CHAPTER V.THE CAMPAIGN OF 1645.

The King’s whole soul was weary of these painful and fruitless negotiations: yet even in the parliamentary assembly which he had once more gathered round him at Oxford, a resumption of them was urged, and proposals suggested, which seemed to the King base and seditious. He breathed more freely when this assembly also was dismissed, and he expressed himself contemptuously about it: he saw with pleasure Wilmot and Percy, who at that time were labouring for peace, quit his neighbourhood, and go to France to the Queen’s court[413].

He himself in the course of the discussions had not only strengthened himself in his own opinion, but came to lean more than ever in the other direction. He once told his wife, with whom he kept up continual deliberation as to the best course, that he was now determined, if he ever again obtained full possession of power, to repeal all penal laws against the Catholics, that if peace came it would be seen that he was the true friend of her friends, especially of the bishops, and that then he would take care, as she repeatedly urged, to get rid of this everlasting Parliament. It is clear that he meant to be thoroughly master.

Without being a born soldier or much of a general, Charles I had developed a taste for the camp. Military successes were the only ones which he had enjoyed for a long time: his victory over Essex filled him with a certain self-satisfaction. Always inclined to look on the favourable side of things, heA.D. 1645.reckoned in the impending campaign on a new series of successes, worthy of the good cause for which he was fighting. The mysterious ground of his hopes is worth remarking. He fully believed that hitherto the unjust execution of the Earl of Strafford had been visited on him, and not only on him but also on his opponents, who were equally guilty, but that now the innocent blood shed by them only in the execution of Laud, for which they were solely responsible, would bring down the wrath of God upon them[414],—notions which accurately mark the character of the religious beliefs which then dominated men’s minds; as though the secrets of divine things could be brought into such direct connexion with the complications of human affairs! Charles I lived in the conviction that he had committed a fault for which he was punished, but that he was the champion of a holy cause, to which God’s help could never be wanting: if this did but abide with him half as effectually as in former years, he would have a successful campaign.

He expected that his Queen would supply him with money and even with military aid. The state of European affairs was then such that it seemed possible to gain for the cause of the English crown the assistance of Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine, who was ready to move in any direction, and who had gained military experience at the head of an army gathered by the sound of his name, but free from all territorial connexions, in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. The Queen took great trouble to induce him to assent, and, what was still more difficult, to supply him with the means. The King hoped to see him arrive in one of the ports which he still commanded, if not direct from France, from the Netherlands by the help of the Prince of Orange[415].

Finally the King had resolved to make offers of peace to the Catholic League, with the security of some temporary concessions; he reckoned on their acceptance, and also on help from Ireland.

A.D. 1645.

In Scotland a powerful reaction was already in progress. Montrose, who had returned secretly and remained in concealment for a time, had suddenly raised the King’s banner, as his representative, on the Grampian Hills. Irish troops, raised in Antrim, came to join him under Alexander Macdonald, called Colkitto, a man who made a great impression by his gigantic stature and desperate courage. Montrose formed his own army chiefly of Highlanders, whom he could not perhaps discipline, but knew how to manage according to their nature. He conducted the war not on strategical principles, but by sudden and weighty blows: the onset of his troops was compared to the rush of a suddenly swollen mountain stream, so unexpected, stormy, and irresistible was it: wherever he encountered the Covenanters, he gained the advantage. At the beginning of April 1645 he took Dundee: he then informed the King[416]that if he were supported by only 500 cavalry, he would in the course of the summer bring 20,000 foot-soldiers into England. At the very least the King might expect that the Scots would be too busy at home to be very dangerous to him in England. At the time he thought he had not much to fear from the Parliamentary army. It was the almost universal expectation that, deprived of its tried officers by the new model, it would stand trial even less than under Essex. And in fact its first undertakings had no special result[417]. Though the royal troops had been compelled to raise the siege of Taunton, yet it had been immediately renewed. It was assumed that the Parliament would seek at any cost to save a place so important for the western counties; which had all the more consequence, because the association uniting Cornwall and Devonshire was extended over Somerset and Dorset: the four counties undertook to put a considerable force in the field. At their request the King let the Prince of Wales, attended by some members of the Privy Council, take his place among them, while heA.D. 1645.left his second son, the Duke of York, in Oxford, under the military tutelage of a trustworthy officer, William Legge, to defend the capital of Royalist England against eventual attack. According to ancient ideas the presence of the royal princes was a pledge of redoubled devotion. The King himself wished to remain free to take up a position in the midland counties, and advance thence either northwards or eastwards. He did not expect to conquer the powerful foe, but hoped to occupy him everywhere, and to succeed in bearing the royal banner victorious in England as in Scotland, and after a prosperous campaign to enjoy a good winter.

It cannot be denied that he had some grounds for this hope. He relied mainly on the Celtic elements in the British kingdom, not only in Scotland and Ireland, but in England also, where they had operated powerfully, at any rate in Cornwall. Leaning on this support, he called to his banner the elements of the English commonwealth which were allied to the monarchy and were threatened along with it. He was their champion against the tendencies hostile to him and them alike, which had arisen more powerfully in the British isles than ever in any other part of the Teutonic world. His hope was to achieve a settlement, in which the old prerogative of the crown, not without some limitation of the exclusive domination of Protestantism, should be combined with parliamentary privileges. Was this unattainable?

I do not know whether he had thought out the question fully. Hitherto the initiative in government had proceeded from the Crown, which had enjoyed the preponderance. But through the revolution of 1640 the dominant power had been transferred to the Parliament, which in most parts of the kingdom was now recognised: and the Parliament wished to retain this. The question was, who should henceforth enjoy the supreme power: and the sword must decide.

The decision came unexpectedly to all parties, suddenly and irrevocably. The King had saved Chester from an assault by the Parliamentary troops: without letting himself be delayed over the trifling enterprises which were suggested to him, he broke up his camp in May, 1645, his brave nephew Rupert by his side, to execute the plan before mentioned.A.D. 1645.Already at the end of the month they had an unexpected success: the strong town of Leicester fell into their hands. A battery planted by the Prince on the right spot made a breach; but the assault was checked by defences erected behind it, till the walls were scaled at two weaker points. All resistance was then in vain, and the town had to expiate by a terrible sack its Parliamentary leanings.

Scarcely ever has a success been so ruinous to the victorious troops as this conquest to the King and his army. At once all the energies of his opponents were directed against him. In London an attack on the eastern counties was feared, on the possession of which the general security depended. When at the same time there were rumours of threatened movements in Kent and of an attack on Dover; the feeling gained ground that they were on the eve of a catastrophe. The two Houses vied with each other in taking the necessary precautions. New levies were ordered in the city and the counties, proclamation of martial law in Kent, increase of the powers of the generals. The Common Council, not yet satisfied, requested that orders might be given to the army to advance immediately, in order to fight with the King, and especially to recover Leicester before he had fortified it.

Fairfax had not, as was expected, let himself be entangled with the Parliamentary army in the western counties, but had advanced towards Oxford, where he obtained, it is true, no successes[418]sufficient to cause any serious danger, but prevailed so far that the King was most urgently requested to come to the aid of his most important city, where the court still was, and especially of the ladies thus endangered, and above all of his son. He set his army in motion in this direction: but severe losses had been sustained in the storming of Leicester, and he was obliged, in the face of a refractory population, to leave a considerable garrison there: when the army appeared in the field it was seen to be too weakA.D. 1645.to cope with Fairfax. Charles begged the besieged not to trouble him, for that he would not let them fall into the enemy’s hands, but he durst not stake all on the game like a madman. For the present he contented himself with sending them provisions and a portion of his troops. He himself stayed at Daventry, to await the return of this detachment, and the arrival of reinforcements from Devonshire and Wales.

The immediate staff of the King were divided in opinion as to the plan of the campaign. Prince Rupert would have liked to carry out the original scheme, and that by moving towards the northern counties. A considerable portion of the army consisted of horsemen who came from that quarter, chiefly Cavaliers, who desired nothing so much as to turn homewards. Rupert was convinced that Fairfax would not look on quietly, but would follow them, and so Oxford would be freed. On the other hand Lord Digby had directed his gaze towards Oxford, and held it to be necessary to go to the aid of the besieged in full strength.[419]Undoubtedly Rupert’s opinion was more correct, and more suitable to the circumstances, especially because it could be executed immediately. While the King was inclining towards Digby’s view (for was he not naturally above all things anxious for the liberation of his son?), and waiting for the reinforcements (as usual with serene temper, with no apprehensions for the future, and not without devoting himself in leisure hours to the pleasures of the chase), he gave his enemies time to come up against him with all their forces.

The troops before Oxford shared the feelings prevalent in London, and would not linger over a siege while the King was victorious in the field: and the Parliament readily granted their request. On June 11 we find Fairfax with his army near Northampton.

Another prayer which could only be granted by Parliament was preferred by the army. Cromwell, in spite of the Self-denying Ordinance, had been allowed by a Parliamentary resolution of May 10 to continue temporarily his militaryA.D. 1645.functions; the officers now requested that this man, in whom they had full confidence both political and military, might be appointed as their general of cavalry. Naturally the Lords, who had been excluded from the army by the Act, hesitated about conferring so important a post, in contravention of it, on their great opponent and rival. But their refusal was for the moment of no consequence: Cromwell’s temporary commission was to last for forty days, and it was during this time that on June 13 he entered Fairfax’s head-quarters, accompanied by some newly-raised squadrons of cavalry. The council of war was at once held, and Cromwell infused new fire into its resolutions: the trumpets were immediately blown, and all the soldiers assembled rejoicing around their leaders.[420]

On the same day, at the news that the superior army of the Parliament was near, the King quitted Daventry—where the division that had been detached to Oxford had now joined him, but no other aid—to advance towards the north. But at the first halt, at Harborough, it was ascertained that the enemy was following close on the heels of the army, and was now encamped in their immediate neighbourhood. To encounter him was now absolutely necessary, for how could they possibly have allowed him to attack their rear while they advanced? In the council of war the only question was whether to await attack where they stood, or go in search of the enemy. Rupert was for awaiting attack, but the King decided the other way.[421]

It is a popular tradition that the shade of Strafford rose that night before the King, and warned him against his purpose.

The danger of Charles I lay not in either one course or the other, but in the whole situation. He was now compelled to do what a few days before he had declined to do, fight a superior enemy with a weaker force, and under still more unfavourable conditions. The future of England was staked on this one cast: the decision of great and vital questions rested on the issue of an essentially unequal contest.

A.D. 1645.

On June 14 the Royal army formed in order of battle a mile from Harborough. Lord Astley’s infantry formed the centre, Prince Rupert with about 2000 horsemen the right wing, and Marmaduke Langdale with the Cavaliers of the north, who however were not altogether on good terms with him, the left wing. The King placed in reserve his own bodyguard of horse and a regiment of foot.

Meanwhile the Parliamentary army was drawn up in rank and file on a similar rising ground near Naseby, but on the opposite slope, so that it could not be overlooked from a distance. Cromwell took charge of the right wing: the left he intrusted to his son-in-law Ireton: Fairfax and Skippon commanded the battalions of the centre. A reserve, considerable in proportion, was drawn up in the rear.

Without knowing the position and strength of the enemy, but aware of his propinquity, the Royal army was seized by its old thirst for battle, and began its march. Generals and soldiers were unanimous: any objection, however well founded, would have seemed a proof of cowardice[422]. Without being checked by slight obstacles, it reached the opposite hill and was climbing it, when the Parliamentary army appeared at the top in full order of battle. When the two forces looked one another in the face at this close proximity, they halted a moment, as if to take thought, before engaging. The infantry discharged their pieces once, and then met hand to hand with the sword and clubbed muskets. It was now shown that the newly-formed troops were not equal to more experienced ones; the Parliamentary infantry this time were decidedly worsted; their colours were seen to fall, some regiments dispersed and fled to Northampton[423]. So also the onset of Rupert’s horsemen once more displayed irresistible strength: in spite of a skilful and not inefficient ambush of some of the enemy’s dragoons behind neighbouring hedges, he overthrewA.D. 1645.Ireton’s regiments, the commander of which was himself wounded and wellnigh captured. Still the success of the right wing and centre on this day was not decisive. The Parliamentary reserve could not be overcome by Rupert, but enabled the defeated horse and foot to rally at least partially, and the onset of the left wing of the Royal army was completely repulsed by the Parliamentary right under Cromwell. There was a moment during the battle when loss and gain were about equal on each side. Cromwell himself, it is related, was engaged in single combat with a Royalist general, exchanged blows and shots with him, and actually lost his helmet: then taking another, which was offered him, and putting it on the wrong way, defended himself with bravery and success against his adversary.

It was a battle of the old style, in which fire-arms had scarcely any effect: they measured their strength man to man, on horseback as well as on foot. The superiority of the Royalists extended to the infantry, since they had no longer the old city regiments before them: but the cavalry, formed from the freeholders of the associated counties, opposed them with unusual vigour.

When forces are tolerably equal, and not numerous altogether, a reinforcement to one side, trifling in itself, will usually produce decisive effect. A splendid regiment of horse that Colonel Rossiter brought up at the right moment[424], joined the wing commanded by Cromwell, who was opposed to the least well-compacted corps of the Royalists, and had already gained the advantage: when after a short halt he renewed the attack on Langdale’s division, which he now could assail on the flank also, he soon mastered it, and drove it before him in headlong flight. Thereupon Rupert, who had been shamefully repulsed by the reserve, hastened back, to prevent the King from being endangered by the change of fortune. At the same moment Ireton was set free, and could again appear on the battle-field with a portion of his troops. The defeated Parliamentary infantry that had rallied again, united with a portion of the cavalry for an attack on theA.D. 1645.hitherto victorious Royal battalions. These defended themselves, like the Spanish infantry at Rocroy about the same time, according to the expression of a hostile report, ‘with incredible valour and most steadfastly.’ But being deprived of the usual protection from their cavalry, and attacked on all sides, both by horse and foot, these troops saw at last that further resistance would be their destruction: they could no longer be brought to face the enemy, but laid down their arms under the condition, which was very unwillingly granted, that no plundering of individuals should be allowed[425].

The King, who had with difficulty been prevented from plunging into the mêlée, had to abandon the field to the rebels. He re-entered Leicester in retreat that resembled flight, after immense loss. He had sustained a most ruinous defeat, his main army was annihilated, the terror of his arms lost: the Parliamentary army had gained an unequalled victory.

Charles I however was still very far from giving up his cause as lost. He moved into the counties in which from the first he had found most support, and which still seemed willing to stand by him. ‘A better reception,’ he writes from Hereford, ‘I could not have found, if I had arrived after gaining a victory: I hope soon to replace my losses with interest’ He believed that a considerable army might still be raised in Wales, from whence Gerrard met him with a couple of thousand men: the gentry of South Wales, who assembled at Abergavenny around him, gave him the best assurances on this head. New preparations began, and the Marquis of Worcester gave him as hospitable and splendid a reception in Raglan Castle, as though he were reigning in full authority and peace. Moreover there was a force in the associated western counties, which were in full tide of resistance. General Goring had 5000 foot and 4000 horse under his command: every day he hoped to become master of Taunton, where a Parliamentary garrison still held out.

But the superiority of the Parliamentary army was soon to be exhibited in these regions also. Victory had completed theirA.D. 1645.organisation: it gave them self-reliance and confidence in their leaders[426]. After taking Leicester with its military magazines—a conquest which the inhabitants regarded as a deliverance—they moved towards the united western counties. At the passage of Langport, Goring placed himself in their way: but the Parliamentary army developed such complete superiority by the bravery of its cavalry and the skilful use of artillery, that Goring, after one repulse, no longer ventured to encounter it even with superior numbers. The fortresses which had been deemed impregnable fell one after the other before the assaults of Cromwell. By the middle of August the strong places captured or relieved, Lyme, Sherborne, Langport, Taunton, Bridgewater, formed a line which virtually cut off Devonshire and Cornwall from the rest of England. Colonel Poyntz pressed into South Wales and instantly stopped the attempts to form a new army there.

The dimensions to which the Royalist forces were reduced were already very small, and their chance of success very slight, when a misunderstanding took place within the party which utterly disintegrated it.

It must be reckoned an important event in the King’s life that at Naseby a part of his papers fell into the hands of the victors. Fairfax sent them to the Lower House, which communicated them to the Lords and to the Common Council, and ordered a selection of them to be printed forthwith[427]. These were the original drafts of the letters of Charles I to his wife, and her answers, and instructions for Uxbridge and Ireland: some papers seized elsewhere were added to these, together with a preface and an appendix which declared their authenticity and commented on their contents. Nothing could have happened more opportunely for the anti-royalist tendencies. The King’s determination to give way on neither of the main questions, and his last-formed purpose of drawing nearer to the Catholics, were brought into the full light of day. He could now be reproached with offering toleration to the idolatry of theA.D. 1645.Papists, and indemnity to the blood-stained Irish; of invoking the aid of foreign powers and princes for the destruction of English liberties and of Protestantism. The publication of course produced a great impression even on the King’s own friends. They saw now that the King, in opposition to his own Oxford Parliament, had preferred war to the continuance of the negotiations. At the very moment when arms offered no further hope this double disagreement broke out. The conviction everywhere gained ground that the King must submit further and more irrevocably than he seemed inclined to do. A negotiation was entered into between the members of the Privy Council in attendance on the Prince of Wales and the peacefully-inclined members of Parliament, arising out of the wish of both to help one another to a compromise. In the same direction went the views of the leading men in the united western counties, which were at the time of great weight from the independent character of the movement there.

This was exactly the constitutional standpoint which the Clubmen, who just then suddenly appeared in various places, sought to attain. They were the inhabitants of the counties who declined any longer to allow themselves to be violently treated and plundered, first by one party and then by the other. Assembling at their own will, with any weapons that came to hand, even clubs, from which they got their name, with the intention merely of resisting at every point where defence was possible the violence of the soldiery, they at once proceeded to a general manifesto: they most urgently demanded a truce between the King and the Parliament, and a renewal of the peace negotiations, for which purpose they would send delegates to both sides. They opposed the Royalist soldiery as well as the Parliamentarians, but on the whole were of moderate Royalist opinions. Fairfax treated them as enemies, but Prince Rupert entered into alliance with them: for the Prince was now himself inclined to a compromise. From Bristol, where he had taken the command, he sent word to the King that for the rescue of his crown, his posterity, and the nobility of the country, there was nothing left but to make a treaty: he urged that it would be better to save part than to lose the whole.

A.D. 1645.

King Charles I was at this moment as fully aware as any one else of the desperate state of his circumstances: at the beginning of August he arranged that, if danger pressed, his son should fly to France, for it was now necessary to prepare for the worst. For himself he adhered to his resolution not to give way a foot’s breadth. His was a nature which is not bent but steeled by adversity. At this time he wrote to his secretary in calm but strong language, that with God’s help he would never either abandon the Church to another form of government, or rob the crown of the authority which his ancestors had transmitted to him, or forsake his friends[428]. To Prince Rupert he replied that, as for his advice, as soldier and statesman he might perhaps approve it, as Christian he must reject it; whatever afflictions God might ever visit him with, he durst not abandon a cause which was that of God. He believes that in the end it will triumph, but for himself he has no such hope: all that is left him is to die with honour and a good conscience. In fact, he dares not reckon on success, but only on this, that God will hereafter avenge his cause. To those who will stand by him he must say that they have nothing to expect except death for the good cause, or a life made miserable by the oppression of the rebels[429]. His words imply the consciousness of a duty independent of accidental circumstances, transcending the complications of the moment, of great importance for the future of England, and highminded in themselves, if a prince can be called highminded, who, conscious of impending ruin, shows himself determined not to yield a hair’s-breadth. But they were not calculated to hold together or to strengthen his party: they died away without effect. To offer men ruin and endless troubles as the reward of their devotion is not the way toA.D. 1645.win them. Who would join the King’s cause with any pleasure when he himself treated it as lost? Men saw in his expressions only one proof more of his invincible obstinacy.

When Prince Rupert came to England to fight for his uncle, he had also the idea of gaining a princely establishment for himself: to expose himself to ruin for the English Church was not at all in his mind. He had already been put out of humour by the King’s rejection of his proposal, when he received from the Parliamentary army that was besieging him in Bristol, after he had made one or two fruitless sorties, a summons which in form was well calculated to make an impression upon him. It was at the same time a warning, reminding him that the Parliamentary party against which he was in arms, was the very one which had always sought to help the Palatine family, and had expended blood and money for it; that he need not think the crown was at stake, for that would remain where it must be, but that the contest now was merely between the Parliament, the King’s great council, and his actual evil advisers; that the party which he was now defending was the one which had always opposed the interests of his family. They referred to Digby, who had quarrelled with the Prince at Naseby, and had since kindled the flame of contention all the more eagerly because he thus kept away the King, who cherished the design of going with the Prince to Bristol, from fear of there losing all his influence. If Rupert now gave ear to the summons, there were military reasons to justify him, for one of the protecting forts had fallen already into the enemy’s hands: but still there is no doubt that political motives co-operated. It had been thought that he would fight to the death: he had promised to hold Bristol three months: that he should surrender in the third week, before any extreme necessity arose, excited general astonishment, and caused the most painful emotion in the King, who was just preparing to attempt a relief with a small flying force which he had assembled and some help which he expected from Goring. He thought he perceived that Rupert was guided by counsellors of corrupt heart. If his own relations treated himA.D. 1645.thus, what was he to expect from strangers? Of all the calamities with which he had been visited, none, he said, had grieved him more deeply.

Under the influence of Digby, who seized the favourable moment for ruining his rival entirely—for even after the loss of power jealousy is wont to linger in princely courts—Prince Rupert was declared to be deprived of the high military authority he enjoyed, and of all his offices: his passports were also sent him with the insulting explanation that henceforth he might seek his subsistence on the Continent. The Prince received his dismissal under the counter-signature of Lord Digby, whom he regarded as the author of his disgrace and his mortal enemy. At the same time his best friend and political and military associate, William Legge, was removed from his government at Oxford. The fall of Bristol was the moment at which the party of the statesmen about the King obtained the upper hand of the military men. The soldiers were not minded to submit: professional feeling was aroused, and most of them made the Prince’s cause their own.

But apart from this, just as the capture of Bristol had once been a decisive advantage, so now the loss of that place with all its stores was an indescribable misfortune. Even in the most devoted provinces, for instance in Wales, the opponents of the King at once appeared in strength.

Charles I was a prey to the most painful hesitation: his purposes vacillated between opposite possibilities. At one time it seemed to him advisable to retire to Anglesey, which could be defended during the winter, or, if necessary, still further to the Isle of Man, finally to Ireland: only it seemed to him dishonourable for a king to make his escape in this wise. Then the events in Scotland, where Montrose had won a great victory, invited him thither. Montrose, on his march towards the English frontier, found himself threatened at once by the Parliamentary army which was following him, and by the neighbouring lords who raised their districts against him. Without much hesitation he threw himself on the army, though perhaps a third stronger than his force, and supported mainly by the brave old Lord Airly (who was more than eighty years old when he took part in the battle),A.D. 1645.and by another Ogilvy who had learned war under Gustavus Adolphus, he completely routed them (at Kilsyth, August 15). Thereupon Glasgow fell into his hands; Edinburgh begged for mercy: he appeared as master in that country. Under the influence of these tidings, and being pressed on all sides, the King determined[430]to cut his way through to the army which bore his standard victorious in the field. He wished to try the way to Scotland past Chester through Lancashire and Cumberland. He arrived at Chester at the right time to prevent the capture of the place; but in the open field his troops could not be induced to face the enemy: from the ramparts he witnessed their defeat. Not without a hope of opening himself a way through Yorkshire, he betook himself to Newark, the least endangered of the places he still held. Meanwhile Montrose had been defeated: he in his turn could not withstand the regular troops which David Lesley brought against him from England, and at Philiphaugh, near the border, he was surprised and beaten. The King knew this well, but at the rumour that Montrose had again gained an advantage, he once more resolved to make the attempt. After some days’ march he ascertained that the news was false, and that Montrose had fled to the Highlands. Digby could not be dissuaded from proceeding with part of the troops, less in the hope of achieving anything (for his friends had already been dispersed), than to avoid returning to Newark. The King returned there alone with the rest of his forces.

He had terrible scenes to endure there among his own immediate following. Digby had departed because he would not meet Prince Rupert[431], who, though he did not refuse to quit England, wished first to clear his military honour and justify himself in the King’s eyes. He asked to be brought before a court-martial, which acquitted him of all the slanderous charges brought against him on account of his conduct at Bristol. In the same degree in which theA.D. 1645.soldiers by profession showed their sympathy with the Prince, they exhibited also their indignation against Digby, by whose attacks they felt their military honour injured. The fact that at this very time Willis, the Governor of Newark, one of the Prince’s warmest supporters, was removed from his post, seemed to them to prove that the King would always be governed by Digby’s advice: and their displeasure was fanned into flame. Rupert, Willis, and Gerrard so completely lost sight of their respect for the prince for whose authority they had hitherto fought, that they forced their way into his presence to make, we cannot say representations, but accusations against him. With his arms akimbo, displeasure in every feature, Rupert strode close up to the King, who was sitting at his supper. The King rose and retired into a window with the three generals to ascertain their business. Willis complained of the dishonour done him by publishing his dismissal, and demanded public satisfaction. Rupert observed that Willis was unjustly treated for being his friend. Gerrard attacked Digby, by whom he had been removed from his command in Wales: both he and the two others pointed to Digby as the author of all disorders: they declared that it was not the King who governed, but Digby through him. The King asked whether a rebel could say anything worse; and in fact it was the severest accusation that had been brought against him for five years. Nephew, said the King, this is a matter of serious import. Rupert referred to the events at Bristol, in consequence of which he had been subjected to false accusations. Nephew, said the King: he would have said more, but the words died on his lips. The Prince gave no sign of respect: with his arms akimbo, as he had entered, so he quitted the King’s presence[432].

All the sources of help on which the King had reckonedA.D. 1645.in the spring now failed him. A treaty with the Irish Catholics was concluded through an emissary, originally instructed to refer to the Viceroy, but subsequently intrusted with full powers, upon conditions which could not be openly avowed—one of the stratagems of Charles I, which drove to despair his ministers who knew nothing about it, and were ruinous to himself[433]. The document fell into the hands of the London Committee: instead of benefiting the King, the treaty served thoroughly to prejudice the English nation against him.

The French were so fully occupied with the war in Germany, the Duke of Lorraine with the attempt to recover his hereditary dominions, that they could give the King no help. If Charles had thought of cutting his way into Scotland, it was merely because he saw no safety in England. At this moment too, the quarrels which had long disturbed his court broke out violently: the authority exercised by a minister who was no longer with him, was made a personal charge against himself: the boldest champions of his cause abandoned it. He was fortunate in being able to return with a small company to Oxford, where for the moment he gathered a kind of court about him.

Meanwhile the Parliamentary army had thoroughly mastered the Clubmen. In every province a decree of Parliament was published, which declared it treason for an armed body of men to assemble anywhere without permission.

There was no longer anything to oppose the army, which was everywhere victorious, except the armed force of Devonshire and Cornwall. But quarrels similar to that between Digby and Rupert had broken out between the Privy Council which surrounded the Prince of Wales, and the military commanders. General Goring, who loved to relieve his military duties with drinking bouts and play, wanted to be virtually independent in the conduct of the war, and especially to take no orders from the Prince’s counsellors. He had already obtained from the King instructions to the Privy Council to let him, as the general, take part in their deliberations: when this wasA.D. 1645.not done, Goring imputed every disaster that happened to the members of the council. In view of the growing strength of the enemy, he desired to be subordinate to the Prince only, and sought to confine within narrow limits the influence of civil officers over the army; no officer’s commission should be signed without his knowledge, no movement of the army ordered without the officers’ concurrence. This not being granted he formed the rash resolve—for steadiness and perseverance were, not the qualities for which he was distinguished—of abandoning the cause he served and retiring to France. The same spirit was displayed also in the militia. No one among the natives was so active and conspicuous as Richard Grenville, High Sheriff of Devon, who levied troops on his own account, and imposed contributions which he expended for their support. In consequence of his independent action he also quarrelled with the government; at times the troops raised by him refused to obey the generals appointed in the King’s name. How was an energetic and orderly conduct of the war to be thought of? It came at last to this, that Grenville was imprisoned by the Privy Council.

If the most general reason for the King’s disasters be sought, it will be found in this hostility between the holders of civil and military power. He himself could not master it, far less could the Prince of Wales be expected to do so: whereas on the side of the Parliament the military tendencies were entirely supreme, and carried away with them all energies of another kind; no other will could oppose them.

There was still a general of reputation and talent, Lord Hopton, who undertook the control of the army in concert with the Privy Councillors who formed the Prince’s government: but, as he said, he did it only from a sense of duty, for no honour was to be gained. On his banner were inscribed the words ‘I will strive my King to serve’: he would obey, he said, even at the risk of his good name. Under his command the forces of the western counties once more measured their strength with the Parliamentarians, at the well-fortified pass of Torrington, and here offered some resistance; but the superiority of the Parliamentary foot over the Royalists was so decisive that the latter did notA.D. 1645.hold their ground very courageously. At the end of February Fairfax advanced into Cornwall. On March 2 the Prince, no longer safe in Pendennis, where he had been staying, embarked with his counsellors in a vessel which took them to the Scilly Islands. A considerable body of horsemen was still united under Hopton. But already every man was possessed by a conviction that all they did was in vain. The service was very carelessly performed. In a council of war the officers declared to the general that their men could no longer be brought to face the enemy: they told him frankly that unless he began negotiations they should proceed to do so without him. The troops themselves actually began: at the first encounter of the advanced guards in the neighbourhood of Probus, the Royalists cried out ‘Truce, truce!’ they entered upon it before it was concluded[434]. After brief conferences a capitulation was arranged (March 14) in accordance with which Hopton’s brigades,—there were nine of them,—were disbanded one after the other. The King’s cavalry had to surrender their arms at the very place where formerly Essex’s foot had done the same[435]. Most of the troops declared themselves ready to go to Ireland and fight there for the Parliament, without paying any attention to the counter-orders of the King. The superiority of the Parliamentary army was combined with a sort of voluntary disbanding of the Royalist forces. The forts and castles which were still in their hands went over one by one.

At the beginning of April even Exeter capitulated: the Parliamentary army advanced towards Oxford, where there seemed nothing left for the King but to surrender. The war was virtually over. The attempt of Charles I to wrest back by force of arms from the Parliament the power which it had acquired had broken down.

This conclusion was exactly contrary to the results of the analogous undertaking of Henry IV in France. Henry IV had conquered the capital and the country, set aside theA.D. 1645.Estates, and laid the foundations for that royal power on which it was possible to raise the proudest monarchy of modern times. In England the forces which the King and his adherents could command were defeated in the country and crushed; the supreme authority was in the hands of the Parliament, with which the capital had hitherto been always in perfect accord.

FOOTNOTES:[413]To the Queen, 13 March. King’s cabinet opened, No. 13: ‘I being now freed from the place of base and mutinous motions, that is to say, our mongrel Parliament here.’[414]King’s cabinet opened, No. 20. Cp. his letters of May 12 and 31 in Mrs. Green, of May 14 in Halliwell ii. 380.[415]Bossuet mentions the affair in his funeral oration on Henrietta Maria. The details of the transaction are still unknown.[416]King’s cabinet opened, No. 11.[417]The testimony of Sabran (20 April), ‘Les forces du parlement ont beaucoup plus reçu que donné de l’échec,’ may be set against the pamphlets of the Independents exaggerating their successes in the first movements of the campaign.[418]Sabian 12/22 June. ‘Les sièges d’Oxford et de Borstall House ont peu duré et mal réussi: il en est revenu en une seule fois dimanche dernier 37 charettes de soldats blessés, et autres depuis.’[419]In a letter to Lord Jermyn, Digby mentions his ‘advice to the King to have gone to Oxford from Daintry.’ Warburton iii. 135.[420]Sprigge’s England’s Recovery 32. In Ludlow (Memoirs 151) things are related not without some confusion.[421]Walker, Historical Discourses 129.[422]Digby to Legge. ‘So did your fate lead, as scarcely one of us did think of a queer objection, which after the ill success every child could light on.’ This correspondence (Warburton iii. 127) gives the best insight. I combine the narrative of both parties.[423]Sprigge: ‘The colonels and officers endeavouring to keep their men from disorder, and finding their attempt fruitless therein.’[424]Wogan: ‘Rossiter’s horse that came to us at that present.’[425]Wogan: ‘Seeing all their horse beaten out of the field, and surrounded with our horse and foot, they laid down their arms with condition not to be plundered.’[426]Clarendon iv. 48 (edition of 1849) himself remarks on this battle that the capacity to rally after being beaten disclosed the better discipline which had been introduced by Fairfax and Cromwell.[427]Journals of Commons, 23 June-7 July.[428]To Nicholas, 25 Aug. 1645. ‘Let my condition be never so low, I resolve by the grace of God never to yield up this church to the government of papists, Presbyterians, or independents, nor to injure my successors by lessening the crown of that ecclesiastical and military power which my predecessors left me, nor to forsake my friends.’[429]‘Who took the occasion to write the ensuing letter to the prince with his own hand, which was so lively an expression of his own soul.’ Clarendon, Hist. iv. 679.[430]Walker’s Historical Discourses 139: ‘In order to attempt to get to Montrose, whom we then believed master of Scotland.’[431]‘The king and I had long before concluded it most for his service that I should absent myself for some time.’ Letter to Hyde, Harley MS. T. V. 566.[432]Symonds’s Diary 268. The best passage in the little book, had it not been subsequently mutilated and never completed. Walker is here also the most trustworthy witness. What the English journals contain is derived from exaggerated hearsay. The notice in Disraeli v, derived from Bellasis’ Memoirs, cannot be reconciled with the facts known from other sources, for instance about the passports.[433]Lingard, who here follows special information, x. Note B; Macgregor, History of the British Empire ii. note b.[434]Sprigge 213. Instead of asking they acted a cessation.[435]From a report of Montereuil, March 19, it appears that Fairfax remarked onthis ‘avec peu d’obligeance pour le comte d’Essex.’ Clarendon Papers ii. 218.

[413]To the Queen, 13 March. King’s cabinet opened, No. 13: ‘I being now freed from the place of base and mutinous motions, that is to say, our mongrel Parliament here.’

[414]King’s cabinet opened, No. 20. Cp. his letters of May 12 and 31 in Mrs. Green, of May 14 in Halliwell ii. 380.

[415]Bossuet mentions the affair in his funeral oration on Henrietta Maria. The details of the transaction are still unknown.

[416]King’s cabinet opened, No. 11.

[417]The testimony of Sabran (20 April), ‘Les forces du parlement ont beaucoup plus reçu que donné de l’échec,’ may be set against the pamphlets of the Independents exaggerating their successes in the first movements of the campaign.

[418]Sabian 12/22 June. ‘Les sièges d’Oxford et de Borstall House ont peu duré et mal réussi: il en est revenu en une seule fois dimanche dernier 37 charettes de soldats blessés, et autres depuis.’

[419]In a letter to Lord Jermyn, Digby mentions his ‘advice to the King to have gone to Oxford from Daintry.’ Warburton iii. 135.

[420]Sprigge’s England’s Recovery 32. In Ludlow (Memoirs 151) things are related not without some confusion.

[421]Walker, Historical Discourses 129.

[422]Digby to Legge. ‘So did your fate lead, as scarcely one of us did think of a queer objection, which after the ill success every child could light on.’ This correspondence (Warburton iii. 127) gives the best insight. I combine the narrative of both parties.

[423]Sprigge: ‘The colonels and officers endeavouring to keep their men from disorder, and finding their attempt fruitless therein.’

[424]Wogan: ‘Rossiter’s horse that came to us at that present.’

[425]Wogan: ‘Seeing all their horse beaten out of the field, and surrounded with our horse and foot, they laid down their arms with condition not to be plundered.’

[426]Clarendon iv. 48 (edition of 1849) himself remarks on this battle that the capacity to rally after being beaten disclosed the better discipline which had been introduced by Fairfax and Cromwell.

[427]Journals of Commons, 23 June-7 July.

[428]To Nicholas, 25 Aug. 1645. ‘Let my condition be never so low, I resolve by the grace of God never to yield up this church to the government of papists, Presbyterians, or independents, nor to injure my successors by lessening the crown of that ecclesiastical and military power which my predecessors left me, nor to forsake my friends.’

[429]‘Who took the occasion to write the ensuing letter to the prince with his own hand, which was so lively an expression of his own soul.’ Clarendon, Hist. iv. 679.

[430]Walker’s Historical Discourses 139: ‘In order to attempt to get to Montrose, whom we then believed master of Scotland.’

[431]‘The king and I had long before concluded it most for his service that I should absent myself for some time.’ Letter to Hyde, Harley MS. T. V. 566.

[432]Symonds’s Diary 268. The best passage in the little book, had it not been subsequently mutilated and never completed. Walker is here also the most trustworthy witness. What the English journals contain is derived from exaggerated hearsay. The notice in Disraeli v, derived from Bellasis’ Memoirs, cannot be reconciled with the facts known from other sources, for instance about the passports.

[433]Lingard, who here follows special information, x. Note B; Macgregor, History of the British Empire ii. note b.

[434]Sprigge 213. Instead of asking they acted a cessation.

[435]From a report of Montereuil, March 19, it appears that Fairfax remarked onthis ‘avec peu d’obligeance pour le comte d’Essex.’ Clarendon Papers ii. 218.

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