THE COMMONWEALTH.—1649 to 1660.
How the Scotch chose Prince Charles to be their King; how Oliver
Cromwell quieted Ireland; how the Scotch put the Marquis of Montrose
to death; how Prince Charles’s army was beaten by Cromwell at
Worcester; how the Prince escaped to France after many dangers; how
the English went to war with the Dutch, and beat them; how Cromwell
turned out the parliament, and was made Protector; and how he
governed wisely till his death.
As none of the people either in England, Scotland, or Ireland, had
expected King Charles would be put to death, you may suppose, my dear
little Arthur, how angry many of them were when they heard what had
happened.
In Ireland the Roman Catholics knew they should be treated worse by
the Puritans than they had been by the king’s governors; and the
English settlers expected to be no better used than the old Irish;
so they all made ready to fight against the army of the English
parliament, if it should be sent to Ireland.
In Scotland, those who had sold King Charles to the English
parliament were so angry with the English Roundheads for killing the
king, that they chose Prince Charles, the son of the poor dead king,
for their king; and they got an army together to defend him and his
friends.
As for England, the parliament (or rather the part of it that
remained after the king’s death) chose a number of persons to govern
the kingdom, and called them a council of state; and this council
began to try to settle all those things quietly that had been
disturbed by the sad civil war.
But the civil war in Ireland became so violent that the Council
sent Oliver Cromwell, who was the best general in England, to that
country; and he soon won a good many battles, and made great part of
the country submit to the English. And he put his own soldiers into
the towns, to keep them. As to the Irish who would have taken young
King Charles’ part, and were Roman Catholics, he sent many of them
abroad, and treated others so hardly that they were glad to get out
of the country. So Cromwell made Ireland quiet by force, and left
General Ireton to take care of it.
While Cromwell was in Ireland, a very brave Scotchman, whose name was
James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, had gone to Scotland with soldiers
from Germany and France, partly, as he said, to punish those who had
allowed Charles the First to be beheaded, and partly to try to make
Prince Charles king. This brave gentleman, whose story you will love
to read some day, was taken prisoner by the Scotch army. The officers
behaved very ill, for they forgot his bravery, and the kindness he
had always shown to everybody when he was powerful. They forgot that
he thought he was doing his duty in fighting for his king, and they
put him to death very cruelly. They tied him to a cart, and dragged
him disgracefully to prison. They hanged him on a tall gallows, with
a book, in which his life was written, tied to his neck; then they
cut off his head and stuck it up over his prison-door.
About a month after the Scotch had disgraced themselves by that cruel
action, young Prince Charles, whom they called Charles the Second,
arrived in Scotland. But he found that he was treated more like a
prisoner than a king. The lords and generals of the Scotch army
wanted him to be a presbyterian like them; but he liked better to go
with the Scotch army into England, to try and persuade the English to
fight for him, and to make him king.
But Cromwell, who had returned from Ireland, collected a large army
in England, with which he marched into Scotland; and, finding that
Charles meant to make war in England, he followed him back again with
part of the army, and left General Monk in Scotland with the rest.
Cromwell found King Charles and his army at Worcester, and there he
fought and won a great battle, in which a great many Scotch noblemen
were killed, as well as several English gentlemen. Charles was
obliged to run away and hide himself, and for this time he gave up
all hopes of being really King of England.
You would like, I daresay, to hear how he contrived to escape from
Cromwell, who would certainly have shut him up in prison if he had
caught him.
I must tell you that the English generals had promised a great deal
of money to anybody who would catch Charles and bring him to them;
and they threatened to hang anybody who helped the poor young prince
in any way; but there were some brave men and women too, who had
pity on him, as you shall hear.
After the battle of Worcester, the first place he got to was a
farm called Boscobel, where some poor wood-cutters, of the name of
Penderell, took care of him, and gave him some of their own clothes
to wear, that the soldiers might not find out that he was the prince.
One evening he was obliged to climb up into an oak tree, and sit all
night among the branches; it was well for him that the leaves were
thick, for he heard some soldiers who were looking for him, say, as
they passed under the tree, that they were sure he was somewhere
thereabouts.
At that time his poor feet were so hurt with going without shoes,
that he was obliged to get on horseback to move to another place,
where the good wood-cutters still went with him. This time he was
hidden by a lady, who called him her servant, and made him ride
with her, in woman’s dress, to Bristol, where she was in hopes that
she should find a ship to take him to France. But there was no ship
ready to sail. Then he went to a Colonel Windham’s house, where the
colonel, his mother, his wife, and four servants, all knew him; but
not one told he was there. At last he got a vessel to take him at
Shoreham, in Sussex, after he had been in more danger several times
than I can tell you. He got safely to France, and did not come back
to England for many years.
While Cromwell was following Charles to England, General Monk
conquered the Scotch army, so that England, Scotland, and Ireland
were all made obedient to the parliament about the time when the
young king was driven out of the country.
But the parliament was obliged to attend to a war with the Dutch, who
had behaved so very cruelly to some English people in India, that all
England was eager to have them punished.
Accordingly the English and Dutch went to war, but they fought
entirely on the sea. The Dutch had a very famous admiral named Tromp.
The best English admiral was Blake; and these two brave men fought a
great many battles. Tromp gained one or two victories; but Blake beat
him often; and at last, on Tromp being killed, the Dutch were glad to
make peace, and promised to punish all those persons who had behaved
ill to the English in India, and to pay a great deal of money for the
mischief they had done.
About four years after the death of King Charles I., the officers
of the army thought themselves strong enough to govern the kingdom
without the parliament; so one day Cromwell took a party of soldiers
into the parliament-house, and turned everybody out, after abusing
them heartily, and then locked up the doors. After this unlawful
act, he soon contrived to get the people to call him the Protector
of England, which was only another name for king; and from that time
till his death he governed England as if he had been a lawful king.
Cromwell was very clever, and always chose the best generals and
admirals, whenever he sent armies or fleets to fight. He knew how
to find out the very best judges to take care of the laws, and the
wisest and properest men to send to foreign countries, when messages
for the good or the honour of England were required. He rewarded
those who served the country well, but he spent very little money
on himself or his family. He treated the children of Charles that
had not fled away to France with kindness. The little Princess
Elizabeth and the Duke of Gloucester were allowed to live together
at Carisbrook; and a tutor and attendants were appointed to teach
them and watch over them. The little princess soon died; and then the
young Duke was sent to France to his mother, and money was given him
to pay the expenses of his journey.
[Illustration: Cromwell turns out the Parliament.]
After such a dreadful civil war as had made England unhappy during
the reign of Charles I., the peace which was in the land, after
Cromwell was made Protector, gave the people time to recover.
Scotland was better governed than it had ever been before. Only
turbulent Ireland was kept quiet by such means as made everything
worse than before.
In foreign countries the name of England was feared more in
Cromwell’s time than it had ever been since the days of Henry V. And
I must say of him that he used his power well.
He died when he had been Protector hardly five years.
There were a number of very great men in the times of the civil wars.
But I will only tell you of one, whom I have not named yet. He was
secretary to the Council of State, and to Cromwell. But what we best
know him by, and love him for now, is his poetry. His name was John
Milton; and every Englishman must be proud that he was born in the
same land, and that he speaks the same tongue with JOHN MILTON.