Ecclesiastical History of England, Volume 2—The Church of the Commonwealth

by John Stoughton

It is not for us to describe the tactics of the Scotch army. It is enough to say that, in August, 1651, that army found itself in such a position with regard to Cromwell's camp, that it was "much nearer to England than he."[38] It seemed safer to turn south than north. Moreover, hopes grew up of large Presbyterian help on this side the border. The army with the King therefore marched into Lancashire; but the army and the King, once on English soil, soon shewed that they were seeking different ends.[39] The army cared little for the King, and much for the Covenant. The King cared much for his crown, and not at all for the Covenant—except to hate it. The Committee of Ministers attending on the forces prepared, unknown to his Majesty, a declaration of their Presbyterian zeal, and of their purpose to receive no recruits who would not subscribe the solemn League. This to Charles, of course, appeared insanity, and he countermanded the publication; at the same time ordering that civility should be shewn to any one who was disposed to enter his service. When the Scotch design became known, it tended to check the advances of episcopal Royalists; and, likewise, the King's want of sympathy with the Covenant served to keep Presbyterians away. Worse still, numbers of the Scots, now convinced of his treachery, turned their backs and marched home, and those who continued faithful fell into discord with their comrades. No cohesion could exist between covenanted and anti-covenanting forces. Personal jealousies, also, increased religious antipathies; for the Duke of Buckingham wanted to snatch the command from the hands of General Leslie. By the time the army reached Worcester—which the King had selected for his last throw in the game of war—the army had fallen into a state of perfect demoralization. Discord prevailed amongst the officers, and confusion amongst the men. The image of iron and clay fell to pieces at the first shock. Cromwell, who had followed the Royalists from Scotland, dashed down upon them by the banks of the river Severn, ere they were aware of his approach. The King suddenly, as he was dining at noon, heard of a battle, and rushed out of the house, only to find a body of his own horsemen already in retreat. They nearly rode over his sacred person, and paid no attention whatever to his loud war cry. The Ironsides swept all before them. Leslie reached Yorkshire with only 1,500 Covenanters; and the rest of the troops were scattered over the country—blown about like the chaff of the summer threshing floor.

1651, May.

If some English Presbyterians could not conscientiously fight for the King, others could not conscientiously fight against him. The Covenant, according to the fairest interpretation of it, together with their own old English sentiments, constrained them to maintain their loyalty to the crown. Regarding the father's execution as a murder, they declined to help the regicides in their designs upon his son. Dr. Samuel Annesley, John Wesley's grandfather, was a type of this class. He refused to send a horse against his Majesty at Worcester, and despatched a servant at night from a distance of forty miles to secure the church keys, in order that no schismatical ministers might hold a thanksgiving service in his church in celebration of Cromwell's victory. Several times he denounced the General as the "arrantest hypocrite" that ever pestered the Church of Christ; as one intent on pulling "down others only to make his own way to the throne," for which demonstrations before "some of note in the army" he was "necessitated to quit a parsonage worth between £200 and £300 per annum."[40]

1651, July.

In the spring of 1651, as Charles did penance for the recovery of the throne, he had Presbyterian friends in London and elsewhere plotting for the same end. They despatched letters to raise money and arms on his behalf; and some of these letters, conveyed in a vessel driven by a storm into the harbour of the town of Ayr, fell into Cromwell's hands.

Love's Trial.

Several ministers were implicated, especially Christopher Love.[41] It was the same person who had made himself famous by his Uxbridge sermon against the Royalists, and he now found himself in the Tower, a prisoner in the hands of the Parliament. Afterwards placed at the bar of the High Court of Justice in Westminster Hall, this young minister was charged with a criminal correspondence to restore Charles Stuart, first, in violation of an ordinance which denounced a traitor's death against those who should make such an attempt; and secondly, in violation of another ordinance, against assisting foreigners to invade the shores of England. Love, in his defence, declared that he only retained his covenanting principles. He referred to what he had suffered as a Puritan, and to what he had done as a patriot, adding, "I have been kept several weeks in close prison, and am now arraigned for my life, and like to suffer from the hands of those for whom I have done and suffered so much, and who have lifted up their hands with me on the same Covenant." He solemnly declared that he had neither written nor sent letters into Scotland; but he confessed that the proceedings in favour of the King were agreeable to his judgment, and for the good of the nation. He owned that he had connived at the scheme for restoring the prince, and had concealed some intelligence respecting it; and for so doing he besought forgiveness, and threw himself upon the mercy of the Court. Matthew Hale appeared as counsel for the prisoner, but no plea or intercession could prevent a verdict of guilty, or avert the sentence of death.

Love's Trial.

The efforts made by Mary Love to save the life of her husband, and the correspondence which passed between them, form an affecting episode. With that courage which is inspired by a wife's affection, and which not unfrequently converts a timid and commonplace woman into a heroine, she laid a petition before Parliament, imploring pardon for the condemned, pledging his friends as security for his peaceable behaviour in time to come, and begging that the God of heaven would bow the hearts of England's rulers to shew mercy. Yet, fearing the worst, this admirable woman wrote to her husband in strains of ardent tenderness, telling him to be comforted; that death was but a little stroke, and that he would soon be where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. "Remember," she said, "though thou mayest eat thy dinner with bitter herbs, yet thou shalt have a sweet supper with Christ that night." He responded in the same spirit of resignation and triumph, assuring her that, as there was "little between him and death," so "there was little between him and heaven." A second prayer from Mrs. Love entreated that, if her husband might not be thought worthy to breathe English air, he might at least have leave to sigh out his sorrows in the utmost parts of the earth. Fifty-four ministers signed a petition, in which they besought the Parliament earnestly, and "in the bowels of Jesus Christ, who, when we were sinners, died for us, if not totally to spare the life of their dear brother, yet that they would say of him as Solomon of Abiathar, that at this time he should not be put to death." A reprieve for one month followed, at the end of which period the suspense of wife and friends settled into blank agony. A third petition produced no effect; nor a fourth, though in that the broken-hearted woman cried, "Your desolate handmaid waiteth with all humility and earnest expectation at your doors, beseeching you not to forget to shew mercy to your poor petitioner and her tender babes." "Be graciously pleased to prevent this dreadful blow." "Whilst you are propagating the Gospel in New England, let my dying husband, as a prophet from the dead, be sent to endeavour the conversion of the poor Indians."