CHAPTER XIX.
The Scotch army had crossed the Tweed in the month of January, 1644. Isaak Walton had seen them marching along with their pikes, and wearing on their hats this motto, "For the Crown and Covenant of both kingdoms,"[535] but the quiet angler was not able to understand clearly what he beheld. These soldiers proved of far less service to England than was expected. The indiscretion of generals in the field involved regiments in disaster, and political and religious jealousy at an early period sprung up between some English and Scotch commanders. Grounds of difference existed, inasmuch as certain of the southern captains felt little sympathy with the covenanting zeal of their northern allies. Both, however, had begun to find out that the enemy was much stronger than they had at first imagined, and Baillie, in the month of March, 1644, deplored the persistent attachment of the Royalists to Episcopacy and absolute monarchy, and the absence from their consciences of all remorse for their past misdoings. Indeed, he speaks of so much confidence existing at Oxford, that the popular cause was there accounted to have sunk into a hopeless state; and the Scotch presbyter himself complains that the ways of the Parliament were endless and confused, being full of jealousy, and of other faults. The Independents, he also says, prevented Church matters from being settled as he wished; Antinomians and Anabaptists were on the increase, and, in short, things were altogether in a bad condition.[536]
Long Marston Moor.
The military prospects of the Parliament did not much improve as the spring advanced. The patriots longed for something to be done. The Earl of Manchester was besieging York, and upon the consequence of the expedition in the north, depended the affairs of the Church, scarcely less than the affairs of the State. When, on July the 2nd, 1644, Cromwell and Leslie met Prince Rupert on Long Marston Moor, it was for the purpose of settling an ecclesiastical as well as a political question.
1644, July.
The two armies stood face to face on that memorable spot, eyeing each other for hours, within musket shot,[537] the Parliament horse and foot being ranged along the south side of the moor on rising ground, amidst fields of standing corn, now tall and wet with rain, whilst the King's forces were protected by a deep ditch and hedge in front. When the sun was going down over the wide plain the action commenced. At first it proved in favour of the Royalists, so much so that the Earl of Leven's men fled, and the Scotch might be heard crying, "Waes us, we're a' undone!" Forthwith news of victory flew to Oxford, greeted there by bell-ringing and bonfires, to be only, however, speedily followed by very different tidings; for before midnight Cromwell and Leslie plucked a victory out of the enemy's hands. They charged a brigade of greencoats, and put to the rout the remainder of the Royalist army. The chase was continued to within a mile of the walls of York, the dead bodies, it was said, lying three miles in length, the moon with her light helping somewhat the darkness of the season.[538]
The part which Cromwell took in this fierce battle gave no little triumph to the Independent party, who made the most of the Scotch flight, and hardly did justice to General Leslie.[539] This vexed the Presbyterians, and already the breach between the two assumed a serious appearance.
Naseby.
Though the victory of Marston Moor was of great advantage to the cause of the Parliament, it certainly did not decide the conflict. So far from that being the case, the fortunes of war afterwards favoured the Royalists. In August the Earl of Essex found himself so circumstanced in his western campaign that he suddenly capitulated to the King—an untoward event, which naturally called forth the lamentations of the Westminster Divines.[540] Later still, amongst those persons who were anxious thoroughly to humble their High Church adversaries, and to bring the King to terms of complete submission, there might have been heard complaints to the effect that two summers had passed without the nation being saved; that victories gallantly gotten by the army, and graciously bestowed by Heaven, had been put into a bag with holes; that what was gained one day was lost another, that the summer's victory became a winter tale; and that the whole game had to be played over again. The secret of this want of complete success was said to be the unwillingness of the Presbyterians to crush the Royalists, and their desire for such an accommodation of differences as would place their own ecclesiastical polity close by the side of the English throne. The Independents, therefore, who were loud in making complaints of the description just indicated, seeing as they did that the Presbyterian scheme threatened the extinction of that religious liberty with which their own interests were identified, resolved that there should be a revision of the whole war policy on their own side, and an entire reformation effected in the character and tactics of the army. Out of this determination arose the famous new modelling of the army, and the self-denying ordinance. These changes were accomplished in the winter of 1644, and the re-organized forces, under Fairfax and Cromwell, were ready to take the field by the spring of 1645. When all this had been accomplished, hopes revived, but the siege and capture of Leicester by the Royalists, at the end of May, inspired new fears.[541] These, however, were not of long continuance, and were wholly dissipated by the memorable battle in the month of June.
1645, June.