in the state. After repeated applications, the duke of Buckingham, the Lord Wilmot, and a few English servants, who took the covenant, obtained permission to remain with the king; many of the Scottish exiles embraced the opportunity to withdraw from notice into the western isles, or the more distant parts of the country.[1]
It was the negotiation between the Scots and their nominal king that arrested Cromwell in the career of victory, and called him away from the completion of his conquest. The rulers of the commonwealth were aware of the intimate connection which the solemn league and covenant had produced between the English Presbyterians and the kirk of Scotland, whence they naturally inferred that, if the pretender to the English were once seated on the Scottish throne, their own power would he placed on a very precarious footing. From the first they had watched with jealousy the unfriendly proceedings of the Scottish parliament. Advice and persuasion had been tried, and had failed. There remained the resource of war; and war, it was hoped, would either compel the Scots to abandon the claims of Charles, or reduce Scotland to a province of the commonwealth. Fairfax, indeed (he was supposed to be under the influence of a Presbyterian wife and of the Presbyterian ministers), disapproved of the design;[2] but his disapprobation, though lamented in public, was privately hailed as a benefit by those who were acquainted with the aspiring designs of Cromwell, and built on his elevation the flattering hope of their own greatness. By their means, as soon as the
[Footnote 1: Balfour, iv. 41, 60, 61, 64, 65, 67, 73, 77, 78. Whitelock, 462. Clarendon, iii. 346, 356, 357.]
[Footnote 2: Whitelock, 438.]
lord lieutenant had put his troops into winter quarters, an order was obtained from parliament for him to attend his duty in the house; but he resumed his military operations,[a] and two months were suffered to elapse before he noticed the command of the supreme authority, and condescended to make an unmeaning apology for his disobedience. On the renewal of the order,[c] he left the command in Ireland to Ireton, and, returning to England, appeared in his seat.[d] He was received with acclamations; the palace of St. James's was allotted for his residence, and a valuable grant of lands was voted[e] as a reward for his eminent services. In a few days followed the appointment of Fairfax to the office of commander-in-chief,[f] and of Cromwell to that of lieutenant-general of the army designed to be employed in Scotland. Each signified his "readiness to observe the orders of the house;" but Fairfax at the same time revealed his secret and conscientious objections to the council of state. A deputation of five members, Cromwell, Lambert, Harrison, Whitelock, and St. John, waited on him at his house;[g] the conference was opened by a solemn invocation of the Holy Spirit, and the three officers prayed in succession with the most edifying fervour. Then Fairfax said that, to his mind, the invasion of Scotland appeared a violation of the solemn league and covenant which he had sworn to observe. It was replied that the Scots themselves had broken the league by the invasion of England under the duke of Hamilton; and that it was always lawful to prevent the hostile designs of another power. But he answered that the Scottish parliament had given satisfaction by the punishment of the guilty; that the probability of hostile designs ought indeed to lead to measures of precaution, but that certainty was
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Jan. 8.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. April 2.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. May 30.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. June 4.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1650. June 12.]
[Sidenote f: A.D. 1650. June 14.]
[Sidenote g: A.D. 1650. June 24.]
required to justify actual invasion. No impression was made on his mind; and, though Cromwell and his brother officers earnestly solicited him to comply, "there was cause enough," says one of the deputation, "to believe that they did not overmuch desire it."[1] The next day[a] another attempt ended with as little success; the lord general alleging the plea of infirm health and misboding conscience, sent back the last commission, and at the request of the house, the former also; and the chief command of all the forces raised, or to be raised by order of parliament, was conferred on Oliver Cromwell. Thus this adventurer obtained at the same time the praise of moderation and the object of his ambition. Immediately he left the capital for Scotland;[c] and Fairfax retired to his estate in Yorkshire, where he lived with the privacy of a country gentleman, till he once more drew the sword, not in support of the commonwealth, but in favour of the king.[2]
To a spectator who considered the preparations of the two kingdoms, there could be little doubt of the result. Cromwell passed the Tweed[d] at the head of sixteen thousand men, most of them veterans, all habituated to military discipline, before the raw levies of the Scots had quitted their respective shires. By order of the Scottish parliament, the army had been fixed at thirty thousand men; the nominal command had been given to the earl of Leven, the real, on account of the age and infirmities of that officer, to his relative, David Leslie, and instructions had been
[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 460, 462. Ludlow says, "he acted his part so to the life, that I really thought him in earnest; but the consequence made it sufficiently evident that he had no such intention" (i. 272). Hutchinson, who was present on one of these occasions, thought him sincere.—Hutchinson, 315.]
[Footnote 2: Whitelock, 438, 450, 457. Journals, Jan. 8, Feb. 25, March 30,
April 15, May 2, 7, 30, June 4, 12, 14, 25, 26.]