Part 26
The design of Sir Phelim O’Neill, and the other leaders of this insurrection, was simply political. They conceived the time a good and opportune one for striking a blow against the government as the Scots had successfully done; and their conduct was in the outset characterized by lenity. But they could not allay the hatred with which the Catholics looked upon their adversaries; and a spirit of revenge broke out among their followers, which was aggravated to cruel outrage, when they heard that the conspiracy was discovered in Dublin. The spirit of retaliation was let loose, and political wrongs, unfeelingly inflicted, were, as is often the case, ferociously avenged. The massacre of an immense number of Protestants held forth an awful lesson of the effects which oppressive laws produce on the human passions. The government rather aggravated than alleviated the evil, by offering the estates of all in rebellion to those who should aid in reducing them to obedience. This drove the insurgents to desperation, postponed the complete extinction of the war for several years. It is to be remarked, that though the Irish were struggling for both national and religious freedom, they gained no sympathy from the patriots of Britain, who, on the contrary, urged the king to suppress the rebellion, being afraid that a religious toleration in Ireland would be inconsistent with the same privilege in their own country. The Scottish Covenanters, themselves so recently emancipated from a restraint upon their consciences, contributed ten thousand troops to assist in restoring a similar restraint upon the Irish.
THE CIVIL WAR.
It was generally allowed by moderate people, that in the autumn of 1641, at which time the labors of the Parliament had continued one year, the king had granted redress of all the abuses for which the earlier part of his reign, and the British constitution in general, were blameable. If he could have given a guarantee that he never would seek to restore any of these abuses, or attempt to revenge himself upon the men who had been chiefly concerned in causing him to give up, there would have been no further contention. Unfortunately, the character of the king for fidelity to his engagements was not sufficiently high to induce the leaders of the House of Commons to depend upon him: they feared that if they once permitted him to resume his authority there would be no longer any safety for them; and they deemed it necessary that things should be prevented from falling into their usual current. They therefore prepared a paper called _The Remonstrance_, containing an elaborate view of all the grievances that had ever existed, or could now be supposed to exist; and this they not only presented to the king but disseminated widely among the people, with whom it served to increase the prevailing disaffection.
From this time it was seen that the sword could alone decide the quarrel between the king and the Parliament. Charles made an unsuccessful attempt (January 4, 1642) to seize six of the most refractory members, for the purpose of striking terror into the rest. This served to widen still further the breach. In the earlier part of 1642, the two parties severally employed themselves in preparing for war. Yet, even now, the king granted some additional concessions to his opponents. It was at last, upon a demand of the Parliament for the command of the army――a privilege always before, and since, resting with the crown――that he finally broke off all amicable intercourse. He now retired with his family to York.
The Parliament found its chief support in the mercantile classes of London and of the eastern coast of England, which was then more devoted to trade than the west, and in the Puritan party generally, who were allied intimately with the Presbyterians of Scotland, if not rapidly becoming assimilated with them. Charles on the other hand looked for aid to the nobility and gentry, who were able to bring a considerable number of dependents into the field. The Parliamentary party was by the other styled _Roundheads_, in consequence of their wearing short hair; while the friends of the Parliament bestowed upon their opponents the epithet of _Malignants_. The Royalists were also, in the field, termed Cavaliers, from so many of them being horsemen. On the 25th of August 1642 the king erected his standard at Nottingham, and soon found himself at the head of an army of about ten thousand men. The Parliament had superior forces, and a better supply of arms; but both parties were very ignorant of the art of war. The king commanded his own army in person, while the Parliamentary forces were put under the charge of the Earl of Essex.
The first battle took place, October 23, at Edgehill, in Warwickshire, where the king had rather the advantage, though at the expense of a great number of men. He gained some further triumphs before the end of the campaign, but still could not muster so large an army as the Parliament. During the winter, the parties opened a negotiation at Oxford; but the demands of the Parliament being still deemed too great by the king, it came to no successful issue.
Early in the ensuing season, the king gained some considerable advantages; he defeated a Parliamentary army under Sir William Waller at Stratton, and soon after took the city of Bristol. It only remained for him to take Gloucester, in order to confine the insurrection entirely to the eastern provinces. It was even thought at this time that he might have easily obtained possession of London, and thereby put an end to the war. Instead of making such an attempt, he caused siege to be laid to Gloucester, which the army of Essex relieved when it was just on the point of capitulating. As the Parliamentary army was returning to London, it was attacked by the royal forces at Newbury, and all but defeated. Another section of the royal army in the north, under the Marquis of Newcastle, gained some advantages; and, upon the whole, at the close of the campaign of 1643, the Parliamentary cause was by no means in a flourishing condition.
In this war there was hardly any respectable military quality exhibited besides courage. The Royalists used to rush upon the enemy opposed to them, without any other design than to cut down as many as possible, and when any part of the army was successful, it never returned to the field while a single enemy remained to be pursued; the consequence of which was, that one wing was sometimes victorious, while the remainder was completely beaten. The Parliamentary troops, though animated by an enthusiastic feeling of religion, were somewhat steadier, but nevertheless had no extensive or combined plan of military operations. The first appearance of a superior kind of discipline was exhibited in a regiment of horse commanded by Oliver Cromwell, a gentleman of small fortune, who had been a brewer, but was destined, by great talent, and address, joined to an unrelenting disposition, to rise to supreme authority. Cromwell, though himself inexperienced in military affairs, showed from the very first a power of drilling and managing troops, which no other man in either army seemed to possess. Hence his regiment soon became famous for its exploits.
SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT
The Royal successes of 1643 distressed alike the English Parliament and the Scottish nation, who now began to fear the loss of all the political meliorations they had wrested from the king. The two Parliaments therefore entered, in July, into a _Solemn League and Covenant_, for prosecuting the war in concert, with the view of ultimately settling both church and state in a manner consistent with the liberties of the people. In terms of this bond, the Scots raised an army of twenty-one thousand men, who entered England in January 1644; and on the 1st of July, in company with a large body of English forces, overthrew the king’s northern army on Long Marston Moor.
The defeat was severely felt by the king. He gained a victory over Waller at Copredy Bridge, and caused Essex’s army to capitulate in Cornwall (September 1); but in consequence of a second fight at Newbury (October 27), in which he suffered a defeat, he was left at the end of the campaign with greatly diminished resources. A new negotiation was commenced at Uxbridge; but the terms asked by the Parliament were so exorbitant, as to show no sincere desire of ending the war.
In truth, though the Presbyterian party were perhaps anxious for peace, there was another party, now fast rising into importance, who were actuated by no such wishes. These were the Independents, a body of men who wished to see a republic established in the state, and all formalties whatever removed from the national religion. Among the leaders of the party was Oliver Cromwell, whose mind seems to have already become inspired with lofty views of personal aggrandizement. This extraordinary man had sufficient address to carry a famous act called the _Self-Denying Ordinance_, which ostensibly aimed at depriving all members of the legislature of commands in the army, but had the effect only of displacing a few noblemen who were obnoxious to his designs. He also carried an act for modeling the army anew, in which process he took care that all who might be expected to oppose his views should be excluded. It was this party more particularly that prevented any accommodation taking place between the king and his subjects.
CONCLUSION OF THE CIVIL WAR.
The English campaign of 1645 ended in the complete overthrow of the king. Throughout the war, his enemies had been continually improving in discipline, in conduct, and in that enthusiasm which animated them so largely; while the Royalists had become, out of a mere principle of opposition, so extremely licentious, as to be rather a terror to their friends than to their enemies. The new-modeling of the Parliamentary army, which took place early in 1645, had also added much to the effectiveness of the troops, who were now nominally commanded by Sir Thomas Fairfax, but in reality by Oliver Cromwell, who bore the rank of lieutenant-general. The consequence was that, in a pitched battle at Naseby (June 14), the king was so completely beaten, that he and his party could no longer keep the field. He had no resource but to retire into Oxford, a town zealously affected to his cause, and well fortified.
He endeavored, from this forlorn position, to renew the negotiations for a peace; but every attempt of that kind was frustrated by the Independents, who, though a minority in the House of Commons, possessed great power through the army, and, as already mentioned, were desirous of effecting greater changes in church and state than those for which the war was originally undertaken. Dreading the influence of this body, Charles retired privately from Oxford (May 1646) on the approach of the Parliamentary forces, and put himself under the protection of the Scottish army at Newark.
As the views of the Scotch throughout the war had been steadily confined to the security of the Presbyterian religion, along with the safety of the king’s person and the establishment of a limited monarchy, they received him with great respect at their camp, and entered into negotiations for effecting their grand object. If Charles would have acceded to their views, he might have immediately resumed a great part of his former power; and the agitations of many subsequent years, as well as his own life, might have been spared. But this was forbidden, not only by his strong prepossession in favor of the Episcopal forms of worship, but also by his conviction, that the Episcopal form of church government was alone compatible with the existence of monarchy. He therefore disagreed with the Presbyterians on the very point which they considered the most vital and important.
From the time when Charles first threw himself into the Scottish camp, the English Parliament had made repeated and strenuous demands for the surrender of his person into their hands. The Scots, however, though acting partly as a mercenary army, asserted their right, as an independent nation under the authority of the king, to retain and protect him. At length, despairing of inducing him to sanction the Presbyterian forms, and tempted by the sum of £400,000, which was given to them as a compensation for their arrears of pay, they consented to deliver up their monarch, but certainly without any apprehension of his life being in danger, and, indeed, to a party quite different from that by which he afterwards suffered. The Scottish army then retired (January 1647) to their native country, and were there disbanded.
The king was now placed in Holdenby Castle, and negotiations were opened for restoring him to power, under certain restrictions. While these were pending, the Parliament deemed it unnecessary to keep up the army, more especially as its spirit was plainly observed to be of a dangerous character. On attempting, however, to dismiss this powerful force, the English Commons found that their late servants were become their masters. The troops began to hold something like a Parliament in their own camp; a party of them, under Cornet Joyce, seized the king’s person, and brought him to Hampton Court. Cromwell, who was at the bottom of their machinations, received from them the chief command; and at his instigation they retorted upon the Parliament with a demand for the dismissal of the leaders of the Presbyterian party, and a general right of new-modeling the government and settling the nation. The House of Commons, supported by the city of London, made a bold opposition to these demands, but was ultimately obliged to yield to a force which it had no means of resisting. From that time military violence exercised an almost uncontrolled mastery over England.
TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF THE KING.
The leaders of the army being anxious to fortify themselves by all possible means against the Presbyterians, opened a negotiation with the king, whose influence, such as it now was, they proposed to purchase, by allowing Episcopacy to be the state religion, and leaving him in command of the militia. Charles, however, with characteristic insincerity, carried on at the same time a negotiation with the Presbyterians, which, being discovered by the military chiefs, caused them to break off all terms with him. Under dread of their resentment, he made his escape from Hampton Court (November 11, 1647): and after an unsuccessful atempt to leave the kingdom, was obliged to put himself under the charge of the governor of Carisbrooke Castle, in the Isle of Wight. Here he entered upon a new negotiation with the House of Commons, to whom he made proposals, and from whom he received certain proposals in return; all of which were, however, rendered of non-avail by a secret treaty which he at the same time carried on with a moderate party of the Scottish Presbyterians.
He finally agreed with the latter party, but under strict secrecy, to give their form of church government a trial of three years, and yield to them in several other points; they, in return, binding themselves to unite their strength with the English Royalists, for the purpose of putting down the Independent party, now predominant in the English Parliament. With some difficulty the Duke of Hamilton and others, who conducted this negotiation, succeeded, by a vote of the Scottish Parliament, in raising an army of 12,000 men, with which they invaded England in the summer of 1648. The more zealous of the clergy and people of Scotland protested against an enterprise, which, from its cooperating with Royalists and Episcopalians, and not perfectly insuring the ascendancy of the Presbyterian church, appeared to them as neither deserving of success nor likely to command it. As the Scottish army penetrated the western counties, parties of Presbyterians and Royalists rose in different parts of England, and for some time the ascendancy of the Independents seemed to be in considerable peril. But before the forces of the enemy could be brought together, Cromwell, with 8000 veteran troops, attacked and overthrew Hamilton at Preston, while Fairfax put down the insurgents in Kent and Essex. Hamilton was himself taken prisoner, and very few of his troops ever returned to their native country.
While Cromwell was employed in suppressing this insurrection, and in restoring a friendly government in Scotland, the Presbyterians of the House of Commons, relieved from military intimidation, entered upon a new negotiation with Charles, which was drawing towards what appeared a successful conclusion――though the king secretly designed to deceive them, and to pursue other means for an effectual restoration――when the army returned to London, breathing vengeance against him for the last war, of which they considered him as the author. Finding the Parliament in the act of voting his concessions to be satisfactory, Cromwell sent two regiments, under Colonel Pride, who forcibly excluded from it about two hundred members of the Presbyterian party; a transaction remembered by the epithet of _Pride’s Purge_. The remainder, being chiefly Independents, were ready to give a color of law to whatever farther measure might be dictated by the military leaders. Convinced of the utter faithlessness of the king, and that, if he continued to live, he would take the earliest opportunity of revenging himself for what had already been done, Cromwell and his associates resolved to put him to death. A high court of Justice, as it was called, was appointed by ordinance, consisting of a hundred and thirty-three persons, named indifferently from the Parliament, the army, and such of the citizens as were known to be well affected to the Independent party. This body sat down in Westminster Hall (January 20, 1649), under the presidency of a barrister named Bradshaw, while another named Coke acted as solicitor for the people of England. Charles, who had been removed to St James’ Palace, was brought before this court, and accused of having waged and renewed war upon his people, and of having attempted to establish tyranny in place of the limited regal power with which he had been intrusted. He denied the authority of the court, and protested against the whole of the proceedings, but was nevertheless found guilty and condemned to die. On the 30th of January, he was accordingly beheaded in front of his palace of Whitehall.
THE COMMONWEALTH――SUBJUGATION OF IRELAND AND SCOTLAND.
Though the execution of the king produced a considerable reaction in favor of royalty, the small remaining part of the House of Commons, which got the ridiculous name of the _Rump_, now established a republic, under the title of the Commonwealth, the executive being trusted, under great limitations, to a council of forty-one members, while in reality Cromwell possessed the chief influence. The House of Peers was voted a grievance, and abolished, and the people were declared to be the legitimate source of all power. Soon after the king’s death, the Duke of Hamilton, and a few other of his chief adherents, were executed.
During the progress of the civil war, Ireland had been the scene of almost ceaseless contention among the various parties of the king, the English House of Commons, and the Catholics, none of which could effectually suppress the rest. The most remarkable event was a secret agreement which Charles made, in 1646, with the Earl of Glamorgan, to establish the Catholic religion in Ireland, on condition that its partisans should assist him in putting down his enemies in England and Scotland; a transaction which ultimately injured his reputation, without leading to any solid advantage. At the time of his execution, the Royalists were in considerable strength under the Duke of Ormond, while Hugh O’Neill was at the head of a large party of Catholics, who were not indisposed to join the other party, provided they could be assured of the establishment of their religion. While the two parties in union could have easily rescued the country from the English connection, Cromwell landed (August 1649) with 12,000 horse and foot, and in a series of victories over the scattered forces of his various opponents, succeeded without any great difficulty in asserting the sway of the Commonwealth. One of his most important actions was the capture of Drogheda, where he put the garrison and a number of Catholic priests to the sword, in order to strike terror into the nation.
The people of Scotland, who had had scarcely any other object in the civil war than the establishment of their favorite form of worship, and were sincere friends to a limited monarchy, heard of the death of the king with the greatest indignation, and immediately proclaimed his eldest son Charles. Early in 1650, the young monarch, who had taken refuge in Holland, sent Montrose with a small force to attempt a Cavalier insurrection in Scotland; but this nobleman being taken and put to death, Charles found it necessary to accede to the views of the Scotch respecting the Presbyterian religion, and he was accordingly brought over and put at the head of a considerable army, though under great restrictions. Cromwell, who had now nearly completed the conquest of Ireland, lost no time in returning to London, and organizing an army for the suppression of this new attempt against the Commonwealth. On the 19th of July he crossed the Tweed, and advanced through a deserted country to Edinburgh, where the Scottish army lay in a fortified camp. Sickness in his army, and the want of provisions, soon after compelled him to retreat; and the Scottish army, following upon his rear, brought him into a straightened position near Dunbar, where he would soon have been under the necessity of surrendering. In the midst of his perplexities (September 3), he beheld the Scots advancing from the neighboring heights to give him battle, and, in a transport of joy, exclaimed ‘The Lord hath delivered them into our hands!’ The movement was solely the result of interference on the part of the clergy who followed the Scottish camp: the better sense of Gen. Leslie would have waited for the voluntary surrender of his enemy. In the fight which ensued, the veteran troops of Cromwell soon proved victorious. The Scots fled in consternation and confusion, and were cut down in thousands by their pursuers. This gained for Cromwell the possession of the capital and of all the south east provinces; but the Covenanters still made a strong appearance at Stirling.
Cromwell spent a whole year in the country, vainly endeavoring to bring on another action. During the interval (January 1, 1651), the Scots crowned the young king at Scone, part of the ceremony consisting in his acceptance of the Solemn League and Covenant. In the ensuing summer, Cromwell at length contrived to out-flank the position of the Scottish army; but the result was, that Charles led his troops into England without opposition and made a very threatening advance upon the capital. Ere the Royalists had time to rally around him, Cromwell overtook the king at Worcester, where, after a stoutly-contested fight (September 3, 1651), he proved completely victorious. Charles, with great difficulty, escaped abroad, and Scotland, no longer possessed of a military force to defend it self, submitted to the conqueror. All the courts of the Scottish church were suppressed, and the ministers were left no privilege but that of preaching to their flocks. The country was kept in check by a small army under General Monk, and in a short time was declared by proclamation to be united with England.
THE PROTECTORATE.