Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England

by C. H. Firth

As the royalist line advanced, Fairfax’s artillery fired a few shots, which went high and did no execution. The King’s guns were too far behind to do any service. The foot on each side fired one volley, and then charged each other with levelled pikes and clubbed muskets. So fierce was the onset of the royalist infantry that four out of the five regiments in Fairfax’s front line gave way before it. Skippon’s regiment was broken, its lieutenant-colonel killed, and Skippon himself severely wounded. But Fairfax’s own regiment stood its ground, and the second line, coming up, drove the Royalists back and gave the broken regiments time to rally.

Still worse fared Colonel Ireton and the left wing of the parliamentary horse. Ireton’s five regiments advanced to meet Rupert, but their charge was badly delivered and badly supported. At the outset, Ireton himself gained a temporary success, but, turning prematurely to attack a regiment of foot, he was unhorsed, wounded, and for a short time a prisoner. Rupert pushed his advantage with his usual vigour, and, not content with driving Ireton’s horse from the field, attacked the train and the baggage guard of the Parliamentarians behind Naseby. As they stood firm he abandoned the attempt, and returned to see how the battle went on the plateau.

During this time, the horse of the parliamentary right wing under Cromwell decided the fate of the day. Cromwell did not wait to be charged by Sir Marmaduke Langdale, but met his horsemen as they advanced, and after a stiff struggle swept them back in disorder, and forced them to take shelter behind their reserve. Cromwell’s troopers, said an eye-witness, were like a torrent, driving all before them. Charles put himself at the head of his guards and the rest of the reserve, and prepared to lead a desperate charge against the advancing Roundheads. “Will you go upon your death?” said a nobleman, seizing his bridle rein; so the guards halted, and wheeled about, and drew back for a quarter of a mile from the field. Leaving four regiments to keep them in check, Cromwell with the rest of his horse, and with what he could collect of Ireton’s, turned to fall upon the royalist centre. The royalist infantry fought with great tenacity, but, attacked simultaneously by horse and foot, they were soon broken, and regiment after regiment laid down its arms. A brigade of bluecoats stood “with incredible courage and resolution” beating back charge after charge with their pikes. At last Cromwell charged one face of the square with Fairfax’s regiment of foot, while Fairfax, bareheaded, led his life-guard against another. It too was broken, and Fairfax took the colours with his own hand. Of the King’s infantry, scarcely a man escaped capture.

Fairfax halted the victorious cavalry till the main body of his foot came up, and then, forming a fresh line of battle, ordered a general advance. The King’s guards and Langdale’s routed horse had now been joined by Rupert’s victorious troopers, and were drawn up to make a second charge. But discouraged as they were, and without artillery or foot to support them, their position was hopeless. In a few moments they wavered and broke, and every man, turning his horse’s head towards Leicester, rode as hard as he could.

The pursuit lasted some thirteen miles. Nearly five thousand prisoners, more than one hundred colours, all of the King’s baggage and artillery, and his private papers fell into the hands of the victors. Leicester surrendered four days later, and Fairfax, leaving the King to take refuge in Wales, set forth in haste to engage General Goring and the western army. At the news of his approach, Goring raised the blockade of Taunton, and took up his position about ten miles from Bridgwater, with his front covered by the rivers Yeo and Parret. The two armies came into collision near Langport on July 10th. Goring had posted his men on the brow of a hill, with enclosures and a marshy valley in their front. There was a ford across the little stream at the bottom of the valley, and a lane led up the hill to the open ground at the top where Goring’s cavalry stood, while the hedges and enclosures on each side of the lane were filled with his musketeers. Intending to retreat to Bridgwater, Goring had sent thither his baggage, and all his guns but two.

Langport was one of the few battles of the Civil War in which field artillery played an important part. Fairfax began by overwhelming Goring’s two guns with the fire of his own, and forcing the cavalry to move farther back and leave their musketeers unsupported. Then he ordered forward fifteen hundred musketeers, who, advancing down one hillside and up the other, drove Goring’s skirmishers from hedge to hedge, and cleared the enclosures. Finally, under Cromwell’s direction, six troops of horse (all drawn from Cromwell’s own old regiment) dashed through the ford, and up the lane at Goring’s cavalry. Major Bethell headed the charge, which he performed, writes Cromwell, “with the greatest gallantry imaginable,” and Major Desborough seconded him with equal courage. Bethell beat back two bodies of Goring’s horse and “brake them at sword point”; but, oppressed with numbers, his three troops were being driven back when Desborough and the other three came up to relieve them. Then they charged again, and both together routed another body of Goring’s horse. At the same time, Fairfax’s musketeers, coming close up to the cavalry, poured in their shot, and Goring’s men began to run. Cromwell halted Desborough and Bethell on the ground they had won, allowing no pursuit till the rest of the horse joined them. Two miles farther back, the royalist cavalry made another stand, but one charge proved sufficient, and they were sent flying towards Bridgwater. Through the burning streets of Langport Cromwell dashed after them, capturing during the chase both their two guns and fourteen hundred prisoners.

Immediately after his victory, Fairfax laid siege to Bridgwater. Like Gustavus Adolphus, his method was to risk an assault wherever success seemed possible, rather than to spend time on elaborate siege works. The part of the town on the east bank of the Parret was taken by escalade on July 21st, and the other half surrendered after a short bombardment. The possession of Bridgwater, added to that of Taunton, Langport, and Lyme, gave Fairfax a line of garrisons which cut off Cornwall and Devon from the rest of England, and confined what remained of Goring’s army to those two counties. He turned back, therefore, to complete the conquest of the west by taking the strongholds he had left in his rear. Bath was captured on July 29th, the strong castle of Sherborne stormed after a fortnight’s siege on August 15th, and a week later Bristol was invested. Rupert with thirty-five hundred men held the city, but its fortifications were very extensive, and in many places weak. On September 10th, about one o’clock in the morning, Fairfax made a general assault on the whole circuit of the works, and by daybreak the most important fort and a mile of the line were in his possession. Rupert had no choice but to capitulate at once.

Cromwell was now put in command of four regiments of foot and three of horse, and sent to clear Wiltshire and Hampshire of hostile garrisons. Devizes and Laycock House surrendered to him on September 23rd; Winchester cost a week’s siege, but gave in as soon as a breach was made. “You see,” wrote Cromwell to the Speaker, “God is not weary in doing you good. His favour to you is as visible, when He comes by His power upon the hearts of your enemies, making them quit places of strength to you, as when He gives courage to your soldiers to attempt hard things.” Basing House, the next place attacked, was very strong, had stood many sieges, and was garrisoned by determined men. Its owner, the Marquis of Winchester, was a Catholic, and many of its defenders were of the same creed. Cromwell breached its walls with his cannon and ordered a storm. The night before it, he spent much time in prayer. “He seldom fights,” said his chaplain, “without some text of Scripture to support him.” This time his eye fell upon a text in the Psalms foretelling the doom of idols and idolaters—“They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that putteth his trust in them.” To a Puritan it seemed a promise of certain victory, and Cromwell gave the word to assault in complete assurance of success. His soldiers “fell on with great resolution and cheerfulness,” clapped their scaling ladders to the walls, beat the enemy from their works, and made the house their own. Some three hundred of the garrison were killed, and about as many taken prisoners, while the house itself was thoroughly sacked by the soldiers, and then burnt. “I thank God,” wrote Cromwell to the Speaker, “I can give you a good account of Basing.”

At the end of October, Cromwell, having completed his task, joined Fairfax before Exeter. Except Devon and Cornwall, all the west had now been cleared of the Royalists. On the Welsh border, the King had Worcester and Hereford and a number of smaller places, but Chester was besieged, and in the north Newark was the only important fortress in his possession. Between these different places and his headquarters at Oxford, Charles, attended by two or three thousand horse, had aimlessly wandered, since his defeat at Naseby. At first, he thought of joining Goring and Prince Charles in the west, but Langport put an end to that plan. In August, he tried a raid into the Eastern Association, and took and plundered Huntingdon. In September, the rumour of his approach led Leven and the Scots to raise the siege of Hereford. More than once the King thought of joining Montrose in Scotland. In September, 1644, Montrose had begun the marvellous series of victories which threatened to oblige the Covenanters to withdraw their army from England. He beat them at Tippermuir, Aberdeen, Inverlochy, Auldearne, and Alford, and dreamt of subduing all Scotland and coming to the assistance of the King. At Kilsyth, on August 15, 1645, he won a still greater and more decisive victory than all the rest. Glasgow was occupied; Edinburgh and the south of Scotland submitted; the Covenanting leaders took refuge at Berwick. Montrose sent a triumphant message to the King saying that he would soon cross the border with twenty thousand men. But his Highlanders went home with their plunder, the Lowland Scots declined to enlist under his banner, and he had less than two thousand men with him when David Leslie, with four thousand horse from the Scottish army in England, surprised his little force at Philiphaugh, and cut it in pieces (September 13th). Ignorant of this disaster, Charles set out from Raglan Castle with three thousand horse to join Montrose. At Rowton Heath, on September 24th, he was defeated by Major-General Poyntz in an attempt to relieve Chester, and lost nine hundred men. Forced to abandon the plan of marching north through Lancashire, the King made his way to Newark, and thence, in November, back to Oxford. From Newark, Lord Digby made a desperate attempt to get to Scotland, but the sole result was the loss of the fifteen hundred horse he took with him.