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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,' 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 1 Gustavus Adolphus before the battle of the Alte Veste (see Thirty Years' War).

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 2 2nd.

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 rightwing onlyhad 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).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 10th 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 everpresent 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 impossi bility 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, Ashbyde-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. 1 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 Round- .way 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 " Making - not money but that which they took to be the public felicity to be their end they were the more engaged to be valiant (Baxter).

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 counterstrokes, 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 3 rd 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.

The troops from Ireland, thus obtained at the cost of an enormous political blunder, proved to be untrustworthy after all. Those serving in Hopton's army were " mutinous and shrewdly infected with the rebellious humour of England." When Waller's Londoners surprised 1 and routed a Royalist detachment at Alton (December 13, 1643), half the prisoners took the Covenant. Hopton had to retire, and on the 6th of January 1644 Waller recaptured Arundel. Byron's Cheshire army was in no better case. Newcastle's retreat from Hull and the loss of Gainsborough had completely changed the situation in the midlands, Brereton was joined by the younger Fairfax from Lincolnshire, and the Royalists were severely defeated for a second time at Nantwich (January 25). As at Alton, the majority of the prisoners (amongst them Colonel George Monk) took the Covenant and entered the Parliamentary army. In Lancashire, as in Cheshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, the cause of the Parliament was in the ascendant. Resistance revived in the West Riding towns, Lord Fairfax was again in the field in the 1 For the third time within the year the London trained bands turned out in force. It was characteristic of the early years of the war that imminent danger alone called forth the devotion of the citizen soldier. If he was employed in ordinary times (e.g. at Basing House) he would neither fight nor march with spirit.

East Riding, and even Newark was closely besieged by Sir John Meldrum. More important news came in from the north. The advanced guard of the Scottish army had passed the Tweed on the 19th of January, and the marquis of Newcastle with the remnant of his army would soon be attacked in front and rear at once.

14. Newark and Cheriton (March 1644)

As in 1643, Rupert was soon on his way to the north to retrieve the fortunes of his side. Moving by the Welsh border, and gathering up garrisons and recruits snowball-wise as he marched, he went first to Cheshire to give a hand to Byron, and then, with the utmost speed, he made for Newark. On the 10th of March 1644 he bivouacked at Bingham, and on the 21st he not only relieved Newark but routed the besiegers' cavalry. On the 22nd l'Ieldrum's position was so hopeless that he capitulated on terms. But, brilliant soldier as he was, the prince was unable to do more than raid a few Parliamentary posts around Lincoln, after which he had to return his borrowed forces to their various garrisons and go back to Wales - laden indeed with captured pikes and muskets - to raise a permanent field army. But Rupert could not be in all places at once. Newcastle was clamorous for aid. In Lancashire, only the countess of Derby, in Lathom House, held out for the king, and her husband pressed Rupert to go to her relief. Once, too, the prince was ordered back to Oxford to furnish a travelling escort for the queen, who shortly after this gave birth to her youngest child and returned to France. The order was countermanded within a few hours, it is true, but Charles had good reason for avoiding detachments from his own army. On the 2 9th of March, Hopton had undergone a severe defeat at Cheriton near New Alresford. In the preliminary manoeuvres and in the opening stages of the battle the advantage lay with the Royalists, and the earl of Forth, who was present,was satisfied with what had been achieved and tried to break off the action. But Royalist indiscipline ruined everything. A young cavalry colonel charged in defiance of orders, a fresh engagement opened, and at the last moment Waller snatched a victory out of defeat. Worse than this was the news from Yorkshire and Scotland. Charles had at last assented to Montrose's plan and promised him the title of marquis, but the first attempt to raise the Royalist standard in Scotland gave no omen of its later triumphs. In Yorkshire Sir Thomas Fairfax, advancing from Lancashire through the West Riding, joined his father. Selby was stormed on the 11th of April, and thereupon Newcastle, who had been manoeuvring against the Scots in Durham, hastily drew back, sent his cavalry away, and shut, himself up with his foot in York. Two days later the Scottish general, Alexander Leslie, Lord Leven, joined the Fairfaxes and prepared to invest that city.

15. Plans of Campaign for 1644

The original plan of the Parliamentary "Committee of Both Kingdoms," which directed the military and civil policy of the allies after the fashion of a modern cabinet, was to combine Essex's and Manchester's armies in an attack upon the king's army, Aylesbury being appointed as the place of concentration. Waller's troops were to continue to drive back Hopton and to reconquer the west, Fairfax and the Scots to invest Newcastle's army, while in the midlands Brereton and the Lincolnshire rebels could be counted upon to neutralize, the one Byron, the others the Newark Royalists. But Waller, once more deserted by his trained bands, was unable to profit by his victory of Cheriton, and retired to Farnham. Manchester, too, was delayed because the Eastern Association was still suffering from the effects of Rupert's Newark exploit - Lincoln, abandoned by the rebels on that occasion, was not reoccupied till the 6th of May. Moreover, Essex found himself compelled to defend his conduct and motives to the Committee of Both Kingdoms, and as usual was straitened for men and money. But though there were grave elements of weakness on the other side, the Royalists considered their own position to be hopeless. Prince Maurice was engaged in the fruitless siege of Lyme Regis, Gloucester was again a centre of activity and counterbalanced Newark, and the situation in the north was practically desperate. Rupert himself came to Oxford (April 25) to urge that his new army should be kept free to march to aid Newcastle, who was now threatened - owing to the abandonment of the enemy's original plan - by Manchester as well as Fairfax and Leven. There was no further talk of the concentric advance of three armies on London. The fiery prince and the methodical earl of Brentford (Forth) were at one at least in recommending that the Oxford area with its own garrison and a mobile force in addition should be the pivot of the field armies' operations. Rupert, needing above all adequate time for the development of the northern offensive, was not in favour of abandoning any of the barriers to Essex's advance. Brentford, on the other hand, thought it advisable to contract the lines of defence, and Charles, as usual undecided, agreed to Rupert's scheme and executed Brentford's. Reading, therefore, was dismantled early in May, and Abingdon given up shortly afterwards.

16. Cropredy Bridge

It was now possible for the enemy to approach Oxford, and Abingdon was no sooner evacuated than (May 26) Waller's and Essex's armies united there - still, unfortunately for their cause, under separate commanders. From Abingdon Essex moved direct on Oxford, Waller towards Wantage, where he could give a hand to Massey, the energetic governor of Gloucester. Affairs seemed so bad in the west (Maurice with a whole army was still vainly besieging the single line of low breastworks that constituted the fortress of Lyme) that the king despatched Hopton to take charge of Bristol. Nor were things much better at Oxford; the barriers of time and space and the supply area had been deliberately given up to the enemy, and Charles was practically forced to undertake extensive field operations with no hope of success save in consequence of the enemy's mistakes. The enemy, as it happened, did not disappoint him. The king, probably advised by Brentford, conducted a skilful war of manoeuvre in the area defined by Stourbridge, Gloucester, Abingdon and Northampton, at the end of which Essex, leaving Waller to the secondary work, as he conceived it, of keeping the king away from Oxford and reducing that fortress, marched off into the west with most of the general service troops to repeat at Lyme Regis his Gloucester exploit of 1643. At one moment, indeed, Charles (then in Bewdley) rose to the idea of marching north to join Rupert and Newcastle, but he soon made up his mind to return to Oxford. From Bewdley, therefore, he moved to Buckingham - the distant threat on London producing another evanescent citizen army drawn from six counties under Major-General Browne - and Waller followed him closely. When the king turned upon Browne's motley host, Waller appeared in time to avert disaster, and the two armies worked away to the upper Cherwell. Brentford and Waller were excellent strategists of the 17th century type, and neither would fight a pitched battle without every chance in his favour. Eventually on the 2 9 th of June the Royalists were successful in a series of minor fights about Cropredy Bridge, and the result was, in accordance with continental custom, admitted to be an important victory, though Waller's main army drew off unharmed. In the meantime, Essex had relieved Lyme (June 15) and occupied Weymouth, and was preparing to go farther. The two rebel armies were now indeed separate. Waller had been left to do as best he could, and a worse fate was soon to overtake the cautious earl.

17. Campaign of Marston Moor

During these manoeuvres the northern campaign had been fought to an issue. Rupert's courage and energy were more likely to command success in the English Civil War than all the conscientious caution of an Essex or a Brentford. On the 16th of May he left Shrewsbury to fight his way through hostile country to Lancashire, where he hoped to re-establish the Derby influence and raise new forces. Stockport was plundered on the 2 5th, the besiegers of Lathom House utterly defeated at Bolton on the 28th. Soon afterwards he received a large reinforcement under General Goring, which included 5000 of Newcastle's cavalry. The capture of the almost defenceless town of Liverpool - undertaken as usual to allay local fears - did not delay Rupert more than three or four days, and he then turned towards the Yorkshire border with, greatly augmented forces. On the 14th of June he received a despatch from the king, the gist of which was that there was a time-limit imposed on the northern enterprise. If York were lost or did not need his help, Rupert was to make all haste southward via Worcester. " If York be relieved and you beat the rebels' armies of both kingdoms, then, but otherways not, I may possibly make a shift upon the defensive to spin out time until you come to assist me." Charles did manage to " spin out time." But it was of capital importance that Rupert had to do his work upon York and the allied army in the shortest possible time, and that, according to the despatch, there were only two ways of saving the royal cause, " having relieved York by beating the Scots," or marching with all speed to Worcester. Rupert's duty, interpreted through the medium of his temperament, was clear enough. Newcastle still held out, his men having been encouraged by a small success on the i 7th of June, and Rupert reached Knaresborough on the 30th. At once Leven, Fairfax and Manchester broke up the siege of York and moved out to meet him. But the prince, moving still at high speed, rode round their right flank via Boroughbridge and Thornton Bridge and entered York on the north side. Newcastle tried to dissuade Rupert from fighting, but his record as a general was scarcely convincing as to t'he value of his advice. Rupert curtly replied that he had orders to fight, and the Royalists moved out towards Marston Moor (q.v.) on the morning of July 2, 1644. The Parliamentary commanders, fearing a fresh manoeuvre, had already begun to retire towards Tadcaster, but as soon as it became evident that a battle was impending they turned back. The battle of Marston Moor began about four in the afternoon. It was the first real trial of strength between the best elements on either side, and it ended before night with the complete victory of the Parliamentary armies. The Royalist cause in the north collapsed once for all, Newcastle fled to the continent, and only Rupert, resolute as ever, extricated 6000 cavalry from the debacle and rode away whence he had come, still the dominant figure of the war.

18. Independency

The victory gave the Parliament entire control of the north, but it did not lead to the definitive solution of the political problem, and in fact, on the question of Charles's place in a new Constitution, the victorious generals quarrelled even before York had surrendered. Within three weeks of the battle the great army was broken up. The Yorkshire troops proceeded to conquer the isolated Royalist posts in their county, the Scots marched off to besiege Newcastle-on-Tyne and to hold in check a nascent Royalist army in Westmorland. Rupert in Lancashire they neglected entirely. Manchester and Cromwell, already estranged, marched away into the Eastern Association. There, for want of an enemy to fight, their army was forced to be idle, and Cromwell and the ever-growing Independent element quickly came to suspect their commander of lukewarmness in the cause. Waller's army, too, was spiritless and immobile. On the and of July, despairing of the existing military system, he made to the Committee of Both Kingdoms the first suggestion of the New Model, - " My lords," he wrote, " till you have an army merely your own, that you may command, it is... impossible to do anything of importance." Browne's trained band army was perhaps the most ill-behaved of all - once the soldiers attempted to murder their own general. Parliament in alarm set about the formation of a new general service force (July 12), but meantime both Waller's and Browne's armies (at Abingdon and Reading respectively) ignominiously collapsed by mutiny and desertion. It was evident that the people at large, with their respect for the law and their anxiety for their own homes, were tired of the war. Only those men - such as Cromwell - who has set their hearts on fighting out the quarrel of conscience, kept steadfastly to their purpose. Cromwell himself had already decided that the king himself must be deprived of his authority, and his supporters were equally convinced. But they were relatively few. Even the Eastern Association trained bands had joined in the disaffection in Waller's army, and that unfortunate general's suggestion of a professional army, with all its dangers, indicated the only means of enforcing a peace such as Cromwell and his friends desired. There was this important difference, however, between Waller's idea and Cromwell's achievement - that the professional soldiers of the New Model were disciplined, led, and in all things inspired by " godly " officers. Godliness, devotion to the cause, and efficiency were indeed the only criteria Cromwell applied in choosing officers. Long before this he had warned the Scottish major-general Lawrence Crawford that the precise colour of a man's religious opinions mattered nothing compared with his devotion to them, and had told the committee of Suffolk, " I had rather have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for and loves what he knows than that which you call a ` gentleman ' and is nothing else. I honour a gentleman that is so indeed. .. but seeing it was necessary the work must go on, better plain men than none." If " men of honour and birth " possessed the essentials of godliness, devotion, and capacity, Cromwell preferred them, and as a fact only seven out of thirty-seven of the superior officers of the original New Model were not of gentle birth.

19. Lostwithiel

But all this was as yet in the future. Essex's military promenade in the west of England was the subject of immediate interest. At first successful, this general penetrated to Plymouth, whence, securely based as he thought, he could overrun Devon. Unfortunately for him he was persuaded to overrun Cornwall as well. At once the Cornishmen rose, as they had risen under Hopton, and the king was soon on the march from the Oxford region, disregarding the armed mobs under Waller and Browne. Their state reflected the general languishing of the war spirit on both sides, not on one only, as Charles discovered when he learned that Lord Wilmot, the lieutenantgeneral of his horse, was in correspondence with Essex. Wilmot was of course placed under arrest, and was replaced by the dissolute General Goring. But it was unpleasantly evident that even gay cavaliers of the type of Wilmot had lost the ideals for which they fought, and had come to believe that the realm would never be at peace while Charles was king. Henceforward it will be found that the Royalist foot, now a thoroughly professional force, is superior in quality to the once superb cavalry, and that not merely because its opportunities for plunder, &c., are more limited. Materially, however, the immediate victory was undeniably with the Royalists. After a brief period of manoeuvre, the Parliamentary army, now far from Plymouth, found itself surrounded and starving at Lostwithiel, on the Fowey river, without hope of assistance. The horse cut its way out through the investing circle of posts, Essex himself escaped by sea, but Major-General Skippon, his second in command, had to surrender with the whole of the foot on the and of September. The officers and men were allowed to go free to Portsmouth, but their arms, guns and munitions were the spoil of the victors. There was now no trustworthy field force in arms for the Parliament south of the Humber, for even the Eastern Association army was distracted by its religious differences, which had now at last come definitely to the front and absorbed the political dispute in a wider issue. Cromwell already proposed to abolish the peerage, the members of which were inclined to make a hollow peace, and had ceased to pay the least respect to his general, Manchester, whose scheme for the solution of the quarrel was an impossible combination of Charles and Presbyterianism. Manchester for his part sank into a state of mere obstinacy, refusing to move against Rupert, even to besiege Newark, and actually threatened to hang Colonel Lilburne for capturing a Royalist castle without orders.

20. Operations of Essex's, Waller's and Manchester's Armies

After the success of Lostwithiel there was little to detain Charles's main army in the extreme west, and meanwhile Banbury, a most important point in the Oxford circle, and Basing House (near Basingstoke) were in danger of capture. Waller, who had organized a small force of reliable troops, had already sent cavalry into Dorsetshire with the idea of assisting Essex, and he now came himself with reinforcements to prevent, so far as lay in his power, the king's return to the Thames valley. Charles was accompanied of