FOOTNOTES:
[370] So writes the King to Loudon (Burnet 190): ‘You expressed your readiness to hazard both life and fortune for the maintenance of our temporal power, and even in matters ecclesiastick, though you wished uniformity therein betwixt the two nations, yet you would not interest you in these differences further than should be with our knowledge and good liking.’ Words which more nearly determine the sense of the communication to Sabran.
[371] Hamilton observes in his instruction: ‘The apprehension they have of H. M. not observing what he hath already granted, if he shall be in a condition to force them.’ Burnet 196.
[372] Burnet 205, from a letter written to Loudon.
[373] Baillie to Spang. ‘We feared that the first action of any such armie might have been the knocking down our best patriots, who latelie had most opposed the malcontents.’ Letters ii. 58.
[374] The cross petition.
[375] Spalding ii. 230.
[376] Journals of Commons, May 2.
[377] Ordinance in Rushworth v.
[378] Hamilton’s defence against the accusations made against him at Oxford. Article 7, in Burnet 265.
[379] Burnet. ‘If putting down of episcopacy was simply sinful according to the King’s conscience, then that alone would furnish him with a very good reason to overturn all, since no men are bound to observe the promises they make, when they are sinful upon the matter.’
[380] We shall endeavour—the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland in doctrine worship discipline and government, according to the Word of God and the examples of the best reformed churches, and shall endeavour to bring the churches of God in the uniformity. (The Solemn League and Covenant of the three kingdoms.)
[381] Letters and Journals, ii. 99, which we here follow.
[382] Whitelocke’s Memorials 70.
[383] So the King himself declared to Hamilton afterwards.
[384] Votes in Oxford, January 26; Parl. Hist. xiii. 54.
[385] Walker, Historical Discourses 13.
[386] ‘But he would be dead first’. Clarendon’s Hist. Book viii. (iv. 488). The single testimony of Clarendon must here suffice: it is not found in Walker, whom in other respects he follows.
[387] Essex to the Committees of both kingdoms. Lostwithiel, August 4, in Devereux ii. 424.
[388] Depêche de Sabran, November 3, 1644. ‘Va autant à pied qu’à cheval à la tête de son armée qui est fort bonne.’
[389] James Turner, Memoirs 31.
[390] Letter in Warburton ii. 438.
[391] I take this notice from Fuller’s Worthies ii. 225. On the Royalist side Newcastle was originally blamed (A. Trevor, in Carte’s Letters i. 58), then Byron, who actually suggested the attack on Cromwell (Rupert’s Diary). The Scots praise Lindsay, Eglinton, above all David Lesley. The Presbyterians defend Fairfax. Cromwell is however praised even by those who were not Independents, as the author of the victory.
[392] Préface aux negotiations de Sabran. ‘Le party contraire ayant Londres et les forces de mer en main, les Ecossais l’appuyant d’une forte armée, la nature ayant mis un obstacle près a tout secours étranger, le peuple ayant toujours estimé le parlement le contrepoids de l’autorité royale pour son propre bien, la hayne de l’un et de l’autre (peuple et parlement) étant égal contre le roy et la reine, il est malaisé d’attendre que de la main de Dieu le restablissement de l’autorité royale.’
CHAPTER IV.
PREPONDERANCE OF THE SCOTS. RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ENGLISH ARMY.
The Scots, there is no doubt, had again contributed decisively to the change of fortune, and therefore a great influence on the course of affairs necessarily fell into their hands. Immediately after the arrival of the Scottish commissioners the Committee of the two kingdoms was established, a body which in fact expressed this relation. Loudon and Warriston had devised the scheme: it was first discussed and shaped in consultation with the younger Vane and Oliver St. John, and then brought before Parliament. The Committee was to direct its attention to the maintenance of a good understanding within the three kingdoms, as well as with foreign powers, and especially in all that related to the war in which they were engaged, not only to advise and consult, but to order and regulate[393]. These words excited vigorous opposition in the Lords: they were unwilling to commit the direction of affairs to a Committee which consisted partly of Scots, and which would deprive Parliament of the ultimate decision, and they also did not wish to place the Earl of Essex, who hitherto had maintained great independence in the command of his army, as was allowed to a general in those days, under the direction of a Committee. The Scots however insisted on their views in a forcible memorial, and were backed by the Lower House. For it was obvious that the war could not be carried on by the two A.D. 1644. nations in conformity with the single end in view, nor could their forces co-operate, unless they were under a single authority, which was impossible without a Committee of both nations. Nor could such a Committee be in its turn subject to Parliament: the Upper House was informed that unless it assented the war would have to be carried on without the two Houses of Parliament. After unusually active opposition, repeated divisions, and several conferences, the Lords gave way. The Committee was entrusted with the required full powers: it comprised seven Lords and fourteen of the Commons. We find Presbyterian names not only among the former, where they preponderated, but also among the latter. Manchester, Warwick, Essex, Northumberland, appear among the former, the two Vanes, Stapleton, St. John, Haslerig, Oliver Cromwell, among the latter. The resolutions were in general passed by a very small number of votes[394].
Among the papers of the interregnum preserved in the English archives is a collection of the resolutions of this Committee. They refer to the maintenance of communication between the armies, to the furnishing of supplies, to the conduct of the war itself, both in England and Ireland. Sometimes they are very precise and stringent. The commanders of the armies are instructed what troops they are to assemble, whether they are to oppose the King or Prince Rupert, in what direction they are to move.
The money requisite for the army was collected by another Committee, which sat in Goldsmiths’ Hall, and received its powers and instructions from the English Parliament. The chief source of income was the property of delinquents[395], for so they termed all who held to the King in opposition to the resolutions of Parliament: the property was sold, or the owners compelled to pay a composition, which at times was very considerable. The Earl of Thanet was condemned to pay a fine of £20,000, for having aided the King with his plate, A.D. 1644. and appeared in the field against the Parliament. The offence imputed to most of them is participation in the war in favour of the King; but some are condemned for having shown themselves to be enemies of Parliament and of good men, as the adherents of Parliament are termed. We know how nearly the Scots were concerned in these confiscations: when the treaty was concluded attention was expressly directed to the goods of papists, prelatists, and other malignants, as being the cause of all mischief[396].
The Lords opposed the Scottish interest in another affair also. They asked for a Committee of the two Houses to open peace negotiations with the King; the Scots maintained that not only no peace could be concluded without them, but no negotiations could be undertaken, the two nations being united for peace as well as for war. The Lower House was not so strong in favour of the Scots this time as formerly: the votes were equal, but the Speaker, Lenthall, gave his casting vote in favour of the Scots.
Thorough hostility between the Lords and the Scottish Commissioners was however not to be expected. Lord Holland,—who had once gone to the court at Oxford, but being unable to exert any influence there had returned to the Parliament,—and his friends among the nobility, desired nothing so much as a treaty with the King, which would secure them both ways. For already they clearly perceived what would happen to them if the Lower House persisted in its present course. They greatly desired the presence of the Scottish Commissioners, and the regard which must be paid to the Scottish Parliament, as a counterpoise to their opponents, by whom they were completely overmatched[397].
The Scots thus attained unlimited influence over the conduct of the war, the negotiations with the King, home and foreign affairs: nothing could be done without them, the A.D. 1644. Committee of the two kingdoms, in which they had a decisive voice, held the government in its hands.
They sought especially to strengthen and extend this power, because they desired, according to the terms of the union, to complete the Presbyterian system in England, and to establish uniformity.
The Westminster Assembly.
It is obvious at the first glance how great was the difference in this respect between the two countries. In Scotland the parishes with their lay elders, the synods and assemblies, were the expression of the national independence permeated by ecclesiastical ideas: in England all had to be introduced from above, by the power which held the helm of state. The Assembly of Divines at Westminster differed equally widely from a Church assembly in Scotland. The members had been named by Parliament according, not to dioceses, but to counties: their resolutions had no force beyond what Parliament chose to give them: they acted like the disputants in the colloquies of earlier times: the state reserved to itself its judgment, whether of rejection or of approval[398].
In the Assembly itself these ideas were represented by some members, the Erastians, who were also regarded as the most learned of all. They claimed for the state high authority in Church affairs, for which they regarded the kingship of the Old Testament as the model. They rejected the right of Church sessions and courts to excommunicate, which formed the mainspring of their power.
Besides the champions of State-intervention in the Church, there were other and more dangerous opponents, who asserted the autonomy of all religious congregations, and their total independence of the State, even more strongly than the Presbyterians. The Congregationalists, who appear more definitely as the Independents, formed perhaps a seventh part of the Assembly. They had become by far the most important of A.D. 1644. the separatist sects with which the Presbyterians four years earlier had co-operated.
So far as the overthrow of the episcopal system went, these two parties were still in accord, and the temporal authority lent its hand to the work. The pictures were burned in solemn procession, as at Florence in Savonarola’s time, the organs were destroyed, the episcopalian members of the colleges in the universities expelled. Under these influences the prosecution of Archbishop Laud was resumed. The chief accusation against him was that he had tried to assimilate the English Church to Popery, and to introduce into it papistical and superstitious observances. Laud, like Stafford, was condemned by a Bill of Attainder proceeding from the House of Commons (Nov. 11), and this Bill, though not without opposition, was accepted by the Lords[399]. After all that had happened, the King’s sanction was thought to be as little necessary in this matter as in others.
When the time came for erecting a new edifice on the ground chosen and levelled for the purpose, the contest between the Presbyterians and Congregationalists in the Assembly of Divines instantly began. The latter rejected entirely the system of lay elders, and denied that it could be proved from Scripture to be a divine institution: they would allow the consistories neither to ordain nor to excommunicate. In these institutions they saw nothing but the relics of an old and detestable system, for the imposition of hands was evidently of a hierarchical character: if the Reformation was to be complete they must revert to the original institution of independent churches, each one possessing the right to govern itself through its elders. They revived the idea of the first Anabaptists, that the communities should consist of the faithful only, and that no one could be admitted who had not proved that he was in true grace. Personal holiness, a blameless life, they required less strictly than the Puritans; but A.D. 1644. they expected a thoroughly Christian disposition which came of grace. In such a community all clerical elements entirely vanished; it alone had the power to choose the ministers of the word, or to expel from its society. One day one of their spokesmen, Nye, declared plainly that the establishment of a church government extending over the whole country, even of a national assembly, would have disastrous and terrible consequences. The Scots were greatly agitated; they would have nothing more to do with principles so hostile to their own. On this occasion, as in relation to other differences, they were persuaded to moderate their anger. The adherents of these opinions were already a power in the realm: some of the leading members of the Committees were among them; a breach between the two parties must at any cost be avoided.
In reality it was the political preponderance of the Scots which gave them the upper hand in the religious strife. There can be no doubt of this, their own letters assert that their arms had had a large share in the result[400]. If at first they held back from discussing the weightiest questions, they declared it was because they wished first to wait for the advance of their troops: they assert later that their enemies would go further and occasion greater confusion if not kept in check by the fear of their army, which had approached meanwhile. It was due to the necessity of the closest union in a moment of difficulty, that in May 1644 they obtained the recognition of the principle that the right of ordination did not belong to any single congregation. At the same time also they obtained the acceptance of their eucharistic rite, which was resisted by the Independents.
In the decisive battle of Marston Moor however the Independents also had a great share. The question which of the two portions of the army had done best assumed a sort of theological importance. Cromwell was almost accused of cowardice by the Presbyterians; while the Independents extolled his merits to the skies.
A committee was appointed to try and smooth over the A.D. 1644. differences between the Independents and Presbyterians. The former claimed at least toleration, which seemed to the others unendurable: the point had already been decided at the conclusion of the league between the two nations. At that time all objections had been waived on the English side, in order to gain the religious sympathies of the Scots. The stronger their influence, the more firmly they held to their exclusive Presbyterianism. Necessarily the Independents resisted as much as they could.
The occupation of Newcastle by the Scots, in the name of the English Parliament, was an event of scarcely less ecclesiastical than military importance. Once more royalist sentiments were manifested there in all their strength: all the offers of the Scots were rejected, and they were obliged to take the place by storm (October 19, 1644.) This success in the face of a brave resistance raised their own estimate of their services to England. When they announced their victory to the Committee of the two kingdoms, they demanded that now the settlement of public worship should be completed by the Assembly and ratified by Parliament.
The Independents felt that any resistance would be fruitless; they assented to the introduction of the Scottish worship, the more so as in the preface to the new Directory some words were inserted which allowed rather less strictness in observance without surrendering anything in principle[401]. Parliament not merely gave its sanction to this new church order, but unequivocally accepted the forms of Presbyterian church government, insomuch that in the articles which were to be laid before the King, the subjection of all congregations to a system of provincial and national assemblies was made one of the conditions to which he must assent.
Had things come to this point the entire Scottish church system would have received legal validity in England also, and the Independents would have been obliged to disappear like the Episcopalians.
A.D. 1645.
The Negotiations at Uxbridge.
The object of the peace negotiations, which after much delay were at last agreed on, was not only a reconciliation with the King, but also the establishment of an ecclesiastical and political system complete at all points. The chief author of the articles produced was the man who long before had given the most consistency to the revolutionary movement in Scotland, Johnston of Warriston: he sketched them out in April 1644, carried them in the Committee, and then went with them to Scotland, where the Parliament made some few additions, especially the names of those who were not to be pardoned without the assent of Parliament. Through his influence the articles with these additions were accepted, first by the Committee unanimously, and then by the two Houses. In November they were laid before the King.
The introduction of Presbyterianism, by the acceptance of the Covenant itself, was insisted on in them more strictly than ever; they also retained the parliamentary control of the militia, and demanded a renewal of the war against the Irish[402]. What was thought of these proposals in the outer world is indicated by the observation of the French ambassador, that Charles I, if he accepted them, might as well discard the title of King; for under these conditions he would be scarcely more than the first man in a republic. Charles I’s motive for entering into negotiations, and even suggesting them through his own ambassadors, was mainly in order to allow no further ground for the rumour that he hated peace[403]. He hoped that by the discussion of the articles their inadmissibility would be made manifest.
In the conduct of the negotiations he played a very subordinate part: Parliament took care to keep the matter entirely in its own hands. It fixed the place of meeting at the small town of Uxbridge, which afforded none of the comforts A.D. 1645. of life: it limited the time to twenty days, in reckoning which, it was thought necessary expressly to provide that the intervening Sundays were not to be counted: it instructed its representatives (among whom we find, besides some Lords, and the peacefully-inclined Hollis and Whitelocke, Vane and St. John, the leaders of the dominant party) in what order the questions were to be taken, and ordered them not to depart in any material point from the contents of the original propositions.
The plenipotentiaries of both parties met at Uxbridge towards the end of January. The Parliamentarians occupied one part, the Royalists the other, of the little town, and divided the two inns between them: each party had its separate entrance to the old-fashioned building in which the meetings were held, and separate chambers to which they might retire.
At times however they met by the fireside, and the visits which they paid to one another now and then passed the limits of mere formality. One of the Parliamentary Lords, the Earl of Pembroke, admitted one day to Edward Hyde, Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the Lords regretted having gone so far; he besought the King to have pity on them, and to free them from the wicked men who now governed everything: if the King would only accept the conditions proposed to him, as soon as peace was concluded they would give him back all that he now surrendered, and make him once more a powerful King.
Counsels of this kind had formerly produced an impression on Charles I, but this was no longer the case. Concessions made in the hope of thereby gaining a party had been the occasion of his losing so much: he had long been convinced that nothing which had once passed into the hands of the Parliament was ever to be recovered from them[404].
Some offers of compromise were made by the royal plenipotentiaries. They would admit the limitation of the bishops’ power by a council of the lower clergy, and even by laymen, to be elected by this council, in each diocese: Parliament should regulate the spiritual jurisdiction in relation for instance to marriage: even a rent-charge on ecclesiastical revenues for A.D. 1645. ‘the maintenance of peace’ was suggested. Even this seemed to the King almost too much, and he declined to go a hair’s-breadth further, as he considered himself bound by his coronation oath to maintain the Church establishment. Once more appeared the political argument, that it was necessary for the power of the crown to retain the dependence upon it of the spiritual power. The right of the sword also, without which the crown would be a mere shadow, seemed to be a good ground for a King to fight on. Charles I agreed to the appointment of a commission for nominating the commanders, say for three years, but only on condition that half of it should be named by himself, and that the military power should hereafter return into his hands. This by no means satisfied the Parliamentary plenipotentiaries: they asked for the exclusive nomination of the commission by the two Houses of Parliament, and for a period of seven years; what was to be done in the future must be decided at the expiration of the time by parliamentary proceedings, and in no other fashion[405]. They added by way of explanation that the power of the sword, of peace and war, must always be exercised through the King and the two Houses of Parliament.
Two opposite systems were as it were brought into contact. Parliament desired to subject Church and State to its authority permanently: the King hoped by momentary concessions to gain the possibility of restoring in the future the ancient power of the crown: no agreement was possible. The affairs of Ireland were also discussed at Uxbridge[406]: but whereas the Parliament demanded the termination of the existing truce and a renewal of the war, the King sought to establish permanent peace there.
On the twentieth day of the negotiations (February 22) the meeting broke up. The Royal plenipotentiaries hastened to reach Oxford that evening, since their safe conducts expired with that day.
A.D. 1645.
Dissensions in Parliament. The Self-denying Ordinance.
Nothing would have been more desirable for the two parties who had been treating together, the Scottish Presbyterians and the Royalists, than to arrive at an accommodation.
At the time it was often asserted, even by statesmen like Mazarin, that the Presbyterian principles involved the destruction of the monarchy, and the introduction into England as well as Scotland of the republican institutions of the Netherlands[407]. This may however be contradicted with certainty. The Presbyterians wished to reduce the crown to an extremely small amount of power, but they had no wish to abolish it; neither their theory nor their necessities led to this. The Scots desired to see a King of Scottish extraction on the English throne, and they wished also that a system of spiritual and temporal government, such as they had extorted from the King, should be supreme in England also, if only to prevent the possibility of a reaction from thence influencing Scotland. They adhered to hereditary monarchy as a fundamental point: long and bitterly as they had contended against Charles I, they would not let him be overthrown.
The opinion has often been expressed, that if it was a crime to have taken up arms against Parliament, no one was guilty of it in a higher degree than the King himself, and that he had thus disqualified himself for the throne: and his two sons were liable to the same charge. The idea was started of offering the crown to the Elector Palatine, who in that case would more easily recover his own territories, for England would enter into a league with Spain to counterbalance the French, who were on the side of the King: or again of raising to the throne the third son of Charles I, Henry Duke of Gloucester, who was in the hands of the Parliament, and of bringing him up under the domination of a perpetual A.D. 1645. Parliament[408]. We find that Henry Vane, whose ideas went beyond Presbyterianism, betook himself to the Scottish camp, in order to arrange for one or other of these plans; but all his efforts were in vain.
No doubt this unbending attitude of the Scots strengthened the antipathy felt against them on other grounds. It was thought unendurable that a foreign nation should intrude into the counsels of England and seek to decide its fate. Their attempt to introduce in England the Presbyterian system of church government aroused still greater hostility. The Congregationalists, defeated in the Westminster Assembly, had no small following among the common people, and a very extensive one in the army: they most strenuously rejected the hierarchy which would result from the union of the Presbyterian clergy with the lay elders, and which would form an ecclesiastical tyranny as bad as that of the bishops. If things were allowed to run their course, it must be expected that these tendencies would invade the Lower House, and perhaps carry it away. Thus it would have been of inestimable value to the Scots to come to terms with the King, whereby their opponents would have been at once checkmated: it is strange that they did not make more effort.
The French ambassador more than once spoke on the subject with the Scottish commissioners Maitland and Loudon, and urged them to abate the hardness of the terms offered by them to the King. They required unconditionally only one concession, his acceptance of the Presbyterian system: there are necessities in politics which no negotiation can master. Since the union with England had been formed for the express purpose of thoroughly destroying Episcopacy in that country, the Scottish commissioners could not recede on that point. They sought to induce the ambassador to use his influence to get it admitted: they assured him that in that case they would moderate every other demand, that the King should recover his previous authority, and be granted a larger income, and that as great honour as ever should be paid to the Queen. A.D. 1645. Sabran reminded them that this depended not so much on their good will as on the English Parliament. They replied that the resistance of the Lower House to reasonable things would be advantageous to the King, and hinted that he would then have the Scots on his side. Unless the King gave way in the matter of religion, no peace, no result to any negotiations was to be expected, but if he would concede this a third party would at once be formed[409]. They reckoned not only on the friends of peace in the Lower House, but also, and with good reason, chiefly on the nobility of England, who, as we have seen, felt themselves threatened and endangered by the line of conduct which seemed to find favour in the Lower House.
It was also very greatly to the King’s interest to keep down a party which sought to overthrow him, and openly uttered republican sentiments. On other points he would have been able to yield, but on this one he could not. His own convictions were the other way, and moreover he would have alienated the greater part of his friends. It was as much a matter of absolute necessity for the King to refuse, as for the Scots to urge, the concession.
This division contributed further to strengthen the opposite party, which day by day grew more powerful. At its head was the man of the age, Oliver Cromwell. He made no secret of his opinion that the future of England depended neither on the crown nor on the Lords, that a time would come when there would be neither king nor peers in England. He charged the Scots with having come to impose their hierarchical system on the English; but he would himself, he was heard to say, draw the sword against them, and extort the conditions which were indispensable for his co-religionists. He would on no account suffer the combination of aristocrats and Presbyterians, which was being formed, to establish itself A.D. 1645. in power: the mode in which he set to work is characteristic of his deep, subtle, calculating, and determined nature, biding its time, but always advancing towards its object.
He first attacked the English nobles: he accused of treason his former commander, Lord Manchester, who in these complications had exercised decisive influence. For a long time they had acted together, like the Independents and Presbyterians in general, Manchester being one of the leaders of the latter, Cromwell the acknowledged chief of the former; but now they separated from each other. As the nobles were of opinion that the King must be allowed to exist, it was attributed to their want of zeal that Charles I had not been altogether annihilated in the war. Cromwell accused Manchester of having occasioned the smallness of the results from the battle of Newbury, by neglecting advantages and throwing away excellent opportunities; saying that there was reason to think that Manchester had purposely spared the King and had not wished to turn the engagement into a complete victory[410]. We have no means of discovering how far Cromwell was right: Manchester rejoined by a charge of insubordination. It is obvious that Cromwell’s accusations fell upon others besides Manchester: the same charge had long ago been made against Essex and other generals; he only expressed the universal conviction.
The drift of this quarrel did not escape the Scots. They saw in Cromwell’s proceedings the intention to seize for himself the chief command of the army, to dissolve the union of the two kingdoms, and to destroy the House of Lords. Well might they desire the prayers of the faithful in their behalf, for the scheme seemed to involve danger to their religion also.
To rid themselves of this dangerous rival, they once seriously adopted the idea of impeaching Cromwell. One of the chief charges which had been urged against Strafford, that namely of destroying the peace between the two kingdoms, might, it was believed, be brought against Cromwell: he was an incendiary, that is, a man who kindled strife between the two A.D. 1645. countries[411]. The nobles of the Upper House and the Scots seem to have had an understanding on this matter. One day the Earl of Essex invited to his house two lawyers, members of the Lower House, Whitelocke and Maynard, who belonged to the moderate party; they found there, besides some Parliamentary friends of Essex, such as Hollis and Stapleton, Loudon, the Chancellor of Scotland, who formally propounded the question whether an impeachment on this ground might not be laid against Cromwell. Whitelocke and Maynard remarked that the case must be well prepared beforehand, and striking proofs offered, the more so as Cromwell had the greater part of the Lower House on his side, and friends in the Upper House also. Hollis was confident of being able to carry the matter through. The Scots, who at the same time were obliged to consider their national position, stood aloof from the attempt.
Meanwhile Cromwell was preparing another and most unexpected blow at his powerful enemies. He referred to the universal dissatisfaction at the conduct of the war hitherto, which in spite of their undoubted superiority had led to nothing decisive: what was gained one day had been lost again on another; the victories of the summer served as subjects for evening talk in winter: this was their only advantage, all this blood had been shed, treasure spent, and land devastated in vain. All the world cried out against the dissensions and untrustworthiness of the generals, and complained of the arbitrary conduct of members of Parliament, even in civil offices.
Relying on this, Cromwell and his friends proposed, at first as usual through a man of minor importance, that henceforth no member of Parliament should hold a public office either in the conduct of the war or in the civil government. The proposal was recommended by the fact that it wore a religious aspect; it implied an abnegation of all the advantages which were usually connected with these posts: it appeared a point of conscience to assent. That some thorough change was necessary was the universal A.D. 1645. opinion, because otherwise it was thought that the friends of peace in the country would agree to the proposals made by the King. The matter was so well prepared beforehand, that the proposition was accepted at the same sitting.
The Scots did not know what to think: they saw that now the contest between Manchester and Cromwell would be brought to an end once for all. Some admired the act as a proof of heroism, others saw in it audacity and danger. It is like a dream, exclaims Baillie; we cannot yet see the bottom of the affair.
It was at once plain that the Earl of Essex could no longer retain the command of the army. He had long had to contend against secret or avowed hostility in the Common Council and in the Lower House: he ascribed his last disasters in Cornwall to the hostile influence of his enemies in the Committee, but as yet he had held his ground. Even now he was not without friends in the Lower House, who proposed that an exception should be made in favour of the General-in-chief, with whom Parliament had once sworn to live and die; but they were in the minority. What could not be done by open attack, Cromwell attained, says Whitelocke, by a flank movement. Essex was included in a general ordinance, which every one had to obey.
Still the Upper House refused to accept the bill, on the ground that it had always been the right of the Lords to shed their blood for the lawful liberties of the country, and that by the terms of the protest and their assent to the Covenant they were more than ever pledged to this: if there were objections against individuals, let them be stated, and judged in the proper parliamentary fashion; but to exclude all by a resolution of Parliament was to punish individuals. Three times in succession they rejected the bill, but they had long ago begun to let the majority of the Commons lead them along a road which they did not fully approve; they had not strength for continued resistance.
There was in truth much to be said for the bill. A difficulty which had elsewhere been found in the conduct of war by a republic, encountered Parliament as soon as it gained independent power. The spirit of subordination, which is necessary A.D. 1645. to military discipline, did not come naturally to generals and officers who, being members of Parliament, shared in the possession and exercise of this power. Personal interests and the opposition of parliamentary factions had far too much influence on the position and behaviour of them all[412].
When the Lords gave way, they still hoped, in the course of the further discussions on the reconstruction of the army, to prevent its falling entirely into the hands of the Independents. They added to the proposals of the Commons a proviso that the officers and soldiers of the new model should promise to accept the Covenant and the Presbyterian system of church government. The Lower House however was not of the same opinion: it was objected, not without reason, that the church government was not yet fully established, not yet possessed of legal validity. In respect to the Covenant the Commons would only agree to a pledge for the officers, not for the privates, on the ground that this requirement would hinder recruiting. If however this condition was not passed, it was obvious that the separatist element in the army must become very powerful; for who from among the non-presbyterian population would take up arms against the King, except Independents and other separatists! The Lords had wished to make the nomination of officers depend on the choice of the two Houses, but this also they failed to carry: for nothing would so much conduce to the authority of the general to whom the command should be entrusted as the right of selecting his own officers.
Unquestionably military considerations contributed very materially to these resolutions. The soldiers were discontented with their leaders; even under Waller there had been one mutiny; now and then they talked of choosing their officers themselves. Moreover their pay had not been regularly distributed. Thorough and comprehensive arrangements were now made for this: contributions for this express purpose were exacted from the counties. If the troops were A.D. 1645. regularly paid, and kept under strict military discipline, a better result might be expected from the next campaign.
The Parliament selected as general Thomas Fairfax, who then had won a great reputation by the victory of Selby and his share in the battle of Marston Moor, a man whose stately appearance would impress the troops, pliant in council, but of unbending courage in battle. The transformation of the army was so thorough that the troops which were transferred out of the old army were distributed among the new companies and regiments: the traditions of the old associations were not to pass over into the new army.
It was still always held that the main question was as to the acceptance or rejection of the Uxbridge articles; but while the Royalist and Parliamentary parties were preparing to fight about it, elements in the latter grew into importance, which at once broke through their previous arrangements in military matters. Essex and Manchester, who hitherto had played the chief parts, now retired. Fairfax and Cromwell, the one with Presbyterian opinions already growing faint, the other of decidedly separatist and anti-Scottish views, appeared in the foreground.