sagacity and insinuation the general was entirely governed, though naturally of an imperious and domineering temper, knew to employ, when necessary, the most profound dissimulation, the most oblique and refined artifice, and the semblance of the greatest moderation and simplicity. His vigorous capacity enabled him to form the deepest designs, and his enterprising spirit was not dismayed at the boldest undertakings.(1)

During this competition between the presbyterians and independents for power, both piously united in bringing to the block the venerable archbishop Laud, who had remained a prisoner ever since his first impeachment. He was now accused of high-treason, in endeavouring to subvert the fundamental laws of the kingdom, and of other high crimes and misdemeanours. The same violence and the same illegality of an accumulative crime and constructive evidence which had appeared in the case of Strafford were employed against Laud: yet, after a long trial, and the examination of above a hundred and fifty witnesses, the commons found so little likelihood of obtaining a judicial sentence against him, that they were obliged to have recourse to their legislative authority, and to pass an ordinance for taking away his life. "No one," said the aged primate, "can be more willing to send me out of the world, than I am desirous to go." Seven peers only voted on this important question, the rest absenting themselves either from fear or shame.(2)

It

This new example of the vindictive spirit of the commons promised little success to the negotiations for peace, which were soon after set on foot at Uxbridge; where sixteen commissioners from the king met with twelve authorized by the parliament, attended by some Scottish commissioners. was agreed that the Scottish and parliamentary commissioners should give in their demands with respect to three important articles; religion, the militia, and Ireland; and that these should be successively examined and discussed, in conferences with the king's commissioners.(3) But it was soon found impracticable to come to an agreement in regard to any of those articles.

Besides the insuperable difficulties in regard to religion, the article of the militia was an eternal bar against all accommodation. The king's partisans had always maintained, that the fears and jealousies of the parliament, after the effectual measures taken in 1641 for the security of public liberty, were either feigned or groundless. Charles however offered, in order to cure their apprehensions, that the arms of the state should be intrusted, during three years, to twenty commissioners, who should be named, either by common agreement between him and the parliament, or one-half by him, and the other by the parliament. But the parliamentary commissioners positively insisted on being intrusted with the absolute power of the sword, for at least seven years. This, they affirmed, was essential to their safety. On the other hand, the king's commissioners asked, whether there was any equity in securing only one party, and leaving the other, during the space of seven years, entirely at the mercy of their enemies? and whether, if unlimited authority was intrusted to the parliament for so long a term, it would not be easy for them to keep for ever possession of the sword, as well as of every department of civil power and jurisdiction ?(4) After the debate had been carried on to no purpose for twenty days, the commissioners separated, and returned to London and Oxford.

While the king was thus endeavouring, though in vain, to bring about an accommodation with the English parliament, by the most humiliating concéssions, some events happened in Scotland that seemed to promise a more prosperous issue to his declining affairs. James Graham, marquis of Montrose, a man of a bold and generous spirit, filled with indignation to see the

(1) Hume, vol. vii.

(2) Warwick, p. 169.

(3) Dugdale, p. 758. Whitlocke, p. 121.

(4) Dugdale, p. 877. The parliamentary commissioners were no less unreasonable in regard to Ireland. They demanded, that the truce with the rebels should be declared null; that the management of the war should be given up entirely to the parliament; and, after the conquest of Ireland, that the nomination of the lord-lieutenant and of the judges, or, in other words, the sovereignty of that kingdom, also should remain in their hands. Ibid, p. 826.

majority of two kingdoms conspire against their lawful, and, in many respects, indulgent sovereign, undertook by his own credit, and that of a few friends, who had not yet forgot their allegiance, to raise such commotions in Scotland, as should oblige the covenanters to recall their forces. In this design he was assisted by a body of the Macdonalds, who came over from Ireland to recover the county of Kintore, out of which they had been driven about fifty years before by the Argyle family. With these adventurers, who amounted to about twelve hundred, and eight hundred native Highlanders, very indifferently armed, he defeated an army of six thousand covenanters, under lord Elcho, near Perth, and killed two thousand of them.(1)

In consequence of this victory, by which he acquired arms and ammunition, Montrose was enabled to prosecute his enterprise, though not without incredible difficulties. The greater part of the low country Scots were extremely attached to the covenant; and such as bore affection to the royal cause were overawed by the established authority of the opposite party. But Montrose, whose daring soul delighted in perilous undertakings, eluded every danger, and seized the most unexpected advantages. He retreated sixty miles in the face of a superior army without sustaining any loss: he took Dundee by assault, and defeated the marquis of Argyle at Innerlochy, after having gratified the Macdonalds with the pillage of that nobleman's country.(2) The power of the Campbells being thus broken, the Highlanders, who were in general well affected to the royal cause, joined Montrose in more considerable bodies. By their assistance he successively defeated Baillie and Urrey, two officers of reputation, sent from England to crush him, and who were confident of victory from the superiority of their numbers, as well as from the discipline of their troops. He defeated Baillie a second time, with great slaughter, at Alford. (3) And the terror of his name, and the admiration of his valour, being now great all over the north of Scotland, he summoned his friends and partisans, and prepared himself for marching into the southern provinces, in order there to restore the king's authority, and give a final blow to the power of the covenanters.

But, unhappily for Charles, before Montrose could carry his success so far as to oblige the covenanters to withdraw any part of their forces, events had taken place in England which rendered the royal cause almost desperate. In consequence of the change in the formation of the parliamentary army, the officers, in most regiments, assumed the spiritual as well as military command over their men. They supplied the place of chaplains; and, during the intervals of action, occupied themselves in sermons, prayers, and pious exhortations. These wild effusions were mistaken by the soldiers, and perhaps even by those who uttered them, for divine illuminations; and gave new weight to the authority of the officers, and new energy to the valour of their troops. In marching to battle, they lifted up their souls to God in psalms and hymns, and made the whole field resound with spiritual as well as martial music. (4) The sense of present danger was lost in the prospect of eternal felicity; wounds were esteemed meritorious in so holy a cause, and death martyrdom. Every one seemed animated, not with the vain idea of conquest or the ambition of worldly greatness, but by the brighter hope of attaining in heaven an everlasting crown of glory.

The royalists, ignorant of the influence of this enthusiasm, in rousing the courage of their antagonists, treated it with contempt and ridicule. In the mean time, their own licentious conduct, if less ludicrous, was less becoming the character of soldiers or of citizens. More formidable even to their friends than to their enemies, they in some places committed universal spoil and havoc, and laid the country waste by their undistinguishing rapine. So great, in a word, was the distress become, that many of the most devoted friends of the church and monarchy now wished for such success to the par

(1) Rushworth, vol. vi.
(3) Rushworth, vol. viii.
(4) Rushworth, vol. vi.

(2) Burnet, Hist. vol. i. Wishart, chap. L

Wishart, chap. v.
Wishart, chap. xi.
Harris's Life of Oliver Cromwell

liamentary forces as might put a stop to these oppressions: and the depredations committed in Scotland, by the Highlanders under Montrose, made the approach of the royal army the object of terror to both parties, over the whole island.(1)

Under these disadvantages, it was impossible for the king much longer to continue the war; the very licentiousness of his own troops was sufficient to ruin his cause. On the opening of the campaign, however, being joined by the princes Rupert and Maurice, he left Oxford with an army of fifteen thousand men, determined to strike some decisive blow. The new-modelled parliamentary army, under Fairfax and Cromwell, was posted at Windsor, and amounted to about twenty-two thousand men. Yet Charles, in spite of their vigilance, effected the relief of Chester, which had long been blockaded by sir William Brereton; and, in his return southward, he took Leicester by storm, after a furious assault, and gratified his soldiers with an immense booty. Fifteen hundred prisoners fell into his hands.(2)

Alarmed at this success, Fairfax, who had received orders from the parliament to besiege Oxford during the king's absence, immediately left that place and marched to Leicester, with an intention of giving battle to the royal army. Charles, in the mean time, was advancing towards Oxford, in order to raise the siege, which he apprehended was already in some forwardness; so that the two armies were within a few miles of each other, before they were aware of their danger. The king called a council of war; in which it was rashly resolved, through the influence of prince Rupert and the impatient spirit of the nobility and gentry, immediately to engage Fairfax; though the royalists had the prospect of being soon reinforced with three thousand horse and two thousand foot, under experienced officers. They accordingly advanced upon the parliamentary army, which was drawn up in order of battle on a rising ground, in the neighbourhood of the village of Naseby.

The king himself commanded the main body of the royal army, prince Rupert the right wing, and sir Marmaduke Langdale the left. The main body of the parliamentary army was conducted by Fairfax, seconded by Skippon; the right wing by Cromwell; the left by Ireton, Cromwell's son-in-law. Prince Rupert began the charge with his usual impetuosity and success. Ireton's whole wing was routed and chased off the field, and himself wounded and taken prisoner. The king led on his main body with firmness; and displayed, in the action, all the conduct of an experienced general, and all the courage of a gallant soldier. The parliamentary infantry was broken, in spite of the utmost efforts of Fairfax and Skippon, and would have been totally routed, if the body of reserve had not been brought to their relief. Meanwhile, Cromwell, having broken the left wing of the royalists, under Langdale, and pursued it a little way, returned upon the king's infantry, and threw them into confusion. At length, prince Rupert, who had imprudently wasted his time in a fruitless attempt to seize the enemy's artillery, joined the king with his cavalry, though too late to turn the tide of the battle. "One charge more," cried Charles, "and we recover the day!" But his troops, aware of the disadvantage under which they laboured, could by no means be prevailed on to renew the combat. He was obliged to quit the field; and although the parliament had a thousand, and he only eight hundred men slain, scarce any victory could be more complete. Near five thousand of the royalists were made prisoners, among whom were five hundred officers; and all the king's baggage, artillery, and ammunition fell into the hands of the enemy.(3)

(1) Rushworth, vol. vii. Clarendon, vol. v. This licentiousness was partly occasioned by the want of pay; but other causes conspired to carry it to its present degree of enormity. Prince Rupert, negligent of the interests of the people, and fond of the soldiery, had all along indulged them in unwarrantable liberties. Wilmot, a man of dissolute manners, had promoted the same spirit of disorder; and too many other commanders, sir Richard Grenville, Goring, and Gerrard, improved on the pernicious example. Id (2) Clarendon, vol. v.

ibid.

(3) Whitlocke, p. 145, 146. Rushworth, vol. vii. Clarendon, vol. iv. Among other spoils, the king's cabinet fell into the hands of the enemy. It contained copies of his letters to the queen, which were after

LETTER VII.

England, from the Battle of Naseby to the Execution of Charles I. and the Subversion of the Monarchy, in 1649.

AFTER the battle of Naseby, the king's affairs went so fast to ruin in all quarters, that he ordered the prince of Wales, now fifteen years of age, to make his escape beyond sea, and save at least one part of the royal family from the violence of the parliament. The prince retired to Jersey, and afterward 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. The king himself retreated first to Hereford, then to Abergavenny; and remained some time in Wales, in hopes of raising a body of infantry in that loyal but exhausted country.

In the mean time, the parliamentary generals and the Scots made themselves masters of almost every place of importance in the kingdom, and every where routed and dispersed the royalists. Fairfax and Cromwell immediately retook Leicester; and having also reduced Bridgewater, Bath, and Sherborne, they resolved, before they divided their forces, to besiege Bristol, into which prince Rupert had thrown himself, with an intention of defending to the uttermost a place of so much consequence. Vast preparations were made for an enterprise, which, from the strength of the garrison, and the reputation of the governor, was expected to require the greatest exertions of valour and perseverance. But so precarious a quality, in most men, is military courage, that a poorer defence was not made by any town during the course of the war. Though prince Rupert had written a letter to the king, in which he undertook to hold out four months if the garrison did not mutiny, he surrendered the place a few days after, on articles of capitulation, and at the first summons.(1)

Charles, astonished at this unexpected event, which was scarcely less fatal to the royal cause than the battle of Naseby, and full of indignation at the manner in which so important a city had been given up at the very time he was collecting forces for its relief, instantly recalled all prince Rupert's commissions, and ordered him to quit the kingdom. After an unsuccessful attempt to raise the siege of Chester, the king himself took refuge with the remains of his broken army in Oxford, where he continued during the winter season.(2)

Fairfax and Cromwell, having divided their armies after the taking of Bristol, reduced to obedience all the west and middle counties of England; while the Scots made themselves masters of Carlisie, and other places of importance in the north. Lord Digby, in attempting to break into Scotland, and join Montrose with twelve hundred horse, was defeated at Sherburn, in Yorkshire, by colonel Copely; and, to complete the king's misfortunes, news soon after arrived, that Montrose himself, the only remaining hope of the royal party, was at last routed.

That gallant nobleman, having descended into the low country, had defeated the whole force of the covenanters at Kilsyth, and left them no remains of an army in Scotland. Edinburgh opened its gates to him; and many of the nobility and gentry, who secretly favoured the royal cause, when they saw a force able to support them, declared openly for it. But Montrose, advancing still farther south, in hopes of being joined by lord Digby, was surprised, through the negligence of his scouts, at Philiphaugh, in Eterick Forest, by a strong body of cavalry under David Lesly, who had been de

ward wantonly published by the parliament, accompanied with many malicious comments. They are written with delicacy and tenderness; and, at worst, only show that he was too fondly attached to a woman of wit and beauty, who had the misfortune to be a papist, and who had acquired a dangerous ascendant over him. She is certainly chargeable with some of his most unpopular, and even arbitrary (1) Rushworth, vol. vii. Clarendon, vol. iv. (2) Id. ibid.

measures.

tached from the Scottish army in England, in order to check the career of this heroic leader; and after a sharp conflict, in which he displayed the highest exertions of valour, the marquis was obliged to quit the field, and fly with his broken forces into the Highlands. (1)

The covenanters used their victory with great rigour. Many of the prisoners were butchered in cold blood; and sir Robert Spotswood, sir Philip Nisbit, sir William Rolls, colonel Nathaniel Gordon, Andrew Guthry, son of the bishop of Murray, and William Murray, son of the earl of Tullibardine, were condemned and executed. The clergy incited the civil power to this severity, and even solicited that more blood might be spilled upon the scaffold. The pulpit thundered against all who did the work of the Lord deceitfully. "Thine eye shall not pity!" and "Thou shalt not spare!" were maxims frequently inculcated after every execution.(2)

The king's condition, during the winter, was truly deplorable. Harassed by discontented officers, who overrated those services and sufferings which they now apprehended must for ever go unrewarded, and by generous friends whose misfortunes wrung his heart with sorrow; oppressed by past disasters, and apprehensive of future calamities, he was in no period of his unfortunate life more sincerely to be pitied. In vain did he attempt to negotiate with the parliament: they would not deign to listen to him, but gave him to understand, that he must yield at discretion. (3) The only remaining body of his troops on which fortune could exercise her rigour, and which he had ordered to march towards Oxford under lord Astley, in order to reinforce the garrison of that place, was met by colonel Morgan at Stowe, and totally defeated. "You have done your work," said Astley to the parliamentary officers by whom he was taken prisoner; "and may now go to play, unless you choose to fall out among yourselves."(4)

Thus deprived of all hope of prevailing over the inflexibility of the parliament, either by arms or treaty, the only prospect of better fortune that remained to the king was in the dissensions of his enemies. The civil and religious disputes between the presbyterians and independents agitated the whole kingdom. The presbyterian religion was now established in England in all its forms and its followers, pleading the eternal obligations of the covenant to extirpate schism and heresy, menaced their opponents with the same rigid persecution under which they themselves had groaned while held in subjection by the hierarchy. But although Charles entertained some hopes of reaping advantage from these divisions, he was much at a loss to determine with which side it would be most for his interest to take part. The presbyterians were, by their principles, less inimical to monarchy, but they were bent upon the extirpation of prelacy; whereas the independents, though resolute to lay the foundation of a republican government, as they pretended not to erect themselves into a national church, might possibly admit the re-establishment of the hierarchy; and Charles was, at all times, willing to put episcopal jurisdiction in competition with regal authority.

But the approach of Fairfax towards Oxford put an end to these deliberations, and induced the king to embrace a measure that must ever be considered as imprudent. Afraid of falling into the hands of his insolent enemies, and of being led in triumph by them, he resolved to throw himself on the generosity of the Scots; without sufficiently reflecting that he must, by such a step, disgust his English subjects of all denominations, and that the Scottish covenanters, in whom he meant to repose so much confidence, were not only

(1) Wishart, chap. xiii. Rushworth, vol. vii. Montrose's army, when attacked by Lesly, was much reduced by the desertion of the Highlanders, who had returned home in great numbers, in order to secure the plunder they had acquired in the south, and which they considered as inexhaustible wealth. Id. ibid. (2) Burnet, Hist. vol. i. See also Guthrie's Memoirs. The presbyterians about this time, by considering themselves as the chosen people of God, and regulating their conduct by the maxims of the Old Testament, seem to have departed totally from the spirit of the Gospel. Instead of forgiving their enemies, they had no bowels of compassion for those who differed from them in the slightest article of faith. (3) Clarendon, vol. iv.

(4) Rushworth, vol. vii. It was the same Astley who made the following short but emphatical prayer before he led on his men at the battle of Edgehill: "O Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day; if I forget thee, do not thou forget me!" and then cried, "March on, boys!" Warwick, p. 229.