The New World: A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume II (The Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading Series)

THE KING AT THE BEGINNING OF 1644 HAD THE LARGER PART of the country behind him and a considerable Parliament of his own which met in Oxford. Military victory in England seemed within his grasp. The Scots reversed the balance. As their army advanced southwards they dominated the Royalist counties in the North; they stormed the city of Newcastle, and sent the bill to Westminster. Their ascendancy became decisive. Their Commissioners arrived in London with three principal aims: first, the imposition of Presbyterianism upon all England; secondly, a share in the government of England by means of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, set up in pursuance of the Solemn League and Covenant, not only for the conduct of the war but for general policy; thirdly, the maintenance of the monarchy. They paid elaborate lip-service to the majesty and sanctity of the Crown, and opposed Republican tendencies because they liked to see a Scottish line on the English throne. All this was good for them.

Grim as were the straits to which the cause of the dead Pym and Hampden was now reduced, these transactions did not pass without protest. The Parliamentary taxpayers resented the expense of the Scottish army. The House of Lords, or what was left of it at Westminster, resisted the plan for the Committee of Both Kingdoms as subverting their constitutional rights. They were answered that the war must be fought in common by the two united nations. But the most serious difference was on religion. It was now that Oliver Cromwell came into prominence. The Member for Cambridge was deemed the best officer on the Parliamentary side, though he had not yet held a supreme command. At the head of the troops of the Eastern Counties Association, he had triumphed at Gainsborough in a dark hour. His regiment had a discipline and quality surpassing, as it seemed, any other formation on either side. He could not be ignored. He could not be suppressed. The rise of Cromwell to the first rank of power during 1644 sprang both from his triumphs on the battlefield and his resistance to the Presbyterians and the Scots at Westminster. Except for Papists and Episcopalians, he declared for liberty of conscience. All the obscurer Protestant sects saw in him their champion.

When the joint Westminster Assembly of English and Scottish divines fervently and passionately debated the awful issues of Church government among Christian men there was a formidable division between the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists or Independents. The Congregationalists were but a seventh of the Assembly, but their zeal and valour made them powerful in the Army. They rejected all forms of ordination by the laying on of hands. These, they declared with some logic, savoured of Episcopacy. The Reformation could only be fulfilled by going back to the original institution of independent Churches. They were less strict than the Presbyterians, or the older Puritans, about correctness of demeanour, but every member must be in a state of grace, of which the congregation must be judge. They had their ministers, but they refused to give them any portion of the spiritual authority claimed by Anglican priest or Presbyterian minister. These congregations were a breeding ground of extreme views in politics. Presbyterian discipline was as abhorrent to them as Episcopacy. The Scottish Commissioners and divines were shocked by such doctrines of spiritual anarchy, but neither they nor their English colleagues could afford to quarrel with Cromwell and his Independents while the Royalists were unsubdued. They thought it better for their Army to penetrate deeply into England and become involved in the war before dealing with these “dissenting brethren” as they deserved. Thus not for the first or last time theology waited upon arms; and in the long run it was the alliance of the Anglican and Presbyterian against their common enemy the Independent that restored both the monarchy and the Established Church.

In the North the Marquis of Newcastle had now to contend with the Scottish army on one side and the two Fairfaxes on the other. He made the military movements usual under such conditions. In the spring he marched north against the Scots and left Lord Bellasis to ward off the Roundheads. Bellasis was overwhelmed at Selby on April 11 by the Fairfaxes. Newcastle’s rear was thereby exposed, and he could do no more than maintain himself in York, where he was presently vigorously besieged. The loss of York would ruin the King’s cause in the North. Charles therefore sent Prince Rupert with a strong cavalry force, which gathered strength as it marched, to relieve the city and sustain the harassed and faithful Marquis. Rupert fought his way into Lancashire, striking heavy blows on all sides. Lathom House, defended by the Countess of Derby, was freed and the besiegers destroyed. Stockport was plundered; Bolton stormed. On June 1 Lord Goring with five thousand horse joined the Prince. Together they took Liverpool.

The King now wrote Rupert a letter which contained the following passage: “If York be lost I shall esteem my crown little less, unless supported by your sudden march to me, and a miraculous conquest in the South, before the effects of the Northern power can be found here. . . . Wherefore I command and conjure you, by the duty and affection which I know you bear me, that, all new enterprises laid aside, you immediately march according to your first intention, with all your force, to the relief of York; but if that be lost . . . that you immediately march with your whole strength directly to Worcester to assist me and my army, without which, or your having relieved York by beating the Scots, all the successes you can afterwards have most infallibly will be useless to me.”¹

Rupert needed no spur, and took these involved sentences as an order to fight an immediate battle on the first chance. “Before God,” said Colepeper to Charles when he heard that the letter had been sent, “you are undone, because upon this peremptory order he will fight whatever comes on’t.” So it fell out.

Rupert saved York at its last gasp: the mine was sprung; the walls were already breached. The Scots and Roundheads withdrew together westwards, covering Leeds and joining the forces from East Anglia under Lord Manchester and Cromwell. The three Puritan armies were thus combined, and numbered twenty thousand foot and seven thousand horse. Their outposts lay upon a ridge at Marston Moor. Rupert met the Marquis of Newcastle, and their united forces reached eleven thousand foot and seven thousand horse. The Marquis was against fighting. He regarded the Northern theatre as relieved for the time being. He expected reinforcements from Durham. He was vexed that Rupert should have command over him. He would have been content to see the Prince march back southwards to join the King, but Rupert said he “had a letter from the King with a positive and absolute command to fight the enemy.” “Happen what will,” said the Marquis to his friends, “I will not shun to fight, for I have no other ambition than to live and die a loyal subject of his Majesty.” Accordingly the Royalist army followed the enemy to Marston Moor, and on July 2 found themselves near their encampments. Opinion, though divided, has on the whole condemned Rupert’s resolve to fight, but his tactics were still more questionable. Though he kept his infantry in the centre of the line, he split into squadrons his hitherto invincible cavalry, and had not therefore that mass in his own command wherewith he had so often gained and squandered victory. He inquired anxiously of a prisoner, “Is Cromwell there?”

The whole day passed in alternating rain and sunshine, with both armies in close contact. Rupert imagined that it rested with him to begin the battle on the morrow, but at six o’clock in the evening he was himself attacked by the whole force of the Roundheads, who outnumbered his infantry by nearly two to one. A heavy column of steel-clad cavalry was seen approaching at a fast trot. It was Cromwell and his Ironsides. The royal army, who, though drawn up, were preparing to eat their evening meal, had neither the advantage of a defensive position nor the impulsion of attack. None the less they made a glorious fight. Goring’s cavalry of the left wing beat the Roundhead right, and, falling upon the Scots in the centre, threw them into disorder and retreat. The veteran Alexander Leslie, now Lord Leven, quitted the field, declaring all was lost, and was arrested by a constable ten miles away. But Cromwell, with the help of the remaining Scots under David Leslie, restored the day. Now for the first time the heroic, dreaded Cavaliers met their match, and their master. “We drove the entire cavalry of the Prince off the field,” wrote Cromwell. “God made them as stubble to our swords. Then we took their regiments of foot with our cavalry, and overthrew all that we encountered.”

Marston Moor was the largest and also the bloodiest battle of the war. Little quarter was given and there were four thousand slain. Newcastle’s “white-coats” fought to the death, and fell where they stood. They had boasted they would dye these white coats with the blood of the foe. They were indeed reddened, but with their own blood. Night alone ended the pursuit. A disaster of the first magnitude had smitten the King’s cause. His Northern army was shattered and the whole of the North was lost. The prestige of Rupert’s cavalry was broken. The Marquis, brokenhearted, fled into exile. Rupert, whom nothing could appal, gathered up the remnants of his army and led them safely south to Shrewsbury.

The success of the King’s campaign in the South veiled, at least for a time, the disaster at Marston Moor. Charles revealed unexpected qualities as a general. He had begun to like the life of a camp, with its stir and movement of war. Sabran, the French Ambassador, who had a long audience with him on horseback, praised him highly.

“He is full of judgment and sagacity, never lets himself be led to any precipitate action through his dangerous position, orders everything himself, both great and small, never signs anything that he has not read, and on horseback or on foot is ever at the head of his troops.” By May Charles could only gather ten thousand men to meet the two armies of Essex and Waller, who each had as many. He hoped that the ill feeling between the Roundhead generals would give him a chance to strike at them separately. But instead they moved in concert upon Oxford. The city was ill supplied for a siege, and could certainly not maintain the Royalist field army as well as its garrison. It was expected, not only by the Parliament, but in his own circles, that the King would be caught in Oxford and compelled to surrender. However, after providing for the defence of the city, Charles, with great skill, eluded both of the converging armies and reached Worcester.

The two Roundhead generals were then forced to divide their forces, as he had foreseen. Waller manœuvred against the King, who gradually moved northwards, while Essex broke into the Royalist West. Then, turning east, the King inflicted a severe check on Waller at Cropredy Bridge, in Oxfordshire, on June 6, capturing all his artillery. He was undaunted by Marston Moor. Outmarching and outwitting Waller, he suddenly during August began to march westward, with the intention of taking Essex in the rear. Essex had made some progress, and had relieved both Lyme and Plymouth from siege; but he found himself obstinately opposed in districts where the whole countryside was hostile to the Roundheads. Now the King himself came suddenly upon him. Essex was outnumbered, his supplies were cut off, and after rejecting a proposal for surrender he rode off himself with his officers to Plymouth, ordered his cavalry to cut their way out of the trap, and left the rest of his army to its fate. All the infantry and artillery, to the number of eight thousand men, surrendered at Lostwithiel, in Cornwall, on September 2.

Winter approached, but the war did not slacken. The Cavaliers, undiscouraged by their dwindling territory, and the superior numbers and resources of the Roundheads, defended themselves in every county where they had a stronghold. The main forces of the Parliament were now thrown against the King. Manchester and Waller were reinforced by Cromwell. The Royalist position, centred in Oxford, comprised a system of fortified towns which covered Wales and the West of England. Among these the King manœuvred. Once again on October 27 the armies met at Newbury, and once again there was a drawn battle, followed by a Royalist retirement. It was late in November before active warfare paused. Charles re-entered Oxford in triumph. The campaign had been his finest military achievement. In the teeth of adversity he had maintained himself with little money or supplies against odds of two or three to one. Moreover, on the side of the Parliament there lay always the hard weight of a greatly superior artillery.

Cromwell rode in from the Army to his duties as a Member of Parliament. His differences with the Scots and his opposition to Presbyterian uniformity were already swaying Roundhead politics. He now made a vehement and organised attack on the conduct of the war, and its mismanagement by lukewarm generals of noble rank, namely Essex and Manchester. Essex was discredited enough after Lostwithiel, but Cromwell also charged Manchester with losing the second Battle of Newbury by sloth and want of zeal. He himself was avid for the power and command which he was sure he could wield; but he proceeded astutely. While he urged the complete reconstitution of the Parliamentary Army upon a New Model similar to his own in the Eastern Counties, his friends in the House of Commons proposed a so-called “Self-denying Ordinance,” which would exclude members of either House from military employment. The handful of lords who still remained at Westminster realised well enough that this was an attack on their prominence in the conduct of the war, if not on their social order. But there were such compelling military reasons in favour of the measure that neither they nor the Scots, who already dreaded Cromwell, could prevent its being carried. Essex and Manchester, who had fought the King from the beginning of the quarrel, who had raised regiments and served the Parliamentary cause in all fidelity, were discarded. They pass altogether from the story.

During the winter months the Army was reconstituted in accordance with Cromwell’s ideas. The old personally raised regiments of the Parliamentary nobles were broken up and their officers and men incorporated in entirely new formations. These, the New Model, comprised eleven regiments of horse, each six hundred strong, twelve regiments of foot, twelve hundred strong, and a thousand dragoons, in all twenty-two thousand men. Compulsion was freely used to fill the ranks. In one district of Sussex the three conscriptions of April, July, and September 1645 yielded a total of 149 men. A hundred and thirty-four guards were needed to escort them to the colours.

At the King’s headquarters it was thought that these measures would demoralise the Parliamentary troops; and no doubt at first this was so. But the Roundhead faction now had a symmetrical military organisation led by men who had risen in the field and had no other standing but their military record and religious zeal. Sir Thomas Fairfax was appointed Commander-in-Chief. Cromwell, as Member for Cambridge, was at first debarred from serving. However, it soon appeared that his Self-denying Ordinance applied only to his rivals. The urgency of the new campaign and military discontents which he alone could quell forced even the reluctant Lords to make an exception in his favour. In June 1645 he was appointed General of the Horse, and was thus the only man who combined high military command with an outstanding Parliamentary position. From this moment he became the dominant figure in both spheres.

Amid these stresses Archbishop Laud, who languished ailing in the Tower, was brought to the scaffold. Roundheads, Scots, and Puritans alike could all combine upon this act of hatred. The House of Commons upon a division rejected his appeal to be decapitated rather than hanged, drawn, and quartered. Overnight however this barbarous decision was mitigated, and after he had uttered an unyielding discourse the old man’s head was chopped off in a dignified manner.

The desire of all Englishmen for an end to the unnatural strife forced itself upon the most inflamed partisans. “Clubmen” reappeared. Large numbers of farmers and their labourers, together with townsfolk, assembled in many parts of the country with such weapons as they could find, protesting against the exactions and pillage of the contending forces. They now showed themselves rather more favourable to the King than to the Parliament. Largely to please the Scots, a parley for a peace settlement was set on foot at Uxbridge, near London, and on this many hopes were reposed, though not by the die-hards in Parliament. For twenty days the village and its inns were divided between the delegates of the two sides. They met and argued with grave ceremony. But neither King Charles nor the Roundhead executive had the slightest intention of giving way upon the two main points—Episcopacy and the control of the armed forces. In the fourth year of the war these still presented themselves as issues upon which no compromise was possible. Uxbridge only proved the ferocious constancy of both parties in their struggle for supreme power.

The antagonism of the Scots towards Cromwell and the pressure to enforce by law Presbyterian conformity against independent sectarianism were now at their height. Echoes of Marston Moor mingled with doctrinal differences. The Independents made strong play with the episodes of the battle. Leven and a part of the Scottish army had run away, while Cromwell and his Ironsides had remained to conquer. The Scots retorted by accusing Cromwell of personal cowardice in action; but this theme did not carry conviction. Their unwarrantable and intolerant interference in English life, though well paid, had drawn upon them a formidable animosity, and their main object of enforcing Presbyterianism was now frustrated by forces hitherto unimagined but wielding a sharp and heavy sword.

At the same time the Marquis of Montrose sprang upon the scene. He had been a Covenanter, but having quarrelled with Argyll went over to the King. Now he made himself known to history as a noble character and brilliant general. He pledged his faith to Charles, and distracted all Scotland by a series of victories gained against much larger forces, although sometimes his men had only stones to throw before falling on with the claymore. Dundee, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Perth, and Edinburgh were at one time or another in his power. He wrote to Charles assuring him that he would bring all Scotland to his rescue if he could hold out. But a decisive battle impended in the South.

On June 14, 1645, the last trial of strength was made. Charles, having taken Leicester, which was sacked, met Fairfax and Cromwell in the fine hunting country about Naseby. The Cavaliers had so often saved themselves by the offensive spirit, which Rupert embodied to the eclipse of other military qualities, that they did not hesitate to attack uphill the Roundhead army of twice their numbers. The action followed what had almost become the usual course. Rupert shattered the Parliamentary left, and though, as at Edgehill, his troopers were attracted by the Parliamentary baggage column, he returned to strike heavily at the central Roundhead infantry. But Cromwell on the other flank drove all before him, and also took control of the Roundhead reserves. The royal foot, beset on all sides by overwhelming numbers, fought with devotion. The King wished himself to charge to their rescue with the last reserve which stood about his person. He actually gave the order; but prudent hands were laid upon his bridle by some of his staff, and the royal reserves wheeled to the right and retreated above a mile. Here they were joined by Rupert, who had seen nothing but success, the Royalist cavalry quitting the field intact. The foot were killed or captured. Quarter was given, and the butchery was less than at Marston Moor. A hundred Irish women who were found in the Royalist camp were put to the sword by the Ironsides on grounds of moral principle as well as of national prejudice. Naseby was the expiring effort of the Cavaliers in the open field. There still remained many sieges, with reliefs and manœuvrings, but the final military decision of the Civil War had been given.

Cromwell later recorded his impressions in repellent sentences: “I can say this of Naseby, that when I saw the enemy draw up and march in gallant order towards us, and we a company of poor, ignorant men”—thus he described veterans for the most part, the best-equipped, best-disciplined, and most highly paid troops yet seen in England, and twice as numerous as their opponents—“to seek how to order our battle, the General having commanded me to order all the horse, I could not, riding alone about my business, but smile out to God in praises in assurance of victory, because God would, by things that are not, bring to naught things that are. Of which I had great assurance—and God did it.”