The Governor of England

by Marjorie Bowen

"The Duke," he wrote, "is marching with his remaining horse towards Namptwich.... If I had a thousand horse that could but trot thirty miles, I should not doubt but to give a very good account of them; but truly we are so harassed and haggled out in this business, that we are not able to do more than walk at an easy pace after them."

But whether or no the Puritans were too wearied to pursue their enemies mattered little; the day was decided.

The Duke of Hamilton, wandering vaguely, with fewer and fewer men after him, was finally taken at Uttoxeter, where he surrendered, a sick and broken man.

Cromwell cleared the Border of the remnants of the Scots, retook Berwick and Carlisle, engaged the Argyll faction, now the head of the Government of Scotland, to exclude all royalists from power, and turned back towards England, the foremost man of the moment again, and in the eyes of at least half England, the saviour of the country from the invader.

But if the country was grateful, the Parliament was not. Denzil Holles, fiercest of Presbyterians, rose up at Westminster to lead a party against his enemy Cromwell. The Lords, who had all become royalists, considered whether they should impeach the victorious general; it was noticeable how much bolder they all were when the Independents and their indomitable leader were absent, and how, as the return of the army, strengthened in renown and prestige, drew nearer, they began to cast round for some means of escape from the fact facing them, that when Cromwell reappeared at Westminster he would be absolute master of the political situation, for he had behind him the entire army and they had nothing but the mere unsupported weight of the law.

So sharp was the division and so fierce had party hatred become, that the Presbyterians at Westminster hated the Independents with the army as no Roundhead or Cavalier had ever hated in the first broad division of the war.

Toleration was the watchword of Cromwell and his followers, and no word was more detestable to the Parliament. To mark their loathing of it they passed an ordinance punishing Atheism. Arianism, Socinianism, Quakerism, Arminianism, and Baptists with death.

Meanwhile, Cromwell, looming ever larger in the imaginations of men, was returning triumphant to London. If his fame had been at the lowest when he left for Wales, it was at the highest now. Denzil Holles conceived the idea of meeting material force by moral force; as they had nothing else to oppose to Cromwell they must oppose the King. Charles still remained, in many ways, the hub of the political wheel.

The Parliament must now yield either to him or to the army; they thought they saw their chance with Charles. If terms could be come to with him, and he be installed in London before the army returned, Cromwell would be faced with a situation with which he would probably not be able to cope. He had denounced the King solemnly at the Windsor meeting, therefore Charles, once again in power, could not treat him otherwise than as an enemy.

The vote against further addresses to the King, which Cromwell's eloquence had hurried through the House, was repealed, and parliamentary commissions were sent to the Isle of Wight to open a new treaty with the King.