dish parted; to their mutual regret, if we may judge from the language of Henrietta, in her letter, written at the time, to the king. That lively despatch thus describes the amount and arrangements of her convoy. "I carry with me," she writes, "3,000 foot, thirty companies of horse and dragoons, six pieces of cannon, and two mortars. Harry Jermyn commands the forces which go with me, as colonel of my guard; Sir Alexander Lesly, the foot under him; Gerard, the horse; and Robin Legge, the artillery: her she-majesty, generalissimo, and an extremely diligent one, with 150 waggons of baggage to govern in case of a battle. Have a care that Essex's troops incommode us not; for I hope that for the rest we shall be strong enough." With Cavendish she left, for securing Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, 2,000 foot, with arms for 500 more, and twenty troops of horse.

All these forces properly belonged to Newcastle's army. The earl was, about this time, farther weakened by the capture of Goring, and his garrison, at Wakefield. Still prosperity attended his operations. At Atherton Moor, near Bradford, he gained a great victory over Fairfax, in which 700 of the parliament's troops were slain, and 300 made prisoners; on so considerable a scale was that northern, and, mostly, least-noted, branch of the great contest conducted! Fairfax fled to the stronghold at Hull; while Newcastle marched forward into Lincolnshire, and laid siege to Gainsborough, which the Lord Willoughby of Parham had seized for the parliament.

It was in a skirmish near Gainsborough, that the first military exploit occurred by which Cromwell made his name a familiar word throughout England. Enough, indeed, had already been seen of his character, to enable discerning observers to perceive that it embodied, in a shape of prodigious but coarse energy, the spirit of the age,-its serious eloquence, running, in him, into affected mysticalness and heavy verbiage: its steady valour, changed to calculating fierceness; its intense religious affections, perverted to stern fanaticism. Into the deep focus of his strong and ambitious mind Cromwell had gathered those characteristics; and now sought to send them forth again, in a form moulded by his will, and made subservient to his designs. He saw around, and felt no less convincingly within himself, that the age of loyalty was gone; and that religion, as a social and political force, was to supply the place of loyalty: but religion, uninformed and unregulated by the church, and therefore (such will ever be the case, when it is thrown wholly upon individual feeling) taking the characteristics of fanaticism ;-religion tortured, at least in words, to every vulgar appliance, and hence often no more than the cloak of the hypocrite. These were the elements that composed this extraordinary person; and to this model he effectually moulded his instruments. Collecting about him a band, from those classes among whom, in every age, such dispositions most readily meet, and in whom the thirst of freedom is generated by a sense of independence,-the sturdy yeoman, the easy, thriftful, conceited burgher, he wrought them, by the master-power of his energy and genius, into an engine, which he doubted not, and he was not deceived,— would effectually resist, and finally explode, the dreaded chivalry of the cavaliers, animated as it was by the lingering breath of fcalty in the nobles, and by piety, if by little else, in the sovereign. These stout-hearted associates he armed, mounted, trained, and disciplined himself. He was their comrade, as well as their chif; associating with them

at all seasons, and in all moods, he could lay by the part of the drill-sergeant and, equally for their behoof, assume the office of the preacher. Crafty and stringent was the creed he taught them. The gospel as exhibited in puritanism, liberty as exemplified in the parliament, constituted the cause of God. The king had allied himself with popery and malignancy: to fight against him, while fettered by these fiendish confederates, was to fight, not for themselves, not for their families and country, only, but for God and Truth. Should they conquer, they would be glorious and happy; should they fall, it was good to forfeit life in such a cause! Faith grew, as confidence increased, with increasing strength. Here was the germ of a military and religious despotism. From this little fulcrum was launched the power which, finally, scattered all that remained of church and parliament, including the first instigators of the war themselves; frighted this great nation into submissive, dumb despair; and

"Hewed the throne Down to a block!"

Cromwell, in his march to relieve the garrison at Gainsborough, at the head of his Huntingdonshire troopers, joined with some regiments from Lincolnshire and Nottingham, fell in with the first division of Newcastle's army, under the command of young Cavendish. The royalists were first perceived on the summit of an acclivity; towards which when Cromwell advanced, he found his progress impeded by a fence, running along at the foot of the hill, with only one narrow opening. Through this passage he deliberately filed his men, while exposed to the fire of the enemy; and then led them on to the top of the eminence. Here a large body of the royalists charged them; but, meeting with such resistance as that army had never before encountered, were borne down, after a short but determined fight with swords and pistols, and fell back upon their reserve of cavalry. Cavendish, unable to rally his main body, now put himself at the head of the reserve, fell upon and put to flight the Lincoln and Nottingham troops; but was, in his turn, attacked, in his rear, by Cromwell, who by this time had formed his men afresh. The onset was fierce and unexpected; and Cavendish's troops giving way before it, were forced into a marsh at the foot of the acclivity, where, unable either to fight or fly, they were savagely butchered, with their chivalrous commander, by the Huntingdonshire troopers. It was fruitless bloodshed; for the army now making its appearance, Cromwell brought off his men, and retreated into the town; from thence falling back to Lincoln, which also he abandoned at the approach of the royalists, and took refuge in Boston.

Cavendish was among the most lamented victims of this deplorable contest. When his body was brought to Newark, where he had commanded, the people would not suffer it to be interred, till for some days they had feasted their eyes with the sight of it, "and embalmed it with their tears." Even at the distance of many years, when the remains were removed to Derby, fresh lamentations were made by those who had known him, and by others who had been taught from infancy to revere his name; and the whole town, as one man, expressed the most sorrowful unwillingness to part with the reliques of so dear a person, "who had been the ornament and defence of that place."

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Another striking incident occurred, in connection with the occupation of Gainsborough. At its first capture by the parliament's forces, several persons of rank were made prisoners; in particular, the Earl of Kingston. This nobleman was one of those moderate persons, who, like Falkland and Rudyard, bitterly deprecated the war: it is related by the anecdotists of the time, that being urged to declare himself for either parliament or king, he uttered a passionate wish that, whenever he took part with either against the other, a cannon-ball might divide his body between them. When Lord Willoughby understood that the Earl of Newcastle was advancing against the town, he sent away his noble prisoner, in a pinnace, to Hull. The vessel was fired at on the passage, by the royalist troops; and though she got clear, the good Earl of Kingston, as he was called, perished from a cannon shot, divided-so say the admirers of fatalism-in precise accordance with his imprecation.

By this time, the queen had pursued her journey southward; the towns yielding at her approach, and the nobility and gentry flocking to her standard. At Stratford-on-Avon she was met by Rupert; and Charles, having received information of her advance to the borders of Oxfordshire, proceeded with his sons to give her welcome. The joy of the meeting was enhanced by two most pleasing circumstances:-it occurred in the same field, under the height of Edge-hill, where, a few months before, Charles had valiantly fought his first battle; and hardly was the first embrace, endeared by long separation, much suffering, and mutual peril, over, when a breathless messenger broke in upon the royal pair, with the news of the great victory gained that day at Roundway Down. Their entry into Oxford was a triumph.

The effects of Stratton, of Lansdown, of Roundway Down, and of Bristol, were now felt in all directions. Exeter was surrendered to Prince Maurice, by the Earl of Stamford. Dorchester, Portland, Weymouth, submitted to the brave Earl of Carnarvon. Barnstaple and Bideford yielded to Colonel Digby. Taunton, Bridgewater, and Bath had likewise, by this time, opened their gates to the forces of the king. The prosperity of the royal cause amazed Charles's adversaries: it equally surprised his friends. Gloucester excepted, all the inland parts of the west had now returned to their allegiance. The north, from Berwick to Newark, was for the king. And now the chivalry of Newcastle was striking through the grand association of the east, the largest and compactest surface on which the parliamentarian interest moved. But, what seemed of more importance, this prosperous condition of the king's affairs was the means of daily bringing over converts to his cause. Beneath the royal banner, the timid now began to think there was the most safety; the selfish, that there was most to gain; the idolaters of power, that there the object of their worship was the most worthy of it; the lovers of peace, that by throwing themselves and their fortunes into that descending scale, they might soonest obtain their benevolent desires.

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CHAPTER XII.

THE CRISIS OF THE WAR.

THE war-party in the parliament were not men to despair. But on the news of the last of the great successes of the king's armies, the victory at Atherton Moor, reaching them, they determined on an expedient, which nothing but the present failure of all other resources could have led them to adopt. The nation had seen so much of the Scots, in their two recent inroads into the south, and in the conduct of their commissioners, that not even the popular sympathy on the score of religion, nor the gratitude of the party for their services against the king, could prevent a revival of the ancient hostile prejudice against that people. An intelligent Scotchman, writing from London in June, complains bitterly of the contempt and ill-usage which his countrymen met with. In fact, Hurry's revolt, which led to the defeat at Chalgrave Field, and to the death of Hampden, originated in just discontent with the treatment of the Scots by the parliamentarians. "The name of a Scot," observes the letter-writer alluded to, "is grown as odious amongst the Londoners, as the name of Satan is to the soul of a saint: yet," he adds, "they are still longing and praying for our help." Such was the fact: notwithstanding this prevalent dislike, no other expedient appearing to promise safety in the present terrible crisis, it was resolved, at a conference of the two houses, instantly to send a committee for aid from Scotland. The patriots were enabled to obtain the consent of the Lords to this proposal, in consequence of the offence taken by them at the declaration, recently received from Oxford, denying the legality of the parliament. But the measure was unpopular. Only a few days earlier, the Lords had passed a solemn protestation of loyalty to the king, and prepared a petition for peace. A letter arrived at this very juncture, from the Earl of Essex, describing his want of means to carry on the war, and advising the parliament to send propositions to the king for such a peace as would secure the religion, the laws, and liberties of the nation. No member of the house of Peers could, therefore, be induced personally to engage in the proposed mission to Scotland. The Lord Grey of Werke, their speaker, hitherto the unflinching agent of his party, refused; and was committed to the Tower for contempt. The Earl of Rutland was then named: but eluded the employment on pretence of ill health. At length, it was resolved to send only members of the Commons; and on the 20th of July, the committee, consisting of Sir Henry Vane and Sir William Armyn, with two other members, and Marshall and Nye, the one a Presbyterian, the other an Independent minister, were dismissed from London by sea, it being impossible to reach Edinburgh by land, except through the quarters of the Earl of Newcastle.

On Vane, projectors of the scheme wholly depended for success.

As the bearing of

this measure upon the events which followed was in a high degree important, it will be proper to show the state of opinion in the parliament, with respect to the great question it involved, and the difficulties with which its authors had to contend. For this purpose, we shall transfer a paragraph from the recent Life of Vane, by Mr. Forster.

"The Scots," observes that spirited advocate of the parliament, "were known to be bigoted to their own persuasions of narrow and exclusive church government, while the greatest men of the English parliament had proclaimed the sacred maxim, that every man who worshipped God according to the dictates of his conscience was entitled to the protection of the state. But these men, Vane, Cromwell, Marten, and St. John, though the difficulties of the common cause had brought them into the acknowledged position of leaders and directors of affairs, were in a minority of the House of Commons; and the party who were their superiors in number were as bigoted to the most exclusive principles of presbyterianism as the Scots themselves. Denzil Hollis stood at the head of this inferior class of patriots; Glyn, the recorder of London, and Maynard, were among its ablest supporters. Waller and Massey in the army, Sir Philip Stapleton, and Sir John Clotworthy, ranged themselves under the same banners. The most eminent of the parliamentary nobility, particularly Northumberland, Essex, and Manchester, belonged also to this body; while the London clergy, and the metropolis itself, were almost entirely presbyterian. These things considered, there was indeed great reason to apprehend that this party, backed by the Scots, and supported with a Scottish army, would be strong enough to overpower the advocates of free conscience, and set up a tyranny, not less to be deplored than that of Laud and his hierarchy, which had proved one of the main occasions of bringing on the war. Yet, opposing to all this danger only their own high purposes and dauntless courage, the smaller party of more consummate statesmen were the first to propose the embassy to Scotland."

Leaving, then, Vane to his tedious voyage of twenty days from London to Leith, and to the deep and difficult part afterwards, which none, like him, could play; let us glance at the equally critical and perplexed position in which his colleagues in the capital were placed, after his departure.

Every day brought an account of some fresh skirmish, in which the royalists were victorious; or some application to parliament, for relief from the hardships which pressed upon their armies. Waller, after having departed from London, a few weeks before, with a fine army, and in so confident a temper that in every town upon his route he left orders for the reception of his prisoners, had re-entered the capital a solitary fugitive. Essex also was returned to Kingston, with his troops in so broken and destitute a condition, that he himself declared they were not worthy the name of an army. He, at the same time, demanded redress for his own injured honour: his troops had been defrauded of credit and supplies, for the benefit of another army; yet the very parties by whose misconduct that army had been ruined, and the west lost to the parliament, had aspersed the generalin-chief as the author of these reverses. At the moment when these ill-timed dissensions occurred, came forth a new and more gracious declaration from the king. A door of pacification seemed again thrown open. On the 4th of August, the Lords seized the