In any case this revolt against the predominant party in Parliament extended such a very little way in the fleet, and proved so thoroughly impotent, that we can hardly suppose the bulk of the seamen to have been seriously discontented. The defection of the navy was stopped by the use of a very moderate degree of ingenuity on the part of the dominant faction. They sent the Earl of Warwick, whose sympathies were known to be with the Parliamentary Presbyterians, back to take command in place of Rainsborough. The City was very Presbyterian, and it presented a petition on behalf of Batten, to which no attention was paid. Warwick was successful in keeping the bulk of the fleet steady, but the insurgent ships helped the Kent Royalists to obtain possession of the castles of Deal, Walmer, and Sandown. No active measures were taken against them by the Lord Admiral Warwick. He was too busy in new-modelling the fleet. The process of new-modelling consisted in removing all officers and men whose loyalty was doubtful, and in replacing them by others whose principles were trustworthy, or who belonged to that useful class of fighting men who may be trusted to return an equivalent of service for their pay and allowances. The mutiny of the fleet was, in fact, shattered by Fairfax, who in the early days of June swept through the county of Kent, dashing the Royalist forces to pieces, and driving the remnants over the river into Essex. As the Royalist seamen were deprived of all hope of obtaining fresh stores by the defeat of their friends on shore, and as the ships under Warwick remained steady, there was nothing for it but to stand across the North Sea to Holland and there put themselves under the command of the Prince of Wales. The Prince was at that time in France, whither he had fled from the Channel Islands. Encouraged by the news that the ships were beginning to declare for his party, he hurried to Helvoetsluys and there took the command on the 9th of June.
As far as the king was still master to decide who was to command either ships or soldiers, authority over his navy belonged to the young Duke of York, who, in theory, was Lord High Admiral. But the duke was a mere boy of fifteen, and not on good terms with his brother. By the decision of the Prince of Wales and his Council, the command of the squadron was given to Lord Willoughby of Parham. Under this new admiral, who, as the authors of the late protestation must have observed with disgust, was a "landsman," the Royalist squadron sailed from the Dutch harbour on the 17th of July, and, carrying with it the Prince of Wales, stood over to Yarmouth. It appeared before the town on the 22nd of July, with the intention of favouring a Royalist rising, which might have disturbed Fairfax, who was now engaged in the siege of Colchester. But though the Royalists had a party in the town, the friends of the Parliament were strong enough to hold their ground. Finding that it was hopeless to endeavour to raise the county of Norfolk, and being, moreover, in dire want of money, the Royalist squadron sailed for the Thames. It found Warwick still engaged in new-modelling his fleet, and, although the sailors are said to have been eager to engage, made no attack upon him. Warwick reported that his men also were full of zeal and eager to fight, but no conflict took place. The Prince of Wales summoned the Parliamentary Admiral to take down the Royal Standard, which he flew as Lord High Admiral; and Warwick refused to make this submission, on the ground that he held his place by lawful authority, namely, by the will of the king as expressed through the Parliament. While these flourishes of summons and retort were passing between the two fleets, the prince's ships were busily engaged in capturing merchant vessels. One of these was estimated to be worth £20,000, and the prince demanded a ransom of that amount for her. The City, now longing for a reconciliation with the king, would have been well enough disposed to receive the prince. But Parliament was inexorable. The Independents had befooled the Presbyterians, always easy to deceive, by apparent concessions, and, in the meantime, the victory of Fairfax in Kent and the success of Cromwell against the Royalists in Wales were re-establishing their supremacy. They declared that the prince and all who were acting with him were guilty of high treason.
The prince remained in the river till the first days of September. He was reinforced by Batten, who escaped from observation in London, and contrived to carry over the Constant Warwick, one of the best appointed ships in the Parliament's service. But here his successes ended. The rest of the fleet continued loyal, or at least consistent in disloyalty, and the stores began to run out. The Royalist ships remained, it would seem, on the north side of the Thames near Leigh, and Warwick remained at Chatham. While they were here, a number of vessels came round from Portsmouth to reinforce the Parliamentary squadron. It was made a subject of bitter complaint against Batten, whom the prince had knighted, and to whom he gave a large share of his confidence, that he allowed them to pass undisturbed. The Royalist who had denounced Batten for firing on the queen at Bridlington must have found this favour, shown by her son to such "a villain," somewhat hard to digest. Under the pressure of want of stores, the prince was disposed to return at once to Holland; but his fleet was eager for battle, and so, at least, a pretence of engaging Warwick was made. Upon the last day of August, when the two fleets were within striking distance, they were separated by a sudden gale. When the wind fell, the prince's fleet was within one barrel of pork of actual starvation; and the game being now clearly up, the most fire-eating of his followers saw that there was nothing for it but to stand over to Holland. The Royalists, therefore, retreated and anchored at Goree on the 3rd of September. The Royalist movement in the fleet had completely failed. It did nothing to avert the disasters of their party at Colchester and Preston, and only served to diminish the naval forces of the Parliament by a little, and for a short time. Indeed the immediate result was to make the navy far more anti-Royalist than it had been before. The navy joined in that Remonstrance of the soldiers, which was the preliminary to the trial of the king.
While that great tragedy was in preparation, Warwick was pursuing his successes against the Royalists. On the 19th of September he was off Helvoetsluys, and had established what was, in fact, a blockade of the prince's ships. Correspondence and negotiations passed between the two forces. There would probably have been blows also, if a squadron of Dutch ships, under command of Tromp, had not dropped anchor between them. Each appealed to the other's men, but Warwick only was successful in withdrawing support from his opponent. The prince's squadron was indeed shortly in a deplorable condition. He was in utter want of money, and the loyalty of his followers was by no means equal to standing the strain of starvation. His men had tasted the pleasures of mutiny, and were much enamoured of them. They treated Lord Willoughby of Parham, and Batten, as they had treated Rainsborough. A large party of them refused to serve under Prince Rupert, on the ground that he was a foreigner, and insisted that they would obey nobody except their own Lord High Admiral, the Duke of York. In fact, all the dissensions at that time existing among the Royalists were repeated in the squadron at Helvoetsluys. The genuine Royalists looked upon the recently converted Presbyterians as rebels, only a very little less unpardonable than the Independents. The Presbyterians were by no means prepared to concede all the demands of the Royalists. The perplexities of this section of the prince's followers may be judged from the tone of the rather pitiable apology published by Batten. He confessed that he had been quite misled in supporting the Parliament, and this avowal of imbecility was not made more respectable by his unconscious betrayal of the discreditable fact that his eyes had not been opened till he had thought himself in danger of losing his pay and allowances.
While the leaders were wrangling with one another and were being put ashore by mutinous followers, a large proportion of the prince's sailors became tired of their tardy Royalism, when they found that it meant exile from home and choice of service with the Dutch, or a life of semi-piratical adventure with Prince Rupert. Several of the revolted ships were brought over by their crews to Warwick, and numbers of the sailors of the others followed the example. Among the officers not a few made their peace with the triumphant Parliament, and among them was Batten, who, after joining the Royalists because the Parliament was not sufficiently loyal, went back to what remained of it after Pride's Purge, when it was manifestly ready to cut off the king's head. He was not again employed until the Restoration, but the new masters of England were not rigorous towards his fellow-insurgents.
CHAPTER VI
THE FIRST YEARS OF THE COMMONWEALTH
The Authorities for this chapter are the same as for the last. By far the most valuable is the Life of Penn. This book is in reality a collection of authorities, with no other internal coherence than is supplied by the subject and chronological order, but the compiler has missed little indeed which is of interest. M. de Pontalis' Jean de Witt gives a luminous account of the political and military condition of Holland at the time of the outbreak of the war with England.
The Civil War came to an end, and the interregnum began with the execution of Charles, on January 30, 1649. The resolute men who had now laid their hands on power made their grip felt at once. Before the month of February was over, they had completed the work of reorganising the navy. The change was typified by an outward symbol which told its own tale to every sailor's eye. Warwick had carried the Royal Standard at the main, and his ships had worn the man-of-war flag of King Charles's reign. This was the Union in the old form, which lasted until the end of the eighteenth century; that is to say, the Red Cross of St. George and the White Saltire of Scotland. English merchant ships had carried the English Ensign, the Red Cross of St. George on the white ground, while Scotch ships used the national White Cross of St. Andrew on a blue ground. By order of the Council of State, now the executive governing body, the English Navy was to carry the Red Cross. The Royal Standard disappeared, and so did the Crown, from the device carved on the stern of the ships. In future they were to carry only two shields—one with the arms of England, and another with those of Ireland. The removal of the old symbols was naturally followed by the dismissal of a commander who had of late been little more than a living symbol of the vacillations and political incompetence of his party. On the 22nd of February, Warwick was dismissed from his place of Lord High Admiral. On the following day three soldiers of the victorious party were appointed as joint commissioners for the command of the fleet, with the title of admirals and generals at sea. These were Colonel Edward Popham, Colonel Robert Blake, and Colonel Richard Deane. Popham and Blake were Somersetshire men of good birth. Blake, after serving in subordinate positions in the West, had held Taunton for the Parliament during the year between the battles of Marston Moor and Naseby, with signal advantage to his party, and great glory to himself. Colonel Richard Deane was of Gloucestershire by descent. His youth had been obscure, but he had risen rapidly to high command in the Civil War, and was known as one of the most able and trustworthy of the Independent officers. He had perhaps been at sea in some humble capacity in his youth. There is nothing to show that the other two had any experience in ships. All three were appointed because their loyalty was certain, and because they had shown themselves resolute fighting men.