Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England

by C. H. Firth

He bade them be of good courage and collect what forces they could to check the march of the Scots.

“Indeed we have this comfortable experience from the Lord, that the enemy is heart-smitten by God, and whenever the Lord shall bring us up to them, we believe the Lord will make the desperateness of this counsel of theirs to appear, and the folly of it also. When England was much more unsteady than now, and when a much more considerable army of theirs unfoiled invaded you, and we had but a weak force to make resistance, at Preston, upon deliberate advice, we chose rather to put ourselves between their army and Scotland; and how God succeeded that is not well to be forgotten.”

Charles entered England by Carlisle, and marched through Lancashire and along the Welsh border, hoping to gather recruits from those districts during his progress. Cromwell, leaving Monk to secure Scotland, sent his cavalry under Lambert and Harrison to pursue the King, and followed himself through Yorkshire with the infantry. As he went, he was joined by the forces of the counties through which he passed, and all over England the new county militia rushed to arms. For, however much they might detest the Republic, Englishmen hesitated to assist a Scottish invader.

In Lancashire, distrust of Malignants prevented the Presbyterians from taking up arms, though the Earl of Derby raised a little army amongst the Cavaliers. On the 22nd of August, Charles reached Worcester with less than sixteen thousand men, worn out by marching, and halted to rest and collect his adherents. A few devoted gentlemen made their way to his standard, but the people remained apathetic, and three days later Derby’s levies were routed at Wigan by Colonel Lilburn. By this time the net was closing round the King. Cromwell, joining Lambert and Harrison, had established himself at Evesham, and blocked the road to London with thirty thousand men. His superior numbers enabled him to divide his forces, and to attack Worcester from both sides. Lambert and Fleetwood, with eleven thousand men, crossed to the west bank of the Severn, and prevented the retreat of the Royalists into Wales, whilst Cromwell, with the bulk of the army, remained on the east bank and pushed close up to the city. On September 3rd, the anniversary of Dunbar, Fleetwood’s force advanced upon Worcester from the south-west. Between it and Worcester lay the river Teame, a tributary of the Severn, held by a royalist division, which had broken the bridges. Cromwell threw a bridge of boats across the Severn, just above the mouth of the Teame, and fell on the flank of the Scots with four of his best regiments. “The Lord General did lead the van in person, and was the first man that set foot on the enemy’s ground.” Under cover of Cromwell’s attack, Fleetwood threw a similar bridge across the Teame, and his infantry poured across to co-operate with Cromwell. Outnumbered, but fighting stubbornly, the Scots gave way. “We beat the enemy from hedge to hedge,” wrote Cromwell, “till we beat him into Worcester.”

Charles, who watched the battle from the tower of the cathedral, seeing that the great part of Cromwell’s army was engaged on the western bank, sallied forth with every man he could muster to crush the force left on the eastern side. For three hours the struggle lasted. At first the Scots gained ground, but Cromwell, recrossing the river, put himself at the head of his men, and drove the enemy back in confusion into the city. His soldiers entered at their heels, and storming their “Fort Royal” turned its guns on the streets. “My Lord General did exceedingly hazard himself, riding up and down in the midst of the fire; riding himself in person to the enemy’s foot to offer them quarter, whereto they returned no answer but shot.” In the end, what was left of the foot laid down their arms, while the horse fled through the north gate, and took the road to Scotland. But not a single regiment or troop reached their home. The militia, which beset the bridges and highways, gathered up prisoners in hundreds, and the country people hunted down stragglers with merciless ferocity. Half the nobility of Scotland were amongst the prisoners.

Amongst the few who escaped was the young King. The Parliament threatened all who sheltered Charles with the penalties of high treason, and promised one thousand pounds to any person who gave him up. Troopers scoured the roads to find him, and officials at all the ports were warned to watch for “a tall man above two yards high, with hair a deep brown near to black.” But, though Englishmen would not fight for Charles, they would not betray him, and of the scores he trusted not one proved false. Sometimes hiding in an oak tree, sometimes in a “priest’s hole,” disguised now as a countryman in an old worn leathern doublet and green breeches, and now as a serving-man in grey homespun, Charles wandered through the south-west searching for a ship. At last he found one at Brighton, and landed safe in France on October 22nd.

For Scotland, Cromwell’s victory marked the end of independence. The absence of Leslie’s army left no force in Scotland capable of giving battle to Monk’s six thousand veterans, and there was no fortress in Scotland which could resist his artillery. Monk captured Stirling on August 14th, and the seizure of the Committee of Estates at Alyth on August 28th deprived the national defence of its head, and destroyed the last relic of a national government. Dundee was stormed and sacked on September 1st. Montrose, Aberdeen, Inverness, and other towns fell without a blow. In February, 1652, the Orkneys were occupied, and in May, Dunottar Castle, the last fortress to hold out, surrendered. Argyle, who had refused to follow Charles into England, endeavoured to maintain an independent position in the West Highlands, but in August he too was forced to give in his adhesion to the English Government, and the subjugation of Scotland was completed. An English garrison of twelve thousand or fourteen thousand men, and strong fortresses built at Leith, Ayr, Inverness, and Inverlochy, kept henceforth the conquered country in submission. In spite of the general discontent no effort to throw off the English yoke had any chance of success. In 1653, the war with Holland emboldened the Highlanders to take arms again, and a rising began which was headed first by the Earl of Glencairn, afterwards by General Middleton. The insurgents made forays into the Lowlands, but were never strong enough to do much more, and their own disputes ruined their cause. Monk returned to his command in Scotland in May, 1654, wasted the Highland glens with fire and sword, defeated Middleton’s forces, and by the end of the year put an end to the insurrection.

The policy of the Long Parliament and of the Protector toward Scotland resembled in its aim their policy toward Ireland. In each case the object was to make the conquered country into an integral part of a British empire. But the measures adopted to attain this object differed considerably in the two countries. In Scotland there was no general confiscation of the lands of the vanquished, and no far-reaching alteration in the framework of society. The Scottish Royalists were treated much as the English Cavaliers had been. The Long Parliament confiscated the estates of those who had invaded England in 1648 and 1651, but the Protector adopted a more moderate policy, imposing the penalty of forfeiture only on twenty-four leaders, and fining minor offenders. A few English officers were given grants of the forfeited lands, but most of their revenue was devoted to public purposes. Hence the Scottish confiscations, although they ruined many of the nobility and gentry, left the bulk of the nation untouched.

In Scotland there was no proscription of the national religion, but the national Church lost a portion of its independence, and was deprived of all power to check or control the civil government. In 1653, the General Assembly—“the glory and strength of our Church upon earth,” as a Presbyterian minister termed it—was forcibly dissolved, but local synods and presbyteries were allowed to meet. The English Government deprived the Church courts of their coercive jurisdiction over non-members, and protected the formation of Independent congregations. It appointed commissioners to visit the universities, punished ministers who preached against it, and decided disputes about appointments to vacant livings. But it interfered little in the internal affairs of the Church, and held the balance tolerably even between Remonstrants and Resolutioners. Though deprived of its political power and much of its independence, the Scottish Church was not unprosperous. “These bitter waters,” says Robert Blair, “were sweetened by the Lord’s remarkably blessing the labours of His faithful servants. A great door and an effectual was opened to many.”