[1642 A.D.] absolute authority. In the same way, the declarations of the parliament approached the great questions in dispute, in the like spirit of acknowledgment that there was a court of appeal beyond the battle-field, where truth and right would ultimately prevail. This warfare of the pen gradually engaged all the master minds of the country; some using the nobler artillery of earnest reasoning and impassioned rhetoric; others emptying their quivers of vehement satire, or casting their dirty missiles of abuse, on the opponents of their party. Milton enters upon his task with a solemn expression: Cleveland rushes into the fray with an alacrity that suits his impetuous nature: "Ring the bells backward; I am all on fire; Not all the buckets in a country quire Shall quench my rage.” Herrick was living in his vicarage of Dean Prior in Devonshire, disliking the "people currish, churlish as the seas," amongst whom he lived; scarcely venturing to print till he was ejected from his benefice; but solacing his loyalty with the composition of stanzas to "the prince of cavaliers," and recording his political faith in two lines, which comprehended the creed of the "thorough" royalists: "The gods to kings the judgment give to sway. The general tone of the poets is expressed by Lovelace: "Our careless heads with roses bound, Our hearts with loyal flames." Butler, from the time when he left his father's cottage at Strensham, on the banks of the Avon, to note down those manifold characteristics of his time which furnish the best picture of its common life, was a royalist. Cleveland, Carew, Suckling, Denham, Herrick, Butler, form a galaxy of cavalier versemakers. The dramatic poets, who were left to see the suppression of the theatres, such as Shirley, were naturally amongst the most ardent haters of the Puritan parliament. But Milton did not quite stand alone amongst those with whom civil and religious liberty was a higher sentiment than loyalty to the king. George Wither was the poet of Puritanism, as ready with bitter invective as Cleveland. The inferior men of letters then rushed to take up the weapons of party in the small newspapers of the time. Their name was legion. Their chief writers, Marchamont Needham on the parliament side with his "Mercurius Britannicus," and John Birkenhead on the royalist side with his "Mercurius Aulicus," were models of scurrility. Whatever were their demerits, the little newspapers produced a powerful effect. They were distributed through the villages by the carriers and foot-posts. THE OUTBREAK OF WAR Such, then, is a very imperfect sketch of a few of the salient points of English society, at the time when rival armies of Englishmen stood front to front in the midland counties. The king in August had vainly attempted to obtain possession of Coventry. He had then gone to Leicester with a body [1642 A.D.] of cavalry. On the 21st of August, the king's nephew, Prince Rupert, had joined him, and received the command of the horse. The next day, as we saw in the last chapter, they rode to Nottingham. The king's purpose was, upon Nottingham Castle, to set up his standard - a ceremony which had not been seen in England since Richard III had raised his standard in Bosworth Field - a ceremony which was held by some legists to be equivalent to a declaration that the kingdom was in a state of war, and that the ordinary course of law was at an end. A stormy night came on; and, omen of disaster as many thought, the standard was blown down. The setting-up of the standard would appear from Clarendon's account to have been a hasty and somewhat desperate act. The king had previously issued a proclamation "requiring the aid and assistance of all his subjects on the north side of the Trent, and within twenty miles southward thereof, for the suppressing of the rebels, now marching against him." Clarendon says, "there appeared no conflux of men in obedience to the proclamation; the arms and ammunition were not yet come from York, and a general sadness covered the whole town." g Of Prince Rupert, the king's cavalry leader whom Pepysh called "the boldest attagner in the world" it may be well to state the previous career.a Rupert, prince of Bavaria, the third son of Frederick V, elector palatine and king of Bohemia, and of Elizabeth, sister of Charles I of England, was born at Prague on December 18, 1619. In 1630 he was placed at the university of Leyden, where he showed particular readiness in languages and in military discipline. In 1633 he was with the prince of Orange at the siege of Rhynberg, and served against the Spaniards as a volunteer in the prince's lifeguard. In December, 1635, he was at the English court, and was named as leader of the proposed expedition to Madagascar. In 1636 he visited Oxford, when he was made master of arts. Returning to the Hague in 1638 he made the first display of his reckless bravery at the siege of Breda, and shortly afterwards was taken prisoner by the Austrians in the battle before Lemgo. For three years he was confined at Linz, where he withstood the endeavours made to induce him to change his religion and to take service with the emperor. Upon his release in 1642 he returned to the Hague, and from thence went to Dover, but, the Civil War not having yet begun, he returned immediately to Holland. Charles now named Rupert general of the horse, and he joined the king at Leicester in August 1642, being present at the raising of the standard at Nottingham. He was also made a knight of the Garter. It is particularly to be noticed that he brought with him several military inventions, and, especially, introduced the "German discipline" in his cavalry operations. He at once displayed the most astonishing activity. The king, in new proclamations, repeated his declarations of the treason of the earl of Essex and others; at the moment when he had made another proposition that he would withdraw his proclamations if the parliament would withdraw theirs. Neither party would make the first concession. There is [1642 A.D.] nothing more remarkable, amidst the anger and suspicion of this momentous period, than the evident reluctance of both parties to proceed to extremities. In such a conflict all would be losers. But, there being no alternative but war, the parliament, on the 9th of September, 1642, published a declaration to the whole kingdom, setting forth the causes of the war. On that day, the earl of Essex marched in great state out of London to join the army in the midland counties with the trained bands. A few weeks later the parliament ordered London to be fortified; and the population, one and all, men, women, and children, turned out, day by day, to dig ditches, and carry stones for their bulwarks. The flame of war is bursting forth in many places at once. Fortified towns are changing their military occupants. Portsmouth had capitulated to the parliament's army a fortnight before the king raised his standard at Nottingham. Lord Northampton, a royalist, had seized the stores at Banbury, and marched to the attack of Warwick Castle. That ancient seat of feudal grandeur was successfully defended by the commander who had been left in charge, whilst Lord Brooke marched with some forces to the parliament's quarters. Every manor-house was put by its occupiers into a state of defence. The heroic attitude of the English ladies who, in the absence of their husbands, held out against attacks whether of Cavaliers or Roundheads, was first exhibited at Caldecot manor-house, in the north of Warwickshire. Mrs. Purefoy, the wife of William Purefoy, a member of the house of commons, defended her house against Prince Rupert and four hundred cavaliers. The little garrison consisted of the brave lady and her two daughters, her son-inlaw, eight male servants, and a few female. They had twelve muskets, which the women loaded as the men discharged them from the windows. The out buildings were set on fire, and the house would have been burnt had not the lady gone forth, and claimed the protection of the cavaliers. Rupert respected her courage, and would not suffer her property to be plundered. This young man, who occupies so prominent a part in the military operations of the Civil War, was only twenty-three when Charles made him his general of horse. He had served in the wars for the recovery of the Palatinate, and had exhibited the bravery for which he was ever afterwards distinguished. But in his early warfare he had seen life unsparingly sacrificed, women and children put to the sword, villages and towns burnt, the means of subsistence for a peaceful population recklessly destroyed. His career in England did much to make the king's cause unpopular, though his predatory havoc has probably been exaggerated. The confidence which the king placed in him as a commander was not justified by his possession of the high qualities of a general. About the middle of September, Charles marched with his small army from Nottingham to Derby. Essex, with the forces of the parliament, was at Northampton. The king's plans were very vague; but he at last determined to occupy Shrewsbury. He halted his army on the 19th at Wellington, where he published a "protestation," in which, amongst other assurances, he said, "I do solemnly and faithfully promise, in the sight of God, to maintain the just privileges and freedom of parliament, and to govern by the known laws of the land to my utmost power; and, particularly, to observe inviolably the laws consented to by me this parliament." There is a remarkable letter of the queen to the king, dated the 3rd of November, in which she expresses her indignant surprise that he should have made any such engagement. The only notion that the queen had of "royalty" was that it was to be "absolute." Who can believe that Charles ever resigned that fatal idea? [1642 A.D.] FIRST ENGAGEMENTS: THE BATTLE OF EDGEHILL Here On the 22nd of September, Essex moved his army to Worcester. the first rencounter took place between the cavalry of Rupert and the parliamentary cuirassiers. The royalists had a decided advantage. Ludlow i who was in the skirmish, gives a ludicrous account of the inexperience, and something worse, of the parliament's raw troops. The lieutenant "commanded us to wheel about; but our gentlemen, not yet well understanding the difference between wheeling about and shifting for themselves, their backs being now towards the enemy whom they thought to be close in the rear, retired to the army in a very dishonourable manner; and the next morning rallied at head-quarters, where we received but cold welcome from our general, as we well deserved." After remaining at Shrewsbury about twenty days, Charles resolved to march towards London. He expected that, as the armies approached each other, many soldiers would come over to the royal standard. He was almost without money, except a sum of six thousand pounds which he received by "making merchandise of honour," to use Clarendon's † expression -being the price for which he created Sir Richard Newport a baron. His foot-soldiers were mostly armed with muskets; but three or four hundred had for their only weapon a cudgel. Few of the musketeers had swords, and the pikemen were without corselets. The royal army moved from Shrewsbury on the 12th of October, on to Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and Kenilworth. Two days after, the earl of Essex marched from Worcester in the direction which Charles had taken. They were only separated by twenty miles when the king first moved from Shrewsbury, but it was ten days before they came near each other. "Neither army," says Clarendon, "knew where the other was." On the night of the 22nd of October, the king was at Edgecote, a village near Banbury. The council broke up late. There was disunion in the camp. The earl of Lindsay by his commission was general of the whole army; but when Charles appointed Prince Rupert his general of horse, he exempted him from receiving orders from any one but the king himself - to such extent did this king carry his overweening pride of blood. Rupert insolently refused to take the royal directions through Lord Falkland, the secretary of state. In the same spirit, when a battle was expected, Charles took the advice of his nephew, rejecting the opinion of the veteran Lindsay. On Sunday morning, the 23rd, the banner of Charles was waving on the top of Edgehill, which commanded a prospect of the valley in which a part of the army of Essex was moving. The greater portion of the parliament's artillery, with two regiments of foot and one of horse, was a day's march behind. The king, having the advantage of numbers, determined to engage. He appeared amongst his ranks, with a black velvet mantle over his armour, and wearing his star and garter. He addressed his troops, declaring his love to his whole kingdom, but asserting his royal authority "derived from God, whose substitute, and supreme governor under Christ, I am." At two o'clock the royal army descended the hill. "Sir Jacob Astley," writes Warwick,k was major-general of the army under the earl of Lindsay; who, before the charge of the battle at Edgehill, made a most excellent, pious, short, and soldierly prayer: for he lifted up his eyes and hands to Heaven, saying, 'O Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day; if I forget Thee, do not Thou forget me,' And with that rose up, crying 'March on, boys."" "The great shot was exchanged on both sides, for the space of an hour or thereabouts. By this time the foot began to engage; and a party of the [1642 A.D.] enemy being sent to line some hedges on our right wing, thereby to beat us from our ground, were repulsed by our dragoons," says Clarendon. The foot soldiers on each side engaged with little result. But Rupert, at the head of his horse, threw the parliament's left wing into disorder. The disaster was attributable to the desertion of Sir Faithful Fortescue, who went over with his troop to the royalists, when he was ordered to charge. The fiery prince pursued the flying squadrons for three miles; he was engaged in plundering the parliamentary baggage-waggons, whilst the main body of the king's forces was sorely pressed by the foot and horse of Essex. The king's standard was taken. Sir Edmund Varney, the standard-bearer, was killed. The standard was afterwards recovered by a stratagem of two royalist officers, who put on the orange-scarf of Essex, and demanded the great prize from his secretary, to whom it had been entrusted. It was yielded by the unfortunate penman to those who bore the badge of his master. Brave old Lindsay was mortally wounded, and taken prisoner. Other royalists of distinction were killed. "When Prince Rupert returned from the charge," writes Clarendon, “he found this great alteration in the field, and his majesty himself with few noblemen and a small retinue about him, and the hope of so glorious a day quite banished." Many around the king counselled a retreat; but Charles, with equal courage and sagacity, resolved to keep his ground. "He spent the night in the field, by such a fire as could be made of the little wood and bushes which grew thereabouts." When the day appeared, the parliamentary army still lay beneath Edgehill. It was, in most respects, a drawn battle. Gradually each army moved off, one to attack London, the other to defend it. The number of the slain at Edgehill was variously estimated by the two parties. Ludlowi very impartially says, "it was observed that the greatest slaughter on our side was of such as ran away, and on the enemy's side of those that stood." There was no general desire in either army to renew the struggle. THE KING REPULSED AT TURNHAM GREEN (1642 A.D.) After the battle of Edgehill the king wasted a few days in occupying Banbury and other small places, and on the 26th was with his army at Oxford. Essex was slowly advancing with his army towards London, and at the end of the month was at Northampton. In November Essex arrived, and received the thanks of the two houses. On the 11th of November Charles was at Colnbrook. Thither went a deputation from the parliament, under a safe conduct, to propose that the king should appoint some convenient place to reside, near London, "until committees of both houses of parliament may attend your majesty with some propositions for the removal of these bloody distempers and distractions." The king met the deputation favourably, and proposed to receive such propositions at Windsor. "Do your duty," he said, "we will not be wanting in ours. God in his mercy give a blessing.' Ludlow records the duplicity which followed this negotiation: "Upon which answer the parliament thought themselves secure, at least against any sudden attempt: but the very next day the king, taking the advantage of a very thick mist, marched his army within half a mile of Brentford before he was discovered, designing to surprise our train of artillery (which was then at Hammersmith), the parliament, and city." Clarendon / endeavours to throw the blame of this dishonour upon Rupert. The "assault intended for the city" at last became a reality. On the morning of the 12th of November, the sound of distant guns was heard in London. Before noon Rupert was charging in the streets of Brentford. The |