Chapter I: Charles in His Captivity (5)

What had become of the third party concerned, the English Army?--The general Rendezvous resolved on by the Council of War at Putney, in consequence of the Concordat between the Army and Parliament (_antè_, p. 573), had been cleverly changed into a tripartite Rendezvous, or distribution of the regiments into three brigades, to be reviewed on different days and at different places. The first of these Reviews was held near Ware in Herts, Nov. 15, the very day on which the King's arrival in the Isle of Wight was known. At the head of each of seven regiments then present according to order there was read a Remonstrance by Fairfax, pointing out the evils of relaxed discipline, condemning the recent excesses of the Agitators and their attempts to make the men disaffected to their officers, declaring the resolution of himself and the chief officers to maintain all the Army's just rights, but protesting that he could not continue to head an Army which was mutinous, and requiring therefore that the officers and men of each regiment should subscribe an engagement of future obedience, As nothing was said in the document about either King or House of Lords, but mention only made of a guarantee of future Parliaments and a Reformed Representative House, no offence was given to the Democratic instincts of the regiments, and they at once acquiesced in what was but a fit soldierly compact. There were, however, two regiments on the field that had come without orders--Colonel Harrison's horse-regiment and Colonel Robert Lilburne's foot-regiment. They had come in a wild state of excitement, with copies of the _Agreement of the People_ stuck in their hats. John Lilburne, recently released from the Tower, had come down to Ware to see the result. It was decisive, but not in the way John had expected. Harrison's regiment, on being reasoned with by Fairfax and the other officers, at length good-humouredly gave way, tore the mutinous emblem from their hats, and broke into cheers. Lilburne's, which had driven away most of its officers, remained sulky and vociferous, till Cromwell, riding up to them, ordered them also to remove that thing from their hats, and, on their refusing, had fourteen of them dragged from the ranks, three of these tried on the spot and condemned to death, and one of the three shot. After this turn given to the first Review, the others passed off pleasantly enough, and all that was farther needed was the minor punishment of one or two of the mutineers among the common soldiers, with temporary restraint or rebuke for Colonel Rainsborough, Colonel Ewer, Major Scott, Major Cobbet, and Lieutenant Bray, the officers who had been most implicated in the revolt.--So, at the expense of but one life, had a dangerous Mutiny been quelled, and the ultra- Democrats of the Army taught the lesson of the Concordat. That lesson was that, in the opinion of Cromwell and Ireton as well as of Fairfax, it was best for England that the Army should still serve the constituted authority of Parliament, and not raise any political banner of its own. No sooner had this lesson been taught, however, than Cromwell and Ireton had hastened to obliterate all traces of the occasion there had been for teaching it. Their intention had not been to struggle with the Democratic spirit itself, but only with its mutinous manifestation; and they knew, in fact, that the political tenets of the poor fellow whom it had been necessary to shoot remained, and would remain, not the less the tenets of two-thirds of the Army. Accordingly, through November and December the great aim of Cromwell and Ireton, in the new Army head-quarters at Windsor, had been to soothe ruffled spirits and restore harmony. Rainsborough, Ewer, Scott, and the other ultra-Democratic officers had been restored to their places, with even studied respect; and strong recommendations had gone to Parliament that Rainsborough, who, before the Mutiny, had been named for the post of Vice-Admiral of the Fleet (in recollection of his original profession), should be confirmed in that high appointment. At Windsor there had been Army-dinners and great prayer-meetings of officers and men, in which Cromwell and Ireton took a conspicuous part, winning all back by their zeal and graciousness into a happy frame of concord, which the Parliamentary Commissioners with the Army described as "a sweet and comfortable agreement, the whole matter of the kingdom being left with Parliament." And so, while the two Houses were arranging to send their Four Bills and the Propositions to the Isle of Wight, the Army only looked on approvingly. [Footnote: Parl. Hist. III. 791-799 and 805-822; Godwin, II. 462-8; Carlyle's Cromwell, I. 254; Rushworth, VII. 951.]

On Friday, Dec. 24, the Earl of Denbigh and the other Commissioners of the two Houses arrived in the Isle of Wight and delivered the Four Bills and the Propositions to his Majesty. Next day (Christmas Day) Loudoun, Lanark, Lauderdale, and the other Scottish Commissioners, arrived, and delivered to his Majesty, in the name of the Kingdom of Scotland, a Protest against the English Bills and Propositions. For the day or two following, these Scottish Commissioners were more with his Majesty than the English Commissioners; but on the 28th the English Commissioners received from him in writing his Answer to the two Houses. It was utterly unfavourable, declining to assent to the Bills or anything else except after a complete and deliberate Treaty, and assigning the Protest of the Scottish Commissioners as a sufficient reason for this had there been no other. With this Answer the English Commissioners returned to London, and it was read in both Houses on the 3lst. The effects were extraordinary. On the 3rd of January, 1647-8, it was resolved in the Commons, by a majority of 141 to 92, that no farther applications or addresses should be made to the King by that House, that no addresses or applications to him by any person whatsoever should be made without leave of the Houses under the penalties of High Treason, that no messages from the King should be received, and that no one should presume to bring or carry such. On the 15th the Lords agreed in these Resolutions, only Manchester and Warwick dissenting out of sixteen Peers present. Negotiation was thus declared to be at an end; and the Army, delighted with the news, burst into applauses of Parliament, and vowed to live or die with it in the common cause.

One consequence of what had occurred was the dissolution of the peculiar body which, under the name of "The Committee of the two Kingdoms," had hitherto exercised so much power, and been in fact a common executive for the Parliaments of England and Scotland (_antè_, p. 41). As Scotland had broken off from England, this body had become an absurdity; and so, on the same days on which the two Houses adopted the No-Address Resolution, they resolved "That the powers formerly granted by both Houses to the Committee of both Kingdoms, relating to the kingdoms of England and Ireland, be now granted and vested in the members of both Houses only that are of that Committee." In other words, Lords Loudoun and Lauderdale and the other Scottish Commissioners were no longer wanted in England, and might go home. These gentlemen, being themselves of the same opinion, sent a letter to the Lords, Jan. 17, intimating that they were about to take their leave. With great civility the Lords sent Manchester and Warwick "to wish them a good journey," assure them that any arrears of business between England and Scotland would be attended to, and express a desire for "the continuance of the brotherly union and good correspondency between the two nations." Actually, a few days afterwards, the Commissioners left London; and on the 29th the Houses appointed six Commissioners of their own to follow them to Edinburgh, and allay, if possible, any ill feeling that might be caused there by their representation of recent occurrences.

Had the two Houses known all, their politeness would have been less! It had not been only to give in a protest in the name of Scotland against the English Bills and Propositions that Lanark, Loudoun, and Lauderdale had made their Christmas journey to Carisbrooke in the wake of the English Commissioners. The King had been in correspondence with them for some time before on the subject begun with them at Hampton Court; and, when they came to Carisbrooke, they had brought with them not only the Protest against the English Bills, but also a secret document of a more momentous nature, prepared for the King's signature. Actually on the 26th of December, or two days before the English Commissioners were dismissed with the unfavourable Answer to the English Parliament, this document had been signed in Carisbrooke Castle by the King on the one part, and by Loudoun, Lauderdale, and Lanark on the other. Not daring to bring it out of the island with them, the Commissioners, Clarendon says, had it wrapt up in lead and buried in a garden whence they could recover it afterwards. And little wonder! It was A SECRET TREATY BETWEEN CHARLES AND THE SCOTTISH COMMISSIONERS, in which his Majesty bound himself, on the word of a King, to confirm the Covenant for such as had taken it or might take it (without forcing it on the unwilling), also to confirm Presbyterian Church-government and the Westminster Directory of Worship in England for three years (with a reservation of the Liturgy, &c., for himself and his household), and moreover to see to the suppression of the Independents and all other sects and heresies; while the Scots, in return, were to send an Army into England for the purpose of restoring him, on these conditions, to his full Royalty in that kingdom! Thus at last Charles had made a conclusive Treaty with one section of his adversaries; and, as Queen Henrietta Maria had always advised, it was with the Scots, all but absolutely on their own terms of the abolition of Episcopacy and the establishment of strict Presbytery in England!! [Footnote: Lords and Commons Journals; Parl. Hist. III. 827-837; Burnet's Hamiltons (for correspondence between the King and Lanark) 412-423; Stevenson's Hist. of the Church of Scotland, ed. 1840, p. 586 (for Loudoun's account of the substance of the Treaty); Clarendon, 634-637. Clarendon's account of the Treaty is full; and, though he condemns it as "monstrous," he gives the apology that had reconciled the King to it in his despair. It was that Lanark, Loudoun, and Lauderdale had themselves argued that the Treaty would turn out mere waste paper. After the Scottish Army should be in England, and the Royalists in England roused, "there would be nobody to exact all those particulars, but everybody would submit to what his Majesty should think fit to be done!"]

Until the decisive rupture with Parliament on the Four Bills, Charles had been permitted to range about the Isle of Wight very much at his pleasure, and the concourse of visitors to him had been as free as at Hampton Court. From the moment of the rupture, however, all was changed. Aware that an escape abroad was now meditated by Charles, and warned by some stir about Carisbrooke itself for the King's rescue, Colonel Hammond had at once taken precautions, but implored Parliament at the same time either to remove the King to some other place or else to discharge himself from an office the burden of which he found insupportable. With this last request Parliament did not comply, and Hammond had to continue in his painful trust, obeying the instructions sent him. His Majesty was not to be allowed any longer to ride about the island, or to receive unauthorized visitors; he was to be restrained to Carisbrooke Castle and the line round it; Ashburnham, Legge, and other suspicious persons in his service, including his chaplains Hammond and Sheldon, were to be dismissed; and his remaining household were to be under very strict regulation. These instructions having been carried into effect, Charles's life in the Isle of Wight from January 1647-8 onwards was one of straiter captivity and seclusion than he had experienced even at Holmby. He had the liberty only of the Castle and its precincts; which, however, were sufficiently large and convenient for the exercise of walking, with "good air and a delightful prospect both to the sea and land." For his solace and recreation in his favourite game, the barbican of the Castle, a spacious parading ground beyond the walls but within the line, was converted by Hammond into "a bowling-green scarce to be equalled," at one side of which there was built "a pretty summer-house for retirement." This at vacant hours became the King's chief resort both forenoon and afternoon, there being "no gallery, nor rooms of state nor garden," within the Castle walls. Occasionally, notwithstanding the strict guard, some poor stray creature troubled with scrofula, who had come to the Isle of Wight for the Royal touch, would contrive to beguile the sentries and obtain admission to the barbican. As at Holmby, however, the King had his set times in-doors for his devotions and for reading and writing; and his favourite books, catalogued and placed in the charge of Mr. Herbert, were again in request. Though he still declined the services of any Presbyterian clergyman, he rather liked the society of young Mr. Troughton, the governor's chaplain, and had arguments with him daily on theological points. Once, when a half-crazed minister, nicknamed Doomsday Sedgwick, came all the way from London to present him with a book he had written, suitable for his comfort and entitled "Leaves from the Tree of Life for the healing of the Nations," he ordered him to be admitted, received the book, glanced at some pages of it, and then returned it to the author with the observation that surely he must need some sleep after having written a book like that. And so day by day the routine flowed on, and always at night the wax-lamp was kept burning in the silver basin close to his Majesty's bed. [Footnote: Lords Journals, Dec. 31, 1647, and of subsequent dates; Herbert's Memoirs of the Last Years of Charles, 57- 67 and 95-98; Wood's Ath. III. 894-6. Doomsday Sedgwick was not Obadiah Sedgwick of the Assembly, but William Sedgwick of Ely.]

The Treaty with the Scots could not remain long secret. No sooner had the Scottish Commissioners who had framed it returned to Edinburgh than they were obliged to let the substance of it become known. This was done in the Committee of Estates on the 15th of February, when Loudoun and Lauderdale formally reported the result of their visit to the Isle of Wight. Then ensued a most perplexed agitation in Scotland on the whole subject. THE ENGAGEMENT, as the Secret Treaty was called, was universally discussed, and with great diversity of opinion. In the Committee of Estates, the Hamiltons, who had been the real authors of the Engagement, carried all their own way. Nay in the Parliament, or full Convention of the Estates, which met on the 2nd of March, the majority went passionately with the Hamiltons. Four-fifths of the nobles went with them; more than half the lairds; and nearly half the burgesses, including most of the representatives of the larger Scottish towns. These were the HAMILTONIANS or ENGAGERS. Not the less in Parliament itself was there a strong opposition party, headed by Argyle, Eglinton, Lothian, Cassilis, and some half-dozen other nobles, aided by Johnstone of Warriston; and, as this party rested on the nearly unanimous support of the Scottish clergy, it had a powerful organ of expression, apart from Parliament, in the Commission of the Kirk. It was argued, on their side, that the Commissioners to the Isle of Wight had exceeded their powers, that the conditions made with Charles were too slippery, that he had in reality evaded the Covenant, and that, though Scotland might have a just cause for war against the English Sectaries, no good could come of a war, nominally against them, in which Presbyterians would be allied with Malignants, Prelatists, and perhaps even Papists. Declarations embodying these views were published by the Commission; the pulpits rang with denunciations of the Engagement; petitions against it from Provincial Synods and Presbyteries of the Kirk were poured in upon Parliament; had the entire population been polled, the PROTESTERS or ANTI-ENGAGERS would have been found in the majority. Even Loudoun detached himself from the Hamiltons, and publicly, in the High Church of Edinburgh, submitted to ecclesiastical rebuke, professing repentance of his handiwork. Nevertheless the Hamiltons persevered; two-thirds of the Parliament adhered to them; and by the end of April 1648 it was understood, not in England only, but also on the Continent, that an Army of 40,000 Scots was to be raised somehow, in spite of Argyle and the Scottish clergy, for an invasion of England in the King's behalf. The Army was to be commanded in chief by the Duke of Hamilton himself, with the Earl of Callander for his Lieutenant-general. [Footnote: Baillie, III. 24-46; Stevenson, 582-595; Burnet's Hamiltons, 424-435.] Thus out of the Scottish Engagement with the King in the Isle of Wight there grew what is called THE SECOND CIVIL WAR, It was a much briefer affair than the first. That had spread over four years; but the real substance of this was to be crushed into as many months (May-Aug. 1648). The military story of these months shall concern us here only in so far as it is interwoven with the political narrative.

The Engagement with the Scots had been communicated to Queen Henrietta Maria at St. Germains, and gradually, with more or less precision, to all those dispersed Royalists, at home or abroad, who might be expected to take leading parts in co-operation with the promised Scottish invasion. The programme, so far as it could be settled, was something after this fashion:--(1) Risings were to be promoted in all parts of England and Wales, to coalesce at last, if possible, into a great general rising in which London should be involved. All the conditions seemed favourable for such an attempt. Not only in every county were there eager and revengeful remains of the old Episcopal Royalism, but the tendency even of the Presbyterians throughout England had been of late decidedly Royalist. The Presbyterians had never been anti-monarchical in theory; and large numbers of them had begun of late to pity the King, and to question whether the excessively hard terms imposed upon him by Parliament were altogether necessary. Even if he were to be restored to larger powers in some things than might be quite desirable, would not that be better than continuing in the present state of uproar and confusion, with a Democratic Army fastened vampire-like on the land, preying on its resources, and poisoning its principles? For people in this state of mind the promised invasion of the Scots in Charles's behalf was the very pretext needed. Much of the Presbyterianism of England, including the City of London, might be whirled, along with the readier Old Royalism, into a rising for the King. To promote and manage risings in particular districts, however, there must be leaders authorized from St. Germains. Such leaders were found among eminent Royalists either already in England or able to transfer themselves thither without delay. In the North, where immediate co-operation with the Scots would be necessary, Sir Marmaduke Langdale and Sir Philip Musgrave were to be the chief agents; and for the West, the Midlands, and the South, there were the Earl of Norwich (formerly Lord Goring), the Earl of Peterborough, Lord Byron, Lord Capel, and others. The young Duke of Buckingham, and his brother Lord Francis Villiers, who had not been concerned in the first Civil War, being then but boys and on their travels abroad, had recently returned to their great estates in England, and were anxious to figure as became the name they bore. Strangely enough, in the midst of all these, as the commissioned generalissimo of the King's forces in England when they should be in the field, was to be the Earl of Holland. His veerings in the first war had not been to his credit; but his long seclusion had done him good; he had always been in favour with the Queen; and his Parliamentary and Presbyterian connexions were an advantage. (2) There was to be a gathering of all the Royalist exiles to accompany or follow the Prince of Wales in a landing on the British shores. As early as Feb. 8, when only the vaguest rumour of the Scottish Engagement can have been in circulation on the Continent, the report from the Hague had been that it would be "no wonder to see 10,000 merry souls, then lying there, and cursing the Parliament in every cup they drank, venturing over to make one cast more for the King." Certain it is that in the following months there was a stir in all the nests of English refugees in France and Holland, and in the Channel Islands. Not only Prince Rupert, Percy, Wilmot, Jermyn, Colepepper, Ormond, and others round the Queen and the Prince in Paris, but the Earl of Bristol, Lord Cottington, Secretary Nicholas, and others, in Rouen or Caen, and Hopton and Hyde in Jersey, were all in motion. Money was the great want; they were all so wretchedly poor; but that difficulty might be overcome so far as to make an expedition to England at least possible. Mazarin might lend help; or, if he did not, the Prince of Orange, the husband of Charles's eldest daughter, and now Stadtholder of Holland, might be expected to do all he could for his father-in-law consistently with the limited powers of his Stadtholdership. A Dutch port might be more convenient than a French one for the embarkation of the refugees collectively or in detachments. Most would be bound for England; but the true sphere of some, as for example Ormond, would be in Ireland. For the Prince of Wales himself what was specially destined by the Queen was a voyage to Scotland. It was by being among the Scots personally till their Army could be got ready, and either remaining in Scotland afterwards or accompanying the Army into England, that his Royal Highness would be of most use. On this point the Queen was emphatic. [Footnote: Clarendon, Book XI., where the pre-arrangement of the new Civil War from head-quarters, and the parts assigned to different persons, are set forth more lucidly, and with better information, than anywhere else. Dates are deficient, but the sketching is masterly. See also Rushworth for Feb., March, and April, 1648.]

Such being the programme, what was the performance? It did not quite come up to the programme, but it was sufficiently formidable.

The first rising was in Wales. There a certain drunken Colonel Poyer, governor of Pembroke Castle, with a Colonel Powell and a Colonel Laughern, also in Parliamentary employment, revolted as early as the end of February. Ostensibly it was in resentment of an order of Parliament for disbanding supernumeraries; but, before the end of April, the affair became a Royalist outbreak of all Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, and Cardiganshire, spreading through the rest of South Wales. To suppress this rising Cromwell was to go from London, May 1, with two regiments of horse and three of foot; which, with the forces already in the region, would make an army of about 8,000 men. Before he went, risings of less importance had been heard of in Cornwall and Dorsetshire, and there had been one tremendous tumult in London itself, to the cry of "For God and King Charles!" (Sunday, April 9.) It had been suppressed only by street- charges of the regiments quartered at Whitehall and Charing Cross. Significant incidents of the same month were the revolt to the Irish Rebels of Lord Inchiquin, hitherto one of the most zealous Parliamentarians in Ireland, and the escape from London of the young Duke of York. By the contrivance of a Colonel Bamfield the Duke was whisked away from St. James's Palace (April 21), and conveyed, in girl's clothes, to Holland. He was not quite fifteen years of age; but his father had instructed him to escape when he could, and the fact that he had been designated for the command of the Navy was likely to be useful.

All this before Cromwell had gone into Wales; but hardly had he gone when there came the news that Berwick had been seized for the King by Sir Marmaduke Langdale (April 30), and Carlisle by Sir Philip Musgrave and Sir Thomas Glenham (May 6). Langdale and Musgrave had been staying in Edinburgh, and the seizure of these two towns was by arrangement with the Duke of Hamilton and in preparation for his invasion. Langdale, indeed, announced himself as commissioned General for the King in the five northern counties, and the business of watching against his advance lay with Lambert, the Parliamentarian General in those parts, assisted by Sir Arthur Haselrig, now Governor of Newcastle.

Meanwhile the preservation of the peace in and near London was in the hands of Fairfax, Ireton, and Skippon--Fairfax now no longer mere Sir Thomas, but Lord Fairfax of the Scottish Peerage, as successor to his father Lord Ferdinando, who had died March 13. These three were soon as hard at work in their south-eastern region as Cromwell in Wales and Lambert in the north. For the county of Surrey having followed the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk in sending in a petition for the disbanding of the Army and the restoration of the King "to the splendour of his ancestors" (May 16), a new riot in London "For God and King Charles" was the consequence, and in a short time there was more or less of Royalist commotion north and south of London, through Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, Herts, Essex, Surrey, and Kent. The insurrection in Kent was of independent origin, and was the most extensive and hence It had been begun by the Kentish people themselves, roused by Roger L'Estrange and a young Mr. Hales; but the Earl of Norwich had come into Kent to take the lead. Canterbury, Dover, Sandwich, and the castles of Deal and Walmer, had been won for the King; there were communications between the insurgents and the Londoners, and in the end of May some 10,000 or 12,000 men of Kent, with runaway citizens and apprentices from London in their ranks, were marching towards the City with drums and banners. To meet these Fairfax and Ireton, with seven regiments, went out to Blackheath, May 29; and, the insurgents then drawing back, the two were at Gravesend May 31, and at Maidstone June 1. A few days of their hard blows, struck right in the heart of Kent, sufficed for that county; and the Earl of Norwich, with the Kentish fugitives, crossed the Thames into Essex. Insurgents from other parts, including Lord Capel, Lord Loughborough, and Sir Charles Lucas, having at the same time gathered into that county, there was a junction of forces, with the intention of a roundabout march upon London, by Suffolk, Norfolk, and Cambridge, The swift approach of Fairfax out of conquered Kent (June 11) compelled them to change their plan. They threw themselves into Colchester (June 12), adding some 4,000 or 5,000 armed men to the population of that doomed town. Doomed! for Fairfax, having failed to take it on the first assault, resolved to reduce it by starvation, and so, the insurgents on their side resolving to hold out to the last, inasmuch as the detention of Fairfax in Essex till the Scots should be in England was the best hope, both for themselves and for the general cause, the SIEGE OF COLCHESTER (June l2-- Aug. 28) turned out one of the most horrible events of the war.

An important episode of the Kentish Insurrection was the Revolt of the Fleet. The main station of the Fleet being in the Downs, just off the Kentish coast, Royalist emissaries had been busy among the sailors, and with such effect that, when Vice-Admiral Rainsborough, who had been ashore Defending Deal Castle against the insurgents, tried to go on board his own ship, he was laid hold of and sent back. This was about the 27th of May; and, though the Parliament immediately re-appointed the Presbyterian Earl of Warwick to his old post of Lord High Admiral, and sent him down to pacify the Fleet (May 29), the effort failed. The cry of the sailors was, "We will go to our own Admiral," meaning the young Duke of York in Holland. Actually, some ten warships, having ejected all their Parliamentarian officers, did put to sea, and, after cruising about the coasts of Kent, Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, till the insurrection in those parts was quashed, did cross to Helvoetsluys in Holland, early in June, in search of the young Duke. It was a splendid accident for the world of Royalist exiles on the Continent, for it supplied them with the wooden bridge they needed for transit into the mother-country. Accordingly, though the royal boy-admiral came at once from the Hague to Helvoetsluys, went on board the Fleet, and was for a week or two the pet of the sailors, the higher powers at Paris hastened to turn the accident to the largest account. Mazarin refusing all help, some money was raised otherwise, so as to enable the Prince of Wales, with Prince Rupert, Hopton, Colepepper and others, to embark at Calais for Helvoetsluys. He arrived there early in July, was received with acclamations by the Fleet, and immediately relieved his younger brother in the command. The Prince and Princess of Orange coming from the Hague to welcome him, there was a joyful family-meeting, with much consultation, but a good deal of difference, among all concerned, as to the ways and means.

About the time of the Revolt of the Fleet, Parliament had received other bad news. Pontefract had been seized for the King, June 2, and other important places in Yorkshire were taken or attempted soon after. Through the rest of June there were risings or threats of rising in the Midlands, so that in the beginning of July things looked very ill. There had been successes, it was true, against the insurgents in Wales, and Cromwell was hopefully besieging Pembroke; Lambert was doing well with his small forces against Langdale in the north; Colchester was beginning to be distressed in the grip of Fairfax; but still, with the whole of England in Royalist or semi-Royalist palpitation, and the City of London actually heaving with suppressed revolt, what could be expected when Hamilton and his army of Scottish Presbyterians did cross the border? There had been delays in the levy of this army, owing to the continued resistance of the Argyle party, the clergy, and the western shires; and it had only been by the most tyrannic exercise of power that it had been got together. At last, however, it _had_ been got together; and now England was full of the rumour of its coming. Lo! at the rumour the Earl of Holland, the designated generalissimo of the English army of co-operation, could not choose but start from his lethargy! With the young Duke of Buckingham, young Lord Francis Villiers, the Earl of Peterborough, and the Dutch Colonel Dalbier, in his company, and a following of 500 horse, he started up at Kingston-on-Thames on the 6th of July; addressed a formal Declaration of his motives to Parliament and the City of London, as well as a letter of encouragement to the besieged at Colchester; and called on all Surrey, Sussex and Middlesex, to join him. That bravado, however, lasted but two days. On the 8th of July, a Parliamentary force under Sir Michael Livesey attacked Holland's horse and routed them utterly. Lord Francis Villiers and Dalbier were slain; the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Peterborough escaped to London, and thence abroad; but Holland himself, pursued into Hunts, was taken prisoner.

On the very day of the defeat of Holland in Surrey (Saturday, July 8) the Scots did come into England. They came from Annan on the Solway Firth, marching to Carlisle. They were not the expected 40,000, but the advanced portion of an army which, when it had all come in, may have numbered about 20,000. The Duke himself led the van with his Lifeguards in great state, preceded by trumpeters "all in scarlet cloaks full of silver lace;" Generals Thomas Middleton and William Baillie came next with horse and foot; and the Earl of Callander brought up the rear. Joined by Sir Marmaduke Langdale and his English, they marched on, or rather sauntered on, to Penrith (July 15), and thence to Kendal (Aug. 1?), the wary Lambert retreating before them, but watching their every motion, skirmishing when he could, and waiting anxiously for the arrival of Cromwell, who, having at length taken Pembroke and so far settled Wales (July 11), was hurrying to the new scene of action in the north. Off Kendal, a body of about 3,000 Scots, brought over from Ireland by Major- general Sir George Monro, attached itself to Hamilton, with an understanding that Hamilton's orders to it were to be directly from himself to Monro. There was then a debate whether it would be best to advance straight south into Lancashire, or to strike east into Yorkshire. It was decided for Lancashire. On into Lancashire, therefore, they moved, the poor people in the track behind them grieving dreadfully over their ravages, but dignified papers of the Scottish Parliament preceding them to explain the invasion. Scotland had made an Engagement to rescue the King, free England from the tyranny of an Army of Sectaries, establish Presbytery, and put down "that impious Toleration settled by the two Houses contrary to the Covenant!"

While the Scots were thus advancing into the north-west of England, the Prince of Wales had brought his Fleet from Holland, and (the Queen's idea that he should go to Scotland having been postponed) was hovering about the south-east coast. By fresh accessions the fleet had been increased to nineteen sail; it had been provisioned by the Prince of Orange; and there were 2,000 soldiers on board. On the 25th of July the Prince was off Yarmouth, where a landing of the soldiers was attempted with a view to relieve Colchester. That failing, he removed to the mouth of the Thames, to obstruct the commerce of the Londoners, and make prizes of their ships. Precisely at the time when the Westmorland and Lancashire people were grieving over the ravages of the invading Scots, the Londoners were in consternation over the capture by the Prince of an Indiaman and several other richly-laden vessels. For the ransom of these by their owners the Prince demanded huge sums of money, intimating at the same time (Aug 8) that the block of the Thames would be kept up until the Londoners declared for the King, or Parliament agreed to a cessation of arms on certain loyal conditions. [Footnote: In the summary given in the text of the incidents of the Civil War from March to August 1648, I have tried to reduce into chronological connexion the information given disconnectedly in Rushworth, VII. 1010-1220, and at large in Clarendon,