NASEBY.--END OF WAR (1645-1646).
Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends,
Bruised underneath the yoke of tyranny,
* * * *
In God’s name cheerly on, courageous friends,
To reap the harvest of perpetual peace
By this one bloody trial of sharp war.
RICH. III., v. 2, 1-16.
The army, re-modelled at Windsor, was reduced, according to the
ordinance, to a body of 21,000 men--14,000 foot, 6000 horse, 1000
dragoons. Though a smaller, it was a far more formidable force than it
had ever been before, its ranks being now almost entirely composed of
sectarians, and these either freeholders’ sons or artisans. A clause
introduced into the self-denying ordinance allowed religious men to
serve without first taking the covenant, so that the new army was in no
way bound to the Presbyterians.
♦Re-modelled army.♦ These men had taken up arms, not to earn pay, but
to win the victory of liberty of conscience. They proved no ordinary
soldiers. A severe but popular discipline banished profane language
and drunkenness from their camp. They would pass hours with their
officers reading and expounding the Bible, and were able and ready to
win converts for their doctrine by argument. A Presbyterian, appointed
chaplain to one of these regiments, found his life a ‘daily misery,’
from abhorrence of the new views of these zealots. One soldier would
argue against set forms of prayer; another against the baptism of
infants; a third would maintain the thesis that there was no need of
ordained ministers at all, since any man might be moved by the Spirit
of God to preach and pray--a doctrine as horrible to the Presbyterian
as making priests of the lowest of the people to the Levite; while all
alike would contend for liberty of conscience, including the right
of every sect to worship with its own forms, and promulgate its own
doctrines.
%FAIRFAX’ REMODELLED ARMY.%
In Oxford the new army was rather despised than feared. The Cavaliers
scoffed at “Noll Cromwell” going forth “in the might of his spirit,
with his swords and his Bibles, and all the train of his disciples,
every one of whom is as David, a man of war and a prophet.” Yet such
confidence was singularly ill founded. It was Cromwell’s men who
had overthrown the Cavaliers on Marston Moor, and now a whole army
was coming against them, fired by the same fierce enthusiasm as the
Ironsides. Fanatical as these might be in their zeal, their courage was
undoubtedly steeled by the conviction that, like the Israelites of old,
they were fighting in God’s cause, and that in such a cause victory
must come, and death was better than delaying it.[120]
Obedience--the first step to victory--was rigidly enforced. Soon after
the army left Windsor, a council of war was held upon several soldiers
for disobeying regulations, and the body of one was left hanging upon
a tree, as a warning to his comrades. The following day a proclamation
was made that it was ‘death for any to plunder.’ The man whom Charles
described as the “rebels’ new brutish general,” was Fairfax. He had
been the chief framer of the new model army. He was no self-seeker, but
a simple and straightforward patriot. Too refined to be a fanatic, he
was deeply religious. His family had fought for the Protestant cause
in the Low Countries, and he had himself seen service there as a lad.
Fearless as a lion, fire and daring were his chief characteristics at
first, but he soon showed power as an organizer, and was as vigilant as
he was collected in the field. His wife was a general’s daughter, and
cheered his soldiers by her presence in the camp. Though of delicate
health, he was as ready to face discomfort and hardships as peril.
Once, when his own regiment grumbled at being ordered to bring up the
rear instead of leading the column, he dismounted from his horse, and
himself marched on foot that whole day at its head. Lessons like these
have not to be read twice. By the self-denying ordinance Cromwell had
been displaced. But Cromwell’s name had become a talisman of victory,
and instructions were soon sent him by the committee of the two nations
to take command of a body of horse in the west (23rd April).
♦Cromwell lieutenant-general of new army.♦ Fairfax and his officers not
long afterwards petitioned the Lower House for Cromwell’s appointment
as lieutenant-general of the horse (6th June); and though the
appointment was nominally temporary, it was always renewed, and his
position, both as officer and member, soon became unassailable.
On the other hand some of the best of the king’s officers had been
killed, others displaced to make way for worse men than themselves.
Goring and Grenville, two unprincipled adventurers, commanded in the
west, and were ruining the king’s cause by their conduct towards one
another and the people.
♦Royalist decline in west.♦ Hyde and Colepepper were sent with the
Prince of Wales, now a boy of fourteen, to bring them to obedience; but
the prince’s presence only added new fuel to the fire, and between the
jealousy of the generals, the insubordination of the officers, and the
marauding habits of the soldiers, the king’s interest declined rapidly
in those parts.
%RUPERT STORMS LEICESTER.%
Early in May the king himself left Oxford for the north, and joined
Rupert near Chester, intending to take the enemy in detail, and attack
the Scots before he met the re-modelled army of Fairfax. This plan was
changed on the news that the re-modelled army was itself investing
Oxford. He now determined to march east towards the associated
counties, expecting that Fairfax would draw off his forces from Oxford
for their protection. The line of march led the army by Leicester,
which was held for the Parliament. Rupert erected a battery, and sent a
summons to the garrison to surrender. Not receiving an answer at once,
he opened fire.
♦Storming of Leicester.♦ For some hours “both sides plied each other
with cannon and musket-shot as fast as they could charge and discharge,
and so continued all day” till midnight, when a great breach was made,
and on the morning of the fourth day a general assault was ordered
on six or seven different points, and, after a terrible struggle,
the Cavaliers forced their way into the town, falling three to one,
according to their own calculation. The garrison, about 1000 in number,
threw down their arms and became prisoners of war; but the townspeople
suffered dreadfully, the Royalists at their first entrance putting
many to the sword, and plundering churches, hospitals, Royalists and
Roundheads indiscriminately.[121] Charles was so much elated by this
success that, a few days after the storming of Leicester, he wrote to
the queen: “I may, without being too much sanguine, affirm that since
the rebellion my affairs were never in so fair and hopeful a way.”
%FAIRFAX ATTACKS NASEBY.%
Rupert was still in favour of one of the bolder courses, of marching
either east against the associated counties, or northwards on the
Scots; but Charles was persuaded to turn south and relieve Oxford,
which he believed was still closely invested. He was grievously
misinformed. On hearing of the fate of Leicester, Fairfax had raised
the siege, and was now marching north to offer the king battle. On
reaching Kislingbury, within five miles of the Royalist quarters, which
were on Borough Hill, outside Daventry (12th June), he learnt from some
stragglers that the enemy were in complete ignorance of his movements,
the king out hunting, the soldiers in no order, the horses at grass.
Yet all that night the careful general rode round his outposts in the
rain, half expecting the Royalists would attempt a surprise on hearing
of his presence. But at three in the morning he saw a blaze on Borough
Hill; the Royalists had fired the huts they had made of the furze then
covering the hill, and could be seen riding fast away to the north.
The unexpected arrival of the enemy had, in fact, determined Charles
to return to Leicester, and there recruit his army before risking a
battle. Fairfax was holding a council of war at six in the morning,
when Cromwell, just made lieutenant-general of the horse, came in from
the associated counties, bringing with him a troop of six hundred horse
and dragoons. The soldiers greeted Cromwell’s arrival with huzzas; the
generals soon settled their plans; the king was pursued; and that same
evening (13th June) a body of horse under Ireton beat up the Royalist
rear at Naseby, taking several prisoners. The fugitives carried the
news that night to the main body, who had advanced some seven miles
to Harborough.
♦Charles holds a council of war.♦ The king himself was lodged at
Lubenham Hall, a mile or two west of Harborough, to which town he rode
at once, and summoned a council of war, ‘resting in a chair in a low
room,’ till his officers were roused from their beds, and collected
from their various quarters. Of the council, some proposed to wait
for reinforcements expected from the west, but the majority agreed
with Rupert that the insult was too much to be endured; that, as the
Roundheads pleased to follow, they would turn and fight, not doubting
they would defeat the psalm-singing saints, who had cast off their
natural leaders.
%NASEBY FIELD.%
Between Sibbertoft and Naseby the country rises and falls in a
succession of rounded undulating hills. Both villages stand high; the
lowest depression between the two is a piece of marshy land, now called
Broad Moor. From Broad Moor the ground rises rapidly at first to the
south; it is then broken by smaller hollows, and then continues to rise
more gradually to the village of Naseby. This country, now covered
with trees, hedges, cornfields, and meadows, on that morning of the
14th of June lay still in nature’s keeping, for the most part an open
pasture-ground, scattered over with furze-bushes. Patches of corn-land
were discernible here and there, but the ground was mainly unenclosed,
as in fact it remained till within the last half-century.
Fairfax, who early in the morning saw large bodies of horse moving on
a hill a little south of Harborough, drew up his army on the brow of
Mill Hill, which immediately slopes down into Broad Moor. Cromwell
and the Ironsides occupied the ground on the right, flanked by Naseby
rabbit-warren. Fairfax himself commanded the main body. The left wing,
led by Ireton, was composed of horse, with some dragoons on foot, who
were set to line the one hedge on the field which then, as now, marked
the boundary line of the parishes of Naseby and Sulby. The baggage was
left behind at Naseby, nearly two miles in the rear. The word for the
day was passed along the ranks as “God is our strength.”
%BATTLE OF NASEBY.%
♦Battle of Naseby, 14th June, 1645.♦ About ten o’clock the Royalists
were seen advancing over the Sibbertoft Hills in order of battle. The
two armies were both between 10,000 and 11,000 strong, there not being
“five hundred odds in number.” The king’s force consisted of about 5520
horse and 5300 foot. The Parliamentarians were stronger in infantry
than in horse. Fairfax, wishing to conceal from the advancing enemy
the exact form of his battle, ordered his soldiers to fall back a
hundred paces in a hollow behind the brow of Mill Hill. Rupert, who, as
usual, commanded the Royalist right wing, gathered from this movement
that the enemy was in full retreat, and thought the day already his
own. It was the work of a moment to send word back and bid Charles
come on with all speed, and then he and his Cavaliers, shouting their
word, “Queen Mary!” dashed down Dust Hill, over Broad Moor, and up
Mill Hill.
♦Charge of Rupert.♦ The dragoons who lined Sulby hedges on his
right fired hotly on him as he passed, but he charged till he drove
into Ireton’s horse, sent them flying before him, and in headlong
course galloped away hard up to Naseby hamlet. There he spied the
baggage-train, and made for it; the commander, hardly thinking the
Cavaliers could be there already, seeing, as he thought, his own
general officer approaching, asked, hat in hand, “How goes the day?”
“Will you have quarter?” was Rupert’s curt rejoinder, for it was he.
The commander declined, and Rupert, still nothing doubting his friends
were as successful as himself, wasted much precious time in an attack
on the baggage, which the guard successfully repelled.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF NASEBY 14^{th} June 1645.]
The other divisions of the king’s army hurried on after the right wing,
in slight disorder and too quickly to bring up all their artillery
with them. Their left wing was ordered to charge up the hill against
Cromwell, who commanded the Parliament’s right wing.
♦Ironsides break Royalist left.♦ But before they had time to charge
home, the Ironsides came on over rabbit-burrows and furze-bushes,
swinging down upon Broad Moor with all the impetus of the hill, broke
the Royalist horse, and sent them flying fast and far behind their
foot. Leaving some horse to prevent their rallying again, Cromwell
turned round with the remaining troops to assist his friends. The
infantry in the Parliament’s centre was in difficulties; on the first
charge of the king’s foot all, except Fairfax’ own regiment, “gave back
in disorder,” but their officers snatched the colours, and, with the
help of the reserve, soon rallied and brought them on again. Fairfax,
with animation in voice and eye, looking even taller than his wont,
rode about in the thick of the danger, cheering on his troops. His
helmet was beaten off by a sword, and the colonel of his guards, seeing
him riding bareheaded amid showering bullets, begged him to take his
own in its place. “’Tis well enough,” shortly replied the general.
Skippon behaved as bravely; though dangerously shot in the side, he
refused to leave the field--“As long as one man will stand, I will not
stir.” It was at this critical moment, when the Royalist left wing was
broken, Rupert and the right wing nowhere to be seen, that Cromwell’s
horse rode up and charged the king’s main body in flank. This decided
the day. The Royalist lines turned and fled. One regiment of Bluecoats,
indeed, rivalled the gallantry of Newcastle’s Whitecoats on Marston
Moor in resisting the efforts of the enemy to break them. Leaving
their greater number lying wounded or dead upon the ground, they too
at last were scattered before the combined charge of Cromwell and
Fairfax. The Royalist reserves of horse and foot now alone remained
undisordered. Rupert, as usual, brought back some of his Cavaliers to
the field in time to see the battle lost. His return awoke a gleam
of hope in Charles’ breast, who, placing himself at the head of his
horse-guards, prepared for a last desperate charge upon the Ironsides.
“Face about once!” he cried, “give one charge more, and recover the
day!” But a Scotchman, the Earl of Carnwath, seized his bridle and
turned his horse’s head, swearing and saying, “Will you go upon your
death?” Some one at the same moment cried out, “March to the right!” an
order which caused the whole troop to turn their backs on the enemy,
thinking they were intended to shift for themselves. In an instant all
were in full flight, and had ridden a quarter of a mile before they
could be rallied again. And then, indeed, the day was lost, for the
Royalist foot were flying, hopelessly broken by the final charge of
Cromwell and Fairfax. “They ran away,” says a Parliamentarian, “both
fronts and reserves, without standing one stroke more.”
♦King’s letters taken.♦ Off went the beaten Cavaliers after the foot,
leaving for the enemy their cannon, carriages, arms, jewels, clothes,
and a cabinet of letters belonging to the king, “supposed to be of
great consequence.” The battle had lasted only three hours when the day
was won. The chase was carried for twenty miles, through Harborough, to
within sight of Leicester; 5000 prisoners were taken; 2000 Royalists
said to be left dead on the ground.[122]
%KING’S CABINET OPENED.%
The victory was complete, but it was not the Royalists only who were
depressed by it. The Presbyterians felt their sun had set to the
Independents, and became more desirous than ever to conclude a peace
with the king. This was the king’s chance, but the cabinet of letters
foiled it. The Independents agreed the Presbyterians should have their
way if this prize proved the king was not the deceiver they had painted
him. A trial of the king’s capacity for keeping treaties was then held
before a crowd of citizens at Guildhall. The letters were read, and
amongst other passages the following, addressed to the queen:--“I give
thee power to promise in my name, to whom thou thinkest most fit,
that I will take away all the Penal Laws against Roman Catholics in
England, as soon as God shall make me able to do it; so as by their
means I have so powerful assistance as may deserve so great a favour,
and enable me to do it” (5th March, 1645).--“I must again tell thee
that most assuredly France will be the best way for transporting the
Duke of Lorraine’s army, there being divers fit and safe places of
landing for them upon the western coasts” (Oxford, 30th March, 1645).
These letters were then published by order of Parliament, who were
bound to make known to the nation the dangers that menaced it. A cry of
indignation rose on all sides against the king. Men said there could
be no doubt of his bad faith. Though he had so often declared his
intention of maintaining the Protestant religion, he was allowing his
wife to make promises to the Catholics in his name; and then, while
his commissioners were negotiating peace at Uxbridge, he had been
intriguing to bring over foreign soldiers into England. The questions
of peace, war, and religion were all to be settled by the Catholic
queen; she was to have the disposal of the destinies of England, and
the concessions at Uxbridge had been only a blind--no peace was ever
intended. To offer the repeal of the law as a price for the aid of the
English Papists was either a mockery, or a proof of the intention to
rule without Parliaments.
♦Last stage of war.♦ The war now entered on its last stage. Charles’
army was gone; all that was left were small forces, scattered about
in the west, or engaged in garrison duty. The Scots, who had been
besieging the towns near the Border, now marched right down through the
country and laid siege to Hereford, while Fairfax and Cromwell marched
west, driving before them Goring and Grenville’s beggarly troops,
with their knavish leaders--as Clarendon himself described them--and
forcing the garrison of one town to surrender after another. The king,
meanwhile, with a body of 1000 horse, was in Wales and the western
counties, flitting about from place to place in a purposeless way, and
sometimes hardly knowing where to betake himself for safety. “Whatever
you do,” writes Colepepper, still with the Prince of Wales, to Lord
Digby, “take care of the king’s person. I assure you these skipping
jaunts make my heart ache.”
Though the war had now reached its lowest ebb, the country suffered
more than ever. The adherents of the Parliament, whose estates lay
in districts hitherto Royalist, now came down upon their tenants for
rents already paid to the king’s friends. Excisemen, sent by the
Parliament into the country, compelled the people to pay taxes for
sheep, money, or provisions of which they had been robbed by the
plundering Royalists. In some cases so much suffering ensued, that the
very soldiers said “they would starve before they would be employed in
forcing the tax, or take any of it for their pay.” In the north the
Scots lived at free quarters, and their conduct made the people look
on them as freebooters rather than as friends. In the west the king’s
soldiers became mere marauders; men were captured with as much as £20
in their pockets; while their leaders cast innocent men into prison,
merely to exact a ransom.
%REDUCTION OF WEST.%
♦Clubmen in west.♦ When Fairfax and Cromwell marched into the west,
they found that in these counties the country-people had begun to
assemble in bodies, sometimes 5000 strong, to resist their oppressors,
whether they fought in the name of King or Parliament. They were called
clubmen from their arms, and carried banners, with the motto--
“If you offer to plunder our cattle,
Be assured we will give you battle.”
The clubmen, however, could not hope to control the movements of the
disciplined troops who now appeared against them. After a few fruitless
attempts at resistance they dispersed, leaving the new army to do their
work more effectually by completely suppressing the Royalists.
Charles himself, in the midst of his wanderings and reverses, was too
proud to think of leaving England or deserting his throne, or even
as yet of humbling himself to purchase peace from Presbyterians or
Independents. But his friends began to despair.
♦Rupert surrenders Bristol.♦ Rupert himself wrote to counsel peace,
and soon afterwards surrendered Bristol, the most important town in
the west. The defences had been stormed and partially carried by
Cromwell and Fairfax; and though Rupert was severely criticized by men
who believed the town might still have held out, there seems no just
ground for attributing the capture to any pusillanimity in the prince.
Charles, however, who had understood from Rupert that, if no mutiny
happened in the garrison, he would keep the place for four months, felt
deeply wounded at this apparent desertion of his cause. He sent the
prince an indignant letter, with a pass to take him beyond seas.
%DEFEAT OF MONTROSE.%
The surrender of Bristol was soon followed by a second blow. Montrose
had come down from the Highlands for another summer’s raid, in which he
gained three victories over the Covenanters (Aulderne, 4th May; Alford,
2nd July; Kilsyth, 15th August); gentlemen of the Lowlands had been
induced by his success to declare for the king; Edinburgh had opened
its gates; and the army of the Covenanters in England had been obliged
to raise the siege of Hereford, and march back northwards to meet this
new enemy. Charles, on hearing of the surrender of Bristol, started
to join Montrose, now, as he believed, about to fulfil his promises,
and enter England at the head of a Royalist army. But at Chester his
own troops were defeated and dispersed by Poyntz, a commander of the
Parliament, and, after he had escaped himself to Wales, he heard the
disastrous news that the army he sought to join no longer existed.
♦Montrose defeated at Philiphaugh (13th Sept., 1645).♦ Montrose,
surprised by Leslie at Philiphaugh, on the border, not far north of
Carlisle, had been entirely routed, and had again become a fugitive
in the Highlands. The king with difficulty now made his way first
to Newark, and afterwards to Oxford, where he was thankful to find
himself once again in safety for a time (6th Nov.). But it was evident
that Oxford would not be safe for long. Fairfax was completing his
victorious career in the west; that over, the siege of Oxford would
follow at once, and then it would not be long before the king was a
prisoner of war. Overtures of peace were the only hope, and Charles
sent one message upon the heels of another, offering to come to London
and treat in person with the Parliament (Dec. and Jan., 1645-6).
But his messages met with no friendly reception at Westminster.
♦Presbyterian decline.--Causes: I. New elections.♦ The Presbyterians,
no doubt, would before have been glad to treat, preferring even the
Royalists to the Independents; but they had now lost alike the power
and the will to treat. Two causes had weakened their power. During
the autumn months 130 new members were elected to fill the vacancies
five years had caused by death, desertion, or expulsion. Though
Presbyterians were returned in larger numbers, yet through want of
experience, or want of ability, they did not carry half so much weight
with them as the new Independent members, many of whom had already won
distinction in politics or in war. Such were Hutchinson, Ludlow, Blake
the admiral of the future, Fleetwood, Ireton who soon afterwards became
Cromwell’s son-in-law,[123] and Algernon Sidney son of the Earl of
Leicester. The officers who got their seats by these new elections did
not come under the provisions of the self-denying ordinance, so that,
while the Presbyterians had lost their commissions, the newer party won
their seats and kept their commissions as well.
%DECLINE OF PRESBYTERIANS.%
♦II. Conduct of Scots.♦ The second cause that weakened the influence
of the Presbyterians was the oppressive conduct of their friends the
Scots while quartered in the northern counties. But, supposing the
Presbyterian party had had the power to make peace of themselves, at
this time they had no longer the will. This was in consequence of a
new disclosure. A year before this Charles had authorized Ormond to
make promises to the Irish Catholics in his name.[124] The Catholics,
however, were wary, and refused to hear of a peace, or of rendering
the king any assistance, without first obtaining his consent to the
establishment of their own religion in Ireland. If Charles granted
these conditions, he knew the affection of his own party in England
would be cooled, while the hate of the Puritans would be increased
ten-thousand-fold against him. The problem that had been occupying
his mind for the last twelve months was how to obtain aid from the
Irish, and yet keep concealed from the English the terms on which it
was granted, until victory should enable him to set public opinion
at defiance. He had solved it by entrusting to Lord Herbert, Earl of
Glamorgan, the most loyal of Catholics, a secret warrant, signed by his
own hand, and sealed with his private seal, giving him power to make
terms with the Council of Kilkenny, without the privity of the Earl
of Ormond.
♦III. Glamorgan’s secret treaty with Irish.♦ Accordingly Glamorgan
concluded a secret treaty, in which it was agreed that, all penal laws
being repealed, the Roman Catholics were to be allowed the public
exercise of their religion, and to hold the revenues of all churches
of which they had gained possession since the war first broke out.
As they held far more than half the churches, this amounted to the
establishment of their religion. They, on their side, were to send
20,000 men to assist his Majesty in England (12th Aug., 1645). After
the defeat at Naseby, Charles also wrote to the pope, engaging his
royal word to fulfil whatever conditions should be agreed upon by
Glamorgan. But this treaty came to light, like Charles’ other secret
plots. In a skirmish fought in Ireland, duplicates of the whole
transaction were taken in the carriage of a Catholic archbishop, and
sent to London to the committee of the two nations (Oct., 1645).
After having reserved this secret for three months, the Independents
caused the papers to be read in Parliament and published, at the very
time when Charles was sending one message after another for a treaty
of peace (Jan.). The country was in a ferment of indignation. The
establishment of the Roman Catholic religion in a Catholic country
seems an innocent proposition, if not a just concession. To understand
the ferment it raised, it is necessary to recall the circumstances of
the time. The Thirty Years’ War was still in progress. The fire of
the Reformation was still burning in men’s hearts. They had come out
of a great struggle, in which Europe had been split into two camps.
Protestant nations had preserved their religious independence only by
resisting the armed assaults of Catholicism. The gain was worth the
struggle, but there is no struggle without some bitterness remaining,
and the Catholics were the victims of this bitterness. The hate felt by
Protestants towards Catholics was, in fact, one of the characteristics
of the age. The Protestants regarded the Catholic religion as at
once idolatrous and subversive of all good government. The gorgeous
and imposing ceremonies, standing in such striking contrast to the
simplicity of Puritan worship; the blind obedience to the pope; the
doctrine that the end justifies the means, illustrated as this had been
by the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the Gunpowder Plot, and the late
butchery in Ireland--all this had raised up in the nation’s mind such
a wall of prejudice that the Catholics, regarded as a class, were shut
out of all sympathy whatsoever. For a people with these feelings to
see, as it seemed, the fruits of the victory over Spain bartered away
by the king in return for the loan of savage and Popish troops, to be
used against the liberty of Protestant subjects, was more than could
be borne. The Royalist Hyde, in the history he wrote of the rebellion,
omitted all mention of this business with Glamorgan, which he could not
palliate. In his private correspondence he calls it “inexcusable to
justice, piety, and prudence.”
%TREATY OF GLAMORGAN.%
♦Indignation felt in the country.♦ While Charles’ friends were
disgusted with the treaty, his enemies looked upon it as another proof
of the unfathomable deceitfulness of his nature: for, “while he was
protesting before God to the Parliament, saying, ‘I will never abrogate
the laws against the Papists,’ he was underhand dealing with the Irish
rebels, and promising to repeal the laws against them; and while he
said, ‘I abhor to think of bringing foreign soldiers into the kingdom,’
he was soliciting the Duke of Lorraine, the French, the Danes, the very
Irish, for assistance.” The newspapers had their scathing criticisms.
“We are experienced,” wrote a weekly Intelligencer, “that kings often
deal like watermen: look one way and row another. What else mean those
overtures of a treaty with us, when those bloodthirsty rebels are
proffered the enjoyment of Popery! Now judge whether the king hath
any real intention of peace, when he labours to bring over 10,000 of
the Irish rebels to cut our throats here, as they have done to divers
of our brethren there!” Meantime, to save the king’s character, the
Earl of Ormond put Glamorgan at once into prison, as though he had
acted without authority. Charles again offered to come to London for a
personal treaty, declaring to the Parliament that, until Glamorgan’s
arrest, he had never heard of the negotiations (January 29th). His
words, however, found no credit at Westminster, and his warrant to
Glamorgan still remains to give the lie to his statement. Glamorgan,
who had been devoted enough not to reveal his secret instructions, was
released after a month’s imprisonment (February 1st), and continued the
negotiation. The landing of a body of Irish troops was, it seems, only
prevented by the war coming to an end before they were ready to sail.
Whether or no such a treaty would have been politic at any time in the
war, it was certainly impolitic now. The one chance now was to divide
the two parties; the arrival of Irish soldiers on such terms would
have thrown Presbyterians and Independents into one another’s arms as
brothers, while the troops themselves would have been taken at sea, or
crushed on landing, where there would have been no force to join them.
By the end of March, the royal forces, scattered over the west, were
all defeated and dispersed, or forced to take refuge in garrison towns.
Hyde and the Prince of Wales were driven down to the very extremity
of Cornwall, and had to sail from the coast (March 1st). Sir Jacob
Astley, an old gray-headed Cavalier, was the last to resist in the open
field. “Now, gentlemen,” he said, to the officers of the Parliament, on
surrendering, “you have done your work, and may go play, unless you
choose to fall out amongst yourselves” (March 22nd).
%CHARLES’ FLIGHT TO SCOTS.%
It was on the belief that his enemies would still fall out among
themselves, that Charles now grounded his hopes of restoration to his
throne. At the same time that he was courting the Presbyterians, and
proposing to come to London and treat with them in person, he was
making secret offers to the Independents to root out the Presbyterians,
offering them freedom of conscience, if they would ensure the same to
the Royalists. “I am not without hope,” he wrote about this time, “that
I shall be able to draw either the Presbyterians or Independents to
side with me for extirpating the other--that I shall be really king
again.” But the distrust he had engendered was too deep: his advances
were not met, and he soon found that, unless he made haste to get out
of Oxford before it was invested, he should fall into his enemies’
hands, without having bound them to any conditions at all.
After much consultation, it was agreed that his best plan would be
to seek a refuge in the Scottish army. M. de Montreuil, the French
ambassador, had been authorized by Cardinal Mazarin, the chief minister
of Louis XIV., to negotiate an agreement between Charles and the
Scots, and engage the faith of France for the performance of whatever
promises either side should make. Though Charles refused to agree to
take the covenant, Montreuil at first obtained some civil speeches from
the Scots’ commissioners in London, to the effect that if the king
came to them, they would receive him as their natural king, offer no
violence to his person or conscience, and endeavour to procure a happy
and well-grounded peace. But the London commissioners soon drew back,
thinking they had gone too far; while the commissioners at the Scottish
camp refused to make any such agreement, only promising to receive
the king, and demanding that he should give them satisfaction in the
question of religion, by which they meant, take the covenant, as soon
as possible.
♦Charles with Scots.♦ Upon this poor security, Charles, accompanied by
two companions, left Oxford in the guise of a servant (27th April), and
after nine days’ wanderings, arrived in safety at Kelham, near Newark,
the head-quarters of the Scots. Montreuil brought him some verbal
promise of safety and introduced him into the camp (5th May). The chief
officers affected extreme surprise at his appearance, but at the same
time great gratitude for the trust he had placed in them. “I shall
be well satisfied,” replied the king, “if you perform the conditions
upon which I have come to you.” But they corrected him when he used
the word “conditions,” saying, ‘they had never been privy to anything
of that nature; and if the king had made any treaty, it must be with
the Scottish commissioners in London, which was no concern of theirs.’
Charles’ spirits fell, and he already wished himself out of their power.
%ANGER OF INDEPENDENTS.%
When the news reached London, the Independents were furious. They
thought the king would never have taken the step without having made
up his mind to consent to the covenant, establish the Presbyterian
Church, and in return be allowed to rule subject to Presbyterian
guidance; while they, the true conquerors, would be persecuted by
Presbyterians and Royalists, their noble army be disbanded, their
noble cause--freedom of conscience--be stifled at its birth. To stave
off such an end as this, they might, no doubt, have used their army,
and appealed to force. But the Independents still aimed at a victory
within the lines of the constitution. Parliament, and not the army,
was the supreme authority; it was in the sacred name of Parliament
that they had won their victories, and they still wished to lead the
Parliament, and not to fight it. Although, therefore, inclined in the
first flush of anger to have followed the Scots and taken possession of
the king’s person by force, they contented themselves with doing all
in their power to produce a rupture between the two nations, in order
that the Commons might vote war, and they, in obedience to the supreme
authority of the nation, might lead the Ironsides to fight the hated
allies. In the newspapers, in pamphlets, in Parliament, at all times,
in all places, the Independents attacked the Scots as traitors, the
cruel oppressors of the northern counties, who designed to betray and
ruin England. The national hatred was readily excited, and, after many
debates, the Commons voted that the Scotch army was no longer required,
that it should be asked what was owing to it, and be requested to
withdraw (11th June).
%NEWCASTLE PROPOSITIONS.%
But the Scots, who had already retreated in fear as far as Newcastle,
were willing to bear any amount of reproach rather than draw down
upon themselves the Independent army. On their side, the English
Presbyterians, still the majority in the Commons, were far more anxious
to disband the dangerous sectarian army, than to batten it on the
blood of their own northern allies. The Independents could not bring
about a war, when so many were determined not to quarrel. Charles
outwardly did what he could to effect an agreement. He sent messages
to the two Houses, urging them to draw up peace propositions; ordered
the commanders of all towns and castles still held for him to surrender
(10th June); bade Montrose, who was then a wanderer in the Highlands,
to lay down his arms; and made a parade of sending orders to Ormond to
make no peace with the Irish rebels--orders which Ormond had secret
instructions to disobey (11th June).
♦Newcastle propositions.♦ Charles’ outward submission aided the efforts
of the Presbyterians, and he finally received peace propositions from
Parliament (23rd July). By these, he was required to take the covenant,
to establish the Presbyterian Church, to surrender to Parliament, for
twenty years, the command of the army, navy, and militia; to consent
that seventy-seven of his friends should be excluded from amnesty, and
that all his party should be shut out from public employment during the
pleasure of Parliament. Anxiously was Charles’ answer looked for on
both sides. If he consented, the Independents would either be obliged
to submit to Presbyterian tyranny, or begin a second civil war against
Scots, English Presbyterians, and Royalists united. If he refused, the
Presbyterians were checkmated; they could make no concession on the
Church question; on the militia question they could not get easier
terms for him against the opposition of the Independents, and dared not
offer easier terms if they got them, because they had no confidence in
his word. The possible prospect of his refusal revealed darkly looming
before them a thousand difficulties in retaining their own supremacy
over the sectarians. “The great God,” was their prayer, “soften that
man’s heart, or else he will fall in tragic miseries, and bring ruin
upon himself and us together.”
%CHARLES REJECTS PROPOSITIONS.%
The king endured a bitter trial for the next six months. He would have
made some concessions about the militia, had not his wife forbidden
him; but he could not bring himself to establish a new Presbyterian
Church in England. Some trace his reluctance on this point to a belief
that the support of the Church was even more essential to monarchical
power than the command of the militia; but this view seems to do
injustice both to his sense and his sincerity. He had too much ability
to believe the pen of the bishop could guard his throne as well as the
sword of the army. The ‘command of the militia’ had been the stake of
the war, and there was now not a militia, but an army, to command.
Secondly, a careful study of his letters induces the belief that his
religious convictions were deeper and stronger than his political
views. His political views may have been taught to him by his father
and his ministers; his religious views were taught by his father,
his ministers, and his heart. Yet it was on this very point that his
friends, both at home and abroad, most urgently pressed him to yield.
They thought that if this concession by itself did not win over the
Parliament, it would certainly win over the Scots. To keep the militia,
to yield the Church, was the command, rather than the advice, of his
wife. “By granting the militia,” she wrote, “you cut your own throat,
for then there is nothing you can refuse, no not my life even, if
they ask it; but I will take care not to fall into their hands.”[125]
Her letters were always written in the same heartless tone. She was
far less tender of her husband’s happiness, conscience, or life, than
she was of his power. If he regained his old authority, she was ready
to return and share it with him; if he lost it, she would sooner he
stayed a prisoner in England than trouble her with the presence of a
crownless fugitive. Charles, however, wrote doleful letters, pointing
out that if he did not quit the kingdom now, he might lose his last
chance of escape. These she only answered by forbidding him to think
of escape, until the Scots should have declared in plain language they
would not protect him. Poor Charles! there were two acts for which he
felt real regret, and to both of which he had been urged by his queen;
the first was, in his own words, “that base, unworthy concession about
Strafford;” the second, “that great wrong and injustice to the Church,
of taking away bishops’ votes in Parliament.” Though he sacrificed
his personal safety to her wishes, he refused to load his conscience
a third time for her satisfaction. He did, indeed, endeavour to meet
her wishes by a compromise. He proposed to her that he should let the
Presbyterian Church remain as the established Church of England for
three years, on condition that the question should then be referred
to Parliament for an ultimate decision after previous discussion by
an Assembly of Divines. This compromise was approved by Juxon, to
whom Charles submitted it as at once the keeper of his conscience and
the maintainer of the Church. But the queen treated the compromise
with scorn; she taunted him with the folly of having a conscience
which would give up a point for three years, when nothing was to be
got by it, and yet scrupled to give up the point for life to save his
kingdom. “Permettez moi de vous dire, que je crois, si je me pouvais
dispenser d’une chose que je croyais contre ma conscience pour trois
ans et pour rien, j’irais plus loin pour sauver mon royaume. Mais pour
toutes autres choses n’accordez plus rien.” Thus brow-beaten out of all
concession on the militia question, and heartlessly ridiculed out of
his attempt to meet his wife’s wishes on the Church question, Charles
in despair returned to his original intention, and sent messages to
Parliament, making no concessions, but only proposing to come to London
and treat in person (Aug., Dec.).
%SCOTS SURRENDER CHARLES.%
Though the Presbyterians were disappointed with his answer, which
was tantamount to a refusal, they still believed that, once in their
hands, they could wring the concessions from him, and then disband the
Independent army. After some haggling, the Scots secured a written
promise for £400,000, as the charge to which they had been put by the
war. A treaty was signed accordingly (Dec.). Though no mention was made
of the king, it was fully understood that the Scots were to deliver him
up, when their army evacuated Newcastle.
♦Scots surrender king.♦ As Charles had come to his enemies’ camp,
uninvited, after refusing the covenant, the only terms on which they
offered to protect him, they were not bound to let him go, still less
to fight for him; though they would have done even that, if he would
now have agreed to their offer. It was understood that if he was given
up, the English Presbyterians would restore him to the throne, on
their own terms, and disband the ‘evil army’[126] of the Independents.
It would have been perfectly justifiable in the Scots to give him up
on these terms. Not content with this they made a canny bargain. No
doubt, had they given him up without a money treaty, they would never
have been paid their arrears, and this was much to poor men. As it
was, they got their money, but more than their money’s worth of abuse.
They earned the abuse by making the terms of surrender mercenary, and
not political. The distinction may seem fine, and the judgment hard.
But there are cases where a high sense of honour can alone save men
from deep dishonour. They were now called ‘the traitor Scots,’ ‘the
Jews who sold their king,’ and as they marched out of Newcastle, which
was always Royalist in feeling, the very women were all but stoning
them (30th Jan.). Meantime, the Presbyterian commissioners escorted
the king from Newcastle to the residence assigned him at Holmby House
in Northamptonshire. On the road crowds flocked to see him. The
country people everywhere hoped that their troubles were over, that
an agreement would be made on which the army would be disbanded, and
the king return to London with honour and safety.[127] Near Nottingham
Charles met Sir Thomas Fairfax, who dismounted to kiss his hand, and
afterwards rode through the town by his side. At Holmby he received a
hearty welcome from a large concourse of gentlemen, ladies, and yeomen
(Feb. 13th). Well content with his reception, his spirits rose, and he
made no doubt he should yet get either Presbyterians or Independents
to unite with him, “to extirpate the other and make him really a king
again!”
FOOTNOTES:
[120] The spirit of the Ironsides is not wholly extinct. In 1856 the
question whether Kansas was to be a free or slave state gave rise to
a border war. John Brown, a descendant of one of the English pilgrims
who sailed to America in the “Mayflower” in 1620, formed a camp of
God-fearing Puritans, who were “earnestness incarnate.” Six of them
were his own sons. Twenty-eight of these defeated fifty-six pro-slave
borderers, and once 2000 Missourians retreated before 250 of his men.
John Brown was taken and hanged in 1859, but his story became the
marching-song in the great war of abolition (1861-1865).
[121] Sprigge (but see p. 392); King’s Tracts, 212.
[122] Rushworth; Whitelock; Clar. Hist. v., 175; Sprigge, Anglia
Rediviva; King’s Tracts, 212; Markham, Life of Lord Fairfax; Carlyle,
Letters and Speeches of Cromwell.
[123] Married Bridget Cromwell, 15th June, 1646.
[124] See p. 176.
[125] “Vous vous êtes coupé la gorge; car vous ne leur pouvez rien
refuser, pas même ma vie, s’ils vous la demandent. Mais je ne me
mettrai pas entre leurs mains.”
[126] Baillie.
[127] Ludlow, i. 162.