46

BAXTER IN THE PARLIAMENTARY CAMP.

[1645.

faithfully in this action. Sir, they are trusty; I beseech you, in the name of God, not to discourage them. I wish this action may beget thankfulness and humility in all that are concerned in it. He that ventures his life for the liberty of his country, I wish he trust God for the liberty of his conscience, and you for the liberty he fights for." "The liberty of his conscience" thus proclaimed in the hour of Cromwell's triumph, was a startling notion to the majority of public men at that time. When Baxter found his old acquaintance in the camp, he stayed with them a night. He had been. "unfeignedly for king and Parliament." He had thought "that the war was only to save the Parliament and kingdom from papists and delinquents." He understood the Covenant to be "against papists and schismatics." He thought it a mere lie when "the court news-book told the world of the swarms of anabaptists in our armies." He came amongst Cromwell's soldiers, and "found a new face of things which I never dreamt of." Sectaries in the highest places "were Cromwell's chief favourites, and by their very heat and activity bore down the rest." He says, "they were far from thinking of a moderate episcopacy, or of any healing way between the Episcopal and the Presbyterians. They most honoured the Separatists, Anabaptists, and Antinomians; but Cromwell and his Council took on them to join themselves to no party, but to be for the liberty of all." Shortly after, Baxter, whose reputation as a preacher was very high, was invited by colonel Whalley to be chaplain to his regiment. Whalley was "orthodox by religion, but engaged by kindred and interest to Cromwell." Baxter went. "As soon as I came to the army, Oliver Cromwell coldly bid me welcome, and never spake one word to me more while I was there." The good man was ridiculed: "There was a reformer come to the army to undeceive them, and to save Church and State." Thus discountenanced, the zealous minister pursued what he thought his duty. "I set myself day by day to find out the corruptions of the soldiers; and to discourse and dispute them out of their mistakes, both religious and political. My life among them was a daily contending against seducers, and gently arguing with the more tractable." He was ever disputing with them about Civil government, or Church order and government. "But their most frequent and vehement disputes were for liberty of conscience, as they called it; that is, that the civil magistrate had nothing to do to determine of any thing in matters of religion, by constraint or restraint; but every man might not only hold, but preach and do in matters of religion what he pleased: that the civil magistrate hath nothing to do but with civil things; to keep the peace, and protect the Church's liberties." Amidst all this vehemence amidst the ignorance, pride, and self-conceitedness which Baxter reprehends-it is impossible not to be struck by the fact of a great army, after a mighty victory, being occupied with discussions which appear more properly to belong to parliaments and synods. But without a due perception of the zeal which, whether rightly or wrongly directed, counted an earnest faith the one thing needful, we cannot comprehend the events of these times, and more especially those events which placed, ultimately, the monarchy and the Parliament under the power of the army.

During the summer of 1645 singular confederacies had been formed in some places, avowedly for protecting their property against both parties.

1612.]

CLUBMEN-SURRENDER OF BRISTOL.

47

Those who belonged to them were known as "Clubmen." They were to some extent neutrals; but they were principally called into activity by royalist gentry. They were not "clubbable" men in Johnson's sense of the term. Their business was to use their clubs as valiantly as they might. They became annoying in the south-west to the parliamentary army; and Cromwell, in a march towards Shaftesbury, encountered about two thousand of them. They fired upon a party of his horse, but of course were soon routed. "We have taken about three hundred," Cromwell writes to Fairfax, "many of which are poor silly creatures, whom if you please to let me send home, they promise to be very dutiful for time to come, and will be hanged before they come out again." Fairfax had taken some of the Clubmen previously; and Cromwell told those who interceded for them that "they were to be tried judicially for raising a third party in the kingdom."*

King Charles had fought his last battle at Naseby. The military career of prince Rupert in England was now fast coming to an end. Bristol, which Rupert was charged to defend, was invested by Fairfax and Cromwell on the 22nd of August. The positions taken by the several divisions of the parliamentary army are minutely described in a letter from Cromwell to the

* Carlyle, vol. ii. p. 184.

48

BASING HOUSE TAKEN.

[1645. Speaker. On the 10th of September the city was stormed. The royalists caused the city to be set on fire at three places. Whilst the parliamentary commanders "were viewing so sad a spectacle," Rupert sent a trumpet to propose a surrender. The articles were agreed upon; and the prince marched out with a convoy of two regiments of horse. He went to Oxford. Charles wrote him a bitter letter of reproach from Hereford : My conclusion is, to desire you to seek your subsistence until it shall please God to determine of my condition, somewhere beyond seas." A royal proclamation was issued the same day, revoking and disannulling all commissions of military authority given to "our nephew prince Rupert." The surrender of Bristol was perhaps the wisest act of Rupert's life; for he had no chance of holding it against the parliamentary forces, and the king was utterly unable to render him assistance. But Charles would not learn from the bitter lessons of adversity. It is justly said, "after his defeat at Naseby his affairs were, in a military sense, so irretrievable that, in prolonging the war with as much obstinacy as the broken state of his party would allow, he displayed a good deal of that indifference to the sufferings of the kingdom, and of his adherents, which has been sometimes imputed to him." *

At the beginning of October, Winchester surrendered to Cromwell; and he then went on to the siege of Basing House. Of the many memorable places of the Civil War there is none more interesting than this. It was amongst the strongest of those private houses of the nobility which offered such strenuous resistance to the progress of the parliamentary troops. It had endured siege after siege for four years. The traveller on the South Western railway looks down upon a great ruined pile, not far from Basingstoke, lying on the other side of a little stream. The ruin will repay a closer inspection. This was the house called "Loyalty " which Cromwell battered from the higher ground till he had made a breach; and then stormed with a resolution which made all resistance vain. Never was such a rich plunder offered to the Roundheads, as was found in the mansion "fit to make an emperor's court," of the magnificent Pawlet, marquis of Winchester.

* Hallam, vol. ii. p. 182.

Destruction of Manor Houses-Miseries of Sieges-Montrose defeated at Philiphaugh-Defeat of Digby-His Cabinet taken-The King in Oxford-Overtures for Pacification-Termination of the War in the West-Prince of Wales leaves for Scilly-The King negotiates with the Scots-The King's Flight from Oxford-Adventures of the King on his way to the Scottish Army-The King with the Army before Newark-State of Parties-Negotiations-The King surrendered to English Commissioners--Capitulation of Oxford-End of the first Civil War.

THE traces of the Civil War in England are to be found in the existing ruins of several old mansions, besides those of Basing House. Amongst the most interesting and picturesque are the remains of the manor-house of South Winfield. This was one of the estates of the Shrewsbury family; and here Mary, Queen of Scots, resided for some time under the care of the earl, who is associated with her unhappy story. Sir John Gell, who was very active in the parliamentary interest in Derbyshire, here placed a garrison. In 1643 the place was taken by the Royalists. But it was retaken by Sir John Gell; and Colonel Dalby, the governor, was killed in the storming. In 1646 the Parliament ordered the place to be dismantled. Such was the course with regard to other great mansions of historical interest. Of the various conflicts for the possession of detached castles and manor-houses, that of Basing House is amongst the most memorable. The rapine and slaughter there were probably greater than at any other of such strongholds. It was a post of importance,

50

DESTRUCTION OF MANOR HOUSES.

[1645. which had held out against the Parliament so long that it was deemed almost impregnable. Its large garrison was amply supplied by the rich surrounding country. The roads between London and the "Western Parts " were entirely commanded by this fortified mansion, and by Donnington Castle, near Newbury. At the siege of Basing House was present Hugh Peters, a chaplain in the parliamentary army, and at that time secretary to Cromwell. After the storm he "took a view of the works, which were many, the circumvallation being above a mile in compass." He then looked about him to see the extent of the victualling department; finding "provisions for some years rather than months; four hundred quarters of wheat; bacon, divers rooms-full, containing hundreds of flitches; cheese proportionable; with oatmeal, beef, pork; beer, divers cellars full, and that very good." Seventy-four persons, according to Mr. Peters, were slain in the house; amongst whom was one lady "who by her railing provoked our soldiers, then in heat, into a further passion." Amongst the slain was Robinson the player, who a little before the storm was known to be mocking and scorning the Parliament and our army."* Some of the details of the plunder and destruction, as given by Peters, will furnish an idea of the havoc of this terrible Civil War: "The plunder of the soldiers continued till Tuesday night; one soldier had a hundred and twenty pieces in gold for his share; others plate, others jewels; among the rest, one got three bags of silver, which (he being not able to keep his own counsel) grew to be common pillage amongst the rest, and the fellow had but one half-crown left for himself at last. The soldiers sold the wheat to country-people, which they held up at good rates awhile; but afterwards the market fell, and there were some abatements for haste. After that, they sold the household stuff, whereof there was good store, and the country loaded away many carts; and they continued a great while fetching out all manner of household stuff, till they had fetched out all the stools, chairs, and other lumber, all which they sold to the country-people by piecemeal. In all these great buildings there was not one iron bar left in all the windows (save only what were on fire) before night. And the last work of all was the lead; and by Thursday morning they had hardly left one gutter about the house. And what the soldiers left, the fire took hold on, which made more than ordinary haste, leaving nothing but bare walls and chimneys in less than twenty hours ;-being occasioned by the neglect of the enemy in quenching a fire-ball of ours at first. We know not how to give a just account of the number of persons that were within. For we have not quite three hundred prisoners; and, it may be, have found a hundred slain, whose bodies, some being covered with rubbish, came not at once to our view. Only, riding to the house on Tuesday night, we heard divers crying in vaults for quarter; but our men could neither come to them, nor they to us."

The details of horror in sieges of large towns; the misery of blockades; the more sudden distress of assaults and bombardments; are generally passed over slightingly in the official narratives of such scenes. But some notion of

* From the construction of a sentence in the report of Peters, it does not seem quite clear that Robinson was slain by Harrison, as Sir Walter Scott assumes in "Woodstock:" "There lay dead upon the ground Major Cuffle, a man of great account amongst them, and a notorious Papist, slain by the hands of Major Harrison, that godly and gallant gentleman; and Robinson, the player, who," &c. (See Carlyle, vol. i. p. 194.)