1645.
While the king’s affairs declined in England, some events happened in Scotland which seemed to promise him a more prosperous issue of the quarrel.
Before the commencement of these civil disorders, the earl of Montrose, a young nobleman of a distinguished family, returning from his travels, had been introduced to the king, and had made an offer of his services; but by the insinuations of the marquis, afterwards duke of Hamilton, who possessed much of Charles’s confidence, he had not been received with that distinction to which he thought himself justly entitled.[*]
Disgusted with this treatment, he had forwarded all the violence of the Covenanters; and, agreeably to the natural ardor of his genius, he had employed himself, during the first Scottish insurrection, with great zeal, as well as success, in levying and conducting their armies. Being commissioned by the “Tables,” to wait upon the king while the royal army lay at Berwick, he was so gained by the civilities and caresses of that monarch, that he thenceforth devoted himself entirely, though secretly, to his service, and entered into a close correspondence with him. In the second insurrection, a great military command was intrusted to him by the Covenanters; and he was the first that passed the Tweed, at the head of their troops, in the invasion of England. He found means, however, soon after to convey a letter to the king; and by the infidelity of some about that prince,—Hamilton as was suspected,—a copy of this letter was sent to Leven, the Scottish general. Being accused of treachery, and a correspondence with the enemy, Montrose openly avowed the letter, and asked the generals if they dared to call their sovereign an enemy; and by this bold and magnanimous behavior he escaped the danger of an immediate prosecution. As he was now fully known to be of the royal party, he no longer concealed his principles; and he endeavored to draw those who had entertained like sentiments into a bond of association for his master’s service. Though thrown into prison for this enterprise,[*] and detained some time, he was not discouraged; but still continued, by his countenance and protection, to infuse spirit into the distressed royalists. Among other persons of distinction who united themselves to him was Lord Napier of Merchiston, son of the famous inventor of the logarithms, the person to whom the title of a “great man” is more justly due, than to any other whom his country ever produced. There was in Scotland another party, who, professing equal attachment to the king’s service, pretended only to differ with Montrose about the means of attaining the same end; and of that party Duke Hamilton was the leader. This nobleman had cause to be extremely devoted to the king, not only by reason of the connection of blood which united him to the royal family, but on account of the great confidence and favor with which he had ever been honored by his master. Being accused by Lord Rae, not without some appearance of probability, of a conspiracy against the king, Charles was so far from harboring suspicion against him, that, the very first time Hamilton came to court, he received him into his bed-chamber, and passed alone the night with him.[**] But such was the duke’s unhappy fate or conduct, that he escaped not the imputation of treachery to his friend and sovereign; and though he at last sacrificed his life in the king’s service, his integrity and sincerity have not been thought by historians entirely free from blemish. Perhaps (and this is the more probable opinion) the subtleties and refinements of his conduct, and his temporizing maxims, though accompanied with good intentions, have been the chief cause of a suspicion which has never yet been either fully proved or refuted.
As much as the bold and vivid spirit of Montrose prompted him to enterprising measures, as much was the cautious temper of Hamilton inclined to such as were moderate and dilatory. While the former foretold that the Scottish Covenanters were secretly forming a union with the English parliament, and inculcated the necessity of preventing them by some vigorous undertaking, the latter still insisted, that every such attempt would precipitate them into measures to which otherwise they were not perhaps inclined. After the Scottish convention was summoned without the king’s authority, the former exclaimed, that their intentions were now visible, and that if some unexpected blow were not struck to dissipate them, they would arm the whole nation against the king; the latter maintained the possibility of outvoting the disaffected party, and securing by peaceful means the allegiance of the kingdom.[*] Unhappily for the royal cause, Hamilton’s representations met with more credit from the king and queen than those of Montrose; and the Covenanters were allowed, without interruption, to proceed in all their hostile measures. Montrose then hastened to Oxford where his invectives against Hamilton’s treachery, concurring with the general prepossession, and supported by the unfortunate event of his counsels, were entertained with universal probation. Influenced by the clamor of his party, more than his own suspicions, Charles, as soon as Hamilton appeared, sent him prisoner to Pendennis Castle, in Cornwall. His brother Laneric, who was also put under confinement found means to make his escape, and to fly into Scotland.
The king’s ears were now open to Montrose’s counsels, who proposed none but the boldest and most daring, agreeably to the desperate state of the royal cause in Scotland. Though the whole nation was subjected by the Covenanters, though great armies were kept on foot by them, and every place guarded by a vigilant administration, he undertook, by his own credit, and that of the few friends who remained to the king, to raise such commotions as would soon oblige the malecontents to recall those forces which had so sensibly thrown the balance in favor of the parliament.[**] Not discouraged with the defeat at Marston Moor, which rendered it impossible for him to draw any succor from England, he was content to stipulate with the earl of Antrim, a nobleman of Ireland, for some supply of men from that country. And he himself changing his disguises, and passing through many dangers, arrived in Scotland; where he lay concealed in the borders of the Highlands, and secretly prepared the minds of his partisans for attempting some great enterprise.[***]
No sooner were the Irish landed, though not exceeding eleven hundred foot, very ill armed, than Montrose declared himself, and entered upon that scene of action which has rendered his name so celebrated. About eight hundred of the men of Athole flocked to his standard. Five hundred men more, who had been levied by the Covenanters, were persuaded to embrace the royal cause: and with this combined force, he hastened to attack Lord Elcho, who lay at Perth with an army of six thousand men, assembled upon the first news of the Irish invasion. Montrose, inferior in number, totally unprovided with horse, ill supplied with arms and ammunition, had nothing to depend on, but the courage which he himself, by his own example, and the rapidity of his enterprises, should inspire into his raw soldiers. Having received the fire of the enemy, which was answered chiefly by a volley of stones, he rushed amidst them with his sword drawn, threw them into confusion, pushed his advantage, and obtained a complete victory, with the slaughter of two thousand of the Covenanters.[*]
This victory, though it augmented the renown of Montrose, increased not his power or numbers. The far greater part of the kingdom was extremely attached to the covenant; and such as bore an affection to the royal cause, were terrified by the established authority of the opposite party. Dreading the superior power of Argyle, who, having joined his vassals to a force levied by the public, was approaching with a considerable army, Montrose hastened northwards, in order to rouse again the marquis of Huntley and the Gordons, who, having before hastily taken arms, had been instantly suppressed by the Covenanters. He was joined on his march by the earl of Airly, with his two younger sons, Sir Thomas and Sir David Ogilvy: the eldest was at that time a prisoner with the enemy. He attacked at Aberdeen the Lord Burley, who commanded a force of two thousand five hundred men. After a sharp combat, by his undaunted courage, which in his situation was true policy, and was also not unaccompanied with military skill, he put the enemy to flight, and in the pursuit did great execution upon them.[**]
But by this second advantage he obtained not the end which he expected. The envious nature of Huntley, jealous of Montrose’s glory, rendered him averse to join an army where he himself must be so much eclipsed by the superior merit of the general. Argyle, reënforced by the earl of Lothian, was behind him with a great army: the militia of the northern counties, Murray, Ross, Caithness, to the number of five thousand men, opposed him in front, and guarded the banks of the Spey, a deep and rapid river. In order to elude these numerous armies, he turned aside into the hills, and saved his weak but active troops in Badenoch. After some marches and countermarches, Argyle came up with him at Faivy Castle. This nobleman’s character, though celebrated for political courage and conduct, was very low for military prowess, and after some skirmishes, in which he was worsted, he here allowed Montrose to escape him. By quick marches through these inaccessible mountains, that general freed himself from the superior forces of the Covenanters.
Such was the situation of Montrose, that very good or very ill fortune was equally destructive to him, and diminished his army. After every victory, his soldiers, greedy of spoil, but deeming the smallest acquisition to be unexhausted riches, deserted in great numbers, and went home to secure the treasures which they had acquired. Tired too, and spent with hasty and long marches in the depth of winter, through snowy mountains, unprovided with every necessary, they fell off, and left their general almost alone with the Irish, who, having no place to which they could retire, still adhered to him in every fortune.
With these, and some reënforcements of the Atholemen and Macdonalds whom he had recalled, Montrose fell suddenly upon Argyle’s country, and let loose upon it all the rage of war; carrying off the cattle, burning the houses, and putting the inhabitants to the sword. This severity, by which Montrose sullied his victories, was the result of private animosity against the chieftain, as much as of zeal for the public cause, Argyle, collecting three thousand men, marched in quest of the enemy, who had retired with their plunder; and he lay at Innerlochy, supposing himself still at a considerable distance from them. The earl of Seaforth, at the head of the garrison of Inverness, who were veteran soldiers, joined to five thousand new levied troops of the northern counties, pressed the royalists on the other side, and threatened them with inevitable destruction. By a quick and unexpected march, Montrose hastened to Innerlochy, and presented himself in order of battle before the surprised but not affrightened Covenanters. Argyle alone, seized with a panic, deserted his army, who still maintained their ground, and gave battle to the royalists. After a vigorous resistance, they were defeated, and pursued with great slaughter.[*] And the power of the Campbells (that is Argyle’s name) being thus broken, the Highlanders, who were in general well affected to the royal cause, began to join Montrose’s camp in great numbers. Seaforth’s army dispersed of itself, at the very terror of his name. And Lord Gordon, eldest son of Huntley, having escaped from his uncle Argyle, who had hitherto detained him, now joined Montrose, with no contemptible number of his followers, attended by his brother, the earl of Aboine.
The council at Edinburgh, alarmed at Montrose’s progress, began to think of a more regular plan of defence against an enemy whose repeated victories had rendered him extremely formidable. They sent for Baillie, an officer of reputation, from England; and joining him in command with Urrey, who had again enlisted himself among the king’s enemies, they sent them to the field with a considerable army against the royalists. Montrose, with a detachment of eight hundred men, had attacked Dundee, a town extremely zealous for the covenant, and having carried it by assault, had delivered it up to be plundered by his soldiers; when Baillie and Urrey, with their whole force, were unexpectedly upon him.[**] His conduct and presence of mind in this emergence appeared conspicuous. Instantly he called off his soldiers from plunder, put them in order, secured his retreat by the most skilful measures; and having marched sixty miles in the face of an enemy much superior, without stopping, or allowing his soldiers the least sleep or refreshment, he at last secured himself in the mountains.
Baillie and Urrey now divided their troops, in order the better to conduct the war against an enemy who surprised them as much by the rapidity of his marches, as by the boldness of his enterprises. Urrey, at the head of four thousand men, met him at Alderne, near Inverness; and, encouraged by the superiority of number, (for the Covenanters were double the royalists,) attacked him in the post which he had chosen Montrose, having placed his right wing in strong ground, drew the best of his forces to the other, and left no main body between them; a defect which he artfully concealed, by showing a few men through the trees and bushes with which that ground was covered. That Urrey might have no leisure to perceive the stratagem, he instantly led his left wing to the charge; and, making a furious impression upon the Covenanters, drove them off the field, and gained a complete victory.[*] In this battle, the valor of young Napier, son to the lord of that name, shone out with signal lustre.
Baillie now advanced, in order to revenge Urrey’s discomfiture; but at Alford he met himself with a like fate. Montrose, weak in cavalry, here lined his troops of horse with infantry; and after putting the enemy’s horse to rout, fell with united force upon their foot, who were entirely cut in pieces, though with the loss of the gallant Lord Gordon on the part of the royalists.[**] And having thus prevailed in so many battles, which his vigor ever rendered as decisive as they were successful, he summoned together all his friends and partisans, and prepared himself for marching into the southern provinces, in order to put a final period to the power of the Covenanters, and dissipate the parliament, which, with great pomp and solemnity, they had summoned to meet at St. Johnstone’s.
While the fire was thus kindled in the north of the island, it blazed out with no less fury in the south: the parliamentary and royal armies, as soon as the season would permit, prepared to take the field, in hopes of bringing their important quarrel to a quick decision. The passing of the self-denying ordinance had been protracted by so many debates and intrigues, that the spring was far advanced before it received the sanction of both houses; and it was thought dangerous by many to introduce, so near the time of action, such great innovations into the army. Had not the punctilious principles of Essex engaged him, amidst all the disgusts which he received, to pay implicit obedience to the parliament, this alteration had not been effected without some fatal accident: since, notwithstanding his prompt resignation of the command, a mutiny was generally apprehended.[***]
Fairfax, or, more properly speaking, Cromwell under his name, introduced at last the new model into the army, and threw the troops into a different shape. From the same men new regiments and new companies were formed, different officers appointed, and the whole military force put into such hands as the Independents could rely on. Besides members of parliament who were excluded, many officers, unwilling to serve under the new generals, threw up their commissions, and unwarily facilitated the project of putting the army entirely into the hands of that faction.
Though the discipline of the former parliamentary army was not contemptible, a more exact plan was introduced, and rigorously executed, by these new commanders. Valor indeed was very generally diffused over the one party as well as the other, during this period: discipline also was attained by the forces of the parliament: but the perfection of the military art, in concerting the general plans of action and the operations of the field, seems still on both sides to have been in a great measure wanting. Historians at least, perhaps from their own ignorance and inexperience, have not remarked any thing but a headlong, impetuous conduct; each party hurrying to a battle, where valor and fortune chiefly determined the success. The great ornament of history, during these reigns, are the civil, not the military transactions.
Never surely was a more singular army assembled, than that which was now set on foot by the parliament. To the greater number of the regiments chaplains were not appointed, the officers assumed the spiritual duty, and united it with their military functions. During the intervals of action, they occupied themselves in sermons, prayers, exhortations; and the same emulation there attended them, which in the field is so necessary to support the honor of that profession. Rapturous ecstasies supplied the place of study and reflection; and while the zealous devotees poured out their thoughts in unpremeditated harangues, they mistook that eloquence which to their own surprise, as well as that of others, flowed in upon them, for divine illuminations, and for illapses of the Holy Spirit. Wherever they were quartered, they excluded the minister from his pulpit; and, usurping his place, conveyed their sentiments to the audience, with all the authority which followed their power, their valor, and their military exploits, united to their appearing zeal and fervor. The private soldiers, seized with the same spirit, employed their vacant hours in prayer, in perusing the Holy Scriptures, in ghostly conferences where they compared the progress of their in grace, and mutually stimulated each other to further advances in the great work of their salvation. When they were marching to battle, the whole field resounded, as well with psalms and spiritual songs adapted to the occasion, as with the instruments of military music:[*] and every man endeavored to drown the sense of present danger in the prospect of that crown of glory which was set before him. In so holy a cause, wounds were esteemed meritorious; death, martyrdom; and the hurry and dangers of action, instead of banishing their pious visions, rather served to impress their minds more strongly with them.
The royalists were desirous of throwing a ridicule on this fanaticism of the parliamentary armies, without being sensible how much reason they had to apprehend its dangerous consequences. The forces assembled by the king at Oxford, in the west, and in other places, were equal, if not superior in number to their adversaries; but actuated by a very different spirit. That license which had been introduced by want of pay, had risen to a great height among them, and rendered them more formidable to their friends than to their enemies. Prince Rupert, negligent of the people, fond of the soldiery, had indulged the troops in unwarrantable liberties: Wilmot, a man of dissolute manners, had promoted the same spirit of disorder: and the licentious Goring, Gerrard, Sir Richard Granville, now carried it to a great pitch of enormity. In the west especially, where Goring commanded, universal spoil and havoc were committed; and the whole country was laid waste by the rapine of the army. All distinction of parties being in a manner dropped, the most devoted friends of the church and monarchy wished there for such success to the parliamentary forces as might put an end to these oppressions. The country people, despoiled of their substance, flocked together in several places, armed with clubs and staves; and though they professed an enmity to the soldiers of both parties, their hatred was in most places levelled chiefly against the royalists, from whom they had met with the worst treatment. Many thousands of these tumultuary peasants were assembled in different parts of England; who destroyed all such straggling soldiers as they met with, and much infested the armies.[**]
The disposition of the forces on both sides was as follows: part of the Scottish army was employed in taking Pomfret and other towns in Yorkshire: part of it besieged Carlisle valiantly defended by Sir Thomas Glenham. Chester, where Biron commanded, had long been blockaded by Sir William Brereton; and was reduced to great difficulties. The king, being joined by the princes Rupert and Maurice, lay at Oxford with a considerable army, about fifteen thousand men. Fairfax and Cromwell were posted at Windsor, with the new-modelled army, about twenty-two thousand men. Taunton, in the county of Somerset, defended by Blake, suffered a long siege from Sir Richard Granville, who commanded an army of about eight thousand men; and though the defence had been obstinate, the garrison was now reduced to the last extremity. Goring commanded in the west an army of nearly the same number.[*]
On opening the campaign, the king formed the project of relieving Chester; Fairfax, that of relieving Taunton. The king was first in motion. When he advanced to Draiton, in Shropshire, Biron met him, and brought intelligence that his approach had raised the siege, and that the parliamentary army had withdrawn. Fairfax, having reached Salisbury in his road westward, received orders from the committee of both kingdoms appointed for the management of the war, to return and lay siege to Oxford, now exposed by the king’s absence. He obeyed, after sending Colonel Weldon to the west with a detachment of four thousand men. On Weldon’s approach, Granville, who imagined that Fairfax with his whole army was upon him, raised the siege, and allowed this pertinacious town, now half taken and half burned, to receive relief: but the royalists, being reënforced with three thousand horse under Goring, again advanced to Taunton, and shut up Weldon, with his small army, in that ruinous place.[**]
The king, having effected his purpose with regard to Chester returned southwards: and in his way sat down before Leicester, a garrison of the parliaments. Having made a breach in the wall, he stormed the town on all sides; and, after a furious assault, the soldiers entered sword in hand, and committed all those disorders to which their natural violence, especially when inflamed by resistance, is so much addicted.[***]
A great booty was taken and distributed among them: fifteen hundred prisoners fell into the king’s hands. This success, which struck a great terror into the parliamentary army, determined Fairfax to leave Oxford, which he was beginning to approach; and he marched towards the king, with an intention of offering him battle. The king was advancing towards Oxford, in order to raise the siege, which, he apprehended, was now begun; and both armies, ere they were aware, had advanced within six miles of each other. A council of war was called by the king, in order to deliberate concerning the measures which he should now pursue. On the one hand, it seemed more prudent to delay the combat; because Gerrard, who lay in Wales with three thousand men, might be enabled in a little time to join the army; and Goring, it was hoped, would soon be master of Taunton, and having put the west in full security, would then unite his forces to those of the king, and give him an incontestable superiority over the enemy. On the other hand, Prince Rupert, whose boiling ardor still pushed him on to battle, excited the impatient humor of the nobility and gentry of which the army was full; and urged the many difficulties under which the royalists labored, and from which nothing but a victory could relieve them: the resolution was taken to give battle to Fairfax; and the royal army immediately advanced upon him.
At Naseby was fought, with forces nearly equal, this decisive and well-disputed action between the king and parliament. The main body of the royalists was commanded by the king himself; the right wing by Prince Rupert; the left by Sir Marmaduke Langdale. Fairfax, seconded by Skippon, placed himself in the main body of the opposite army; Cromwell in the right wing; Ireton, Cromwell’s son-in-law, in the left. The charge was begun, with his usual celerity and usual success, by Prince Rupert. Though Ireton made stout resistance, and even after he was run through the thigh with a pike, still maintained the combat till he was taken prisoner, yet was that whole wing broken, and pursued with precipitate fury by Rupert: he was even so inconsiderate as to lose time in summoning and attacking the artillery of the enemy, which had been left with a good guard of infantry. The king led on his main body, and displayed in this action all the conduct of a prudent general, and all the valor of a stout soldier.[*]
Fairfax and Skippon encountered him, and well supported that reputation which they had acquired. Skippon, being dangerously wounded, was desired by Fairfax to leave the field; but he declared that he would remain there as long as one man maintained his ground.[*] The infantry of the parliament was broken, and pressed upon by the king; till Fairfax, with great presence of mind, brought up the reserve, and renewed the combat. Meanwhile Cromwell, having led on his troops to the attack of Langdale, overbore the force of the royalists, and by his prudence improved that advantage which he had gained by his valor. Having pursued the enemy about a quarter of a mile, and detached some troops to prevent their rallying, he turned back upon the king’s infantry, and threw them into the utmost confusion. One regiment alone preserved its order unbroken, though twice desperately assailed by Fairfax: and that general, excited by so steady a resistance, ordered Doyley, the captain of his life-guard, to give them a third charge in front, while he himself attacked them in the rear. The regiment was broken. Fairfax, with his own hands, killed an ensign, and, having seized the colors, gave them to a soldier to keep for him. The soldier, afterwards boasting that he had won this trophy, was reproved by Doyley, who had seen the action. “Let him retain that honor,” said Fairfax; “I have to-day acquired enough beside.”[**]
Prince Rupert, sensible too late of his error, left the fruitless attack on the enemy’s artillery, and joined the king, whose infantry was now totally discomfited. Charles exhorted this body of cavalry not to despair, and cried aloud to them, “One charge more, and we recover the day.”[***] But the disadvantages under which they labored were too evident; and they could by no means be induced to renew the combat. Charles was obliged to quit the field, and leave the victory to the enemy.[****]
The slain on the side of the parliament exceeded those on the side of the king: they lost a thousand men; he not above eight hundred. But Fairfax made five hundred officers prisoners, and four thousand private men; took all the king’s artillery and ammunition, and totally dissipated his infantry: so that scarce any victory could be more complete than that which he obtained.
Among the other spoils was seized the king’s cabinet, with the copies of his letters to the queen, which the parliament afterwards ordered to be published.[*] They chose, no doubt, such of them as they thought would reflect dishonor on him: yet, upon the whole, the letters are written with delicacy and tenderness, and give an advantageous idea both of the king’s genius and morals. A mighty fondness, it is true, and attachment, he expresses to his consort, and often professes that he never would embrace any measures which she disapproved: but such declarations of civility and confidence are not always to be taken in a full, literal sense. And so legitimate an affection, avowed by the laws of God and man, may perhaps be excusable towards a woman of beauty and spirit, even though she was a Papist.[**]
The Athenians, having intercepted a letter written by their enemy, Philip of Macedon, to his wife Olympia, so far from being moved by a curiosity of prying into the secrets of that relation, immediately sent the letter to the queen unopened. Philip was not their sovereign; nor were they inflamed with that violent animosity against him which attends all civil commotions.
After the battle, the king retreated with that body of horse which remained entire, first to Hereford, then to Abergavenny; and remained some time in Wales, from the vain hope of raising a body of infantry in those harassed and exhausted quarters. Fairfax, having first retaken Leicester, which was surrendered upon articles, began to deliberate concerning his future enterprises. A letter was brought him, written by Goring to the king, and unfortunately intrusted to a spy of Fairfax’s. Goring there informed the king, that in three weeks he hoped to be master of Taunton, after which he would join his majesty with all the forces in the west; and entreated him, in the mean while to avoid coming to any general action. This letter, which, had it been safely delivered, had probably prevented the battle of Naseby, served now to direct the operations of Fairfax.[*] After leaving a body of three thousand men to Pointz and Rossiter, with orders to attend the king’s motions, he marched immediately to the west, with a view of saving Taunton, and suppressing the only considerable force which now remained to the royalists.
In the beginning of the campaign, Charles, apprehensive of the event, had sent the prince of Wales, then fifteen years of age, to the west, with the title of General, and had given orders, if he were pressed by the enemy, that he should make his escape into a foreign country, and save one part of the royal family from the violence of the parliament. Prince Rupert had thrown himself into Bristol, with an intention of defending that important city. Goring commanded the army before Taunton.
On Fairfax’s approach, the siege of Taunton was raised; and the royalists retired to Lamport, an open town in the county of Somerset. Fairfax attacked them in that post, beat them from it, killed about three hundred men, and took one thousand four hundred prisoners.[**] After this advantage, he sat down before Bridgewater, a town esteemed strong, and of great consequence in that country. When he had entered the outer town by storm, Windham, the Governor, who had retired into the inner, immediately capitulated, and delivered up the place to Fairfax. The garrison, to the number of two thousand six hundred men, were made prisoners of war.
Fairfax, having next taken Bath and Sherborne, resolved to lay siege to Bristol, and made great preparations for an enterprise which, from the strength of the garrison, and the reputation of Prince Rupert, the governor, was deemed of the last importance. But, so precarious in most men is this quality of military courage, a poorer defence was not made by any town during the whole war; and the general expectations were here extremely disappointed. No sooner had the parliamentary forces entered the lines by storm, than the prince capitulated, and surrendered the city to Fairfax.[***] A few days before, he had written a letter to the king, in which he undertook to defend the place for four months, if no mutiny obliged him to surrender it.
Charles, who was forming schemes and collecting forces for the relief of Bristol, was astonished at so unexpected an event, which was little less fatal to his cause than the defeat at Naseby.[*] Full of indignation, he instantly recalled all Prince Rupert’s commissions, and sent him a pass to go beyond sea.[**]
The king’s affairs now went fast to ruin in all quarters. The Scots, having made themselves masters of Carlisle, after an obstinate siege, marched southwards, and laid siege to Hereford; but were obliged to raise it on the king’s approach: and this was the last glimpse of success which attended his arms. Having marched to the relief of Chester, which was anew besieged by the parliamentary forces under Colonel Jones, Pointz attacked his rear, and forced him to give battle. While the fight was continued with great obstinacy, and victory seemed to incline to the royalists, Jones fell upon them from the other side, and put them to rout, with the loss of six hundred slain and one thousand prisoners.[***] The king, with the remains of his broken army, fled to Newark, and thence escaped to Oxford, where he shut himself up during the winter season.
The news which he received from every quarter, were no less fatal than those events which passed where he himself was present. Fairfax and Cromwell, after the surrender of Bristol, having divided their forces, the former marched westwards, in order to complete the conquest of Devonshire and Cornwall; the latter attacked the king’s garrisons which lay to the east of Bristol. The Devizes were surrendered to Cromwell; Berkeley Castle was taken by storm; Winchester capitulated; Basing House was entered sword in hand; and all these middle counties of England were, in a little time, reduced to obedience under the parliament.
1646.
The same rapid and uninterrupted success attended Fairfax. The parliamentary forces, elated by past victories, governed by the most rigid discipline, met with no equal opposition from troops dismayed by repeated defeats, and corrupted by licentious manners. After beating up the quarters of the royalists at Bovey Tracy, Fairfax sat down before Dartmouth, and in a few days entered it by storm. Poudram Castle being taken by him, and Exeter blockaded on all sides, Hopton, a man of merit, who now commanded the royalists, having advanced to the relief of that town with an army of eight thousand men, met with the parliamentary army at Torrington, where he was defeated, all his foot dispersed, and he himself with his horse obliged to retire into Cornwall. Fairfax followed him, and vigorously pursued the victory. Having enclosed the royalists at Truro, he forced the whole army, consisting of five thousand men, chiefly cavalry, to surrender upon terms. The soldiers, delivering up their horses and arms, were allowed to disband, and received twenty shillings apiece, to carry them to their respective abodes. Such of the officers as desired it had passes to retire beyond sea: the others, having promised never more to bear arms, paid compositions to the parliament,[*] and procured their pardon.[**] And thus Fairfax, after taking Exeter, which completed the conquest of the west, marched with his victorious army to the centre of the kingdom, and fixed his camp at Newbury. The prince of Wales, in pursuance of the king’s orders, retired to Scilly, thence to Jersey; whence he went to Paris, where he joined the queen, who had fled thither from Exeter, at the time the earl of Essex conducted the parliamentary army to the west.
In the other parts of England, Hereford was taken by surprise: Chester surrendered: Lord Digby, who had attempted with one thousand two hundred horse to break into Scotland and join Montrose, was defeated at Sherburne, in Yorkshire, by Colonel Copley; his whole force was dispersed, and he himself was obliged to fly, first to the Isle of Man, thence to Ireland. News, too, arrived that Montrose himself, after some more successes, was at last routed; and this only remaining hope of the royal party finally extinguished.
When Montrose descended into the southern counties, the Covenanters, assembling their whole force, met him with a numerous army, and gave him battle, but without success, at Kilsyth.[***] This was the most complete victory that Montrose ever obtained.
The royalists put to sword six thousand of their enemies, and left the Covenanters no remains of any army in Scotland. The whole kingdom was shaken with these repeated successes of Montrose; and many noblemen, who secretly favored the royal cause, now declared openly for it when they saw a force able to support them. The marquis of Douglas, the earls of Annandale and Hartfield, the lords Fleming, Seton, Maderty, Carnegy, with many others, flocked to the royal standard. Edinburgh opened its gates, and gave liberty to all the prisoners there detained by the Covenanters. Among the rest was Lord Ogilvy, son of Airly, whose family had contributed extremely to the victory gained at Kilsyth.[*]
David Lesly was detached from the army in England, and marched to the relief of his distressed party in Scotland. Montrose advanced still farther to the south, allured by vain hopes, both of rousing to arms the earls of Hume, Traquaire, and Roxborough, who had promised to join him; and of obtaining from England some supply of cavalry, in which he was deficient. By the negligence of his scouts, Lesly, at Philipbaugh in the Forest, surprised his army, much diminished in numbers, from the desertion of the Highlanders, who had retired to the hills, according to custom, in order to secure their plunder. After a sharp conflict, where Montrose exerted great valor, his forces were routed by Lesly’s cavalry;[**] and he himself was obliged to fly with his broken forces into the mountains, where he again prepared himself for new battles and new enterprises.[***]
The Covenanters used the victory with rigor. Their prisoners, Sir Robert Spotiswood, secretary of state, and son to the late primate, Sir Philip Nisbet, Sir William Hollo, Colonel Nathaniel Gordon, Andrew Guthry, son of the bishop of Murray, William Murray, son of the earl of Tullibardine, were condemned and executed. The sole crime imputed to the secretary was his delivering to Montrose the king’s commission to be captain-general of Scotland. Lord Ogilvy, who was again taken prisoner, would have undergone the same fate, had not his sister found means to procure his escape by changing clothes with him. For this instance of courage and dexterity, she met with harsh usage. The clergy solicited the parliament that more royalists might be executed; but could not obtain their request.[****]
After all these repeated disasters, which every where befell the royal party, there remained only one body of troops on which fortune could exercise her rigor. Lord Astley, with a small army of three thousand men, chiefly cavalry, marching to Oxford in order to join the king, was met at Stowe by Colonel Morgan, and entirely defeated, himself being taken prisoner. “You have done your work,” said Astley to the parliamentary officers; “and may now go to play, unless you choose to fall out among yourselves.”[*]
The condition of the king during this whole winter was to the last degree disastrous and melancholy. As the dread of ills is commonly more oppressive than their real presence, perhaps in no period of his life was he more justly the object of compassion. His vigor of mind, which, though it sometimes failed him in acting, never deserted him in his sufferings, was what alone supported him; and he was determined, as he wrote to Lord Digby, if he could not live as a king, to die like a gentleman; nor should any of his friends, he said, ever have reason to blush for the prince whom they had so unfortunately served.[**] The murmurs of discontented officers, on the one hand, harassed their unhappy sovereign; while they overrated those services and sufferings which they now saw must forever go unrewarded.[***] The affectionate duty, on the other hand, of his more generous friends, who respected his misfortunes and his virtues as much as his dignity, wrung his heart with a new sorrow, when he reflected that such disinterested attachment would so soon be exposed to the rigor of his implacable enemies. Repeated attempts which he made for a peaceful and equitable accommodation with the parliament, served to no purpose but to convince them that the victory was entirely in their hands. They deigned not to make the least reply to several of his messages, in which he desired a passport for commissioners.[****]
At last, after reproaching him with the blood spilt during the war, they told him that they were preparing bills for him; and his passing them would be the best pledge of his inclination towards peace: in other words, he must yield at discretion.[*] He desired a personal treaty, and offered to come to London, upon receiving a safe-conduct for himself and his attendants: they absolutely refused him admittance, and issued orders for the guarding, that is, the seizing of his person, in case he should attempt to visit them.[**]
A new incident, which happened in Ireland, served to inflame the minds of men, and to increase those calumnies with which his enemies had so much loaded him, and which he ever regarded as the most grievous part of his misfortunes. After the cessation with the Irish rebels, the king was desirous of concluding a final peace with them, and obtaining their assistance in England: and he gave authority to Ormond, lord lieutenant, to promise them an abrogation of all the penal laws enacted against Catholics; together with the suspension of Poinings’s statute, with regard to some particular bills which should be agreed on. Lord Herbert, created earl of Glamorgan, (though his patent had not yet passed the seals,) having occasion for his private affairs to go to Ireland, the king considered that this nobleman, being a Catholic, and allied to the best Irish families, might be of service: he also foresaw that further concessions with regard to religion might probably be demanded by the bigoted Irish; and that, as these concessions, however necessary, would give great scandal to the Protestant zealots in his three kingdoms, if would be requisite both to conceal them during some time, and to preserve Ormond’s character by giving private orders to Glamorgan to conclude and sign these articles. But as he had a better opinion of Glamorgan’s zeal and affection for his service than of his capacity, he enjoined him to communicate all his measures to Ormond; and though the final conclusion of the treaty must be executed only in Glamorgan’s own name, he was required to be directed in the steps towards it by the opinion of the lord lieutenant. Glamorgan, bigoted to his religion, and passionate for the king’s service, but guided in these pursuits by no manner of judgment or discretion, secretly, of himself, without any communication with Ormond, concluded a peace with the council of Kilkenny, and agreed, in the king’s name, that the Irish should enjoy all the churches of which they had ever been in possession since the commencement of their insurrection, on condition that they should assist the king in England with a body of ten thousand men. This transaction was discovered by accident. The titular archbishop of Tuam being killed by a sally of the garrison of Sligo, the articles of the treaty were found among his baggage, and were immediately published every where, and copies of them sent over to the English parliament.[*] The lord lieutenant and Lord Digby, foreseeing the clamor which would be raised against the king, committed Glamorgan to prison, charged him with treason for his temerity, and maintained that he had acted altogether without any authority from his master. The English parliament, however, neglected not so favorable an opportunity of reviving the old clamor with regard to the king’s favor of Popery, and accused him of delivering over, in a manner, the whole kingdom of Ireland to that hated sect. The king told them, “that the earl of Glamorgan, having made an offer to raise forces in the kingdom of Ireland, and to conduct them into England for his majesty’s service, had a commission to that purpose, and to that purpose only; and that he had no commission at all to treat of any thing else, without the privity and direction of the lord lieutenant, much less to capitulate any thing concerning religion, or any property belonging either to church or laity.”[**] Though this declaration seems agreeable to truth, it gave no satisfaction to the parliament; and some historians, even at present, when the ancient bigotry is somewhat abated, are desirous of representing this very innocent transaction, in which the king was engaged by the most violent necessity, as a stain on the memory of that unfortunate prince.[***] 16