Cassell's History of England, Vol. 3 (of 8) / From the Great Rebellion to the Fall of Marlborough.

by Anonymous

SIEGE-PIECE OF CHARLES I.—COLCHESTER (TEN SHILLINGS, GOLD).

Four thousand one hundred and fifty bodies of the slain were buried on the moor; the greater part of the arms, ammunition, and baggage of the Royalists fell into the hands of Cromwell, with about a hundred colours and standards, including that of Rupert himself, and the arms of the Palatinate. Newcastle evacuated York and retired to the Continent, accompanied by the Lords Falconberg and Widderington, and about eighty gentlemen, who believed the royal cause was totally ruined. This the bloodiest battle of the war was fought on the 2nd of July, and on the morning of the 4th the Parliamentary forces were again in muster, and sat down before the walls of York. On the 7th, being Sunday, they held a public thanksgiving for their victory, and on the 11th being ready to take the city by escalade, Glenham, the governor, came to terms, on condition that the garrison should be allowed to march out with all the honours of war, and retire to Skipton. On the 16th they evacuated the city, and the Parliamentarians entered, and marched directly to the cathedral, to return thanks for their victory. The battle of Marston Moor had indeed utterly destroyed the king's power in the North. Newcastle alone stood out; but this the Scots invested, and readily reduced, taking up their quarters there for the present.

In the West, matters for awhile wore a better aspect for the king. Essex, on the escape of the king from Oxford, directed his course west. The Royalists were strong in Devon, Cornwall, and Somersetshire; but to effectually compete with them, Waller should have united his forces with the commander-in-chief. He was too much in rivalry with him to do that. The king set off after Essex, to support his forces in the western counties, and Essex, as if unaware of the royal army following him, continued to march on. The queen, who had been confined of a daughter at Exeter, on the approach of Essex requested of him a safe conduct to Bath, on pretence of drinking the waters, whence she proposed to get to Falmouth, and thence back to France. Essex ironically replied that he would grant her an escort to London, where she could consult her own physicians, but where he knew that she was proclaimed guilty of high treason. Henrietta Maria, however, made her way to Falmouth without his courtesy, and thence in a Dutch vessel, accompanied by ten other ships, she reached France, though closely pursued by the English admiral, who came near enough to discharge several shots at the vessel.

Essex advanced to Lyme Regis, where he relieved Robert Blake, afterwards the celebrated admiral, who was there closely besieged by Prince Maurice; and still proceeding, took Taunton, Tiverton, Weymouth, and Bridport. This was something like victory; but meanwhile, all men were wondering at his apparent unconsciousness that the Royalist forces were enclosing him, and that with the exception of about two thousand horse under Middleton, which kept at a distance and never united with him, he was wholly unsupported by Waller's troops. In this manner he advanced into Cornwall, where Prince Maurice joined his forces with those of the king to cut off his return. At this crisis many began to suspect that he meant to go over to the king's party, but in this they misjudged him, for at this time Charles made overtures to him, but in vain. He received a letter from the king, promising him if he would join him in endeavouring to bring the Parliament to terms, he would guarantee both the liberties and religion of the people; and another from eighty-four of the king's principal officers, protesting that if the king should attempt to depart from his engagements they would take up arms against him. Essex sent the letter to the Parliament, proving his faith to them; but it would have been still better if he could have proved to them also his military ability. But near Liskeard, he suffered himself to be hemmed in by different divisions of the royal army, and his supplies to be cut off by allowing the little port of Fowey to fall into the hands of the king's generals, Sir Jacob Astley and Sir Richard Grenville. He was now attacked by Charles on the one hand, and Colonel Goring on the other. Essex sent pressing demands to Parliament for succour and provisions, but none came; and one night in September his horse, under Sir William Balfour, by a successful manœuvre, passed the enemy, and made their way back to London. Essex, with Lord Roberts and many of his officers, escaped in a boat to Plymouth, and Major-General Skippon, with the fort, capitulated, leaving to the king their arms and artillery.

Essex had no right to expect anything but the most severe censure for his failure; he retired to his house, and demanded an investigation, charging his disasters to the neglect of Waller. The Parliament, however, instead of reproaching him, thanked him for the fidelity which he had shown when tempted by the king, and for his many past services.

To Cromwell the general aspect of things had become well nigh intolerable. But it was in vain that he endeavoured to move the heavy spirit of his superior, the Earl of Manchester, and hence they came more and more to disputes. Cromwell was insubordinate because it was impossible that fire could be subordinate to earth. In vain he pointed out what ought to be done, and he grew impatient and irritated at what was not done. That irritation and impatience became the greater as he turned his eyes on what Essex, Waller, and the rest of the Parliamentary generals were doing. It seemed to him that they were asleep, paralysed, when a few bold strokes would bring the war to a close.

Charles having broken up Essex's army in Cornwall, and put Essex himself to flight, made a hasty march back again to Oxford to avoid being himself in turn cooped up in the narrow West. Already the Parliament was mustering its forces for that purpose. Essex and Waller were again set at the head of troops, and the victorious forces of Marston Moor, under Manchester and Cromwell, were summoned to join them. They endeavoured to stop the king in his attempt to reach Oxford, and encountered him again near the old ground of battle at Newbury. Charles was attacked in two places at once—Shaw on the eastern, and at Speen on the western side of the town. The Earl of Essex was ill, or, as many believed, pretended to be so; at all events, the command fell to Manchester. On the 26th of October, the first brush took place, and the next morning being Sunday, the attack was renewed more vigorously. The soldiers of Manchester, or rather of Cromwell, went into the fight singing psalms, as was their wont. The battle was fiercely contested, and it was not till ten o'clock at night that Charles retreated towards Wallingford. It was full moonlight, and Cromwell prepared to pursue him, but was withheld by Manchester. Again and again did Cromwell insist on the necessity of following and completing the rout of the royal army. "The next morning," says Ludlow, "we drew together and followed the enemy with our horse, which was the greatest body that I saw together during the war, amounting at least to seven thousand horse and dragoons; but they had got so much ground, that we could never recover sight of them, and did not expect to see any more in a body that year; neither had we, as I suppose, if encouragement had not been given privately by some of our party."

In other words, there were strong suspicions that the aristocratic generals did not want to press the king too closely. This became apparent ten days after. Charles, on retreating, had done exactly as he did before at this same Newbury; he had thrown all his artillery into the Castle of Donnington, and now he came back again to fetch it, nobody attempting to hinder him, as nobody had attempted to reduce Donnington and secure the artillery. So extraordinary was the conduct of the Parliamentary generals, that though Charles passed through their lines both in going and returning from Donnington, and even offered them battle, no one stirred. The generals dispersed their army into winter quarters, and both Parliament and people complained of the affair of Newbury. The Parliament set on foot an inquiry into the causes of the strange neglect of public duty, and they soon found one powerful cause in the jealousies and contentions of the generals. It was time a new organisation was introduced, and Cromwell saw that besides the incapacity of the commanders, there were aristocratic prejudices that stood in the way of any effectual termination of the war.

Cromwell was at the head of the Independents, and these were as adverse to the dominance and intolerance of the Presbyterians, as Cromwell was to the slow-going generals. He knew that he should have their support, and he determined to come to a point on the vital question of the arrangement of the war. He had declared plumply, in his vexation, "That there never would be a good time in England till we had done with lords;" and he had horrified the milk-and-water aristocrats, by protesting that "if he met the king in battle, he would fire his pistol at him as he would at another." He was now resolved to have lords out of the army at least, and therefore, on the 25th of November, 1644, he exhibited a charge in the House of Commons against the Earl of Manchester, asserting that he had shown himself indisposed to finish the war; that since the taking of York he had studiously obstructed the progress of the Parliamentary army, as if he thought the king already too low, and the Parliament too high, especially at Donnington; and that since the junction of the armies he had shown this disposition still more strongly, and had persuaded the Council not to fight at all.

Manchester, eight days after, replied at great length, accusing Cromwell of insubordination, and was supported by Major-General Crawford, whom the Scottish Presbyterians had got into the army of Manchester, to counteract the influence of Cromwell and the Independents. Crawford even dared to charge Cromwell with leaving the field of Newbury from a slight wound. Cromwell, on the 9th of December, leaving such charges to be answered by Marston Moor and his share of Newbury, proposed a measure which at once swept the army of all its deadweights. In the Grand Committee there was a general silence for a good space of time, one looking on the other, to see who would venture to propose the only real remedy for getting rid of the Essexes and Manchesters out of the army, when Cromwell arose and proposed the celebrated Self-denying Ordinance. It is now time to speak, he said, or for ever hold the tongue. They must save the dying nation by casting off all lingering proceedings, like those of the soldiers of fortune beyond the sea, who so pursued war because it was their trade. "What," he asked, "did the nation say?" That members of both Houses had got good places and commands, and by influence in Parliament or in the army, meant to keep them by lingering on the war. What he told them to their faces, he assured them was simply what all the world was saying behind their backs. But there was a sure remedy for all that, and for himself, he cared to go no farther into the inquiry, but to apply that remedy. It was for every one to deny themselves and their own private interests, and for the public good to do what Parliament should command. He told them that he would answer for his own soldiers, not that they idolised him, but because they looked to Parliament, and would obey any commands the Parliament should lay upon them for the Cause.