CHAPTER VIII.
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.