The assembly of Oxford did not long resist. Henceforth, without hope of conciliation, and consequently without object, it continued to sit until the 16th of April, still faithful to the king, voting a few loans, and addressing long and bitter reproaches to the Houses of Westminster; but timid, inactive, and careful to manifest in presence of the court its ardent desire for legal order and peace. When their adjournment was at length pronounced, the king rejoiced with the queen at being delivered from this mongrel Parliament, the haunt of cowardly and seditious motions.
Charles counted upon war; but the campaign about to open presented itself under grievous aspects. All the small engagements which had taken place during the winter had turned to the advantage of the Parliamentarians. The Earl of Newcastle had been compelled by Fairfax to shut himself up in York. Parliament possessed five armies: those of the Scots, Essex, and Fairfax, were paid at the expense of the public treasury; those of Manchester and Waller were supported by the Eastern and Southern counties commissioned to recruit them. Under the name of Committee of the Two Kingdoms, a committee of the Chambers, composed of seven lords, fourteen members of the Commons, and four Scottish commissioners, was invested with almost absolute power over the war and foreign relations. The measures of Parliament were every day becoming more regular and energetic. Weakness and want of discipline, on the contrary, increased in the camp of the king.
Battle Of Marston Moor.
Suddenly it became known at Oxford that the army of Essex, strengthened by that of Waller, was advancing to besiege the town. The troops of Fairfax and Manchester and the Scots were to assemble under the walls of York, and besieged that town in common. The two great towns and the two great armies of the royalists, the king and Lord Newcastle, were thus attacked at once by all the forces of Parliament. Such was the simple and bold plan which the committee of the two kingdoms had adopted.
The queen took alarm. She was in expectation of a child, but she was anxious not to be delivered within a besieged town. The evil effect of her departure was represented to her without success; she flew into a passion, wept, implored. She set out at length for Exeter, determined to proceed to France in case of danger. Her husband never saw her again.
A month later, at the end of May, Oxford was almost completely surrounded. A considerable reinforcement of militiamen coming from London, was about to put Essex in a position to complete the investment. The danger was so urgent that one of the faithful councillors of the king proposed to him to surrender to the earl. "It may be," said Charles in indignation, "that I may be found in the hands of the Earl of Essex, but I shall be dead." A week afterwards the army and Parliament learnt that the investment of Oxford had become useless, for the king had escaped.
On the 3d of June, accompanied by the Prince of Wales, and leaving in the town the Duke of York with all his court, the king had issued forth from Oxford. Passing between the two hostile camps, and, joining a corps of light troops who awaited him upon the northern side, he rapidly placed himself out of reach. Seventeen days subsequently, while Waller was pursuing him in Worcestershire and Essex was advancing towards Lyme, which Prince Maurice kept besieged, Charles, bold and determined for the first time, reappeared in Oxford, and placing himself once more at the head of his troops, vigorously resumed the offensive. On the 29th of June he defeated, in Buckinghamshire, at Cropredybridge, the army of Waller, which had advanced to cut off his road to London. At rest upon this point, he resolved to pursue Essex, who had appeared before the walls of Exeter, and might terrify the queen, who had been delivered of a child two days before. One of the armies which had but recently kept him a prisoner was destroyed; the other, it seemed, would soon share its fate. Satisfied with his triumph, the king addressed from Evesham a message to the Houses, in which, without giving to them the name of Parliament, he made pacific protestations and offered to reopen negotiations; he then pursued his march towards the west.