History of England, from the Accession of James II - (Volume 1, Chapter 01) — Chapter I, Part 12

When the war had lasted a year, the advantage was decidedly with the Royalists.

They were victorious, both in the western and in the northern counties.

They had wrested Bristol, the second city in the kingdom, from the Parliament.

They had won several battles, and had not sustained a single serious or ignominious defeat.

Among the Roundheads adversity had begun to produce dissension and discontent.

The Parliament was kept in alarm, sometimes by plots, and sometimes by riots.

It was thought necessary to fortify London against the royal army, and to hang some disaffected citizens at their own doors.

Several of the most distinguished peers who had hitherto remained at Westminster fled to the court at Oxford; nor can it be doubted that, if the operations of the Cavaliers had, at this season, been directed by a sagacious and powerful mind, Charles would soon have marched in triumph to Whitehall.

But the King suffered the auspicious moment to pass away; and it never returned.

In August 1643 he sate down before the city of Gloucester.

That city was defended by the inhabitants and by the garrison, with a determination such as had not, since the commencement of the war, been shown by the adherents of the Parliament.

The emulation of London was excited.

The trainbands of the City volunteered to march wherever their services might be required.

A great force was speedily collected, and began to move westward.

The siege of Gloucester was raised: the Royalists in every part of the kingdom were disheartened: the spirit of the parliamentary party revived: and the apostate Lords, who had lately fled from Westminster to Oxford, hastened back from Oxford to Westminster.

And now a new and alarming class of symptoms began to appear in the distempered body politic.

There had been, from the first, in the parliamentary party, some men whose minds were set on objects from which the majority of that party would have shrunk with horror.

These men were, in religion, Independents.

They conceived that every Christian congregation had, under Christ, supreme jurisdiction in things spiritual; that appeals to provincial and national synods were scarcely less unscriptural than appeals to the Court of Arches, or to the Vatican; and that Popery, Prelacy, and Presbyterianism were merely three forms of one great apostasy.

In politics, the Independents were, to use the phrase of their time, root and branch men, or, to use the kindred phrase of our own time, radicals.

Not content with limiting the power of the monarch, they were desirous to erect a commonwealth on the ruins of the old English polity.

At first they had been inconsiderable, both in numbers and in weight; but before the war had lasted two years they became, not indeed the largest, but the most powerful faction in the country.

Some of the old parliamentary leaders had been removed by death; and others had forfeited the public confidence.

Pym had been borne, with princely honours, to a grave among the Plantagenets.

Hampden had fallen, as became him, while vainly endeavouring, by his heroic example, to inspire his followers with courage to face the fiery cavalry of Rupert.

Bedford had been untrue to the cause.

Northumberland was known to be lukewarm.

Essex and his lieutenants had shown little vigour and ability in the conduct of military operations.

At such a conjuncture it was that the Independent party, ardent, resolute, and uncompromising, began to raise its head, both in the camp and in the House of Commons.

The soul of that party was Oliver Cromwell.

Bred to peaceful occupations, he had, at more than forty years of age, accepted a commission in the parliamentary army.

No sooner had he become a soldier than he discerned, with the keen glance of genius, what Essex, and men like Essex, with all their experience, were unable to perceive.

He saw precisely where the strength of the Royalists lay, and by what means alone that strength could be overpowered.

He saw that it was necessary to reconstruct the army of the Parliament.

He saw also that there were abundant and excellent materials for the purpose, materials less showy, indeed, but more solid, than those of which the gallant squadrons of the King were composed.

It was necessary to look for recruits who were not mere mercenaries, for recruits of decent station and grave character, fearing God and zealous for public liberty.

With such men he filled his own regiment, and, while he subjected them to a discipline more rigid than had ever before been known in England, he administered to their intellectual and moral nature stimulants of fearful potency.

The events of the year 1644 fully proved the superiority of his abilities.

In the south, where Essex held the command, the parliamentary forces underwent a succession of shameful disasters; but in the north the victory of Marston Moor fully compensated for all that had been lost elsewhere.

That victory was not a more serious blow to the Royalists than to the party which had hitherto been dominant at Westminster, for it was notorious that the day, disgracefully lost by the Presbyterians, had been retrieved by the energy of Cromwell, and by the steady valour of the warriors whom he had trained.

These events produced the Selfdenying Ordinance and the new model of the army.

Under decorous pretexts, and with every mark of respect, Essex and most of those who had held high posts under him were removed; and the conduct of the war was intrusted to very different hands.

Fairfax, a brave soldier, but of mean understanding and irresolute temper, was the nominal Lord General of the forces; but Cromwell was their real head.

Cromwell made haste to organise the whole army on the same principles on which he had organised his own regiment.

As soon as this process was complete, the event of the war was decided.

The Cavaliers had now to encounter natural courage equal to their own, enthusiasm stronger than their own, and discipline such as was utterly wanting to them.

It soon became a proverb that the soldiers of Fairfax and Cromwell were men of a different breed from the soldiers of Essex.

At Naseby took place the first great encounter between the Royalists and the remodelled army of the Houses.

The victory of the Roundheads was complete and decisive.

It was followed by other triumphs in rapid succession.

In a few months the authority of the Parliament was fully established over the whole kingdom.

Charles fled to the Scots, and was by them, in a manner which did not much exalt their national character, delivered up to his English subjects.

While the event of the war was still doubtful, the Houses had put the Primate to death, had interdicted, within the sphere of their authority, the use of the Liturgy, and had required all men to subscribe that renowned instrument known by the name of the Solemn League and Covenant.

Covenanting work, as it was called, went on fast.

Hundreds of thousands affixed their names to the rolls, and, with hands lifted up towards heaven, swore to endeavour, without respect of persons, the extirpation of Popery and Prelacy, heresy and schism, and to bring to public trial and condign punishment all who should hinder the reformation of religion.

When the struggle was over, the work of innovation and revenge was pushed on with increased ardour.

The ecclesiastical polity of the kingdom was remodelled.

Most of the old clergy were ejected from their benefices.

Fines, often of ruinous amount, were laid on the Royalists, already impoverished by large aids furnished to the King.

Many estates were confiscated.

Many proscribed Cavaliers found it expedient to purchase, at an enormous cost, the protection of eminent members of the victorious party.

Large domains, belonging to the crown, to the bishops, and to the chapters, were seized, and either granted away or put up to auction.

In consequence of these spoliations, a great part of the soil of England was at once offered for sale.

As money was scarce, as the market was glutted, as the title was insecure and as the awe inspired by powerful bidders prevented free competition, the prices were often merely nominal.

Thus many old and honourable families disappeared and were heard of no more; and many new men rose rapidly to affluence.

But, while the Houses were employing their authority thus, it suddenly passed out of their hands.

It had been obtained by calling into existence a power which could not be controlled.

In the summer of 1647, about twelve months after the last fortress of the Cavaliers had submitted to the Parliament, the Parliament was compelled to submit to its own soldiers.

Thirteen years followed, during which England was, under various names and forms, really governed by the sword.

Never before that time, or since that time, was the civil power in our country subjected to military dictation.

The army which now became supreme in the state was an army very different from any that has since been seen among us.

At present the pay of the common soldier is not such as can seduce any but the humblest class of English labourers from their calling.

A barrier almost impassable separates him from the commissioned officer.

The great majority of those who rise high in the service rise by purchase.

So numerous and extensive are the remote dependencies of England, that every man who enlists in the line must expect to pass many years in exile, and some years in climates unfavourable to the health and vigour of the European race.

The army of the Long Parliament was raised for home service.

The pay of the private soldier was much above the wages earned by the great body of the people; and, if he distinguished himself by intelligence and courage, he might hope to attain high commands.

The ranks were accordingly composed of persons superior in station and education to the multitude.

These persons, sober, moral, diligent, and accustomed to reflect, had been induced to take up arms, not by the pressure of want, not by the love of novelty and license, not by the arts of recruiting officers, but by religious and political zeal, mingled with the desire of distinction and promotion.

The boast of the soldiers, as we find it recorded in their solemn resolutions, was that they had not been forced into the service, nor had enlisted chiefly for the sake of lucre.

That they were no janissaries, but freeborn Englishmen, who had, of their own accord, put their lives in jeopardy for the liberties and religion of England, and whose right and duty it was to watch over the welfare of the nation which they had saved.

A force thus composed might, without injury to its efficiency, be indulged in some liberties which, if allowed to any other troops, would have proved subversive of all discipline.

In general, soldiers who should form themselves into political clubs, elect delegates, and pass resolutions on high questions of state, would soon break loose from all control, would cease to form an army, and would become the worst and most dangerous of mobs.

Nor would it be safe, in our time, to tolerate in any regiment religious meetings, at which a corporal versed in Scripture should lead the devotions of his less gifted colonel, and admonish a backsliding major.

But such was the intelligence, the gravity, and the selfcommand of the warriors whom Cromwell had trained, that in their camp a political organisation and a religious organisation could exist without destroying military organisation.

The same men, who, off duty, were noted as demagogues and field preachers, were distinguished by steadiness, by the spirit of order, and by prompt obedience on watch, on drill, and on the field of battle.

In war this strange force was irresistible.

The stubborn courage characteristic of the English people was, by the system of Cromwell, at once regulated and stimulated.

Other leaders have maintained orders as strict.

Other leaders have inspired their followers with zeal as ardent.

But in his camp alone the most rigid discipline was found in company with the fiercest enthusiasm.

His troops moved to victory with the precision of machines, while burning with the wildest fanaticism of Crusaders.

From the time when the army was remodelled to the time when it was disbanded, it never found, either in the British islands or on the Continent, an enemy who could stand its onset.

In England, Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, the Puritan warriors, often surrounded by difficulties, sometimes contending against threefold odds, not only never failed to conquer, but never failed to destroy and break in pieces whatever force was opposed to them.

They at length came to regard the day of battle as a day of certain triumph, and marched against the most renowned battalions of Europe with disdainful confidence.

Turenne was startled by the shout of stern exultation with which his English allies advanced to the combat, and expressed the delight of a true soldier, when he learned that it was ever the fashion of Cromwell's pikemen to rejoice greatly when they beheld the enemy; and the banished Cavaliers felt an emotion of national pride, when they saw a brigade of their countrymen, outnumbered by foes and abandoned by friends, drive before it in headlong rout the finest infantry of Spain, and force a passage into a counterscarp which had just been pronounced impregnable by the ablest of the Marshals of France.

But that which chiefly distinguished the army of Cromwell from other armies was the austere morality and the fear of God which pervaded all ranks.

It is acknowledged by the most zealous Royalists that, in that singular camp, no oath was heard, no drunkenness or gambling was seen, and that, during the long dominion of the soldiery, the property of the peaceable citizen and the honour of woman were held sacred.

If outrages were committed, they were outrages of a very different kind from those of which a victorious army is generally guilty.

No servant girl complained of the rough gallantry of the redcoats.

Not an ounce of plate was taken from the shops of the goldsmiths.

But a Pelagian sermon, or a window on which the Virgin and Child were painted, produced in the Puritan ranks an excitement which it required the utmost exertions of the officers to quell.

One of Cromwell's chief difficulties was to restrain his musketeers and dragoons from invading by main force the pulpits of ministers whose discourses, to use the language of that time, were not savoury; and too many of our cathedrals still bear the marks of the hatred with which those stern spirits regarded every vestige of Popery.

To keep down the English people was no light task even for that army.

No sooner was the first pressure of military tyranny felt, than the nation, unbroken to such servitude, began to struggle fiercely.

Insurrections broke out even in those counties which, during the recent war, had been the most submissive to the Parliament.

Indeed, the Parliament itself abhorred its old defenders more than its old enemies, and was desirous to come to terms of accommodation with Charles at the expense of the troops.

In Scotland at the same time, a coalition was formed between the Royalists and a large body of Presbyterians who regarded the doctrines of the Independents with detestation.

At length the storm burst.

There were risings in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, Wales.

The fleet in the Thames suddenly hoisted the royal colours, stood out to sea, and menaced the southern coast.

A great Scottish force crossed the frontier and advanced into Lancashire.

It might well be suspected that these movements were contemplated with secret complacency by a majority both of the Lords and of the Commons.

But the yoke of the army was not to be so shaken off.

While Fairfax suppressed the risings in the neighbourhood of the capital, Oliver routed the Welsh insurgents, and, leaving their castles in ruins, marched against the Scots.

His troops were few, when compared with the invaders; but he was little in the habit of counting his enemies.

The Scottish army was utterly destroyed.

A change in the Scottish government followed.

An administration, hostile to the King, was formed at Edinburgh; and Cromwell, more than ever the darling of his soldiers, returned in triumph to London.

And now a design, to which, at the commencement of the civil war, no man would have dared to allude, and which was not less inconsistent with the Solemn League and Covenant than with the old law of England, began to take a distinct form.

The austere warriors who ruled the nation had, during some months, meditated a fearful vengeance on the captive King.

When and how the scheme originated; whether it spread from the general to the ranks, or from the ranks to the general; whether it is to be ascribed to policy using fanaticism as a tool, or to fanaticism bearing down policy with headlong impulse, are questions which, even at this day, cannot be answered with perfect confidence.

It seems, however, on the whole, probable that he who seemed to lead was really forced to follow, and that, on this occasion, as on another great occasion a few years later, he sacrificed his own judgment and his own inclinations to the wishes of the army.

For the power which he had called into existence was a power which even he could not always control; and, that he might ordinarily command, it was necessary that he should sometimes obey.

He publicly protested that he was no mover in the matter, that the first steps had been taken without his privity, that he could not advise the Parliament to strike the blow, but that he submitted his own feelings to the force of circumstances which seemed to him to indicate the purposes of Providence.

It has been the fashion to consider these professions as instances of the hypocrisy which is vulgarly imputed to him.

But even those who pronounce him a hypocrite will scarcely venture to call him a fool.

They are therefore bound to show that he had some purpose to serve by secretly stimulating the army to take that course which he did not venture openly to recommend.

It would be absurd to suppose that he who was never by his respectable enemies represented as wantonly cruel or implacably vindictive, would have taken the most important step of his life under the influence of mere malevolence.

He was far too wise a man not to know, when he consented to shed that august blood, that he was doing a deed which was inexpiable, and which would move the grief and horror, not only of the Royalists, but of nine tenths of those who had stood by the Parliament.

Whatever visions may have deluded others, he was assuredly dreaming neither of a republic on the antique pattern, nor of the millennial reign of the Saints.

If he already aspired to be himself the founder of a new dynasty, it was plain that Charles the First was a less formidable competitor than Charles the Second would be.

At the moment of the death of Charles the First the loyalty of every Cavalier would be transferred, unimpaired, to Charles the Second.

Charles the First was a captive: Charles the Second would be at liberty.

Charles the First was an object of suspicion and dislike to a large proportion of those who yet shuddered at the thought of slaying him: Charles the Second would excite all the interest which belongs to distressed youth and innocence.

It is impossible to believe that considerations so obvious, and so important, escaped the most profound politician of that age.

The truth is that Cromwell had, at one time, meant to mediate between the throne and the Parliament, and to reorganise the distracted State by the power of the sword, under the sanction of the royal name.

In this design he persisted till he was compelled to abandon it by the refractory temper of the soldiers, and by the incurable duplicity of the King.

A party in the camp began to clamour for the head of the traitor, who was for treating with Agag.

Conspiracies were formed.

Threats of impeachment were loudly uttered.

A mutiny broke out, which all the vigour and resolution of Oliver could hardly quell.

And though, by a judicious mixture of severity and kindness, he succeeded in restoring order, he saw that it would be in the highest degree difficult and perilous to contend against the rage of warriors, who regarded the fallen tyrant as their foe, and as the foe of their God.

At the same time it became more evident than ever that the King could not be trusted.

The vices of Charles had grown upon him.

They were, indeed, vices which difficulties and perplexities generally bring out in the strongest light.

Cunning is the natural defence of the weak.

A prince, therefore, who is habitually a deceiver when at the height of power, is not likely to learn frankness in the midst of embarrassments and distresses.

Charles was not only a most unscrupulous but a most unlucky dissembler.

There never was a politician to whom so many frauds and falsehoods were brought home by undeniable evidence.

He publicly recognised the Houses at Westminster as a legal Parliament, and, at the same time, made a private minute in council declaring the recognition null.

He publicly disclaimed all thought of calling in foreign aid against his people: he privately solicited aid from France, from Denmark, and from Lorraine.

He publicly denied that he employed Papists: at the same time he privately sent to his generals directions to employ every Papist that would serve.

He publicly took the sacrament at Oxford, as a pledge that he never would even connive at Popery.

He privately assured his wife, that he intended to tolerate Popery in England; and he authorised Lord Glamorgan to promise that Popery should be established in Ireland.

Then he attempted to clear himself at his agent's expense.

Glamorgan received, in the Royal handwriting, reprimands intended to be read by others, and eulogies which were to be seen only by himself.

To such an extent, indeed, had insincerity now tainted the King's whole nature, that his most devoted friends could not refrain from complaining to each other, with bitter grief and shame, of his crooked politics.

His defeats, they said, gave them less pain than his intrigues.

Since he had been a prisoner, there was no section of the victorious party which had not been the object both of his flatteries and of his machinations; but never was he more unfortunate than when he attempted at once to cajole and to undermine Cromwell.