FOOTNOTES:

[1] Statistical report of lake commerce passing through canals. Col.

Chas. E. L. B. Davis, U.S.A., engineer in charge, 1907.

[2] Statistical report of lake commerce passing through canals,

published annually by the U.S. engineer officer in charge.

[3] Report of the Chief of Engineers, U.S. Army, in _Report of War

Department, U.S._ 1898, p. 3776.

GREAT MOTHER OF THE GODS, the ancient Oriental-Greek-Roman deity

commonly known as Cybele (q.v.) in Greek and Latin literature from the

time of Pindar. She was also known under many other names, some of which

were derived from famous places of worship: as Dindymene from Mt.

Dindymon, Mater Idaea from Mt. Ida, Sipylene from Mt. Sipylus, Agdistis

from Mt. Agdistis or Agdus, Mater Phrygia from the greatest stronghold

of her cult; while others were reflections of her character as a great

nature goddess: e.g. Mountain Mother, Great Mother of the Gods, Mother

of all Gods and all Men. As the great Mother deity whose worship

extended throughout Asia Minor she was known as Ma or Ammas. Cybele is

her favourite name in ancient and modern literature, while Great Mother

of the Gods, or Great Idaean Mother of the Gods (_Mater Deum Magna_,

_Mater Deum Magna Idaea_), the most frequently recurring epigraphical

title, was her ordinary official designation.

The legends agree in locating the rise of the worship of the Great

Mother in Asia Minor, in the region of loosely defined geographical

limits which comprised the Phrygian empire of prehistoric times, and was

more extensive than the Roman province of Phrygia (Diod. Sic. iii. 58;

Paus. vii. 17; Arnob. v. 5; Firm. Mat. _De error._, 3; Ovid, _Fasti_,

iv. 223 ff.; Sallust. Phil. _De diis et mundo_, 4; Jul. _Or._ v. 165

ff.). Her best-known early seats of worship were Mt. Ida, Mt. Sipylus,

Cyzicus, Sardis and Pessinus, the last-named city, in Galatia near the

borders of Roman Phrygia, finally becoming the strongest centre of the

cult. She was known to the Romans and Greeks as essentially Phrygian,

and all Phrygia was spoken of as sacred to her (Schol. Apollon. Rhod.

_Argonautica_, i. 1126). It is probable, however, that the Phrygian

race, which invaded Asia Minor from the north in the 9th century B.C.,

found a great nature goddess already universally worshipped there, and

blended her with a deity of their own. The Asiatic-Phrygian worship thus

evolved was further modified by contact with the Syrians and

Phoenicians, so that it acquired strong Semitic characteristics. The

Great Mother known to the Greeks and Romans was thus merely the Phrygian

form of the nature deity of all Asia Minor.

From Asia Minor the cult of the Great Mother spread first to Greek

territory. It found its way into Thrace at an early date, was known in

Boeotia by Pindar in the 6th century, and entered Attica near the

beginning of the 4th century (Grant Showerman, _The Great Mother of the

Gods_, _Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin_, No. 43, Madison,

1901). At Peiraeus, where it probably arrived by way of the Aegean

islands, it existed privately in a fully developed state, that is,

accompanied by the worship of Attis, at the beginning of the 4th

century, and publicly two centuries later (D. Comparetti, _Annales_,

1862, pp. 23 ff.). The Greeks from the first saw in the Great Mother a

resemblance to their own Rhea, and finally identified the two

completely, though the Asiatic peculiarities of the cult were never

universally popular with them (Showerman, p. 294). In her less Asiatic

aspect, i.e. without Attis, she was sometimes identified with Gaia and

Demeter. It was in this phase that she was worshipped in the Metroon at

Athens. In reality, the Mother Goddess appears under three aspects:

Rhea, the Homeric and Hesiodic goddess of Cretan origin; the Phrygian

Mother, with Attis; and the Greek Great Mother, a modified form of the

Phrygian Mother, to be explained as the original goddess of the

Phrygians of Europe, communicated to the Greek stock before the Phrygian

invasion of Asia Minor and consequent mingling with Asiatic stocks (cf.

Showerman, p. 252).

In 204 B.C., in obedience to the Sibylline prophecy which said that

whenever an enemy from abroad should make war on Italy he could be

expelled and conquered if the Idaean Mother were brought to Rome from

Pessinus, the cult of the Great Mother, together with her sacred symbol,

a small meteoric stone reputed to have fallen from the heavens, was

transferred to Rome and established in a temple on the Palatine (Livy

xxix. 10-14). Her identification by the Romans with Maia, Ops, Rhea,

Tellus and Ceres contributed to the establishment of her worship on a

firm footing. By the end of the Republic it had attained prominence, and

under the Empire it became one of the three most important cults in the

Roman world, the other two being those of Mithras and Isis. Epigraphic

and numismatic evidence prove it to have penetrated from Rome as a

centre to the remotest provinces (Showerman, pp. 291-293). During the

brief revival of paganism under Eugenius in A.D. 394, occurred the last

appearance of the cult in history. Besides the temple on the Palatine,

there existed minor shrines of the Great Mother near the present church

of St Peter, on the Sacra Via on the north slope of the Palatine, near

the junction of the Almo and the Tiber, south of the city (_ibid._

311-314).

In all her aspects, Roman, Greek and Oriental, the Great Mother was

characterized by essentially the same qualities. Most prominent among

them was her universal motherhood. She was the great parent of gods and

men, as well as of the lower orders of creation. "The winds, the sea,

the earth and the snowy seat of Olympus are hers, and when from her

mountains she ascends into the great heavens, the son of Cronus himself

gives way before her" (Apollon. Rhod. _Argonautica_, i. 1098). She was

known as the All-begetter, the All-nourisher, the Mother of all the

Blest. She was the great, fruitful, kindly earth itself. Especial

emphasis was placed upon her maternity over wild nature. She was called

the Mountain Mother; her sanctuaries were almost invariably upon

mountains, and frequently in caves, the name Cybele itself being by some

derived from the latter; lions were her faithful companions. Her

universal power over the natural world finds beautiful expression in

Apollonius Rhodius, _Argonautica_, i. 1140 ff. She was also a chaste and

beautiful deity. Her especial affinity with wild nature was manifested

by the orgiastic character of her worship. Her attendants, the

Corybantes, were wild, half demonic beings. Her priests, the Galli, were

eunuchs attired in female garb, with long hair fragrant with ointment.

Together with priestesses, they celebrated her rites with flutes, horns,

castanets, cymbals and tambourines, madly yelling and dancing until

their frenzied excitement found its culmination in self-scourging,

self-laceration or exhaustion. Self-emasculation sometimes accompanied

this delirium of worship on the part of candidates for the priesthood

(Showerman, pp. 234-239). The _Attis_ of Catullus (lxiii.) is a

brilliant treatment of such an episode.

Though her cult sometimes existed by itself, in its fully developed state

the worship of the Great Mother was accompanied by that of Attis (q.v.).

The cult of Attis never existed independently. Like Adonis and Aphrodite,

Baal and Astarte, &c., the two formed a duality representing the relations

of Mother Nature to the fruits of the earth. There is no positive evidence

to prove the existence of the cult publicly in this phase in Greece before

the 2nd century B.C., nor in Rome before the Empire, though it may have

existed in private (Showerman, "Was Attis at Rome under the Republic?" in

_Transactions of the American Philological Association_, vol. 31, 1900,

pp. 46-59; Cumont, s.v. "Attis," De Ruggiero's _Dizionario epigrafico_ and

Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopadie_, Supplement; Hepding, _Attis, seine

Mythen und seine Kult_, Giessen, 1903, p. 142).

The philosophers of the late Roman Empire interpreted the Attis legend

as symbolizing the relations of Mother Earth to her children the fruits.

Porphyrius says that Attis signified the flowers of spring time, and was

cut off in youth because the flower falls before the fruit (Augustine,

_De civ. Dei_, vii. 25). Maternus (_De error._ 3) interprets the love of

the Great Mother for Attis as the love of the earth for her fruits; his

emasculation as the cutting of the fruits; his death as their

preservation; and his resurrection as the sowing of the seed again.

At Rome the immediate direction of the cult of the Great Mother devolved

upon the high priest, _Archigallus_, called Attis, a high priestess,

_Sacerdos Maxima_, and its support was derived, at least in part, from a

popular contribution, the _stips_. Besides other priests, priestesses

and minor officials, such as musicians, curator, &c., there were certain

colleges connected with the administration of the cult, called

_cannophori_ (reed-bearers) and _dendrophori_ (branch-bearers). The

Quindecimvirs exercised a general supervision over this cult, as over

all other authorized cults, and it was, at least originally, under the

special patronage of a club or sodality (Showerman, pp. 269-276). Roman

citizens were at first forbidden to take part in its ceremonies, and the

ban was not removed until the time of the Empire.

The main public event in the worship of the Great Mother was the annual

festival, which took place originally on the 4th of April, and was

followed on the 5th by the Megalesia, games instituted in her honour on

the introduction of the cult. Under the Empire, from Claudius on, the

Megalesia lasted six days, April 4-10, and the original one day of the

religious festival became an annual cycle of festivals extending from

the 15th to the 27th of March, in the following order. (1) The 15th of

March, _Canna intrat_--the sacrifice of a six-year-old bull in behalf of

the mountain fields, the high priest, a priestess and the _cannophori_

officiating, the last named carrying reeds in procession in

commemoration of the exposure of the infant Attis on the reedy banks of

the stream Gallus in Phrygia. (This may have been originally a phallic

procession. Cf. Showerman, _American Journal of Philol._ xxvii. 1;

_Classical Journal_ i. 4.) (2) The 22nd of March, _Arbor intrat_--the

bearing in procession of the sacred pine, emblem of Attis'

self-mutilation, death and immortality, to the temple on the Palatine,

the symbol of the Mother's cave, by the _dendrophori_, a gild of workmen

who made the Mother, among other deities, a patron. (3) The 24th of

March, _Dies sanguinis_--a day of mourning, fasting and abstinence,

especially sexual, commemorating the sorrow of the Mother for Attis, her

abstinence from food and her chastity. The frenzied dance and

self-laceration of the priests in commemoration of Attis' deed, and the

submission to the act of consecration by candidates for the priesthood,

was a special feature of the day. The _taurobolium_ (q.v.) was often

performed on this day, on which probably took place the initiation of

mystics. (4) The 25th of March, _Hilaria_--one of the great festal days

of Rome, celebrated by all the people. All mourning was put off, and

good cheer reigned in token of the return of the sun and spring, which

was symbolized by the renewal of Attis' life. (5) The 26th of March,

_Requietio_--a day of rest and quiet. (6) The 27th of March,

_Lavatio_--the crowning ceremony of the cycle. The silver statue of the

goddess, with the sacred meteoric stone, the _Acus_, set in its head,

was borne in gorgeous procession and bathed in the Almo, the remainder

of the day being given up to rejoicing and entertainment, especially

dramatic representation of the legend of the deities of the day. Other

ceremonies, not necessarily connected with the annual festival, were the

taurobolium (q.v.), the sacrifice of a bull, and the _criobolium_

(q.v.), the sacrifice of a ram, the latter being the analogue of the

former, instituted for the purpose of giving Attis special recognition.

The baptism of blood, which was the feature of these ceremonies, was

regarded as purifying and regenerating (Showerman, _Great Mother_, pp.

277-284).

The Great Mother figures in the art of all periods both in Asia and

Europe, but is especially prominent in the art of the Empire. No work of

the first class, however, was inspired by her. She appears on coins, in

painting and in all forms of sculpture, usually with mural crown and

veil, well draped, seated on a throne, and accompanied by two lions.

Other attributes which often appear are the patera, tympanum, cymbals,

sceptre, garlands and fruits. Attis and his attributes, the pine,

Phrygian cap, pedum, syrinx and torch, also appear. The Cybele of

Formia, now at Copenhagen, is one of the most famous representations of

the goddess. The Niobe of Mt. Sipylus is really the Mother. In

literature she is the subject of frequent mention, but no work of

importance, with the exception of Catullus lxiii., is due to her

inspiration. Her importance in the history of religion is very great.

Together with Isis and Mithras, she was a great enemy, and yet a great

aid to Christianity. The gorgeous rites of her worship, its mystic

doctrine of communion with the divine through enthusiasm, its promise of

regeneration through baptism of blood in the taurobolium, were features

which attracted the masses of the people and made it a strong rival of

Christianity; and its resemblance to the new religion, however

superficial, made it, in spite of the scandalous practices which grew up

around it, a stepping-stone to Christianity when the tide set in against

paganism.

AUTHORITIES.--Grant Showerman, "The Great Mother of the Gods,"

_Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin_, No. 43; _Philology and

Literature Series_, vol. i. No. 3 (Madison, 1901); Hugo Hepding,

_Attis, seine Mythen und seine Kult_ (Giessen, 1903); Rapp, _Roscher's

Ausfuhrliches Lexicon der griechischen und romischen Mythologie s.v._

"Kybele"; Drexler, _ibid._ s.v. "Meter." See ROMAN RELIGION, GREEK

RELIGION, ATTIS, CORYBANTES; for the great "Hittite" portrayal of the

Nature Goddess at Pteria, see PTERIA. (G. Sn.)

GREAT REBELLION (1642-52), a generic name for the civil wars in England

and Scotland, which began with the raising of King Charles I.'s standard

at Nottingham on the 22nd of August 1642, and ended with the surrender

of Dunottar Castle to the Parliament's troops in May 1652. It is usual

to classify these wars into the First Civil War of 1642-46, and the

Second Civil War of 1648-52. During most of this time another civil war

was raging in Ireland. Its incidents had little or no connexion with

those of the Great Rebellion, but its results influenced the struggle in

England to a considerable extent.

1. _First Civil War (1642-46)._--It is impossible rightly to understand

the events of this most national of all English wars without some

knowledge of the motive forces on both sides. On the side of the king

were enlisted the deep-seated loyalty which was the result of two

centuries of effective royal protection, the pure cavalier spirit

foreshadowing the courtier era of Charles II., but still strongly tinged

with the old feudal indiscipline, the militarism of an expert soldier

nobility, well represented by Prince Rupert, and lastly a widespread

distrust of extreme Puritanism, which appeared unreasonable to Lord

Falkland and other philosophic statesmen and intolerable to every other

class of Royalists. The foot of the Royal armies was animated in the

main by the first and last of these motives; in the eyes of the sturdy

rustics who followed their squires to the war the enemy were rebels and

fanatics. To the cavalry, which was composed largely of the higher

social orders, the rebels were, in addition, bourgeois, while the

soldiers of fortune from the German wars felt all the regular's contempt

for citizen militia. Thus in the first episodes of the First Civil War

moral superiority tended to be on the side of the king. On the other

side, the causes of the quarrel were primarily and apparently political,

ultimately and really religious, and thus the elements of resistance in

the Parliament and the nation were at first confused, and, later, strong

and direct. Democracy, moderate republicanism and the simple desire for

constitutional guarantees could hardly make head of themselves against

the various forces of royalism, for the most moderate men of either

party were sufficiently in sympathy to admit compromise. But the

backbone of resistance was the Puritan element, and this waging war at

first with the rest on the political issue soon (as the Royalists

anticipated) brought the religious issue to the front. The Presbyterian

system, even more rigid than that of Laud and the bishops--whom no man

on either side supported save Charles himself--was destined to be

supplanted by the Independents and their ideal of free conscience, but

for a generation before the war broke out it had disciplined and trained

the middle classes of the nation (who furnished the bulk of the rebel

infantry, and later of the cavalry also) to centre their whole

will-power on the attainment of their ideals. The ideals changed during

the struggle, but not the capacity for striving for them, and the men

capable of the effort finally came to the front and imposed their ideals

on the rest by the force of their trained wills.

Material force was throughout on the side of the Parliamentary party.

They controlled the navy, the nucleus of an army which was in process of

being organized for the Irish war, and nearly all the financial

resources of the country. They had the sympathies of most of the large

towns, where the trained bands, drilled once a month, provided cadres

for new regiments. Further, by recognizing the inevitable, they gained a

start in war preparations which they never lost. The earls of Warwick,

Essex and Manchester and other nobles and gentry of their party

possessed great wealth and territorial influence. Charles, on the other

hand, although he could, by means of the "press" and the

lords-lieutenant, raise men without authority from Parliament, could not

raise taxes to support them, and was dependent on the financial support

of his chief adherents, such as the earls of Newcastle and Derby. Both

parties raised men when and where they could, each claiming that the law

was on its side--for England was already a law-abiding nation--and

acting in virtue of legal instruments. These were, on the side of the

Parliament, its own recent "Militia Ordinance"; on that of the king, the

old-fashioned "Commissions of Array." In Cornwall the Royalist leader,

Sir Ralph Hopton, indicted the enemy before the grand jury of the county

as disturbers of the peace, and had the _posse comitatus_ called out to

expel them. The local forces in fact were everywhere employed by

whichever side could, by producing valid written authority, induce them

to assemble.

2. _The Royalist and Parliamentarian Armies._--This thread of local

feeling and respect for the laws runs through the earlier operations of

both sides almost irrespective of the main principles at stake. Many a

promising scheme failed because of the reluctance of the militiamen to

serve beyond the limits of their own county, and, as the offensive lay

with the king, his cause naturally suffered far more therefrom than that

of the enemy. But the real spirit of the struggle was very different.

Anything which tended to prolong the struggle, or seemed like want of

energy and avoidance of a decision, was bitterly resented by the men of

both sides, who had their hearts in the quarrel and had not as yet

learned by the severe lesson of Edgehill that raw armies cannot bring

wars to a speedy issue. In France and Germany the prolongation of a war

meant continued employment for the soldiers, but in England "we never

encamped or entrenched ... or lay fenced with rivers or defiles. Here

were no leaguers in the field, as at the story of Nuremberg,[1] neither

had our soldiers any tents or what they call heavy baggage. 'Twas the

general maxim of the war--Where is the enemy? Let us go and fight them.

Or ... if the enemy was coming ... Why, what should be done! Draw out

into the fields and fight them." This passage from the _Memoirs of a

Cavalier_, ascribed to Defoe, though not contemporary evidence, is an

admirable summary of the character of the Civil War. Even when in the

end a regular professional army is evolved--exactly as in the case of

Napoleon's army--the original decision-compelling spirit permeated the

whole organization. From the first the professional soldiers of fortune,

be their advice good or bad, are looked upon with suspicion, and nearly

all those Englishmen who loved war for its own sake were too closely

concerned for the welfare of their country to attempt the methods of the

Thirty Years' War in England. The formal organization of both armies was

based on the Swedish model, which had become the pattern of Europe after

the victories of Gustavus Adolphus, and gave better scope for the

_moral_ of the individual than the old-fashioned Spanish and Dutch

formations in which the man in the ranks was a highly finished

automaton.

3. _Campaign of 1642._--When the king raised his standard at Nottingham

on the 22nd of August 1642, war was already in progress on a small scale

in many districts, each side endeavouring to secure, or to deny to the

enemy, fortified country-houses, territory, and above all arms and

money. Peace negotiations went on in the midst of these minor events

until there came from the Parliament an ultimatum so aggressive as to

fix the warlike purpose of the still vacillating court at Nottingham,

and, in the country at large, to convert many thousands of waverers to

active Royalism. Ere long Charles--who had hitherto had less than 1500

men--was at the head of an army which, though very deficient in arms and

equipment, was not greatly inferior in numbers or enthusiasm to that of

the Parliament. The latter (20,000 strong exclusive of detachments) was

organized during July, August and September about London, and moved

thence to Northampton under the command of Robert, earl of Essex.

At this moment the military situation was as follows. Lord Hertford in

south Wales, Sir Ralph Hopton in Cornwall, and the young earl of Derby

in Lancashire, and small parties in almost every county of the west and

the midlands, were in arms for the king. North of the Tees, the earl of

Newcastle, a great territorial magnate, was raising troops and supplies

for the king, while Queen Henrietta Maria was busy in Holland arranging

for the importation of war material and money. In Yorkshire opinion was

divided, the royal cause being strongest in York and the North Riding,

that of the Parliamentary party in the clothing towns of the West Riding

and also in the important seaport of Hull. The Yorkshire gentry made an

attempt to neutralize the county, but a local struggle soon began, and

Newcastle thereupon prepared to invade Yorkshire. The whole of the south

and east as well as parts of the midlands and the west and the important

towns of Bristol and Gloucester were on the side of the Parliament. A

small Royalist force was compelled to evacuate Oxford on the 10th of

September.

On the 13th of September the main campaign opened. The king--in order to

find recruits amongst his sympathizers and arms in the armouries of the

Derbyshire and Staffordshire trained bands, and also to be in touch with

his disciplined regiments in Ireland by way of Chester--moved westward

to Shrewsbury, Essex following suit by marching from Northampton to

Worcester. Near the last-named town a sharp cavalry engagement (Powick

Bridge) took place on the 23rd between the advanced cavalry of Essex's

army and a force under Prince Rupert which was engaged in protecting the

retirement of the Oxford detachment. The result of the fight was the

instantaneous overthrow of the rebel cavalry, and this gave the Royalist

troopers a confidence in themselves and in their brilliant leader which

was not destined to be shaken until they met Cromwell's Ironsides.

Rupert soon withdrew to Shrewsbury, where he found many Royalist

officers eager to attack Essex's new position at Worcester. But the road

to London now lay open and it was decided to take it. The intention was

not to avoid a battle, for the Royalist generals desired to fight Essex

before he grew too strong, and the temper of both sides made it

impossible to postpone the decision; in Clarendon's words, "it was

considered more counsellable to march towards London, it being morally

sure that the earl of Essex would put himself in their way," and

accordingly the army left Shrewsbury on the 12th of October, gaining two

days' start of the enemy, and moved south-east via Bridgnorth,

Birmingham and Kenilworth. This had the desired effect. Parliament,

alarmed for its own safety, sent repeated orders to Essex to find the

king and bring him to battle. Alarm gave place to determination when it

was discovered that Charles was enlisting papists and seeking foreign

aid. The militia of the home counties was called out, a second army

under the earl of Warwick was formed round the nucleus of the London

trained bands, and Essex, straining every nerve to regain touch with the

enemy, reached Kineton, where he was only 7 m. from the king's

headquarters at Edgecote, on the 22nd.

4. _Battle of Edgehill._--Rupert promptly reported the enemy's presence,

and his confidence dominated the irresolution of the king and the

caution of Lord Lindsey, the nominal commander-in-chief. Both sides had

marched widely dispersed in order to live, and the rapidity with which,

having the clearer purpose, the Royalists drew together helped

considerably to neutralize Essex's superior numbers. During the morning

of the 23rd the Royalists formed in battle order on the brow of Edgehill

facing towards Kineton. Essex, experienced soldier as he was, had

distrusted his own raw army too much to force a decision earlier in the

month, when the king was weak; he now found Charles in a strong position

with an equal force to his own 14,000, and some of his regiments were

still some miles distant. But he advanced beyond Kineton, and the enemy

promptly left their strong position and came down to the foot of the

hill, for, situated as they were, they had either to fight wherever they

could induce the enemy to engage, or to starve in the midst of hostile

garrisons. Rupert was on the right of the king's army with the greater

part of the horse, Lord Lindsey and Sir Jacob Astley in the centre with

the foot, Lord Wilmot (with whom rode the earl of Forth, the principal

military adviser of the king) with a smaller body of cavalry on the

left. In rear of the centre were the king and a small reserve. Essex's

order was similar. Rupert charged as soon as his wing was deployed, and

before the infantry of either side was ready. Taking ground to his right

front and then wheeling inwards at full speed he instantly rode down the

Parliamentary horse opposed to him. Some infantry regiments of Essex's

left centre shared the same fate as their cavalry. On the other wing

Forth and Wilmot likewise swept away all that they could see of the

enemy's cavalry, and the undisciplined Royalists of both wings pursued

the fugitives in wild disorder up to Kineton, where they were severely

handled by John Hampden's infantry brigade (which was escorting the

artillery and baggage of Essex's army). Rupert brought back only a few

rallied squadrons to the battlefield, and in the meantime affairs there

had gone badly for the king. The right and centre of the Parliamentary

foot (the left having been brought to a halt by Rupert's charge)

advanced with great resolution, and being at least as ardent as, and

much better armed than, Lindsey's men, engaged them fiercely and slowly

gained ground. Only the best regiments on either side, however,

maintained their order, and the decision of the infantry battle was

achieved mainly by a few Parliamentary squadrons. One regiment of

Essex's right wing only had been the target of Wilmot's charge, the

other two had been at the moment invisible, and, as every Royalist troop

on the ground, even the king's guards, had joined in the mad ride to

Kineton, these, Essex's life-guard, and some troops that had rallied

from the effect of Rupert's charge--amongst them Captain Oliver

Cromwell's--were the only cavalry still present. All these joined with

decisive effect in the attack on the left of the royal infantry. The

king's line was steadily rolled up from left to right, the Parliamentary

troopers captured his guns and regiment after regiment broke up. Charles

himself stood calmly in the thick of the fight, but he had not the skill

to direct it. The royal standard was taken and retaken, Lindsey and Sir

Edmund Verney, the standard-bearer, being killed. By the time that

Rupert returned both sides were incapable of further effort and

disillusioned as to the prospect of ending the war at a blow.

On the 24th Essex retired, leaving Charles to claim the victory and to

reap its results. Banbury and Oxford were reoccupied by the Royalists,

and by the 28th Charles was marching down the Thames valley on London.

Negotiations were reopened, and a peace party rapidly formed itself in

London and Westminster. Yet field fortifications sprang up around

London, and when Rupert stormed and sacked Brentford on the 12th of

November the trained bands moved out at once and took up a position at

Turnham Green, barring the king's advance. Hampden, with something of

the fire and energy of his cousin Cromwell, urged Essex to turn both

flanks of the Royal army via Acton and Kingston, but experienced

professional soldiers urged him not to trust the London men to hold

their ground while the rest manoeuvred. Hampden's advice was undoubtedly

premature. A Sedan or Worcester was not within the power of the

Parliamentarians of 1642, for, in Napoleon's words, "one only manoeuvres

around a fixed point," and the city levies at that time were certainly

not, _vis-a-vis_ Rupert's cavalry, a fixed point. As a matter of fact,

after a slight cannonade at Turnham Green on the 13th, Essex's

two-to-one numerical superiority of itself compelled the king to retire

to Reading. Turnham Green has justly been called the Valmy of the

English Civil War. Like Valmy, without being a battle, it was a victory,

and the tide of invasion came thus far, ebbed, and never returned.

5. _The Winter of 1642-43._--In the winter, while Essex lay inactive at

Windsor, Charles by degrees consolidated his position in the region of

Oxford. The city was fortified as a reduit for the whole area, and

Reading, Wallingford, Abingdon, Brill, Banbury and Marlborough

constituted a complete defensive ring which was developed by the

creation of smaller posts from time to time. In the north and west,

winter campaigns were actively carried on. "It is summer in Yorkshire,

summer in Devon, and cold winter at Windsor," said one of Essex's

critics. At the beginning of December Newcastle crossed the Tees,

defeated Hotham, the Parliamentary commander in the North Riding, then

joining hands with the hard-pressed Royalists at York, established

himself between that city and Pontefract. Lord Fairfax and his son Sir

Thomas, who commanded for the Parliament in Yorkshire, had to retire to

the district between Hull and Selby, and Newcastle was free to turn his

attention to the Puritan "clothing towns" of the West Riding--Leeds,

Halifax and Bradford. The townsmen, however, showed a determined front,

the younger Fairfax with a picked body of cavalry rode through

Newcastle's lines into the West Riding to help them, and about the end

of January 1643 the earl gave up the attempt to reduce the towns. He

continued his march southward, however, and gained ground for the king

as far as Newark, so as to be in touch with the Royalists of

Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire (who, especially about

Newark and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, were strong enough to neutralize the local

forces of the Parliament), and to prepare the way for the further

advance of the army of the north when the queen's convoy should arrive

from over-seas.

In the west Sir Ralph Hopton and his friends, having obtained a true

bill from the grand jury against the Parliamentary disturbers of the

peace, placed themselves at the head of the county militia and drove the

rebels from Cornwall, after which they raised a small force for general

service and invaded Devonshire (November 1642). Subsequently a

Parliamentary army under the earl of Stamford was withdrawn from south

Wales to engage Hopton, who had to retire into Cornwall. There, however,

the Royalist general was free to employ the militia again, and thus

reinforced he won a victory over a part of Stamford's forces at Bradock

Down near Liskeard (January 19, 1643) and resumed the offensive. About

the same time Hertford, no longer opposed by Stamford, brought over the

South Wales Royalists to Oxford, and the fortified area around that

place was widened by the capture of Cirencester on the 2nd of February.

Gloucester and Bristol were now the only important garrisons of the

Roundheads in the west. In the midlands, in spite of a Parliamentary

victory won by Sir William Brereton at Nantwich on the 28th of January,

the Royalists of Shropshire, Staffordshire and Leicestershire soon

extended their influence through Ashby-de-la-Zouch into Nottinghamshire

and joined hands with their friends at Newark. Further, around Chester a

new Royalist army was being formed under Lord Byron, and all the efforts

of Brereton and of Sir John Gell, the leading supporter of the

Parliament in Derbyshire, were required to hold their own, even before

Newcastle's army was added to the list of their enemies. Lord Brooke,

who commanded for the Parliament in Warwickshire and Staffordshire and

was looked on by many as Essex's eventual successor, was killed in

besieging Lichfield cathedral on the 2nd of March, and, though the

cathedral soon capitulated, Gell and Brereton were severely handled in

the indecisive battle of Hopton Heath near Stafford on the 19th of

March, and Prince Rupert, after an abortive raid on Bristol (March 7),

marched rapidly northward, storming Birmingham en route, and recaptured

Lichfield cathedral. He was, however, soon recalled to Oxford to take

part in the main campaign. The position of affairs for the Parliament

was perhaps at its worst in January. The Royalist successes of November

and December, the ever-present dread of foreign intervention, and the

burden of new taxation which the Parliament now found itself compelled

to impose, disheartened its supporters. Disorders broke out in London,

and, while the more determined of the rebels began thus early to think

of calling in the military assistance of the Scots, the majority were

for peace on any conditions. But soon the position improved somewhat;

Stamford in the west and Brereton and Gell in the midlands, though hard

pressed, were at any rate in arms and undefeated, Newcastle had failed

to conquer the West Riding, and Sir William Waller, who had cleared

Hampshire and Wiltshire of "malignants," entered Gloucestershire early

in March, destroyed a small Royalist force at Highnam (March 24), and

secured Bristol and Gloucester for the Parliament. Finally, some of

Charles's own intrigues opportunely coming to light, the waverers,

seeing the impossibility of plain dealing with the court, rallied again

to the party of resistance, and the series of negotiations called by the

name of the Treaty of Oxford closed in April with no more result than

those which had preceded Edgehill and Turnham Green. About this time

too, following and improving upon the example of Newcastle in the north,

Parliament ordered the formation of the celebrated "associations" or

groups of counties banded together by mutual consent for defence. The

most powerful and best organized of these was that of the eastern

counties (headquarters Cambridge), where the danger of attack from the

north was near enough to induce great energy in the preparations for

meeting it, and at the same time too distant effectively to interfere

with these preparations. Above all, the Eastern Association was from the

first guided and inspired by Colonel Cromwell.

6. _The Plan of Campaign, 1643._--The king's plan of operations for the

next campaign, which was perhaps inspired from abroad, was more

elaborate than the simple "point" of 1642. The king's army, based on the

fortified area around Oxford, was counted sufficient to use up Essex's

forces. On either hand, therefore, in Yorkshire and in the west, the

Royalist armies were to fight their way inwards towards London, after

which all three armies, converging on that place in due season, were to

cut off its supplies and its sea-borne revenue and to starve the

rebellion into surrender. The condition of this threefold advance was of

course that the enemy should not be able to defeat the armies in detail,

i.e. that he should be fixed and held in the Thames valley; this

secured, there was no purely military objection against operating in

separate armies from the circumference towards the centre. It was on the

rock of local feeling that the king's plan came to grief. Even after the

arrival of the queen and her convoy, Newcastle had to allow her to

proceed with a small force, and to remain behind with the main body,

because of Lancashire and the West Riding, and above all because the

port of Hull, in the hands of the Fairfaxes, constituted a menace that

the Royalists of the East Riding refused to ignore. Hopton's advance

too, undertaken without the Cornish levies, was checked in the action of

Sourton Down (Dartmoor) on the 25th of April, and on the same day Waller

captured Hereford. Essex had already left Windsor to undertake the siege

of Reading, the most important point in the circle of fortresses round

Oxford, which after a vain attempt at relief surrendered to him on the

26th of April. Thus the opening operations were unfavourable, not indeed

so far as to require the scheme to be abandoned, but at least delaying

the development until the campaigning season was far advanced.

7. _Victories of Hopton._--But affairs improved in May. The queen's

long-expected convoy arrived at Woodstock on the 13th. The earl of

Stamford's army, which had again entered Cornwall, was attacked in its

selected position at Stratton and practically annihilated by Hopton (May

16). This brilliant victory was due above all to Sir Bevil Grenville and

the lithe Cornishmen, who, though but 2400 against 5400 and destitute of

artillery, stormed "Stamford Hill," killed 300 of the enemy, and

captured 1700 more with all their guns, colours and baggage. Devon was

at once overrun by the victors. Essex's army, for want of material

resources, had had to be content with the capture of Reading, and a

Royalist force under Hertford and Prince Maurice (Rupert's brother)

moved out as far as Salisbury to hold out a hand to their friends in

Devonshire, while Waller, the only Parliamentary commander left in the

field in the west, had to abandon his conquests in the Severn valley to

oppose the further progress of his intimate friend and present enemy,

Hopton. Early in June Hertford and Hopton united at Chard and rapidly

moved, with some cavalry skirmishing, towards Bath, where Waller's army

lay. Avoiding the barrier of the Mendips, they moved round via Frome to

the Avon. But Waller, thus cut off from London and threatened with

investment, acted with great skill, and some days of manoeuvres and

skirmishing followed, after which Hertford and Hopton found themselves

on the north side of Bath facing Waller's entrenched position on the top

of Lansdown Hill. This position the Royalists stormed on the 5th of

July. The battle of Lansdown was a second Stratton for the Cornishmen,

but this time the enemy was of different quality and far differently

led, and they had to mourn the loss of Sir Bevil Grenville and the

greater part of their whole force. At dusk both sides stood on the flat

summit of the hill, still firing into one another with such energy as

was not yet expended, and in the night Waller drew off his men into

Bath. "We were glad they were gone," wrote a Royalist officer, "for if

they had not, I know who had within the hour." Next day Hopton was

severely injured by the explosion of a wagon containing the reserve

ammunition, and the Royalists, finding their victory profitless, moved

eastward to Devizes, closely followed by the enemy. On the 10th of July

Sir William Waller took post on Roundway Down, overlooking Devizes, and

captured a Royalist ammunition column from Oxford. On the 11th he came

down and invested Hopton's foot in Devizes itself, while the Royalist

cavalry, Hertford and Maurice with them, rode away towards Salisbury.

But although the siege was pressed with such vigour that an assault was

fixed for the evening of the 13th, the Cornishmen, Hopton directing the

defence from his bed, held out stubbornly, and on the afternoon of July

13th Prince Maurice's horsemen appeared on Roundway Down, having ridden

to Oxford, picked up reinforcements there, and returned at full speed to

save their comrades. Waller's army tried its best, but some of its

elements were of doubtful quality and the ground was all in Maurice's

favour. The battle did not last long. The combined attack of the Oxford

force from Roundway and of Hopton's men from the town practically

annihilated Waller's army. Very soon afterwards Rupert came up with

fresh Royalist forces, and the combined armies moved westward. Bristol,

the second port of the kingdom, was their objective, and in four days

from the opening of the siege it was in their hands (July 26), Waller

with the beaten remnant of his army at Bath being powerless to

intervene. The effect of this blow was felt even in Dorsetshire. Within

three weeks of the surrender Prince Maurice with a body of fast-moving

cavalry overran that county almost unopposed.

8. _Adwalton Moor._--Newcastle meanwhile had resumed operations against

the clothing towns, this time with success. The Fairfaxes had been

fighting in the West Riding since January with such troops from the Hull

region as they had been able to bring across Newcastle's lines. They and

the townsmen together were too weak for Newcastle's increasing forces,

and an attempt was made to relieve them by bringing up the Parliament's

forces in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and the Eastern

Association. But local interests prevailed again, in spite of Cromwell's

presence, and after assembling at Nottingham, the midland rebels quietly

dispersed to their several counties (June 2). The Fairfaxes were left to

their fate, and about the same time Hull itself narrowly escaped capture

by the queen's forces through the treachery of Sir John Hotham, the

governor, and his son, the commander of the Lincolnshire

Parliamentarians. The latter had been placed under arrest at the

instance of Cromwell and of Colonel Hutchinson, the governor of

Nottingham Castle; he escaped to Hull, but both father and son were

seized by the citizens and afterwards executed. More serious than an

isolated act of treachery was the far-reaching Royalist plot that had

been detected in Parliament itself, for complicity in which Lord Conway,

Edmund Waller the poet, and several members of both Houses were

arrested. The safety of Hull was of no avail for the West Riding towns,

and the Fairfaxes underwent a decisive defeat at Adwalton (Atherton)

Moor near Bradford on the 30th of June. After this, by way of

Lincolnshire, they escaped to Hull and reorganized the defence of that

place. The West Riding perforce submitted.

The queen herself with a second convoy and a small army under Henry

(Lord) Jermyn soon moved via Newark, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Lichfield and

other Royalist garrisons to Oxford, where she joined her husband on the

14th of July. But Newcastle (now a marquis) was not yet ready for his

part in the programme. The Yorkshire troops would not march on London

while the enemy was master of Hull, and by this time there was a solid

barrier between the royal army of the north and the capital. Roundway

Down and Adwalton Moor were not after all destined to be fatal, though

peace riots in London, dissensions in the Houses, and quarrels amongst

the generals were their immediate consequences. A new factor had arisen

in the war--the Eastern Association.

9. _Cromwell and the Eastern Association._--This had already intervened

to help in the siege of Reading and had sent troops to the abortive

gathering at Nottingham, besides clearing its own ground of

"malignants." From the first Cromwell was the dominant influence. Fresh

from Edgehill, he had told Hampden, "You must get men of a spirit that

is likely to go as far as gentlemen will go," not "old decayed

serving-men, tapsters and such kind of fellows to encounter gentlemen

that have honour and courage and resolution in them," and in January

1643 he had gone to his own county to "raise such men as had the fear of

God before them and made some conscience of what they did." These men,

once found, were willing, for the cause, to submit to a rigorous

training and an iron discipline such as other troops, fighting for

honour only or for profit only, could not be brought to endure.[2] The

result was soon apparent. As early as the 13th of May, Cromwell's

regiment of horse--recruited from the horse-loving yeomen of the eastern

counties--demonstrated its superiority in the field in a skirmish near

Grantham, and in the irregular fighting in Lincolnshire during June and

July (which was on the whole unfavourable to the Parliament), as

previously in pacifying the Eastern Association itself, these Puritan

troopers distinguished themselves by long and rapid marches that may

bear comparison with almost any in the history of the mounted arm. When

Cromwell's second opportunity came at Gainsborough on the 28th of July,

the "Lincolneer" horse who were under his orders were fired by the

example of Cromwell's own regiment, and Cromwell, directing the whole

with skill, and above all with energy, utterly routed the Royalist horse

and killed their general, Charles Cavendish.

In the meantime the army of Essex had been inactive. After the fall of

Reading a serious epidemic of sickness had reduced it to impotence. On

the 18th of June the Parliamentary cavalry was routed and John Hampden

mortally wounded at Chalgrove Field near Chiselhampton, and when at last

Essex, having obtained the desired reinforcements, moved against Oxford

from the Aylesbury side, he found his men demoralized by inaction, and

before the menace of Rupert's cavalry, to which he had nothing to

oppose, he withdrew to Bedfordshire (July). He made no attempt to

intercept the march of the queen's convoys, he had permitted the Oxford

army, which he should have held fast, to intervene effectually in the

midlands, the west, and the south-west, and Waller might well complain

that Essex, who still held Reading and the Chilterns, had given him

neither active nor passive support in the critical days preceding

Roundway Down. Still only a few voices were raised to demand his

removal, and he was shortly to have an opportunity of proving his skill

and devotion in a great campaign and a great battle. The centre and the

right of the three Royalist armies had for a moment (Roundway to

Bristol) united to crush Waller, but their concentration was

short-lived. Plymouth was to Hopton's men what Hull was to

Newcastle's--they would not march on London until the menace to their

homes was removed. Further, there were dissensions among the generals

which Charles was too weak to crush, and consequently the original plan

reappears--the main Royalist army to operate in the centre, Hopton's

(now Maurice's) on the right, Newcastle on the left towards London.

While waiting for the fall of Hull and Plymouth, Charles naturally

decided to make the best use of his time by reducing Gloucester, the one

great fortress of the Parliament in the west.

10. _Siege and Relief of Gloucester._--This decision quickly brought on

a crisis. While the earl of Manchester (with Cromwell as his

lieutenant-general) was appointed to head the forces of the Eastern

Association against Newcastle, and Waller was given a new army

wherewith again to engage Hopton and Maurice, the task of saving

Gloucester from the king's army fell to Essex, who was heavily

reinforced and drew his army together for action in the last days of

August. Resort was had to the press-gang to fill the ranks, recruiting

for Waller's new army was stopped, and London sent six regiments of

trained bands to the front, closing the shops so that every man should

be free to take his part in what was thought to be the supreme trial of

strength.

On the 26th, all being ready, Essex started. Through Aylesbury and round

the north side of Oxford to Stow-on-the-Wold the army moved resolutely,

not deterred by want of food and rest, or by the attacks of Rupert's and

Wilmot's horse on its flank. On the 5th of September, just as Gloucester

was at the end of its resources, the siege was suddenly raised and the

Royalists drew off to Painswick, for Essex had reached Cheltenham and

the danger was over. Then, the field armies being again face to face and

free to move, there followed a series of skilful manoeuvres in the

Severn and Avon valleys, at the end of which the Parliamentary army

gained a long start on its homeward road via Cricklade, Hungerford and

Reading. But the Royalist cavalry under Rupert, followed rapidly by

Charles and the main body from Evesham, strained every nerve to head off

Essex at Newbury, and after a sharp skirmish on Aldbourne Chase on the

18th of September succeeded in doing so. On the 19th the whole Royal

army was drawn up, facing west, with its right on Newbury and its left

on Enborne Heath. Essex's men knew that evening that they would have to

break through by force--there was no suggestion of surrender.

11. _First Battle of Newbury, September 20, 1643._--The ground was

densely intersected by hedges except in front of the Royalists' left

centre (Newbury Wash) and left (Enborne Heath), and, practically,

Essex's army was never formed in line of battle, for each unit was

thrown into the fight as it came up its own road or lane. On the left

wing, in spite of the Royalist counter-strokes, the attack had the best

of it, capturing field after field, and thus gradually gaining ground to

the front. Here Lord Falkland was killed. On the Reading road itself

Essex did not succeed in deploying on to the open ground on Newbury

Wash, but victoriously repelled the royal horse when it charged up to

the lanes and hedges held by his foot. On the extreme right of the

Parliamentary army, which stood in the open ground of Enborne Heath,

took place a famous incident. Here two of the London regiments, fresh to

war as they were, were exposed to a trial as severe as that which broke

down the veteran Spanish infantry at Rocroi in this same year. Rupert

and the Royalist horse again and again charged up to the squares of

pikes, and between each charge his guns tried to disorder the Londoners,

but it was not until the advance of the royal infantry that the trained

bands retired, slowly and in magnificent order, to the edge of the

heath. The result of it all was that Essex's army had fought its hardest

and failed to break the opposing line. But the Royalists had suffered so

heavily, and above all the valour displayed by the rebels had so

profoundly impressed them, that they were glad to give up the disputed

road and withdraw into Newbury. Essex thereupon pursued his march,

Reading was reached on the 22nd after a small rearguard skirmish at

Aldermaston, and so ended one of the most dramatic episodes of English

history.

12. _Hull and Winceby._--Meanwhile the siege of Hull had commenced. The

Eastern Association forces under Manchester promptly moved up into

Lincolnshire, the foot besieging Lynn (which surrendered on the 16th of

September) while the horse rode into the northern part of the county to

give a hand to the Fairfaxes. Fortunately the sea communications of Hull

were open. On the 18th of September part of the cavalry in Hull was

ferried over to Barton, and the rest under Sir Thomas Fairfax went by

sea to Saltfleet a few days later, the whole joining Cromwell near

Spilsby. In return the old Lord Fairfax, who remained in Hull, received

infantry reinforcements and a quantity of ammunition and stores from the

Eastern Association. On the 11th of October Cromwell and Fairfax

together won a brilliant cavalry action at Winceby, driving the

Royalist horse in confusion before them to Newark, and on the same day

Newcastle's army around Hull, which had suffered terribly from the

hardships of continuous siege work, was attacked by the garrison and so

severely handled that next day the siege was given up. Later, Manchester

retook Lincoln and Gainsborough, and thus Lincolnshire, which had been

almost entirely in Newcastle's hands before he was compelled to

undertake the siege of Hull, was added in fact as well as in name to the

Eastern Association.

Elsewhere, in the reaction after the crisis of Newbury, the war

languished. The city regiments went home, leaving Essex too weak to hold

Reading, which the Royalists reoccupied on the 3rd of October. At this

the Londoners offered to serve again, and actually took part in a minor

campaign around Newport Pagnell, which town Rupert attempted to fortify

as a menace to the Eastern Association and its communications with

London. Essex was successful in preventing this, but his London

regiments again went home, and Sir William Waller's new army in

Hampshire failed lamentably in an attempt on Basing House (November 7),

the London trained bands deserting _en bloc_. Shortly afterwards Arundel

surrendered to a force under Sir Ralph, now Lord Hopton (December 9).

13. _The "Irish Cessation" and the Solemn League and

Covenant._--Politically, these months were the turning-point of the war.

In Ireland, the king's lieutenant, by order of his master, made a truce

with the Irish rebels (Sept. 15). Charles's chief object was to set free

his army to fight in England, but it was believed universally that Irish

regiments--in plain words, papists in arms--would shortly follow. Under

these circumstances his act united against him nearly every class in

Protestant England, above all brought into the English quarrel the armed

strength of Presbyterian Scotland. Yet Charles, still trusting to

intrigue and diplomacy to keep Scotland in check, deliberately rejected

the advice of Montrose, his greatest and most faithful lieutenant, who

wished to give the Scots employment for their army at home. Only ten

days after the "Irish cessation," the Parliament at Westminster swore to

the Solemn League and Covenant, and the die was cast. It is true that

even a semblance of Presbyterian theocracy put the "Independents" on

their guard and definitely raised the question of freedom of conscience,

and that secret negotiations were opened between the Independents and

Charles on that basis, but they soon discovered that the king was merely

using them as instruments to bring about the betrayal of Aylesbury and

other small rebel posts. All parties found it convenient to interpret

the Covenant liberally for the present, and at the beginning of 1644 the

Parliamentary party showed so united a front that even Pym's death

(December 8, 1643) hardly affected its resolution to continue the

struggle.

The troops from Ireland, thus obtained at the cost of an enormous

political blunder, proved to be untrustworthy after all. Those serving

in Hopton's army were "mutinous and shrewdly infected with the

rebellious humour of England." When Waller's Londoners surprised[3] and

routed a Royalist detachment at Alton (December 13, 1643), half the

prisoners took the Covenant. Hopton had to retire, and on the 6th of

January 1644 Waller recaptured Arundel. Byron's Cheshire army was in no

better case. Newcastle's retreat from Hull and the loss of Gainsborough

had completely changed the situation in the midlands, Brereton was

joined by the younger Fairfax from Lincolnshire, and the Royalists were

severely defeated for a second time at Nantwich (January 25). As at

Alton, the majority of the prisoners (amongst them Colonel George Monk)

took the Covenant and entered the Parliamentary army. In Lancashire, as

in Cheshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, the cause

of the Parliament was in the ascendant. Resistance revived in the West

Riding towns, Lord Fairfax was again in the field in the East Riding,

and even Newark was closely besieged by Sir John Meldrum. More important

news came in from the north. The advanced guard of the Scottish army had

passed the Tweed on the 19th of January, and the marquis of Newcastle

with the remnant of his army would soon be attacked in front and rear at

once.

14. _Newark and Cheriton (March 1644)._--As in 1643, Rupert was soon on

his way to the north to retrieve the fortunes of his side. Moving by the

Welsh border, and gathering up garrisons and recruits snowball-wise as

he marched, he went first to Cheshire to give a hand to Byron, and then,

with the utmost speed, he made for Newark. On the 20th of March 1644 he

bivouacked at Bingham, and on the 21st he not only relieved Newark but

routed the besiegers' cavalry. On the 22nd Meldrum's position was so

hopeless that he capitulated on terms. But, brilliant soldier as he was,

the prince was unable to do more than raid a few Parliamentary posts

around Lincoln, after which he had to return his borrowed forces to

their various garrisons and go back to Wales--laden indeed with captured

pikes and muskets--to raise a permanent field army. But Rupert could not

be in all places at once. Newcastle was clamorous for aid. In

Lancashire, only the countess of Derby, in Lathom House, held out for

the king, and her husband pressed Rupert to go to her relief. Once, too,

the prince was ordered back to Oxford to furnish a travelling escort for

the queen, who shortly after this gave birth to her youngest child and

returned to France. The order was countermanded within a few hours, it

is true, but Charles had good reason for avoiding detachments from his

own army. On the 29th of March, Hopton had undergone a severe defeat at

Cheriton near New Alresford. In the preliminary manoeuvres and in the

opening stages of the battle the advantage lay with the Royalists, and

the earl of Forth, who was present, was satisfied with what had been

achieved and tried to break off the action. But Royalist indiscipline

ruined everything. A young cavalry colonel charged in defiance of

orders, a fresh engagement opened, and at the last moment Waller

snatched a victory out of defeat. Worse than this was the news from

Yorkshire and Scotland. Charles had at last assented to Montrose's plan

and promised him the title of marquis, but the first attempt to raise

the Royalist standard in Scotland gave no omen of its later triumphs. In

Yorkshire Sir Thomas Fairfax, advancing from Lancashire through the West

Riding, joined his father. Selby was stormed on the 11th of April, and

thereupon Newcastle, who had been manoeuvring against the Scots in

Durham, hastily drew back, sent his cavalry away, and shut himself up

with his foot in York. Two days later the Scottish general, Alexander

Leslie, Lord Leven, joined the Fairfaxes and prepared to invest that

city.

15. _Plans of Campaign for 1644._--The original plan of the

Parliamentary "Committee of Both Kingdoms," which directed the military

and civil policy of the allies after the fashion of a modern cabinet,

was to combine Essex's and Manchester's armies in an attack upon the

king's army, Aylesbury being appointed as the place of concentration.

Waller's troops were to continue to drive back Hopton and to reconquer

the west, Fairfax and the Scots to invest Newcastle's army, while in the

midlands Brereton and the Lincolnshire rebels could be counted upon to

neutralize, the one Byron, the others the Newark Royalists. But Waller,

once more deserted by his trained bands, was unable to profit by his

victory of Cheriton, and retired to Farnham. Manchester, too, was

delayed because the Eastern Association was still suffering from the

effects of Rupert's Newark exploit--Lincoln, abandoned by the rebels on

that occasion, was not reoccupied till the 6th of May. Moreover, Essex

found himself compelled to defend his conduct and motives to the

Committee of Both Kingdoms, and as usual was straitened for men and

money. But though there were grave elements of weakness on the other

side, the Royalists considered their own position to be hopeless. Prince

Maurice was engaged in the fruitless siege of Lyme Regis, Gloucester was

again a centre of activity and counterbalanced Newark, and the situation

in the north was practically desperate. Rupert himself came to Oxford

(April 25) to urge that his new army should be kept free to march to aid

Newcastle, who was now threatened--owing to the abandonment of the

enemy's original plan--by Manchester as well as Fairfax and Leven. There

was no further talk of the concentric advance of three armies on London.

The fiery prince and the methodical earl of Brentford (Forth) were at

one at least in recommending that the Oxford area with its own garrison

and a mobile force in addition should be the pivot of the field armies'

operations. Rupert, needing above all adequate time for the development

of the northern offensive, was not in favour of abandoning any of the

barriers to Essex's advance. Brentford, on the other hand, thought it

advisable to contract the lines of defence, and Charles, as usual

undecided, agreed to Rupert's scheme and executed Brentford's. Reading,

therefore, was dismantled early in May, and Abingdon given up shortly

afterwards.

16. _Cropredy Bridge._--It was now possible for the enemy to approach

Oxford, and Abingdon was no sooner evacuated than (May 26) Waller's and

Essex's armies united there--still, unfortunately for their cause, under

separate commanders. From Abingdon Essex moved direct on Oxford, Waller

towards Wantage, where he could give a hand to Massey, the energetic

governor of Gloucester. Affairs seemed so bad in the west (Maurice with

a whole army was still vainly besieging the single line of low

breastworks that constituted the fortress of Lyme) that the king

despatched Hopton to take charge of Bristol. Nor were things much better

at Oxford; the barriers of time and space and the supply area had been

deliberately given up to the enemy, and Charles was practically forced

to undertake extensive field operations with no hope of success save in

consequence of the enemy's mistakes. The enemy, as it happened, did not

disappoint him. The king, probably advised by Brentford, conducted a

skilful war of manoeuvre in the area defined by Stourbridge, Gloucester,

Abingdon and Northampton, at the end of which Essex, leaving Waller to

the secondary work, as he conceived it, of keeping the king away from

Oxford and reducing that fortress, marched off into the west with most

of the general service troops to repeat at Lyme Regis his Gloucester

exploit of 1643. At one moment, indeed, Charles (then in Bewdley) rose

to the idea of marching north to join Rupert and Newcastle, but he soon

made up his mind to return to Oxford. From Bewdley, therefore, he moved

to Buckingham--the distant threat on London producing another evanescent

citizen army drawn from six counties under Major-General Browne--and

Waller followed him closely. When the king turned upon Browne's motley

host, Waller appeared in time to avert disaster, and the two armies

worked away to the upper Cherwell. Brentford and Waller were excellent

strategists of the 17th century type, and neither would fight a pitched

battle without every chance in his favour. Eventually on the 29th of

June the Royalists were successful in a series of minor fights about

Cropredy Bridge, and the result was, in accordance with continental

custom, admitted to be an important victory, though Waller's main army

drew off unharmed. In the meantime, Essex had relieved Lyme (June 15)

and occupied Weymouth, and was preparing to go farther. The two rebel

armies were now indeed separate. Waller had been left to do as best he

could, and a worse fate was soon to overtake the cautious earl.

17. _Campaign of Marston Moor._--During these manoeuvres the northern

campaign had been fought to an issue. Rupert's courage and energy were

more likely to command success in the English Civil War than all the

conscientious caution of an Essex or a Brentford. On the 16th of May he

left Shrewsbury to fight his way through hostile country to Lancashire,

where he hoped to re-establish the Derby influence and raise new forces.

Stockport was plundered on the 25th, the besiegers of Lathom House

utterly defeated at Bolton on the 28th. Soon afterwards he received a

large reinforcement under General Goring, which included 5000 of

Newcastle's cavalry. The capture of the almost defenceless town of

Liverpool--undertaken as usual to allay local fears--did not delay

Rupert more than three or four days, and he then turned towards the

Yorkshire border with greatly augmented forces. On the 14th of June he

received a despatch from the king, the gist of which was that there was

a time-limit imposed on the northern enterprise. If York were lost or

did not need his help, Rupert was to make all haste southward via

Worcester. "If York be relieved and you beat the rebels' armies of both

kingdoms, then, but otherways not, I may possibly make a shift upon the

defensive to spin out time until you come to assist me."

Charles did manage to "spin out time." But it was of capital importance

that Rupert had to do his work upon York and the allied army in the

shortest possible time, and that, according to the despatch, there were

only two ways of saving the royal cause, "having relieved York by

beating the Scots," or marching with all speed to Worcester. Rupert's

duty, interpreted through the medium of his temperament, was clear

enough. Newcastle still held out, his men having been encouraged by a

small success on the 17th of June, and Rupert reached Knaresborough on

the 30th. At once Leven, Fairfax and Manchester broke up the siege of

York and moved out to meet him. But the prince, moving still at high

speed, rode round their right flank via Boroughbridge and Thornton

Bridge and entered York on the north side. Newcastle tried to dissuade

Rupert from fighting, but his record as a general was scarcely

convincing as to the value of his advice. Rupert curtly replied that he

had orders to fight, and the Royalists moved out towards Marston Moor

(q.v.) on the morning of July 2, 1644. The Parliamentary commanders,

fearing a fresh manoeuvre, had already begun to retire towards

Tadcaster, but as soon as it became evident that a battle was impending

they turned back. The battle of Marston Moor began about four in the

afternoon. It was the first real trial of strength between the best

elements on either side, and it ended before night with the complete

victory of the Parliamentary armies. The Royalist cause in the north

collapsed once for all, Newcastle fled to the continent, and only

Rupert, resolute as ever, extricated 6000 cavalry from the _debacle_ and

rode away whence he had come, still the dominant figure of the war.

18. _Independency._--The victory gave the Parliament entire control of

the north, but it did not lead to the definitive solution of the

political problem, and in fact, on the question of Charles's place in a

new Constitution, the victorious generals quarrelled even before York

had surrendered. Within three weeks of the battle the great army was

broken up. The Yorkshire troops proceeded to conquer the isolated

Royalist posts in their county, the Scots marched off to besiege

Newcastle-on-Tyne and to hold in check a nascent Royalist army in

Westmorland. Rupert in Lancashire they neglected entirely. Manchester

and Cromwell, already estranged, marched away into the Eastern

Association. There, for want of an enemy to fight, their army was forced

to be idle, and Cromwell and the ever-growing Independent element

quickly came to suspect their commander of lukewarmness in the cause.

Waller's army, too, was spiritless and immobile. On the 2nd of July,

despairing of the existing military system, he made to the Committee of

Both Kingdoms the first suggestion of the New Model,--"My lords," he

wrote, "till you have an army merely your own, that you may command, it

is ... impossible to do anything of importance." Browne's trained band

army was perhaps the most ill-behaved of all--once the soldiers

attempted to murder their own general. Parliament in alarm set about the

formation of a new general service force (July 12), but meantime both

Waller's and Browne's armies (at Abingdon and Reading respectively)

ignominiously collapsed by mutiny and desertion. It was evident that the

people at large, with their respect for the law and their anxiety for

their own homes, were tired of the war. Only those men--such as

Cromwell--who has set their hearts on fighting out the quarrel of

conscience, kept steadfastly to their purpose. Cromwell himself had

already decided that the king himself must be deprived of his authority,

and his supporters were equally convinced. But they were relatively few.

Even the Eastern Association trained bands had joined in the

disaffection in Waller's army, and that unfortunate general's suggestion

of a professional army, with all its dangers, indicated the only means

of enforcing a peace such as Cromwell and his friends desired. There

was this important difference, however, between Waller's idea and

Cromwell's achievement--that the professional soldiers of the New Model

were disciplined, led, and in all things inspired by "godly" officers.

Godliness, devotion to the cause, and efficiency were indeed the only

criteria Cromwell applied in choosing officers. Long before this he had

warned the Scottish major-general Lawrence Crawford that the precise

colour of a man's religious opinions mattered nothing compared with his

devotion to them, and had told the committee of Suffolk, "I had rather

have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for and

loves what he knows than that which you call a 'gentleman' and is

nothing else. I honour a gentleman that is so indeed ... but seeing it

was necessary the work must go on, better plain men than none." If "men

of honour and birth" possessed the essentials of godliness, devotion,

and capacity, Cromwell preferred them, and as a fact only seven out of

thirty-seven of the superior officers of the original New Model were not

of gentle birth.

19. _Lostwithiel._--But all this was as yet in the future. Essex's

military promenade in the west of England was the subject of immediate

interest. At first successful, this general penetrated to Plymouth,

whence, securely based as he thought, he could overrun Devon.

Unfortunately for him he was persuaded to overrun Cornwall as well. At

once the Cornishmen rose, as they had risen under Hopton, and the king

was soon on the march from the Oxford region, disregarding the armed

mobs under Waller and Browne. Their state reflected the general

languishing of the war spirit on both sides, not on one only, as Charles

discovered when he learned that Lord Wilmot, the lieutenant-general of

his horse, was in correspondence with Essex. Wilmot was of course placed

under arrest, and was replaced by the dissolute General Goring. But it

was unpleasantly evident that even gay cavaliers of the type of Wilmot

had lost the ideals for which they fought, and had come to believe that

the realm would never be at peace while Charles was king. Henceforward

it will be found that the Royalist foot, now a thoroughly professional

force, is superior in quality to the once superb cavalry, and that not

merely because its opportunities for plunder, &c., are more limited.

Materially, however, the immediate victory was undeniably with the

Royalists. After a brief period of manoeuvre, the Parliamentary army,

now far from Plymouth found itself surrounded and starving at

Lostwithiel, on the Fowey river, without hope of assistance. The horse

cut its way out through the investing circle of posts, Essex himself

escaped by sea, but Major-General Skippon, his second in command, had to

surrender with the whole of the foot on the 2nd of September. The

officers and men were allowed to go free to Portsmouth, but their arms,

guns and munitions were the spoil of the victors. There was now no

trustworthy field force in arms for the Parliament south of the Humber,

for even the Eastern Association army was distracted by its religious

differences, which had now at last come definitely to the front and

absorbed the political dispute in a wider issue. Cromwell already

proposed to abolish the peerage, the members of which were inclined to

make a hollow peace, and had ceased to pay the least respect to his

general, Manchester, whose scheme for the solution of the quarrel was an

impossible combination of Charles and Presbyterianism. Manchester for

his part sank into a state of mere obstinacy, refusing to move against

Rupert, even to besiege Newark, and actually threatened to hang Colonel

Lilburne for capturing a Royalist castle without orders.

20. _Operations of Essex's, Waller's and Manchester's Armies._--After

the success of Lostwithiel there was little to detain Charles's main

army in the extreme west, and meanwhile Banbury, a most important point

in the Oxford circle, and Basing House (near Basingstoke) were in danger

of capture. Waller, who had organized a small force of reliable troops,

had already sent cavalry into Dorsetshire with the idea of assisting

Essex, and he now came himself with reinforcements to prevent, so far as

lay in his power, the king's return to the Thames valley. Charles was

accompanied of course only by his permanent forces and by parts of

Prince Maurice's and Hopton's armies--the Cornish levies had as usual

scattered as soon as the war receded from their borders. Manchester

slowly advanced to Reading, Essex gradually reorganized his broken army

at Portsmouth, while Waller, far out to the west at Shaftesbury,

endeavored to gain the necessary time and space for a general

concentration in Wiltshire, where Charles would be far from Oxford and

Basing and, in addition, outnumbered by two to one. But the work of

rearming Essex's troops proceeded slowly for want of money, and

Manchester peevishly refused to be hurried either by his more vigorous

subordinates or by the Committee of Both Kingdoms, saying that the army

of the Eastern Association was for the guard of its own employers and

not for general service. He pleaded the renewed activity of the Newark

Royalists as his excuse, forgetting that Newark would have been in his

hands ere this had he chosen to move thither instead of lying idle for

two months. As to the higher command, things had come to such a pass

that, when the three armies at last united, a council of war, consisting

of three army commanders, several senior officers, and two civilian

delegates from the Committee, was constituted. When the vote of the

majority had determined what was to be done, Essex, as lord general of

the Parliament's first army, was to issue the necessary orders for the

whole. Under such conditions it was not likely that Waller's hopes of a

great battle at Shaftesbury would be realized. On the 8th of October he

fell back, the royal army following him step by step and finally

reaching Whitchurch on the 20th of October. Manchester arrived at

Basingstoke on the 17th, Waller on the 19th, and Essex on the 21st.

Charles had found that he could not relieve Basing (a mile or two from

Basingstoke) without risking a battle with the enemy between himself and

Oxford;[4] he therefore took the Newbury road and relieved Donnington

Castle near Newbury on the 22nd. Three days later Banbury too was

relieved by a force which could now be spared from the Oxford garrison.

But for once the council of war on the other side was for fighting a

battle, and the Parliamentary armies, their spirits revived by the

prospect of action and by the news of the fall of Newcastle and the

defeat of a sally from Newark, marched briskly. On the 26th they

appeared north of Newbury on the Oxford road. Like Essex in 1643,

Charles found himself headed off from the shelter of friendly

fortresses, but beyond this fact there is little similarity between the

two battles of Newbury, for the Royalists in the first case merely drew

a barrier across Essex's path. On the present occasion the eager

Parliamentarians made no attempt to force the king to attack them; they

were well content to attack him in his chosen position themselves,

especially as he was better off for supplies and quarters than they.

21. _Second Newbury._--The second battle of Newbury is remarkable as

being the first great manoeuvre-battle (as distinct from "pitched"

battle) of the Civil War. A preliminary reconnaissance by the

Parliamentary leaders (Essex was not present, owing to illness)

established the fact that the king's infantry held a strong line of

defence behind the Lambourn brook from Shaw (inclusive) to Donnington

(exclusive), Shaw House and adjacent buildings being held as an advanced

post. In rear of the centre, in open ground just north of Newbury, lay

the bulk of the royal cavalry. In the left rear of the main line, and

separated from it by more than a thousand yards, lay Prince Maurice's

corps at Speen, advanced troops on the high ground west of that village,

but Donnington Castle, under its energetic governor Sir John Boys,

formed a strong post covering this gap with artillery fire. The

Parliamentary leaders had no intention of flinging their men away in a

frontal attack on the line of the Lambourn, and a flank attack from the

east side could hardly succeed owing to the obstacle presented by the

confluence of the Lambourn and the Kennet, hence they decided on a wide

turning movement via Chieveley, Winterbourne and Wickham Heath, against

Prince Maurice's position--a decision which, daring and energetic as it

was, led only to a modified success, for reasons which will appear. The

flank march, out of range of the castle, was conducted with punctuality

and precision. The troops composing it were drawn from all three armies

and led by the best fighting generals, Waller, Cromwell, and Essex's

subordinates Balfour and Skippon. Manchester at Clay Hill was to stand

fast until the turning movement had developed, and to make a vigorous

holding attack on Shaw House as soon as Waller's guns were heard at

Speen. But there was no commander-in-chief to co-ordinate the movements

of the two widely separated corps, and consequently no co-operation.

Waller's attack was not unexpected, and Prince Maurice had made ready to

meet him. Yet the first rush of the rebels carried the entrenchments of

Speen Hill, and Speen itself, though stoutly defended, fell into their

hands within an hour, Essex's infantry recapturing here some of the guns

they had had to surrender at Lostwithiel. But meantime Manchester, in

spite of the entreaties of his staff, had not stirred from Clay Hill. He

had made one false attack already early in the morning, and been

severely handled, and he was aware of his own deficiencies as a general.

A year before this he would have asked for and acted upon the advice of

a capable soldier, such as Cromwell or Crawford, but now his mind was

warped by a desire for peace on any terms, and he sought only to avoid

defeat pending a happy solution of the quarrel. Those who sought to gain

peace through victory were meanwhile driving Maurice back from hedge to

hedge towards the open ground at Newbury, but every attempt to emerge

from the lanes and fields was repulsed by the royal cavalry, and indeed

by every available man and horse, for Charles's officers had gauged

Manchester's intentions, and almost stripped the front of its defenders

to stop Waller's advance. Nightfall put an end to the struggle around

Newbury, and then--too late--Manchester ordered the attack on Shaw

House. It failed completely in spite of the gallantry of his men, and

darkness being then complete it was not renewed. In its general course

the battle closely resembled that of Freiburg (q.v.), fought the same

year on the Rhine. But, if Waller's part in the battle corresponded in a

measure to Turenne's, Manchester was unequal to playing the part of

Conde, and consequently the results, in the case of the French won by

three days' hard fighting, and even then comparatively small, were in

the case of the English practically nil. During the night the royal army

quietly marched away through the gap between Waller's and Manchester's

troops. The heavy artillery and stores were left in Donnington Castle,

Charles himself with a small escort rode off to the north-west to meet

Rupert, and the main body gained Wallingford unmolested. An attempt at

pursuit was made by Waller and Cromwell with all the cavalry they could

lay hands on, but it was unsupported, for the council of war had decided

to content itself with besieging Donnington Castle. A little later,

after a brief and half-hearted attempt to move towards Oxford, it

referred to the Committee for further instructions. Within the month

Charles, having joined Rupert at Oxford and made him general of the

Royalist forces vice Brentford, reappeared in the neighbourhood of

Newbury. Donnington Castle was again relieved (November 9) under the

eyes of the Parliamentary army, which was in such a miserable condition

that even Cromwell was against fighting, and some manoeuvres followed,

in the course of which Charles relieved Basing House and the

Parliamentary armies fell back, not in the best order, to Reading. The

season for field warfare was now far spent, and the royal army retired

to enjoy good quarters and plentiful supplies around Oxford.

22. _The Self-denying Ordinance._--On the other side, the dissensions

between the generals had become flagrant and public, and it was no

longer possible for the Houses of Parliament to ignore the fact that the

army must be radically reformed. Cromwell and Waller from their places

in parliament attacked Manchester's conduct, and their attack ultimately

became, so far as Cromwell was concerned, an attack on the Lords, most

of whom held the same views as Manchester, and on the Scots, who

attempted to bring Cromwell to trial as an "incendiary." At the crisis

of their bitter controversy Cromwell suddenly proposed to stifle all

animosities by the resignation of all officers who were members of

either House, a proposal which affected himself not less than Essex and

Manchester. The first "self-denying ordinance" was moved on the 9th of

December, and provided that "no member of either house shall have or

execute any office or command ...," &c. This was not accepted by the

Lords, and in the end a second "self-denying ordinance" was agreed to

(April 3, 1645), whereby all the persons concerned were to resign, but

without prejudice to their reappointment. Simultaneously with this, the

formation of the New Model was at last definitely taken into

consideration. The last exploit of Sir William Waller, who was not

re-employed after the passing of the ordinance, was the relief of

Taunton, then besieged by General Goring's army. Cromwell served as his

lieutenant-general on this occasion, and we have Waller's own testimony

that he was in all things a wise, capable and respectful subordinate.

Under a leader of the stamp of Waller, Cromwell was well satisfied to

obey, knowing the cause to be in good hands.

23. _Decline of the Royalist Cause._--A raid of Goring's horse from the

west into Surrey and an unsuccessful attack on General Browne at

Abingdon were the chief enterprises undertaken on the side of the

Royalists during the early winter. It was no longer "summer in Devon,

summer in Yorkshire" as in January 1643. An ever-growing section of

Royalists, amongst whom Rupert himself was soon to be numbered, were for

peace; many scores of loyalist gentlemen, impoverished by the loss of

three years' rents of their estates and hopeless of ultimate victory,

were making their way to Westminster to give in their submission to the

Parliament and to pay their fines. In such circumstances the old

decision-seeking strategy was impossible. The new plan, suggested

probably by Rupert, had already been tried with strategical success in

the summer campaign of 1644. As we have seen, it consisted essentially

in using Oxford as the centre of a circle and striking out radially at

any favourable target--"manoeuvring about a fixed point," as Napoleon

called it. It was significant of the decline of the Royalist cause that

the "fixed point" had been in 1643 the king's field army, based indeed

on its great entrenched camp, Banbury-Cirencester-Reading-Oxford, but

free to move and to hold the enemy wherever met, while now it was the

entrenched camp itself, weakened by the loss or abandonment of its outer

posts, and without the power of binding the enemy if they chose to

ignore its existence, that conditioned the scope and duration of the

single remaining field army's enterprises.

24. _The New Model Ordinance._--For the present, however, Charles's

cause was crumbling more from internal weakness than from the blows of

the enemy. Fresh negotiations for peace which opened on the 29th of

January at Uxbridge (by the name of which place they are known to

history) occupied the attention of the Scots and their Presbyterian

friends, the rise of Independency and of Cromwell was a further

distraction, and over the new army and the Self-denying Ordinance the

Lords and Commons were seriously at variance. But in February a fresh

mutiny in Waller's command struck alarm into the hearts of the

disputants. The "treaty" of Uxbridge came to the same end as the treaty

of Oxford in 1643, and a settlement as to army reform was achieved on

the 15th of February. Though it was only on the 25th of March that the

second and modified form of the ordinance was agreed to by both Houses,

Sir Thomas Fairfax and Philip Skippon (who were not members of

parliament) had been approved as lord general and major-general (of the

infantry) respectively of the new army as early as the 21st of January.

The post of lieutenant-general and cavalry commander was for the moment

left vacant, but there was little doubt as to who would eventually

occupy it.