And broken was her shield!"

The Scottish loss in men was heavy, about 10,000 men, and the English paid for the victory with a loss of perhaps half the amount. But the rank of the Scots who fell made it a blow to the kingdom which perhaps has no equal in history. The king, his natural son the archbishop of St. Andrew's, twelve earls, or nearly every man of the highest rank below royalty, many other lords and chiefs of clans, all perished: there is scarcely a family of distinction in Scotland but had a member killed at Flodden. The last victory of the long-bow was even more complete than its first great triumph at Crecy. For to the bow is fairly to be attributed alike the defeat of the fierce rush of the Highlanders which proved so formidable on other occasions, and the last destruction wrought upon the nobles around their king.

CHAPTER IX
THE GREAT CIVIL WAR

Civil wars are not all of the same type. Sometimes the division is geographical, as in the great war between the northern and southern states of the American Union; sometimes the people throughout the country are separated into opposing ranks. Of course in neither case is the line likely to be drawn quite sharply: there were partisans of the north in the Confederate States: the preponderant feeling in some districts at least of a country divided against itself is sure to be strongly on one side or the other. The great English civil war of the seventeenth century is an instance of the latter type, though not in its most clearly marked form. There were large regions which were very decidedly royalist, others almost as distinctly parliamentarian; but certainly there was something of royalist feeling everywhere, and probably anti-royalist feeling also. These facts determine to so large an extent the nature and course of the war that it cannot be understood without keeping them in mind. They give a political reason for conduct on both sides, which from the purely military point of view must be regarded as mistaken. No competent general in an ordinary war will fritter away his forces in holding a number of small posts: he will only occupy those which are of importance to his operations in the field, well knowing that victory will give him possession of the rest. In the English civil war both parties acted on the principle that it was worth while to hold posts in districts where the enemy predominated, as means of keeping alive the spirit of their own partisans in those regions: and both sides deemed it well worth while to capture such posts, at the cost of greatly weakening their armies in the field. Nor can it be doubted that in the main they were right under the circumstances, though possibly there were instances in which acting in this manner was mistaken. In civil war it is emphatically true that until every spark is extinguished there is always a risk of the fire breaking out afresh.

The merits of the quarrel between Charles I. and his Parliament need not be discussed. Given that the question had once been raised whether the king was to be in the last resort master, or be bound to defer to the distinct wish of his people, a solution was only to be obtained by the king, or the representatives of the nation, definitely giving way. The ancient traditions of self-government made it certain that the Parliament would not yield except to armed force: the character and convictions of Charles I. made it equally certain not only that he would not yield, but that the conflict would be precipitated, rather than postponed, by his action.

England had not followed the example of the continental nations, which during the sixteenth century formed standing armies. Just before the civil war, there were no troops at all in England: in fact it was the necessity for putting down the Irish rebellion that brought about the final breach, as the Parliament would not trust the king with uncontrolled authority over the forces to be levied, and Charles would not bate an inch of his ancient prerogative. Hence it was of importance in the beginning of the war that the best raw material for an army was mainly on the king's side. Most of the gentry were royalist; and they, with their gamekeepers, grooms, etc., were naturally better skilled in the use of firearms, and (what was even more important) were more accustomed to riding than the rest of the population. The strong supporters of the Parliament were mostly found in the towns, merchants and shopkeepers, men ignorant of warlike pursuits, and little suited or inclined to incur in their own persons the hardships of war. England as a nation had engaged in no land warfare within living memory, except Buckingham's ill-conducted expedition to the Isle of Rhé. Many Englishmen however had seen service on the continent, in the earlier stages of the Thirty Years' War or in the last years of the Dutch War of Independence; and those who served under Maurice or Frederick Henry of Nassau, still more under the great Gustavus,[50] learned in a good school. Thus there was a fair supply of officers possessing some experience, though few of them exhibited any great military skill, again mostly on the king's side; and the royalist soldiers, having already some useful knowledge, were fairly soon converted into adequate troops. The parliamentary recruits were largely drawn in the first instance from the lowest classes of the towns; and though, thanks to natural courage and stubbornness, the infantry proved always a match for the royalists, their cavalry, an arm which was in that age of primary importance, and obviously required much more time for training, proved themselves defective. A remedy was presently found: we are told that Oliver Cromwell, then only a captain, after seeing in the first battle the panic rout of most of the parliamentary horse, observed to his cousin Hampden, that they must have men of another stamp to match with these men of honour. He set to work to bring into the ranks the stern Puritan yeomen of the eastern counties, and to inspire them with a spirit of strict discipline. This took time, and for many months after the war began the king had on the whole the advantage; but no enemy ever got the better of Cromwell's Ironsides, and from the date at which cavalry animated by his ideas came into the field in any numbers, the preponderance went over decisively to the Parliament.

Though, as has been said, there was hardly a spot in England where both parties had not adherents, yet roughly speaking a line drawn from Hull to Weymouth would divide England into a larger royalist half, and a smaller parliamentarian half, as things were just after the war had begun. The Parliament had its headquarters in London: the eastern counties, using that term very widely, were strongly on its side: and though the royalists were fairly numerous in Kent, Surrey and Hants, yet they were there so far overmatched by their opponents that the authority of Parliament was recognised. The king, whose headquarters after the first movements of the war were fixed in Oxford, was preponderant in the north (except Lancashire), in Wales (except Pembrokeshire) and the border counties, and in Cornwall, while the other south-western counties were more equally divided.

Charles I. finally set up his standard at Nottingham late in August 1642, whence he moved westwards to Chester, and when he had gathered sufficient forces marched on London. The earl of Essex, commanding the parliamentary army, had gone to Worcester to meet the king, and the first skirmish of the war took place at Powick bridge, just south of that city, on the very ground where nine years later was fought the last battle, the "crowning mercy" as Cromwell called it, which extinguished Charles II.'s last hopes of being restored by the aid of the Scots. It is a proof of the real inexperience of both sides that Charles and Essex moved towards London a few miles apart without either apparently being fully aware what the other was doing. On October 23 the king, who had the start, but had now come into hostile country, and therefore could not advance safely without beating off Essex, turned and fought at Edgehill on the southern edge of Warwickshire. The battle still further illustrated the rawness of both armies. The royalists gave away an advantage by coming down a fairly steep slope to meet their assailants: prince Rupert with the main body of their cavalry, after defeating the parliamentary horse opposed to him, pursued them headlong far away from the field, and then took to plundering Essex's baggage. The smaller body on the other wing were even more reckless, for they drove off only part of the cavalry opposed to them, leaving two small regiments untouched, in one of which was Cromwell's troop. How far this was due to want of discipline among the men, how far to lack of judgment in their commanders, it is difficult to tell; but the result was most disastrous to the king's cause. The infantry on both sides fought bravely, but two or three of Essex's regiments had been broken by the flying horsemen, and the king would have won a considerable victory but for the vigorous and effective way in which the few hundred cavalry that had escaped attack co-operated with the infantry. The clumsy, ill-made, slow-firing muskets of the seventeenth century were not very formidable to cavalry, and a charge pressed home in earnest had a very good chance against a mixed body of musketeers and pikemen, unless the latter were fresh and in good order. When prince Rupert at length returned to the field, Essex's infantry had got on the whole the best of it, though the royalists were hardly defeated: it was too late to begin again, and the battle remained drawn. The king's one chance of finishing the war at a blow was lost.