lost in killed or captured, 5,000 men, besides those who were dispersed.
Moreover, the Scotch army was cut in two; Munro being to the north,
separated from all the rest, who, under Hamilton, were completely cut
off from their base in Scotland. Sending a few troops to harry the
flying horsemen, Cromwell turned to deal with the Scotch main army,
which was even yet more numerous than his own. But the Scotch were cowed
by the success of Cromwell’s utterly unexpected attack. The soldiers had
lost confidence in their leaders, and they were cut off from their own
country, and, therefore, from all hope of supplies. A council of war was
held that night, and the retreat was continued. The fagged-out
Cromwellians followed and harassed them. The horse, under Colonel
Thornhaugh, rode into their rear ranks and bothered and detained them,
though at cost of the life of the Colonel, who was shot in one of the
fierce struggles. Again and again the Scotch stood, but each time to be
beaten; the last stand being made at Winwick church, under a “little
spark in a blue bonnet” who himself was slain. Here they lined the
hedges with musketeers, and filled the lane with their pikemen, and
hours went by before the Puritans, under Pride, finally pushed their
charge home, and gained possession of the place which had been held so
stubbornly. Both sides were utterly worn out, and it was impossible to
urge the pursuit as rapidly and strongly as Cromwell hoped. Finally,
leaving Lambert to deal with the shattered fragments of Hamilton’s
command, Cromwell turned north and followed Munro.
[Illustration:
The Death Warrant of King Charles I.
Signed by Oliver Cromwell and other members of the council. From the
original in the library of the House of Lords.
]
The victory was overwhelming. Two thousand Scotch and Royalists had been
slain, and 10,000 were captured; more than Cromwell’s whole force.
Almost all the generals were taken; Hamilton was afterward beheaded. The
fate of the captured rank and file was hard. Throughout the First Civil
War, the common soldiers, when taken, had either been exchanged or
released, or often enough had enlisted on the side of the victors; but
the Puritan generals and those behind them were in no mood to take a
merciful view of men whom they regarded as wanton offenders, whether
they were Scotchmen or Englishmen. The captives of Preston battle were
sold into slavery; some being sent to the Virginia planters, and others
to the Venetian Government, for galley slaves. When the Puritans could
act thus toward their fellow-Englishmen, and toward the Scotch
Presbyterians who were so nearly of their own creed, there is small
cause for wonder in the treatment afterward accorded the Irish. It was a
merciless age, the age of Tilly and Wallenstein, and we cannot judge its
great men by the canons of to-day.
This was the first time that Cromwell had actually been in supreme
command in a great victory, and too much praise cannot be accorded him
for his hardihood, energy, and skill. The speed of his motions and his
prompt decision had rendered it possible for him to strike home at his
adversary in the flank, and to eat him up piecemeal. During three days
of incessant marching and fighting he halted only to do battle or to
take the rest absolutely needed; and at the end of that time the enemy’s
foot had been killed, captured, or dispersed to the last man, and his
horse was a beaten rabble, flying toward the border.
The battle of Preston put an end to the Second Civil War. Colchester
capitulated to Fairfax immediately afterward. The part of the fleet that
had revolted had come back under Prince Charles and Rupert, to coöperate
with the risen Royalists, but could do nothing; most of the ships in
time returned to their allegiance to the Parliament. The indomitable
Rupert, with seven ships, kept the sea and made a long cruise, which
finally degenerated into mere buccaneering. Blake, whom the Parliament
made Admiral, pursued him, captured most of his ships, and finally
forced him to take refuge in France. In Scotland, Argyle and the
Presbyterian ministers—the Kirk party—on the news of Hamilton’s
overthrow, promptly rose in the so-called Whigamore raid. Munro fell
back, plundering right and left until he crossed the border.
Cromwell’s exertions had been so severe that he could not follow the
flying Royalists with his usual rapidity. The army had been long without
pay; they had not a penny with which to get their horses shod, and so
many horses had been slain and were lamed or done out that a large
number of the troopers were on foot, and the others could hardly spur
their jaded mounts into a trot. Munro was not only a ruthless plunderer,
but a hard fighter, and on his arrival in Scotland Argyle felt doubtful
as to his capacity to cope with him, and sent to Cromwell for
assistance. Cromwell promptly invaded Scotland, being careful to pose as
the ally of Argyle and the Kirk, and therefore the true friend of the
Scottish nation. According to his custom, he rigorously suppressed
plundering. All resistance withered away before him. He was received at
Edinburgh as a powerful and honored ally, and before he recrossed the
border the Scotch were again avowed supporters, for the time being at
least, of the Parliament.
The enemy in arms had been defeated. It remained to deal with the
Parliament and the Presbyterian party. Some had been active for the
King; most had been lukewarm; the victory had been a victory for the
army, and therefore for the Independents. Neither Cromwell nor the army
was of a temper to refrain from finishing matters. Before the struggle
was decided Cromwell had written Fairfax: “I pray God teach this nation
and those that are over us ... what the mind of God may be in all this,
and what our duty is. Surely it is not that the poor, godly people of
this Kingdom should still be made the object of wrath and anger, nor
that our God would have our necks under a yoke of bondage. For these
things that have lately come to pass have been the wonderful works of
God, breaking the rod of the oppressor.”
He was not in the least a doctrinaire Republican or Parliamentarian; he
believed as little in the divine right of majorities as in the divine
right of kings. Neither would he have admitted such a right as existing
in an army, or, as yet, in himself. But it was impossible to stand
still. He had to act with some party, though with none was he in entire
accord; for one was hostile, another hopelessly undecided, the third
prone to extreme measures and representing only a minority in the
nation. He could only act with the last, and yet this meant an overturn
of the recognized governmental authorities. Whether he would or not, he
had to proceed along the path of revolution.
The Presbyterians—the men who controlled Parliament—were halting between
two burdens. They would not push far enough against the King to make the
Revolution a success, or to put a permanent end to despotism; and they
would not eat their past words and deeds by turning wholly to his
support. The King himself was obstinately bent on keeping the supreme
power in his hands and setting the people under his feet, whatever he
might promise; and this was the attitude of the large Royalist and
Episcopalian party, which had showed, in supporting him, either that it
cared little for liberty and eagerly championed a servility which it
misnamed loyalty, or else that it feared disorder more than tyranny.
On the other hand, the determined foes of Absolutism, the armed
Independents, were even more cut off from the bulk of the nation by
their good qualities than by their shortcomings. Their advocacy of
toleration for every creed, their desire for legal reform, and their
strong democratic tendencies, all put them so far in advance of the rest
of the nation as to be completely out of touch with it; and they
offended it even more than their harshness and narrowness, and the
behavior of the bands of fantastic enthusiasts in their ranks. Moreover,
the sincerity of their convictions, at a time when the practical
application of belief in the rule of the majority was entirely new and
strange, drove them to rely on their strong right arms, instead of upon
the votes of a people which was mainly hostile or apathetic. When
Cromwell acted with them, heedless of what the majority might think, he
was making ready for a time when he might choose in turn to disregard
the majority within their own ranks.
Though neither Cromwell nor the Independents believed in the abstract in
employing the army as an instrument of government, they were face to
face with a condition of affairs in which, partly because of their own
shortcomings, but very much more because of the shortcomings of their
antagonists, they were driven to adopt this as the only possible course.
Doubtless Cromwell was still acting as he sincerely believed the
interests of the nation demanded. In the complex tissue of motives which
go to determine a man’s deeds it is rarely possible to say that there is
not some, and mayhap even a strong, element of self-interest and of
desire for personal aggrandizement; yet Cromwell’s conduct toward the
King goes to show that he would gladly have saved him had not the
behavior of this typical Stuart been such as to render it impossible for
an upright and far-seeing friend of English liberty longer to remain his
ally.
Parliament had no sooner been relieved by the action of the army from
all danger from the King’s adherents, than in September it proceeded to
open negotiations with the King. These negotiations in effect aimed at
the destruction of the army by uniting Parliament and King against it;
among other things, they expressly excluded any toleration for the sects
which made up the strength of the army. It would have been inexcusable
folly for the men who had won the victory to submit to such action. The
army, headed by Ireton, demanded a purge of the House which would rid it
of the members so treacherous to the interests of the nation. Ireton and
his followers then laid before Fairfax a remonstrance, which included a
demand that the King should be brought to justice for the “treason,”
“blood,” and “mischief” of which he had been guilty. Fairfax opposed
this and carried the army with him in favor of a substitute which merely
requested the King to assent to a constitutional plan which would have
limited his powers precisely as those of Queen Victoria are now limited,
and would have made the Constitution of England what it now is. A more
moderate proposal was never made by victorious revolutionists, and it
shows conclusively that the fault was not with Cromwell and his
followers when they were forced to overturn the King and the Parliament.
But Charles promptly rejected the proposals and thereby signed his own
death-warrant. He had just sought, in Cromwell’s words, “to vassalize us
to a foreign nation,” and now, after having twice plunged England into
Civil War, and shown himself eager to submit her to the power of the
alien, he obstinately refused a plan which would not merely have left
him unpunished, but would have given him all the power of a
constitutional monarch; a power greater than that which the House of
Orange at that time enjoyed in Holland.
The House of Commons stood firm in its position, and against the
position of the army, which thereupon marched into London; and on
December 6th, Colonel Pride carried through the famous “Pride’s Purge.”
He stood with a military guard at the door of the House, and turned back
or arrested the members who had voted for a continuation of the
negotiations with the the King. This was, of course, a purely
revolutionary measure, with no warrant, save as Ireton and Harrison—the
Republican generals—had said, “the height of necessity to save the
Kingdom from a new War.” It was but the second step; the all-important
one had been taken long before, when the army first marched into London
to see that the Parliament did its liking.
[Illustration:
Pride’s Purge.
Colonel Pride, who commanded the guard stationed in the lobby of the
House, had in his hand a list on which were the names of certain
members, while Lord Grey, of Groby, himself a member of the House,
stood at his side, ready to point out to him the members in
question. As each one of these approached the door of the House he
was turned back.
]
Cromwell still strove to save the King’s life. Through the exertions of
Ireton a small majority of the army council resolved for mercy, and made
a last effort to conclude a treaty with the King; but the King would not
listen to them, and he thus put it out of their power any longer to
delay his fate. On January 1, 1649, the House of Commons resolved to try
him for treason to the kingdom. The Lords refused to pass the ordinance,
whereupon the House of Commons decided to disregard them and to act on
its own authority. On January 6th it erected a High Court of Justice for
the trial of the King, on the ground that he had wickedly endeavored to
subvert the people’s rights, had levied war against them, and when he
had been spared had again raised new commotions in order to enslave and
destroy the nation. Cromwell had finally thrown his doubts to the winds,
and he supported the resolution with all his vigor. When the legality of
the action was questioned, he retorted: “I tell you we will cut off his
head with the crown upon it!” The grim Puritan leaders were at last to
have their will on “the man of blood.” On the 27th, sentence of death
was passed upon the King, and on January 30, 1649, he was beheaded on
the scaffold in front of Whitehall, meeting his death with firm dignity.
Justice was certainly done, and until the death-penalty is abolished for
all malefactors, we need waste scant sympathy on the man who so hated
the upholders of freedom that his vengeance against Eliot could be
satisfied only with Eliot’s death; who so utterly lacked loyalty that he
signed the death-warrant of Strafford when Strafford had merely done his
bidding; who had made the blood of Englishmen flow like water, to
establish his right to rule as he saw best over their lives and
property; and who, with incurable duplicity, incurable double-dealing,
had sought to turn the generosity of his victorious foes to their own
hurt.
Any man who has ever had anything to do with the infliction of the
death-penalty, or indeed with any form of punishment, knows that there
are sentimental beings so constituted that their sympathies are always
most keenly aroused on behalf of the offender who pays the penalty for a
deed of peculiar atrocity. The explanation probably is that the more
conspicuous the crime, the more their attention is arrested, and the
more acute their manifestations of sympathy become. At the time when the
great bulk even of civilized mankind believed in the right of a king,
not merely to rule, but to oppress, the action of the Puritans struck
horror throughout Europe. Even Republican Holland was stirred to
condemnation, and as the King was the symbol of the State, and as custom
dies hard, generations passed during which the great majority of good
and loyal, but not particularly far-sighted or deep-thinking men, spoke
with intense sympathy of Charles, and with the most sincere horror of
the regicides, especially Cromwell. This feeling was most natural then.
It may be admitted to be natural in certain Englishmen, even at the
present day. But what shall we say of Americans who now take the same
view; who erect stained-glass windows in a Philadelphia church to the
memory of the “Royal Martyr,” or in New York or Boston hold absurd
festivals in his praise?
The best men in England approved the execution of the King, not only as
a work of necessity, but as right on moral grounds. Two weeks after the
execution, Milton—perhaps the loftiest soul in the whole Puritan party,
full though it was of lofty souls—wrote his pamphlet justifying the
right of the nation to depose, or, if need be, execute, tyrants and
wicked kings. His arguments never have been, and never can be,
successfully controverted on grounds of justice and morality. There is
room for greater question on the ground of expediency. Some of the
ablest historians and politicians have argued that the execution was a
mistake, as making the King a martyr, and as transferring to his son,
Charles II., all the loyalty that had been his, while the hatred and
distrust could not be transferred. Yet, it certainly seems that even on
the score of expediency, Cromwell and the regicides were right and that
the event justified their judgment. While Charles was alive there could
have been no peace in any event; and during Cromwell’s lifetime Charles
II. could gain no foothold in England—for there was never a member of
the House of Stuart that could stand in battle or in council before the
stern Lord of the English Commonwealth. If in later years great Oliver
could only have managed to agree with the bulk of liberty-loving
Englishmen on some system of government by law, it is not probable that
the memory of the King’s death would have prevented the perpetuation of
such a government.
Carlyle’s mind is often warped; his vision often dim; but there are
times when he speaks like an inspired seer, and never more so than when
dealing with the execution of the Stuart King: “This action of the
English Regicides did in effect strike a damp like death through the
heart of Flunkyism universally in this world. Whereof Flunkyism, Cant,
Cloth-Worship, or whatever ugly name it have, has gone about incurably
sick ever since; and is now at length, in these generations, very
rapidly dying. The like of which action will not be needed for a
thousand years again.... Thus ends the Second Civil War. In Regicide; in
a Commonwealth, and Keepers of the Liberties of England. In punishment
of delinquents; in abolition of Cobwebs—if it be possible in a
Government of Heroism and Veracity; at lowest of Anti-Flunkyism,
Anti-Cant, and the _endeavor_ after Heroism and Veracity.”
[Illustration:
Interior of Westminster Hall.
Where Parliament sat and where King Charles I. was tried and
sentenced.
]
IV
THE IRISH AND SCOTCH WARS
The successful Revolutionary party now enacted that the people of
England and of all the dominions and territories thereunto belonging
were constituted and established as a Commonwealth, or Free State, to be
governed by the representatives of the people in Parliament and by
whomsoever the Parliament should appoint as officers and ministers; the
King and the House of Lords being both abolished. No provision was at
first made by which any man should lawfully be recognized as chief in
the new Commonwealth; but, as a matter of fact, there was one man, and
one man only, who had to be acknowledged, however unwillingly, as master
and leader. There were many upright and able civil servants; many
high-minded and fervent reformers; many grim and good captains: but
waist-high above them all rose the mighty and strenuous figure of Oliver
Cromwell. It may well be that, hitherto, personal ambition had played an
entirely subordinate part in all his actions. Now, in the turmoil of the
Revolution, in the whirlpool of currents which none but the strongest
man could breast, he became ever more and more conscious of his own
great powers—powers which he knew were shared by no other man. With the
sense of power came the overmastering desire to seize and wield it.
The first thing he had to do was to stop the Revolution where it was. In
every such Revolution some of the original adherents of the movement
drop off at each stage, feeling that it has gone too far; and at every
halt the extremists insist on further progress. As stage succeeds stage,
these extremists become a constantly diminishing body, and the
irritation and alarm of the growing remainder increase. If the movement
is not checked at the right moment by the good sense and moderation of
the people themselves, or if some master-spirit does not appear, the
extremists carry it ever farther forward until it provokes the most
violent reaction; and when the master-spirit does stop it, he has to
guard against both the men who think it has gone too far, and the men
who think it has not gone far enough.
The extreme Levellers, the extreme Republicans, and, above all, the
fierce and moody fanatics who sought after an impossible, and for the
matter of that a highly undesirable, realization of their ideal of God’s
kingdom on this earth—all these, together with the mere men of unsettled
minds and the believers in what we now call communism, socialism, and
nihilism, were darkly threatening the new government.
Men arose who called themselves prophets of new social and religious
dispensations; and every wild theory found its fanatic advocates, ready
at any moment to turn from advocacy to action. In the name of political
and social liberty, some demanded that all men should be made free and
equal by abolishing money and houses, living in tents, and dividing all
food and clothing alike. In the name of religious reform others took to
riding naked in the market-place, “for a sign”; to shouting for the
advent of King Jesus; or to breaking up church services by noisy
controversies with the preachers. The extreme Anabaptist and Quaker
agitators were overshadowed by fantastic figures whose followers hailed
them as incarnations of the Most High.
Black trouble gloomed without. The Commonwealth had not a friend in
Europe. In the British Isles Scotland declared for Charles II. as the
King, not only of Scotland, but of Great Britain. In Ireland but a
couple of towns were held for the Parliament.
It was to the reconquest of Ireland that the Commonwealth first
addressed itself, and naturally Cromwell was chosen for the work. He was
given the rank of Lieutenant-General; but before he started he had to
deal with dangerous mutinies and uprisings in the army. The religious
sectaries and political levellers, who had given to the army the fiery
zeal that made it irresistible by Parliament or King, English Royalists
or Scotch Covenanter, had also been infected with a spirit peculiarly
liable to catch flame from such agitations as were going on roundabout.
Here and there, in regiment after regiment, were sudden upliftings of
the banner of revolt in the name of every kind of human freedom, and
often of some fierce religious doctrine quite incompatible with human
freedom. Cromwell acted with his usual terrible energy, scattered the
mutineers, shot the ringleaders, and reduced army and kingdom alike to
obedience and order. Then he made ready for the invasion of Ireland.
The predominant motives for the various mutinies in the army, offer
sufficient proof of its utter unlikeness to any other army. At the
outset of the civil wars the Ironsides were simply volunteers of the
very highest type; not wholly unlike, at least in moral qualities, some
of those belated Cromwellians—the Boers of to-day. They did not take up
soldiering as a profession, but primarily to achieve certain definite
moral objects. Of course, as the force gradually grew into a permanent
body, it changed in some respects; but the old spirit remained strong.
The soldiers became in a sense regulars; but they bore no resemblance to
regulars of the ordinary type—to regulars such as served under Turenne
or Marlborough, Frederick the Great or Wellington. If in Grant’s army a
very large number of the men, including almost all the forceful, natural
leaders, had been of the stamp of Ossawatomie Brown, we should have had
an army much like Cromwell’s. Such an army might usually be a power for
good and sometimes a power for evil; but under all circumstances, when
controlled by a master hand, it was certain to show itself one of the
most formidable weapons ever forged in the workshop of human passion and
purpose.