George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, had experience of fighting in Ireland so he was sent across the Irish Sea to fight the rebels. He swore loyalty to the Parliamentary cause and his conscience allowed him to face the Irish because he was not taking arms against the king. But Monck was unable to suppress Owen Roe O’Neill and while he agreed an armistice, Parliament refused to accept it.
The Scottish Covenanters agreed to the Solemn League and Covenant, an agreement to preserve their reformed religion. Monck responded by joining the Royalist cause, under the command of Hugh Montgomery, 1st Earl of Mount Alexander. Parliament quickly rejected the truce he had made.
James FitzThomas Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, commanded the Irish Confederates and English Royalist troops in Ireland. Cromwell’s troops landed in Ireland in 1649 and routed the Confederates at the battle of Rathmines in August. The New Model Army’s brutal sack of Drogheda convinced some towns to surrender but others fought on despite fearing a massacre. By May 1650 Charles II had given up on the Irish Confederates and he allied with the Scottish Covenanters. FitzThomas’s Protestant troops switched to Cromwell and he left Ireland soon afterwards. Heber MacMahon’s Ulster army was defeated at the battle of Scarrifholis in June and then Limerick and Galway were taken.
The Catholic Confederates had lost their trust in FitzThomas, so he was exiled to France and his lands were confiscated as organised fighting came to an end. Guerrilla warfare followed and the rebels were known as ‘Tories’ from the Irish for pursued man (tóraidhe). Famine and the plague swept Ireland as the rebels were executed and soldiers exiled. Cromwell confiscated lands from Catholics and either sold them to raise the army’s wages or gave them to soldiers in lieu of payment.
George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, fought alongside Oliver Cromwell at the victory of the battle of Dunbar in 1650. He was appointed commander-in-chief in Scotland and completed the defeat of the Scots. After spending time at Bath in England, restoring his health, Monck returned to Scotland and defeated a Royalist insurrection in the Highlands. He took the opportunity to remove dissidents, who were called ‘enthusiasts’, from the army after discovering his second in command, Robert Overton, was plotting a rebellion in 1654.
Prince Charles had spent the Second Civil War in exile in The Hague and his father was executed on 30 January 1649. Scotland’s Covenanter Parliament proclaimed him king but refused to let him enter their territory until he accepted Presbyterianism. Oliver Cromwell defeated the Covenanters at the battle of Dunbar in September 1650 and Charles’s attempt to join the royalist Engagers failed. Even so, he was crowned King of Scotland in January 1651.
Charles headed south across the border with an army and was met by George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, in Lancashire. Lieutenant General Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester, joined the king and James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby, landed in Lancashire and swelled the numbers of the Royalist army marching south. But Charles was defeated at Worcester on 3 September 1651 and Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Cleveland, had to help him escape the town. John Talbot, 10th Earl of Shrewsbury, led Charles to Shropshire and Wilmot took him on a six-week journey in disguise to escape England. He had several close escapes including the famous episode where he hid in an oak tree in the grounds of Boscobel House in Shropshire. Meanwhile, a new act of parliament declared those who contacted Charles guilty of treason.
By 1653 the threats from Scotland and Ireland were over and it was time to consider what form Cromwell’s rule should take. Many opposed the Rump Parliament but it also stopped the country becoming a military dictatorship. Oliver Cromwell was declared Lord Protector of the ‘Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland’ following its dissolution in 1653. It heralded the start of the period of rule known as the Protectorate.
Members of the Council of State had differing views and while some wanted a republic, others wanted a type of monarchical government. For example, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, opposed Cromwell’s attempt to rule without parliament, Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich, was a member of the ‘the kinglings’ who urged Cromwell to proclaim himself King, and Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle, voted for the protector’s assumption of the royal title.
The Parliamentarians set about charging the king’s supporters for being ‘Papists and delinquents’, the terms for Catholics and Royalists. They drew up a list of crimes which included deserting the House of Lords, taking up arms against Parliament, raising troops for the king, lending money to the king, sitting in the king’s Oxford assembly and accepting appointments from the king.
They imposed a range of punishments on the royalists; for example, Francis Leigh lost his Earldom of Chichester and was given a year to pay his fine, while Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath, was fined annually. John Paulet, 5th Marquess of Winchester, John Talbot, 10th Earl of Shrewsbury, William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven, and William Cavendish, 3rd Earl of Devonshire, were just some who had their lands confiscated. Some suffered personal loss like Philip Stanhope, 1st Earl of Chesterfield, whose son was killed and his house was burnt down; he eventually died in prison.
Some Royalists went into exile to avoid the Parliamentary punishments: George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, escaped to Italy and John Digby, 1st Earl of Bristol, and Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Worcester, left for Paris. Those who returned were imprisoned and would have to wait until Charles II’s 1662 Act of Settlement until they received any compensation.
The Royalist group known as the Sealed Knot made several attempts to restore the monarchy, all in vain, including one led by John Penruddock; Penruddock was beheaded. Lieutenant General Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester, also led an uprising on the site of the Royalist defeat at Marston Moor near York in March 1655, but Colonel Robert Lilburne, Governor of York, put it down and Wilmot fled the country. He and James FitzThomas Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, would sign the Treaty of Brussels in April 1656, securing an alliance between the exiled Royalists and the Spanish King.
Charles Gerard, 1st Earl of Macclesfield, also encouraged his cousin John Gerard to assassinate Oliver Cromwell. But the conspiracy was discovered and John was executed.
George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, escaped to Rotterdam after the battle of Worcester. He negotiated with Oliver Cromwell’s government but his decision to give up the Church’s interests upset the rest of Charles’s supporters. Arguments over money and his courtship of the king’s widowed sister Mary, Princess of Orange, completed his split with Charles.
Villiers’ estates had been confiscated and given to Lord Fairfax so his plan to marry Fairfax’s daughter in 1657 were viewed with suspicion. He was soon under house arrest, accused of organising a Presbyterian plot, but he escaped, was rearrested and was imprisoned in the Tower. He would join his father-in-law when Fairfax marched against General John Lambert in January 1660.
Oliver Cromwell died on 3 September 1658 and Henry Somerset, 1st Duke of Beaufort, joined the party that demanded a ‘full and free parliament’ and the restoration of the House of Stuart. Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle, urged Richard Cromwell to defend his government against the army leaders but he refused and resigned; Howard was imprisoned.
It was soon clear his son Richard was incapable of running the government and he acquired the nicknames ‘Tumbledown Dick’ and ‘Queen Dick’. Charles I’s son, also Charles, made a tempting offer to take control of the kingdom in July 1659 and George Booth, 1st Baron Delamer, rebelled in Cheshire on his behalf. Henry Somerset, 1st Duke of Beaufort, Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Chesterfield, and Charles Stanley, 8th Earl of Derby, were all arrested for taking part in the plot. Aubrey de Vere, 20th Earl of Oxford, and Francis Talbot, 11th Earl of Shrewsbury, were suspected of joining Booth.
George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, heard Charles Fleetwood and General John Lambert had declared against Parliament, so he secured Scotland and then crossed the border with his army. Monck was appointed commander-in-chief of the Parliamentary forces in November 1659 and he entered London on 3 February 1660. George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, told the Rump Parliament to adjourn and some English garrisons announced their support, as did the navy and the army in Ireland. The Cromwell regime was over after only ten years.
Monck allowed Presbyterian members to re-enter Parliament on 21 February 1660 but it adjourned again on 16 March 1660 after preparing legislation for a new Convention Parliament. Meanwhile, Monck was keeping his options open. He was urging submission to the existing parliament while secretly encouraging the demands of Royalists in the City of London.