9.Cromwell and the Eastern Association.—This had already intervened to help in the siege of Reading and had sent troops to the abortive gathering at Nottingham, besides clearing its own ground of “malignants.” From the first Cromwell was the dominant influence. Fresh from Edgehill, he had told Hampden, “You must get men of a spirit that is likely to go as far as gentlemen will go,” not “old decayed serving-men, tapsters and such kind of fellows to encounter gentlemen that have honour and courage and resolution in them,” and in January 1643 he had gone to his own county to “raise such men as had the fear of God before them and made some conscience of what they did.” These men, once found, were willing, for the cause, to submit to a rigorous training and an iron discipline such as other troops, fighting for honour only or for profit only, could not be brought to endure.2The result was soon apparent. As early as the 13th of May, Cromwell’s regiment of horse—recruited from the horse-loving yeomen of the eastern counties—demonstrated its superiority in the field in a skirmish near Grantham, and in the irregular fighting in Lincolnshire during June and July (which was on the whole unfavourable to the Parliament), as previously in pacifying the Eastern Association itself, these Puritan troopers distinguished themselves by long and rapid marches that may bear comparison with almost any in the history of the mounted arm. When Cromwell’s second opportunity came at Gainsborough on the 28th of July, the “Lincolneer” horse who were under his orders were fired by the example of Cromwell’s own regiment, and Cromwell, directing the whole with skill, and above all with energy, utterly routed the Royalist horse and killed their general, Charles Cavendish.
In the meantime the army of Essex had been inactive. After the fall of Reading a serious epidemic of sickness had reduced it to impotence. On the 18th of June the Parliamentary cavalry was routed and John Hampden mortally wounded at Chalgrove Field near Chiselhampton, and when at last Essex, having obtained the desired reinforcements, moved against Oxford from the Aylesbury side, he found his men demoralized by inaction, and before the menace of Rupert’s cavalry, to which he had nothing to oppose, he withdrew to Bedfordshire (July). He made no attempt to intercept the march of the queen’s convoys, he had permitted the Oxford army, which he should have held fast, to intervene effectually in the midlands, the west, and the south-west, and Waller might well complain that Essex, who still held Reading and the Chilterns, had given him neither active nor passive support in the critical days preceding Roundway Down. Still only a few voices were raised to demand his removal, and he was shortly to have an opportunity of proving his skill and devotion in a great campaign and a great battle. The centre and the right of the three Royalist armies had for a moment (Roundway to Bristol) united to crush Waller, but their concentration was short-lived. Plymouth was to Hopton’s men what Hull was to Newcastle’s—they would not march on London until the menace to their homes was removed. Further, there were dissensions among the generals which Charles was too weak to crush, and consequently the original plan reappears—the main Royalist army to operate in the centre, Hopton’s (now Maurice’s) on the right, Newcastle on the left towards London. While waiting for the fall of Hull and Plymouth, Charles naturally decided to make the best use of his time by reducing Gloucester, the one great fortress of the Parliament in the west.
10.Siege and Relief of Gloucester.—This decision quickly brought on a crisis. While the earl of Manchester (with Cromwell as his lieutenant-general) was appointed to head the forces of the Eastern Association against Newcastle, and Waller wasgiven a new army wherewith again to engage Hopton and Maurice, the task of saving Gloucester from the king’s army fell to Essex, who was heavily reinforced and drew his army together for action in the last days of August. Resort was had to the press-gang to fill the ranks, recruiting for Waller’s new army was stopped, and London sent six regiments of trained bands to the front, closing the shops so that every man should be free to take his part in what was thought to be the supreme trial of strength.
On the 26th, all being ready, Essex started. Through Aylesbury and round the north side of Oxford to Stow-on-the-Wold the army moved resolutely, not deterred by want of food and rest, or by the attacks of Rupert’s and Wilmot’s horse on its flank. On the 5th of September, just as Gloucester was at the end of its resources, the siege was suddenly raised and the Royalists drew off to Painswick, for Essex had reached Cheltenham and the danger was over. Then, the field armies being again face to face and free to move, there followed a series of skilful manœuvres in the Severn and Avon valleys, at the end of which the Parliamentary army gained a long start on its homeward road via Cricklade, Hungerford and Reading. But the Royalist cavalry under Rupert, followed rapidly by Charles and the main body from Evesham, strained every nerve to head off Essex at Newbury, and after a sharp skirmish on Aldbourne Chase on the 18th of September succeeded in doing so. On the 19th the whole Royal army was drawn up, facing west, with its right on Newbury and its left on Enborne Heath. Essex’s men knew that evening that they would have to break through by force—there was no suggestion of surrender.
11.First Battle of Newbury, September 20, 1643.—The ground was densely intersected by hedges except in front of the Royalists’ left centre (Newbury Wash) and left (Enborne Heath), and, practically, Essex’s army was never formed in line of battle, for each unit was thrown into the fight as it came up its own road or lane. On the left wing, in spite of the Royalist counter-strokes, the attack had the best of it, capturing field after field, and thus gradually gaining ground to the front. Here Lord Falkland was killed. On the Reading road itself Essex did not succeed in deploying on to the open ground on Newbury Wash, but victoriously repelled the royal horse when it charged up to the lanes and hedges held by his foot. On the extreme right of the Parliamentary army, which stood in the open ground of Enborne Heath, took place a famous incident. Here two of the London regiments, fresh to war as they were, were exposed to a trial as severe as that which broke down the veteran Spanish infantry at Rocroi in this same year. Rupert and the Royalist horse again and again charged up to the squares of pikes, and between each charge his guns tried to disorder the Londoners, but it was not until the advance of the royal infantry that the trained bands retired, slowly and in magnificent order, to the edge of the heath. The result of it all was that Essex’s army had fought its hardest and failed to break the opposing line. But the Royalists had suffered so heavily, and above all the valour displayed by the rebels had so profoundly impressed them, that they were glad to give up the disputed road and withdraw into Newbury. Essex thereupon pursued his march, Reading was reached on the 22nd after a small rearguard skirmish at Aldermaston, and so ended one of the most dramatic episodes of English history.
12.Hull and Winceby.—Meanwhile the siege of Hull had commenced. The Eastern Association forces under Manchester promptly moved up into Lincolnshire, the foot besieging Lynn (which surrendered on the 16th of September) while the horse rode into the northern part of the county to give a hand to the Fairfaxes. Fortunately the sea communications of Hull were open. On the 18th of September part of the cavalry in Hull was ferried over to Barton, and the rest under Sir Thomas Fairfax went by sea to Saltfleet a few days later, the whole joining Cromwell near Spilsby. In return the old Lord Fairfax, who remained in Hull, received infantry reinforcements and a quantity of ammunition and stores from the Eastern Association. On the 11th of October Cromwell and Fairfax together won a brilliant cavalry action at Winceby, driving the Royalist horse in confusion before them to Newark, and on the same day Newcastle’s army around Hull, which had suffered terribly from the hardships of continuous siege work, was attacked by the garrison and so severely handled that next day the siege was given up. Later, Manchester retook Lincoln and Gainsborough, and thus Lincolnshire, which had been almost entirely in Newcastle’s hands before he was compelled to undertake the siege of Hull, was added in fact as well as in name to the Eastern Association.
Elsewhere, in the reaction after the crisis of Newbury, the war languished. The city regiments went home, leaving Essex too weak to hold Reading, which the Royalists reoccupied on the 3rd of October. At this the Londoners offered to serve again, and actually took part in a minor campaign around Newport Pagnell, which town Rupert attempted to fortify as a menace to the Eastern Association and its communications with London. Essex was successful in preventing this, but his London regiments again went home, and Sir William Waller’s new army in Hampshire failed lamentably in an attempt on Basing House (November 7), the London trained bands desertingen bloc. Shortly afterwards Arundel surrendered to a force under Sir Ralph, now Lord Hopton (December 9).
13.The “Irish Cessation” and the Solemn League and Covenant.—Politically, these months were the turning-point of the war. In Ireland, the king’s lieutenant, by order of his master, made a truce with the Irish rebels (Sept. 15). Charles’s chief object was to set free his army to fight in England, but it was believed universally that Irish regiments—in plain words, papists in arms—would shortly follow. Under these circumstances his act united against him nearly every class in Protestant England, above all brought into the English quarrel the armed strength of Presbyterian Scotland. Yet Charles, still trusting to intrigue and diplomacy to keep Scotland in check, deliberately rejected the advice of Montrose, his greatest and most faithful lieutenant, who wished to give the Scots employment for their army at home. Only ten days after the “Irish cessation,” the Parliament at Westminster swore to the Solemn League and Covenant, and the die was cast. It is true that even a semblance of Presbyterian theocracy put the “Independents” on their guard and definitely raised the question of freedom of conscience, and that secret negotiations were opened between the Independents and Charles on that basis, but they soon discovered that the king was merely using them as instruments to bring about the betrayal of Aylesbury and other small rebel posts. All parties found it convenient to interpret the Covenant liberally for the present, and at the beginning of 1644 the Parliamentary party showed so united a front that even Pym’s death (December 8, 1643) hardly affected its resolution to continue the struggle.
The troops from Ireland, thus obtained at the cost of an enormous political blunder, proved to be untrustworthy after all. Those serving in Hopton’s army were “mutinous and shrewdly infected with the rebellious humour of England.” When Waller’s Londoners surprised3and routed a Royalist detachment at Alton (December 13, 1643), half the prisoners took the Covenant. Hopton had to retire, and on the 6th of January 1644 Waller recaptured Arundel. Byron’s Cheshire army was in no better case. Newcastle’s retreat from Hull and the loss of Gainsborough had completely changed the situation in the midlands, Brereton was joined by the younger Fairfax from Lincolnshire, and the Royalists were severely defeated for a second time at Nantwich (January 25). As at Alton, the majority of the prisoners (amongst them Colonel George Monk) took the Covenant and entered the Parliamentary army. In Lancashire, as in Cheshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, the cause of the Parliament was in the ascendant. Resistance revived in the West Riding towns, Lord Fairfax was again in the field in theEast Riding, and even Newark was closely besieged by Sir John Meldrum. More important news came in from the north. The advanced guard of the Scottish army had passed the Tweed on the 19th of January, and the marquis of Newcastle with the remnant of his army would soon be attacked in front and rear at once.
14.Newark and Cheriton(March 1644).—As in 1643, Rupert was soon on his way to the north to retrieve the fortunes of his side. Moving by the Welsh border, and gathering up garrisons and recruits snowball-wise as he marched, he went first to Cheshire to give a hand to Byron, and then, with the utmost speed, he made for Newark. On the 20th of March 1644 he bivouacked at Bingham, and on the 21st he not only relieved Newark but routed the besiegers’ cavalry. On the 22nd Meldrum’s position was so hopeless that he capitulated on terms. But, brilliant soldier as he was, the prince was unable to do more than raid a few Parliamentary posts around Lincoln, after which he had to return his borrowed forces to their various garrisons and go back to Wales—laden indeed with captured pikes and muskets—to raise a permanent field army. But Rupert could not be in all places at once. Newcastle was clamorous for aid. In Lancashire, only the countess of Derby, in Lathom House, held out for the king, and her husband pressed Rupert to go to her relief. Once, too, the prince was ordered back to Oxford to furnish a travelling escort for the queen, who shortly after this gave birth to her youngest child and returned to France. The order was countermanded within a few hours, it is true, but Charles had good reason for avoiding detachments from his own army. On the 29th of March, Hopton had undergone a severe defeat at Cheriton near New Alresford. In the preliminary manœuvres and in the opening stages of the battle the advantage lay with the Royalists, and the earl of Forth, who was present, was satisfied with what had been achieved and tried to break off the action. But Royalist indiscipline ruined everything. A young cavalry colonel charged in defiance of orders, a fresh engagement opened, and at the last moment Waller snatched a victory out of defeat. Worse than this was the news from Yorkshire and Scotland. Charles had at last assented to Montrose’s plan and promised him the title of marquis, but the first attempt to raise the Royalist standard in Scotland gave no omen of its later triumphs. In Yorkshire Sir Thomas Fairfax, advancing from Lancashire through the West Riding, joined his father. Selby was stormed on the 11th of April, and thereupon Newcastle, who had been manœuvring against the Scots in Durham, hastily drew back, sent his cavalry away, and shut himself up with his foot in York. Two days later the Scottish general, Alexander Leslie, Lord Leven, joined the Fairfaxes and prepared to invest that city.
15.Plans of Campaign for 1644.—The original plan of the Parliamentary “Committee of Both Kingdoms,” which directed the military and civil policy of the allies after the fashion of a modern cabinet, was to combine Essex’s and Manchester’s armies in an attack upon the king’s army, Aylesbury being appointed as the place of concentration. Waller’s troops were to continue to drive back Hopton and to reconquer the west, Fairfax and the Scots to invest Newcastle’s army, while in the midlands Brereton and the Lincolnshire rebels could be counted upon to neutralize, the one Byron, the others the Newark Royalists. But Waller, once more deserted by his trained bands, was unable to profit by his victory of Cheriton, and retired to Farnham. Manchester, too, was delayed because the Eastern Association was still suffering from the effects of Rupert’s Newark exploit—Lincoln, abandoned by the rebels on that occasion, was not reoccupied till the 6th of May. Moreover, Essex found himself compelled to defend his conduct and motives to the Committee of Both Kingdoms, and as usual was straitened for men and money. But though there were grave elements of weakness on the other side, the Royalists considered their own position to be hopeless. Prince Maurice was engaged in the fruitless siege of Lyme Regis, Gloucester was again a centre of activity and counterbalanced Newark, and the situation in the north was practically desperate. Rupert himself came to Oxford (April 25) to urge that his new army should be kept free to march to aid Newcastle, who was now threatened—owing to the abandonment of the enemy’s original plan—by Manchester as well as Fairfax and Leven. There was no further talk of the concentric advance of three armies on London. The fiery prince and the methodical earl of Brentford (Forth) were at one at least in recommending that the Oxford area with its own garrison and a mobile force in addition should be the pivot of the field armies’ operations. Rupert, needing above all adequate time for the development of the northern offensive, was not in favour of abandoning any of the barriers to Essex’s advance. Brentford, on the other hand, thought it advisable to contract the lines of defence, and Charles, as usual undecided, agreed to Rupert’s scheme and executed Brentford’s. Reading, therefore, was dismantled early in May, and Abingdon given up shortly afterwards.
16.Cropredy Bridge.—It was now possible for the enemy to approach Oxford, and Abingdon was no sooner evacuated than (May 26) Waller’s and Essex’s armies united there—still, unfortunately for their cause, under separate commanders. From Abingdon Essex moved direct on Oxford, Waller towards Wantage, where he could give a hand to Massey, the energetic governor of Gloucester. Affairs seemed so bad in the west (Maurice with a whole army was still vainly besieging the single line of low breastworks that constituted the fortress of Lyme) that the king despatched Hopton to take charge of Bristol. Nor were things much better at Oxford; the barriers of time and space and the supply area had been deliberately given up to the enemy, and Charles was practically forced to undertake extensive field operations with no hope of success save in consequence of the enemy’s mistakes. The enemy, as it happened, did not disappoint him. The king, probably advised by Brentford, conducted a skilful war of manœuvre in the area defined by Stourbridge, Gloucester, Abingdon and Northampton, at the end of which Essex, leaving Waller to the secondary work, as he conceived it, of keeping the king away from Oxford and reducing that fortress, marched off into the west with most of the general service troops to repeat at Lyme Regis his Gloucester exploit of 1643. At one moment, indeed, Charles (then in Bewdley) rose to the idea of marching north to join Rupert and Newcastle, but he soon made up his mind to return to Oxford. From Bewdley, therefore, he moved to Buckingham—the distant threat on London producing another evanescent citizen army drawn from six counties under Major-General Browne—and Waller followed him closely. When the king turned upon Browne’s motley host, Waller appeared in time to avert disaster, and the two armies worked away to the upper Cherwell. Brentford and Waller were excellent strategists of the 17th century type, and neither would fight a pitched battle without every chance in his favour. Eventually on the 29th of June the Royalists were successful in a series of minor fights about Cropredy Bridge, and the result was, in accordance with continental custom, admitted to be an important victory, though Waller’s main army drew off unharmed. In the meantime, Essex had relieved Lyme (June 15) and occupied Weymouth, and was preparing to go farther. The two rebel armies were now indeed separate. Waller had been left to do as best he could, and a worse fate was soon to overtake the cautious earl.
17.Campaign of Marston Moor.—During these manœuvres the northern campaign had been fought to an issue. Rupert’s courage and energy were more likely to command success in the English Civil War than all the conscientious caution of an Essex or a Brentford. On the 16th of May he left Shrewsbury to fight his way through hostile country to Lancashire, where he hoped to re-establish the Derby influence and raise new forces. Stockport was plundered on the 25th, the besiegers of Lathom House utterly defeated at Bolton on the 28th. Soon afterwards he received a large reinforcement under General Goring, which included 5000 of Newcastle’s cavalry. The capture of the almost defenceless town of Liverpool—undertaken as usual to allay local fears—did not delay Rupert more than three or four days, and he then turned towards the Yorkshire border withgreatly augmented forces. On the 14th of June he received a despatch from the king, the gist of which was that there was a time-limit imposed on the northern enterprise. If York were lost or did not need his help, Rupert was to make all haste southward via Worcester. “If York be relieved and you beat the rebels’ armies of both kingdoms, then, but otherways not, I may possibly make a shift upon the defensive to spin out time until you come to assist me.”
Charles did manage to “spin out time.” But it was of capital importance that Rupert had to do his work upon York and the allied army in the shortest possible time, and that, according to the despatch, there were only two ways of saving the royal cause, “having relieved York by beating the Scots,” or marching with all speed to Worcester. Rupert’s duty, interpreted through the medium of his temperament, was clear enough. Newcastle still held out, his men having been encouraged by a small success on the 17th of June, and Rupert reached Knaresborough on the 30th. At once Leven, Fairfax and Manchester broke up the siege of York and moved out to meet him. But the prince, moving still at high speed, rode round their right flank via Boroughbridge and Thornton Bridge and entered York on the north side. Newcastle tried to dissuade Rupert from fighting, but his record as a general was scarcely convincing as to the value of his advice. Rupert curtly replied that he had orders to fight, and the Royalists moved out towards Marston Moor (q.v.) on the morning of July 2, 1644. The Parliamentary commanders, fearing a fresh manœuvre, had already begun to retire towards Tadcaster, but as soon as it became evident that a battle was impending they turned back. The battle of Marston Moor began about four in the afternoon. It was the first real trial of strength between the best elements on either side, and it ended before night with the complete victory of the Parliamentary armies. The Royalist cause in the north collapsed once for all, Newcastle fled to the continent, and only Rupert, resolute as ever, extricated 6000 cavalry from thedébâcleand rode away whence he had come, still the dominant figure of the war.
18.Independency.—The victory gave the Parliament entire control of the north, but it did not lead to the definitive solution of the political problem, and in fact, on the question of Charles’s place in a new Constitution, the victorious generals quarrelled even before York had surrendered. Within three weeks of the battle the great army was broken up. The Yorkshire troops proceeded to conquer the isolated Royalist posts in their county, the Scots marched off to besiege Newcastle-on-Tyne and to hold in check a nascent Royalist army in Westmorland. Rupert in Lancashire they neglected entirely. Manchester and Cromwell, already estranged, marched away into the Eastern Association. There, for want of an enemy to fight, their army was forced to be idle, and Cromwell and the ever-growing Independent element quickly came to suspect their commander of lukewarmness in the cause. Waller’s army, too, was spiritless and immobile. On the 2nd of July, despairing of the existing military system, he made to the Committee of Both Kingdoms the first suggestion of the New Model,—“My lords,” he wrote, “till you have an army merely your own, that you may command, it is ... impossible to do anything of importance.” Browne’s trained band army was perhaps the most ill-behaved of all—once the soldiers attempted to murder their own general. Parliament in alarm set about the formation of a new general service force (July 12), but meantime both Waller’s and Browne’s armies (at Abingdon and Reading respectively) ignominiously collapsed by mutiny and desertion. It was evident that the people at large, with their respect for the law and their anxiety for their own homes, were tired of the war. Only those men—such as Cromwell—who has set their hearts on fighting out the quarrel of conscience, kept steadfastly to their purpose. Cromwell himself had already decided that the king himself must be deprived of his authority, and his supporters were equally convinced. But they were relatively few. Even the Eastern Association trained bands had joined in the disaffection in Waller’s army, and that unfortunate general’s suggestion of a professional army, with all its dangers, indicated the only means of enforcing a peace such as Cromwell and his friends desired. There was this important difference, however, between Waller’s idea and Cromwell’s achievement—that the professional soldiers of the New Model were disciplined, led, and in all things inspired by “godly” officers. Godliness, devotion to the cause, and efficiency were indeed the only criteria Cromwell applied in choosing officers. Long before this he had warned the Scottish major-general Lawrence Crawford that the precise colour of a man’s religious opinions mattered nothing compared with his devotion to them, and had told the committee of Suffolk, “I had rather have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for and loves what he knows than that which you call a ‘gentleman’ and is nothing else. I honour a gentleman that is so indeed ... but seeing it was necessary the work must go on, better plain men than none.” If “men of honour and birth” possessed the essentials of godliness, devotion, and capacity, Cromwell preferred them, and as a fact only seven out of thirty-seven of the superior officers of the original New Model were not of gentle birth.
19.Lostwithiel.—But all this was as yet in the future. Essex’s military promenade in the west of England was the subject of immediate interest. At first successful, this general penetrated to Plymouth, whence, securely based as he thought, he could overrun Devon. Unfortunately for him he was persuaded to overrun Cornwall as well. At once the Cornishmen rose, as they had risen under Hopton, and the king was soon on the march from the Oxford region, disregarding the armed mobs under Waller and Browne. Their state reflected the general languishing of the war spirit on both sides, not on one only, as Charles discovered when he learned that Lord Wilmot, the lieutenant-general of his horse, was in correspondence with Essex. Wilmot was of course placed under arrest, and was replaced by the dissolute General Goring. But it was unpleasantly evident that even gay cavaliers of the type of Wilmot had lost the ideals for which they fought, and had come to believe that the realm would never be at peace while Charles was king. Henceforward it will be found that the Royalist foot, now a thoroughly professional force, is superior in quality to the once superb cavalry, and that not merely because its opportunities for plunder, &c., are more limited. Materially, however, the immediate victory was undeniably with the Royalists. After a brief period of manœuvre, the Parliamentary army, now far from Plymouth found itself surrounded and starving at Lostwithiel, on the Fowey river, without hope of assistance. The horse cut its way out through the investing circle of posts, Essex himself escaped by sea, but Major-General Skippon, his second in command, had to surrender with the whole of the foot on the 2nd of September. The officers and men were allowed to go free to Portsmouth, but their arms, guns and munitions were the spoil of the victors. There was now no trustworthy field force in arms for the Parliament south of the Humber, for even the Eastern Association army was distracted by its religious differences, which had now at last come definitely to the front and absorbed the political dispute in a wider issue. Cromwell already proposed to abolish the peerage, the members of which were inclined to make a hollow peace, and had ceased to pay the least respect to his general, Manchester, whose scheme for the solution of the quarrel was an impossible combination of Charles and Presbyterianism. Manchester for his part sank into a state of mere obstinacy, refusing to move against Rupert, even to besiege Newark, and actually threatened to hang Colonel Lilburne for capturing a Royalist castle without orders.
20.Operations of Essex’s, Waller’s and Manchester’s Armies.—After the success of Lostwithiel there was little to detain Charles’s main army in the extreme west, and meanwhile Banbury, a most important point in the Oxford circle, and Basing House (near Basingstoke) were in danger of capture. Waller, who had organized a small force of reliable troops, had already sent cavalry into Dorsetshire with the idea of assisting Essex, and he now came himself with reinforcements to prevent, so far as lay in his power, the king’s return to the Thames valley. Charles was accompanied of course only by his permanent forces andby parts of Prince Maurice’s and Hopton’s armies—the Cornish levies had as usual scattered as soon as the war receded from their borders. Manchester slowly advanced to Reading, Essex gradually reorganized his broken army at Portsmouth, while Waller, far out to the west at Shaftesbury, endeavored to gain the necessary time and space for a general concentration in Wiltshire, where Charles would be far from Oxford and Basing and, in addition, outnumbered by two to one. But the work of rearming Essex’s troops proceeded slowly for want of money, and Manchester peevishly refused to be hurried either by his more vigorous subordinates or by the Committee of Both Kingdoms, saying that the army of the Eastern Association was for the guard of its own employers and not for general service. He pleaded the renewed activity of the Newark Royalists as his excuse, forgetting that Newark would have been in his hands ere this had he chosen to move thither instead of lying idle for two months. As to the higher command, things had come to such a pass that, when the three armies at last united, a council of war, consisting of three army commanders, several senior officers, and two civilian delegates from the Committee, was constituted. When the vote of the majority had determined what was to be done, Essex, as lord general of the Parliament’s first army, was to issue the necessary orders for the whole. Under such conditions it was not likely that Waller’s hopes of a great battle at Shaftesbury would be realized. On the 8th of October he fell back, the royal army following him step by step and finally reaching Whitchurch on the 20th of October. Manchester arrived at Basingstoke on the 17th, Waller on the 19th, and Essex on the 21st. Charles had found that he could not relieve Basing (a mile or two from Basingstoke) without risking a battle with the enemy between himself and Oxford;4he therefore took the Newbury road and relieved Donnington Castle near Newbury on the 22nd. Three days later Banbury too was relieved by a force which could now be spared from the Oxford garrison. But for once the council of war on the other side was for fighting a battle, and the Parliamentary armies, their spirits revived by the prospect of action and by the news of the fall of Newcastle and the defeat of a sally from Newark, marched briskly. On the 26th they appeared north of Newbury on the Oxford road. Like Essex in 1643, Charles found himself headed off from the shelter of friendly fortresses, but beyond this fact there is little similarity between the two battles of Newbury, for the Royalists in the first case merely drew a barrier across Essex’s path. On the present occasion the eager Parliamentarians made no attempt to force the king to attack them; they were well content to attack him in his chosen position themselves, especially as he was better off for supplies and quarters than they.
21.Second Newbury.—The second battle of Newbury is remarkable as being the first great manœuvre-battle (as distinct from “pitched” battle) of the Civil War. A preliminary reconnaissance by the Parliamentary leaders (Essex was not present, owing to illness) established the fact that the king’s infantry held a strong line of defence behind the Lambourn brook from Shaw (inclusive) to Donnington (exclusive), Shaw House and adjacent buildings being held as an advanced post. In rear of the centre, in open ground just north of Newbury, lay the bulk of the royal cavalry. In the left rear of the main line, and separated from it by more than a thousand yards, lay Prince Maurice’s corps at Speen, advanced troops on the high ground west of that village, but Donnington Castle, under its energetic governor Sir John Boys, formed a strong post covering this gap with artillery fire. The Parliamentary leaders had no intention of flinging their men away in a frontal attack on the line of the Lambourn, and a flank attack from the east side could hardly succeed owing to the obstacle presented by the confluence of the Lambourn and the Kennet, hence they decided on a wide turning movement via Chieveley, Winterbourne and Wickham Heath, against Prince Maurice’s position—a decision which, daring and energetic as it was, led only to a modified success, for reasons which will appear. The flank march, out of range of the castle, was conducted with punctuality and precision. The troops composing it were drawn from all three armies and led by the best fighting generals, Waller, Cromwell, and Essex’s subordinates Balfour and Skippon. Manchester at Clay Hill was to stand fast until the turning movement had developed, and to make a vigorous holding attack on Shaw House as soon as Waller’s guns were heard at Speen. But there was no commander-in-chief to co-ordinate the movements of the two widely separated corps, and consequently no co-operation. Waller’s attack was not unexpected, and Prince Maurice had made ready to meet him. Yet the first rush of the rebels carried the entrenchments of Speen Hill, and Speen itself, though stoutly defended, fell into their hands within an hour, Essex’s infantry recapturing here some of the guns they had had to surrender at Lostwithiel. But meantime Manchester, in spite of the entreaties of his staff, had not stirred from Clay Hill. He had made one false attack already early in the morning, and been severely handled, and he was aware of his own deficiencies as a general. A year before this he would have asked for and acted upon the advice of a capable soldier, such as Cromwell or Crawford, but now his mind was warped by a desire for peace on any terms, and he sought only to avoid defeat pending a happy solution of the quarrel. Those who sought to gain peace through victory were meanwhile driving Maurice back from hedge to hedge towards the open ground at Newbury, but every attempt to emerge from the lanes and fields was repulsed by the royal cavalry, and indeed by every available man and horse, for Charles’s officers had gauged Manchester’s intentions, and almost stripped the front of its defenders to stop Waller’s advance. Nightfall put an end to the struggle around Newbury, and then—too late—Manchester ordered the attack on Shaw House. It failed completely in spite of the gallantry of his men, and darkness being then complete it was not renewed. In its general course the battle closely resembled that of Freiburg (q.v.), fought the same year on the Rhine. But, if Waller’s part in the battle corresponded in a measure to Turenne’s, Manchester was unequal to playing the part of Condé, and consequently the results, in the case of the French won by three days’ hard fighting, and even then comparatively small, were in the case of the English practically nil. During the night the royal army quietly marched away through the gap between Waller’s and Manchester’s troops. The heavy artillery and stores were left in Donnington Castle, Charles himself with a small escort rode off to the north-west to meet Rupert, and the main body gained Wallingford unmolested. An attempt at pursuit was made by Waller and Cromwell with all the cavalry they could lay hands on, but it was unsupported, for the council of war had decided to content itself with besieging Donnington Castle. A little later, after a brief and half-hearted attempt to move towards Oxford, it referred to the Committee for further instructions. Within the month Charles, having joined Rupert at Oxford and made him general of the Royalist forces vice Brentford, reappeared in the neighbourhood of Newbury. Donnington Castle was again relieved (November 9) under the eyes of the Parliamentary army, which was in such a miserable condition that even Cromwell was against fighting, and some manœuvres followed, in the course of which Charles relieved Basing House and the Parliamentary armies fell back, not in the best order, to Reading. The season for field warfare was now far spent, and the royal army retired to enjoy good quarters and plentiful supplies around Oxford.
22.The Self-denying Ordinance.—On the other side, the dissensions between the generals had become flagrant and public, and it was no longer possible for the Houses of Parliament to ignore the fact that the army must be radically reformed. Cromwell and Waller from their places in parliament attacked Manchester’s conduct, and their attack ultimately became, so far as Cromwell was concerned, an attack on the Lords, most of whom held the same views as Manchester, and on the Scots, who attempted to bring Cromwell to trial as an “incendiary.” At the crisis of their bitter controversy Cromwell suddenlyproposed to stifle all animosities by the resignation of all officers who were members of either House, a proposal which affected himself not less than Essex and Manchester. The first “self-denying ordinance” was moved on the 9th of December, and provided that “no member of either house shall have or execute any office or command ...,” &c. This was not accepted by the Lords, and in the end a second “self-denying ordinance” was agreed to (April 3, 1645), whereby all the persons concerned were to resign, but without prejudice to their reappointment. Simultaneously with this, the formation of the New Model was at last definitely taken into consideration. The last exploit of Sir William Waller, who was not re-employed after the passing of the ordinance, was the relief of Taunton, then besieged by General Goring’s army. Cromwell served as his lieutenant-general on this occasion, and we have Waller’s own testimony that he was in all things a wise, capable and respectful subordinate. Under a leader of the stamp of Waller, Cromwell was well satisfied to obey, knowing the cause to be in good hands.
23.Decline of the Royalist Cause.—A raid of Goring’s horse from the west into Surrey and an unsuccessful attack on General Browne at Abingdon were the chief enterprises undertaken on the side of the Royalists during the early winter. It was no longer “summer in Devon, summer in Yorkshire” as in January 1643. An ever-growing section of Royalists, amongst whom Rupert himself was soon to be numbered, were for peace; many scores of loyalist gentlemen, impoverished by the loss of three years’ rents of their estates and hopeless of ultimate victory, were making their way to Westminster to give in their submission to the Parliament and to pay their fines. In such circumstances the old decision-seeking strategy was impossible. The new plan, suggested probably by Rupert, had already been tried with strategical success in the summer campaign of 1644. As we have seen, it consisted essentially in using Oxford as the centre of a circle and striking out radially at any favourable target—“manœuvring about a fixed point,” as Napoleon called it. It was significant of the decline of the Royalist cause that the “fixed point” had been in 1643 the king’s field army, based indeed on its great entrenched camp, Banbury-Cirencester-Reading-Oxford, but free to move and to hold the enemy wherever met, while now it was the entrenched camp itself, weakened by the loss or abandonment of its outer posts, and without the power of binding the enemy if they chose to ignore its existence, that conditioned the scope and duration of the single remaining field army’s enterprises.
24.The New Model Ordinance.—For the present, however, Charles’s cause was crumbling more from internal weakness than from the blows of the enemy. Fresh negotiations for peace which opened on the 29th of January at Uxbridge (by the name of which place they are known to history) occupied the attention of the Scots and their Presbyterian friends, the rise of Independency and of Cromwell was a further distraction, and over the new army and the Self-denying Ordinance the Lords and Commons were seriously at variance. But in February a fresh mutiny in Waller’s command struck alarm into the hearts of the disputants. The “treaty” of Uxbridge came to the same end as the treaty of Oxford in 1643, and a settlement as to army reform was achieved on the 15th of February. Though it was only on the 25th of March that the second and modified form of the ordinance was agreed to by both Houses, Sir Thomas Fairfax and Philip Skippon (who were not members of parliament) had been approved as lord general and major-general (of the infantry) respectively of the new army as early as the 21st of January. The post of lieutenant-general and cavalry commander was for the moment left vacant, but there was little doubt as to who would eventually occupy it.
25.Victories of Montrose.—In Scotland, meanwhile, Montrose was winning victories which amazed the people of the two kingdoms. Montrose’s royalism differed from that of Englishmen of the 17th century less than from that of their forefathers under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. To him the king was the protector of his people against Presbyterian theocracy, scarcely less offensive to him than the Inquisition itself, and the feudal oppression of the great nobles. Little as this ideal corresponded to the Charles of reality, it inspired in Montrose not merely romantic heroism but a force of leadership which was sufficient to carry to victory the nobles and gentry, the wild Highlanders and the experienced professional soldiers who at various times and places constituted his little armies. His first unsuccessful enterprise has been mentioned above. It seemed, in the early stages of his second attempt (August 1644), as if failure were again inevitable, for the gentry of the northern Lowlands were overawed by the prevailing party and resented the leadership of a lesser noble, even though he were the king’s lieutenant over all Scotland. Disappointed of support where he most expected it, Montrose then turned to the Highlands. At Blair Athol he gathered his first army of Royalist clansmen, and good fortune gave him also a nucleus of trained troops. A force of disciplined experienced soldiers (chiefly Irish Macdonalds and commanded by Alastair of that name) had been sent over from Ireland earlier in the year, and, after ravaging the glens of their hereditary enemies the Campbells, had attempted without success, now here, now there, to gather the other clans in the king’s name. Their hand was against every man’s, and when he finally arrived in Badenoch, Alastair Macdonald was glad to protect himself by submitting to the authority of the king’s lieutenant.
There were three hostile armies to be dealt with, besides—ultimately—the main covenanting army far away in England. The duke of Argyll, the head of the Campbells, had an army of his own clan and of Lowland Covenanter levies, Lord Elcho with another Lowland army lay near Perth, and Lord Balfour of Burleigh was collecting a third (also composed of Lowlanders) at Aberdeen. Montrose turned upon Elcho first, and found him at Tippermuir near Perth on the 1st of September 1644. The Royalists were about 3000 strong and entirely foot, only Montrose himself and two others being mounted, while Elcho had about 7000 of all arms. But Elcho’s townsmen found that pike and musket were clumsy weapons in inexperienced hands, and, like Mackay’s regulars at Killiecrankie fifty years later, they wholly failed to stop the rush of the Highland swordsmen. Many hundreds were killed in the pursuit, and Montrose slept in Perth that night, having thus accounted for one of his enemies. Balfour of Burleigh was to be his next victim, and he started for Aberdeen on the 4th. As he marched, his Highlanders slipped away to place their booty in security. But the Macdonald regulars remained with him, and as he passed along the coast some of the gentry came in, though the great western clan of the Gordons was at present too far divided in sentiment to take his part. Lord Lewis Gordon and some Gordon horse were even in Balfour’s army. On the other hand, the earl of Airlie brought in forty-four horsemen, and Montrose was thus able to constitute two wings of cavalry on the day of battle. The Covenanters were about 2500 strong and drawn up on a slope above the How Burn5just outside Aberdeen (September 13, 1644). Montrose, after clearing away the enemy’s skirmishers, drew up his army in front of the opposing line, the foot in the centre, the forty-four mounted men, with musketeers to support them, on either flank. The hostile left-wing cavalry charged piecemeal, and some bodies of troops did not engage at all. On the other wing, however, Montrose was for a moment hard pressed by a force of the enemy that attempted to work round to his rear. But he brought over the small band of mounted men that constituted his right wing cavalry, and also some musketeers from the centre, and destroyed the assailants, and when the ill-led left wing of the Covenanters charged again, during the absence of the cavalry, they were mown down by the close-range volleys of Macdonald’s musketeers. Shortly afterwards the centre of Balfour’s army yielded to pressure and fled in disorder. Aberdeen was sacked by order of Montrose, whose drummer had been murdered while delivering a message under a flag of truce to the magistrates.
26.Inverlochy.—Only Argyll now remained to be dealt with. The Campbells were fighting men from birth, like Montrose’s own men, and had few townsmen serving with them. Still there were enough of the latter and of the impedimenta of regularwarfare with him to prevent Argyll from overtaking his agile enemy, and ultimately after a “hide-and-seek” in the districts of Rothiemurchus, Blair Athol, Banchory and Strathbogie, Montrose stood to fight at Fyvie Castle, repulsed Argyll’s attack on that place and slipped away again to Rothiemurchus. There he was joined by Camerons and Macdonalds from all quarters for a grand raid on the Campbell country; he himself wished to march into the Lowlands, well knowing that he could not achieve the decision in the Grampians, but he had to bow, not for the first time nor the last, to local importunity. The raid was duly executed, and the Campbells’ boast, “It’s a far cry to Loch Awe,” availed them little. In December and January the Campbell lands were thoroughly and mercilessly devastated, and Montrose then retired slowly to Loch Ness, where the bulk of his army as usual dispersed to store away its plunder. Argyll, with such Highland and Lowland forces as he could collect after the disaster, followed Montrose towards Lochaber, while the Seaforths and other northern clans marched to Loch Ness. Caught between them, Montrose attacked the nearest. The Royalists crossed the hills into Glen Roy, worked thence along the northern face of Ben Nevis, and descended like an avalanche upon Argyll’s forces at Inverlochy (February 2, 1645). As usual, the Lowland regiments gave way at once—Montrose had managed in all this to keep with him a few cavalry—and it was then the turn of the Campbells. Argyll escaped in a boat, but his clan, as a fighting force, was practically annihilated, and Montrose, having won four victories in these six winter months, rested his men and exultingly promised Charles that he would come to his assistance with a brave army before the end of the summer.
27.Organization of the New Model Army.—To return to the New Model. Its first necessity was regular pay; its first duty to serve wherever it might be sent. Of the three armies that had fought at Newbury only one, Essex’s, was in a true sense a general service force, and only one, Manchester’s, was paid with any regularity. Waller’s army was no better paid than Essex’s and no more free from local ties than Manchester’s. It was therefore broken up early in April, and only 600 of its infantry passed into the New Model. Essex’s men, on the other hand, wanted but regular pay and strict officers to make them excellent soldiers, and their own major-general, Skippon, managed by tact and his personal popularity to persuade the bulk of the men to rejoin. Manchester’s army, in which Cromwell had been the guiding influence from first to last, was naturally the backbone of the New Model. Early in April Essex, Manchester, and Waller resigned their commissions, and such of their forces as were not embodied in the new army were sent to do local duties, for minor armies were still maintained, General Poyntz’s in the north midlands, General Massey’s in the Severn valley, a large force in the Eastern Association, General Browne’s in Buckinghamshire, &c., besides the Scots in the north.
The New Model originally consisted of 14,400 foot and 7700 horse and dragoons. Of the infantry only 6000 came from the combined armies, the rest being new recruits furnished by the press.6Thus there was considerable trouble during the first months of Fairfax’s command, and discipline had to be enforced with unusual sternness. As for the enemy, Oxford was openly contemptuous of “the rebels’ new brutish general” and his men, who seemed hardly likely to succeed where Essex and Waller had failed. But the effect of the Parliament’s having “an army all its own” was soon to be apparent.
28.First Operations of 1645.—On the Royalist side the campaign of 1645 opened in the west, whither the young prince of Wales (Charles II.) was sent with Hyde (later earl of Clarendon), Hopton and others as his advisers. General (Lord) Goring, however, now in command of the Royalist field forces in this quarter, was truculent, insubordinate and dissolute, though on the rare occasions when he did his duty he displayed a certain degree of skill and leadership, and the influence of the prince’s counsellors was but small. As usual, operations began with the sieges necessary to conciliate local feeling. Plymouth and Lyme were blocked up, and Taunton again invested. The reinforcement thrown into the last place by Waller and Cromwell was dismissed by Blake (then a colonel in command of the fortress and afterwards the great admiral of the Commonwealth), and after many adventures rejoined Waller and Cromwell. The latter generals, who had not yet laid down their commissions, then engaged Goring for some weeks, but neither side having infantry or artillery, and both finding subsistence difficult in February and March and in country that had been fought over for two years past, no results were to be expected. Taunton still remained unrelieved, and Goring’s horse still rode all over Dorsetshire when the New Model at last took the field.
29.Rupert’s Northern March.—In the midlands and Lancashire the Royalist horse, as ill-behaved even as Goring’s men, were directly responsible for the ignominious failure with which the king’s main army began its year’s work. Prince Maurice was joined at Ludlow by Rupert and part of his Oxford army early in March, and the brothers drove off Brereton from the siege of Beeston Castle and relieved the pressure on Lord Byron in Cheshire. So great was the danger of Rupert’s again invading Lancashire and Yorkshire that all available forces in the north, English and Scots, were ordered to march against him. But at this moment the prince was called back to clear his line of retreat on Oxford. The Herefordshire and Worcestershire peasantry, weary of military exactions, were in arms, and though they would not join the Parliament, and for the most part dispersed after stating their grievances, the main enterprise was wrecked. This was but one of many ill-armed crowds—“Clubmen” as they were called—that assembled to enforce peace on both parties. A few regular soldiers were sufficient to disperse them in all cases, but their attempt to establish a third party in England was morally as significant as it was materially futile. The Royalists were now fighting with the courage of despair, those who still fought against Charles did so with the full determination to ensure the triumph of their cause, and with the conviction that the only possible way was the annihilation of the enemy’s armed forces, but the majority were so weary of the war that the earl of Manchester’s Presbyterian royalism—which had contributed so materially to the prolongation of the struggle—would probably have been accepted by four-fifths of all England as the basis of a peace. It was, in fact, in the face of almost universal opposition that Fairfax and Cromwell and their friends at Westminster guided the cause of their weaker comrades to complete victory.
30.Cromwell’s Raid.—Having without difficulty rid himself of the Clubmen, Rupert was eager to resume his march into the north. It is unlikely that he wished to join Montrose, though Charles himself favoured that plan, but he certainly intended to fight the Scottish army, more especially as after Inverlochy it had been called upon to detach a large force to deal with Montrose. But this time there was no Royalist army in the north to provide infantry and guns for a pitched battle, and Rupert had perforce to wait near Hereford till the main body, and in particular the artillery train, could come from Oxford and join him. It was on the march of the artillery train to Hereford that the first operations of the New Model centred. The infantry was not yet ready to move, in spite of all Fairfax’s and Skippon’s efforts, and it became necessary to send the cavalry by itself to prevent Rupert from gaining a start. Cromwell, then under Waller’s command, had come to Windsor to resign his commission as required by the Self-denying Ordinance. Instead, he was placed at the head of a brigade of his own old soldiers, with orders to stop the march of the artillery train. On the 23rd of April he started from Watlington north-westward. At dawn on the 24th he routed a detachment of Royalist horse at Islip. On the same day, though he had no guns and only a few firearms in the whole force, he terrified the governor of Bletchingdon House into surrender. Riding thence to Witney, Cromwell won another cavalry fight at Bampton-in-the-Bush on the 27th, and attacked Faringdon House, though without success, on the29th. Thence he marched at leisure to Newbury. He had done his work thoroughly. He had demoralized the Royalist cavalry, and, above all, had carried off every horse on the countryside. To all Rupert’s entreaties Charles could only reply that the guns could not be moved till the 7th of May, and he even summoned Goring’s cavalry from the west to make good his losses.
31.Civilian Strategy.—Cromwell’s success thus forced the king to concentrate his various armies in the neighbourhood of Oxford, and the New Model had, so Fairfax and Cromwell hoped, found its target. But the Committee of Both Kingdoms on the one side, and Charles, Rupert and Goring on the other, held different views. On the 1st of May Fairfax, having been ordered to relieve Taunton, set out from Windsor for the long march to that place; meeting Cromwell at Newbury on the 2nd, he directed the lieutenant-general to watch the movements of the king’s army, and himself marched on to Blandford, which he reached on the 7th of May. Thus Fairfax and the main army of the Parliament were marching away in the west while Cromwell’s detachment was left, as Waller had been left the previous year, to hold the king as best he could. On the very evening that Cromwell’s raid ended, the leading troops of Goring’s command destroyed part of Cromwell’s own regiment near Faringdon, and on the 3rd Rupert and Maurice appeared with a force of all arms at Burford. Yet the Committee of Both Kingdoms, though aware on the 29th of Goring’s move, only made up its mind to stop Fairfax on the 3rd, and did not send off orders till the 5th. These orders were to the effect that a detachment was to be sent to the relief of Taunton, and that the main army was to return. Fairfax gladly obeyed, even though a siege of Oxford and not the enemy’s field army was the objective assigned him. But long before he came up to the Thames valley the situation was again changed. Rupert, now in possession of the guns and their teams, urged upon his uncle the resumption of the northern enterprise, calculating that with Fairfax in Somersetshire, Oxford was safe. Charles accordingly marched out of Oxford on the 7th towards Stow-on-the-Wold, on the very day, as it chanced, that Fairfax began his return march from Blandford. But Goring and most of the other generals were for a march into the west, in the hope of dealing with Fairfax as they had dealt with Essex in 1644. The armies therefore parted as Essex and Waller had parted at the same place in 1644, Rupert and the king to march northward, Goring to return to his independent command in the west. Rupert, not unnaturally wishing to keep his influence with the king and his authority as general of the king’s army unimpaired by Goring’s notorious indiscipline, made no attempt to prevent the separation, which in the event proved wholly unprofitable. The flying column from Blandford relieved Taunton long before Goring’s return to the west, and Colonel Weldon and Colonel Graves, its commanders, set him at defiance even in the open country. As for Fairfax, he was out of Goring’s reach preparing for the siege of Oxford.
32.Charles in the Midlands.—On the other side also the generals were working by data that had ceased to have any value. Fairfax’s siege of Oxford, ordered by the Committee on the 10th of May, and persisted in after it was known that the king was on the move, was the second great blunder of the year and was hardly redeemed, as a military measure, by the visionary scheme of assembling the Scots, the Yorkshiremen, and the midland forces to oppose the king. It is hard to understand how, having created a new model army “all its own” for general service, the Parliament at once tied it down to a local enterprise, and trusted an improvised army of local troops to fight the enemy’s main army. In reality the Committee seems to have been misled by false information to the effect that Goring and the governor of Oxford were about to declare for the Parliament, but had they not despatched Fairfax to the relief of Taunton in the first instance the necessity for such intrigues would not have arisen. However, Fairfax obeyed orders, invested Oxford, and, so far as he was able without a proper siege train, besieged it for two weeks, while Charles and Rupert ranged the midlands unopposed. At the end of that time came news so alarming that the Committee hastily abdicated their control over military operations and gave Fairfax a free hand. “Black Tom” gladly and instantly abandoned the siege and marched northward to give battle to the king.
Meanwhile Charles and Rupert were moving northward. On the 11th of May they reached Droitwich, whence after two days’ rest they marched against Brereton. The latter hurriedly raised the sieges he had on hand, and called upon Yorkshire and the Scottish army there for aid. But only the old Lord Fairfax and the Yorkshiremen responded. Leven had just heard of new victories won by Montrose, and could do no more than draw his army and his guns over the Pennine chain into Westmorland in the hope of being in time to bar the king’s march on Scotland via Carlisle.
33.Dundee.—After the destruction of the Campbells at Inverlochy, Montrose had cleared away the rest of his enemies without difficulty. He now gained a respectable force of cavalry by the adhesion of Lord Gordon and many of his clan, and this reinforcement was the more necessary as detachments from Leven’s army under Baillie and Hurry—disciplined infantry and cavalry—were on the march to meet him. The Royalists marched by Elgin and through the Gordon country to Aberdeen, and thence across the Esk to Coupar-Angus, where Baillie and Hurry were encountered. A war of manœuvre followed, in which they thwarted every effort of the Royalists to break through into the Lowlands, but in the end retired into Fife. Montrose thereupon marched into the hills with the intention of reaching the upper Forth and thence the Lowlands, for he did not disguise from himself the fact that there, and not in the Highlands, would the quarrel be decided, and was sanguine—over-sanguine, as the event proved—as to the support he would obtain from those who hated the kirk and its system. But he had called to his aid the semi-barbarous Highlanders, and however much the Lowlands resented a Presbyterian inquisition, they hated and feared the Highland clans beyond all else. He was equally disappointed in his own army. For a war of positions the Highlanders had neither aptitude nor inclination, and at Dunkeld the greater part of them went home. If the small remnant was to be kept to its duty, plunder must be found, and the best objective was the town of Dundee. With a small force of 750 foot and horse Montrose brilliantly surprised that place on the 4th of April, but Baillie and Hurry were not far distant, and before Montrose’s men had time to plunder the prize they were collected to face the enemy. His retreat from Dundee was considered a model operation by foreign students of the art of war (then almost as numerous as now), and what surprised them most was that Montrose could rally his men after a sack had begun. The retreat itself was remarkable enough. Baillie moved parallel to Montrose on his left flank towards Arbroath, constantly heading him off from the hills and attempting to pin him against the sea. Montrose, however, halted in the dark so as to let Baillie get ahead of him and then turned sharply back, crossed Baillie’s track, and made for the hills. Baillie soon realized what had happened and turned back also, but an hour too late. By the 6th the Royalists were again safe in the broken country of the Esk valley. But Montrose cherished no illusions as to joining the king at once; all he could do, he now wrote, was to neutralize as many of the enemy’s forces as possible.
34.Auldearn.—For a time he wandered in the Highlands seeking recruits. But soon he learned that Baillie and Hurry had divided their forces, the former remaining about Perth and Stirling to observe him, the latter going north to suppress the Gordons. Strategy and policy combined to make Hurry the objective of the next expedition. But the soldier of fortune who commanded the Covenanters at Aberdeen was no mean antagonist. Marching at once with a large army (formed on the nucleus of his own trained troops and for the rest composed of clansmen and volunteers) Hurry advanced to Elgin, took contact with Montrose there, and, gradually and skilfully retiring, drew him into the hostile country round Inverness. Montrose fell into the trap, and Hurry took his measures to surprise him at Auldearn so successfully that (May 9) Montrose, even though theindiscipline of some of Hurry’s young soldiers during the night march gave him the alarm, had barely time to form up before the enemy was upon him. But the best strategy is of no avail when the battle it produces goes against the strategist, and Montrose’s tactical skill was never more conspicuous than at Auldearn. Alastair Macdonald with most of the Royalist infantry and the Royal standard was posted to the right (north) of the village to draw upon himself the weight of Hurry’s attack; only enough men were posted in the village itself to show that it was occupied, and on the south side, out of sight, was Montrose himself with a body of foot and all the Gordon horse. It was the prototype, on a small scale, of Austerlitz. Macdonald resisted sturdily while Montrose edged away from the scene of action, and at the right moment and not before, though Macdonald had been driven back on the village and was fighting for life amongst the gardens and enclosures, Montrose let loose Lord Gordon’s cavalry. These, abandoning for once the pistol tactics of their time, charged home with the sword. The enemy’s right wing cavalry was scattered in an instant, the nearest infantry was promptly ridden down, and soon Hurry’s army had ceased to exist.
35.Campaign of Naseby.—If the news of Auldearn brought Leven to the region of Carlisle, it had little effect on his English allies. Fairfax was not yet released from the siege of Oxford, in spite of the protests of the Scottish representatives in London. Massey, the active and successful governor of Gloucester, was placed in command of a field force on the 25th of May, but he was to lead it against, not the king, but Goring. At that moment the military situation once more changed abruptly. Charles, instead of continuing his march on to Lancashire, turned due eastward towards Derbyshire. The alarm at Westminster when this new development was reported was such that Cromwell, in spite of the Self-Denying Ordinance, was sent to raise an army for the defence of the Eastern Association. Yet the Royalists had no intentions in that direction. Conflicting reports as to the condition of Oxford reached the royal headquarters in the last week of May, and the eastward march was made chiefly to “spin out time” until it could be known whether it would be necessary to return to Oxford, or whether it was still possible to fight Leven in Yorkshire—his move into Westmorland was not yet known—and invade Scotland by the easy east coast route.
Goring’s return to the west had already been countermanded and he had been directed to march to Harborough, while the South Wales Royalists were also called in towards Leicester. Later orders (May 26) directed him to Newbury, whence he was to feel the strength of the enemy’s positions around Oxford. It is hardly necessary to say that Goring found good military reasons for continuing his independent operations, and marched off towards Taunton regardless of the order. He redressed the balance there for the moment by overawing Massey’s weak force, and his purse profited considerably by fresh opportunities for extortion, but he and his men were not at Naseby. Meanwhile the king, at the geographical centre of England, found an important and wealthy town at his mercy. Rupert, always for action, took the opportunity, and Leicester was stormed and thoroughly pillaged on the night of the 30th-31st of May. There was the usual panic at Westminster, but, unfortunately for Charles, it resulted in Fairfax being directed to abandon the siege of Oxford and givencarte blancheto bring the Royal army to battle wherever it was met. On his side the king had, after the capture of Leicester, accepted the advice of those who feared for the safety of Oxford—Rupert, though commander-in-chief, was unable to insist on the northern enterprise—and had marched to Daventry, where he halted to throw supplies into Oxford. Thus Fairfax in his turn was free to move, thanks to the insubordination of Goring, who would neither relieve Oxford nor join the king for an attack on the New Model. The Parliamentary general moved from Oxford towards Northampton so as to cover the Eastern Association. On the 12th of June the two armies were only a few miles apart, Fairfax at Kislingbury, Charles at Daventry, and, though the Royalists turned northward again on the 13th to resume the Yorkshire project under the very eyes of the enemy, Fairfax followed close. On the night of the 13th Charles slept at Lubenham, Fairfax at Guilsborough. Cromwell, just appointed lieutenant-general of the New Model, had ridden into camp on the morning of the 13th with fresh cavalry from the eastern counties, Colonel Rossiter came up with more from Lincolnshire on the morning of the battle, and it was with an incontestable superiority of numbers and an overwhelming moral advantage that Fairfax fought at Naseby (q.v.) on the 14th of June. The result of the battle, this time a decisive battle, was the annihilation of the Royal army. Part of the cavalry escaped, a small fraction of it in tolerable order, but the guns and the baggage train were taken, and, above all, the splendid Royal infantry were killed or taken prisoners to a man.
36.Effects of Naseby.—After Naseby, though the war dragged on for another year, the king never succeeded in raising an army as good as, or even more numerous than, that which Fairfax’s army had so heavily outnumbered on the 14th of June. That the fruits of the victory could not be gathered in a few weeks was due to a variety of hindrances rather than to direct opposition—to the absence of rapid means of communication, the paucity of the forces engaged on both sides relatively to the total numbers under arms, and from time to time to the political exigencies of the growing quarrel between Presbyterians and Independents. As to the latter, within a few days of Naseby, the Scots rejoiced that the “back of the malignants was broken,” and demanded reinforcements as a precaution against “the insolence of others,”i.e.Cromwell and the Independents—“to whom alone the Lord has given the victory of that day.” Leven had by now returned to Yorkshire, and a fortnight after Naseby, after a long and honourable defence by Sir Thomas Glemham, Carlisle fell to David Leslie’s besieging corps. Leicester was reoccupied by Fairfax on the 18th, and on the 20th Leven’s army, moving slowly southward, reached Mansfield. This move was undertaken largely for political reasons,i.e.to restore the Presbyterian balance as against the victorious New Model. Fairfax’s army was intended by its founders to be a specifically English army, and Cromwell for one would have employed it against the Scots almost as readily as against malignants. But for the moment the advance of the northern army was of the highest military importance, for Fairfax was thereby set free from the necessity of undertaking sieges. Moreover, the publication of the king’s papers taken at Naseby gave Fairfax’s troops a measure of official and popular support which a month before they could not have been said to possess, for it was now obvious that they represented the armed force of England against the Irish, Danes, French, Lorrainers, &c., whom Charles had for three years been endeavouring to let loose on English soil. Even the Presbyterians abandoned for the time any attempt to negotiate with the king, and advocated a vigorous prosecution of the war.
37.Fairfax’s Western Campaign.—This, in the hands of Fairfax and Cromwell, was likely to be effective. While the king and Rupert, with the remnant of their cavalry, hurried into South Wales to join Sir Charles Gerard’s troops and to raise fresh infantry, Fairfax decided that Goring’s was the most important Royalist army in the field, and turned to the west, reaching Lechlade on the 26th, less than a fortnight after the battle of Naseby. One last attempt was made to dictate the plan of campaign from Westminster, but the Committee refused to pass on the directions of the Houses, and he remained free to deal with Goring as he desired. Time pressed; Charles in Monmouthshire and Rupert at Bristol were well placed for a junction with Goring, which would have given them a united army 15,000 strong. Taunton, in spite of Massey’s efforts to keep the field, was again besieged, and in Wilts and Dorset numerous bands of Clubmen were on foot which the king’s officers were doing their best to turn into troops for their master. But the process of collecting a fresh royal army was slow, and Goring and his subordinate, Sir Richard Grenville, were alienating the king’s most devoted adherents by their rapacity, cruelty and debauchery. Moreover, Goring had no desire to lose the independent command he had extorted at Stow-on-the-Wold in May.Still, it was clear that he must be disposed of as quickly as possible, and Fairfax requested the Houses to take other measures against the king (June 26). This they did by paying up the arrears due to Leven’s army and bringing it to the Severn valley. On the 8th of July Leven reached Alcester, bringing with him a Parliamentarian force from Derbyshire under Sir John Gell. The design was to besiege Hereford.
38.Langport.—By that time Fairfax and Goring were at close quarters. The Royalist general’s line of defence faced west along the Yeo and the Parrett between Yeovil and Bridgwater, and thus barred the direct route to Taunton. Fairfax, however, marched from Lechlade via Marlborough and Blandford—hindered only by Clubmen—to the friendly posts of Dorchester and Lyme, and with these as his centre of operations he was able to turn the headwaters of Goring’s river-line via Beaminster and Crewkerne. The Royalists at once abandoned the south and west side of the rivers—the siege of Taunton had already been given up—and passed over to the north and east bank. Bridgwater was the right of this second line as it had been the left of the first; the new left was at Ilchester. Goring could thus remain in touch with Charles in south Wales through Bristol, and the siege of Taunton having been given up there was no longer any incentive for remaining on the wrong side of the water-line. But his army was thoroughly demoralized by its own licence and indiscipline, and the swift, handy and resolute regiments of the New Model made short work of its strong positions. On the 7th of July, demonstrating against the points of passage between Ilchester and Langport, Fairfax secretly occupied Yeovil. The post at that place, which had been the right of Goring’s first position, had, perhaps rightly, been withdrawn to Ilchester when the second position was taken up, and Fairfax repaired the bridge without interruption. Goring showed himself unequal to the new situation. He might, if sober, make a good plan when the enemy was not present to disturb him, and he certainly led cavalry charges with boldness and skill. But of strategy in front of the enemy he was incapable. On the news from Yeovil he abandoned the line of the Yeo as far as Langport without striking a blow, and Fairfax, having nothing to gain by continuing his détour through Yeovil, came back and quietly crossed at Long Sutton, west of Ilchester (July 9). Goring had by now formed a new plan. A strong rearguard was posted at Langport and on high ground east and north-east of it to hold Fairfax, and he himself with the cavalry rode off early on the 8th to try and surprise Taunton. This place was no longer protected by Massey’s little army, which Fairfax had called up to assist his own. But Fairfax, who was not yet across Long Sutton bridge, heard of Goring’s raid in good time, and sent Massey after him with a body of horse. Massey surprised a large party of the Royalists at Ilminster on the 9th, wounded Goring himself, and pursued the fugitives up to the south-eastern edge of Langport. On the 10th Fairfax’s advanced guard, led by Major Bethel of Cromwell’s own regiment, brilliantly stormed the position of Goring’s rearguard east of Langport, and the cavalry of the New Model, led by Cromwell himself, swept in pursuit right up to the gates of Bridgwater, where Goring’s army, dismayed and on the point of collapse, was more or less rallied. Thence Goring himself retired to Barnstaple. His army, under the regimental officers, defended itself in Bridgwater resolutely till the 23rd of July, when it capitulated. The fall of Bridgwater gave Fairfax complete control of Somerset and Dorset from Lyme to the Bristol channel. Even in the unlikely event of Goring’s raising a fresh army, he would now have to break through towards Bristol by open force, and a battle between Goring and Fairfax could only have one result. Thus Charles had perforce to give up his intention of joining Goring—his recruiting operations in south Wales had not been so successful as he hoped, owing to the apathy of the people and the vigour of the local Parliamentary leaders—and to resume the northern enterprise begun in the spring.
39.Schemes of Lord Digby.—This time Rupert would not be with him. The prince, now despairing of success and hoping only for a peace on the best terms procurable, listlessly returned to his governorship of Bristol and prepared to meet Fairfax’s impending attack. The influence of Rupert was supplanted by that of Lord Digby. As sanguine as Charles and far more energetic, he was for the rest of the campaign the guiding spirit of the Royalists, but being a civilian he proved incapable of judging the military factors in the situation from a military standpoint, and not only did he offend the officers by constituting himself a sort of confidential military secretary to the king, but he was distrusted by all sections of Royalists for his reckless optimism. The resumption of the northern enterprise, opposed by Rupert and directly inspired by Digby, led to nothing. Charles marched by Bridgnorth, Lichfield and Ashbourne to Doncaster, where on the 18th of August he was met by great numbers of Yorkshire gentlemen with promises of fresh recruits. For a moment the outlook was bright, for the Derbyshire men with Gell were far away at Worcester with Leven, the Yorkshire Parliamentarians engaged in besieging Scarborough Castle, Pontefract and other posts. But two days later he heard that David Leslie with the cavalry of Leven’s army was coming up behind him, and that, the Yorkshire sieges being now ended, Major-General Poyntz’s force lay in his front. It was now impossible to wait for the new levies, and reluctantly the king turned back to Oxford, raiding Huntingdonshire and other parts of the hated Eastern Associationen route.