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the covenanters, as well as how little he had to expect from their generosity, his forlorn condition induced him to ratify the agreement with their.commissioners, as the only resource left for recovering any part of his dominions. He accordingly embarked with them for Scotland, in a Dutch ship of war, furnished by the prince of Orange, and arrived safe in the frith of Cromarty. Here his humiliations began. Before he was permitted to land, he was obliged to sign the covenant, and to hear many sermons and lectures on the duty of persevering in that holy confederacy. The duke of Hamilton, formerly earl of Lanerk, the earl of Lauderdale, and other noblemen, who had shared his councils abroad, and whom the covenanters called engagers, were immediately separated from him, and obliged to retire to their own houses. None of his English courtiers, except the duke of Buckingham, were allowed to remain in the kingdom; so that he found himself entirely in the hands of Argyle and the more rigid presbyterians, by whom he was considered as a mere pageant of state, and at whose mercy lay both his life and liberty.(1)

In order to please these austere zealots, Charles embraced a measure, which neither his inexperienced youth nor the necessity of his affairs can fully justify. At their request, he published a declaration, which must have rendered him contemptible even to the fanatics who framed it: and yet his refusal might have been attended with the most serious consequences. "He gave thanks for the merciful dispensations of Providence, by which he was recovered from the snares of evil counsel, had attained a full persuasion of the righteousness of the covenant, and was induced to cast himself and his interests wholly upon God. He desired to be deeply humbled and afflicted in spirit, because of his father's following wicked measures; opposing the covenant and the work of reformation, and shedding the blood of God's people throughout all his dominions. He lamented the idolatry of his mother, and the toleration of it in his father's house; a matter of great offence," he said, "to all the Protestant churches, and a heinous provocation of HIM who is a jealous God, visiting the sins of the father upon the children. He professed that he would have no enemies but the enemies of the covenant; and that he detested all popery, superstition, prelacy, heresy, schism, and profaneness, and was resolved not to tolerate, much less to countenance, any of them, in any part of his dominions."(2)

This declaration had not the desired effect. The covenanters and the clergy were still diffident of the king's sincerity; and their suspicions were increased, when they compared his education and the levity of his character with the solemn protestations he had so readily made. They had therefore prepared other trials for him. They meant that he should go through a public penance before his coronation :-and even to that indignity Charles had consented. In the mean time, he found his authority totally annihilated. He was not called to assist at any public council, and his favour was sufficient to discredit any candidate for office or preferment. The same jealousy rendered abortive all his attempts to reconcile the opposite parties. Argyle, the chief leader of the covenanters, artfully eluded all the king's advances towards a coalition. Malignants and engagers continued to be objects of general hatred and persecution; and whoever happened to be obnoxious to the clergy was sure to be branded with one or other of those epithets.(3)

The animosities among the parties in Scotland were so violent, that the approach of an English army was not sufficient to allay them. The progress of that army it must now be our business to observe.

The English parliament was no sooner informed of the issue of the nego tiations at Breda, than Cromwell was recalled from Ireland: and vigorous preparations were made for hostilities, which it was foreseen would prove inevitable between the two British kingdoms. Ireton was left to govern Ireland, in the character of deputy, during Cromwell's absence; and as

(1) Burnet, vol. i. Clarendon, vol. vi.

(2) Sir Edward Walker's Historical Discourses. Burnet, vol. i. Hume, vol. vii.

(3) Id. ibid.

Fairfax still retained the name of commander-in-chief of the forces in England, it was expected that he, assisted by the lord-lieutenant, would conduct the war against Scotland. But although Fairfax had permitted the army to make use of his name in offering violence to the parliament, and in murdering his sovereign, he could not be prevailed upon to bear arms against his covenanted brethren; so inconsistent are the ideas of fanatics in regard to moral duty!

Cromwell, on this occasion, acted the part of a profound hypocrite. Being sent as one of a committee of parliament, to overcome the scruples of Fairfax (with whose rigid inflexibility, in every thing that he regarded as a matter of principle, Oliver was well acquainted), he went so far as to shed tears, seemingly of grief and vexation, in the affected earnestness of his solici tations. But all in vain: Fairfax resigned his commission; and Cromwell, whose ambition no one could suspect, after he had laboured so zealously to retain his superior in the chief command, was declared captain-general of all the forces in England. (1) This was the greatest step he had yet made towards sovereignty, such a command being of the utmost consequence in a com monwealth that stood solely by arms. Fully sensible of the importance of rank he had attained, the new general immediately assembled his forces; and before the Scots had signified any intention of asserting the right of Charles to the crown of England, he entered their country with an army of sixteen thousand men.

The Scots, who had begun to levy troops on being threatened with an invasion, now doubled their diligence, and soon brought together a stout army. The command of this army was given to David Lesly, an officer of experience, who formed a very proper plan of defence. He intrenched himself in a fortified camp between Edinburgh and Leith, after having taken care to remove from the counties between Berwick and Edinburgh every thing that could serve to subsist the English army. Cromwell advanced to the Scottish camp, and tried, by every provocation, to bring Lesly to a battle, but without effect. The prudent Scotsman, aware that, though superior in numbers, his army was inferior in discipline to the enemy, kept carefully within his intrenchments; so that Cromwell, reduced to distress for want of provisions, and harassed by continual skirmishes, was obliged to retire to Dunbar, where his fleet lay at anchor. Lesly followed him, and encamped on the heights of Lammermure, which overlook that town. Cromwell, who had but a few days' forage, seemed now on the brink of ruin or disgrace. He was conscious of his danger, and is said to have embraced the desperate resolution of sending to Newcastle his foot and artillery by sea, and of attempting, at all hazards, to force his way with his cavalry. But in this he would have found the utmost trouble, as Lesly had taken possession of all the difficult passes between Dunbar and Berwick: and could he even have accomplished his retreat, it would have occasioned, in the present unsettled disposition of men's minds, a general insurrection for the king in England.(2) But the enthusiastic zeal of the Scottish clergy relieved Cromwell from all his difficulties. They had ordered the king to leave the camp, on finding he gained on the affections of the soldiery; and they had likewise carefully purged it of a large body of malignants and engagers, whose loyalty had led them to attend their young sovereign, and who were men of the greatest credit and military appearance in the nation. They now thought they had an army composed wholly of saints; and so confident were they of success, that after wrestling all night with the Lord in prayer, they forced Lesly, in spite of his earnest remonstrances, to descend into the plain in order to slay the sectarian host. Cromwell, who had also been seeking the Lord in his way, and had felt great enlargement of heart in prayer, seeing the Scottish camp in motion, was elated with holy transport. "God," cried he, "is delivering them into our hands: they are coming down to us!" He accordingly commanded his army to advance, singing psalms, in proof of his perfect

(1) Whitlocke. Clarendon.

(2) Burnet, vol. i. Clarendon, vol. vi. Whitlocke, p. 471,

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assurance of victory, and fell upon the Scots before they were disposed in order of battle, after descending the hill. They were suddenly broken, and totally routed. About three thousand fell in the battle and pursuit, and about twice that number were taken prisoners. Cromwell, improving his advantage, made himself master of Edinburgh and Leith, while the remnant of the Scottish army fled to Stirling.(1) An ague, with which he was seized, and the approach of winter, prevented him from pushing his conquests farther, before the close of the campaign.

The defeat at Dunbar, which broke the power and brought down the spiritual pride of the covenanters, who reproached their God with the slaughter of his elect, and of deceiving them by false revelations, was by no means disagreeable to the king. He considered the armies that fought, on both sides, as almost equally his enemies; and he hoped that the vanquished, for their own preservation, would now be obliged to allow him some more authority. He was not deceived. The Scottish parliament, which met soon after at Perth, agreed to admit Hamilton, Lauderdale, and all the engagers, to share in the civil and military employments of the kingdom, on their doing public penance. Some malignants, or episcopal royalists, also crept in among them and the king's intended penance was changed into the ceremony of his coronation, which was performed with great pomp and solemnity at Scone.(2)

But Charles, amid all this appearance of respect, was still in a condition that very ill suited his temper and disposition. He remained in the hands of the most rigid covenanters, and was in reality little better than a prisoner. Exposed to all the rudeness and pedantry of the presbyterian clergy, and obliged to listen to prayers and sermons from morn to night, he had no opportunity for the display of his agreeable qualities; and could not help frequently betraying, amid so many objects of ridicule and disgust, evident symptoms of weariness and contempt. For although artful in the practice of courtly dissimulation, he could never mould his features into that starched grimace which the covenanters regarded as the infallible sign of conversion. His spiritual guides, therefore, never thought him sufficiently regenerated, but were continually striving to bring him into a more perfect state of grace.(3)

Shocked at all these indignities, and still more tired with the formalities to which he was obliged to submit, Charles attempted to regain his liberty, by joining a body of royalists, who promised to support him. He accordingly made his escape from Argyle and the covenanters; but being pursued by colonel Montgomery and a troop of horse, he was induced to return, on finding the royalists less powerful than he expected. This elopement, however, had a good effect. The king was afterward better treated, and intrusted with more authority; the covenanters being afraid of renewing their rigours, lest he should embrace some desperate measure.(4)

The Scottish army was assembled, under Hamilton and Lesly, as early as the season would permit, and Charles was allowed to join the camp. But, imminent as the danger was, the Scots were still divided by ecclesiastical disputes. The forces of the western counties, disclaiming the authority of the parliament, would not act in conjunction with an army that admitted any engagers or malignants among them. They called themselves the protesters, and the other party were denominated the resolutioners-distinctions which continued to agitate the kingdom with theological hatred and animosity.(5)

Charles, having put himself at the head of his troops, encamped at Torwood, in a very advantageous situation. The town of Stirling lay at his back, and the plentiful county of Fife supplied him with provisions. His front, to which the English army advanced, was defended by strong intrenchments; and his soldiers, as well as his generals, being rendered more deliberately cautious by experience, Cromwell in vain attempted to draw them

(1) Burnet, vol. i. low's Mem. vol. i. (4) Id. ibid.

Clarendon, vol. vi. Whitlocke, p. 471. Sir Edward Walker, Hist. Dise. Lud
(2) Burnet. Walker. Clarendon.
(3) Burnet, vol. i.

(5) Id. ibid.

from their posts by offering them battle. After the two armies had faced each other about six weeks, Cromwell sent a detachment over the Forth, into Fife, in order to cut off the king's provisions; and so intent was he on that object, that, losing sight of all besides, he passed over with his whole army, and effectually accomplished his purpose. The king found it impossible to keep his post any longer.

In this desperate extremity, Charles embraced a resolution worthy of a prince contending for empire. He lifted his camp, and boldly marched into England, with an army of fourteen thousand men. Cromwell, whose mind was more vigorous than comprehensive, was equally surprised and alarmed at this movement. But if he had been guilty of an error, in the ardour of distressing his enemy, he took the most effectual means to repair it. He despatched Lambert with a body of cavalry to hang upon the rear of the royal army; he left Monk to complete the reduction of Scotland; and he himself followed the king with all possible expedition.

Charles had certainly reason to expect, from the general hatred which prevailed against the parliament, that his presence would produce a general insurrection in England. But he found himself disappointed. The English presbyterians, having no notice of his design, were not prepared to join him; and the cavaliers, or old royalists, to whom his approach was equally unknown, were farther deterred from such a measure, by the necessity of subscribing the covenant. Both parties were overawed by the militia of the counties, which the parliament had, every where, authority sufficient to raise. National antipathy had also its influence; and the king found, when he arrived at Worcester, that his forces were little more numerous than when he left the borders of Scotland. Cromwell, with an army of thirty thousand men, attacked Worcester on all sides; and Charles, after beholding the ruin of his cause, and giving many proofs of personal valour, was obliged to have recourse to flight. The duke of Hamilton, who made a desperate resistance, was mortally wounded, and the Scots were almost all either killed or taken. The prisoners, to the number of eight thousand, were sold as slaves to the American planters.(1)

When the king left Worcester, he was attended by Lesly, the Scottish general, and a party of horse; but seeing them overwhelmed with consternation, and fearing they could not reach their own country, he withdrew himself from them in the night, with two or three friends, from whom he also separated himself, after making them cut off his hair, that he might the better effect his escape, in an unknown character. By the direction of the earl of Derby, he went to Boscobel, a lone house on the borders of Staffordshire, inhabited by one Pendrel, an obscure but honest farmer. Here he continued for some days, in the disguise of a peasant, employed in cutting fagots along with the farmer and his three brothers. One day, for the better concealment, he mounted a spreading oak; among the thick branches of which he sheltered himself, while several persons passed below in search of their unhappy sovereign, and expressed, in his hearing, their earnest desire of seizing him, that they might deliver him into the hands of his father's murderers.(2)

An attempt to relate all the romantic adventures of Charles, before he completed his escape, would lead me into details that could only serve to gratify an idle curiosity. But there is one other anecdote that must not be omitted, as it shows, in a strong light, the loyalty and liberal spirit of the English gentry, even in those times of general rebellion and fanaticism.

The king having met with lord Wilmot, who was skulking in the neighbourhood of Boscobel, they agreed to throw themselves upon the fidelity of Mr. Lane, a zealous royalist, who lived at Bentley, not many miles distant. By the contrivance of this gentleman, who treated them with great respect and cordiality, they were enabled to reach the seacoast; the king riding, on

(1) Whitlocke. Clarendon.

(2) This tree was afterward called the Royal Oak, and long regarded with great veneration by the people in the neighbourhood.

the same horse, before Mr. Lane's daughter to Bristol, in the character of a servant. But when Charles arrived there, he found no ship would sail from that port, for either France or Spain, for more than a month: he was, therefore, obliged to look elsewhere in quest of a passage. In the mean time, he intrusted himself to colonel Wyndham of Dorsetshire, a gentleman of distinguished loyalty. Wyndham, before he received the king, asked leave to impart the secret to his mother. The request was granted; and that venerable matron, on being introduced to her royal guest, expressed the utmost joy, that having lost, without regret, three sons and one grandson in defence of his father, she was still reserved, in her declining years, to be instrumental in his preservation. The colonel himself told Charles, that his father, sir Thomas, in the year 1636, a few days before his death, called to him his five sons, and said, "My children! you have hitherto seen serene and quiet times; but I must warn you now to prepare for clouds and storms. Factions arise on every side, and threaten the tranquillity of your native country. But whatever happen, do you faithfully honour and obey your prince, and adhere to the crown. I charge you never to forsake the crown, though it should hang upon a bush !”—“These last words," added Wyndham, "made such impression on our breasts, that the many afflictions of these sad times could never efface their indelible character."(1)

While the king remained at the house of colonel Wyndham, all his friends in Britain, and over Europe, were held in the most anxious suspense, with respect to his fate. No one could conjecture what was become of him, or whether he was dead or alive; but a report of his death being generally credited, happily relaxed the search of his enemies. Meantime, many attempts were made to procure a vessel for his escape, though without success. He was obliged to shift his quarters, to assume new disguises, and intrust himself to other friends, who all gave proofs of incorruptible fidelity and attachment. At last, a small vessel was found at Shoreham in Sussex, where he embarked, and arrived safely at Fieschamp, in Normandy, after one-andforty days' concealment, during which the secret of his life had been intrusted to forty different persons.(2)

The battle of Worcester, which utterly extinguished the hopes of the royalists, afforded Cromwell what he called his crowning mercy;(3) an immediate prospect of that sovereignty which had long been the object of his ambition. Extravagantly elated with his good fortune, he would have knighted in the field of victory Lambert and Fleetwood, two of his generals, if he had not been dissuaded by his friends from exercising that act of regal authority.(4) Every place now submitted to the arms of the commonwealth; not only in Great Britain, Ireland, and the contiguous islands, but also on the continent of America, and in the East and West Indies: so that the parliament had soon leisure to look abroad, and to exert its vigour against foreign nations. The Dutch first felt the weight of its vengeance.

The independence of the United Provinces being secured by the treaty of Munster, that republic was now become the greatest commercial state in Europe. The English had long been jealous of the prosperity of the Hollanders; but the common interests of religion, for a time, and afterward the alliance between the house of Stuart and the family of Orange, prevented any rupture between the two nations. This alliance had also led the states to favour the royal cause, during the civil wars in England, and to overlook the murder of Dorislaus, one of the regicides, who was assassinated at the Hague by the followers of Montrose. But after the death of William II. prince of Orange, who was carried off by the small-pox when he was on the point of enslaving the people whom his ancestors had restored to liberty, more respect was shown to the English commonwealth by the governing party in Holland, which was chiefly composed of violent republicans. Through the influence of that party, a perpetual edict was issued against the dignity of stadtholder. Encouraged by this revolution, the English parliament

(1) Clarendon. Bates. Heathe.
(3) Parl. Hist. vol. xx. p. 47.

(2) Id. ibid.
(4) Whitlocke, p. 523.

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