# Cassell's Illustrated History of England/Volume 3/Chapter 5

CHAPTER V.
REIGN OF CHARLES I. (Continued)
The condition of the king's court at this time was enough to have made any one else despair of his cause, We cannot do better than give it as drawn by the royal historian Clarendon himself It must be premised that to gratify the importunities of his other ambitious officers, he had been induced to remove lord Wilmot from the command of the cavalry, and lord Percy from that of the ordnance, and to place prince Rupert, who was detested by all, on account of his haughty and imperious temper, in the post of Grey of Ruthven, who had retired from increasing infirmities. But says Clarendon, "The king's army was united less than ever; the old general was set aside, and prince Rupert put into the command, which was no popular change, for the other was known to be an officer of great experience, and had committed no oversights in his conduct; was willing to hear everything debated, and always concurred with the most reasonable opinion; and though he was not of many words, and was not quick in hearing, yet upon any action he was sprightly, and commanded well. The prince was rough and passionate, and loved not debate; liked what was proposed, as he liked the persons who proposed it; and was so great an enemy of Digby and Colepepper, who were only present in debates of the war with the officers, that he crossed all they proposed. The truth is, all the army had been disposed, from the first raising it, to a neglect and contempt of the council; and the king himself had not been solicitous to preserve the respect due to it, in which he lost his own dignity.
"Goring, who was now general of the horse, was no more gracious to prince Rupert than Wilmot had been, and had all the other's faults, and wanted his regularity, and preserving his respect with the officers. Wilmot loved debauchery, but kept it out from his business; never neglected that, and rarely miscarried in it. Goring had a much better understanding and a sharper wit, except in the very exercise of debauchery, and then the other was inspired, a much keener courage and presentness of mind in danger. Wilmot discovered it farther off, and because he could not behave himself so well in it, commonly prevented, or warily declined it, and never drank when he was within distance of an enemy. Goring was not able to resist the temptation when he was in the middle of them, nor would decline it to obtain a victory; and in one of those fits he suffered the horse to escape out of Cornwall, and the most signal misfortunes of his life in war had their rise from that uncontrollable license. Neither of them valued their professions, promises, or friendships, according to any rules of honour or integrity; but Wilmot violated them less willingly, and never but for some great benefit or convenience to himself; Goring, without scruple, out of humour, or for wit's sake, and loved no man so well but that he would cozen him, and then expose him to the public mirth for having been cozened. Therefore he had always fewer friends than the other, but more company, for no man had a wit that pleased the company better. The ambition of both was unlimited, and so equally incapable of being contented, and both unrestrained by any respect to good nature or justice, from pursuing the satisfaction thereof; yet Wilmot had more scruples from religion to startle him, and would not have attained his end by any gross or foul act of wickedness. Goring could have passed through those pleasantly, and would, without any hesitation, have broken any trust, or done any act of treachery, to have satisfied an ordinary passion or appetite; and in truth, wanted nothing but industry—for he had wit, and courage, and understanding, and ambition uncontrolled by any fear of God or man—to have been as eminent and successful in the highest attempt in wickedness, of any man in the age he lived in or before. Of all his qualifications dissimulation was his masterpiece, in which he had so much excelled, that men were not ordinarily ashamed or out of countenance with being deceived but twice by him.
"The court was not much better disposed than the army; they who had no preferment were angry with those who had, and thought they had not deserved it as well as themselves. They who were envied found no satisfaction or ​delight in what they were envied for, being poor and necessitous, and the more sensible of their being so, by the titles they had received upon their violent importunity, so that the king was without any joy in the favours he had conferred, and yet was not the less solicited to grant more to others of the same kind, who, he foresaw, would be no better pleased than the rest; and the pleasing one man this way displeased a hundred, as his creating the lord Colepepper at this time, and making him a baron—who, in truth, had served him with great abilities, and though he did imprudently in desiring it, did deserve it—did much dissatisfy both the court and the army, to neither of which he was in any degree gracious, but his having no ornament of education to make men more propitious to his parts of nature, and disposed many others to be very importunate to receive the same obligation."
That is a very uncomfortable sketch of Charles's position, drawn by a hand most favourable to him. In fact, the jealousies and heart-burnings of a court are not kept wholly under when there is a whole kingdom in hand, out of which to carve honours and emoluments for the hungry flockers to the loaves and fishes of royalty, and Charles had now only empty titles and barren dignities at his disposal. The courtiers, like rats cooped up in a tub, were devouring one another, and effectually destroying his peace and prospects.
There was another fertile source of disagreement—the question of peace or war. One party had so far sinned against the commonwealth, and had received such direct votes of condemnation from the parliament, that bad and circumscribed as was their condition, it was better than they could hope for in case of a reconciliation betwixt Charles and his subjects. But another party, who still cherished hopes of sharing in a general pardon, saw daily their estates forfeited and conferred on successful adventurers. Every day menaced more entirely the destruction of their fortunes and the perpetual ruin of their families. These were importunate for peace, and at this juncture their views were favoured by the successor of the marquis of Montrose in Scotland, who induced the Scotch to solicit the English parliament to listen to terms with the king, by which they would become relieved from the scourge of the marquis's predatory Highland army.
Charles had, during the last summer, after every temporary success, proposed negotiations, thus showing his readiness to listen to accommodation, and throwing on the parliament the odium of continued warfare. At the same time it must be confessed that he was by no means inclined to accept terms which would surrender altogether his prerogative, or sacrifice the interests of those who had ventured everything for him. He was constantly exhorted by the queen from France, to make no peace inconsistent with his honour, or the interests of his followers. She contended that he must stipulate for a body-guard, without which he could enjoy no safety, and should keep all treaty regarding religion to the last, seeing plainly the almost insuperable difficulty on that head; for as nothing would satisfy the puritans but the close binding down of the catholics, so that would effectually cut off all hope of his support from Ireland, or from the catholics of England. Charles, in fact, was in a cleft stick, and the contentions of his courtiers added so much to his embarrassments, that he got rid of the most troublesome by sending them to attend the queen in France. He then assembled his parliament for the second time, but it was so thinly attended, and the miserable distractions which rent his court were so completely imported into its debates, that he was the more disposed to try negotiation with the parliament. His third proposal, happening to be favoured by the recommendation of the Scots, was at length acceded to by parliament, but the terms recommended by the Scots—the recognition of presbytery as the national religion, and the demands of the parliament of the supremo control not only of the revenue bat of the army—rendered negotiations from the first hopeless.
In November, 1641, the propositions of the Scots, drawn up by Johnston of Wariston, were sent to the king by a commission consisting of the earl of Denbigh, the lords. Maynard and Wenman, and Messrs. Pierpont, Hollis, and Whitelock, accompanied by the Scotch commissioners, lord Maitland, Sir Charles Erskine, and Mr. Bartlay. Charles probably received a private copy of the propositions, for he received the commissioners most ungraciously. They were suffered to remain outside the gates of Oxford in a miserably cold and wet day for several hours, and then, conducted by a guard, more like prisoners than ambassadors, to a very mean inn. On the propositions being read by the earl of Denbigh, Charles asked him if they had power to treat, to which the earl replied in the negative, they were commissioned to receive his majesty's answer.
"Then," said Charles, rudely, "a letter-carrier might have done as much as you." The earl, resenting this, said, "I suppose your majesty looks upon us as persons of another condition than letter-carriers." "I know your condition,"' retorted the king, "but I repeat it, that your conditions give you no more power than a letter-carrier." Whilst Denbigh had read over the list of persons who were to be excepted from the conditions of the treaty, Rupert and Maurice, who were of the excepted, and were present, laughed in the earl's face. This insolence displeased even the king, and he bade them be quiet. The interview terminated, however, as unfavourably as it began. The king gave them a reply, but sealed up, and not addressed to the parliament or anybody. The commissioners refused to carry an answer of which they did not know the particulars, on which Charles insolently remarked, "What is that to you, who are but to carry what I send; and if I choose to send the song of Robin Hood or Little John, you must carry it." As they could get nothing else, not even an address upon it to parliament, the commissioners, wisely leaving it to parliament to treat the insult as they deemed best, took their leave with it.
When this document was presented to both houses on the 29th of November, 1644, assembled for the purpose, it was strongly urged by many to refuse it; but this was overruled by those who wisely would throw no obstacle in the way of negotiation; and the king thought well immediately to send the duke of Richmond and the earl of Southampton with a fuller answer. They, on their part, found a safe conduct refused them by Essex, then the commander, unless he were acknowledged by the king as general of the army of the ​parliament of England, and the commons informed them that they would receive no further commission which was not addressed to the parliament of England assembled at Westminster, and the commissioners of the parliament of Scotland. With this the king was compelled to comply through Prince Rupert; but at the same time he wrote to the queen a letter containing this most Jesuitical passage—"As to my calling those at London a parliament, if there had been two besides myself of my opinion, I had not done it and the argument that prevailed with me was that the calling did no wise acknowledge them to be a parliament, upon which construction and condition I did it, and no otherwise."
Oliver Cromwell.
Under these unpromising circumstances, commissioners on both sides were at length appointed, who met on the 29th of January, in the little town of Uxbridge. Uxbridge was within the parliamentary lines, and the time granted for the sitting was twenty days. The commissioners on the part of the king were the duke of Richmond, the marquis of Hertford, the earls of Southampton, Chichester, and Kingston, the lords Capel, Seymour, Hatton, and Colepepper, secretary Nicholas, Sir Edward Hyde, chancellor of the exchequer, Sir Edward Lane, Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Sir Thomas Gardener, Messrs. Ashburunam and Palmer, and Dr. Stewart. On that of the parliament appeared the earls of Northumberland, Pembroke, Salisbury, and Denbigh, lord Wenman, Sir Henry Vane, jun., and Messrs. Denzell Hollis, ​Pierpoint, St. John, "Whitelock, Crew, and Prideaux. The Scotch commissioners were the earl of Loudon, marquis of Argyll, the lords Maitland and Balmerino, Sir Archibald Johnstone, Sir Charles Erskine, Sir John Smith, Messrs. Dundas, Kennedy, Robert Barclay, and Alexander Henderson. John Thurloe, afterwards Cromwell's secretary, and the friend of Milton, was secretary for the English parliament, assisted by Mr. Earle, and Mr. Cheesly was secretary for the Scottish commissioners.
Marquis of Ormond. From a Portrait by Sir P. Lely.
The four propositions submitted to the king by the parliament concerning religion were, that the common prayer book should be withdrawn, the directory of the Westminster divines substituted, that he should confirm the assemblies and synods of the church, and take the solemn league and covenant. These, contrary to the warning of queen Henrietta, were brought on first, and argued with much learning and pertinacity, and as little concession on either side, for four days. Then came on other equally formidable subjects, the command of the army and navy, the cessation of the war in Ireland; and the twenty days being expired, it was proposed to prolong the term, but this was refused by the two houses of parliament, and the commissioners separated, mutually satisfied that nothing but the sword would settle these questions. The royalists had not been long in discovering that Vane, St. John, and Prideaux had come to the conference, not so much to treat, as to watch the proceedings of the presbyterian deputies, and to take care that no concessions should be made inimical to the independence of the church.
Gloomy as to the general eye must have appeared the prospects of the king at this period, he was still buoyed up by various hopes. He had been using every exertion to obtain aid from the continent, and at length was promised an army of ten thousand men by the duke of Lorraine, and Goffe was sent into Holland to prepare for their being shipped over. On the other hand, he had made up his mind to concede most of their demands to the Irish catholics, on condition of receiving speedily an army thence. He wrote to Ormond, telling him that he had clearly discovered by the treaty of Uxbridge, that the rebels were aiming at nothing less than the total subversion of the crown and the church; that they had made the earl of Leven commander of all the English as well as Scottish forces in Ireland, and therefore he could no longer delay the settlement of Ireland in his favour, through scruples that at another time would have clung to him. He therefore authorised him to grant the suspension of Poyning's act, and to remove all the penal acts against the catholics on ​condition that they at once gave him substantial aid against the rebels of Scotland and Ireland. At this moment, too, the news of the successes of Montrose in Scotland, added to his confidence.
The two armies in England now prepared to try their strength. Charles, lying at Oxford, had a considerable number of troops: the west of England was almost wholly in his interest, north and south Wales were wholly his, excepting the castles of Pembroke and Montgomery. He had still Scarborough, Carlisle, and Pontefract; but his army, though experienced in the field, was the most licentious and debauched which had appeared since that of Wallenstein in the Thirty Years' War. The officers were at violent feud amongst themselves, jealous of each other, playing little regard to the commands of the king. As a measure of popularity, and to diminish the envy of prince Rupert being commander-in-chief, the king nominated the prince of Wales to that post, and Rupert, the real commander, was general under him. The prince was sent into the west of England for greater security, and Rupert and the garrisons scattered through the country, ravaged the unhappy inhabitants at pleasure. The soldiers lived at free quarters, and made themselves more terrible to their enemies. The whole army, officers and privates, prided themselves on their profligacy and debauchery, to contrast themselves against what they called the army of the saints and roundheads. Drinking, gambling, blaspheming, riot, and robbery, were fashionable, as a set off to what they deemed the demure hypocrisy of the parliamentarians. Clarendon, the royalist historian, confirms this awful account repeatedly; and lord Colepepper, writing to lord Digby, says, "Good men are so scandalised at the horrid impiety of our armies, that they will not believe that God can bless any cause in such hands."
In fact, such were the sufferings of all classes under the plunderings and harassing of the contending factions of that unhappy war, that the gentry in many counties, especially in Wilts, Dorset, Somerset, and Worcester, formed themselves into associations, and called upon their tenants and the villagers to form themselves into drilled and armed bodies under them, for the defence of their property, their homes, and their persons. They assumed the name of clubmen, from many of them being armed merely with clubs and pitchforks, and they assembled to the number of four, six, and even ten thousand men. In those quarters where the soldiery were in numbers or in march, that menaced depredations. They declared themselves perfectly neutral, that they had no object but to protect their lives and substance, and became so strong, that they began to talk of putting down the unnatural contest by force. They wore white ribbons as a distinction, and petitioned both king and parliament to cease hostilities, offering to hold the forts and castles till a satisfactory peace was concluded. Fairfax, however, reported to parliament that he found their leaders consisting chiefly of men who had been in the king's service, and had a leaning to that party much more than to the parliament. The two houses accordingly pronounced all persons appearing in arms without authority traitors to the commonwealth.
The parliamentary army, now remodelled, presented a very different spectacle to that of the king. The strictest discipline was introduced, and the men were called upon to observe the duties of religion. The officers had been selected from those who had served under Essex, Manchester, and the other lords; but having cleared the command of the aristocratic element, a new spirit of activity and zeal was infused into it. The king's officers ridiculed the new force, which had no leaders of great name except Sir Thomas Fairfax, and was brought together in so new a shape, that it appeared a congregation of raw soldiers. The ridicule of the cavaliers even infected the adherents of the commonwealth, and there was great skepticism as to the result of such a change. May, the parliamentary historian, says, never did an array go forth who had less the confidence of their friends, or more the contempt of their enemies. But both parties were extremely deceived. Cromwell was now the real soul of the movement, and the religious enthusiasm which glowed in him was diffused through the whole army. The whole system seemed a revival of that of the pious Gustavus Adolphus—no man suffered a day to go over without religious service, and never commenced a battle without a prayer. The soldiers now employed their time in zealous military exercises and in equally zealous prayer and singing of psalms. They sang in their march, they advanced into battle with a psalm. The letters of Cromwell to the parliament, giving an account of the proceedings of the army, are full of this religious spirit, which it has been the custom to treat as cant, but which was the genuine expression of his feelings, and was shown by effects such as cant and sham never produce. Victory, which he and his soldiers ascribed only to God, success, the most rapid and wonderful, attended him.
It is remarkable that the very man who had introduced the Self-denying Ordinance, was the only man who was never debarred by it from pursuing his military career. This has, therefore, been treated as an artifice on his part; but, on the contrary, it was the mere result of circumstances Cromwell was the great military genius of the age. Every day the success of his plans and actions was bursting more and more on the public notice, and no one was more impressed by the value of his services than the new commander-in-chief. Sir Thomas Fairfax. He had sent Cromwell, Massey, and Waller, into the west, before laying down their commissions, to attack colonel Goring, who was threatening the parliamentary lines. They had driven him back towards Wells and Glastonbury, and not deeming it safe to push farther with their small force into a quarter where the royal interest was so strong, and Cromwell advising parliament to send more troops to Salisbury to defend that point against Rupert, who was reported at Trowbridge, he had returned to Windsor to resign his command according to the ordinance. There, however, he found the parliament had suspended the ordinance in his instance for forty days, in order that he might execute a service of especial consequence, and which it particularly wished him to undertake. This was to attack a body of two thousand men conveying the king's artillery from Oxford to Worcester, to which place Rupert had marched, having defeated colonel Massey at Ledbury.
This was on the 22nd of April, and Cromwell took horse the next morning, and dashed rapidly into Oxfordshire and routed the enemy at Islip Bridge, consisting of four ​regiments of cavalry, took many of their officers, and especially those of the queen's regiment, seizing the standard which she had presented to it with her own hands. Many of the fugitives got into Bletchington House, which Cromwell immediately assaulted and took. The king was so enraged at the surrender of Bletchington, that he ordered the commander, colonel Wiadebank, to be shot, and no prayers or entreaties could save him. Cromwell next sent off his cannon and stores to Abingdon, and pushed on to Radcot Bridge, or Bampton-in-the-Bush, where others of the enemy had fled, where he defeated them, and took their leaders Vaughan and Littleton. Cromwell next summoned colonel Burgess, the governor of the garrison at Farringdon, to surrender; but he was called away to join the main army, the king being on the move.
Charles, in fact, issued from Oxford, and, joined by both Rupert and Maurice, advanced to relieve Chester, then besieged by Sir William Brereton. Fairfax, instead of pursuing him, thought it a good opportunity to take Oxford and prevent his returning there; but the king's movements alarmed him for the safety of the eastern counties, to which he had despatched Cromwell to raise fresh forces and strengthen its defences. Cromwell was recalled, and Fairfax set out in pursuit of the king. Charles relieved Chester by the very news of his march. Brereton retired from before it, and the Scotch army, which was advancing southward, foil back into Westmoreland and Cumberland, to prevent a rumoured junction of the king and the army of Montrose. Whatever had been the king's intentions in this movement, he wheeled aside and directed his way through Staffordshire into Leicestershire, and took Leicester by assault. From Leicester he extended his course eastward, and took up his head-quarters at Daventry, where he amused himself with hunting, and Rupert and his horse with foraging and plundering the whole country round.
Fairfax, now apprehensive of the royal intentions being directed to the eastern counties, which had hitherto been protected from the visitations of his army, pushed forward to prevent this, and came in contact with the king's outposts on the 13th of June, near Borough Hill. Charles fired his huts, and began his march towards Harborough, intending, perhaps, to proceed to the relief of Pontefract and Scarborough; but Fairfax did not allow him to get far ahead. A council of war was called, and in the midst of it Cromwell rode into the lines at the head of six hundred horse. It was now determined to bring the king to action. Harrison and Ireton, officers of Cromwell—soon to be well known—led the way after the royal army, and Fairfax, with his whole body, was at once in full chase. The king was in Harborough, and a council being called, it was considered safer to turn and fight than to pursue their way to Leicester like an army flying from the foe. It was therefore resolved to wheel about and meet the enemy.
At five o'clock the next morning, the 14th of June, the advanced guards of each army approached each other on the low hills a little more than a mile from the village of Naseby, in Northamptonshire, nearly midway betwixt Market Harborough and Daventry. The parliament army ranged itself on a hill called yet the Mill Hill, and the king's on a parallel hill, with its back to Harborough. The right wing was led by Cromwell, consisting of six regiments of horse, and the left consisting of nearly as many, was, at his request, committed to his friend, colonel Ireton, a Nottinghamshire man. Fairfax and Skippon took charge of the main body, and colonels Pride, Rainsborough, and Hammond, brought up the reserves. Rupert and his brother Maurice led on the right wing of Charles's army, Sir Marmaduke Langdale the left, Charles himself the main body, and Sir Jacob Astley, the earl of Lindsay, the lord Baird, and Sir George Lisle, the reserves. The word for the day of the royalists, was "God and queen Mary!" that of the parliamentarians, "God our strength!" A wide moorland, called Broad Moor, by between them. The cavaliers made themselves very merry at the new modelled army of roundheads, for which they had the utmost contempt, having nothing aristocratic about it, and its head being farmer Cromwell, or the brewer of Huntingdon, as they pleased to call him. They expected to sweep them away like dust, and Rupert, making one of his headlong charges, seemed to realise their anticipations, for he drove the left wing of the roundheads into instant confusion and flight, took Ireton prisoner, his horse being killed under him, and himself wounded severely in two places; and, in his regular way, Rupert galloped after the fugitives, thinking no more of the main battle. But the scattered horse, who had been diligently taught to rally, collected behind him, returned to the defence of their guns, and were soon again ready for action. On the other hand, Cromwell had driven the left wing of the king's army off the field, but took care not to pursue them too far. He sent a few companies of horse to drive them beyond the battle, and with his main body he fell on the king's flank, where at first the royal foot was gaining the advantage. This unexpected assault threw them into confusion, and the soldiers of Fairfax's front which had given way, rallying and falling in again with the reserve as they came to the rear, were brought up by their officers, and completed the route. Rupert, who was now returning from the chase, rode up to the wagon-train of the parliamentary army, and, ignorant of the state of affairs offered quarter to the troops guarding the stores. The reply was a smart volley of musketry, and, falling back and riding forward to the field, he found, as usual, a regular defeat. His followers stood stupefied at the sight, when Charles, riding up to them in despair, cried frantically, "One charge more, and the victory is ours yet!" But it was in vain, the main body was broken, that of Fairfax was complete; the artillery was seized, and the roundheads were taking prisoners as first as they could promise them quarter. Fairfax and Cromwell the next moment charged the confounded horse, and the whole fled at full gallop on the road towards Leicester, pursued almost to the gates of the town by Cromwell's troopers.
The slaughter at this battle was not so great as might have been expected. May, the historian, says that the slain did not exceed four hundred men, three hundred of the royalists and one hundred of the parliamentarians; but five thousand prisoners were taken, including a great number of officers, and a considerable number of ladies in carriages. All the king's baggage and artillery, with nine thousand ​stand of arms, were taken, and amongst the carriages that of the king containing his private papers: a fatal loss, for it contained the most damning evidences of the king's double-dealing and mental reservations, which the parliament took dare to publish, to Charles's irreparable damage. Clarendon accuses the roundheads of killing above a hundred women, many of them of quality, but other evidence proves that this was false, the only women who were rudely treated were a number of wild Irish ones, who were armed with skeans, knives a foot long, and who used them like so many maniacs.
Cromwell, it seems, had been desired to inform the commons of what took place, and in his letter to Lenthal, the speaker, after relating the defeat and the particulars of the capture of prisoners and baggage, he adds characteristically, "Sir, this is none other but the hand of God, and to Him alone belongs the glory, wherein none are to share with Him. The general served you with all faithfulness and honour; and the best commendation I can give him is that I dare say he attributes all to God, and would rather perish than assume to himself. Which is an honest and a thriving way; and yet as much for bravery may be given to him in this action as to a man. Honest men served you faithfully in this action. Sir, they are all trusty, and I beseech you in the name of God not to discourage them. I wish this action may beget thankfulness and humility in all that are concerned in it. He that ventures his life for the liberty of his country, I wish he trust God for the liberty of his conscience, and you for the liberty he fights for."
The next day Fairfax sent colonel Fiennes and his regiment to London with the prisoners and the colours taken, above a hundred of them, and he prayed that a day of thanksgiving might be appointed for the victory. But the most essential fruit of the victory was the reading in public and the parliament of the king's letters. In these the affair of the duke of Lorraine came to light—the attempt to bring in the Lorraines, the French, the Danes, and the Irish, to put down the parliament, whilst he had been making the most sacred protestations to that body that he abhorred bringing in foreign soldiers. There appeared his promise to give the catholics full liberty of conscience, whilst he had been vowing constantly that he would never abrogate the laws against popery. His letter to his wife, showing that at the treaty of Uxbridge he was merely conceding the name of a parliament, with a full determination, on the first opportunity, to declare it no parliament at all. These exposures were so dreadful, and gave such an assurance that the king was restrained by no moral principle, that the royalists would not believe the documents genuine till they had examined them for themselves; and for this examination the parliament gave the amplest opportunity. There were copies of his letters to the queen, in which he complained of the quarrels and harassing jealousies of his own courtiers and supporters, and of his getting rid of as many as he could by sending them on one pretence or another to her. The sight of these things struck his own party dumb with a sense of his hollowness and ingratitude; and the battle of Naseby itself was declared far less fatal to his interests than the contents of his cabinet. From this moment his ruin was certain, and the remainder of the campaign was only the last feeble struggles of the expiring cause. His adherents stood out rather for their own chance of making terms than from any possible hope of success.
The defeated and dishonoured king did not stop to pass a single night at Leicester, but rode on to Ashby that evening, and after a few hours' rest pursued his course towards Hereford. At Hereford, Rupert, fearful of the parliamentary army attacking their only remaining strong quarter, the west, left the king and hastened to Bristol, to put it into a state of defence. Charles himself continued his march into Wales, and took up his head-quarters at Raglan Castle, the seat of the marquis of Worcester. There, pretty sure that Fairfax was intending to go westward, he spent the time as though nothing had been amiss, hunting like his father, when he should have been studying the retrieval of his affairs, and passing the evenings in entertainments and giving of audiences. The most probable cause of Charles thus spending his time there and at Cardiff, to which he next retired, is that he was urging a transmission of an Irish army, and expecting it there. At the same time he could there more easily communicate with Rupert regarding the defence of the west of England.
Fairfax, supported by the brilliant genius and indefatigable exertions of Cromwell, proceeded to attack that last remaining stronghold of royalty—for Scarborough, Carlisle, and Pontefract were reduced in July by the Scots and the parliamentarians. The first encounter which they had was with the clubmen, who were out in the neighbourhood of Blandford, Dorchester, Shaftesbury, and Sherborne, to the number of ten thousand, led by a Mr. Hollis, of Dorchester, a Mr. Newman, and Sir Lewis Dives, the brother-in-law of lord Digby. Some of them were taken at Shaftesbury, and Hollis and Newman waited on Fairfax, demanding a safe-conduct to go to the king and parliament with petitions, which he refused, but behaved civilly to them lest they should join colonel Goring at Taunton. Cromwell cams across another body of them between Sherborne and Shaftesbury, and rode up to two thousand of them posted in an old encampment on Hamblaton Hill. They told him that ten thousand were assembling to demand the restoration of their comrades taken at Shaftesbury. Cromwell ordered them to return home and take care of their property, but they fired on him, on which he fell upon them, dispersed them, and took three hundred prisoners, whom he described as very silly, ignorant creatures, who promised that if he would let them go, they would be hanged before they would turn out again. At Sherborne he attacked Sir Lewis Dives, and took him, finding upon him letters containing royal commissions for raising clubmen, which plainly showed the nature of the institution.
The parliament forces under Cromwell marched on Bristol, where Rupert lay, whilst Fairfax met and defeated Goring at Lamport, and then besieged and took Bridgewater on the 23rd of July. Matters now appeared so threatening, that Rupert proposed to Charles to sue for peace; but the king rejected the advice with warmth, declaring that, speaking either as a soldier or a statesman, he saw nothing but ruin before him, yet as a Christian, he was sure God would not ​prosper rebels, and that nothing should induce him to give over the cause. He avowed that whoever staid by him must do it at the cost of his life, or of being made as miserable as the violence of insulting rebels could make him. But by the grace of God he would not alter, and bade him not on any consideration "to hearken after treaties." That he would take no less than he bad asked for at Uxbridge.
Charles, blind to the last, was still hoping for assistance from Ireland, and was elated by the news of successes from Montrose.
It will be recollected that the earls of Antrim and Montrose had been engaged by Charles to exert themselves in Ireland and Scotland on his behalf. Their first attempt was to take vengeance on the covenanting earl of Argyll, who had so much contributed to defeat the king's attempts on the Scottish church and government. Montrose, therefore, unfurled the royal standard as the king's lieutenant-general at Dumfries; but, having before been a strong covenanter, he did not all at once win the confidence of the royalists. His success was so poor that he returned to England. At Carlisle he was more effective in serving the king, and was made a marquis in consequence. After the battle of Marston Moor he again returned into the Highlands, and there learned the success of Antrim's labours in Ireland. He had sent over a body of fifteen hundred men under the command of his kinsman Alaster Macdonald, surnamed MacColl Keitache, or Colkitto. They landed at Knoydart, but a fleet of the duke of Argyll's burnt their ships, and hung in their roar waiting a fitting chance to destroy them. To their surprise they received no welcome from the Scotch royalists, but they continued their march to Badenoch, ravaging the houses and farms of the covenanters, but every day menaced by the gathering hosts of their foes, and learning nothing of their ally, Montrose. At length Montrose obtained tidings of them: they met at Blair Athol, in the commencement of August, 1644. Montrose assumed the command, and published the royal commission. At the sight of a native chief the Highlanders flocked to his standard, and the covenanters saw to their astonishment an army of between three and four thousand men spring at once, as it were, out of the ground. Montrose Tote to Charles that if he could receive five hundred horse on his way, he would soon be in England with twenty thousand men.
The movements and exploits of Montrose now became rather a story of romance than of sober modern warfare. Argyll and lord Elcho dogged his steps, but he advanced or disappeared with his half-clad Irish and valid mountaineers, amongst the hills in a manner that defied arrest. At Tippermuir, in Perthshire, he defeated Elcho, took his guns and ammunition, and surprised and plundered the town of Perth. As was constantly the case, the Highlanders, once loaded with booty, slipped off to their homes; and, left alone with his Irish band, who were faithful because their way home was cut off, he retreated northward, in hope of joining the clan Gordon. He found himself stopped at the bridge of Dee by two thousand seven hundred covenanters under lord Burley, but he managed to cross at a ford higher up, and, falling on the rear of the covenanters, threw them into a panic flight. They fled to Aberdeen, pursued by the wild Irish and Highlanders, and the whole mass of pursuers and pursued rushed wildly into the city together. The place was given up to plunder, and for three days Aberdeen became a scene of horror and revolting licence, as it had been from an attack of Montrose four years before, when fighting on the other side. The approach of Argyll compelled the pillagers to fly into Banffshire, and, following the banks of the Spey, he crossed the mountain of Badenoch, and, after a series of wild adventures in Athol, Angus, and Forfar, he was met by the covenanters at Fyvie Castle, and compelled to retreat into the hills. His followers then took their leave of him, worn out with their mountain flights and skirmishes, and he announced his intention of retiring for the winter into the mountains of Badenoch.
The earl of Argyll, on his part, retired to Inverary, and sent his followers home. He felt secure in the mighty barrier of mountains around, which in summer offered a terrible route to an army, but now blockaded with snow, he deemed utterly impregnable. But he was deceived; the retirement of Montrose was a feint. He was busily employed in rousing the northern clans to a sweeping vengeance on Argyll, and the prospect of a rich booty. In the middle of December he burst through all obstacles, threaded the snow-laden defiles of the mountains, and descended with fire and sword into the plains of Argyll. The earl was suddenly roused by the people from the hills, whose dwellings were in flames behind them, and their cattle in the hands of the army of Montrose, and only effected his escape by pushing across Loch Tyne in an open boat. Montrose divided his host into three columns, which spread themselves over the whole of Argyll, burning and laying all waste. Argyll had set a price upon Montrose's head; and Montrose now reduced his splendid heritage to a black and frightful desert. The villages and cottages were burnt down, the cattle destroyed or driven off, and the people slain wherever found with arms in their hands. This lasted from the 13th of December to the end of January.
Argyll by that time had mustered the clan Campbell, and lord Seaforth the mountaineers of Moray, Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness, to bear down on the invaders. Montrose, therefore, led forth his Highlanders and Irish to encounter them, and came first on Argyll and his army at Inverlochy Castle, in Lochaber. There he totally defeated Argyll, and slew nearly fifteen hundred of his people. This success brought to his standard the whole clan Gordon and others. The whole north was in their power, and they marched from Inverlochy to Elgin and Aberdeen. At Brechin they were met by Baillie with a strong force, which protected Perth; but Montrose marched to Dunkeld, and thence to Dundee, which he entered, and began plundering, when Baillie arrived with his covenanters, and caused him to retire. Once more he escaped to the mountains, but this time not without severe losses, for his indignant foes pursued him for threescore miles, cutting off many of his soldiers, besides what had perished in the storming of Dundee. When he appeared again it was at Auldearn, a village near Nairn, where, on the 4th of May, a bloody battle was fought betwixt him and the covenanters, under the victorious Hurry, two thousand men being said to be left upon the field.
​The general assembly addressed a sharp remonstrance to the king, which was delivered to him soon after the battle of Naseby, but it produced no effect. In fact, it was more calculated to inflame a man of Charles's obstinate temper, for it recapitulated all his crimes against Scotland, from his first forcing the common prayer upon them till then, and called on him to fall down at the footstool of the Almighty and acknowledge his sins, and no longer steep his kingdom in blood.
Winceslaus Hollar. From an Engraving by Himself.
But they did not merely remonstrate, the covenanters continued to fight. But, unfortunately, their commanders having divided their forces, as Hurry was defeated at Auldearn, so Baillie was soon afterwards routed at Alford, in Aberdeenshire, with such effect, that scarcely any but his principal officers and the cavalry escaped. Again the covenanters raised a fresh army of ten thousand men, and sent them against Montrose, and the Scottish army, which lay on the borders of England under the earl of Leven, commenced their march southward, to attack the king himself. On the 2nd of July, the very day on which Montrose won the battle of Alford, they were at Melton Mowbray, whence they marched through Tamworth and Birmingham into Worcestershire and Herefordshire. On the 22nd they stormed Canon-Froom, a garrison of the king's betwixt Worcester and Hereford, and as they were pressing on. Charles sent Sir William Fleming to endeavour to seduce the old earl of Leven and the earl of Calendar from their faith to parliament by magnificent promises, but they sent his letters to the parliament, and marched on and laid siege to Hereford.
THE FLIGHT FROM NASEBY
At Oxford Charles received the cheering news that Montrose had achieved another brilliant victory over the covenanters. He had, on again issuing from the mountains, menaced Perth, where the Scottish parliament was sitting, and then descended into the lowlands. It was evident that he was acting in concert with the king, who at that very time was making his hurried march for the borders. He crossed the Forth near Stirling, where at Kilsyth he was met by Baillie and his new army. The committee of estates would insist on Baillie giving battle. Fasting and prayer for four days had been held, and they were confident of success. But at the first charge the cavalry of the covenanters were scattered: the infantry fled almost without a blow, and such was the fury of the pursuit, that five thousand of them were slain. This victory opened all the lowlands to the royalists. Argyll and the principal nobles escaped by sea to England. Glasgow opened its gates to the conqueror, and the magistrates of Edinburgh hastened to implore his clemency towards the city, and to propitiate him by liberating all the royalist prisoners, promising obedience to the king. Most of these liberated prisoners, and many of the nobility, joined the standard of Montrose.
Had the king been able to effect his junction with him at this moment, the effect must have been great, but it could only have occasioned more bloodshed, without insuring any decided victory, for all England was by this time in the hands of the parliament. Sir David Leslie, instead of following the king with his cavalry southward again, had continued his march northward, to prevent any inroad on the part of Montrose, and the earl of Leven, quitting Hereford, advanced northward to support him. Charles immediately quitted Oxford, and advanced to Hereford, where he was received in triumph. Thence he set out to relieve Rupert, who was besieged by Fairfax and Cromwell in Bristol; but on reaching Raglan Castle, he heard the appalling news that it had surrendered. The prince had promised to hold it for four months, yet he surrendered in the third week of the siege. It was concluded by Fairfax to storm it on the 10th of September, 1645, which was done accordingly. It was assaulted, by the troops under colonel Welden, commissary-general Ireton, Cromwell, Fairfax, general Skippon, colonels Montague, Hammond, Rich, and Rainsborough, from different sides at the same time, The town was set on fire in three places by the royalists themselves, and Rupert, foreseeing the total destruction of the city, capitulated. He was allowed to march out, and was furnished with a convoy of cavalry, and the loan of one thousand muskets to protect them from the people on the way to Oxford, for he had made himself so detested by his continual ravagings of the inhabitants that they would have knocked him and his men on the head; even as he passed out of the city the people crowded round with fierce looks, and muttered, "Why not hang him?"
We have Cromwell's account of the taking of the place, who says that the royal fort was victualled for three hundred and twenty days, and the castle for nearly half as long. That there was abundant stores of ammunition, with one hundred and forty cannon mounted, between two and three thousand muskets, and a force of nearly six thousand men in foot, horse, train-bands, and auxiliaries. Well might Charles feel confounded at the surrender. He was so exasperated, that he overwhelmed Rupert with reproaches: he even accused him of cowardice or treason, revoked his commission, and ordered him to quit the kingdom. He ordered the council to take him into custody if he showed any contumacy. He arrested Rupert's friend, colonel Legge, and gave the prince's office of governor of Oxford to Sir Thomas Glenham. And yet Rupert appears to have only yielded to necessity. He was more famous at the head of a charge of horse than for defending cities. Bristol was carried by storm by a combination of the best troops and the most able commanders of the parliament army, and was already burning in three places. Further resistance could only have led to indiscriminate massacre.
But great allowance must be made for the irritation of Charles. The fall of Bristol coming after the defeat of Naseby, was a most disheartening event, and it was quickly followed by news still more prostrating.
The success of Montrose had proved the ruin of his army. A Highland force is like a Highland torrent; wider its clan chiefs, it is impetuous and overwhelming, but soon exhausted. The soldiers, gathered only for the campaign, no sooner collected a good booty than they walked off back to their mountains, and thus no Highland force, under the old clan system, ever effected any permanent advantage, especially in the Lowlands. So it was here; Montrose's descent from the hills resembled the torrent, and disappeared without any traces but those of ravage. He had secured no fortified places, nor obtained any means of permanent possession. He executed a few incendiaries, as they were called, at Glasgow, and then advanced towards the border, still in hope of meeting some royal forces. But the Gordon clan had disappeared; Colkitto had led back the other Highlanders to their mountains, and Montrose found himself at the head of only about six hundred men, chiefly the remains of the Irish. Meantime, Sir David Leslie, with his four thousand cavalry, was steadily advancing towards the Forth, evidently to put himself betwixt Montrose and the Highlands, and then suddenly wheeling westward, he returned on the unwary marquis, and surprised the commander who had before been accustomed to surprise every one else.
Montrose was in Selkirk, busy writing despatches to the king, and his little army was posted at Philiphaugh. Leslie ​had approached cautiously, and, favoured by the unvigilant carelessness of the royalists, came one night into their close vicinity. Early in the morning, under cover of a thick fog, he crossed the Ettrick, and appeared to their astonishment in the encampment on the Haugh. Notwithstanding their surprise, the soldiers formed hastily into a compact body; and Montrose, being informed of the danger, flew to the rescue at the head of a body of horse, but the odds were too great, the troops were surrounded and cut to pieces. In vain they begged quarter. Sir David consented, but the ministers raised a fierce shout of indignation, denounced the sparing of a single malignant as a sin, and the whole body was massacred. The historians of the covenanters themselves, inform us that they slew all the women and children found on the Haugh, and a few days afterwards drowned forty more, who had been saved by the country people, by throwing them over the bridge into the Avon, near Linlithgow. On the 23rd the Scottish parliament sanctioned these atrocities perpetrated under the name of religion, and ordered that "the Irische prisoners takin at and after Philiphaughe, in all the prissons of the kingdom, should be execut without any assaye or processe, conforme to the trettey betwixt both kingdoms." Turner, in his memoirs, confirms these statements of Balfour, Thurloe, and others, adding that, of the garrison of Dunavertie, three hundred men, who surrendered the next year to Sir David Leslie, at the king's mercy, "they put to the sword everie mother's son, except one young man, Machoul," whose life he begged. Of the noblemen and gentlemen who escaped with Montrose and got back to the Highlands, many were taken, and almost all of them were executed. The brilliant meteor of Montrose's chivalric career was burnt out, and he retired to the continent.
Before receiving this disastrous news, Charles resolved to make another effort to form a junction with Montrose. He retraced his steps through Wales, and advanced to the relief of Chester, which was invested by the parliamentarians. He reached that place on the 22nd of September, and posted the bulk of his cavalry on Rowton Heath, near the city, under Sir Marmaduke Langdale, himself being able to get into the city with a small body of troopers. But the next morning his cavalry at Rowton Heath was attacked by Poyntz, the parliamentary general, who had been carefully following on the king's heels, and now, having his little army penned betwixt his troops and those of the parliamentary besiegers, a simultaneous attack was made on the royalists from both sides. More than six hundred of Charles's troopers were cut to pieces, one thousand more obtained quarter, and the rest were dispersed on all sides. The king escaped out of the city and fled to Denbigh with the remnant of his cavalry. By this blow the only port which had been left open for his expected succours from Ireland, was closed. Still the news of Montrose's defeat at Philiphaugh had not reached him, and lord Digby advised the king to allow him to make the attempt to reach him with the seventeen hundred cavalry still remaining. Charles accepted the offer, but before Digby left, it was agreed that the king should get into his castle of Newark, as the securest place for him to abide the result. Having seen his majesty safely there, Digby set out northward. At Doncaster he defeated a parliamentary force, but was a few days after defeated himself by another at Sherborne. Notwithstanding this, with the remainder of his horse he pushed forward, entered Scotland, and reached Dumfries, but finding Montrose already defeated, he returned to the borders, and at Carlisle disbanded the troop. Sir Marmaduke Langdale and the officers retired to the Isle of Man, the men got home as they could, and Digby passed over to Ireland, to the marquis of Ormond. But the greatest loss which Digby had made during this expedition, was that of his portfolio with his baggage, at Sherborne. In this, as in the king's at Naseby, the most unfortunate discoveries were made of his own proceedings, and of his master's affairs. There was a revelation of plottings and agents in sundry counties for bringing foreign forces to put down the parliament. Goffe was in Holland promoting a scheme for the marriage of the prince of Wales to the daughter of the prince of Orange, and for forces to be furnished in consequence. There were letters of the queen to Ireland, arranging to bring over ten thousand men, and of lord Jermyn—who was living at Paris with the queen in such intimacy, as to occasion much scandal—to Digby himself, regarding probable assistance from the king of Denmark, the duke of Lorraine, and the prince of Courland, and of money from the pope. But perhaps the most mischievous was a letter from Digby, written a few days before, letting out how much the marquis of Ormond was secretly in the king's interest, though appearing to act otherwise. These disclosures were precisely such as must wonderfully strengthen the parliament with the public, and sink still lower the king.
The unfortunate monarch was every day becoming more completely involved in the toils of his enemies, and reduced to deeper humiliation. A most humbling proof of how thoroughly he had fallen was given him at Newark, by his own nephews and courtiers. Prince Rupert, whom Charles had ordered to quit the kingdom, instead of obeying, made his appearance at Belvoir Castle, only ten miles from Newark, and was evidently bent on forcing his way to the royal presence. Charles, indignant at his audacity sent him peremptory orders to keep away. But Rupert, paying no attention to the royal command, instantly set out for Newark, and Sir Richard Willis, the governor of Newark Castle, lord Gerrard, and others of the king's officers, went out with a hundred horse to escort him in. This was a proof of the insubordination of his immediate attendants that was very significant to Charles, and they presently marched into his presence, followed by a numerous body in arms, Rupert saying he was come to give a true account of his surrender of Bristol, and to demand a justification. The king, who had always been taught, and especially by his foolish father, that the presence of royalty was almost as sacred as that of the divinity, was almost speechless with chagrin and rage at this conduct. Rupert and Maurice remained and sapped with him, and would not relieve him of their presence till he had reluctantly signed an acknowledgement that Rupert was guiltless of treason, but not of indiscretion. There was, undoubtedly, much room for the prince's vindication, and the zeal with which he had always served his uncle, though destitute of discretion, demanded a revocation of the king's hasty condemnation; yet the manner of seeking it was itself an additional offence. But the mortification of Charles ​was not to end even there. He determined to get away from Newark to Oxford, and not deeming it safe to leave Willis there after his evident partisanship with the prince, he informed him that he had appointed him captain of his guards, and would leave lord Ballasis as governor of Newark.
Willis, who knew very well the king's reason, instantly went to the princes, who came again into the king's presence with Gerrard and a rabble of officers, and demanded Willis's restoration to the governorship, Rupert declaring that he was dismissed from that for having taken his part. At this insolent violation of all respect for the royal person, Charles became transported with rage, and, starting from the table at which he was dining, bade them all begone and never see his face again. The rebellious nephews and courtiers deigned to withdraw, but sent in a paper demanding a trial for Willis, or passports for themselves and as many horse as chose to accompany them. Charles sent them the passports, and they left the castle with two hundred horse, but only to retire to Belvoir, whence they sent to the parliament to solicit passports to go beyond the seas. These the parliament were only too glad to grant, but the disloyal company made no use of them, and we shall find that the princes contrived to reconcile themselves again to their uncle, and were shut up with him in Oxford. Charles did not linger long after his ungracious nephews. The enemy was pressing close on his quarters, and at midnight, on the 3rd of November, he quitted Newark with five hundred horse, and reached Belvoir, where the governor, Sir Gervas Lucas, attended him with his troop till break of day. Thence the king made a harassing and dangerous journey to Oxford, pursued by detachments of the enemy as he passed Burleigh-on-the-Hill, the garrison sallying and killing some of his attendants. In the evening Charles was obliged to rest for five hours at Northampton, and then push forward by Banbury, and so reached Oxford the next evening, "finishing," says Clarendon, "the most tedious and grievouis march that our king was exercised in." In truth, never was a king reduced to such a melancholy and pitiable condition—a condition which cannot be contemplated without commiseration, blind and incorrigible believer as he was in the divine right of despotism.
Whilst Charles had been making these unhappy tours and detours, Fairfax and Cromwell had been clearing away his garrisons, and driving back his troops into the farthest west. Cromwell first addressed himself by command of parliament to reduce Winchester, Basing House, Langford House, and Donnington Castle. On Sunday, September 28th, he appeared before Winchester, which surrendered after a breach had been made; and, on the 14th of October, he also carried Basing by storm. Basing House and Donnington had long annoyed parliament and the country with their royal garrisons, so that there was no travelling the western road for them. Basing House belonged to the marquis of Winchester, and was one of the most remarkable places in the country. Hugh Peters, who was sent up by Cromwell to give an account of the taking of it to parliament, declaring that its circumvallation was above a mile in circumference. It had stood many a siege, one of four years, without any one being able to take it. Cromwell, however, now bombarded and stormed it, taking prisoners the marquis. Sir Robert Park, and other distinguished officers. Eight or nine gentleman of rank ran out as the soldiers burst in, and were treated with some unceremonious freedoms, but, says Peters, "not uncivilly, considering the action in hand."
Cromwell spent about five hundred cannon balls on it before making a breach into "this old nest of idolatry," as Peters called it. Seventy-four people were killed and one woman; and Peters gravely assured parliament that they measured an officer that was lying dead on the ground, and found him from the great toe to the crown of his head nine feet. It was, he said, provisioned for some years rather than months; four hundred quarters of wheat, bacon, divers rooms full, containing hundreds of flitches, cheese proportionable, with oatmeal, beef, pork, beer, divers cellars full, and that very good. Amongst the people found in it were poor old Inigo Jones, and Hollar, the celebrated engraver. "Robinson, the player," says Peters, "was killed, who a little before the storm was known to be mocking and scorning the parliament and our army." The marquis's state bed, which cost thirteen hundred pounds, excited much wonder in the beholders; "popish books many, with crosses and neat utensils."
This was the twentieth garrison taken this summer, and Cromwell gave it up to the plunder of the soldiery, so that there was not a piece of furniture, nor a piece of lead, nor an iron bar in any window left. "The plunder of the soldiers continued till Tuesday night; one soldier had one hundred and twenty pieces in gold to his share, others plate, others jewels; among the rest one got three bags of silver, which, he not being able to keep his own counsel, grew to be common pillage among the rest, and the fellow had but one half-crown left for himself at last. The soldiers sold the wheat to country people, which they held up at good rates awhile, but afterwards the market fell, and there were some abatements for haste. After that, they sold the household stuff, whereof there was good store, and the country loaded away many carts; and they continued a great while fetching out all manner of household stuff, till they fetched out all the stools, chairs, and other lumber, all which they sold to the country by piecemeal." The fire consumed the house itself, except the walls; they took three hundred prisoners, and could hear on the Tuesday night people crying in vaults for quarter, but could not come at them for rubbish. Government ordered the remains of the house to be carted away, any one being authorised to have brick or stone for fetching.
This gives us a lively idea of these scenes everywhere going on at that time; the soldiers singing psalms, and the commanders praying all the while. "The commander of the brigade, Cromwell," says Peters, "had spent much time with God in prayer, the night before the storm, and seldom fights without some text of Scripture to support him. This time he rested upon that blessed word of God written in the 115th Psalm, 8th verse, 'They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.'"
Having demolished Basing, Cromwell next summoned Langford House, near Salisbury, and thence he was ​summoned in haste down into the west, where, together, the two generals drove back Goring, Hopton, Astley, and others, beating them at Langport, Torriugton, and other places, storming Bridgewater, and forcing them into Cornwall, where they never left them till they had reduced them altogether next spring.
Charles lying now at Oxford, In council, seeing that his army was destroyed, except the portion that was cooped up by the victorious generals in the west, and which every day was forced into less compass, advised him strongly to treat with the parliament, as his only chance. They represented that they had no funds even for subsistence, except what they seized from the country around, which exasperated the people, and made them ready to rise against them. There were some circumstances yet in his favour, and these were the jealousies and divisions of his enemies. The parliament and country were broken up into two great factions of presbyterians and independents. The presbyterians were by far the most numerous, and were zealously supported by the Scots, who were nearly all of that persuasion, and desired to see their form of religion made predominant over the whole country. They were as fiercely intolerant as the catholics, and would listen to nothing but the entire predominance of their faith and customs. But the independents, who claimed and offered liberty of conscience, and protested against any ruling church, possessed almost all the men of intellect in parliament, and the chiefs at the head of the army. Cromwell, in his letter from the field of Naseby, called for toleration of conscience, and Fairfax urged the same doctrine in all his dispatches from the west. There was, moreover, a jealousy growing as to the armies of the Scots, who had got most of the garrisons in the north of England and Ireland into their hands. These divisions opened to him a chance of treating with one party at the expense of the other, and in his usual way he made overtures to all. To the Scots he offered not only full concession of all their desires, but great advantages from the influence which their alliance with him would give. To the independents he offered the utmost toleration of religious opinion, and all the rewards of pre-eminence in the state and the army. To the presbyterians he was particularly urged by the queen to promise the predominance of their church and the like advantages. With the catholics of Ireland he was equally in treaty; but whilst his secret negotiations were going on in Ireland, the Scots endeavoured to bring theirs to a close, by applying to the queen in Paris. Three great changes had taken place, all favourable to Charles. Both the king, Louis XIII., and cardinal Richelieu, were dead. Richelieu had never forgiven Charles his attempts on Rochelle, and to raise the Huguenots into an independent power in France, nor his movements in Flanders against his designs, Mazarin, who now succeeded as the minister of Louis XIV., had no particular resentment against Charles, and though cautious in taking direct measures against the English parliament, did not oppose any of the attempts at pacification betwixt the king and his subjects. The Scots had always found Richelieu their ally, and they now applied to his successor to assist them in bringing matters to bear with Charles. In consequence of this, Montreuil was sent over to London, who conferred with the Scottish commissioners, and then conveyed to Charles their proposals. But the king, who had promised them all concessions consistent with his honour, found the very first proposition to be that episcopacy should be for ever abolished not only in Scotland, but in England, and presbytery made the established church. He had conceived that they would be satisfied with the supremacy of their faith in their own country, and he at once refused this demand. It was in vain that Montreuil pointed out to him that the Scots and the presbyterians of England were agreed upon this point, and that consequently any arrangement with the latter party must inevitably be upon the same basis. Charles declared that rather than consent to any such terms, he would agree with the independents. Montreuil replied that the Scots sought only to make him king, first having their own wishes as to religion gratified; but the independents, he was confident, contemplated nothing less than the subversion of his throne. He informed him that the queen had given to Sir Robert Murray a written promise that the king would accede to the demand of the Scots, which promise was now in the hands of the Scottish commissioners; moreover, that it was the earnest desire of both the queen, the queen-regent of France, and of the cardinal Mazarin.
Nothing, however, could shake Charles's resolution on this head, and he therefore made a direct application to parliament to treat for an accommodation. They received his offer coolly, almost contemptuously. He desired passports for his commissioners, or a safe conduct for himself, that they might treat personally; but it was bluntly refused, on the ground that he was not to be trusted, having, on all similar occasions, employed the opportunities afforded to endeavour to corrupt the fidelity of the commissioners. Not to appear, however, to reject the treaty, they sent fresh proposals to him, but so much more stringent than those at Uxbridge, that it was plain that they were rather bent on delaying than treating. The king was now in a very different position since the battle of Naseby and the fall of Bristol; and it was obviously the interest of parliament to allow Fairfax and Cromwell to put down his last remains of an army in the west, when they would have nothing to do but to inclose the king in Oxford, and compel him to submit at discretion. Montreuil, seeing this, again urged him to come to terms with the Scots, and that not a moment was to be lost. But nothing could move him to consent to their demand of a universal presbyterianism, and he again, on the 26th of January, 1646, demanded a personal interview with the parliament at Westminster. His demand, however, arrived at a most unfortunate crisis, for the discovery of his negotiations with the Irish catholics was just made: the entire correspondence was in the hands of the commons, and the whole house was in the most violent ferment of indignation. The king's letter was thrown aside and left without notice.
On October 17th, 1645, the titular archbishop of Tuam was killed in a skirmish betwixt two parties of Scotch and Irish near Sligo, and in his carriage was discovered copies of a most extraordinary negotiation, which had been going on for a long time in Ireland betwixt Charles and the catholics, for the restoration of popish predominance in that country, on condition of their sending an army to put down the parliament in England.
​We have already spoken of the confederate Irish catholics, who maintained an army for their own defence, and had a council at Kilkenny. Charles had instructed the marquis of Ormond, the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, to make a peace with these confederates: he had some time ago obtained a cessation of hostilities, but they would not consent to a permanent peace, nor to furnish the king troops until they obtained a legal guarantee for the establishment of their own religion. Lord Ormond, in his endeavours, did not satisfy the king, or rather his position disabled him from consenting publicly to such a treaty, as it would have roused all the protestants, and the Scotch and the English parliament against him. Charles, therefore, who was always ready with some underhand intrigue to gain his ends, and break his bargain when it became convenient, sent over lord Herbert, the son of the marquis of Worcester, and whom he now created earl of Glamorgan, to effect this difficult matter. Glamorgan is known to literary readers as the author of "A Century of Inventions," which he published when marquis of Worcester, and which Hume describes as "a ridiculous compound of lies, chimeras, and impossibilities." It is clear that Hume never read the book, which any one in Partington's modern edition may convince himself of. The marquis was of a scientific and speculative turn, and one of the "chimeras and impossibilities" in the book, is the mention of poor De Caus, whom the marquis saw in the Bicêtre prison, in Paris, confined as a madman, for having written a treatise, "Des effets de la vapeur," the wonderful effects of steam, which, if De Caus's urgent memorial to the French ministry had been attended to, might have anticipated our steamships and railroads two centuries.
Glamorgan was as zealous in his loyalty as in his speculative pursuits. He and his father had spent two hundred thousand pounds in the king's cause, and he was now engaged in an enterprise where he risked everything for Charles—name, honour, and life. He was furnished with a warrant which authorised him to concede the demands of the catholics regarding their religion, and to engage them to send over ten thousand men. After many difficulties he reached Dublin, communicated to Ormond the plan, saw with him the catholic deputies in Dublin, and then hastened to Kilkenny, to arrange with the council there. But at this time occurred the revelation of the scheme by the seizure of the archbishop of Tuam's papers. The parliament was thrown into a fury; the marquis of Ormond, to make his loyalty appear, seized Glamorgan, and threw him into prison, and the king sent a letter to the two houses of parliament, utterly disavowing the commission of Glamorgan, and denouncing the warrant in his name a forgery. All this had been agreed upon before, betwixt the king and Glamorgan, should any discovery take place, and on searching for Glamorgan's papers, a warrant was found, not sealed in the usual manner, and the papers altogether informal, so that the king might by this means be able to disavow them. But that Ormond and the council of Kilkenny had seen a real and formal warrant, there can be no question. The king, by a second letter to the two houses, reiterated his disavowal of the whole affair, and assured them that he had ordered the privy council in Dublin to proceed against Glamorgan for his presumption. The proceedings were conducted by lord Digby, who assumed a well-feigned indignation against Glamorgan, accusing him of high treason. The animus with which this accusation appeared to be made has induced many to believe that Digby was really incensed, because he had not been let wholly into the secret of Glamorgan's commission; and his letter to the king on the subject, noticed by Clarendon as rude and unmanly, would seem to confirm this. However, Glamorgan, on his part, took the whole matter very cheerfully, allowed the king's disclaimers without a remonstrance or evidence of vexation, and produced a copy of his secret treaty with the catholics, in which he had inserted an article called a defeasance, by which the king was bound by the treaty no further than he pleased till he had seen what the catholics did for him, and that the catholics should keep this clause secret till the king had done all in his power to secure their claims.
Surely such a system of royal and political hocus-pocus never had been concerted before. Ormond, on seeing the defeasance, declared that it was quite satisfactory, binding the king to nothing; in fact, he had to avoid the danger of alarming the catholics and losing their army for the king; and the protestants having seen the affected zeal to prosecute Glamorgan had become greatly appeased. Glamorgan was, therefore, liberated, and hastened again to Kilkenny, to urge on the sending of the forces. But the late disclosures had not been without their effect. One part of the council insisted on the full execution of the king's warrant, the open acknowledgment of catholicism as the established religion, and the pope's nuncio, Runcini, who had lately arrived, strongly urged them to stand by that demand. But another part of the council were more conceding, and by their aid Glamorgan obtained five thousand men, with whom he marched to Waterford, to hasten their passage for the relief of Chester, where lord Byron was driven to extremities by the parliamentarians. There, however, he received the news that Chester had fallen, and there was not a single port left where Glamorgan could land his troops; he therefore disbanded them, except three hundred, who proceeded with Digby, to form a guard for the prince of Wales.
ESCAPE OF KING CHARLES FROM OXFORD.
Whilst these measures had been prosecuting for the safety of the heir-apparent, the unfortunate monarch had been sill endeavouring to negotiate some terms for himself, first with one party and then with another, or with all together. The parliament had treated with contempt two offers of negotiation from him. They did not even deign him an answer. But his circumstances were now such that he submitted to insults that even a short time before would have been deemed incredible. On the 29th of January he made his second offer; he repeated it on the 23rd of March. He offered to disband his forces, dismantle his garrisons—he had only five, Pendennis, in Cornwall, Worcester, Newark, Raglan, and Oxford—and to take up his residence at Westminster, near the parliament, on a guarantee that he and his follower should be suffered to live in honour and safety, and his adherents should retain their property. But the parliament were now wholly in the ascendant, and they made the wretched king feel it. Instead of a reply, they issued an order that if he should come within their lines, he should be conducted to St. James's, his followers imprisoned, and none be allowed to have access to him. At the same time they ordered all catholics, and all who had borne arms for the king, to depart within six days, or expect to be treated as spies, and dealt with by martial law.
But whilst thus ignominiously replied by parliament, Montreuil was still pursuing negotiations on his behalf with the Scots. He obtained for the purpose the post of agent from the French court to Scotland, and with some difficulty obtained from the parliament leave to visit the king at Oxford with letters from the king of France and the queen-regent, before proceeding northwards. He employed his time there in urging Charles to agree with the Scots by conceding the point of religion; and at length it was concluded that Charles should force his way through the parliamentary army investing Oxford, and the Scots at Newark should send three hundred horse to receive him, and escort him to their army. Montreuil, on his part, delivered to Charles an engagement from the Scottish commissioners for the king's personal safety, his conscience, and his honour, as well as for the security and religious freedom of his followers. This was also guaranteed by the king and queen-regent of France on the behalf of the Scots who had applied to them for their good offices. Charles wrote to Ormond in Ireland, informing him that he had received this security from the Scots, and on the 3rd of April Montreuil set forward northwards.
Montreuil carried with him an order from the king to lord Bellasis, to surrender Newark into the hands of the Scots, but on arriving at Southwell, in the camp of the Scots, he was astonished to find that the leaders of the army professed ignorance of the conditions made with the Scottish commissioners in London. They would not, therefore, undertake the responsibility of meeting and escorting the king—which they declared would be a breach of the solemn league and covenant betwixt the two nations—till they had conferred with their commissioners, and made all clear. The security mentioned by Charles to Ormond would, if this were true, have been from the commissioners only; and there must have been gross neglect in not duly apprising the officers of it. Montreuil was greatly disconcerted by this discovery, burnt the order for the surrender of Newark, and wrote to Charles to inform him of the unsatisfactory interview with the Scots. It is doubtful whether Charles ever received this letter. At all events, impatient of some residents, for the parliamentary army was fast closing round Oxford, he snatched at another chance. Captain Fawcett, governor of Woodstock, sent to tell him that that garrison was reduced to extremities, and to inquire whether he might expect relief, or whether he should surrender it on the best terms he could obtain. Charles immediately applied to colonel Rainsborough, the chief officer conducting the siege of Oxford, for passports for the earls of Southampton and Lindsay, Sir William Fleetwood, and Mr. Ashburnham, to treat with him about the surrender of Woodstock; but the main thing was to propose the coming of the king to them on certain conditions. Rainsborough and the other officers appeared much pleased, but said they could not decide so important an affair without reference to their superior officers, but if the offer were entertained, they would the next day send a pass for them to come and complete the negotiation. If the pass did not come, it must be understood that the offer was not accepted. No pass came, and the king was reduced to a great strait, for the parliamentarian armies were coming closer and closer. He applied then to Ireton, who was posted at Woodstock, but he returned him no answer; to Vane, but he referred him to parliament; and thus was the humiliated king treated with the most insulting contempt. It was believed that it was the intention of parliament to keep the king there till Fairfax and Cromwell, who were now marching up from the west, should arrive, when they would capture him, and have him at their mercy.
At length Montreuil informed the king that deputies from the army had met the commissioners at Royston, and that it was settled to receive the king. There are very conflicting accounts of the proceedings at this period. Clarendon and Ashburnham, who have both left accounts, vary considerably. Ashburnham, the king's, groom of the chambers, says that word was sent that David Leslie would meet his majesty at Gainsborough with two thousand horse, but Montreuil's message was that the Scots would send a strong party to Burton-on-Trent, beyond which they could not go with that force, but would send a few straggling horse to Harborough, and if the king informed them of the day he would be there, they would not fail him. As to a proposal that Charles was impolitic enough to make to these Scotch covenanters, to form a junction with Montrose, a man whom they hated with a deadly hatred, for his ravages and slaughters of their party, they treated it with scorn; and, adds Montreuil, "with regard to the presbyterian government, they desire his majesty to agree with them as soon as he can. Such is the account they make here of the ​engagement of the king, my master, and of the promises I had from their party in London." He adds, that if any better conditions could be had from any other quarter, these ought not to be thought of. Montreuil wrote twice more, the last time on the 20th of April, expressing no better opinion of the Scots, and saying that they would admit none of his majesty's followers except his two nephews, Rupert and Maurice, with him, and such servants as were not excepted from the pardon; and that they could not then refuse to give them up to the parliament, but would find means to let them escape.
A more gloomy prospect for the king than the one in that quarter could scarcely present itself. It appears that he had not yet agreed to their ultimatum, the concession of the supremacy of the presbyterian church, and therefore there was no actual treaty between them. But all other prospects were utterly closed; Charles must choose between the Scots and the parliament, the latter body pursuing a contemptuous and ominous silence. Fairfax and Cromwell were now within a day's march of the city, and Charles made his choice of the Scots. Yet so undecided even at the moment of escaping from the city was he, that he would not commit himself irrevocably to the Scots, by announcing to them his departure, and the direction of his journey. It is remarkable, indeed, that he had not before, or even now, thought of endeavouring to escape to Ireland, and making a second stand there with the confederates, or of getting to the continent and awaiting a turn of fortune. But he seemed altogether like a doomed mortal, who could not fly his fate, justifying the feeling of Bernini, the sculptor, who on seeing the portrait of him painted by Vandyke in his youth, and sent to Rome for the execution of his bust, started back, and declared the possessor of that face born to destruction. In Vandyke's four celebrated paintings of him, we see him riding, as it were, on the path of his gloomy destiny. A melancholy, deep and fixed as death, reigns in his whole form and in every feature; and on that path he had gone, not with a wild impetuosity, but with a solemn, desperate, and downcast hardiness, blind to all the signs of heaven and earth, the most wretched and incorrigible of men.
About two o'clock on the morning of the 27th of April, Charles set out from Oxford, disguised as the servant of Ashburnham. He had his hair cut short by Ashburnham, and rode after that gentleman and Hudson, the chaplain, who knew the country well, and was their guide. They rode out unsuspected over Magdalen Bridge, Charles having, groom-like, a cloak strapped round his waist. To prevent particular attention or pursuit, several others of them rode out at the same time in different directions. Charles and his pretended masters got without suspicion through the lines of the parliamentary army, and reached Henley-on-Thames in safety. But once in temporary safety, Charles appeared more undecided than ever. He did not attempt to send word to the Scots to meet him; but, says Clarendon, he was uncertain whether to go to the Scottish army, or to get privately into London, and lie concealed there till he might choose what was best. Clarendon says he still thought so well of the city of London, as not to have been unwilling to have found himself there. But certainly the city of London had never shown itself more favourable to him than the parliament; and now with the parliament in the ascendant, it was not likely that it would undertake to contend with it for the protection or rights of the king. Charles still hoped, Clarendon says, that he might hear of Montrose making a fresh movement in his behalf, in which case he would endeavour to get to him; and he never, for a long time after, gave up the hope of still hearing something from Ireland in his favour. From Henley, he therefore directed his way to Slough, thence to Uxbridge, Hillingdon, Brentford, so near did he reach London, and then again go out to Harrow. His uncertainty increased more and more. He proceeded towards St. Albans, and near that town was alarmed by the sound of horses' feet behind them. It was only a drunken man; but to avoid danger they kept out of St. Albans, and continued through the bye-ways to Harborough, where he was on the 28th. Two days after he had got to Downham, in Norfolk, and spent some time in inquiring after a vessel that might carry him to Newcastle or Scotland: he had still no idea of escaping to the continent. He seems to have expected at Harborough some message from the Scots or from Montreuil, but as none was there, he had despatched Hudson to Montreuil, at Southwell. No prospect of escape by sea offering—for the coasts were strictly guarded by the parliamentary vessels—Charles, on Hudson returning with a message from Montreuil, that the Scots still declared that, they would receive the king on his personal honour; that they would press him to do nothing contrary to his conscience; that Ashburnham and Hudson should be protected; that if the parliament refused, on a message from the king, to restore him to his rights and prerogatives, they would declare for him, and take all his friends under their protection; and that if the parliament did agree to restore the king, not more than four of his friends should be punished, and that only by banishment. All this Montreuil, according to Hudson's own account afterwards to parliament, assured Charles by note, but added that the Scots would only give it by word of mouth, and not by writing.
This was at the best very suspicious; but where was the king to turn? He was treated with the most contemptuous silence by the parliament, which was at this very moment hoping to make him unconditionally their prisoner. Fairfax had drawn his lines of circumvallation round the city five days after the king's departure, ignorant that he had escaped, and in the full hope of taking him. For nine days he was wandering about, nobody knowing where he was, and during that time Clarendon says he had been in different gentlemen's houses, where "he was not unknown, but untaken notice of."
On the 5th of May he resolved, on the report of Hudson, to go to the Scots, and accordingly, early on that morning he rode into Southwell, to Montreuil's lodgings, and announced his intention of going to the Scots. The manner in which he was received there, is related in very contradictory terms by Ashburnham and Clarendon. Ashburnham says that some of the Scottish commissioners came to Montreuil's lodgings to receive him, and accompanied him with a troop of horse to the headquarters of the Scots' army at Kelliam, where they went after dinner, and were well received, many lords coming instantly to wait on him ​with professions of joy that his majesty had so far honoured their army as to think it worthy of his presence after so long an opposition. Clarendon, on the other hand, declares that "very early in the morning he went to the general's lodgings, and discovered himself to him, who either was, or seemed to be, exceedingly surprised and confounded at his majesty's presence, and knew not what to say, but presently gave notice to the committee, who were no less perplexed."
Both of them, however, agree that the Scotch soon convinced Charles that they considered that he had surrendered himself unconditionally into their hands; that he had not complied with their conditions, and that there was no treaty actually between them; and from all that appears, this was the case. Charles had trusted to the assurances of Montreuil, and had really no written evidence of any engagement on the part of the Scots, nor were any ever produced. Some of the lords, says Ashburnham, desiring to know how they might best testify their gratitude to his majesty for the confidence he had reposed in them, he replied that the only way was to apply themselves to the performance of the conditions on which he had come to them. At the word conditions, lord Lothian expressed much suprise, and declared he knew of no conditions concluded, nor did he believe any of the commissioners residing with the army knew of such. On this Charles desired Montreuil to present a summary of the conditions concluded with the commissioners in London, sanctioned by the king of France. It should, however, be borne in mind that since then the army commissioners had met with the commissioners from London at Royston, and had agreed to the conditions to be offered to the king. when Ashburnham, therefore, affirms that many of the commissioners of the army still protested their ignorance of these conditions, it can only mean that such conditions were not concluded with the king, either there or anywhere, for Charles had never consented to accept them. When Charles, therefore, asked them what they meant, then, by inviting him to come to them, and why they had sent word that all differences were reconciled, and that David Leslie should meet him with an escort of horse, they replied that this was on the understanding that his majesty meant to accept their terms, from which they had never receded, and that they now thought that by his coming to them he had meant to accept the cardinal condition—the taking of the covenant.
Charles must have been well aware of the truth of all this, but he was a man who played fast and loose so constantly, that it was impossible to make any treaty with him. At the very time that he was preparing to leave Oxford, so alive were all these quibbles and evasions in his mind, that he wrote to lord Digby, expressing his intention to get to London if he could, "not," he says, "without hope that I shall be able so to draw either the presbyterians or the independents to side with me, for extirpating one another, that I shall really be king again." A sufficient proof that on setting out from Oxford, he had held himself loose from any compact with the Scots, and did not mean to go to them at all if he could manage to cozen the presbyterians or independents to take his part, and "extirpate one another."
Such a man was as slippery as an eel. He now insisted solemnly on the existence of the very conditions that he had purposely kept clear of, and never meant to accept if he could succeed with the other parties. The Scotch stood by their offered terms, and exhorted him to accept the covenant, intreating him with tears and on their knees to take it, or to sanction the presbyterian worship if he could not adopt it, and pledging themselves on that condition to fight for him to the last man. But this Charles would not do. He was still—though beaten, and, without a soldier to come to his rescue, voluntarily surrendered to his enemies—as full of the persuasion of the divinity of kingship as ever. He therefore undertook to give the word to the guard, in virtue of his being the chief person in the army; but old Leven quickly undeceived him, by saying, "I am the older soldier; your majesty had better leave that office to me."
It was now necessary to apprise the parliament of the king having entered their camp—a piece of intelligence which produced a wonderful sensation. Fairfax had already announced to the parliament that the king had escaped out of Oxford, and was believed to have gone towards London, whereupon the two houses had issued a proclamation forbidding any one to harbour or conceal his person on pain of high treason, and of forfeiting the whole of their estate, and being put to death without mercy. All papists, and other disaffected persons, were ordered, on the supposition that the king might be in London, to remove before the 12th of May to twenty-five miles' distance from the metropolis, leaving, before going, a notice at Goldsmiths' Hall of the places to which they intended to retire. When the letter arrived from the Scotch commissioners, the parliament was filled with extreme jealousy and alarm. There had long been a feeling of the design of the Scots, supported by the presbyterians, assuming an undue power; and now to hear that they had the king in their hands was dreadfully embarrassing. They instantly sent word to the Scots that his majesty must be disposed of according to the will of the two homes of parliament, and that for the present he must be sent to Warwick Castle; that Ashbunham and Hudson, the king's attendants, should be sent for by the sergeant-at-arms or his deputy, to be dealt with as delinquents; and that a narrative must be prepared of the manner in which the king came to the Scottish camp, and forthwith sent to the two houses. To enforce these orders, they commanded Poyntz to watch the Scotch army with five thousand men, and Sir Thomas Fairfax to prepare to follow him.
The Scotch were not prepared to enter into a civil war with England for the restoration of the king, who would not comply even with their propositions; but they knew too well the power they possessed in the possession of his person, to let the parliament frighten them out of their advantage till they had secured their own terms with them. They therefore immediately addressed a letter to the parliament, expressing their astonishment at finding the king coming among them, for which they solemnly but untruly protested there had been no treaty nor capitulation. Perhaps they saved their word by meaning no treaty concluded. They assured the two houses that they would do everything possible to maintain a, right understanding betwixt the two kingdoms, and therefore solicited their advice, as they had also sent to solicit that of the committee of estates in Scotland, as to the ​best measures to be adopted for the satisfactory settlement of the affairs of the kingdom. Charles also sent to parliament, repeating his offers of accommodation, and requesting the two houses to forward to him the propositions for peace. To show his sincerity, he ordered his officers to surrender the fortresses still in their hands to the committee of both kingdoms for the English parliament. He had offered to surrender them to the Scots, but they refused to accept them, knowing that it must embroil them with the parliament. This surrender on the part of the king, on the 10th of June, closed the war. The last to pull down the royal standard was the old marquis of Worcester, the father of Glamorgan, who held Raglan Castle, and who, though he was eighty years of age, was compelled by parliament to travel from Raglan to London, where he immediately died. Worcester had refused to give up Raglan, as it was his own house. He did not surrender it till the 19th of August. Oxford was given up on the 24th of June. Rupert and Maurice were suffered to withdraw to the continent. The duke of York, Charles's second son, was sent up to London to the keeping of parliament, and put under the care of the earl of Northumberland.
Things being in this position, and both the king and the Scots being anxious to keep at a distance from Fairfax and his army till the terms were settled, the Scots rapidly retreated to Newcastle, carrying the king with them.
The treaty betwixt the Scots and the English parliament was now carried on with much diplomacy on both sides, and was not finally settled till the Kith of January, 1647. The Scots, soon after leaving Newark, proposed a meeting with the parliamentary commissioners, to explain the reasons of their retreat northwards, and also for not surrendering Ashburnham and Hudson; but the meeting did not take place, and soon after Ashburnham contrived to escape and get into France, to the queen. Charles said that he could have escaped, too, had he been so disposed; but Hudson attempting it, was stopped.
Charles did not neglect to try the effect of brilliant promises on David Leslie and others of the Scotch officers, if they would side with him and make a junction with Montrose for his restoration. He offered to make David earl of Orkney, but the committee of estates sent the earls of Argyll and Loudon, and lord Lanark, to Newcastle, to see that all was kept in order in the camp; and they told Charles plainly that he must take the covenant, and order Montrose to disband his forces in the Highlands, if he expected them to do anything important for him. Charles consented to order the disbanding of Montrose's followers and his retirement to France, but he could not bring himself to accept the covenant. In fact, on the same day that he gave the order to surrender his remaining fortresses, he sent a letter to the English parliament, informing them that he was in full freedom, and in a capacity to settle with them a peace, and offering to surrender the question of religion to the assembly of divines at Westminster, to place the militia in their hands as proposed at Uxbridge, for seven years, and, in short, to do all in his power to settle the kingdom without further effusion of blood. The parliament, however, were too sensible of their power, and knew that he was in no condition to make war on them, to notice such overtures, further than they thought his terms now too high.
At this very time Charles was in active secret endeavour to obtain an army from Ireland and France. Glamorgan and the pope's nuncio were busy there; the queen was equally busy in France; Mazarin again promised her ten thousand men, and incited lord Jermyn to seize upon Jersey and Guernsey; and the king, though he had ordered Montrose to disband his forces and quit Scotland, again desired him to be ready to raise the royal standard once more in the Highlands in conjunction with the French and Irish. All these wild schemes, however, were knocked on the head by the earl of Ormond making peace with the parliament on condition that he should recover his estates. He surrendered the castle of Dublin and the fortresses to parliament, went over to England, and all hope of aid from Ireland was at an end.
Whilst these political designs were in agitation, Charles was deeply engaged with the religious difficulty of giving up episcopacy and consenting to the dominance of presbyterianism. He consulted Juxton, the ex-bishop of London, and gave him leave to advise with Dr. Sheldon and the late bishop of Salisbury, whether he might not accept presbyterianism as a man under compulsion, and therefore not really bound by it; and he was at the same time engaged with Alexander Henderson on the scriptural authority of episcopacy or presbyterianism. During this dispute, in which each champion supported his opinion with scriptural passages, and yet came no nearer than such disputants ever do, the Scotch divine was taken ill and died, and the royalists declared that the king had so completely worsted him, that he died of chargin.
On the 23rd of July the English parliament at length made proposals of peace, sending the earls of Pembroke, Denbigh, and Montague, and six members of the commons, to Newcastle, to treat with him. The conditions were not so favourable as those offered at Uxbridge, things, indeed, being now very different; the great point, however, being the abandonment of episcopacy. They were to receive an answer or return in ten days; but the king would not yield the question of the church. The Scottish commissioners were present, and urged the king warmly to consent to the conditions, and thus to restore peace. The earls of Loudon and Argyll implored it on their knees. Then Loudon, chancellor of Scotland, told him "that the consequences of his answer to the propositions was so great, that on it depended the ruin of his crown and kingdoms; that the parliament, after many bloody battles, had got the strong-holds and forts of the kingdom into their hands; that they had his revenue, excise, assessments, sequestrations, and power to raise all the men and money in the kingdom; that they had gained victory over all, and that they had a strong army to maintain it, so that they might do what they would with church or state. That they desired neither him nor any of his race longer to reign over them, and had sent these propositions to his majesty, without the granting whereof the kingdom and his people would not lie in safety; that if he refused to assent, he would lose all his friends in parliament, lose the city, and lose the country; and that all England would join against him as one man to process and ​dispose him, and to set up another government; and that both kingdoms for safety would be compelled to agree to settle religion and peace without him, to the ruin of his majesty and posterity;" and he concluded by saying, "that if he left England, he would not be allowed to go and reign in Scotland."
Gateway of Holmby Castle.
This, it must be confessed, was plain and honest, and therefore loyal and patriotic speaking. The general assembly of the kirk had already come to this conclusion; but all was lost on the king. In former years it was attributed to the evil counsels of his courtiers that he went so wrong, but now it was seen that he was himself the true son of his father, and that nothing could drive him from his absolute notions of church and state, but death. Many have judged, from his slippery conduct, and his many unprincipled subterfuges throughout his life, that his conduct was the result, not of conscience, but of mere obstinacy of temper; but in that they appear to be strong to a certain extent. His temper was thoroughly obstinate and despotic, but he was strengthened in this obstinacy by his conscience on church matters. But what conscience, ask they, could a man have who was ready to perjure himself and deceive to gain his ends? That was the spirit of kingcraft imbibed by his education, and thoroughly engrafted on his obstinate nature; and he was as conscientious in his lies and political villainies as in anything else, because he believed them employed for a sacred end. His queen, his friends, and one interested in him now saw that it was no longer a question of this or that church, but of his life and fortunes; that he must yield or perish. Mazarin had threatened to send over an army and assist his cause with force, if reason should not prevail with parliament. He now sent over Bellièvre, as an ambassador extraordinary, to insist on parliament making terms with the king; but Bellièvre no sooner arrived in the country, than he saw that it was useless to ask for more than parliament was disposed to give. Montreuil deposed all that had been offered to the king by the Scots, but he could not assert that the king had accepted those conditions. He was recalled, and M. de Bellièvre went on to Newcastle and joined in the entreaty to the king, backed by the private letters of the queen, to give up the church rather than sacrifice everything. His entreaties were all wasted upon Charles. The ambassador therefore wrote to the cardinal that the king was too backward in giving the parliament satisfaction, and begging that some one might be sent who might have more influence with the king.
ARREST OF KING CHARLES BY JOYCE, AT HOLMBY.
Parliament now having proved that all negotiation was useless, their commissioners returned, and reported that they could obtain no answer from the king, except that he was ready to come up to London and treat in person. A presbyterian member, on hearing this report, exclaimed—"What will become of us, now the king has rejected our propositions?" "Nay," replied an independent member, "what would have become of us, had ho accepted them?" And really it is difficult to see what could have been the condition of the kingdom had a man of Charles's incorrigible character been again admitted to power. The parliament returned thanks to the Scottish commissioners for their zealous co-operation in the endeavour to arrange matters with the king—a severe blow to Charles, who had till now clung to the hope of seizing some advantage from the jealousies which for many months had prevailed betwixt the parliament and the Scottish army.
On the 12th of August the Scottish commissioners presented a paper to the house of lords, stating that the kingdom of Scotland had, on, the invitation of both houses, cheerfully undertaken and faithfully managed their assistance in the kingdom towards obtaining the ends expressed in the covenant; and as the forces of the common enemy were now broken and destroyed, through the blessing of God, they were willing to surrender up the fortresses in their hands, and retire into their own country, on a reasonable compensation being made for their sufferings and expenses. They stated truly that many base calumnies and execrable aspersions had been cast upon them by printed pamphlets and otherwise, which they had not suffered to turn them from that brotherly affection which was requisite For the great end in view, and which they trusted would yet be effected, notwithstanding the lamentable refusal of their propositions by the king. They claimed, moreover, still to be consulted on the measure for accomplishing the common object of peace for the kingdom. The commons appointed a committee to settle the accounts betwixt them. The Scots demanded six hundred thousand pounds as the balance due, but agreed to receive four hundred thousand pounds, one half of which was to be had before quitting the kingdom.
Scarcely had this amicable arrangement been made, when the two English houses of parliament passed a resolution that the disposal of the king's person belonged to them. This alarmed the Scots, who instantly remonstrated, saying that as Charles was king of Scotland as well as of England, both nations had an equal right to be consulted regarding the disposal of his person. This is a sufficient answer to the calumny so zealously propagated by the royalists that the Scots had sold the king to the parliament. On the contrary, they had claimed a sum of money as a just payment of their expenses and services, and the person or liberty of the king had not entered at all into the bargain. This bargain, in fact, was made five months—that is, on the 5th of November—before they delivered up the king, that is, on the 30th of January, 1647, and during that five months they were zealously engaged in contending for the personal security of the monarch to the very verge of a civil war. All this time striving equally to induce Charles to accept the terms, which would have removed all difficulties. From September 21st, when the English parliament voted tills resolution, to October 13th, a fierce contest was carried on on this subject, and various conferences were held. The Scotch published their speeches on these occasions; the English seized them, and imprisoned the printers; there was imminent danger of civil war, and on the 13th of October, the commons voted payment for the army for the next six months, giving an unmistakable proof of their resolve on the question.
All this was beheld with delight by Charles; and he wrote to Hamilton, who was now liberated from his prison in Mount St. Michael, and to his wife, that he believed yet that they would have to restore him with honour. He believed one party or the other would, to settle the question, concede all to him, and with his sanction put the other down. For some time the public spirit in Scotland favoured his hopes. The question was discussed there with as much vehemence as in England. His friends exerted themselves, the national feeling was raised in his favour, and the Scottish parliament passed a vote on the 10th of December, under the management of the Hamiltons, that they would exert all their power and influence to maintain the monarchical system of government, and the king's title to the English crown, which it was now notorious that the independents sought to subvert. This gave wonderful spirit to the royal party; but the commission of the kirk instantly reminded parliament that Charles had steadily refused to take the covenant, and that even if he were deposed in England, he could not be allowed to come into Scotland; or if he did enter it, his royal functions must be suspended till he had embraced the covenant, and given freedom to their religion. This brought the parliament to reflection, and the next day it rescinded the resolution.
This dashed the last hopes of the king, and, now that it was too late, he began seriously to contemplate escape to the continent. Montreuil wrote to the French court on the 21st of January, 1647—the very day that the money was paid to the Scots, and a receipt given previous to their ​departure—that Charles still continued to dream of escaping, though to himself it appeared impossible, unless the Scots had rather see him do so than fall into the hands of the independents. The king had arranged with Sir Robert and William Murray his scheme of escape in disguise, but it was found impossible. Once more, therefore, he wrote to the parliament of England for permission to go to London and open a free debate with both houses for the settlement of all differences. The message received no notice whatever; but the two houses went on debating as to the disposal of the king's person. The lords voted that he should be allowed to come to Newmarket; the commons that he should go to Holraby, in Northampton, one of his houses, to which he was considerably attached. After further debate this was agreed to by the lords.
The Scots, seeing that they must yield up the person of the king to the English parliament or prepare to fight for it, asked themselves what they were to gain by a civil war for a king who would not move one jot towards complying with their wishes? They made one more effort to persuade him to take the covenant, but in vain. In reply to their solicitation, he made this ominous reply:—"It is a received opinion by many, that engagements, acts, or promises of a restrained person, are neither valid nor obligating; how true or false this is I will not now dispute, but I am sure if I be not free, I am not fit to answer your or any propositions." And he demanded if he went to Scotland whether he should be free, with honour and safety. It was clear what was in his mind—that if he did take the covenant he would be at liberty to break it when he had the power; and as the Scots had determined that they would not receive him into Scotland at the certain cost of a civil war, when they could with such a person have no possible guarantee of his keeping his engagements even were he brought to make them, they replied that he must at once accept their propositions, or they must leave him to the resolution of parliament. Two days after, the 16th of January, 1647, the parliament of Scotland acceded to the demand of the English parliament that the king should be given up, a promise being obtained that respect should be had to the safety of his person in the defence of the true religion, and the liberties of the two kingdoms, according to the solemn league and covenant. More was demanded by the Scots, namely, that no obstacle should be opposed to the legitimate succession of his children, and no alteration made in the existing government of the kingdom. To this the lords fully assented, but the commons took no notice of it.
On the 5th of January, the two hundred thousand pounds, engaged to be paid to the Scots before leaving England, arrived at Newcastle, in thirty-six carts, under a strong escort, and having been duly counted, a receipt was signed on the 21st at Northallerton, and on the 30th Charles was committed to the care of the English commissioners, consisting of three lords and six commoners, the earl of Pembroke being at then: head. He professed to be pleased with the change, as it would bring him nearer to his parliament. The Scots, having finished their business in England, evacuated Newcastle, and marched away into their own country.
In all these transactions we have endeavoured in vain to discover any ground for the common calumny against the Scots, that they bought and sold the king. On the contrary, we have shown that all contract regarding their reimbursements and remuneration was completed five months before the delivery of the king. That they did all in their power to induce him to accept their covenant, and with that their pledge to defend him to the last drop of their blood. Montreuil says, that even at the very last moment the earls of Lauderdale and Traquair again pressed the king to consent to accept the covenant and establish presbyterianism, and they would convey him to Berwick and compel the English to be satisfied with what he had thus offered them. That the Scots offered him (Montreuil) twenty thousand Jacobuses, to persuade the king to comply, but that he could not prevail. It must be remembered, too, that when they did surrender him, it was only on promise of safety to his person, and not to the independents, who made no secret of their designs against the monarchy, but to their fellow believers, the parliament, which entertained no such intentions, and had already offered Charles the same terms on the same conditions.
Before the close of this year, that is in September, the earl of Essex died, Ireton married Bridget Cromwell, second daughter of Oliver Cromwell, and a great number of officers in the army were again in parliament; the Self-denying Ordinance, having served its turn, being no more heard of.