FOOTNOTES:
[313] She told Grecy: ‘Les personnes qu’il (le roi) haissoit, lorsqu’elle étoit sans crédit, elle les avoit retablies depuis qu’elle a pris créance auprès de lui (du roi).’
[314] Montague: L’état des affaires d’Angleterre en 1642: ‘le prétexte du parlement n’est pas contre la royauté même, mais contre les personnes.’
[315] So she herself soon after related to Grecy: ‘LL. MM. s’étoient resolu de se retirer de Londres en une de leurs maisons pour de là s’emparer d’une place forte, qui n’est pas beaucoup éloignée.’
[316] Cp. Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria 117.
[317] The Life of Prince Rupert, probably by his secretary, in Warburton’s Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers i. 460. ‘It was not found proper at that time to make any countenance of a war, matters not being as yet come to that height as to despair of an accommodation.’
[318] This expectation is loudly expressed in the pamphlet, Joyful Tidings to all True Christians, Jan. 1642. According to it the King had declared ‘that hereafter he would altogether join with them.’ (the Parliament).
[319] ‘That the powers granted shall continue until it shall be otherwise ordered or declared by both houses of Parliament.’ Ordinance of both houses.
[320] D’Ewes characterises the debate as ‘full of sadness and evil augury.’ Sanford 482.
[321] Message from Huntingdon. ‘His Majesty being resolved to observe the laws himself, and to require obedience to all them from all his subjects.’ Journals 481.
[322] In the Lords with the addition ‘notwithstanding anything expressed in this message.’
[323] Letters of John Byron in State Paper Office, Jan 22. ‘Though I carry ever so fairly, they are resolved to pick quarrels with me.’
[324] ‘I cannot promise to keep that place long, in the condition I am in, yet I will sell both it and my life at as dear a rate as I can.’ A worthy ancestor of the great poet!
[325] The younger Hotham had written, ‘Fallback, fall edge, he would put it to the hazard.’ Sanford 475.
[326] In the pamphlet ‘Five matters of note.’ ‘The Parliament being called and established by the authority of the King and consent of the kingdom to effect all things that are agreeable to law tending to the preservation of His Majesty’s peace an welfare and the general good of the subject—if they, foreseeing a danger—endeavour to prevent it, and the persons by them commanded falsifie their trust, they are traitors.’
[327] ‘York is a sanctuary to all those that despise the Parliament.’ Letter sent by a Yorkshire gentleman to a friend in London, June 3, 1642.
[328] So says Giustiniani: ‘Protesto ad alta voce, eleggere di perdere le tre corone, che porta sopra il capo, piutosto che lasciare senza severo castigo aggravio di tanta consequenza.’
[329] A diurnal out of the north. July, 1642.
[330] England’s absolute monarchie or government of Great Britain. Thomas Bankes, 1642. He ascribes to the House of Commons the right ‘of impeaching those who for their own ends, though countenanced by any surreptitiously gotten command of the King have violated that law, which he (the King) is bound ... to protect, and to the protection of which they were bound to advise him.’
[331] ‘That the King’s vote was included in the Lords’ vote.’
[332] ‘Touching the fundamental laws or politique constitution of this kingdom.’ Pamphlet of Feb. 24, 1642/3. ‘Whenever circumscribed by written laws, it ceaseth to be supreme. Its superlative and uncircumscribed power I intend only as relating to the universe and the affairs thereof, where it is to work by its fundamental principle, not by particular precepts or statutes.’
[333] Hallam ii: ‘The nineteen propositions went to abrogate in spirit the whole existing constitution.’
[334] May’s History of the Long Parliament, ch. iv. 175: ‘In a very short space those lords became the greater number, and their departure began therefore to seem less strange than the constant sitting of the rest.’
[335] Parliamentary History xi, 208.
[336] Journals of the House of Lords v. 92.
[337] ‘They do find a disaffection in those persons about His Majesty, and therefore it concerned us to take care to provide for the safety of the King and the kingdom.’ June 17. Journals ii. 629.
[338] See their declaration from a pamphlet of the time in Lady Theresa Lewis’ Lives of Friends of the Chancellor Clarendon i. 119.
[339] The state of the difference between the King and the Houses of Parliament, for the direction of conscience.
[340] On the origin of this the History of the Rebellion, as originally composed, went into more detail than the later account printed in Clarendon’s Life, vol. vi. p. 335; ed. 1849.
[341] ‘The meaner sort thought it a fine thing to set up against the great ones.’ Stanley’s Report.
[342] Butler. Letter from Mercurius, in Somers iv. 580.
[343] New propositions to the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council. June 1642. Pamphlet.
[344] Giustiniani: ‘Capo il piu accreditato fra li malcontenti e che con palese ostinatione ha impugnato sempre senza rispetto gli interessi reali.’
[345] Nugent’s Memorials of Hampden ii. 200.
CHAPTER II.
THE CAMPAIGNS OF 1642 AND 1643.
Queen Henrietta Maria had a long and stormy passage from Dover to Helvoetsluys, in which one of her ships was lost: she never exhibited however any fear for herself when shipwreck and death seemed to be impending, but spoke only of God, and of the danger of her husband[346]. At the Hague she delivered over her daughter, not without ceremony, to the charge of Prince Frederick Henry of Orange, who received her with all the respect due to members of royal houses.
Her first object was, through the Prince’s influence to induce the States-General to mediate in favour of her husband; but when his affairs at York took an unexpectedly favourable turn[347], she devoted all her attention to procuring him support. The fugitives who had escaped to the Netherlands, Percy, Jermyn, Windebank, Lord Finch, were in this very useful to her. Many of her jewels were sold: the Queen did not deny that they appeared to her more beautiful than ever, when taken out of their gold settings: she had to part with them for about half their value. Most of them served as security for the loan which she raised: luckily she had brought a full power from her husband for this purpose: at times even this did not suffice, and the Prince of Orange guaranteed payment. She actually succeeded in sending over some money, more than £8000, as she herself reckoned in July, which gave very much A.D. 1642. desired help; for it was not all the nobility and gentry who provided for themselves, and moreover the officers of the old army, who appeared at York as before in London, and were the very core of the Cavalier party, were urgently in want of pay. Soon afterwards followed military stores, bought in the Netherlands, saddles and harness for the cavalry, carbines, pistols, muskets, matchlocks, even cannon and the necessary ammunition. There is no doubt that from this source a military undertaking was first made possible to the King.
There has been much controversy as to which party actually began the war, the King or Parliament. Unquestionably Parliament took the lead in preparations—the militia preceded the array: the King however was the first to determine to draw the sword.
As Newcastle and the mouth of the Tyne were in the King’s hands, it would have been an inestimable advantage to his position in the North, if he could have occupied Hull also. Towards this he directed his first movement about the end of July. The troops sought to secure both banks of the Humber, and threw up entrenchments: guns were brought up from the ships, with a view to a siege. Hotham was once more urged not to compel the King to seize by force on what was his by right[348]; but he, still holding to his original purpose, replied that he was bound to obey Parliament, the supreme court of the kingdom[349]. Parliament had already a force in readiness, which came to the aid of the besieged, under one Meldrum, a Scot, so that they were able to meet the attacks of the Royalists by successful sorties. Here the first blood of the war was shed: the King found himself compelled to abandon the undertaking, especially as Warwick was bringing relief to the town by sea.
The leaders at York had hoped to surprise some inland town also, especially Coventry, which owed special attachment to the house of Stuart, because the charter constituting it a A.D. 1642. city, had been granted by James I. One of the chief men at the court, Spenser Compton, Earl of Northampton, who had once filled a municipal office there, declared that he could guarantee its fidelity. Accordingly the King sent word to the magistrates, in the familar style of old times, which he loved to assume, that he intended to come on an early day, August 19, and sup with them. Compton repaired to the city, in order to prepare for him a good reception. Meanwhile however Puritan opinions, sustained by zealous preachers like King and the learned Abbot, had gained the upper hand in Coventry. The ideas of Parliamentary independence found as much favour there as in Hull, Gloucester, and most other cities. Compton was received with hostile demonstrations; and the city refused admittance, not directly to the King, but to the armed men whom he brought with him: and when on the next day these prepared to open the gates by force, the inhabitants did not hesitate to repel force by force. Parliamentary troops very soon came up, and made any further attempt impossible.
While the King was thus failing in all his enterprises, those of the Parliament succeeded. Colonel Goring, who had raised the King’s standard at Portsmouth, was immediately cut off from all communications both by land and by sea; and as he was also ill supplied with provisions, for Warwick had seized a corn-ship destined for him, he was without much trouble forced to surrender the place.
Thus the beginnings of the campaign presaged but little future good for the King.
Charles I had warned his partisans north of the Trent to assemble round the royal standard, which he should set up at Nottingham on August 22: for it was thought desirable to fix the seat of war in the county from which that declaration of entire devotion had proceeded. This was the signal, in England as well as in France, which in old times summoned the feudal vassals to personal service: it was raised chiefly when great dangers threatened the country, sometimes against the Welsh, sometimes against the Scots. And as in the civil wars of France a short time before, by far the larger part of the nobility had gathered to the banner of the legitimate A.D. 1642. King, so Charles I expected to assemble round his standard all those who thought the dignity of the crown endangered by the hostility of Parliament. As inscription it bore the words ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,’ and this exactly symbolised the military authority of the King, the validity of which was now called in question. The King hastened back from Coventry in order to be present on the day: on the afternoon of August 22 the standard was brought with great ceremony out of the castle of Nottingham into the open field. When the King and the lords and gentry of his suite had taken their places—there were several squadrons of horse and two or three hundred men on foot—a proclamation was read, in which all faithful subjects were required to lend aid to the King against the rebellion of the Earl of Essex. The King had at the very last moment made alterations in the language of the proclamation, so that the herald had difficulty in reading it. The standard was brought back into the castle in the evening: next day the ceremony was repeated in the presence of the King[350], and twice more without him. No great and immediate result could be expected on the spot.
The Parliamentary army gathered in threatening proximity. The Earl of Essex appeared in the field on September 9, and advanced to Northampton, with an army of twenty regiments of infantry and seventy-five squadrons of cavalry, which were not all of the full complement, but still numbered from 12,000 to 14,000 men. The formation of this army and its advance secured the Parliamentary interest in all the neighbouring counties. The King, who had only 500 horse and a couple of weak regiments of foot with him, could not possibly await its approach: he gave up entirely his first plan of holding Nottingham, as well as of conquering Coventry and Hull. Some time before he had been urged to take up his quarters in the north-western provinces. Warrington in Lancashire had once been suggested as a place where his adherents might A.D. 1642. easily assemble from all sides: the Stanleys[351] thought it was mere jealousy of their superior power, which had prevented this being agreed to. Now however a similar project was adopted. Royalist opinions were especially prevalent in Worcester, Hereford and Shropshire. The King, retiring before Essex, went direct to Shrewsbury, whither the old Lord Mayor after some hesitation invited him.
Here once more his cause found unexpected sympathy. It was shown that the feelings of personal devotion and loyalty, which had bound the vassals to their princes in earlier centuries, was not yet extinct in England. The elevation of the royal standard cannot be regarded as barren of results when, even among those who had hitherto sided with the Parliament, men were found who could not bear to stay at home when the royal standard was displayed in the field[352]. Some joined the King because they had always heard from their ancestors that they must ever hold to the crown: others thought it unfair to abandon in his distress the prince whose bread they had eaten. Some too appeared in the field who did not unconditionally share the King’s sentiments; but the attitude of Parliament was still more offensive to them, and as it would have been counted as cowardice not to take part in the war when all the world was rushing to arms, they joined the King. To the majority his cause appeared by far the better, now that he had conceded so much and all to no purpose. Many a young lawyer threw away his long robe in order to fight for the good cause. Some regarded it as holy, and thought that whoever lost his life in defending it might be deemed a martyr.
Through the influence of these sentiments an army assembled in Shropshire around the King, which according to the notion of that age was worthy of the name—2000 cavalry, 1500 dragoons, and 6000 foot soldiers: and new reinforcements were expected daily. A great assistance was A.D. 1642. promised by the munitions of war collected at Chester, which had originally been destined for Ireland, but now fell into the King’s hands. More money came in than was expected, and the soldiery were well paid. Some commanders of great military merit joined the King, such as Jacob Astley, reputed one of the best major-generals in Europe; and Ruthven of Ettrick, who had learned the art of war in Germany, and had won new renown by his defence of Edinburgh against the Scots,—a man of fire and devotion, and a thorough soldier. Prince Rupert of the Palatinate, true to his word, had already made his appearance at Nottingham by his uncle’s side, as soon as the war broke out, for which he had offered his aid: he had come over with the Queen’s assistance, together with his brother Edward. He brought with him several specimens of military apparatus, in order to introduce into England, where they were as yet unknown, the improvements in war material which had been made in Germany. Especially he trained the cavalry in the tactics then adopted in Germany. He made many a daring raid through the country in order to encourage the royalists, harry the rebels, seize their stores and divert them to the King’s service. His troopers learned the art of war by practising it.
The first successful feat of arms fell to Rupert’s lot. He had occupied Worcester, but abandoned it again as untenable. His horsemen and officers were bivouacking near the place, and many had dismounted and were taking their ease on the grass, when the van of the hostile army was seen approaching. In a moment they had resumed their arms and mounted their horses; and with a sudden impetuous onset the squadrons of Rupert, who was himself surrounded by the boldest officers, charged the Parliamentary horse and instantly broke them[353]—a success of no trifling importance, as it gave the King’s troops confidence in themselves and in their leaders.
The King, who thus enjoyed the scarcely expected pleasure of seeing his enemies prisoners before him, now felt that he might A.D. 1642. venture to advance towards the capital. It is scarcely credible that they should have confidently expected to be in London within a short time. We even catch the voices of some who believed it without wishing it: they were again afraid of the unrestrained domination of the men who had now most influence with the King. The latter expected to be obliged to fight on the way, but did not doubt that he should win the victory, and find it all the easier to conquer London, where his partisans would rise in his favour.
Essex in fact could not let the King advance on London, where continued preparations were going on, but where things were not yet in a condition to withstand an attack: the King too could not venture, while Essex followed him, to advance so far as to place himself between two hostile armies. When he reached Edgcot on the borders of Warwickshire, he adopted the advice of the Prince, who now commanded the rear, on which most depended, that he should take up a strong position opposite the Parliamentary army, and attack it before it grew too strong.
On Sunday October 23, the King for the first time saw from the height of Edgehill his enemies drawn up before him in full order of battle. It was not till the afternoon that the two armies came within range. How the people assembled for worship in the neighbouring parishes must have trembled when they heard the thunder of cannon from those heights!
In English warfare the different arms were not yet so well combined in action as in Germany. First the cavalry measured their strength. The Parliamentarians fired their carbines and pistols at a badly judged distance, and at this moment were charged by the Royalists, who put them to flight at the first shock. It was not a fight, says one report, but a massacre, and then a headlong pursuit in which the victors could not be controlled by their officers: among other booty,—for they were above all things eager for booty and intent on it,—the carriage of the Earl of Essex fell into their hands.
But while the Royal cavalry were thus engaged, the Parliamentary infantry had gained the upper hand. The regiments raised in London under Essex and Hollis fought A.D. 1642. splendidly: they consisted mainly of young men who had taken part in the tumults in the city, and had since been drilled by German corporals and had learned to shoot[354]. These troops, with the horsemen, of whom several troops had stood their ground, now endangered the King himself: the forces around him gave way or suffered very severe loss. Lord Lindsay, who held the rank of Commander-in-chief, but through the influence of Prince Rupert had been deprived of his proper command, led his regiment forward, pike in hand, and was mortally wounded. In the struggle the great standard fell once into the enemy’s hand, but was rescued again: the bullets rained in the immediate neighbourhood of the King. Charles I did not give way to fear: in the midst of the firing he was heard to call out the watchword of the day, ‘For God and the King’: his position however was one of great danger, when at last the cavalry returned from the pursuit, and restored the balance of arms[355].
Next day both armies remained a mile apart without engaging. The victory remained undecided, but this gave the Royalists, who were the weaker, great confidence. Prince Rupert is said to have proposed to press on with his cavalry to Westminster and disperse the Parliament. The rejection of the scheme is ascribed to Lord Bristol. Essex retreated to Northampton and thence to London. The King occupied Banbury, and then moved to Oxford, where he was received with triumph.
Soon afterwards we find him again in the field, to make the attempt on London once before decided on. On November 4 he was at Reading, on the 10th at Colebrook: he contented himself with disarming the inhabitants who were hostile to him, without doing them any other injury, so far as it depended on him: for he held that he was their lawful King and they his subjects. On the other side also this feeling had again spread: even among the troops doubts had been A.D. 1642. raised whether they could rightfully fight against the King. This opinion was however neither widely enough spread to take much effect, nor strong enough to make way against other contrary influences. We are informed that the attack made by Rupert on Brentford, at a time when it was thought that a cessation of hostilities might be looked for, did serious injury to his cause. The London regiments lay there, and were fearfully handled by the Welsh in the royal army, who had their failure at Edgehill to atone for[356], and this rekindled the popular hatred against the Cavaliers. Fabulous tales were told of the cruelty of Prince Rupert and his followers, which filled men’s minds with horror. Parliament declared the attack to be one of those acts of treachery which were to be expected of the King. Thus it was decided to offer the most strenuous resistance to him. The Parliamentary army, reinforced by the militia, assembled on Turnham Green in battle array: Essex went from regiment to regiment, and was greeted with military familiarity as ‘Old Robin’: the short addresses of Skippon to his men made an equally good impression. Their superiority was so decided that the King, with the handful of troops left to him, might think himself lucky to get back to Oxford without disaster.
The Parliamentary government by its demands for aid had at this time certainly aroused considerable opposition in the capital. We are assured that at one time seventy merchants were in prison for refusing to contribute their means for arms to be used against the King. In great assemblies of the citizens Royalist principles were eloquently expressed, and received with approbation. This could not however have any practical effect, so long as in the Common Council the opinions before adopted maintained the preponderance. There John Pym well knew how to stop all opposition by his usual persuasive eloquence; and the assembly swore afresh to live and die with Parliament.
The Parliament however could not prevent every sort of A.D. 1643. negotiation: in February 1643 it again made proposals to the King. These not only repeat the contents of the nineteen propositions in respect to the militia; but also in relation to religion, in conformity with a resolution passed in the interval, demand in express terms that the King should sanction the abolition of the old church organisation from archbishops down to sacristans, and assent to the bill for a new church government to be agreed on between the two Houses and an assembly of divines. When these proposals were laid before the King at Oxford in the garden of Christ Church, he remarked that those who made them were not in earnest in seeking peace. There is a tradition widely spread and often repeated, that in the personal negotiations which ensued the King professed himself ready to give way on one material point, but that next day, under the influence of his immediate attendants, he made a contrary declaration[357]. We can scarcely believe however that this decided the question. Between the views of Parliament and the King’s claims there was a contradiction so thorough, that no effectual approximation from which an end to the quarrel might be expected could be imagined. More was now asked of the King than before the war: through it he had attained a far better position, and had no reason for yielding: he might hope in a new campaign to win a still more favourable position.
The Queen was already come back to England to take part in the war. The results of the events in England had necessarily been felt in the Netherlands also. A commissioner from the Parliament went over, and complained bitterly of the support which Charles I found in the Netherlands: and his representations were by no means slighted by the Estates of Holland, the strongest of the United Provinces. That Province declared that it desired no breach with the Parliament, but the maintenance of neutrality, a necessary condition of which was the supplying neither of the contending parties with munitions of war. The States-General also listened to the complaints. The commissioner recalled the great interests of religion and liberty common to the two A.D. 1643. countries, and the support which the republic had formerly received from England. The Queen’s friends replied that the republic of the Netherlands owed its independence not to the English Parliament but rather to the English Crown, to Queen Elizabeth and King James I, the predecessors of her husband, adding the remark that it might some day be dangerous for them if a Parliament alone ruled in England[358]. No one in the States-General ventured to dispute the principles on which the English Parliament and the republic of Holland alike rested, but it was not deemed advisable to be very earnest in their cause. Vessels laden with arms, which had been detained, were again set free: English soldiers who wished to go to the King were allowed to depart, not indeed in companies, but singly. As at the first moment, so now again, the Queen found it in her power to strengthen the forces of her husband. She had not been deceived in the Prince of Orange, who assisted her at least underhand, for he saw his own advantage in the maintenance of the Stuart dynasty. How her heart swelled when events had taken such a turn that she might hope, as she said, in spite of traitors to return to England and rejoin her husband. That she had contributed somewhat to this result satisfied her self-love: it was her pride and good fortune, especially as her husband recognised it. She reminded him incessantly in her letters of his promise to conclude no treaty without having taken her advice upon it. If he gave up the control of the militia to Parliament only for a single year, as she heard that he was inclined to do, he would render both himself and her miserable, there would be nothing left to her but to retire into a convent. If only she instead of her son had been with Hotham on the walls of Hull, she would have seized the traitor and thrown him over the walls, or he should have done the like to her. The tidings of a treaty containing concessions, which was under negotiation, so excited her A.D. 1643. that she burned the letter in which the news was conveyed: she should like, she said, a reconciliation, but only an honourable one. Towards the end of the year she had again collected a supply of military stores, which she now resolved to convey in person to the King. After many hindrances, and being more than once driven back by wind and weather, she landed at last on February 22 at Burlington, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. But what a welcome did she receive in England! A couple of English ships arrived immediately after her, and their crews did not hesitate to fire on the house in which their Queen had taken up her abode. The balls broke the windows of her bedchamber, and flew about her bed. Amidst the whistling of the shot she quitted the house and the village, and fled to shelter in the open field with the ladies of her suite: the men stayed behind to take charge of the vessel in which were the military stores; had it been necessary she would have placed herself at their head. It did not however come to this, as the ebbing tide compelled the ships to quit the bay. Attended by a long train of cannon, mortars, and powder waggons, the chivalrous Queen entered York, where she was received in triumph.
That she had escaped so many dangers by land and sea gave her infinite confidence in herself and her cause: had it not been tempting God, she would have gone up to a cannon’s mouth. In the very first letter after her landing she urged her husband to come to no resolution until he had heard further news from her. Writing from York in March, she declared that if he made peace and disbanded his army, without having made an end of the everlasting Parliament, she should be obliged again to quit England, for she would never fall into the hands of those men. Some had expected that she would come with the olive branch and attempt to mediate between the King and Parliament: on the contrary, she exerted all her influence to urge the King to unyielding adherence to his prerogative. Her arrival made a more active plan of operations possible.
The original idea of Charles I had been to open the campaign by a new advance on London. On the other hand the Earl of Essex, at the head of the Parliamentary army, A.D. 1643. formed the plan of attacking the King at Oxford. The first contest must therefore be for Reading, which was as important for one scheme as for the other. Here Essex obtained the advantage; on the twelfth day of the siege he took Reading[359] and fixed his head-quarters there: but when he advanced nearer to Oxford, Prince Rupert proved to be stronger.
In one of the skirmishes of that period, on Chalgrove field, John Hampden was seen to ride to the rear wounded, for the first time in any such encounter, for he was as resolute in the field as in parliamentary and political warfare: a few days later he died, with a presentiment, as it appears, of the dangers impending over the country. The royal troops obtained a decisive advantage over William Waller, who had penetrated into the West, and thence moved towards Oxford: he was surprised by the unexpected approach of the royal cavalry, and when he turned to face them at Roundway Down, was completely defeated. The horsemen of Waller and Haslerig, who looked like moving fortresses, gave way before the lighter horse of the Royalists. In the midland counties also the King’s party had attained a certain strength: the family of Hastings had gained the upper hand in Leicestershire, the Cavendishes in Lincolnshire. The inroads of Prince Rupert kept Essex employed. Under these circumstances there was no longer any difficulty in the Queen’s rejoining her husband. She met him on the field of Edgehill (13 July, 1643), bringing three thousand infantry, thirty squadrons of cavalry, some artillery, and ammunition in plenty in a long train of waggons. She was received in Oxford with endless rejoicings, the more so as the news of Waller’s defeat arrived at the same time. With the Queen all good luck and success seemed to return.
In the same month (July 26) Bristol was taken. At an earlier period Royalist tendencies had shown themselves among the magistrates, but had been repressed: now, when A.D. 1643. the outworks were taken, the garrison despaired of maintaining its ground, and surrendered the place. It was the second city in the country for wealth and population, and full of arms which had been intended for the Irish war. Most of the ships, lying in King’s Road, declared for the King; and this gave scope for the idea of forming a fleet for him, which should command the coasts of Wales and England, and open a communication with Ireland. The hope now was to take Gloucester, and thus become master of the Severn, and so of the inland traffic.
This change of fortune produced various favourable consequences. Hotham, who had been almost the first to rebel openly, now proposed to surrender to the King the fortress, which he had twice defended against other Royalist attacks: he said that he had hardly slept a night without his sword by his side. Lord Digby, who had fallen into his power on his return from Holland, seems to have converted him; and differences which he had with Fairfax and Cromwell strengthened his resolve. In the town however Parliamentarian opinions had through his own influence obtained undisputed predominance; and on the first suspicion an attempt was made to secure his person. He was seized while trying to escape, and his son, already a renowned captain, who had a share in all his affairs, was taken in the town.
More fortunate was Hugh Cholmely, a distinguished member of Parliament, at that time Governor of Scarborough. He took over to the Royalists a body of three hundred men. The fortress remained for the time in the hands of a Parliamentary captain, but he also soon went over, and surrendered the place to the King[360].
In London itself traces were discovered, or at least there was a talk, of a plot to bring royal troops into the city and cause a rising of the King’s adherents: a commission of array had been introduced with great secrecy into the city, and inquiries had been made privately in the different parishes, to find out who and how many could be reckoned on. The intention then was, it seems, to bring about a coalition of A.D. 1643. the Royalists and the friends of peace[361]. Edmund Waller, a member of the Lower House, who gave the name to this conspiracy, and in fact had a great share in it, escaped, on making a full confession, with fine and imprisonment. Tomkyns his brother-in-law, and Challoner, who seem to have been more deeply implicated, forfeited their lives. Their guilt however was not so clear but that the people regarded their execution as a violent act of party justice[362].
The Parliament, finding that there were so many in the city who were calculated on for a conspiracy in favour of the King, adopted new precautions. We must, said Pym, unite the good more closely, and have a means of separating them from the bad. He proposed an oath, in which the cause of religion was again identified with that of Parliament, and the King’s army was directly stigmatised as Popish. Every man was to declare that he was convinced in his conscience that the forces raised by Parliament were engaged in the defence of a just cause, of the true Protestant religion, and of the liberty of the subject, and to promise that he would support and defend all others who had sworn the oath, in everything they might do with this object[363]. The two Houses agreed that this oath should be administered in the army and among the people. While the King was rising in strength and his party growing powerful, it seemed necessary to consolidate afresh the Parliamentary faction.
But what a prospect was this for the nation: how long was it to fight and ruin itself?
A very singular idea occurred to the Earl of Essex, General of the Parliamentary army, who felt a sympathy with the people greater than corresponded to his party position. The King, he thought, might go away for a while, A.D. 1643. then the two armies might advance to meet one another at a place to be agreed on beforehand; and they might once more try to conclude peace, and if that proved impossible, decide the controversy with the sword. For the quarrel was altogether within the nation, the two sides having different ideas of the English constitution: and a battle would be like the judgment of God between them[364].
In August 1643 it is plain that even in Parliament the two parties were very nearly equal in strength. The Lords accepted a scheme by which the armies were to be disbanded, the two great questions of religion and the militia settled in parliamentary fashion, and the members who had been excluded from either House for their Royalist sentiments or for desertion were to be restored. This last point warranted a hope that the great disputed questions themselves might still be settled in a way not altogether hostile to the crown. Even the King’s suite saw in it a step towards a return to grounds of recognised legality. The Lords invited the concurrence of the Commons: on August 5, a Saturday, the question was debated whether these proposals should be taken into consideration; and even here the desire for peace was so keen, that it was decided in the affirmative by a considerable majority; and by a very narrow majority in a thinner house it was further agreed that it should be done immediately. One article of the scheme was at once agreed to, and then further deliberation was adjourned till the Monday. Had the counsels of Parliament been guided entirely by the free votes of its members, it is probable that those who were called the violent party would have suffered a defeat[365].
But their confederates were still entirely masters of the city. The idea had before been suggested of collecting a second army in opposition to Essex, and placing William Waller at its head, to carry on the war more energetically than hitherto. The Lords’ proposals redoubled the agitation A.D. 1643. in men’s minds. A petition was signed to the effect that they were destructive to religion, law, and freedom, and only calculated to cool the ardour of those who would otherwise have been ready to aid with their persons and their substance. On Sunday the old zeal was rekindled by fiery sermons. On Monday, as often in decisive moments, crowded masses of people appeared before Parliament to declare their wish for war. The unpopular names were greeted with threatening outcry. Amid this tumult the resolution passed on Saturday was again discussed. The question whether to take into consideration the proposals of the Lords was put afresh; the first division gave a majority of two votes for so doing: but meanwhile other members had come in, a new division was taken, and the motion was now rejected by a majority of seven. The concurrence of the Commons, for which the Lords had asked, was not merely refused, but the Lords were invited to join with the Commons in measures of defence[366].
The Lords felt mortified and injured. They declared the assemblage of mobs in the vicinity of the two Houses to be a breach of the privileges of Parliament. Northumberland and Holland, who now themselves desired a compromise and peace, repaired to head-quarters in order to induce Essex to move his troops nearer to the capital, to keep the mob in check, and re-establish the freedom of parliamentary debate. Essex inclined rather to the side of the Lords, having been offended by the resolutions in the city in favour of Waller: but this circumstance furnished the other party with the means of winning him back. When Pym and some other leading members paid him a visit, to assure him that Waller should remain dependent on him, Essex once again, as hitherto, chose to give way to the majority: Pym and his friends maintained the superiority, but, as one sees, with great difficulty.
Meanwhile Charles I had directed his arms against Gloucester. The great importance of this town for the pacification, in a Royalist sense, of the entire west of England, may be inferred from the King’s having determined to besiege it A.D. 1643. on hearing that Massey the governor, who had served under one of the Royalist generals, was inclined to change sides, in defiance of the advice of most of his counsellors, and especially of the Queen, who would best have liked a direct attack on London. The King must soon have become conscious that he had deceived himself: in reply to his summons he received the correct answer from the Parliamentary point of view, that he would be obeyed when his commands were conveyed through the two Houses of Parliament. The two delegates who brought this message spoke in a rude and curt tone, and when they left, within a few paces of the King put on their caps, which bore orange cockades, the colours of Essex[367]. Bad as the fortifications of Gloucester were, the citizens made a good stand behind them. The Londoners had never taken so much interest in the fate of any other city: some closed their shops until the news of its relief should arrive. The troops which Essex led forth on this errand were far too numerous and too full of warlike zeal for the King to resist: they repelled partial attacks without difficulty, and on September 8 Essex entered Gloucester.
It was generally assumed at the time that if the King, instead of staying before Gloucester, had marched directly on his divided capital, he would have made himself master of it. I do not think however that this is at all certain: London had been fortified on all sides; the ruling party in Parliament, the magistrates, the Common Council, were most closely leagued together. At least the King must first have come to an understanding with Essex, or else the expectations of the Royalists would probably have been disappointed in London also.
By Rupert’s advice the King threw himself in the way of the returning army at Newbury, in order to prevent a junction between it and the forces which had meanwhile been collected by Waller. The Prince’s cavalry gave fresh proof of their surpassing courage in repeated and at length successful attacks on the enemy’s horse, who however on this A.D. 1643. occasion fought better than before: but their onset was completely broken on the rampart of pikes of the Parliamentary infantry; and this time Essex and Skippon had placed their artillery with great skill at the points where it would be most effective. The battle consisted of a series of assaults upon an enemy arrested on his march, who had taken up a strong position and was prepared to defend it. The next day Essex expected to be obliged to cut his way through the Royalist army, but it had retired during the night: he was able to advance unopposed over the battle-field[368], and continued his march to London. The day cost the King some of his best men, such as Lord Falkland, probably the only one of his contemporaries in whose praise both parties concurred.
Essex had relieved a town and defeated an attack on his army, but he had not yet established the superiority of the Parliamentary party. Exulting in having refuted every slander which ignorant persons had uttered against him, and probably hoping that this was done once for all (a hope which is never fulfilled), Essex, in spite of the advantages which had been gained, declared in the Common Council that, in his opinion, peace was necessary.
The war had now lasted in England for a year and a half. The capital still held firmly to the principles of parliamentary right which it had once adopted, but, as the General observed, the war could not be continued without the possession of a river of gold. It found its best support in an association formed in Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire for common defence, under such leaders as Parliament should appoint: but even here the entire and anxious care of the Parliamentary party was devoted to preventing the gentry from taking part with the King. Meanwhile a counter association in the North, which in fact was the earliest of all, between the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and A.D. 1643. Westmoreland, had been formed under the Earl of Newcastle in favour of the King: a similar one was even then being arranged between Cornwall and Devonshire, which rejected all commands issued without the personal participation of the King. In the former region, the important city of York, where the Royalist resistance had originated, had been confirmed in its attitude by Newcastle’s victories: in the latter, Prince Maurice of the Palatinate had just taken the strong town of Exeter. In Dorset the Parliament had only a couple of fishing villages left; in Somerset and Wilts not a foot of land; in Hampshire all the people were on the King’s side. In the midland counties, Nottingham and Lincoln, from which the King had been obliged to retire a year earlier, his superiority was indisputable: in Northampton his party was at least equal in strength to that of the Parliament; Bedford was occupied by Prince Rupert in October. There was a plan for a rising of the King’s adherents in Kent, where they had hitherto been with difficulty kept down; and this it was hoped would have an effect on London.
In addition to these advantages peace had been restored in Ireland. In May 1642 a synod assembled at Kilkenny had given the country an independent organisation: a council of twenty-four members, in which the four archbishops sat, was appointed to direct public affairs. This council entered into communication with Pope Urban VIII, who was greatly pleased that the land of saints should be purged of heretics. Through the dissensions that had broken out between the King and the Parliament, the English forces could achieve nothing in Ireland; it was expected that in a short time all the surviving Protestants would be at the mercy, or the unmercifulness, of the Irish rebels. Moreover the principles of the Parliament at Westminster were by no means entirely dominant among the Protestants in Ireland: on the contrary the King had still power enough to remove from their offices men who professed such opinions, and to replace them with his own adherents. A moderate middle party was formed, in which the Earl of Ormond was the chief personage. Between these however and the united Catholics there was no irreconcileable breach, as the Catholics continued to treat A.D. 1643. the King as their sovereign lord, whose prerogative they were ready to defend against all the world. Thus it became possible in September 1643 for a truce to be agreed on between the two parties. The Catholics granted the King a subsidy of £30,000.
A great prospect was opened besides by the death of Cardinal Richelieu, and soon afterwards of Louis XIII. The Cardinal towards the end of his life had again begun to exhibit some sympathy for Queen Henrietta; but she might expect much more now that her old friend, Queen Anne, was Regent of France. The party which immediately rose to power was the one to which the Queen herself had belonged. Moreover Charles I expected arms, money, and even men from the King of Denmark[369].
It was in fact doubtful whether Parliament would not be obliged to yield to a combination of so many hostile forces: it had already, feeling this, renewed its dealings with the Scottish Covenanters.