Anonymous

THE GREAT REBELLION (concluded).

The Assembly at Westminster—Trial and Death of Laud—Negotiations at Uxbridge—Meeting of the Commissioners—Impossibility of a Settlement—Prospect of Help to the King from the Continent—Charles agrees to the demands of the Irish Catholics—Discipline and Spirit of the Parliamentary Army—Campaign of the New-modelled Army—Hunting the King—Battle of Naseby—Fairfax in the West—Exploits of Montrose—Efforts of Charles to join Him—Battle of Kilsyth—Fall of Bristol—Battle of Philiphaugh—Last Efforts of the Royalists—Charles Offers to Treat—Discovery of his Correspondence with Glamorgan—Charles Intrigues with the Scots—Flight from Oxford—Surrender to the Scots at Newark—Consequent Negotiations—Proposals for Peace—Surrender of Charles to Parliament.

Whilst these events were happening in the field and the Parliament, other events were occurring also both in England and Scotland, the account of which, not to interrupt the narrative of the higher transactions, has been deferred. From the month of June, 1643, the Synod of divines at Westminster had been at work endeavouring to establish a national system of faith and worship. This Westminster Assembly consisted of one hundred and twenty individuals appointed by the Lords and Commons. They included not only what were called pious, godly, and judicious divines, but thirty laymen, ten lords, and twenty commoners, and with them sat the Scottish commissioners. The Scottish and English Presbyterians had a large majority, and endeavoured to fix on the nation their gloomy, ascetic, and persecuting notions; but they found a small but resolute party of a more liberal faith, the Independents, including Vane, Selden, and others, whose bearing and spirit, backed by Cromwell, Whitelock, St. John, and others in Parliament, were more than a match for this overbearing intolerance. On the subject of Church government, therefore, there could be no agreement. Cromwell demanded from the House of Commons an act of toleration, and that a Committee should be formed of deputies from both Houses and from the Assembly to consider it. The subject was long and fiercely debated, the Lords Say and Wharton, Sir Henry Vane, and St. John contending for the independence of the Church from all bishops, synods, and ruling powers. The only thing agreed on was, that the English Common Prayer-book should be disused, and a Directory of worship introduced which should regulate the order of the service, the administration of the Sacrament, the ceremonies of marriage and burial—but left much liberty to the minister in the matter of his sermons. This Directory was, by an ordinance of both Houses, ordered to be observed both in England and Scotland.

Poor old Archbishop Laud, who was still in prison, was in the turmoil of civil war almost totally forgotten. But the Puritans of England and the people of Scotland needed only a slight reminder to demand the punishment of the man who, with so high a hand, had trodden down their liberties and their religion. This was given them by the Lords, who, insisting on appointing ministers to livings in his gift, called on Laud to collate the vacant benefices to such persons as they should nominate. The king forbade him to obey. At length, in February, 1643, the rectory of Chartham, in Kent, became vacant by the death of the incumbent, the Lords nominated one person, the king another, and Laud, placed in a dilemma dangerous to his life under his circumstances, endeavoured to excuse himself by remaining passive. But the Lords, in the month of April, sent him a peremptory order, and on his still delaying, sent a request to the Commons to proceed with his trial. There were fourteen articles of impeachment already hanging over his head, and the Commons appointed Prynne, still smarting under the ear-lopping, branding, and cruelties of the archbishop, to collect evidence and co-operate with a Committee on the subject.

What an apparition must that earless man, with those livid brand marks on his cheeks, have been as he entered the cell of Laud, and told him that the day of retribution was come! Prynne collected all his papers, even the diary which he had been so long employed in writing, as the defence of his past life, and sought everywhere for remaining victims and witnesses of the archbishop's persecutions and cruelties, to bring them up against him. In six months the Committee had obtained evidence enough to furnish ten new articles of impeachment against him, and on the 4th of March, 1644, more than three years after his commitment, Laud was called upon to take his trial. He demanded time to consult his papers, and to have them for that purpose restored, to have counsel, and money out of the proceeds of his estate to pay his fees and other expenses. He was not likely to find much more tenderness from his enemies than he had showed to them; the Scots demanded stern justice upon him, as the greatest enemy which their country had known for ages. Time was given him till the 12th of March, when he was brought to the bar of the House of Lords. There, after the once haughty but now humbled priest had been made to kneel a little, Mr. Serjeant Wild opened the case against him, and went over, at great length, the whole story of his endeavours to introduce absolutism in Church and State in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dreadful cruelties and oppressions which he had inflicted on the king's subjects in the Star Chamber and High Commission Courts.

When he had done, Laud defended himself from a written paper, contending that though he had leaned towards the law, he had never intended to overthrow the laws, and that he had in the Church laboured only for the support of the external form of worship, which had been neglected. But the hearers had not forgotten the "Thorough," nor the utter suppression of all forms of religion but his own, the sweeping away utterly of the faith of Scotland, and the substitution of Arminianism and the liturgy.

It was not till the 2nd of September that Laud was called to the bar of the Lords to deliver his recapitulation of the arguments in answer to his charges. Mr. Samuel Brown, a member of the Commons, and a Manager of the trial, replied to them. Laud was then allowed counsel to speak to the parts of law, who took the same course of defence as had been taken in the case of Strafford, declaring that the prisoner's offence did not amount to high treason, and the Commons then adopted their plan in Strafford's case, of proceeding by attainder. He was, therefore, on the 2nd of November, brought to the bar of their own House, where Mr. Brown repeated the sum of the evidence produced in the Lords, and Laud was called on to reply himself to the charges. He demanded time to prepare his answer, and obtained eight days. On the 11th of November he was heard, and Brown in reply; and the Commons the same day passed their Bill of Attainder, finding him fully convicted of the offences charged against him. On the 16th they sent up this Bill to the Lords; but it was not till the 4th of January, 1645, that the Lords also passed the Bill, and soon after fixed the day of his execution for the 10th. The last effort to save the old man's life was by the production of a pardon which had been prepared at Oxford, as soon as the danger of his conviction was seen, and was signed and sealed by the king. This pardon was read in both Houses, but was declared of no effect, the king having no power to pardon a crime adjudged by Parliament. On the appointed day, the archbishop was beheaded on Tower Hill. Meanwhile some useless negotiations had been set on foot by the Presbyterian party at Uxbridge.

Charles had, during the last summer, after every temporary success, proposed negotiations, thus showing his readiness to listen to accommodation, and throwing on the Parliament the odium of continued warfare. At the same time it must be confessed that he was by no means inclined to accept terms which would surrender altogether his prerogative, or sacrifice the interests of those who had ventured everything for him. He was constantly exhorted by the queen from France to make no peace inconsistent with his honour, or the interests of his followers. She contended that he must stipulate for a bodyguard, without which he could enjoy no safety, and should keep all treaty regarding religion to the last, seeing plainly the almost insuperable difficulty on that head; for since nothing would satisfy the Puritans but the close binding down of the Catholics, that would effectually cut off all hope of his support from Ireland, or from the Catholics of England. Charles, in fact, was in a cleft stick, and the contentions of his courtiers added so much to his embarrassments, that he got rid of the most troublesome by sending them to attend the queen in France. He then assembled his Parliament for the second time, but it was so thinly attended, and the miserable distractions which rent his Court were so completely imported into its debates, that he was the more disposed to accept the offer of negotiation with the Parliament. His third proposal, happening to be favoured by the recommendation of the Scots, was at length acceded to by Parliament, but the terms recommended by the Scots—the recognition of Presbytery as the national religion, and the demands of the Parliament of the supreme control not only of the revenue but of the army—rendered negotiations from the first hopeless.

In November, 1644, the propositions of the Scots, drawn up by Johnston of Wariston, were sent to the king by a Commission consisting of the Earl of Denbigh, the Lords Maynard and Wenman, and Mr. Pierpoint, Denzil Holles, and Whitelock, accompanied by the Scottish Commissioners—Lord Maitland, Sir Charles Erskine, and Mr. Barclay.

INTERVIEW BETWEEN CHARLES AND THE EARL OF DENBIGH. (See p. 36.)

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Charles probably received a private copy of the propositions, for he received the Commissioners most ungraciously. They were suffered to remain outside the gates of Oxford in a cold and wet day for several hours, and then conducted by a guard, more like prisoners than ambassadors, to a very mean inn. On the propositions being read by the Earl of Denbigh, Charles asked him if they had power to treat, to which the earl replied in the negative, saying that they were commissioned to receive his majesty's answer. "Then," said Charles, rudely, "a letter-carrier might have done as much as you." The earl, resenting this, said, "I suppose your majesty looks upon us as persons of another condition than letter-carriers." "I know your condition," retorted the king, "but I repeat it, that your condition gives you no more power than a letter-carrier." Whilst Denbigh had read over the list of persons who were to be excepted from the conditions of the treaty, Rupert and Maurice, who were of the excepted, and were present, laughed in the earl's face. This insolence displeased even the king, and he bade them be quiet. The interview terminated, however, as unfavourably as it began. The king gave them a reply but sealed up, and not addressed to the Parliament or anybody. The commissioners refused to carry an answer of which they did not know the particulars, on which Charles insolently remarked, "What is that to you, who are but to carry what I send; and if I choose to send the song of Robin Hood or Little John, you must carry it?" As they could get nothing else, not even an address upon it to Parliament, the commissioners, wisely leaving it to Parliament to treat the insult as they deemed best, took their leave with it.

When this document was presented to both Houses on the 29th of November, 1644, assembled for the purpose, it was strongly urged by many to refuse it; but this was overruled by those who wisely would throw no obstacle in the way of negotiation; and the king thought well immediately to send the Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Southampton with a fuller answer. They, on their part, found a safe-conduct refused them by Essex, then the commander, unless he were acknowledged by the king as general of the army of the Parliament of England, and the Commons informed them that they would receive no further Commission which was not addressed to the Parliament of England assembled at Westminster, and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland. With this the king was compelled to comply; but at the same time he wrote to the queen—"As to my calling those at London a Parliament, if there had been two besides myself of my opinion, I had not done it; and the argument that prevailed with me was that the calling did no wise acknowledge them to be a Parliament, upon which construction and condition I did it, and no otherwise."

ROUNDHEAD SOLDIERS.

Under these unpromising circumstances, Commissioners on both sides were at length appointed, who met on the 29th of January, in the little town of Uxbridge. Uxbridge was within the Parliamentary lines, and the time granted for the sitting was twenty days. The Commissioners on the part of the king were the Duke of Richmond, the Marquis of Hertford, the Earls of Southampton, Chichester, and Kingston, the Lords Capel, Seymour, Hatton, and Colepepper, Secretary Nicholas, Sir Edward Hyde, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Edward Lane, Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Sir Thomas Gardener, Mr. Ashburnham, Mr. Palmer, and Dr. Stewart. On that of the Parliament appeared the Earls of Northumberland, Pembroke, Salisbury, and Denbigh, Lord Wenman, Sir Henry Vane the younger, Denzil Holles, Pierpont, St. John, Whitelock, Crew, and Prideaux. The Scottish Commissioners were the Earl of Loudon, the Marquis of Argyll, the Lords Maitland and Balmerino, Sir Archibald Johnston, Sir Charles Erskine, Sir John Smith, Dundas, Kennedy, Robert Barclay, and Alexander Henderson. John Thurloe, afterwards Oliver Cromwell's secretary, and the friend of Milton, was secretary for the English Parliament, assisted by Mr. Earle, and Mr. Cheesly was secretary for the Scottish Commissioners.

The four propositions submitted to the king by the Parliament concerning religion were, that the Common Prayer Book should be withdrawn, the Directory of the Westminster divines substituted, that he should confirm the assemblies and synods of the Church, and take the Solemn League and Covenant. These, contrary to the warning of Queen Henrietta, were brought on first, and argued with much learning and pertinacity, and as little concession on either side, for four days. Then there arose other equally formidable subjects, the command of the army and navy, the cessation of the war in Ireland; and the twenty days being expired, it was proposed to prolong the term, but this was refused by the two Houses of Parliament, and the Commissioners, separated, mutually satisfied that nothing but the sword would settle these questions. The Royalists had not been long in discovering that Vane, St. John, and Prideaux had come to the conference, not so much to treat, as to watch the proceedings of the Presbyterian deputies, and to take care that no concessions should be made inimical to the independence of the Church.

Gloomy as to the general eye must have appeared the prospects of the king at this period, he was still buoyed up by various hopes. He had been using every exertion to obtain aid from the Continent, and at length was promised an army of ten thousand men by the Duke of Lorraine, and Goffe was sent into Holland to prepare for their being shipped over. On the other hand, he had made up his mind to concede most of their demands to the Irish Catholics, on condition of receiving speedily an army thence. He wrote to Ormond, telling him that he had clearly discovered, by the treaty of Uxbridge, that the rebels were aiming at nothing less than the total subversion of the Crown and the Church; that they had made the Earl of Leven commander of all the English as well as Scottish forces in Ireland, and therefore he could no longer delay the settlement of Ireland in his favour, through scruples that at another time would have clung to him. He therefore authorised him to grant the suspension of Poynings' Act, and to remove all the penal acts against the Catholics on condition that they at once gave him substantial aid against the rebels of Scotland and Ireland. At this moment, too, the news of the successes of Montrose in Scotland added to his confidence.

The two armies in England now prepared to try their strength. Charles, lying at Oxford, had a considerable number of troops: the west of England was almost entirely in his interest, north and south Wales were wholly his, excepting the castles of Pembroke and Montgomery. He had still Scarborough, Carlisle, and Pontefract; but his army, though experienced in the field, was not well disciplined. The Parliamentary army, now new-modelled, presented a very different spectacle to that of the king. The strictest discipline was introduced, and the men were called upon to observe the duties of religion. The officers had been selected from those who had served under Essex, Manchester, and the other lords; but having cleared the command of the aristocratic element, a new spirit of activity and zeal was infused into it. The king's officers ridiculed the new force, which had no leaders of great name except Sir Thomas Fairfax, and was brought together in so new a shape, that it appeared a congregation of raw soldiers. The ridicule of the Cavaliers even infected the adherents of the Commonwealth, and there was great scepticism as to the result of such a change. May, the Parliamentary historian, says, never did an army go forth who had less the confidence of their friends, or more the contempt of their enemies. But both parties were extremely deceived. Cromwell was now the real soul of the movement, and the religious enthusiasm which glowed in him was diffused through the whole army. The whole system seemed a revival of that of the pious Gustavus Adolphus—no man suffered a day to go over without religious service, and never commenced a battle without prayer. The soldiers now employed their time in zealous military exercises and in equally zealous prayer and singing of psalms. They sang in their march, they advanced into battle with a psalm. The letters of Cromwell to the Parliament, giving an account of the proceedings of the army, are full of this religious spirit, which it has been the custom to treat as cant, but which was the genuine expression of his feelings, and was shown by effects such as cant and sham never produce. Victory, which he and his soldiers ascribed only to God, success the most rapid and wonderful, attended him.

It is remarkable that the very man who had introduced the Self-denying Ordinance was the only man who was never debarred by it from pursuing his military career. This has, therefore, been treated as an artifice on his part; but, on the contrary, it was the mere result of circumstances. Cromwell was the great military genius of the age. Every day the success of his plans and actions was bursting more and more on the public notice, and no one was more impressed by the value of his services than the new Commander-in-Chief, Sir Thomas Fairfax. He had sent Cromwell, Massey, and Waller into the West, before laying down their commissions, to attack Colonel Goring, who was threatening the Parliamentary lines. They had driven him back towards Wells and Glastonbury, and not deeming it safe to push farther with their small force into a quarter where the Royal interest was so strong, and Cromwell advising Parliament to send more troops to Salisbury to defend that point against Rupert, who was reported at Trowbridge, he had returned to Windsor to resign his command according to the Ordinance. There, however, he found the Parliament had suspended the Ordinance in his instance for forty days, in order that he might execute a service of especial consequence, and which it particularly wished him to undertake. This was to attack a body of two thousand men conveying the king's artillery from Oxford to Worcester, to which place Rupert had marched, having defeated Colonel Massey at Ledbury.

This was on the 22nd of April, and Cromwell took horse the next morning, dashed rapidly into Oxfordshire and at Islip Bridge routed the enemy, consisting of four regiments of cavalry, took many of their officers, and especially those of the queen's regiment, seizing the standard which she had presented to it with her own hands. Many of the fugitives got into Bletchington House, which Cromwell immediately assaulted and took. The king was so enraged at the surrender of Bletchington, that he ordered the commander, Colonel Windebank, to be shot, and no prayers or entreaties could save him. Cromwell next sent off his cannon and stores to Abingdon, and pushed on to Radcot Bridge, or Bampton-in-the-Bush, where others of the enemy had fled: here he defeated them, and took their leaders Vaughan and Littleton. Cromwell next summoned Colonel Burgess, the governor of the garrison at Faringdon, to surrender; but he was called away to join the main army, the king being on the move.

Charles, in fact, issued from Oxford, and, joined by both Rupert and Maurice, advanced to relieve Chester, then besieged by Sir William Brereton. Fairfax, instead of pursuing him, thought it a good opportunity to take Oxford and prevent his returning there; but the king's movements alarmed him for the safety of the eastern counties, to which he had despatched Cromwell to raise fresh forces and strengthen their defences. Cromwell was recalled, and Fairfax set out in pursuit of the king. Charles relieved Chester by the very news of his march. Brereton retired from before it, and the Scottish army, which was advancing southward, fell back into Westmoreland and Cumberland, to prevent a rumoured junction of the king and the army of Montrose. Whatever had been Charles's intentions in this movement, he wheeled aside and directed his way through Staffordshire into Leicestershire, and took Leicester by assault. From Leicester he extended his course eastward, and took up his headquarters at Daventry, where he amused himself with hunting, and Rupert and his horse with foraging and plundering the whole country round.

Fairfax, now apprehensive of the royal intentions being directed to the eastern counties, which had hitherto been protected from the visitations of his army, pushed forward to prevent this, and came in contact with the king's outposts on the 13th of June, near Borough Hill. Charles fired his huts, and began his march towards Harborough, intending, perhaps, to proceed to the relief of Pontefract and Scarborough; but Fairfax did not allow him to get far ahead. A council of war was called, and in the midst of it Cromwell rode into the lines at the head of six hundred horse. It was now determined to bring the king to action. Harrison and Ireton, officers of Cromwell—soon to be well known—led the way after the royal army, and Fairfax, with his whole body, was at once in full chase. The king was in Harborough, and a council being called, it was considered safer to turn and fight than to pursue their way to Leicester like an army flying from the foe. It was therefore resolved to wheel about and meet the enemy.

At five o'clock the next morning, the 14th of June, the advanced guards of each army approached each other on the low hills a little more than a mile from the village of Naseby, in Northamptonshire, nearly midway between Market Harborough and Daventry. The Parliament army ranged itself on a hill yet called the Mill Hill, and the king's on a parallel hill, with its back to Harborough. The right wing was led by Cromwell, consisting of six regiments of horse, and the left, consisting of nearly as many, was, at his request, committed to his friend, Colonel Ireton, a Nottinghamshire man. Fairfax and Skippon took charge of the main body, and Colonels Pride, Rainsborough, and Hammond brought up the reserves. Rupert and his brother Maurice led on the right wing of Charles's army, Sir Marmaduke Langdale the left, Charles himself the main body, and Sir Jacob Astley, the Earl of Lindsay, the Lord Baird, and Sir George Lisle the reserves. The word for the day of the Royalists was, "God and Queen Mary!" that of the Parliamentarians, "God our strength!" A wide moorland, called Broad Moor, lay between them. The Cavaliers made themselves very merry at the new-modelled army of Roundheads, for which they had the utmost contempt, having nothing aristocratic about it, and its head being farmer Cromwell, or the brewer of Huntingdon, as they pleased to call him. They expected to sweep them away like dust, and Rupert, making one of his headlong charges, seemed to realise their anticipations, for he drove the left wing of the Roundheads into instant confusion and flight, took Ireton prisoner, his horse being killed under him, and himself wounded severely in two places; and, in his regular way, Rupert galloped after the fugitives, thinking no more of the main battle. But the scattered horse, who had been diligently taught to rally, collected behind him, returned to the defence of their guns, and were soon again ready for action. On the other hand, Cromwell had driven the left wing of the king's army off the field, but took care not to pursue them too far. He sent a few companies of horse to drive them beyond the battle, and with his main body he fell on the king's flank, where at first the royal foot was gaining the advantage. This unexpected assault threw them into confusion, and the soldiers of Fairfax's front, which had given way, rallying and falling in again with the reserves as they came to the rear, were brought up by their officers, and completed the rout. Rupert, who was now returning from the chase, rode up to the waggon-train of the Parliamentary army, and, ignorant of the state of affairs, offered quarter to the troops guarding the stores. The reply was a smart volley of musketry, and falling back and riding forward to the field, he found an overwhelming defeat. His followers stood stupefied at the sight, when Charles, riding up to them in despair, cried frantically, "One charge more, and the victory is ours yet!" But it was in vain, the main body was broken, that of Fairfax was complete; the artillery was seized, and the Roundheads were taking prisoners as fast as they could promise them quarter. Fairfax and Cromwell the next moment charged the dumfoundered horse, and the whole fled at full gallop on the road towards Leicester, pursued almost to the gates of the town by Cromwell's troopers.

The slaughter at this battle was not so great as might have been expected. But though the loss on the Parliamentarian side was small, amounting to about two hundred men, the Royalists had one thousand killed. Five thousand prisoners were taken, including a great number of officers, and a considerable number of ladies in carriages. All the king's baggage and artillery, with nine thousand stand of arms, were taken, and amongst the carriages that of the king containing his private papers: a fatal loss, for it contained the most damning evidences of the king's double-dealing and mental reservations, which the Parliament took care to publish, to Charles's irreparable damage. Clarendon accuses the Roundheads of killing above a hundred women, many of them of quality, but other evidence proves that this was false, the only women who were rudely treated being a number of wild Irish ones, who were armed with skeans—knives a foot long—and who used them like so many maniacs.

The next day Fairfax sent Colonel Fiennes and his regiment to London with the prisoners and the colours taken, above a hundred of them, and he prayed that a day of thanksgiving might be appointed for the victory. But the most essential fruit of the victory was the reading in Parliament of the king's letters. In these the affair of the Duke of Lorraine came to light—the attempt to bring in the Lorrainers, the French, the Danes, and the Irish to put down the Parliament, whilst Charles had been making the most sacred protestations to that body that he abhorred bringing in foreign soldiers. There appeared his promise to give the Catholics full liberty of conscience, whilst he had been vowing constantly that he would never abrogate the laws against Popery; and his letter to his wife, showing that at the treaty of Uxbridge he was merely conceding the name of a Parliament, with a full determination, on the first opportunity, to declare it no Parliament at all. These exposures were so dreadful, and gave such an assurance that the king was restrained by no moral principle, that the Royalists would not believe the documents genuine till they had examined them for themselves; and for this examination the Parliament wisely gave the amplest facilities. There were copies of his letters to the queen, in which he complained of the quarrels and harassing jealousies of his own courtiers and supporters, and of his getting rid of as many as he could by sending them on one pretence or another to her. The sight of these things struck his own party dumb with a sense of his hollowness and ingratitude; and the battle of Naseby itself was declared far less fatal to his interests than the contents of his cabinet. From this moment his ruin was certain, and the remainder of the campaign was only the last feeble struggles of the expiring Cause. His adherents stood out rather for their own chance of making terms than from any possible hope of success.

The defeated and dishonoured king did not stop to pass a single night at Leicester, but rode on to Ashby that evening, and after a few hours' rest pursued his course towards Hereford. At Hereford Rupert, fearful of the Parliamentary army attacking their only remaining strong quarter, the West, left the king and hastened to Bristol to put it into a state of defence. Charles himself continued his march into Wales, and took up his headquarters at Raglan Castle, the seat of the Marquis of Worcester. There, pretty sure that Fairfax was intending to go westward, he spent the time as though nothing had been amiss, hunting like his father, when he should have been studying the retrieval of his affairs, and passing the evenings in entertainments and giving of audiences. The most probable cause of Charles thus spending his time there and at Cardiff, to which he next retired, is that he had been urging the despatch of an Irish army, and was expecting it there. At the same time he could there more easily communicate with Rupert regarding the defence of the west of England.

The Parliament forces under Cromwell marched on Bristol where Rupert lay, whilst Fairfax met and defeated Goring at Langport, and then besieged and took Bridgewater on the 23rd of July. Matters now appeared so threatening that Rupert proposed to Charles to sue for peace; but the king rejected the advice with warmth, declaring that, though as soldier and statesman he saw nothing but ruin before him, yet as a Christian he was sure God would not prosper rebels, and that nothing should induce him to give up the Cause. He avowed that whoever stayed by him must do so at the cost of his life, or of being made as miserable as the violence of insulting rebels could make him. But by the grace of God he would not alter, and bade Rupert not on any consideration "to hearken after treaties." He would take no less than he had asked for at Uxbridge.

Charles, blind to the last, was still hoping for assistance from Ireland, and was elated by the news of successes from Montrose.

It will be recollected that the Earls of Antrim and Montrose had been engaged by Charles to exert themselves in Ireland and Scotland on his behalf. Their first attempt was to take vengeance on the Covenanting Earl of Argyll, who had so much contributed to defeat the king's attempts on the Scottish Church and Government. Montrose, therefore, unfurled the royal standard as the king's lieutenant-general at Dumfries; but having before been a strong Covenanter, he did not all at once win the confidence of the Royalists. His success was so poor that he returned to England. At Carlisle he was more effective in serving the king, and was made a marquis in consequence. After the battle of Marston Moor he again returned into the Highlands, and there learned the success of Antrim's labours in Ireland. He had sent over a body of fifteen hundred men under the command of his kinsman Alaster Macdonald, surnamed MacColl Keitache, or Colkitto. They landed at Knoidart, but a fleet of the Duke of Argyll's burnt their ships, and hung in their rear waiting a fitting chance to destroy them. To their surprise they received no welcome from the Scottish Royalists. However, they continued their march to Badenoch, ravaging the houses and farms of the Covenanters, but every day menaced by the gathering hosts of their foes, and learning nothing of their ally Montrose. At last Montrose obtained tidings of them: they met at Blair Athol, in the beginning of August, 1644. Montrose assumed the command, and published the royal commission. At the sight of a native chief the Highlanders flocked to his standard, and the Covenanters saw to their astonishment an army of between three and four thousand men spring at once, as it were, out of the ground. Montrose wrote to Charles that if he could receive five hundred horse on his way, he would soon be in England with twenty thousand men.

The movements and exploits of Montrose now became rather a story of romance than of sober modern warfare. Argyll and Lord Elcho dogged his steps, but he advanced or disappeared, with his half-clad Irish and wild mountaineers, amongst the hills in a manner that defied arrest. At Tippermuir, in Perthshire, he defeated Elcho, took his guns and ammunition, and surprised and plundered the town of Perth. As was constantly the case, the Highlanders, once loaded with booty, slipped off to their homes; and, left alone with his Irish band, who were faithful because their way home was cut off, he retreated northward, in hope of joining the clan Gordon. Montrose found himself stopped at the Bridge of Dee by two thousand seven hundred Covenanters under Lord Balfour of Burleigh, but he managed to cross at a ford higher up, and, falling on their rear, threw them into a panic. They fled to Aberdeen, pursued by the Irish and Highlanders, and the whole mass of pursuers and pursued rushed wildly into the city together. The place was given up to plunder, and for three days Aberdeen became a scene of horror and revolting licence, as it had been from an attack of Montrose four years before, when fighting on the other side. The approach of Argyll compelled the pillagers to fly into Banffshire, and, following the banks of the Spey, he crossed the hills of Badenoch, and, after a series of wild adventures in Athol, Angus, and Forfar, he was met by the Covenanters at Fyvie Castle, and compelled to retreat into the mountains. His followers then took their leave of him, worn out with their rapid flights and incessant skirmishes, and he announced his intention of withdrawing for the winter into Badenoch.

The Earl of Argyll, on his part, retired to Inverary and sent his followers home. He felt secure in the mighty barrier of mountains around, which in summer offered a terrible route to an army, but which, now blockaded with snow, he deemed impregnable. But he was deceived; the retirement of Montrose was a feint. He was busily employed in rousing the northern clans to a sweeping vengeance on Argyll, and the prospect of a rich booty. In the middle of December he burst through all obstacles, threaded the snow-laden defiles of the mountains, and descended with fire and sword into the plains of Argyleshire. The earl was suddenly roused by the people from the hills, whose dwellings were in flames behind them, and only effected his escape by pushing across Loch Fyne in an open boat. Montrose divided his host into three columns, which spread themselves over the whole of Argyleshire, burning and laying everything waste. Argyll had set a price upon Montrose's head; and Montrose now reduced his splendid heritage to a black and frightful desert. The villages and cottages were burnt down, the cattle destroyed or driven off, and the people slain wherever found with arms in their hands. This miserable and melancholy state of things lasted from the 13th of December to the end of January, 1645.

Argyll by that time had mustered the Clan Campbell, and Lord Seaforth the mountaineers of Moray, Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness, to bear down on the invaders. Montrose, therefore, led forth his Highlanders and Irish to encounter them, and came first on Argyll and his army at Inverlochy Castle, in Lochaber. There he totally defeated Argyll, and slew nearly fifteen hundred of his people. This success brought to his standard the clan Gordon and others. The whole north was in their power, and they marched from Inverlochy to Elgin and Aberdeen. At Brechin they were met by Baillie with a strong force, which protected Perth; but Montrose marched to Dunkeld, and thence to Dundee, which he entered, and began plundering, when Baillie arrived with his Covenanters and caused him to retire. Once more he escaped to the mountains, but this time not without severe losses, for his indignant foes pursued him for threescore miles, cutting off many of his soldiers, besides those that had perished in the storming of Dundee. When he appeared again it was at Auldearn, a village near Nairn, where, on the 9th of May, he defeated the Covenanters (under John Urry or Hurry) after a bloody battle, two thousand men being said to be left upon the field.

The General Assembly addressed a sharp remonstrance to the king, which was delivered to him soon after the battle of Naseby, but it produced no effect. In fact, it was more calculated to inflame a man of Charles's obstinate temper, for it recapitulated all his crimes against Scotland, from his first forcing the Common Prayer upon them till then, and called on him to fall down at the footstool of the Almighty and acknowledge his sins, and no longer steep his kingdom in blood. They did not merely remonstrate; the Covenanters continued to fight. But, unfortunately, their commanders having divided their forces, as Urry was defeated at Auldearn, so Baillie was soon afterwards routed at Alford, in Aberdeenshire, with such effect that scarcely any but his principal officers and the cavalry escaped. Again the Covenanters raised a fresh army of ten thousand men, and sent them against Montrose; and the Scottish army, which lay on the borders of England under the Earl of Leven, commenced their march southward, to attack the king himself. On the 2nd of July, the very day on which Montrose won the battle of Alford, they were at Melton Mowbray, whence they marched through Tamworth and Birmingham into Worcestershire and Herefordshire. On the 22nd they stormed Canon-Frome, a garrison of the king's between Worcester and Hereford; and, as they were pressing on, Charles sent Sir William Fleming to endeavour to seduce the old Earl of Leven and the Earl of Callender from their faith to Parliament by magnificent promises, but they sent his letters to the Parliament and marched on and laid siege to Hereford.

Charles, thus pressed by the Scottish army, quitted Cardiff and made a grand effort to reach the borders of Scotland to effect a junction with Montrose. He flattered himself that could he unite his forces with those of Montrose, by the genius of that brilliant leader his losses would be retrieved, and that he should bear down all before him. But he was not destined to accomplish this object. He at first approached Hereford, as if he designed the attempt of raising the siege; but this was too hazardous, and, dismissing his foot, he dashed forward with his cavalry to cut his way to the North. But the Earl of Leven sent after him Sir David Leslie, with nearly the whole body of the Scottish cavalry; and from the North, the Parliamentarian commanders, Poyntz and Rossiter, put themselves in motion to meet him. He had made a rapid march through Warwickshire and Northamptonshire to Doncaster, when these counter-movements of the enemy convinced him that to reach the Border was hopeless; and he made a sudden divergence south-east, to inflict a flying chastisement on those counties of the Eastern Association, which had so long kept him at bay, and sent out against him the invincible Cromwell and his Ironsides. These were now engaged in the West, and he swept through Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, ravaging and plundering without stint or remorse. On the 24th of August he took Huntingdon itself by assault; he did not delay, however, but continued his marauding course through Woburn and Dunstable, thence into Buckinghamshire, and so to Oxford, where he arrived on the 28th. In this flying expedition, Charles and his soldiers had collected much booty from his subjects, and especially from the town of Huntingdon, no doubt with much satisfaction, from its being Cromwell's place of residence.

At Oxford Charles received the cheering news that Montrose had achieved another brilliant victory over the Covenanters. He had, on again issuing from the mountains, menaced Perth, where the Scottish Parliament was sitting, and then descended into the Lowlands. It was evident that he was acting in concert with the king, who at that very time was making his hurried march for the Border. Montrose crossed the Forth near Stirling, where at Kilsyth he was met by Baillie and his new army. The Committee of Estates insisted on Baillie giving battle. Fasting and prayer for four days had been held, and they were confident of success. But at the first charge the cavalry of the Covenanters were scattered, the infantry fled almost without a blow, and such was the fury of the pursuit, that five thousand of them were slain (August 15, 1645). This victory opened all the Lowlands to the Royalists. Argyll and the principal nobles escaped by sea to England. Glasgow opened its gates to the conqueror, and the magistrates of Edinburgh hastened to implore his clemency towards the city, and to propitiate him by liberating all the Royalist prisoners, promising obedience to the king. Most of these liberated prisoners, and many of the nobility, joined the standard of Montrose.

Had the king been able to effect a junction with him at this moment, the result must have been important, but it could only have occasioned more bloodshed, without insuring any decided victory, for all England was by this time in the hands of the Parliament. Sir David Leslie, instead of following the king with his cavalry southward again, had continued his march northward, to prevent any inroad on the part of Montrose, and the Earl of Leven, quitting Hereford, advanced northward to support him. Charles immediately left Oxford, and advanced to Hereford, where he was received in triumph. Thence he set out to relieve Rupert, who was besieged by Fairfax and Cromwell in Bristol; but on reaching Raglan Castle, he heard the appalling news that it had surrendered. The prince had promised to hold it for four months, yet he surrendered it in the third week of the siege. Fairfax having decided to storm it on the 10th of September, 1645, this was done accordingly. It was assaulted by the troops under Colonel Welden, Commissary-general Ireton, Cromwell, Fairfax, General Skippon, Colonels Montague, Hammond, Rich, and Rainsborough, from different sides at the same time. The town was set on fire in three places by the Royalists themselves, and Rupert, foreseeing the total destruction of the city, capitulated. He was allowed to march out, and was furnished with a convoy of cavalry, and the loan of one thousand muskets to protect them from the people on the way to Oxford, for he had made himself so detested by his continual ravagings of the inhabitants that they would have knocked him and his men on the head. Even as he passed out of the city the people crowded round with fierce looks, and muttered, "Why not hang him?"

We have Cromwell's account of the taking of the place. He says that the royal fort was victualled for three hundred and twenty days, and the castle for nearly half as long, and that there were abundant stores of ammunition, with one hundred and forty cannon mounted, between two and three thousand muskets, and a force of nearly six thousand men in foot, horse, train-bands, and auxiliaries. Well might Charles feel confounded at the surrender. He was so exasperated that he overwhelmed Rupert with reproaches: he even accused him of cowardice or treason, revoked his commission, and bade him quit the kingdom. He ordered the Council to take him into custody if he showed any contumacy. He arrested Rupert's friend, Colonel Legge, and gave the prince's office of Governor of Oxford to Sir Thomas Glenham. And yet Rupert appears to have only yielded to necessity. He was more famous at the head of a charge of horse than for defending cities. Bristol was carried by storm by a combination of the best troops and the most able commanders of the Parliament army, and was already burning in three places. Further resistance could only have led to indiscriminate massacre. But allowance must be made for the irritation of Charles. The fall of Bristol was a most disheartening event, and it was followed by news still more prostrating.

The success of Montrose had proved the ruin of his army. A Highland force is like a Highland torrent; under its clan chiefs it is impetuous and overwhelming; but it is soon exhausted. The soldiers, gathered only for the campaign, no sooner collected a good booty than they walked off back to their mountains, and thus no Highland force, under the old clan system, ever effected any lasting advantage, especially in the Lowlands. So it was here; Montrose's descent from the hills resembled the torrent, and disappeared without any traces but those of ravage. He had secured no fortified places, nor obtained any permanent possession. He executed a few incendiaries, as they were called, at Glasgow, and then advanced towards the Border, still in hope of meeting the royal forces. But the Gordon clan had disappeared; Colkitto had led back the other Highlanders to their mountains, and Montrose found himself at the head of only about six hundred men, chiefly the remains of the Irish. Meanwhile, Sir David Leslie, with his four thousand cavalry, was steadily advancing towards the Forth, to put himself between Montrose and the Highlands, and then suddenly wheeling westward, he returned on the unwary marquis, and surprised the commander who had before been accustomed to surprise every one else.

Montrose was in Selkirk busy writing despatches to the king, and his little army was posted at Philiphaugh. Leslie had approached cautiously, and, favoured by the unvigilant carelessness of the Royalists, came one night into their close vicinity. Early in the morning, under cover of a thick fog, he crossed the Ettrick, and appeared to their astonishment in the encampment on the Haugh. Notwithstanding their surprise, the soldiers formed hastily into a compact body; and Montrose, being informed of the danger, flew to the rescue at the head of a body of horse; but the odds were too great, the troops were surrounded and cut to pieces. In vain they begged quarter. Sir David consented, but the ministers raised a fierce shout of indignation, denounced the sparing of a single "malignant" as a sin, and the whole body was massacred (September 13, 1645).

Before receiving this disastrous news, Charles resolved to make another effort to form a junction with Montrose. He retraced his steps through Wales, and advanced to the relief of Chester, which was invested by the Parliamentarians. He reached that place on the 22nd of September, and posted the bulk of his cavalry on Rowton Heath, near the city, under Sir Marmaduke Langdale, himself being able to get into the city with a small body of troopers. But the next morning his cavalry at Rowton Heath was attacked by Poyntz, the Parliamentary general, who had been carefully following on the king's heels, and now, having his little army penned between his troops and those of the Parliamentary besiegers, a simultaneous attack was made on the Royalists from both sides. More than six hundred of Charles's troopers were cut to pieces, one thousand more obtained quarter, and the rest were dispersed on all sides. The king escaped out of the city and fled to Denbigh with the remnant of his cavalry. By this blow the only port which had been left open for his expected succours from Ireland was closed. Still the news of Montrose's defeat at Philiphaugh had not reached him, and Lord Digby advised the king to allow him to make the attempt to reach him with the seventeen hundred cavalry still remaining. Charles accepted the offer, but before Digby left, it was agreed that the king should get into his castle of Newark, as the securest place for him to abide the result. Having seen his majesty safely there, Digby set out northward. At Doncaster he defeated a Parliamentary force, but was a few days after defeated himself by another at Sherburn. Notwithstanding this, with the remainder of his horse he pushed forward, entered Scotland, and reached Dumfries, but finding Montrose already defeated, he returned to the Border, and at Carlisle disbanded the troop. Sir Marmaduke Langdale and the officers retired to the Isle of Man, the men got home as they could, and Digby passed over to Ireland, to the Marquis of Ormond. But the greatest loss which Digby had made during this expedition was that of his portfolio with his baggage, at Sherburn. In this, as in the king's at Naseby, the most unfortunate discoveries were made of his own proceedings, and of his master's affairs. There was a revelation of plottings and agents in sundry counties for bringing foreign forces to put down the Parliament. Goffe was in Holland promoting a scheme for the marriage of the Prince of Wales to the daughter of the Prince of Orange, and for forces to be furnished in consequence. There were letters of the queen to Ireland, arranging to bring over ten thousand men, and of Lord Jermyn—who was living in Paris with the queen in such intimacy as to occasion much scandal—to Digby himself, regarding probable assistance from the King of Denmark, the Duke of Lorraine, and the Prince of Courland, and of money from the Pope. But perhaps the most mischievous was a letter from Digby, written a few days before, letting out how much the Marquis of Ormond was secretly in the king's interest, though appearing to act otherwise. These disclosures were precisely such as must wonderfully strengthen the Parliament with the public, and sink the king still lower.

The king's ruin was virtually complete. The enemy was pressing close on his quarters, and at midnight, on the 3rd of November, he quitted Newark with five hundred horse, and reached Belvoir, where the governor, Sir Gervas Lucas, attended him with his troop till break of day. Thence the king made a harassing and dangerous journey to Oxford, pursued by detachments of the enemy as he passed Burleigh-on-the-Hill, the garrison sallying and killing some of his attendants. In the evening Charles was obliged to rest for five hours at Northampton, and then push forward by Banbury, and so reached Oxford the next evening, "finishing," says Clarendon, "the most tedious and grievous march that our king was exercised in." In truth, never was king reduced to such a melancholy and pitiable condition—a condition which cannot be contemplated without commiseration, blind and incorrigible believer as he was in the divine right of despotism.

Whilst Charles had been making these unhappy tours and detours, Fairfax and Cromwell had been clearing away his garrisons, and driving back his troops into the farthest West. Cromwell first addressed himself by command of Parliament to reduce Winchester, Basing House, Langford House, and Donnington Castle. On Sunday, September 28th, he appeared before Winchester, which surrendered after a breach had been made; and, on the 16th of October he also carried Basing by storm. Basing House and Donnington had long annoyed Parliament and the country with their royal garrisons, so that there was no travelling the Western road for them. Basing House belonged to the Marquis of Winchester, and was one of the most remarkable places in the country. Hugh Peters, who was sent up by Cromwell to give an account of the taking of it to Parliament, declaring that its circumvallation was above a mile in circumference. It had stood many a siege, one of four years, without any one being able to take it. Cromwell, however, now bombarded and stormed it, taking prisoners the marquis, Sir Robert Peak, and other distinguished officers. Eight or nine gentlewomen of rank ran out as the soldiers burst in, and were treated with some unceremonious freedoms, but, says Peters, "not uncivilly, considering the action in hand."

Having demolished Basing, Cromwell next summoned Langford House, near Salisbury, and thence he was called in haste down into the West, where Fairfax and he drove back Goring, Hopton, Astley, and others, beating them at Langport, Torrington, and other places, storming Bridgewater, and forcing them into Cornwall, where they never left them till they had reduced them altogether in the spring of 1646.

Charles lying now at Oxford, his council, seeing that his army was destroyed, except the portion that was cooped up by the victorious generals in the West, and which every day was forced into less compass, advised him strongly to treat with the Parliament, as his only chance. They represented that they had no funds even for subsistence, except what they seized from the country around, which exasperated the people, and made them ready to rise against them. There were some circumstances yet in his favour, and these were the jealousies and divisions of his enemies. The Parliament and country were broken up into two great factions of Presbyterians and Independents. The Presbyterians were by far the most numerous, and were zealously supported by the Scots, who were nearly all of that persuasion, and desired to see their form of religion prevail over the whole country. They were as fiercely intolerant as the Catholics, and would listen to nothing but the entire predominance of their faith and customs. But the Independents, who claimed and offered liberty of conscience, and protested against any ruling church, possessed almost all the men of intellect in Parliament, and the chiefs at the head of the army. Cromwell, in his letter from the field of Naseby, called for toleration of conscience, and Fairfax urged the same doctrine in all his despatches from the West. There was, moreover, a jealousy growing as to the armies of the Scots, who had got most of the garrisons in the North of England and Ireland into their hands. These divisions opened to Charles a chance of treating with one party at the expense of the other, and in his usual way he made overtures to all. To the Scots he offered full concession of all their desires, and great advantages from the influence which their alliance with him would give. To the Independents he offered the utmost toleration of religious opinion, and all the rewards of pre-eminence in the State and the army. To the Presbyterians he was particularly urged by the queen to promise the predominance of their Church and the like advantages. With the Catholics of Ireland he was equally in treaty; but whilst his secret negotiations were going on in Ireland, the Scots endeavoured to bring theirs to a close, by applying to the queen in Paris. Three great changes had taken place, all favourable to Charles. Both the king, Louis XIII., and Richelieu, were dead. Richelieu had never forgiven Charles's attempts on La Rochelle, and his effort to raise the Huguenots into an independent power in France, nor his movements in Flanders against his designs. Mazarin, who now succeeded as the minister of Louis XIV., had no particular resentment against Charles, and though cautious in taking direct measures against the English Parliament, did not oppose any of the attempts at pacification between the king and his subjects. The Scots had always found Richelieu their ally, and they now applied to his successor to assist them in bringing matters to bear with Charles. In consequence of this, Montreuil was sent over to London, who conferred with the Scottish Commissioners, and then conveyed to Charles their proposals. But the king, who had promised them all concessions consistent with his honour, found the very first proposition to be that Episcopacy should be for ever abolished not only in Scotland, but in England, and Presbytery made the Established Church. He had conceived that they would be satisfied with the supremacy of their faith in their own country, and he at once refused this demand. It was in vain that Montreuil pointed out to him that the Scots and the Presbyterians of England were agreed upon this point, and that consequently any arrangement with the latter party must inevitably be upon the same basis. Charles declared that rather than consent to any such terms, he would agree with the Independents. Montreuil replied that the Scots sought only to make him king, first having their own wishes as to religion gratified; but the Independents, he was confident, contemplated nothing less than the subversion of his throne. He informed him that the queen had given to Sir Robert Murray a written promise that the king would accede to the demand of the Scots, which promise was now in the hands of the Scottish Commissioners; moreover, that this was the earnest desire of the queen, the queen-regent of France, and of Mazarin.

Nothing, however, could shake Charles's resolution on this head, and he therefore made a direct application to Parliament to treat for an accommodation. They received his offer coolly, almost contemptuously. He desired passports for his Commissioners, or a safe-conduct for himself, that they might treat personally; but it was bluntly refused, on the ground that he was not to be trusted, having, on all similar occasions, employed the opportunities afforded to endeavour to corrupt the fidelity of the Commissioners. Not to appear, however, to reject the treaty, they sent fresh proposals to him, but so much more stringent than those at Uxbridge, that it was plain that they were rather bent on delaying than treating. The king was now in a very different position since the battle of Naseby and the fall of Bristol; and it was obviously the interest of Parliament to allow Fairfax and Cromwell to put down his last remains of an army in the West, when they would have nothing to do but to shut up the king in Oxford, and compel him to submit at discretion. Montreuil, seeing this, again urged him to come to terms with the Scots, and that not a moment was to be lost. But nothing could move him to consent to their demand of a universal Presbyterianism, and he again, on the 26th of January, 1646, demanded a personal interview with the Parliament at Westminster. His demand, however, arrived at a most unfortunate crisis, for the discovery of his negotiations with the Irish Catholics had just been made: the entire correspondence was in the hands of the Commons, and the whole House was in the most violent ferment of indignation. The king's letter was thrown aside and left without notice.

On October 17th, 1645, the titular Archbishop of Tuam was killed in a skirmish between two parties of Scots and Irish near Sligo, and in his carriage were discovered copies of a most extraordinary negotiation, which had been going on for a long time in Ireland between Charles and the Catholics, for the restoration of popish predominance in that country, on condition of their sending an army to put down the Parliament in England.

We have already spoken of the confederate Irish Catholics, who maintained an army for their own defence, and had a council at Kilkenny. Charles had instructed the Marquis of Ormond, the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, to make a peace with these Confederates: he had some time ago obtained a cessation of hostilities, but they would not consent to a permanent peace, nor to furnish the king troops until they obtained a legal guarantee for the establishment of their own religion. Lord Ormond, in his endeavours, did not satisfy the king, or rather his position disabled him from consenting publicly to such a treaty, as it would have roused all the Protestants, and the Scottish and English Parliaments against him. Charles, therefore, who was always ready with some underhand intrigue to gain his ends, and break his bargain when it became convenient, sent over Lord Herbert, the son of the Marquis of Worcester, and whom he now created Earl of Glamorgan, to effect this difficult matter.

RAGLAN CASTLE.