CHARLES I.
{1644.} The king had hitherto, during the course of the war, obtained
many advantages over the parliament, and had raised himself from that
low condition into which he had at first fallen, to be nearly upon an
equal footing with his adversaries. Yorkshire, and all the northern
counties, were reduced by the marquis of Newcastle; and, excepting Hull,
the parliament was master of no garrison in these quarters. In the west,
Plymouth alone, having been in vain besieged by Prince Maurice, resisted
the king's authority; and had it not been for the disappointment in
the enterprise of Gloucester, the royal garrisons had reached, without
interruption, from one end of the kingdom to the other, and had occupied
a greater extent of ground than those of the parliament. Many of the
royalists flattered themselves, that the same vigorous spirit which had
elevated them to the present height of power would still favor their
progress, and obtain them a final victory over their enemies: but those
who judged more soundly, observed, that, besides the accession of the
whole Scottish nation to the side of the parliament, the very principle
on which the royal successes had been founded, was every day acquired
more and more by the opposite party. The king's troops, full of gentry
and nobility, had exerted a valor superior to their enemies, and had
hitherto been successful in almost every rencounter; but in proportion
as the whole nation became warlike by the continuance of civil discords,
this advantage was more equally shared; and superior numbers, it was
expected, must at length obtain the victory..The king's troops, also,
ill paid, and destitute of every necessary, could not possibly be
retained in equal discipline with the parliamentary forces, to whom all
supplies were furnished from unexhausted stores and treasures.[*]
* Rush, vol vi. p, 560.
The severity of manners, so much affected by these zealous religionists,
assisted their military institutions and the rigid inflexibility of
character by which the austere reformers of church and state were
distinguished, enabled the parliamentary chiefs to restrain their
soldiers within stricter rules and more exact order. And while the
king's officers indulged themselves even in greater licenses than those
to which during times of peace they had been accustomed, they were apt
both to neglect their military duty, and to set a pernicious example of
disorder to the soldiers under their command.
At the commencement of the civil war, all Englishmen who served abroad
were invited over, and treated with extraordinary respect; and most of
them, being descended of good families, and by reason of their absence
unacquainted with the new principles which depressed the dignity of the
crown, had enlisted under the royal standard. But it is observable, that
though the military profession requires great genius and long experience
in the principal commanders, all its subordinate duties may be
discharged by ordinary talents and from superficial practice. Citizens
and country gentlemen soon became excellent officers; and the generals
of greatest fame and capacity happened, all of them, to spring up on the
side of the parliament. The courtiers and great nobility, in the
other party, checked the growth of any extraordinary genius among the
subordinate officers; and every man there, as in a regular established
government, was confined to the station in which his birth had placed
him.
The king, that he might make preparations during winter for the ensuing
campaign, summoned to Oxford all the members of either house who
adhered to his interests; and endeavored to avail himself of the name
of parliament, so passionately cherished by the English nation.[*] The
house of peers was pretty full; and, beside the nobility employed in
different parts of the kingdom, it contained twice as many members as
commonly voted at Westminster. The house of commons consisted of about
one hundred and forty; which amounted not to above half of the other
house of commons.[**]
* Rush. vol. vi. p. 559.
** Rush. vol. vi. p. 566, 574, 575.
So extremely light had government hitherto lain upon the people that
the very name of excise was unknown to them; and among the other evils
arising from these domestic wars was the introduction of that impost
into England. The parliament at Westminster having voted an excise on
beer, wine, and other commodities, those at Oxford imitated the example,
and conferred that revenue on the king. And, in order to enable him
the better to recruit his army, they granted him the sum of one hundred
thousand pounds, to be levied by way of loan upon the subject. The king
circulated privy seals, countersigned by the speakers of both houses,
requiring the loan of particular sums from such persons as lived within
his quarters.[*] Neither party had as yet got above the pedantry of
reproaching their antagonists with these illegal measures.
The Westminster parliament passed a whimsical ordinance, commanding
all the inhabitants of London and the neighborhood to retrench a meal
a week, and to pay the value of it for the support of the public
cause.[**] It is easily imagined that, provided the money were paid,
they troubled themselves but little about the execution of their
ordinance.
* Rush. vol. vi. p. 590.
** Dugdale, p. 119. Rush. vol. vi. p. 748.
Such was the king's situation, that, in order to restore peace to the
nation, he had no occasion to demand any other terms than the restoring
of the laws and constitution; the replacing him in the same rights which
had ever been enjoyed by his predecessors; and the reëstablishing on
its ancient basis the whole frame of government, civil as well as
ecclesiastical. And that he might facilitate an end seemingly so
desirable, he offered to employ means equally popular, a universal
act of oblivion, and a toleration or indulgence to tender consciences.
Nothing therefore could contribute more to his interests than every
discourse of peace, and every discussion of the conditions upon which
that blessing could be obtained. For this reason, he solicited a treaty
on all occasions, and desired a conference and mutual examination of
pretensions, even when he entertained no hopes that any conclusion could
possibly result from it.
For like reasons, the parliament prudently avoided, as much as possible,
all advances towards negotiation, and were cautious not to expose too
easily to censure those high terms which their apprehensions or their
ambition made them previously demand of the king. Though their partisans
were blinded with the thickest veil of religious prejudices, they
dreaded to bring their pretensions to the test, or lay them open before
the whole nation. In opposition to the sacred authority of the laws, to
the venerable precedents of many ages, the popular leaders were ashamed
to plead nothing but fears and jealousies, which were not avowed by the
constitution, and for which neither the personal character of Charles,
so full of virtue, nor his situation, so deprived of all independent
authority, seemed to afford any reasonable foundation. Grievances which
had been fully redressed; powers, either legal or illegal, which
had been entirely renounced; it seemed unpopular, and invidious, and
ungrateful, any further to insist on.
The king, that he might abate the universal veneration paid to the name
of parliament, had issued a declaration, in which he set forth all
the tumults by which himself and his partisans in both houses had
been driven from London; and he thence inferred, that the assembly at
Westminster was no longer a free parliament, and, till its liberty
were restored, was entitled to no authority. As this declaration was an
obstacle to all treaty, some contrivance seemed requisite in order to
elude it.
A letter was written in the foregoing spring to the earl of Essex, and
subscribed by the prince, the duke of York, and forty-three noblemen.[*]
They there exhort him to be an instrument of restoring peace, and to
promote that happy end with those by whom he was employed. Essex,
though much disgusted with the parliament, though apprehensive of
the extremities to which they were driving, though desirous of any
reasonable accommodation, yet was still more resolute to preserve an
honorable fidelity to the trust reposed in him. He replied, that as
the paper sent him neither contained any address to the two houses of
parliament, nor any acknowledgment of their authority, he could not
communicate it to them. Like proposals had been reiterated by the king
during the ensuing campaign, and still met with a like answer from
Essex.[**]
* Clarendon, vol. iii. p. 442. Rush, vol vi. p. 566.
Whitlocke, p. 77.
** Clarendon, vol. iii. p. 444. Rush. vol. vi. p. 569, 570.
Whitlocke, p. 94.
In order to make a new trial for a treaty, the king this spring
sent another letter, directed to the lords and commons of parliament
assembled at Westminster: but as he also mentioned in the letter the
lords and commons of parliament assembled at Oxford, and declared, that
his scope and intention was to make provision that all the members
of both houses might securely meet in a full and free assembly, the
parliament, perceiving the conclusion implied, refused all treaty upon
such terms.[*] And the king, who knew what small hopes there were of
accommodation, would not abandon the pretensions which he had assumed;
nor acknowledge the two houses, more expressly, for a free parliament.
This winter the famous Pym died; a man as much hated by one party as
respected by the other. At London, he was considered as the victim to
national liberty, who had abridged his life by incessant labors for the
interests of his country:[**] at Oxford, he was believed to have been
struck with an uncommon disease, and to have been consumed with vermin,
as a mark of divine vengeance, for his multiplied crimes and treasons.
He had been so little studious of improving his private fortune in
those civil wars, of which he had been one principal author, that the
parliament thought themselves obliged from gratitude to pay the debts
which he had contracted.[***] We now return to the military operations,
which, during the winter, were carried on with vigor in several places,
notwithstanding the severity of the season.
The forces brought from Ireland were landed at Mostyne, in North Wales;
and being put under the command of Lord Biron, they besieged and took
the Castles of Hawarden, Beeston, Acton, and Deddington House.[****]
No place in Cheshire or the neighborhood now adhered to the parliament,
except Nantwich; and to this town Biron laid siege during the depth of
winter. Sir Thomas Fairfax, alarmed at so considerable a progress of
the royalists, assembled an army of four thousand men in Yorkshire, and
having joined Sir William Brereton, was approaching to the camp of
the enemy. Biron and his soldiers, elated with successes obtained
in Ireland, had entertained the most profound contempt for the
parliamentary forces; a disposition which, if confined to the army,
may be regarded as a good presage of victory; but if it extend to the
general, is the most probable forerunner of a defeat. Fairfax suddenly
attacked the camp of the royalists. The swelling of the river by a
thaw divided one part of the army from the other. That part exposed to
Fairfax, being beaten from their post, retired into the church of Acton,
and were all taken prisoners; the other retreated with precipitation.[v]
* Clarendon, vol. iii. p. 449. Whitlocke, p. 79.
** Whitlocke, p. 66.
*** Journ. 13th of February, 1645.
**** Rush. vol. vi. p. 299.
v Rush. vol. vi. p. 301.
And thus was dissipated or rendered useless that body of forces which
had been drawn from Ireland; and the parliamentary party revived in
those north-west counties of England.
The invasion from Scotland was attended with consequences of much
greater importance. The Scots, having summoned in vain the town of
Newcastle, which was fortified by the vigilance of Sir Thomas Glenham,
passed the Tyne, and faced the marquis of Newcastle, who lay at
Durham with an army of fourteen thousand men.[*] After some military
operations, in which that nobleman reduced the enemy to difficulties
for forage and provisions, he received intelligence of a great disaster
which had befallen his forces in Yorkshire. Colonel Bellasis, whom he
had left with a considerable body of troops, was totally routed at
Selby by Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had returned from Cheshire with his
victorious forces.[**] Afraid of being enclosed between two armies,
Newcastle retreated; and Leven having joined Lord Fairfax, they sat down
before York, to which the army of the royalists had retired. But as the
parliamentary and Scottish forces were not numerous enough to invest
so large a town, divided by a river, they contented themselves with
incommoding it by a loose blockade; and affairs remained for some time
in suspense between these opposite armies.[***]
During this winter and spring, other parts of the kingdom had also been
infested with war. Hopton, having assembled an army of fourteen
thousand men, endeavored to break into Sussex, Kent, and the southern
association, which seemed well disposed to receive him. Waller fell upon
him at Cherington, and gave him a defeat of considerable importance. In
another quarter, siege being laid to Newark by the parliamentary forces,
Prince Rupert prepared himself for relieving a town of such consequence,
which alone preserved the communication open between the king's southern
and northern quarters.[****] With a small force, but that animated by
his active courage, he broke through the enemy, relieved the town, and
totally dissipated that army of the parliament.
* Rush. vol. vi. p. 615.
** Rush. vol. vi. p. 618.
*** Rush. vol. vi. p. 620.
*** Rush. vol. vi. p. 806.
But though fortune seemed to have divided her favors between the
parties, the king found himself, in the main, a considerable loser by
this winter campaign; and he prognosticated a still worse event from the
ensuing summer. The preparations of the parliament were great, and much
exceeded the slender resources of which he was possessed. In the
eastern association they levied fourteen thousand men, under the earl of
Manchester, seconded by Cromwell.[*] An army of ten thousand men, under
Essex; another of nearly the same force, under Waller, were assembled in
the neighborhood of London. The former was destined to oppose the king:
the latter was appointed to march into the west, where Prince Maurice,
with a small army which went continually to decay, was spending his
time in vain before Lyme, an inconsiderable town upon the sea-coast.
The utmost efforts of the king could not raise above ten thousand men at
Oxford; and on their sword chiefly, during the campaign, were these to
depend for subsistence.
The queen, terrified with the dangers which every way environed her, and
afraid of being enclosed in Oxford, in the middle of the kingdom, fled
to Exeter, where she hoped to be delivered unmolested of the child with
which she was now pregnant, and whence she had the means of an easy
escape into France, if pressed by the forces of the enemy. She knew the
implacable hatred which the parliament, on account of her religion and
her credit with the king, had all along borne her. Last summer, the
commons had sent up to the peers an impeachment of high treason against
her; because, in his utmost distresses, she had assisted her husband
with arms and ammunition which she had bought in Holland.[**] And
had she fallen into their hands, neither her sex, she knew, nor high
station, could protect her against insults at least, if not danger, from
those haughty republicans, who so little affected to conduct themselves
by the maxims of gallantry and politeness.
* Rush. vol. vi. p. 621.
** Rush. vol. vi. p. 321.
From the beginning of these dissensions, the parliament, it is
remarkable, had in all things assumed an extreme ascendant over their
sovereign, and had displayed a violence, and arrogated an authority,
which, on his side, would not have been compatible either with his
temper or his situation. While he spoke perpetually of pardoning all
rebels, they talked of nothing but the punishment of delinquents and
malignants: while he offered a toleration and indulgence to tender
consciences, they threatened the utter extirpation of prelacy: to his
professions of lenity they opposed declarations of rigor; and the more
the ancient tenor of the laws inculcated a respectful subordination to
the crown, the more careful were they, by their lofty pretensions, to
cover that defect under which they labored.
Their great advantages in the north seemed to second their ambition,
and finally to promise them success in their unwarrantable enterprises.
Manchester, having taken Lincoln, had united his army to that of Leven
and Fairfax; and York was now closely besieged by their combined forces.
That town, though vigorously defended by Newcastle, was reduced to
extremity; and the parliamentary generals, after enduring great losses
and fatigues, flattered themselves that all their labors would at last
be crowned by this important conquest. On a sudden, they were alarmed by
the approach of Prince Rupert. This gallant commander, having vigorously
exerted himself in Lancashire and Cheshire, had collected a considerable
army; and joining Sir Charles Lucas, who commanded Newcastle's horse,
hastened to the relief of York with an army of twenty thousand men. The
Scottish and parliamentary generals raised the siege, and drawing up on
Marston Moor, purposed to give battle to the royalists. Prince Rupert
approached the town by another quarter, and, interposing the River
Ouse between him and the enemy, safely joined his forces to those of
Newcastle. The marquis endeavored to persuade him, that, having so
successfully effected his purpose, he ought to be content with the
present advantages, and leave the enemy, now much diminished by their
losses, and discouraged by their ill success, to dissolve by those
mutual dissensions which had begun to take place among them.[*] The
prince, whose martial disposition was not sufficiently tempered with
prudence, nor softened by complaisance, pretending positive orders from
the king, without deigning to consult with Newcastle, whose merits
and services deserved better treatment, immediately issued orders
for battle, and led out the army to Marston Moor.[**] This action was
obstinately disputed between the most numerous armies that were engaged
during the course of these wars; nor were the forces on each side much
different in number. Fifty thousand British troops were led to mutual
slaughter; and the victory seemed long undecided between them. Prince
Rupert, who commanded the right wing of the royalists, was opposed to
Cromwell,[***] who conducted the choice troops of the parliament, inured
to danger under that determined leader, animated by zeal, and confirmed
by the most rigid discipline.
* Life of the Duke of Newcastle, p. 40.
** Clarendon, vol. v. p. 506.
*** Rush, part iii. vol. ii. p. 633.
After a short combat, the cavalry of the royalists gave way; and such
of the infantry as stood next them were likewise borne down and put to
flight. Newcastle's regiment alone, resolute to conquer or to perish,
obstinately kept their ground, and maintained, by their dead bodies, the
same order in which they had at first been ranged. In the other wing,
Sir Thomas Fairfax and Colonel Lambert, with some troops, broke through
the royalists; and, transported by the ardor of pursuit, soon reached
their victorious friends, engaged also in pursuit of the enemy. But
after that tempest was past, Lucas, who commanded the royalists in this
wing, restoring order to his broken forces, made a furious attack on the
parliamentary cavalry, threw them into disorder, pushed them upon their
own infantry, and put that whole wing to rout. When ready to seize on
their carriages and baggage, he perceived Cromwell, who was now returned
from pursuit of the other wing. Both sides were not a little surprised
to find that they must again renew the combat for that victory which
each of them thought they had already obtained. The front of the battle
was now exactly counterchanged; and each army occupied the ground which
had been possessed by the enemy at the beginning of the day. This second
battle was equally furious and desperate with the first: but after the
utmost efforts of courage by both parties, victory wholly turned to the
side of the parliament. The prince's train of artillery was taken; and
his whole army pushed off the field of battle.[*]
* Rush. vol. vi. p. 632. Whitlocke, p. 89.
This event was in itself a mighty blow to the king; but proved more
fatal in its consequences. The marquis of Newcastle was entirely lost
to the royal cause. That nobleman the ornament of the court and of
his order, had been engaged, contrary to the natural bent of his
disposition, into these military operations merely by a high sense
of honor and a personal regard to his master. The dangers of war were
disregarded by his valor; but its fatigues were oppressive to his
natural indolence. Munificent and generous in his expense; polite and
elegant in his taste; courteous and humane in his behavior; he brought a
great accession of friends and of credit to the party which he embraced.
But amidst all the hurry of action, his inclinations were secretly drawn
to the soft arts of peace, in which he took delight; and the charms
of poetry music, and conversation often stole him from his rougher
occupations. He chose Sir William Devenant, an ingenious poet, for his
lieutenant-general: the other persons in whom he placed confidence were
more the instruments of his refined pleasures, than qualified for
the business which they undertook; and the severity and application
requisite to the support of discipline, were qualities in which he was
entirely wanting.[*]
When Prince Rupert, contrary to his advice, resolved on this battle, and
issued all orders without communicating his intentions to him, he took
the field, but, he said, merely as a volunteer; and, except by his
personal courage, which shone out with lustre, he had no share in the
action. Enraged to find that all his successful labors were rendered
abortive by one act of fatal temerity, terrified with the prospect of
renewing his pains and fatigue, he resolved no longer to maintain the
few resources which remained to a desperate cause, and thought, that the
same regard to honor which had at first called him to arms, now required
him to abandon a party where he met with such unworthy treatment. Next
morning early, he sent word to the prince, that he was instantly to
leave the kingdom; and without delay, he went to Scarborough, where he
found a vessel, which carried him beyond sea. During the ensuing years,
till the restoration, he lived abroad in great necessity, and saw with
indifference his opulent fortune sequestered by those who assumed the
government of England. He disdained, by submission or composition,
to show obeisance to their usurped authority; and the least favorable
censors of his merit allowed, that the fidelity and services of a whole
life had sufficiently atoned for one rash action, into which his passion
had betrayed him.[**]
Prince Rupert, with equal precipitation, drew off the remains of his
army, and retired into Lancashire. Glenham, in a few days, was obliged
to surrender York; and he marched out his garrison with all the honors
of war.[***] Lord Fairfax, remaining in the city, established his
government in that whole county, and sent a thousand horse into
Lancashire, to join with the parliamentary forces in that quarter, and
attend the motions of the Scottish army marched northwards, in order
to join the earl of Calender, who was advancing with ten thousand
additional forces;[****] and to reduce the town of Newcastle, which they
took by storm: the earl of Manchester, with Cromwell, to whom the fame
of this great victory was chiefly ascribed, and who was wounded in the
action, returned to the eastern association, in order to recruit his
army.[v]
* Clarendon, vol. v. p. 507, 508. See Warwick.
** Clarendon, vol. v. p. 511.
*** Rush. vol. vi. p. 638. Prince Rupert:
**** Whitlocke, p. 88
v Rush. vol. vi. p. 641.
While these events passed in the north, the king's affairs in the south
were conducted with more success and greater abilities. Ruthven, a
Scotchman, who had been created earl of Brentford, acted under the king
as general.
The parliament soon completed their two armies commanded by Essex and
Waller. The great zeal of the city facilitated this undertaking. Many
speeches were made to the citizens by the parliamentary leaders, in
order to excite their ardor. Hollis, in particular, exhorted them not to
spare, on this important occasion, either their purses, their persons,
or their prayers;[*] and, in general, it must be confessed, they were
sufficiently liberal in all these contributions.
* Rush. vol. vi. p. 662.
The two generals had orders to march with their combined armies towards
Oxford; and, if the king retired into that city, to lay siege to it, and
by one enterprise put a period to the war. The king, leaving a numerous
garrison in Oxford, passed with dexterity between the two armies, which
had taken Abingdon, and had enclosed him on both sides. He marched
towards Worcester; and Waller received orders from Essex to follow him
and watch his motions, while he himself marched into the west, in quest
of Prince Maurice. Waller had approached within two miles of the royal
camp, and was only separated from it by the Severn, when he received
intelligence that the king was advanced to Bewdly, and had directed his
course towards Shrewsbury. In order to prevent him, Waller presently
dislodged, and hastened by quick marches to that town while the king,
suddenly returning upon his own footsteps reached Oxford; and having
reënforced his army from that garrison, now in his turn marched out in
quest of Waller. The two armies faced each other at Cropredy Bridge,
near Banbury; but the Charwell ran between them. Next day, the king
decamped, and marched towards Daventry. Waller ordered a considerable
detachment to pass the bridge, with an intention of falling on the rear
of the royalists. He was repulsed, routed, and pursued with considerable
loss.[*] Stunned and disheartened with this blow, his army decayed and
melted away by desertion; and the king thought he might safely leave it,
and march westward against Essex. That general, having obliged Prince
Maurice to raise the siege of Lyme, having taken Weymouth and Taunton,
advanced still in his conquests, and met with no equal opposition. The
king followed him, and having reënforced his army from all quarters,
appeared in the field with an army superior to the enemy. Essex,
retreating into Cornwall, informed the parliament of his danger, and
desired them to send an army which might fall on the king's rear.
General Middleton received a commission to execute that service; but
came too late. Essex's army, cooped up in a narrow corner at Lestithiel,
deprived of all forage and provisions, and seeing no prospect of succor,
was reduced to the last extremity. The king pressed them on one side;
Prince Maurice on another; Sir Richard Granville on a third. Essex,
Robarts, and some of the principal officers escaped in a boat to
Plymouth; Balfour with his horse passed the king's outposts in a thick
mist, and got safely to the garrisons of his own party. The foot under
Skippon were obliged to surrender their arms, artillery, baggage, and
ammunition; and being conducted to the parliament's quarters, were
dismissed. By this advantage, which was much boasted of, the king,
besides the honor of the enterprise, obtained what he stood extremely in
need of: the parliament, having preserved the men, lost what they could
easily repair.[**]
* Rush. vol. vi. p. 676. Clarendon, vol. v. p. 497. Sir Ed.
Walker, p. 31.
** Rush. vol. vi. p. 699, etc. Whitloeke, p. 98. Clarendon,
vol. v p. 524, 525. Sir Edward Walker, p. 69, 70, etc.
No sooner did this intelligence reach London, than the committee of
the two kingdoms voted thanks to Essex for his fidelity, courage,
and conduct; and this method of proceeding, no less politic than
magnanimous, was preserved by the parliament throughout the whole course
of the war. Equally indulgent to their friends and rigorous to their
enemies, they employed with success these two powerful engines of reward
and punishment, in confirmation of their authority.
That the king might have less reason to exult in the advantages which
he had obtained in the west, the parliament opposed to him very numerous
forces. Having armed anew Essex's subdued but not disheartened troops,
they ordered Manchester and Cromwell to march with their recruited
forces from the eastern association; and, joining their armies to those
of Waller and Middleton, as well as of Essex, offer battle to the king.
Charles chose his post at Newbury, where the parliamentary armies, under
the earl of Manchester, attacked him with great vigor; and that town
was a second time the scene of the bloody animosities of the English.
Essex's soldiers, exhorting one another to repair their broken honor,
and revenge the disgrace of Lestithiel, made an impetuous assault on the
royalists; and having recovered some of their cannon lost in Cornwall,
could not forbear embracing them with tears of joy. Though the king's
troops defended themselves with valor, they were overpowered by numbers;
and the night came very seasonably to their relief, and prevented a
total overthrow. Charles, leaving his baggage and cannon in Dennington
Castle, near Newbury, forthwith retreated to Wallingford, and thence to
Oxford. There Prince Rupert and the earl of Northampton joined him, with
considerable bodies of cavalry. Strengthened by this reënforcement, he
ventured to advance towards the enemy, now employed before Dennington
Castle.[*] Essex, detained by sickness, had not joined the army since
his misfortune in Cornwall. Manchester, who commanded, though his forces
were much superior to those of the king, declined an engagement, and
rejected Cromwell's advice, who earnestly pressed him not to neglect
so favorable an opportunity of finishing the war. The king's army, by
bringing off their cannon from Dennington Castle in the face of the
enemy, seemed to have sufficiently repaired the honor which they had
lost at Newbury; and Charles, having the satisfaction to excite between
Manchester and Cromwell equal animosities with those which formerly
took place between Essex and Waller,[*] distributed his army into winter
quarters.
* Rush. vol. vi. p, 721, etc.
** Rush. vol. vii. p. 1.
Those contests among the parliamentary generals, which had disturbed
their military operations, were renewed in London during the winter
season; and each being supported by his own faction, their mutual
reproaches and accusations agitated the whole city and parliament. There
had long prevailed in that party a secret distinction, which, though the
dread of the king's power had hitherto suppressed it, yet, in proportion
as the hopes of success became nearer and more immediate, began to
discover itself with high contest and animosity. The Independents, who
had at first taken shelter and concealed themselves under the wings of
the Presbyterians, now evidently appeared a distinct party, and betrayed
very different views and pretensions. We must here endeavor to explain
the genius of this party, and of its leaders, who henceforth occupy the
scene of action.
During those times, when the enthusiastic spirit met with such honor
and encouragement, and was the immediate means of distinction and
preferment, it was impossible to set bounds to these holy fervors, or
confine within any natural limits what was directed towards an infinite
and a supernatural object. Every man, as prompted by the warmth of his
temper, excited by emulation, or supported by his habits of hypocrisy,
endeavored to distinguish himself beyond his fellows, and to arrive at a
higher pitch of saintship and perfection. In proportion to its degree
of fanaticism, each sect became dangerous and destructive; and as the
Independents went a note higher than the Presbyterians, they could less
be restrained within any bounds of temper and moderation. From this
distinction, as from a first principle, were derived, by a necessary
consequence, all the other differences of these two sects.
The Independents rejected all ecclesiastical establishments, and
would admit of no spiritual courts, no government among pastors,
no interposition of the magistrate in religious concerns, no fixed
encouragement annexed to any system of doctrines or opinions. According
to their principles, each congregation, united voluntarily and by
spiritual ties, composed within itself a separate church, and exercised
a jurisdiction, but one destitute of temporal sanctions, over its own
pastor and its own members. The election alone of the congregation was
sufficient to bestow the sacerdotal character; and as all essential
distinction was denied between the laity and the clergy, no ceremony,
no institution, no vocation, no imposition of hands was, as in all
other churches, supposed requisite to convey a right to holy orders.
The enthusiasm of the Presbyterians led them to reject the authority
of prelates, to throw off the restraint of liturgies, to retrench
ceremonies, to limit the riches and authority of the priestly office:
the fanaticism of the Independents, exalted to a higher pitch, abolished
ecclesiastical government, disdained creeds and systems, neglected every
ceremony, and confounded all ranks and orders. The soldier, the
merchant, the mechanic, indulging the fervors of zeal, and guided by the
illapses of the spirit, resigned himself to an inward and superior
direction, and was consecrated, in a manner, by an immediate intercourse
and communication with heaven.
The Catholics, pretending to an infallible guide, had justified
upon that principle their doctrine and practice of persecution; the
Presbyterians, imagining that such clear and certain tenets as
they themselves adopted could be rejected only from a criminal and
pertinacious obstinacy, had hitherto gratified to the full their bigoted
zeal, in a like doctrine and practice: the Independents, from the
extremity of the same zeal, were led into the milder principles of
toleration. Their mind, set afloat in the wide sea of inspiration, could
confine itself within no certain limits; and the same variations in
which an enthusiast indulged himself, he was apt, by a natural train
of thinking, to permit in others. Of all Christian sects, this was the
first which, during its prosperity as well as its adversity, always
adopted the principle of toleration; and it is remarkable that so
reasonable a doctrine owed its origin, not to reasoning, but to the
height of extravagance and fanaticism.
Popery and prelacy alone, whose genius seemed to tend towards
superstition, were treated by the Independents with rigor. The doctrines
too of fate or destiny were deemed by them essential to all religion.
In these rigid opinions the whole sectaries, amidst all their other
differences, unanimously concurred.
The political system of the Independents kept pace with their religious.
Not content with confining to very narrow limits the power of the crown,
and reducing the king to the rank of first magistrate, which was the
project of the Presbyterians, this sect, more ardent in the pursuit of
liberty, aspired to a total abolition of the monarchy, and even of the
aristocracy, and projected an entire equality of rank and order, in a
republic, quite free and independent. In consequence of this scheme,
they were declared enemies to all proposals of peace, except on such
terms as they knew it was impossible to obtain; and they adhered to that
maxim, which is in the main prudent and political, that whoever draws
the sword against his sovereign, should throw away the scabbard. By
terrifying others with the fear of vengeance from the offended prince,
they had engaged greater numbers into the opposition against peace,
than had adopted their other principles with regard to government and
religion. And the great success which had already attended the arms of
the parliament, and the greater which was soon expected, confirmed them
still further in this obstinacy.
Sir Henry Vane, Oliver Cromwell, Nathaniel Fiennes, and Oliver St. John,
the solicitor-general, were regarded as the leaders of the Independents.
The earl of Essex, disgusted with a war of which he began to foresee
the pernicious consequences, adhered to the Presbyterians, and promoted
every reasonable plan of accommodation. The earl of Northumberland, fond
of his rank and dignity, regarded with horror a scheme which, if it took
place, would confound him and his family with the lowest in the kingdom.
The earls of Warwick and Denbigh, Sir Philip Stapleton, Sir William
Waller, Hollis, Massey, Whitlocke, Maynard, Glyn, had embraced the
same sentiments. In the parliament, a considerable majority, and a much
greater in the nation, were attached to the Presbyterian party; and
it was only by cunning and deceit at first, and afterwards by military
violence, that the Independents could entertain any hopes of success.
The earl of Manchester, provoked at the impeachment which the king had
lodged against him, had long forwarded the war with alacrity; but being
a man of humanity and good principles, the view of public calamities,
and the prospect of a total subversion of government, began to moderate
his ardor, and inclined him to promote peace on any safe or honorable
terms. He was even suspected in the field not to have pushed to the
utmost against the king the advantages obtained by the arms of the
parliament; and Cromwell in the public debates revived the accusation,
that this nobleman had wilfully neglected at Dennington Castle a
favorable opportunity of finishing the war by a total defeat of the
royalists. "I showed him evidently," said Cromwell, "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 neuter with the rest of his
forces: but, notwithstanding my importunity, 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."[*]
* Clarendon, vol. v. p. 561.
Manchester, by way of recrimination, informed the parliament, that, at
another time, Cromwell having proposed some scheme to which it seemed
improbable the parliament would agree, he insisted, and said, "My lord,
if you will stick firm to honest men, you shall find yourself at the
head of an army which shall give law both to king and parliament." "This
discourse," continued Manchester, "made the greater impression on me,
because I knew the lieutenant-general to be a man of very deep designs;
and he has even ventured to tell me, that it never would be well with
England till I were Mr. Montague, and there were ne'er a lord or peer
in the kingdom."[*] So full was Cromwell of these republican projects,
that, notwithstanding his habits of profound dissimulation, he could
not so carefully guard his expressions, but that sometimes his favorite
notions would escape him.
These violent dissensions brought matters to extremity, and pushed the
Independents to the execution of their designs. The present generals,
they thought, were more desirous of protracting than finishing the war;
and having entertained a scheme for preserving still some balance in
the constitution, they were afraid of entirely subduing the king, and
reducing him to a condition where he should not be entitled to ask any
concessions. A new model alone of the army could bring complete victory
to the parliament, and free the nation from those calamities under
which it labored. But how to effect this project was the difficulty.
The authority, as well as merits, of Essex was very great with the
parliament. Not only he had served them all along with the most exact
and scrupulous honor: it was in some measure owing to his popularity
that they had ever been enabled to levy an army, or make head against
the royal cause. Manchester, Warwick, and the other commanders, had
likewise great credit with the public; nor were there any hopes
of prevailing over them, but by laying the plan of an oblique and
artificial attack, which would conceal the real purposes of their
antagonists. The Scots and the Scottish commissioners, jealous of the
progress of the Independents, were a new obstacle, which, without the
utmost art and subtlety, it would be difficult to surmount.[**]
* Clarendon, vol. v. p. 562.
** Clarendon, vol. v. p. 562.
The methods by which this intrigue was conducted are so singular, and
show so fully the genius of the age, that we shall give a detail of them
as they are delivered by Lord Clarendon.[*]
A fast, on the last Wednesday of every month, had been ordered by the
parliament at the beginning of these commotions; and their preachers on
that day were careful to keep alive, by their vehement declamations, the
popular prejudices entertained against the king, against prelacy, and
against Popery. The king, that he might combat the parliament with their
own weapons, appointed likewise a monthly fast, when the people should
be instructed in the duties of loyalty, and of submission to the higher
powers; and he chose the second Friday of every month for the devotion
of the royalists.[**] It was now proposed and carried in parliament, by
the Independents, that a new and more solemn fast should be voted; when
they should implore the divine assistance for extricating them from
those perplexities in which they were at present involved. On that day,
the preachers, after many political prayers, took care to treat of the
reigning divisions in the parliament, and ascribed them entirely to the
selfish ends pursued by the members. In the hands of those members,
they said, are lodged all the considerable commands of the army, all the
lucrative offices in the civil administration: and while the nation is
falling every day into poverty, and groans under an insupportable load
of taxes, these men multiply possession on possession, and will in
a little time be masters of all the wealth of the kingdom. That such
persons, who fatten on the calamities of their country, will ever
embrace any effectual measure for bringing them to a period, or insuring
final success to the war, cannot reasonably be expected. Lingering
expedients alone will be pursued; and operations in the field concurring
in the same pernicious end with deliberations in the cabinet, civil
commotions will forever be perpetuated in the nation. After exaggerating
these disorders, the ministers returned to their prayers; and besought
the Lord that he would take his own work into his own hand; and if the
instruments whom he had hitherto employed were not worthy to bring to a
conclusion so glorious a design, that he would inspire others more fit,
who might perfect what was begun, and, by establishing true religion,
put a speedy period to the public miseries.
* Clarendon, vol. v. p. 565
** Rush. vol. vi. p. 364
On the day subsequent to these devout animadversions when the parliament
met, a new spirit appeared in the looks of many. Sir Henry Vane told the
commons, that if ever God appeared to them, it was in the ordinances
of yesterday; that, as he was credibly informed by many who had been
present in different congregations, the same lamentations and discourses
which the godly preachers had made before them, had been heard in other
churches: that so remarkable a concurrence could proceed only from the
immediate operation of the Holy Spirit: that he therefore entreated
them, in vindication of their own honor, in consideration of their duty
to God and their country, to lay aside all private ends, and renounce
every office attended with profit or advantage: that the absence of so
many members, occupied in different employments, had rendered the house
extremely thin, and diminished the authority of their determinations:
and that he could not forbear, for his own part, accusing himself as one
who enjoyed a gainful office, that of treasurer of the navy; and though
he was possessed of it before the civil commotions, and owed it not
to the favor of the parliament, yet was he ready to resign it, and to
sacrifice, to the welfare of his country, every consideration of private
interest and advantage.
Cromwell next acted his part, and commended the preachers for having
dealt with them plainly and impartially, and told them of their errors,
of which they were so unwilling to be informed. Though they dwelt on
many things, he said, on which he had never before reflected, yet, upon
revolving them, he could not but confess that, till there were a perfect
reformation in these particulars, nothing which they undertook could
possibly prosper. The parliament, no doubt, continued he, had done
wisely on the commencement of the war, in engaging several of its
members in the most dangerous parts of it, and thereby satisfying the
nation that they intended to share all hazards with the meanest of the
people. But affairs are now changed. During the progress of military
operations, there have arisen in the parliamentary armies many excellent
officers, who are qualified for higher commands than they are now
possessed of. And though it becomes not men engaged in such a cause "to
put trust in the arm of flesh," yet he could assure them, that
their troops contained generals fit to command in any enterprise
in Christendom. The army, indeed, he was sorry to say it, did not
correspond by its discipline to the merit of the officers; nor were
there any hopes, till the present vices and disorders which prevail
among the soldiers were repressed by a new model that their forces would
ever be attended with signal success in any undertaking.
In opposition to this reasoning of the Independents, many of the
Presbyterians showed the inconvenience and danger of the projected
alteration. Whitlocke, in particular, a man of honor, who loved his
country, though in every change of government he always adhered to the
ruling power, said, that besides the ingratitude of discarding, and that
by fraud and artifice, so many noble persons, to whom the parliament had
hitherto owed its chief support, they would find it extremely difficult
to supply the place of men now formed by experience to command and
authority: that the rank alone possessed by such as were members of
either house, prevented envy, retained the army in obedience, and gave
weight to military orders: that greater confidence might safely be
reposed in men of family and fortune, than in mere adventurers, who
would be apt to entertain separate views from those which were embraced
by the persons who employed them: that no maxim of policy was more
undisputed, than the necessity of preserving an inseparable connection
between the civil and military powers, and of retaining the latter in
strict subordination to the former: that the Greeks and Romans, the
wisest and most passionate lovers of liberty, had ever intrusted
to their senators the command of armies, and had maintained an
unconquerable jealousy of all mercenary forces: and that such men alone,
whose interests were involved in those of the public, and who possessed
a vote in the civil deliberations, would sufficiently respect the
authority of parliament, and never could be tempted to turn the sword
against those by whom it was committed to them.[*]
* Whitlocke, p. 114, 115. Rush. vol. vii. p. 6.
Notwithstanding these reasonings, a committee was chosen to frame what
was called the "self-denying ordinance," by which the members of both
houses were excluded from all civil and military employments, except
a few offices which were specified. This ordinance was the subject of
great debate, and for a long time rent the parliament and city into
factions. But at last, by the prevalence of envy with some; with others,
of false modesty; with a great many, of the republican and Independent
views; it passed the house of commons, and was sent to the upper house.
The peers, though the scheme was in part levelled against their order;
though all of them were at bottom extremely averse to it; though they
even ventured once to reject it; yet possessed so little authority, that
they durst not persevere in opposing the resolution of the commons; and
they thought it better policy, by an unlimited compliance, to ward
off that ruin which they saw approaching.[*] The ordinance, therefore,
having passed both houses, Essex, Warwick, Manchester, Denbigh, Waller,
Brereton, and many others, resigned their commands, and received the
thanks of parliament for their good services. A pension of ten thousand
pounds a year was settled on Essex.
{1645.} It was agreed to recruit the army to twenty-two thousand men;
and Sir Thomas Fairfax was appointed general.[**] It is remarkable that
his commission did not run, like that of Essex, in the name of the king
and parliament, but in that of the parliament alone; and the article
concerning the safety of the king's person was omitted: so much had
animosities increased between the parties.[***] Cromwell, being a member
of the lower house, should have been discarded with the others; but
this impartiality would have disappointed all the views of those who had
introduced the self-denying ordinance. He was saved by a subtlety, and
by that political craft in which he was so eminent. At the time when the
other officers resigned their commissions, care was taken that he
should be sent with a body of horse to relieve Taunton besieged by the
royalists. His absence being remarked orders were despatched for his
immediate attendance in parliament; and the new general was directed
to employ some other officer in that service. A ready compliance was
feigned; and the very day was named on which, it was averred, he would
take his place in the house. But Fairfax, having appointed a rendezvous
of the army, wrote to the parliament, and desired leave to retain for
some days Lieutenant General Cromwell, whose advice, he said, would
be useful in supplying the place of those officers who had resigned.
Shortly after, he begged, with much earnestness, that they would allow
Cromwell to serve that campaign.[****] And thus the Independents, though
the minority, prevailed by art and cunning over the Presbyterians, and
bestowed the whole military authority in appearance, upon Fairfax; in
reality, upon Cromwell.
* Rush. vol. vii. p. 8, 15.
** Whitlocke, p. 118. Rush. vol. vii. p. 7.
*** Whitlocke, p. 133.
**** Clarendon, vol. v. p. 629, 630. Whitlocke, p. 141.
Fairfax was a person equally eminent for courage and for humanity; and
though strongly infected with prejudices, or principles derived from
religious and party zeal, he seems never, in the course of his public
conduct, to have been diverted by private interest or ambition from
adhering strictly to these principles. Sincere in his professions,
disinterested in his views, open in his conduct, he had formed one of
the most shining characters of the age, had not the extreme narrowness
of his genius in every thing but in war, and his embarrassed and
confused elocution on every occasion but when he gave orders, diminished
the lustre of his merit, and rendered the part which he acted, even when
vested with the supreme command, but secondary and subordinate.
Cromwell, by whose sagacity and insinuation Fairfax was entirely
governed, is one of the most eminent and most singular personages that
occurs in history: the strokes of his character are as open and strongly
marked, as the schemes of his conduct were, during the time, dark
and impenetrable. His extensive capacity enabled him to form the most
enlarged projects: his enterprising genius was not dismayed with
the boldest and most dangerous. Carried by his natural temper to
magnanimity, to grandeur, and to an imperious and domineering policy, he
yet knew, when necessary, to employ the most profound dissimulation,
the most oblique and refined artifice, the semblance of the greatest
moderation and simplicity. A friend to justice, though his public
conduct was one continued violation of it; devoted to religion, though
he perpetually employed it as the instrument of his ambition; he was
engaged in crimes from the prospect of sovereign power, a temptation
which is in general irresistible to human nature. And by using well that
authority which he had attained by fraud and violence, he has lessened,
if not overpowered, our detestation of his enormities, by our admiration
of his success and of his genius.
During this important transaction of the self-denying ordinance, the
negotiations for peace were likewise carried on, though with small hopes
of success. The king having sent two messages, one from Evesham,[*]
another from Tavistoke,[**] desiring a treaty, the parliament despatched
commissioners to Oxford with proposals, as high as if they had obtained
a complete victory.[***]
* 4th of July, 1644.
** 8th of Sept 1644.
*** Dugdale, p. 737. Rush. vol. vi. p 850.
The advantages gained during the campaign and the great distresses of
the royalists, had much elevated their hopes; and they were resolved to
repose no trust in men inflamed with the highest animosity against them,
and who, were they possessed of power, were fully authorized by law to
punish all their opponents as rebels and traitors.
The king, when he considered the proposals, and the disposition of the
parliament, could not expect any accommodation, and had no prospect but
of war, or of total submission and subjection: yet, in order to satisfy
his own party, who were impatient for peace, he agreed to send the duke
of Richmond and earl of Southampton with an answer to the proposals
of the parliament, and at the same time to desire a treaty upon their
mutual demands and pretensions.[*] It now became necessary for him to
retract his former declaration, that the two houses at Westminster were
not a free parliament; and accordingly he was induced, though with
great reluctance, to give them, in his answer, the appellation of the
parliament of England.[**] But it appeared afterwards, by a letter which
he wrote to the queen, and of which a copy was taken at Naseby, that
he secretly entered an explanatory protest in his council book; and he
pretended, that though he had called them the parliament, he had not
thereby acknowledged them for such.[***] This subtlety, which has been
frequently objected to Charles, is the most noted of those very few
instances from which the enemies of this prince have endeavored to
load him with the imputation of insincerity; and have inferred that
the parliament could repose no confidence in his professions and
declarations, not even in his laws and statutes. There is, however, it
must be confessed, a difference universally avowed between simply giving
to men the appellation which they assume, and the formal acknowledgment
of their title to it; nor is any thing more common and familiar in all
public transactions.
* Whitlocke, p. 110.
** Whitlocke, p. 111 Dugdale, p. 748.
*** His words are, "As for my calling those at London a
parliament, I shall refer thee to Digby for particular
satisfaction. This in general: if there had been but two
besides myself of my opinion, I had not done it; and the
argument that prevailed with me was, that the calling did no
ways acknowledge them to be a parliament; upon which
condition and construction I did it, and no otherwise; and
accordingly it is registered in the council books, with the
council's unanimous approbation." The King's Cabinet opened.
Rush. vol. i. p. 943.
The time and place of treaty being settled, sixteen commissioners from
the king met at Uxbridge with twelve authorized by the parliament,
attended by the Scottish commissioners. It was agreed, that the Scottish
and parliamentary commissioners should give in their demands with regard
to three important articles, religion, the militia, and Ireland; and
that these should be successively discussed in conference with the
king's commissioners.[*] It was soon found impracticable to come to any
agreement with regard to any of these articles.
In the summer of 1643, while the negotiations were carried on with
Scotland, the parliament had summoned an assembly at Westminster,
consisting of one hundred and twenty-one divines and thirty laymen,
celebrated in their party for piety and learning. By their advice,
alterations were made in the thirty-nine articles, or in the
metaphysical doctrines of the church; and what was of greater
importance, the liturgy was entirely abolished, and in its stead a new
directory for worship was established; by which, suitably to the spirit
of the Puritans, the utmost liberty both in praying and preaching was
indulged to the public teachers. By the solemn league and covenant,
episcopacy was abjured, as destructive of all true piety; and a national
engagement, attended with every circumstance that could render a promise
sacred and obligatory, was entered into with the Scots, never to
suffer its readmission. All these measures showed little spirit of
accommodation in the parliament; and the king's commissioners were not
surprised to find the establishment of presbytery and the directory
positively demanded, together with the subscription of the covenant,
both by the king and kingdom.[**]
* Whitlocke, p. 121. Dugdale, p. 758.
** Such love of contradiction prevailed in the parliament,
that they had converted Christmas, which with the churchmen
was a great festival, into a solemn fast and humiliation;
"in order," as they said, "that it might call to remembrance
our sins and the sins of our forefathers, who, pretending to
celebrate the memory of Christ, have turned this feast into
an extreme forgetfulness of him, by giving liberty to carnal
and sensual delights." Rush. vol. vi. p. 817. It is
remarkable, that as the parliament abolished all holydays,
and severely prohibited all amusement on the Sabbath; and
even burned, by the hands of the hangman, the king's Book of
Sports; the nation found that there was no time left for
relaxation or diversion. Upon application, therefore, of the
servants and apprentices, the parliament appointed the
second Tuesday of every month for play and recreation. Rush.
vol. vii. p. 460. Whitlocke, p. 247. But these institutions
they found great difficulty to execute: and the people were
resolved to be merry when they themselves pleased, not when
the parliament should prescribe it to them. The keeping of
Christmas holydays was long a great mark of malignancy, and
very severely censured by the commons. Whitlocke, p. 286.
Even minced pies, which custom had made a Christmas dish
among the churchmen, was regarded, during that season, as a
profane and superstitious viand by the sectaries; though at
other times it agreed very well with their stomachs. In the
parliamentary ordinance, too, for the observance of the
Sabbath, they inserted a clause for the taking down of
maypoles, which they called a heathenish vanity. Since we
are upon this subject, it may not be amiss to mention that,
besides setting apart Sunday for the ordinances, as they
called them, the godly had regular meetings on the
Thursdays, for resolving cases of conscience, and conferring
about their progress in grace. What they were chiefly
anxious about, was the fixing the precise moment of their
conversion or new birth; and whoever could not ascertain so
difficult a point of calculation, could not pretend to any
title to saintship. The profane scholars at Oxford, after
the parliament became masters of that town, gave to the
house in which the zealots assembled the denomination of
Sernple Shop: the zealots, in their turn, insulted the
scholars and professors; and, intruding into the place of
lectures, declaimed against human learning, and challenged
the most knowing of them to prove that their calling was
from Christ. See Wood's Fasti Oxonienses, p. 740.
Had Charles been of a disposition to neglect all theological
controversy, he yet had been obliged, in good policy, to adhere to
episcopal jurisdiction; not only because it was favorable to monarchy,
but because all its adherents were passionately devoted to it; and to
abandon them, in what they regarded as so important an article, was
forever to relinquish their friendship and assistance. But Charles had
never attained such enlarged principles. He deemed bishops essential to
the very being of a Christian church; and he thought himself bound, by
more sacred ties than those of policy, or even of honor, to the support
of that order. His concessions, therefore, on this head, he judged
sufficient, when he agreed that an indulgence should be given to tender
consciences with regard to ceremonies; that the bishops should exercise
no act of jurisdiction or ordination without the consent and counsel of
such presbyters as should be chosen by the clergy of each diocese; that
they should reside constantly in their diocese, and be bound to
preach every Sunday; that pluralities be abolished; that abuses in
ecclesiastical courts be redressed; and that a hundred thousand pounds
be levied on the bishops' estates and the chapter lands, for payment of
debts contracted by the parliament.[*]
* Dugdale, p. 779, 780.
These concessions, though considerable gave no satisfaction to the
parliamentary commissioners; and, without abating any thing of their
rigor on this head, they proceeded to their demands with regard to the
militia.
The king's partisans had all along maintained, that the fears and
jealousies of the parliament, after the securities so early and easily
given to public liberty, were either feigned or groundless; and that no
human institution could be better poised and adjusted than was now the
government of England. By the abolition of the star chamber and court of
high commission, the prerogative, they said, has lost all that coercive
power by which it had formerly suppressed or endangered liberty: by
the establishment of triennial parliaments, it can have no leisure
to acquire new powers, or guard itself, during any time, from the
inspection of that vigilant assembly: by the slender revenue of the
crown, no king can ever attain such influence as to procure a repeal
of these salutary statutes; and while the prince commands no military
force, he will in vain by violence attempt an infringement of laws so
clearly defined by means of late disputes, and so passionately cherished
by all his subjects. In this situation, surely the nation, governed by
so virtuous a monarch, may for the present remain in tranquillity, and
try whether it be not possible, by peaceful arts, to elude that danger
with which it is pretended its liberties are still threatened.
But though the royalists insisted on these plausible topics before the
commencement of war, they were obliged to own, that the progress of
civil commotions had somewhat abated the force and evidence of this
reasoning. If the power of the militia, said the opposite party, be
intrusted to the king, it would not now be difficult for him to abuse
that authority. By the rage of intestine discord, his partisans are
inflamed into an extreme hatred against their antagonists; and have
contracted, no doubt, some prejudices against popular privileges, which,
in their apprehension, have been the source of so much disorder. Were
the arms of the state, therefore, put entirely into such hands, what
public security, it may be demanded, can be given to liberty, or what
private security to those who, in opposition to the letter of the law,
have so generously ventured their lives in its defence? In compliance
with this apprehension, Charles offered that the arms of the state
should be intrusted, during three years, to twenty commissioners,
who should be named either by common agreement between him and the
parliament, or one half by him, the other by the parliament. And
after the expiration of that term, he insisted that his constitutional
authority over the militia should again return to him.[*]
The parliamentary commissioners at first demanded, that the power of
the sword should forever be intrusted to such persons as the parliament
alone should appoint:[**] but afterwards they relaxed so far as to
require that authority only for seven years; after which it was not to
return to the king but to be settled by bill, or by common agreement
between him and his parliament.[*] The king's commissioners asked,
whether jealousies and fears were all on one side; and whether
the prince, from such violent attempts and pretensions as he had
experienced, had not at least as great reason to entertain apprehensions
for his authority, as they for their liberty? Whether there were any
equity in securing only one party, and leaving the other, during the
space of seven years, entirely at the mercy of their enemies? Whether,
if unlimited power were intrusted to the parliament during so long a
period, it would not be easy for them to frame the subsequent bill in
the manner most agreeable to themselves, and keep forever possession
of the sword, as well as of every article of civil power and
jurisdiction.[****]
The truth is, after the commencement of war, it was very difficult, if
not impossible, to find security for both parties, especially for that
of the parliament. Amidst such violent animosities, power alone could
insure safety; and the power of one side was necessarily attended with
danger to the other. Few or no instances occur in history of an equal,
peaceful, and durable accommodation that has been concluded between two
factions which had been inflamed into civil war.
With regard to Ireland, there were no greater hopes of agreement between
the parties. The parliament demanded, that the truce with the rebels
should be declared null; that the management of the war should be
given over entirely to the parliament; and that, after the conquest of
Ireland, the nomination of the lord lieutenant and of the judges, or in
other words the sovereignty of that kingdom, should likewise remain in
their hands.[v]
* Dugdale, p. 798.
** Dugdale, p. 791.
*** Dugdale, p. 820.
**** Dugdale, p. 877.
v Dugdale, p. 826, 827
What rendered an accommodation more desperate was, that the demands
on these three heads, however exorbitant, were acknowledged, by the
parliamentary commissioners, to be nothing but preliminaries. After all
these were granted, it would be necessary to proceed to the discussion
of those other demands, still more exorbitant, which a little before
had been transmitted to the king at Oxford. Such ignominious terms were
there insisted on, that worse could scarcely be demanded, were Charles
totally vanquished, a prisoner, and in chains. The king was required to
attaint and except from a general pardon forty of the most considerable
of his English subjects, and nineteen of his Scottish, together with
all Popish recusants in both kingdoms who had borne arms for him. It was
insisted that forty-eight more, with all the members who had sitten in
either house at Oxford, all lawyers and divines who had embraced the
king's party, should be rendered incapable of any office, be forbidden
the exercise of their profession, be prohibited from coming within
the verge of the court, and forfeit the third of their estates to the
parliament. It was required that whoever had borne arms for the king,
should forfeit the tenth of their estates; or, if that did not suffice,
the sixth, for the payment of public debts. As if royal authority were
not sufficiently annihilated by such terms, it was demanded that the
court of wards should be abolished; that all the considerable officers
of the crown, and all the judges, should be appointed by parliament;
and that the right of peace and war should not be exercised without the
consent of that assembly.[*]
* Rush. vol. vi. p. 850. Dugdale, p. 737.
The Presbyterians, it must be confessed, after insisting on such
conditions, differed only in words from the Independents, who required
the establishment of a pure republic. When the debates had been carried
on to no purpose during twenty days among the commissioners, they
separated, and returned; those of the king to Oxford, those of the
parliament to London.
A little before the commencement of this fruitless treaty, a deed was
executed by the parliament, which proved their determined resolution to
yield nothing, but to proceed in the same violent and imperious manner
with which they had at first entered on these dangerous enterprises.
Archbishop Laud, the most favored minister of the king, was brought to
the scaffold; and in this instance the public might see, that popular
assemblies, as, by their very number, they are in a great measure
exempt from the restraint of shame, so when they also overleap the
bounds of law, naturally break out into acts of the greatest tyranny and
injustice.
From the time that Laud had been committed, the house of commons,
engaged in enterprises of greater moment, had found no leisure to finish
his impeachment, and he had patiently endured so long an imprisonment,
without being brought to any trial. After the union with Scotland, the
bigoted prejudices of that nation revived the like spirit in England;
and the sectaries resolved to gratify their vengeance in the punishment
of this prelate, who had so long, by his authority, and by the execution
of penal laws, kept their zealous spirit under confinement. He was
accused of high treason, in endeavoring to subvert the fundamental laws,
and of other high crimes and misdemeanors. The same illegality of an
accumulative crime and a constructive evidence which appeared in the
case of Strafford, the same violence and iniquity in conducting the
trial, are conspicuous throughout the whole course of this prosecution.
The groundless charge of Popery, though belied by his whole life and
conduct, was continually urged against the prisoner; and every error
rendered unpardonable by this imputation, which was supposed to imply
the height of all enormities. "This man, my lords," said Serjeant Wilde,
concluding his long speech against him, "is like Naaman the Syrian; a
great man, but a leper."[*]
We shall not enter into a detail of this matter, which at present seems
to admit of little controversy. It suffices to say, that after a long
trial, and the examination of above a hundred and fifty witnesses, the
commons found so little likelihood of obtaining a judicial sentence
against Laud, that they were obliged to have recourse to their
legislative authority, and to pass an ordinance for taking away the life
of this aged prelate. Notwithstanding the low condition into which the
house of peers was fallen, there appeared some intention of rejecting
this ordinance; and the popular leaders were again obliged to apply to
the multitude, and to extinguish, by threats of new tumults, the small
remains of liberty possessed by the upper house. Seven peers alone voted
in this important question. The rest, either from shame or fear, took
care to absent themselves.[*]
* Rush. vol. vi. p. 830.
** Warwick, p. 169.
Laud, who had behaved during his trial with spirit and vigor of genius,
sunk not under the horrors of his execution but though he had usually
professed himself apprehensive of a violent death, he found all his
fears to be dissipated before that superior courage by which he was
animated. "No one," said he, "can be more willing to send me out of
life, than I am desirous to go," Even upon the scaffold, and during
the intervals of his prayers, he was harassed and molested by Sir John
Clotworthy, a zealot of the reigning sect, and a great leader in the
lower house: this was the time he chose for examining the principles of
the dying primate, and trepanning him into a confession, that he trusted
for his salvation to the merits of good works, not to the death of the
Redeemer.[*] Having extricated himself from these theological toils, the
archbishop laid his head on the block, and it was severed from the
body at one blow.[**] Those religious opinions for which he suffered,
contributed, no doubt, to the courage and constancy of his end. Sincere
he undoubtedly was, and, however misguided, actuated by pious motives in
all his pursuits; and it is to be regretted that a man of such spirit,
who conducted his enterprises with so much warmth and industry, had not
entertained more enlarged views, and embraced principles more favorable
to the general happiness of society.
* Rush. vol. vi. p, 838, 839.
** 12th of July, 1644.
The great and important advantage which the party gained by Strafford's
death, may in some degree palliate the iniquity of the sentence
pronounced against him: but the execution of this old, infirm prelate,
who had so long remained an inoffensive prisoner, can be ascribed to
nothing but vengeance and bigotry in those severe religionists by whom
the parliament was entirely governed. That he deserved a better fate was
not questioned by any reasonable man: the degree of his merit in
other respects was disputed. Some accused him of recommending slavish
doctrines, of promoting persecution, and of encouraging superstition;
while others thought that his conduct in these three particulars would
admit of apology and extenuation.
That the letter of the law, as much as the most flaming court sermon,
inculcates passive obedience, is apparent; and though the spirit of
a limited government seems to require, in extraordinary cases, some
mitigation of so rigorous a doctrine, it must be confessed, that the
presiding genius of the English constitution had rendered a mistake in
this particular very natural and excusable. To inflict death, at
least, on those who depart from the exact line of truth in these nice
questions, so far from being favorable to national liberty, savors
strongly of the spirit of tyranny and proscription.
Toleration had hitherto been so little the principle of any Christian
sect, that even the Catholics, the remnant of the religion professed
by their forefathers, could not obtain from the English the least
indulgence. This very house of commons, in their famous remonstrance,
took care to justify themselves, as from the highest imputation, from
any intention to relax the golden reins of discipline, as they called
them, or to grant any toleration;[*] and the enemies of the church
were so fair from the beginning, as not to lay claim to liberty of
conscience, which they called a toleration for soul-murder. They openly
challenged the superiority, and even menaced the established church with
that persecution which they afterwards exercised against her with such
severity. And if the question be considered in the view of policy,
though a sect, already formed and advanced, may, with good reason,
demand a toleration, what title had the Puritans to this indulgence, who
were just on the point of separation from the church, and whom, it might
be hoped, some wholesome and legal severities would still retain in
obedience?[**] [15]
* Nalson, vol. ii. p. 705.
** See note O, at the end of the volume.
Whatever ridicule, to a philosophical mind, may be thrown on pious
ceremonies, it must be confessed that, during a very religious age, no
institutions can be more advantageous to the rude multitude, and tend
more to mollify that fierce and gloomy spirit of devotion to which they
are subject. Even the English church, though it had retained a share of
Popish ceremonies, may justly be thought too naked and unadorned, and
still to approach too near the abstract and spiritual religion of
the Puritans. Laud and his associates, by reviving a few primitive
institutions of this nature, corrected the error of the first reformers,
and presented to the affrightened and astonished mind some sensible,
exterior observances, which might occupy it during its religious
exercises, and abate the violence of its disappointed efforts. The
thought, no longer bent on that divine and mysterious essence, so
superior to the narrow capacities of mankind, was able, by means of the
new model of devotion, to relax itself in the contemplation of pictures,
postures, vestments, buildings; and all the fine arts which minister to
religion, thereby received additional encouragement. The primate, it is
true, conducted this scheme, not with the enlarged sentiments and cool
reflection of a legislator, but with the intemperate zeal of a sectary;
and by over looking the circumstances of the times, served rather to
inflame that religious fury which he meant to repress. But this blemish
is more to be regarded as a general imputation on the whole age,
than any particular failing of Laud's; and it is sufficient for his
vindication to observe, that his errors were the most excusable of all
those which prevailed during that zealous period.