Manchester with Cromwell, to whom the honour ́ of this great victory was chiefly ascribed, returned to the eastern association in order to recruit his army.

The king's affairs in the south were conducted with greater abilities and more success. Essex and Waller had orders to march with their combined armies towards Oxford, and, if the king retired into that city, to lay siege to it. But Charles leaving a numerous garrison at Oxford, passed with great dexterity between the two armies which had taken Abingdon, and had inclosed him on both sides. He marched towards Worcester, followed by Waller, while Essex marched into the west, in quest of prince Maurice. Waller had approached within two miles of the royal camp, from which he was separated only by the Severn, when he received intelligence that the king had directed his march towards Shrewsbury. While Waller hastened to that town, the king suddenly returning upon his own footsteps, reached Oxford, and having reinforced his army from that garrison, he marched out in quest of Waller, and met him near Banbury; but the Charwell ran between them. The next day the king marched towards Daventry. Waller ordered a considerable detachment to pass the bridge, with the intention of falling on the rear of the royalists; but in this attempt, he was repulsed, routed and pursued with great loss. Disheartened with this blow, his army decayed and melted away by desertion; which enabled the king to march westward against Essex. This general, informed that the king's army reinforced from all quarters was superior to his own, applied to the parliament and desired them to send immediately another army which might attack the king's rear. But general Middleton, who was to execute that service, came too late. Essex's army, cooped up in a narrow corner at Lestithiel, deprived

of all forage and provisions, was reduced to the last extremity. Essex and some of the principal officers escaped in a boat to Plymouth. Balfour with his horse, passed the king's out-posts in a thick mist t; the foot were obliged to surrender their arms, artillery, baggage, and ammunition, and being conducted to the parliament's quarters were dismissed. this memorable day, (September 1st,) the king, besides the honour he acquired by the military talents he had displayed, obtained what he stood extremely in need of, while the parliament having preserved the men, lost what they could easily repair.

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No sooner did this intelligence reach London, than the parliament employed all means in their power to send a most powerful army against the royalists. Having armed anew Essex's subdued, but not disheartened troops, they ordered Manchester and Cromwell to march with their recruited forces from the eastern association, and joining their armies to those of Waller and Middleton, as well as of Essex, offer battle to the king. Charles chose his post at Newbury, where he was attacked with the greatest vigour, by the united parliamentary armies. Though his troops defended themselves with great valour, they were overpowered by numbers, and the night came very seasonably to their relief. Charles leaving his baggage and artillery in Dennington castle, retreated to Wallingford, and thence to Oxford. There prince Rupert and the earl of Northampton joined him with considerable bodies of cavalry. With this reinforcement he ventured to advance towards the enemy, now employed before Dennington castle. Essex being detained by sickness, the command devolved on Manchester, who though his forces were much superior to those of the king, declined an engage. ment in spite of Cromwell's contrary advice and solicitations. Thus the king's army, by bringing off

their cannon from Dennington castle, in presence of the enemy, seemed to have sufficiently repaired the honour they had lost at Newbury, and the army was distributed into winter quarters.

Those contests among the parliamentary generals which had disturbed their military operations, were renewed in London during the winter, and their mutual reproaches and accusations agitated the whole city and parliament. Cromwell, in the public debates, accused Manchester of having wilfully neg lected at Dennington a favourable opportunity of finishing the war by a total defeat of the royalists. "I shewed him evidently," said he, "how this suc"cess might be obtained, and only desired leave, "with my own brigade of horse, to charge the king's army in their retreat; leaving it to the earl's "choice, if he thought proper, to remain neuter "with the rest of his forces; but notwithstanding "my importunity, he positively refused his con"sent, and gave no other reason, but if we met "with a defeat, there was an end of our preten"sions; we should all be rebels and traitors, and be "executed and forfeited by law."

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Manchester, by way of recrimination, informed the house, that at another time, Cromwell having proposed some scheme, to which it seemed improbable the parliament would agree, he insisted and said, My lord, if you will stick firm to honest men, you shall find yourself at the head of an army, which shall give law both to king and parliament. "This

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discourse," continued Manchester, "made the greater impression on me, as I knew the lieutenantgeneral to be a man of very deep designs; and he "has even ventured to tell me, that it never would "be well with England till I were Mr. Montague, "and there were neither a lord nor peer in the king"dom."

Thus was brought to light a secret distinction

which had long prevailed in that party, and which, though hitherto suppressed by the dread of the king's power, in proportion as the hopes of success became nearer and more immediate, began to discover itself with high pretensions and animosity. They called themselves, The Independents, a new sect, which at first had taken shelter and concealed itself under the wings of the Presbyterians. Their creed was in a great measure the offspring of presbyterianism, or rather a fanatical exaggeration of it. The presbyterians in their enthusiasm rejected the authority of prelates, threw off the restraint of liturgies, limited the riches and powers of the priestly office. The independents raising a little higher, rejected all ecclesiastical and spiritual establishments; according to their principles, each congregation, united voluntarily and by spiritual ties, composed within itself a separate church, and exercised a jurisdiction over its own pastor and members without wanting any temporal sanction, as the election alone of the congregation was sufficient to bestow the sacerdotal character. They confounded all ranks and orders. The soldier, the merchant, the mechanic, indulging the fervours of zeal, and guided by the illapses of the spirit, resigned himself to an inward and superior direction, and was consecrated in a manner by an immediate intercourse and communication with Heaven.

The political system of the independents kept pace with their religious. Not content, as the presbyterians, with confining to very narrow limits the power of the crown and reducing the king to the rank of first magistrate, this sect, more ardent in the pursuit of liberty, aspired to a total abolition of monarchy, and even of the aristocracy, in order to establish an entire equality of rank in a republic quite free and independent. Cromwell was one of the leaders of that republican faction, and notwith

standing his habits of profound dissimulation, he could not so carefully guard his expressions, but that sometimes his favourite notions would escape him. His quarrel with the earl of Manchester brought matters to extremity, and pushed the independents to the execution of their designs. The present generals, they thought, were more desirous of protracting than finishing the war; and having entertained a scheme for preserving still some balance in the constitution, they were afraid of entirely subduing the king, and reducing him to a condition where he should not be entitled to ask any concessions. A new model alone of the army could bring complete victory to the parliament, and free the nation from those calamities under which it laboured. The means and intrigues which were employed to carry this project into execution, give a curious and no less exact idea of the genius of the age.

A fast on the last Wednesday of every month had been ordered by the parliament at the beginning of these commotions, and their preachers did not fail on that day to keep alive by their violent declamations the popular prejudices against popery and prelacy. The king, that he might combat the parliament with their own weapons, had appointed another fast the second Friday of every month, when the people should be instructed in the duties of loyalty and submission to the legal powers. It was now proposed and carried in parliament by the independents, that a new and more solemn fast should be voted, when they should implore the Divine assistance for extricating them from those perplexities in which they were at present involved. On that day all the preachers, after many political prayers, deplored the reigning divisions in the parliament, which they unanimously ascribed to the selfish ends of many of the members, in whose hands were lodged all the considerable commands in the