A Student's History of England Volume II Part 10

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

THE FORMATION OF PARLIAMENTARY PARTIES AND THE FIRST YEARS OF THE CIVIL WAR. 1641-1644

LEADING DATES

Reign of Charles I., 1625-1649

The Debate on the Grand Remonstrance Nov. 23, 1641 The Attempt on the Five Members Jan. 4, 1642 The Battle of Edgehill Oct. 23, 1642 The Fairfaxes defeated at Adwalton Moor June 30, 1643 Waller's Defeat at Roundway Down July 13, 1643 The Raising of the Siege of Gloucester Sept. 5, 1643 The First Battle of Newbury Sept. 20, 1643 The Solemn League and Covenant taken by the Houses Sept. 25, 1643 The Scottish Army crosses the Tweed Jan. 19, 1644 The Battle of Marston Moor July 2, 1644 Capitulation of Ess.e.x's Infantry at Lostwithiel Sept. 2, 1644 The Second Battle of Newbury Oct. 27, 1644

1. =The King's Visit to Scotland. 1641.=--If Charles could have inspired his subjects with the belief that he had no intention of overthrowing the new arrangements by force, there would have been little more trouble. Unfortunately, this was not the case. In August, indeed, the Houses succeeded in disbanding the English army in Yorks.h.i.+re, and in dismissing the Scottish army across the Tweed; but, in the same month, Charles set out for Scotland, ostensibly to give his a.s.sent in person to the Acts abolis.h.i.+ng episcopacy in that country, but in reality to persuade the Scots to lend him an army to coerce the English Parliament. Pym and Hampden suspecting this, though they could not prove it, felt it necessary to be on their guard.

2. =Parties formed on Church Questions. 1641.=--There would, however, have been little danger from Charles if political questions alone had been at stake. Parliament had been unanimous in abolis.h.i.+ng his personal government, and no one was likely to help him to restore it by force. In ecclesiastical questions, however, differences arose early. All, indeed, wished to do away with the practices introduced by Laud, but there was a party, which though willing to introduce reforms into the Church, and to subject it to Parliament, objected to the introduction of the Presbyterian system, lest presbyters should prove as tyrannical as bishops. Of this party, the leading members were Hyde, a politician who surveyed State affairs with the eyes of a lawyer, and the amiable Lord Falkland, a scholar and an enthusiast for religious toleration. On the other hand, there was a party which believed that the abolition of episcopacy was the only possible remedy for ecclesiastical tyranny. If Charles had openly supported the first party, it might, perhaps, have been in a majority; but as he did nothing of the sort, an impression gained ground that if bishops were not entirely abolished, they would sooner or later be restored by the king to their full authority, in spite of any limitations which Parliament might put upon them. Moreover, the lords, by throwing out a bill for removing the bishops from their House, exasperated even those members who were still hesitating. A majority in the Commons supported a bill, known as the Root and Branch Bill, for the abolition of episcopacy and for the transference of their jurisdiction to committees of laymen in each diocese. Though this bill was not pa.s.sed, its existence was sure to intensify the dislike of the king to those who had brought it in.

3. =Irish Parties. 1641.=--Before the king returned from Scotland, news arrived from Ireland which increased the difficulty of maintaining a good understanding with Charles. Besides the English officials, there were two parties in Ireland discontented with Strafford's rule. Of these one was that of the Catholic lords, mostly of English extraction, who wanted toleration for their religion and a large part in the management of the country. The other was that of the native Celts, who were anxious to regain the lands of which they had been robbed and to live again under their old customs. Both parties were terrified at the danger of increased persecution by the Puritan Parliament at Westminster, especially as the government at Dublin was in the hands of two lords justices, of whom the more active, Sir William Parsons, advocated repressive measures against the Catholics, and the introduction of fresh colonists from England to oust the Irish more completely from the land. In the spring of =1641= the Catholic lords had emissaries at Charles's court offering to send an army to his help in England, if he would allow them to seize Dublin and to overthrow the Government carried on there in his name.

4. =The Irish Insurrection. 1641.=--Nothing was settled when Charles left England, and in October the native Irish, impatient of delay, attempted to seize Dublin for themselves. The plot was, however, detected, and they turned savagely on the English and Scottish colony in Ulster. Murders, and atrocities worse than ordinary murder, were committed in the North of Ireland. At Portadown the victims were driven into a river and drowned. Women were stripped naked and turned into the wintry air to die of cold and starvation, and children were slaughtered as ruthlessly as full-grown men. The lowest estimate of the destruction which reached England raised the number of victims to 30,000, and, though this was doubtless an immensely exaggerated reckoning, the actual number of victims must have reached to some thousands. In England a bitter cry for vengeance went up, and with that cry was mingled distrust of the king. It was felt to be necessary to send an army into Ireland, and, if the army was to go under the king's orders, there was nothing to prevent him using it--after Ireland had been subdued--against the English Parliament.

5. =The Grand Remonstrance. 1641.=--The perception of this danger led the Commons to draw up a statement of their case, known as the Grand Remonstrance. They began with a long indictment of all Charles's errors from the beginning of his reign, and, though the statements were undoubtedly exaggerated, they were adopted by the whole House. When, however, it came to the proposal of remedies, there was a great division amongst the members. The party led by Pym and Hampden, by which the Remonstrance had been drawn up, asked for the appointment of ministers responsible to Parliament, and for the reference of Church matters to an a.s.sembly of divines nominated by Parliament. The party led by Hyde and Falkland saw that the granting of these demands would be tantamount to the erection of the sovereignty of Parliament in Church and State; and, as they feared that this in turn would lead to the establishment of Presbyterian despotism, they preferred to imagine that it was still possible to make Charles a const.i.tutional sovereign. On November 23 there was a stormy debate, and the division was not taken till after midnight. A small majority of eleven declared against the king. The majority then proposed to print the Remonstrance for the purpose of circulating it among the people. The minority protested, and, as a protest was unprecedented in the House of Commons, a wild uproar ensued. Members s.n.a.t.c.hed at their swords, and it needed all Hampden's persuasive pleadings to quiet the tumult.

6. =The King's Return. 1641.=--Charles had at last got a party on his side. When, on November 25, he returned to London, he announced that he intended to govern according to the laws, and would maintain the 'Protestant religion as it had been established in the times of Elizabeth and his father.' He was at once greeted with enthusiasm in the streets, and felt himself strong enough to refuse to comply with the request of the Remonstrance. If only he could have kept quiet, he would probably, before long, have had a majority, even in the House of Commons, on his side. It was, however, difficult for Charles to be patient. He was kept short of money by the Commons, and he had not the art of conciliating opponents. On December 23 he appointed Lunsford, a debauched ruffian, Lieutenant of the Tower, and the opponents of the Court naturally saw in this unwarrantable proceeding a determination to use force against themselves. On December 26 they obtained Lunsford's dismissal, but on the following day they heard that the rebellion in Ireland was spreading, and the increased necessity of providing an army for Ireland impressed on them once more the danger of placing under the orders of the king forces which he might use against themselves.

7. =The Impeachment of the Bishops. 1641.=--In order to make sure that the House of Lords would be on their side in the time of danger which was approaching, the Commons and their supporters called out for the exclusion of the bishops and the Roman Catholic peers from their seats in Parliament. A mob gathered at Westminster, shouting, No bishops! No Popish lords! The king gathered a number of disbanded officers at Whitehall for his protection, and these officers sallied forth beating and chasing the mob. Another day Williams, Archbishop of York, having been hustled by the crowd, he and eleven other bishops sent to the Lords a protest that anything done by the House of Lords in their absence would be null and void. The Peers, who had hitherto supported the king, were offended, and, for a time, made common cause with the other House against him; whilst the Commons impeached as traitors the twelve bishops who had signed the protest, wanting, not to punish them, but merely to get rid of their votes.

8. =The Impeachment of the Five Members. 1642.=--Charles, on his part, was exasperated, and fancied that he could strike a blow which his opponents would be unable to parry. He knew that the most active of the leaders of the opposition, Lord Kimbolton in the House of Lords, and Pym, Hampden, Hazlerigg, Holles, and Strode in the Commons, had negotiated with the Scots before they invaded England in =1640=, and he believed that they had actually invited them to enter the kingdom in arms. If this was true, they had legally been guilty of treason, and on January 3, =1642=, Charles ordered the Attorney-General to impeach them as traitors. Doubts were afterwards raised whether the king had a right to impeach, but Charles does not seem to have doubted at the time that he was acting according to law.

9. =The Attempt on the Five Members. 1642.=--As the Commons showed signs of an intention to shelter these five members from arrest, Charles resolved to seize them himself. On the 4th of January, followed by about 500 armed men, he betook himself to the House of Commons. Leaving his followers outside, he told the House that he had come to arrest five traitors. As they had already left the House and were on their way to the city, he looked round for them in vain, and asked Lenthall, the Speaker, where they were. "May it please your Majesty," answered Lenthall, kneeling before him, "I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place, but as this House is pleased to direct me." Charles eagerly looked round for his enemies. "The birds are flown," he exclaimed, when he failed to descry them. He had missed his prey, and, as he moved away, shouts of "Privilege! privilege!" were raised from the benches on either side.

10. =The Commons in the City. 1642.=--The Commons, believing that the king wanted, not to try a legal question, but to intimidate the House by the removal of its leaders, took refuge in the City. The City, which had welcomed Charles in November, when it was thought that he was come to maintain order according to law, now declared for the Commons. On January 10 Lord Kimbolton and the five members were brought back in triumph to Westminster by the citizens. Charles had already left Whitehall, never to return till the day on which he was brought back to be tried for his life.

11. =The Struggle for the Militia. 1642.=--There was little doubt that if Charles could find enough support, the questions at issue would have to be decided by arms. To gain time, he consented to a Bill excluding the bishops from their seats in the House of Lords, and he then sent the queen abroad to p.a.w.n or sell the Crown jewels and to buy arms and gunpowder with the money. He turned his own course to the north. A struggle arose between him and the Houses as to the command of the militia. There was no standing army in England, but the men of military age were mustered every year in each county, the fittest of them being selected to be drilled for a short time, at the expiration of which they were sent home to pursue their ordinary avocations. These drilled men were liable to be called out to defend their county against riots or invasion, and when they were together were formed into regiments called trained bands. All the trained bands in the country were spoken of as the militia. The Houses asked Charles to place the militia under officers of their choosing. "Not for an hour," replied Charles; "it is a thing with which I would not trust my wife and children." The feeling on both sides grew more bitter; Charles, after taking up his quarters at York, rode to Hull, where there was a magazine of arms of which he wished to possess himself. Sir John Hotham, the Parliamentary commander, shut the gates in his face. Both Charles and the Parliament began to gather troops. The Parliament appointed the Earl of Ess.e.x, the son of Elizabeth's favourite, a steady, honourable man, without a spark of genius, as their general. On August 22, =1642=, Charles set up his standard at Nottingham as a sign of war.

12. =Edgehill and Turnham Green. 1642.=--The richest part of England--the south-east--took, on the whole, the side of the Parliament; the poorer and more rugged north-west took, on the whole, the side of the king. The greater part of the gentry were cavaliers or partisans of the king; the greater part of the middle cla.s.s in the towns were partisans of the Parliament, often called Roundheads in derision, because some of the Puritans cropped their hair short. After a successful skirmish at Powick Bridge Charles pushed on towards London, hoping to end the war at a blow. On October 23 the first battle was fought at Edgehill. The king's nephew, Prince Rupert, son of Elizabeth and the Elector Palatine, commanded his cavalry. With a vigorous charge he drove before him the Parliamentary horse in headlong flight; but he did not pull up in time, and when he returned from the pursuit he found that the royalist infantry had been severely handled, and that it was too late to complete the victory which he had hoped to win. The fruits of victory, however, fell to the king. The cautious Ess.e.x drew back and Charles pushed on for London, reaching Brentford on November 12.

That he did not enter London as a conqueror was owing to the resistance of the London trained bands, the citizen-soldiery of the capital. On the 13th they barred Charles's way at Turnham Green. The king hesitated to attack, and drew back to Oxford. He was never to have such another chance again.

13. =The King's Plan of Campaign. 1643.=--Charles's hopes of succeeding better in =1643= were based on a plan for overwhelming London with superior force. He made Oxford the headquarters of his own army, and he had a second army under Sir Ralph Hopton in Cornwall, and a third army under the Earl of Newcastle in Yorks.h.i.+re.

His scheme was, that whilst he himself attacked London in front, Hopton should advance through the southern counties into Kent, and Newcastle through the eastern counties into Ess.e.x. Hopton and Newcastle would then be able to seize the banks on either side of the Thames below London, and thus to interrupt the commerce of the city, without which it would be impossible for it to hold out long.

14. =Royalist Successes. 1643.=--The weak point in Charles's plan was that his three armies were far apart, and that the Earl of Ess.e.x, now stationed in London, might fall upon his main army before Newcastle and Hopton could come to its aid. Towards the end of April, Ess.e.x besieged and took Reading, but his troops melted away from disease, and he did not advance against Oxford till June, when his cautious leaders.h.i.+p was not likely to effect anything decisive.

In the meanwhile the king's party was gaining the upper hand elsewhere. On May 16 Hopton completely defeated the Parliamentarians at Stratton in Cornwall, and was then ready to march eastwards. On June 18 Hampden received a mortal wound in a skirmish at Chalgrove Field. On July 5 Hopton got the better of one of the most energetic of the Parliamentary generals, Sir William Waller, on Lansdown, near Bath, and on July 13 his army thoroughly overthrew the same commander at Roundway Down, near Devizes. On July 26 Bristol was stormed by Rupert. Hopton now hoped to be able to push on towards Kent without difficulty. In the north, too, the king's cause was prospering. On June 30, Newcastle defeated the Parliamentarians, Lord Fairfax and his son, Sir Thomas Fairfax, at Adwalton Moor, close to Bradford. He, too, hoped to be able to push on southwards.

It seemed as if the king's plan would be carried out before the end of the summer, and that London would be starved into surrender.

15. =The Siege of Gloucester. 1643.=--Charles, however, failed to accomplish his design, mainly because the armies of Hopton and Newcastle were formed for the most part of recruits, levied respectively in the west and in the north of England, who cared more for the safety of their own property and families than for the king's cause. In the west, Plymouth, and in the north, Hull, were still garrisoned by the Parliament. Hopton's men were, therefore, unwilling to go far from their homes in Cornwall as long as their fields were liable to be ravaged by the garrison of Plymouth, and in the same way, Newcastle's men would not go far from Yorks.h.i.+re as long as their fields were liable to be ravaged by the garrison of Hull. The Welshmen, also, who served in the king's own army found their homes endangered by a Parliamentary garrison at Gloucester, and were equally unwilling to push forward. Charles had, therefore, to take Plymouth, Hull, and Gloucester, if he could, before he could attack London. In August he laid siege in person to Gloucester. The London citizens at once perceived that, if Gloucester fell, their own safety would be in peril, and amidst the greatest enthusiasm the London trained bands marched out to its relief. On September 5 the king raised the siege on their approach.

16. =The First Battle of Newbury. 1643.=--Charles did not, however, give up the game. Hurrying to Newbury, and reaching it before Ess.e.x could arrive there on his way back to London, he blocked the way of the Parliamentary army. Ess.e.x, whose provisions were running short, must force a pa.s.sage or surrender. On September 20 a furious battle was fought outside Newbury, but when the evening came, though Ess.e.x had gained ground, the royal army still lay across the London road.

It had, however, suffered heavy losses, and its ammunition being almost exhausted, Charles marched away in the night, leaving the way open for Ess.e.x to continue his retreat to London. In this battle Falkland was slain. He had sided with the king, not because he shared the pa.s.sions of the more violent Royalists, but because he feared the intolerance of the Puritans. Charles's determination to conquer or perish rather than to admit of a compromise had saddened his mind, and he went about murmuring, 'Peace! peace!' He was weary of the times, he said, on the morning of the battle, but he would 'be out of it ere night.' He threw himself into the thick of the fight and soon found the death which he sought.

17. =The Eastern a.s.sociation. 1643.=--Whilst in the south the resistance of Gloucester had weakened the king's power of attack, a formidable barrier was being raised against Newcastle's advance in the east. Early in the war, certain counties in different parts of the country had a.s.sociated themselves together for mutual defence, and of these combinations the strongest was the Eastern a.s.sociation, comprising the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Ess.e.x, Cambridge and Hertford. These five counties raised forces in common and paid them out of a common purse.

18. =Oliver Cromwell. 1642-1643.=--The strength which the Eastern a.s.sociation soon developed was owing to its placing itself under the leaders.h.i.+p of Oliver Cromwell, a member of Parliament, who had taken arms when the civil war began, and who soon distinguished himself by his practical sagacity. "Your troops," he said to Hampden after the flight of the Parliamentary cavalry at Edgehill, "are, most of them, old decayed serving men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows, and their troops are gentlemen's sons, younger sons, and persons of quality; do you think that the spirits of such base and mean fellows will ever be able to encounter gentlemen that have honour and courage and resolution in them? You must get men of a spirit, and take it not ill what I say--I know you will not--of a spirit that is likely to go on as far as gentlemen will go; or else you will be beaten still." It was this idea which Cromwell, having been appointed a colonel, put in execution in the Eastern a.s.sociation. He took for his soldiers sternly Puritan men, who had their hearts in the cause; but he was not content with religious zeal alone. Every one who served under him must undergo the severest discipline. After a few months he had a cavalry regiment under his orders so fiery and at the same time so well under restraint that no body of horse on either side could compare with it.

19. =The a.s.sembly of Divines. 1643.=--Whilst the armies were fighting with varying success, Pym, with undaunted courage, was holding the House of Commons to its task of resistance. After the Royalist successes in June and July, the great peril of the Parliamentary cause made him resolve to ask the Scots for help. The Scots, thinking that if Charles overthrew the English Parliament he would next fall upon them, were ready to send an army to fight against the king, but only on the condition that the Church of England should become Presbyterian like their own. Already some steps had been taken in this direction, and on July 1 a Puritan a.s.sembly of divines met at Westminster to propose ecclesiastical alterations, which were to be submitted to Parliament for its approval.

20. =The Solemn League and Covenant. 1643.=--In August, commissioners from the English Parliament, of whom the princ.i.p.al was Sir Henry Vane, arrived in Edinburgh to negotiate for an alliance.

The result was a treaty between the two nations, styled the Solemn League and Covenant--usually known in England simply as the Covenant, but altogether different from the National Covenant, signed by the Scots only in =1638= (see p. 525). The Scots wished the English to bind themselves to 'the reformation of religion in the Church of England according to the example of the best reformed churches'; in other words, according to the Presbyterian system.

Vane, however, who was eager for religious liberty, insisted on slipping in the words, 'and according to the Word of G.o.d.' The Scots could not possibly refuse to accept the addition, though, by so doing, they left it free to every Englishman to a.s.sert that any part of the Presbyterian system which he disliked was not 'according to the Word of G.o.d.' The Covenant, thus amended, was carried to England, and on September 25, five days after the battle of Newbury, was sworn to by the members of the House of Commons, and was soon afterwards ordered to be sworn to by every Englishman. Money was then sent to Scotland, and a Scottish army prepared to enter England before the opening of the next campaign.

21. =The Irish War. 1641-1643.=--Whilst Parliament looked for help to Scotland, Charles looked to Ireland. The insurrection in the north of Ireland in October, =1641= (see p. 533) had been the affair of the Celtic natives; but in December they were joined by the Catholic lords and gentry of Norman or English descent. For the first time in Ireland there was a contest between Catholic and Protestant, instead of a contest between Celts on one side, and those who were not Celts on the other. The allies were not likely to be very harmonious, as the Celts wished to return to their old tribal inst.i.tutions, and the Catholic lords wished to be predominant in Parliament in agreement with the king. For the present, however, they were united by the fear that the Puritan Parliament in England and the Puritan Government in Dublin (see p. 533) would attempt to destroy them and their religion together. The outbreak of the Civil War in England, in =1642=, made it impossible for either king or Parliament to send sufficient troops to overpower them. In May they had chosen a Supreme Council to govern revolted Ireland, and in October a General a.s.sembly of the Confederate Catholics, as they styled themselves, was held at Kilkenny. The a.s.sembly pet.i.tioned Charles for the redress of grievances, and in January, =1643=, Charles opened negotiations with them, hoping to obtain an Irish army with which he might carry on war in England. In March they offered him 10,000 men if he would consent to allow a Parliament mainly composed of Catholics to meet at Dublin and to propose bills for his approval. Charles, who liked neither to make this concession nor to relinquish the hope of Irish aid, directed a cessation of arms in Ireland, in the hope that an agreement of some kind might ultimately be come to. In accordance with this cessation, which was signed on September 15, the coast-line from Belfast to Dublin, and a patch of land round Cork, was in the possession of the English forces, whilst a body of Scots, under Monro, held Carrickfergus, but all the rest of Ireland was in the hands of the Confederates.

22. =Winceby and Arundel. 1643-1644.=--As yet Charles had to depend on his English forces alone. In the beginning of September, Newcastle, lately created a Marquis, laid siege to Hull. If Hull fell, he would be able to sweep down on the Eastern a.s.sociation. The Earl of Manchester--known as Lord Kimbolton at the time of the attempt on the five members--had been appointed general of the army of that a.s.sociation, with Cromwell as his lieutenant-general. On October 11 Cromwell defeated a body of Royalist horse at Winceby. On the 12th, Newcastle raised the siege of Hull. All danger of Newcastle's marching southwards was thus brought to an end. In the South, Hopton succeeded in reaching Suss.e.x, and, in December, took Arundel Castle; but the place was retaken by Sir William Waller on January 6, =1644=. Here, too, the Royalist attack received a check, and there was no longer any likelihood that the king's forces would be able to starve out London by establis.h.i.+ng themselves on the banks of the Thames.

23. =The Committee of Both Kingdoms. 1644.=--Pym, whose statesmans.h.i.+p had brought about the alliance with the Scots, died on December 8, =1643=. On January 19 the Scots crossed the Tweed again under the command of Alexander Leslie (see p. 526), who had been created Earl of Leven when Charles visited Edinburgh in =1641=. On the 25th, Sir Thomas Fairfax defeated, at Nantwich, a force of English soldiers who had been freed from service in Ireland by the cessation of arms, and had been sent by Ormond, who had recently been named by Charles Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to support the royalist cause in England. Pym's death, and the necessity of carrying on joint operations with the Scots, called for the appointment of some definite authority at Westminster, and, on February 16, a Committee of Both Kingdoms, composed of members of one or other of the two Houses, and also of Scottish Commissioners sent to England by the Parliament of Scotland, was named to control the operations of the armies of the two nations.

24. =The Campaign of Marston Moor. 1644.=--The spring campaign opened successfully for Parliament. In March, indeed, Rupert relieved Newark, which was hardly pressed by a Parliamentary force; but in March Waller defeated Hopton at Cheriton near Alresford, whilst in the North, Sir Thomas Fairfax, together with his father, Lord Fairfax, seized upon Selby, and joined the Scots in besieging York, into which Newcastle had been driven. In May, Manchester stormed Lincoln, and he too joined the forces before York. At the king's headquarters there was deep alarm. Ess.e.x and Waller were approaching to attack Oxford, but Charles slipping out of the city before it was surrounded despatched Rupert to the relief of York. At Rupert's approach the besiegers retreated. On July 2 Rupert and Newcastle fought a desperate battle on Marston Moor, though they were decidedly outnumbered by their opponents. The whole of the right wing of the Parliamentarians, and part of the centre, fled before the Royalist attack; but on their left, Cromwell restored the fight, and drove Rupert in flight before him. Cromwell did not, however, as Rupert had done at Edgehill, waste his energies in the pursuit of the fugitives. Promptly drawing up, he faced round, and hurled his squadrons upon the hitherto victorious Royalists in the other parts of the field. The result was decisive. "It had all the evidence," wrote Cromwell, "of an absolute victory, obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the G.o.dly party princ.i.p.ally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. G.o.d made them as stubble to our swords."

All the north of England, except a few fortresses, fell into the hands of Parliament and the Scots.

25. =Presbyterians and Independents. 1644.=--Cromwell spoke of Marston Moor as a victory of the 'G.o.dly party.' The Westminster a.s.sembly of Divines had declared strongly in favour of Presbyterianism, but there were a few of its members--only five at first, known as the five Dissenting Brethren--who stood up for the principles of the Separatists (see p. 470) wis.h.i.+ng to see each congregation independent of any general ecclesiastical organisation. From holding these opinions they were beginning to be known as Independents. These men now attracted to themselves a considerable number of the stronger-minded Puritans, such as Cromwell and Vane, of whom many, though they had no special attachment to the teaching of the Independent divines, upheld the idea of toleration, whilst others gave their adherence to one or other of the numerous sects which had recently sprung into existence. Cromwell, especially, was drawn in the direction of toleration by his practical experience as a soldier. It was intolerable to him to be forbidden to promote a good officer on the ground that he was not a Presbyterian. On one occasion he was asked to discard a certain officer because he was an Anabaptist.

"Admit he be," he had replied; "shall that render him incapable to serve the public? Take heed of being too sharp, or too easily sharpened by others, against those to whom you can object little but that they square not with you in every opinion concerning matters of religion." He had accordingly filled his own regiments with men of every variety of Puritan opinion, choosing for promotion the best soldier, and not the adherent of any special Church system. These he styled 'the G.o.dly party,' and it was by the soldiers of 'the G.o.dly party,' so understood, that Marston Moor had been won.

26. =Ess.e.x's Surrender at Lostwithiel. 1644.=--Ess.e.x was the hope of the Presbyterians who despised the sects and hated toleration. Being jealous of Waller, he left him to take Oxford alone, if he could, and marched off to the West, to accomplish what he imagined to be the easier task of wresting the western counties from the king.

Charles turned upon Waller, and fought an indecisive action with him at Cropredy Bridge, after which Waller's army, being composed of local levies with no heart for permanent soldiering, melted away.

Charles then marched in pursuit of Ess.e.x, and surrounded him at Lostwithiel, in Cornwall. Ess.e.x's provisions fell short; and on September 2, though his horse cut their way out, and he himself escaped in a boat, the whole of his infantry capitulated.

27. =The Second Battle of Newbury. 1644.=--London was thus laid bare, and Parliament hastily summoned Manchester and the army of the Eastern a.s.sociation to its aid. Manchester, being good-natured and const.i.tutionally indolent, longed for some compromise with Charles which might bring about peace. Cromwell, on the other hand, perceived that no compromise was possible with Charles as long as he was at the head of an army in the field. A second battle of Newbury was fought, on October 27, with doubtful results: Manchester showed little energy, and the king was allowed to escape in the night.

Cromwell, to whom his sluggishness seemed nothing less than treason to the cause, attacked Manchester in Parliament, not from personal ill-will, but from a desire to remove an inefficient general from his command in the army. Two parties were thus arrayed against one another: on the one side the Presbyterians, who wanted to suppress the sects and, if possible, to make peace; and on the other side the Independents, who wanted toleration, and to carry on the war efficiently till a decisive victory had been gained.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

THE NEW MODEL ARMY. 1644-1649

LEADING DATES

Reign of Charles I., 1625-1649

Battle of Naseby June 14, 1645 Glamorgan's Treaty Aug. 25, 1645 Charles in the hands of the Scots May 5, 1646 Charles surrendered by the Scots Jan. 30, 1647 Charles carried off from Holmby June 5, 1647 The Army in Military Possession of London Aug. 7, 1647 Charles's Flight from Hampton Court Nov. 11, 1647 The Second Civil War April to Aug., 1648 Pride's Purge Dec. 6, 1648 Execution of Charles Jan. 30, 1649

1. =The Self-denying Ordinance and the New Model. 1645.=--Cromwell dropped his attack on Manchester as soon as he found that he could attain his end in another way. A proposal was made for the pa.s.sing of a Self-denying Ordinance,[23] which was to exclude all members of either House from commands in the army. The Lords, knowing that members of their House would be chiefly affected by it, threw it out, and the Commons then proceeded to form a New Model Army--that is to say, an army newly organised, its officers and soldiers being chosen solely with a view to military efficiency. Its general was to be Sir Thomas Fairfax, whilst the lieutenant-general was not named; but there can be little doubt that the post was intended for Cromwell. After the Lords had agreed to the New Model, they accepted the Self-denying Ordinance in an altered form, as, though all the existing officers were directed to resign their posts, nothing was said against their re-appointment. Ess.e.x, Manchester, and Waller resigned, but when the time came for Cromwell to follow their example, he and two or three others were appointed to commands in the new army. Cromwell became Lieutenant-General, with the command of the cavalry. The New Model was composed partly of pressed men, and was by no means, as has been often said, of a sternly religious character throughout; but a large number of decided Puritans had been drafted into it, especially from the army of the Eastern a.s.sociation; and the majority of the officers were Independents, some of them of a strongly Sectarian type. The New Model Army had the advantage of receiving regular pay, which had not been the case before; so that the soldiers, whether Puritans or not, were now likely to stick to their colours.

[Footnote 23: An ordinance was at this time in all respects similar to an Act of Parliament, except that it did not receive the Royal a.s.sent. In the middle ages an ordinance was exactly the reverse, being issued by the King without Parliamentary approval.]