THE COMMONWEALTH.
Proclamation of the Prince of Wales Forbidden--Decline
of the Peerage--_Ultimus Regum_--Establishment of a
Republican Government--Abolition of the House of Lords and
the Monarchy--Council of State--The Oath Difficulty--The
Engagement--Religious Toleration--Trials of Royalists--Discontent
among the People--The Levellers--Activity of John
Lilburne--Quelling the Mutiny in Whalley's Regiment--Lockyer's
Funeral--Arrest of Lilburne--Spread of the Disaffection to
other Regiments--Suppression of the Insurrection--Cromwell
appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland--Royalist Movement
in Scotland--Charles's Son proclaimed King--The Scottish
Deputation at the Hague--Charles's Court--Assassination of Dr.
Dorislaus--Affairs in Ireland--Cromwell's Campaign--Defeat
and Death of Montrose--Cromwell in Scotland--Battle of
Dunbar--Movements of Charles--His March into England--Battle of
Worcester--Charles Escapes to France--Vigorous Government--Foreign
Difficulties--Navigation Act--War with Holland--Contest between
Parliament and the Army--Expulsion of the Rump--The Little
Parliament--Cromwell made Protector.
The king being put to death, it was necessary that the Parliament
should immediately determine what sort of government should succeed.
Had they been disposed to continue the monarchy, and receive the eldest
son of Charles, it was still necessary to take efficient means for
obtaining from him, before admitting him to the throne, a recognition
of all the rights for which they had striven with his father. The very
day, therefore, of the king's execution, the House of Commons passed
an Act, making it high treason for any one to proclaim the Prince
of Wales, or any other person, king or chief magistrate of England
or Ireland, without consent of Parliament; and copies of this were
immediately despatched to all the sheriffs, to be proclaimed in the
counties. That done, they proceeded gradually, but promptly, to develop
and complete their design of adopting a Republican form of government.
The first step was to deal with the Lords. That body, or the miserable
remnant thereof, still sat in the Upper House, and sent repeated
messages to the Commons, to which they deigned no reply. The Lords, in
fact, had become contemptible in the eyes of the whole community. They
had sunk and trembled before the genius of the Commons. Though strongly
inclined to stand by royalty, and though all their interests were
bound up with it, though they had been created by royal fiat, and made
all that they were by it, in honour, power, and estate, and though
it required no great sagacity to perceive that they must fall with
it, the king himself having repeatedly assured them that such would
be the case, they had neither the policy nor the gratitude to hold
together and maintain the fountain of their honour, nor the prescience
to perceive their case when the Crown must fall, and make a merit of
going over bodily to the conquering power. They had gone to pieces,
some holding with one side, some with the other, some vacillating
between both, changing and rechanging as the balance turned one way
or the other. What was still worse, they had discovered no talent
whatever on either side, with most rare exceptions, and these not
remarkable, even where they had adopted a side and become partisans.
Essex, Warwick, Holland, Hamilton, Newcastle, Northumberland, Ormond,
and the rest, what had they done? Fairfax and Montrose, out of the
whole body--and Montrose had personally been raised to it--had alone
won great names. Fairfax, indeed, independent of Cromwell's hand and
head, was respectable, but nothing more. The whole peerage had sunk
into contemptible eclipse before the bold and vigorous genius of the
Commoners. Without, therefore, deigning to answer their messages, on
the 5th of February they began to discuss the question as to their
retention or abolition, and the next day they voted, by a majority of
forty-four to twenty-nine, that "the House of Peers in Parliament was
useless and dangerous, and ought to be abolished; that the privilege of
peers, of being freed from arrest, should be declared null and void,
but that they might be elected knights or burgesses for the Commons."
Henry Marten moved that the word "dangerous" should be omitted, and
the word "useless" only be retained; or if the word "dangerous" were
retained, it should be only with "not" before it, for the peers were
certainly not dangerous, but pitiably useless, and they had now come to
see verified what Holles had told them, that if they would not heartily
join in saving the nation, it would be saved without them. An Act to
this effect was soon after brought in and passed.
On the day following (the 7th), the Commons proceeded to a more
important question, and voted that it had been found by experience that
the office of a king in this nation, and that to have the power thereof
in any single person, was unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous to the
liberty, safety, and public interest of the nation, and therefore that
it should be utterly abolished; and to that purpose an Act should be
forthwith prepared. This was speedily followed by a vote, on the motion
of Henry Marten, that the king's statues at the Royal Exchange and
other places should be taken down, and on the places where they stood
should be inscribed, "_Exit Tyrannus, Regum ultimus, Anno Libertatis
Angliæ restitutæ primo_, A.D. 1648, January 30" (old style). There was,
moreover, an elaborate declaration drawn up, to justify the changing
of England into a Republic, translated into Latin, French, and Dutch,
and addressed to foreign States. The custody of the new Great Seal was
entrusted to three lawyers--namely, Whitelock, Keble, and Lisle; they
were to hold it during good behaviour, and to be called Keepers of the
Liberties of England, by authority of Parliament. The King's Bench was
henceforth named the Upper Bench, and came to be called the Commons
Bench, and Oliver St. John, who had done so much to bring about this
revolution, was made Chief Justice.
The next great measure was to dissolve the Executive Council, which
had sat at Derby House, and revive it in a more extended form as
the Executive Council of State, to consist of forty-one members.
Three-fourths of these had seats in the House, and several of the
late peers--Mulgrave, Pembroke, Denbigh, Fairfax, Lisle, Grey of
Groby, Salisbury, and Grey of Werke. The chief heads of the law and
officers of the army were included. The principal names were, the
late peers already mentioned, and Whitelock, St. John, Cromwell,
Skippon, Hazelrig, Midmay, Vane, Marten, Bradshaw, Ludlow, and Colonel
Hutchinson, Governor of Nottingham. Milton, the great national poet,
was appointed its secretary, and henceforth prepared its public acts,
and employed his mighty talents in the defence of the measures of the
Republican Government.
It was necessary to have an oath, and one was constructed which
approved of the king's trial, of the vote against the Scots and
their English associates, and of the abolition of monarchy and the
House of Lords. But as this would not only exclude all conscientious
Presbyterians, but called on the Lords to pass an act of censure on
themselves, as well as on all to approve of Acts of Parliament in
which they had no concern, Fairfax and some others refused to take
it, and it had to be reduced to the undertaking "to be true and
faithful to the Government established without king or House of Peers,
and never to consent to their re-admission." This was called the
"Engagement," and still was effective in excluding all Royalists, and
such of the Presbyterian party as would not consent to violate their
favourite Covenant. Of the twelve judges, ten had been appointed by
the revolutionary party, and the whole of them had quietly continued
their functions through the war against the king; yet six of these now
resigned, probably having hoped to the last for an accommodation with
the king, and not going in their minds the length of a commonwealth.
The other six consented to hold their offices only on the condition
that an Act of the Commons should guarantee the non-abolition of the
fundamental laws of the kingdom.
With regard to the Church, as the present Government was decidedly in
favour of ample toleration, it satisfied itself with making a slight
modification of the existing Presbyterian power, and allowing it to
remain, at the same time that it deprived its intolerant clergy of all
temporal power whatever. No holders of religious opinions were to be
molested, provided that they did not attack the fundamental principles
of Christianity, and thus the Roman Catholics acquired more civil as
well as religious liberty than they had enjoyed since the days of Queen
Mary.
The army remained in the same able hands which had made it the finest
army in Europe, and had won with it such wonderful victories. Fairfax
still continued commander-in-chief, though he had held aloof from
the king's trial, and the navy was put on a more efficient footing
by removing the Earl of Warwick and appointing Blake, who had shown
remarkable skill and courage on land, with Popham and Dean as admirals.
These great changes were chiefly effected by the influence of Cromwell,
Ireton, Marten, and Bradshaw, assisted by the talents of Vane, and
the legal ability of St. John and Whitelock. They also introduced a
Parliamentary measure, which essentially modified the character of the
House. On the 1st of February they carried a vote that those who, on
the 5th of December, assented to the vote that "the king's concessions
were a sufficient ground to proceed to a settlement," should be
incapable of sitting, but all others who should previously enter on the
journal their dissent from that motion should be admissible. By this
means they found the number of members raised to one hundred and fifty,
and at the same time they were protected from a wearying opposition
from the Presbyterian section.
They now proceeded to bring to trial such of the Royalist prisoners
as had engaged in the last insurrection, whom they regarded as
disturbers of the kingdom after it had once conquered the king, and
might have proceeded to a settlement. They looked on them, in fact, as
a species of rebels to the party in power. And yet that party was not
constituted, even by its own formal enactments, as a fully recognised
Government, till these trials were over. They terminated on the 6th of
March, and the Republic was not formally passed till the 19th of that
month, in these words: "Be it declared and enacted by this present
Parliament, and by the authority of the same, that the people of
England, and of all the dominions and territories thereunto belonging,
are and shall be, and are hereby constituted, made, established,
and confirmed to be, a Commonwealth or Free State; and shall from
henceforth be governed as a commonwealth and free state, by the
supreme authority of this nation, the representatives of the people in
Parliament, and by such as they shall appoint and constitute officers
and ministers under them for the good of the people, and without any
king or House of Lords."
Whilst this Act was preparing, the trials were going on: the votes for
the sitting of the Council and the Commons were considered sufficient
authority. The trials were probably hastened by the news that Charles
II. had been proclaimed in Scotland, and that the Scots were raising
an army to avenge the king's death, and "to punish the sectaries of
England for the breach of the Covenant." The persons whom it was
resolved to try, were the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland, Lord
Goring, lately created Earl of Norwich, Lord Capel, and Sir John Owen.
The High Court appointed to try these prisoners consisted of fifty
persons of both ex-Peers and Commons. The Duke of Hamilton pleaded
that he was not within the jurisdiction of an English court, that he
was a subject of Scotland, and a prisoner of war; but it was replied
that he was also an English peer, as Earl of Cambridge, and it was
proved that not only was his father naturalised as an English peer,
but he himself had been called to sit as such, and had sat. The Earl
of Holland was ill, and therefore made little defence, except pleading
that he had free quarter given him when he was taken at St. Neots; but
this was fully disproved. Lord Goring, or, as now called, the Earl of
Norwich, had been a steady partisan of the king's, and had shown little
lenity to the Parliamentarians; but he now conducted himself with great
respect to the court, and seemed to leave himself in their hands. Lord
Capel was one of the bravest and proudest of the Royalist generals.
During his imprisonment he escaped from the Tower, but was betrayed
by the boatmen with whom he crossed the Thames. He had expressed
great indignation at the deaths of Lisle and Lucas, and had excited
the resentment of Ireton by it. He now demanded to be tried by court
martial, and declared that when Lisle and Lucas were adjudged to die,
Fairfax had declared that all other lives should be spared, and had
evidence to prove it, if he were allowed. Ireton, who really seems to
have felt a stern resentment against the free-speaking general, denied
that Fairfax had given any such promise, and that if he had, he had
no right to supersede the authority of Parliament. He demanded that
Fairfax should be sent for; but the court satisfied itself with sending
to the general, who returned by letter a rather equivocating answer,
saying that his promise only applied to a court martial, and not to any
such court as Parliament might see fit to appoint. Bradshaw told Capel,
who was not satisfied with this, that he was tried by such judges as
Parliament thought proper to give him, and who had judged a better man
than himself.
[Illustration: OLIVER CROMWELL.]
Sir John Owen, who was a gentleman of Wales, in the late outbreak
had killed a sheriff. He pleaded quarter, and that he had only done
what he thought his duty, in support of the king. As to killing the
sheriff, the sheriff had risen against him with force, and was killed
in the accident of war, which he might have avoided if he had stayed
quietly at home. All five were condemned to lose their heads, the
Earl of Holland as a double turncoat, and his conduct had certainly
been anything but consistent and noble. Sir John Owen, on hearing the
sentence, made a low bow and thanked the judges; and being asked why,
he replied, that it was a very great honour for a poor gentleman of
Wales to die like a lord, and he had not expected anything better
than hanging. No sooner was the sentence passed, than the friends
of Hamilton, Holland, and Capel, made great exertions to save their
lives. The wives of Holland and Capel appeared at the bar, attended by
long trains of females in mourning, to beg for their lives. Two days'
respite was granted, and every effort, persuasion, and bribery was put
in force. Hamilton had fewer friends than the rest, but it was urged
that his death might occasion trouble with Scotland; but Cromwell knew
that they had the interest of Argyll, and that Hamilton's being out of
the way would strengthen that interest. The case of Holland occasioned
a great debate. The Earl of Warwick, his brother, on one side urged his
services to the Parliament for a long period--his enemies, his revolt
from it on the other. Cromwell and Ireton were firmly against them, and
the sentences of these three were confirmed. The votes regarding Goring
were equal, and Lenthall, the Speaker, gave the casting vote in his
favour, alleging that he formerly had done him an essential service.
Sir John Owen, to the satisfaction of those who admired his frank and
quaint humour, was also reprieved, and ultimately liberated. He had
softened even the heart of Ireton, and greatly moved the good Colonel
Hutchinson, and both spoke in his favour. Hamilton, Capel, and Holland,
were beheaded in the Palace Yard on the 9th of March.
The Parliament was soon called on to defend itself against more
dangerous enemies. The country was groaning under the exhaustion of
the civil war. For seven years it had been bleeding at every pore;
and now that the war had ceased, the people began to utter aloud
their complaints, which, if uttered before, had been drowned in the
din of conflict. There was everywhere a terrible outcry against the
burden of taxation; and famine and pestilence--the sure successors
of carnage and spoliation--were decimating the people. In Lancashire
and Westmoreland numbers were daily perishing, and the magistrates of
Cumberland deposed that thirty thousand families in that county had
neither seed- nor bread-corn, nor the means of procuring either. What
rendered this state of things the more dangerous, was the turbulence
of the Levellers. The principles of Republicanism which had borne
on the heads of the army, threatened in turn to overwhelm them in
their progress amongst the soldiers. It is easier to set in motion
revolutionary ideas, than to say to them, "Thus far shall ye go and
no farther." In all revolutions, the class which initiates them wishes
to stop at the point that is most convenient to itself; but other
classes beyond this line are equally anxious, and have an equal claim
to the benefit of levelling principles. It is only power which limits
their diffusion. The power now had passed from the king and the lords,
and had centred in the leaders of the army. It was not convenient or
desirable for them that it should go farther. But the soldiers and the
lower officers, with John Lilburne at their head, claimed a Republic in
its more popular sense. They read in the Bible, and preached from it
in the field, that God was no respecter of persons; that human rights
were as universal as the human race. They saw that Cromwell, Ireton,
Harrison, and a few others were the men who ruled in the Parliament,
the Council, and the Army; and they conceived that they were no longer
seeking the common rights of the community, but the aggrandisement
of themselves. Colonel John Lilburne was pouring out pamphlet upon
pamphlet, and disseminating them through the ranks and through the
people--"England's New Chains Discovered," "The Hunting of the Foxes
from Triploe Heath to Whitehall by Five Small Beagles." These foxes
were Cromwell, Ireton, Fairfax, etc., who had suppressed the mutiny at
Triploe Heath--and the five beagles those who had been made to ride
the wooden horse for their insubordination, that is, set upon a sharp
three-cornered wooden machine, with weights or muskets tied to their
feet. News came to Parliament that one Everard, a soldier passing for a
prophet, and Winstanley, another, with thirty more, were assembled on
St. George's Hill, near Cobham, in Surrey, and were digging the ground
and planting it with roots and beans. They said they should shortly be
four thousand, and invited all to come and help them, promising them
meat, drink, and clothes. Two troops of horse were sent to disperse
them, of which they loudly complained, and Everard and Winstanley went
to the general, and declared "that the liberties of the people were
lost by the coming in of William the Conqueror, and that ever since,
the people of God had lived under tyranny and oppression worse than our
forefathers under the Egyptians. But now the time of deliverance was at
hand, and God would bring His people out of this slavery, and restore
them to their freedom in enjoying the fruits and benefits of the earth.
There had lately appeared to him [Everard] a vision, which bade him
arise and dig and plough the earth, and receive the fruits thereof.
He said that their intent was to restore the earth to its former
condition; that, as God had promised to make the barren fruitful, so
now what they did was to restore the ancient community of enjoying the
fruits of the earth, to distribute them to the poor and needy; that
they did not intend to break down pales and destroy enclosures, as was
reported, but only to till the waste land, and make it fruitful for
man; and that the time was coming when all men would willingly come in
and give up their lands and estates, and submit to this community of
goods."
Lilburne had been engaged in the county of Durham, and to win him over,
three thousand pounds were voted to him; but this did not move him for
a moment. On his return, he appeared at the bar of the House with a
petition against the form of the newly adopted constitution, which the
officers had named, "The Agreement of the People," but which the people
did not accept as their agreement. Lilburne protested against the
provision that Parliament should only sit six months every two years,
and that the Council should rule the other eighteen. This example was
extensively followed, and the table of the House was quickly loaded
with petitions demanding a new Parliament every year; a committee of
the House to govern during the recess; no member of one Parliament to
be a member of the next; the Self-denying Ordinance to be enforced; the
term of every officer's commission in the army to be limited; the High
Court of Justice and Council of State to be abolished as instruments of
tyranny; all proceedings in the courts of law to be in English; lawyers
reduced, and their fees too. Excise and customs they required to be
abolished, and the lands of delinquents sold to remunerate the well
affected. Religion was to be "reformed according to the mind of God;"
tithes were to be abolished, conscience made free, and the incomes
of ministers of the Gospel were to be fixed at one hundred and fifty
pounds each, and raised by a rate on the parishioners.
There was much sound sense and gospel truth in these demands, but the
day of their adoption was much nearer to the millennium than to 1649.
It was resolved to send Cromwell to settle the disturbances in Ireland,
but it was necessary to quash this communist insurrection first.
Money was borrowed of the City, and after "a solemn seeking of God by
prayer," lots were cast to see what regiments should go to Ireland.
Fourteen of foot and fourteen of horse were selected by this mode. The
officers expressed much readiness to go; the men refused. On the 26th
of April there broke out a terrible mutiny in Whalley's regiment, at
the Bull, in Bishopsgate. The men seized their colours from the cornet,
and refused to march without many of the communist concessions. Fairfax
and Cromwell hastened thither, seized fifteen of the mutineers, tried
them on the spot by court martial, condemned five, and shot one in St.
Paul's churchyard on the morrow. This was Lockyer, a trooper, a brave
young fellow, who had served throughout the whole war, and was only yet
three-and-twenty.
The death of this young man who was greatly beloved, roused all the
soldiers and the working men and women of the City to a fearful degree.
He was shot on Friday, amid the tears and execrations of thousands. On
Monday his troop proceeded to bury him with military honours. Whitelock
says, "About a hundred went before the corpse, five or six in a file,
the corpse was then brought, with six trumpets sounding a soldier's
knell. Then the trooper's horse came, clothed all over in mourning, and
led by a footman. The corpse was adorned with bundles of rosemary, one
half-stained in blood, and the sword of the deceased along with them.
Some thousands followed in rank and file; all had sea-green and black
ribbon tied on their hats and to their breasts, and the women brought
up the rear. At the new church in Westminster, some thousands more, of
the better sort, met them, who thought not fit to march through the
City."
This was not a promising beginning for the generals, but they were not
men to be put down. They arrested Lilburne and his five small beagles,
who published, on the 1st of May, their "Agreement of the People," and
clapped them in the Tower, and hastened down to Salisbury to quell the
insurrection which had broken out in Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire,
and Wilts in the army. The regiments of Scrope, Ireton, Harrison,
Ingoldsby, Skippon, Reynolds, and Horton, all declared for the
Lilburne "Agreement," and swore to stand by each other. At Banbury, a
Captain Thompson, at the head of two hundred men, issued a manifesto
called "England's Standard Advanced," demanding the completion of
public freedom, vowing justice on the murderers of Lockyer, and
threatening, if a hair of Lilburne's was touched, they would avenge
it seventy-and-seven fold. Reynolds, the colonel of the regiment,
attacked Thompson, put him to flight, and prevailed on the soldiers
to lay down their arms; but another party of ten troops of horse, a
thousand strong, under cornet Thompson, brother of the captain, marched
out of Salisbury for Burford, increasing their numbers as they went.
But Fairfax and Cromwell were marching rapidly after them. They came
upon them in the night at Burford, took them all prisoners, and the
next day, Thursday, the 17th of May, shot Cornet Thompson and two
corporals in Burford churchyard. The rest were pardoned, and agreed to
go to Ireland. A few days afterwards Captain Thompson was overtaken in
a wood in Northamptonshire, and killed. The mutiny was at an end, if
we except some local disturbances in Devon, Hants, and Somersetshire.
Fairfax and Cromwell were received at Oxford in triumph, and feasted
and complimented, being made doctors; and on the 7th of June a day of
thanksgiving was held in London, with a great dinner at Grocers' Hall,
given to the officers of the army and the leaders of Parliament, and
another appointed for the whole kingdom on the 21st.
Cromwell had already been made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and on the
10th of July he set forth at five in the evening from London, by way
of Windsor to Bristol. He set out in state approaching to royalty. He
rode in a coach drawn by six Flanders mares, whitish greys, a number of
carriages containing other officers following, attended by a life-guard
of eighty men, the meanest of whom was a commander or esquire; many
of them were colonels in rich uniforms, and the whole procession was
attended by a resounding flourish of trumpets. But before following
the farmer of Huntingdon, now risen to all but royal grandeur, we must
notice the affairs of Scotland.
Though Argyll held the chief power in Scotland, and was on friendly
terms with Cromwell, he could not prevent a strong public feeling
showing itself on the approaching trial of the king. The Scots
reproached themselves for giving up Charles to the English army, and
considered that heavy disgrace would fall upon the country if the
king should be put to death. They demanded, therefore, that a strong
remonstrance should be sent to the Parliament of England, and Argyll
was too timid or too cautious to oppose this. The Commissioners in
London received and presented the remonstrance, but obtained no answer
till after the execution of the king, and that which they did then
receive was in most unceremonious terms. Forthwith the authorities in
Edinburgh proclaimed Charles as king, and the Scottish Commissioners
in London, protesting against the alteration of the Government into
a Republic, and declaring themselves guiltless of the blood of the
king, hastened to Gravesend, to quit the kingdom. But the Parliament,
resenting this language as grossly libellous, and calculated to excite
sedition, sent an officer to conduct them under guard to the frontiers
of the kingdom.
Passing over this insult, the Scots in March despatched the Earl of
Cassilis to the Hague, attended by four commissioners, to wait on
Charles and invite him to Scotland. They found there the Earl of
Lanark, now Duke of Hamilton by the execution of his brother, the
Earls of Lauderdale, Callander, Montrose, Kinnoul, and Seaforth. Some
of these were old Royalists, some of whom were called "Engagers," or
of the party of Hamilton. The Court of Charles, small as it was, was
rent by dissensions, and both the Engagers and the Commissioners under
Cassilis joined in protesting against any junction with Montrose, whose
cruelties to the Covenanters, they said, had been so great, that to
unite with him would turn all Scotland against the king. They insisted
on Charles taking the Covenant, but this Montrose and the old Royalists
vehemently opposed, declaring that to do that would alienate both
Catholics and Episcopalians, and exasperate the Independents to tenfold
bitterness.
Whilst matters were in this unsatisfactory state, Dr. Dorislaus arrived
as Ambassador from the English Parliament to the States of Holland.
He was a native of that country, but had lived some time in England,
had been a professor of Gresham College, and drew up the charge for
Parliament against the king. That very evening, six gentlemen with
drawn swords entered the inn where he was at supper, and desiring
those present not to alarm themselves, as they had no intention of
hurting any one but the agent of the English rebels who had lately
murdered their king, they dragged Dorislaus from the table, and one of
them stabbed him with a dagger. Seeing him dead, they sheathed their
swords, and walked quietly out of the house. They were known to be all
Scotsmen and followers of Montrose; and Charles, seeing the mischief
this base assassination would do his cause, and especially in Holland,
prepared to quit the country. It was first proposed that he should
go to Ireland, where Ormond was labouring in his favour, and where
Rupert was off the coast with a fleet; but he changed his mind and
went to Paris, to the queen, his mother. Before doing that, he sent
Chancellor Hyde and Lord Cottington as envoys to Spain, to endeavour
to move the king in his favour, and he returned an answer to the
Scottish Commissioners, that though he was and always had been ready
to grant them the freedom of their religion, he could not consent to
bind himself to the Covenant. They admitted that he was their king, and
therefore they ought to obey him, and not he them, and this obedience
he must expect from the Committee of Estates, the Assembly of the
Kirk, and the whole nation of Scotland. With this resolute reply they
departed in no very satisfied mood.
[Illustration: ASSASSINATION OF DR. DORISLAUS. (_See p._ 96.)]
The war in Ireland being now undertaken by Cromwell, we must give a
brief retrospective glance at what had been passing there. Perhaps no
country was ever so torn to pieces by different factions. The Catholics
were divided amongst themselves: there were the Catholics of the Pale,
and the Old Irish Catholics, part of whom followed the faction of
Rinuccini, the Pope's Nuncio, who was at the head of the Council of
Kilkenny, while others followed General Preston and Viscount Taaffe.
The Irish Royalists--who consisted chiefly of Episcopalians--ranged
themselves under the banner of Ormond. The approach of Cromwell warned
them to suppress their various feuds and unite against the Parliament.
To strengthen the Parliament force, Jones, the Governor of Dublin,
and Monk, who commanded in Ulster, made overtures to Owen Roe O'Neil,
the head of the Old Irish in Ulster. Ormond had arrived in Ireland,
and Inchiquin and Preston, the leaders of the forces of the Irish
Council, which had now repudiated the Pope's Nuncio, joined him; but
O'Neil held back, not trusting Ormond, and he sent a messenger to
Charles in France, offering to treat directly with him. But Ormond
ordered the Earl of Castlehaven to attack O'Neil, which he did, and
speedily reduced his garrisons of Maryborough and Athy. Enraged at
this whilst he was offering his services to the king, O'Neil listened
to the proposals of Monk, who was himself hard pressed by the Scottish
Royalists, and had been compelled to retire from Belfast to Dundalk.
Monk supplied O'Neil with ammunition, and O'Neil undertook to cut off
the communication between the Royalists in the north and Ormond in the
south. Monk sent word of this arrangement, and the "grandees," as they
were called, or members of the Great Council, entertained the plan
in secret--publicly they dared not, for the followers of O'Neil were
those Ulster Irish who had committed the horrible massacres of 1641. No
sooner, however, did the rumour of this coalition become known, than
the greatest excitement prevailed. The army and the people were filled
with horror and indignation. They appealed to the solemn engagement of
the army to avenge the blood of their fellow Protestants slaughtered
by these savages; they reminded the Council and the Parliament of the
invectives heaped by them on the late king for making peace with these
blood-stained natives; and now _they_ were expected to become the
allies and associates of these very men. The Parliament saw how vain
it was to strive against the feeling, and annulled the agreement. Hugh
Peters harangued the public from the pulpit, excusing the Council on
account of the real facts of the case having been concealed from them,
and the whole weight of the transaction fell on Monk, who was just then
in London, and who was assured that nothing but his past services saved
him from the punishment of his indiscretion.
Whilst matters were in this position, and the Parliament was
compelled to reject a very useful ally, Ormond marched to besiege
Jones in Dublin. He advanced on both sides of the Liffey, and cast
up works at Bogotrath, to cut off the pasturage of the horses of the
Parliamentary force in Dublin. Jones, however, made a sally an hour
before sunrise, and threw the enemy into such confusion that the
whole army on the right bank of the river fled in headlong panic,
leaving their artillery, ammunition, tents, and baggage. In vain did
Ormond hasten to check the rout; his men followed the example. Two
thousand prisoners were taken by Jones, of whom three hundred are
said to have been slaughtered in cold blood. Such was the defeat,
and such the inequality of the forces, that it cast great disgrace
on the generalship of Ormond, and the Royalists made much talk about
treason; but Charles himself would not listen to any such surmises: he
hastened to send Ormond the Order of the Garter, and to assure him of
his unshaken favour. The most exaggerated assertions were made of the
forces of Ormond, and of the number of his men killed and taken. Ormond
says that he had only eight thousand men; but Cromwell, no doubt from
the assertions of Jones, states that the number was nineteen thousand
against five thousand two hundred of Jones's, and that Jones killed
four thousand on the spot, and took two thousand five hundred and
seventeen prisoners, of whom three hundred were officers. The battle
was fought at Rathmines on the 2nd of August, 1649, and contributed to
quicken the movements of Cromwell, who was collecting forces for the
passage at Milford Haven.
Cromwell, with twelve thousand veterans, sailed on the 13th of August,
and arrived in Dublin with the first division on the 15th, Ireton
following with the main body. He was received with acclamations by
the people of Dublin, and made them a speech in the streets, which
greatly pleased them. He then allowed his army a fortnight to refresh
themselves after the voyage, before leading them to action. At this
period, the only places left to the Parliament in Ireland were Dublin
and Derry. On the 9th of September he bombarded Drogheda, and summoned
it to surrender. The governor of the place was Sir Arthur Aston, who
had about three thousand troops, foot and horse, commanded by Sir
Edmund Varney, whose father was killed at Edge Hill. Aston, who had
acquired the reputation of a brave and experienced officer, refused
to surrender, and the storm commenced, and on the second day a breach
was made. A thousand men entered by the breach, but were driven back
by the garrison. On this Cromwell placed himself at the head of his
men, and made a second assault. This time, after some hard fighting,
they succeeded in getting possession of the entrenchments and of a
church. According to Ormond, Carte, and others, Cromwell's officers
then promised quarter to all who would surrender. "All his officers and
soldiers," says Carte, "promising quarter to such as would lay down
their arms, and performing it as long as any place held out, which
encouraged others to yield. But when they had done all in their power,
and feared no hurt that could be done them, then the word 'No quarter'
went round, and the soldiers were, many of them, forced against their
wills to kill their prisoners."
This has always been regarded as a great reproach to Cromwell. He
himself, of course, does not confess that he broke his word, or forced
his officers to break theirs; but he does something very like it. He
asserts plainly, in his letter to Lenthall, the Speaker, that "our men,
getting up to them, were ordered by me to put them all to the sword.
And indeed, being in the heat of the action, I forbade them to spare
any that were in arms in the town; and I think that night they put to
the sword about two thousand men." Some of them escaping to the church,
he had it set fire to, and so burnt them in it; and he records the
exclamations of one of them in the fire. The rest of the fugitives,
as they were compelled to surrender, were either slaughtered, or, to
use his own words, "their officers were knocked on the head, and every
tenth man of the soldiers killed, and the rest shipped for Barbadoes."
He says that one thousand people were destroyed in the church that he
fired. He adds that they "put to the sword the whole of the defendants.
I do not think thirty of the whole number escaped with their lives;
those that did are in safe custody for Barbadoes." This is, perhaps,
the most awful confession that ever was made in cool blood, for these
letters were written about a week after the assault, and by a man of
such a thoroughly religious mind that he attributes the whole "to the
Spirit of God;" says "this hath been a marvellous great mercy;" and
prays that "all honest hearts may give the glory to God alone, to
Whom, indeed, the praise of this mercy belongs." Cromwell endeavoured
to justify this horrible massacre by the plea "that it will tend to
prevent the effusion of blood for the future."
The butchery of Cromwell had not frightened men into surrendering
their towns at his summons, and thereby preventing shedding of
blood. In fact, great as were the merits of Cromwell, his barbarous
mode of warfare in Ireland cannot be defended on any principles of
reason, much less of Christianity or humanity. In England he had been
noted for his merciful conduct in war, but in Ireland a deplorable
fanaticism carried away both him and his army. They were now fighting
against a Papist population, and deemed it a merit to destroy them.
They confounded all Irishmen with the wild savages of Ulster, who had
massacred the Protestants in 1641; and Cromwell, in his letters from
Drogheda, plainly expresses this idea, calling the wholesale slaughter
"a righteous judgment of God upon those barbarous wretches, who have
imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood."
From Drogheda Cromwell returned to Dublin, and then marched on Wexford,
taking and burning minor places by the way. On the 1st of October he
summoned Wexford to surrender, and though the governor refused, the
officer who commanded the castle traitorously yielded it. The soldiers
then perceiving the enemy quit the walls of the town, scaled them with
their ladders, and encountering the forces in the market-place, they
made a stout resistance; but Cromwell informs the Parliament that
they were eventually all put to the sword, "not many less than two
thousand, and I believe not twenty of yours from first to last of the
siege. The soldiers got a very good booty; and the inhabitants," he
says, "were either so completely killed, or had run away, that it was a
fine opportunity for honest people to go and plant themselves there."
According to various historians, no distinction was made between the
soldiers and the innocent inhabitants; three hundred women, who had
crowded around the great cross, and were shrieking for protection to
Heaven, were put to death with the same ruthless ferocity. Some authors
do not restrict the numbers of the slain like Cromwell to two thousand,
but reckon them at five thousand.
Ormond now calculated greatly on the aid of O'Neil to create a
diversion in the north, and divide the attention and the forces of
Cromwell, for that chieftain had begun to justify the treaty made
with him through Monk, by compelling Montgomery to raise the siege of
Londonderry, and rescuing Coote and his small army, the only force
which the Parliament had in Ulster. But the cry in London against
this alliance with the Irish Papist had done its work, and, after the
victory of Rathmines, the Parliament refused to ratify the treaty made
with O'Neil. Indignant at this breach of faith, he had listened to the
offers of Ormond, and was on his march to join him at Kilkenny. O'Neil
died at Clonacter, in Cavan, but his son took the command. By his
assistance, the operations of Cromwell's generals were greatly retarded
at that place, and at Duncannon and Waterford.
On the 17th of October, Cromwell sat down before Ross, and sent
in a trumpeter, calling on the commander to surrender, with this
extraordinary statement, "Since my coming into Ireland, I have this
witness for myself, that I have endeavoured to avoid effusion of
blood;" which must have been read with wonder, after the recent news
from Drogheda and Wexford. General Taaffe refused. There were one
thousand soldiers in the place, and Ormond, Ardes, and Castlehaven,
who were on the other side of the river, sent in fifteen hundred more.
Yet on the 19th the town surrendered, the soldiers being allowed to
march away. O'Neil had now joined Ormond at Kilkenny with two thousand
horse and foot, and Inchiquin was in Munster. Soon after Cork and
Youghal opened their gates, Admiral Blake co-operating by water. In the
north, Sir Charles Coote, Lord President of Connaught, took Coleraine
by storm, and forming a junction with Colonel Venables, marched on
Carrickfergus, which they soon after reduced. Cromwell marched from
Ross to Waterford, his army having taken Inistioge, Thomastown, and
Carrick. He appeared before Waterford on the 24th of November. Here,
too, he received the news of the surrender of Kinsale and Bandon
Bridge, but Waterford refused to surrender, and Cromwell was compelled
to march away to Cork for winter quarters. His troops, however, took
the fort of Passage near Waterford; but they lost Lieutenant-General
Jones, the conqueror of Rathmines, by sickness at Dungarvan.
Cromwell did not rest long in winter quarters. By the 29th of January,
1650, he was in the field again, at the head of thirty thousand men.
Whilst Major-General Ireton and Colonel Reynolds marched by Carrick
into Kilkenny, Cromwell proceeded from Youghal over the Blackwater
into Tipperary, various castles being taken by the way; they quartered
themselves in Fethard and Cashel. On March 28th Cromwell succeeded
in taking Kilkenny, whence he proceeded to Clonmel. In this campaign
the Royalist generals accuse him of still perpetrating unnecessary
cruelties, though they endeavoured to set him a different example. "I
took," says Lord Castlehaven, "Athy by storm, with all the garrison
(seven hundred) prisoners. I made a present of them to Cromwell,
desiring him by letter that he would do the same to me, if any of mine
should fall into his power. But he little valued my civility, for in
a few days after he besieged Gouvan, and the soldiers mutinying and
giving up the place with their officers, he caused the Governor Hammond
and some other officers to be put to death." Cromwell avows this in one
of his letters. "The next day the colonel, the major, and the rest of
the commissioned officers were shot to death; all but one, who, being
very earnest to have the castle delivered, was pardoned." And this, he
admits, was because they refused to surrender at his first summons. He
seemed to consider a refusal to surrender at once and unconditionally,
a deadly crime, and avenged it bloodily. On the other hand, Ormond,
in one of his letters, says, "Rathfarnham was taken by our troops by
storm, and all that were in it made prisoners; and though five hundred
soldiers entered the castle before any officer of note, yet not one
creature was killed; which I tell you by the way, to observe the
difference betwixt our and the rebels' making use of a victory."
The Parliament, seeing the necessity of having their best general
for the impending Scottish war, sent towards the end of April the
_President Bradshaw_ frigate, to bring over Cromwell from Ireland,
and to leave Ireton, Lord Broghill, and the other generals to finish
the war by the reduction of Clonmel, Waterford, Limerick, and a few
lesser places. But Cromwell would not go till he had witnessed the
fall of Clonmel. There Hugh O'Neil, the son of old Owen Roe O'Neil
of Ulster, defended the place gallantly with twelve hundred men. The
siege lasted from the 28th of March to the 8th of May. Whitelock says,
"They found in Clonmel the stoutest enemy this army had met in Ireland,
and there never was seen so hot a storm, of so long a continuance,
and so gallantly defended, either in Ireland or England." The English
troops had made a breach, and endeavoured to carry the town by storm
in vain. On the 9th they stormed the breach a second time. "The fierce
death-wrestle," says a letter from one of the besiegers, "lasted four
hours," and Cromwell's men were driven back with great loss. But the
ammunition of the besieged was exhausted, and they stole away in the
night. The inhabitants, before this was discovered, sent out and made
terms of surrender. On discovering the retreat of the enemy, pursuit
was made, and two hundred men killed on the road. Oliver, however, kept
his agreement with the inhabitants.
The siege of Clonmel finished, Cromwell set sail in the _President
Bradshaw_, and landed at Bristol towards the end of May, where he was
received with firing of guns and great acclamations for his exploits
in Ireland. On the 31st of the month he approached Hounslow Heath,
where he was met by the Lord-General Fairfax, and numbers of other
officers and members of Parliament, besides crowds of other people.
They conducted him to London, and on reaching Hyde Park Corner he
was received by the discharge of artillery from Colonel Barkstead's
regiment, there drawn up; and thus, with increasing crowds and
acclamations, he was attended to the Cockpit near St. James's, a
house which had been assigned to him, and where his family had been
residing for some time. There the Lord Mayor and aldermen waited on
him, to thank him for his services in Ireland. Thence, after rest and
refreshment, he appeared in his place in Parliament, where he also
received the thanks of the House. Some one remarking what crowds went
out to see his triumph, Cromwell replied, "But if they had gone to see
me hanged, how many more there would have been!"
Prince Charles, though invited to assume the crown of Scotland,
was invited on such terms as would have afforded little hope to a
man of much foresight. Those who were to support him were divided
into two factions, which could no more mix than fire and water. The
Covenanters, and the Royalists under Montrose, hated each other with
an inextinguishable hatred. So far from mixing, they were sure to
come to strife and bloodshed amongst themselves. If the Covenanters
got the upper hand, as was pretty certain, he must abandon his most
devoted followers, the Old Royalists and Engagers, and take the
Covenant himself, thus giving up every party and principle that his
father had fought for. He must take upon him a harsh and gloomy yoke,
which must keep him not only apart from his Royalist and Episcopalian
followers, but from his far more valuable kingdom of England, where the
Independents and sectaries reigned, and which the Scottish Covenanters
could not hope to conquer. But Charles was but a poor outcast and
wanderer in a world the princes of which were tired of both him and
his cause, and he was, therefore, compelled to make an effort, however
hopeless, to recover his dominions by such means as offered. He
therefore sent off Montrose to raise troops and material amongst the
Northern Courts, and then to pass over and raise the Highlands, whilst
he went to treat with the Covenanters at Breda.
[Illustration: GREAT SEAL OF THE COMMONWEALTH.]
Montrose was strongly suspected of having headed the party who
assassinated Dorislaus, a very bad beginning, assassination being the
fitting business of thieves, and not of heroes. The fame of Montrose,
nevertheless, gave him a good reception in Denmark and other Courts,
and he is said to have raised an army of twelve thousand men, and
embarked these, and much ammunition and artillery, at Gottenburg,
under Lord Kinnoul, in the autumn. The equinoctial gales appeared to
have scattered this force in all directions, dashing several of the
ships on the rocks, so that Kinnoul landed in October at Kirkwall, in
the Orkneys, with only eighty officers, and about one hundred common
men. Montrose followed with five hundred more, and having received the
Order of the Garter from Charles as a token of his favour, he once
more raised his banner in the Highlands, bearing on it a painting of
the late king decapitated, and the words, "Judge and avenge my cause,
O Lord!" But the Highlanders had been taught caution by the repeated
failures of the Royalists, and the chastisements they had received from
the stern Covenanters; they stood aloof, and in vain did Montrose march
through Caithness and Sutherland, calling on the natives to rise and
defend the king before the Covenanters could sell him to the English,
as they had done his father. This was a fatal proclamation, for
whilst it failed to raise the Highlands, it added to the already deep
detestation of him in the Lowlands, where his proclamation was burnt by
the common hangman.
The Covenanters did not merely burn his proclamation, they despatched a
force of four thousand men against him. Colonel Strachan came almost
upon him in Corbiesdale, in Ross-shire, and calling his men around
him under the shelter of the high moorland broom, he informed them
that God had given "the rebel and apostate Montrose, and the viperous
brood of Satan, the accursed of God and the Kirk," into their hands.
He gave out a psalm, which they sang, and then he dispersed them in
successive companies, the whole not amounting to four hundred men, the
main army being with David Leslie at Brechin. As soon as Strachan's
handful of men came in sight of Montrose's levies, they were attacked
by his cavalry, but scarcely were they engaged, when a second, and then
a third detachment appeared. On perceiving this, Montrose believed the
whole army of Leslie was marching up, and he ordered his infantry to
fall back and screen themselves amongst the brushwood. But first his
horse and then the whole of his men were thrown into confusion. His
standard-bearer and several of his officers were slain. The foreign
mercenaries demanded quarter and received it, the rest made their
escape as well as they could. Montrose had his horse killed under him,
and though he got another horse, and swam across a rapid river, he was
compelled to fly in such haste, that he left behind him the Star and
Garter with which he had been so newly invested, his sword, and his
cloak. He again made for the mountains of Sutherland with Kinnoul, both
disguised as peasants. Kinnoul soon sank with fatigue, and was left
behind and perished. Montrose at length reached the house of Macleod
of Assynt, who had formerly served under him; but this base man sold
him to the Covenanters for four hundred bolls of meal. This treason was
soon avenged by the neighbouring Highlanders, who ravaged the lands of
Assynt; but the Scottish Parliament recompensed the traitor with twenty
thousand pounds Scots, to be raised on the Royalists of Caithness and
Orkney. The Orkneys, as well as the Isles of Man, Scilly, Jersey, the
colony of Virginia, and the islands of the Caribbean Sea, long held out
for the royal cause.
Montrose was at once conveyed to Edinburgh, where he arrived on the
18th of May; and having been carried bareheaded through the city in an
open cart, and exposed to the insults and execrations of the mob, he
was condemned as a traitor, and hanged on the 21st of May on a gibbet
thirty feet high, his head being fixed on a spike in the capital,
and his limbs sent for exposure in different towns. Such was the
ignominious end of the gallant but sanguinary Montrose. But if the
conduct of his enemies was ungenerous, what was that of his prince? No
sooner did Charles hear of his defeat, than fearing that his rising
might injure him with the Covenanters, he sent to the Parliament,
protesting that he had never authorised him to draw the sword; nay,
that he had done it contrary to the royal commands. Thus early did this
worthless man display the meanness of his character, and practise the
wretched maxims of the Stuart doctrine of kingcraft.
Charles had now complied with the demands of the Scottish Parliament,
agreeing to take the Covenant, never to tolerate the Catholic religion
in any part of his dominions, not even in Ireland, where the Catholics
were a majority; to govern entirely by the authority of Parliament,
and in religious matters by that of the Kirk. Thus did this man, for
the sake of regaining the throne of one of his kingdoms, bind himself
to destroy the religion of which he was at heart a believer, and to
maintain a creed that he abhorred and despised. He landed in June in
the Frith of Cromarty, and a court was established for him at Falkland,
and nine thousand pounds sterling were allowed for its expenditure
monthly.
But the pious Scots were speedily scandalised at the debauched habits
of their royal puppet. He had delayed the expedition for some weeks,
because he could not tear himself from his mistress, Mrs. Barlow, and
now he came surrounded by a very dissipated crew--Buckingham, Wilmot,
and others, whom nothing could induce him to part with, though many
others were forbidden the Court.
Whilst these things were taking place in Scotland, in London as
active measures were on foot for putting to flight this Covenanting
king. On the 14th of June the Commons again appointed Fairfax
Commander-in-Chief, and Cromwell Lieutenant-General. Fairfax, so far
from favouring the invasion of Scotland, strongly argued against it,
as a breach of the Solemn League and Covenant. Fairfax's wife is
said to have been resolute against his taking up arms against the
second Charles. She had sufficiently shown her spirit--that of a
Vere, of the martial house of Vere--on his father's trial; and now
Fairfax, not only strongly influenced by his wife, but belonging to
the Presbyterian party, resigned his command, and retired to his
estates in Yorkshire. It was in vain that a deputation, consisting
of Cromwell, Lambert, Harrison, Whitelock, and St. John, waited on
him at Whitehall, opening their meeting with prayer. Fairfax stood
firm, and on the 26th, two days afterwards, the Parliament appointed
Cromwell Commander-in-Chief, in his place. On the 29th, only three
days subsequently, Cromwell set out for the north. He had Lambert as
Major-General, Whalley as Commissary-General, Pride, Overton, Monk,
and Hodgson, as colonels of regiments. The Scottish Parliament had
appointed the Earl of Leven generalissimo, but only nominally so out
of honour, for he was now old and infirm. David Leslie was the real
commander. The Scottish army was ordered to amount to sixty thousand
men, and it was to lay waste all the country between Berwick and
Edinburgh, to prevent the English from obtaining supplies. To frighten
the country people away from the English army, it was rumoured that
every male between sixteen and sixty would have their right hands cut
off, and the women's breasts be bored through with red-hot irons.
[Illustration: DEATH OF THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH.
Carisbrooke Castle, Sept. 8th, 1650.
AFTER THE PAINTING BY C. W. COPE, R.A.]
Cromwell passed the Tweed at Berwick on the 22nd of July, with a force
of sixteen thousand men. They found the country desolate and deserted,
except by a number of women, who on their knees implored mercy, and
were set by the officers to bake and brew for the soldiers. That
night the beacon fires of Scotland were lighted, and the English army
encamped at Mordington, where they lay three days, and then marched
to Dunbar, and thence to Musselburgh. They found the Scottish army
under Leslie posted between Edinburgh and Leith, and well defended by
batteries and entrenchments. Nothing could induce the wary Scottish
commander to quit his vantage ground, and the country afforded no
supplies to the English army; but their fleet followed them along the
coast, and furnished them with provisions.
For a month Cromwell found it impossible to draw the Scottish general
out of his strong position. He sometimes marched up close to his lines
to tempt him to come to action, but it was in vain, and he did not
think it prudent to attack him in his formidable position, which must
have cost him an awful number of men even if he carried it.
The weather being very wet he fell back upon Musselburgh, the enemy
then making a sally, and harassing his rear, and wounding General
Lambert. Cromwell and the Scottish Assembly, as well as Cromwell and
General Leslie, who lay in the ground now occupied by the New Town
of Edinburgh, had a voluminous correspondence, in which they quoted
much Scripture, and each declared himself the favoured or justified of
heaven. The Scots reproached Cromwell and his party with breaking the
League and Covenant, and Cromwell retorted on them, that though they
pretended to covenant and fight against Malignants, they had entered
into agreement with the head and centre of the Malignants himself,
which he said he could not understand. Cromwell, leaving a force to
invest Dunbar, which was said to suffer extreme famine, being cooped by
the English both on land and sea, about the 13th of August shifted his
camp to the Pentland Hills to the west of Edinburgh, in order to cut
off Leslie's supplies.
Whilst lying there the young king himself made a visit to the army at
Leith, where he was received by the soldiers with acclamations; but
the Assembly of the Kirk was soon scandalised by the drunkenness and
profanity which his presence brought into the camp, and set on foot
an inquiry, the result of which was that eighty officers, with many
of their men, were dismissed that they might not contaminate the rest
of the army. They also required Charles to sign a declaration to his
subjects in his three kingdoms, informing them that he lamented the
troubles which had been brought on the realm by the resistance of his
father to the Solemn League and Covenant, and by the idolatry of his
mother; that for himself he had subscribed the Covenant with all his
heart, and would have no friends or enemies but the friends or enemies
of the Covenant; that he repented making a peace with the Papists
of Ireland, and now declared it null and void; that he detested all
popery, prelacy, idolatry, and heresy; and finally, that he would
accord to a free Parliament of England the propositions agreed upon by
the Commissioners of the two kingdoms, and would settle the English
Church according to the plan organised by the Westminster Assembly of
divines.
Never was so flagrant a set of falsehoods forced on a reluctant soul!
Charles read the declaration with indignation, and declared that he
would sacrifice everything rather than thus cast reproach on his
parents and their supporters, who had suffered so much on their behalf,
or belie his own sentiments. But he was soon convinced that he must
see his cause totally abandoned if he did not comply, and at the end
of three days he signed with tears and shame the humiliating document.
The exulting Kirk then proclaimed a certain victory from heaven over "a
blaspheming general and a sectarian army."
And truly, affairs appeared very likely to come to such a conclusion.
Cromwell found it difficult to feed his army; the weather continued
stormy and wet, and his soldiers suffered extremely from fevers and
other illness from exposure to the weather. Cromwell made a sudden
march in the direction of Stirling, as though he intended to cut off
that town from communication with the capital. This set Leslie in
motion; he hastily sent forward his forces, and the vanguards came
to skirmishing, but could not engage in complete battle on account
of the boggy ground between them. Cromwell as suddenly retreated,
and firing his huts on the Pentlands, withdrew towards Dunbar. This
effectually roused the Scots; they knew his distress from sickness
and lack of supplies, and they thought he meant now to escape into
England. To prevent that, and to make themselves masters of the whole
English army, as they now confidently expected, they marched rapidly
along the feet of the Lammermuir Hills, and Leslie managed to outstrip
him, and hem him in between Dunbar and Doon Hill. A deep ravine called
Cockburnspath, or, as Oliver pronounced it, Copper's Path, about forty
feet deep and as many wide, with a rivulet running through it, lay
between Oliver and the Scottish army, which was posted on Doon Hill.
On Oliver's right lay Belhaven Bay, on his left Broxmouth House, at
the mouth of a brook, and where there is a path southward. Leslie had
secured the passes of Cockburnspath, and imagined that he had Cromwell
and his army secure from Sunday night to Tuesday morning, the 3rd of
September. But on Monday afternoon, Cromwell observed Leslie moving
his right wing down into the plain towards Broxmouth House, evidently
intending to secure that pass also; but Cromwell at once espied his
advantage. He could attack and cut off this right wing, whilst the
main body of Leslie's army, penned between the brook and the hills,
could not manœuvre to help it. On observing this, Cromwell exclaimed
to Lambert, "The Lord hath delivered us!" and arrangements were made
to attack the right wing of Leslie at three o'clock in the morning.
Leslie had twenty-three thousand men--Cromwell about half as many;
but by a vigorous, unexpected attack on this right wing, after three
hours of hard fighting, the Scots were thrown into confusion, and
Cromwell exclaimed, "They run! I profess they run!" In fact, the horse
of the Scots dashed frantically away over and through their own foot,
and there was a wild flight in all directions. Three thousand slain
lay on the spot, the Scots army was in wild rout, and as the sun just
then rose over St. Abb's Head and the sea, Oliver exclaimed to his
soldiers, "Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered!" "The
Lord-General," says Hodgson, "made a halt till the horse could gather
for the chase, and sang the 117th Psalm." Then the pursuit was made
as far as Haddington. Ten thousand prisoners were taken, with all the
baggage, artillery, and ammunition of the enemy. A thousand men were
slain in the pursuit. By nine o'clock in the morning, David Leslie,
the general, was in Edinburgh, old Lord Leven reached it by two, and
what a city! The general complained that the preachers had occasioned
the disaster; they would not let him rest till he descended from his
height to attack the enemy on a disadvantageous ground. The ministers,
though all their prophecies of victory were falsified, had yet plenty
of other reasons for it. They published a "Short Declaration and
Warning," in which they enumerated no less than thirteen causes for
this terrible overthrow--the general wickedness of the country, the
especial wickedness of the king's house, and the number of Malignants
amongst the king's followers, and so forth. Cromwell told them plainly
in letters addressed to them, that they had been punished for taking up
a family that the Lord had so eminently lifted up His hand against, and
for pretending to cry down Malignants, and yet receiving and setting
up the head of them all. He advanced to Edinburgh, where he closely
blockaded the castle, which was soon compelled to surrender.
As for Charles II., he was rather delighted than otherwise with the
defeat of his fanatic friends at Dunbar. He was grown most thoroughly
tired of imperious dictation and morose religion, and he took the
opportunity to steal away to join Murray, Huntly, Atholl, and the
Royalists in the Highlands. On the afternoon of the 4th of October,
on pretence of hawking, he rode out of Perth, and dashed away for the
braes of Angus. After galloping forty miles he came to a wretched hovel
at a place called Clova, where he had nothing but a turf pillow to
sleep on. There he was overtaken by Colonel Montgomery--for Argyll had
been speedily apprised of his flight--and finding that two regiments of
horse were at hand, Charles knew that escape was hopeless, and so he
returned. But "the Start," which Charles's elopement was called, had
opened the eyes of the Covenanters to the danger of pressing him too
far. They now considerably relaxed their vigour towards him, admitted
him to their deliberations in Council, and they thus induced him to
prevail on Atholl, Middleton, and the Highland forces to disband.
[Illustration: DUNBAR.]
Cromwell's attention was soon attracted towards the West, where an
army of five thousand men was raised, by order of the Committee of
Estates, by Colonels Kerr and Strachan, in the associated counties
of Renfrew, Ayr, Galloway, Wigtown, and Dumfries. These people were
of strict whiggamore notions, and were directly in correspondence
with John Warriston, the Clerk Register of Parliament, and Gillespie
and Guthrie, two ministers of the Kirk, who protested against having
anything to do with the son of the beheaded Charles Stuart, who was an
enemy to the Kirk, and whose son himself was a thorough Malignant. They
drew up a Remonstrance of the Western army, in which they termed the
king an incarnate solecism, and refused to fight under either him or
Leslie. Cromwell, who saw little to prevent a union with this party,
professing his old veneration for the Covenant, opened a communication
with them, arguing that Charles ought to be banished, and thus remove
the need of an English interference. In order to effect a coalition
with these commanders, Cromwell marched to Glasgow, where he arrived
on Friday, October 18th; and on Sunday, in the cathedral, listened to
a violent sermon against him and his army from the Reverend Zachary
Boyd. Coming to no agreement with Kerr and Strachan, he returned on
Monday towards Edinburgh, and found many men advising that they shall
give up the "hypocrite," meaning Charles, and make peace with England;
but Kerr and Strachan, though their Remonstrance was voted a scandalous
libel by Parliament, could not agree to this. They, in fact, differed
in opinion. Strachan resigned his commission, and soon after came
over with eighty troopers to Cromwell. Kerr showed a hostile aspect,
agreeing with neither one party nor another, and soon came to nothing.
Cromwell sent Lambert to look after him with three thousand horse, and
Lambert, whilst lying at Hamilton, found himself suddenly attacked by
Kerr. He, however, repulsed him, took him prisoner, killed a hundred
of his men, losing himself only six, and took two hundred prisoners,
horse and foot. The Western army was wholly dispersed. The condition
of the Covenanting Scots was now deplorable; the Remonstrants, though
they had lost their army, still continued to quarrel with the official
or Argyll's party, and the country was thus torn by the two factions,
under the name of Remonstrants and Resolutionists, when it should
have been united against the enemy. Cromwell was now master of all the
Lowlands, casting longing glances towards Stirling and Perth, which
were in the hands of the royal party, and thus ended the year 1650.