The Commission, after hearing the petitioner's statements, did not, apparently; treat the matter as of very serious moment. The dangerous crisis was over, and they could afford to be merciful. They seem to have condoned the political offence, but referred Sir Thomas to Mr John Annand, minister of Inverness, one of their number, "that he might confer with him concerning some dangerous opinions which, as was informed, he had sometimes vented." If these could be explained away, and no further complicity in disloyal schemes were brought home to him, Mr Annand was empowered, acting at all times under the advice of the Presbytery of Inverness, to receive his public "satisfaction" in the church of that city. How the matter ended we do not know. But there is very little doubt that Sir Thomas's nebulous heterodoxy proved no bar to his being freed from ecclesiastical censure, and that, in due course, according to the custom of that time, he stood, as a penitent, before the congregation of the Parish Church, in that city the walls of which he had assisted to assault and overthrow.
A fortnight after Sir Thomas Urquhart's appearance before the Commission of the General Assembly, Charles II. landed in Scotland, and was accepted, though at first not without deep misgivings, as "covenanted King." The party to which our author belonged was for a time excluded from all share in public life; and even the army, which was to defend the sovereign against the English sectaries, was carefully sifted, to remove those whose presence might bring a curse upon it. So that, though the land resounded with war and the rumour of war, Sir Thomas remained in an enforced quietude in his castle at Cromartie. The effect of the battle of Dunbar (3rd September) was to depress the faction which had excluded the Royalist partisans from the army, and kept the King himself in something very like bondage. Charles II., indeed, is said to have given thanks to God for the victory of Cromwell over the Covenanting forces at this battle, and the only difficulty in the way of believing this statement lies in the fact that he so seldom gave thanks for anything.
The Royalist party now began to rally about their sovereign. Charles II. was crowned at Scone on the 1st January, 1651, and in due time an army, which included many of the so-called Malignants, was ready for trying conclusions once again with the terrible English General. And now for the third time our author took up arms on behalf of the Stuarts. After some months of endless marchings and counter-marchings, in which Cromwell evidently endeavoured to provoke his enemies into a repetition of the blunder by which they had lost the battle of Dunbar, the Scottish forces found an opportunity of marching into England.
The latter, under David Lesley, had taken up a strong position on the height of the Tor Wood, between Stirling and Falkirk, from which they refused to be drawn out to battle; and Cromwell resolved to take up his post on the other side of the Royalist army. Accordingly, he crossed the Forth at Queensferry, and, after defeating an attempt to intercept him at Inverkeithing, reached and occupied Perth. The way to England was now open, and the Scottish army swiftly and silently entered upon it, resolved to stake everything upon a great battle.
Sir Thomas Urquhart left his castle of Cromartie, and took part in this expedition, though apparently he held no position of command in the army, and was very much out of sympathy with many of those who journeyed with him. Indeed, his unfortunate prejudices against the Presbyterian and Covenanting party come out in the statement he makes, that many of those who started out to smite "the Midianites and Philistines," when it came to the push, managed to make their way home, "being loth to hazard their precious persons, lest they should seem to trust to the arm of flesh."[113] The mass of those, however, who formed the Scottish army were of very different mettle, and the battle in which they staked and lost everything was one of the fiercest in the whole of the great Civil War.
The course of their journey southward was through Biggar and Carlisle, and then through Lancashire. To their disappointment, they received no great accession of Royalists, nor of any others who were inclined to join them in the attempt to overthrow the Commonwealth. "They marched," says the historian, "under rigorous discipline, weary and uncheered, south through Lancashire; had to dispute ... the Bridge of Warrington with Lambert and Harrison, who attended them with horse-troops on the left; Cromwell with the main army steadily advancing behind. They carried the Bridge at Warrington; they summoned various Towns, but none yielded; proclaimed their King, with all force of lungs and heraldry, but none cried, God bless him. Summoning Shrewsbury, with the usual negative response, they quitted the London road; bent southward towards Worcester, a City of slight Garrison and loyal Mayor; there to entrench themselves, and repose a little."[114] Yet but slight opportunity for this was given them. The course taken by Cromwell was through York, Nottingham, Coventry, and Stratford-on-Avon, and when he arrived at Worcester with his army from Scotland, and with the county militias, who had risen at his summons, his forces numbered over thirty thousand men as against the enemy's sixteen thousand.
Meantime Sir Thomas Urquhart had taken up his quarters in Worcester, in the house of a Mr Spilsbury, "a very honest sort of man, who had an exceeding good woman to his wife." His luggage, which was stored in an attic, consisted, besides "scarlet cloaks, buff suits, and arms of all sorts," of seven large "portmantles," three of which were filled with unpublished works in manuscript, and other valuable documents—the amount of which he gives us in quires and quinternions, but which need not be repeated here. "Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war," sang Milton in his sonnet to the Lord General Cromwell; and perhaps Sir Thomas Urquhart hoped, after achieving victory in war, to win a second set of laurels by means of the contents of the three "portmantles."
On the evening of the 3rd September, the anniversary of the battle of Dunbar, and afterwards to be the date of Cromwell's own death, the battle of Worcester was fought, and the Royalist cause utterly shattered. "The fighting of the Scots," says Carlyle, "was fierce and desperate. 'My Lord General did exceedingly hazard himself, riding up and down in the midst of the fire; riding, himself in person, to the Enemy's foot to offer them quarter, whereto they returned no answer but shot.' The small Scotch Army, begirdled with overpowering force, and cut off from help or reasonable hope, storms forth in fiery pulses, horse and foot; charges now on this side of the River, now on that;—can on no side prevail. Cromwell recoils a little, but only to rally and return irresistible. The small Scotch Army is, on every side, driven in again. Its fiery pulsings are but the struggles of death: agonies as of a lion coiled in the folds of a boa. 'As stiff a contest,' says Cromwell, 'for four or five hours as ever I have seen.'"[115]
The conquered lost six thousand men, and all their baggage and artillery; and Charles only with difficulty, and after many romantic adventures, succeeded in escaping to the Continent when the fight was over. Ten thousand prisoners, including eleven of the Scottish nobility, were taken. The sufferings of many of these brave men were severe in the extreme. Some perished from want of food and from gaol diseases, and large numbers of the survivors were shipped for the plantations, and sold as slaves.
Sir Thomas Urquhart, and, apparently, more than one of his brothers, were among the prisoners, but appeared to have fared better than many of their companions in arms. The greatest of the misfortunes that fell upon him was, in his estimation, the sad fate that overtook his precious manuscripts. The whole story, related in his own inimitable style, may be read in Chapter VI. It is enough to say here that a party of marauders broke into his quarters in search of valuables, that they forced open the "portmantles" and turned their contents out upon the floor, and afterwards carried off the papers to use them for wrapping up articles of plunder, and for lighting their pipes. Fortunately some bundles of these papers were afterwards picked up in the streets and brought back to him, and in due time found their way to the printer's.