This was not accomplished without exciting the notice of the English Parliament, who sent over Commissioners to endeavour to win over the Protestants in Ormond's army, but in vain. In November Ormond shipped five regiments to the king. These were sent to Chester to garrison that town under Lord Byron; but they were rather marauders than soldiers; they had been raised by the Parliament, yet fought against it for the king; and they were as loose in discipline as in principles. In about six weeks after their arrival, they were visited by Sir Thomas Fairfax at Nantwich, when fifteen thousand of them threw down their arms, amongst them the afterwards notorious General Monk. Nor was this the only mischief occasioned to the royal cause by these Irish troops. Their arrival disgusted the royal forces under Newcastle in the North, who declared they would not fight with Catholics and Irish rebels.

Whilst the Scots were mustering to enter England, the Marquis of Newcastle was bearing hard on the Parliament forces in Yorkshire. He had cleared the country of them except Hull, which he was besieging; and Lincolnshire was also so overrun with his forces, that Lord Fairfax, governor of Hull, was obliged to send his son, Sir Thomas, across the Humber, to the help of the Earl of Manchester. Fairfax united with Cromwell near Boston, and at Winceby-on-the-Wolds, about five miles from Horncastle, the united army under Manchester came to a battle with the troops of Newcastle, and completely routed them, thus clearing nearly all Lincolnshire of them. Cromwell had a horse killed under him, and Sir Ingram Hopton, of Newcastle's army, was killed. The battle was won by Cromwell and Fairfax's cavalry.

The close of 1643 was saddened to the Parliament by the death of Pym (December 8). It was, indeed, a serious loss, following that of Hampden. No man had done so much to give firmness to the Commons, and clearness to the objects at which they aimed. His mind was formed on the old classic model of patriotic devotion. He had no desire to pull down the Crown or the Church, but he would have the one restrained within the limits of real service to the country, and the other confined to those of its communion. Therefore he recommended, sternly, resistance to the royal power—preferring civil war to perpetual slavery—and the exemption of bishops and clergymen from all civil offices. Seeing from the first the ends that he would attain, guided by the most solemn and perspicuous principles, he never swerved from them under pressure of flattery or difficulty, nor would he let the State swerve. His eloquence and address, but far more his unselfish zeal, enabled him to prevail with the Commons and intimidate the Lords. He boldly told the Peers that they must join in the salvation of the country, or see it saved without them, and take the consequences in the esteem or the contempt of the people. They would have fared better had they profited by his warning. Pym was the Aristides of the time: he sought no advantage to himself, he gained nothing from his exertions or his prominent position, but the satisfaction of seeing his country saved by his labours. He derived no influence from his wealth or rank, for he had none of either. His whole prestige was intellectual and moral. He wore himself out for the public good, and died as poor as he commenced, the only grant which he received from the State being an honourable burial in Westminster Abbey.

At the opening of 1644 Charles had devised a scheme for undermining the authority of the Parliament, namely, by issuing a proclamation for its extinction. Clarendon, who was now the Lord Chancellor, very wisely assured him that the members of Parliament sitting at Westminster would pay no heed to his proclamation, and that a better measure would be to summon Parliament to meet at Oxford. That would give every member of both Houses, who was at all inclined to again recognise the royal authority, the opportunity to join him; and, on the other hand, a Parliament assembling by call and authority of the king at his court, would stamp the other as illegal and rebellious. The advice was adopted, and at the summons forty-three Peers and one hundred and eighteen Commoners assembled at Oxford. These, however, consisted of such as had already seceded from the Parliamentary party, and the king claimed as the full number of his Parliament at Oxford, eighty-three Lords, and one hundred and seventy-five Commons. According to Whitelock, there met at Westminster twenty-two Lords only, and eleven more were excused on different accounts, making thirty-three; of the Commons there were more than two hundred and eighty. The king, in his Parliament, promised all those privileges which he had so pertinaciously denied to all his past Parliaments, and a letter, subscribed by all the members of both Houses, was addressed to the Earl of Essex, requesting him to inform "those by whom he was trusted," that they were desirous to receive commissioners, to endeavour to come to a peaceable accommodation on all matters in dispute. Essex returned the letter, refusing to forward a paper which did not acknowledge the authority of the body addressed. The point was conceded, and Charles himself then forwarded him a letter addressed to the Lords and Commons of Parliament assembled at Westminster in his own name, soliciting, by advice of the Lords and Commons of Parliament assembled at Oxford, the appointment of such commissioners "for settling the rights of the Crown and Parliament, the laws of the land, and the liberties and property of the subject." But there was no probability of agreement, and so the Oxford Parliament proceeded to proclaim the Scots, who had entered England contrary to the pacification, and all who countenanced them guilty of high treason.

The Scots passed the Tweed on the 16th of January, 1644. The winter was very severe, and the march of the army was dreadful. They made their way, however, to Newcastle, where the Marquis of Newcastle had just forestalled them in getting possession of it. They then went on to Sunderland. Newcastle offered them battle, but the Scots, though suffering from the weather and want of provisions, having posted themselves in a strong position, determined to wait for the arrival of Parliamentary forces to their aid. The defeat of Lord Byron at Nantwich permitted Sir Thomas Fairfax and Lord Fairfax, his father, to draw towards them, and these generals having also defeated at Leeds the Royalists under Lord Bellasis, the son of Lord Falconberg, Newcastle betook himself to York, where he was followed by both the Fairfaxes and the Scots.

Charles was lying at Oxford with a force of ten thousand men; Waller and Essex, with the Parliamentary army, endeavoured to invest him in that city, but as they were marching down upon him from two different quarters, he issued from it with seven thousand men and made his way to Worcester. As these two generals detested each other and could not act in concert, Essex turned his march towards the West of England, where Prince Maurice lay, and Waller gave chase to the king. Charles, by feint of marching on Shrewsbury, induced Waller to proceed in that direction, and then suddenly altering his course at Bewdley regained Oxford. After beating up the Parliamentary quarters in Buckinghamshire, he encountered and worsted Waller at Cropredy Bridge, and then marched westward after Essex.

PRINCE RUPERT. (After the Portrait by Vandyke.)

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While these manœuvres were in progress, the Earl of Manchester, having as his lieutenant-general Oliver Cromwell, marched northward to co-operate with Leslie and the Fairfaxes at York against Newcastle. Charles, who saw the imminent danger of Newcastle, and the loss of all the North if he were defeated, sent word to Prince Rupert to hasten to his assistance. Rupert had been gallantly fighting in Nottinghamshire, Cheshire, and Lancashire, and everywhere victorious. He had compelled the Parliamentary army to raise the siege of Newark, had taken Stockport, Bolton, and Liverpool, and raised the siege of Lathom House, which had been nobly defended for eighteen weeks by the Countess of Derby. On receiving the king's command, he mustered what forces he could, and reached York on the 1st of July. The Parliamentary generals, at his approach, raised the siege, and withdrew to Marston Moor, about four miles from the city. Rupert had about twenty thousand men, with whom he had committed dreadful ravages on the Lancashire hills; he had now relieved the marquis, and might have defended the city with success, but he was always ready to fight, and Newcastle having six thousand men, making, with his own forces, twenty-six thousand, Rupert persuaded him to turn out and chastise the Roundheads. The English and Scots had about the same number. So little did the Parliamentarians expect a battle, that they were in the act of drawing off their forces to a greater distance, when Rupert attacked their rear with his cavalry. On this they turned, and arranged themselves in front of a large ditch or drain, and the Royalists posted themselves opposite. The Scots and English occupied a large rye field bounded by this ditch, and they placed their troops in alternate divisions, so that there should be no jealousy between them. It was not till five o'clock in the afternoon of the 2nd of July that the two armies had arranged themselves for the fight, and then they stood gazing on each other for two hours, each loth to risk the disadvantage of crossing the ditch first. Newcastle, who did not want to fight, had retired to his carriage in ill-humour, and all began to think that there would be no battle till the morrow, when Rupert, who was posted on the right wing with his cavalry, another body of cavalry covering the flank of the infantry on the left, made one of his sudden and desperate charges. Like all these exploits of his, it was so impetuous, that it bore the Parliamentary cavalry on their left wing clear away before it, and the officers and their horse were speedily in full flight, pursued by the fiery Rupert, who, as was his wont, forgot all but the fugitives before him, and with three thousand cavalry galloped after them for some miles. The Royalist infantry followed up the effect by attacking that of the Parliament with such fury, that the latter was thrown into confusion, and the three generals, Manchester, Lord Fairfax, and Leslie, believing all lost, fled with the rest, in the direction of Tadcaster and Cawood Castle. Cromwell, who commanded the right wing of the Parliamentary army, was thus left to fight or flee, as might happen, but nothing daunted, he attacked the Royalist cavalry with such vigour that he completely routed them, and then turned again to oppose the horse of Rupert, who were just returning from the chase, to find their side in flight. These and a body of pikemen,—Newcastle's "white coats"—fought desperately. The cavalry, on exhausting their charges, flung their pistols at the enemies' heads, and then fell to with their swords. At length the victory remained with Cromwell, Rupert drew off, and Cromwell remained all night on the field. He sent messages after the fugitive generals to recall them, but Leslie was already in bed at Leeds when the news reached him, when he exclaimed, "Would to God I had died on the place!" Cromwell won great renown by this action. He kept the field all night with his troopers, who were worn out by the tremendous exertions of the day, and were in expectation every moment of a fresh attack from Rupert, who might have collected a large body of troops together to overwhelm him. But he had lost the battle by his incurable rashness, after having induced the unwilling Newcastle to risk the engagement, and he made his retreat into Lancashire, and thence into the western counties.