THE KINGS FAMILY. view of the extensive misery it must occasion, and pro- bably dreaded the disgrace of being made a spectacle of captive royalty to his rebel subjects. Fortunate for Oxford, at least, was the king's choice. The walls of that city enclosed many of those persons who were dearest to him, and who were at the same time the least fitted to endure the miseries of a protracted siege, or to contribute towards effectual resistance. The Duke of York, the ladies and families of many of the nobility and gentry, numerous clergymen and learned residents in the university, were there; whose presence must have aggravated the evils, while it accelerated the advance, of the inevitable result, viz. ultimate surrender. For, though the number, experience, and bravery of the garrison, enabled them to defy assault, they were never- theless wholly unequal to act on the offensive against Fairfax's host, and relief in any shape from without was hopeless. The terms of the capitulation were ho- nourable to both parties. The Duke of York was to be conducted to London, there to have fitting provision made for him by the parliament. To the princes Rupert and Maurice, liberty was given to reside six months longer in England, and then to go beyond sea. The garrison to march out with every military honour. The inhabitants to remain, if they chose, three months longer in the city, and to go where they pleased. Those whose estates were under sequestration to be admitted to com- pound at the rate of two years' income, and no farther restraint to be placed upon them, except in London, where all persons coming from Oxford, or from any other of the king's garrisons, were forbidden to wear or possess THE KING'S FAMILY. 173 arms, or to be out of their lodgings after nine o'clock at night. The university, and city, to be continued in the undisturbed enjoyment of their respective privileges under the parliament. His majesty's servants to have liberty either to repair to him within one month, or to retire to his palace at Hampton Court. Some of these conditions the parliament endeavoured to recall, after they had already been agreed to by the army. But in the meantime the two princes, maintaining the accustomed impatience of their character, marched out with their retinue of cavaliers and attendants, some days before the formal surrender of the place. Having, in their passage towards Dover, diverged to Oatlands, though allowed by the articles of surrender to approach no nearer to the metropolis than a distance of twenty miles, the houses testified their displeasure in an expostulatory letter hastening their departure. After visiting their brother, the prince Elector, then residing in England in the cha- racter of a pensioner on the parliament, they joined the queen and the Prince of Wales at St. Germain's, where Rupert accepted from the king of France an appointment to the command of all the English that were, or might be, embodied in that country. The terms granted to such of the remaining garrisons, as unhesitatingly obeyed the king's order to submit, were little less favourable. Only Ragland was yielded without conditions. This gallant little fortress had been sum- moned on the 8th of June by Colonel Morgan, at the head of a force from Worcester. For some time the brave old marquess wholly disregarded the message, re- fusing to believe that Charles could have tacitly included 174 THE KING'S FAMILY. Ragland in a general warrant of surrender. "Wherefore," was his answer, "I make choice (if it so please God) rather to die nobly than to live with infamy." Presently afterwards, Fairfax himself appeared before Ragland, and repeated the summons. A correspondence ensued, in which the marquess refers, in affecting terms, to the in- timacy which had subsisted between himself and the family of the lord-general ; and, on the 19th day of August, the venerable old nobleman was persuaded to pull down the royal standard, but not till it had pre- viously ceased to float over any other fortress in the island. The large possessions of the marquess had al- ready been confiscated by the parliament. He was consequently prevented from becoming, at the age of fourscore, a houseless dependant on the bounty of his enemies, only by his death, which followed immediately after his arriving in London, when the lords ordered a sum to be advanced for the expenses of his funeral. A person not less admirable for his firm and dis- interested support of the cause of legal government, fell into the parliament's hands at the surrender of Worcester. This was the famous Welsh judge, David Jenkins; round whose name radiates a renown very different from that which encircles most of the legal reputations of that age, famous for distinguished lawyers. Judge Jenkins had already been looked up to, during an entire genera- tion, by his fellow jurists as an oracle of constitutional wisdom, and by the court and people as an upright and able administrator of the laws, when the civil war broke out. It was from no courtly temper (for he had uniformly opposed all encroachments on the liberties of English- THE KING'S FAMILY. 175 men), from no sentimental loyalty (for he was a stern man), but purely to vindicate the law, that he declared himself a foe to rebellion, by imprisoning on his circuit parties who appeared in arms against the king, and by himself drawing his sword in the royal cause. Several attempts had been made to crush this dangerous and in- defatigable adversary, by means of fine and imprisonment, inflicted under a show of law, previously to his being brought, in February, 1647, before the House of Com- mons, in company with one Sir Francis Butler. When the two delinquents appeared at the bar, Butler knelt as he was directed, but Judge Jenkins refused. In the reprimand which followed, Lenthall, the speaker, address- ing both as notorious delinquents, particularly referred to the elder prisoner's omission of the usual mark of respect to the house, "which," he said, "was the greater fault in him, seeing he pretended to be knowing in the laws of the land." During these animadversions, the judge, in a low voice, desired his companion not to say much. " Let all their malice," he said, "light upon me: I am an old man, and you comparatively young." The speaker having concluded, Judge Jenkins asked if he might now have liberty to speak ? " Yes," answered Lenthall, " so you be not very long." "No," continued the judge, "I will not trouble either myself or you with many words. In your speech, Mr. Speaker, you said the house was offended at my behaviour in not making any obeisance to you at my coming here; and that this was the more wondered at, because I pretended to be knowing in the laws of the land. I answer, that, I thank God, I not only pretend to be, but am, knowing in the laws of the land (having made 176 THE KING'S FAMILY. it my study for these five-and-forty years ;) and that I am so, is the cause of my behaviour. For as long as you had the king's arms engraven on your mace, and that, your great seal was not counterfeit, had I come here I would have bowed in obedience to his writ and authority, by whom you were first called. But, Mr. Speaker, since you and this house have renounced your duty and al- legiance to your sovereign leige lord, and are become a den of thieves, should I bow myself in this house of Rimmon, the Lord would not pardon me in this thing." This dauntless outburst of honest indignation instantly threw the whole assembly into an uproar. It was half an hour before any order could be restored ; during all which time ten or even twenty members would be ha- ranguing confusedly together, with furious looks and gestures. At length the tumult a little abated. The house voted the prisoners guilty of high treason, without any form of trial ; and calling for the keeper of Newgate, in- quired what were the usual days of execution for treason. "Wednesdays and Fridays," was the answer of that functionary. And it was only in consequence of a remark of Marten, on the question whether the execution should take place on the following Wednesday or Friday, that this monstrous purpose was suspended. That re- publican suggesting, in terms ludicrously contemptuous, that the old man courted death as a martyr for the laws, in the hope that his execution would produce a great effect on the people, the house, tranquillized by this wholesome fear, and by the humour of its buffoon, agreed to remand the prisoners. On their return to prison, Butler asked his intrepid companion if he had not been THE KING'S FAMILY. 177 too hardy in his language to the house? " Not at all," replied the judge. " Rebellion has been so successful in this kingdom, and has gotten such a head, that weak loyal persons will be allured to comply with it, if some vigorous and brave resistance be not made against these men, even to their faces. This was the cause why I said such home things to them. And whenever the day of my execution come, I shall be like Samson, and destroy more Philistines than I have ever hitherto done in all my life. And in this thought of mine I am so wrapped up, that I hope they will not long defer my execution." Perceiving Butler's wonder to be excited by this ex- traordinary declaration, the judge proceeded. " I will tell you all that I intend to do and say at that time. First, I will eat much liquorice and gingerbread to strengthen my lungs, that I my extend my voice far and near; for no doubt great multitudes will come to witness the old Welsh judge's death. Then will I come with venerable Bracton's book hung on my left shoulder, the Statutes at large on my right shoulder, and the Bible with a ribbon put round my neck, hanging on my breast. I will then tell the people that I am brought there to die for being a traitor, and in the words of a dying man I will tell them that I wish all the traitors in the kingdom might come to my fate. But indeed I am no traitor ; and the better to inform you that I am none, the House of Commons never thought me a traitor ; for had they believed me such, they would have had me tried in a legal manner, according to the customs of this kingdom for a thousand years. For this cause they debarred me of my birthright a trial by my peers, that is, by a jury; 178 THE KING'S FAMILY. because they well knew no honest jury would ever have found me guilty of treason for only being loyal and true to our lawful and rightful sovereign. But since they will have me a traitor, right or wrong, I thought it was but just to bring my counsellors with me, who have all along advised me in what I have done. Then shall I open Bracton to show them that the supreme power is in the king the statute-book to read the oath of allegiance the Bible to show them their duties to the lawful au- thority." (The judge, as he proceeded, read at full length the passages he referred to, and then continued his imaginary address.) " This book, these statutes, this holy and sacred volume, have all been my evil coun- sellors, and therefore shall be hanged with me ! So when they shall see me die affirming such things, thou- sands will he incited to inquire farther into this matter ; and having found all I told them to be true, they will learn to loathe and detest the present tyranny." But, for the execution of this scheme the most romantic, surely, that was ever conceived in a lawyer's brain no opportunity was given. The House, in fact, comprised not a few men who understood the weight which the decisions of such a venerable expounder of the law would attach to their proceedings. A committee of members visited Judge Jenkins in Newgate, and offered, that if he would own the power of the par- liament to be lawful, they would not only take off the sequestration from his estate, which was about 500 per annum, but would besides settle on him a life annuity of 1000. " Far be it from me," he answered, " to own rebellion, however successful, to be lawful ; leave me." THE KING'S FAMILY. 179 The leader of the party persisted: he should enjoy the same, if he would only suffer them to print that he acknowledged their power to be lawful. " Not for all the money you have robbed the kingdom of," was the judge's indignant reply, "would I connive at your so doing. And should you impudently put any such matter in print, I would sell my doublet and coat, to buy pens, ink, and paper, to set forth the House of Commons in their proper colours." One argument yet remained to the tempters. " You have a wife and nine children, who will all starve, if you refuse this offer." "What! did they desire you to press me in this matter ?" " I will not say they did ; but I think they press you to it with- out speaking at all." The old man's anger was now raised to the highest pitch ; and with an answer too vehe- ment for these pages, but glowing with the incorruptible integrity of his soul, he rid himself of his tormentors. In various gaols, the Welsh judge continued, during eleven years, to suffer captivity, with the same constancy with which he expounded the violated laws of his country. The surrender of so many garrisons brought large sums into Goldsmith's Hall, for compositions ; a source of revenue which the needs of the victorious party in- duced them to encourage, though at the risk of sur- rounding themselves with royalists. The entire property of such among the king's friends as were expressly ex- ceptedfrom pardon, with that of other delinquents deemed incorrigible, was mercilessly confiscated. With reference to the practice of compounding for delinquency, so generally adopted, we find on record the following manly sentiments of Hyde : the passage occurs in a letter to Secretary N 2 180 THE KING'S FAMILY. Nicholas. " I am very glad your patrons at London are constant in their unmercifulness to the excepted, among whom I will not leave my place to be listed amongst the compounders. For my part, let him want mercy that will ask or take it from them. I remember my old acquaint- ance Cato, when he was told that Caesar had a desire to have friendship with him, and was willing to give him a pardon, grew into a passion, and said, he was a tyrant to offer him a pardon, for by it assumed to himself a power over the lives of the citizens of Rome. I assure you, Mr. Secretary, I will not receive a pardon from the king and parliament when I am not guilty ; and when I am, I will receive it only from him who can grant it." Besides the two great military commanders, whose rewards have been noticed, a long list of claims by the presbyterian leaders, upon the financial resources of the parliament, was at this time allowed. Waller was com- plimented with the title of a baron, with 2500 per annum. To Haslerigg and Stapleton was assigned, with the like rank, an income of 2000 per annum each. Sir William Brereton had an annuity of 1500 voted to him, and Skippon one of 1000; with many more. Charles himself also was now numbered with the parliament's pensioners. The vote that consigned the sovereign to Holdenby, was accompanied with a grant of 50 per diem for the maintenance of his court. The Duke of York, on the invitation of the Houses, was brought to London, and consigned to the care of Nor- thumberland (who had already two of the king's children in his charge), with an annuity, for his support, of 7000. But the same liberality does not appear to have been THE KING'S FAMILY. 181 extended to all the members of this unhappy family, now in their power. About the same day on which the duke was conducted to St. James's, the Lady Dalkeith, with whom the queen, when obliged to fly from Exeter, had left her infant daughter, secretly conveyed the princess from Oatlands (to which residence she had been taken on the surrender of that city, in April), leaving behind a statement of the causes of her flight : " After patiently expecting the pleasure of the parliament," she said, "she had found it impossible to obtain any justice to the prin- cess, or favour to her highness, or her attendants." This lady was a person of spirit and magnanimity, and suc- ceeded in safely transporting the little object of her loyal and affectionate anxiety to St. Germain's. There, the pensioner of a government which had assisted in precipitating her husband's ruin, surrounded by relations who had small ability, and less will, to afford her effectual assistance, Henrietta kept up the flutter and intrigue of a court, without its dignity or magnifi- cence. The disloyal assiduities of some of the nobles in her train, or her own anger and disappointment at the tremendous reverse in her fortunes, appear to have chilled the queen's affection towards her lord, and obliterated from her mind all regard for the country whose throne she had shared. Too indulgent to the lighter partners of her exile, she, at the same time, severely judged those measures which unexampled misfortune, or inces- sant importunity, had wrung from her afflicted husband. Davenant, to whose ill-judged embassy the king wanted patience to listen, hinted that the queen had thoughts of retiring into a monastery. The nerve of conjugal tender- 182 THE KING'S FAMILY. ness instantly quivered. To the envoy he made, on this point, no reply ; but in his next letter to his correspond- ents at St. Germain's, he thus distressingly alludes to the suggestion : "This, if it fall out, (which God forbid!) is so destructive to all my affairs I say no more of it my heart is too big ; the rest being fitter for your thoughts than my expression. In another way I have mentioned this to the queen (my grief being the only thing I desire to conceal from her, with which I am as full now as I can be without bursting), commanding you to remember her to answer me, and help to conceal my sorrow from her as much as may be." The little court of Henrietta received, at this time, an important addition by the arrival of the Prince of Wales. In the orders issued by Charles, providing for the prince's safety, he had directed, that in case expatriation were found inevitable, the heir to the British throne should be placed under the care of his royal mother, " in all things except religion." But the council whom he had placed about the prince, in the exercise of that discretion with which they were invested, wished rather to retain him in Jersey. Their authority, however, was overruled by the positive command of the queen ; and, against the strenuous protest of Capel and Hyde, the royal youth was transferred, under the care of Digby, Jermyn, and Wentworth, to a court from which his cause received no political benefits, to countervail the moral mischief of implanting in an apt disposition those seeds of libertinism and irreligion, by the growth of which England was afterwards corrupted and degraded. CHAPTER X. HOLDENBY. THE authors of this great revolution were far from enjoy- ing quiet satisfaction in their successes. The continuance of an rnmitigated burden of taxation upon the people, while the individuals in power had grown rich at the public cost; the intolerant yet inadequate character of the new church establishment; the delay of an agreement with the king ; the maintenance of a large military force in the heart of the kingdom, preying upon its resources, and diffusing around its own lawless and fanatical spirit, while not an enemy was to be seen or feared : these, and similar grievances, were beginning to cloud the popularity of the parliament. The citizens of London, once wholly subservient to their wishes, now ruffled the sittings of the houses with petition upon petition, for the disbanding of the army, and the settlement of the kingdom. Re- jected, as interfering with the privileges of the supreme authority in the nation, these remonstrances were re- peated in stronger terms, and presented at the doors with insolence and menace. Ordered to be publicly burnt in Westminster and at the Exchange, they were succeeded by others more formidable, from the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, and by disturbance and violence 184 HOLDENBY. in the metropolis. In the midst of these marks of dis- affection without, the discords in the parliament itself, between the independent and presbyterian factions, though prudently permitted, on both sides, to slumber till the retirement of the Scottish army, were in reality becoming more than ever profound and unappeasable. The chase was over ; the rich quarry lay bleeding at the feet of the hunters : but no principle, besides the robber law of the strongest, presided over the distribution of the spoil. To which side, on that principle, appertained the lion's share, was the grand question now waiting to be de- cided. At present, the superiority appeared wholly on the side of the presbyterians. In numerical strength, that party had at no time ceased to have greatly the advantage, not- withstanding the open evasion, in recent elections, of the self-denying ordinance. Late events had likewise con- spired to restore their pristine courage and enthusiasm. The sovereign, by putting himself in the power of the Scots, had, in effect, thrown the weight of his personal importance into the presbyterian scale. His misfortunes, and the magnanimity with which he bore them, were, however, beginning to soften many bosoms that had been steeled against him in the days of his prosperity. The war was at an end ; but its professed objects appeared to be as remote as ever. To what purpose had the people suffered and bled? If for nothing, or worse than nothing, then better were it the nation retraced its steps ; better to endure the blows of the less ignoble arm, and to be at least able to claim the grace of submission to authority based on law, and venerable from prescription, than to be HOLDENBY. 185 dragged at the fierce heels of power sprung from re- bellion. Such thoughts tended to strengthen that party which was known to be the more placable towards the king; and, though obstinately bent on maintaining the supremacy of their discipline in the church, willing, in other respects, to retain the forms, with a portion of the efficiency, of the ancient national institutions. In deepening and diffusing these impressions, the disbanded royalists, now everywhere mingled with the people, na- turally aided ; but in their origin they were the genuine growth of the popular mind. The indications of their existence were too plain to be either overlooked or mis- taken by the independents. Contrary to the natural temper of that party, they seem, for a space, to have been daunted. Unusual wariness and reserve clouded the countenance and darkened the language of Vane: Crom- well, perhaps doubtful for a moment of his course, appeared more than ever inscrutable. The death of Essex, which happened in this conjuncture, was fortunate for the independent faction, but the joy occasioned by this event was carefully dissembled. All the members of both houses, with the whole of the officers, civil and military, then in London, attended the magnificent funeral with which the parliament honoured the remains of their late general. On some minor occasions, an uncontrollable burst of the republican spirit escaped ; as when the arguments of the Scots, in support of their right to dispose of the king's person, were seized in the printer's hands, and ordered to be publicly burnt; but, with a few such exceptions, it was by presbyterian influence that the houses, and, consequently, the nation, were governed, 186 HOLDENBY. during Charles's detention at Newcastle and at Hol- denby. The army was therefore to be employed for securing a farther succession of victories. Its exploits in war were now to be paralleled by its achievements in policy ; the foe, the weapons, and the warfare, all changed, only the leaders the same. But the discipline required to this end was not now to be begun. The army may be said to have been, at this time, completely the creature and the tool of that great military and political genius, Cromwell. Ever since the institution of the New Model, its whole structure had presented merely an amplification of the regiment originally raised, disciplined, and commanded by the strenuous member for Cambridge. Those veterans from the various corps then disbanded, whose habits of discipline, daring temper, and free religious opinions, assimilated them to the lieutenant-general's own cha- racter, and fitted them for his purposes, were selected to fill the ranks of the new army. With these were in- corporated, from time to time, such prisoners, taken from the king's armies and garrisons, and recommended by si- milar qualifications, as either were indifferent whether they acknowledged for master the king or the parliament, or judged the service of the latter a more free and promising field for the display of their experience and valour. Re- ligious, the parent of political republicanism, had from the first been the Cromwellian creed. The army under Essex had been attended by a regular and competent band of chaplains, puritan or presbyterian ; but of these divines, few joined that under Fairfax, and those who did, were soon driven away by the insolence of the HOLDENBY. 187 soldiery, and the manifest inutility of their own labours. In the new reign of religious freedom, there was no lack of those gifts which were regarded as superseding, not ordination merely, but education. All could dispute; and their disputing, writes Baxter, was with as much fierce- ness as if they had been ready to second every argument with the sword; most could pray in public, some with surprising fluency and unction ; many could preach, and exercised their talents in this way in a style highly popular and attractive. The officers, of whom the greater part had been raised from the ranks, were selected by Cromwell for promotion, from regard to these, no less than to their military qualifications ; and the leader him- self, as became his station, excelled in all such accom- plishments of the theological profession. It is not surprising, that an army so constituted should affect to repudiate the term "common soldiers." From the time, when, in consequence of the extinction of the king's forces, such habits had, through leisure and encourage- ment, become universal, they no longer regarded them- selves individually as subject to the ordinary rules of military subjection, nor collectively as the servants of the parliament. As " privates " (such was the term then in- troduced into our language) they were entitled to the consideration of gentlemen, as well as to the rights of citizens ; as an army, they began to consider themselves in the light of an independent estate in the realm. This army, so fiercely energetic in itself, so powerful as an in- strument, Cromwell, its creator, governed with absolute mastery ; all below him were his tools : the one man nominally above him, was, by his own confession, not 188 HOLDENBY. less so than others. Policy at present demanded that the hand which moved the wires should be concealed, and Cromwell, in hourly communication with the camp, devoted his time to assiduous attendance in his place at Westminster ; covering all his schemes with the general's authority, and putting forward, in public acts and docu- ments emanating from himself and his subordinates, the popular name of Fairfax. It had become evident to the presbyterian leaders that their own existence as a party* no less than the public safety and convenience, demanded the disbanding of the now useless army. They resolved to reduce it to a peace establishment of five thousand horse, with a sufficient force of infantry to occupy a few reserved garrisons, after the greater part of those in existence should be dis- mantled; and, at the same time, with a view to destroy the dangerous authority of Cromwell and Ireton, it was voted that, with the exception of Fairfax, no officer should be retained of higher rank than that of colonel, and that no member of the Commons should hold a com- mission. Hardly was it to be thought, however, that a force so framed, conscious of its own power and the weakness of its nominal masters, would at once bow sub- missively to their vote for its annihilation ; that the ambitious soldier, whom the service had raised to dis- tinction, would willingly return to his obscure and laborious employment in civil life ; or that, holding him- self entitled to public gratitude and reward, he would endure to be dismissed in silence, and even in arrear of his ordinary wages. As an inducement to compliance, the discharged officers and men were invited to join the HOLDENBY. 189 force destined to carry on the war in Ireland; but very few offered for that service, although the popular Skippon was prevailed upon to accept the command. The in- dependents now saw that the season had arrived for acting with energy and decision. By their instigation, the army began to draw towards London, and fixed its quarters in the county of Essex. A remonstrance, in the form of a petition to the general, to be presented by him to the House of Commons, was adopted by unanimous consent; in which it was required that the parliament should pass an ordinance providing legal indemnity to the soldiers for their conduct during the war, the pay- ment of their arrears, exemption from impressment for foreign service, compensation for the maimed, pensions for the widows and families of those who had perished, and weekly pay as long as they should remain embodied. The parliament immediately instructed the general to put a stop to the petition, and to suppress those conferences in the army from which it had emanated ; and issued a declaration, admonishing the subscribers to desist, on pain of receiving punishment as enemies to the state, and disturbers of the public peace. This magisterial tone was exactly what the promoters of the movement most desired to call forth. Loud murmurs followed from the army. The general, willing to obey his masters, but sympathizing with his companions in arms, and deceived by their leaders, acted with easy vacillation. A com- mission from the two houses, in support of his authority, proceeded to the head-quarters of the army at Walden ; but, so far from effecting their object, they were witnesses to the preparation of a second remonstrance, in defence of 190 HOLDENBY. the former, and signed by the officers, who now openly took part with the men in these seditious demonstrations. In fact, the whole army had by this time been completely organized for political purposes ; and had with this view constituted within itself two deliberative bodies, to con- sider and conduct its affairs ; a council of officers, in imitation of the House of Peers, and a popular assembly, consisting of deputies from each regiment, chosen chiefly from the non-commissioned officers. The members of this mimic House of Commons it was, to whom was given the name of adjutators (afterwards, by an expressive corruption, changed to agitators), a word, in our times, well known. In this second remonstrance, the officers denied the justice of the term "seditious" applied to the former ; maintained, that by bearing arms as soldiers for the common liberties, they had not, as citizens, forfeited their own; and vindicated, in lofty terms, the right of petitioning, as emphatically claimed for the subject in the declarations of the houses themselves. With the remonstrance was likewise presented a letter addressed to Fairfax by the agitators, similar in purport, but couched in bolder language, declaring their intention to enforce that redress for which the officers petitioned. It was brought by three subaltern officers or troopers, Sexby, Allen, and Sheppard ; who, through the intervention of Skippon, made their way to the bar of the Commons, and performed their errand " with wonderful confidence." The parliament, by what Whitelocke acknowledges to have been a course of retributive justice, began now to experience the evils of that tumultuous and irregular mode of petitioning, which they themselves formerly had IIOLDENBY. 191 encouraged against the king. Though not free from alarm, they had not yet their eyes open to the extent of their danger, or to discern the hand which was to hurl them from that sphere, where, in the language of the agitators, they had " sought to become masters, and to degenerate into tyrants." Resolving not to depart from their purpose to disband the army, they now en- deavoured to carry it by concession. First, two months' pay was to be advanced to the disbanded soldiers ; then, security was added for the remainder, with a promise of an ordinance of indemnity against pressing, and to provide for the maimed and widows. Deceived by the marvellous dissimulation of Cromwell, who asserted in his place, that, notwithstanding appearances, the army was ready to conform to every thing parliament should ordain, and that he would undertake for its entire sub- mission and obedience ; the houses directed the wily lieutenant-general, and the other general officers in Lon- don, to undertake the business of mediation. Thus was fuel doubly added to the flame. The demands of men, united in powerful combinations, always are found to rise in the proportion of those concessions, which, by in- spiring terror, they are enabled to extort. Moreover, Cromwell, Ireton, and Fleetwood, the officers whom the house had the infatuation to send down, were supplied by this circumstance with an opportunity, clear from all sus- picion, of fostering the mutiny which their machinations had begun. In compliance, however, with the order of the houses, they announced to the assembled military legislature the votes passed in favour of the army, and acquainted them that they were come to settle "the 192 HOLDENBY. distempers in the army." "We know of no distempers," exclaimed the representative tribunes ; " but we do know of many grievances, and of these we demand immediate redress." In the end, Fairfax, who, on pretence of ill health, had likewise absented himself, was desired to repair to his post. He carried with him the promised ordinance of indemnity, and an ordinance for the payment of arrears for eight weeks ; accompanied, however, with a confirmation of the previous orders of the parliament to proceed, without delay, in the business of disbanding. Instead of yielding obedience to his instructions, he, on arriving at Bury St. Edmund's, to which place his head- quarters had been removed, communicated them to the council of officers ; who resolved, that they were wholly insufficient to satisfy the soldiers, and immediately began to draw the divisions together to consult what was next to be done for the common interest and safety. Meantime, the king was surrounded with every mark of deference and respect, consistent with a state of strict captivity. All approach of strangers to the royal presence was forbidden, except to those who bore the parliament's order. No attendants were allowed, but such as the commissioners appointed or approved ; no correspondence was permitted, unless through, their hands. A portion of his time the king spent in "study and devotion the solitary devotion of his chamber ; for the houses, in answer to an earnest appeal to them to permit Sheldon and another royal chaplain to come to him, confirmed the refusal of the commissioners, and Charles refused, in turn, the services of Marshall and Caryl, the two presbyterian divines. He even precluded grace from HOLDENBY. 193 being said in his presence, after the puritan iashion, by himself dexterously anticipating the commissioner's chap- lains when rising for that purpose. But this discounte- nance he softened, by treating them with marked, general courtesy. He had, indeed, acquired an affability of deportment which, in his happier years, was wanting ; and which, combined with his cheerful patience in mis- fortune, effected a thorough revolution in the breasts of many of his enemies. In his walks in the gardens of the fine old mansion at Holdenby, he had always one of the commissioners by his side; and when the choice fell on Lord Pembroke, Charles patiently accommodated his naturally quick movements to the feeble steps of his companion. His attentions to the old earl, when the latter was confined by illness, were almost filial. General Brown, another of the commissioners, allowed his re- publican antipathies to be wholly subdued by the king's civilities ; a dereliction of principle for which " the woodmonger," as Brown was called, incurs the bitter reproach of Ludlow. Charles's habitual temperance and self-government being now seconded by regularity in exercise and re- creations, he enjoyed in his seclusion uninterrupted good health. He rode frequently, and played at his favourite game of bowls, commonly on the neighbouring green at Althorp. An office of some difficulty to the guards in attendance on the king, was, to keep off the people, who thronged about him for the purpose of receiving the royal touch. The House of Commons, to put an end to this inconvenience, " ordered a declaration to be drawn up, to inform the people of the superstition of being o 194- HOLDENBY. touched by the king for the evil." The king's gaolers were not always successful in intercepting his corre- spondence. One day, in passing a narrow bridge on the way to Althorp, a packet of letters from France was put into Charles's hand by a person in the dress of a country- man. The man was seized ; and acknowledging himself to be Colonel Bosville, formerly an officer in the royal service, he was sent up to be examined before the Com- mons, and was by them committed to Newgate. On another occasion, a lady was apprehended in a similar attempt. By such incidents only trivial in the view of the his- torian, but important in the estimation of a captive, though a king was Charles's residence at Holdenby externally varied. What a contrast to these trifles, must, in spite of his " unparalleled patience," have been presented, could the observer have looked upon the mind within ! What stirring remembrances of the past had stood then revealed; what anxious thoughts, alternating between hope and fear, regarding the future ! Upon the king's writing- table still lay the Newcastle propositions. On the requi- sitions of that appalling document, not a word had since reached him from the parliament. At length, as he had promised, he wrote a more detailed answer ; and his letter, on this occasion, as being exclusively his own composition, transcribed with his own hand, enforces respect for its ability, and excites emotion by its pathos. It contains con- cessions which must have cost him, in his solitude, many sighs. He would confirm (he said) the presbyterian church government for three years ; for ten years would surrender the power of the sword ; would agree to legalize the parliament's great seal, and all the acts to which it HOLDENBY. 195 bad been applied ; and would give satisfaction with re- spect to Ireland. In this manner more than three months had passed, when, one day, Charles, attended by the commissioners, and by Colonel Graves, the officer in command of the guard, being on the bowling-green at Althorp, a strange soldier was observed to mingle with the spectators. Graves, struck by the man's scrutinizing manner, as well as by his uniform, questioned him. The soldier answered in a tone of confidence and freedom. He in- veighed, in the religious phraseology of Fairfax's camp, against the parliament, and confirmed a report already current at Holdenby, that a body of cavalry was in the neighbourhood. The colonel was startled. He com- municated his apprehensions to the king, and Charles quitted the ground in the midst of vague but general alarm. In his way back to Holdenby, he called to mind, that, some weeks before, in April, an officer had found means secretly to deliver a proposal to him, in the name of the army, that he would suffer himself to be conducted to the general's quarters, when they would restore him to his honour, crown, and dignity. He answered, that he should always retain a lively sense of the army's pro- posal, but that he would not take a step, the effect of which must be again to light up the flames of civil war. That night the guard was doubled at Holdenby House. An hour before midnight, was heard the clash and clatter of armed horsemen. A party of troopers drew up before the gates. Graves and Brown, going out to them, inquired who commanded. "We all command," was o 2 196 HOLDENBY. the reply. At the same moment a soldier advanced : it was the same individual who had caused the alarm at Althorp. " Your name, and business here ?" demanded the officers. " Joyce, a cornet in Whalley's regiment, and my business is to speak with the king." " From whom ?" " From myself." The officers laughed. " It is no laughing matter," continued Joyce ; I demand to speak with the king." " Stand to your arms within there ! " cried Graves. But the guard, perceiving that party outside were their comrades and friends, unbarred the gates and doors, and they all shook hands together. While this was doing, the colonel silently disappeared. Some others of the commissioners, who now advanced, held the cornet in discourse until they were enabled to allege that it was too late an hour the king had retired to rest. But Joyce was not to be denied : he would deliver his errand with all possible gentleness and respect, but speak with the king he must, and presently. He then placed sentinels, and, proceeding upstairs, knocked loudly at the back entrance to the king's chamber. The grooms of the bedchamber, who answered this strange summons, started at seeing before them the burly figure of the trooper, a perfect model of his class, well armed, and presenting a cocked pistol, with a bold but not in- solent air of authority, sufficiently characteristic of his present business, but by no means suggesting his original occupation of a tailor. They asked if the commissioners approved of his intrusion. Joyce bluntly answered, "No! I have set a guard at their chamber doors, and have my orders from those that fear them not." This altercation woke the king, who rang his silver bell, and, after some HOLDENBY. 197 consideration, commanded his singular visitor to be ad- mitted. The cornet, on entering, apologized with more courtesy than his exterior promised, for having disturbed the king out of his sleep. "No matter," replied Charles, " if you mean me no hurt : you may take away my life if you will, having the sword in your hands." Joyce solemnly protested that he was come, in the name of the army, to protect his majesty's person. "Mr. Joyce," continued the king, " will you, if I consent, engage for two things that I shall not be forced against my conscience, and that I shall be treated as my condition requires, and be free to see my friends ?" To these demands the cornet replied with an explicit frankness so satisfactory to the king, that, by this time, Charles had dismissed all appre- hension, and appeared pleased with this extraordinary adventure. " I will willingly go along with you," he concluded, "if your fellow soldiers will confirm what you have promised;" and the arch-agitator took his departure, with the king's assurance that he would be ready at six o'clock the next morning to hear their determination. When morning came, the king, surrounded by the astonished commissioners, appeared at the door of the mansion, where Joyce, with his detachment of fifty mounted troopers, stood drawn up in the court, ready to receive him. The cornet advanced with the mien of a great general. Charles demanded, what authority he had to secure his person ? " The soldiery of the army," replied Joyce. " That," objected Charles, " is no lawful authority : have you nothing in writing from Sir Thomas Fairfax ? Deal with me ingenuously, Mr. Joyce. What commission have you ?" " Here is my commission," 198 HOLDENBY. answered Joyce ; " here, behind me," pointing to his fifty troopers. The king glanced steadily along the line, and with a smile, said, " I never before read such a com- mission. But it is written in characters fair and legible enough a company of as handsome proper gentlemen as I have seen a long while. But what if, nevertheless, I refuse to go with you ? I am your king ; I hope you would not force me. Give me, however, satisfaction on these reasonable points that I may be used with due respect, and that I may not be forced in any thing against my conscience and honour ; though I hope that my reso- lution is so fixed that no force can cause me to do a base thing. You are masters of my body, my soul is above your reach." The troopers signified their assent with acclamations, and Joyce added, that it was not their principle to force any man's conscience, least of all their king's : it was their enemies who used that practice. The commissioners now stepping forward, one of them, Lord Montague, addressed the soldiers, holding up be- fore them a paper. " Here," said he, " are our instruc- tions from the parliament, to keep the king at Holdenby. We protest against his Majesty's removal, and desire to know whether you agree to what Mr. Joyce has said and done ?" With one voice they cried, " All, all ! " Major Brown observed, that it was not the first time that he had been at the head of a party, and that he durst affirm, though they cried "All, all!" that scarce two in the company knew what had passed. " Let all," he continued, raising his voice, " who are willing the king should stay with the commissioners of parliament, now speak." The men unanimously exclaimed, " None ! HOLDENBY. 199 None !" " Then," said the major, " I have done." The soldiers answered, "' We understand well enough what we do." Joyce now inquired to what place the king desired to go ? " To Newmarket." What distance would he choose to ride that day? "Oh," replied Charles, smiling, "I can ride as far as you, or any man here." And the party, including the commissioners, set forward, under the direction of the adventurous cornet. The news of this astonishing exploit, with the menacing attitude and unanimous spirit of the army, struck terror into the presbyterians. They perceived the unsubstantial nature of their parliamentary majority, and the imminent peril which threatened them. Convinced that they were no match for those intrepid disciples of the school of Machiavel, whose work they had been doing, they or- dered, in abject alarm, the immediate payment of all arrears due to the army, and expunged the obnoxious vote against its petition from their journals. CHAPTER XL THE TRIUMPH OP THE ARMY. THE army's head quarters had been removed to New- market. Fairfax was with some of his officers, in the neighbourhood of that place, when a private soldier, riding suddenly up, acquainted him with the seizure of the king ; at which the general testified such unaffected surprise, as, when confirmed by his subsequent asser- tions, must remove all suspicion of his privity to the design of Joyce. Returning instantly into the town, he met Cromwell. The lieutenant-general had just alighted from his horse, having ridden all night, after attending a late sitting of the Commons, in which, by force of tears and protestations, he had so thoroughly convinced the House of the sincerity, and the success, of his efforts to reduce the mutinous troops to obedience, that some of the members exclaimed, " He deserved a statue of gold for his great services." Fairfax immediately despatched Whalley, with his regiment, to take charge of the king, to prevent his advance to Newmarket, and, if possible, to induce him to return to Holdenby. The commis- sioners, whom Whalley besought to second this request, declined to interfere, on the plea that the king had been forcibly taken out of their hands ; and Charles himself, THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. 201 when appealed to, absolutely refused. It was at Chil- derley, in Cambridgeshire, near the house of Sir John Cutts, that the parties had encountered ; and in that hospitable mansion it was finally agreed that the sovereign should take up his temporary abode. On the following day, Fairfax, attended by Cromwell, Ireton, and the other general officers, waited on the king. They were received by him in the garden ; where this band of victor-courtiers (all kneeling down, except Cromwell and the general) kissed the hand from which they had successively wrung the sceptre and the sword. Charles inquired, whether it was by the general's orders that he had been brought from Holdenby ? Fairfax solemnly denied his concurrence in the design. Cromwell also vehemently protested, that the scheme had been executed without his knowledge : yet we are assured, that at the house of that arch-deceiver the plot had been contrived, and that the individuals chosen for its execu- tion were exclusively at his command. " Unless you hang up Joyce," said the king, " I cannot believe you." The cornet was sent for, to answer for himself. He repeated, in substance, what he had told the king at Holdenby, respecting his authority, and offered to appeal to the army in a general rendezvous. " If three, or even four parts of the army," said the spirited agitator, " do not approve of what I have done, I am content to be hanged at the head of my regiment." Charles reiterated his conviction, that Joyce would not have ventured on so audacious a measure, " without the countenance of great persons ;" and Fairfax, who expressed his determination to bring the offender before a court-martial, found himself 202 THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. baffled by an influence stronger than the general's orders. The king had flattered himself, that the stroke of policy by which he had been transferred from the custody of the parliament to that of the now rival power, had received the general's sanction ; for he reposed on the personal honour of Fairfax. He had now the means of being undeceived ; but the buoyant faith of Charles clung to its object, and he appears still to have regarded the general as, at the least, looking on with tacit con- nivance ; while the dexterous manoeuvre itself he con- sidered as only the first step of the army towards realizing its friendly intentions. When Fairfax came to take his leave, he intimated privately to his sovereign his sincere desire to serve him. The king replied, " Sir, I have as good interest in the army as yourself." The general was astonished, and distressed. "By this," he says, "I plainly saw what broken reed he leaned on." Towards Joyce the king testified no displeasure ; on the contrary, he seems to have taken rather a liking to the cornet's conversation. But the king's spirits must naturally have been raised, and his expectations excited, by the mere change in his immediate circumstances. He had suddenly emerged from the gloom of a total, cheerless seclusion from his people, as well as from his personal friends. At New- market, whither his desire to proceed was gratified, he found himself surrounded, not merely with formal respect, but with looks of intense though mingled interest, with shouts of gratulation, and with the long-unheard lan- guage of attachment. His friends and domestics, " the old familiar faces," were now freely admitted to his THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. 203 presence. In spite of remonstrance from the parliament (who, even in the peril and degradation to which they were reduced, would not bate one jot of their intolerance), the voice of piety, heard in the solemn tones of his re- vered parent the Church of England, from the lips of Sheldon and Hammond, once more hallowed his dwelling. Cambridge sent forth her masters, her fellows, and re- joicing students, with shouts of " Vivat Rex" to con- gratulate him. The neighbouring counties poured their gentry and people through the thronged presence- chamber, when the king dined or supped. In the enjoy- ment of his favourite exercises, tennis or riding, he forgot that he was a captive. His public progress with the army was preceded by an officer of rank, who rode bareheaded before him, as if in a festival procession ; the streets, as he passed, were fragrant with garlands, strewn in his path ; to the prayers and acclamations of the people, and the troops, he was permitted to reply, in terms of familiar condescension, without the interference even of a suspicious and disapproving look. But the present elation of the royal mind had a farther excuse. Charles's presbyterian gaolers, even more unfeeling than disloyal, treated the sovereign with some degree of cold respect, but were wholly regardless of the father. When formerly he had besought the parliament to restore to him his children, the heartless answer was, that " they could take as much care at London, both of their bodies and souls, as could be done at Oxford!" The same request, urged by an approving letter from Fair- fax, now met with a different reception. Northumberland was ordered to take his interesting charge, the Dukes of 204 THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. York and Gloucester, and their gentle sister, the princess Elizabeth, to pass two days with their royal father. This meeting between the king and his children, after an eventful separation, took place at Caversham, while the army was advancing towards London ; and the indul- gence, so grateful to Charles, was frequently repeated after his arrival at Hampton Court. On this occasion, a yet louder burst of public interest demonstrated that the people were still the English people, and still felt as the king's subjects. Even the ambiguous Cromwell appears to have been subdued by the view of family endearment, presented in this reunion, to some sense of awakening loyalty, unless we admit human nature to be indeed capable of a degree of dissimulation so intense, as, on any other hypothesis, would be requisite to explain his behaviour. Meeting at Caversham with Sir John Berkley, he told that honest loyalist, that he had lately seen the tenderest sight that ever his eyes beheld ; which was the interview between the king and his children. "And then," says Berkley, "he wept plentifully at the remembrance of it, saying, that never man was so abused as he had been in his sinister opinion of the king, who he now thought was the most conscientious and upright man in the kingdom ; concluding with this wish, that God would be pleased to look upon him according to the sincerity of his heart toward the king." Charles himself, sensible of the dangers which still surrounded him, and acutely alive, both as a sovereign and as a parent, to the honour and welfare of his family, availed himself of the more private opportunities which the visits of his children supplied, earnestly to address THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. 205 them on the subject of their duties and probable destinies. The Duke of York was at this time about fourteen years of age ; the princess a year or two younger ; the Duke of Gloucester an intelligent child of seven years. On these objects of his tenderness, doubly endeared by the sad pe- culiarity of their circumstances, he impressed his solemn counsel and injunctions. His own fate, he told them, he looked upon as full of peril and uncertainty. He was at present wholly in the power of the army, from whose custody his enemies in the parliament were quite unable to withdraw him. But what the real designs of his new masters were, he could not discern. He hoped well, yet with much fear and doubt. He therefore re- minded them all of the affection and duty they owed to the prince, their brother ; and recommended them to prepare for the probability of a darker turn of his affairs to succeed the present gleam of prosperity. To the Duke of York he spoke with peculiar earnestness, not only as he was the eldest, but because his name had already been whispered as the watch-word of a treason- able project, by some of the independents, who, uniting with the king's most violent enemies in the wish to put him aside, were yet unprepared for the doubtful experi- ment of a commonwealth. He put the youth solemnly in mind of his allegiance to the Prince of Wales, in case of his own death ; and commanded him, that if a change should occur in the behaviour of the army, and his children and friends should be again debarred from ap- proaching him, he should endeavour to make his escape, and place himself under the protection of his brother-in- law, the Prince of Orange. The like injunction, never to 206 THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. allow himself to be made king, unless he should arrive at the throne by the previous removal of his father and his brothers, Charles likewise laid upon the little Gloucester. With the Princess Elizabeth, a child of uncommon sensi- bility and quickness of understanding, the king took great delight in conversing. On the one point in which he relieved her from submission and obedience to her royal mother, viz. in religion, he had the gratification to discover in her a degree both of knowledge and of firmness, unusual at her years. The subject of religion was that with which, on each repetition of his counsels, the king concluded. He enjoined them all alike to persevere, against all entreaty and opposition, in the pro- fession of that form of Christianity in which they had been educated, "what discountenance and ruin soever might befall the poor church." That these admonitory discourses were heard by his little group of serious and wondering listeners with a devout purpose to obey, the king felt a natural but just assurance. Nor was it long before their obedience began to be put to a practical test: a few months afterwards, the Duke of York, under the care of Colonel Bamfield, a gentleman employed for that purpose by the king, made his escape from St. James's, and, in female attire, crossed safely into Hol- land. The brightness, which, at that moment, shone on Charles's prospects, proved, as he foresaw, transient and deceptive. Under the management of Cromwell and Ire- ton, the army had grown to be a republic. "The agitators had become masters of their masters." In the military le- gislature, the upper house, or council of officers, continued THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. 207 indeed to be governed absolutely by the lieutenant-general and his adroit son-in-law; but the council of agitators had views of their own, and, aware of their strength and im- portance, were resolved to pursue them. These views appear to have been at that time consistent with their notions of loyalty. They had foiled the presbyterians ; they were charmed with the honour and influence con- ferred on the army by the king's residence among them ; and, as far as their rude habits and independent mode of thinking allowed, were willing to return to the obedience of subjects. It had been always the policy of Cromwell, to throw himself headlong into each current of faction, as it successively rose to supreme influence ; to appear at the head of every movement ; to outstrip the foremost partizans. Ever keeping in view his own ambitious ends, he employed indifferently all men, and all methods, to promote them. "When," observes Berkley, "bethought the parliament would make his fortune, he resigned him- self totally to them ; when the presbyterians prevailed, he took the covenant ; when he quitted the parliament, his chief dependence was on the army, which he endea- voured by all means to keep in unity ; and if he could not bring it to his sense, he, rather than suffer any division in it, went over himself, and carried his friends with him into that way which the army chose." The idol of the army was, for the moment, the king. To affect an earnest loyalty, therefore, was now his business ; and such was the energy, and, at the same time, the flexibility of this wonderful man's nature, that by con- forming, not his words and demeanour only, but his thoughts and will, to this pretence, he, for the time, 208 THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. really became so ; could drop tears (not altogether " crocodile's tears ") profusely, on the sovereign's hand, while he kissed it in token of dutiful affection; and could blame the business-like delays of Ireton, in drawing up those proposals of the army, which were to be the means of restoring the king to his power and dignities. On his first experience of the feeling which prevailed among the military, Charles himself may have been deluded may have forgotten the transitory and variable nature of those impressions which sway the multitude, or may have mistaken, for genuine dispositions to serve him, the feigned loyalty and calculated respect of Crom- well and his friends. But the tact of the sovereign, long habituated to judge of professions the diffident temper, rendered suspicious by having been often betrayed quickly resumed their empire : coldness, reserve, aversion, succeeded. He began to regard the advances made to him, the deference with which he was approached, and those more liberal terms on which the army was disposed to close with him, than had been offered by the presby- terians, as only so many results of their conviction of his importance to their own interests. While moving* in accordance with the movements of the army, he shunned the sight of those republican cohorts who had annihilated the splendid ranks of his cavaliers. He listened to the emissaries of the Scots and the presbyterians ; and, in fine, by his coldness towards the officers, and his manifest confidence in his own ability, in that trembling equipoise of the two great parties, to adjust the balance as he pleased, he drew from the acute and fearless Ireton that plain remark, the best summary extant of the actual THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. 209 state of parties at the time " Sir, you have an intention to be the arbitrator between the parliament and us, and we mean to be arbitrators between your majesty and the parliament." It is requisite, however, to return, and slightly trace those steps by which the military leaders placed themselves in a position amply to realize the purpose thus avowed. At a general rendezvous in the vicinity of Newmarket, the army declared, in a solemn engagement, subscribed by all the officers and soldiers, that the late votes of the parliament were insufficient, and that they would not dis- band till they were satisfied : they then immediately began their march towards London. In fact, it was not their in- tention to be satisfied. It was said, not long afterwards, by Cromwell, " that he knew nothing to the contrary, but that he was as well able to govern the country as Staple- ton and Hollis," the heads of the presbyterian faction ; and already the army, inspired by the spirit of Cromwell, despised those concessions which merely tended to re- dress actual grievances, and remove just grounds of complaint. They looked much farther : they had schemes for the settlement of the kingdom, which they intended should supplant those of the imbecile presbyterians. At every step in their advance towards the capital, some fresh petition or remonstrance was issued. Superintended by Cromwell, and shaped by the acute legal pens of Ireton and Lambert, these successive proclamations re- vealed, by degrees, the ulterior designs of their authors. The contest was the more alarming for the parliament, because, not only was that assembly divided into two parties (of which one, and a very powerful one, though 210 THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. a minority, supported the demands of the army), but the nation itself was also, in like manner, divided. In reply to petitions against the army, sent up to the parliament by several counties, a greater number of counties, by their petitions and addresses, threw themselves directly upon the army for protection. In the metropolis, like- wise, petition and counter-petition succeeded to each other. While one party called upon the houses to appease the soldiery by fresh concessions, another was plotting to compel them to resist all farther de- mands. In the meantime, the army advanced, succes- sively, to St. Alban's, to Watford, to Uxbridge ; the soldiers crying out as they marched: "Justice ! justice!" The affrighted parliament ordered out the city militia for their defence, with Skippon, in his ancient office of major- general, as commander. At the same time they acquainted Fairfax with such farther votes in favour of his legions, as the contending factions at Westminster could agree to adopt. But the army had, by this time, resolved on means more direct and characteristic for harmonizing their designs with the votes of a parliamentary majority. In a declaration, addressed to both houses, they required that steps might be taken to disqualify all persons who had acted in opposition to the military ; that the House of Commons should (according to a well-known and ex- pressive term) be " purged " of individuals disqualified to sit; and, in particular, that eleven members, whom the declaration denounced by name, should be excluded, until, by due course of law, they had been cleared from certain charges which the army was preparing to prove against them. The members impeached were, Hollis, THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. 211 Glyn, Stapleton, Maynard, and the other chief leaders of the presbyterian side; the charge imported that these persons had interfered with the rights and liberties of the nation, and, in particular, had endeavoured to embroil the army and the parliament. That fallen assembly, in which the spirit of Elliot, of Pym, and of Hampden, had once presided, instantly complied. The eleven ac- cused members were encouraged by a vote for leave of absence, to withdraw ; not one of all those voices being now heard in remonstrance, which had so clamorously sounded forth, when, not twenty thousand men in arms, but the king alone in person, claimed a less number of victims. The recent ordinance for providing for the defence of the capital, was annulled; a month's pay was granted to the soldiers in reward of their services, and an ordinance passed for raising 60,000 per month for the regular payment of the army, and for Ireland. So tamely was England transferred from a legislative, though illegal, government, to a military despotism ! The presbyterian majority in the Commons, which had com- monly numbered forty, was instantly exchanged for a majority, on the independent side, of nearly an equal amount. Yet, the defeated houses retained one mark at least of equality their commissioners were permitted to meet those of the army, as on equal terms, to treat of an accommodation; they likewise obtained one concession the retirement of the army, for some short space of time, to a greater distance from the capital. An important point in this struggle, regarded the place of the king's residence. The parliament had passed a vote that he should be conducted to Richmond ; and, with 212 THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. this vote, Charles's own wishes concurred, as well from increasing distrust of the army, and a belief that his friends were strong in the capital, as from weariness at being dragged from place to place in compliance with the movements of a force, of which he ought to have been, but was not, the master. On this point, however, as on others, the parliament was obliged to yield ; and on the removal of the army northward, he took possession of the Duke of Bedford's house at Woburn. Among those royalists who came over to visit the king, on his falling into the hands of the army, was Sir John Berkley, a man of capacity, and distinguished as a soldier by his exertions in the royal cause at Exeter. Berkley was despatched by the queen, with the connivance of Crom- well and the other leaders, to aid the sovereign in his negotiations with the army. A treaty was immediately opened, the success of which was eagerly desired and pro- moted by the agitators and their clients ; and, whether from temporizing compliance with the army, or with a real desire to restore the king, on their own conditions, to the throne, was no less zealously urged forward by Cromwell and Ireton, who, on their side, undertook its manage- ment. In the absence of all probability, that even the ambitious and far-reaching thoughts of the victor of Marston and Naseby had yet contemplated a military dictatorship as endurable in England; and with the knowledge that titles, honours, and emoluments were, in the event of an accommodation, to be showered on him- self and his friends, we can hardly refuse to prefer the second hypothesis. At length Berkley was allowed to THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. 213 peruse the rough draft of proposals "for the settlement of the nation," to be submitted to the king. To his practical, unfastidious mind, the demands of the army appeared moderate, in a degree beyond expectation. It seemed a great step towards the desired issue, that both parties, royalists and independents, were animated by a common hatred of the presbyterians. The plan pro- posed put the covenant and the liturgy on the same footing, abolishing all penalties for the neglect of either ; but, while providing for liberty of conscience, it im- plicitly protected the church in all its legal rights. It modified in favour of the crown the article relating to the militia, as formerly proposed by the parliament, and it confined within the small number of seven those ad- herents of Charles who were not to be admitted to pardon. With these provisions, however, were inserted some others that savoured of their democratic origin; such as the reform of the House of Commons, by abolishing small boroughs, and augmenting the number of county members ; by limiting the sittings of parliament within not less than one hundred and twenty, nor more than two hundred and forty days, and the duration of each parti- cular parliament to two years. It was farther stipulated, that none of the king's friends should be allowed to sit in the next parliament. One entire night Berkley passed with Ireton in discussions on this momentous document. At the suggestion of the cavalier, the stern commissary- general consented to its modification in more than one point. And when, encouraged by Ireton's facility, Berkley proceeded to urge the omission of the article which excepted seven unnamed royalists from pardon, and that 24 THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. which excluded the king's friends from the next parliament, Ireton offered such reasons for retaining them as candour could not easily refute. With respect to the first, he alleged, that, if after having proved victors in the war, the independents made no difference between their friends and their enemies, they would manifestly lie open to the charge of betraying their party, and to the suspicion of having sought their own private ends. On the second, he replied, " I confess that I should myself be afraid of a parliament in which the king's friends should have a majority. Let, however, the agreement be carried into effect ; and if then it be found that your party and ours work cordially together, nothing can be easier than to ob- tain a farther modification in these particulars." He concluded by conjuring Berkley, as he tendered his royal master's welfare, to endeavour to prevail with him to accede to the proposals. Nor was Cromwell, seemingly, less favourably disposed. "In all my conferences with him," records Berkley, " I found no man, in appearance, so zealous for a speedy settlement as Cromwell ; some- times wishing that the king was more frank, and would not tie himself so strictly to narrow maxims ; sometimes complaining of his son Ireton's slowness in perfecting the proposals, and his not accommodating them more to his majesty's sense." Charles, however, on the contrary, was disappointed and displeased. In vain was it intimated by Berkley, that better terms could scarcely be expected from men " who had, through so great dangers and difficulties, acquired so great advantages ;" that a crown so nearly lost must be thought cheaply retrieved on such conditions. The king THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. 215 had other thoughts : the army, he said, could not stand without him; and he doubted not very shortly to see them glad to make larger concessions. In the midst of these conferences arrived Ashburnham, to share with Berkley in the labours and responsibilities of his mission a man of another temper, courtly and fastidious, whose soft manners, and whose delicate and devoted, rather than judicious loyalty, had obtained for him an unusual share of the king's regard. The influence of this new counsellor, and, still more, the intercourse which Charles was now carrying on with the metropolis, confirmed him in his unfavourable view of the army's overture. Such was the disposition in which Ireton, and the other officers, found him on the day when the proposals were formally submitted for his concurrence. It was refused ; and refused with the imprudent addition of un- gracious and even scornful remarks. The military tribunes looked alternately on each other, and on the king's advisers, with mingled astonishment and regret. Referring to the first of the clauses already objected to by Berkley, the king declared, with repeated allusions to the case of StrafFord, that no man should suffer for his sake ; on the subject of religion, he said, that he would have the church established according to law. On the other side, it was alleged, that to obtain the re-establish- ment of the church was not the army's province ; they deemed it sufficient for them to wave the point. "You can- not do without me," reiterated Charles. "Unless I sustain you, you must fall to ruin; and I will not afford you my sup- port at so mean a price." Berkley, who knew the men he had to deal with, and regarded the crisis as decisive of his 216 THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. sovereign's fate, here whispered Charles apart: "Sir, you speak as if you had some secret strength and power that I do not know of; and, since your majesty has con- cealed it from me, I wish you had concealed it from these men also." The king seemed now to awake to self- recollection, as if from a dream. He strove to soften what had been said; but it was too late to recall the impression. Colonel Rainsborough, who, from the first, had shown himself averse to the treaty, was observed to have by this time withdrawn. Returning at speed to the army, he rushed into the council of agitators, then assembled in eager expectation of news from the con- ference, and delivered a report of what had passed, in terms, which, instantly transmitted from man to man, raised a general flame of indignation against the king. The army was at the same time engaged in other important negotiations. A treaty with the parliament was now in the hands of the commissioners of the respective parties; with, however, on the side of the military, no purpose to bring it to a close, before the success of a farther contemplated stroke of policy should have enabled them to dictate their own terms. This was, to wrest from the presbyterians the City of London ; a weapon in their hands (with its slavish muni- cipality, its turbulent citizens, and its swarms of disbanded soldiers) so formidable, that the more violent of that party were preparing, with its aid, seconded by the in- trigues of their Scottish brethren, to set both parliament and army at defiance. When the army consented to remove farther from London, it did so, not in ignorance of this design, but rather because the leaders foresaw, that, THE TRIUMPH OF THE ARMY. 217 in the ac'ual temper of the defeated presbyterians, a pre- text would thereby sooner be supplied for the occupation of the capital. As a preparatory step they now required that the militia should be re-transferred to the friends of the independents. The parliament complied, and passed an ordinance to that effect ; but presently found their doors beset by tumultuous crowds of petitioners, who de- manded its instant repeal, together with the restoration of the eleven impeached members. A new " solemn league and covenant" was, at the same time, exposed for subscription, containing an oath of allegiance to the sovereign, with a solemn engagement to restore him to his parliament against all opposition. It was, pro- bably, from confidence in the success of this scheme, that Charles, t HAMPTON COURT. Hampton Court, its members appeared to vie with each other in attentions to the royal captive. The period of three months passed by Charles at Hampton Court, is not unaptly said by his affectionate and lettered attendant Herbert, to have consisted of " halcyon days." It was, at least in its commencement, a gleam the last allowed him of prosperity and peace. He once more found himself surrounded by the splendour, the vivacity, and the dignified observances of a court He was waited on, without restraint, by his own servants ; his chaplains publicly celebrated divine service in his chapel ; the presence-chamber was thronged by nobility of the high- est rank. Mingled with these were the general officers of the army, the great leaders in parliament, and the principal citizens. It seemed as if an act of amnesty and oblivion had tacitly passed, and as if the king's residence near his capital, and beneath his own royal roof, had soothed the jarring heats of party, and charmed into peace the strifes of passion and self-interest. The loyalty which really sur- vived in the bosoms of the people, was outwardly assumed, from curiosity, fashion, or policy, by those whose bosoms were unacquainted with its power. Not only were Cromwell, Ireton, and other general officers, found mixing at Charles's levees with the legitimate denizens of the court the Richmonds, the Ormonds, the Dorsets, the Southamptons, but their families were emulous to keep up the appearance of respect. " This last week," observes the writer of a letter dated late in October, " Cromwell's, Ireton's, and Whalley's wives went to court; where Mr. Ashburnham, taking Mrs. Cromwell by the hand, and all the rest having their peculiar ser- HAMPTON COURT. 225 vants [i.e. obsequious cavaliers] were led into the court, and feasted by them." Besides this unrestrained intercourse with all parties, the king enjoyed other liberties of greater importance to his happiness. He had frequent visits from his children ; he was allowed an unrestricted corre- spondence with the queen and the Prince of Wales ; while, in the pleasures of the chase, and other eques- trian recreations, the only restraint upon his freedom was his own pledged word not furtively to quit his present place of residence. The general expectation, which these circumstances encouraged, that Charles was presently to return to his capital, and publicly reassume the functions of sovereignty, was confirmed by his fre- quent intercourse with Cromwell, already master of the political as well as the military power of his country. Wolsey's terrace-walks and stately galleries bore witness to frequent conferences between the descend- ant of the ancient but unhappy Stuart line, and that coarse though gifted being, who now, with alternations of supple hypocrisy and most earnest purpose, strove to im- part acceptability to his assiduous visits. That negotiations were for some weeks carried on between these two great and interesting personages, the issue of which the whole country believed would be Charles's reinstatement on the throne, is beyond dispute. On what conditions this event was to be accomplished, seems no less ambiguous than the sincerity of the negotiating parties. It is probable that the hero of independency urged the king to yield those points which were required in the proposals of the army the surrender of his chief prerogatives and princi- pal friends ; the concession of unlimited popular demands; Q 226 HAMPTON COURT. universal toleration in matters of conscience. Respecting the rewards stipulated on the other side, though matter of confident rumour, we have no better authority than the gossip of female politicians, or the jealous in- vectives of the conclave of agitators at Putney. If these may be trusted, Cromwell professed that he would, at this time, have been content with the earldom of Essex, the garter, and the government of Ireland, for himself, and honours and emoluments in proportion for his son-in-law and eldest son. But the part Cromwell had now to play, required the exercise of all his wonderful foresight, skill, boldness, and unmatchable dissimulation. While engaged in gain- ing the king, he was losing his friends, and farther exasperating his enemies in the parliament: in the army, the focus of his influence, his popularity was rapidly declining. The agitators murmuringly insinuated that the whole army was to be compromised in a private bargain with the king ; the officers complained that the doors of the lieutenant and commissary-generals were open to Ashburnham and Berkley, when they were closed against themselves. Charles, himself too often driven to ambiguity and indirectness, was profoundly sus- picious of Cromwell's good faith, notwithstanding the most solemn asseverations both of himself and Ireton, that they were ready to peril their lives in support of the objects of the treaty. It was with a view to satisfaction on this head, that Berkley and the gentlemen of the king's bedchamber were so often to be seen at head-quarters. Cromwell entreated the king to use greater privacy in his messages. " If I am an honest man," he said, " I have HAMPTON COURT. 221 spoken enough as to the sincerity of my intentions ; if not, nothing is enough." In the meantime, with the exception of an occasional murmur that the enemies of the parliament were allowed free access to the king, and were taking advan- tage of it to their injury, that assembly seemed willing, in the prosecution of those disputes which their pres- byterian strength enabled them still to maintain with the army, to forget his existence. At length the army's proposals were brought before the houses for their approbation, previously to their being again submitted to the king. By the exertions chiefly of the Scottish party they were set aside, and, in their stead, the Newcastle propositions, modified by some in- considerable changes, were presented at Hampton Court The necessity of a final decision painfully revived, in Charles's mind, the question of Cromwell's sincerity. He resolved to put him to a fresh test A frequent messenger between Cromwell and the king was Major Huntingdon, an officer of the lieutenant-general's own regiment, who, in the course of this employment, had conceived a strong attachment for his majesty, and had in return obtained the royal confidence. The king, sending for Huntingdon, earnestly inquired, " Whether he, who knew Cromwell intimately, considered that he was in heart the same, as he had by his tongue so freely and frequently expressed himself to be ?" This grave question staggered the major, and he besought the king to wait for his answer till the next day. That night he hastened to Putney, and at dawn the next morning applied at Cromwell's quarters for an audience. Crom- Q 2 228 HAMPTON COURT. well rose from bed to receive him. He communicated his business. Cromwell then asseverated with all imaginable solemnity, that he from his heart meant to do every thing in his power, as he had promised, to restore the king; imprecating maledictions on himself, his wife, and chil- dren, if he failed in his word, and protesting, that though deserted by the army, if but ten men stood by him he would be true to the king and his cause. Huntingdon, aware of the violent measures against the king then agitated in the army, and too well acquainted with Cromwell to be easily convinced, was still so cautious as to stipulate, that should any thing happen to hinder the lieutenant-general's intentions, he would give the king warning, in time to provide against the danger. Relying on these assurances, Charles no longer hesitated once more to refuse the parliament's propositions. He in- timated his confidence in Cromwell and his inseparable counsellor Ireton, by sub nitting his answer to be al- tered by them as they pleased. It repeated the former statements of his inability to consent to the propositions, without violence to his conscience and his honour. It then passed, with some respectful allusions to the ser- vices and just expectations of the army, to the proposals submitted to him from that quarter, to which, he pre- sumed, the houses of parliament were no strangers ; and concluded by declaring his belief, that they " would think with him, that those proposals were much more calculated to conduce to the satisfaction of all interests, and to be the basis of a lasting peace, than the pro- positions now tendered." This answer was presented to the Commons on the 13th of September. It raised a HAMPTON COURT. 229 violent flame in the house. The king was called an obstruction in the way of all good resolutions : he was an Ahab, and coloquintida ; and they ought to think no more of him, but proceed as if no such person existed. In levelling these acrimonious speeches against the royal person and authority, none were more vehement than " the two grand impostors," as Huntingdon, on this occasion, terms Cromwell and Ireton. When this mon- strous fact was reported to Charles, it naturally excited his amazement. Again he sent Huntingdon not now to inquire, but to expostulate. The major brought back no other satisfaction, but this characteristic and ingenious remark of Cromwell's, that " what he had said in the House of Commons was only to sound the depths of those virulent humours, wherewith the presbyterians (whom he knew to be no friends to the king) were possessed." But the perfidy was too rank to be salved ; and Cromwell was seen no more at Hampton Court. For so remarkable a change many different reasons were assigned, all of them intended to conceal the true one, namely, that no motive now remained for keeping up a wearisome deception ; and some of them contrived to throw the whole odium upon the king. That the conduct of Cromwell had engendered angry suspicions among the violent spirits of the army, was undoubtedly the fact; hence he affirmed that considerations of per- sonal safety obliged him to break off his intercourse with the court. Another pretence was the alleged " incurable duplicity" of Charles, as manifested in his correspond- ence with the Scots. At the instigation of the Duke of Hamilton, that people were commencing warlike pre- 230 HAMPTON COURT. parations ; and when Cromwell, himself already well informed, questioned the king as to his knowledge of the fact, the latter, though actually in treaty with the duke, resorted to concealment. Charles was, doubtless, in this as in other instances, open to the charge of dissimulation. But, as we are unable to define the exact point to which the royal artifice extended, so likewise we are in no condition to declare that this was not one of those occasions when the tortuous maxims of poten- tates and statesmen may allowably interpose their veil, before that sacred majesty of truth which the Christian and the gentleman display, in all private matters, with- out disguise. The king's scrupulous regard to his word was evinced, about this time, on two remarkable occa- sions ; of which one will be more particularly mentioned farther on ; the other is in immediate connexion with the present subject. It is related by Burnet, that on an occasion when the king, attended by a very small guard, was engaged in hunting, the lords Lanerick and Lauderdale suddenly made their appearance with a body of fifty horsemen, and entreated him to make his escape, assuring him that themselves and their party were willing to sacrifice their lives for his deliverance. But Charles refused, on the sole ground, that he had engaged his honour -not to leave the custody of the army without giving them notice, and he would rather die than break his faith. As to the well-known stories of the reported conver- sation between Cromwell and Ireton and Lord Broghill, and of a letter, ripped by the hands of the great republican generals from the saddle of a traveller's horse at the HAMPTON COURT. 231 Blue Bo?" in Holborn; which are said to have proved, not only tht double-dealing of the king while listening both to the presbyterians and the army, but likewise his perfidious design to destroy Cromwell and his friends as soon as he should be restored; these apocryphal relations plainly originated in the invention of his enemies, and the childish improbability of them is apparent to all except those historians whose wishes, or whose prejudices, incline them to the belief of their authenticity. The custody of the king had now become worthless to the army. His longer residence, and especially his holding a crowded court, so near to the metropolis, now enthusiastically disposed in his favour, could not fail to impede their "good resolutions." How to dis- pose of him was the next question. To let him fall into the hands of the presbyterian party, would be to relinquish the advantage they had gained. A private assassination had been unsafe ; Cromwell, moreover, was not a man of blood. The inventive mind of the lieutenant-general lighted on a scheme both facile and unobjectionable ; for effecting which he found a con- venient instrument in the king's trusted attendant, Ashburnham, the weakness of whose character he had had abundant opportunities of studying ; while the law- less proceedings of the army offered a plausible ground- work. Charles's contemptuous rejection of the proposals, supervening upon the republican and fanatic notions, already become general among the soldiers, had wrought them into a perfect abhorrence of the king and all kingly government. To this disposition they were further stimu- lated by confidence in their own power, and resentment Zo2 HAMPTON COURT. of their treatment by the legislature. For the parliament, as if determined to exert against the military the last rem- nant of its feeble authority, with the view, as it seemed, to provoke them to some desperate step that might wholly alienate the people's affections from them, continued obstinately to withhold both the promised gratuity and regular arrears of pay. Among all those ingredients, however, of the witch's cauldron of successful rebellion, from the ferment of which now sprung what has been called a third party, namely, the faction of the levellers, religious fanaticism was the most powerful. This was the principle which, in the outbreak of the war, united Cromwell's troopers to each other, and to him; it was by means of this (the solitary spirit having now become "legion,") that a combination was being formed, which afterwards demanded all the power, dexterity, and courage of that gifted adventurer to break. At Putney, be- fore Berry as president of the agitators took the chair, or before Rainsborough, the fiercest of the republican demagogues, launched his invectives against the king, Peters and Dell, Cromwell's inspired chaplains, mounted the pulpit to prepare the minds of the military legis- lators, by evincing, from the perverted words of scripture, his famous maxim, that "there was no law in England but the law of the sword, and what it gives," and, as a consequence, that the rightful legislator is the wearer of the sword. The tenets of the levellers were the proper issue of the tenets of the independents ; as the latter had been of those of the puritans. It is a very natural progress downwards ; for the successive steps of it are marked, from the birth, in every human bosom. HAMPTON COURT. 233 It is the same inborn principle of proud self-will, which begins by questioning the foundations of authority, and casting aside the veneration due to ancient, heaven- taught wisdom, and which ends by making men's pas- sions and self-interest the law to themselves, and the rule whereby they would coerce and compel all others. And this the levellers admitted, indirectly, by assuming, in the first instance, the title of " rationalists." They acknow- ledged no duty but such as God had made plain to their reason ; and what their reason approved, in church and state, in the making or the executing of laws, was alone binding ; and this only till farther light was afforded. This new supreme power, the sovereignty of the people (of the people considered, not as one body but as distinct individuals), was of course hostile to all other authority whatever : to the parliament as well as to the king; to graduated rank in the army, as well as to a hierarchy in the church. But the first great obstacle in the way of its exercise was the king. The king had rejected their proposals ; they were no longer to regard either them or the king himself; but to consult their own good, and the safety of the kingdom which, indeed, was theirs by conquest ; " and to use such means towards both, as they should find rational." The levellers held meetings of a character peculi- arly secret and solemn, at which (in the phrase taught them by Cromwell) " they sought the Lord " to reveal his will to his saints, that is, to the most excited of the fanatics ; those who were forwardest to execute whatever should be resolved as fittest to be done. As a logical consequence, the regicidal principle 234 HAMPTON COURT. was at length broached, in those dark conclaves. The king was an impediment in the way of the general good of the people : the people were greater than the king, possessed of a higher sovereignty : there- fore the people might judge, and, if need were, destroy the king. The notion of bringing the sovereign to a formal trial was early familiar in the debates of the agitators ; though the terrific consequences might not so soon be distinctly, or at any time by all, held up to contemplation. " Not," said Joyce, " that I would have a hair of his head to suffer, but that the people might not bear the blame of the war." But Joyce was both less logical, and less bloody, than some of his associates ; for trial, as it presupposes criminality, so it supposes condemnation, and condemnation implies punishment. In accordance with, and as the gradual growth of these deliberations if so they may be styled two papers, the one a statement of grievances, entitled, " the case of the army," the other, "the agreement of the people," were presented by the agitators to their general. The " agreement," a daring and powerful manifesto, said to have been originally framed by the famous republican Lilburne, proposed a new constitution for the empire. It asserted, of course, the right of sovereignty to be in the people, and it proposed to secure to them the three great privileges, of which the nation ought never to consent to divest itself equality of law, freedom of conscience, and exemption from forced military service. The exercise of the people's sovereign power was to reside with their representatives in parliament ; but no mention occurs of either king or lords. HAMPTON COURT. 235 That these precursors of regicide were felt by Crom- well and Ireton to be only " marshalling them the way that they must go," is indubitable; since, though regularly made acquainted by their spies with every thing that passed in the most secret meetings, they not merely connived at, but encouraged those licentious schemes which were there brought forward. The most active heads of the movement were, in fact, soldiers and subalterns in their own regiments, and that of the general. Yet the fears of these officers were by no means wholly feigned, on observing, at how fiercely pre- cipitated a pace those apt learners were now running in the path which they had opened for them. The time arrived when a pause was to be made ; when, at all events, leaders of a higher strain, men who knew how to divest progress of undue precipitancy, and who could unite security with daring, were to step forward into those places in the van, which hitherto they had found it convenient to occupy only in the persons of sub- ordinates. Up to this mature point of the great design, Cromwell, though he had ceased in person to visit the king, continued to receive the royal messengers at his quarters, with an appearance of anxious desire for the success of their negotiations. At length, the lieutenant- general had grown so cold in his demeanour, and so nearly inaccessible, that even the unsuspicious Ashburn- ham saw plainly, that nothing farther was to be hoped from pursuing the correspondence. His more sagacious master had all along been haunted by suspicions of the fact. " He was not surprised," he said ; " for he had always had some secret misgivings, that Cromwell 226 HAMPTON COURT. and Ireton never designed any real service to himself, but made use of his interest to advance their own ; which lay some other way than by his restoration." Suddenly, Charles perceived that the guards were dou- bled about the palace. An excuse for this change was pretended, by Cromwell, in a letter alleging the danger of violence to the royal person. But it was farther observable, that the temper and behaviour of the men seemed likewise to have changed with the change in their officers. The sentinels disturbed the king's repose with loud and unmannerly noises, and filled the corridors of the palace with the coarsest fumes of that Indian weed which was known peculiarly to offend the delicate organ of the monarch. Charles remonstrated against the doubling of the guard, as injurious to his honour ; and, in a letter to the general, withdrew his parole. " He would be no longer bound," he said, " by his word to continue with the army, for where his word was given there ought to be no guards : his word was his guard. They must henceforth look to him as well as they could." At the same time, Berkley and Ashburnharn were forbidden any more to attend upon their master, and the gates of the palace were equally closed against his other friends and visitors. Charles appears to have put little faith in those perils of assassination which he was told beset him. He sometimes looked upon the frequent intimations given him to that effect, as artifices probably designed to inveigle him to some dangerous step perhaps, into the very perils pretended to be pointed out. They added, nevertheless, to those perplexities which now HAMPTON COURT. 237 tormented, and determined him to attempt his deliver- ance by one more romantic effort. Colonel Legge alone, of all his trusted servants, was allowed access to the king's person. By his agency Charles made Berkley and Ashburnham acquainted with his resolution to escape, leaving it in particular to Ashburnham to find the means and to fix the direction of his flight. To conceal himself in London to deliver himself, a second time, to the Scots to cross the sea to Jersey, an island which still acknowledged his authority, and where Hyde and other illustrious loyalists had found refuge, were plans successively discussed, and finally abandoned for one worse than all. On the afternoon of November llth, the king com- manded, that, having letters to write, he might be exposed to no interruption ; and this order was sus- pended only when, at dusk, lights were brought into his chamber. Supper-time arrived, and the commissioners, with Whalley, who had still the command of the king's guard, were assembled as usual ; but Charles appeared not. Wondering, for a space, at this unwonted delay, they knocked, and, receiving no answer from within, entered the royal apartment. On the floor lay the king's cloak, suggesting to the imaginations of the party, already filled with the current rumours of a projected assassina- tion, that violence had been attempted upon his person. Some letters, left by him on his writing-table, quickly relieved their apprehensions. Of these papers, one was addressed to Lord Montague, who, on opening it, found a request that a certain picture in the king's chamber might be restored to the Duke of Richmond, its 238 HAMPTON COURT. owner ; and, in a postscript, he earnestly recommended to the care of the commissioner his favourite greyhound, whose disconsolate whine had alone greeted the intruders at their entrance. In a second letter, he thanked Whalley for the attentions paid to his comfort, while in that officer's custody. The third threw light upon the motives which had driven him to the step implied in the others. It bore the signature, " E. R.," and gave an account of the resolution adopted at the meet- ings of the agitators, to take away the king's life. This letter was recognised by Whalley, as one which, in the discharge of his duty, he had shown, he said, to his majesty ; but had accompanied it with an assurance, that he might be confident no such thing would be attempted : " though menacing speeches," he admitted, "came frequently to his ear, the general officers abhorred so bloody and villanous an act. For himself, in par- ticular, he had assured the king, he was sent to safe- guard, not to murder him ; and would rather die at his feet in his defence." The last letter was one addressed by Charles to the parliament, and contained an explicit statement of the impressions and views under which the royal prisoner had withdrawn. It commenced with the king's assertion of his natural right to the common liberty ; and thus he proceeds : " I call God to witness with what patience I have endured a tedious restraint ; which, so long as I had any hopes that this sort of my suffering might conduce to the peace of my kingdoms, I did willingly undergo. But now finding by too certain proofs that this my continued patience would not only turn to my personal ruin, but likewise be of much more HAMPTON COURT. 239 prejudice to the public good, I thought I was bound, as well by natural as political obligation to seek my safety, by retiring myself for some time from the public view both of my friends and enemies. I shall earnestly and incessantly endeavour," he continues, "the settlement of a safe and well-grounded peace, wherever I am . . ." for ... " as I cannot deny but that my personal security is the urgent cause of this my retirement, so I take God to witness that the public peace is no less before my eyes ; and I can find no better way to express this my pro- fession, than by desiring and urging, that, besides what concerns myself, all chief interests, the presbyterians, the independents, the army, those who have adhered to me, and even the Scots, may have not only a hearing, but likewise just satisfaction given unto them. Let me be heard," he with dignity concludes, " with freedom, honour, and safety, and I shall instantly break through this cloud of retirement, and show myself to be PATER PATRICE." While all parties were in consternation at the king's flight ; and while the parliament, first dispatching mes- sengers to the seaports and other outlets of the kingdom, passed an ordinance making it high treason to conceal his person, or the place of his retreat, and (in terror lest he should have hid himself in London) issued a proclamation for the banishment of all persons who had ever borne arms for him, to a distance of twenty miles from the metropolis ; Cromwell took instant advantage of the relief afforded him by the success of this grand manoeuvre, to bend all his energies to the suppression of the mutinous temper in the army. It was an exigency 240 HAMPTON COURT. which fully demanded that amazing union of cunning, dexterity, and courage, which enabled him so often to baffle his enemies, and to crush a danger at that par- ticular instant, when its extinction must prove as com- plete, as its farther progress would have been fatal. The king's disappearance had increased the angry ex- citement which possessed the soldiery. It was now no fiction, that the levellers menaced the lives, not alone of Cromwell and Ireton, but of their superior officers generally; who perceived that the success of their objects, and the very existence of the army, depended upon their success in restoring subordination and discipline. With this view, Fairfax directed a general rendezvous to be held at Ware. A great part of the troops came upon the ground reluctantly and in disorder ; but as the general officers rode round the field, the soothing language of the popular Fairfax, and the stern determination which had settled upon the brow of Cromwell, quickly thinned the masses of the disaffected. At length, all but three or four regiments signified their readiness to subscribe an engagement to submit to their general, which had been prepared for the occasion. Still Lilburne's, Harrison's, and Rainsborough's kept aloof. The men, collected into groups, listened eagerly to the harangues of their agitators, who distributed among them copies of the " agreement of the people," and placards bearing se- ditious mottoes, which they placed in their hats. Crom- well, Ireton, and the most resolute of their friends, riding up to the mutineers, the lieutenant-general ordered them to remove the offensive paper. They HAMPTON COURT. 241 hesitated ; when, drawing his sword, he charged through the astonished groups, seized a dozen of the ringleaders, of whom one, being chosen by lot, was instantly shot dead upon the place, and his companions handed over to an officer to be tried by a court-martial. The others then gloomily submitted. Cromwell assuming that tone of blandishment, and pious lachrymation, which he had always found irresistible in camp or senate, in that strange age of religious imposture, promised a speedy settlement of all their reasonable demands, and dismissed them to their several quarters. Hastening to West- minster, he made his report of the day's events to the houses. Without the grosser colouring of vanity (for he attributed its successful close to " God's mercy and the endeavours of his excellency and his officers,") the narrator, nevertheless, shone as the hero of his tale, and received the thanks of the parliament accordingly. It is remarkable, therefore, that in the long despatch from Fairfax, in which the same facts are detailed, no mention is found of the name of Cromwell. The lieutenant-general was likewise the first to calm the anxiety of the Commons, respecting the king's disap- pearance, by acquainting them, on the day following that which revealed his departure, that the royal fugitive had taken refuge in the Isle of Wight. Notwithstanding the ostentatious care pretended in placing the guard at Hampton Court, a private door, which opened from the king's apartments into the park, was left without a sen- tinel. By this entrance, Berkley and Ashburnham obtained access to him, after their appearance at the palace had R 22 HAMPTON COURT. been prohibited, to arrange the manner and means of his escape. It was by this door that Charles also himself, accompanied only by his faithful attendant Legge, had issued from his palace-prison. The night was exces- sively dark and stormy. Crossing the river at Ditton, they found the two faithful, but ill-assorted counsellors waiting with horses. They went towards Oatlands, the king, who was more familiarly acquainted with the forest than his companions, undertaking the office of guide ; but his skill was unavailing, in the darkness, to prevent their wandering from the track, and day had broke before the party reached Sutton, where Berkley had provided a relay of horses. Among the places which had occurred or been suggested to the king, as safe if not advantageous retreats, it does not appear that he had definitively selected any one before adventuring on his sudden and ill-considered flight. While descending a hill, he proposed that the party should lead their horses, and confer as they walked on this important point. Jersey had originally been thought of as perhaps the most desirable destination, and Berkley now asked if a vessel had been provided ; but the king's resolve had been too hastily put in execution. Meantime the travellers were directing their course towards Southampton. Berkley proposed that they should strike out farther westward, but his advice was overruled, on the ground that they ought not to quit the neighbourhood of the army till the result of the expected rendezvous was known, and the king's treaty completed with the Scots. In this HAMPTON COURT. 243 perplexity he suddenly resolved to go to the Isle of Wight "for the first time," observes Berkley, "for aught I could then discover." But Charles was deter- mined by motives with which, unfortunate as they proved, Berkley was unacquainted. Ashburnham, a few days pre- viously, had recommended to the king Sir John Oglander's house in the Isle of Wight, as a secure asylum. It was farther eligible, he said, on account of the convenient distance of the island from the metropolis ; of the facilities it offered for escape, or communication with the king's friends by sea; and of its having few or no soldiers. But its chief recommendation rested on an opinion he entertained that the governor, Colonel Hammond, might be gained over. He had lately met Hammond, who, renewing a slight acquaintance formerly existing between them, had told him, that since he found the army was re- solved to break all promises with the king, he had determined to get out of the way by returning to his government, for he would have no share in such per- fidious actions. The party had arrived within twenty miles of the island, when some natural misgivings arose in Charles's mind. Hammond was, in some degree, known to him as the nephew of his favourite and justly famous chaplain, the author of the "Practical Catechism" and he had reason to believe him a man of honour, and one who bore no animosity to his person. But he had long served as a colonel in the parliamentarian army, and now held the highly responsible office of military governor, by the appointment of his enemies. The king therefore R 2 244 HAMPTON COURT. prudently dispatched Berkley and Ashburnham to sound Hammond, while, attended only by Legge, he himself proceeded to Tichfield, the seat of the Earl of South- ampton, intending to await, in the bosom of that loyal family, the issue of their negotiation. They were to show the governor copies of the two letters which warned the king of the danger of assassination, with Charles's letter to the parliament ; and to tell him, that in yielding to the necessity of flight, not from the army, but from the daggers of assassins, the king had made choice of him to confide in, as a person of honourable extraction, and one who, though engaged against him in the war, he had reason to believe, had been actuated by no feeling of personal hostility. They were to ask for protection for the king and his servants ; or, if he could not grant this, that he would leave them to themselves. The two had already taken leave, when Berkley, foreseeing the possi- bility of their forcible detention, came back and advised the king, that if their return should be delayed beyond the next day, he should think no more of them, but secure his own escape. Charles thanked him for the caution, and they parted. A violent storm detained the king's envoys that night at Lymington; but in the morning they crossed over, and met with the governor in the way between Carisbrooke Castle and Newport. It is among the extraordinary circumstances in this negotiation, that Ashburnham, notwithstanding his personal knowledge of Hammond, instead of himself addressing him, should have deputed his companion, who had no such advantage. Berkley, saluting the governor, abruptly opened his HAMPTON COURT. 245 message by asking him, "Who he thought was near him?" and continued, "even good King Charles, who has come from Hampton Court for fear of being murdered privately." "This," observes Ashburnham in his nar- rative, " was a very unskilful entrance into our business." While Sir John delivered the king's message, the go- vernor, who saw instantly into what a difficult position he was thrown by this unexpected communication, turned pale, trembled, and had nearly fallen from his horse. " O gentlemen," he exclaimed, " you have undone me by bringing the king into the island ; if you have brought him ; and if not, pray let him not come ; for, what be- tween my duty to his majesty, and my gratitude for this fresh obligation of his confidence on the one hand, and the observance of my trust to the army on the other, I shall be confounded!" By degrees Hammond recovered his self-possession, expressed at length his willingness to serve the king, and invited the two negotiators to dine with him, when they might confer farther. They failed to draw from him any definite promise ; but he proposed that one of them should remain with him in the castle, while the other should take horse and go to the king, who, he' was confident, would be satisfied with such a general assurance as he could give. Berkley avers that he gladly embraced the proposal to remain ; " though," adds he, " I had the image of the gallows very perfectly before me." Hammond, however, presently reopened the conference, and, after a long debate, pledged himself " to perform whatever could be expected from a person of honour and honesty." Before Berkley could speak, Ashburnham, who now seemed as much in haste to close 246 HAMPTON COURT. the interview as he had been slow to begin it, replied : "I will ask no more." "Now then," added Hammond, "let us all go together to the king." Ashburnham consented. Berkley, in astonishment, stepped aside from the governor, and addressing Ashburnham, asked, " What, do you mean to carry this man to the king, before you know whether he will approve of this undertaking or no ? You will indeed surprise him." "I'll warrant you," was all the other's reply. "And so you shall," observed the more prudent negotiator : " for you know the king much better than I do, and therefore when we shall come where he is, I assure you I will not see him before you have satisfied his majesty concerning your proceedings." "Well," re- turned Ashburnham, "I will take it upon me." That Ashburnham so readily consented to Hammond's pro- posal to accompany them, proceeded, he says, first, from his wish that the king should have the oppor- tunity to make his own conditions ; and, secondly, from considering that it was useless to refuse, as Hammond would have sent his spies, and so discovered the king's place of concealment. At Cowes, the governor proposed to take the captain of the castle with him. Berkley again objected, but Ashburnham silenced him by observing -"No matter, they are but two, whom we could easily manage." When the four arrived at Tichfield, Berkley re- mained below with Hammond and the captain, while Ashburnham, according to his promise, went up to the king, and told him what had passed. The scene that ensued more than realised all Berkley's apprehensions, and awakened the faithful but incompetent envoy to HAMPTON COURT. 247 a fearful sense of his imprudence. Charles started in agony, struck his breast, and casting a look of bitter reproach on Ashburnham, exclaimed, " What, have you brought Hammond with you ? Oh Jack ! you have undone me, for I am by this means made fast from stirring; he will imprison me!" Ashburnham now, in his despair, proposed what he calls an expedient. If the king mistrusted Hammond, he would, with his majesty's permission, undertake to secure him. " I understand you well enough," answered Charles; "but how would the murder of this man be viewed ? If I should follow your counsel, it would be said, and believed, that he had ventured his life for me, and that I had unworthily taken it from him. I have sent to Hampton for a vessel, and was expecting news of it every moment, But it is now too late to think of any thing, except going through the way you have forced upon me, and leaving the issue to God." While this discourse was passing, Hammond and the captain grew so impatient at the long delay, that Berkley was forced to send and request that his majesty and Mr. Ashburnham would remember they were below. On their admission, they found Ashburnham weeping bitterly. " Sir John Berkley," said the king, "I hope you are not so passionate as Jack Ashburnham : do you think you have followed my directions?" Berkley answered, "No, indeed, Sir," and briefly entered into a vindication of himself, as having desired to conduct the negotiation otherwise. Charles now turning to Hammond, received him cheerfully ; and the governor repeated his protestations, with more earnestness and warmth than he 248 HAMPTON COURT. had shown at Carisbrooke, that the king might depend upon his doing all that honour and honesty could de- mand. " But remember, Colonel Hammond," said Charles, "that I am to judge in this case what is meant by honesty and honour." The party then mounted, and set forward towards the island. CHAPTER XIII. THE ISLE OF WIGHT. CHARLES appeared to resume his habitual cheerfulness. The events of the first six weeks after his arrival in the Isle of Wight, were calculated to lessen the annoyance which he had felt on finding himself absolutely in the power of Hammond, and to flatter his friends with the hope that he had gained, by his last adventure, not ease and security alone, but freedom and the probable means of restoration. The inhabitants of the island were, without exception, loyal; and, in that secluded spot, where the despotism of 'the army had scarcely yet been felt, were not afraid to display the attachment they felt to their unfortunate sovereign. With expressions of unrestrained delight, they attended him to the stately portal of Carisbrooke, presenting him with flowers, even at that advanced season the produce of their mild climate, and still employed by the simpler English of the seventeenth century to express sentiments which, in our days, are ascribed to them only by the artist and the poet. His chaplains and servants, as soon as the place of his retreat became known, hastened to him, and were ad- mitted. Entrance was denied to none who claimed it 250 THE ISLE OF WIGHT. on the plea of duty. Hammond appeared willing to forget that he had any other masters but the king. On writing to the parliament a statement of the remarkable incidents by which his illustrious inmate had come into his custody, he professed, with perfect sincerity, a determination to use his utmost endeavours to preserve the royal person, even at the risk of his own life, from any such horrid attempt as had been threatened at Hampton Court ; and, acquainting the houses that the accommodations afforded by Carisbrooke Castle were "no ways suitable to his quality," he solicited a vote for the continuance of the king's allowance, on the consideration of which they immediately entered. Hammond carried still farther the frankness and good-will with which the king had inspired him. At his request, Charles sent a message to the parliament, once more repeat- ing the assurance of his anxious desire to settle a peace by a personal treaty ; and, for the first time, pro- posed such terms as involved the surrender of both church and crown. He suggested the policy of a like communication to the army, through one of the king's personal friends, who, besides a letter to the general, should be furnished with others more confidential to Cromwell and I re ton, urging them to close with the king's offers. To execute this .mission, Charles chose Sir John Berkley; who readily undertook it, though, as he tells us, not without apprehensions of the event. Berkley found Fairfax engaged in a meeting of officers ; he sent in the general's letters, and, after long waiting, was himself admitted. His welcome corresponded to the THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 251 inattention implied in that delay. Fairfax received him with a severe countenance, and, in the cold manner natural to him, merely said, that "they were the par- liament's army,, to whom they would send the king's letters." Berkley looked round upon Cromwell, Ireton, and the other officers with whom he was acquainted : they saluted him with an ominous coldness and distance, unlike any thing he had ever experienced from them before, and, with a smile of bitter disdain, showed him Hammond's letter. The envoy saw that was no place for him, and hurried to his inn. There he waited, but no one sought him. At length he sent his servant out to see if he could light on some of his acquaintance. A general officer whispered in the man's ear, that he would meet his master at twelve o'clock, in a retired spot which he named. The information obtained at this midnight interview was answerable to its secrecy and solemnity. " You remember," said Berkley's mysterious interlocutor, " that we, who werfe zealous for an engagement with the king, resolved to discover if we were cozened. We mistrusted Cromwell and Ireton, as I informed you. I come now to tell you that we mistrust neither ; but know them, and all of us, to be the archest villains in the world. For we are resolved, notwithstanding our engagements, to destroy the king and his posterity. This afternoon Ireton proposed that you should be sent prisoner to London, and that none should speak to you upon pain of death, and I hazard my life now by doing so. It is intended to send eight hundred of the most dis- affected of the army to secure the king's person, which we believe not to be secure where he is, and then to 252 THE ISLE OF WIGHT. bring him to trial. I dare think no farther ! This will be done in ten days. If the king can escape, let him do it ! " Berkley, in astonishment, demanded the reason of this change in the officers : " what had the king done to deserve it?" The other knew of nothing. Had they been able to take any advantage of his conduct, they would have been but too happy to make it public. "This, however," continued the informant, "I conceive to be the case. Though, at the late rendezvous, one of the mutineers was shot, and eleven made prisoners, and the rest in appearance subdued, yet they were not so in fact. Two-thirds of the army have since come to Cromwell and Ireton, and plainly told them, that ' they were determined, be the danger what it might, still to persevere ; and if the officers refused to unite with them, they would divide from them.' The inference which Cromwell drew was equally consistent with his genius and his ambition. ' If we cannot bring the army to our sense, we must go to theirs : division would ruin all.' He employed Peters as his negotiator. ' I acknow- ledge/ observed the dexterous lieutenant-general to his warlike chaplain, 'that in this thing I have been led astray. The glories of the world so dazzled my eyes (alluding to the wealth and honours, which it is said he had agreed to accept, as the price of promoting the restoration of the king), that I could not discern clearly the great work the Lord was doing. But now I am resolved to humble myself, and desire the prayers of the saints, that God may be pleased to forgive me my self- seeking.' To this language he added soothing messages to the prisoners, with assurances that no farther harm THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 253 should be allowed to happen to them." Thus was effected that reconciliation, which we shall presently find publicly and solemnly recognized. Berkley immediately sent off despatches by his cousin, who had accompanied him from the Isle of Wight. In a letter intended for the governor's eye, he gave a general account of the state of things in the army ; in a second, written in cypher, he communicated to the king the particulars of his secret conference, " naming the person, and concluding with a most passionate sup- plication to his majesty to think of nothing but his immediate escape." In the morning he sent an officer to Cromwell, to let him know that he had letters and instructions for him from the king. Cromwell sent word back by the same messenger, that he durst not see him, it being very dangerous for both. However, he assured him, that he would serve his majesty as long as he could do it without his own ruin ; but desired Berkley not to expect that he should perish for his sake. The dis- comfited negotiator immediately took horse for London. Before he left Carisbrooke, Berkley had desired to be furnished with authority to treat with the Scottish commissioners, in case, as he feared might happen, he failed with the army. As this request was refused, he imagined that now no farther impediment would delay the king's escape, which at that time seemed easy to be effected. He daily rode in any direction he pleased about the island. It was doubtful whether Hammond would attempt to hinder his going ; but should he do so, the faithful adherents of the king within the castle were fully sufficient to overpower the guard, which 254 THE ISLE OF WIGHT. consisted only of a few feeble old men, not well affected to the parliament. A frigate, provided by the queen, was lying at Southampton, ready to receive him. But the king's disposition to intrigue in other words, his exces- sive, and, assuredly, groundless confidence in the skill of himself and his friends in the profounder arts of diplomacy, once more betrayed him. In an interview, in London, with Lauderdale and Laneric, Berkley was surprised to find that the king was still engaged in carry- ing on the treaty with the Scots, employing at this time the agency of a certain Dr. Gough. This person, an intriguing popish priest sent over by the queen and Jermyn, obtaining an insight into those proceedings of the army which had alarmed Sir John, had like- wise conjured the king to make his speedy escape, and besought him not to insist too nicely upon terms in so frightful an exigency of his affairs. The Scottish commissioners themselves employed the like urgency, in- forming him that they had certain intelligence of a design to subject him to close confinement, preparatory to some attempt upon his life. On the other hand, Ashburnham, who at this moment absolutely guided the king's mea- sures, held Charles from day to day in the meshes of that hesitation which was too natural to his diffident and conscientious temper ; and at last it was determined between them, not to close with the Scots until he should have conferred personally with the commissioners. They came ; and were preceded, the space of a day, by commissioners from the parliament. The parliamentary commissioners brought down with them the four propositions (or bills, as they are commonly THE ISLE OF WIGHT. ^55 styled), famous in the history of this time, which Charles was to consider as all the answer that would be vouchsafed to the large offers contained in his last message, and to which he was required to give his assent as the pre- vious condition of a personal treaty. It was on occasion of the voting of these propositions by the parliament, that the final and irreparable breach took place between them and the commissioners of Scotland. By the first proposition, the command of the army was to be vested in the parliament for twenty years, with a provision which, in effect, rendered this enactment perpetual ; the second recalled all oaths, proclamations, and declarations, issued against the parliament during the war, and de- clared that assembly to have taken up .arms in their own just and necessary defence ; the third annulled all titles of honour, granted under the great seal, since it had been carried off by Lord Littleton in 1642, and deprived all peers, to be afterwards created, of the right of sitting in parliament, except with the consent of the two houses ; the fourth, with the view of ensuring the perpetual sub- mission of the parliament to the army, conferred on the houses the power of adjourning from place to place at their discretion. Their absolute enslavement, at this time, to the despotism of the army, notwithstanding the numerical strength of the presbyterians, is sufficiently apparent in the tenor of all four. That the king would give the required assent, was expected by no party ; by none but determined enemies, acting in the spirit of conquerors, could such a series of propositions have been submitted to him. He would naturally object on two grounds. 1. The oppressive tenor of the propo- 256 THE ISLE OF WIGHT. sitions themselves, which was such as would have left him absolutely at the mercy of his inveterate enemies. " If," wrote a contemporary, " he pass these bills, he will dis- hearten his friends, unking himself and his posterity for ever, be carried up and down like a stalking-horse to their designs, and be crowned ludibrio coronce, with straw or thorns. For who can think that, at the end of twenty years, these usurpers will lay down what they have so unjustly extorted, contrary to all laws divine and human, and contrary to their own declarations, oaths, and cove- nants ? And who can, or dare, wrest those powers out of their hands, being once settled and grown customary in them ; the people's spirits broken with habitual servitude, a numerous army and garrisons hovering over them, and all places of judicature filled with corrupt judges, who shall, by constrained interpretations of the law, force bloody precedents out of them against whomsoever shall dare to be so good a patriot as to oppose their tyranny?" 2. The monstrous demand of an assent, as preliminary to a treaty, to concessions which involved the whole sub- stance of the hardest possible terms that could be proposed in the treaty itself, and these unaccompanied by the shadow of a concession on the other side. But the Scottish com- missioners had, besides, objections peculiar to themselves. The interests of their nation, and of the presbyterians generally, were, by this vote, wholly set aside ; they were themselves on the point of closing with the king on their own terms ; they burned with long-cherished resentment against their imperious allies, and they were unwilling by any further oppression of the king to add to the op- probrium they had formerly brought upon themselves by THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 257 the base transfer of his person, agreed to at Newcastle. They asked for a copy of the bills, which they complained had not been communicated to them; and remonstrated, in high and uncompromising terms, against the whole proceeding, as unjust in itself, and as being, for want of their concurrence, a violation of the covenant. The parliament, or the independents and republicans who ruled it, rejected with scorn this attempt to control their actions, and voted the interference of any foreign nation in their proceedings, an invasion of the indepen- dence of the kingdom. An elaborate answer to the Scots' remonstrance was composed by Marten. This man, even as early as the spring of the year 1646, when there was a debate in the Commons about sending propositions to the king, had not scrupled to say that " the man to whom the propositions should be sent, ought rather to come to the bar himself, than be sent to any more." On the pre- sent occasion he took part in the affairs of his faction "with an infinite zeal," as it has been called, which must have delighted the agitators. His cold and biting sar- casms, made more effective by the reputed levity of his character, as "the buffoon of the house," must have been felt by the Scots. An extract from this savage, yet states- man-like invective, will throw light, not only on the temper of the independents at this time, but on the senti- ments really entertained by them towards the Scots, from the beginning of the war. With respect to the alleged infringement of the covenant, "1 do not conceive," he says, "the parties to that league intended thereby to be everlastingly bound to each other ; the grounds of striking it being merely occasional, for the joining in a war to s 258 THE ISLE OF WIGHT. suppress a common enemy. Accordingly we did join ; the enemy is, if we be wise, suppressed, and the war, as you say, ended ; what should the covenant do, but, like an almanac of the last year, show us rather what we have already done, than what we be now to do?" Again: "Your entitling yourselves to a cognizance in the condi- tions of our peace, and consequently in the matter of our laws, when they relate to an agreement, as I confess the four bills do which were sent, is grounded upon a very great mistake of the eighth article in the treaty; the words whereof are, indeed, very rightly recited by you, and the article itself so rational, so ordinary, so necessary, in all wars joined in by two states, that I do almost wonder as much what need there was to have inserted it, as I do how it is possible for you to mistake it. It stands briefly thus : one of you (for the purpose) and I (pardon, if you please, the familiarity of the instance), have solemnly engaged ourselves each to other for our mutual aid against a third person, because we conceived him too strong for either of us single, or because one of us doubted he might have drawn the other of us to his party, if not pre-engaged against him ; but whichsoever of us was first in the quarrel, or whatever was the reason of the other's coming in, we are engaged ; and, though there were no writings drawn betwixt us, no terms expressed, were not I the veriest skellum that ever looked man in the face, if I should shake hands with the common Adversary, and leave you fighting ? Against such a piece of business, supposing it be like to be in nature, this article provides, and says, that since these two kingdoms were content to join in a war, which, without God's great mercy, might THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 259 have proved fatal to them both, neither of them shall be suffered to make its peace apart; so as, if the par- liament of Scotland, upon consideration of reasons occur- ring to themselves, should offer to readmit the king into that kingdom, I say, not with honour, freedom, and safety, but in peace, the parliament of England might step in and forbid the banns ; telling them we are not satisfied that an agreement should yet be made ; similiter, if this parliament would come to any peace with him by bills or propositions, or by what other name soever they call their plasters, you may, being so authorised, in name of that kingdom, or the parliament thereof, intervene and oppose; telling us that you, who are our fellow-surgeons merely in lancing of the sore ; are not satisfied in the time for healing of it up; but for you to read a lecture to us upon our medicaments and their ingredients, to take measure of wounds, and to prefer your measure before that of our own taking, was never dreamt on by the framers of this article." A few pages after the above powerful paragraph, he becomes still more explicit : " When," says he, " you ask, why we do not observe the same forwardness in communicating our matters to you, the same patience in expecting your concurrence with us, and the same easiness of admitting your harangues and disputations among us, which you have heretofore tasted at our hands, and how we are become less friendly than we were ? I have this to say, there is some alteration in the condition of affairs : so long as we needed the assistance of your countrymen in the field, we might have occasion to give you meetings at Derby House, and now and then in the painted s2 260 THE ISLE OF WIGHT. chamber, it being likely that the kingdom of Scotland might then have a fellow-feeling with us for the whole- someness or perniciousness of your counsels; whereas, now since we are able, by God's blessing, to protect our- selves, we may surely, with his holy direction, be sufficient to teach ourselves how to go about our own business, at least without your tutoring, who have nothing in your consideration to look upon, but either your parti- cular advantage, or that of the kingdom whence you are." The parliament's commissioners were ordered to stay but four days in the Isle of Wight. In the meantime the commissioners of Scotland presented their protest against the four propositions, and obtained the more important object of the king's signature to the private treaty with themselves. The king, on his part, consented in this treaty to the establishment of presbyterianism in England for three years, with every other concession, in matters relating to religion, which his conscience would allow, and agreed to confirm the covenant in Scotland; the com- missioners stipulating, on the other side, that the kingdom of Scotland, failing all peaceful endeavours to that end, should send an army into England for his restoration to the full enjoyment of his rights and revenues. That no accident might break that seal of secresy with which this transaction had hitherto been conducted, the writing itself was enclosed in lead, and buried in a garden, till some more safe opportunity occurred for conveying it away. To the two houses, Charles replied: that "neither the desire of being freed from his tedious and irksome condi- tion of life, nor the apprehension of worse treatment, THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 261 should ever prevail with him to give his assent to any bills as part of the agreement, until the whole had been concluded in a personal treaty." The king returned his answer to the commissioners sealed, but they insisted that it should be delivered to them open. Dreading the worst consequences, should they return without any answer, he consented, on their solemnly engaging, that after they had read the letter, no difference should be made in his present treatment. In this promise, Hammond, who appeared with the commissioners, was held by Charles to be included. No sooner, however, had the commissioners withdrawn, than Hammond, in an angry mood locked the gates, doubled the guards, and ordered the king's chaplains and attendants to quit the castle. Charles summoned the governor to his presence. He came, with a sullen, louring demeanour. A dialogue then ensued, marked, it must be confessed, hardly less by bitterness on the king's part, a bitterness which returned no more, after (in his own language) "worse" had befallen him, than by a brutal contrast, on the governor's, to that courtesy which hitherto he had shown towards his royal charge. The King. "Why do you use me thus? Where are your orders for it ? Was it the Spirit that moved you ?" (Hammond was in the habit of using the affected "godly" language of his party.) For a time the governor re- mained silent ; he then alleged the king's answer to the commissioners. The King. "Did you not engage your honour you would take no advantage from thence against me ?" Hammond. "I said nothing." The King. "You are an equivocating gentleman; will 262 THE ISLE OF WIGHT. you allow me any chaplain ? You pretend for liberty of conscience; shall I have none?" Hammond. "I cannot allow you any chaplain." The King. "You are now neither like a gentleman nor a Christian." Hammond. "I'll speak with you when you are in better temper." The King." I have slept well to-night." Hammond. " I have used you very civilly." The King. "Why do you not so now, then?" Hammond. "Sir, you are too high." The King. " My shoemaker is in fault, then. My shoes are of the same last, &c. (twice or thrice repeated) ; shall I have liberty to go about to take the air?" Hammond. "No, I cannot grant it." The king then charged him with his allegiance, and told him that he " must answer this." Hammond wept. The poor man was, in fact, piteously perplexed ; not with "a divided duty" merely, but with peril to his life. He probably knew that the king was at that moment medi- tating an escape, and had, no doubt, his orders from Cromwell what to do, in case of that rejection of the bills which the lieutenant-general expected and desired. Charles was left in the solitude of his guarded chamber, and his banished attendants pursued their melancholy way to Newport. While conferring together there, on this new and menacing crisis of the king's affairs, a drum was heard to "beat confusedly" in the streets. It an- nounced the rash attempt of Burley, an old royalist officer resident in the island, to raise a party for the king's rescue. The inhabitants flocked together, with shouts of THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 263 "God and King Charles." It was manifest, however, to Ashburnham, Berkley, and their companions, that so crude and feeble an enterprise must fail, and they exerted themselves successfully " to persuade those poor, well- affected people to desist." Burley, notwithstanding, was seized by Hammond's order, tried before one of Crom- well's judges, found guilty of levying war against the Icing, and executed with savage conformity to all the cruelties prescribed by the statute-book in cases of high treason. The parliament had, in effect, constantly refused to treat with the king, by refusing to do so except upon the basis of their own inadmissible propositions. They were now, to the great joy of the independents, relieved by their victim himself from the irksome necessity of maintaining even the forms of decent respect. Immedi- ately on the return of the commissioners to Westminster, a resolution to the following purport, drawn up by Marten, was proposed in the Commons : " That no farther ad- dresses should be made to the king, nor any message be received from him, by the houses ; and that if any person, without their leave, contravened this order, he should be liable to the penalties of treason." Sir Thomas Wroth was the first to speak in support of this proposition. Next rose Ireton, and, in a speech, the affected mode- ration of which presented a contrast with the coarse violence of the previous orator, said, " the king had de- nied that protection to the people which was the condition of obedience to him ; that after long patience they should now at last show themselves resolute ; that they should not desert the brave men the many thousand godly 264 THE ISLE OF WIGHT. men who had fought for them beyond the possibility of retreat or forgiveness, and who would never forsake the parliament unless the parliament first forsook them." After some further debate, says the writer who has re- corded these speeches, Cromwell brought up the rear. It was time, he said, to answer the public expectation, that they were able and resolved to govern and defend the kingdom by their own power, and teach the people that they had nothing to hope from a man whose heart God hardened in obstinacy. " Do not," he concluded (after extolling in the highest terms the valour and godli- ness of the soldiers), " let the army think themselves betrayed to the rage and malice of an irreconcileable enemy, whom they have subdued for your sake, from whom they should meet revenge and justice ; do not drive them to despair, lest they seek safety by other means than adhering to you, who will not stick to your- selves ; and (laying his hand on his sword) how destructive such a resolution in them will be to you all, I tremble to think, and leave you to judge." The resolution passed by a majority of 141 to 92. The concurrence of the par- liament, in the extremest views of the army being thus far secured, Cromwell resolved to mark this unity of object as absolute and irrevocable, by a solemn public act. A meeting of the general officers and chief agitators (now entirely reconciled, upon the principles of the levellers), was held at Windsor in the presence of the parliament's commissioners. The preliminaries of this conference were fasting and prayer. In this last exercise Cromwell and Ireton distinguished themselves in a man- ner worthy of the signal occasion; the "godly" were THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 265 enraptured, and described the "outpourings of the spirit" (whatever spirit it was) " which on that occasion breathed from the lips of those great men, as such sweet music as the heavens never before knew." This scene of awful profanity was acted in the royal halls of Windsor Castle ! And there also, as if to fill up the hateful climax in a manner the most grotesquely incongruous, was formally adopted the resolution, long before conceived in their obscurer conclaves, that the king should be brought to trial by the nation, as a shedder of his people's blood. " We declare," say the army, in their public resolutions at this meeting, in language as explicit as it was yet prudent publicly to employ, " that we are resolved firmly to adhere to and stand by the parliament in their vote not to make any farther addresses, &c. and in what shall be farther necessary for prosecution thereof, and for the settling and securing of the parliament and kingdom, WITHOUT THE KING and AGAINST HIM, or any other that shall hereafter partake with him." Hitherto the Lords had hesitated to adopt the recent vote of the Commons : the army's "agreement" decided them. To make all sure, the houses were farther obliged to agree in a request to Fairfax to quarter a regiment of infantry at Whitehall, and one of cavalry at the Mews, for their protection. The general complied ; and presently afterwards laid aside, for a time, even the appearance which he had hitherto maintained, of executing, in his own person, the functions of his dictatorial office. Alleging exhaustion by "the multiplicity of business," he transferred to a committee of officers, at the head of whom were Cromwell, Ireton, and Fleetwood, the settlement of all affairs relating to the 266 THE ISLE OF WIGHT. army i. e., for so it really was, to the entire interests and welfare of the nation. By such means was the imprisoned king already set aside, and a republic, or rather a military despotism, imposed upon the nation. But loyalty, if it can be said ever to have been extinct among the people, was now rapidly rekindling in their bosoms; even the sternest of the presbyterians, except such as were silenced by the immediate dread of mi- litary violence, asserting the equity of the king's claim to be heard in a personal conference. It became necessary therefore to invest the late proceedings with some appear- ance of reason. A " Declaration " was consequently prepared to vindicate their necessity and justice. In this famous document was brought together the whole mass of errors and crimes, real and imaginary, with which the government was chargeable, from, and even before, the king's accession. The failures, the exactions, the illegal punishments, the bloodshed, in short, all the grievances embodied in their first remonstrance on the state of the kingdom, and every calumny added in subsequent declarations, were raked together, and, with other charges, hitherto unheard of, or suffered to sleep in the obscure recesses of slander, were exhibited in the darkest colours which malevolence could command. It was more than insinuated that the death of King James had been caused by poison, administered to him through the contrivance of Charles and the Duke of Buckingham. On this point even Selden rose to vindicate the king. He had been, he said, one of the committee nominated to investigate the causes of King James's death, and he remembered nothing in the evidence which reflected on his majesty. He there- THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 267 fore moved the omission of that clause, but was put down by the republicans, who threatened him with instant ex- pulsion. Yet the parliament's "Declaration" was thought less forcible than might have been expected from the talents and malignity of its authors, employed on a field of mistake and misfortune so extensive, calamitous, and obnoxious to prejudice and misrepresentation. It was not left, however, to work its effects unanswered. Charles published a counter-declaration from his own hand ; and a more regular and minute defence appeared from the pen of the faithful Hyde. In the king's appeal to his people, having vindicated his desire, and his fre- quent endeavours to settle a peace, and pointed out the grounds on which his rejection of the four bills was both reasonable and inevitable, he proceeds, as follows, with a statement, certainly not too highly coloured, of his patience under the severe treatment he was then suffer- ing: "That by the permission of Almighty God, I am reduced to this sad condition, as I no way repine, so I am not without hope but that the same God will, in due time, convert these afflictions unto my advantage. In the meantime, I am content to bear these crosses with patience and a great equality of mind ; but by what means or occasion I am come to this relapse in my affairs, I am utterly to seek, especially when I consider that I have sacrificed to my two houses of parliament, for the peace of the kingdom, all but what is more dear to me than my life, my conscience and honour; desiring nothing more than to perform it in the most proper and natural way, a personal treaty .... 268 THE ISLE OF WIGHT. "And now I would know," he eloquently concludes, " what it is that is desired : is it peace ? I have showed the way, being both willing and desirous to perform my part in it, which is a just compliance with all chief interests. Is it plenty and happiness ? They are the inseparable effects of peace. Is it security ? I, who wish that all men would forgive and forget, like me, have offered the militia for my time. Is it liberty of conscience ? He who wants it is most ready to give it. But if I may not be heard, let every one judge who it is that obstructs the good I would or might do. What is it that men are afraid to hear from me ? It cannot be reason (at least, none will declare themselves so unreasonable as to confess it), and it can less be impertinent or unreasonable discourses ; for thereby, peradventure, I might more justify this my restraint than the causes themselves can do: so that, of all wonders yet, this is the greatest to me. But it may easily be gathered, how those men intend to govern who have used me thus : and if it be my hard fate to fall, together with the liberty of this kingdom, I shall not blush for myself, but much lament the future miseries of my people ; the which I shall still pray to God to avert, whatever becomes of me." Cromwell, in the meantime, not fully assured of Hammond, was prosecuting an anxious and subtile cor- respondence, designed to confirm that functionary in obedience to the directions and the views of his masters. The following letter is highly characteristic, both of the writer and his correspondent : " DEAREST ROBIN, Now (blessed be God) I can write, and thou receive, THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 269 freely. I never in my life saw more deep sense, and less will to show it unchristianly, than in that which thou didst write to us at Windsor ; and though in the midst of thy temptation, which indeed (by what we understood of it) was a great one, and occa- sioned the greater by the letter the general sent thee, of which thou wast not mistaken when thou didst challenge me to be the penner. How good has God been to dispose all to mercy ! And although it was trouble for the present, yet glory is come out of it, for which we praise the Lord with thee, and for thee ; and truly thy carriage has been such as occasions much honour to the name of God and religion. Go on in the strength of the Lord, and the Lord be still with thee ! But, dear Robin, this business hath been (I trust) a mighty providence to this poor kingdom, and to us all. The House of Commons is very sensible of the king's dealings, and of our brethren's, in this late transaction. You should do well, if you have any thing that may discover juggling, to search it out, and let us know it ; it may be of admirable use at this time ; because we shall (I hope) instantly go upon businesses in relation to them tending to prevent danger Let us know how it is with you in point of strength, and what you need from us ; some of us think the king well with you, and that it concerns us to keep that island in great security, because of the French, &c. ; and if so, where can the king be better? If you have more force, you will [be] sure of full provision for them. The Lord bless thee : pray for thy dear friend and servant, " O. CROMWELL." 270 THE ISLE OF WIGHT. The measures, regarding the secure possession of the king, which were taken by the parliament after the vote of non-addresses, were such as are indicated in this curious epistle. The houses confirmed the precautions of Hammond by an order for the dissolution of the royal household, authorising the general to appoint attendants on the king, in any number not exceeding thirty ; a vote, presently afterwards superseded by one which referred it to Hammond "to appoint eight such persons as he should think fit," with full liberty to "place and displace" at pleasure. Troops were, at the same time, marched into the island ; and Rainsborough (originally a seaman, though latterly colonel of a regiment under Fairfax), being appointed to the command of the fleet, with the view at once of satisfying the fiercest among the republicans as to the sincerity with which the "grandees" had em- braced the regicidal cause, and of setting aside Warwick, the presbyterian, was ordered round with his ships to blockade the island. In carrying this last precautionary measure into effect, an important difficulty occurred. CHAPTER XIV. POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. THE late republican vote had opened the eyes of the people. Blood of theirs had been lavishly shed treasure to an enormous amount, wrung from the sinews of the commonalty, or obtained by casting out to confiscation and beggary the ancient nobility of the land, had been squandered its most venerable institutions subverted on pretence of restoring the nation to a state of freedom and happiness. And what was the result, as now seen and felt by all ? Three great parties, each irreconcileably hostile to both the others, poured over every district, town, hamlet, hearth, and bosom, the bitterness of social hatred and division. One estate of the legislature, having first usurped the proper functions of the whole, had then seized those of the executive, and was now itself being swallowed up in the despotism of its mer- cenary instruments. More than a year had elapsed since the army of the parliament had been left victorious, and without an enemy ; but the exactions necessary for its maintenance, instead of being abolished, had increased ; and still it continued clamorous for more pay, as well as larger power, though every post of authority and emolu- ment in the realm was already occupied either by its officers. 272 POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. mostly low-born and insolent men, or by its obsequious creatures in that degraded assembly which still bore the name of an English parliament. The sovereign (to surround whose throne with constitutional landmarks, which a dutiful and affectionate people were never, on their side, to overpass, had been held forth as the sufficient object of seven years of strife), was now a captive in a remote fortress, denied the privilege of negotiating with his rebellious subjects, and denied in terms which intimated a purpose to supersede his office by the introduction of an arbitrary form of government, unknown to the constitution, and alien to the habits and wishes of the people, and even obscurely to countenance the rumours current that he was destined to perish on the scaffold or in the dungeon. Such were those cir- cumstances that engaged the thoughts, and supplied the conversation, of the people; of whom three-fourths had either retained the old loyalty of Englishmen, through those struggles which they had been taught to regard as no less needful for the king's welfare than their own, or, if extinguished for a season, felt it now rekindle from indignation against their betrayers. The press, never more energetic than throughout this period, lent its aid in spite of penalties ; the king's immediate friends, though uncertain and disunited, were variously active ; in short, the whole country appeared to heave with throes of indignant agitation, and the renewal of that unnatural and disastrous war began, on all sides, to be apprehended. The general discontent, as usual, first found a voice in petitions, which were poured into the parliament from POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. 273 many quarters, but all concurring in the same prayer for the return of the king. The petition from the county oi Surrey, though distinguished by its bold and con- stitutional language, marks, with a little allowance, the general style of these addresses. On its presentation, which was attended by a large body of the petition- ers, a quarrel took place between the populace and the military, at the doors of the House of Commons, in which blood was shed. Similar disturbances broke out at the principal towns in Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent, Cornwall, and other counties. But the most serious tumults arose in the city of London. Either as service- able adherents, or as thorns in their sides, the parliament had, from the beginning, found the apprentices of London taking an eager interest in all their proceedings. That this interest had long ceased to be favourable, was pro- bably owing, at first, less to the encroachments of the House of Commons upon the more important liberties of the subject, than to restrictions imposed upon the enjoy- ments of the youthful and laborious portions of the com- munity by the sour spirit of puritanism. The ancient sports and pastimes of the people were forbidden as utterly unsanctified ; holidays were exchanged for fasts ; the Sunday itself was invested with an air of Levi- tical severity, offensive to the national feeling, perhaps inconsistent with the gracious temper of Christianity. Not long previously to the date now before us, the ap- prentices had obtained by petition from the legislature the boon of a play-day once a month. It was, apparently, while not strictly confining themselves within the limits of this notable remnant of English liberty, that 274 POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. eager on their part for an outbreak, they began to dis- pute with the guard, who were placed to enforce the prohibitory ordinance. Partisans collected, weapons were drawn, the guard was overpowered; the militia, assembling to suppress the riot, shared in the dis- comfiture of their brethren, and took refuge in houses from the popular fury, but not till several persons had been killed or wounded. The cry of "God and king Charles" was now raised on all sides, and some dis- banded officers and soldiers joining with the citizens, they got possession of Ludgate and other defensible posts, drove the Lord Mayor within the ramparts of the Tower, and boldly advanced against the troops at Westminster. Cromwell, eager to seize any tolerable pretext for crush- ing the power of his enemies in the metropolis, charged, and, after an obstinate resistance, dispersed the tumul- tuous masses. The like ill-success attended other de- sultory risings. But these uncertain flashes were quickly followed by steadier fires of loyal insurrection. It be- coming manifest that the army must be withdrawn from the neighbourhood of London, and that its best officers must again buckle on their harness, the independent leaders sought an appearance of reconciliation with the city. By their direction, the parliament voted that no change should be made in the fundamental government of the realm by king, lords, and commons : the citizens, in return, engaging "to live and die with the parliament," the city was once more allowed to take charge of its militia, under their old commander Skippon, and White- hall and the Mews were relieved from the presence of Fair- fax's troops. POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. 275 Wholly unprepared for systematic action themselves, the king's friends were every where looking anxiously towards the north, in expectation of those warlike pre- parations among the Scots which were to be the signal of a general rising. Rage against the independents, coupled with a report that Charles had secretly signed the covenant and engaged to enforce it in both kingdoms, excited a degree of enthusiasm, for a time, throughout Scotland. But the publication of the actual terms of the engagement with the king again stifled every loyal feeling in that factious country. The English loyalists grew impatient at waiting for their ambiguous and dilatory allies. It was nevertheless a casual accident that drew out the first open declaration for the king. Foyer, who held a colonel's commission under the parliament, and was intrusted with the governorship of Pembroke Castle, was among those who had agreed to declare themselves as soon as the Scots appeared upon the border. His movements had however excited suspicion, and Colonel Fleming suddenly appeared before the walls of Pembroke, bearing Fairfax's orders to take the command. Poyer refused to give up his commission, raised the royal standard, and repulsed Fleming on his attempting to take forcible possession of the castle. The Welsh cavaliers, led by Colonel Langhorne, flew to arms, surprised Chepstow, and laid siege to Caernarvon. Horton was sent against the insurgents, but with so little success, that Cromwell deemed it expedient once more to take the field in per- son. His appearance in the principality, at the head of his veterans, was, as every where else, the signal of disaster to the royal cause. Langhorne was defeated; T 2 276 POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. Chepstow recovered ; Caernarvon relieved, with the destruction of the besiegers. Still Poyer proclaimed defiance from Pembroke. Cromwell resolving to carry the fortress in his usual sudden manner, prepared the troops, by exciting harangues from himself and his fierce chaplains, for an overpowering assault at midnight. Heated with fanatical enthusiasm, and eager to follow their great captain to a fresh series of victories, they dashed across the ditch, scaled the ramparts, and were about to throw themselves upon the garrison, whom they thought unprepared, when on a sudden they found them- selves attacked with the utmost fury ; and, after a short but sanguinary conflict, were compelled to return to their camp. For more than six weeks the bravery of Poyer detained the impatient lieutenant-general before this petty fortress. The men of Kent had, in the meantime, remembered their ancient loyalty. Commotions, demonstrative of the popular temper, had occurred at Canterbury as early as Christmas-day, when the mayor and aldermen were roughly handled by the citizens for insisting that the usual business of the market should be transacted on that holy festival. The deputy-lieutenants, creatures of the in- dependent party, were proceeding summarily to inflict the punishment of traitors on the persons apprehended in this tumult, when their design was arrested by a more formi- dable insurrection, in which the people seized the military posts, and filled the air with cries of " God, King Charles, and Kent !" In the absence of superior leaders (for the men of influence in the county kept themselves aloof till the appearance of the Scots), a gentleman named Hales POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. 277 aspired to impart consistency and purpose to the loyal emotions which agitated his county. Though known only as the youthful heir to a baronetcy, his summons to the loyalists of Kent was eagerly obeyed ; associations were formed, arms collected, troops disciplined, in his name. The spirit which prevailed on land had early communi- cated itself to the neighbouring fleet in the Downs. The parliament hoped that the authority of Rainsborough would smother every disposition to mutiny. While tra- versing Kent, however, the admiral was by no means con- firmed in this expectation ; and on arriving at Deal, he hastened to go on board. As he approached his vessel, observing probably some marks of disorder on board, he began, in the rough imperious tone habitual to him, to issue his commands. The seamen, assembled on the deck, answered by refusing to admit him on board, and tauntingly desiring him to return to the parliament and acquaint them that they were the king's fleet, and had resolved to serve his majesty. Then dismissing, in a similar manner, all other officers whom they suspected of unwillingness to concur with them, they weighed anchor, and stood over for Holland, to take on board the Duke of York, whom they chose for their admiral-in-chief. A body of the Kentish cavaliers appeared on Blackheath, expecting to be joined by the inhabitants of London, but finding themselves confronted instead by Fairfax, who marched through the metropolis to give them battle, they fell back upon Rochester and Maidstone. In Maidstone, the insurgents made a vigorous stand, maintaining, for six hours, an obstinate contest for the possession of the town ; but their loss was proportionate to their valour. 278 POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. Two hundred fell in the streets ; twice that number were taken prisoners : discouraged by this defeat, many of those who escaped returned to their homes. The party who had taken refuge in Rochester, now led by Goring, to whom Hales had yielded the post of honour, once more advanced to Blackheath and sought the co-opera- tion of the city. For a time the parliament was exposed to imminent danger. No armed force was now at hand to support their authority ; the city swarmed with royal- ists ; the news of Hamilton's advance, which was expected hourly; would probably at once decide the common council to declare for the king. Fortunately for them, the adoption of still more conciliatory measures was facilitated by the absence of the officers with the army. The imprisoned aldermen were set at liberty ; the im- peachment of the six peers was abandoned ; the eleven excluded members were allowed to return to their seats. These concessions, with the immediate prospect of others, all denoting the returning ascendency of the presbyterians, decided the city; and Goring, in no condition to cope with Fairfax, now advancing in his rear, crossed the Thames into Essex, where he was welcomed by Lord Capel, Sir Charles Lucas, Sir George Lisle, and other gentlemen and officers of name, who with a considerable levy were in arms to support the men of Kent. The royalists now formed a body of about 3000 horse and foot, "with officers," says Clarendon, "enough to have commanded a very good army." Wholly incompetent as this force must have proved to encounter Fairfax in the field, it appeared to Goring sufficient to maintain itself in a position of strength until the result of the other POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. 279 movements for the king could be ascertained. With this purpose he threw himself into Colchester : the town was without any regular defence ; but Goring, relying on his own resources and the constancy of his gallant ca- valiers, hastily erected works before the avenues, and bade defiance to the parliamentarians, who presently made their appearance. Forty thousand troops was the number for which Ha- milton succeeded in extorting a vote from the Scottish parliament, in the midst of the fiercest opposition from Argyle and the faction of the Kirk; but when, in July, the army mustered on the southern frontier, it did not exceed one-third of that amount, and many even of these had been brought to their standards by force, in some instances not without bloodshed; they were besides ill provided with arms and ammunition. At length Hamilton announced to Sir Marmaduke Langdale and Sir Philip Musgrave, who had agreed to co-operate with him in the north of England, that his preparations were nearly com- pleted, and desired them to fulfil their engagements. His orders were promptly and successfully obeyed. At dawn, on a market-day in Berwick, a hundred cavaliers, with Langdale at their head, deployed from the bridge-foot on the English side, and being joined by a party simulta- neously collected in the town, took such quiet possession of the place, that ere an hour had elapsed the drawbridge was again lowered, the ports opened, and the market proceeded without farther interruption. At the same time, and with equal facility, Carlisle was seized by Musgrave. The loyal inhabitants of Northumberland, and the adjoin- ing counties, instantly appeared in arms ; and Langdale 280 POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. was preparing to lead them against Lambert, the par- liament's general in the north, when he was interrupted by directions and entreaties from Hamilton, that nothing more might be done till the Scottish army had come up, for fear of farther exasperating the jealousy of the covenanters. It was on the 8th that the Scots, preceded by rumours which at least tripled their numbers, crossed the border. Monroe, however, the Scottish general in Ireland, having wafted home his veterans, 3,000 strong, followed in the rear, whilst Langdale, with 4,000 gallant English, who had staked their all on the issue, led the van by the appointment of the duke, who himself assumed the chief command. A determined movement on London might have crushed the independents, and saved the king ; for Cromwell yet lay before the walls of Pembroke, Fairfax and Ireton were busy at the siege of Colchester, and Lambert, after skirmishing with Langdale, had retreated before him, soliciting aid from Cromwell. But if Hamil- ton's courage and ability were equal to the enterprise he had undertaken, he was restrained by party policy, and the jealousies and disputes of the camp. Forty days had elapsed before this luckless armament had completed a march of eighty miles. The main body then attained the banks of the Ribble, near Preston in Lancashire ; Lang- dale being still far in advance, while Monroe, with the rearguard, lay thirty miles off at Kirby, in Westmore- land. Cromwell, seldom so long held in check, had at length succeeded in reducing Pembroke, and had taken Poyer and his brave associates Langhorne and Powell. He POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. 281 instantly marched northward, and, forming a junction with Lambert at Knaresborough, determined to attack the invaders with the advantage afforded him by their straggling march. Sir Marmaduke, on whom the whole strength of the roundheads fell at once, was forced, after a stout resistance, to give way before their numbers and impetuosity. Retiring to the entrance of a narrow road which led to Preston, the cavaliers obstinately disputed the ground for six hours, against overpowering odds, without the smallest support from their allies. At the entrance to the town they were joined by Hamilton, with his guard of horse and a few officers, but in such disorder as merely to add to the confusion of the retreat. In the streets the fight was resumed, and continued to the bridge, over which Bayley, with the Scottish foot, had just marched. At this point the contest was again hotly renewed, Crom- well's infantry and " the Lancashire regiments being" (in the words of the lieutenant-general's animated despatch) "long engaged at push of pike. At length," he con- tinues, "they were beaten from .the bridge, and our horse and foot following them, killed many, and took divers prisoners, and we possessed the bridge and a few houses there, where we lay that night, the enemy being drawn up within musket-shot of us." This refers to such of the wearied and overmatched English as still kept together, for the Scots were by this time in rapid retreat. Nothing could exceed the dismay and disorder of this night-march, the roads being bad, the weather rainy, and the whole army distracted with terror of the victorious foe. With the morning the pursuit was again re- newed, and continued to Warrington, where Bayley, 282 POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. though strongly posted upon a bridge, in command of 6,000 men, surrendered to Cromwell without a blow. The duke, in the meantime, accompanied by his principal officers and a few troops of cavalry, had wandered to Uttoxeter, where falling in with a party of the Lord Grey of Groby's men 5 whom Cromwell's vigilance had roused to the pursuit, he yielded himself to their mercy, with his own hand stripping off his scarf, george, and sword, and resigning them to the officer in command. Langdale shared the fate of his unfortunate commander. Having disbanded his remaining followers, he was taken in a village inn near Nottingham, where, in disguise, he had sought shelter. Never was victory so complete obtained at smaller cost ; for after the dispersion of the English under Langdale, not fifty men fell on the side of the victors ; whilst of the Scots, except the division under Monroe, and the stragglers who succeeded in joining him, none recrossed the border. Such was the dis- graceful issue of an expedition, in the van of which, on its setting forth, its vain leader is described as marching "with his life-guard and trumpeters before him, all in scarlet cloaks full of silver lace, in great state, with standards and equipage like a prince !" While the par- liament were suspending those dishonoured standards in Westminster Hall, and offering public thanksgiving for their victory, Cromwell followed up the disastrous blow by a march upon Edinburgh, to extinguish the remaining power of the Hamiltonians. Not less disgraceful, in its degree, proved an enterprise undertaken at the same time by the Earl of Holland,, who, though implicated in all the measures of the presby- POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. 283 terians, had sufficient interest to procure a commission from Paris to raise an army for the king. Affecting scorn of all precaution against the independents, he openly made his house in London the general rendezvous of the royalists ; and, on the same day on which the Scots moved towards England, he also, at the head of a party of 500 cavaliers in warlike array, several of them noblemen and gentlemen of the highest quality, marched out of the city, and fixed his quarters at Kingston in Surrey. On the second day, through the negligence of his chief military officer, Dalbier, the earl's party was surprised, and dispersed by Colonel Rich's horse. At St. Neot's, whither he fled with about a hundred fol- lowers, he was a second time attacked, and taken. Dalbier was slain, and with him the son of Sir Ke- nelm Digby; but the most lamented loss in this con- temptible insurrection was that of Lord Francis Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham's brother, who fell, refusing quarter, in the affray at Kingston. The duke himself escaped into the Netherlands, and the earl had leisure, during a long imprisonment in Warwick Castle, to brood over the rashness of this attempt to retrieve what nothing could have retrieved his reputation as a loyal subject of the king. During these disastrous transactions, Fairfax, with Ireton as nominally second in command, but in reality supreme, was prosecuting the siege of Colchester. The particulars of this siege still survive in the popular re- membrance ; in the journal printed by Rushworth, and in other authentic accounts, it abounds in painful and stirring incident. Indefatigable in exertion, of heroic 284 POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. bravery, patient of the extremest privation, the devoted band who there rallied round Goring, have consecrated with the odour of loyalty that otherwise homely town. For many weeks, abjuring all thoughts of a surrender, they fought cheerfully, surrounded by famine and con- flagration ; because they could not be persuaded, that while the heart of the nation was yearning for the king's return, while the royal standard was actually floating, or ready to be raised, over half England, while an army, which they fondly believed both brave and devoted to the cause, was advancing towards the capital, they would be ultimately left unsuccoured within the walls they had so well defended in his name. One after another, however, these hopes were extinguished by the successes of the republican army, or by the deplorable incapacity and mismanagement of the king's friends. The discomfiture of the Scots closed the door against hope from arms. Another prospect of relief might indeed remain: the presbyterian party had for a time recovered its influence and courage ; and the parliament, once more under their management, had repealed the vote of no more addresses, and resolved to open a treaty with the king in the Isle of Wight. But men who were reduced to live on the putrid flesh of horses, and on more disgusting substances, and could not calculate upon a scanty supply even of such food for to-morrow, were unable to wait the issue of a tedious negotiation. They offered Fairfax to capi- tulate; who answered, that the common soldiers might expect quarter, but that the officers must surrender at discretion. No alternative remained but to agree to these terms, or perish. They accepted them ; and while Fair- \K POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. 285 fax's council deliberated on their fate, were required to assist its deliberations by furnishing a list of all the names of the captives. Presently afterwards a guard was sent to conduct to execution Sir George Lisle, Sir Charles Lucas, and a Florentine gentleman, called in the histories Sir Bernard Gascoigne, but whose true name was Guasconi, whom the council had selected to die, "for the example of others, and that the peace of the kingdom might no more be disturbed in that manner." Lucas, the first to suffer, tearing open his doublet, exclaimed to the musketeers who were drawn up in readiness, " Fire, rebels !" and instantly fell. Lisle ran to him, kissed his dead body, and turning to the soldiers, desired them to advance nearer. One of them replied : "Fear not, sir, we shall hit you." "Friends," he an- swered, smiling, "I have been nearer when you have missed me." Guasconi, as a foreigner, was pardoned. Lord Capel, and the remaining prisoners of note, sent to Fairfax while this tragedy was in progress, entreating that either it might be forborne, or that as they had all alike been guilty, if guilt there were, they might all die together ; a request which Capel afterwards addressed in person, for himself, to Ireton ; but the council choosing to reserve him and Goring for a different fate, they were sent to Windsor Castle, and afterwards committed to the Tower. To the history of the miserable series of disasters by which the second civil war was precipitated to a close, it would be merely adding a congenial page, were we to trace the movements of that portion of the fleet whose revolt was hailed as a bright omen by the royalists. The 286 POPULAR INDIGNATION SECOND WAR. intrigues of courtiers without a court, the absence of command, where all sought to be commanders, above all, the want of money to procure stores and pro- visions, quenched, ere it had blazed to any purpose, the enthusiasm of the seamen. Six weeks the Prince of Wales, who had nominally taken the command, lay idly upon the English coast, without even attempting the release of his royal father, from a captivity become every day more fearful both in its sufferings and its prospects. The commerce of London was intercepted by the royalists, and the captured vessels again given up in return for petty sums or dubious promises of adherence; but Warwick, now reinstated in his com- mand, was at sea with a force little inferior to the prince's, and the prudent citizens determined to abide the result of a collision between the hostile fleets. During two days the royalists offered battle, which, however, the presbyterian admiral avoided: on the next, Charles's factious council persuaded him to return to the coast of Holland. Thither he was afterwards followed by Warwick, but at a distance which intimated still an un- willingness to engage. CHAPTER XV. THE CATASTROPHE. CROMWELL'S " dearest Robin " was entirely won over, and performed his part with admirable fidelity to his employers. Except confinement to a single apartment, nothing was wanting to constitute the king's condition one of strict captivity. Four soldiers selected for their devotedness to the army, were intrusted with the imme- diate charge of his person ; of whom two, succeeding to the task by rotation, were constantly present with him. Djiring his meals, at his public devotions, and in such recreations as could be had within the narrow limits of his prison a game at bowls, or a walk upon the walls of Carisbrooke, Charles was still accompanied by his keepers ; when he retired to the seclusion of his private chamber, one of them took his post as sen- tinel at either door. These irksome restraints, however, he was enabled to bear with more than his habitual patience; for adversity had supplied him with the considerateness of self-knowledge, and opened in his heart sources of latent sympathy with his fellow-men ; and in return he had the consolation of meeting, in this extremity of his fortunes, with instances of devotedness, more generous, if not more sincere, than he had known in his days of prosperity. #00 THE CATASTROPHE. Firebrace, a discarded page, contrived to get himself occasionally employed by one of the warders to keep watch at the door of the king's bed-chamber, and at such times, by conversing with him and by passing and receiving papers through a crevice in the wainscot, supplied the royal captive with information respecting the progress of affairs without, and assisted him to maintain a constant correspondence with the queen, the princes, and the leading royalists in England and Scotland. Osborne, who officiated as gentleman usher, and in that capacity held the king's gloves at meal-time, likewise kept up a secret intelligence with him by means of letters concealed within the fingers. It was this person who denounced the attempt of Rolfe, captain of the guard at the castle, to carry off and destroy the king. Pretending to be persuaded by Rolfe, who sought to engage him as an accomplice, he purposed to enable Charles to avail himself of this opportunity to escape ; but the design failed, in consequence of Rolfe's suspicions being roused; and Hammond, presenting him- self in the king's chamber, found the royal prisoner in bed, but the iron bar of the window by which he had intend- ed to escape sawn through, and removed from its place. The measures of the constitutional or presbyterian party in the parliament towards an accommodation with the king, proceeded with a degree of dilatoriness strangely at variance with the urgency of the case, and the rapidity of events without. At length Cromwell's victory over the Scots stimulated them to greater activity, and on the 15th of September, fifteen commissioners, five lords and ten commoners, appointed to conduct the negotiations, on THE CATASTROPHE. 289 their part, met Charles at Newport. A numerous body of the king's friends, including several bishops, his chaplains, lawyers, and such privy counsellors as had taken no part in the war against the parliament, were permitted to attend and in private assist him with their advice; but not to take any part in the debates, which were sustained by the king alone in person. From the 18th of September to the 27th of November, 1648, the discussions were lengthened out. Daily throughout that long period, a contest of arguments on the most im- portant political and religious subjects was carried on by Charles ; in the course of which the eminent and prac- tised statesmen opposed to him were struck, not more by the clearness of his intellect, his readiness in debate, and the extent of his information, than by the mild- ness and dignity of his deportment. Sir Harry Vane, who represented the independent or republican party at the conferences, and had been foremost among those who affected to regard the king as a weak-minded person, now acknowledged that he had been deceived ; for that he found him " a man of great parts and abilities." " The king is much changed," observed the Earl of Salisbury, another of the commissioners, to Sir Philip Warwick ; " he is extremely improved of late." " No," replied Sir Philip, " he was always so, but you are now at last sensible of it." Changed he was indeed, outwardly; for the loyal hearts gathered round him on that occasion were deeply grieved by the traces of suffering and anxiety manifest in his appearance. The pertinacious obstinacy of the presbyterians (if not in part assumed, in order to convince their u 290 THE CATASTROPHE. opponents of their courage and consistency), appears, when politically viewed, scarcely less astonishing than any other particular in the extraordinary series of incidents which our subject has brought under consideration. Of the rigour of their former propositions, as presented at Newcastle and Hampton Court, nothing whatever was abated; as before at Uxbridge, the commissioners were not empowered to concede, or to modify any article, but were obliged to submit every proposition of the king's, which they judged worthy of consideration, to be debated at Westminster. Thus, before any thing had been con- cluded, Fairfax's army, augmented by several regiments sent home by Cromwell, flushed with victory and de- manding revenge and empire, had already returned to the vicinity of the metropolis : Hammond received, but disregarded, an order to confine the king again in Carisbrooke Castle ; while the republicans were every where stimulating the people to oppose any settlement not sealed with the blood of their king. The result of the treaty, wrung from the unfortunate prince by the dire necessity of his position, rather than by the argument and persuasions of the other side, was the surrender of the militia with every other es- sential power and prerogative of royalty ; but on two points he remained immoveable. Required to con- sent to the abolition of episcopacy, without the tole- ration even of his own or his consort's private worship, and to abandon his friends and adherents to the ven- geance of his victors, he refused. In vain Hollis and the other presbyterians implored him, with tears in their eyes, to concede every thing. Charles took leave of the THE CATASTROPHE. 291 commissioners with unshaken firmness of purpose, though with unwonted sadness. " My lords," he addressed them, in a tone of voice which drew tears from his attendants, "I believe we shall scarce ever see each other again; but God's will be done ! I have made my peace with him, and shall undergo without fear whatever he may suffer men to do to me. My lords, you cannot but know that in my fall and ruin you see your own, and that also near you. I pray God send you better friends than I have found. I am fully informed of the carriage of them who plot against me and mine ; but nothing affects me so much as the feeling I have of the sufferings of my subjects, and the mischief that hangs over my three kingdoms, drawn upon them by those who, upon pre- tences of good, violently pursue their own interests and ends." In a similar strain he concluded an ad- mirable letter addressed to Prince Charles, detailing the progress and close of the negotiations, and conveying his last counsels to the prince : " We know not but this may be the last time we may speak to you, or the world, publicly : we are sensible into what hands we are fallen ; and yet we bless God we have those inward refreshments the malice of our enemies cannot perturb. We have learned to busy ourself by retiring into ourself; and therefore can the better digest what befalls us ; not doubting but God's providence will restrain the power of our enemies, and turn their fierceness to his praise. . . . If God gives you success, use it humbly and far from re- venge. If he restore you to your right upon hard condi- tions, whatever you promise, keep. These men who have forced laws which they were bound to preserve, will u 2 292 THE CATASTROPHE. find their triumphs full of troubles. Do not you think any thing in this world worth the obtaining by foul and unjust means As we direct you to weigh what we here recommend to you, so we assure you we do not more affectionately pray for you, to whom we are a natural parent, than we do that the ancient glory and renown of this nation be not buried in irreligion and fanatic humour ; that all our subjects, to whom we are a politic parent, may have such sober thoughts as to seek their peace in the orthodox profession of the Christian religion, as it was established since the reformation in this kingdom, and not in new revelations ; and that the ancient laws, with the interpretation according to the known practice, may once again be a hedge about them." In obedience to an order which he had received from Fairfax to resign the charge of the king, and repair to him at Windsor, Hammond departed with the com- missioners, leaving Charles in the custody of two officers, of whom one was Rolfe. The next day secret intelli- gence was conveyed to the king that a military force was on its way to seize and once more place him in the immediate custody of the army. His attendants conjured him to save his life by instant flight, for which every thing was arranged, and the night which succeeded favourable; but Charles, previously to the treaty, had given his parole not to quit the island within twenty days after its termination, nor would he listen to any ar- guments tending to excuse the violation of his word. Early the following morning (the 30th of November), he was roused from sleep by a summons to depart. A troop of horse and a company of foot, conducted him from the THE CATASTROPHE. 293 island, and at noon he found himself a close prisoner in Hurst Castle, a comfortless block-house on a narrow un- wholesome line of beach, projecting two or three miles from the coast of Hampshire. The last deadly struggle between the army and the parliament, begun by this final seizure of the king, was maintained by the latter with a courage, the issue indeed of despair, which recalls the better times of that assembly. Ten days before the conclusion of the treaty, a remon- strance against it was presented by the army to the House of Commons. Signed by Fairfax and all his officers, this terrible paper, the production, it is said, of Ireton, em- bodied, in explicit language, all those menaces and suggestions which, a few months earlier, were por- tentously whispered in the dark conclaves of the agi- tators, and for the untimely utterance of which blood was shed at Ware by those who now proclaimed the same views to the world as their determined objects. It called for justice on the king as the capital source of all the public grievances, and prescribed a democratic constitu- tion for the kingdom. The presbyterians parried by successive large majorities this attempt to overwhelm them. A second more violent declaration was sent in, denouncing the majority of the house as apostates from their former principles, and threatening its purgation as the only means, should they persist, of putting an end to the treaty. The house calmly proceeded in hearing the commissioners from the Isle of Wight, who were then making their report, and at its close resolved to take into consideration the concessions made by the king. The debate, unparalleled hitherto, in the House of Commons, 294 THE CATASTROPHE. for its length and vehemence, terminated, in spite of the efforts of Vane and the independents, by a vote, carried on a division by a majority of 140 to 104, that those concessions furnished a sufficient ground for the future settlement of the kingdom. Meanwhile the army, in anticipation of this result, and in perfect con- tempt of a vote of the houses ordering that the troops should not approach the metropolis, had marched upon the city, and were distributed at Whitehall, the Mews, St. James's, and in the adjacent suburbs. Early the next morning, the city guard was withdrawn from the houses of parliament, and the posts were occupied by a regiment of horse and another of foot, under the command of Sir Hardress Waller and Colonel Pride, "the drayman" as he was called. This officer stationed himself at the door of the House of Commons, with a list in his hands, containing the names of members whom a committee of republicans had previously marked as hostile, or doubtful ; by his side stood Lord Grey of Groby, to assist in identifying these persons as they made their appearance. About one-third of the presby- terian majority of 150 were by this process arrested, and placed in confinement ; and the same course being pur- sued, on the two following days, for the exclusion of the remainder, the number of members was reduced to about fifty, all known friends to "the cause." This extraor- dinary outrage, perpetrated in the name of freedom and justice, was long familiarly known as " Pride's Purge:" in the same quaint dialect of a rude age, the contemptible residue that usurped the name of parlia- ment, bore the equally well-remembered appellation of THE CATASTROPHE. 295 "the Rump." Cromwell, all whose movements were timed with consummate judgment, did not arrive in London till the second day after the purification of the Commons. It was sufficient that his spirit, imbibed, in some cases un- consciously, by others, shaped the proceedings of the army, and ruled events in subservience to his ends ; his personal interference he reserved for seasons when the energy or the acuteness of his subordinates should be at fault. Enough, for the present, that the sword waved openly over the legislative benches. He cared not, that men should remember how he had long before predicted the future necessity of such an act of violence to be performed by the army ; yet he had not hesitated to ascribe it, now that it had taken place, to the direct inspiration of the Almighty ! He was conducted by the soldiery with acclamations of joy to the royal apartments in Whitehall, and on the same day he received the thanks of the parliament for his eminent services : the houses then resolved on an ad- journment of some days, to afford time for the council of the army, now in effect the government, to debate the more momentous question concerning the mode of pro- ceeding against the king. That Charles's life was to be made a sacrifice, had already been determined. Several motives, springing from the respective tempers and views of the men, had con- spired to unite this band of daring and enthusiastic spirits, acting in the name of a nation which viewed their deeds with astonishment and abhorrence, in the terrible reso- lution to offer to the world the spectacle, then unexampled in its annals, of a sovereign prince arraigned before a tribunal of his subjects, and led forth to public execution. 29O THE CATASTROPHE. Some few fell into the design from policy ; they had offended beyond the rational hope of forgiveness, and now covered their just dread of retribution under an exaggerated alarm at the king's want of good faith in his engagements, should he ever be restored to power; or sought to avert the eyes of justice and the world from the guilt themselves had hitherto incurred, by rendering the whole nation accessary to a deed which might paralyze vengeance itself with horror. Others were actuated by malignant thirst of revenge on one whom they had so long regarded as an enemy; again, others were impelled by a burning desire to carry out some generous, perhaps, but visionary scheme of govern- ment : and both these classes justified their ends, wholly or in part, on religious grounds ; which, in wild variety, constituted, in those times, the real or pretended basis of almost all men's more serious public actions. It was held by many that historical incidents in the Old Testament, or the oracles of the Hebrew prophets, dis- torted by ignorance and misapplied by passion, furnished, not hints and examples alone, but authoritative rules and precepts, for the political conduct of Englishmen ; and that, to shrink from any act necessary to the establish- ment of the kingdom of Christ and his saints upon the ruins of temporal authorities, was to incur the terrible execrations denounced against the enemies of God. Of such enthusiasts, Harrison was among the fiercest ; Hut- chinson and Ludlow among the most honest and sober- minded. "I did it all," declared the first, "according to the best of my understanding, desiring to make the re- vealed will of God in his holy scriptures my guide." THE CATASTROPHE. 297 Ludlow has left on record, as his ample justification, that he was fully "persuaded that an accommodation with the king was unsafe for the people of England, and unjust and wicked in the nature of it. The former, besides that it was obvious to all men, the king him- self had proved, by the duplicity of his dealing \vith the parliament, which manifestly appeared in his own papers, taken at Naseby and elsewhere. Of the latter I was convinced by the express words of God's law; 'that blood defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.' (Numb. xxxv. 33.) And therefore I could not consent to the counsels of those who contented to leave the guilt of so much blood upon the nation, and thereby to draw down the just vengeance of God upon us all, when it was most evident that the war had been occasioned by the invasion of our rights, and open breach of our constitution, on the king's part." Similar is the vindication offered by Mrs. Hutchinson of her husband's conduct as a regicide: " Although he did not then believe but it might one day come to be again disputed among men, yet both he and others thought they could not refuse it without giving up the people of God, whom they had led forth and engaged themselves unto by the oath of God, into the hands of God's and their enemies ; and therefore he cast himself upon God's protection, acting according to the dictates of a conscience which he had sought the Lord to guide." As to Cromwell, there can be no reasonable doubt, that the deep under-current of his mind took the same course as early, and maintained it as steadily, as that of his THE CATASTROPHE. most zealous confederates, however he might find it expedient to conceal his settled purpose under affected indifference, or a hypocritical show of sympathy for the king. Before he set out on his campaign in the second Avar, he arranged several meetings of the leading repub- licans, both in the parliament and army, expressly to ascertain their sentiments regarding the disposal of Charles. He listened to the arguments on either side, but was too wily to make the same confession of his own views which he had succeeded in extracting from others. His object being attained, he broke off the conference with one of those coarse practical jests, by means of which, as on other occasions by his ready command of tears, he was accustomed at once to stifle the intensity of his own feelings and resolves, and to baffle and mislead those who might seek to fathom them. "He professed himself," says Ludlow, " unresolved ; and having learned what he could of the principles and in- tentions of those present, he took up a cushion and flung it at my head, and then ran down the stairs. The next day, passing me in the house, he told me he was convinced of the desirableness of what was proposed, but not of the feasibleness of it." Even after the king had been sent for to Westminster to undergo a public trial, this farce of hesitation and perplexity was still kept up. A private conference took place at this time between Crom- well and the keepers -of the great seal, Whitelocke and Widdrington, whom he had summoned to Whitehall to deliberate on some plan for the settlement of the nation. At these interviews with his lawyers, Cromwell was lying in one of the king's sumptuous beds; and in this posture THE CATASTROPHE. 299 he likewise gave audience to other persons, of the highest consideration. Subsequently, in an interview with the commissioners sent from Scotland to protest against putting the king to death, though still pretending to be haunted with doubts, and assuming still the language of moderation, he spoke more explicitly ; not surprised, however, into plainness by the complexure of the argument, but considering that now was the time for the great leader to declare himself: "Cromwell entered into a long discourse on the nature of the regal power, according to the principles of Mariana and Buchanan ; he thought a breach of trust in a king ought to be punished more than any other crime whatsoever. As to their covenant, they swore to the preservation of the king's person in defence of the true religion ; if then it appeared that the settlement of the true religion was obstructed by the king, so that they could not come at it but by putting him out of the way, then their oath could not bind them to the pre* serving him any longer, Their covenant bound them to bring all malignants, incendiaries, and enemies to the cause to condign punishment: and was not this to be executed impartially ? What were all those on whom public justice had been done, especially those who suffered for joining with Montrose, but small offenders, acting by commission from the king, who was therefore the prin- cipal, and so the most guilty ?" It appears to have been " the learned and witty " Marten, who, at the meetings which were held in this interval, first uttered in plain terms the advice, that "they should serve the king as the English did his 300 THE CATASTROPHE. Scotch grandmother cut off his head." It was adopted. The purification of the Commons had secured the cer- tainty of concurrence on their part. On the 23rd of December, a committee of thirty-eight persons was ap- pointed to prepare charges for the impeachment. In order to give their design some resemblance to the forms and principle of law, the house voted, "that by the fundamental law of the land it is treason for the king of England to levy war against the parliament and kingdom." To the surprise of the independents, when the vote was sent up to the Lords for their concurrence, that house, which had so long been sunk into the tamest subserviency, rejected it without a dissentient voice, though twice the usual number of members voted. Such a revival of courage was the more creditable, as this vote was carried, not only amidst the clamours of a furious and triumphant soldiery, but under a shower of petitions for the king's destruction, which the republicans had procured to be sent in from the common council of London, several other towns, and some counties in England. This, however, was the last effort of* that expiring assembly. From four to six members met occa- sionally for a few weeks longer, when the Commons resolved that the House of Peers was useless and dan- gerous, and ought to be abolished. In fact, its existence, as well as that of the crown, was incompatible with the next vote of the other house, " that the people are, under God, the origin of all just power," and with the declara- tions which they grounded upon it, " that the House of Commons of England, being chosen by and representing the people, have the supreme authority," and thence, THE CATASTROPHE. 301 " that whatsoever is enacted and declared for law by the Commons in parliament, hath the force of a law, and the people are concluded thereby, though the consent of the king and the peers be not had thereto." The same day an ordinance passed the Commons for constituting a high court of justice for the trial of the king. The number of commissioners named in it was a hundred and thirty-five, including all the great officers of the army, four peers, the speaker and the other principal members of the ex- purgated House of Commons. Only one great name among the king's enemies was absent, that of Vane, who disapproved of this mode of disposing of his person, and withdrew from London till after the execution. The twelve judges, ten of whom had received their appointments from the parliament, unanimously refused to be of the commission, declaring its whole purpose and constitution to be contrary to every principle of English law. Whitelocke and his colleague Widdrington, the most eminent lawyers of the time, also refused to sit on so unhallowed a tribunal. While these events were in progress, Charles had been conducted, under the escort of Harrison and a body of horse, to Windsor. There he enjoyed the melancholy consolation of an interview with the Duke of Hamilton, now a state prisoner : there also, in that abode of illus- trious kings, he was made to drink the bitterest cup of humiliation, which, as a king, could be offered to his lips, when an order from the council of war forbad all farther observance towards him of humble deference and regal state : he was now only Charles Stuart, the traitor to the sovereign people. He felt this insult, less, probably, 302 THE CATASTROPHE. for itself than for its ominous significance: the end of all was now clearly in view, and with heroic patience he prepared himself to meet it. He too, except in the immediate presence of his self-elected judges, was willing to forget that he was born to wield a monarch's sceptre, and threw himself for support upon the com- mon stay of good men in adversity, practical religious faith. Into the particulars of the king's trial we design not to enter : they are too numerous and great for the exhausted space marked out for this narrative ; and such of them as have not come down, embalmed by tradition in the hearts and memories of the people, have been made familiar as household words by many recent popular publications. The unaffected, imperturbable demeanour of the king, except when he smiled contemptuously at that passage in the arraignment, in which he was charged as " a tyrant, traitor, and murderer," the fearless loyalty of that noble lady, who, on the first day of the trial, twice startled the regicidal court, the insolent verbosity of " lord president " Bradshaw, the rational, consistent, and patriotic refusal of Charles to acknowledge the juris- diction of his illegal judges the mockery of proof the refusal of the king's entreaty, both previous to and after the delivery of the sentence, to be heard, the tears of the people, and the punishment of the poor soldier, who, amidst enforced cries of "justice !" from his companions, uttered a blessing on his king, and was silenced by a blow ; these incidents the children round every English cottage hearth repeat, while their fathers indignantly spurn the falsehood, that either the trial, or the awful THE CATASTROPHE. 303 act of blood which followed, was demanded by the people of England. The English loyalists were, as a party, wholly in- capable of arresting the tragical catastrophe. The great body of the people looked on and expected the terrible issue in mental prostration and bewilderment. The con- tinental kingdoms were not merely indifferent to the fall of monarchy in England, but had long since been paying their court to the anomalous authority rising on its ruins. Only the united provinces of Holland sent over am- bassadors to intercede for the life of their ally ; but they were not allowed to see the king, nor could they ob- tain an audience of the parliament until the axe of the executioner had first done its office. Reasons too pro- bable have been suggested, why even Charles's consort, Henrietta Maria, whose abhorred religion and impolitic advice had largely contributed to her husband's mis- fortunes, may have felt more coldly than became a wife, or even a good subject, at such a crisis. She wrote however to the parliament "a very passionate lamentation of the sad condition the king her husband was in, desiring that they would grant her a pass to come over to him ; offering to use all the credit she had with him that he might give them satisfaction. However, if they would not give her leave to perform any of those offices towards the public, she prayed that she might be permitted to perform the duty she owed him, and to be near him in the uttermost extremity." This letter, delivered by the ambassador of France, was laid aside unread. Nor was Prince Charles unmindful of his filial duty. It is said that Colonel John Cromwell, a cousin of the lieutenant- 304 THE CATASTROPHE. general, employed in the service of Holland, was commissioned by the prince to grant any conditions which his powerful kinsman might demand, if he would consent to preserve the king's life. He was encouraged to undertake this mission by the recollection of an as- surance given to him some time before by Oliver, that he would rather draw his sword in favour of the king than allow the republicans to make any attempt upon his person. How little reliance was to be placed on such assurances, had been seen in one of the debates con- nected with the disposal of the king's person, as late as January 9th, when Cromwell is affirmed to have uttered the following extraordinary speech: "Sir," said he, addressing the speaker, "if any man whatsoever have carried on this design of deposing the king, and disin- heriting his posterity, or if any man have still such a design, he must be the greatest traitor and rebel in the world : but SINCE THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD HAS CAST THIS UPON us, I cannot but submit to Providence, though I am not yet prepared to give you my advice." The envoy, having with difficulty made his way to his great cousin's presence, delivered his message with so much zeal and earnestness, and urged so forcibly the advantage which would accrue to Cromwell himself, his family, and posterity, from compliance at the same time showing his credentials, and a carte-blanche with which he had been supplied, that Oliver is said to have hesitated; but finally he put him off with a message, that both himself and the council of officers had been seeking God, and it was resolved by them all that the king must die. Such a paper was certainly enclosed in a letter addressed THE CATASTROPHE. 305 by the prince to Fairfax, intimating the price at which he desired to purchase his father's life from the grandees of the army. They might themselves fill up the blank paper with the conditions : be they what they might, they were already granted ; the seal and signature of the prince were already affixed. It may be, that Fairfax's refusal to pass the terrific gulf, on the edge of which he now stood, was grounded as much on this offer as on any new-born moral firmness in his own nature. He seems to have induced those associates also, whom he had hitherto suffered to bear him on without resistance, to pause : it was, however, but for a moment ; this letter also, when read, was laid aside. All the boon that Seymour, the messenger who brought it, could obtain, was permission, at the last moment, to deliver a second letter from the prince into the king's hands, and to receive his farewell instructions for his son. It was on the 27th that sentence was pronounced upon the king. The same evening he sent a message to the commissioners, requesting that his children might be brought to him, and that he might also be attended by the bishop of London, Dr. Juxon. The next day, Sunday, he spent at St. James's, where he heard a sermon and received the holy sacrament from the bishop ; and in conference with him, or in private devotion, passed that evening and the greater part of the following day. His nephew the Prince Elector, the Duke of Richmond, the Marquess of Hertford, and some others of the nobility, came to pay their last duty to their sovereign. " Excuse me,'' he said, " to them, and to any others that may express the same desire. My time is x 306 THE CATASTROPHE. short and precious ; I hope they will not take it ill that none have access to me but my children. The best office they can do me now is to pray for me." Charles was now wholly subdued to his condition: he had sought the strength he needed, in the spirit of Christian submission and forgiveness ; and he found it, in a degree fully proportionate to the greatness of his need. One pang alone remained, the taking leave of his children, the Princess Elizabeth, and the Duke of Gloucester. The princess being just old enough to be sensible of her father's condition, wept excessively ; the duke, too young fully to apprehend the cause, wept with her. Charles raised them from where they knelt, and, placing them on his knees, gave them such advice as was suitable to their years, and the solemnity of the occasion. He bade the lady Elizabeth tell her mother that his thoughts had never strayed from her, and that his love should be the same to the last ; and begged her to remember to tell her brother James, whenever she should see him, that it was his father's last desire that he should no longer look on Prince Charles as his elder brother only, but should be obedient to him as his sovereign, and that they should both love one another, and forgive their father's enemies. " But," said the king, " sweet-heart, you will forget this ?" "No," she replied, "I will never forget it whilst I live." He prayed her not to grieve for him, for he should die a glorious death ; it being for the laws and liberties of the land, and for maintaining the true pro- testant religion. " Forgive those people, therefore," he said, " as I forgive them, but never trust them ; for they have been false to me, and to those that gave them THE CATASTROPHE. 307 Ipower, and I fear also to their own souls." He then desired her to read Bishop Andrewes's Sermons, Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, and Archbishop Laud's book against Fisher, which would confirm her in a pious attachment to the church of England, and secure her against popery. Then addressing the little Gloucester, he said, " Sweet- heart, now they will cut off thy father's head'" Upon which words the child looking very stedfastly at him, " Mark, child," he continued, " what I say ; they will cut off my head, and perhaps make thee a king : but mark what I say you must not be a king so long as your brothers, Charles and James, live ; for they will cut off your brothers' heads when they can catch them, and cut off thy head, too, at last ; and therefore I charge you do not be made a king by them ;" at which the child said earnestly, " I will be torn in pieces first ! " This ready reply from one so young filled the king's eyes with tears of joy. In conclusion, he commanded them both to be obedient to their mother ; prayed God Almighty to bless them, and desired the princess to convey his blessing to the rest of her brothers and sisters, with commendations to all his friends; and dividing a few jewels among them, he kissed and again blessed them, and hastily, with an overflowing heart retired to his devotions. The commissioners likewise strictly employed Sunday in their devotions : they fasted, and prayed for a blessing on the commonwealth ; while Hugh Peters regaled the ears of the republicans with a sermon, on Psalm cxlix. 6 8, &c. : " Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hands, to execute vengeance on the heathen, and punishments 308 THE CATASTROPHE. upon the people ; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron ; to execute upon them the judgment written. Such honour have all his saints. Praise the Lord." The business of Monday was the drawing up and engrossing of the warrant for the king's execution "upon the morrow." Of the hundred and thirty-five commissioners, seventy-one was the largest number ever present at the trial. Forty-eight only appeared on the day when the king's execution was pronounced: fifty-nine have made their names "for ever memorable" by signing the warrant for his decapitation. We will not undertake, within the narrow space which circumstances have fixed for the conclusion of this narrative, to describe " the last scene of all " in the history of the most unfortunate Prince of a race marked for misfortune ; preferring, lest the current of the pre- sent writer's sympathies should have unwittingly run more often than he designed in favour of the royal victim, to close it in the words of authors more disposed, though in different degrees, to admire the gifted hero of the vast but fruitless revolution completed on the scaffold at Whitehall. " The mournful and tragic scene," writes Mr. Forster, "that was enacted on the 30th of January, 1649, in the open street fronting Whitehall, is familiar to every reader of history. Through the whole of that scene Charles bore himself with a dignified composure, and was to the last undisturbed, self-possessed, and serene. He addressed the crowd from the scaffold, forgave all his enemies, pro- tested that the war was not begun by him, declared that the people's right was only to have their life and goods THE CATASTROPHE. 309 their own, 'a share in the government being nothing pertaining to them,' and concluded with words which, perhaps, expressed a sincere delusion, that he * died the martyr of the people.' When his head fell, severed by the executioner at one blow, ' a dismal groan issued from the crowd :' ' He nothing common did, or mean, Upon that memorable scene ; But with his keener eye The axe's edge did try : Nor called the gods, with vulgar spite, To vindicate his helpless right ; But bowed his comely head Down as upon a bed.' So, in a few years after, wrote a most generous ad- versary, Andrew Marvel, and in an ode to Oliver Cromwell himself. The lapse of two centuries has confirmed the poet's praise." Concerning Cromwell's share in the transactions of this extraordinary crisis, Mr. Noble, his admirer, but not his blind apologist, thus records his testimony : " His hypo- crisy to the public, and jocularity throughout the dreadful tragedy of the king's trial and execution (though great part of it was forced, and only a cover to hide the perturbation of his mind within), gave greater pain than the action itself. There might be the primary principle of nature, self- defence, to plead in his justification, at least extenuation, in putting the king to death, but none to indulge a vein of mirth and pleasantry in the misfortunes of any one, particularly a person of so high a degree, and who stood in so sacred a relation to him as his sovereign; yet, 310 'THE CATASTROPHE. during the last scenes of the king's life, he talked jest- ingly, and acted buffoonery ; and this, too, when he was professing himself only guided by Providence, and la- menting the condition of his sovereign, whose lamentable fate he was fixing. It is certain that he went to feast his eyes upon the murdered king, and some say, put his finger to the neck, to feel whether it were entirely severed; and viewing the inside of the body, observed liow sound it was, and how well made for longevity. Bowtell, a private soldier, said, ' that Cromwell could not open the coffin with his staff, but taking the other's sword, effected it with the hilt of it;' while he was in- specting the body, Bowtell asking him what government they should have now, he said, ' the same that then was.' There was no excuse for this ; yet did he before, during the trial and execution, mock his Maker by hypocritical prayers ; and at those times and after, would shed tears for his master's unhappy situation and death." The author of a modern life of Cromwell, after citing the above passage from his predecessor, adds these just and temperate remarks : " The death of the king alienated for ever from Cromwell all the more moderate of the English people, who had continued to believe that a treaty with his majesty was not altogether impracticable. No one was any longer permitted to doubt that personal motives weighed more with the ambitious soldier than the love of country ; and that, in hastening the execution of his sovereign, he had yielded to the impulse of a selfish apprehension, rather than to the desire which he pro- fessed to entertain of vindicating the injured rights of his fellow-subjects. At the same time he brought dishonour THE CATASTROPHE. 311 upon the cause for which he had appeared in the field with so much advantage. He threw a stain upon the pa- triotism of others, who sincerely laboured to renew the constitution, and thereby to place on a firmer basis the privileges of the people and the just authority of the sovereign : and, by disgusting the nation with a tyranny more intolerable than any that had ever been inflicted by a legitimate prince, he paved the way for the restoration of the monarchy, in the same undefined and arbitrary form in which it originally descended to the House of Stuart." THE END. 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