GREAT REBELLION (1642-52), a generic name for the civil wars in England and Scotland, which began with the raising of King Charles I.’s standard at Nottingham on the 22nd of August 1642, and ended with the surrender of Dunottar Castle to the Parliament’s troops in May 1652. It is usual to classify these wars into the First Civil War of 1642-46, and the Second Civil War of 1648-52. During most of this time another civil war was raging in Ireland. Its incidents had little or no connexion with those of the Great Rebellion, but its results influenced the struggle in England to a considerable extent.
1. First Civil War (1642-46).—It is impossible rightly to understand the events of this most national of all English wars without some knowledge of the motive forces on both sides. On the side of the king were enlisted the deep-seated loyalty which was the result of two centuries of effective royal protection, the pure cavalier spirit foreshadowing the courtier era of Charles II., but still strongly tinged with the old feudal indiscipline, the militarism of an expert soldier nobility, well represented by Prince Rupert, and lastly a widespread distrust of extreme Puritanism, which appeared unreasonable to Lord Falkland and other philosophic statesmen and intolerable to every other class of Royalists. The foot of the Royal armies was animated in the main by the first and last of these motives; in the eyes of the sturdy rustics who followed their squires to the war the enemy were rebels and fanatics. To the cavalry, which was composed largely of the higher social orders, the rebels were, in addition, bourgeois, while the soldiers of fortune from the German wars felt all the regular’s contempt for citizen militia. Thus in the first episodes of the First Civil War moral superiority tended to be on the side of the king. On the other side, the causes of the quarrel were primarily and apparently political, ultimately and really religious, and thus the elements of resistance in the Parliament and the nation were at first confused, and, later, strong and direct. Democracy, moderate republicanism and the simple desire for constitutional guarantees could hardly make head of themselves against the various forces of royalism, for the most moderate men of either party were sufficiently in sympathy to admit compromise. But the backbone of resistance was the Puritan element, and this waging war at first with the rest on the political issue soon (as the Royalists anticipated) brought the religious issue to the front. The Presbyterian system, even more rigid than that of Laud and the bishops—whom no man on either side supported save Charles himself—was destined to be supplanted by the Independents and their ideal of free conscience, but for a generation before the war broke out it had disciplined and trained the middle classes of the nation (who furnished the bulk of the rebel infantry, and later of the cavalry also) to centre their whole will-power on the attainment of their ideals. The ideals changed during the struggle, but not the capacity for striving for them, and the men capable of the effort finally came to the front and imposed their ideals on the rest by the force of their trained wills.
Material force was throughout on the side of the Parliamentary party. They controlled the navy, the nucleus of an army which was in process of being organized for the Irish war, and nearly all the financial resources of the country. They had the sympathies of most of the large towns, where the trained bands, drilled once a month, provided cadres for new regiments. Further, by recognizing the inevitable, they gained a start in war preparations which they never lost. The earls of Warwick, Essex and Manchester and other nobles and gentry of their party possessed great wealth and territorial influence. Charles, on the other hand, although he could, by means of the “press” and the lords-lieutenant, raise men without authority from Parliament, could not raise taxes to support them, and was dependent on the financial support of his chief adherents, such as the earls of Newcastle and Derby. Both parties raised men when and where they could, each claiming that the law was on its side—for England was already a law-abiding nation—and acting in virtue of legal instruments. These were, on the side of the Parliament, its own recent “Militia Ordinance”; on that of the king, the old-fashioned “Commissions of Array.” In Cornwall the Royalist leader, Sir Ralph Hopton, indicted the enemy before the grand jury of the county as disturbers of the peace, and had the posse comitatus called out to expel them. The local forces in fact were everywhere employed by whichever side could, by producing valid written authority, induce them to assemble.
2. The Royalist and Parliamentarian Armies.—This thread of local feeling and respect for the laws runs through the earlier operations of both sides almost irrespective of the main principles at stake. Many a promising scheme failed because of the reluctance of the militiamen to serve beyond the limits of their own county, and, as the offensive lay with the king, his cause naturally suffered far more therefrom than that of the enemy. But the real spirit of the struggle was very different. Anything which tended to prolong the struggle, or seemed like want of energy and avoidance of a decision, was bitterly resented by the men of both sides, who had their hearts in the quarrel and had not as yet learned by the severe lesson of Edgehill that raw armies cannot bring wars to a speedy issue. In France and Germany the prolongation of a war meant continued employment for the soldiers, but in England “we never encamped or entrenched ... or lay fenced with rivers or defiles. Here were no leaguers in the field, as at the story of Nuremberg,[1] neither had our soldiers any tents or what they call heavy baggage. ’Twas the general maxim of the war—Where is the enemy? Let us go and fight them. Or ... if the enemy was coming ... Why, what should be done! Draw out into the fields and fight them.” This passage from the Memoirs of a Cavalier, ascribed to Defoe, though not contemporary evidence, is an admirable summary of the character of the Civil War. Even when in the end a regular professional army is evolved—exactly as in the case of Napoleon’s army—the original decision-compelling spirit permeated the whole organization. From the first the professional soldiers of fortune, be their advice good or bad, are looked upon with suspicion, and nearly all those Englishmen who loved war for its own sake were too closely concerned for the welfare of their country to attempt the methods of the Thirty Years’ War in England. The formal organization of both armies was based on the Swedish model, which had become the pattern of Europe after the victories of Gustavus Adolphus, and gave better scope for the moral of the individual than the old-fashioned Spanish and Dutch formations in which the man in the ranks was a highly finished automaton.
3. Campaign of 1642.—When the king raised his standard at Nottingham on the 22nd of August 1642, war was already in progress on a small scale in many districts, each side endeavouring to secure, or to deny to the enemy, fortified country-houses, territory, and above all arms and money. Peace negotiations went on in the midst of these minor events until there came from the Parliament an ultimatum so aggressive as to fix the warlike purpose of the still vacillating court at Nottingham, and, in the country at large, to convert many thousands of waverers to active Royalism. Ere long Charles—who had hitherto had less than 1500 men—was at the head of an army which, though very deficient in arms and equipment, was not greatly inferior in numbers or enthusiasm to that of the Parliament. The latter (20,000 strong exclusive of detachments) was organized during July, August and September about London, and moved thence to Northampton under the command of Robert, earl of Essex.
At this moment the military situation was as follows. Lord Hertford in south Wales, Sir Ralph Hopton in Cornwall, and the young earl of Derby in Lancashire, and small parties in almost every county of the west and the midlands, were in arms for the king. North of the Tees, the earl of Newcastle, a great territorial magnate, was raising troops and supplies for the king, while Queen Henrietta Maria was busy in Holland arranging for the importation of war material and money. In Yorkshire opinion was divided, the royal cause being strongest in York and the North Riding, that of the Parliamentary party in the clothing towns of the West Riding and also in the important seaport of Hull. The Yorkshire gentry made an attempt to neutralize the county, but a local struggle soon began, and Newcastle thereupon prepared to invade Yorkshire. The whole of the south and east as well as parts of the midlands and the west and the important towns of Bristol and Gloucester were on the side of the Parliament. A small Royalist force was compelled to evacuate Oxford on the 10th of September.
On the 13th of September the main campaign opened. The king—in order to find recruits amongst his sympathizers and arms in the armouries of the Derbyshire and Staffordshire trained bands, and also to be in touch with his disciplined regiments in Ireland by way of Chester—moved westward to Shrewsbury, Essex following suit by marching from Northampton to Worcester. Near the last-named town a sharp cavalry engagement (Powick Bridge) took place on the 23rd between the advanced cavalry of Essex’s army and a force under Prince Rupert which was engaged in protecting the retirement of the Oxford detachment. The result of the fight was the instantaneous overthrow of the rebel cavalry, and this gave the Royalist troopers a confidence in themselves and in their brilliant leader which was not destined to be shaken until they met Cromwell’s Ironsides. Rupert soon withdrew to Shrewsbury, where he found many Royalist officers eager to attack Essex’s new position at Worcester. But the road to London now lay open and it was decided to take it. The intention was not to avoid a battle, for the Royalist generals desired to fight Essex before he grew too strong, and the temper of both sides made it impossible to postpone the decision; in Clarendon’s words, “it was considered more counsellable to march towards London, it being morally sure that the earl of Essex would put himself in their way,” and accordingly the army left Shrewsbury on the 12th of October, gaining two days’ start of the enemy, and moved south-east via Bridgnorth, Birmingham and Kenilworth. This had the desired effect. Parliament, alarmed for its own safety, sent repeated orders to Essex to find the king and bring him to battle. Alarm gave place to determination when it was discovered that Charles was enlisting papists and seeking foreign aid. The militia of the home counties was called out, a second army under the earl of Warwick was formed round the nucleus of the London trained bands, and Essex, straining every nerve to regain touch with the enemy, reached Kineton, where he was only 7 m. from the king’s headquarters at Edgecote, on the 22nd.
4. Battle of Edgehill.—Rupert promptly reported the enemy’s presence, and his confidence dominated the irresolution of the king and the caution of Lord Lindsey, the nominal commander-in-chief. Both sides had marched widely dispersed in order to live, and the rapidity with which, having the clearer purpose, the Royalists drew together helped considerably to neutralize Essex’s superior numbers. During the morning of the 23rd the Royalists formed in battle order on the brow of Edgehill facing towards Kineton. Essex, experienced soldier as he was, had distrusted his own raw army too much to force a decision earlier in the month, when the king was weak; he now found Charles in a strong position with an equal force to his own 14,000, and some of his regiments were still some miles distant. But he advanced beyond Kineton, and the enemy promptly left their strong position and came down to the foot of the hill, for, situated as they were, they had either to fight wherever they could induce the enemy to engage, or to starve in the midst of hostile garrisons. Rupert was on the right of the king’s army with the greater part of the horse, Lord Lindsey and Sir Jacob Astley in the centre with the foot, Lord Wilmot (with whom rode the earl of Forth, the principal military adviser of the king) with a smaller body of cavalry on the left. In rear of the centre were the king and a small reserve. Essex’s order was similar. Rupert charged as soon as his wing was deployed, and before the infantry of either side was ready. Taking ground to his right front and then wheeling inwards at full speed he instantly rode down the Parliamentary horse opposed to him. Some infantry regiments of Essex’s left centre shared the same fate as their cavalry. On the other wing Forth and Wilmot likewise swept away all that they could see of the enemy’s cavalry, and the undisciplined Royalists of both wings pursued the fugitives in wild disorder up to Kineton, where they were severely handled by John Hampden’s infantry brigade (which was escorting the artillery and baggage of Essex’s army). Rupert brought back only a few rallied squadrons to the battlefield, and in the meantime affairs there had gone badly for the king. The right and centre of the Parliamentary foot (the left having been brought to a halt by Rupert’s charge) advanced with great resolution, and being at least as ardent as, and much better armed than, Lindsey’s men, engaged them fiercely and slowly gained ground. Only the best regiments on either side, however, maintained their order, and the decision of the infantry battle was achieved mainly by a few Parliamentary squadrons. One regiment of Essex’s right wing only had been the target of Wilmot’s charge, the other two had been at the moment invisible, and, as every Royalist troop on the ground, even the king’s guards, had joined in the mad ride to Kineton, these, Essex’s life-guard, and some troops that had rallied from the effect of Rupert’s charge—amongst them Captain Oliver Cromwell’s—were the only cavalry still present. All these joined with decisive effect in the attack on the left of the royal infantry. The king’s line was steadily rolled up from left to right, the Parliamentary troopers captured his guns and regiment after the regiment broke up. Charles himself stood calmly in the thick of the fight, but he had not the skill to direct it. The royal standard was taken and retaken, Lindsey and Sir Edmund Verney, the standard-bearer, being killed. By the time that Rupert returned both sides were incapable of further effort and disillusioned as to the prospect of ending the war at a blow.
On the 24th Essex retired, leaving Charles to claim the victory and to reap its results. Banbury and Oxford were reoccupied by the Royalists, and by the 28th Charles was marching down the Thames valley on London. Negotiations were reopened, and a peace party rapidly formed itself in London and Westminster. Yet field fortifications sprang up around London, and when Rupert stormed and sacked Brentford on the 12th of November the trained bands moved out at once and took up a position at Turnham Green, barring the king’s advance. Hampden, with something of the fire and energy of his cousin Cromwell, urged Essex to turn both flanks of the Royal army via Acton and Kingston, but experienced professional soldiers urged him not to trust the London men to hold their ground while the rest manœuvred. Hampden’s advice was undoubtedly premature. A Sedan or Worcester was not within the power of the Parliamentarians of 1642, for, in Napoleon’s words, “one only manœuvres around a fixed point,” and the city levies at that time were certainly not, vis-à-vis Rupert’s cavalry, a fixed point. As a matter of fact, after a slight cannonade at Turnham Green on the 13th, Essex’s two-to-one numerical superiority of itself compelled the king to retire to Reading. Turnham Green has justly been called the Valmy of the English Civil War. Like Valmy, without being a battle, it was a victory, and the tide of invasion came thus far, ebbed, and never returned.
5. The Winter of 1642-43.—In the winter, while Essex lay inactive at Windsor, Charles by degrees consolidated his position in the region of Oxford. The city was fortified as a reduit for the whole area, and Reading, Wallingford, Abingdon, Brill, Banbury and Marlborough constituted a complete defensive ring which was developed by the creation of smaller posts from time to time. In the north and west, winter campaigns were actively carried on. “It is summer in Yorkshire, summer in Devon, and cold winter at Windsor,” said one of Essex’s critics. At the beginning of December Newcastle crossed the Tees, defeated Hotham, the Parliamentary commander in the North Riding, then joining hands with the hard-pressed Royalists at York, established himself between that city and Pontefract. Lord Fairfax and his son Sir Thomas, who commanded for the Parliament in Yorkshire, had to retire to the district between Hull and Selby, and Newcastle was free to turn his attention to the Puritan “clothing towns” of the West Riding—Leeds, Halifax and Bradford. The townsmen, however, showed a determined front, the younger Fairfax with a picked body of cavalry rode through Newcastle’s lines into the West Riding to help them, and about the end of January 1643 the earl gave up the attempt to reduce the towns. He continued his march southward, however, and gained ground for the king as far as Newark, so as to be in touch with the Royalists of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire (who, especially about Newark and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, were strong enough to neutralize the local forces of the Parliament), and to prepare the way for the further advance of the army of the north when the queen’s convoy should arrive from over-seas.