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this covenant, the subscribers, besides engaging mutually to defend each other against all opponents, bound themselves to endeavour, without respect of persons, the extirpation of popery and prelacy, superstition, heresy, schism, and profaneness; to maintain the rights and privileges of parliaments, together with the king's authority, and to discover and bring to justice all incendiaries and malignants. The subscribers of the covenant vowed to preserve the established religion in Scotland; but by the artifice of Vane, no declaration more explicit was made with regard to England and Ireland, than that these kingdoms should be reformed according to the word of God, and the example of the purest churches.

Religious zeal, the hopes of warm quarters, and a present of one hundred thousand pounds, which the Scots received from England, put them immediately in motion; and by the end of the year twenty thousand men under their old general the earl of Leven, were ready to enter England.

The king, foreseeing this formidable measure, endeavoured to find in Ireland the means of opposing it. In that kingdom the English, though neglected by the mother country, had resumed in some degree their ascendancy over the natives. Ormond had obtained two complete victories at Kilrush and Ross; but his army was destitute of ammunition and clothing, and the soldiers for want of food, had been obliged to eat their own horses. The parliament was unwilling to send supplies to troops which though engaged in a cause much favoured by them, were commanded by officers attached to the royal cause. As the king had neither money, arms, nor ammunition to spare from his own wants, he adopted an expedient, which might at once relieve the necessities of the Irish protestants, and materially improve his situation in England. He gave

orders to Ormond to conclude for a year a cessation of arms with the council of Kilkenny, by whom the Irish were governed, and to leave both sides in possession of their present advantages. After this suspension of hostilities, there was little necessity, and no means of subsisting the army in Ireland; and the king ordered Ormond, who was entirely devoted to him, to send over considerable bodies of it to England. Most of them continued in his service; but a small part, hearing the king's party universally reproached with popery, soon after deserted to the parlia

ment.

Ann. 1644.

The king, endeavouring to avail himself of the name of parliament, so passionately cherished by the English nation, summoned to Oxford all the members of either house, who adhered to his interests. The house of peers was attended by twice as many members as it was at Westminster. But the lower house consisted only of about one hundred and forty, scarcely the half of the other house of com

mons.

The name of excise was at that period first introduced in England. The parliament at Westminster having voted it to be paid on beer, wine, and other articles; those at Oxford imitated the example, and conferred that revenue on the king. They granted him likewise the sum of one hundred thousand pounds, to be levied by way of loan upon the subjects. The king circulated privy seals countersigned by the speakers of both houses, requiring the loan of particular sums from such persons as lived within his quarters.

The Westminster parliament passed a whimsical ordinance, commanding all the inhabitants of Lon

don, and the neighbourhood, to retrench a meal a week, and pay the value of it for the support of the public cause.

The famous Pym, a man as much hated by one party, as respected by the other, died this winter of the morbus pedicularius. He had been so little studious of improving his private fortune in those civil wars, that the parliament thought themselves obliged from gratitude to pay his debts.

The forces brought from Ireland under the command of lord Byron, after taking many castles, during the depth of winter, lay siege to Nantwich, the only place in Cheshire, or the neighbourhood, still adhering to the parliament; they are suddenly surprised and defeated by Sir Thomas Fairfaix; and the parliamentary party revives in those north west counties. At Durham, the marquis of Newcastle at the head of fourteen thousand men, facing the Scots, who had summoned in vain the town of Newcastle, receives intelligence of the approach of Sir Thomas Fairfax. Afraid of being inclosed between two armies, he retires to York, and Fairfax being joined by the Scottish forces under the command of Leven, lay siege before that place. Hopton, at the head of a royalist army of fourteen thousand men, endeavouring to break into Sussex, Kent, and the southern association, is attacked by Waller, who obtains a victory of considerable importance. In another quarter, siege being laid to Newark by the parliamentary troops, prince Rupert, with a small force, animated by his active courage, breaks through the enemy, and having totally dispersed that army, relieves the town.

The parliament makes formidable preparations. In the eastern association, an army of fourteen thousand men is levied and put under the earl of Manchester, seconded by Cromwell; an army of ten thousand men under Essex, and another of nearly

the same force under Waller, are assembled in the neighbourhood of London; while the king could not raise above ten thousand men at Oxford. The queen, terrified with the dangers which every way surrounded her, fled to Exeter, where she hoped to be delivered, unmolested, of the child with which she was now pregnant, and whence she had the means of an easy escape into France. She knew the implacable hatred which the parliament had all along borne her, on account of her religion and her credit with the king. Last summer the commons had sent up to the peers an impeachment of high treason against her, because in his utmost distress, she had assisted her husband with troops and ammunition, which she had bought in Holland; and, had she fallen into their hands, neither her sex, she knew, nor her high station, could protect her against insults at least, if not danger, from these haughty republicans.

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Their advantages in the north seemed now to promise them a final success in their unwarrantable enterprizes. Manchester had united his army to that of Leven and Fairfax; and York, though vigorously defended by Newcastle, was reduced to the last extremity; when the besiegers received the unwelcome intelligence that prince Rupert having joined Newcastle's horse, was rapidly advancing at the head of twenty thousand men. The Scottish and parliamentary leaders drew up on Marston Moor to give battle to the royalists. But Rupert entered the town by another quarter, and safely join. ed his forces to those of Newcastle, who would have persuaded him to be content with his present advantages. But as this temperate counsel ill suited the ardour of the prince, he led out the troops on Marsden Moor. The action was obstinately disputed. Rupert, who commanded the right wing, was opposed to Cromwell, who conducted the choice

troops of the parliament. After a short combat the cavalry of the royalists gave way, and such of the infantry as stood next them, were likewise borne down and put to flight. Newcastle's regiment alone resolved to conquer or to perish, obstinately kept their ground, and maintained by their dead bodies the same order in which they had at first been ranged. The other wing was equally broken, but after the success of this impetuous shock, Lucas, who commanded the royalists in this wing, made a furious attack against the parliamentary cavalry, threw them into disorder, pushed them upon their own infantry, and put that whole wing to rout. When ready to seize on their carriages and baggage, he perceived Cromwell, who was now returning from pursuit of the other wing. The battle began again with an equal fury, but after the utmost efforts of courage by both parties, victory wholly turned to the side of parliament. The prince's train of artillery was taken, and his whole army pushed off the field of battle.

One of the most fatal consequences of this event, was that the marquis of Newcastle was entirely lost to the royal cause; enraged to find that all his successful labours were rendered abortive by prince Rupert's temerity, who, contrary to his advice, resolved on this battle, and issued all orders without his participation, he thought that the same regard to honour, which had at first called him to arms, now required him to abandon a party where he met with such unworthy treatment. Next morning early, he sent word to the prince, that he meant instantly to leave the kingdom; and without delay, he went to Scarborough where he found a vessel which carried him beyond sea.

Prince Rupert retired with the remains of his army into Lancashire. York surrendered to Fairfax; Newcastle was stormed by the Scots; the earl of

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