Chapter IV: The Commonwealth (2)

[Footnote 2: O'Neil demanded liberty of conscience for himself, his followers, and their posterity; the undisturbed possession of their lands, as long as they remained faithful to the parliament; and, in return for his services, the restoration of his ancestor's estate, or an equivalent. (See both his draft, and the corrected copy by Monk, in Philop. Iren. i. 191, and in Walker, ii. 233-238.) His agent, on his arrival in London, was asked by the grandees why he applied to them, and refused to treat with Ormond. He replied, because the late king had always made them fair promises; but, when they had done him service, and he could make better terms with their enemies, had always been ready to sacrifice them. Why then did not O'Neil apply to the parliament sooner? Because the men in power then had sworn to extirpate them; but those in power now professed toleration and liberty of conscience.--Ludlow, i. 255. The agreement made with him by Monk was rejected (Aug. 10), because, if we believe Ludlow, the Ulster men had been the chief actors in the murder of the English, and liberty of religion would prove dangerous to public peace. But this rejection happened much later. It is plain that Jones, Monk, Coote, and O'Neil understood that the agreement would be ratified, though it was delayed.--Walker, ii 198, 231, 245. See King's Pamphlets, 428, 435, 437.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. August 31.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1649. Feb. 20.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1649. March 16.] [Sidenote d: A.D. 1649. March 21.] [Sidenote e: A.D. 1649. April 25.] [Sidenote f: A.D. 1649. May 8.] [Sidenote g: A.D. 1649. May 22.]

Though the parliament had appointed Cromwell lord lieutenant of Ireland, and vested the supreme authority, both civil and military, in his person for three years, he was still unwilling to hazard his reputation, and his prospects in a dangerous expedition without the adequate means of success.[a] Out of the standing army of forty-five thousand men, with whose aid England was now governed, he demanded a force of twelve thousand veterans, with a plentiful supply of provisions and military stores, and the round sum of one hundred thousand pounds in ready money.[1] On the day of his departure, his friends assembled at Whitehall; three ministers solemnly invoked the blessing of God on the arms of his saints; and three officers, Goff, Harrison and the lord lieutenant himself, expounded the scriptures "excellently well, and pertinently to the occasion."[b] After these outpourings of the spirit, Cromwell mounted his carriage, drawn by six horses. He was accompanied by the great officers of state and of the army; his life-guard, eighty young men, all of quality, and several holding

[Footnote 1: Cromwell received three thousand pounds for his outfit, ten pounds per day as _general_ while he remained in England, and two thousand pounds per quarter in Ireland, besides his salary as lord lieutenant.--Council Book, July 12, No, 10.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. June 22.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1649. July 10.]

commissions as majors and colonels, delighted the spectators with their splendid uniforms and gallant bearing; and the streets of the metropolis resounded, as he drove towards Windsor, with the acclamations of the populace and the clangour of military music.[1] It had been fixed that the expedition should sail from Milford Haven; but the impatience of the general was checked by the reluctance and desertion of his men. The recent transaction between Monk and O'Neil had diffused a spirit of distrust through the army. It was pronounced an apostasy from the principles on which they had fought. The exaggerated horrors of the massacre in 1641 were recalled to mind; the repeated resolutions of parliament to extirpate the native Irish, and the solemn engagement of the army to revenge the blood which had been shed, were warmly discussed; and the invectives of the leaders against the late king, when he concluded a peace with the confederate Catholics, were contrasted with their present backsliding, when they had taken the men of Ulster for their associates and for their brethren in arms. To appease the growing discontent, parliament annulled the agreement. Monk, who had returned to England, was publicly assured that, if he escaped the punishment of his indiscretion, it was on account of his past services and good intentions. Peters from the pulpit employed his eloquence to remove the blame from the grandees; and, if we may judge from the sequel, promises were made, not only that the good cause should be supported, but that the duty of revenge should be amply discharged.[2]

While the army was thus detained in the neighbourhood

[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 413. Leicester's Journal, 76.]

[Footnote 2: Walker, ii. 230, 243. Whitelock, 416. Leicester's Journal, 82.]

of Milford Haven, Jones, in Dublin, reaped the laurels which Cromwell had destined for himself. The royal army advanced on both banks of the Liffy to the siege of that capital;[a] and Ormond, from his quarters at Finglass, ordered certain works to be thrown up at a place called Bogatrath. His object was to exclude the horse of the garrison from the only pasturage in their possession; but by some mishap, the working party did not reach the spot till an hour before sunrise; and Jones, sallying from the walls, overpowered the guard, and raised an alarm in the camp.[b] The confusion of the royalists encouraged him to follow up his success. Regiment after regiment was beaten: it was in vain that Ormond, aroused from his sleep, flew from post to post; the different corps acted without concert; a general panic ensued, and the whole army on the right bank fled in every direction. The artillery, tents, baggage, and ammunition fell into the hands of the conquerors, with two thousand prisoners, three hundred of whom were massacred in cold blood at the gate of the city. This was called the battle of Rathmines, a battle which destroyed the hopes of the Irish royalists, and taught men to doubt the abilities of Ormond. At court, his enemies ventured to hint suspicions of treason; but Charles, to silence their murmurs and assure him of the royal favour, sent him the order of the garter.[1][c]

The news of this important victory[d] hastened the

[Footnote 1: King's Pamphlets, No. 434, xxi. Whitelock, 410, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9. Clarendon, viii. 92, 93. Carte, Letters, ii. 394, 402, 408. Baillie, ii. 346. Ludlow, i. 257, 258. Ormond, before his defeat, confidently predicted the fall of Dublin (Carte, letters, ii. 383, 389, 391); after it, he repeatedly asserts that Jones, to magnify his own services, makes the royalists amount to eighteen, whereas, in reality, they were only eight, thousand men.--Ibid. 402, 413.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. August 1.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1649. August 2.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1649. August 13.] [Sidenote d: A.D. 1649. August 18.]

departure of Cromwell. He sailed from Milford with a single division; his son-in-law, Ireton, followed with the remainder of the army, and a fortnight was allowed to the soldiers to refresh themselves after their voyage. The campaign was opened with the siege of Drogheda.[a] Ormond had thrown into the town a garrison of two thousand five hundred chosen men, under the command of Sir Arthur Aston, an officer who had earned a brilliant reputation by his services to the royal cause in England during the civil war. On the eighth day a sufficient breach had been effected in the wall:[b] the assailants on the first attempt were driven back with immense loss. They returned a second, perhaps a third, time to the assault, and their perseverance was at last crowned with success. But strong works with ramparts and pallisades had been constructed within the breach, from which the royalists might have long maintained a sanguinary and perhaps doubtful conflict. These entrenchments, however, whether the men were disheartened by a sudden panic, or deceived by offers of quarter--for both causes have been assigned--the enemy was suffered to occupy without resistance. Cromwell (at what particular moment is uncertain) gave orders that no one belonging to the garrison should be spared; and Aston, his officers and men, having been previously disarmed, were put to the sword. From thence the conquerors, stimulated by revenge and fanaticism, directed their fury against the townsmen, and on the next morning one thousand unresisting victims were immolated together within the walls of the great church, whither they had fled for protection.[1][c]

[Footnote 1: See Carte's Ormond, ii. 84; Carte, Letters, iv. 412; Philop. Iren. i. 120; Whitelock, 428; Ludlow, i. 261; Lynch, Cambrensis Eversos, in fine; King's Pamph. 441, 447; Ormond in Carte's Letters, ii. 412; and Cromwell in Carlyle's Letters and Speeches, i. 457.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. Sept. 3.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1649. Sept. 11.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1649. Sept. 12.]

From Drogheda the conqueror led his men, flushed with slaughter, to the seige of Wexford. The mayor and governor offered to capitulate; but whilst their commissioners were treating with Cromwell, an officer perfidiously opened the castle to the enemy; the adjacent wall was immediately scaled;[a] and, after a stubborn but unavailing resistance in the market-place, Wexford was abandoned to the mercy of the assailants. The tragedy, so recently acted at Drogheda, was renewed. No distinction was made between the defenceless inhabitant and the armed soldier; nor could the shrieks and prayers of three hundred females, who had gathered round the great cross, preserve them from the swords of these ruthless barbarians. By Cromwell himself, the number of the slain is reduced to two, by some writers it has been swelled to five, thousand.[1]

Ormond, unable to interrupt the bloody career of his adversary, waited with impatience for the determination of O'Neil. Hitherto that chieftain had faithfully performed his engagements with the parliamentary commanders. He had thrown impediments in the way of the royalists; he had compelled Montgomery to raise the siege of Londonderry, and had rescued Coote and his small army, the last hope of the parliament in Ulster, from the fate which seemed to await them. At first the leaders in London had hesitated, now after the victory of Rathmines they publicly refused, to ratify the treaties made with him by their officers.[2] Stung

[Footnote 1: See note (D).]

[Footnote 2: Council Book, Aug. 6, No. 67, 68, 69, 70. Journals, Aug. 10, 24. Walker, ii. 245-248. King's Pamphlets, No. 435, xi.; 437, xxxiii. The reader must not confound this Owen Roe O'Neil with another of the same name, one of the regicides, who claimed a debt of five thousand and sixty-five pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence of the parliament, and obtained an order for it to be paid out of the forfeited lands in Ireland.--Journ. 1653, Sept. 9.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. Oct 12.]

with indignation, O'Neil accepted the offers of Ormond, and marched from Londonderry to join the royal army; but his progress was retarded by sickness, and he died at Clocknacter in Cavan. His officers, however, fulfilled his intentions; the arrival of the men of Ulster revived the courage of their associates; and the English general was successively foiled in his attempts upon Duncannon and Waterford. His forces already began to suffer from the inclemency of the season, when Lord Broghill, who had lately returned from England, debauched the fidelity of the regiments under Lord Inchiquin. The garrisons of Cork, Youghal, Bandon, and Kinsale declared for the parliament, and Cromwell seized the opportunity to close the campaign and place his followers in winter quarters.[1]

But inactivity suited not his policy or inclination. After seven weeks of repose he again summoned them into the field;[a] and at the head of twenty thousand men, well appointed and disciplined, confidently anticipated the entire conquest of Ireland. The royalists were destitute of money, arms, and ammunition; a pestilential disease, introduced with the cargo of a ship from Spain, ravaged their quarters; in the north, Charlemont alone acknowledged the royal authority; in Leinster and Munster, almost every place of importance had been wrested from them by force or perfidy; and even in Connaught, their last refuge, internal dissension prevented that union which alone could save them from utter destruction. Their misfortunes called into

[Footnote 1: Phil. Iren. i. 231. Carte's Ormond, ii. 102. Desid. Curios. Hib. ii. 521.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Jan. 29.]

action the factions which had lain dormant since the departure of the nuncio. The recent treachery of Inchiquin's forces had engendered feelings of jealousy and suspicion; and many contended that it was better to submit at once to the conqueror than to depend on the doubtful fidelity of the lord lieutenant. Cromwell met with little resistance: wherever he came, he held out the promise of life and liberty of conscience;[1] but the rejection of the offer, though it were afterwards accepted, was punished with the blood of the officers; and, if the place were taken by force, with indiscriminate slaughter.[2] Proceeding on this plan, one day granting quarter, another putting the leaders only to the sword, and on the next immolating the whole garrison, hundreds of human beings at a time, he quickly reduced most of the towns and castles in the three counties of Limerick, Tipperary, and Kilkenny. But this bloody policy at length recoiled upon its author. Men, with no alternative but victory or death, learned to fight with the energy of despair. At the siege of Kilkenny the assailants, though twice repulsed from the breach, were, by the timidity of some of the inhabitants,

[Footnote 1: Liberty of conscience he explained to mean liberty of internal belief, not of external worship.--See his letter in Phil. Iren. i. 270.]

[Footnote 2: The Irish commanders disdained to imitate the cruelty of their enemies. "I took," says Lord Castlehaven, "Athy by storm, with all the garrison (seven hundred men) prisoners. I made a present of them to Cromwell, desiring him by letter that he would do the like with me, as any of mine should fall in his power. But he little valued my civility. For, in a few days after, he besieged Gouvan; and the soldiers mutinying, and giving up the place with their officers, he caused the governor, Hammond, and some other officers, to be put to death."--Castlehaven, 107. Ormond also says, in one of his letters, "the next day Rathfarnham was taken by storm, and all that were in it made prisoners; and though five hundred soldiers entered the castle before any officer of note, yet not one creature was killed; which I tell you by the way, to observe the difference betwixt our and the rebels making use of a victory."--Carte, Letters, ii. 408.]

admitted within the walls; yet, so obstinate was the resistance of the garrison, that, to spare his own men, the general consented to grant them honourable terms. From Kilkenny he proceeded to the town of Clonmel,[a] where Hugh, the son of the deceased O'Neil, commanded with one thousand two hundred of the best troops of Ulster. The duration of the siege exhausted his patience; the breach was stormed a second time; and, after a conflict of four hours, the English were driven back with considerable loss.[b] The garrison, however, had expended their ammunition; they took advantage of the confusion of the enemy to depart during the darkness of the night; and the townsmen the next morning, keeping the secret, obtained from Cromwell a favourable capitulation.[1][c] This was his last exploit in Ireland. From Clonmel he was recalled to England to undertake a service of greater importance and difficulty, to which the reader must now direct his attention.

The young king, it will be remembered, had left the Hague on his circuitous route to Ireland, whither he had been called by the advice of Ormond and the wishes of the royalists.[d] He was detained three months at St. Germains by the charms of a mistress or the intrigues of his courtiers, nor did he reach the island of Jersey till long after the disastrous battle of Rathmines.[e] That event made his further progress a matter of serious discussion; and the difficulty was increased by the arrival of Wynram of Libertoun, with addresses from the parliament and the kirk of Scotland.[f] The first offered, on his acknowledgment of their authority as a parliament, to treat with him respecting the

[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 449, 456. Castlehaven, 108. Ludlow, i. 265. Perfect Politician, 70.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. March 28.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. May 8.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. May 10.] [Sidenote d: A.D. 1649. June.] [Sidenote e: A.D. 1649. September.] [Sidenote f: A.D. 1649. October.]

conditions proposed by their former commissioners; but the latter, in language unceremonious and insulting, laid before him the sins of his youth; his refusal to allow the Son of God to reign over him in the pure ordinances of church government and worship; his cleaving to counsellors who never had the glory of God or the good of his people before their eyes; his admission to his person of that "fugacious man and excommunicate rebel, James Graham" and, above all, "his giving the royal power and strength to the beast," by concluding a peace "with the Irish papists, the murderers of so many Protestants." They bade him remember the iniquities of his father's house, and be assured that, unless he laid aside the "service-book, so stuffed with Romish corruptions, for the reformation of doctrine and worship agreed upon by the divines at Westminster," and approved of the covenant in his three kingdoms, without which the people could have no security for their religion or liberty, he would find that the Lord's anger was not turned away, but that his hand was still stretched against the royal person and his family.[1]

This coarse and intemperate lecture was not calculated to make a convert of a young and spirited prince. Instead of giving an answer, he waited to ascertain the opinion of Ormond; and at last, though inclination prompted him to throw himself into the arms of his Irish adherents, he reluctantly submitted to the authority of that officer, who declared, that the only way to preserve Ireland was by provoking a war between England and Scotland[2]. Charles now condescended[a]

[Footnote 1: Clar. State Papers, iii. App. 89-92. Carte's Letters, i. 323. Whitelock, 439. The address of the kirk was composed by Mr. Wood, and disapproved by the more moderate.--Baillie, ii. 339, 345.]

[Footnote 2: Carte's Letters, i. 333, 340.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Jan. 11.]

to give to the convention the title of estates of parliament, appointed Breda, a small town, the private patrimony of the prince of Orange, for the place of treaty; and met[a] there the new commissioners, the earls of Cassilis and Lothian, with two barons, two burgesses, and three ministers. Their present scarcely differed from their former demands; nor were they less unpalatable to the king. To consent to them appeared to him an apostasy from the principles for which his father fought and died; an abandonment of the Scottish friends of his family to the mercy of his and their enemies. On the other hand, the prince of Orange importuned him to acquiesce; many of his counsellors suggested that, if he were once on the throne, he might soften or subdue the obstinacy of the Scottish parliament; and his mother, by her letters, exhorted him not to sacrifice to his feelings this his last resource, the only remaining expedient for the recovery of his three kingdoms. But the king had still another resource; he sought delays; his eyes were fixed on the efforts of his friends in the north of Scotland; and he continued to indulge a hope of being replaced without conditions on the ancient throne of his ancestors.[1]

Before the king left St. Germains[b] he had given to Montrose a commission to raise the royal standard in Scotland. The fame of that nobleman secured to him a gracious reception from the northern sovereigns; he visited each court in succession; and in all obtained permission to levy men, and received aid either in money or in military stores. In autumn he despatched the first expedition of twelve thousand men from

[Footnote 1: Carte's Letters, i. 338, 355. Whitelock, 430. Clarendon, iii. 343.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. March 15.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1649. August.]

Gottenburg under the Lord Kinnoul; but the winds and waves fought against the royalists; several sail were lost among the rocks; and, when Kinnoul landed[a] at Kirkwall in the Orkneys, he could muster only eighty officers and one hundred common soldiers out of the whole number. But Montrose was not to be appalled by ordinary difficulties. Having received[b] from the new king the order of the garter, he followed with five hundred men, mostly foreigners; added them to the wreck of the first expedition, and to the new levies, and then found himself at the head of a force of more than one thousand men. His banners on which was painted a representation of the late king decapitated, with this motto, "Judge and avenge my cause, O Lord," was intrusted to young Menzies of Pitfoddels, and a declaration was circulated through the Highlands, calling upon all true Scotsmen to aid in establishing their king upon the throne, and in saving him from the treachery of those, who, if they had him in their power, would sell him as they had sold his father to English rebels. Having transported[c] his whole force from Holm Sound to the Northern extremity of Caithness, he traversed that and the neighbouring county of Sutherland, calling on the natives to join the standard of their sovereign. But his name had now lost that magic influence which success had once thrown around it; and the several clans shunned his approach through fear, or watched his progress as foes. In the mean time his declaration had been solemnly burnt[d] by the hangman in the capital; the pulpits had poured out denunciations against the "rebel and apostate Montrose, the viperous brood of Satan, and the accursed of God and the kirk;" and a force of four thousand regulars had been collected

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1644. October.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Jan. 12.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. March.] [Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. Feb. 9.]

on Brechin Moor under the command of General Leslie, who was careful to cut off every source of information from the royalists. Montrose had reached[a] the borders of Ross-shire, when Colonel Strachan, who had been sent forward to watch his motions, learned[b] in Corbiesdale that the royalists, unsuspicious of danger, lay at the short distance of only two miles.

Calling his men around him under the cover of the long broom on the moor, he prayed, sang a psalm, and declared that he had consulted the Almighty, and knew as assuredly as there was a God in heaven, that the enemies of Christ were delivered into their hands. Then dividing his small force of about four hundred men into several bodies, he showed at first a single troop of horse, whom the royalists prepared to receive with their cavalry; but after a short interval, appeared a second, then a third, then a fourth; and Montrose believing that Leslie's entire army was advancing, ordered the infantry to take shelter among the brushwood and stunted trees on a neighbouring eminence. But before this movement could be executed, his horse were broken, and his whole force lay at the mercy of the enemy. The standard-bearer with several officers and most of the natives were slain; the mercenaries made a show of resistance, and obtained quarter; and Montrose, whose horse had been killed under him, accompanied by Kinnoul, wandered on foot, without a guide, up the valley of the Kyle, and over the mountains of Sutherland. Kinnoul, unable to bear the hunger and fatigue, was left and perished; Montrose, on the third day,[c] obtained refreshment at the hut of a shepherd; and, being afterwards discovered, claimed the protection of Macleod of Assynt, who had formerly served under him in the royal army. But the

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. April 25.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. April 27.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. April 30.]

fidelity of the laird was not proof against temptation; he sold[a] the king's lieutenant for four hundred bolls of meal; and Argyle and his associates, almost frantic with joy, passed an act to regulate the ignominious treatment to which their captive should be subjected, the form of the judgment to be pronounced, and the manner of his subsequent execution. When Montrose reached[b] the capital, he found the magistrates in their robes waiting to receive him. First the royal officers, twenty-three in number, were ranged in two files, and ordered to walk forward manacled and bareheaded; next came the hangman with his bonnet on his head, dressed in the livery of his office, and mounted on his horse that drew a vehicle of new form devised for the occasion; and then on this vehicle was seen Montrose himself, seated on a lofty form, and pinioned, and uncovered. The procession paraded slowly through the city from the Watergate to the common jail, whilst the streets resounded with shouts of triumph, and with every expression of hatred which religious or political fanaticism could inspire.[1]

From his enemies Montrose could expect no mercy; but his death was hastened, that the king might not have time to intercede in his favour. The following day, a Sunday, was indeed given to prayer; but on the next the work of vengeance was resumed, and the captive was summoned[c] before the parliament. His features, pale and haggard, showed the fatigue and privations which he had endured; but his dress was

[Footnote 1: Carte's Letters, i. 345. Balfour, iii. 432, 439; iv. 8-13. Whitelock, 435, 452, 453, 454, 455. Clarendon, iii. 348-353. Laing, iii. 443. The neighbouring clans ravaged the lands of Assynt to revenge the fate of Montrose, and the parliament granted in return to Macleod twenty thousand pounds Scots out of the fines to be levied on the royalists in Caithness and Orkney.--Balf. iv. 52, 56.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. May 17.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. May 18.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. May 20.]

splendid, his mien fearless, his language calm, firm, and dignified. To the chancellor, who, in a tone of bitterness and reprobation, enumerated the offences with which he was charged, he replied, that since the king had condescended to treat with them as estates, it became not a subject to dispute their authority; but that the apostasy and rebellion with which they reproached him were, in his estimation, acts of duty. Whatever he had done, either in the last or present reign, had been done with the sanction of the sovereign. If he had formerly taken up arms, it had been to divert his countrymen from the impious war which they waged against the royal authority in England; if now, his object was to accelerate the existing negotiation between them and their new king. As a Christian, he had always supported that cause which his conscience approved; as a subject, he always fought in support of his prince; and as a neighbour, he had frequently preserved the lives of those who had forfeited them against him in battle. The chancellor, in return, declared him a murderer of his fellow-subjects, an enemy to the covenant and the peace of the kingdom, and an agitator, whose ambition had helped to destroy the father, and was now employed for the destruction of the son. Judgment, which had been passed in parliament some days before, was then pronounced, by the dempster, that James Graham should be hanged for the space of three hours on a gibbet thirty feet high, that his head should be fixed on a spike in Edinburgh, his arms on the gates of Perth or Stirling, his legs on those of Glasgow and Aberdeen, and his body be interred by the hangman on the burrowmuir, unless he were previously released from excommunication by the kirk. During this trying scene, his enemies eagerly watched his demeanour. Twice, if we may believe report, he was heard to sigh, and his eyes occasionally wandered along the cornice of the hall. But he stood before them cool and collected; no symptom of perturbation marked his countenance, no expression of complaint or impatience escaped his lips; he showed himself superior to insult, and unscarred at the menaces of death.

The same high tone of feeling supported the unfortunate victim to the last gasp. When the ministers admonished[a] him that his punishment in this world was but a shadow of that which awaited him in the next, he indignantly replied, that he gloried in his fate, and only lamented that he had not limbs sufficient to furnish every city in Christendom with proofs of his loyalty. On the scaffold, he maintained the uprightness of his conduct, praised the character of the present king, and appealed from the censures of the kirk to the justice of Heaven. As a last disgrace, the executioner hung round his neck his late declaration, with the history of his former exploits. He smiled at the malice of his enemies, and said that they had given. him a more brilliant decoration than the garter with which he had been honoured by his sovereign. Montrose, by his death, won more proselytes to the royal cause than he had ever made by his victories. He was in his thirty-eighth year.[1]

[Footnote 1: Balfour, iv. 13, 15, 16, 19-22. Wishart, 389. Clar. iii. 353-356. Whitelock, 456. Colonel Hurry, whom the reader has seen successively serving under the king and the parliament in the civil war; Spotiswood, the grandson of the archbishop of that name; Sir W. Hay, who had been forefaulted as a Catholic in 1647; Sibbald, the confidential envoy of Montrose, and several others, were beheaded. Of the common soldiers, some were given to different lords to be fishermen or miners, and the rest enrolled in regiments in the French service.--Balfour, iv. 18, 27, 28, 32, 33, 44.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. May 21.]

Long before this the commissioners from both parties had met at Breda; and, on the very day of the opening of the conferences, Charles had despatched[a] an order to Montrose to proceed according to his instructions, and to bear in mind that the success of the negotiation at Breda depended on the success of his arms in Scotland. A month afterwards[b] he commended in strong terms the loyalty of Lord Napier, and urged him to repair without delay to the aid of his lieutenant. It is impossible after this to doubt of his approbation of the attempt; but, when the news arrived of the action at Corbiesdale, his eyes were opened to the danger which threatened him; the estates, in the insolence of victory, might pass an act to exclude him at once from the succession to the Scottish throne. Acting, therefore, after the unworthy precedent set by his father respecting the powers given to Glamorgan, he wrote[c] to the parliament, protesting that the invasion made by Montrose had been expressly forbidden by him, and begging that they "would do him the justice to believe that he had not been accessory to it in the least degree;" in confirmation of which the secretary at the same time assured Argyle that the king felt no regret for the defeat of a man who had presumed to draw the sword "without and contrary to the royal command." These letters arrived[d] too late

[Footnote 1: Carte, iv. 626.]

[Footnote 2: Napier's Montrose, ii. 528. Yet on May 5th the king signed an article, stipulating that Montrose should lay down his arms, receiving a full indemnity for all that was past.--Carte, iv. 630. This article reached Edinburgh before the execution of Montrose, and was kept secret. I see not, however, what benefit he could claim from it. He had not laid down arms in obedience to it; for he had been defeated a week before it was signed.]

[Footnote 3: Balfour, iv. 24, 25. Yet on May 15th Charles wrote to Montrose to act according to the article in the last note.--Ibid.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. March 15.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. April 15.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. May 12.] [Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. May 25.]

to be of injury to the unfortunate victim, whose limbs were already bleaching on the gates of the principal towns in Scotland; but the falsehood so confidently put forth must cover with infamy the prince who could thus, to screen himself from the anger of his enemies, calumniate the most devoted of his followers, one who had so often perilled, and at length forfeited, his life in defence of the throne.

Charles had now no resource but to submit with the best grace to the demands of the Scots. He signed the treaty,[a] binding himself to take the Scottish covenant and the solemn league and covenant; to disavow and declare null the peace with the Irish, and never to permit the free exercise of the Catholic religion in Ireland, or any other part of his dominions; to acknowledge the authority of all parliaments held since the commencement of the late war; and to govern, in civil matters, by advice of the parliament, in religious, by that of the kirk.[1] These preliminaries being settled,[b] he embarked on board a small squadron furnished by the prince of Orange, and, after a perilous navigation of three weeks, during which he had to contend with the stormy weather, and to elude the pursuit of the parliamentary cruisers, he arrived in safety in the Frith of Cromartie.[c] The king was received with the honours due to his dignity; a court with proper officers was prepared for him at Falkland, and the sum of one hundred thousand pounds Scots, or nine thousand pounds English, was voted for the monthly expense of his household. But the parliament had previously[d] passed an act banishing from Scotland several of the royal favourites by name, and excluding the "engagers" from the verge of the court, and all employment

[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 147.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. May 13.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. June 2.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. June 23.] [Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. June 4.]

in the state. After repeated applications, the duke of Buckingham, the Lord Wilmot, and a few English servants, who took the covenant, obtained permission to remain with the king; many of the Scottish exiles embraced the opportunity to withdraw from notice into the western isles, or the more distant parts of the country.[1]

It was the negotiation between the Scots and their nominal king that arrested Cromwell in the career of victory, and called him away from the completion of his conquest. The rulers of the commonwealth were aware of the intimate connection which the solemn league and covenant had produced between the English Presbyterians and the kirk of Scotland, whence they naturally inferred that, if the pretender to the English were once seated on the Scottish throne, their own power would he placed on a very precarious footing. From the first they had watched with jealousy the unfriendly proceedings of the Scottish parliament. Advice and persuasion had been tried, and had failed. There remained the resource of war; and war, it was hoped, would either compel the Scots to abandon the claims of Charles, or reduce Scotland to a province of the commonwealth. Fairfax, indeed (he was supposed to be under the influence of a Presbyterian wife and of the Presbyterian ministers), disapproved of the design;[2] but his disapprobation, though lamented in public, was privately hailed as a benefit by those who were acquainted with the aspiring designs of Cromwell, and built on his elevation the flattering hope of their own greatness. By their means, as soon as the

[Footnote 1: Balfour, iv. 41, 60, 61, 64, 65, 67, 73, 77, 78. Whitelock, 462. Clarendon, iii. 346, 356, 357.]

[Footnote 2: Whitelock, 438.]

lord lieutenant had put his troops into winter quarters, an order was obtained from parliament for him to attend his duty in the house; but he resumed his military operations,[a] and two months were suffered to elapse before he noticed the command of the supreme authority, and condescended to make an unmeaning apology for his disobedience.[b] On the renewal of the order,[c] he left the command in Ireland to Ireton, and, returning to England, appeared in his seat.[d] He was received with acclamations; the palace of St. James's was allotted for his residence, and a valuable grant of lands was voted[e] as a reward for his eminent services. In a few days followed the appointment of Fairfax to the office of commander-in-chief,[f] and of Cromwell to that of lieutenant-general of the army designed to be employed in Scotland. Each signified his "readiness to observe the orders of the house;" but Fairfax at the same time revealed his secret and conscientious objections to the council of state. A deputation of five members, Cromwell, Lambert, Harrison, Whitelock, and St. John, waited on him at his house;[g] the conference was opened by a solemn invocation of the Holy Spirit, and the three officers prayed in succession with the most edifying fervour. Then Fairfax said that, to his mind, the invasion of Scotland appeared a violation of the solemn league and covenant which he had sworn to observe. It was replied that the Scots themselves had broken the league by the invasion of England under the duke of Hamilton; and that it was always lawful to prevent the hostile designs of another power. But he answered that the Scottish parliament had given satisfaction by the punishment of the guilty; that the probability of hostile designs ought indeed to lead to measures of precaution, but that certainty was

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Jan. 8.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. April 2.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. May 30.] [Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. June 4.] [Sidenote e: A.D. 1650. June 12.] [Sidenote f: A.D. 1650. June 14.] [Sidenote g: A.D. 1650. June 24.]

required to justify actual invasion. No impression was made on his mind; and, though Cromwell and his brother officers earnestly solicited him to comply, "there was cause enough," says one of the deputation, "to believe that they did not overmuch desire it."[1] The next day[a] another attempt ended with as little success; the lord general alleging the plea of infirm health and misboding conscience, sent back the last commission, and at the request of the house, the former also; and the chief command of all the forces raised, or to be raised by order of parliament, was conferred on Oliver Cromwell.[b] Thus this adventurer obtained at the same time the praise of moderation and the object of his ambition. Immediately he left the capital for Scotland;[c] and Fairfax retired to his estate in Yorkshire, where he lived with the privacy of a country gentleman, till he once more drew the sword, not in support of the commonwealth, but in favour of the king.[2]

To a spectator who considered the preparations of the two kingdoms, there could be little doubt of the result. Cromwell passed the Tweed[d] at the head of sixteen thousand men, most of them veterans, all habituated to military discipline, before the raw levies of the Scots had quitted their respective shires. By order of the Scottish parliament, the army had been fixed at thirty thousand men; the nominal command had been given to the earl of Leven, the real, on account of the age and infirmities of that officer, to his relative, David Leslie, and instructions had been

[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 460, 462. Ludlow says, "he acted his part so to the life, that I really thought him in earnest; but the consequence made it sufficiently evident that he had no such intention" (i. 272). Hutchinson, who was present on one of these occasions, thought him sincere.--Hutchinson, 315.]

[Footnote 2: Whitelock, 438, 450, 457. Journals, Jan. 8, Feb. 25, March 30, April 15, May 2, 7, 30, June 4, 12, 14, 25, 26.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. June 25.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. June 26.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. June 29.] [Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. July 16.]

issued that the country between Berwick and the capital should be laid waste, that the cattle and provisions should be removed or destroyed, and that the inhabitants should abandon their homes under the penalties of infamy, confiscation, and death. In aid of this measure, reports were industriously circulated of the cruelties exercised by Cromwell in Ireland; that, wherever he came, he gave orders to put all the males between sixteen and sixty to death, to deprive all the boys between six and sixteen of their right hands, and to bore the breasts of the females with red-hot irons. The English were surprised at the silence and desolation which reigned around them; for the only human beings whom they met on their march through this wilderness, were a few old women and children who on their knees solicited mercy. But Cromwell conducted them by the sea coast; the fleet daily supplied them with provisions, and their good conduct gradually dispelled the apprehensions of the natives.[1] They found[a] the Scottish levies posted behind a deep intrenchment, running from Edinburgh to Leith, fortified with numerous batteries, and flanked by the cannon of the castle at one extremity, and of the harbour at the other. Cromwell employed all his art to provoke Leslie to avoid an engagement. It was in vain that for more than a month the former marched and countermarched; that he threatened general, and made partial, attacks. Leslie remained fixed within his lines; or, if he occasionally moved,

[Footnote 1: Whitelock, 465, 466, 468. Perfect Diurnal, No. 324. See the three declarations: that of the parliament on the marching of the army; of the army itself, addressed "to all that are saints and partakers of the faith of God's elect in Scotland;" and, the third, from Cromwell, dated at Berwick, in the Parliamentary History, xix. 276, 298, 310; King's Pamphlets, 473.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. July 28.]

watched the motions of the enemy from the nearest mountains, or interposed a river or morass between the two armies. The English began to be exhausted with fatigue; sickness thinned their ranks; the arrival of provisions depended on the winds and waves; and Cromwell was taught to fear, not the valour of the enemy, but the prudence of their general.[1]

The reader will already have observed how much at this period the exercises of religion were mixed up with the concerns of state and even the operations of war. Both parties equally believed that the result of the expedition depended on the will of the Almighty, and that it was, therefore, their duty to propitiate his anger by fasting and humiliation. In the English army the officers prayed and preached: they "sanctified the camp," and exhorted the men to unity of mind and godliness of life. Among the Scots this duty was discharged by the ministers; and so fervent was their piety, so merciless their zeal, that, in addition to their prayers, they occasionally compelled the young king to listen to six long sermons on the same day, during which he assumed an air of gravity, and displayed feelings of devotion, which ill-accorded with his real disposition. But the English had no national crime to deplore; by punishing the late king, _they_ had atoned for the evils of the civil war; the Scots, on the contrary, had adopted his son without any real proof of his conversion, and therefore feared that they might draw down on the country the punishment due to his sins and those of his family. It happened[a] that Charles, by the advice of the earl of Eglington, presumed to visit the army on the Links of

[Footnote 1: Balfour, iv. 87, 88, 90. Whitelock, 467, 468.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. July 29.]

Leith. He was received with shouts of enthusiasm by the soldiers, who, on their knees, pledged the health of their young sovereign; but the committee of the kirk complained[a] that his presence led to ebriety and profaneness, and he received a request,[b] equivalent to a command, to quit the camp. The next day a declaration was made, that the company of malignants, engagers, and enemies to the covenant, could not fail of multiplying the judgments of God upon the land; an inquiry was instituted into the characters of numerous individuals; and eighty officers, with many of their men, were cashiered,[c] that they might not contaminate by their presence the army of the saints.[1] Still it was for Charles Stuart, the chief of the malignants, that they were to fight, and therefore from him, to appease the anger of the Almighty, an expiatory declaration was required[d] in the name of the parliament and the kirk.

In this instrument he was called upon to lament, in the language of penitence and self-abasement, his father's opposition to the work of God and to the solemn league and covenant, which had caused the blood of the Lord's people to be shed, and the idolatry of his mother, the toleration of which in the king's house could not fail to be a high provocation against him who is a jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children; to declare that he had subscribed the covenant with sincerity of heart, and would have no friends nor enemies but those who were friends or enemies to it; to acknowledge the sinfulness of the treaty with the bloody rebels in Ireland, which he was made to pronounce null and void; to detest popery and prelacy, idolatry and heresy, schism

[Footnote 1: Balfour, iv. 86, 89.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. August 2.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. August 3.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. August 5.] [Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. August 9.]

and profaneness; and to promise that he would accord to a free parliament in England the propositions of the two kingdoms, and reform the church of England according to the plan devised by the assembly of divines at Westminster.[1]

When first this declaration, so humbling to his pride, so offensive to his feelings, was presented[a] to Charles for his signature, he returned[b] an indignant refusal; a little reflection induced him to solicit the advice of the council, and the opinion of the principal ministers. But the godly refused to wait; the two committees of the kirk and kingdom protested[c] that they disowned the quarrel and interest of every malignant party, disclaimed the guilt of the king and his house, and would never prosecute his interest without his acknowledgment of the sins of his family and of his former ways, and his promise of giving satisfaction to God's people in both kingdoms. This protestation was printed and furtively sent to the English camp; the officers of the army presented[d] to the committee of estates a remonstrance and supplication expressive of their adhesion; and the ministers maintained from their pulpits that the king was the root of malignancy, and a hypocrite, who had taken the covenant without an intention of keeping it. Charles, yielding to his own fears and the advice of his friends; at the end of three days subscribed,[e] with tears, the obnoxious instrument. If it were folly in the Scots to propose to the young prince a declaration so repugnant to his feelings and opinions, it was greater folly still to believe that professions of repentance extorted

[Footnote 1: Balfour, iv. 92. Whitelock, 469. "A declaration by the king's majesty to his subjects of the kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland." Printed 1650.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. August 10.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. August 13.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. August 14.] [Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. August 15.] [Sidenote e: A.D. 1650. August 16.]

with so much violence could be sincere or satisfactory; yet his subscription was received with expressions of joy and gratitude; both the army and the city observed a solemn fast for the sins of the two kings, the father and the son; and the ministers, now that the anger of Heaven had been appeased, assured their hearers of an easy victory over a "blaspheming general and a sectarian army."[1]

If their predictions were not verified, the fault was undoubtedly their own. The caution and vigilance of Leslie had triumphed over the skill and activity of "the blasphemer." Cromwell saw no alternative but victory or retreat: of the first he had no doubt, if he could come in contact with the enemy; the second was a perilous attempt, when the passes before him were pre-occupied, and a more numerous force was hanging on his rear. At Musselburg, having sent the sick on board the fleet (they suffered both from the "disease of the country," and from fevers caused by exposure on the Pentland hills), he ordered[a] the army to march the next morning to Haddington, and thence to Dunbar; and the same night a meteor, which the imagination of the beholders likened to a sword of fire, was seen to pass over Edinburgh in a south-easterly direction, an evident presages in the opinion of the Scots, that the flames of war would be transferred

[Footnote 1: Balfour, iv. 91, 92, 95. The English parliament in their answer exclaim: "What a blessed and hopeful change is wrought in a moment in this young king! How hearty is he become to the cause of God and the work of reformation. How readily doth he swallow down these bitter pills, which are prepared for and urged upon him, as necessary to effect that desperate care under which his affairs lie! But who sees not the crass hypocrisy of this whole transaction, and the sandy and rotten foundation of all the resolutions flowing hereupon?"--See Parliamentary History, xix. 359-386.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. August 30.]

to the remotest extremity of England.[1] At Dunbar, Cromwell posted his men in the vicinity of Broxmouth House; Leslie with the Scots moving along the heights of Lammermuir, occupied[a] a position on the Doon Hill, about two miles to the south of the invaders; and the advanced posts of the armies were separated only by a ravine of the depth and breadth of about thirty feet. Cromwell was not ignorant of the danger of his situation; he had even thought of putting the infantry on board the fleet, and of attempting to escape with the cavalry by the only outlet, the high road to Berwick; but the next moment he condemned the thought as "a weakness of the flesh, a distrust in the power of the Almighty;" and ordered the army "to seek the Lord, who would assuredly find a way of deliverance for his faithful servants." On the other side the committees of the kirk and estates exulted in the prospect of executing the vengeance of God upon "the sectaries;" and afraid that the enemy should escape, compelled their general to depart from his usual caution, and to make preparation for battle. Cromwell, with his officers, had spent part of the day in calling upon the Lord; while he prayed, the enthusiast felt an enlargement of the heart, a buoyancy of spirit, which he took for an infallible presage of victory; and, beholding through his glass the motion in the Scottish camp, he exclaimed, "They are coming down; the Lord hath delivered them into our hands."[2] During the

[Footnote 1: Balfour, iv. 94.]

[Footnote 2: Sagredo, the Venetian ambassador, in his relation to the senate, says that Cromwell pretended to have been assured of the victory by a supernatural voice. Prima che venisse alla battaglia, diede cuore ai soldati con assicurargli la vittoria predettagli da Dio, con una voce, che lo aveva a mezza notte riscosso dal sonno. MS. copy in my possession.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. August 31.]

night, he advanced the army to the edge of the ravine; and at an early hour in the morning[a] the Scots attempted to seize the pass on the road from Dunbar to Berwick. After a sharp contest, the Scottish lancers, aided by their artillery, charged down the hill, drove the brigade of English cavalry from its position, and broke through the infantry, which had advanced to the support of the horse. At that moment the sun made its appearance above the horizon; and Cromwell, turning to his own regiment of foot, exclaimed, "Let the Lord arise, and scatter his enemies." They instantly moved forward with their pikes levelled; the horse rallied; and the enemy's lancers hesitated, broke, and fled. At that moment the mist dispersed, and the first spectacle which struck the eyes of the Scots, was the route of their cavalry. A sudden panic instantly spread from the right to the left of their line; at the approach of the English they threw down their arms and ran. Cromwell's regiment halted to sing the 117th Psalm; but the pursuit was continued for more than eight miles; the dead bodies of three thousand Scots strewed their native soil; and ten thousand prisoners, with the artillery, ammunition, and baggage, became the reward of the conquerors.[1]

Cromwell now thought no more of his retreat. He marched back to the capital; the hope of resistance was abandoned; Edinburgh and Leith opened their gates, and the whole country to the Forth submitted

[Footnote 1: Carte's Letters, i. 381. Whitelock, 470, 471. Ludlow, i. 283. Balfour, iv. 97. Several proceedings, No. 50. Parl. Hist. xix. 343-352, 478. Cromwelliana, 89. Of the prisoners, five thousand one hundred, something more than one-half, being wounded, were dismissed to their homes, the other half were driven "like turkies" into England. Of these, one thousand six hundred died of a pestilential disease, and five hundred were actually sick on Oct 31.--Whitelock, 471. Old Parl. Hist. xix. 417.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Sept. 3.]