A history of England principally in the seventeenth century, Volume 2 (of 6)

by Leopold von Ranke

Thus there was a division in the armed force which held the power in its hands. Cromwell, who scarcely was misjudged by his companions in arms, would have been content for the time, it appears, with the advantages already gained. What a charm there is in contests like these, in overthrowing our opponents by parliamentary resolutions, and bringing over the majority to our side! It might be an object of his ambition, in the old conflict of the Royalist, Parliamentarian, and Independent interests, to gain the upper hand for the latter, in union with the King, whereby the existence of each individual, and also of society in general, would be secured, with some reforms possibly, but in the main in its present condition. On the other hand, the majority of the soldiers represented by the Agitators rejected all further dealings with the King: God had hardened his heart, or he would have accepted the proposals made to him: God had put all things under the feet of the victorious army, and thus laid on it a duty to settle the country according to their original convictions. The army would have preferred to abstain from all further dealings with the Long Parliament: it demanded the formation of a new one on the basis of an effective representation of the people. It rejected with increasing vehemence, not only the Presbyterian, but A.D. 1647. also the Episcopalian system with the modification last proposed, and claimed an absolute right to universal liberty of conscience, the abolition of a series of oppressive taxes, a thorough reform of justice and of the entire public weal. A new political element now emerged from profound darkness into the light of public life: a conscious advance was made towards social revolution.

These ideas became at once personally dangerous to the officers, when the idea was suggested that the army ought to elect its own officers: this was expressed in a pamphlet of Lilburne’s, which further said that the army ought to form a council out of the sincere friends of the people, in order to check the usurpation of the Parliament men. The ideas of the Agitators were as little consistent with military subordination, which depends on a relation assumed a priori and actually subsisting, as with every other aspect of order. It appeared as though an authority would be created out of the midst of the army, both to command it and to carry out the desired reforms in the nation.

The officers could not possibly let this continue, as they saw their own existence threatened: but what means had they of acting in opposition? The total rejection of the proposals must have caused an outbreak of complete disobedience. They resolved to resist the movement, while giving way to it in part. In a detailed remonstrance against the prevailing insubordination and mutiny, Fairfax declared that he neither could nor would retain the command of them under such circumstances. Military obedience is the indispensable condition of the existence of an army. Would it not have endangered its own internal coherence, if it had carried out the plan of electing its own officers? At the same time he made several promises corresponding to the wishes expressed by the troops, which should be performed when obedience was restored. There were some regiments which were not satisfied, and appeared at the places of assembly with tokens of resistance: but by far the greater part professed themselves content. They signed a pledge to be satisfied with what the general council of officers should determine in respect to the army and to the entire kingdom. A.D. 1647. This example influenced also the malcontents. A court martial was held in the open field which sentenced to death three of the chief mutineers, one of whom, selected by lot, was shot in front of his regiment. In the latter half of November obedience might be considered as re-established: and Parliament voted its thanks to the generals who had most contributed to this result.

Just as the extreme tendencies towards a general dissolution of society came to light among the troops, who had taken up arms of their own free inclination, and thought that they had acquired by their victories the right to establish universal autonomy, so also it may be stated that they were first checked in their course by the necessity of military discipline, the thing which of all others is furthest removed from all self-assertion: the troops obeyed their officers, whose commissions were derived from a totally different order of things from that which they recognised.

They had not, as has been said, given way unconditionally. The promises which Fairfax had made, at the moment of the crisis, contemplated a new Parliament, which should proceed from free and equal elections, and wherever possible fully represent the people. In the addresses in which the regiments recognised the general as the chief set over them by God, they repeated their old demands, security for the rights and liberties of the realm according to the assurances given to the people. The officers could not possibly place themselves in direct opposition to the tendencies prevailing in the army, which after all many of them privately shared. While the troops submitted to pay the old military obedience, the officers gave scope to the democratic ideas which had increased in the army. An understanding was entered into between the officers and the Agitators, by which the former retained their authority, but the latter maintained their rights.

The King immediately discovered what this meant. When he saw himself threatened by the Agitators, at the moment when the contest broke out, he had taken counsel with the Scottish delegates, who came to him as friends, as to where he should seek refuge from them, whether in London, or perhaps at Edinburgh, or somewhere on the A.D. 1647. Border, say at Berwick, so as to have support against extreme dangers. But this was not altogether within his own option. In conformity to his promise he first asked the leaders for permission to quit Hampton Court. They were doubtless well disposed to grant it, for they too would not let him fall into the hands of the Agitators[500]. But how could they have allowed him to go to the capital or to Scotland, where their chief opponents would have employed his presence against them! Moreover this was not the King’s intention. He knew that the Scots would grant him nothing if he fell again into their power, but might do so if they saw themselves threatened by his connexion with the army. He expected, if in the then impending contest the officers gained the upper hand, that they would fulfil the promises made to him, but that if they did not remain masters, they would seek support in him, the King[501]. Not without political calculation in his own way, as to the means of deriving advantage from the hostility of parties, Charles I resolved to fly to the Isle of Wight, where Colonel Hammond was in command, a man who a short time before had expressed his displeasure at the wild fury of the soldiers, with whom he would have nothing more to do. In the evening of November 10, Charles I quitted Hampton Court in apparent flight. Attended by Ashburnham, Legge, and Berkeley, he found the gates of the park, through which he issued, unguarded: he was unpursued on his way through the wood, where he himself acted as guide: it seems as though a well-considered connivance of the other side had aided him. From Titchfield, where he stayed in concealment, he sent word to Hammond of his approach. Hammond could be induced to give no further promise than that he would treat the King as might be A.D. 1647. expected of a man of honour. Charles I felt that he was still a prisoner, but at first he was treated with much distinction. Here also the old respect for the name of King attended him. As he passed through Newport, a lady came out of a house to present to the King a rose which at that late season had bloomed in her garden, and to offer him her good wishes. In Carisbrook castle—one of the fortresses with which Henry VIII had strengthened the coast defences—whither Hammond conducted him, he enjoyed tolerable liberty. No one was at first denied access to him: old friends and servants flocked round him. The King was still very far from despairing of his cause. While in the Isle of Wight he added some concessions on single points to the proposals made at Newcastle, and renewed his request for personal negotiations in London: but he still held to his resolution never to assent to the definitive abolition of Episcopacy or to the sale of Church lands. He still hoped to have in this the support of the superior officers.

He had however calculated only that they would win the day or be beaten; it had never occurred to him that they would recover their superiority as against the Agitators, and then adopt most of their ideas. The representative whom he sent to them to Windsor was surprised at the coldness and reserve with which he was received. At the dead of night, in a lonely place, he had an interview with one of the chief officers, formerly well disposed to the King, who told him that though it looked as if they had retained the upper hand, yet in reality it was not the case. Cromwell had been visited by a large part of the soldiers, perhaps two thirds of the whole, who had assured him that they were determined not to recede from their old views, and that if he opposed them they would make a division in the army and try to destroy their opponents[502]: that feeling the danger which might hence result to himself, Cromwell, under the mediation of Hugh Peters, had joined the violent enthusiasts: that the idea of holding to the King had again occurred to him, but that he had rejected it, seeing that even in case of victory the best that A.D. 1647. he could expect would be nothing more than pardon: but that as he could not bring the army over to his side, he had no resource but to go over to theirs. Cromwell intimated to the King’s representative that he would serve the King, so long as it was possible without ruining himself, but that he could not be expected to perish for his sake[503]. No notice was taken of the King’s proposals.

Parliament also was destined by the Agitators to destruction, but for this things were by no means ripe. Their immediate object was to crush in the bud any agreement with the King, and in this they fully succeeded. Under the influence of the officers, who in turn depended on the public opinion formed in the army, four bills passed the Houses in the middle of December, which were fundamentally at variance with the King’s views.

Therein Parliament in the first place demanded the entire military authority, together with the right to impose the taxes necessary for the maintenance of the army, unconditionally for the next twenty years, whether the King lived or died: after that period this power might not be wielded by the crown without the assent of Parliament, but might be by Parliament without the assent of the crown, for every resolution passed by the two Houses was to be considered as having the royal assent[504]. The concession which the King offered was temporary and limited to his own life; the scheme demanded by Parliament would have made the military power for ever independent of the crown.

Parliament moreover wished to be itself equally independent of the crown. The King was to create no new peers without the consent of the two Houses: the nominations made by him since his recovery of the Great Seal were to be cancelled.