Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 22)

J. Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Vane.

ALSO IN: J. K. Hosmer, Life of Young Sir Henry Vane, chapter 8.

A. F. Mitchell, The Westminster Assembly, lectures 5-6.

D. Neal, History of the Puritans, volume 3, chapter 2.

S. R. Gardiner, Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, page 187.

The following is the text of the Solemn League and Covenant:

"A solemn league and covenant for Reformation and defence of religion, the honour and happiness of the King, and the peace and safety of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. We noblemen, barons, knights, gentlemen, citizens, burgesses, ministers of the Gospel, and commons of all sorts in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, by the providence of God living under one King, and being of one reformed religion; having before our eyes the glory of God, and the advancement of the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the honour and happiness of the King's Majesty and his posterity, and the true public liberty, safety and peace of the kingdoms, wherein everyone's private condition is included; and calling to mind the treacherous and bloody plots, conspiracies, attempts and practices of the enemies of God against the true religion and professors thereof in all places, especially in these three kingdoms, ever since the reformation of religion; and how much their rage, power and presumption are of late, and at this time increased and exercised, whereof the deplorable estate of the Church and kingdom of Ireland, the distressed estate of the Church and kingdom of England, and the dangerous estate of the Church and kingdom of Scotland, are present and public testimonies: we have (now at last) after other means of supplication, remonstrance, protestations and sufferings, for the preservation of ourselves and our religion from utter ruin and destruction, according to the commendable practice of these kingdoms in former times, and the example of God's people in other nations, after mature deliberation, resolved and determined to enter into a mutual and solemn league and covenant, wherein we all subscribe, and each one of us for himself, with our hands lifted up to the most high God, do swear,

I. That we shall sincerely, really and constantly, through the grace of God, endeavour in our several places and callings, the preservation of the reformed religion in the Church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, against our common enemies; the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, according to the Word of God, and the example of the best reformed Churches; and we shall endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of Church government, directory for worship and catechising, that we, and our posterity after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us.

II. That we shall in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavour the extirpation of Popery, prelacy (that is, Church government by Archbishops, Bishops, their Chancellors and Commissaries, Deans, Deans and Chapters, Archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy), superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness lest we partake in other men's sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues; and that the Lord may be one, and His name one in the three kingdoms.

{872}

III. We shall with the same sincerity, reality and constancy, in our several vocations, endeavour with our estates and lives mutually to preserve the rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdoms, and to preserve and defend the King's Majesty's person and authority, in the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms, that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish His Majesty's just power and greatness.

IV. We shall also with all faithfulness endeavour the discovery of all such as have been or shall be incendiaries, malignants or evil instruments, by hindering the reformation of religion, dividing the King from his people, or one of the kingdoms from another, or making any faction or parties amongst the people, contrary to the league and covenant, that they may be brought to public trial and receive condign punishment, as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve, or the supreme judicatories of both kingdoms respectively, or others having power from them for that effect, shall judge convenient.

V. And whereas the happiness of a blessed peace between these kingdoms, denied in former times to our progenitors, is by the good providence of God granted to us, and hath been lately concluded and settled by both Parliaments: we shall each one of us, according to our places and interest, endeavour that they may remain conjoined in a firm peace and union to all posterity, and that justice may be done upon the wilful opposers thereof, in manner expressed in the precedent articles.

VI. We shall also, according to our places and callings, in this common cause of religion, liberty and peace of the kingdom, assist and defend all those that enter into this league and covenant, in the maintaining and pursuing thereof; and shall not suffer ourselves, directly or indirectly, by whatsoever combination, persuasion or terror, to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed union and conjunction, whether to make defection to the contrary part, or give ourselves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this cause, which so much concerneth the glory of God, the good of the kingdoms, and the honour of the King; but shall all the days of our lives zealously and constantly continue therein, against all opposition, and promote the same according to our power, against all lets and impediments whatsoever; and what we are not able ourselves to suppress or overcome we shall reveal and make known, that it may be timely prevented or removed: all which we shall do as in the sight of God. And because these kingdoms are guilty of many sins and provocations against God, and His Son Jesus Christ, as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers, the fruits thereof: we profess and declare, before God and the world, our unfeigned desire to be humbled for our own sins, and for the sins of these kingdoms; especially that we have not as we ought valued the inestimable benefit of the Gospel; that we have not laboured for the purity and power thereof; and that we have not endeavoured to receive Christ in our hearts, nor to walk worthy of Him in our lives, which are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us, and our true and unfeigned purpose, desire and endeavour, for ourselves and all others under our power and charge, both in public and in private, in all duties we owe to God and man, to amend our lives, and each one to go before another in the example of a real reformation, that the Lord may turn away His wrath and heavy indignation, and establish these Churches and kingdoms in truth and peace. And this covenant we make in the presence of Almighty God, the Searcher of all hearts, with a true intention to perform the same, as we shall answer at that Great Day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed: most humbly beseeching the Lord to strengthen us by His Holy Spirit for this end, and to bless our desires and Proceedings with such success as may be a deliverance and safety to His people, and encouragement to the Christian Churches groaning under or in danger of the yoke of Anti-Christian tyranny, to join in the same or like association and covenant, to the glory of God, the enlargement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and the peace and tranquility of Christian kingdoms and commonwealths."

ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (August-September). Siege of Gloucester and first Battle of Newbury.

"When the war had lasted a year, the advantage was decidedly with the Royalists. They were victorious, both in the western and in the northern counties. They had wrested Bristol, the second city in the kingdom, from the Parliament. They had won several battles, and had not sustained a single serious or ignominious defeat. Among the Roundheads, adversity had begun to produce dissension and discontent. The Parliament was kept in alarm, sometimes by plots and sometimes by riots. It was thought necessary to fortify London against the royal army, and to hang some disaffected citizens at their own doors. Several of the most distinguished peers who had hitherto remained at Westminster fled to the court at Oxford; nor can it be doubted that, if the operations of the Cavaliers had, at this season, been directed by a sagacious and powerful mind, Charles would soon have marched in triumph to Whitehall. But the King suffered the auspicious moment to pass away; and it never returned. In August, 1643, he sate down before the city of Gloucester. That city was defended by the inhabitants and by the garrison, with a determination such as had not, since the commencement of the war, been shown by the adherents of the Parliament. The emulation of London was excited. The trainbands of the City volunteered to march wherever their services might be required. A great force was speedily collected, and began to move westward. The siege of Gloucester was raised. The Royalists in every part of the kingdom were disheartened; the spirit of the parliamentary party revived; and the apostate Lords, who had lately fled from Westminster to Oxford, hastened back from Oxford to Westminster."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 1.

After accomplishing the relief of Gloucester, the Parliamentary army, marching back to London, was intercepted at Newbury by the army of the king, and forced to fight a battle, September 20, 1643, in which both parties, as at Edgehill, claimed the victory. The Royalists, however, failed to bar the road to London, as they had undertaken to do, and Essex resumed his march on the following morning.

{873}

"In this unhappy battle was slain the lord viscount Falkland; a person of such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive sincerity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed war than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity."

Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, book 7, section 217.

This lamented death on the royal side nearly evened, so to speak, the great, unmeasured calamity which had befallen the better cause three months before, when the high-souled patriot Hampden was slain in a paltry skirmish with Rupert's horse, at Chalgrove Field, not far from the borders of Oxfordshire. Soon after the fight at Newbury, Charles, having occupied Reading, withdrew his army to Oxford and went into winter quarters.

N. L. Walford, Parliamentary Generals of the Great Civil War, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: Sir E. Cust, Lives of the Warriors of the Civil Wars, part 2.

S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, chapter 10 (volume 1).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (January). Battle of Nantwich and siege of Lathom House.

The Irish army brought over by King Charles and landed in Flintshire, in November, 1643, under the command of Lord Byron, invaded Cheshire and laid siege to Nantwich, which was the headquarters of the Parliamentary cause in that region. Young Sir Thomas Fairfax was ordered to collect forces and relieve the town. With great difficulty he succeeded, near the end of January, 1644, in leading 2,500 foot-soldiers and twenty-eight troops of horse, against the besieging army, which numbered 3,000 foot and 1,800 horse. On the 28th of January he attacked and routed the Irish royalists completely. "All the Royalist Colonels, including the subsequently notorious Monk, 1,500 soldiers, six pieces of ordnance, and quantities of arms, were captured." Having accomplished this most important service, Sir Thomas, "to his great annoyance," received orders to lay siege to Lathom House, one of the country seats of the Earl of Derby, which had been fortified and secretly garrisoned, with 300 soldiers. It was held by the high-spirited and dauntless Countess of Derby, in the absence of her husband, who was in the Isle of Man. Sir Thomas Fairfax soon escaped from this ignoble enterprise and left it to be carried on, first, by his cousin, Sir William Fairfax, and afterwards by Colonel Rigby. The Countess defended her house for three months, until the approach of Prince Rupert forced the raising of the siege in the following spring. Lathom House was not finally surrendered to the Roundheads until December 6, 1645, when it was demolished.

C. R. Markham, Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, chapter 13.

ALSO IN: Mrs. Thompson, Recollections of Literary Characters and Celebrated Places, volume 2, chapter 2.

E. Warburton, Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers, page 2, chapter 4.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (January-July). The Scots in England. The Battle of Marston Moor.

"On the 19th of January, 1644, the Scottish army entered England. Lesley, now earl of Leven, commanded them. … In the meantime, the parliament at Westminster formed a council under the title of 'The Committee of the Two Kingdoms,' consisting of seven Lords, fourteen members of the Commons, and four Scottish Commissioners. Whatever belongs to the executive power as distinguished from the legislative devolved upon this Committee. In the spring of 1644 the parliament had five armies in the field, paid by general or local taxation, and by voluntary contributions. Including the Scottish army there were altogether 56,000 men under arms; the English forces being commanded, as separate armies, by Essex, Waller, Manchester, and Fairfax. Essex and Waller advanced to blockade Oxford. The queen went to Exeter in April, and never saw Charles again. The blockading forces around Oxford had become so strong that resistance appeared to be hopeless. On the night of the 3d of June the king secretly left the city and passed safely between the two hostile armies. There had again been jealousies and disagreements between Essex and Waller. Essex, supported by the council of war, but in opposition to the committee of the two kingdoms, had marched to the west. Waller, meanwhile, went in pursuit of the king into Worcestershire, Charles suddenly returned to Oxford; and then at Copredy Bridge, near Banbury, defeated Waller, who had hastened back to encounter him. Essex was before the walls of Exeter, in which city the queen had given birth to a princess. The king hastened to the west. He was strong enough to meet either of the parliamentary armies thus separated. Meanwhile the combined English and Scottish armies were besieging York. Rupert had just accomplished the relief of Lathom House, which had been defended by the heroic countess of Derby for eighteen weeks, against a detachment of the army of Fairfax. He then marched towards York with 20,000 men. The allied English and Scots retired from Hessey Moor, near York, to Tadcaster. Rupert entered York with 2,000 cavalry. The Earl of Newcastle was in command there. He counselled a prudent delay. The impetuous Rupert said he had the orders of the king for his guidance, and he was resolved to fight. On the 2nd of July, having rested two days in and near York, and enabled the city to be newly provisioned, the royalist army went forth to engage. They met their enemy on Marston Moor. The issue of the encounter would have been more than doubtful, but for Cromwell, who for the first time had headed his Ironsides in a great pitched battle. The right wing of the parliamentary army was scattered. Rupert was chasing and slaying the Scottish cavalry. … The charges of Fairfax and Cromwell decided the day. The victory of the parliamentary forces was so complete that the Earl of Newcastle left York, and embarked at Scarborough for the continent. Rupert marched away also, with the wreck of his army, to Chester. Fifteen hundred prisoners, all the artillery, more than 100 banners, remained with the victors; 4,150 bodies lay dead on the plain."

C. Knight, Crown History of England, chapter 25.

ALSO IN: T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 2, letter 8.

B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts, King and Commonwealth, chapter 7.

W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, chapter 12, (volume 1).

E. Warburton, Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers, volume 2, chapter 4.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (August-September). Essex's surrender. The second Battle of Newbury.

{874}

"The great success at Marston, which had given the north to the Parliament, was all undone in the south and west through feebleness and jealousies in the leaders and the wretched policy that directed the war. Detached armies, consisting of a local militia, were aimlessly ordered about by a committee of civilians in London. Disaster followed on disaster. Essex, Waller, and Manchester would neither agree amongst themselves nor obey orders. Essex and Waller had parted before Marston was fought; Manchester had returned from York to protect his own eastern counties. Waller, after his defeat at Copredy, did nothing, and naturally found his army melting away. Essex, perversely advancing into the west, was out-manœuvred by Charles, and ended a campaign of blunders by the surrender of all his infantry [at Fowey, in Cornwall, September 2, 1644]. By September 1644 throughout the whole south-west the Parliament had not an army in the field. But the Committee of the Houses still toiled on with honourable spirit, and at last brought together near Newbury a united army nearly double the strength of the King's. On Sunday, the 29th of October, was fought the second battle of Newbury, as usual in these ill-ordered campaigns, late in the afternoon. An arduous day ended without victory, in spite of the greater numbers of the Parliament's army, though the men fought well, and their officers led them with skill and energy. At night the King was suffered to withdraw his army without loss, and later to carry off his guns and train. The urgent appeals of Cromwell and his officers could not infuse into Manchester energy to win the day, or spirit to pursue the retreating foe."

F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts, King and Commonwealth, chapters 7.

S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, chapters 19 and 21.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1644-1645. The Self-denying Ordinance.

"Cromwell had shown his capacity for organization in the creation of the Ironsides; his military genius had displayed itself at Marston Moor. Newbury first raised him into a political leader. 'Without a more speedy, vigorous and effective prosecution of the war,' he said to the Commons after his quarrel with Manchester, 'casting off all lingering proceedings, like those of soldiers of fortune beyond sea to spin out a war, we shall make the kingdom weary of us, and hate the name of a Parliament.' But under the leaders who at present conducted it a vigorous conduct of the war was hopeless. They were, in Cromwell's plain words, 'afraid to conquer.' They desired not to crush Charles, but to force him back, with as much of his old strength remaining as might be, to the position of a constitutional King. … The army, too, as he long ago urged at Edgehill, was not an army to conquer with. Now, as then, he urged that till the whole force was new modeled, and placed under a stricter discipline, 'they must not expect any notable success in anything they went about.' But the first step in such a reorganization must be a change of officers. The army was led and officered by members of the two Houses, and the Self-renouncing [or Self-denying] Ordinance, which was introduced by Cromwell and Vane, declared the tenure of civil or military offices incompatible with a seat in either. In spite of a long and bitter resistance, which was justified at a later time by the political results which followed this rupture of the tie which had hitherto bound the army to the Parliament, the drift of public opinion was too strong to be withstood. The passage of the Ordinance brought about the retirement of Essex, Manchester, and Waller; and the new organization of the army went rapidly on under a new commander-in-chief, Sir Thomas Fairfax, the hero of the long contest in Yorkshire, and who had been raised into fame by his victory at Nantwich and his bravery at Marston Moor."

J. R. Green, Short History of England, chapter 8, section 7.

ALSO IN: W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, chapter 15 (volume l).

J. K. Hosmer, Life of Young Sir Henry Vane, chapter 11.

J. A. Picton, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 10.

J. Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Vane.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (January-February). The attempted Treaty of Uxbridge.

A futile negotiation between the king and Parliament was opened at Uxbridge in January, 1645. "But neither the king nor his advisers entered on it with minds sincerely bent on peace; they, on the one hand, resolute not to swerve from the utmost rigour of a conqueror's terms, without having conquered; and he though more secretly, cherishing illusive hopes of a more triumphant restoration to power than any treaty could be expected to effect. The three leading topics of discussion among the negotiators at Uxbridge were, the church, the militia, and the state of Ireland. Bound by their unhappy covenant, and watched by their Scots colleagues, the English commissioners on the parliament's side demanded the complete establishment of a presbyterian polity, and the substitution of what was called the directory for the Anglican liturgy. Upon this head there was little prospect of a union."

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 10, part 1.

ALSO IN: Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, book 8, sections 209-252 (volume 3).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (January-April). The New Model of the army.

The passage of the Self-denying Ordinance was followed, or accompanied, by the adoption of the scheme for the so-called New Model of the army. "The New Model was organised as follows: 10 Regiments of Cavalry of 600 men, 6,000; 10 Companies of Dragoons of 100 men, 1,000; 10 Regiments of Infantry of 1,400 men, 14,000: Total, 21,000 men.

All officers were to be nominated by Sir Thomas Fairfax, the new General, and (as was insisted upon by the Lords, with the object of excluding the more fanatical Independents) every officer was to sign the covenant within twenty days of his appointment. The cost of this force was estimated at £539,460 per annum, about £1,600,000 of our money. … Sir Thomas Fairfax having been appointed Commander-in-Chief by a vote of both Houses on the 1st of April [A. D. 1645], Essex, Manchester and others of the Lords resigned their commissions on the 2nd. … The name of Cromwell was of course, with those of other members of the Commons, omitted from the original list of the New Model army; but with a significance which could not have escaped remark, the appointment of lieutenant-general was left vacant, while none doubted by whom that vacancy would be filled."

N. L. Walford, The Parliamentary Generals of the Great Civil War, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: Sir E. Cust, Lives of the Warriors of the Civil Wars, part. 2: Fairfax.

{875}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JUNE). The Battle of Naseby.

"Early in April, Fairfax with his new army advanced westward to raise the siege of Taunton, which city Goring was besieging. Before that task was completed he received orders to enter on the siege of Oxford. This did not suit his own views or those of the Independents. They had joined their new army upon the implied condition that decisive battles should be fought. It was therefore with great joy that Fairfax received orders to proceed in pursuit of the royal forces, which, having left Worcester, were marching apparently against the Eastern Association, and had just taken Leicester on their way. Before entering on this active service, Fairfax demanded and obtained leave for Cromwell to serve at least for one battle more in the capacity of Lieutenant-General. He came up with the king in the neighbourhood of Harborough. Charles turned back to meet him, and just by the village of Naseby the great battle known by that name was fought. Cromwell had joined the army, amid the rejoicing shouts of the troops, two days before, with the Association horse. Again the victory seems to have been chiefly due to his skill. In detail it is almost a repetition of the battle of Marston Moor."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 2, page 675.

"The old Hamlet of Naseby stands yet, on its old hill-top, very much as it did in Saxon days, on the Northwestern border of Northamptonshire; nearly on a line, and nearly midway, between that Town and Daventry. A peaceable old Hamlet, of perhaps five hundred souls; clay cottages for laborers, but neatly thatched and swept; smith's shop, saddler's shop, beer-shop all in order; forming a kind of square, which leads off, North and South, into two long streets; the old Church with its graves, stands in the centre, the truncated spire finishing itself with a strange old Ball, held up by rods; a 'hollow copper Ball, which came from Boulogne in Henry the Eighth's time,'—which has, like Hudibras's breeches, 'been at the Siege of Bullen.' The ground is upland, moorland, though now growing corn; was not enclosed till the last generation, and is still somewhat bare of wood. It stands nearly in the heart of England; gentle Dullness, taking a turn at etymology, sometimes derives it from 'Navel'; 'Navesby, quasi Navelsby, from being, &c.' … It was on this high moor-ground, in the centre of England, that King Charles, on the 14th of June, 1645, fought his last Battle; dashed fiercely against the New-Model Army which he had despised till then: and saw himself shivered utterly to ruin thereby. 'Prince Rupert, on the King's right wing, charged up the hill, and carried all before him'; but Lieutenant-General Cromwell charged down hill on the other wing, likewise carrying all before him,—and did not gallop off the field to plunder, he. Cromwell, ordered thither by the Parliament, had arrived from the Association two days before, 'amid shouts from the whole Army': he had the ordering of the Horse this morning. Prince Rupert, on returning from his plunder, finds the King's Infantry a ruin; prepares to charge again with the rallied Cavalry; but the Cavalry too, when it came to the point, 'broke all asunder,'—never to reassemble more. … There were taken here a good few 'ladies of quality in carriages';—and above a hundred Irish ladies not of quality, tattery camp-followers 'with long skean-knives about a foot in length,' which they well knew how to use; upon whom I fear the Ordinance against Papists pressed hard this day. The King's Carriage was also taken, with a Cabinet and many Royal Autographs in it, which when printed made a sad impression against his Majesty,—gave in fact a most melancholy view of the veracity of his Majesty, 'On the word of a King.' All was lost!"

T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 2, letter 29.

ALSO IN: Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, book 9, sections 30-42 (volume 4).

E. Warburton, Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers, volume 3, chapter 1.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JUNE-DECEMBER). Glamorgan's Commissions, and other perfidies of the King disclosed.

"At the battle of Naseby, copies of some letters to the queen, chiefly written about the time of the treaty of Uxbridge, and strangely preserved, fell into the hands of the enemy and were instantly published. No other losses of that fatal day were more injurious to [the king's] cause. … He gave her [the queen] power to treat with the English catholics, promising to take away all penal laws against them as soon as God should enable him to do so, in consideration of such powerful assistance as might deserve so great a favour, and enable him to affect it. … Suspicions were much aggravated by a second discovery that took place soon afterwards, of a secret treaty between the earl of Glamorgan and the confederate Irish catholics, not merely promising the repeal of the penal laws, but the establishment of their religion in far the greater part of Ireland. The marquis of Ormond, as well as lord Digby, who happened to be at Dublin, loudly exclaimed against Glamorgan's presumption in concluding such a treaty, and committed him to prison on a charge of treason. He produced two commissions from the king, secretly granted without any seal or the knowledge of any minister, containing the fullest powers to treat with the Irish, and promising to fulfil any conditions into which he should enter. The king, informed of this, disavowed Glamorgan. … Glamorgan, however, was soon released, and lost no portion of the king's or his family's favour. This transaction has been the subject of much historical controversy. The enemies of Charles, both in his own and later ages, have considered it as a proof of his indifference, at least, to the protestant religion, and of his readiness to accept the assistance of Irish rebels on any conditions. His advocates for a long time denied the authenticity of Glamorgan's commissions. But Dr. Birch demonstrated that they were genuine; and, if his dissertation could have left any doubt, later evidence might be adduced in confirmation."

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 10 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, chapters 39 and 44 (volume 2).

T. Carte, Life of James, Duke of Ormond, book 4 (volume 3).

J. Lingard, History of England, volume 10, chapter 3.

{876}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JULY-AUGUST). The Clubmen.

"When Fairfax and Cromwell marched into the west [after Naseby fight], they found that in these counties the country-people had begun to assemble in bodies, sometimes 5,000 strong, to resist their oppressors, whether they fought in the name of King or Parliament. They were called clubmen from their arms, and carried banners, with the motto—'If you offer to plunder our cattle, Be assured we will give you battle.' The clubmen, however, could not hope to control the movements of the disciplined troops who now appeared against them. After a few fruitless attempts at resistance they dispersed."

B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts, King and Commonwealth, chapter 8.

"The inexpugnable Sir Lewis Dives (a thrasonical person known to the readers of Evelyn), after due battering, was now soon stormed; whereupon, by Letters found on him it became apparent how deeply Royalist this scheme of Clubmen had been: 'Commissions for raising Regiments of Clubmen'; the design to be extended over England at large, 'yea into the Associated Counties': however, it has now come to nothing."

T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 2, letter 14.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JULY-SEPTEMBER). The storming of Bridgewater and Bristol.

"The continuance of the civil war for a whole year after the decisive battle of Naseby is a proof of the King's selfishness, and of his utter indifference to the sufferings of the people. All rational hope was gone, and even Rupert advised his uncle to make terms with the Parliament. Yet Charles, while incessantly vacillating as to his plans, persisted in retaining his garrisons, and required his adherents to sacrifice all they possessed in order to prolong a useless struggle for a few months. Bristol, therefore, was to stand a siege, and Charles expected the garrison to hold out, without an object, to the last extremity, entailing misery and ruin on the second commercial city in the kingdom. Rupert was sent to take the command there, and when the army of Sir Thomas Fairfax approached, towards the end of August, he had completed his preparations." Fairfax had marched promptly and rapidly westward, after the battle of Naseby. He had driven Goring from the siege of Taunton, had defeated him in a sharp battle at Langport, taking 1,400 prisoners, and had carried Bridgewater by storm, July 21, capturing 2,000 prisoners, with 36 pieces of artillery and 5,000 stand of arms. On the 21st of August he arrived before Bristol, which Prince Rupert had strongly fortified, and which he held with an effective garrison of 2,300 men. On the morning of the 10th of September it was entered by storm, and on the following day Rupert, who still occupied the most defensible forts, surrendered the whole place. This surrender so enraged the King that he deprived his nephew of all his commissions and sent him a pass to quit the kingdom. But Rupert understood, as the King would not, that fighting was useless—that the royal cause was lost.

C. R. Markham, Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, chapter 21-22.

ALSO IN. Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, book 9.

W. Hunt, Bristol, chapter 7.

E. Warburton, Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers, volume 3, chapter 1.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (SEPTEMBER). Defeat of Montrose at Philiphaugh.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1644-1645.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1646 (MARCH). Adoption of Presbyterianism by Parliament.

"For the last three years the Assembly of Divines had been sitting almost daily in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey. … They were preparing a new Prayer-book, a form of Church Government, a Confession of Faith, and a Catechism; but the real questions at issue were the establishment of the Presbyterian Church and the toleration of sectarians. The Presbyterians, as we know, desired to establish their own form of Church government by assemblies and synods, without any toleration for non-conformists, whether Catholics, Episcopalians, or sectarians. But though they formed a large majority in the assembly, there was a well-organized opposition of Independents and Erastians, whose union made it no easy matter for the Presbyterians to carry every vote their own way. … After the Assembly had sat a year and a half, the Parliament passed an ordinance for putting a directory, prepared by the divines, into force, and taking away the Common Prayer-book (3rd January, 1645). The sign of the cross in baptism, the ring in marriage, the wearing of vestments, the keeping of saints' days, were discontinued. The communion table was ordered to be set in the body of the church, about which the people were to stand or sit; the passages of Scripture to be read were left to the minister's choice; no forms of prayer were prescribed. The same year a new directory for ordination of ministers was passed into an ordinance. The Presbyterian assemblies, called presbyteries, were empowered to ordain, and none were allowed to enter the ministry without first taking the covenant (8th November, 1645). This was followed by a third ordinance for establishing the Presbyterian system of Church government in England by way of trial for three years. As originally introduced into the House, this ordinance met with great opposition, because it gave power to ministers of refusing the sacrament and turning men out of the Church for scandalous offences. Now, in what, argued the Erastians, did scandalous offences consist? … A modified ordinance accordingly was passed; scandalous offences, for which ministers might refuse the sacrament and excommunicate, were specified; assemblies were declared subject to Parliament, and leave was granted to those who thought themselves unjustly sentenced, to appeal right up from one Church assembly after another to the civil power—the Parliament (16th March, 1646). Presbyterians, both in England and Scotland, felt deeply mortified. After all these years' contending, then, just when they thought they were entering on the fruits of their labours, to see the Church still left under the power of the State—the disappointment was intense to a degree we cannot estimate. They looked on the Independents as the enemies of God; this 'lame Erastian Presbytery' as hardly worth the having. … The Assembly of Divines practically came to an end in 1649, when it was changed into a committee for examining candidates for the Presbyterian ministry. It finally broke up without any formal dismissal on the dispersion of the Rump Parliament in March, 1653."

B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts, King and Commonwealth, chapter 9.

ALSO IN: S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War. chapter 40 (volume 2).

A. F. Mitchell, The Westminster Assembly, lectures 7, 9, 13.

Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly.

See, also, INDEPENDENTS.

{877}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1646-1647. The King in the hands of the Scots. His duplicity and his intrigues. The Scots surrender him.

"On the morning of May 6th authentic news came that the King had ridden into the Scottish army, and had entrusted to his northern subjects the guardianship of his royal person. Thereupon the English Parliament at once asserted their right to dispose of their King so long as he was on English soil; and for the present ordered that he be sent to Warwick Castle, an order, however, which had no effect. Newark, impregnable even to Ironsides, was surrendered at last by royal order; and the Scots retreated northwards to Newcastle, carrying their sovereign with them. … Meantime the City Presbyterians were petitioning the House to quicken the establishment of the godly and thorough reformation so long promised; and they were supported by letters from the Scottish Parliament, which, in the month of February, 1646, almost peremptorily required that the Solemn League and Covenant should be carried out in the Scottish sense of it. … The question as to the disposal of the King's person became accidentally involved in the issues between Presbyterianism and the sects. For if the King had been a man to be trusted, and if he had frankly accepted the army programme of free religion, a free Parliament, and responsible advisers, there is little doubt that he might have kept his crown and his Anglican ritual—at least for his own worship—and might yet have concluded his reign prosperously as the first constitutional King of England. Instead of this, he angered the army by making their most sacred purposes mere cards in a game, to be played or held as he thought most to his own advantage in dealing with the Presbyterian Parliament. On July 11th, 1646, Commissioners from both Houses were appointed to lay certain propositions for peace before the King at Newcastle. These of course involved everything for which the Parliament had contended, and in a form developed and exaggerated by the altered position of affairs. All armed forces were to be absolutely under the control of Parliament for a period of 20 years. Speaking generally, all public acts done by Parliament, or by its authority, were to be confirmed; and all public acts done by the King or his Oxford anti-Parliament, without due authorisation from Westminster, were to be void. … On August 10th the Commissioners who had been sent to the King returned to Westminster. … The King had given no distinct answer. It was a suspicious circumstance that the Duke of Hamilton had gone into Scotland, especially as Cromwell learned that, in spite of an ostensible order from the King, Montrose's force had not been disbanded. The labyrinthine web of royal intrigue in Ireland was beginning to be discovered. … The death of the Earl of Essex on September 14th increased the growing danger of a fatal schism in the victorious party. The Presbyterians had hoped to restore him to the head of the army, and so sheathe or blunt the terrible weapon they had forged and could not wield. They were now left without a man to rival in military authority the commanders whose exploits overwhelmed their employers with a too complete success. Not only were the political and religious opinions of the soldiers a cause of anxiety, but the burden of their sustenance and pay was pressing heavily on the country. … No wonder that the City of London, always sensitive as to public security, began to urge upon the Parliament the necessity for diminishing or disbanding the army in England. … The Parliament, however, could not deal with the army, for two reasons; First, the negotiations with the Scotch lingered; and next, they could not pay the men. The first difficulty was overcome, at least for the time, by the middle of January, 1647, when a train of wagons carried £200,000 to Newcastle in discharge of the English debt to the Scottish army. But the successful accomplishment of this only increased the remaining difficulty of the Parliament—that of paying their own soldiers. We need not notice the charge made against the Scotch of selling their King further than to say, that it is unfairly based upon only one subordinate feature of a very complicated negotiation. If the King would have taken the Covenant, and guaranteed to them their precious Presbyterian system, his Scottish subjects would have fought for him almost to the last man. The firmness of Charles in declining the Covenant for himself is, no doubt, the most creditable point in his resistance. But his obstinacy in disputing the right of two nations, in their political establishment of religion, to override his convictions by their own, illustrates his entire incapacity to comprehend the new light dawning on the relations of sovereign and people. The Scots did their best for him. They petitioned him, they knelt to him, they preached to him. … But to have carried with them an intractable man to form a wedge of division amongst themselves, at the same time that he brought against them the whole power of England, would have been sheer insanity. Accordingly, they made the best bargain they could both for him and themselves; and, taking their wages, they left him with his English subjects, who conducted him to Holdenby House, in Northamptonshire, on the 6th of February, 1647."

J. A. Picton, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 13.

ALSO IN: S. R. Gardiner, The First two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution, chapter 7, section 4.

S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, chapter 3845 (volume 2).

W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, book 1, chapters 24-27, and book 2, chapter 1-6 (volume 2).

Earl of Clarendon, History of chapter Rebellion, book 9, section 161-178, and book 10 (volume 3).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1647 (APRIL-AUGUST). The Army takes things in hand.

The King was surrendered to Parliament, and all now looking toward peace, the Presbyterians were uppermost, discredit falling upon the Army and its favorers. Many of the Recruiters [i. e., the new members, elected to fill vacancies in the Parliament], who at first had acted with the Independents, inclined now to their opponents. The Presbyterians, feeling that none would dare to question the authority of Parliament, pushed energetically their policy as regards the Army, of sending to Ireland, disbanding, neglecting the payment of arrears, and displacing the old officers. But suddenly there came for them a rude awakening. On April 30, 1647, Skippon, whom all liked, whom the Presbyterians indeed claimed, but who at the same time kept on good terms with the Army and Independents, rose in his place in St. Stephens and produced a letter, brought to him the day before by three private soldiers, in which eight regiments of horse expressly refused to serve in Ireland, declaring that it was a perfidious design to separate the soldiers from the officers whom they loved,—framed by men who, having tasted of power, were degenerating into tyrants. Holles and the Presbyterians were thunder-struck, and laying aside all other business summoned the three soldiers to appear at once. … {878} A violent tumult arose in the House. The Presbyterians declared that the three sturdy Ironsides standing there, with their buff stained from their corselets, ought to be at once committed; to which it was answered, that if there were to be commitment, it should be to the best London tavern, and sack and sugar provided. Cromwell, leaning over toward Ludlow, who sat next to him, and pointing to the Presbyterians, said that those fellows would never leave till the Army pulled them out by the ears. That day it became known that there existed an organization, a sort of Parliament, in the Army, the officers forming an upper council and the representatives of the rank and file a lower council. Two such representatives stood in the lower council for each squadron or troop, known as 'Adjutators,' aiders, or 'Agitators.' This organization had taken upon itself to see that the Army had its rights. … At the end of a month, there was still greater occasion for astonishment. Seven hundred horse suddenly left the camp, and appearing without warning, June 2, at Holmby House, where Charles was kept, in charge of Parliamentary commissioners, proposed to assume the custody of the King. A cool, quiet fellow, of rank no higher than that of cornet, led them and was their spokesman, Joyce. 'What is your authority?' asked the King. The cornet simply pointed to the mass of troopers at his back. … So bold a step as the seizure of the King made necessary other bold steps on the part of the Army. Scarcely a fortnight had passed, when a demand was made for the exclusion from Parliament of eleven Presbyterians, the men most conspicuous for extreme views. The Army meanwhile hovered, ever ominously, close at hand, to the north and east of the city, paying slight regard to the Parliamentary prohibition to remain at a distance. The eleven members withdrew. … But if Parliament was willing to yield, Presbyterian London and the country round about were not, and in July broke out into sheer rebellion. … The Speakers of the Lords and Commons, at the head of the strength of the Parliament, fourteen Peers and one hundred Commoners, betook themselves to Fairfax, and on August 2 they threw themselves into the protection of the Army at Hounslow Heath, ten miles distant. A grand review took place. The consummate soldier, Fairfax, had his troops in perfect condition, and they were drawn out 20,000 strong to receive the seceding Parliament. The soldiers rent the air with shouts in their behalf, and all was made ready for a most impressive demonstration. On the 6th of August, Fairfax marched his troops in full array through the city, from Hammersmith to Westminster. Each man had in his hat a wreath of laurel. The Lords and Commons who had taken flight were escorted in the midst of the column; the city officials joined the train. At Westminster the Speakers were ceremoniously reinstalled, and the Houses again put to work, the first business being to thank the General and the veterans who had reconstituted them. The next day, with Skippon in the centre and Cromwell in the rear, the Army marched through the city itself, a heavy tramp of battle-seasoned platoons, at the mere sound of which the war-like ardor of the turbulent youths of the work-shops and the rough watermen was completely squelched. Yet the soldiers looked neither to the right nor left; nor by act, word, or gesture was any offence given."

J. K. Hosmer, Life of Young Sir Henry Vane, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: C. R. Markham, Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, chapter 24.

T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 3, letter 26.

W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, book 2, chapter 7-11.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1647 (AUGUST-DECEMBER). The King's "Game" with Cromwell and the army, and the ending of it.

After reinstating the Parliament at Westminster, "the army leaders resumed negotiations with the King. The indignation of the soldiers at his delays and intrigues made the task hourly more difficult; but Cromwell … clung to the hope of accommodation with a passionate tenacity. His mind, conservative by tradition, and above all practical in temper, saw the political difficulties which would follow on the abolition of Royalty, and in spite of the King's evasions, he persisted in negotiating with him. But Cromwell stood almost alone; the Parliament refused to accept Ireton's proposals as a basis of peace, Charles still evaded, and the army then grew restless and suspicious. There were cries for a wide reform, for the abolition of the House of Peers, for a new House of Commons, and the Adjutators called on the Council of Officers to discuss the question of abolishing Royalty itself. Cromwell was never braver than when he faced the gathering storm, forbade the discussion, adjourned the Council, and sent the officers to their regiments. But the strain was too great to last long, and Charles was still resolute to 'play his game.' He was, in fact, so far from being in earnest in his negotiations with Cromwell and Ireton, that at the moment they were risking their lives for him he was conducting another and equally delusive negotiation with the Parliament. … In the midst of his hopes of an accommodation, Cromwell found with astonishment that he had been duped throughout, and that the King had fled [November 11, 1647]. … Even Cromwell was powerless to break the spirit which now pervaded the soldiers, and the King's perfidy left him without resource. 'The King is a man of great parts and great understanding,' he said at last, 'but so great a dissembler and so false a man that he is not to be trusted.' By a strange error, Charles had made his way from Hampton Court to the Isle of Wight, perhaps with some hope from the sympathy of Colonel Hammond, the Governor of Carisbrooke Castle, and again found himself a prisoner. Foiled in his effort to put himself at the head of the new civil war, he set himself to organize it from his prison; and while again opening delusive negotiations with the Parliament, he signed a secret treaty with the Scots for the invasion of the realm. The rise of Independency, and the practical suspension of the Covenant, had produced a violent reaction in his favour north of the Tweed. … In England the whole of the conservative party, with many of the most conspicuous members of the Long Parliament at its head, was drifting, in its horror of the religious and political changes which seemed impending, toward the King; and the news from Scotland gave the signal for fitful insurrections in almost every quarter."

J. R. Green, Short History of England, chapter 8, section 8.

ALSO IN: F. P. Guizot, History of the English Revolution of 1640, books 7-8.

L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 10, chapter 4.

W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth.

G. Hillier, Narrative of attempted Escapes of Charles I. from Carisbrooke Castle, &c.

{879}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (April-August). The Second Civil War. Defeat of the Scots at Preston.

"The Second Civil War broke out in April, and proved to be a short but formidable affair. The whole of Wales was speedily in insurrection; a strong force of cavaliers were mustering in the north of England; in Essex, Surrey, and the southern counties various outbreaks arose; Berwick, Carlisle, Chester, Pembroke, Colchester, were held for the king; the fleet revolted; and 40,000 men were ordered by the Parliament of Scotland to invade England. Lambert was sent to the north; Fairfax to take Colchester; and Cromwell into Wales, and thence to join Lambert and meet the Scotch. On the 24th of May Cromwell reached Pembroke, but being short of guns, he did not take it till 11th July. The rising in Wales crushed, Cromwell turned northwards, where the northwest was already in revolt, and 20,000 Scots, under the Duke of Hamilton, were advancing into the country. Want of supplies and shoes, and sickness, detained him with his army, some 7,000 strong, 'so extremely harassed with hard service and long marches, that they seemed rather fit for a hospital than a battle.' Having joined Lambert in Yorkshire he fought the battle of Preston on 17th of August. The battle of Preston was one of the most decisive and important victories ever gained by Cromwell, over the most numerous enemy he ever encountered, and the first in which he was in supreme command. … Early on the morning of the 17th August, Cromwell, with some 9,000 men, fell upon the army of the Duke of Hamilton unawares, as it proceeded southwards in a long, straggling, unprotected line. The invaders consisted of 17,000 Scots and 7,000 good men from northern counties. The long ill-ordered line was cut In half and rolled back northward and southward, before they even knew that Cromwell was upon them. The great host, cut into sections, fought with desperation from town to town. But for three days it was one long chase and carnage, which ended only with the exhaustion of the victors and their horses. Ten thousand prisoners were taken. 'We have killed we know not what,' writes Cromwell, 'but a very great number; having done execution upon them above thirty miles together, besides what we killed in the two great fights.' His own loss was small, and but one superior officer. … The Scottish invaders dispersed, Cromwell hastened to recover Berwick and Carlisle, and to restore the Presbyterian or Whig party in Scotland."

F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, chapter 74 (volume 7).

Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, book 11 (volume 4).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER). The Treaty at Newport.

"The unfortunate issue of the Scots expedition under the duke of Hamilton, and of the various insurrections throughout England, quelled by the vigilance and good conduct of Fairfax and Cromwell, is well known. But these formidable manifestations of the public sentiment in favour of peace with the king on honourable conditions, wherein the city of London, ruled by the presbyterian ministers, took a share, compelled the house of commons to retract its measures. They came to a vote, by 165 to 90, that they would not alter the fundamental government by king, lords, and commons; they abandoned their impeachment against seven peers, the most moderate of the upper house and the most obnoxious to the army: they restored the eleven members to their seats; they revoked their resolutions against a personal treaty with the king, and even that which required his assent by certain preliminary articles. In a word the party for distinction's sake called presbyterian, but now rather to be denominated constitutional, regained its ascendancy. This change in the counsels of parliament brought on the treaty of Newport. The treaty of Newport was set on foot and managed by those politicians of the house of lords, who, having long suspected no danger to themselves but from the power of the king, had discovered, somewhat of the latest, that the crown itself was at stake, and that their own privileges were set on the same cast. Nothing was more remote from the intentions of the earl of Northumberland, or lord Say, than to see themselves pushed from their seats by such upstarts as Ireton and Harrison; and their present mortification afforded a proof how men reckoned wise in their generation become the dupes of their own selfish, crafty, and pusillanimous policy. They now grew anxious to see a treaty concluded with the king. Sensible that it was necessary to anticipate, if possible, the return of Cromwell from the north, they implored him to comply at once with all the propositions of parliament, or at least to yield in the first instance as far as he meant to go. They had not, however, mitigated in any degree the rigorous conditions so often proposed; nor did the king during this treaty obtain any reciprocal concession worth mentioning in return for his surrender of almost all that could be demanded."

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 10, part 2.

The utter faithlessness with which Charles carried on these negotiations, as on all former occasions, was shown at a later day when his correspondence came to light. "After having solemnly promised that all hostilities in Ireland should cease, he secretly wrote to Ormond (October 10): 'Obey my wife's orders, not mine, until I shall let you know I am free from all restraint; nor trouble yourself about my concessions as to Ireland; they will not lead to anything;' and the day on which he had consented to transfer to parliament for twenty years the command of the army (October 9), he wrote to sir William Hopkins: 'To tell you the truth, my great concession this morning was made only with a view to facilitate my approaching escape; without that hope, I should never have yielded in this manner. If I had refused, I could, without much sorrow, have returned to my prison; but as it is, I own it would break my heart, for I have done that which my escape alone can justify.' The parliament, though without any exact information, suspected all this perfidy; even the friends of peace, the men most affected by the king's condition, and most earnest to save him, replied but hesitatingly to the charges of the independents."

F. P. Guizot, History of the English Revolution of 1640, book 8.

ALSO IN: Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, book 11, sections 153-190 (volume 4).

I. Disraeli, Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles I., volume 2, chapters 39-40.

{880}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER). The Grand Army Remonstrance and Pride's Purge. The Long Parliament cut down to the Rump.

On the 20th of November, 1648, Colonel Ewer and other officers presented to the house of commons a remonstrance from the Army against the negotiations and proposed treaty with the king. This was accompanied by a letter from Fairfax, stating that it had been voted unanimously in the council of officers, and entreating for it the consideration of parliament. The remonstrance recommended an immediate ending of the treaty conferences at Newport, demanded that the king be brought to justice, as the capital source of all grievances, and called upon parliament to enact its own dissolution, with provision for the electing and convening of future annual or biennial parliaments. Ten days passed without attention being given to this army manifesto, the house having twice adjourned its consideration of the document. On the first of December there appeared at Newport a party of horse which quietly took possession of the person of the king, and conveyed him to Hurst Castle, "a fortress in Hampshire, situated at the extreme point of a neck of land, which shoots into the sea towards the isle of Wight." The same day on which this was done, "the commissioners who had treated with the king at Newport made their appearance in the two houses of parliament; and the two following days were occupied by the house of commons in an earnest debate as to the state of the negotiation. Vane was one of the principal speakers against the treaty; and Fiennes, who had hitherto ranked among the independents, spoke for it. At length, after the house had sat all night, it was put and carried, at five in the morning of the 5th, by a majority of 129 to 83, that the king's answers to the propositions of both houses were a ground for them to proceed upon, to the settlement of the peace of the kingdom. On the same day this vote received the concurrence of the house of lords." Meantime, on the 30th of November, the council of the army had voted a second declaration more fully expressive of its views and announcing its intention to draw near to London, for the accomplishment of the purposes of the remonstrance. "On the 2d of December Fairfax marched to London, and quartered his army at Whitehall, St. James's, the Mews, and the villages near the metropolis. … On the 5th of December three officers of the army held a meeting with three members of parliament, to arrange the plan by which the sound members might best be separated from those by whom their measures were thwarted, and might peaceably be put in possession of the legislative authority. The next morning a regiment of horse, and another of foot were placed as a guard upon the two houses, Skippon, who commanded the city-militia, having agreed with the council of the army to keep back the guard under his authority which usually performed that duty. A part of the foot were ranged in the Court of Requests, upon the stairs, and in the lobby leading to the house of commons. Colonel Pride was stationed near the door, with a list in his hand of the persons he was commissioned to arrest; and sometimes one of the door-keepers, and at others Lord Grey of Groby, pointed them out to him, as they came up with an intention of passing into the house. Forty-one members were thus arrested. … On the following day more members were secured, or denied entrance, amounting, with those of the day before, to about one hundred. At the same time Cromwell took his seat; and Henry Marten moved that the speaker should return him thanks for his great and eminent services performed in the course of the campaign. The day after, the two houses adjourned to the 12th. During the adjournment many of the members who had been taken into custody by the military were liberated. … Besides those who were absolutely secured, or shut out from their seats by the power of the army, there were other members that looked with dislike on the present proceedings, or that considered parliament as being under force, and not free in their deliberations, who voluntarily abstained from being present at their sittings and debates."

W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, book 2, chapters 23-24 (volume 2).

"The famous Pride's Purge was accomplished. By military force the Long Parliament was cut down to a fraction of its number, and the career begins of the mighty 'Rump,' so called in the coarse wit of the time because it was 'the sitting part.'"

J. K. Hosmer, Life of Young Sir Henry Vane, chapter 13.

"This name [the Rump] was first given to them by Walker, the author of the History of Independency, by way of derision, in allusion to a fowl all devoured but the rump."

D. Neal, History of the Puritans, volume 4, chapter 1, foot-note.

ALSO IN: C. R Markham, Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, chapter 28.

D. Masson, Life of John Milton, book 4, chapters 1 and 3 (volume 3).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (JANUARY). The trial and execution of the King.

"During the month in which Charles had remained at Windsor [whither he had been brought from Hurst Castle on the 17th of December], there had been proceedings in Parliament of which he was imperfectly informed. On the day he arrived there, it was resolved by the Commons that he should be brought to trial. On the 2nd of January, 1649, it was voted that, in making war against the Parliament, he had been guilty of treason; and a High Court was appointed to try him. One hundred and fifty commissioners were to compose the Court,— peers, members of the Commons, aldermen of London. The ordinance was sent to the Upper House, and was rejected. On the 6th, a fresh ordinance, declaring that the people being, after God, the source of all just power, the representatives of the people are the supreme power in the nation; and that whatsoever is enacted or declared for law by the Commons in Parliament hath the force of a law, and the people are concluded thereby, though the consent of King or Peers be not had thereto. Asserting this power, so utterly opposed either to the ancient constitution of the monarchy, or to the possible working of a republic, there was no hesitation in constituting the High Court of Justice in the name of the Commons alone. The number of members of the Court was now reduced to 135. They had seven preparatory meetings, at which only 58 members attended. 'All men,' says Mrs. Hutchinson, 'were left to their free liberty of acting, neither persuaded nor compelled; and as there were some nominated in the commission who never sat, and others who sat at first but durst not hold on, so all the rest might have declined it if they would, when it is apparent they should have suffered nothing by so doing.' … On the 19th of January, major Harrison appeared … at Windsor with his troop. There was a coach with six horses in the court-yard, in which the King took his seat; and, once more, he entered London, and was lodged at St. James's palace. {881} The next day, the High Court of Justice was opened in Westminster-hall. … After the names of the members of the court had been called, 69 being present, Bradshaw, the president, ordered the serjeant to bring in the prisoner. Silently the King sat down in the chair prepared for him. He moved not his hat, as he looked sternly and contemptuously around. The sixty-nine rose not from their seats, and remained covered. … The clerk reads the charge, and when he is accused therein of being tyrant and traitor, he laughs in the face of the Court. 'Though his tongue usually hesitated, yet it was very free at this time, for he was never discomposed in mind,' writes Warwick. … Again and again contending against the authority of the Court, the King was removed, and the sitting was adjourned to the 22nd. On that day the same scene was renewed; and again on the 23rd. A growing sympathy for the monarch became apparent. The cries of 'Justice, justice,' which were heard at first, were now mingled with 'God save the King.' He had refused to plead; but the Court nevertheless employed the 24th and 25th of January in collecting evidence to prove the charge of his levying war against the Parliament. Coke, the solicitor-general, then demanded whether the Court would proceed to pronouncing sentence; and the members adjourned to the Painted Chamber. On the 27th the public sitting was resumed. … The Court, Bradshaw then stated, had agreed upon the sentence. Ludlow records that the King' desired to make one proposition before they proceeded to sentence; which he earnestly pressing, as that which he thought would lead to the reconciling of all parties, and to the peace of the three kingdoms, they permitted him to offer it; the effect of which was, that he might meet the two Houses in the Painted Chamber, to whom he doubted not to offer that which should satisfy and secure all interests.' Ludlow goes on to say, 'Designing, as I have since been informed, to propose his own resignation, and the admission of his son to the throne upon such terms as should have been agreed upon.' The commissioners retired to deliberate, 'and being satisfied, upon debate, that nothing but loss of time would be the consequence of it, they returned into the Court with a negative to his demand.' Bradshaw then delivered a solemn speech to the King. … The clerk was lastly commanded to read the sentence, that his head should be severed from his body; 'and the commissioners,' says Ludlow, 'testified their unanimous assent by standing up.' The King attempted to speak; 'but being accounted dead in law, was not permitted.' On the 29th of January, the Court met to sign the sentence of execution, addressed to 'colonel Francis Hacker, colonel Huncks, and lieutenant-colonel Phayr, and to every one of them.' … There were some attempts to save him. The Dutch ambassador made vigorous efforts to procure a reprieve, whilst the French and Spanish ambassadors were inert. The ambassadors from the States nevertheless persevered; and early in the day of the 30th obtained some glimmering of hope from Fairfax. 'But we found,' they say in their despatch, 'in front of the house in which we had just spoken with the general, about 200 horsemen; and we learned, as well as on our way as on reaching home, that all the streets, passages, and squares of London were occupied by troops, so that no one could pass, and that the approaches of the city were covered with cavalry, so as to prevent anyone from coming in or going out; … The same day, between two and three o'clock, the King was taken to a scaffold covered with black, erected before Whitehall.' To that scaffold before Whitehall, Charles walked, surrounded by soldiers, through the leafless avenues of St. James's Park. It was a bitterly cold morning. … His purposed address to the people was delivered only to the hearing of those upon the scaffold, but its purport was that the people mistook the nature of government; for people are free under a government, not by being sharers in it, but by due administration of the laws of it.' His theory of government was a consistent one. He had the misfortune not to understand that the time had been fast passing away for its assertion. The headsman did his office; and a deep groan went up from the surrounding multitude."

Charles Knight, Popular History of England, volume 4, chapter 7.

"In the death-warrant of 29th January 1649, next after the President and Lord Grey, stands the name of Oliver Cromwell. He accepted the responsibility of it, justified, defended it to his dying day. No man in England was more entirely answerable for the deed than he, 'I tell you,' he said to Algernon Sidney, 'we will cut off his head with the crown upon it.' … Slowly he had come to know—not only that the man, Charles Stuart, was incurably treacherous, but that any settlement of Parliament with the old Feudal Monarchy was impossible. As the head of the king rolled on the scaffold the old Feudal Monarchy expired for ever. In January 1649 a great mark was set in the course of the national life—the Old Rule behind it, the New Rule before it. Parliamentary government, the consent of the nation, equality of rights, and equity in the law—all date from this great New Departure. The Stuarts indeed returned for one generation, but with the sting of the Old Monarchy gone, and only to disappear almost without a blow. The Church of England returned; but not the Church of Laud or of Charles. The peers returned, but as a meek House of Lords, with their castles razed, their feudal rights and their political power extinct. It is said that the regicides killed Charles I. only to make Charles II. king. It is not so, They killed the Old Monarchy; and the restored monarch was by no means its heir, but a royal Stadtholder or Hereditary President."

F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 7.

"Respecting the death of Charles it has been pronounced by Fox, that 'it is much to be doubted whether his trial and execution have not, as much as any other circumstance, served to raise the character of the English nation in the opinion of Europe in general.' And he goes on to speak with considerable favour of the authors of that event. One of the great authorities of the age having so pronounced, an hundred and fifty years after the deed, it may be proper to consider for a little the real merits of the actors, and the act. It is not easy to imagine a greater criminal than the individual against whom the sentence was awarded. … Liberty is one of the greatest negative advantages that can fall to the lot of a man; without it we cannot possess any high degree of happiness, or exercise any considerable virtue. Now Charles, to a degree which can scarcely be exceeded, conspired against the liberty of his country, to assert his own authority without limitation, was the object of all his desires and all his actions, so far as the public was concerned. {882} To accomplish this object he laid aside the use of a parliament. When he was compelled once more to have recourse to this assembly, and found it retrograde to his purposes, he determined to bring up the army, and by that means to put an end to its sittings. Both in Scotland and England, the scheme that he formed for setting aside all opposition, was by force of arms. For that purpose he commenced war against the English parliament, and continued it by every expedient in his power for four years. Conquered, and driven out of the field, he did not for that, for a moment lose sight of his object and his resolution. He sought in every quarter for the materials of a new war; and, after an interval of twenty months, and from the depths of his prison, he found them. To this must be added the most consummate insincerity and duplicity. He could never be reconciled; he could never be disarmed; he could never be convinced. His was a war to the death, and therefore had the utmost aggravation that can belong to a war against the liberty of a nation. … The proper lesson taught by the act of the thirtieth of January, was that no person, however high in station, however protected by the prejudices of his contemporaries, must expect to be criminal against the welfare of the state and community, without retribution and punishment. The event however sufficiently proved that the condemnation and execution of Charles did not answer the purposes intended by its authors. It did not conciliate the English nation to republican ideas. It shocked all those persons in the country who did not adhere to the ruling party. This was in some degree owing to the decency with which Charles met his fate. He had always been in manners, formal, sober and specious. … The notion was every where prevalent, that a sovereign could not be called to account, could not be arraigned at the bar of his subjects. And the violation of this prejudice, instead of breaking down the wall which separated him from others, gave to his person a sacredness which never before appertained to it. Among his own partisans the death of Charles was treated, and was spoken of, as a sort of deicide. And it may be admitted for a universal rule, that the abrupt violation of a deep-rooted maxim and persuasion of the human mind, produces a reaction, and urges men to hug the maxim closer than ever. I am afraid, that the day that saw Charles perish on the scaffold, rendered the restoration of his family certain."

W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth of England to the Restoration of Charles II., book 2, chapter 26 (volume 2).

"The situation, complicated enough already, had been still further complicated by Charles's duplicity. Men who would have been willing to come to terms with him, despaired of any constitutional arrangement in which he was to be a factor; and men who had long been alienated from him were irritated into active hostility. By these he was regarded with increasing intensity as the one disturbing force with which no understanding was possible and no settled order consistent. To remove him out of the way appeared, even to those who had no thought of punishing him for past offences, to be the only possible road to peace for the troubled nation. It seemed that so long as Charles lived deluded nations and deluded parties would be stirred up, by promises never intended to be fulfilled, to fling themselves, as they had flung themselves in the Second Civil War, against the new order of things which was struggling to establish itself in England."

S. R. Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War, 1642-1649, chapter 71 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: John Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Henry Marten.

S. R. Gardiner, Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, pages 268-290.

The following is the text of the Act which arraigned the King and constituted the Court by which he was tried:

"Whereas it is notorious that Charles Stuart, the now king of England, not content with the many encroachments which his predecessors had made upon the people in their rights and freedom, hath had a wicked design totally to subvert the antient and fundamental laws and liberties of this nation, and in their place to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government; and that, besides all other evil ways and means to bring his design to pass, he hath prosecuted it with fire and sword, levied and maintained a civil war in the land, against the parliament and kingdom; whereby this country hath been miserably wasted, the public treasure exhausted, trade decayed, thousands of people murdered, and infinite other mischiefs committed; for all which high and treasonable offences the said Charles Stuart might long since have justly been brought to exemplary and condign punishment: whereas also the parliament, well hoping that the restraint and imprisonment of his person after it had pleased God to deliver him into their hands, would have quieted the distempers of the kingdom, did forbear to proceed judicially against him; but found, by sad experience, that such their remissness served only to encourage him and his accomplices in the continuance of their evil practices and in raising new commotions, rebellions, and invasions: for prevention therefore of the like or greater inconveniences, and to the end no other chief officer or magistrate whatsoever may hereafter presume, traiterously and maliciously, to imagine or contrive the enslaving or destroying of the English nation, and to expect impunity for so doing; be it enacted and ordained by the [Lords] and commons in Parliament assembled, and it is hereby enacted and ordained by the authority thereof, That the earls of Kent, Nottingham, Pembroke, Denbigh, and Mulgrave; the lord Grey of Warke; lord chief justice Rolle of the king's bench, lord chief justice St. John of the common Pleas, and lord chief baron Wylde; the lord Fairfax, lieutenant general Cromwell, &c. [in all about 150,] shall be, and are hereby appointed and required to be Commissioners and Judges, for the Hearing, Trying, and Judging of the said Charles Stuart; and the said Commissioners, or any 20 or more of them, shall be, and are hereby authorized and constituted an High Court of Justice, to meet and sit at such convenient times and place as by the said commissioners, or the major part, or 20 or more of them, under their hands and seals, shall be appointed and notified by public Proclamation in the Great Hall, or Palace Yard of Westminster; and to adjourn from time to time, and from place to place, as the said High Court, or the major part thereof, at meeting, shall hold fit; and to take order for the charging of him, the said Charles Stuart, with the Crimes and Treasons above-mentioned, and for receiving his personal Answer thereunto, and for examination of witnesses upon oath, (which the court hath hereby authority to administer) or otherwise, and taking any other Evidence concerning the same; and thereupon, or in default of such Answer, to proceed to final Sentence according to justice and the merit of the cause; and such final Sentence to execute, or cause to be executed, speedily and impartially. {883} And the said court is hereby and required to chuse and appoint all such officers, attendants, and other circumstances as they, or the major part of them, shall in any sort judge necessary or useful for the orderly and good managing of the premises; and Thomas lord Fairfax the General, and all officers and soldiers, under his command, and all officers of justice, and other well-affected persons, are hereby authorized and required to be aiding and assisting unto the said court in the due execution of the trust hereby committed unto them; provided that this act, and the authority hereby granted, do continue in force for the space of one month from the date of the making hereof, and no longer."

Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England, volume 3, pages 1254-1255.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (FEBRUARY). The Commonwealth established.

"England was now a Republic. The change had been virtually made on Thursday, January 4, 1648-9, when the Commons passed their three great Resolutions, declaring

(1) that the People of England were, under God, the original of all just power in the State,

(2) that the Commons, in Parliament assembled, having been chosen by the People, and representing the People, possessed the supreme power in their name, and

(3) that whatever the Commons enacted should have the force of a law, without needing the consent of either King or House of Peers.

On Tuesday, the 30th of January, the theory of these Resolutions became more visibly a fact. On the afternoon of that day, while the crowd that had seen the execution in front of Whitehall were still lingering round the scaffold, the Commons passed an Act 'prohibiting the proclaiming of any person to be King of England or Ireland, or the dominions thereof.' It was thus declared that Kingship in England had died with Charles. But what of the House of Peers? It was significant that on the same fatal day the Commons revived their three theoretical resolutions of the 4th, and ordered them to be printed. The wretched little rag of a House might then have known its doom. But it took a week more to convince them." On the 6th of February it was resolved by the House of Commons, "'That the House of Peers in Parliament is useless and dangerous, and ought to be abolished, and that an Act be brought in to that purpose.' Next day, February 7, after another long debate, it was further resolved 'That it hath been found by experience, and this House doth declare, that the office of a King in this realm, and to have the power thereof in any single person, is unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous to the liberty, safety, and public interest of the People of this nation, and therefore ought to be abolished, and that an Act be brought in to that purpose.' Not till after some weeks were these Acts deliberately passed after the customary three readings. The delay, however, was matter of mere Parliamentary form. Theoretically a Republic since January 4, 1648-9, and visibly a Republic from the day of Charles's death, England was a Republic absolutely and in every sense from February 7, 1648-9." For the administration of the government of the republican Commonwealth, the Commons resolved, on the 7th of February, that a Council of State be erected; to consist of not more than forty persons. On the 13th, Instructions to the intended Council of State were reported and agreed to, "these Instructions conferring almost plenary powers, but limiting the duration of the Council to one year." On the 14th and 15th forty-one persons were appointed to be members of the Council, Fairfax, Cromwell, Vane, St. John, Whitlocke, Henry Marten, and Colonels Hutchinson and Ludlow being in the number; nine to constitute a quorum, and no permanent President to be chosen.

D. Masson, Life of John Milton, volume 4, book 1, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: J. Lingard, History of England, volume. 10, chapter 5.

A. Bisset, Omitted Chapters of History of England, chapter 1.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (FEBRUARY). The Eikon Basilike.

"A book, published with great secrecy, and in very mysterious circumstances, February 9, 1648-9, exactly ten days after the late King's death, had done much to increase the Royalist enthusiasm.

'Eikon Basilike: The True Portraicture of His Sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings.—Romans viii. More than conquerour, &c.—Bona agere et mala pati Regium est. MDCXLVIII': such was the title-page of this volume (of 269 pages of text, in small octavo), destined by fate, rather than by merit, to be one of the most famous books of the world. … The book, so elaborately prepared and heralded, consists of twenty-eight successive chapters, purporting to have been written by the late King, and to be the essence of his spiritual autobiography in the last years of his life. Each chapter, with scarcely an exception, begins with a little narrative, or generally rather with reflections and meditations on some passage of the King's life the narrative of which is supposed to be unnecessary, and ends with a prayer in italics appropriate to the circumstances remembered. … Save for a few … passages … , the pathos of which lies in the situation they represent, the Eikon Basilike is a rather dull performance, in third-rate rhetoric, modulated after the Liturgy; and without incision, point, or the least shred of real information as to facts. But O what a reception it had! Copies of it ran about instantaneously, and were read with sobs and tears. It was in vain that Parliament, March 16, gave orders for seizing the book. It was reprinted at once in various forms, to supply the constant demand—which was not satisfied, it is said, with less than fifty editions within a single year; it became a very Bible in English Royalist households. … By means of this book, in fact, acting on the state of sentiment which it fitted, there was established, within a few weeks after the death of Charles I., that marvellous worship of his memory, that passionate recollection of him as the perfect man and the perfect king, the saint, the martyr, the all but Christ on earth again, which persisted till the other day as a positive religious cultus of the English mind, and still lingers in certain quarters."

D. Masson, Life and Times of John Milton, volume 4, book 1, chapter 1.

{884}

"I struggled through the Eikon Basilike yesterday; one of the paltriest pieces of vapid, shovel-hatted, clear-starched, immaculate falsity and cant I have ever read. It is to me an amazement how any mortal could ever have taken that for a genuine book of King Charles's. Nothing but a surpliced Pharisee, sitting at his ease afar off, could have got up such a set of meditations. It got Parson Gauden [John Gauden, Bishop of Exeter and Worcester, successively, after the Restoration, and who is believed to have been the author of the Eikon Basilike] a bishopric."

T. Carlyle, History of his Life in London, by Froude, volume 1, chapter 7, November 26, 1840.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (APRIL-MAY). Mutiny of the Levellers.

See LEVELLERS.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1649-1650. Cromwell's campaign in Ireland.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1649-1650.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1650 (JULY). Charles II. proclaimed King in Scotland.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1650 (MARCH-JULY).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1650 (SEPTEMBER). War with the Scots and Cromwell's victory at Dunbar.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1650 (SEPTEMBER).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1651 (SEPTEMBER). The Scots and Charles II. overthrown at Worcester.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1651.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1651-1653. The Army and the Rump.

"'Now that the King is dead and his son defeated,' Cromwell said gravely to the Parliament, 'I think it necessary to come to a settlement.' But the settlement which had been promised after Naseby was still as distant as ever after Worcester. The bill for dissolving the present Parliament, though Cromwell pressed it in person, was only passed, after bitter opposition, by a majority of two; and even this success had been purchased by a compromise which permitted the House to sit for three years more. Internal affairs were simply at a dead lock. … The one remedy for all this was, as the army saw, the assembly of a new and complete Parliament in place of the mere 'rump' of the old; but this was the one measure which the House was resolute to avert. Vane spurred it to a new activity. … But it was necessary for Vane's purposes not only to show the energy of the Parliament, but to free it from the control of the army. His aim was to raise in the navy a force devoted to the House, and to eclipse the glories of Dunbar and Worcester by yet greater triumphs at sea. With this view the quarrel with Holland had been carefully nursed. … The army hardly needed the warning conveyed by the introduction of a bill for its disbanding to understand the new policy of the Parliament. … The army petitioned not only for reform in Church and State, but for an explicit declaration that the House would bring its proceedings to a close. The Petition forced the House to discuss a bill for 'a New Representative,' but the discussion soon brought out the resolve of the sitting members to continue as a part of the coming Parliament without re-election. The officers, irritated by such a claim, demanded in conference after conference an immediate dissolution, and the House as resolutely refused. In ominous words Cromwell supported the demands of the army. 'As for the members of this Parliament, the army begins to take them in disgust. I would it did so with less reason.' … Not only were the existing members to continue as members of the New Parliament, depriving the places they represented of their right of choosing representatives, but they were to constitute a Committee of Revision, to determine the validity of each election, and the fitness of the members returned. A conference took place [April 19, 1653] between the leaders of the Commons and the officers of the army. … The conference was adjourned till the next morning, on an understanding that no decisive step should be taken; but it had no sooner reassembled, than the absence of the leading members confirmed the news that Vane was fast pressing the bill for a new Representative through the House. 'It is contrary to common honesty,' Cromwell angrily broke out; and, quitting Whitehall, he summoned a company of musketeers to follow him as far as the door of the House of Commons."

J. R Green, Short History of England, chapter 8, section 9.

ALSO IN: J. Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Cromwell.

J. A. Picton, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 22.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1651-1672. The Navigation Acts and the American colonies.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1651-1672; also, NAVIGATION LAWS.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1652-1654. War with the Dutch Republic.

"After the death of William, Prince of Orange, which was attended with the depression of his party and the triumph of the Dutch republicans [see NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1647-1650], the Parliament thought that the time was now favourable for cementing a closer confederacy with the states. St. John, chief justice, who was sent over to the Hague, had entertained the idea of forming a kind of coalition between the two republics, which would have rendered their interests totally inseparable; … but the states, who were unwilling to form a nearer confederacy with a government whose measures were so obnoxious, and whose situation seemed so precarious, offered only to renew 'the former alliances with England; and the haughty St. John, disgusted with this disappointment, as well as incensed at many affronts which had been offered him, with impunity, by the retainers of the Palatine and Orange families, and indeed by the populace in general, returned into England and endeavoured to foment a quarrel between the republics. …. There were several motives which at this time induced the English Parliament to embrace hostile measures. Many of the members thought that a foreign war would serve as a pretence for continuing the same Parliament, and delaying the new model of a representative, with which the nation had so long been flattered. Others hoped that the war would furnish a reason for maintaining, some time longer, that numerous standing army which was so much complained of. On the other hand, some, who dreaded the increasing power of Cromwell, expected that the great expense of naval armaments would prove a motive for diminishing the military establishment. To divert the attention of the public from domestic quarrels towards foreign transactions, seemed, in the present disposition of men's minds, to be good policy. … All these views, enforced by the violent spirit of St. John, who had great influence over Cromwell, determined the Parliament to change the purposed alliance into a furious war against the United Provinces. To cover these hostile intentions, the Parliament, under pretence of providing for the interests of commerce, embraced such measures as they knew would give disgust to the states. They framed the famous act of navigation, which prohibited all nations from importing into England in their bottoms any commodity which was not the growth and manufacture of their own country. … The minds of men in both states were every day more irritated against each other; and it was not long before these humours broke forth into action."

D. Hume, History of England, chapter 60 (volume 5).

{885}

"The negotiations … were still pending when Blake, meeting Van Tromp's fleet in the Downs, in vain summoned the Dutch Admiral to lower his flag. A battle was the consequence, which led to a declaration of war on the 8th of July (1652). The maritime success of England was chiefly due to the genius of Blake, who having hitherto served upon shore, now turned his whole attention to the navy. A series of bloody fights took place between the two nations. For some time the fortunes of the war seemed undecided. Van Tromp, defeated by Blake, had to yield the command to De Ruyter. De Ruyter in his turn was displaced to give way again to his greater rival. Van Tromp was reinstated in command. A victory over Blake off the Naze (November 28) enabled him to cruise in the Channel with a broom at his mast-head, implying that he had swept the English from the seas. But the year 1653 again saw Blake able to fight a drawn battle of two days' duration between Portland and La Hogue; while at length, on the 2d and 3d of June, a decisive engagement was fought off the North Foreland, in which Monk and Deane, supported by Blake, completely defeated the Dutch Admiral, who, as a last resource, tried in vain to blow up his own ship, and then retreated to the Dutch coast, leaving eleven ships in the hands of the English. In the next month, another victory on the part of Blake, accompanied by the death of the great Dutch Admiral, completed the ruin of the naval power of Holland. The States were driven to treat. In 1654 the treaty was signed, in which Denmark, the Hanseatic towns, and the Swiss provinces were included. … The Dutch acknowledged the supremacy of the English flag in the British seas; they consented to the Navigation Act."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 2, page 701.

ALSO IN: W. H. Dixon, Robert Blake, Admiral and General at Sea, chapters 6-7.

D. Hannay, Admiral Blake, chapters 6-7.

J. Campbell, Naval History of Great Britain, chapter 15 (volume 2).

G. Penn, Memorials of Sir William Penn, chapter 4.

J. Corbett, Monk, chapter 7.

J. Geddes, History of the Administration of John De Witt, volume 1, books 4-5.

See, also, NAVIGATION LAWS, ENGLISH: A. D. 1651.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1653 (APRIL). Cromwell's expulsion of the Rump.

"In plain black clothes and gray worsted stockings, the Lord-General came in quietly and took his seat [April 20], as Vane was pressing the House to pass the dissolution Bill without delay and without the customary forms. He beckoned to Harrison and told him that the Parliament was ripe for dissolution, and he must do it. 'Sir,' said Harrison, 'the work is very great and dangerous.'—'You say well,' said the general, and thereupon sat still for about a quarter of an hour. Vane sat down, and the Speaker was putting the question for passing the Bill. Then said Cromwell to Harrison again, 'This is the time; I must do it.' He rose up, put off his hat, and spoke. Beginning moderately and respectfully, he presently changed his style, told them of their injustice, delays of justice, self interest, and other faults; charging them not to have a heart to do anything for the public good, to have espoused the corrupt interest of Presbytery and the lawyers, who were the supporters of tyranny and oppression, accusing them of an intention to perpetuate themselves in power. And rising into passion, 'as if he were distracted,' he told them that the Lord had done with them, and had chosen other instruments for the carrying on His work that were worthy. Sir Peter Wentworth rose to complain of such language in Parliament, coming from their own trusted servant. Roused to fury by the interruption, Cromwell left his seat, clapped on his hat, walked up and down the floor of the House, stamping with his feet, and cried out, 'You are no Parliament, I say you are no Parliament. Come, come, we have had enough of this; I will put an end to your prating. Call them in!' Twenty or thirty musketeers under Colonel Worsley marched in onto the floor of the House. The rest of the guard were placed at the door and in the lobby. Vane from his place cried out, 'This is not honest, yea, it is against morality and common honesty.' Cromwell, who evidently regarded Vane as the breaker of the supposed agreement, turned on him with a loud voice, crying, 'O Sir Henry Vane, Sir Henry Vane, the Lord deliver me from Sir Henry Vane.' Then looking upon one of the members, he said, 'There sits a drunkard;' to another he said, 'Some of you are unjust, corrupt persons, and scandalous to the profession of the Gospel.' 'Some are whoremasters,' he said, looking at Wentworth and Marten. Going up to the table, he said, 'What shall we do with this Bauble? Here, take it away!' and gave it to a musketeer. 'Fetch him down,' he cried to Harrison, pointing to the Speaker. Lenthall sat still, and refused to come down unless by force. 'Sir,' said Harrison, 'I will lend you my hand,' and putting his hand within his, the Speaker came down. Algernon Sidney sat still in his place. 'Put him out,' said Cromwell. And Harrison and Worsley put their hands on his shoulders, and he rose and went out. The members went out, fifty-three in all, Cromwell still calling aloud. To Vane he said that he might have prevented this; but that he was a juggler and had not common honesty. 'It is you,' he said, as they passed him, 'that have forced me to do this, for I have sought the Lord night and day, that He would rather slay me than put me on the doing of this work.' He snatched the Bill of dissolution from the hand of the clerk, put it under his cloak, seized on the records, ordered the guard to clear the House of all members, and to have the door locked, and went away to Whitehall. Such is one of the most famous scenes in our history, that which of all other things has most heavily weighed on the fame of Cromwell. In truth it is a matter of no small complexity, which neither constitutional eloquence nor boisterous sarcasm has quite adequately unravelled. … In strict constitutional right the House was no more the Parliament than Cromwell was the king. A House of Commons, which had executed the king, abolished the Lords, approved the 'coup d'état' of Pride, and by successive proscriptions had reduced itself to a few score of extreme partisans, had no legal title to the name of Parliament. The junto which held to Vane was not more numerous than the junto which held to Cromwell; they had far less public support; nor had their services to the Cause been so great. {886} In closing the House, the Lord-General had used his office of Commander-in-Chief to anticipate one 'coup d'état' by another. Had he been ten minutes late, Vane would himself have dissolved the House; snapping a vote which would give his faction a legal ascendancy. Yet, after all, the fact remains that Vane and the remnant of the famous Long Parliament had that 'scintilla juris,' as lawyers call it, that semblance of legal right, which counts for so much in things political."