Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

From Asia Minor the cult of the Great Mother spread first to Greek territory. It found its way into Thrace at an early date, was known in Boeotia by Pindar in the 6th century, and entered Attica near the beginning of the 4th century (Grant Showerman, _The Great Mother of the Gods_, _Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin_, No. 43, Madison, 1901). At Peiraeus, where it probably arrived by way of the Aegean islands, it existed privately in a fully developed state, that is, accompanied by the worship of Attis, at the beginning of the 4th century, and publicly two centuries later (D. Comparetti, _Annales_, 1862, pp. 23 ff.). The Greeks from the first saw in the Great Mother a resemblance to their own Rhea, and finally identified the two completely, though the Asiatic peculiarities of the cult were never universally popular with them (Showerman, p. 294). In her less Asiatic aspect, i.e. without Attis, she was sometimes identified with Gaia and Demeter. It was in this phase that she was worshipped in the Metroon at Athens. In reality, the Mother Goddess appears under three aspects: Rhea, the Homeric and Hesiodic goddess of Cretan origin; the Phrygian Mother, with Attis; and the Greek Great Mother, a modified form of the Phrygian Mother, to be explained as the original goddess of the Phrygians of Europe, communicated to the Greek stock before the Phrygian invasion of Asia Minor and consequent mingling with Asiatic stocks (cf. Showerman, p. 252).

In 204 B.C., in obedience to the Sibylline prophecy which said that whenever an enemy from abroad should make war on Italy he could be expelled and conquered if the Idaean Mother were brought to Rome from Pessinus, the cult of the Great Mother, together with her sacred symbol, a small meteoric stone reputed to have fallen from the heavens, was transferred to Rome and established in a temple on the Palatine (Livy xxix. 10-14). Her identification by the Romans with Maia, Ops, Rhea, Tellus and Ceres contributed to the establishment of her worship on a firm footing. By the end of the Republic it had attained prominence, and under the Empire it became one of the three most important cults in the Roman world, the other two being those of Mithras and Isis. Epigraphic and numismatic evidence prove it to have penetrated from Rome as a centre to the remotest provinces (Showerman, pp. 291-293). During the brief revival of paganism under Eugenius in A.D. 394, occurred the last appearance of the cult in history. Besides the temple on the Palatine, there existed minor shrines of the Great Mother near the present church of St Peter, on the Sacra Via on the north slope of the Palatine, near the junction of the Almo and the Tiber, south of the city (_ibid._ 311-314).

In all her aspects, Roman, Greek and Oriental, the Great Mother was characterized by essentially the same qualities. Most prominent among them was her universal motherhood. She was the great parent of gods and men, as well as of the lower orders of creation. "The winds, the sea, the earth and the snowy seat of Olympus are hers, and when from her mountains she ascends into the great heavens, the son of Cronus himself gives way before her" (Apollon. Rhod. _Argonautica_, i. 1098). She was known as the All-begetter, the All-nourisher, the Mother of all the Blest. She was the great, fruitful, kindly earth itself. Especial emphasis was placed upon her maternity over wild nature. She was called the Mountain Mother; her sanctuaries were almost invariably upon mountains, and frequently in caves, the name Cybele itself being by some derived from the latter; lions were her faithful companions. Her universal power over the natural world finds beautiful expression in Apollonius Rhodius, _Argonautica_, i. 1140 ff. She was also a chaste and beautiful deity. Her especial affinity with wild nature was manifested by the orgiastic character of her worship. Her attendants, the Corybantes, were wild, half demonic beings. Her priests, the Galli, were eunuchs attired in female garb, with long hair fragrant with ointment. Together with priestesses, they celebrated her rites with flutes, horns, castanets, cymbals and tambourines, madly yelling and dancing until their frenzied excitement found its culmination in self-scourging, self-laceration or exhaustion. Self-emasculation sometimes accompanied this delirium of worship on the part of candidates for the priesthood (Showerman, pp. 234-239). The _Attis_ of Catullus (lxiii.) is a brilliant treatment of such an episode.

Though her cult sometimes existed by itself, in its fully developed state the worship of the Great Mother was accompanied by that of Attis (q.v.). The cult of Attis never existed independently. Like Adonis and Aphrodite, Baal and Astarte, &c., the two formed a duality representing the relations of Mother Nature to the fruits of the earth. There is no positive evidence to prove the existence of the cult publicly in this phase in Greece before the 2nd century B.C., nor in Rome before the Empire, though it may have existed in private (Showerman, "Was Attis at Rome under the Republic?" in _Transactions of the American Philological Association_, vol. 31, 1900, pp. 46-59; Cumont, s.v. "Attis," De Ruggiero's _Dizionario epigrafico_ and Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopadie_, Supplement; Hepding, _Attis, seine Mythen und seine Kult_, Giessen, 1903, p. 142).

The philosophers of the late Roman Empire interpreted the Attis legend as symbolizing the relations of Mother Earth to her children the fruits. Porphyrius says that Attis signified the flowers of spring time, and was cut off in youth because the flower falls before the fruit (Augustine, _De civ. Dei_, vii. 25). Maternus (_De error._ 3) interprets the love of the Great Mother for Attis as the love of the earth for her fruits; his emasculation as the cutting of the fruits; his death as their preservation; and his resurrection as the sowing of the seed again.

At Rome the immediate direction of the cult of the Great Mother devolved upon the high priest, _Archigallus_, called Attis, a high priestess, _Sacerdos Maxima_, and its support was derived, at least in part, from a popular contribution, the _stips_. Besides other priests, priestesses and minor officials, such as musicians, curator, &c., there were certain colleges connected with the administration of the cult, called _cannophori_ (reed-bearers) and _dendrophori_ (branch-bearers). The Quindecimvirs exercised a general supervision over this cult, as over all other authorized cults, and it was, at least originally, under the special patronage of a club or sodality (Showerman, pp. 269-276). Roman citizens were at first forbidden to take part in its ceremonies, and the ban was not removed until the time of the Empire.

The main public event in the worship of the Great Mother was the annual festival, which took place originally on the 4th of April, and was followed on the 5th by the Megalesia, games instituted in her honour on the introduction of the cult. Under the Empire, from Claudius on, the Megalesia lasted six days, April 4-10, and the original one day of the religious festival became an annual cycle of festivals extending from the 15th to the 27th of March, in the following order. (1) The 15th of March, _Canna intrat_--the sacrifice of a six-year-old bull in behalf of the mountain fields, the high priest, a priestess and the _cannophori_ officiating, the last named carrying reeds in procession in commemoration of the exposure of the infant Attis on the reedy banks of the stream Gallus in Phrygia. (This may have been originally a phallic procession. Cf. Showerman, _American Journal of Philol._ xxvii. 1; _Classical Journal_ i. 4.) (2) The 22nd of March, _Arbor intrat_--the bearing in procession of the sacred pine, emblem of Attis' self-mutilation, death and immortality, to the temple on the Palatine, the symbol of the Mother's cave, by the _dendrophori_, a gild of workmen who made the Mother, among other deities, a patron. (3) The 24th of March, _Dies sanguinis_--a day of mourning, fasting and abstinence, especially sexual, commemorating the sorrow of the Mother for Attis, her abstinence from food and her chastity. The frenzied dance and self-laceration of the priests in commemoration of Attis' deed, and the submission to the act of consecration by candidates for the priesthood, was a special feature of the day. The _taurobolium_ (q.v.) was often performed on this day, on which probably took place the initiation of mystics. (4) The 25th of March, _Hilaria_--one of the great festal days of Rome, celebrated by all the people. All mourning was put off, and good cheer reigned in token of the return of the sun and spring, which was symbolized by the renewal of Attis' life. (5) The 26th of March, _Requietio_--a day of rest and quiet. (6) The 27th of March, _Lavatio_--the crowning ceremony of the cycle. The silver statue of the goddess, with the sacred meteoric stone, the _Acus_, set in its head, was borne in gorgeous procession and bathed in the Almo, the remainder of the day being given up to rejoicing and entertainment, especially dramatic representation of the legend of the deities of the day. Other ceremonies, not necessarily connected with the annual festival, were the taurobolium (q.v.), the sacrifice of a bull, and the _criobolium_ (q.v.), the sacrifice of a ram, the latter being the analogue of the former, instituted for the purpose of giving Attis special recognition. The baptism of blood, which was the feature of these ceremonies, was regarded as purifying and regenerating (Showerman, _Great Mother_, pp. 277-284).

The Great Mother figures in the art of all periods both in Asia and Europe, but is especially prominent in the art of the Empire. No work of the first class, however, was inspired by her. She appears on coins, in painting and in all forms of sculpture, usually with mural crown and veil, well draped, seated on a throne, and accompanied by two lions. Other attributes which often appear are the patera, tympanum, cymbals, sceptre, garlands and fruits. Attis and his attributes, the pine, Phrygian cap, pedum, syrinx and torch, also appear. The Cybele of Formia, now at Copenhagen, is one of the most famous representations of the goddess. The Niobe of Mt. Sipylus is really the Mother. In literature she is the subject of frequent mention, but no work of importance, with the exception of Catullus lxiii., is due to her inspiration. Her importance in the history of religion is very great. Together with Isis and Mithras, she was a great enemy, and yet a great aid to Christianity. The gorgeous rites of her worship, its mystic doctrine of communion with the divine through enthusiasm, its promise of regeneration through baptism of blood in the taurobolium, were features which attracted the masses of the people and made it a strong rival of Christianity; and its resemblance to the new religion, however superficial, made it, in spite of the scandalous practices which grew up around it, a stepping-stone to Christianity when the tide set in against paganism.

AUTHORITIES.--Grant Showerman, "The Great Mother of the Gods,"
_Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin_, No. 43; _Philology and
Literature Series_, vol. i. No. 3 (Madison, 1901); Hugo Hepding,
_Attis, seine Mythen und seine Kult_ (Giessen, 1903); Rapp, _Roscher's
Ausfuhrliches Lexicon der griechischen und romischen Mythologie s.v._
"Kybele"; Drexler, _ibid._ s.v. "Meter." See ROMAN RELIGION, GREEK
RELIGION, ATTIS, CORYBANTES; for the great "Hittite" portrayal of the
Nature Goddess at Pteria, see PTERIA. (G. Sn.)

GREAT REBELLION (1642-52), a generic name for the civil wars in England and Scotland, which began with the raising of King Charles I.'s standard at Nottingham on the 22nd of August 1642, and ended with the surrender of Dunottar Castle to the Parliament's troops in May 1652. It is usual to classify these wars into the First Civil War of 1642-46, and the Second Civil War of 1648-52. During most of this time another civil war was raging in Ireland. Its incidents had little or no connexion with those of the Great Rebellion, but its results influenced the struggle in England to a considerable extent.

1. _First Civil War (1642-46)._--It is impossible rightly to understand the events of this most national of all English wars without some knowledge of the motive forces on both sides. On the side of the king were enlisted the deep-seated loyalty which was the result of two centuries of effective royal protection, the pure cavalier spirit foreshadowing the courtier era of Charles II., but still strongly tinged with the old feudal indiscipline, the militarism of an expert soldier nobility, well represented by Prince Rupert, and lastly a widespread distrust of extreme Puritanism, which appeared unreasonable to Lord Falkland and other philosophic statesmen and intolerable to every other class of Royalists. The foot of the Royal armies was animated in the main by the first and last of these motives; in the eyes of the sturdy rustics who followed their squires to the war the enemy were rebels and fanatics. To the cavalry, which was composed largely of the higher social orders, the rebels were, in addition, bourgeois, while the soldiers of fortune from the German wars felt all the regular's contempt for citizen militia. Thus in the first episodes of the First Civil War moral superiority tended to be on the side of the king. On the other side, the causes of the quarrel were primarily and apparently political, ultimately and really religious, and thus the elements of resistance in the Parliament and the nation were at first confused, and, later, strong and direct. Democracy, moderate republicanism and the simple desire for constitutional guarantees could hardly make head of themselves against the various forces of royalism, for the most moderate men of either party were sufficiently in sympathy to admit compromise. But the backbone of resistance was the Puritan element, and this waging war at first with the rest on the political issue soon (as the Royalists anticipated) brought the religious issue to the front. The Presbyterian system, even more rigid than that of Laud and the bishops--whom no man on either side supported save Charles himself--was destined to be supplanted by the Independents and their ideal of free conscience, but for a generation before the war broke out it had disciplined and trained the middle classes of the nation (who furnished the bulk of the rebel infantry, and later of the cavalry also) to centre their whole will-power on the attainment of their ideals. The ideals changed during the struggle, but not the capacity for striving for them, and the men capable of the effort finally came to the front and imposed their ideals on the rest by the force of their trained wills.

Material force was throughout on the side of the Parliamentary party. They controlled the navy, the nucleus of an army which was in process of being organized for the Irish war, and nearly all the financial resources of the country. They had the sympathies of most of the large towns, where the trained bands, drilled once a month, provided cadres for new regiments. Further, by recognizing the inevitable, they gained a start in war preparations which they never lost. The earls of Warwick, Essex and Manchester and other nobles and gentry of their party possessed great wealth and territorial influence. Charles, on the other hand, although he could, by means of the "press" and the lords-lieutenant, raise men without authority from Parliament, could not raise taxes to support them, and was dependent on the financial support of his chief adherents, such as the earls of Newcastle and Derby. Both parties raised men when and where they could, each claiming that the law was on its side--for England was already a law-abiding nation--and acting in virtue of legal instruments. These were, on the side of the Parliament, its own recent "Militia Ordinance"; on that of the king, the old-fashioned "Commissions of Array." In Cornwall the Royalist leader, Sir Ralph Hopton, indicted the enemy before the grand jury of the county as disturbers of the peace, and had the _posse comitatus_ called out to expel them. The local forces in fact were everywhere employed by whichever side could, by producing valid written authority, induce them to assemble.

2. _The Royalist and Parliamentarian Armies._--This thread of local feeling and respect for the laws runs through the earlier operations of both sides almost irrespective of the main principles at stake. Many a promising scheme failed because of the reluctance of the militiamen to serve beyond the limits of their own county, and, as the offensive lay with the king, his cause naturally suffered far more therefrom than that of the enemy. But the real spirit of the struggle was very different. Anything which tended to prolong the struggle, or seemed like want of energy and avoidance of a decision, was bitterly resented by the men of both sides, who had their hearts in the quarrel and had not as yet learned by the severe lesson of Edgehill that raw armies cannot bring wars to a speedy issue. In France and Germany the prolongation of a war meant continued employment for the soldiers, but in England "we never encamped or entrenched ... or lay fenced with rivers or defiles. Here were no leaguers in the field, as at the story of Nuremberg,[1] neither had our soldiers any tents or what they call heavy baggage. 'Twas the general maxim of the war--Where is the enemy? Let us go and fight them. Or ... if the enemy was coming ... Why, what should be done! Draw out into the fields and fight them." This passage from the _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, ascribed to Defoe, though not contemporary evidence, is an admirable summary of the character of the Civil War. Even when in the end a regular professional army is evolved--exactly as in the case of Napoleon's army--the original decision-compelling spirit permeated the whole organization. From the first the professional soldiers of fortune, be their advice good or bad, are looked upon with suspicion, and nearly all those Englishmen who loved war for its own sake were too closely concerned for the welfare of their country to attempt the methods of the Thirty Years' War in England. The formal organization of both armies was based on the Swedish model, which had become the pattern of Europe after the victories of Gustavus Adolphus, and gave better scope for the _moral_ of the individual than the old-fashioned Spanish and Dutch formations in which the man in the ranks was a highly finished automaton.

3. _Campaign of 1642._--When the king raised his standard at Nottingham on the 22nd of August 1642, war was already in progress on a small scale in many districts, each side endeavouring to secure, or to deny to the enemy, fortified country-houses, territory, and above all arms and money. Peace negotiations went on in the midst of these minor events until there came from the Parliament an ultimatum so aggressive as to fix the warlike purpose of the still vacillating court at Nottingham, and, in the country at large, to convert many thousands of waverers to active Royalism. Ere long Charles--who had hitherto had less than 1500 men--was at the head of an army which, though very deficient in arms and equipment, was not greatly inferior in numbers or enthusiasm to that of the Parliament. The latter (20,000 strong exclusive of detachments) was organized during July, August and September about London, and moved thence to Northampton under the command of Robert, earl of Essex.

At this moment the military situation was as follows. Lord Hertford in south Wales, Sir Ralph Hopton in Cornwall, and the young earl of Derby in Lancashire, and small parties in almost every county of the west and the midlands, were in arms for the king. North of the Tees, the earl of Newcastle, a great territorial magnate, was raising troops and supplies for the king, while Queen Henrietta Maria was busy in Holland arranging for the importation of war material and money. In Yorkshire opinion was divided, the royal cause being strongest in York and the North Riding, that of the Parliamentary party in the clothing towns of the West Riding and also in the important seaport of Hull. The Yorkshire gentry made an attempt to neutralize the county, but a local struggle soon began, and Newcastle thereupon prepared to invade Yorkshire. The whole of the south and east as well as parts of the midlands and the west and the important towns of Bristol and Gloucester were on the side of the Parliament. A small Royalist force was compelled to evacuate Oxford on the 10th of September.

On the 13th of September the main campaign opened. The king--in order to find recruits amongst his sympathizers and arms in the armouries of the Derbyshire and Staffordshire trained bands, and also to be in touch with his disciplined regiments in Ireland by way of Chester--moved westward to Shrewsbury, Essex following suit by marching from Northampton to Worcester. Near the last-named town a sharp cavalry engagement (Powick Bridge) took place on the 23rd between the advanced cavalry of Essex's army and a force under Prince Rupert which was engaged in protecting the retirement of the Oxford detachment. The result of the fight was the instantaneous overthrow of the rebel cavalry, and this gave the Royalist troopers a confidence in themselves and in their brilliant leader which was not destined to be shaken until they met Cromwell's Ironsides. Rupert soon withdrew to Shrewsbury, where he found many Royalist officers eager to attack Essex's new position at Worcester. But the road to London now lay open and it was decided to take it. The intention was not to avoid a battle, for the Royalist generals desired to fight Essex before he grew too strong, and the temper of both sides made it impossible to postpone the decision; in Clarendon's words, "it was considered more counsellable to march towards London, it being morally sure that the earl of Essex would put himself in their way," and accordingly the army left Shrewsbury on the 12th of October, gaining two days' start of the enemy, and moved south-east via Bridgnorth, Birmingham and Kenilworth. This had the desired effect. Parliament, alarmed for its own safety, sent repeated orders to Essex to find the king and bring him to battle. Alarm gave place to determination when it was discovered that Charles was enlisting papists and seeking foreign aid. The militia of the home counties was called out, a second army under the earl of Warwick was formed round the nucleus of the London trained bands, and Essex, straining every nerve to regain touch with the enemy, reached Kineton, where he was only 7 m. from the king's headquarters at Edgecote, on the 22nd.

4. _Battle of Edgehill._--Rupert promptly reported the enemy's presence, and his confidence dominated the irresolution of the king and the caution of Lord Lindsey, the nominal commander-in-chief. Both sides had marched widely dispersed in order to live, and the rapidity with which, having the clearer purpose, the Royalists drew together helped considerably to neutralize Essex's superior numbers. During the morning of the 23rd the Royalists formed in battle order on the brow of Edgehill facing towards Kineton. Essex, experienced soldier as he was, had distrusted his own raw army too much to force a decision earlier in the month, when the king was weak; he now found Charles in a strong position with an equal force to his own 14,000, and some of his regiments were still some miles distant. But he advanced beyond Kineton, and the enemy promptly left their strong position and came down to the foot of the hill, for, situated as they were, they had either to fight wherever they could induce the enemy to engage, or to starve in the midst of hostile garrisons. Rupert was on the right of the king's army with the greater part of the horse, Lord Lindsey and Sir Jacob Astley in the centre with the foot, Lord Wilmot (with whom rode the earl of Forth, the principal military adviser of the king) with a smaller body of cavalry on the left. In rear of the centre were the king and a small reserve. Essex's order was similar. Rupert charged as soon as his wing was deployed, and before the infantry of either side was ready. Taking ground to his right front and then wheeling inwards at full speed he instantly rode down the Parliamentary horse opposed to him. Some infantry regiments of Essex's left centre shared the same fate as their cavalry. On the other wing Forth and Wilmot likewise swept away all that they could see of the enemy's cavalry, and the undisciplined Royalists of both wings pursued the fugitives in wild disorder up to Kineton, where they were severely handled by John Hampden's infantry brigade (which was escorting the artillery and baggage of Essex's army). Rupert brought back only a few rallied squadrons to the battlefield, and in the meantime affairs there had gone badly for the king. The right and centre of the Parliamentary foot (the left having been brought to a halt by Rupert's charge) advanced with great resolution, and being at least as ardent as, and much better armed than, Lindsey's men, engaged them fiercely and slowly gained ground. Only the best regiments on either side, however, maintained their order, and the decision of the infantry battle was achieved mainly by a few Parliamentary squadrons. One regiment of Essex's right wing only had been the target of Wilmot's charge, the other two had been at the moment invisible, and, as every Royalist troop on the ground, even the king's guards, had joined in the mad ride to Kineton, these, Essex's life-guard, and some troops that had rallied from the effect of Rupert's charge--amongst them Captain Oliver Cromwell's--were the only cavalry still present. All these joined with decisive effect in the attack on the left of the royal infantry. The king's line was steadily rolled up from left to right, the Parliamentary troopers captured his guns and regiment after regiment broke up. Charles himself stood calmly in the thick of the fight, but he had not the skill to direct it. The royal standard was taken and retaken, Lindsey and Sir Edmund Verney, the standard-bearer, being killed. By the time that Rupert returned both sides were incapable of further effort and disillusioned as to the prospect of ending the war at a blow.

On the 24th Essex retired, leaving Charles to claim the victory and to reap its results. Banbury and Oxford were reoccupied by the Royalists, and by the 28th Charles was marching down the Thames valley on London. Negotiations were reopened, and a peace party rapidly formed itself in London and Westminster. Yet field fortifications sprang up around London, and when Rupert stormed and sacked Brentford on the 12th of November the trained bands moved out at once and took up a position at Turnham Green, barring the king's advance. Hampden, with something of the fire and energy of his cousin Cromwell, urged Essex to turn both flanks of the Royal army via Acton and Kingston, but experienced professional soldiers urged him not to trust the London men to hold their ground while the rest manoeuvred. Hampden's advice was undoubtedly premature. A Sedan or Worcester was not within the power of the Parliamentarians of 1642, for, in Napoleon's words, "one only manoeuvres around a fixed point," and the city levies at that time were certainly not, _vis-a-vis_ Rupert's cavalry, a fixed point. As a matter of fact, after a slight cannonade at Turnham Green on the 13th, Essex's two-to-one numerical superiority of itself compelled the king to retire to Reading. Turnham Green has justly been called the Valmy of the English Civil War. Like Valmy, without being a battle, it was a victory, and the tide of invasion came thus far, ebbed, and never returned.

5. _The Winter of 1642-43._--In the winter, while Essex lay inactive at Windsor, Charles by degrees consolidated his position in the region of Oxford. The city was fortified as a reduit for the whole area, and Reading, Wallingford, Abingdon, Brill, Banbury and Marlborough constituted a complete defensive ring which was developed by the creation of smaller posts from time to time. In the north and west, winter campaigns were actively carried on. "It is summer in Yorkshire, summer in Devon, and cold winter at Windsor," said one of Essex's critics. At the beginning of December Newcastle crossed the Tees, defeated Hotham, the Parliamentary commander in the North Riding, then joining hands with the hard-pressed Royalists at York, established himself between that city and Pontefract. Lord Fairfax and his son Sir Thomas, who commanded for the Parliament in Yorkshire, had to retire to the district between Hull and Selby, and Newcastle was free to turn his attention to the Puritan "clothing towns" of the West Riding--Leeds, Halifax and Bradford. The townsmen, however, showed a determined front, the younger Fairfax with a picked body of cavalry rode through Newcastle's lines into the West Riding to help them, and about the end of January 1643 the earl gave up the attempt to reduce the towns. He continued his march southward, however, and gained ground for the king as far as Newark, so as to be in touch with the Royalists of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire (who, especially about Newark and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, were strong enough to neutralize the local forces of the Parliament), and to prepare the way for the further advance of the army of the north when the queen's convoy should arrive from over-seas.

In the west Sir Ralph Hopton and his friends, having obtained a true bill from the grand jury against the Parliamentary disturbers of the peace, placed themselves at the head of the county militia and drove the rebels from Cornwall, after which they raised a small force for general service and invaded Devonshire (November 1642). Subsequently a Parliamentary army under the earl of Stamford was withdrawn from south Wales to engage Hopton, who had to retire into Cornwall. There, however, the Royalist general was free to employ the militia again, and thus reinforced he won a victory over a part of Stamford's forces at Bradock Down near Liskeard (January 19, 1643) and resumed the offensive. About the same time Hertford, no longer opposed by Stamford, brought over the South Wales Royalists to Oxford, and the fortified area around that place was widened by the capture of Cirencester on the 2nd of February. Gloucester and Bristol were now the only important garrisons of the Roundheads in the west. In the midlands, in spite of a Parliamentary victory won by Sir William Brereton at Nantwich on the 28th of January, the Royalists of Shropshire, Staffordshire and Leicestershire soon extended their influence through Ashby-de-la-Zouch into Nottinghamshire and joined hands with their friends at Newark. Further, around Chester a new Royalist army was being formed under Lord Byron, and all the efforts of Brereton and of Sir John Gell, the leading supporter of the Parliament in Derbyshire, were required to hold their own, even before Newcastle's army was added to the list of their enemies. Lord Brooke, who commanded for the Parliament in Warwickshire and Staffordshire and was looked on by many as Essex's eventual successor, was killed in besieging Lichfield cathedral on the 2nd of March, and, though the cathedral soon capitulated, Gell and Brereton were severely handled in the indecisive battle of Hopton Heath near Stafford on the 19th of March, and Prince Rupert, after an abortive raid on Bristol (March 7), marched rapidly northward, storming Birmingham en route, and recaptured Lichfield cathedral. He was, however, soon recalled to Oxford to take part in the main campaign. The position of affairs for the Parliament was perhaps at its worst in January. The Royalist successes of November and December, the ever-present dread of foreign intervention, and the burden of new taxation which the Parliament now found itself compelled to impose, disheartened its supporters. Disorders broke out in London, and, while the more determined of the rebels began thus early to think of calling in the military assistance of the Scots, the majority were for peace on any conditions. But soon the position improved somewhat; Stamford in the west and Brereton and Gell in the midlands, though hard pressed, were at any rate in arms and undefeated, Newcastle had failed to conquer the West Riding, and Sir William Waller, who had cleared Hampshire and Wiltshire of "malignants," entered Gloucestershire early in March, destroyed a small Royalist force at Highnam (March 24), and secured Bristol and Gloucester for the Parliament. Finally, some of Charles's own intrigues opportunely coming to light, the waverers, seeing the impossibility of plain dealing with the court, rallied again to the party of resistance, and the series of negotiations called by the name of the Treaty of Oxford closed in April with no more result than those which had preceded Edgehill and Turnham Green. About this time too, following and improving upon the example of Newcastle in the north, Parliament ordered the formation of the celebrated "associations" or groups of counties banded together by mutual consent for defence. The most powerful and best organized of these was that of the eastern counties (headquarters Cambridge), where the danger of attack from the north was near enough to induce great energy in the preparations for meeting it, and at the same time too distant effectively to interfere with these preparations. Above all, the Eastern Association was from the first guided and inspired by Colonel Cromwell.

6. _The Plan of Campaign, 1643._--The king's plan of operations for the next campaign, which was perhaps inspired from abroad, was more elaborate than the simple "point" of 1642. The king's army, based on the fortified area around Oxford, was counted sufficient to use up Essex's forces. On either hand, therefore, in Yorkshire and in the west, the Royalist armies were to fight their way inwards towards London, after which all three armies, converging on that place in due season, were to cut off its supplies and its sea-borne revenue and to starve the rebellion into surrender. The condition of this threefold advance was of course that the enemy should not be able to defeat the armies in detail, i.e. that he should be fixed and held in the Thames valley; this secured, there was no purely military objection against operating in separate armies from the circumference towards the centre. It was on the rock of local feeling that the king's plan came to grief. Even after the arrival of the queen and her convoy, Newcastle had to allow her to proceed with a small force, and to remain behind with the main body, because of Lancashire and the West Riding, and above all because the port of Hull, in the hands of the Fairfaxes, constituted a menace that the Royalists of the East Riding refused to ignore. Hopton's advance too, undertaken without the Cornish levies, was checked in the action of Sourton Down (Dartmoor) on the 25th of April, and on the same day Waller captured Hereford. Essex had already left Windsor to undertake the siege of Reading, the most important point in the circle of fortresses round Oxford, which after a vain attempt at relief surrendered to him on the 26th of April. Thus the opening operations were unfavourable, not indeed so far as to require the scheme to be abandoned, but at least delaying the development until the campaigning season was far advanced.

7. _Victories of Hopton._--But affairs improved in May. The queen's long-expected convoy arrived at Woodstock on the 13th. The earl of Stamford's army, which had again entered Cornwall, was attacked in its selected position at Stratton and practically annihilated by Hopton (May 16). This brilliant victory was due above all to Sir Bevil Grenville and the lithe Cornishmen, who, though but 2400 against 5400 and destitute of artillery, stormed "Stamford Hill," killed 300 of the enemy, and captured 1700 more with all their guns, colours and baggage. Devon was at once overrun by the victors. Essex's army, for want of material resources, had had to be content with the capture of Reading, and a Royalist force under Hertford and Prince Maurice (Rupert's brother) moved out as far as Salisbury to hold out a hand to their friends in Devonshire, while Waller, the only Parliamentary commander left in the field in the west, had to abandon his conquests in the Severn valley to oppose the further progress of his intimate friend and present enemy, Hopton. Early in June Hertford and Hopton united at Chard and rapidly moved, with some cavalry skirmishing, towards Bath, where Waller's army lay. Avoiding the barrier of the Mendips, they moved round via Frome to the Avon. But Waller, thus cut off from London and threatened with investment, acted with great skill, and some days of manoeuvres and skirmishing followed, after which Hertford and Hopton found themselves on the north side of Bath facing Waller's entrenched position on the top of Lansdown Hill. This position the Royalists stormed on the 5th of July. The battle of Lansdown was a second Stratton for the Cornishmen, but this time the enemy was of different quality and far differently led, and they had to mourn the loss of Sir Bevil Grenville and the greater part of their whole force. At dusk both sides stood on the flat summit of the hill, still firing into one another with such energy as was not yet expended, and in the night Waller drew off his men into Bath. "We were glad they were gone," wrote a Royalist officer, "for if they had not, I know who had within the hour." Next day Hopton was severely injured by the explosion of a wagon containing the reserve ammunition, and the Royalists, finding their victory profitless, moved eastward to Devizes, closely followed by the enemy. On the 10th of July Sir William Waller took post on Roundway Down, overlooking Devizes, and captured a Royalist ammunition column from Oxford. On the 11th he came down and invested Hopton's foot in Devizes itself, while the Royalist cavalry, Hertford and Maurice with them, rode away towards Salisbury. But although the siege was pressed with such vigour that an assault was fixed for the evening of the 13th, the Cornishmen, Hopton directing the defence from his bed, held out stubbornly, and on the afternoon of July 13th Prince Maurice's horsemen appeared on Roundway Down, having ridden to Oxford, picked up reinforcements there, and returned at full speed to save their comrades. Waller's army tried its best, but some of its elements were of doubtful quality and the ground was all in Maurice's favour. The battle did not last long. The combined attack of the Oxford force from Roundway and of Hopton's men from the town practically annihilated Waller's army. Very soon afterwards Rupert came up with fresh Royalist forces, and the combined armies moved westward. Bristol, the second port of the kingdom, was their objective, and in four days from the opening of the siege it was in their hands (July 26), Waller with the beaten remnant of his army at Bath being powerless to intervene. The effect of this blow was felt even in Dorsetshire. Within three weeks of the surrender Prince Maurice with a body of fast-moving cavalry overran that county almost unopposed.

8. _Adwalton Moor._--Newcastle meanwhile had resumed operations against the clothing towns, this time with success. The Fairfaxes had been fighting in the West Riding since January with such troops from the Hull region as they had been able to bring across Newcastle's lines. They and the townsmen together were too weak for Newcastle's increasing forces, and an attempt was made to relieve them by bringing up the Parliament's forces in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and the Eastern Association. But local interests prevailed again, in spite of Cromwell's presence, and after assembling at Nottingham, the midland rebels quietly dispersed to their several counties (June 2). The Fairfaxes were left to their fate, and about the same time Hull itself narrowly escaped capture by the queen's forces through the treachery of Sir John Hotham, the governor, and his son, the commander of the Lincolnshire Parliamentarians. The latter had been placed under arrest at the instance of Cromwell and of Colonel Hutchinson, the governor of Nottingham Castle; he escaped to Hull, but both father and son were seized by the citizens and afterwards executed. More serious than an isolated act of treachery was the far-reaching Royalist plot that had been detected in Parliament itself, for complicity in which Lord Conway, Edmund Waller the poet, and several members of both Houses were arrested. The safety of Hull was of no avail for the West Riding towns, and the Fairfaxes underwent a decisive defeat at Adwalton (Atherton) Moor near Bradford on the 30th of June. After this, by way of Lincolnshire, they escaped to Hull and reorganized the defence of that place. The West Riding perforce submitted.

The queen herself with a second convoy and a small army under Henry (Lord) Jermyn soon moved via Newark, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Lichfield and other Royalist garrisons to Oxford, where she joined her husband on the 14th of July. But Newcastle (now a marquis) was not yet ready for his part in the programme. The Yorkshire troops would not march on London while the enemy was master of Hull, and by this time there was a solid barrier between the royal army of the north and the capital. Roundway Down and Adwalton Moor were not after all destined to be fatal, though peace riots in London, dissensions in the Houses, and quarrels amongst the generals were their immediate consequences. A new factor had arisen in the war--the Eastern Association.

9. _Cromwell and the Eastern Association._--This had already intervened to help in the siege of Reading and had sent troops to the abortive gathering at Nottingham, besides clearing its own ground of "malignants." From the first Cromwell was the dominant influence. Fresh from Edgehill, he had told Hampden, "You must get men of a spirit that is likely to go as far as gentlemen will go," not "old decayed serving-men, tapsters and such kind of fellows to encounter gentlemen that have honour and courage and resolution in them," and in January 1643 he had gone to his own county to "raise such men as had the fear of God before them and made some conscience of what they did." These men, once found, were willing, for the cause, to submit to a rigorous training and an iron discipline such as other troops, fighting for honour only or for profit only, could not be brought to endure.[2] The result was soon apparent. As early as the 13th of May, Cromwell's regiment of horse--recruited from the horse-loving yeomen of the eastern counties--demonstrated its superiority in the field in a skirmish near Grantham, and in the irregular fighting in Lincolnshire during June and July (which was on the whole unfavourable to the Parliament), as previously in pacifying the Eastern Association itself, these Puritan troopers distinguished themselves by long and rapid marches that may bear comparison with almost any in the history of the mounted arm. When Cromwell's second opportunity came at Gainsborough on the 28th of July, the "Lincolneer" horse who were under his orders were fired by the example of Cromwell's own regiment, and Cromwell, directing the whole with skill, and above all with energy, utterly routed the Royalist horse and killed their general, Charles Cavendish.

In the meantime the army of Essex had been inactive. After the fall of Reading a serious epidemic of sickness had reduced it to impotence. On the 18th of June the Parliamentary cavalry was routed and John Hampden mortally wounded at Chalgrove Field near Chiselhampton, and when at last Essex, having obtained the desired reinforcements, moved against Oxford from the Aylesbury side, he found his men demoralized by inaction, and before the menace of Rupert's cavalry, to which he had nothing to oppose, he withdrew to Bedfordshire (July). He made no attempt to intercept the march of the queen's convoys, he had permitted the Oxford army, which he should have held fast, to intervene effectually in the midlands, the west, and the south-west, and Waller might well complain that Essex, who still held Reading and the Chilterns, had given him neither active nor passive support in the critical days preceding Roundway Down. Still only a few voices were raised to demand his removal, and he was shortly to have an opportunity of proving his skill and devotion in a great campaign and a great battle. The centre and the right of the three Royalist armies had for a moment (Roundway to Bristol) united to crush Waller, but their concentration was short-lived. Plymouth was to Hopton's men what Hull was to Newcastle's--they would not march on London until the menace to their homes was removed. Further, there were dissensions among the generals which Charles was too weak to crush, and consequently the original plan reappears--the main Royalist army to operate in the centre, Hopton's (now Maurice's) on the right, Newcastle on the left towards London. While waiting for the fall of Hull and Plymouth, Charles naturally decided to make the best use of his time by reducing Gloucester, the one great fortress of the Parliament in the west.

10. _Siege and Relief of Gloucester._--This decision quickly brought on a crisis. While the earl of Manchester (with Cromwell as his lieutenant-general) was appointed to head the forces of the Eastern Association against Newcastle, and Waller was given a new army wherewith again to engage Hopton and Maurice, the task of saving Gloucester from the king's army fell to Essex, who was heavily reinforced and drew his army together for action in the last days of August. Resort was had to the press-gang to fill the ranks, recruiting for Waller's new army was stopped, and London sent six regiments of trained bands to the front, closing the shops so that every man should be free to take his part in what was thought to be the supreme trial of strength.

On the 26th, all being ready, Essex started. Through Aylesbury and round the north side of Oxford to Stow-on-the-Wold the army moved resolutely, not deterred by want of food and rest, or by the attacks of Rupert's and Wilmot's horse on its flank. On the 5th of September, just as Gloucester was at the end of its resources, the siege was suddenly raised and the Royalists drew off to Painswick, for Essex had reached Cheltenham and the danger was over. Then, the field armies being again face to face and free to move, there followed a series of skilful manoeuvres in the Severn and Avon valleys, at the end of which the Parliamentary army gained a long start on its homeward road via Cricklade, Hungerford and Reading. But the Royalist cavalry under Rupert, followed rapidly by Charles and the main body from Evesham, strained every nerve to head off Essex at Newbury, and after a sharp skirmish on Aldbourne Chase on the 18th of September succeeded in doing so. On the 19th the whole Royal army was drawn up, facing west, with its right on Newbury and its left on Enborne Heath. Essex's men knew that evening that they would have to break through by force--there was no suggestion of surrender.

11. _First Battle of Newbury, September 20, 1643._--The ground was densely intersected by hedges except in front of the Royalists' left centre (Newbury Wash) and left (Enborne Heath), and, practically, Essex's army was never formed in line of battle, for each unit was thrown into the fight as it came up its own road or lane. On the left wing, in spite of the Royalist counter-strokes, the attack had the best of it, capturing field after field, and thus gradually gaining ground to the front. Here Lord Falkland was killed. On the Reading road itself Essex did not succeed in deploying on to the open ground on Newbury Wash, but victoriously repelled the royal horse when it charged up to the lanes and hedges held by his foot. On the extreme right of the Parliamentary army, which stood in the open ground of Enborne Heath, took place a famous incident. Here two of the London regiments, fresh to war as they were, were exposed to a trial as severe as that which broke down the veteran Spanish infantry at Rocroi in this same year. Rupert and the Royalist horse again and again charged up to the squares of pikes, and between each charge his guns tried to disorder the Londoners, but it was not until the advance of the royal infantry that the trained bands retired, slowly and in magnificent order, to the edge of the heath. The result of it all was that Essex's army had fought its hardest and failed to break the opposing line. But the Royalists had suffered so heavily, and above all the valour displayed by the rebels had so profoundly impressed them, that they were glad to give up the disputed road and withdraw into Newbury. Essex thereupon pursued his march, Reading was reached on the 22nd after a small rearguard skirmish at Aldermaston, and so ended one of the most dramatic episodes of English history.

12. _Hull and Winceby._--Meanwhile the siege of Hull had commenced. The Eastern Association forces under Manchester promptly moved up into Lincolnshire, the foot besieging Lynn (which surrendered on the 16th of September) while the horse rode into the northern part of the county to give a hand to the Fairfaxes. Fortunately the sea communications of Hull were open. On the 18th of September part of the cavalry in Hull was ferried over to Barton, and the rest under Sir Thomas Fairfax went by sea to Saltfleet a few days later, the whole joining Cromwell near Spilsby. In return the old Lord Fairfax, who remained in Hull, received infantry reinforcements and a quantity of ammunition and stores from the Eastern Association. On the 11th of October Cromwell and Fairfax together won a brilliant cavalry action at Winceby, driving the Royalist horse in confusion before them to Newark, and on the same day Newcastle's army around Hull, which had suffered terribly from the hardships of continuous siege work, was attacked by the garrison and so severely handled that next day the siege was given up. Later, Manchester retook Lincoln and Gainsborough, and thus Lincolnshire, which had been almost entirely in Newcastle's hands before he was compelled to undertake the siege of Hull, was added in fact as well as in name to the Eastern Association.

Elsewhere, in the reaction after the crisis of Newbury, the war languished. The city regiments went home, leaving Essex too weak to hold Reading, which the Royalists reoccupied on the 3rd of October. At this the Londoners offered to serve again, and actually took part in a minor campaign around Newport Pagnell, which town Rupert attempted to fortify as a menace to the Eastern Association and its communications with London. Essex was successful in preventing this, but his London regiments again went home, and Sir William Waller's new army in Hampshire failed lamentably in an attempt on Basing House (November 7), the London trained bands deserting _en bloc_. Shortly afterwards Arundel surrendered to a force under Sir Ralph, now Lord Hopton (December 9).

13. _The "Irish Cessation" and the Solemn League and Covenant._--Politically, these months were the turning-point of the war. In Ireland, the king's lieutenant, by order of his master, made a truce with the Irish rebels (Sept. 15). Charles's chief object was to set free his army to fight in England, but it was believed universally that Irish regiments--in plain words, papists in arms--would shortly follow. Under these circumstances his act united against him nearly every class in Protestant England, above all brought into the English quarrel the armed strength of Presbyterian Scotland. Yet Charles, still trusting to intrigue and diplomacy to keep Scotland in check, deliberately rejected the advice of Montrose, his greatest and most faithful lieutenant, who wished to give the Scots employment for their army at home. Only ten days after the "Irish cessation," the Parliament at Westminster swore to the Solemn League and Covenant, and the die was cast. It is true that even a semblance of Presbyterian theocracy put the "Independents" on their guard and definitely raised the question of freedom of conscience, and that secret negotiations were opened between the Independents and Charles on that basis, but they soon discovered that the king was merely using them as instruments to bring about the betrayal of Aylesbury and other small rebel posts. All parties found it convenient to interpret the Covenant liberally for the present, and at the beginning of 1644 the Parliamentary party showed so united a front that even Pym's death (December 8, 1643) hardly affected its resolution to continue the struggle.