86

THE QUEEN LEAVES ENGLAND.

[1644.

parliamentary army was scattered. Rupert was chasing and slaying the Scottish cavalry. The centre of each army, each centre composed of infantry, were fighting with the sturdy resolution of Englishmen, whatever be the quarrel. The charges of Fairfax and Cromwell decided the day. The flight of the Scottish horse proclaimed that the victory of the Cavaliers was complete; and a messenger who reached Oxford from Newark announced such news to the enraptured courtiers as made the gothic pinnacles red with bonfires. In another day or two the terrible truth was known. The victory of the parliamentary armies was so complete, that the earl of Newcastle had left York, and had embarked at Scarborough for the continent. Rupert marched away also, with the wreck of his army, to Chester. Each had announced his determination to the other, as they gloomily entered York on the night of the battle. Fifteen hundred prisoners, all the artillery, more than a hundred banners, remained with the victors. And the men who had achieved this success were the despised Puritans; those who had been a laughing-stock for half a century. "We had all the evidence," writes Cromwell to his brotherin-law, colonel Valentine Walton, "of an absolute victory obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the godly party principally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. The left wing, which I commanded, being our own horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, beat all the prince's horse. God made them as stubble to our swords." Cromwell had to tell his brother-in-law of a calamity that would most touch a father's heart. "Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon-shot. It brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he died." He expatiates upon this sorrow with no vain attempts at ordinary condolence. "The Lord be your strength" is his emphatic conclusion. When Cromwell's character came to be judged, first in an age of profligacy, and then in an age of religious indifference, no one could comprehend that he had any higher sustaining principles than craft and selfishness.

The queen, sinking under a serious illness, unable to call back the high spirit which had made her so determined in her councils and her actions, now fled to France. Essex was approaching with his army towards Exeter. She asked a safe conduct from him to go to Bath or Bristol. He offered to wait upon her himself to London; but he could not obey her desire to go to any other place without directions from the Parliament. On the 9th of July she wrote a letter from Truro, to bid her husband adieu. "I am hazarding my

life that I may not incommode your affairs." She embarked from Falmouth on the 14th, and landed at Brest. Henceforth her letters to Charles will continue to show how keen was the interest she took in his proceedings, and how strenuously she held to her original idea of never conceding anything to rebels. Soon after her departure the king's arms had a considerable success over lord Essex in Cornwall. The parliamentary party are in alarm. Cromwell writes, " we do with grief of heart resent the sad condition of our army in the west, and of affairs there. That business has our hearts with it; and truly had we wings we would fly thither." The army was

indeed in a "sad condition." Essex wrote in vain for assistance; in vain urged a diversion, to take off the pressure of the royalist army by which he was surrounded. A letter from the king was delivered to him, calling upon

Carlyle, vol. i. p. 156.

1644.]

SECOND BATTLE OF NEWBURY.

37

him to give peace to his country. Essex replied to his nephew, lord Beauchamp, who brought the letter, that he should give no answer; his advice to the king was to return to his Parliament. Another attempt was made to win Essex to a treaty. He had no authority to treat, he said, and could not treat without a breach of trust. By the latter end of August he was encompassed by the royalists. The greater part of his army desired to capitulate, though his cavalry had succeeded in passing the enemy's posts. Essex hastily left the camp to avoid that humiliation, leaving Skippon in command. The old campaigner proposed to his officers to follow the example of the cavalry, at all risks. But Charles offered honourable terms of capitulation, only requiring the surrender of the artillery, arms, and ammunition. The army of Essex returned as fugitives to London, or dispersed through the country. He wrote from Plymouth an account of "the greatest blow that ever befel our party." His fidelity to the cause he had adopted not only saved him from reproach, but the Parliament hastened to give him a new mark of their confidence. The king was resolved to march to London from the west. Montrose was in arms in Scotland, and had gained two battles. The time for a great blow was thought to have arrived. Three armies under Essex, Manchester, and Waller were called out for the defence of the capital. Essex, though retaining his authority, did not join the troops which fought the second battle of Newbury on the 27th of October. Manchester was there in command. This battle was hotly contested without any decisive results. The king withdrew to Oxford, renewing his project of advancing to London. The serious differences between the Presbyterians and the Independents were brought to an issue by this second battle of Newbury. There were no rejoicings in the city that the king had been checked in his approach. There was gloom and dissatisfaction amongst the people, which was evidently encouraged by men of bolder resolves than those who had the conduct of military affairs. In November, Cromwell, in his place in parliament, brought forward a charge against the earl of Manchester, of having "always been in disposed and backward to engagements, and the ending of the war by the sword." He renewed his attack in December. "It is now a time to speak, or for ever hold the tongue I do conceive if the army be not put into another method, and the war more vigorously prosecuted, the people can bear the war no longer, and will enforce you to a dishonourable peace." a few months, the army was put "into another method."

*

In

The Presbyterian party, including the Scottish commissioners, were now at open hostility with the Independents. At a meeting at the house of the lord-general Essex, the Scottish chancellor proposed that Cromwell should be proceeded against as "an incendiary." Whitelocke and Maynard, two eminent lawyers, were consulted. Whitelocke advised that they should be prepared with specific proofs before they brought forward such a charge. Whilst the supporters of Essex and the other generals were seeking for proofs against their dangerous rival, it was moved in the Commons, by Zouch Tate, a man of no great mark, "that no member of either House shall, during the war, enjoy or execute any office or command, civil or military, and that an ordinance be brought in accordingly." Long and furious debates followed this proposition. It was passed by the Lower House on the 21st of December, and transmitted to the Lords. The Presbyterian party saw their strength

38

LAUD CONDEMNED AND EXECUTED.

[1645.

passing away from them. They endeavoured to rekindle all the violence of religious intolerance, by resuming proceedings against archbishop Laud. In the previous March his trial had commenced upon specific charges, founded upon those which had first been brought forward on his impeachment. He defended himself with skill and courage. The arbitrary power of the ecclesiastical courts which he had upheld was at an end. There was meanness and cruelty in his prosecution, after four years of imprisonment. It was the triumph of a bigotry far more odious than his own attempt to tyrannise in matters of religious opinion. His most active persecutor was William Prynne, who never relaxed in his thirst for vengeance upon the intolerance which he now repaid in tenfold measure. By an ordinance of Parliament, voted by a few Lords-some say seven only-he was condemned for high-treason. There might be the plea of state necessity for the execution of Strafford; but to send this aged prelate to the block, whose power for good or evil was wholly gone, was atrocious in a higher degree, for this shedding of blood was useless. He was beheaded on the 10th of January, 1645. On the 3rd the Liturgy of the Church of England, which had been previously tolerated, was abolished by ordinance. Four others were sent to the scaffold at the same time for political offences;-Sir John Hotham and his son; lord Macguire; and sir Alexander Carew. The Presbyterians were left to these courses of severity, whilst their opponents were urging the adoption of "the Self-denying Ordinance." It was rejected on the 13th of January, by the Lords. The reason for the rejection was that they did not know "what shape the army will now suddenly take." But the agitation of this question had rendered a great change necessary. On the 21st of January, Fairfax was nominated general; and, within a month, a new model for the army was arranged and carried. The Self-denying Ordinance, with modifications, was ultimately passed.

The most strenuous attempt at pacification between the king and the Parliament was made at the beginning of 1645. Ludlow has briefly recorded the main facts: "It was agreed that Commissioners should be sent from the Parliament to treat with others to be sent from the king, about conditions of peace. The place of their meeting was at Uxbridge. *** The king had owned the two Houses as a parliament, to which he was not without difficulty persuaded, though he had by an act engaged that they should continue to be a parliament till they had dissolved themselves, which they had not done." * Charles wrote to his queen, "As for my calling those at London a parliament, I shall refer thee to Digby for particular satisfaction; this in general: if there had been but two, besides myself, of my opinion, I had not done it; and the argument that prevailed with me was, that the calling did no ways acknowledge them to be a parliament." This was his apology to Henrietta Maria, when she bitterly reproached him, saying, "When you were resolved to make a little council of four, you showed me a paper in which were many things about which you would never relax, of which this was the first." A negotiation entered upon in such a spirit was not likely to end in any agree

ment for the public good.

Clarendon, who was one of the king's commis

King's Cabinet Opened," Harleian Miscellany, vol. v. p. 513.
Green's "Letters." p, 276.

1645.]

TREATY OF UXBRIDGE.

39

sioners at Uxbridge, has left the amplest details of the progress of this treaty. The commissioners sent by the Parliament were chiefly of the more moderate party. Men who had been united in the first days of the Long Parliament, but had since become political enemies, now met in a common hope that once more they might become friends. Sir Edward Hyde and lord Colepepper renewed their intercourse with Mr. Hollis and Mr. Saint John. The chancellor of Scotland, lord Loudon, and the parliamentary lords Pembroke and Denbigh, had private discussions with Hyde and others, in which they imparted their mutual hopes and fears. "There was a good house at the end of the town, which was provided for the treaty, where was a fair room in the middle of the house, handsomely dressed up for the commissioners to sit in."* Each party ate in its own inn, for there were two great ones

which served very well to that purpose." The duke of Richmond presided at the table of the king's commissioners. Their debates were at first grave and courteous; seldom disturbed by any acrimonious reflections upon the past; always difficult and protracted for many hours. The three great points which they had to discuss were, the Church, the state of Ireland, the Militia. They took each separately. The Presbyterians, with the Scottish divines, were as strenuous for the abolition of episcopacy, as the Episcopalians, with the learned doctors from Oxford, were resolute for its maintenance. Some trifling concessions were made on either side; and an approach to an agreement did not seem absolutely hopeless. The question of Ireland was

That "fair room," with its black oak panels, quaintly carved, was, within the last twelve years, the principal room of the "Treaty-house Inn." We have often rested there, to indulge, over a traveller's meal, in reveries of that discussion of twenty days which made this room famous.

40

VICTORIES OF MONTROSE.

[1645.

not so difficult. That of the Militia,-the question which of two parties should hold the great instrument of power-was at one period of the discussion resolving itself into a manageable shape. Lord Southampton was deputed to proceed to Oxford to see if he could obtain some concession from the king that would place the military authority under the joint control of the Crown and the Parliament, each naming half of the leaders, for a limited number of years. Dr. Welwood has a remarkable story connected with this mission: "Though the Parliament's demands were high, and the king showed a more than ordinary aversion to comply with them; yet the ill posture of the king's affairs at that time, and the fatal consequences they feared would follow upon the breaking off of the treaty, obliged a great many of the king's friends, and more particularly that noble person the earl of Southampton, who had gone post from Uxbridge to Oxford for that purpose, to press the king again and again upon their knees, to yield to the necessity of the times; and by giving his assent to some of the most material propositions that were sent him, to settle a lasting peace with his people. The king was at last prevailed with to follow their counsel; and the next morning was appointed for signing a warrant to his commissioners to that effect. And so sure were they of a happy end of all differences, that the king at supper complaining his wine was not good, one told him merrily, He hoped that his majesty would drink better before a week was over, at Guildhall with the lord mayor. But so it was, that when they came early the next morning to wait upon him with the warrant that had been agreed upon over night, they found his majesty had changed his resolution, and was become inflexible in these points." This sudden change in the king's resolves might have been ascribed to the capricious vacillation which he often displayed, whether from the changing moods. of his own mind, or the influence of the queen and other secret advisers. In the instance before us, the altered temper is referred to a letter from Montrose, which had been received by Charles during the night. In the middle of December that daring chieftain had forced an entry into the country of the Campbells, wasting all before him. The mountains were covered with snow; the passes were imperfectly known; yet Montrose made his way, burning and slaughtering, till at length Argyle himself fled from his castle of Inverary, and left the unhappy clans to the vengeance of his deadly enemy. Montrose having sated his revenge till the end of January, marched towards Inverness. Argyle had returned with some forces from the Lowlands to the Western Highlands; and was in a position near the castle of Inverlochy, when Montrose suddenly came down upon him from the mountains. The battle was a decisive victory on the part of the royalist leader, who wrote an account of his exploits to Charles, which letter Dr. Welwood prints, having "seen a copy under the duke of Richmond's hand." Montrose says that after he had laid waste the whole country of Argyle, " my march was through inaccessible mountains, where I could have no guides but cowherds, and they scarce acquainted with a place but six miles from their own habitations. **** The difficultest march of all was over the Lochaber mountains, which we at last surmounted, and came upon the back of the enemy when they least suspected us." Having described his victory over "the rebels," he then proceeds to offer Charles his advice. His exultation at his triumph. was so unbounded, that he concluded a few victories in Scotland would again