At each stage of these civil wars it was always a great pitched battle which was decisive. As at Marston Moor, all danger to the power of Parliament from the co-operation of the Scots and English Royalists was removed, and at Naseby the monarchy was completely overthrown by the Independents, without the help, nay, even in opposition to the Scots, so now at Preston the influence of the Scots and their ideas upon the Church and realm of England was terminated.
It was very hard on the Presbyterian preachers to be obliged at the order of the government to celebrate this victory in the churches. Most of them contented themselves with merely reading the news and the order; others expressed their astonishment, one might have said their indignation, that God should let the righteous cause be defeated and favour the unrighteous: they added that the sword of Cromwell was after all the sword of God, for he was God’s scourge for the earth.
In the South of England all was decided by this event: Colchester surrendered; the Prince quitted the Downs; and the fleet exhibited a change of sentiments. In the North Cromwell pressed on the remainder of the defeated army. He A.D. 1648. was commanded by Parliament to let no new war arise out of the ashes of the old one; to follow up his victory until he had completed it, and above all, until he had retaken Berwick and Carlisle. He was not empowered to enter Scotland, but he had already such a position that he could venture to proceed to invasion on his own account if the necessity of the case seemed to require it. When he crossed the Tweed he requested the Committee of the Scottish Estates to deliver up to him the two fortresses, or else he should appeal to God; that is to say, to the decision of war.
There were still some remains of the defeated army in the field: Sir George Monro had come into Scotland with the troops that had arrived from Ireland a short time before the defeat, and had there been reinforced by new levies: and as yet Hamilton’s adherents did not give up the contest. Lanerick, the Duke’s brother, thought it possible to defend the frontiers, and perhaps next year to undertake something in the King’s favour. But a contrary movement broke out in Scotland itself. The Church had regarded the defeat of Hamilton, which took place on the anniversary of the Covenant, as the actual judgment of God. Beside the political dissentients there arose also the clergy at the head of their parishioners, and they drove the Committee of Estates from Edinburgh. From this rising, the Whiggamores’ raid[531] as it was called, the name of Whigs was derived. Nor was it unimportant; it made the resistance of the remains of the Royalists to Cromwell’s invasion impossible, and thereby contributed materially to the decision of the great question.
For a moment it seemed as though the two parties would come to blows, but neither felt itself strong and determined enough for this. The adherents of Hamilton allowed the management of affairs to be taken in hand by their opponents, who professed to be friends of Cromwell, and greeted his victory as their own.
On October 4, 1648, Cromwell entered Edinburgh. The A.D. 1648. leader of the Independents was received as if in triumph by the leaders of the Covenanters, who at an earlier time had seen in him their most dangerous and detested enemy. At his first appearance on Scottish soil Carlisle and Berwick had been given up. He now gave it to be understood that as all the confusion of the last few months had been caused by Scotland not crushing the malignants and authors of the troubles, but conferring on them confidential posts of rank and importance, he must take precautions, in the name of the English Parliament, against this ever happening in future. The Committee of Estates as now constituted saw its own interest in excluding his enemies. It promised the next day to take care that no one who had had a share in the last alliance, or had been in arms, should hold any public office without the consent of England. In the next Parliament followed the infamous law fixing the classes according to which this exclusion was regulated in a graduated scale.
The French observed that it was all over with the independence of Scotland, to which they attached so much importance[532]. But the immediate result was merely that Argyle, Johnston, and their party, resumed the dominant position which they had recently lost.
The strict Presbyterians and the Independents had this at least in common, that both were inconsistent with that theory of the monarchy to which Charles I still adhered. Through their co-operation the moderate Presbyterianism, which in any case could and would work with him, had been overthrown in both England and Scotland; but they were by no means agreed between themselves.
FOOTNOTES:
[510] ‘A full and free parliament in England, and that his Majesty may be with them in honour, safety, and freedom, and that a speedy period be set to the present Parliament.’ Clarendon’s Rebellion v. 105.