See G. K. Gilbert in Wheeler Survey,U.S. Geographical Survey West of the Hundredth Meridian, vol. iii.; Clarence King and others in theReport of the Fortieth Parallel Survey(U.S. Geol. Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel); G. K. Gilbert’sLake Bonneville(U.S. Geological Survey,Monographs, No. 1, 1890), also I. C. Russell’sLake Lahontan(Same, No. 11, 1885), with references to other publications of the Survey. For reference to later geological literature, and discussion of the Basin Ranges, see J. E. Spurr,Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer.vol. 12, 1901, p. 217; and G. D. Louderback, same, vol. 15, 1904, p. 280; also general bibliographies issued by the U.S. Geol. Survey (e.g.Bull.301, 372 and 409).
See G. K. Gilbert in Wheeler Survey,U.S. Geographical Survey West of the Hundredth Meridian, vol. iii.; Clarence King and others in theReport of the Fortieth Parallel Survey(U.S. Geol. Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel); G. K. Gilbert’sLake Bonneville(U.S. Geological Survey,Monographs, No. 1, 1890), also I. C. Russell’sLake Lahontan(Same, No. 11, 1885), with references to other publications of the Survey. For reference to later geological literature, and discussion of the Basin Ranges, see J. E. Spurr,Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer.vol. 12, 1901, p. 217; and G. D. Louderback, same, vol. 15, 1904, p. 280; also general bibliographies issued by the U.S. Geol. Survey (e.g.Bull.301, 372 and 409).
GREAT BEAR LAKE,an extensive sheet of fresh water in the north-west of Canada, between 65° and 67° N., and 117° and 123° W. It is of very irregular shape, has an estimated area of 11,200 sq. m., a depth of 270 ft., and is upwards of 200 ft. above the sea. It is 175 m. in length, and from 25 to 45 in breadth, though the greatest distance between its northern and southern arms is about 180 m. The Great Bear river discharges its waters into the Mackenzie river. It is full of fish, and the neighbouring country, though barren and uncultivated, contains quantities of game.
GREAT CIRCLE.The circle in which a sphere is cut by a plane is called a “great circle,” when the cutting plane passes through the centre of sphere. Treating the earth as a sphere, the meridians of longitude are all great circles. Of the parallels of latitude, the equator only is a great circle. The shortest line joining any two points is an arc of a great circle. For “great circle sailing” seeNavigation.
GREAT FALLS,a city and the county-seat of Cascade county, Montana, U.S.A., 99 m. (by rail) N.E. of Helena, on the S. bank of the Missouri river, opposite the mouth of the Sun river, at an altitude of about 3300 ft. It is 10 m. above the Great Falls of the Missouri, from which it derives its name. Pop. (1890) 3979; (1900) 14,930, of whom 4692 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 13,948. It has an area of about 8 sq. m. It is served by the Great Northern and the Billings & Northern (Chicago, Burlington & Quincy system) railways. The city has a splendid park system of seven parks (about 530 acres) with 15 m. of boulevards.1Among the principal buildings are a city hall, court house, high school, commercial college, Carnegie library, the Columbus Hospital and Training School for Nurses (under the supervision of the Sisters of Charity), and the Montana Deaconess hospital. There is a Federal land office in the city. Great Falls lies in the midst of a region exceptionally rich in minerals—copper, gold, silver, lead, iron, gypsum, limestone, sapphires and bituminous coal being mined in the neighbourhood. Much grain is grown in the vicinity, and the city is an important shipping point for wool, live-stock and cereals. Near Great Falls the Missouri river, within 7½ m., contracts from a width of about 900 to 300 yds. and falls more than 500 ft., the principal falls being the Black Eagle Falls (50 ft.), from which power is derived for the city’s street railway and lighting plant, the beautiful Rainbow Falls (48 ft.) and Great Falls (92 ft.). Giant Spring Fall, about 20 ft. high, is a cascade formed by a spring on the bank of the river near Rainbow Falls. The river furnishes very valuable water-power, partly utilized by large manufacturing establishments, including flour mills, plaster mills, breweries, iron works, mining machinery shops, and smelting and reduction works. The Boston & Montana copper smelter is one of the largest in the world; it has a chimney stack 506 ft. high, and in 1908 employed 1200 men in the smelter and 2500 in its mining department. Great Falls ranked second (to Anaconda) among the cities of the state in the value of the factory product of 1905, which was $13,291,979, showing an increase of 42.4% since 1900. The city owns and operates its water-supply system. Great Falls was settled in 1884, and was chartered as a city in 1888.
1Great Falls was a pioneer among the cities of the state in the development of a park system. When the city was first settled its site was a “barren tract of sand, thinly covered with buffalo-grass and patches of sage brush.” The first settler, Paris Gibson, of Minneapolis, began the planting of trees, which, though not indigenous, grew well. The city’s sidewalks are bordered by strips of lawn, in which there is a row of trees, and the city maintains a large nursery where trees are grown for this purpose. A general state law (1901) placing the parking of cities on a sound financial basis is due very largely to the impulse furnished by Great Falls. See an article, “Great Falls, the Pioneer Park City of Montana,” by C. H. Forbes-Lindsay, in theCraftsmanfor November 1908.
1Great Falls was a pioneer among the cities of the state in the development of a park system. When the city was first settled its site was a “barren tract of sand, thinly covered with buffalo-grass and patches of sage brush.” The first settler, Paris Gibson, of Minneapolis, began the planting of trees, which, though not indigenous, grew well. The city’s sidewalks are bordered by strips of lawn, in which there is a row of trees, and the city maintains a large nursery where trees are grown for this purpose. A general state law (1901) placing the parking of cities on a sound financial basis is due very largely to the impulse furnished by Great Falls. See an article, “Great Falls, the Pioneer Park City of Montana,” by C. H. Forbes-Lindsay, in theCraftsmanfor November 1908.
GREAT HARWOOD,an urban district in the Darwen parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, 4½ m. N.E. of Blackburn, on the Lancashire and Yorkshire railway. Pop. (1901) 12,015. It is of modern growth, a township of cotton operatives, with large collieries in the vicinity. An agricultural society is also maintained.
GREATHEAD, JAMES HENRY(1844-1896), British engineer, was born at Grahamstown, Cape Colony, on the 6th of August 1844. He migrated to England in 1859, and in 1864 was a pupil of P. W. Barlow, from whom he became acquainted with the shield system of tunnelling with which his name is especially associated. Barlow, indeed, had a strong belief in the shield, and was the author of a scheme for facilitating the traffic of London by the construction of underground railways running in cast-iron tubes constructed by its aid. To show what the method could do, it was resolved to make a subway under the Thames near the Tower, but the troubles encountered by Sir M. I. Brunel in the Thames Tunnel, where also a shield was employed, made engineers hesitate to undertake the subway, even though it was of very much smaller dimensions (6 ft. 7 in.internal diameter) than the tunnel. At this juncture Greathead came forward and offered to take up the contract; and he successfully carried it through in 1869 without finding any necessity to resort to the use of compressed air, which Barlow in 1867 had suggested might be employed in water-bearing strata. After this he began to practise on his own account, and mainly divided his time between railway construction and taking out patents for improvements in his shield, and for other inventions such as the “Ejector” fire-hydrant. Early in the ’eighties he began to work in conjunction with a company whose aim was to introduce into London from America the Hallidie system of cable traction, and in 1884 an act of Parliament was obtained authorizing what is now the City & South London Railway—a tube-railway to be worked by cables. This was begun in 1886, and the tunnels were driven by means of the Greathead shield, compressed air being used at those points where water-bearing gravel was encountered. During the progress of the works electrical traction became so far developed as to be superior to cables; the idea of using the latter was therefore abandoned, and when the railway was opened in 1890 it was as an electrical one. Greathead was engaged in two other important underground lines in London—the Waterloo & City and the Central London. He lived to see the tunnels of the former completed under the Thames, but the latter was scarcely begun at the time of his death, which happened at Streatham, in the south of London, on the 21st of October 1896.
GREAT LAKES OF NORTH AMERICA, THE.The connected string of five fresh-water inland seas, Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario, lying in the interior of North America, between the Dominion of Canada on the north and the United States of America on the south, and forming the head-waters of the St Lawrence river system, are collectively and generally known as “The Great Lakes.” From the head of lake Superior these lakes are navigable to Buffalo, at the foot of lake Erie, a distance of 1023 m., for vessels having a draught of 20 ft.; from Buffalo to Kingston, 191 m. farther, the draught is limited, by the depth in the Welland canal, to 14 ft.; lake Superior, the largest and most westerly of the lakes, empties, through the river St Mary, 55 m. long, into lake Huron. From Point Iroquois, which may be considered the foot of the lake, to Sault Ste Marie, St Mary’s Falls, St Mary’s Rapids or the Soo, as it is variously called, a distance of 14 m., there is a single channel, which has been dredged by the United States government, at points which required deepening, to give a minimum width of 800 ft. and a depth of 23 ft. at mean stage water. Below the Sault, the river, on its course to lake Huron, expands into several lakes, and is divided by islands into numerous contracted passages. There are two navigated channels; the older one, following the international boundary-line by way of lake George, has a width of 150 to 300 ft., and a depth of 17 ft.; it is buoyed but not lighted, and is not capable of navigation by modern large freighters; the other, some 12 m. shorter, an artificial channel dredged by the United States government in their own territory, has a minimum width of 300 ft. and depth of 20 ft. It is elaborately lighted throughout its length. A third channel, west of all the islands, was designed for steamers bound down, the older channel being reserved for upbound boats.
Between lake Superior and lake Huron there is a fall of 20 ft. of which the Sault, in a distance of ½ m., absorbs from 18 to 19½ ft., the height varying as the lakes change in level. The enormous growth of inter-lake freight traffic has justified the construction of three separate locks, each overcoming the rapids by a single lift—two side by side on the United States and one on the Canadian side of the river. These locks, the largest in the world, are all open to Canadian and United States vessels alike, and are operated free from all taxes or tolls on shipping. The Canadian ship canal, opened to traffic on the 9th of September 1895, was constructed through St Mary Island, on the north side of the rapids, by the Canadian government, at a cost of $3,684,227, to facilitate traffic and to secure to Canadian vessels an entrance to lake Superior without entering United States territory. The canal is 5967 ft. long between the extremities of the entrance piers, has one lock 900 ft. long and 60 ft. wide, with a depth on the sills at the lowest known water-level of 20½ ft. The approaches to the canal are dredged to 18 ft. deep, and are well buoyed and lighted. On the United States side of the river the length of the canal is 12⁄3m., the channel outside the locks having a width varying from 108 to 600 ft. and depth of 25 ft. The locks of 1855 were closed in 1886, to give place to the Poe lock. The Weitzel lock, opened to navigation on the 1st of September 1881, was built south of the old locks, the approach being through the old canal. Its chamber is 515 ft. long between lock gates, and 80 ft. wide, narrowing to 60 ft. at the gates. The length of the masonry walls is 717 ft., height 39½ ft., with 17 ft. over mitre sills at mean stage of water. The Poe lock, built because the Weitzel lock, large and fully equipped as it is, was insufficient for the rapidly growing traffic, was opened on the 3rd of August 1896. Its length between gates is 800 ft.; width 100 ft.; length of masonry walls 1100 ft.; height 43½ to 45 ft., with 22 ft. on the mitre sill at mean stage.
The expenditure by the United States government on the canal, with its several locks, and on improving the channel through the river, aggregated fourteen million dollars up to the end of 1906.1Plans were prepared in 1907 for a third United States lock with a separate canal approach.
The canals are closed every winter, the average date of opening up to 1893 being the 1st of May, and of closing the 1st of December. The pressure of business since that time, aided possibly by some slight climatic modification, has extended the season, so that the average date of opening is now ten days earlier and of closing twelve days later. The earliest opening was in 1902 on the 1st of April, and the latest closing in 1904 on the 20th of December.
The table below gives the average yearly commerce for periods of five years, and serves to show the rapid increase in freight growth.Statement of the commerce through the several Sault Ste Marie canals, averaged for every five years.2Years.Passages.RegisteredTonnage.Passengers.Coal.Net Tons.Flour.Barrels.Wheat.Bushels.Other.Grains.BushelsGeneralMerchandise.Net Tons.Salt.Barrels.Iron Ore.Net Tons.Lumber.M. ft.B.M.TotalFreight.Net Tons.1855-1859*387192,2076,2064,67219,555None.34,6122,2491,24827,20632055,7971880-18844,4572,267,16634,607463,431681,7265,435,601936,34681,966107,225867,99979,1442,184,7311885-18897,9084,901,10529,4341,398,4411,838,32518,438,0851,213,81574,447175,7252,497,403197,6055,441,2971890-189411,9659,912,58924,6092,678,8055,764,76634,875,9711,738,70687,540231,1784,939,909510,48210,627,3491895-189918,35218,451,44740,2893,270,8428,319,69957,227,26923,349,134164,426282,15610,728,075832,96819,354,9741900-190419,37426,199,79554,0935,457,0197,021,83956,269,26526,760,533646,277407,26320,020,487999,94431,245,5651906 alone22,15541,098,32463,0338,739,6306,495,35084,271,35854,343,1551,134,851468,16235,357,042900,63151,751,080* The first five years of operation.
The table below gives the average yearly commerce for periods of five years, and serves to show the rapid increase in freight growth.
Statement of the commerce through the several Sault Ste Marie canals, averaged for every five years.2
Around the canals have grown up two thriving towns, one on the Michigan, the other on the Ontario side of the river, with manufactories driven by water-power derived from the Sault. The outlet of lake Michigan, the only lake of the series lying wholly in United States territory, is at the Strait of Mackinac, near the point where the river St Mary reaches lake Huron. With lake Michigan are connected the Chicago Sanitary and Ship canal, the Illinois and Michigan, and the Illinois and Mississippi canals, for which see Illinois. With lake Huron is alwaysincluded Georgian Bay as well as the channel north of Manitoulin Island. As it is principally navigated as a connecting waterway between lakes Superior and Michigan and lake Erie it has no notable harbours on it. It empties into lake Erie through the river St Clair, lake St Clair and the river Detroit. On these connecting waters are several important manufacturing and shipping towns, and through this chain passes nearly all the traffic of the lakes, both that to and from lake Michigan ports, and also that of lake Superior. The tonnage of a single short season of navigation exceeds in the aggregate 60,000,000 tons. Extensive dredging and embankment works have been carried on by the United States government in lake St Clair and the river Detroit, and a 20-ft. channel now exists, which is being constantly improved. Lake St Clair is nearly circular, 25 m. in diameter, with the north-east quadrant filled by the delta of the river St Clair. It has a very flat bottom with a general depth of only 21 ft., shoaling very gradually, usually to reed beds that line the low swampy shores. To enter the lake from river St Clair two channels have been provided, with retaining walls of cribwork, one for upward, the other for downward bound vessels. Much dredging has also been necessary at the outlet of the lake into river Detroit. A critical point in that river is at Limekiln crossing, a cut dredged through limestone rock above the Canadian town of Amherstburg. The normal depth here before improvement was 12½-15 ft.; by a project of 1902 a channel 600 ft. wide and 21 ft. deep was planned; there are separate channels for up- and down-bound vessels. To prevent vessels from crowding together in the cut, the Canadian government maintains a patrol service here, while the United States government maintains a similar patrol in the St Mary channel.
The Grand Trunk railway opened in 1891 a single track tunnel under the river St Clair, from Sarnia to Port Huron. It is 6026 ft. long, a cylinder 20 ft. in diameter, lined with cast iron in flanged sections. A second tunnel was undertaken between Detroit and Windsor, under the river Detroit.
From Buffalo, at the foot of lake Erie, the river Niagara runs northwards 36 m. into lake Ontario. To overcome the difference of 327 ft. in level between lakes Erie and Ontario, the Welland canal, accommodating vessels of 255 ft. in length, with a draught of 14 ft., was built, and is maintained by Canada. The Murray canal extends from Presqu’ile Bay, on the north shore of lake Ontario, a distance of 6½ m., to the headquarters of the Bay of Quinte. Trent canal is a term applied to a series of water stretches in the interior of Ontario which are ultimately designed to connect lake Huron and lake Ontario. At Peterboro a hydraulic balance-lock with a lift of 65 ft., 140 ft. in length and 33 ft. clear in width, allowing a draught of 8 ft., has been constructed. The ordinary locks are 134 by 33 ft. with a draught of 6 ft. When the whole route of 200 m. is completed, there will not be more than 15 m. of actual canal, the remaining portion of the waterway being through lakes and rivers. For the Erie canal, between that lake and the Hudson river, seeErieandNew York.
The population of the states and provinces bordering on the Great Lakes is estimated to be over 35,000,000. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, south of lake Erie, there are large coal-fields. Surrounding lake Michigan and west of lake Superior are vast grain-growing plains, and the prairies of the Canadian north-west are rapidly increasing the area and quantity of wheat grown; while both north and south of lake Superior are the most extensive iron mines in the world, from which 35 million tons of ore were shipped in 1906. The natural highway for the shipment of all these products is the Great Lakes, and over them coal is distributed westwards and grain and iron ore are concentrated eastwards. The great quantity of coarse freights, that could only be profitably carried long distances by water, has revolutionized the type of vessel used for its transportation, making large steamers imperative, consolidating interests and cheapening methods. It is usual for the vessels in the grain trade and in the iron-ore trade to make their up trips empty; but in consequence of the admirable facilities provided at terminal points, they make very fast time, and carry freight very cheaply. The cost of freight per ton-mile fell from 23/100 cent in 1887 to 8/100 cent in 1898; since then the rate has slightly risen, but keeps well below 1/10 cent per ton-mile.
The traffic on the lakes may be divided into three classes, passenger, package freight and bulk freight. Of passenger boats the largest are 380 ft. long by 44 ft. beam, having a speed of over 20 m. an hour, making the round trip between Buffalo and Chicago 1800 m., or Buffalo and Duluth 2000 m., every week. They carry no freight. The Canadian Pacific railway runs a line of fine Tyne-built passenger and freight steamers between Owen Sound and Fort William, and these two lines equal in accommodation transatlantic passenger steamers. On lake Michigan many fine passenger boats run out of Chicago, and on lake Ontario there are several large and fast Canadian steamers on routes radiating from Toronto. The package freight business, that is, the transportation of goods in enclosed parcels, is principally local; all the through business of this description is controlled by lines run by the great trunk railways, and is done in boats limited in beam to 50 ft. to admit them through bridges over the rivers at Chicago and Buffalo. By far the greatest number of vessels on the lakes are bulk freighters, and the conditions of the service have developed a special type of vessel. Originally sailing vessels were largely used, but these have practically disappeared, giving place to steamers, which have grown steadily in size with every increase in available draught. In 1894 there was no vessel on the lakes with a capacity of over 5000 tons; in 1906 there were 254 vessels of a greater capacity, 12 of them carrying over 12,000 tons each. For a few years following 1890 many large barges were built, carrying up to 8000 tons each, intended to be towed by a steamer. It was found, however, that the time lost by one boat of the pair having to wait for the other made the plan unprofitable and no more were built. Following 1888 some 40 whale-back steamers and barges, having oval cross-sections without frames or decks, were built, but experience failed to demonstrate any advantage in the type, and their construction has ceased. The modern bulk freighter is a vessel 600 ft. long, 58 ft. beam, capable of carrying 14,000 tons on 20 ft. draught, built with a midship section practically rectangular, the coefficient frequently as high as .98, with about two-thirds of the entire length absolutely straight, giving a block coefficient up to .87. The triple-expansion machinery and boilers, designed to drive the boat at a speed of 12 m. an hour, are in the extreme stern, and the pilot house and quarters in the extreme bow, leaving all the cargo space together. Hatches are spaced at multiples of 12 ft. throughout the length and are made as wide as possible athwartships to facilitate loading and unloading. The vessels are built on girder frames and fitted with double bottoms for strength and water ballast. This type of vessel can be loaded in a few minutes, and unloaded by self-filling grab buckets up to ten tons capacity, worked hydraulically, in six or eight hours. The bulk freight generally follows certain well-defined routes; iron ore is shipped east from ports on both sides of lake Superior and on the west side of lake Michigan to rail shipping points on the south shore of lake Erie. Wheat and other grains from Duluth find their way to Buffalo, as do wheat, corn (maize) and other grains from Chicago. Wheat from the Canadian north-west is distributed from Fort William and Port Arthur to railway terminals on Georgian Bay, to Buffalo, and to Port Colborne for trans-shipment to canal barges for Montreal, and coal is distributed from lake Erie to all western points. The large shipping trade is assisted by both governments by a system of aids to navigation that mark every channel and danger. There are also life-saving stations at all dangerous points.
The Great Lakes never freeze over completely, but the harbours and often the connecting rivers are closed by ice. The navigable season at the Sault is about 7½ months; in lake Erie it is somewhat longer. The season of navigation has been slightly lengthened since 1905, by using powerful tugs as ice-breakers in the spring and autumn, the Canadian government undertaking the service at Canadian terminal ports, chiefly at Fort William and Port Arthur, the most northerly ports, where the seasonis naturally shortest, and the Lake Carriers’ Association, a federation of the freighting steamship owners, acting in the river St Mary. Car ferries run through the winter across lake Michigan and the Strait of Mackinac, across the rivers St Clair and Detroit, and across the middle of lakes Erie and Ontario. The largest of these steamers is 350 ft. long by 56 ft. wide, draught 14 ft., horse power 3500, speed 13 knots. She carries on four tracks 30 freight cars, with 1350 tons of freight. Certain passenger steamers run on lake Michigan, from Chicago north, all the winter.
The level of the lakes varies gradually, and is affected by the general character of the season, and not by individual rainfalls. The variations of level of the several lakes do not necessarily synchronize. There is an annual fluctuation of about 1 ft. in the upper lakes, and in some seasons over 2 ft. in the lower lakes; the lowest point being at the end of winter and the highest in midsummer. In lake Michigan the level has ranged from a maximum in the years 1859, 1876 and 1886, to a minimum nearly 5 ft. lower in 1896. In lake Ontario there is a range of 5½ ft. between the maximum of May 1870 and the minimum of November 1895. In consequence of the shallowness of lake Erie, its level is seriously disturbed by a persistent storm; a westerly gale lowers the water at its upper end exceptionally as much as 7 ft., seriously interfering with the navigation of the river Detroit, while an easterly gale produces a similar effect at Buffalo. (For physiographical details see articles on the several lakes, andUnited States.)
There is geological evidence to show that the whole basin of the lakes has in recent geological times gradually changed in level, rising to the north and subsiding southwards; and it is claimed that the movement is still in gradual progress, the rate assigned being .42 ft. per 100 m. per century. The maintenance of the level of the Great Lakes is a matter of great importance to the large freight boats, which always load to the limit of depth at critical points in the dredged channels or in the harbours. Fears have been entertained that the water power canals at Sault Ste Marie, the drainage canal at Chicago and the dredged channel in the river Detroit will permanently lower the levels respectively of lake Superior and of the Michigan-Huron-Erie group. An international deep-waterway commission exists for the consideration of this question, and army engineers appointed by the United States government have worked on the problem.3Wing dams in the rivers St Mary and Niagara, to retard the discharges, have been proposed as remedial measures. The Great Lakes are practically tideless, though some observers claim to find true tidal pulsations, said to amount to 3½ in. at spring tide at Chicago. Secondary undulations of a few minutes in period, ranging from 1 to 4 in., are well marked.
The Great Lakes are well stocked with fish of commercial value. These are largely gathered from the fishermen by steam tenders, and taken fresh or in frozen condition to railway distributing points. In lakes Superior and Huron salmon-trout (Salvelinus namaycush, Walb) are commercially most important. They ordinarily range from 10 to 50 ℔ in weight, and are often larger. In Georgian Bay the catches of whitefish (Coregonus clupeiformis, Mitchill) are enormous. In lake Erie whitefish, lesser whitefish, erroneously called lake-herring (C. artedi, Le Sueur), and sturgeon (Acipenser rubicundus, Le Sueur) are the most common. There is good angling at numerous points on the lakes and their feeders. The river Nipigon, on the north shore of lake Superior, is famous as a stream abounding in speckled trout (Salvelinus fontinalis, Mitchill) of unusual size. Black bass (Micropterus) are found from Georgian Bay to Montreal, and the maskinonge (Esox nobilior, Le Sueur), plentiful in the same waters, is a very game fish that often attains a weight of 70 ℔.
Bibliography.—E. Channing and M. F. Lansing,Story of the Great Lakes(New York, 1909), for an account of the lakes in history; and for shipping, &c., J. O. Curwood,The Great Lakes(New York, 1909);U.S. Hydrographic office publication, No 108, “Sailing directions for the Great Lakes,” Navy Department (Washington, 1901, seqq.);Bulletin No. 17, “Survey of Northern and North-western Lakes,” Corps of Engineers, U.S. War Department, U.S. Lake Survey Office (Detroit, Mich., 1907);Annual reports of Canadian Department of Marine and Fisheries(Ottawa, 1868 seqq.).
Bibliography.—E. Channing and M. F. Lansing,Story of the Great Lakes(New York, 1909), for an account of the lakes in history; and for shipping, &c., J. O. Curwood,The Great Lakes(New York, 1909);U.S. Hydrographic office publication, No 108, “Sailing directions for the Great Lakes,” Navy Department (Washington, 1901, seqq.);Bulletin No. 17, “Survey of Northern and North-western Lakes,” Corps of Engineers, U.S. War Department, U.S. Lake Survey Office (Detroit, Mich., 1907);Annual reports of Canadian Department of Marine and Fisheries(Ottawa, 1868 seqq.).
(W. P. A.)
1Statistical report of lake commerce passing through canals. Col. Chas. E. L. B. Davis, U.S.A., engineer in charge, 1907.2Statistical report of lake commerce passing through canals, published annually by the U.S. engineer officer in charge.3Report of the Chief of Engineers, U.S. Army, inReport of War Department, U.S.1898, p. 3776.
1Statistical report of lake commerce passing through canals. Col. Chas. E. L. B. Davis, U.S.A., engineer in charge, 1907.
2Statistical report of lake commerce passing through canals, published annually by the U.S. engineer officer in charge.
3Report of the Chief of Engineers, U.S. Army, inReport of War Department, U.S.1898, p. 3776.
GREAT MOTHER OF THE GODS,the ancient Oriental-Greek-Roman deity commonly known as Cybele (q.v.) in Greek and Latin literature from the time of Pindar. She was also known under many other names, some of which were derived from famous places of worship: as Dindymene from Mt. Dindymon, Mater Idaea from Mt. Ida, Sipylene from Mt. Sipylus, Agdistis from Mt. Agdistis or Agdus, Mater Phrygia from the greatest stronghold of her cult; while others were reflections of her character as a great nature goddess:e.g.Mountain Mother, Great Mother of the Gods, Mother of all Gods and all Men. As the great Mother deity whose worship extended throughout Asia Minor she was known as Mā or Ammas. Cybele is her favourite name in ancient and modern literature, while Great Mother of the Gods, or Great Idaean Mother of the Gods (Mater Deum Magna,Mater Deum Magna Idaea), the most frequently recurring epigraphical title, was her ordinary official designation.
The legends agree in locating the rise of the worship of the Great Mother in Asia Minor, in the region of loosely defined geographical limits which comprised the Phrygian empire of prehistoric times, and was more extensive than the Roman province of Phrygia (Diod. Sic. iii. 58; Paus. vii. 17; Arnob. v. 5; Firm. Mat.De error., 3; Ovid,Fasti, iv. 223 ff.; Sallust. Phil.De diis et mundo, 4; Jul.Or.v. 165 ff.). Her best-known early seats of worship were Mt. Ida, Mt. Sipylus, Cyzicus, Sardis and Pessinus, the last-named city, in Galatia near the borders of Roman Phrygia, finally becoming the strongest centre of the cult. She was known to the Romans and Greeks as essentially Phrygian, and all Phrygia was spoken of as sacred to her (Schol. Apollon. Rhod.Argonautica, i. 1126). It is probable, however, that the Phrygian race, which invaded Asia Minor from the north in the 9th centuryB.C., found a great nature goddess already universally worshipped there, and blended her with a deity of their own. The Asiatic-Phrygian worship thus evolved was further modified by contact with the Syrians and Phoenicians, so that it acquired strong Semitic characteristics. The Great Mother known to the Greeks and Romans was thus merely the Phrygian form of the nature deity of all Asia Minor.
From Asia Minor the cult of the Great Mother spread first to Greek territory. It found its way into Thrace at an early date, was known in Boeotia by Pindar in the 6th century, and entered Attica near the beginning of the 4th century (Grant Showerman,The Great Mother of the Gods,Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, No. 43, Madison, 1901). At Peiraeus, where it probably arrived by way of the Aegean islands, it existed privately in a fully developed state, that is, accompanied by the worship of Attis, at the beginning of the 4th century, and publicly two centuries later (D. Comparetti,Annales, 1862, pp. 23 ff.). The Greeks from the first saw in the Great Mother a resemblance to their own Rhea, and finally identified the two completely, though the Asiatic peculiarities of the cult were never universally popular with them (Showerman, p. 294). In her less Asiatic aspect,i.e.without Attis, she was sometimes identified with Gaia and Demeter. It was in this phase that she was worshipped in the Metroön at Athens. In reality, the Mother Goddess appears under three aspects: Rhea, the Homeric and Hesiodic goddess of Cretan origin; the Phrygian Mother, with Attis; and the Greek Great Mother, a modified form of the Phrygian Mother, to be explained as the original goddess of the Phrygians of Europe, communicated to the Greek stock before the Phrygian invasion of Asia Minor and consequent mingling with Asiatic stocks (cf. Showerman, p. 252).
In 204B.C., in obedience to the Sibylline prophecy which said that whenever an enemy from abroad should make war on Italy he could be expelled and conquered if the Idaean Mother were brought to Rome from Pessinus, the cult of the Great Mother, together with her sacred symbol, a small meteoric stone reputed to have fallen from the heavens, was transferred to Rome and established in a temple on the Palatine (Livy xxix. 10-14). Her identification by the Romans with Maia, Ops, Rhea, Tellusand Ceres contributed to the establishment of her worship on a firm footing. By the end of the Republic it had attained prominence, and under the Empire it became one of the three most important cults in the Roman world, the other two being those of Mithras and Isis. Epigraphic and numismatic evidence prove it to have penetrated from Rome as a centre to the remotest provinces (Showerman, pp. 291-293). During the brief revival of paganism under Eugenius inA.D.394, occurred the last appearance of the cult in history. Besides the temple on the Palatine, there existed minor shrines of the Great Mother near the present church of St Peter, on the Sacra Via on the north slope of the Palatine, near the junction of the Almo and the Tiber, south of the city (ibid.311-314).
In all her aspects, Roman, Greek and Oriental, the Great Mother was characterized by essentially the same qualities. Most prominent among them was her universal motherhood. She was the great parent of gods and men, as well as of the lower orders of creation. “The winds, the sea, the earth and the snowy seat of Olympus are hers, and when from her mountains she ascends into the great heavens, the son of Cronus himself gives way before her” (Apollon. Rhod.Argonautica, i. 1098). She was known as the All-begetter, the All-nourisher, the Mother of all the Blest. She was the great, fruitful, kindly earth itself. Especial emphasis was placed upon her maternity over wild nature. She was called the Mountain Mother; her sanctuaries were almost invariably upon mountains, and frequently in caves, the name Cybele itself being by some derived from the latter; lions were her faithful companions. Her universal power over the natural world finds beautiful expression in Apollonius Rhodius,Argonautica, i. 1140 ff. She was also a chaste and beautiful deity. Her especial affinity with wild nature was manifested by the orgiastic character of her worship. Her attendants, the Corybantes, were wild, half demonic beings. Her priests, the Galli, were eunuchs attired in female garb, with long hair fragrant with ointment. Together with priestesses, they celebrated her rites with flutes, horns, castanets, cymbals and tambourines, madly yelling and dancing until their frenzied excitement found its culmination in self-scourging, self-laceration or exhaustion. Self-emasculation sometimes accompanied this delirium of worship on the part of candidates for the priesthood (Showerman, pp. 234-239). TheAttisof Catullus (lxiii.) is a brilliant treatment of such an episode.
Though her cult sometimes existed by itself, in its fully developed state the worship of the Great Mother was accompanied by that of Attis (q.v.). The cult of Attis never existed independently. Like Adonis and Aphrodite, Baal and Astarte, &c., the two formed a duality representing the relations of Mother Nature to the fruits of the earth. There is no positive evidence to prove the existence of the cult publicly in this phase in Greece before the 2nd centuryB.C., nor in Rome before the Empire, though it may have existed in private (Showerman, “Was Attis at Rome under the Republic?” inTransactions of the American Philological Association, vol. 31, 1900, pp. 46-59; Cumont, s.v. “Attis,” De Ruggiero’sDizionario epigraficoand Pauly-Wissowa’sRealencyclopädie, Supplement; Hepding,Attis, seine Mythen und seine Kult, Giessen, 1903, p. 142).
The philosophers of the late Roman Empire interpreted the Attis legend as symbolizing the relations of Mother Earth to her children the fruits. Porphyrius says that Attis signified the flowers of spring time, and was cut off in youth because the flower falls before the fruit (Augustine,De civ. Dei, vii. 25). Maternus (De error.3) interprets the love of the Great Mother for Attis as the love of the earth for her fruits; his emasculation as the cutting of the fruits; his death as their preservation; and his resurrection as the sowing of the seed again.
At Rome the immediate direction of the cult of the Great Mother devolved upon the high priest,Archigallus, called Attis, a high priestess,Sacerdos Maxima, and its support was derived, at least in part, from a popular contribution, thestips. Besides other priests, priestesses and minor officials, such as musicians, curator, &c., there were certain colleges connected with the administration of the cult, calledcannophori(reed-bearers) anddendrophori(branch-bearers). The Quindecimvirs exercised a general supervision over this cult, as over all other authorized cults, and it was, at least originally, under the special patronage of a club or sodality (Showerman, pp. 269-276). Roman citizens were at first forbidden to take part in its ceremonies, and the ban was not removed until the time of the Empire.
The main public event in the worship of the Great Mother was the annual festival, which took place originally on the 4th of April, and was followed on the 5th by the Megalesia, games instituted in her honour on the introduction of the cult. Under the Empire, from Claudius on, the Megalesia lasted six days, April 4-10, and the original one day of the religious festival became an annual cycle of festivals extending from the 15th to the 27th of March, in the following order. (1) The 15th of March,Canna intrat—the sacrifice of a six-year-old bull in behalf of the mountain fields, the high priest, a priestess and thecannophoriofficiating, the last named carrying reeds in procession in commemoration of the exposure of the infant Attis on the reedy banks of the stream Gallus in Phrygia. (This may have been originally a phallic procession. Cf. Showerman,American Journal of Philol.xxvii. 1;Classical Journali. 4.) (2) The 22nd of March,Arbor intrat—the bearing in procession of the sacred pine, emblem of Attis’ self-mutilation, death and immortality, to the temple on the Palatine, the symbol of the Mother’s cave, by thedendrophori, a gild of workmen who made the Mother, among other deities, a patron. (3) The 24th of March,Dies sanguinis—a day of mourning, fasting and abstinence, especially sexual, commemorating the sorrow of the Mother for Attis, her abstinence from food and her chastity. The frenzied dance and self-laceration of the priests in commemoration of Attis’ deed, and the submission to the act of consecration by candidates for the priesthood, was a special feature of the day. Thetaurobolium(q.v.) was often performed on this day, on which probably took place the initiation of mystics. (4) The 25th of March,Hilaria—one of the great festal days of Rome, celebrated by all the people. All mourning was put off, and good cheer reigned in token of the return of the sun and spring, which was symbolized by the renewal of Attis’ life. (5) The 26th of March,Requietio—a day of rest and quiet. (6) The 27th of March,Lavatio—the crowning ceremony of the cycle. The silver statue of the goddess, with the sacred meteoric stone, theAcus, set in its head, was borne in gorgeous procession and bathed in the Almo, the remainder of the day being given up to rejoicing and entertainment, especially dramatic representation of the legend of the deities of the day. Other ceremonies, not necessarily connected with the annual festival, were thetaurobolium(q.v.), the sacrifice of a bull, and thecriobolium(q.v.), the sacrifice of a ram, the latter being the analogue of the former, instituted for the purpose of giving Attis special recognition. The baptism of blood, which was the feature of these ceremonies, was regarded as purifying and regenerating (Showerman,Great Mother, pp. 277-284).
The Great Mother figures in the art of all periods both in Asia and Europe, but is especially prominent in the art of the Empire. No work of the first class, however, was inspired by her. She appears on coins, in painting and in all forms of sculpture, usually with mural crown and veil, well draped, seated on a throne, and accompanied by two lions. Other attributes which often appear are the patera, tympanum, cymbals, sceptre, garlands and fruits. Attis and his attributes, the pine, Phrygian cap, pedum, syrinx and torch, also appear. The Cybele of Formia, now at Copenhagen, is one of the most famous representations of the goddess. The Niobe of Mt. Sipylus is really the Mother. In literature she is the subject of frequent mention, but no work of importance, with the exception of Catullus lxiii., is due to her inspiration. Her importance in the history of religion is very great. Together with Isis and Mithras, she was a great enemy, and yet a great aid to Christianity. The gorgeous rites of her worship, its mystic doctrine of communion with the divine through enthusiasm, its promise of regeneration through baptism of blood in the taurobolium, were features which attracted the masses of the people and made it a strongrival of Christianity; and its resemblance to the new religion, however superficial, made it, in spite of the scandalous practices which grew up around it, a stepping-stone to Christianity when the tide set in against paganism.
Authorities.—Grant Showerman, “The Great Mother of the Gods,”Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, No. 43;Philology and Literature Series, vol. i. No. 3 (Madison, 1901); Hugo Hepding,Attis, seine Mythen und seine Kult(Giessen, 1903); Rapp,Roscher’s Ausführliches Lexicon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie s.v.“Kybele”; Drexler,ibid.s.v.“Meter.” SeeRoman Religion,Greek Religion,Attis,Corybantes; for the great “Hittite” portrayal of the Nature Goddess at Pteria, seePteria.
Authorities.—Grant Showerman, “The Great Mother of the Gods,”Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, No. 43;Philology and Literature Series, vol. i. No. 3 (Madison, 1901); Hugo Hepding,Attis, seine Mythen und seine Kult(Giessen, 1903); Rapp,Roscher’s Ausführliches Lexicon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie s.v.“Kybele”; Drexler,ibid.s.v.“Meter.” SeeRoman Religion,Greek Religion,Attis,Corybantes; for the great “Hittite” portrayal of the Nature Goddess at Pteria, seePteria.
(G. Sn.)
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 theposse comitatuscalled 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,1neither 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 theMemoirs 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 themoralof 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 theyoung 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 aftertheregiment 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-visRupert’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.
In the west Sir Ralph Hopton and his friends, having obtained a true bill from the grand jury against the Parliamentary disturbers of the peace, placed themselves at the head of the county militia and drove the rebels from Cornwall, after which they raised a small force for general service and invaded Devonshire (November 1642). Subsequently a Parliamentary army under the earl of Stamford was withdrawn from south Wales to engage Hopton, who had to retire into Cornwall. There, however, the Royalist general was free to employ the militia again, and thus reinforced he won a victory over a part of Stamford’s forces at Bradock Down near Liskeard (January 19, 1643) and resumed the offensive. About the same time Hertford, no longer opposed by Stamford, brought over the South Wales Royalists to Oxford, and the fortified area around that place was widened by the capture of Cirencester on the 2nd of February. Gloucester and Bristol were now the only important garrisons of the Roundheads in the west. In the midlands, in spite of a Parliamentary victory won by Sir William Brereton at Nantwich on the 28th of January, the Royalists of Shropshire, Staffordshire and Leicestershire soon extended their influence through Ashby-de-la-Zouch into Nottinghamshire and joined hands with their friends at Newark. Further, around Chester a new Royalist army was being formed under Lord Byron, and all the efforts of Brereton and of Sir John Gell, the leading supporter of the Parliament in Derbyshire, were required to hold their own, even before Newcastle’s army was added to the list of their enemies. Lord Brooke, who commanded for the Parliament in Warwickshire and Staffordshire and was looked on by many as Essex’s eventual successor, was killed in besieging Lichfield cathedral on the 2nd of March, and, though the cathedral soon capitulated, Gell and Brereton were severely handled in the indecisive battle of Hopton Heath near Stafford on the 19th of March, and Prince Rupert, after an abortive raid on Bristol (March 7), marched rapidly northward, storming Birmingham en route, and recaptured Lichfield cathedral. He was, however, soon recalled to Oxford to take part in the main campaign. The position of affairs for the Parliament was perhaps at its worst in January. The Royalist successes of November and December, the ever-present dread of foreign intervention, and the burden of new taxation which the Parliament now found itself compelled to impose, disheartened its supporters. Disorders broke out in London, and, while the more determined of the rebels began thus early to think of calling in the military assistance of the Scots, the majority were for peace on any conditions. But soon the position improved somewhat; Stamford in the west and Brereton and Gell in the midlands, though hard pressed, were at any rate in arms and undefeated, Newcastle had failed to conquer the West Riding, and Sir William Waller, who had cleared Hampshire and Wiltshire of “malignants,” entered Gloucestershire early in March, destroyed a small Royalist force at Highnam (March 24), and secured Bristol and Gloucester for the Parliament. Finally, some of Charles’s own intrigues opportunely coming to light, the waverers, seeing the impossibility of plain dealing with the court, rallied again to the party of resistance, and the series of negotiations called by the name of the Treaty of Oxford closed in April with no more result than those which had preceded Edgehill and Turnham Green. About this time too, following and improving upon the example of Newcastle in the north, Parliament ordered the formation of the celebrated “associations” or groups of counties banded together by mutual consent for defence. The most powerful and best organized of these was that of the eastern counties (headquarters Cambridge), where the danger of attack from the north was near enough to induce great energy in the preparations for meeting it, and at the same time too distant effectively to interfere with these preparations. Above all, the Eastern Association was from the first guided and inspired by Colonel Cromwell.
6.The Plan of Campaign, 1643.—The king’s plan of operations for the next campaign, which was perhaps inspired from abroad, was more elaborate than the simple “point” of 1642. The king’s army, based on the fortified area around Oxford, was counted sufficient to use up Essex’s forces. On either hand, therefore, in Yorkshire and in the west, the Royalist armies were to fight their way inwards towards London, after which all three armies, converging on that place in due season, were to cut off its supplies and its sea-borne revenue and to starve the rebellion into surrender. The condition of this threefold advance was of course that the enemy should not be able to defeat the armies in detail,i.e.that he should be fixed and held in the Thames valley; this secured, there was no purely military objection against operating in separate armies from the circumference towards the centre. It was on the rock of local feeling that the king’s plan came to grief. Even after the arrival of the queen and her convoy, Newcastle had to allow her to proceed with a small force, and to remain behind with the main body, because of Lancashire and the West Riding, and above all because the port of Hull, in the hands of the Fairfaxes, constituted a menace that the Royalists of the East Riding refused to ignore. Hopton’s advance too, undertaken without the Cornish levies, was checked in the action of Sourton Down (Dartmoor) on the 25th of April, and on the same day Waller captured Hereford. Essex had already left Windsor to undertake the siege of Reading, the most important point in the circle of fortresses round Oxford, which after a vain attempt at relief surrendered to him on the 26th of April. Thus the opening operations were unfavourable, not indeed so far as to require the scheme to be abandoned, but at least delaying the development until the campaigning season was far advanced.
7.Victories of Hopton.—But affairs improved in May. The queen’s long-expected convoy arrived at Woodstock on the 13th. The earl of Stamford’s army, which had again entered Cornwall, was attacked in its selected position at Stratton and practically annihilated by Hopton (May 16). This brilliant victory was due above all to Sir Bevil Grenville and the lithe Cornishmen, who, though but 2400 against 5400 and destitute of artillery, stormed “Stamford Hill,” killed 300 of the enemy, and captured 1700 more with all their guns, colours and baggage. Devon was at once overrun by the victors. Essex’s army, for want of material resources, had had to be content with the capture of Reading, and a Royalist force under Hertford and Prince Maurice (Rupert’s brother) moved out as far as Salisbury to hold out a hand to their friends in Devonshire, while Waller, the only Parliamentary commander left in the field in the west, had to abandon his conquests in the Severn valley to oppose the further progress of his intimate friend and present enemy, Hopton. Early in June Hertford and Hopton united at Chard and rapidly moved, with some cavalry skirmishing, towards Bath, where Waller’s army lay. Avoiding the barrier of the Mendips, they moved round via Frome to the Avon. But Waller, thus cut off from London and threatened with investment, acted with great skill, and some days of manœuvres and skirmishing followed, after which Hertford and Hopton found themselves on the north side of Bath facing Waller’s entrenched position on the top of Lansdown Hill. This position the Royalistsstormed on the 5th of July. The battle of Lansdown was a second Stratton for the Cornishmen, but this time the enemy was of different quality and far differently led, and they had to mourn the loss of Sir Bevil Grenville and the greater part of their whole force. At dusk both sides stood on the flat summit of the hill, still firing into one another with such energy as was not yet expended, and in the night Waller drew off his men into Bath. “We were glad they were gone,” wrote a Royalist officer, “for if they had not, I know who had within the hour.” Next day Hopton was severely injured by the explosion of a wagon containing the reserve ammunition, and the Royalists, finding their victory profitless, moved eastward to Devizes, closely followed by the enemy. On the 10th of July Sir William Waller took post on Roundway Down, overlooking Devizes, and captured a Royalist ammunition column from Oxford. On the 11th he came down and invested Hopton’s foot in Devizes itself, while the Royalist cavalry, Hertford and Maurice with them, rode away towards Salisbury. But although the siege was pressed with such vigour that an assault was fixed for the evening of the 13th, the Cornishmen, Hopton directing the defence from his bed, held out stubbornly, and on the afternoon of July 13th Prince Maurice’s horsemen appeared on Roundway Down, having ridden to Oxford, picked up reinforcements there, and returned at full speed to save their comrades. Waller’s army tried its best, but some of its elements were of doubtful quality and the ground was all in Maurice’s favour. The battle did not last long. The combined attack of the Oxford force from Roundway and of Hopton’s men from the town practically annihilated Waller’s army. Very soon afterwards Rupert came up with fresh Royalist forces, and the combined armies moved westward. Bristol, the second port of the kingdom, was their objective, and in four days from the opening of the siege it was in their hands (July 26), Waller with the beaten remnant of his army at Bath being powerless to intervene. The effect of this blow was felt even in Dorsetshire. Within three weeks of the surrender Prince Maurice with a body of fast-moving cavalry overran that county almost unopposed.
8.Adwalton Moor.—Newcastle meanwhile had resumed operations against the clothing towns, this time with success. The Fairfaxes had been fighting in the West Riding since January with such troops from the Hull region as they had been able to bring across Newcastle’s lines. They and the townsmen together were too weak for Newcastle’s increasing forces, and an attempt was made to relieve them by bringing up the Parliament’s forces in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and the Eastern Association. But local interests prevailed again, in spite of Cromwell’s presence, and after assembling at Nottingham, the midland rebels quietly dispersed to their several counties (June 2). The Fairfaxes were left to their fate, and about the same time Hull itself narrowly escaped capture by the queen’s forces through the treachery of Sir John Hotham, the governor, and his son, the commander of the Lincolnshire Parliamentarians. The latter had been placed under arrest at the instance of Cromwell and of Colonel Hutchinson, the governor of Nottingham Castle; he escaped to Hull, but both father and son were seized by the citizens and afterwards executed. More serious than an isolated act of treachery was the far-reaching Royalist plot that had been detected in Parliament itself, for complicity in which Lord Conway, Edmund Waller the poet, and several members of both Houses were arrested. The safety of Hull was of no avail for the West Riding towns, and the Fairfaxes underwent a decisive defeat at Adwalton (Atherton) Moor near Bradford on the 30th of June. After this, by way of Lincolnshire, they escaped to Hull and reorganized the defence of that place. The West Riding perforce submitted.
The queen herself with a second convoy and a small army under Henry (Lord) Jermyn soon moved via Newark, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Lichfield and other Royalist garrisons to Oxford, where she joined her husband on the 14th of July. But Newcastle (now a marquis) was not yet ready for his part in the programme. The Yorkshire troops would not march on London while the enemy was master of Hull, and by this time there was a solid barrier between the royal army of the north and the capital. Roundway Down and Adwalton Moor were not after all destined to be fatal, though peace riots in London, dissensions in the Houses, and quarrels amongst the generals were their immediate consequences. A new factor had arisen in the war—the Eastern Association.