presented to Gbe library of tbe Wnivereitp of Toronto bs Bertram 1R. 2>avis from tbe books of tbe late Xtonel Davie, 1R.C. THE COMMONWEALTH and PROTECTORATE VOL. I. WORKS BY SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER. HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the Accession of James I. to the Outbreak of the Oivil War, 1603-1642. With Maps. 10 vols, crown 8vo. 6s. net each. A HISTORY OF THE GREAT CIVIL WAR, 1642-1649. With Maps. 4 vols, crown Svo. 5s. net each. A HISTORY OF THE COMMONWEALTH AND THE PROTECTORATE. 1649-1656. With Maps. 4 vols, crown 8vo. 5s. net each. A STUDENT'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. From the Earliest Times to the Death of Queen Victoria. Vol. I. B.C. 55-a.d. 1509. With 173 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. is. Vol. II. 1509-1689. With 96 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 4s. Vol. III. 1689-1901. With 109 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 4s. *. s * Complete in One Volume, with 378 Illustrations, crown Svo. 12s. A SCHOOL ATLAS OF ENGLISH HISTORY, Edited by Samuel Rawson Gardiner, D.O.L. LL.D. With 66 Coloured Maps and 22 Plans of Battles and Sieges. Fcp. 4to. 5s. CROMWELL'S PLACE IN HISTORY. Founded on Six Lectures delivered at Oxford. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6 July 22-26. — Landing of regiments at Dublin July 27. — Inchiquin sent to Munster Ormond's operations round Dublin August 2. —Jones's victory at Rathmines . July 26. — Monk lands at Chester August. — Monk's interview with Cromwell August 10. — Monk censured and excused . August 15. — Cromwell lands in Dublin . ell 83 83 85 86 86 86 87 87 88 89 90 92 92 93 93 94 95 96 96 97 98 99 99 100 100 100 102 103 103 104 106 CHAPTER V DROGHEDA AND WEXFORD 1649 August. — Jones fails to take Drogheda . O'Neill's overtures to Ormond August 7-9. — O'Neill relieves Londonderry O'Neill resolves to ally himself with Ormond 107 107 108 108 CONTENTS OF [649 August 12-13.— Ormond seeks for help . August 24 Cromwell's declaration August 17. — Ormond at Drogheda . Preparations for resistance .... O'Neill's sickness September 3. — Cromwell before Drogheda . September 10. — Cromwell summons Drogheda Defences of Drogheda .... September 11. — Drogheda stormed Aston on the Mill Mount .... The massacre ..... (September 12. — Cromwell's excuses Examination of Cromwell's arguments ' . September 16. — The southern design . October 1. — Opening of the siege of Wexford October 3. — Wexford summoned . October 11. — The castle betrayed . ^The walls scaled and the defendants massacred Cromwell's comment .... Comparison between the two massacres CHAPTER VI CORK, KILKENNY, AND CI.ONMEL 1649 October 17. — New Ross summoned October 19. — Capitulation of New Ross . The siege of Duncannon Fort .... October 16. — Rising at Cork .... Irish distrust of English Protestants October 27. — Muskerry remonstrates with Ormond November 5. — -The siege of Duncannon Fort raised Progress of the revolt in Munster . Rupert escapes from Kinsale .... Inchiquin charged with offering to join Cromwell The conflict devolves on the Celtic element in Ireland October 20. — Agreement between Ormond and O'Neill Successes of Coote and Venables in the North November 6.— Death of O'Neill .... Completion of Cromwell's bridge at Ross November 24. — Cromwell before Waterford . December 2.— Cromwell raises the siege of Waterford THE FIRST VOLUME 1649 Surrender of Dungarvan, Bandon, and Kinskle December 10. — Death of Jones ..... September 17. — Charles lands in Jersey . November 30. — Ormond's report on the state of Ireland December 4-13. — Manifestoes of the Irish prelates Clonmacnoise 1650 January. — Cromwell's counter-declaration . Cromwell's Irish policy ...... January 29. — Cromwell opens the campaign March 23. — Cromwell summons Kilkenny March 28. — Surrender of Kilkenny .... April 26. — Inchiquin's followers make terms with Cromwell February 8. — Preston appointed Governor of Waterford March. — Ormond's difficulties with the Irish prelates March 18. — The Bishop of Clogher chosen general of the Ulster army April 30. — Irish make concessions to Ormond . April 27. — Cromwell opens the siege of Clonmel . i May 10. — Surrender of Clonmel .... V\May 26. — Cromwell leaves Ireland 1 Causes of Cromwell's success ..... The ' curse of Cromwell ' PARE 143 143 144 144 145 I46 149 149 I50 I50 151 152 152 153 154 155 I 5 6 157 157 159 CHAPTER VII THE TRIAL OF JOHN LILBURNE 1649 Delay in bringing Lilburne to trial . June 18. — The Legal Fundamental Liberties August 10. — An Lmpeachment of High Treason September I. — An Outcry of the Young Men September 8.— A mutiny at Oxford September 1 3. — A Preparative to a Hue and Cry October 24. — A true bill found October 25-6. — Lilburne's trial . The verdict . November 8.— Lilburne set at liberty . September 4. — Act for poor prisoners Highway robbery July 9. -Resolution against political sermons . Petitions on toleration 160 161 161 163 163 M 165 165 169 169 170 171 171 172 CONTENTS OF 1649 Act for the relief of tender consciences proposed September 20. — Act for restricting the liberty of the press November 13. — Clement Walker sent to the Tower . October 2. — Official newspapers established . October 6. — Milton's Eikonoklastes October II. — Committee for regulating elections . The engagement to be taken by members of Parliamen and officials ........ December 14. — Act for regulating elections in London December 21. — Lilburne elected a common councillor December 26. — The election quashed . Foreign relations of the Commonwealth .... August 23. — Commercial reprisals on France , August. — A proposed embassy to Spain . October 19. — Cottington and Hyde in Spain Rupert carries his prizes to Lisbon .... 1650 January 16. • — Missions of Ascham and Charles Vane CHAPTER VIII THE CONFERENCE AT BREDA 1649 July. — A Conference at Edinburgh August. — Proposal to open fresh negotiations with Charles October 11. — Winram's mission ..... The English Presbyterians in Holland .... October. — Charles anxious for news from Ireland Winram's reception in Jersey ..... December 27. — Seymour brings. bad news from Ireland . 1650 January II. — Charles writes to the Committee of Estates January 12. — Charles writes to Montrose 1649 July. — Montrose negotiates with the Elector of Branden burg August. — Kinnoul in the Orkneys . October. — Leslie in the North of Scotland . October. — Montrose in Denmark . November 12? — Montrose at Gothenburg . 1650 March. — Montrose sails for the Orkneys February 2. — Winram returns to Scotland . February. — Commissioners to be sent to Breda 1649 December. Alarm at Westminster THE FIRST VOLUME XV PAGE 1650 January 2. — Act making the engagement compulsory on all men 193 February 21. — Charles meets his mother at Beauvais . .194 .March 16. —Charles at Breda 1=95 March 18. — Keane's report from England . . . 195 Charles applies to foreign powers for help . . . 196 March 25.— The Scottish terms 196 Charles thinks of joining Montrose . . . . 196 March 29. — Charles sends Keane to rouse the English Royalists . . . . . . . " . 198 April. — Charles continues his negotiation with the Scots . . 199 April 8. — Mediation of the Prince of Orange . . . 199 Charles thinks of sending a foreign army into England and of pawning the Scilly Isles 200 Will Murray's mission . . . . . . .201 April 17. — Charles urges the Scots to make concessions . . 202 Charles gives way 202 May 1 . — A draft agreement signed . . . . . 203 Charles plays a double game ...... 204 111 will between Charles and the Scots 204 Harsh criticisms 204 CHAPTER IX THE LAST CAMPAIGN OK MONTROSE [650 An indemnity for Montrose 206 May 3 9. -Fleming's instructions 207 March. — Montrose in the Orkneys 208 March 26. — Montrose's last letter to Charles . . * 208 State of the Northern Highlands 210 April 9. — Montrose despatches Hurry to the mainland . .210 Montrose in Caithness and Sutherland 211 Probable treason of Seaforth 212 April 25. — A rendezvous at Brechin 212 Strachan sent in advance . . . . . .213 April 27. — A Council of War at Tain . .... 214 Montrose at Carbisdale . . . . . .215 Strachan's advance 215 Montrose defeated 218 Flight of Montrose 218 VOL. I. a xvi CONTENTS OF l'AGE 1650 Macleod of Assynt 219 Montrose delivered up by Macleod 220 Character of Macleod's action 220 May 8. — Montrose carried South 221 May 12. — A sermon on Agag 222 May 18. — Montrose enters Edinburgh 222 Montrose in prison 223 Montrose's language about the Covenant . . . . 224 Montrose before Parliament . . . • . • • 225 Montrose's sentence 226 Montrose's execution 227 CHAPTER X THE TREATY OK HELIGOLAND 1650 Strength and weakness of Argyle's policy . . . . 229 May 15. — Arrival of Sir W. Fleming 230 May 18. — Additional instructions to the Scottish Commis- sioners 230 May 24. — Arrival of Will Murray and Callander . . .231 Callander expelled from Scotland . . . . . . 231 May 12. — Charles's reception of the news of Montrose's defeat 231 May 29-June 21. — Execution of five of Montrose's followers 233 Treatment of the common soldiers 234 June 4. — Banishment of Charles's attendants . . . 234 May 25. — Protest of the Commissioners against Charles's religious observances ....... 235 Discontent of the Cavaliers 235 May 29 ? — Charles hears of Montrose's execution . . . 236 June 1. — Charles learns the additional demands of the Scots 236 June 2. — Charles sails for Scotland without signing the Treaty 236 June 11. — Signature of the Treaty of Heligoland . . . 237 June 23. — Charles swears to the Covenants . . . . 237 July 6. — Charles arrives at Falkland 239 Junes. — End of the Session of the Scottish Parliament . 240 May. — Preparations for a rising in England . . . . 240 Money expected from London 241 Charles all things to all men ....... 242 THE FIRST VOLUME 1650 January 9. — Vane's Report on the Elections to a New Parliament ......... 242 The question to be discussed in a Committee of the whole House .......... 243 February. — Marten compares the Commonwealth to Mcse.s . 243 February 11-20. — Election of the second Council of State . 244 February 15. — A Word for the Commonweal . . . 245 Attitude of Parliament towards the Presbyterians . . . 246 Difficulty of enforcing the engagement .... 246 February 26.— Delinquents expelled from London . . . 247 March 26. — A third High Court of Justice .... 247 , April. — Alleged despondency of Bradshaw and Vane . . 248 CHAPTER XI FAIRFAX AND CROMWELL 1650 May. — Position of Fairfax . 249 Preparations for a war with Scotland ..... 250 Financial resources . 250 The Government and the Press 252 Marchamont Needham's Case of the Commonwealth . . 253 May 24. — A gift and a pension for Needham . . . . 255 June 13. — Appearance of Mercitrius Politiats . . . 255 April 19. — Act for the observance of the Lord's Day . . 255 May 10.— Adultery Act 256 June 28. — Act against swearing .... . . 256 Grants to Cromwell 256 June 1. — Cromwell's reception on Hounslow Heath . . 256 The command of the army against the Scots discussed . . 257 June 20. — An invasion of Scotland resolved on . . 258 |une 22. — Fairfax refuses to take part in an invasion . . 258 June 24. — A discussion with Fairfax . . . 259 Fairfax determines to resign 259 [une 26. — Fairfax's resignation sent in 261 Cromwell appointed General 261 / Comparison of Fairfax's political opinions with those of I Cromwell 262 I Inconsistency of his position 263 His character 20 4 June 26, 27. — Irish arrangements 265 CONTENTS OF 1650 Cromwell's comments on the 110th Psalm June 21. — Harrison to command in England July 11. — A Militia Act. Publication of an address to the Pope . PAGE 266 267 267 268 CHAPTER XII DUNBAR 1650 June 28. — Cromwell starts for the North . Fleetwood, Lambert, and Monk .... Preparations of the Scots June 21. — Commission for purging the Scottish army July 22. — Cromwell enters Scotland . July 29.— A fight before Edinburgh July 30. — Cromwell retreats to Musselburgh July 29. — Charles tries to gain over the army . August 3-5. — The Scottish army, purged August 3. — Cromwell's warning to the clergy . August 6-12. — Cromwell's movements August 13. — Cromwell on Braid Hill August 10. — Charles asked to sign a Declaration . August 14. — Cromwell's scorn of the proposal August 15. — Remonstrance of the Scottish army . August 16. — Charles signs the Declaration and tries gather an army at Perth . Charles declares himself a Cavalier August 18. — Cromwell occupies Colinton August 21. — Leslie at Corstorphine August 27. — Cromwell fails to bring on a batt August 28-September 1.— Cromwell's retreat Leslie on Doon Hill . The Scottish army again purged . September 2. — Cromwell faces the worst September 1. — A Scottish council of war September 2. — Leslie moves down the hill Leslie now hopeful of success The Scottish position .... Cromwell thinks he sees an advantage A last council of war .... September 3. — Cromwell makes ready for battle e at Gogar to Dunbar 269 269 270 271 271 272 272 274 274 275 275 276 276 277 278 278 279 279 280 281 282 282 283 283 284 286 286 287 290 291 291 THE FIRST VOLUME XIX I'AGE 1650 The battle of Dunbar 292 A complete victory ........ 294 September 4. — The disposal of the Scottish prisoners . . 295 Causes and importance of the victory 296 CHAPTER XIII THE SEA POWER OF THE COMMONWEALTH 1650 .Necessity of protecting commerce 298 Rupert at Lisbon . 298 Danger from hostile Europe ....... 300 March-May. — Rupert and Blake at the mouth of the Tagus 300 Blake fails to persuade the Portuguese to expel Rupert . . 301 May 16. — English ships in the Portuguese service seized . 301 July 26, 27. — Rupert comes out but draws back . . . 302 September 7. — A futile engagement 303 September 14. — Blake's fight with the Brazil fleet . . . 303 Blake abandons the blockade 304 October 12. — Rupert puts to sea and makes prizes . . 304 November 2-5. — Capture and destruction of the greater part of Rupert's fleet 305 Rupert escapes to Toulon 306 October 31. — Act for securing trade 306 Change in naval warfare 307 England's Mediterranean power 307 Blake's language about monarchy ..... 308 November 23. — Philip orders Cardenas to recognise the Commonwealth ........ 308 December 26. — The Commonwealth recognised . . . 308 May 27. — Murder of Ascham 309 July 9. — Six Royalists to be tried in retaliation . . . 309 1651 January 22 A demand for justice 310 February 24. — Cottington and Hyde leave Madrid . . 310 July 2. — The agent of the Commonwealth leaves Madrid . 311 April 10. — Guimaraes learns the extent of the English demands on Portugal . . . . . . .312 May 16. — Guimaraes dismissed . . . . . . 312 1650 October 28. — Croulle urges Mazarin to come to terms with the Commonwealth . . . .312 XX CONTENTS OF FACE 1650 November. — A projected alliance with Spain against France 313 Mission of Salomon de Virelade . . . . 313 December 1 1. — A passport refused to him . . . .314 December 25. — Croulle dismissed . . . . . . 314 1651 March 14. — Gentillot dismissed 314 Penn's fleet in the Mediterranean . . . . 315 Rupert in the Atlantic 315 1650 Royalism in Virginia, Bermuda, and the West Indies . . 316 State of Barbados 316 October 3. — Act prohibiting trade with the Royalist colonies 317 1 65 1 Ayscue's fleet ordered to Barbados 317 1650 England and the Dutch Republic . . . . .318 Strife between the Prince of Orange and the States of Holland 318 Wish of the Prince to renew the war against Spain . .319 Death of the Prince and birth of a posthumous son . . . 320 1651 January 8. — Meeting of a Grand Assembly at the Hague . 320 Ascendency of the Province of Holland 321 February 14. — Mission of St. John and Strickland . . 322 March 17. — Their reception at the Hague . . . . 323 March 25. — Opening of their negotiation .... 325 May 23. — Surrender of the Scilly Isles 326 April 17-June 14. — Continuation of the negotiation at the Hague 326 June 18. — The ambassadors take their leave . . . 329 Causes of the failure of the negotiation .... 329 CHAPTER XIV SCOTLAND AFTER DUNBAR [650 Charles's conduct on hearing of the defeat of the Scots . . 331 Leslie criticised . . • . . . . . • • 33 1 Strachan, Ker, and Chiesley appointed to command in the West 33 2 September 12.— Issue of A Short Declaration, and of Causes of a Solemn Public Humiliation . . 332 September 14-21. — Cromwell marches to Stirling and returns to Edinburgh . . . • • • • 333 Dissensions at Stirling 333 Argyle's policy • • 334 THE FIRST VOLUME XXI PAGE 1650 Charles tries to unite all parties 335 October 2. — Proposed Royalist insurrection divulged . . 335 October 3. — Charles's house purged 336 October 4.— The start 337 The Northern bond . . . . . . . 338 November 4. — The agreement at Strathbogie . . . . 339 October 11. — Cromwell at Glasgow 339 October 17. — The Remonstrance 34° Moral condition of Scotland 340 Strachan and Ker in the West 34 2 November 25. — The Remonstrance condemned by the Committee of Estates 34 2 December 1. — Ker defeated at Hamilton . . . . 343 December 24. — Surrender of Edinburgh Castle . . . 344 Struggle between the Parliament and the Kirk . . . 345 December 13. — Victory of the Parliament .... 345 1651 January 1 — Coronation of Charles II 34^ January 12. — Middleton received into favour and Strachan excommunicated by the Kirk ..... 347 January 17. — Argyle retires before Hamilton . . . • 348 January 21.— Mission of Colonel Titus .... 349 Question of the readmission of the Engagers . . . . 35° March 26. — A committee for the army appointed . . 351 May.— Return of Titus 35 2 June 2.— Repeal of the Act of Classes .... 352 Fall of Argyle 35 2 Charles's triumph 353 MAPS l'AGE Ireland, to illustrate Cromwell's Campaigns, 1649- 1650 To face 107 The North ok Scotland ...... ,, 210 Fairfax's Pursuit of the Mutineers 51 The Siege of Dublin 91 Drogheda 113 The Siege of Wexford 127 The Battle of Carbisdale 217 Cromwell's Operations round Edinburgh .... 273 The Battle of Dunbar 293 The Entrance to the Tagus 299 THE COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE CHAPTER I THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS ENEMIES The execution of Charles I. — the work of military violence cloaked in the merest tatters of legality — had displayed to the eyes of the world the forgotten truth that kings, as Jan. 3 o. well as subjects, must bear the consequences of their of th/iting's errors and misdeeds. More than this the actors in the ?cution. g reat tragedy failed to accomplish, and, it may fairly be added, must necessarily have failed to accomplish.- It is never The power possible for men of the sword to rear the temple of the sword. f recovered freedom, and the small minority in Parliament which had given the semblance of constitutional procedure to the trial in Westminster Hall were no more than instruments in the hands of the men of the sword. Honestly as both military and political leaders desired to establish a vicious popular government, they found themselves in a circle. vicious circle from which there was no escape. No government they could set up would be strong enough to remain erect unless the army were kept on foot, and if .the army were kept on foot popular support would be alienated by its intervention in political affairs, and by the heavy taxation vol. 1. B 2 THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS ENEMIES CHAP. I. required for its maintenance. Every serious attempt to rest the government on the voice of the nation itself would inure to the benefit of the young prince who had not offended as his father had offended, and who appealed to those whom he claimed as subjects on other grounds than the disposal of an armed force. Though the efforts of the little group which now found it- self in possession of authority were predestined to failure, their The business strivings to loose the fetters of dynastic interest were of posterity. not without profitable result. In their own genera- tion their work struck but few roots. They were doing the business of a more distant posterity than that to which Eliot had devoted his life. Yet, though it is true that the proposals which they made were often such as to commend themselves to the men of the nineteenth, perhaps even to the men of the twentieth century, rather than to those of the seventeenth, it is not only by the immediate accomplishment of its aims that the value of honest endeavour is to be tested. Even when it fails to clothe itself in external fact, it contributes somewhat to the energy, and thereby to the ultimate vigour, of the race. Anxious to liberate a people which still clung to its fetters, the leaders of the mutilated House of Commons could but N . wait for better times, contenting themselves with a temporary the establishment of some makeshift constitutional settlement. ..... , •"«»». arrangement, which might serve their turn till the day — not far distant, as they fondly hoped— when the misguided Feb x people should come to a better mind. On February i Quaiifi'ca. the remnant of the House of Commons, now claiming tion of sit- '_ ° ting mem- for itself the name and authority of the Parliament of England, 1 attempted to make its own position regu- lar by resolving that no member who had voted on Decem- ber 5 that the King's offers afforded a ground of settlement, 2 or had been absent when that vote was given, should be allowed to sit until he had recorded his dissent from that resolution. 3 At this stage the proceedings were interrupted by an invi- 1 Great Civil War, iv. 290. 2 lb. iv. 266. s S.P. Dom. i. 1. 1649 A SINGLE HOUSE 3 tation from the Lords to discuss the future government of the The Lords country in a joint committee. Not only was per- j ? oi k nt f0 com- mission to appear at the bar refused to messengers miuee. w h Q brought it,' but on the following day the Com- Feb. ? . mons resolved to take into consideration the position of the Lords of the other House. 2 On the 6th some members — sidered" Cromwell being probably amongst them ■ — expressed Feb. 6. a wish to retain the House of Lords as a purely of h Lo^dT se consultative body, but the proposal was rejected abolished, by 44 votes to 29, and a resolution 'that the House of Peers in Parliament is useless and dangerous and ought to be abolished' was carried without a division. On Feb. 7 . the 7th a further resolution ' that it had been found s^!ip abo^ by experience . . . that the office of a king in this lished. nation, and to have the power thereof in any single person, is unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous to the liberty, safety and public interests of the people of this nation, and therefore ought to be abolished,' 4 was carried, also without a division. Effect was given to these resolutions by the intro- duction of Acts — the name of Bills being now dropped — which were not finally passed till March 17 and 19, 5 but under the circumstances the delay was of no importance. The reaction against monarchy naturally led to the intro- duction of government by a numerous body, and it was at once a Council of agreed that a Council of State should be erected, ereaed? be an d tnat a committee should be appointed to pro- a committee P ose to tne House tne names of its members and a discusses its (i ra f t f instructions for its guidance. 6 The discus- composi- # , ° tion sions in this committee ranged far. Some of its members proposed that there should be no less than a hundred councillors, and that none of these should be peers. 7 In the end it was resolved that the number of councillors should be forty-one, and that peers should be capable of acting amongst them. The new Council of State was to have full executive 1 Perf. Weekly Account, E, 541, 24. - C.J. vi. 129. 8 Ludloiv, i. 220. * C.J. vi. 132, 133. 5 lb. 166, 168. • C.J. vi. 133. ' Grignon to Brienne, Feb. \\, R. O. Transcripts. u 2 4 THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS ENEMIES CHAP. i. authority in the management of home and foreign affairs, and was authorised to administer oaths and to imprison or hold to bail those who resisted its orders. Its own existence was ter- minable at the end of a year, • unless it were otherwise ordered by Parliament' l Parliament, in short, intended to retain complete control over the Council, which would have no inde- pendent constitutional position, such as is secured to and its con- , . l . siitutionai the modern Cabinet by virtual possession of the power of dissolution. Far less would it attain the command- ing position assigned to it in the latest edition of the Agreement of the People, in accordance with which it would have sat con- tinuously for two years, whilst a biennial Parliament, except on special summons issued by the Council itself, would only have remained in session during six months out of the twenty-four. 2 The new Council, in short, was to be formed on the lines of the Committee of Both Kingdoms and the Derby House Committee. 3 The form of an engagement to be required from the councillors was next discussed. At Ireton's suggestion it was An engage- resolved that they should declare their approval of po e sed P by' the establishment of the High Court of Justice, of ireton. ^g trial and execution of the King, of the abolition of the monarchy and of the House of Lords. 4 1 C.J. vi. 138. * Const. Doc. 270. According to the Heads of the Proposals, Par- liament was to sit in the two years not less than 120 and not more than 240 days, ' or some other limited number of days now to be agreed on.' lb. 233. 3 Great Civil War, iv. 52. 4 " Plusieurs croyent," wrote the French agent nearly two years later, ** qu'il arrivera quelque brouillerie au Parlement sur la proposition qui y fut faite un peu apres la mort du deffunt Roy de la G. B. par Ireton . . . que tous les membres du Parlement, du Conseil d'Estat, et les officiers estant en emplois considerables eussent a souscrire a la condamnation de mort donnee contre le deffunt Roy de l'Angleterre et au changement du gouvernement qui ayant ete oppose par quelques-uns fut elude par Crom- well luy-mesme qui y trouva le temperament de l'engagement." Croulle to Mazarin, Dec. £■„ 1650. Arch, des Aff. Etravgires, lix. fol. 495. The form of this proposed engagement has only been preserved in a I6 4 9 THE ENGAGEMENT 5 On February 13 the whole of these proposals were adopted by Parliament. 1 Algernon Sidney, indeed, objected to the imposition of the engagement, on the ground ' that Sidneys such a test would prove a snare to many an honest objection . . ,,,• ■<•<>■ to the man, but every knave would slip through it. So .ngagemen . sens j t j ve were j^g regicides that Lord Grey of Groby cried out that Sidney had applied the epithet of knave to all who signed the engagement. Great was the uproar till Marten appeared as a peace-maker, pointing out, truly enough, that Sidney had merely said • that every knave might slip through, and not that every one who did slip through was a knave.' a The influence of the regicides, however, prevailed, and an Act was passed enjoining on every councillor the signature of the engagement as it stood. On the following day a vote was taken on the names of forty-one persons suggested by the committee as fit to sit in Feb. 14. the new Council. Amongst those recommended ofState 1111011 were five peers — Denbigh, Mulgrave, Pembroke, nominated. Salisbury, and Grey of Warke. The lawyers were represented by three judges — Rolle, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, St. John, now Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Wilde, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, as well as by Bradshaw and Whitelocke. Amongst the officers were Fairfax, Cromwell, Ireton, Skippon, and Harrison. Of the forty-one names, those of Ireton and Harrison were alone Ireton and . , „ ... , , . . Harrison rejected. 3 It is not unlikely that the rejection of rejecte . t h ese two officers was due to the support which had been given by them to the military demand for an immediate dissolution in the discussions preceding Pride's Purge. 4 Ireton's summary by Whitelocke (383), which should be compared with an entry in the Order Book of the Council of State, Interr. I, 62, p. 4. In Mrs. Everett Green's Calendar, the words ' court of justice ' are misprinted 'board of justice.' 1 Act of Parliament, Feb. 13 ; Order in Parliament, Feb. 1 3 ; Interr. Papers, 87, pp. 9-14. 2 Sidney to the Earl of Leicester, Oct. 12, 1660 ; Blencowe's Sydney Papers, 238. 3 C.J. vi. 140. 4 Great Civil War, iv. 269. 6 THE COMMONWEALTH AN£> ITS ENEMIES chap. I. known views in favour of strengthening the authority of the Council of State may also have militated against him. On the 15th the Council was completed by the substitution The Council of two other members, and at the same time the resolution of Parliament not to allow the growth of anything like personal authority was emphasised by its refusal to allow the appointment of a Lord President of the Council. 1 The consequences of Ireton's attempt to narrow the basis of the new republic developed themselves with surprising rapidity. When the Council met for the first time its first ' on the 17th, it was found that only fourteen members were in attendance, and of these all but one were regicides. The thirteen regicides took the engagement ; the Feb. 19. one, Sir William Masham, refused it. On the 19th ment ensase ^ was taken by five more members, but twenty-two resisted. dissentients still remained. Of these, Grey of Warke raised the insuperable objection that he would sign nothing emanating from a single House. The other four peers, together with Fairfax, were ready to serve the new Government, but refused to express approval of past actions which they had opposed. Various objections of a special character were raised by others. 2 Grey of Warke having been excluded by his own act, the case of the remaining councillors was clearly one for com- a case for promise ; and Cromwell, who had been temporarily compromise. pi ace( j j n the chair, 3 set himself to correct the error of his less practical son-in-law. After an amicable conference between the two parties in the Council, held at his instance on Feb 22 tne 22n d> tne House agreed to a new form of en- a revised gagement, binding those who took it to concur in engagement. ° ° . f «.-•.. • 'the settling of the government of this nation for the future in the way of a republic without King or House of Lords,' and to fulfil punctually the duty imposed on them by Parliament. Even this, however, appears not to have been ' C.J. vi. 143. 2 C. of St. Order Book, Interr. I, 62, p. 4. * The Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer, E, 545, 13. i6 4 9 REVISION OF THE ENGAGEMENT 7 palatable to every one of the members of the Council, as the order by which the signature of the revised engagement was Feb 2 enforced was withdrawn by Parliament on the 23rd, 1 W'thdraWai no directions being given for the substitution of a vised en- third form. It is only incidentally that we learn that Fairfax finally took the engagement in an unautho- rised recensipn, binding himself to defend the proceedings of Par- liament in settling the government ' in the way of a republic without King and House of Peers,' but not binding himself a final t0 concur in what was done. 2 It is by no means revision. improbable that when the second form of the engage- ment was withdrawn it had been taken by all the other mem- bers of the Council, and that Fairfax alone was, though without official authority, permitted to accept it in an altered shape. Of the forty members remaining in the Council after the exclusion of Lord Grey of Warke, the Earl of Mulgrave never took his seat. Three of the remaining members were judges, 1 C.J. vi. 149. The Order Book of the Council of State has no referer.ee to any subscription of the second engagement, whilst it has indirect evidence that it was not taken by all the members. An order of Feb. 23 directs the councillors to take an oath of secrecy, which would have been unnecessary if all of them had taken the engagement, which contains such an oath. 2 We should have had no knowledge of the third engagement if it had not been mentioned in a resolution of the House on Feb. 20, 1650, that Fairfax had taken it. It is as follows : " I, A.B., being nominated member of the Council of State by this present Parliament, do testify that I do adhere to this present Parliament in the maintenance and defence of the public liberty and freedom of this nation as it is now declared by this Parliament, by whose authority I am constituted a member of the said Council, and in the maintenance and defence of their resolutions concern- ing the settling of the Government of this nation for [the] future in the way of a republic, without King or House of Peers ; and I do promise in the sight of God that, through His Grace, I will be faithful in per- formance of the trust committed to me, as aforesaid, and therein faithfully pursue the instructions given to the said Council by this present Parlia- ment. In confirmation of the premises I have hereunto subscribed my name." C.J. vi. 369. The first engagement had been opposed by Vane. State Trials, vi. 164 ; A Vindication oj Sir H. Vane, p. 7, E, 985, 21. 8 THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS ENEMIES chap. I. and three — Pembroke, Salisbury, and Denbigh — were peers. As two others, Bradshaw and Alderman Wilson, were not members of the House, there were thirty-one who sat both in Parliament and in the Council. 1 As the average attendance on divisions in Parliament during the three months subsequent to the final institution of Did the the Council of State did not exceed fifty-six, 2 the vote n the° ut ' councillors, if they had been in constant attendance, House ? an( j had always voted on the same side, would have been able to bear down all opposition. In fact, the average attendance in the Council was, during the same period, no more than fifteen, and the votes of fifteen councillors, even if they had been unanimous, could not overweigh the judgment of all the private members, though undoubtedly sufficient to turn the scale where opinion was anything like equally divided. An analysis of the division lists, indeed, shows that the Council had no such masterful weight in Parliament as has been some- times ascribed to it. 3 The administrative recommendations of the Council, indeed, were almost always accepted by the House without hesitation or division, but when any controversial 1 Mrs. Everett Green, in the Freface to the Calendar for 1649-50, p. xv, note I, says that the only members of the Council • not identified as members of Parliament are Alderman Wilson, Lord Chief Baron Wylde and Major-General Skippon.' Skippon, however, was a member, whilst Bradshaw and Rolle were not, and St. John had, for the present, ceased to act on his appointment to the Bench. Mrs. Everett Green compares the Council of the whole of its first year with the Parliament of the first three months after Pride's Purge. I have preferred making the comparison for the three months after the institution of the Council of State. 2 Including tellers. 3 This is the view taken by Mrs. Everett Green in her Preface to the Calendar of State Tapers, 1649-50. "It will at once be seen," she writes (p. xv), '"■ that when they were unanimous and attending in force they would command a working majority in the House. Therefore their perpetual references to Parliament really mean, not an appeal to an independent governing power, but an appeal from themselves as a newly constituted power to themselves, with some additions, but bearing the august name of Parliament." l6 4 9 JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS 9 question was raised, it was almost invariably found that the division in Parliament was a mere echo of a previous division in the Council, as is shown by the fact that scarcely a division was taken during the first three months of the existence of the Council in which its members did not appear as tellers on op- posite sides. Important as it was to place the executive government in trustworthy hands, it was hardly of less importance to secure judicial tne continuity of the judicial institutions of the L n fthe 1Uons countr y- Lawyers were more likely than politicians country. to refuse to take part in the administration of law under a Government which had set constitutional law at Kei). i. defiance, and on February i, the House found it Te'rmad- necessary to gain time for a negotiation with framed. the judges by adjourning Hilary Term to the 9th. 1 Feb 8 ^ n tne ^ tn tne J u dges announced their decision. Of Half of the the two commissioners of the Great Seal, Sir Thomas judges con- tinue in Widdrington retired on the transparent plea of ill- health, whilst Whitelocke, in a laboured oration, an- nounced his unwillingness to continue in office but for the pressure to which he had been subjected. Of the Common Law judges six agreed and six declined to accept new com- missions, the acceptance of the former being conditional on the issue by Parliament of a declaration that it intended to maintain ' the fundamental laws,' and that it would repeal the Acts enforcing the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. These conditions were at once accepted. To Whitelocke were given two colleagues, John Lisle and Sergeant Keble. 2 It was not thought prudent for the present to fill the judiciai 9 a P - other vacancies. The customary reference to the pomtments. f^j n g was orn itted from the oaths of the judges, and the name of the Upper Bench was substituted for that of the King's Bench. In all other respects the administration of justice pursued its accustomed course. 1 This is the date of the resolution, the Act was passed a few days later. C.J., vi. 128, 130. 2 lb. vi. 134-136; Whitelocke, 378. 10 THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS ENEMIES chap. I. Anxious as Parliament was to lead the stream of ordinary justice through the ordinary channels, it was well aware that How are unless it was prepared to abandon the hope of tHa's'to' be meting out what, in the eyes of its members, was earned on ? justice on political offenders, it must find some other way of securing its ends than a trial in the King's Bench by judge and jury. On February 3 the House erected a new High Feb. 3 . Court of Justice, to try Hamilton, Holland, Norwich, CourtofjS Capel, and Owen. Of this Court Bradshaw was nee erected. President, 1 whilst the other members, men less notable than those who had sentenced the King, being nomi- nated by Parliament, could be depended on to comply with its wishes. It would have been more straightforward to put the prisoners to death by an Act of Attainder, but, as in the King's case, the House shrank from acknowledging even to itself that a mere semblance of judicial forms was all that it could employ. The proceedings opened on February 10. All five prisoners pleaded that their captors had granted them quarter for their Feb. 10. lives, and that they were therefore not liable to be Royalisf the tr i e( i on a capital charge. This plea having been prisoners. overruled on the ground that no promise of the mili- tary authorities could bar the action of a civil court, the result of the trials was a foregone conclusion. Hamilton, indeed, pleaded that he was a foreigner by birth, and was therefore not amenable to English law, especially as his entrance in arms into England had been commanded by the Parliament of his own country. He failed, however, to show that he had been born before the accession of James to the throne of England, and the court therefore held that he was, in accordance with the judgment in the case of the flost nati, 2 a natural-born English- March 6. man > a s well as Earl of Cambridge in the English R^yah^ts peerage. No other points of legal importance were sentenced. 1 C.J. vi. 131. Hamilton is throughout named by his English title, Earl of Cambridge, and Norwich is called Lord Goring, Parliament not recognising his earldom, which had been conferred since the outbreak of the Civil War. 2 Hist, of Eng. 1 603-1642, i. 356. 1649 TRIALS OF ROYALISTS II raised in the course of the trials, and on March 6 all five prisoners were sentenced to death. 1 On March 8, petitions for mercy having been presented to Parliament by the relatives of the condemned men, their cases March 8. were taken into consideration. In spite of the pr?e°ved"and influential advocacy of his brother Warwick, Hol- leftforexe- * anc * was ^ to execut i° n by a single vote. He cution. W as heavily weighted by his frequent tergiversations and his position in the very centre of the Royalist movement in the preceding year. The petitions in favour of Hamilton and Capel were rejected without a division. Owen, on the other hand, obtained a respite, which was equivalent to a par- don, by a majority of five, and Norwich owed his life to the casting vote of the Speaker. In all five cases Cromwell and Ireton had been systematically opposed to leniency. 2 On the 9th the three condemned Royalists were beheaded on a scaffold erected before the gate of Westminster Hall. March Neither Hamilton nor Holland was much pitied by Execution of the spectators. With Capel it was otherwise. His Hamilton, r r . Holland, frank and open nature, which had kept him un- ape ' stained by the mire of political intrigue, had to the last attracted the admiration even of his enemies. Rejecting the services of a minister of a creed he detested, he stepped jauntily on to the scaffold with his hat cocked and his cloak under his arm. His religion, he said, was that of the Thirty- nine Articles, 'the best he knew of.' He was to die for his fidelity to the King and his obedience to the fifth com- mandment. His late master was ' the most religious of all princes of the world,' and his son was now the lawful king. Capel died nobly defiant, and in him English royalism could count one martyr more. 3 The conclusion of these trials enabled the Council to com- plete its internal organisation. Hitherto it had been content 1 Clarke Trials, in Worcester College Library. 2 C.J. vi. 159. Whitelocke's statement that the Speaker gave his vote against Holland is disproved by the journals. * The Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer, E, 546, 19. 12 THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS ENEMIES CHAP. i. with temporary chairmen, but on March 10, the day after the executions, it named. Bradshaw its President, 1 avoiding the March 10. title of Lord President, which had been condemned Presiding by a vote of Parliament. 2 Before long, however, Council Bradshaw was, by tacit consent, styled Lord Presi- of state. dent f tne Council of State, Parliament itself finally complying with established usage. For the time no serious opposition was made in England to the new Government. At Exeter, indeed, some Cavaliers England had torn down the Act prohibiting the proclamation i u,et - of another king, 3 and in London, as well as in Devonshire, many of the clergy raised their voices against a regicide commonwealth; 4 but the lesson taught by the last campaign could not be ignored, and even the most enthusias- tic Royalists acknowledged that without external assistance it would be impossible to throw off the yoke of the victorious army. It was on Ireland that for some time their hopes had been mainly fixed. Since the autumn of 1648, Ormond had been doing his utmost to bring the Supreme Council to terms. 5 The news 1648. °f Pride's Purge, and of Charles's imprisonment, activity hi P av 'ed the way to an understanding, and on January Ireland. I7> 1 649, a treaty between the King's Lord Lieu- tenant and the confederate Catholics was signed at Kilkenny. 1649. By this treaty the Roman Catholics were secured in TheTrbh tne f ree exercise of their religion, and to Irishmen peace. [ n general was offered the complete independence of their Parliament, together with various salutary reforms. In return for these concessions, the Confederates were to supply Ormond with 15,000 foot and 500 horse, a force which, in combination with that under Inchiquin, was expected to be sufficient to reduce Dublin and to compel the submission of O'Neill. To provide support for this army, twelve eminent ' C. of St. Order Book, Interr. I, 62, p. 71. 2 See p. 6. 3 Great Civil War, iv. 321. 4 The Moderate, E, 542, II ; The Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer, E, 542, 14. i Great Civil War, iv. 224. 1649 IRELAND AND SCOTLAND 1 3 members of the Supreme Council were appointed commis- sioners—Commissioners of Trust was the name by which they were generally known — for assessing taxes a'nd appointing magistrates with the concurrence of the Lord Lieutenant. All consideration of the two burning questions of the possession of the churches and the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic clergy was postponed till after the meeting of the promised Parliament. 1 So well was Ormond satisfied with the outlook, that on January 22 he invited the Prince of Wales to hasten to Ireland, Jan. 22. holding out hopes that he would soon be able to faritedto* transport the Irish army into England. Lord Byron, Ireland. wno carried the invitation, was instructed to give a full report on the condition of the country. The Royalist exiles in Holland had long been familiar with the idea of assailing England through Ireland. Their favourite plan had been to send to Ormond's assistance that Rupert s fleet in portion of the fleet which had rallied to the King, and Rupert's appointment as Admiral had done much to quicken the dilatory movements of those whose task it was to prepare the ships for sea. The Queen of Bohemia pawned her jewels, and with the money thus acquired, and by the sale of the guns of one of the ships, two small vessels were fitted out and sent forth to seize all shipping, the property of English rebels, which might fall in their way. Before long they brought back two prizes, the sale of one of which produced enough to equip the remainder of the fleet. On January 1 1 Rupert put to sea with eight vessels. He was Rupert puts accompanied by three Dutch East Indiamen, and though the commanders of these latter had no inten- tion of giving him actual support, the combined fleet presented so imposing an appearance that the Parliamentary commander in the Downs made no attempt to interrupt his passage through the Straits. Rupert struck the Irish coast at Crookhaven, whence, after 1 Cox, Hib. Angl. App. xliii. 14 THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS ENEMIES chap. I. a short delay, he transferred his fleet to Kinsale. It was T miserably undermanned, and its commander's only Rupert at hope of being able again to put to sea with effect lay in the attraction which the prospect of prize money might have for Irish sailors. 1 In Scotland the effect of the resolution taken at West- minster to bring the King to a trial was to the full as great as Jan. 4 . that produced in Ireland. When the Scottish Parlia- ibg's'triai 6 me nt met on January 4, the predominance of Argyle on Scotland, appeared to be secured. The shires and boroughs were represented by his partisans, and the nobles who had recently opposed him did not venture to take their seats. In 1648 no fewer than fifty-six noblemen sat in the Parliament House. In 1649 there were but sixteen, Argyle's supporters to a man. The prevailing party seized the opportunity to make a reaction impossible so far as legislation could effect their object. On January 23, all who had supported, or had even forborne to oppose, the Hamiltonian engage- The Act of ment were divided into three classes according to their social or political importance, and excluded respectively for life, for ten, or for five years from office and Parliament. Those in the second and third class remained under disability even after the expiration of the term till they had given satisfactory evidence of repentance. A fourth class was made up of those ' given to uncleanness, bribery, swearing, drunkenness, or deceiving, or . . . otherwise scandalous in their conversation, or who neglect the worship of God in their families.' These were formerly excluded from office and Parliament for a single year, but, when that year was at an end, their exclusion was to continue till they gave evidence of re pentance. 2 Pride's Purge was less drastic than this. Argyle's party triumph only served to expose the weakness of his position. He had attempted to maintain a friendly 1 Prince Rupert's Voyage, Warburton, iii. 279 ; Rupert to Ormond, Jan. 27 ; Ormond to the Commissioners of Westmeath, Jan. 31 ; Carte MSS. xxiii. foil. 347, 383. 2 Acts of the Pari, of Sc. vi. part ii. 143. 1649 ARGYLE AND MONTROSE 15 attitude towards the dominant powers in England, and the clergy, who were his main supporters, were now thundering w , from the pulpit against his alliance with a sectarian of Argyie's English army. As the drama of the King's trial un- folded itself the hostile feeling increased, and Charles's execution rendered it uncontrollable. Not only was it unen- durable that a King of Scotland should be done to death by a purely English tribunal, but it was taken for granted that the causes which had hindered a popular declaration in his favour were buried in his grave. It was thought impossible that a second Charles should share in that inexplicable repugnance to the Covenant which had stood in the way of the first. Scant justice would be done to the mental powers of Argyle in supposing that he had no forebodings of danger. For some time past one of his emissaries, Major Strachan, had been going backwards and forwards between him and the Indepen- dent leaders with the object of preventing a rupture between the two nations. 1 The tide was, however, running too strongly in the opposite direction, and Argyle, true to his nature, resolved to follow the multitude in order that he might appear to lead it. Even before the King's trial Argyle had been preparing for a change of policy by an attempt to come to an understanding with the leading Engagers. Much as he disliked the Nov! Hamiltons, he disliked and feared Montrose more, fnTthe an d he knew that in the autumn of 1648 Montrose Engagers, j^^ arr j ve( j a t Brussels, bringing with him from the Bru n S eu e at E m P eror the title of Field Marshal ; and, what was of far greater value, permission to levy troops in the Empire for his master's service. 2 Montrose was soon in friendly communication with Rupert, of whose expedition to Ireland he thoroughly approved, and it was understood that he intended to land in the North of Scotland in the hope of re- peating, if fortune favoured, the exploits of Inverlochy and Graymond to Brienne, Feb. f 5 , Harl. MSS. 4,551, fol. 3 10. Napier's Memoirs of Montrose, ii. 671. 16 THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS ENEMIES chap. i. Kilsyth. 1 Before the end of November Hyde received from . „ Lanark a communication that he was ready to serve An offer J from even as a sergeant under Montrose, but Montrose would have no dealings with the Hamiltons, and Lanark humbled himself in vain. 2 It is not unlikely that some hint of Lanark's overture to Montrose reached Argyle, and that he resolved to make use of Dec the repulse which his former opponent had received Lanark in to bring him into his own service. At all events, soon after the middle of December Lanark appeared in Edinburgh, where he disavowed the engagement and promised to desist from all opposition to the new Parliament. He was then confined to his own house and plied with inter- ,6 4 o. rogatories, whilst Lauderdale was summoned from Lauderdale Holland on the pretext that he was required to give summoned. an account of his conduct in the service of the State. In the second week in January Lauderdale arrived at Leith. He would hardly have obeyed so meekly without secret assurances that he could come and go in safety. 3 After his landing he promised never again to disturb the peace in Jan. 27. Scotland. On January 27, both he and Lanark Lanark and embarked clandestinely and sailed for Holland. Lauderdale. Q n fa e (j a y before that on which the Earls took ship, the guards in Edinburgh were doubled, and on the morning on which they went on board orders were given to secure them wherever they might be found. Yet shrewd observers were of opinion that the two noblemen were acting in collusion with The Earls in Argyle, 4 and there is every reason to believe that with*' 011 tnis explanation was true, especially as, though an Argyle. outward show of hostility was maintained, Lanark and Lauderdale from that moment acted in complete harmony 1 Graymond to Brienne, J *^|, Harl. MSS. 4,551, fol. 292. 2 Napier's Memoirs of Montrose, ii. 676-683. The dates of the letters as given by Napier must be put back ten days to suit the old style. 8 Graymond to Brienne, ^tf> {£$ Harl MSS. 4,551, foil. 282, 296. 4 " Cependant, Monseigneur, ce depart si soudain, et beaucoup de petites particularites . . . m'ont fait apprehender qu'il n'y eut quelque i6 4 9 POLICY OF ARGYLE 1 7 with their former rival. If the whole truth were known, it would probably be found that Argyle, aware that the King's execution was not to be averted, and believing that the younger Charles would make no difficulty about taking the Cove- nant, perceived that there would no longer be any practical barrier between himself and the Hamiltonians, if he abandoned, as he was now prepared to do, all thought of coming to an understanding with the English regicides. Once more Argyle was practising the art of swimming with the tide. The news of the King's execution reached Edinburgh on February 4. On the 5th Prince Charles was proclaimed his father's undoubted heir as ' King of Great Britain, France, mauvaise entreprise contre le Prince de Galles et que ce ne fusl un effect de la bonne intelligence qu'on a tousjours reconnu estre entre les Hamiltons et les Argiles en ce qui concerne la ruine de la monarchic qui pourroit tendre ou a empescher que le Marquis de Montrose ne vint icy au cas qu'on veuille l'y envoier par la confiance que les Hamiltons donneroient d'eux mesmes, et par la crainte qu'auroit le Prince de Galles de leur imprimer de la jalousie, envoyant en Escosse le dit Marquis qui ne leur a jamais este amy, ou pour decouvrir ses desseins a ce party et luy faire suivre leurs mauvais conseils dans ces entreprises ; car je ne voy pas pourquoy sciter le Comte de Laderdaill pour rendre raison des com- missions qu'il a eues, et non pas ceux de Dumfermelin, Traquaire, et autres, qui en ont eu de pareilles ; outre je ne trouve pas que ce soit une ruse de dire a present qu'a la mesme heure qu'ils s'embarquerent on avoit mis des troupes en campagne pour les prendre, ce qui est en effet, et s'emprisonner dans le chasteau d'Edinburgh et d'en envoier de mesme a quelques autres pour voir s'ils estoient au pais et les y aians trouvez ne les prendre point, s'enforcer le vendredy et ce samedy le guet, et establir de nouvelles gardes a plusieurs avenues hors de la ville, comme aussy que le Baron de Balm-[erino] tres attache aux interestz du Marquis d'Argiles, ait revele a ces deux comtes qu'on le vouloit saisir de leurs personnes, ce qui m'a este asseure qu'il avoit fait et qui ne se publieroit pas par ses meilleurs amis si cela luy pouvoit nuire envers son parti. Outre ce je ne comprends pas pourquoy ces deux Comtes passants en Hollande dans un bon vaisseau estant demeurez un jour en cette rade n'ont emmene' avec eux tant de bons serviteurs du Roy d'Angleterre ... qui sont en peine pour le dernier engagement." Graymond to Brienne, ^"b^' ^ ar ^- MSS. 4,551, fol. 296. Writing again on Feb. T %, Graymond says that the Countess of Lanark had confirmed his suspicions. lb. fol. 310. VOL. I. C 18 THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS ENEMIES CHAP. i. and Ireland.' The young King, however, before he could be Feb . s admitted to the exercise of his royal dignity, was to Snd.'tlon- 1 ' §i ye satisfaction concerning religion, the union of claimed at ^ e kingdoms, and the good and peace of Scotland, Edinburgh. ' according to the National Covenant and the solemn League and Covenant.' 1 The young heir thus conditionally acknowledged at Edin- burgh, was at this time at the Hague, the guest of his brother- Feb in-law, the Prince of Orange. On the 4th the fatal Charles ii. news of his father's death was conveyed to him by the Royal Dr. Stephen Goffe, who, after conversing for some time on other matters, addressed him as ' Your Majesty.' Charles, seizing the meaning of the words, withdrew himself to his chamber and buried himself in a passionate outburst of grief. When he came forth he assumed the royal title as his Feeling in unquestionable right. At the Hague itself, where Holland. t ^ e influence f the Prince of Orange was predomi- nant, popular opinion ran strongly against the murderers of the late King. The States General and the Dutch clergy presented the new claimant of the throne with addresses of condolence. Even the States of Holland gave public expression to their sorrow, though it was well known that the merchants and lawyers, of whom that assembly was mainly composed, had no wish to expose their commerce to the risk of a war with England. 2 Charles, indeed, plainly understood that no foreign power would give him armed assistance until he could help himself, „ , and that he could only become formidable by Was Charles . .... , , . r to seek sup- placing him self at the head of the enemies of Scotland or England either in Scotland or in Ireland. For Ireland? som e time before any invitation reached him from either of those countries, the question whether he should throw himself on the Scots or the Irish was eagerly discussed in his council. Culpepper, Percy, and Secretary Long were eager for an alliance with Scotland and Presbyterianism, whilst Hyde, to whom all concessions to the Presbyterians were 1 Acts of Pari, of Sc. vi. part ii. 157. * Aitzema, Saken van Stact en Oorhg, iii. 323 ; Clarendon, xii. 1-3. i6 4 9 CHARLES ANO MONTROSE l£ odious, warmly advocated a voyage to Ireland, where Ormond might be expected to ward off any unseemly yielding to the demands of the Catholic hierarchy. 1 The choice of Ireland, indeed, as the scene of action, carried with it the choice of a Scottish policy very different Hyde and from that which was about to be suggested by the Montrose. Government at Edinburgh. Hyde's view of the case had the warm support of Montrose, who was eager to place himself at the head of a purely Royalist movement in Scotland. The reception of the news of the execu- Montroses . . *■ reception of tion of the late King had thrown Montrose into a the King's frenzy of indignation. When he heard the bitter tidings he swooned away. As soon as he recovered he vowed to dedicate the remainder of his life to the task of avenging 'the death of the royal martyr, and of re-establishing his son upon the throne which was his due.' Then, returning to his chamber, he refused for two days to admit even his nearest friends. The fruit of this seclusion was the character- istic outburst — ' Great, Good, and Just, could I but rate My grief with thy too rigid fate, I'd weep the world in such a strain As it should deluge once again. But since thy loud-tongued blood demands supplies More from Briareus' hands than Argus' eyes, I'll sing thine obsequies with trumpet sounds, And write thine epitaph with blood and wounds.' 1 If the verses were those rather of a soldier than of a poet, they were illuminated by the strong resolution of the writer. Feb 22 ^n F eDruai y 22 Charles, carried away by the Montrose energetic insistence of his most heroic supporter, to be the ",-», T • ** ■ t Kings nominated Montrose as Lieutenant-Governor of (iovemoT Scotland and Captain-General of all forces raised in of Scotland. g cot , and and Q f aU othcrs whjch might be brought thither out of England or Ireland. 3 Charles thus gave his 1 Nicholas to Ormond, undated, Carte's Orig. Letters, i. 213. 1 Napier's Memoirs of Montrose, ii. 692. 3 Commission to Montrose, jj*£j t Hist. MSS. Com Rep. ii. 173. C 2 20 THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS ENEMIES chap. i. sanction to the raising of a purely Royalist standard in the three kingdoms. Charles's resolution to abide by any settled policy was soon put to the test. On February 20, two days before the issue of Feb. 20. Montrose's commission, Sir Joseph Douglas landed Doug°as P in at Rotterdam with instructions from Argyle and his Holland. colleagues to feel his way, and, if he found Charles's inclination favourable to the acceptance of the Scottish terms, to promise that commissioners should be sent to treat with the new King. 1 Argyle's messenger found his task heavier than he had anticipated. Young as Charles was — he had not yet completed Difficulties ms nineteenth year— he was too shrewd to be m his way. filing t alienate his best supporters by accepting the Covenant ; and though Lanark and Lauderdale, in pursuance of their tacit understanding with their former rivals, begged him to give way, they found him strongly inclined to i make Ireland rather than Scotland the basis of his incline* to operations. Even the Prince of Orange, who objected to any close relations between Charles and [he'princf the Irish Catholics, professed himself unable to of Orange, understand the policy of the Act of Classes. To a Scotchman who alleged that there were in England three Presbyterians to one Independent, he replied with a warning against divisions. "How many Presbyterians soever ye be," he said, " if ye live at a distance, as I hear you do, ye will be able to do nothing at all." Charles, who wished to answer gain time till the arrival of the expected message which Byron was bringing from Ormond, informed Douglas that he would reserve his answer till the promised commissioners arrived from Scotland. 2 The Scottish Parliament, instead of appointing new com- missioners to treat with Charles, sent orders to the three already at Westminster 3 to cross the sea to Holland as soon as 1 Acts of the Pari, of Sc. vi. part ii. 124. 2 Spang to Baillie, March fa Baillie, iii. 71. 8 Great Civil War, iv. 305. 1649 A SCOTTISH PROTEST 21 they had expressed their detestation of the execution of the late King. 1 On February 24 they presented this last Protestor protest to the English Parliament, charging, with Commis- undiplomatic directness, the Commons now sitting ■mm. at Westminster with the breach of the Solemn League and Covenant, the suppression of monarchy and the House of Lords, and with countenancing the Agreement of the People, the aim of which was ' a licentious liberty and ungodly toleration in matters of religion.' They therefore asked that there should be no toleration and no ' change of the funda- mental constitution and government of this kingdom by King, Lords, and Commons,' and that nothing should be done which could 'wrong King Charles II.' On the other hand, religion was to be reformed by the establishment of the Presbyterian discipline, and the King, ' upon just satisfaction given to both kingdoms, to be admitted to the exercise of his government.' 2 The ' Commons now sitting at Westminster ' were naturally irritated by the attempt of the Scottish Parliament to dictate a constitutional settlement for England. They at once ■t West- denounced it as laying ' the grounds of a new and bloody war.' They directed that an appeal should be made to Edinburgh which it was hoped might lead to a disavowal of the protest, and they despatched Sexby to Gravesend to arrest the Commissioners, 3 who were already on their way to take shipping for Holland with the object of in- viting the young King to Scotland. Sexby arrested them on board and brought them back to London, whence The Scot- they were, on the 26th, despatched by land under a missioneVs guard to Scotland, so that their negotiation at the sent home, jjague might at least suffer delay. 4 On March 10, before the Scottish Commissioners could reach Holland by this circuitous route, Byron reached the 1 Balfour, iii. 388. 2 The Desires of the Commissioners, E, 545, 28. 3 C.J. vi. 151. 4 lb. vi. 152; Grignon to Brienne, |£^-, R.O. Transcripts; Tort* land MSS, Hist. MSS. Com. 13th Rep. App. i. vol. i. 511. 22 THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS ENEMIES chap. I. Hague with Ormond's invitation to Charles to put himself at the head of the Irish Royalists. 1 As Byron had visited Henrietta Maria on his way through France, and March 10. , , i • , , . ■ b>toii in had secured her approbation to her son s projected journey on condition that he would do his best to allay the jealousy of the Scots, the opposition of her party in March 18. Charles's council fell to the ground, and by March 18 Charles to it was known at fa Hague that Charles had given Ireland. trie preference to Ormond, and that he would go to Ireland if only he could find money enough for his journey. 2 For the moment, at least, Ireland was less exacting in her terms than Scotland was likely to prove. At Westminster, either the possession of secret information or an intelligent perception of the dominant facts of the „ ,. situation had for some time convinced the new Feeling at w «t- Government that immediate danger was to be minster. apprehended from Ireland rather than from Scot- land. Long before Charles's resolution was made known, Rupert's occupation of Kinsale had brought home to Parlia- ment the fact that unwonted efforts must be made to strengthen the navy, if the mercantile marine was to be pro- tected. As early as on February 2 it resolved to add The navy' thirty merchant ships to the armed force of the strength- Commonwealth. 3 At a time when Holland's trial was impending, it was impossible to allow his brother Warwick to retain control over the navy. The ordi- nance by which Warwick had been constituted Lord High Feb. 23. Admiral was therefore repealed, and the powers of Idmi.aity tne ornce were formally transferred to the Council the'councii °^ State. 4 As that body was too numerous to of State. exercise a proper supervision over the fleet, it • Seep. 13. 2 Byron to Ormond, March §g, Carte's Orig. Letters, i. 237. 3 C.J. vi. 129. * lb. vi. 138, 149. Warwick had, in the preceding summer, been suspected of Royalist proclivities. Grignon to Brienne, ^^^, French Transcripts, R.O, 1649 NAVAL PREPARATIONS 23 appointed from its own members a navy committee, of which Vane, who had long been officially familiar with maritime affairs, was the leading spirit, the direction of the fleet having been already entrusted to Colonels Popham, Blake, and Deane, with the title of Commissioners. The increase of the number of ships would avail little unless they could be provided with crews. Unlike the late Feb. 12. King, the Government of the Commonwealth was Biak ' everything in its power on the one hand to content the soldiers with their lot, and on the other hand to reconcile March r. civilians to the maintenance of the army. On rsked?o ent March 1 Fairfax and the Council of Officers asked grant settled p ar ij ament to make free quarter unnecessary by March 6 granting settled pay. 3 On the 6th the Council of Men and State reported that the army in England should con- ci'uired. sist of 32,000 men, besides 12,000 for Ireland. 1 Scobell, ii. 4, 7. 2 C. of St. Order Book, Interr. I, 62, pp. 33, 35 ; C.J. vi. 154. * The Moderate, E, "546, 8. 24 THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS ENEMIES chap. i. The pay of both armies would be 120,000/. a month, that is to say, 1,440,000/. a year. On the 8th Parliament resolved that March 8. three-fourths of this sum, amounting to 90,000/. a Parliament, month, should be assessed on the counties, and the March 9. remainder raised in some manner not yet specified. 1 w h be°co" rs ^ n tne 9 tn Fairfax was directed to ask the opinion suited. of his officers on the best means of selecting the force needed for Ireland, and on the names of those most fitted to take the command. 2 Fairfax replied that the appointment of a commander-in- chief must precede the selection of the regiments to serve March 13. under him ; 3 and on the 15 th the Council of State, FarrfL^ acting with the authority of Parliament, named March i Cromwell. 4 Cromwell, however, hesitated to accept Cromwell the nomination, and on the 2^rd he explained his named to . « ^ • • the com- reasons to his brother officers. If Parliament, he said, commanded him to go, he was ready to obey, Crom^efi 3 " Dut he wished to have time to consider how far God acceptthe would incline his heart to go voluntarily. Then, offer, giving a practical turn to his words, he explained the reasons which made him for the present at least hang back, and explains He did not wish, he said, to allow his name to be his reasons. usec i to m d uce soldiers to volunteer for Ireland, unless he were first assured that there would be sufficient provision for the supply of their wants. 5 Warming as he went on, he protested that he had no thought of his own aggrandise- ment. " God," he said, " hath not blessed the army for the sake of any one man." " It matters not," he continued, " who is our commander-in-chief if God be so. . . . Truly I do believe that God hath so principled this army that there is none amongst us that, if God should set us out any man, we • C.J. vi. 157, 159. 2 Council of State to Fairfax, March 9, Interr. I, 94, p. 27. s C. of St. Order Book, March 13, Interr. I, 62, p. 86. 4 lb. Interr. I, 62, p. 9 1. 5 Compare the somewhat similar language of Gustavus Adolphus in 1625. Hist, of England, 1603-1642, v. 297. i6 4 9 CROMWELL S IRISH COMMAND 2$ should come to this to refuse to l submit to one another for the work's sake." Then, taking a wider view of the situation, Cromwell reminded his audience that God had given them the first- fruits of victory in ' the execution of exemplary Cromwells . ' , ' view of the justice upon the prime leader of all this quarrel in the three kingdoms, and upon divers persons of very great quality who did co-operate with him in the destruc- tion of this kingdom ' — inveterate habit would not allow him to give it any other name. They had now, he continued, to deal with their old enemies in Scotland and Ireland. After a few contemptuous phrases directed at the combination between the Scots and the English Presbyterians, Cromwell warned the army against internal distractions. " I must needs say," he continued, "I do more fear— not that I do think there is a ground to fear it will be, but as a poor man that desires to see the work of God to prosper in our hands— I think there is more cause of danger from disunion amongst ourselves than by anything from our enemies. . . . Now, if we do not depart from God and disunite by that departure, and fall into dis- union amongst ourselves, I am confident, we doing our duty and waiting upon the Lord, we shall find He will be as a wall of brass round about us till He hath finished that work that He has for us to do." God's work was, in the first place, to be found in Ireland. Recent intelligence from that country had been threatening. , " Truly," said Cromwell, " this is really believed : if His fear of J • danger from we do not endeavour to make good our interest there, and that timely, we shall not only have . . . our interest rooted out there, but they will in a very short time be able to land forces in England and to put us to trouble here ; and I confess I have had these thoughts with myself that perhaps may be carnal and foolish; I had rather be overrun with a cavalierish interest than a Scotch interest j I had rather be overrun by a Scotch interest 1 The words ' refuse to ' are not in the MS. 26 THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS ENEMIES chap. i. than an Irish interest, and I think of all this is most dangerous ; and, if they shall be able to carry on their work, they will make this the most miserable people in the earth; for all the world knows their barbarism, not of any religion almost any of them, but, in a manner, as bad as Papists, and truly it is thus far that the quarrel is brought to this State that we can hardly return into that tyranny that formerly we were under the yoke of, . . . but we must at the same time be subject to the king- dom of Scotland and the kingdom of Ireland for the bringing in of the King. Now it should awaken all Englishmen who perhaps are willing enough he should have come in upon an accommodation ; but now he must come from Ireland or Scotland." ' Cromwell's words did but echo the sentiments of the army. With Ormond planning an invasion, and with the Royalist gentry ready from Lancashire to Cornwall to wel- " hopes to be come him and his Irish followers,' 2 the army — or at least its commanders — could have no other thought than to tear up the mischief by the roots in its own soil. It is easy to say that England could never have been conquered by an Irish army, or that the party which endeavoured to profit by such aid would have been condemned to lasting obloquy. It was Cromwell's duty to take care that the danger should never arise. Ormond had without difficulty thrown English regiments from Ireland on the Western coast of Eng- land in 1643; and if he now succeeded in mastering Dublin it would be hard to prevent a repetition of the same operation with Irish regiments in 1649. Even in the midst of this fierce denunciation of Irishmen, there was a limit beyond which neither Cromwell nor his March 24 . followers were as yet prepared to go. On March 24 whai'eys Whalley proposed with general acceptance that the recommen- 11 • dations. officers should ask the Council of State to secure to those who went to Ireland their pay and arrears, that the com- • Debate in the Council of Officers. March 23. Clarke Papers, ii. 200. - Grignon to Brienne, *g£^, R,Q. Transcripts. i6 4 9 CROMWELL'S IRISH POLICY 27 niander should be empowered to conclude peace, and that no 'ill terms be imposed upon him, as either to eradicate the natives, or to divest them of their estates.' l During the next few days the negotiations with the Council of State proceeded March 30. satisfactorily, and on the 30th, Cromwell having Cromwel accepts the been convinced that the army after landing in Ire- command. i anc i W ould not perish for lack of support, it was notified that he would undertake the command under the nominal superintendence of Fairfax, the commander-in-chief of all the forces of the Commonwealth. 2 Cromwell's acceptance of the command in Ireland was but one step more in the evolution of the original quarrel. For Cromwell's some time it had been becoming clear that the intentions, conflict between King and Parliament for supre- macy at Westminster was widening out into a conflict for the supremacy of England in the British Isles. That it was so was owing to the eagerness of Royalists to enlist the forces of Scotland and Ireland in their own behoof, and it is no wonder that Cromwell and his officers had made up their minds that ' rathe r than Scotland or Ireland should interfere in the political devel opment of England, an English army should interfere in the p olitica l development of Scotland and Ireland . There was strong probability that in Ireland at least the English army, being what it was, would succeed in accomplish- ing the task before it. In Ireland, as in England, a negative result was in the grasp of superior force. The army had been what strong enough on one side of the Irish Sea to make Cromwell sure that it would no longer be mocked by the illusory promises of Charles I. It would be strong enough on the other side to make sure that Irishmen should no longer be used to threaten England for the benefit of an English political party. Yet unlikely as it was that the army should secure in England the permanent triumph of Puritanism, it was far less likely that it should found peace and order in Ire- land by strengthening the ' English interest,' and by sacrificing 1 Clarke Papers, ii. acS. * C.J. vi. 176. 28 THE COMMONWEALTH AND ITS ENEMIES chap. i. the needs and the hopes of the ancient inhabitants to the greed and self-assertion of the English settlers. Yet to this hopeless task Cromwell had committed himself. It was the tragedy of the situation that lie had the support of all but a very few of his countrymen. For evil as well as for good he stood forth, so far as Ireland was concerned, as the typical Englishman of his time. 29 CHAPTER II CROMWELL AND THE LEVELLERS It was not without reason that Cromwell had warned the army against internal divisions. Men's minds had so far drifted from the anchorage of use and wont, that to some of divisions in them every counsel of perfection seemed capable of immediate realisation. Two of the leading ideas of Two lead- tne seventeenth century were that good and religious mg ideas. men ^ad a r ight to rule the evil and irreligious, and that the nation ought to be governed according to the wishes of its representatives in Parliament. Incompatible as these two ideas were in themselves, they became still more incompatible in the exaggerated shapes which they were daily taking. The doctrine of the divine right of the religious to govern reached its furthest development in a petition prepared for pre- Feb sentation to the Council of Officers ' by many The Fifth Christian people dispersed abroad throughout the county of Norfolk, and City of Norwich.' It asked for the establishment of the Fifth Monarchy, that is to say, of the reign of Christ and His saints, which, according to prophecy, was to supersede the four monarchies of the ancient world. What the petitioners meant was that, as only the godly were fit to govern, the Church should be the sole depository of civil authority. Independents and Presbyterians were to combine to choose delegates, who were in turn to elect ' general as- semblies or Church Parliaments, as Christ's officers and the Church's representatives, and to determine all things by the 30 CROMWELL AND THE LEVELLERS chap. II. Word, as that law which God will exalt alone and make honour- able.' l Such a proposal might attract fanatics ; it could not attract the multitude. The Levellers who stood up for an exaggera- Prin . j tion of the doctrine of Parliamentary supremacy were ofthe likely to be far more numerous. Advocating direct Levellers. ' . , , _ ,, ° , . government by a democratic Parliament and the fullest development of individual liberty, the Levellers looked with suspicion on the Council of State as a body which might possibly be converted into an executive authority independent of Parliament, and thoroughly distrusted Cromwell as aiming at military despotism. Well-intentioned and patriotic as they were, they were absolutely destitute of political tact, and had no sense of the real difficulties of the situation, and, above all, of the impossibility of rousing the popular sympathy on behalf of abstract reasonings. It is unlikely that the officers would have interfered to hinder a purely civilian propaganda. About the middle of The Level February, however, they discovered that the lers and Levellers designed to tamper with the army by urging the soldiers to demand the reappointment of There- Agitators, 2 and the revival of the disused General of ffi'aTow Council of the Army, in order that these Agitators asked for. might again have an equal voice with the officers in determining the political action of the army. 3 As might have been expected, the officers took offence at the suggestion, Feb. 22. and at a Council held on February 22, where there toke offence. was a discussion on a petition from Fairfax's regi- 1 Certain Queries, E, 454, 5. 2 In A Plea for Common Right and Freedom presented to Fairfax and his officers on December 28, 1648, by Lilburne and other Levellers (E, 536, 22), it was only asked that the Council of the Army should not sit except when the major part of the commission officers at the head- quarters and adjacent thereunto, not excluding of others, were present. 3 The intention to urge the choice of Agitators is mentioned in Grignon's despatch of jj^gj^j (T.O. Transcripts), and is implied in the petition for the renewal of the General Council discussed on March 1. Clarke Tapers, ii. 193. 1 649 THE RIGHT OF PETITION 3 I nient, in which the views of the Levellers were embodied, much strong language was used. Hewson recommended that those who drew up such petitions should be tried by a court-martial on the ground that such a court ' could hang twenty ere the magistrate one.' ' In the end the Council re- solved that no soldiers should present petitions except through their officers, or through the General if the officers refused to \n a ai ^° tne ' r P art- Moreover, Cromwell and Ireton were to Pariia- instructed to ask Parliament to pass an Act for the nient. . . . 1 . punishment of civilians stirring up discontent in the army, by inflicting on them the same penalty which would be awarded to soldiers guilty of the same offence. 2 Of this agitation Lilburne was the heart and soul. On the 26th he laid before Parliament a remonstrance partly drawn up Feb. 26. by himself, and afterwards published under the title of jg£b*f« Engtantfs New Chains. In this he asked that the Chains. Council of State might be superseded by ' committees of short continuance, frequently and exactly accountable for the discharge of their trusts,' and that, in order to keep these committees in check, Parliament should remain in permanent session till the very day before a newly elected House was ready to take its place. Parliament was also asked to ' put in practice the Self-denying Ordinance,' and to consider how dangerous it was ' for one and the same persons to be continued long in the highest commands of a military Power.' In other words, not only Cromwell and Ireton, but also Fairfax, who had recently been elected a member of the House, were to be summarily cashiered. 3 Three days later, on March 1, a petition was laid before the Council of Officers by eight troopers, one of whom was that March 1. Richard Rumbold who was afterwards an accomplice m>m eight °f tne R y e House plotters, and who, as a follower of troopers. a i ater Argyle, was executed at Edinburgh, declaring 1 England's New Chains, Sig. B., E, 545, 27 ; The Hunting of the Foxes, E, 548, 7 ; The Legal Fundamental Liberties, 2nd ed. p. 74, E, 561. 2 Clarke Papers, ii. 192. 3 England's New Chains, Sig. B. 2, E, 545, 27. 32 CROMWELL AND THE LEVELLERS chap. II. that ' he did not believe that God had made the greater part of mankind with saddles on their backs and bridles in their mouths, and some few booted and spurred to ride the rest.' 1 The eight petitioners now avowed their part in drawing up England's New Chains, and argued that they were still bound by the engage- ment taken by the army on Kentford Heath 2 to maintain the liberties of the people, and that those who resisted the right of their comrades to petition Parliament were doing exactly what they had themselves condemned in the case of Stapleton and Holies. 3 They indeed acknowledged that the officers did not directly deny the right of soldiers to petition, but they argued that, by the requirement that every petition should first receive the approval of the officers, the concession was rendered nugatory. What, asked the troopers, could officers effect with- out the private soldiers who bore the burden and heat of the day ? This home-thrust was followed by a sharp criticism of the erection of the Council of State, of the substitution of a High Court of Justice for trial by jury, and of the establishment of the power of the sword in the self-same hand under one military head. 4 It would be difficult for Cromwell and Ireton with any regard for consistency to meet the argument of the petitioners Part of the that, to some extent at least, they were treading in Snan^ver- the ste P s of Stapleton and Holies. Yet to give way able - was to open the door, first to military anarchy, and then at no long interval to a Stuart restoration. Cromwell cared little for consistency, and much for the maintenance of March 3 . order. On March 3 the eight troopers were brought petitioners 6 before a court-martial, when five of them who re- cashiered. mained obstinate 5 were found guilty of writing a letter 'scandalous to the Parliament, Council of State, High 1 Burnet's Hist, of his Ozvn Time, ed. 1823, iii. 30. Compare Macaulay, i. 555, 556. ■ Great Civil War, iii. 279. s lb. iii. 229, 279. 4 Petition, March I, Clarke Papers, ii. 193, note b. It is printed with only five signatures in The Hunting of the Foxes, E, 548, 7. '' Ward, Watson, Graunt, Jellis, and Sawyer. ; 1649 LILBURNE'S PROTEST 33 Court of Justice, and tending to breed mutiny in the army.' They were accordingly sentenced to mount their horses in front of their respective regiments with their faces towards the tails, and to be cashiered after their swords had been broken over their heads. 1 On the 6th the sentence was carried into execution. As soon as the five troopers were released, they called for a coach March 6 an ^ drove off triumphantly to their friends in London. cuted. their wrongs, under the title of The Hunting of the March 21. Foxes from Newmarket and Trip loe Heaths to White- Hunting of hall by five small beagles late of the army. The key- the Poxes. nQte Q f t y ie who i e j a y j n the assert i on t h a t Cromwell, Ireton, and Harrison ruled the Council of Officers, and that the Council of Officers ruled the State. " The old King's person," said the five beagles, " and the old lords are but removed, and a new king and new lords with the Commons are in one House, and so [we are] under a more absolute arbitrary monarchy than before." Cromwell's only reply was the before-mentioned appeal to avoid divisions in the army, made to the Council of Officers on the 23rd, 2 only two days after the appearance of the domweiPs book. On the 24th Lilburne returned to the charge a^it with the Second Part of England's New Chains? divisions. The first part had been jnainiy an attack on the TktSecmd Council of State and the officers. In the second Part of Lilburne appealed to a new Parliament, on the England s , . , j l i New ground that the present one was coerced by the officers. Yet at the same time he appealed to the very members of Parliament of whose weakness he complained to rise against the domination of the army, to reconstruct the General Council of the Army by furthering the election of Agitators, and to proceed heartily with the Agreement of the People. 1 The newspapers speak of only four being cashiered, but this is evidently a mistake. ■ See p. 25. » E, 548, 16. VOL. I. O 34 CROMWELL AND THE LEVELLERS chap. ii. So imperiously to demand a settlement of the constitution with the enemy at the door was conduct too dangerous to be .. , tolerated. On March 27 Parliament declared Lil- March 27. . '. Liiburnes burne's book to be seditious and destructive of the book de- , ... cWed present government, to tend to mutiny in the army, and to hinder the present relief of Ireland by raising of a new war in the Commonwealth. Its authors were there- fore to be proceeded against as traitors. 1 Accordingly, in the early morning of the 28th, Lilburne, together with three of his supporters, Walwyn, Prince, and March 28. Rich ar d Overton, all of whom had had a hand in LUburneabd ^ e composition of the incriminated pamphlet, were three of his arrested by soldiers, 2 and carried before the Council of State. Lilburne was the first to be brought into before "he the chamber in which its sittings were held. With Council. kj s nat on kj s k ea( j k e str0( j e j nt0 tne r0 om, on iy removing it when he perceived that some of the councillors were also members of Parliament. Taking it for granted that he was about to be condemned by some new High Court of 1 C.J. vi. 174. 2 The circumstances of Overton's arrest indicate some of the causes of the unpopularity of the soldiers in London. Overton's landlord, a Mr. Devenish, whose wife was nursing a young child, slept according to the habit of those times, with his lodger, probably to escape the cries of the baby. The soldier who appeared to seize Overton found him sitting half dressed on the bed, and seeing that it had been occupied by two persons, charged him with having slept in it with Mrs. Devenish, naturally infuriating both the woman and her husband. The Picture of the Council of State, p. 25, E, 550, 14. It is to be noticed that the name of Wildman is not now to be found amongst Lilburne's associates. His defection seems to have occurred before the end of 1648. His name is not found amongst those who joined Lilburne on Dec. 28 in presenting A Plea for Common Right and Freedom, E, 536, 22. In Defiance of the Act of Pardon, published on July 4 (E, 562, 26), the author, Richard Overton, asks:— "And where's ... my old fellow rebel, Johnee Wildman ? Mount Atlas, stand on tiptoes, where art thee ? And behold a mighty stone fell from the skies into the bottom of the sea, and gave a mighty plump, and great was the fall of that stone, and so farewell Johnee Wildman." 1649 LILBURNE AT THE KEYHOLE 35 Justice, or even by the Council itself, he denied in the first place that there was any evidence that the Council had been appointed by Parliament ; and, in the second place, that, if it were so, any such body had a right to proceed judicially against him. This time, however, there was no intention to resort to extraordinary measures, and Bradshaw was able to assure the prisoner that the Council of State claimed no jurisdiction over him. After this Lilburne was sent out of the room for a time. When he was readmitted, he was asked whether he was the author of the pamphlet to which objection had been taken. As might have been expected, he replied by a long tirade against the men who were reviving the exploded practice of the Star Chamber by asking him to incriminate himself. Having thus relieved his mind, Lilburne threatened the Council with the consequences of committing him again to the custody of soldiers. " If you send me back to .Lilburne threatens Whitehall," he said, " or any other such-like gar- risoned place in England, I do solemnly protest before the Eternal God of heaven and earth, I will fire it and burn it to the ground if possibly I can, although I be burned to ashes with the flames thereof." " I must be plain with you," he added, looking fixedly at Cromwell as he spoke ; "I have not found so much honour, honesty, justice, or conscience in any of the principal officers of the army as to trust my life under their protection, or to think it can be safe under their immediate fingers." The other three prisoners having also refused to incrimi- nate themselves, all four were removed into an outer room. Lilburne listened through the door and recognised Cromwell s . " . . „._ ■„ . , strong the voices of the speakers within. I tell you, sir," language. ^.^ Q. omweUj thumping the table as he spoke, " you have no other way to deal with these men but to break them, or they will break you ; yea, and bring all the guilt of the blood and treasure shed and spent in this kingdom upon your heads and shoulders, and frustrate and make void all that work that, with so many years' industry, toil, and pains, you have done, and so render you to all rational men in the world as the most D2 2,6 CROMWELL AND THE LEVELLERS chap. ii. contemptiblest generation of silly, low-spirited men in the earth to be broken and routed by such a despicable, contemptible generation of men as they are, and therefore, sir, I tell you again, you are necessitated to break them." Ludlow then urged that bail should be allowed, but his motion was lost by a single vote, and all four were committed to the Tower to await their trial in the Upper Bench. 1 A party which rules by the sword is seldom able to com- mand the pen, and the Commonwealth was singularly weak in Weakness literary support. The newspapers which took its side of the were little more than mere chroniclers of passing literary i supporters events, and whenever they ventured on argument Common- were too dull and unintelligent to be convincing, wealth. jj ie R y a j{ st p resSj on t he other hand, though as devoid of true wit as its antagonists, was scurrilous and incisive, and was also entirely regardless of truth when anything might be gained by a falsehood. The one writer of genius to whom the new Government could look for help was Milton. Shortly after the King's execution, Milton had published The Tenure Feb. 13. of Kings and Magistrates in defence of the proceed- 7V»«*V * n & s a g a i nst Charles. It was a work, indeed, of that Aiagis^ nd k m( l which never convinces anyone, because it took trates. f or granted all that opponents denied, and because the author had too little knowledge of the human mind to adapt his reasoning skilfully, as the author of Eikon Basilike had done, to the receptive powers of those whom he desired to persuade. Still, the book was a striking performance, and those in whose defence it was written would naturally assign to it higher merits than it possesses in the eyes of a later genera- tion. They might well think that their champion was worth enrolling in the service of the Commonwealth. Accordingly, on March 15, an order of the Council of State appointed Milton its Secretary for Foreign Tongues. It was a post for a scholar, not for a statesman. Milton had to draw up, from instructions given to him, letters addressed to 1 The Picture of the Council of State, E, 550, 14 ; C. of St. Order Book, March 28 ; Inlerr. I, 62, p. 126. 1649 MILTON IN OFFICE 37 foreign States. Hitherto those letters had been couched in two languages — in French to the French Government and to „ . other Governments such as that of the Dutch Re- March 15... Milton public to which the French language was familiar, fo^Fomgn and in Latin to Governments like those of Spain or ongues. ^ £ m p- re ^ w hose own diplomatic correspondence was carried on in that tongue. The Council of State — very likely at Milton's suggestion — resolved that all their com- munications with foreign powers should henceforth be carried on in Latin, and Milton was, therefore, familiarly known as the Latin Secretary. 1 The Council now attempted to utilise Milton's services in another fashion. Knowing his addiction to the writing of pamphlets, they ordered him, on March 26, to make March 26. ■ l / ' _ ' Milton some observations on the Second Part of England's answer New Chains.- Milton, however, had a rooted objec- tion to write excepting on themes chosen by himself, and he may possibly have felt too much sympathy with Lilburne's vindication of personal liberty to care to enter the His dis- lists against him. Nothing could induce him to do obedience. as ne was bidden j n tn i s matter, and the attempt of the Council of State to harness their Pegasus ended in failure. 3 The danger from the Levellers was the greater because the City authorities maintained an attitude of opposition to the Government. Measures indeed, as yet incomplete, had been l64 s taken to coerce the City. In October, 1648, when Thec'it 20 ' tne mayoralty of the intrusive Warner came to an elections. en d, Abraham Reynoldson, a sturdy Royalist, had been chosen to succeed him. Parliament accordingly took 1 The whole subject of Milton's engagement is exhaustively treated in Masson's Life of Milton, iv. 72-86. Professor Masson, however, was not familiar with the diplomatic correspondence of the time, and his suggestion that Milton might have difficulty in answering letters in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, or Dutch is founded on a mis- apprehension. French was the only one of these languages in which letters were received. 1 C. of St. Order Book, Interr. I, 62, p. 177. ■ See Masson's Life of Milton, iv. 96. 38 CROMWELL AND THE LEVELLERS chap. II. alarm lest a Royalist Common Council should be chosen as well as a Royalist Lord Mayor, and, having been itself purged o by the army, it proceeded, on December 18, to purge The purge the City by an ordinance directing that no one who 1 y ' had abetted the King's cause or the Scottish inva- sion, or had given his approbation to the apprentices' attack on the House of Commons, should thenceforward be chosen to hold any place of trust in the City, or should give a vote in the election of officers. At the same time orders were given that the posts and chains which had been set up as obstacles to charges of cavalry should again be removed from the streets. 1 As the result of this ordinance, the new Common Council, elected as usual on December 21, was as completely packed in Dec. 21. the interests of the minority as the House of Com- Co^ni k on d mons itself. It was only to be expected that there Council. would be fierce opposition between such a body and the Royalist Lord Mayor. At the first meeting of the Common 1649 Council, which took place on January 13, the Lord it/first 13 ' Mayor refused to put to the vote or even to listen to meeting. a petition to the House of Commons in support of the proceedings against the King, and for some hours main- tained his position amidst a storm of outcries and abuse. At last he and the two aldermen who alone were present left the room, and thus, according to precedent, condemned the Council to impotence for want of a qualified chairman. The councillors, however, placed one of their own number in the chair, and carried the petition with unanimity. 2 On February 28 the Feb. 28. Commons passed an Act for the removal of obstruc- removaUf tl0ns m the Common Council, authorising it to elect obstructions. a chairman in the absence of the Lord Mayor or his representative. 3 They had already, on February 10, imposed an oath of fidelity to the Commonwealth on freemen a freeman's hereafter admitted to citizenship, and this oath was now extended to all other municipalities. 4 1 L.J. x. 633. 2 Corporation Records, C.C. Journal Book, xl. 313. 3 The Act, which is not in Scobell, is in the C. C. Journal Book, xl. 312. * Scobell, ii. 4. 1649 LORD MAYOR DISCHARGED 39 It was not long before an opportunity presented itself of getting rid of the Lord Mayor, who was unaffected by this March 17. legislation. On March 17, the Act abolishing king- jffifaSJr*" ship was passed, and its proclamation ordered. 1 In sh 'P- London alone this order was stubbornly resisted. On April 2 the Lord Mayor was summoned to the bar of the House, and on his acknowledgment that his The Lord conscience would not allow him to break the oaths charged and which he had taken, was deprived of his office, fined - fined 2,000/., and sent to the Tower for a month. 2 On the following day Alderman Andrews, who did not share the scruples of Reynoldson, was chosen Lord Mayor by the packed constituency of the City. 3 Even Andrews, however, did not venture to make the proclamation for some time to April?, come; although, on the 7th, the five aldermen, who niendLs- er " ftac * been impeached in the preceding year, were charged. no t on ]y discharged from their places by order of Parliament, but were declared incapable of holding office in future. 4 Resolved to secure obedience, the Government was at least anxious to secure that popularity which seemed so hard to win. The persistent rains of the last summer had been ruinous to the crops, and food of all kinds was almost at famine prices. It is Economical hardly to be wondered at that the men now in power Gove"™/ the nac * recourse to the measures which had commended mem. themselves to the Privy Council of Charles I. dur- ing the scarcity which prevailed in 1630. 5 They held the same economical doctrines, and had the same desire to appeal to March 19. tne m asses for support against the country gentle- Enforce- men anc i the upper middle class in the towns. On mentofthe f, r . , laws against March 19 Parliament ordered the Justices of the Peace to enforce, the laws against engrossing corn, Wages' to' and on April 6 it directed them to rate wages in berated. accordance with statutes of Elizabeth and James, with a view to raising them in proportion to the rise of 1 C.J. vi. 166. * lb. vi. 177. 8 lb. vi. 179. 4 lb. vi. 181. 5 Hist, of Engl. 1603-1642, vii. 162, 40 CROMWELL AND THE LEVELLERS chap. II. prices. 1 Somewhat later, on April 14, Parliament swept away the April 14. whole fabric of personal privilege which of late years £, C b° ns had called forth loud and frequent protests. Actions against' brought against members of Parliament were in future members. to re ceive no hindrance, on the sole condition that notice should be given by the judge to the defendant if he happened to be a member. 2 y Apart from its other difficulties the Commonwealth, with its enormous army to keep up, was in grievous financial straits. Financial The 30,000/. a month, left uncovered by the assess- straits. ments, 3 must be found before Cromwell could sail for Ireland, and though there were many sources of supply ultimately available, such as the composition of delinquents, the property of the Royal family, and the lands of the suppressed Deans and Chapters, none of these would yield an imme- diate revenue sufficient for the purpose. It was therefore proposed that the City should be asked to lend 120,000/. on the security of fee-farm rents and the assessments. On April 12 a deputation from Parliament appeared at Guildhall to urge April 12. the citizens to lend. The war in Ireland, said Chief JskecPfOT a Baron Wilde, was between ' Papist and Protestant,' loan. a fter which he quoted with approbation a saying attributed to James I., " Plant Ireland with Puritans and root out Papists, and then secure it." Cromwell contented himself with giving assurances that there was no truth in the rumours abroad that the army, when once supplied with money, would refuse to go to Ireland. In its discipline he professed perfect confidence. " As for divisions and distractions in the army, there was none, though it had been attempted." 4 In spite of these arguments the City professed doubts of the security offered, and Parliament had to fall back in hastening the sale of the Deans and Chapters' estates, in order to raise the money required. The official government of the City had no hold on the purses of its wealthy merchants. Eventually, too, a source of revenue would no doubt be 1 C.J. vi. 167, 180. 2 Acts, E, 1,060, No. 26. s See p. 24. 4 The Moderate Intelligencer, E, 551, I. i6 4 9 PENALTIES ON ROYALISTS 41 opened in the compositions of delinquents engaged in the last March war, but the House, in passing resolutions concern- DeHn- 17 * m g them on March 14 and 17, had left them ample eanpMt- time to give in their accounts. The question tions. whether the Commonwealth was to inflict further penalties on those who had taken a prominent part in either war was at the same time decided. In addition to the two sons of the late King, Charles and James, fifteen persons were to be banished with entire confiscation of their estates, and were forbidden to return under pain of death. Two others, March 1 t ^ ie M arc l ms °f Winchester and Bishop Wren, were Persons to be imprisoned and to lose all their property, from Two, one of whom was Judge Jenkins, were to be par on. tried for life in the Upper Bench, and five, Poyer, Powell, Laugharne, Lingen, and Brown Bushell, were to be tried for life by a court-martial. ' Of these latter five, the first April three were selected for an immediate trial, and after Poyer, 12 ' a l° n g an d patient inquiry, all three were sentenced L^ugh- a " d t0 death as orncers unfaithful to their trust. 2 They t^ncecf" were > however, permitted to draw lots for their lives, to death. The lot fell on Poyer, who on April 25 was shot to death in Covent Garden. 3 Not long afterwards, on May 7, Laugharne and Powell were pardoned and set at liberty. There was little danger of any immediate movement of the Royalists in England. On March 21 their last stronghold, March 21. Pontefract Castle, surrendered after a long blockade. ^"p^f e e . r The officers of the garrison were particularly ob- fract. noxious, as it was amongst them that Rainsborough's murderers were to be found, and six of their number were excepted by name from the mercy shown to the remainder of the defenders. The Governor, Morris, with two of the ex- cepted persons, however, forced their way through the lines of the besiegers and made their escape. 4 These two, having 1 C.J. vi. 164-167. 2 A Perf. Diurnal, E, 529, 13. 3 A Declaration of Col. Poyer, E, 552, 3. 4 The Moderate, E, 548, 21 ; A True Copy of Articles of Surrender, E, 548, 25. 42 CROMWELL AND THE LEVELLERS chap. ii. . been ultimately captured, were tried at York assizes, and executed. Far more pressing was the danger from the Levellers. On April 2 a petition for the release of Lilburne and his associates April 2 was P resente d to Parliament, bearing, it is said, a petition no less than 80,000 signatures. The petitioners bumes urged that no one should be condemned except for some definite breach of the law. 1 Apparently in consequence of this petition Parliament, on April n, ordered that the four prisoners should be prosecuted before the Upper April H. Bench with as little delay as possible. 2 It was, w'be^-o- however, easier to prosecute Lilburne than to silence secuted. nmi . On April 1 6 appeared a new manifesto, in which he and his comrades protested against the application of April 16. tne terrn Levellers to themselves, especially if it was bumian understood to include a desire for the ' equalling of protest. men's estates, and taking away of the proper right and title that every man has to what is his own.' 3 In his most unpractical moments Lilburne had confined his demands to political reform, and his latest protest was Lilburne doubtless called out by his knowledge that some uo socialist. m en, styling themselves the True Levellers, were now The diggers striking at the rights of property. On April 16, the George's Council of State, hearing that about fifty of these new social reformers having assembled on St. Fakfai 16 ' George's Hill, near Oatlands, had proceeded to dig disperse' U P an d sow tne waste land, ordered Fairfax to them. disperse them, 4 a task which was easily accomplished on the 19th by two troops of horse. On the 20th Everard and Winstanley, two of the principal diggers, were brought before Fairfax at Whitehall. Their They refused to remove their hats in the General's beforTthe presence, saying that ' he was but their fellow- Councii. creature.' Everard explained that he had been 1 C.J. vi. 178 ; The Moderate, E, 549, 12. 2 C.J. vi. 183. s A Manifestation, E, 550, 25 4 C* of St. to Fairfax, Ap. 16 ; Interr. I, 94, p. 93a. i6 4 9 THE DIGGERS 43 directed in a vision to dig and plough the earth. For the present, however, he and his followers intended to confine their operations to waste lands. Before long all men would volun- tarily surrender their estates and agree to live in community, contenting themselves with food and clothing, money being wholly unnecessary. 1 In a manifesto which he and his comrades April 26. published on April 26, Everard was less reticent. All of the fest ° landlords, he declared, were thieves and murderers diggers. j t was now t i me f or t h e English, the true Israel, to free themselves from the landlords, the descendants and repre- sentatives of the No; man conquerors. Labourers were exhorted to work for hire no longer, but to dig the waste places for their own benefit. To the rulers, the Pharaohs of the day, was added a word of warning. " Therefore, if thou wilt find mercy, let Israel go free. Break in pieces quickly the band of parti- cular property, disown this oppressing murder, oppression and thievery of buying and selling of land, owning of landlords and paying of rents, and give thy free consent to make the earth a common treasury, without grumbling ; that the younger brethren may live comfortably upon earth, as well as the elder, that all men may enjoy the benefit of their creation." 2 Too many Englishmen were interested in the social institu- tions of the country to allow this. visionary hope to attain the Their work smallest chance of realisation. An angry crowd, destroyed. p er h a ps partly composed of freeholders who had right of common on St. George's Hill, dug up the seeds which had been sown. 3 The diggers were ill-treated by passing soldiers, as well as by the neighbours, and though the enter- prise struggled on for some time, it ultimately came to nothing. 4 Communism had no root in the England of the seventeenth 1 The Declaration and Standard of the Levellers, E. 551, II. a The True Levellers' Standard Advanced, E, 552, 5. * A Modest Narrative, E, 552, 7 ; A Moderate Intelligence, E, 557, 6. 4 A Declaration, E, 557, 9 ; A Letter to Lord Fairfax, E, 560, 1 ; A Declaration, E, 561, 6 ; An Appeal, E, 564, 5 ; A Watchword to the City 44 CROMWELL AND THE LEVELLERS chap. ii. century. The political Levellers had followers enough. On April 1 8. A P r il 18 another body of petitioners, asking for Lil- Liibumian burne's release, appeared at the bar of the House, petition. b ut were dismissed with the sharp answer that the prisoners would have a legal trial, and that no one would be suffered to interfere with the course of justice. 1 On the 23rd 2 a crowd of women attempted to do what the men had a women's failed to accomplish, but they were forbidden even petiuon. tQ enter the House, and were told to go home and wash their dishes. 2 As long as the army maintained its discipline, such mani- festations were of little moment. Hitherto Cromwell's assertion The disci- at Guildhall 3 that there was no disunion amongst the piineoifthe soldiers had been justified by the course of events. It was now, however, to be seen that it had been Regiments premature. On April 17, according to arrangement, chosVnby 11 lots were cast for the selection of regiments to go to lot - Ireland. The lots fell on four regiments of horse, those of Ireton, Scrope, Horton, and Lambert ; on four of foot, those of Eure, Cook, Deane, and Hewson, and upon five troops of dragoons. The soldiers were, however, informed that none who wished to remain behind would be compelled to go to Ireland, though, if they elected to stay in England, they would not be permitted to remain in the army. On this, some who had resolved not to leave England till the demands of the of London, E, 573, 1 ; A New Year s Gift, E, 587, 6. Compare Clarke Papers, ii. 215-221, where there is a curious song beginning — You noble diggers all, stand up now, stand up now, You noble diggers all, stand up now, The waste land to maintain, seeing Cavaliers by name, Your digging does disdaine, and persons all defame, Stand up now, stand up now. 1 C.J. vi. 189, 190. 2 A Petition of Well-affected Women, E, 551, 14 ; Merc. Militaris, E, SSI » 13. In the latter is given a conversation in which Cromwell takes part, but it would be rash to guarantee its authenticity. 3 See p. 40. it>49 MILITARY DISCONTENT 45 Levellers had been granted — 300 m Hewson's regiment alone — threw down their arms. They were promptly cashiered and received each of them a small sum to carry them to Some sol- . , J diers refuse their homes. That the disaffection was not general ^ogoan ^^ shown by the alacrity with which volunteers from regiments not selected for Irish service came for- ward to fill their places. 1 Though the number of those who shared the political opinions of the Levellers was comparatively small, the discon- Question of tent caused by the dismissal of those who refused to arrears. g to i re land spread rapidly. To them, as to every other soldier in the army, large arrears were still due, and as nothing had been said to the cashiered men about the payment of these arrears, it was taken for granted that they would be forfeited. A feeling grew up akin to that which had bound together all classes of soldiers in opposition to Parliament in 1647. If the Independents followed the example of the Presbyterians in dealing with the rising danger, it would go hard with the new Commonwealth. The prevailing discontent first came to a head in Whalley's regiment, which received orders on April 24 to march from its April 24. quarters in Bishopsgate Street to a rendezvous at whaiu ''S ^^ e E nc l Green. In one of the troops a dispute regiment. about pay ended in some thirty of the soldiers seizing their colours and refusing to leave their quarters. On the following morning the mutineers resisted all the The P muuny arguments of their officers, and it was not till Fairfax suppress* . ^^ Cromwell appeared on the scene that they sub- mitted. Fifteen of their number were carried to Whitehall, where a court-martial, sitting on the 26th, condemned six of April 26. them to death and five to be cashiered after riding a court" ° f tne wooden horse. Cromwell, however, pleaded for Lodcvec mercy, and in the end all were pardoned with the die. exception of Robert Lockyer, who was believed to have been the ringleader. 1 A Modest Narrative, E, 547, 9; The Perf. Weekly Aaoimi, K, 552, 2; A Paper Scattered about the Streets, E, 551, 21. S 46 CROMWELL AND THE LEVELLERS chap. II. Lockyer, though young in years, had fought gallantly through the whole of the war. He was a thoughtful, religious man, beloved by his comrades, who craved for the immediate establishment of liberty and democratic order. As such, he had stood up for the Agreement of the People on Corkbush Field, and he now entertained against his commanding officers a prejudice arising from other sources than the mere dispute about pay, which influenced natures less noble than his own. Unfortunately his friends, in petitioning for his release, rested their case on the ground that all sentences given by a court- martial were made illegal by the Petition of Right and the law of the land. Such a doctrine would have dissolved the army into chaos, and when Lilburne and Overton wrote to Fairfax, threatening him with the fate of Joab and Strafford, all chance of pardon was at an end. On the 27 th, Lockyer, The P execu- firmly believing himself to be a martyr to the cause of right and justice, was led up Ludgate Hill to the open space in front of St. Paul's, and there, after expostulating with the firing party for their obedience to their officers in a deed of murder, he was shot to death. 1 Thousands of Londoners were found to sympathise with anyone who placed himself in opposition to the military authorities. On the 29th, Lockyer's funeral was Lockyer^s' made the occasion of a remarkable demonstration of civilian sentiment. Some thousands of men walked in procession, wearing, mixed with the customary black of mourning, the sea-green ribbons which had been first seen in London at Rainsborough's funeral, 2 and had since been adopted as the distinguishing mark of the Levellers, whose principles in the main coincided with those of the murdered Rainsborough. Lockyer's horse was led before his coffin, an honour usually reserved for officers of high rank. On the coffin itself were sprigs of rosemary dipped in blood, in the midst of which lay the dead man's sword. In the whole long 1 Opposite views of this affair are to be found in The Army's Martyr^ 2nd edit., E, 554, 6, and A True Narrative, E, 552, 18. 2 Perhaps the colour was considered appropriate to a sailor. 1649 LILBURNE'S ACTIVITY 47 procession there was nothing to provoke opposition. Orderly and silently, save for the sound of trumpets announcing a soldier's funeral, the long column tramped through the streets, a body of women closing up the rear. At last the Army's Martyr, as his admirers styled him, was laid in a grave at Westminster. ' The thousands of law-abiding citizens who took part in the procession were assuredly not moved by any sympathy with Motives of mutineers. Their protest was against military inter- llXpart ference with political affairs. " England," Lilbume in h - had said when he was brought before the Council of State, "is a nation governed, bounded, and limited by laws and liberties." Lockyer was held to be a martyr, because it was suspected that those who had condemned him to death were of a contrary opinion. The tragedy of the situation lay in this, that those who attempted the suppression of the Levellers were as desirous as Lilbume could possibly be that England should be ' governed, bounded, and limited by laws and liberties.' It was not, however, in human nature that the men who had the sword in their hands should throw away the results of their toil, in the hope that at some future day laws and liberties might again revive under softer influences than could proceed from the armed ranks of soldiers. As long as possibility of speech or writing remained Lilbume would be a thorn in the sides of the men whom he regarded as the worst of usurpers. On May i he Liibume's issued yet another version of the Agreement of the Tuni^fthe People, in which he showed himself as distrustful of People. t j ie ex j stm g Parliament as he had hitherto been of the executive government. The new representative body, he held, was to be annually elected by manhood suffrage ; servants, persons in receipt of alms, and those who had fought on the King's side being alone excluded from voting. No one in receipt of public money nor any treasurer, receiver, or practising 1 Merc. Pragm. E, 552, 15 ; 7'he Moderate, E, 552, 20; The King- dom's Weekly Intelligencer, E, 552, 21. The Moderate was the Levellers' organ. 48 CROMWELL AND THE LEVELLERS CHAP. II. lawyei might be elected. Members of any one Parliament were to be incapable of sitting in the next, which was to take the place of its predecessor with but one night's intermission. Each Parliament was to name a Committee of its members to carry on business in times of adjournment, and to bind it by suitable instructions. Not only was there to be complete religious liberty, but each parish was to choose its minister, on the understanding that he was to be maintained by voluntary offerings alone. 1 On May 2 fresh bodies of petitioners urged Parliament to liberate the four prisoners and to provide for the speedy May 2. election of its successor. 2 Far more serious was the Labumian news tnat Scrope's regiment, which had advanced as petition. f ar as Salisbury on its way to Ireland, had refused to May 1. leave England till the liberties of the country were Declaration , . , . J of Scrope's secured. With the exception of two troops, Iretons regiment. re giment concurred with that of Scrope, and the greater part of Reynolds's regiment quartered round Bristol was of the same opinion. A similar declaration was apprehended from those of Harrison and Skippon. 3 Another centre of resistance was formed at Banbury, where, on May 6, a body of local forces rallied to a manifesto issued May 6. under the title of England's Standard Advanced. standard ^ ts aut hor was a certain William Thompson, who Advanced. h ac [ formerly been a corporal, but who had been cashiered for taking part in a tavern broil. Having insisted on . following the regiment from which he had been dismissed, he was condemned to death by a court-martial for provoking to 1 The Agreement of the Free People of England, E, 552, 23. 8 C.J. vi. 199. s The Moderate Intelligencer, E, 555, 3 » England's Standard Ad- vanced, E, 553, 2. There is a second and enlarged edition, published on May 12, E, 555, 7. The title-page is missing in the Museum copy, but Mr. Firth tells me that his copy has, in bold black type, ' For a New Parliament by the Agreement of the People,' and that if the tract were doubled up and stuck in the hat, as the Agreement was at the rendezvous on Corkbush Field {Great Civil War, iv. 25), these words would show out well. i6 4 9 PRECAUTIONS AGAINST MUTINY 49 mutiny, though he had finally been pardoned by Fairfax. 1 A kind of military Lilburne, he inveighed loudly against the tyranny of courts-martial, and called for the execution of the new Lilburnian Agreement of the People. The Banbury rising was not of long duration. Before the day was over Colonel Reynolds, at the head of three troops which _ had remained faithful out of his mutinous regiment, Thomp- , ° ' sons rising fell upon the mutineers. Thompson resisted to the suppressed. * . . . . L . uttermost, killing with his own hand a lieutenant who pressed him hard. The bulk of his followers, however, had little mind to fight against their old comrades, and finding him- self about to be deserted, he took to flight, whilst about twenty of his men rode off to join Scrope's regiment at Salisbury. 2 For some days Parliament had been striving to find means to satisfy the material demands of the soldiers. On April 30 April 30. an Act was passed for the abolition of Deans and chapters' 1 Chapters, as the first step towards the appropriation abohshed. f their estates. 3 Landed property, however, could not speedily be converted into money, and as the London citizens persisted in refusing a loan they were ordered, on May 8, to pay immediately 27,400/. due for the Demands on arrears of former assessments. 4 By this time the lty " case was urgent, as news had arrived that the dis- Newsfrom content of the regiment at Salisbury was about to Salisbury. p ass j n to actual mutiny. 3 Prompt measures were The Tower taken to avert the danger. Four hundred soldiers occupied. w h cou id b e trusted were sent to occupy the Tower, 6 May 9-12. an( j on the Qth Parliament ordered that no one should Restric- * tionsonthe have access to Lilburne and his three companions i.iiburne except their wives, children, and servants. Three and his com- panions. days later even this relaxation of their close imprison- 1 England's Freedom, Soldiers' Rights, E, 419, 23 ; A Vindication of I. G. Cromwell, E, 431, 7 ; A True and Impartial Relation, E, 432, 23 ; The Prisoners' Mournful Cry, E, 441, 17. • The Impartial Intelligencer, E, 530, 8. ' C.J. vi. 198. 4 lb. vi. 204. * The Moderate Intelligencer, E, 555, 3. • Merc. Elencticus, E, 556, 9. vni 1 » 50 CROMWELL AND THE LEVELLERS chap. ii. ment was forbidden, 1 doubtless in order to make it impossible for them to send fresh manifestoes to the press. On the 9th, too, an Act was brought in for charging the soldiers' arrears on the estates of the late King and his family. 2 For the present at least nothing could be done to satisfy the more ideal aims of the soldiers. On May 4, indeed, the o/der for House had ordered that a debate on due elections oneiec- and equal representation should be opened on the morrow j but when the morrow came the debate was M postponed to the 9th, on which day the House might Debate fairly plead that it was justified in deferring the con- sideration of such far-reaching changes to a season of greater tranquillity. 3 It was for Fairfax and Cromwell to hasten the arrival of such a season. On the 9th they reviewed their own two regi- May 9. ments of horse in Hyde Park. Cromwell addressed A T £ v 'fc the men, telling them that any who wished to leave Park. the army were at liberty to do so with the assurance Cromwell's °f ultimate payment of all that was due to them. He address. begged them not to be unmindful of the labours of the House or of its care for the provision of an adequate navy for the defence of the country. He further announced that it was resolved to find a way of paying the soldiers' arrears, and that Parliament intended to bring its sittings to a close, and to provide as soon as possible for the election of a more re- presentative successor. Cromwell, in short asked the soldiers to trust Parliament to do all that could reasonably be required of it, and not to give the victory to the common enemy because a new constitution could not be brought into existence at a moment of imminent peril. 4 Language so eminently sensible could not fail of its effect with the men whom he had so often 1 C.J. vi. 205, 208. A Discourse between Lilburne and Htigh Peters (E, 556, 26), in which Peters is made to give his opinion that there is no law in England but the sword, is manifestly, in the face of this order, a pure invention, and is declared to be such in Merc. Pacifuus, E, 557, 7. - C.J. vi. 205. 3 lb. vi. 201, 202. 4 Heads of Cromwell's speech are given in A Perfect Summary, E, 53°. 3- i6 4 9 A MUTINY CHECKED 51 FAIRFAX'S PURSUIT OF THE MUTINEERS. •English Mile March of Fairiltjx 1 . Marclt. ot'the MuMnxers . 52 CROMWELL AND THE LEVELLERS chap. II. led to victory. By his orders the sea-green ribbons which a few of them had placed in their hats were plucked out by force, and the two regiments professed themselves ready to obey all orders given by their officers. With these two regiments of horse and three others of foot, making together upwards of 4,000 men, Fairfax and Cromwell March of set out ^ or Salisbury, quartering at Alton on the night Fairfax and f the nth. On the following morning Colonel Scrope, followed by about eighty other officers, made his appearance, bringing news that his own regiment Th!fy hear had absolutely refused obedience, and had been mutuiy°of n J ome d by four of Ire ton's troops, the whole of the sscropes mutineers being about 600 men. By the advice of a regiment. ° J Council of War, Fairfax ordered the issue of an appeal to the mutineers, which embodied the arguments used by Cromwell in Hyde Park, and which, to judge by its style, was composed by Cromwell himself. 1 On the 1 2 th Fairfax reached Andover. On the morning of the 13th he learned that the mutineers had removed to Marl- The reach Dorou gh> an d inferred that their object was to make A "dover. their way in the direction of Buckinghamshire, where Themuu- Harrison's regiment was quartered. Policy as well MaH- a as good feeling led him to desire to win back the boroug . soldiers without bloodshed, and he took the op- portunity of a letter addressed to him by their Agitators to send Fairfax Major White and three other officers to open com- munfcadons munications with them. " Let them know," cried with them. Cromwell to White as he rode off, " that though we have sent messengers to them we will not follow with force at their heels." 2 Before White could come up with the mutineers they had They pushed on to Wantage, whence wheeling to the right Sunnhig- tne y ma de their way to Sunningwell, between Oxford wel1 - and Abingdon. 3 Here, as Fairfax had supposed, 1 A Declaration from his Excellency, E, 555, 6. 2 White's True Relation, E, 574, 26. 3 Bridger's narrative in A Perfect Summary, E, 530, 12. Fairfax, in i6 4 9 A MUTINY SUPPRESSED 53 they hoped to have been met by Harrison's whole regiment. Only two troops, however, reached the rendezvous, the rest Fairfax at having perhaps been deterred by Fairfax's rapid Theaie. ma rch to Theale, from which place an easy road led to the valley of the Thames. Before the morning of the Ma ^ 14th was far spent Fairfax knew that any further Move- danger of the mutineers, who now numbered about merits of , . . . . XT , the mmi- 1,200 men, combining with Harrison s regiment was at an end, as they had drawn back through Berkshire with the intention of rallying to their cause other regiments further west. To effect this object they marched to Newbridge, in the hope of crossing the Thames, but, finding Reynolds posted too strongly on it to be attacked with any chance of success, they made their way westwards on the southern side of the river till, in despair of finding another bridge, they swam across not far from Faringdon. They then made their way to Burford, where they imagined themselves safe for the night. ' Fairfax had started early in pursuit, and, after a splendid march, in which some of his cavalry covered forty-five miles, he ^ . r drew near to Burford at midnight. By his orders Fairfax tn . pursuit. Cromwell at once attacked the mutineers. Roused The attack from their sleep, and unprepared for a surprise, they on urfor . mac | e ^ ut snorr resistance. After a few shots nearly four hundred of them surrendered at discretion. The re- mainder were either quartered in the surrounding villages or escaped under cover of the night.' 2 On the following morning a court-martial was held, and two cornets, Denn and Thompson, a brother of the more notorious William Thompson, were, together with two corporals, con- his letter to the Speaker, in A Full Narrative, says they slept at Blagrove. There is a Blagrove Farm about a mile west of Sunningwell, which must be the place intended. 1 [The map probably represents the crossing as taking place too far to the West. According to Fairfax's letter in A Full Narrative the mutineers crossed by a ford about a mile beyond Newbridge. See also a review in The Guardian for Jan. 2, 1895.] '-' A Full Narrative, E, 555, 27 ; A Declaration of the Proceedings of the Lord Gen. Fairfax, E, 556, 1 ; White's True Relation, E, 574, 6. 54 CROMWELL AND THE LEVELLERS chap. II. demned to die, the remaining prisoners being posted on the leads of the church to witness the execution. Denn's May 15. penitence obtained his pardon at the last moment. martial 1 The other three were shot in the churchyard; rmnfneers the Thompson with some appearance of regret, the two executed. corporals, Church and Perkins, defiant to the last. Then Cromwell went into the church and, summoning the pri- soners before him, told them that though they had deserved deci- mation; the general had mercifully pardoned them all. For the Th time they were exiled to Devizes, but were ultimately mainder sent re-embodied in the ranks. Colonel Eyre, who had given trouble at Corkbush Field, 1 being no longer a member of the army, was sent to Oxford to receive a civil trial. William Thompson, who was still at large, having gathered round him two troops of horse, had broken into Northampton May 17. an d carried off money and arms. Reynolds, sent in wiih'am pursuit, came up with him in a wood near Welling- Thompson. borough. Thompson would take no quarter, and after killing two of his adversaries was shot dead by a corporal. 2 With Thompson's death, on the 17th, the rising of the Levellers was brought to an end. On the same day Fairfax, attended by his principal officers, visited the new Crom^eHat Oxford which was growing up upon the ruins of that Oxford. ]£ one wr jj cri h a( j received its mould from Laud. Th! Fair 9 -' ^n tne *9 tn tne now Puritan University gave to the faxian successful soldiers the highest honours it could Creation. bestow. Fairfax and Cromwell donned the scarlet gowns of Doctors of Civil Law, whilst Harrison, Hewson, Okey, and other martial figures were decked in the soberer costume which designates a Master of Arts. 3 The new authorities were in the right in what they did. The mainten- ance of that religion which they loved depended on the strong arms and buoyant hearts of those who had shown themselves capable of enforcing discipline. 1 See Great Civil War, iv. 22. J * Perf. Diurnal, E, 530, 14 ; The IrfoiJhfrate, E, 556, 3. 3 Wood's Annals of the University, 619. 55 CHAPTER III THE COMMONWEALTH ON ITS DEFENCE Step by step the Government of the Commonwealth was com- pelled to accommodate itself to its true position, and to rule by April-Sept, nieans which every one of its members would have ir, h th e e peers condemned if they had been employed by Charles House. or Strafford. No additional reputation was gained by the fact that three discredited peers, Pembroke, Howard of Escrick, and Salisbury, were elected to serve as members of what had once been the House of Commons. 1 The failure of Parliament to conciliate public opinion necessitated the pass- May 14. ing of a new Treason Act, which became law on Treason ^ay 14. It transferred to Parliament the safeguards Act - with which the monarchy had been surrounded, but it also — for the first time since the reign of Henry VIII. — created a fresh treason outside the limitations of the great Statute of Edward III. The part played in political affairs by the army was indirectly acknowledged by a clause making it treasonable for civilians to stir up mutiny in the ranks. 2 Still more significant was the imposition of fresh restrictions on the press. In the first days of the Commonwealth Parlia- Feb.o. ment had contented itself with prohibiting all un- ofunautho- authorised reports of the proceedings in the second ports ^ t d s re ' High Court of Justice. 3 On March 16 an order, 1 Pembroke took his seat in April, Howard in May, and Salisbury in September. 2 Acts, E, 1,060, No. 62. Soldiers stirring up mutiny could be dealt with by martial law. * Acts, E, 1,060, No. 5. 56 THE COMMONWEALTH ON ITS DEFENCE chap. hi. which proved entirely futile, was given for the seizure of all March 16. copies of the Eikon Basilike. 1 On the 19th even Auvaa/to strenuous assertors of liberty of conscience took be seized. a i a rm at the news that a translation of the Koran was Proceedings m trie press ; but after further discussion the proceed- pfkitereof m S s taken against the printers were dropped, and on the Koran. May 7 the book appeared, without causing a change in the religious views of a single Englishman. 2 On May 7 the armed resistance of the Levellers and the concentrated attack of a host of scurrilous calumniators drove May 7. a Council of State, in which Vane and Cromwell sat, a g °aTnit aint t0 report to the House that Mabbott, the licenser, Mabbott. had allowed the publication of 'divers dangerous books,' and to recommend his dismissal, as well as the pre- paration of measures for the suppression of seditious writings, especially of The Moderate, the decided though cautious organ of the Levellers. 3 Mabbott's offence, it appears, was the licensing of Lilburne's new Agreement of the People.* Being called to account, Mabbott expressed his Mabbott on b . ' f . the liberty concurrence in the request for his own dismissal, press. j t wag j awm j^ j^ thought, • to print any book, sheet, &c, without licensing, so as the authors and printers do sub- scribe their true name thereunto, that so they may be liable to answer the contents thereof, and, if they offend therein, then to be punished by such laws as are or shall be for those cases provided.' 5 Accordingly, on May 22, Mabbott having been dismissed, the House requested the Council of State to prepare 'an Act for preventing the printing of scandalous Mabbott ' books and pamphlets.' 6 Though the Council of State had already directed Bradshaw to prepare such an Act, 7 some time was allowed to pass till these orders were com- plied with, and it is just possible that the delay was caused by a 1 C.J. vi. 166. 2 lb. vi. 168; The Alcoran of Mahomet, E, 553, 3. * C. of St. Order Book, Interr. I, 62, p. 267. 4 lb. 62, p. 264- 5 Perf. Diurnal, E, 530, 21. 6 C.J. vi. 214. 7 C. of St. Order Book, fnterr. I, 62, p. 294. 1649 ABOLITION OF KINGSHIP 57 lingering hope that, after the collapse of the Levellers, no legis- lation of the kind would be needed. To do them justice, the men now in power took no pleasure in repressive legislation. They kept before their eyes at least the ideal of a popular legislature. On Acom- May 15 the House appointed a Committee to mittee to ' J . - -_ T™^ - report on report, in the first place, on ' the succession of future Parliaments and the regulating of their elections ' ; and, in the second place, on the time for ' putting a period to the sitting of this Parliament ' • — Vane being one of two members specially directed to keep the matter in view. Though it was hardly likely that the report of this Committee would be speedily forthcoming, it was at least possible to May i 9 . notify the good intentions of Parliament, and on the b e ns, pv d t0 J 9 tn an Act, was passed declaring England to be a Common- Free Commonwealth, and therefore to be governed by ' the representatives of the people in Parlia- Th e ay 2 ' ment . . . without any King or House of Lords.' 2 Stateat° f A further outward sign of increasing self-confidence Whitehall. was t h e transference, on May 28, of the Council of State from Derby House to Whitehall/ 1 It was hard, however, to obtain more than the outward show of submission, and even this was with difficulty to be obtained in the City. Though Andrews, who had sat in the High Court of Justice and had consented to the sentence of the King, occupied the civic chair, he had not hitherto May 30. ventured to publish the proclamation of the abolition Sjrf "" of the monarchy. At last, on May 30, the Lord k rocfaimed Mayor, accompanied by fourteen aldermen, sum- in the city, moned up courage to read the proclamation in the Exchange. Some at least of the bystanders interrupted the proceedings with their exclamations, and one of them, a merchant, was led away in custody. 4 On the following day a deputation of aldermen invited the 1 CJ. vi. 210. 2 Scobell, ii. 30. * Merc. Pacifictts, E, 557, 7. 4 A Moderate Intelligence, E, 557, 6; C./. vi. 221. 58 THE COMMONWEALTH ON ITS DEFENCE chap. hi. House to a banquet to be given in the City on June 7, the May 31 date fixed for a thanksgiving for the suppression of todi^°in Se the Levellers. The invitation was cheerfully accepted, the City. anc [ at t h e same time two aldermen, Soames and Chambers, who had absented themselves at the time of the proclamation, were ordered to account for their absence. On June t. J une x both of them were deprived of their dignities mm de- er " anc * disqualified from future office. Soames, being prived. a member of the House, was also disabled from sit- ting in the existing Parliament. 1 Chambers, who had been the first citizen to resist the illegal taxation of Charles, was amongst the first to refuse compliance with the orders of the Common- wealth. No less than seven aldermanships were Alderman- . * . . ships left now vacant ; but there was considerable delay in filling their places, as it was hard to find men qualified for the post who would serve under the conditions imposed. In other directions, however, the Commonwealth gathered strength. The success of Fairfax and Cromwell had, at least, impressed the lawyers with a sense of its stability, and six judges ^ was at l ast found possible to complete the Bench of appointed. Judges by filling the six vacancies created by the resignations of those who had refused to acknowledge the new order of things four months before. 2 On the 6th preparations were made for the banquet which was to celebrate the union of the purged Parliament and the June 6. purged City. It was arranged that the Speaker, fbrTh e r cit ns as representing the House of Parliament, should be banquet. received with royal honours, the Lord Mayor temporarily surrendering to him his official sword. 3 Some one even proposed that the Speaker should confer knighthood on the Lord Mayor and two other aldermen ; but the suggestion was not adopted by Parliament. 4 As the guests drove into the City on the 7 th to attend the sermons which were to precede the banquet, signs of their unpopularity were not wanting. Though the streets were lined 1 C.J. vi. 222. 2 lb. vi. 222. 3 C. of St. Order Book, Interr. I, 62. 4 S.P. Dom. xi. 3. 1649 CROMWELL AND FAIRFAX IN THE CITY 59 with soldiers, uncomplimentary remarks were freely uttered, and some Royalist or Leveller contrived to take out the linch- pin of Cromwell's coach, thereby effecting a block in Arrival of the line when the wheel came off. In few of the City churches was the Day of Thanksgiving observed at all, and where the churches were open prayers for King Charles were in many cases offered. At the banquet itself there was gaiety enough, and if political parties could be strengthened by mutual compliments amongst its members, the position of the Commonwealth would have been assured. June 8. On the next day the official representatives of the Fairfax 3 W City presented Fairfax with a basin and ewer of w"en C Md l to g0 ^' ancl Cromwell with plate valued at 300/. as the poor. well as 200 pieces in gold. The food left from the feast was distributed amongst the poor, together with 400/. [ The dissatisfaction of Londoners, even if they were neither Royalists nor Levellers, with an ever-present soldiery is easily accounted for. Increasing numbers of citizens were in the habit of seeking recreation on Sundays on the river and fre- quenting the villages on its banks. To stop the practice, June 4 . soldiers were posted by the side of the stream, and a fatal shot. on j une 4j one Q r t h emj fi rm g at a wa terman who refused to stop rowing at his summons, missed his aim, but wounded a child in a boat beyond it. 2 Amidst general discontent there could be no thought of an immediate dissolution. According to a not unfriendly writer, The dissoiu- the opinion prevailed at Westminster, ' that this Par- liament lament shall not suffer a dissolution till the people postponed. i ove them, and that not till the delivery from taxes, which may probably within a few months be effected, and then they shall be beloved, elected, and what not.' 3 He must have been indeed sanguine who expected a speedy reduction of taxation in the face of internal discontent and 1 The Moderate, E, 559, 12 ; The Per/. Weekly Account, E, 559, 13 ; Whitelocke, 406. 1 The Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer, E, 558, 12. 9 A Modest Narrative, E, 537, 13. 60 THE COMMONWEALTH ON ITS DEFENCE chap. hi. external danger. The information forwarded from Holland March 21. was not reassuring, and on March 21, in order to Lady Car- obtain fuller information of the designs of the English lisle. Royalists, the Government ordered the arrest of Lady Carlisle, who was known to have had in her hands the threads of the combination of the preceding year. 1 In April Attempt to an attempt, probably successful, was made to frighten her into a disclosure of her secrets. " The Countess of Carlisle," wrote a Royalist intelligencer, " hath been again shown the rack, but she desires them not to hurt her, for she is a woman and cannot endure pain, but she will confess what- soever they will have her." 2 Whatever may have been the secrets thus disclosed, it is unlikely that the Government of the Commonwealth depended March solely upon the Countess for information of the plans Plans of the of the exiled Court at the Hague. At that Court Court at the . . Hague. the project of striking England through Ireland was Hyde's gaining ground. Even Hyde, in whose eyes to seek opinion. help from the Presbyterian Scots was the lowest degradation, had nothing to say against the proposed interven- tion of Ormond's army. His feeling on this score was, at least for the time being, shared by Charles, and on March 19 a March 19. paper presented to the States General in the name Geneva!" tes of the young King asked for an advance of money asked to f or t h e expenses of a voyage to Ireland. In this Charles. paper the conditions imposed at Edinburgh on the King's admission to the crown of his fathers, as well as the exclusion of five-sixths of the Scottish nobility from Parliament by the Act of Classes, were strongly denounced. 3 On the March 27. 2 7th the sum of 20,000/. was specified as needed for ^, m peclfic the proposed expedition. 4 The States General, how- demanded. everj showed so little inclination to comply with 1 C. of St. Order Book, Interr. I, 62, 100. 2 Letter of Intelligence, *£j£f, Carte's Orig. Letters, i. 286. * Representation to the States General, March |§, ib. i. 260. * Advices from the Hague, ?£gf , Carte MSS. xxiv. fol. 378. 1649 A REJECTED MANIFESTO 6l Charles's request that he thought it well to send begging-letters Begging- to sucn of his adherents as still retained property in letters. England. 1 Crying as was Charles's need of money, his need of a settled policy was still more urgent. Though the choice be- tween Ormond and the Scots was in reality a choice between the Episcopal and the Presbyterian parties in England, it was hard to persuade him of the impossibility of securing the assistance of both. It is true that, 'early in March, Hyde had , prepared a draft of a Royal Declaration which would proposed have left no doubt on the matter. As might have ' ara l ° n- been expected, this projected manifesto breathed implacable enmity against the Commonwealth and the army, exempting from pardon not only those who had consented to the death of the King in the High Court of Justice, but those by whose votes that Court had been erected. The special note of the Declaration was, however, the offensive attitude of its its eccie- author to the English Presbyterian party in its eccle- siastical siastical as well as in its political aspect. The Church was to be settled in accordance with the demands of a National Synod, that is to say, of the two Convocations in conjunction, and though a few foreign divines were to be admitted, they were not likely to effect anything in the presence of the serried ranks of bishops and cathedral clergy, who took so large a part in the Convocations. Nor was Hyde's attack on the constitutional reforms of the Presbyterian party less incisive. He boldly declared for going back to the state of things which had existed before political the outbreak of the Civil War. The Constitution as it proposa s. st00( j at tne beginning of the Long Parliament before the formation of parties, when as yet no disputed question had been thoroughly settled and no authority acknowledged to be supreme, was Hyde's political ideal. Too much of a lawyer to approve of absolute royal power, he was too little of a statesman to recognise the necessity of subjecting the King's authority to 1 Circular Letters, Clarendon MSS. ii. 29, 30. 62 THE COMMONWEALTH ON ITS DEFENCE chap, hi parliamentary supremacy, and he could see nothing but the germ of rebellion in the constitutional scheme of the Presby- terians. He told them plainly, as Milton had told them in his Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, that the deeds of which they now complained were but the outcome of their own former misdeeds, and that ' by the same principles upon which an army was raised to rebel against the King, that army hath oppressed the power and authority that raised them, and have conquered those masters who raised and employed them to conquer others.' 1 Hyde's declaration found little support in the shifty counsels of Charles's Court. It was assailed on many sides, but especially on the ground that it was certain to give ciaration offence to the Presbyterians. Lauderdale and Lanark, roppe • who, since his brother's execution, had become Duke of Hamilton, were the loudest in calling for its rejection ; and, in consequence of their outcries, the idea of issuing a declara- tion of any kind was silently dropped. It was probably in consequence of this rebuff that Hyde welcomed the opportunity Hyde and of absenting himself from Court by accepting a ti°go n to ton mission, in conjunction with Cottington, to the Spain. Court of Spain, where he hoped to extract from Philip a loan to meet Charles's growing requirements. 2 " . Charles was now to listen to pleadings on the March 27. tr o The other side. The Scottish Commissioners arrived and Commis- had their first audience on March 27. They hoped, apprjTto before their main negotiation commenced, to obtain Charles. f rom (Carles an order dismissing Montrose from attendance on his person, and were much disappointed at his 1 Draft of a Declaration, Eng. Hist. Review, for April, 1893. 2 " I confess Sir E. H. is not troubled to be for some time absent from this company." Hyde was told of his appointment about March 24 ; Hyde to Hatton, U ?"%^, Nicholas Papers, i. 124. We learn from a letter from Hyde to the Prince of Orange, dated Jan. §*, 1650, that the Prince suggested this mission ; Wijnne, Geschilling van de afdanking van 't Krijgsvolk, 101. This can only have been in order to get rid of Hyde, as the Prince of Orange was no friend to Spain. i6 4 9 EXECUTION OF HUNTLY 63 refusal to reply to a single request until their whole budget had been opened. 1 Annoyed as they were, the Commissioners did not break off the negotiation. On April 5 they asked Charles, not merely . ., to accept the two Covenants so far as Scotland was April 5. ... The Scottish concerned, but to promise his assent to Acts of Parliament enjoining them on England and Ireland. Charles could not fail to be aware that by so doing he would alienate his staunchest English supporters ; and though he did not at once break with the Scots, he took care to postpone his reply as long as possible, in the vain hope that the Com- missioners might be inclined" to modify their exorbitant demands. 2 The pertinacity of the Commissioners was the more ob- noxious to Charles as those who sent them had ostentatiously disregarded his personal feelings. On March 16 the Sentence on Parliament at Edinburgh sentenced Huntly to death int y * for the crime of taking up arms for his King ; and Maxchtt. on fae 22nd the sentence was carried into effect. 3 execution. Huntly's execution was no doubt intended as a warning to Charles that, if he wished to protect his supporters in Scotland, he must accede to the demands of the Com- missioners. Such a warning must have appeared to be the more needed as, before the end of February, a party of Feb. Royalists seized Inverness, and, after no long delay, IdbEdby took tne nelc * under the command of Seaforth's Royalists. brother, Thomas Mackenzie of Pluscardine. Middle- ton, who had escaped from England — it is said by a breach of May 8. parole— threw himself amongst them. The men were, Sdvenk.** however, undisciplined, and on May 8 a body of • Committee of Estates to Charles (^f> T"gf), Clar. St. P ii. 474 ; iii. App. lxxxv ; Charles's answer, 'ggjftg , Baillie, iii. 513. ■ Commissioners of the Kirk to Charles, April 5, ib. iii. 514; Com- missioners of Parliament to Charles, April 10, Clar. St. P. ii. '475. 3 Acts of Pari, of Sc. VI. part ii. 327 ; Balfour, iii. 393 ; Graymond to Brienne, March |g, *^f, Harl. MSS. 4,551, foL 322, JJI. 64 THE COMMONWEALTH ON ITS DEFENCE chap. hi. i, 200 was surprised and routed at Balvenie on the Spey by a small force of no more than 120 horse sent against them by Leslie. ' Whilst the Scottish Presbyterians were vainly urging Charles to constitute himself their champion in the three April. kingdoms, their English brethren were receiving maker 6 overtures from Cromwell. He was ready, he assured to the"* them, to consent to the establishment of the Presby- PrSw terian system — no doubt without coercive juris- terians. diction — and to the readmission to Parliament of the members excluded by Pride's Purge. 2 The gulf between Cromwell and the Presbyterians was, however, too wide to be bridged over. It was a more hopeful plan to aim at securing the neutrality of the States General. Accordingly, on April 18, it was Mission of resolved to despatch a special envoy to the Hague, Dorisiaus. wn0 should announce the intention of Parliament to send a brilliant embassy to cultivate a good understanding between the two republics. The person selected for this mission was Dr. Dorisiaus, a Dutchman by birth, though he had been for some years in the service of the English Parlia- ment as a lawyer. It seems not to have occurred to those who sent him that, as he had taken part in the prosecution of the King, his name was in bad odour with the English and Scottish refugees who swarmed in the streets of the Hague. 3 On April 29 Dorisiaus reached the Hague. Among the April 29. Scottish followers of Montrose the feeling against the Hague. tne regicides was especially bitter, and it was amongst . w . these that a scheme was laid to murder the new A plot to murder him envoy, or, as they probably said, to execute justice upon him. 4 The assassins, however, did not keep their own 1 Acts of Pari, of Sc. VI. part ii. 216, 222 ; Graymond's despatches, April to May, Harl. MSS. 4,551, ff. 331-369. Balfour, iii. 401, 407. 2 Walker's Hist, of Independency, ii. 157. 3 C. of St. Order Book, Interr. I, 62, p. 204. 4 The connection of the murderers with Montrose's following was rumoured at the time, and that the rumour was correct is shown by the 1649 MURDER OP DORISLAUS 65 counsel ; and Strickland, the accredited English ambassador, having heard rumours of their designs, communicated his suspicions to Dorislaus. When, therefore, on the following day, a message was brought to the new envoy, ostensibly from Strickland, inviting a visit, he refused to leave his inn. The assassins, however, were not to be thus baffled. On the evening of May 2, just as Dorislaus was sitting down Hi- assas'- to supper, six men, leaving one of their companions to guard the street door, burst into his room, and whilst some of them secured his servants, one, whose name was Whitford, 1 after slashing him over the head, passed a sword through his body. The whole party, leaving their victim dead upon the ground, made their escape. The States General, indeed, professed innocence, and denounced the perpetrators of the deed ; but Whitford succeeded in crossing the frontier into the Spanish Netherlands, where he was in perfect safety. In England a public • funeral was A public r , , J , , b , r . , _ funeral accorded to the murdered servant of the Common- wealth, a pension granted to his son, and gifts of money to his daughters. All Royalists received the news of the murder with unbounded satisfaction. Even the staid and kindly Nicholas wrote of the assassination as 'the deserved execution of that bloody villain.' 2 To the exiles at the Hague the Scottish Commissioners May 1. w ere almost as hateful as Dorislaus himself. On askVfr an ^ a >' l tne y pressed Charles for a final answer to answer. their demands presented more than a month before. 3 fact that two of them, Whitford 'and Spottiswoode, and probably others, accompanied Montrose to Scotland in 1650. A Per/. Diurnal, E, 777, 12, 14. 1 A son of Dr. Walter Whitford, the Bishop of Brechin. Wood's Ath. Oxon. iii. 667. 2 Strickland to the C. of St. May £j, Cary's Mem. of the Civil War, ii. 131 ; Nicholas to Ormond, * Iay28 , Carte MSS. xxv. foL io; C.J. vi. •j 7 ' June 7 ' ^ 209; Andrce to Count William Frederick, May ^, Groen van Pnnsterer, Archives de la Maison d'Orange Nassau, Serie 2, iv. 309. 3 The Commissioners to Charles, May -i, Clar. St. P. iii. Apfk lxxxvi. See Clarendon MSS. No. 60. VOL. I. F 66 THE COMMONWEALTH ON ITS DEFENCE chai\ ill. Charles applied for advice to the Scottish lords in attendance on the Court. Hamilton excused himself on the plea of __. . , ignorance of the existing state of affairs in Scotland. Opinions of ° . «» Hamilton, Montrose replied that, though Charles might, with and" Lauder- considerable reservations, accept the Scottish National Covenant, he must imperatively reject the Solemn League and Covenant. To do otherwise would be to alienate all his faithful subjects in the three kingdoms. As to the pro- posed adoption of the Presbyterian worship in his own household, it did not become those who had rebelled against the father, because ' they but imagined he intended to meddle with them in that kind,' to interfere with the religion of the son. It was well, Montrose ironically added, for commissioners sent by the very men who had sold the late King to his enemies, and who were now engaged in murdering the best subjects of the present one, to offer 'to continue the same faithfulness unto his Majesty as they had formerly shown to his royal father.' Lauderdale with more worldly wisdom recommended Charles to grant all that was asked so far as Scotland alone was concerned, and to use the Scottish form of worship whenever he was in that country or with a Scottish army. 1 On May 1 1 these opinions were submitted to the Council. The result was that on the 19th Charles delivered to the Com- M n missioners a reply in which he declared himself ready ■IV Co ■A. Covenant and the Presbyterian doctrine and disci- The Council to accept the Scottish Acts relating to the National consulted. Charles's 9 pline. He could do nothing regarding England or Ireland without the consent of the Parliaments of those kingdoms. As for the Solemn League and Covenant, he would adopt anything in it which was for the good of Scotland without prejudice to England or Ireland. Moreover, he would do nothing to disturb the peace lately concluded in Ireland.' 2 Holding this answer to be equivalent to a rejection of their demands the Commissioners returned to Scotland. 1 Napier's Memoirs of Montrose, ii. 700 ; Clarendon MSS. 68, i. 2 The King's answer, May ||, Clar. St. P. iii. xciii. ; The King's final answer, Clarendon MSS. 62. 1649 MONTROSE'S SCHEME 67 On May 27 they landed at Leith to give an account of their failure. 1 Charles had thus adopted the policy of suiting the ecclesi- astical institutions of the three kingdoms to the wishes of their Poli respective populations. Scotland was not to coerce adopted England, or England to coerce Ireland. It is un necessary to discuss the merits of an idea which was only entertained as a weapon of political warfare. Charles not unnaturally thought more of recovering his throne than of laying the foundations of a constitutional settlement. For the present he was shrewd enough to discover that it was hopeless to regain Heen . England on Argyle's terms, and he was meanwhile courages doing his best to encourage the enterprise on which Montrose. , . , . . , Montrose had set his heart. Montrose with his usual idealism was planning a scheme for the invasion of Scotland by aid of the Continental sove- Montrose's reigns, who, as he fondly hoped, would, in mere hopes. defence of their own crowns, support him to the utmost against a regicide republic. Unfortunately for him, the dominant feature of European politics was the rivalry between France and Spain, and neither France nor Spain was likely to assist an exile who had nothing to offer in return, whilst other Powers, having recently freed themselves from a desolating war, would shrink from rekindling its flames for the benefit of a young prince in whose success they had little or no interest. Montrose's first application was to some extent successful. On March 3 1 he obtained from the Danish Chancellor Ulfeldt, March 3 i. wno was at the time in Holland, eleven diamond uitionf^ith rm 8 s valuecl at 5,000 rixdollars, about 1,125/. in uifeidt English money. His further request for permission to sail from Stavanger in Norway with an expedition directed against Argyle's Government was referred to Copenhagen. 2 As the negotiation with Scotland showed itself to be more and • The Moderate Intelligencer, E, 558, 10. 2 Acquittance by Montrose, ^"^fo ' Montrose to Ulfeldt, April ,', ; Clarendon MSS. ii. Nos. 35, 89/i. '"where these papers are incorrectly dated in the Calendar. F 2 68 THE COMMONWEALTH ON ITS DEFENCE chap. hi. more hopeless, Charles turned decisively to Montrose. On April 13 he empowered him to treat with European Montrose 3- kings and states, and on May 19, the day on which to negotiate, Char J es gaye h Jg final answer to tne Scottish Com- and^named missioners, Montrose was named Admiral of Scot- Admiiaiof land. 1 Scotland. Charles, however, was in need of money for his own projected expedition to Ireland, and whilst he relegated Montrose to the German and Scandinavian States, it was to the western Governments that he looked for personal assistance. Charles Disappointment tracked him at every turn. In vain needs the Prince of Orange urged the States General to money for ... . . . ..._.. himself. assist him with a loan, and the exiled Prince had A Dutch to content himself with the profits, such as they were, loan refused. Qf ^ prizes made by Rupert > s fleet ^ Kinsale. 2 From France, distracted by internal commotions, nothing was Ma 2 to ^ e no P e d> b ut > on May 2 7, 3 Cottington and Hyde Cottington were finally despatched to Madrid with instructions to and Hyde , J r . . set out for promise, in consideration of pecuniary assistance, to relax the execution of the penal laws against the English Catholics in the event of a restoration. If this offer — raised, if necessary, to a promise absolutely to repeal the laws — proved insufficient, the goods of English merchants trading in Spain were to be offered as security for a loan. 4 On their way through Brussels the ambassadors were to apply to the Arch- duke Leopold, the Spanish Governor of the Low Countries, and to urge the Duke of Lorraine, whose army had been thrown out of employment by the Peace of Westphalia, to give to Charles the assistance which he had at one time promised to his father. Charles himself followed fast on the June 22. Charles at heels of his ambassadors. On Tune 22 he arrived at Brussels. .... Brussels to press his claims. Both in Spain and at Brussels these claims were scouted as • Commissions, April Jf, May |§, Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ii. 173. 2 Edgeman to Nicholas, May ff, Nicholas Papers ; i. 125. s Edgeman's Diary, Clarendon MSS. 4 Instructions to Cottington and Hyde, May 24 (?), Clar. St. P. ii. 481. 1649 CHARLES'S CLAIMS FOR AID REPULSED 69 ridiculous. The Spanish Government, indeed, had hitherto Charles refused to recognise the Commonwealth, as its and Spam. c hances of survival appeared precarious, but it had no wish to give assistance which it could ill afford to a Prince whose chances of restoration were equally precarious. Philip had written hurriedly to the Archduke to stop the mission of the ambassadors, and the Archduke and his ministers let Charles plainly know that a Spanish king at war with France could do nothing for one who was about to transfer himself to French soil, and whose mother, to say nothing of Jermyn his mother's chief adviser, was notoriously under French influence. 1 After this rebuff Charles had no choice but to pursue his way across the frontier, to carry out his Irish adventure as best he might. The only encouragement which reached him was from the enthusiasm of Montrose. In word, at least, Charles showed , his gratitude. On June 1 2, when he halted at Breda June 12. ° J ' Charles on his way to Brussels, he, somewhat superfluously, commissions renewed all the commissions which he had already granted to him, and promised that he would never take a step in Scottish affairs without his advice. 2 On the 18th he pressed Ulfeldt to continue his assistance, a request to which Ulfeldt responded by an additional gift of 7,500 rix- dollars, equivalent to 1,687/. 10s., and of a considerable stock of arms and ammunition. 3 Montrose was thereby enabled to start on his mission, for which Charles, on June 26, after his own arrival at Brussels, gave him fresh authority. Meanwhile _ . Charles himself made his way to St. Germains, Charles goes . ... to St. Ger- where he remained - for some time awaiting news from mains. T , , Ireland. As Charles's resolution to look for help from Montrose and Ireland rather than from Argyle and the Scots led him to seek aid at Brussels and Madrid, so also it led him to seek aid from 1 Consulta of the Council of State, "*^ ; Cardenas to Penaranda, June |g ; Penaranda to Cardenas, J ^» ; Penaranda to Navarro, *gS ; Penaranda to Philip IV. J ^f ; Guizol, App. .389, 393, 395-403. 2 Charles to Montrose, June £§, Napier's Memoirs of Montrose, ii. 706. 3 Clarendon MSS. ii. No. 89, ii.-vi. 70 THE COMMONWEALTH ON ITS DEFENCE CHAP. III. Pope Innocent X. On July 28 he sent Robert Meynell to Rome with general credentials addressed to all and singular to whom he had anything to communicate. This Meyneii to vague expression was interpreted in a letter from ask help .-, • r+ «. , *■%, • .... from the Cottington to Cardinal Capponi, in which it was ope ' plainly stated that if the Pope would give money to help Charles to recover his Crown, Charles would engage in return to show favour to his Catholic subjects. 1 On turning his back on the Scots, Charles was at least angling for the support of a combination more homogeneous than that to which he had looked for aid a few weeks before, as Catholics and English churchmen had more in common than Catholics and Presbyterians. Yet even under these con- ditions the difficulties in the way of party co-operation were practicably insuperable, and nowhere were they more evidently insuperable than in Ireland. The differences which cohesion existed between Ormond and the Confederate theTnsh Catholics were but thinly skinned over. Ormond oya ists. was see ki n g t0 ,^1^ use f his new allies in order to re-establish the monarchy in England, whilst the Confederate Catholics were seeking to make use of Ormond in order to establish the Roman Catholic religion and an independent Parliament in Ireland. Even if these hindrances to united action could be overcome, it was hard to see what strength of military comradeship could arise between the Catholic soldiers of the Confederation and the regiments — mainly composed of Protestants of English birth or descent— which followed Murrough of the Burnings, 2 and had, in his ser- vice, defiled the sanctuary of Cashel with the blood of slaughtered priests. Nor would it be easy to lure Owen O'Neill from his seclusion in the North to join hands even with his fellow Catholics who had been excommunicated by Rinuccini in consequence of their adhesion to the Supreme Council. Ormond was, however, sanguine. Like Montrose, he 1 Charles's letter of credence, *^f ; Cottington to Cardinal Capponi, J"j2?, Clar. St. P. ii. 488. 2 Great Civil War. iv. 106. 1649 ORMOND AND JONES 71 fancied that the horror of the late King's death would excite all men of good will in a desperate resistance to the regicides. So hopeful indeed was he that he attempted to win over the Ormond commander of the Parliamentary forces in Ireland, sanguine. j^ messa g e received from Michael Jones's brother, the Protestant Bishop of Clogher, induced Ormond to believe that even the Parliamentary Governor of Dublin was ready to make common cause with him and the Confederate Catholics against his own employers. 1 Accordingly, on ., , March a, he wrote to urge Jones to take the only March 9. "™ v 1 1 His overture course worthy of an honest man, ' now that the mask of hypocrisy by which the Independent army hath ensnared and enslaved all estates and degrees of men, is laid aside, now that . . . they have barbarously and inhumanly laid violent sacrilegious hands upon and murdered God's anointed and our King, not, as heretofore some parricides have done, to make room for some usurper, but in a way plainly manifesting their intentions to change the monarchy of England into anarchy ; unless their aim be first to constitute an elective kingdom, and Cromwell or some such John of Leyden being elected, then, by the same force by which they have thus far compassed their ends, to establish a perfect Turkish tyranny.' By forsaking the service of such as these, Jones would give his aid to the restoration of the ' Protestant religion to its purity . . . Parliaments to freedom, and our fellow subjects to their liberty.' ' 1 "I have been persuaded to write to Jones, and am now satisfied that the encouragement given me by some pretending your Majesty's service and of near relation to Jones, was only to give him opportunity to manifest his resolution to adhere to the bloody rebels and to gain the more reasonable and considerable supplies from them." Ormond to Charles, April 10, Carte MSS. xxiv. fol. 405. That the informant referred to was the Bishop of Clogher appears from Inchiquin's vindication Df himself written on Dec. 6. Carte MSS. xxvi. fol. 330. The motive ascribed to Jones is improbable, as, if it had existed, he would not have cut off the negotiation so promptly. 2 Ormond to Jones, March 9, The Marquis of Ormond s Declaration, E, 548, 28. 72 THE COMMONWEALTH ON ITS DEFENCE chap. hi. It is possible that Jones had in private expressed his disapprobation of regicide, and that some strong language of his on the subject had formed the basis of his brother's message to Ormond. However this may have been, it is noticeable that Jones in his reply made no attempt to justify the execution of the King. His whole argument moved in another Jones's plane. He attacked Ormond for his alliance with rebels and for talking of the restoration of the purity of religion with the help of an army of ' Papists.' " Most certain it is," he continued, "and former ages have approved it, that intermeddling of governors and parties in this kingdom with sidings and parties in England hath been the very betray- ing of this kingdom to the Irish whilst the British forces here had been thereupon called off and the place therein laid open, 1 and, as it were, given up to the common enemy." Finally, Jones reminded Ormond ' that the English interest in Ireland must be preserved by the English and not by the Irish.' 2 Jones's words would find an echo in England even amongst those who disapproved of regicide as heartily as Ormond. The Englishmen were, with rare exceptions, of one mind Interest in * n thinking that the threats of invasion from Ireland Ireland. must be brought definitely to an end, and that the only way to bring them to an end was by tightening the grip of England upon the Irish people and the Irish soil. They had too little knowledge of Irish feeling and Irish grievances to be aware that they were entering on a course of oppression from which their children's children would suffer, and, unfor- tunately for both sides in the quarrel, there was as yet no com- pact Irish nation to compel them to take its wrongs into ac- count. The divisions of the Irish had originally invited the conquest of Ireland. They now rendered impossible the re- conquest of Irish independence. " The Gael," wrote a bard 1 The reference is to the recall of English troops by the King in 1643. '-' Jones to Ormond, March 14, A True Copy of Two Letters, E, 529, 28, where the correspondence is continued by one other letter from either side. 1 649 JONES S POSITION 73 who had imbibed the traditions of the most purely Celtic part of the island, " are being wasted; deeply wounded, Subjugated, slain, extirpated • By plague, by famine, by war, by persecution. It was God's justice not to free them, They went not together hand in hand." ' For the moment, however, resolute as Jones had shown himself, his position seemed hopeless to those whose eyes were _ . fixed only on the immediate present. His soldiers Desertions J r from Jones's deserted in shoals, whilst Ormond felt himself able army. to announce that as soon as the grass grew to provide forage for his cavalry he would be able to take the field at the Ormond head of 8,000 foot and 2,000 horse, and that unless reduce Jones were plentifully supplied from England, a siege Dublin. f a f ew (Jays would be sufficient to reduce Dublin.' 2 Difficult as Jones's position would be if he were opposed by Ormond alone, it would easily become desperate were Feb . Ormond to find allies in the North who could pour afft'rs°in down to support his attack on Dublin by way of the North, the coast-road leading through Drogheda. Drogheda, indeed, was itself held by a Parliamentary garrison, and Monk, Monk's whose troops occupied Dundalk, Carlingford, and position. Carrickfergus on the coast, as well as Lisburn and Newry further inland, was as staunch to ' the English interest ' as Jones himself, whilst Sir William Cole at Sligo and Sir Charles Coote at Londonderry', though too isolated to bring him active support, might at least serve to distract the forces of the enemy. :! What forces might be opposed to Monk depended on the skill of Ormond's diplomacy, and on the strength of the 1 The Irish vision at Rome, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. iii. 194. 2 Ormond to Nicholas, March 5, Carte MSS. xxiv. fol. 52. 3 D. O'Neill to Ormond, Feb. 14 ; Ward's advices, Feb. 16 ; Carte A/SS. xxiii. fol. 485. The place now called Lisburn was then known as Lisnegarvy. 74 THE COMMONWEALTH ON ITS DEFENCE chap. hi. indignation aroused by regicide. No two parties could be more widely separated by past hostility and by moral and intel- irish and Actual antagonism than the Ulster Celts who followed Scots in Owen O'Neill, 'and the Scottish Presbyterian colo- nists who had occupied their lands and proscribed their religion. Yet Ormond was so far encouraged by his ap- \ parent success in the South that he fondly imagined it possible to bring even these incompatible forces into line in the service of the King. It was at least helpful to him that Rinuccini, discouraged by the signature of the Peace, had sailed from Feb.2 ? . Galway on February 23,' leaving Ormond, if he kav^ cim thought of winning over those Irish who had as yet Ireland. refused to bow their necks under the yoke of English royalism, to negotiate with a soldier rather than with a priest. It would be difficult for Ormond to win over Owen O'Neill, but it would be more difficult for him to win over the Scottish Presbyterians. Unpractical as their brethren Deciara- on the other side of the sea, they were hardly in- Presbytery clined to meet him even half-way. On February 15 of Belfast. t ^ e p res 5y ter y f Belfast issued a long tirade against sectaries on the one hand and the malignants of Hamilton's engagement on the other, 2 and though some influential person- ages, such as Lord Montgomery of Ards, wished to turn the movement to the advantage of the Royal cause, the Presbytery insisted that they could do nothing for an uncovenanted king, though they were ready to defend themselves against an army Monk of sectaries. Their view of the situation was widely renw the supported by their countrymen, and their first step Covenant. was i ca \\ on Monk to renew the Covenant himself and to order his troops to do the like, if he wished them to continue to co-operate with him. 3 When Monk took the Covenant in 1646, he could regard it as a mere form of declaring his allegiance to the authority he was about to serve in arms. His strong sense of military honour 1 Vind. Cath. Hib. 174. 2 A Necessary Representation, prefixed to Milton's Observations on the Articles of Peace. 3 Adair, A True Narrative, 154-156. i6 4 9 MONK AND THE PRESBYTERY 75 forbade him to renew it in 1649, when it would have been tantamount to a declaration of an intention to disobey the authority to which as a soldier he now owed obedience. Military honour, however, did not prevent Monk from be- guiling those who had announced themselves as his antagonists. If he gave a straightforward refusal, the Scottish makes troops would be at once withdrawn from him, and his position, perilous already, would become well-nigh desperate. He accordingly spun out time by giving answers which bound him to nothing. ' The Scots were no less determined to persist in their own narrow resolutions. On March 30 they denounced Ormond's combination with ' Papists ' as strongly as they de- March 30. - . • 1 ,, 1 nl", 1 1 Declaration nounced the sectaries, and called on Monk to submit the direction of the war to a council of officers elected by the soldiers. Monk was hardly the man to place himself under the dictation of a body of Presbyterian agitators, inspired by a Presbyterian clergy, especially as he knew that its first step would be to assail the Commonwealth of England, whose servant he was. " I desire to know," he sarcastically asked, " in regard of our dependence upon England, whom it is Monk's ' we shall serve for the present." 2 It was this resolu- tion of men likejones and Monk to obey the Govern- ment of England without regard to political party, which, to some extent, counterbalanced the weakness of the hold of the Commonwealth on English feeling. Loyal as Monk was to ' the English interest,' he was in 1 Adair, A True Narrative, 156, 157. " Monk," wrote Jones after- wards, "hath informed me that his letters and answers and offers to the Scots was intended only for breaking them, and giving thereby some seeming satisfaction to the common people, and well knowing that his offers would not be accepted by the others without taking the Covenant, which he was resolved not to do ; and if the Scots had taken him at his word, he would have fallen off." Jones to Cromwell, June 6, Carte MSS. cxviii. fol. 332. * Montgomery of Ards and others to Monk, March 30, Carte MSS. xxiv. fol. 332; The Declaration of the British, E, 556, 15; Adair's Narrative, 159. 76 THE COMMONWEALTH ON ITS DEFENCE chap. hi. little sympathy with English prejudices, or even with English Monk re- feelings. It was enough for him if he could find ftogikh ° f assistance in any quarter by which he could be aided prejudices. m t h e difficult task of maintaining his post till rein- forcements could reach him from beyond the sea. Now that the Scots were likely to assail him, he turned to Owen O'Neill. O'Neill was by this time in a mood to respond to his advances. It is true that he detested the Confederate O'Neill in Catholics and the regicide Commonwealth with straits. impartial energy, and in his confidential corre- spondence he declared that rather than permanently associate himself with either, he would pass the remainder of his days in exile from his beloved country. 1 In the last winter, however, his position had been deplorable. His followers, scattered over the counties of Cavan, Leitrim, Longford, and West- meath, 2 were on the verge of starvation, and gunpowder was as hard to come by as food. The Nuncio, indeed, had promised to send him supplies from the continent, but even if that promise were fulfilled, O'Neill's army was in danger of perish- ing before help could reach it, and his only chance of safety lay in his procuring temporary aid from one or other of the combatants who divided the field in Ireland. For some time His over- ne had been in communication with Jones with little joneVand to or no resu lt> 3 an d in February he turned to Ormond, Ormond. asking him, through his nephew Daniel O'Neill, to despatch commissioners to treat on the conditions of alliance. Feb. 20. Ormond seized the opportunity, and on February 20 a negotia- sent fa e commissioners. 4 Little information of the tion opened. 1 O'Neill to Massari, May 13 ; O'Neill to Rinuccini, May 18 ; Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 435, 43°- 2 Westmeath to Ormond, Jan. 31 ; Carte MSS. xxiii. fol. 373. s O'Neill to Monk, April 25, Find. Cath. Hib. i. 188. It is evident from this letter that the negotiation, which had roused the suspicions of the Supreme Council (Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. i. 747-9), had not gone far. See Rinuccini to Panzirolo, Oct. 31, Nov. 9, 29, 1648, Nitnziatura, 340, 342, 354. * Ormond to Clanricarde, Feb. ?J, Carte MSS. xxiii. fol. 405. 1649 MONK AND O'NEILL yj course of their negotiation has been preserved, but difficulties K _ ]o undoubtedly arose, and on April 10 Ormond wrote its failure, to Charles that though there had as yet been no formal breach, he did not think that it could be long averted. 1 It was, in fact, about this time that O'Neill, knowing of the straits to which Monk was reduced, turned to the Parlia- O'Neiu mentary commander in the North, hoping, ho Monk! doubt, to obtain the powder which he needed on easier terms than those offered him by Ormond. towards O'Neill opened the game by taking up a threaten- ing position in the immediate neighbourhood of Dundalk ; Monk, who was within its walls, and was utterly unable to cope with O'Neill and the Scots at the same time, wrote on April 2 1 to the Ulster chief inviting him to Nagotktkn negotiate. O'Neill at once accepted the proposal, Monk e "nd an d on May 8 the negotiations resulted in a cessation O'Neill. f hostilities for three months ending on July 3, in May 8. order that time might be given for the presentation 0/ hos- to Parliament of certain propositions in O'Neill's favour. In the meantime the two armies were to assist one another, and if, in consequence of an attack from Ormond or Inchiquin, O'Neill needed more powder than he '' had, his wants in that respect were to be supplied by Monk. 2 As a mere temporary convention this agreement satisfied both parties. Monk and O'Neill were equally anxious to gain a shelter against impending ruin, until the supplies Character of , . , , ° \ . ° , ,,,,,,, theconven- which they expected arrived, and both Monk and O'Neill had got precisely what they wanted. Neither of them had overreached the other. As to O'Neill's proposi- tions for a permanent settlement, it is hardly likely that he expected them to be accepted at Westminster, and at all events Monk had bound himself to nothing except to transmit them to England, and to help him to defeat those who were the enemies of both. Monk had reason to know, from a conversa- tion held some little time before with Jones, under whose orders 1 Ormond to Charles, April 10, Carte MSS. xxiv. fol. 405. 2 The True State of the Transactions, E, 569, n. 78 THE COMMONWEALTH ON ITS DEFENCE chap. hi. he was placed, that he would approve of any device for gaining time ; and that it was merely a temporary expedient which Monk had in view is shown by his long delay in forwarding to West- minster a copy of the articles of cessation. It is difficult to account for this delay except on the supposition that Monk, expecting that they would be rejected, wished to continue on good terms with O'Neill as long as possible. If this was so, Monk's hand was forced by the danger of Londonderry. Sir George Monro had been sent by Ormond The dan er to Des i e g e &> an d the hostility of the Ulster Scots to of London- all who resisted their predominance in the North was now open and avowed. Sir Charles Coote, the hostility to commander of the garrison, was even less likely 1 e ns " than Monk to come voluntarily to terms with O'Neill. His father, who had been one of the English settlers in Ulster, had been stripped of his entire possessions by the insurgents in 1 64 1 ; and, after avenging himself by a cruel and unrelent- ing warfare, had been slain by them in the following year. The younger Coote had inherited his father's hatred, yet he now, as the only means of saving the garrison entrusted to his charge, called upon O'Neill for help. On May 22 Coote and O'Neill signed an agreement very similar to that which Monk had accepted a fortnight before. 1 Ma 22 ^ n the 25 th, when O'Neill's co-operation in the Hisconven- defence of a Parliamentary garrison was actually O'Neill. impending, Monk at last despatched to England his May 25. own convention, accompanying it with a letter to his°own en s Cromwell as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in which ifngfand" '° he explained his conduct as having been prompted toCrom e - r fry military necessity. He showed, however, that he wel1 - had no personal objection to a permanent under standing with the Ulster Celts. " O'Neill's propositions," he wrote, " are wonderful high, but I believe will descend much 1 A True Relation of the Transactions between Sir C. Coote and Owen Roe O'Neill, E, 571, 33. There had been an earlier negotiation which had been broken off. See Des. Cur. Hib. ii. 518. 1649 THE ULSTER CELTS 79 lower." l It was hardly likely that Cromwell and his associates would speak so lightly of an alliance on any terms with men whose hands had, according to the prevalent belief, been imbrued, almost without exception, in the blood of murdered Protestants. 1 The True State of the Transactions, E, 569, n. 8o CHAPTER IV DUNDALK AND RATHMINES The association of the Ulster Celts with the massacre of 1641 made it difficult for any English party to avail itself of their Relations services. As far as the Independent leaders were indepen- concerned the mere religion of the Irish would cSthoUcs hardly have stood in the way of the projected alli- 1647- ance. In the summer of 1647 a clause modifying the penal laws of which the English Catholics complained had been inserted in The Heads of the Proposals} Later in the year it was only on the ground of expediency that the Indepen- a Catholic dents had voted 2 against the reception of a petition petition. j n w hi c h a certain number of Catholics offered an abjuration of the Pope's claim to absolve from obedience to the civil government, to permit the breach of promises made to heretics, and to command the destruction of excommunicated persons. 3 On the rejection of this petition at Westminster it was for- warded to Rome, strengthened by the signatures of fifty of the it is rejected Catholic laity. Though it was condemned by a con- sterand at"" g re gation at Rome it obtained the approval of an un- Rome. named French divine, who asserted that decrees 1648. issued from Rome were constantly set at naught by Opinion of a the French courts whenever they were opposed to divine the rights of civil government. The articles were 1 Great Civil War, iii. 330. 2 lb. iii. 377. 3 The petition itself has not been preserved ; but a memorandum on which it seems to have been founded is in The Westminster Archives at the Oratory in London. It bears nine signatures, all of them apparently those of priests. i6 4 9 A NEGOTIATION WITH THE CATFIOLICS 8 1 printed at Paris with this opinion appended, and in the summer of 1648 copies found their way into England. 1 It little matters to the oppressed from whose hand the boon of liberation comes, and in November, when the Presby- Nov. terian Parliament was tottering to its fall, an Inde- CafhoHcs pendent agent reported from Paris that the English at Paris. Catholics there were favourably disposed towards the army, and were prepared to welcome the approaching Common- wealth. Sir Kenelm Digby, by whom these views were advocated, had already received from Lord Say a pass to Pro sed return t0 England. 2 In February Scout-master negotiation Watson was despatched to Paris to carry on the with the . . r _.,.,... Catholics. negotiation and to repeat to Digby the invitation to i6 49 come back to his native country. 3 That the idea of SirK. e Di g by extending toleration to Catholics who would accept England tne government of the Commonwealth and would renounce all doctrines subversive of civil authority Proposed J toleration did not extend to England alone, is shown by the of Catholics. . ° . . ' Tr . , . project entertained soon after the King s execution, of sending Sir John Winter, a noted Royalist Catholic, to Ireland, with a mission to conciliate his co-religionists in that country. 4 It is probable that Winter's mission related principally, if not exclusively, to the Confederate Catholics. The case of the Catholics of Ulster was in other hands. Father crei°y's Crelly, the abbot of a Cistercian monastery at Newry, 5 mis S1 on. had ^ j n i6 ^ 7 ^ bgen senj; tQ Rome by the Marquis of Antrim to urge the Pope to contribute money for the support 1 Articles proposed to the Catholics of England, E, 458, 9. These articles are the same as those in the memorandum, with slight modi- fications. 2 Letter of an Independent Agent, Nov. 28, 1648, in A True and Full Relation, E, 476, 14. 3 Digby, coming from Paris in Watson's company, arrived at Rouen on Feb. 13. Winstad to Nicholas, Feb. ±Z, Carte's Orig. Letters, i. 220. 4 Advertisement from London, Feb. ±§, ib. i. 224. s Lord Leicester's MS. fob 2,792b. VOL. I. G 82 DUNDALK AND RATHMINES chap. iv. of a fresh expedition to Scotland, which that nobleman was planning in conjunction with Montrose. Failing in his immediate purpose, Crelly betook himself to England, where he was received by a small committee of five members of the Council of State. To them he propounded a plan A Spanish . , . , . , . , alliance for an alliance with Spain, in which Antrim and O'Neill should be included, and supported it by real or pretended revelations of the intention of the French Government to assist Ormond and the Confederate Catholics. He gathered from his interviews with the committee that its members were favourably disposed towards him. Cardenas, too, the Spanish ambassador, wrote hopefully to Madrid of the project, and demanded powers to negotiate with the Common- wealth for the assistance of an English fleet against France. Such a proposal was not likely to be adopted at Madrid. 1 Philip had as yet no mind to enter into an alliance with a regicide republic, especially with one so ill-consolidated as the Hesitation English Commonwealth appeared to be, and he at Madrid, therefore rejected the proposal of his ambassador. Before, however, the King's reply arrived, Cardenas and Crelly learned that the Council of State had abandoned, if it had ever The idea of seriously entertained, the idea of tolerating Catholics, Catnoikf P art b T > ^ would seem, in consequence of its dis- abandoned. CO very that the great majority of the English Catholics would remain faithful to the Royalist cause, partly, no doubt, because it could not but be aware that the step it had contemplated would be extremely unpopular amongst its March 14. own supporters. 2 On March 14, finding that Sir ceptedVrom John Winter was no longer useful, Parliament pardon. excepted him from pardon, though it allowed him time to leave the country in safety. 3 Crelly had already dis- _ „ , covered the fruitlessness of his errand, and on March 6 Crelly s -. ' ... disappoint- he wrote to Antrim that he was only remaining in England till Cardenas had received an answer from 1 Consulta of the Council of State, March ^, Guizot, i. App. v. No. 3. 2 Letter from an English Catholic, March 26, Lard Leicester's MS. fol. 2,795b, * C.J. vi. 164. i6 4 9 MONK'S AGREEMENT WITH O'NEILL 83 Madrid. 1 By this time Antrim had made his submission to Ormond, and the negotiation had therefore broken down on both sides. When, towards the end of May, Sir Kenelm Digby arrived in England from Paris he found little disposition to listen to his proposals. 2 Under these unfavourable circumstances, Monk's letter, announcing his arrangement with O'Neill, was laid by Crom- june. well before the Council of State. It is highly pro- im"r k iaid bable that Cromwell had already authorised Jones to Councilor ta ^ e advantage of any negotiations which might be state. offered by one or other of the hostile commanders, but it is almost certain that, till Monk's letter reached him, he knew nothing of the actual terms of the agreement with O'Neill, and that he was absolutely opposed to any permanent alliance with the Ulster Celts. The three months' Ihecessa- . tiontobe cessation was, however, another matter, and the Council of State, refusing to ratify it, nevertheless resolved to keep it secret/ 5 There is no ground for supposing that Cromwell dissented from the course then taken ; nor, when all the circumstances of the case are taken into considera- tion, is there any reason why he should have done so. 4 1 Crelly to Antrim, March 6, Carte MSS. xxiv. 49, 54. This letter is incompatible with the supposition that Crelly had received promises from the Independents. - Relation of an Irish gentleman, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of AJ}. in Irel. vol. ii. 204 ; Salvetti's despatch, June l\, Add. MSS. 27,962, M. fol. 306. 3 " It was not then thought fit, for divers reasons, to return any answer thereupon to Col. Monk, but enjoined secrecy on the whole." Order Book of the C of St. Interr. I, 62, p. 601. This is passed over in The Report of the Council to Parliament, C.J. vi. 277. * That Cromwell directly authorised Monk's treaty was suggested by Walker {Hist, of Ind. ii. 233), and has since been maintained by Mr. Julian Corbett {Monk, ch. v.). Monk's letter to Cromwell is, however, to my mind incompatible with the supposition that he was acting under instructions more definite than the general ones which he states that he had received from Jones. Mr. Corbett, as I learn from him, rests his case upon two grounds. In the first place, there is a letter from the Council of State of May 7, hurriedly countermanding the despatch from Cluster a 2 84 DUNDALK AND RATHMINES chap. iv. An explosion of popular sentiment against the three months' cessation, which would prematurely have converted O'Neill into an enemy, would at this time have been Cromwell s . * need of disastrous to Cromwell's plans. Having made up his mind not to cross the sea without the means of of money intended for Monk, whilst on May II a letter was written to Monk thanking him for his services, and on the 1 5th orders were given to despatch the money (C. of St. to Walley, May 7, Interr. I, 94, p. 147 ; Order Book of the C. of St. Interr. I, 62, p. 287 ; C. of St. to Walley, May 15, Interr. I, 94, p. 169). The simplest explanation is that the Council heard on the 7th that Dundalk was in danger from the Scots, and had learnt by the 15th that no immediate danger was impending, and that therefore the money could be sent with safety. This is pretty much what they say themselves, and I see no reason to disbelieve them. The theory that they were offended with Monk's negotiation, and that Cromwell smoothed things down, presupposes that they already knew something of the negotiation, and that Cromwell was at hand to combat their objections. The former supposition is in the highest degree improbable, and though Cromwell was present in the Council on May 7, he did not reappear till the 28th, being called away from London to suppress the Levellers. In the second place, Mr. Corbett refers to an extract from a letter, the contents of which were forwarded by Nicholas to Ormond on A Y^» m which Nicholas's unknown correspondent says that he had been told by ' a great Papist ' that the business between Cromwell and the Catholics was asleep, and that, as to Owen O'Neill, ' for this he could not speak with so much confidence to it as to the former, but he had it from a good author (which afterwards he named, viz. the Lord Brudenel) that that gentleman had about three weeks ago written a letter to Cromwell to thank him for his care he had of him and his army in paying this half-year ; but he desired him withal to consider that his promise was but conditional, as presupposing the Pope's approbation, which he could never obtain, but on the contrary had received a present command to do nothing prejudicial to the Crown of England, and upon that, it is probable, came that report a while since, that O'Neill was joined with the Marquis of Ormond ' (Carte's Orig. Letters, i. 297). The day three weeks before this extract was enclosed was July 7, and presupposes a letter written by O'Neill to Cromwell towards the end of June. If at that time he told Cromwell that in consequence of the Pope's intervention he could do nothing for him, how came he subsequently to take part in the relief of Londonderry, when it was besieged by the very Royalists whom 1649 FINANCIAL- DIFFICULTIES 85 paying his men, he found himself hampered with innumerable delays. It is true that Parliament had done what it could in favour of the army. On May 1 2 an Act was passed Act for pay- to enable soldiers to pay for their quarters by borrowing money on the security of the assessments, •vfsfbie 28 ' and a second Act on May 28 ordered the issue of off e U red y debentures bearing a ' visible security,' in order to fordeben- saV e the owners of such debentures from being tures. . ° driven, as had often been the case before, to sell them for no more than three shillings in the pound. 1 The difficulty was to find 'visible security.' To entice men to 'Doubling' purchase the lands of Deans and Chapters now put of DeanTalfd U P for sa ^ e » persons who had formerly lent to the Chapters. State money which had not been repaid were offered the opportunity of ' doubling.' If they now paid in ready money a sum equal to the amount of their original loan, they were to receive lands equal in value to both payments, and would thus obtain payment in land for what was coming to be held as a bad debt. Yet, even with this temptation, buyers came in but slowly. It was not by financial difficulties alone that Cromwell's he was ordered to support ? How, too, came Cromwell, who, for some time to come, was notoriously unable to obtain money to transport his own army to Ireland, to find pay for that of O'Neill ? If the whole of Jones's correspondence with Cromwell had been pre- served, it would perhaps be possible to ascertain Cromwell's part in the attempts at this time made by Jones to break up the coalition against him. One passage of the few of Jones's letters which have reached us may, however, be quoted. " I have hitherto," he wrote, " fomented — as still I do — the differences between Owen Roe and Ormond, and am now on the same design for taking Preston off" also with his Irish party, which is now also taking. It will be of high consequence to the utter and speedy breaking of their whole powers." Jones to Cromwell, June 6, Carte MSS. cviii. fol. 44b. This looks as if Cromwell had given Jones to understand that he might intrigue as much as he pleased, but had left details to his subordinate. 1 Acts of Pari. E, 1,060, pp. 223, 263; The Levellers Vindicated, E, 571, 11. 86 DUNDALK AND RATHMINES chap. IV. departure was stayed. On June 9 Parliament resolved that the seats of the members who had voted for the continuance June 9 . of the Treaty of Newport, and who had not satisfied Sections re- tne committee appointed to receive retractations solved on. f t h a t vote, should be declared vacant and be filled up by fresh elections.' At this proposal , which would have introduced into the House more than a hundred new members of uncertain politics at a time when he would himself be on the other side of the sea, Cromwell took alarm. He Cromwell made an alternative proposal that Parliament should a™ourn- an adjourn for two or three months, leaving the reins of ment. government in the hands of the Council of State. 2 The House, which was at all times disinclined to share its authority with new comers, followed Cromwell's lead, and on June 1 1 requested the Council to draw up a list of His view ' Bills fit to be passed into law before the adjourn- adopted - ment.3 Definite preparations were now made for the Irish expe- dition. On June 15 Ireton was named Lieutenant-General, June i S . and on the 22nd Cromwell was formally appointed te7mTt- Lleu Commander-in-Chief and Governor of Ireland, a title General. which, even in official parlance, was speedily aban- June22. doned for the time-honoured designation of Lord Cromwell T . . ... ... .... Commander- Lieutenant, the civil and military authority being combined in his person for three years. 4 On June 27, FrnTnciai 29- to provide resources for his army, an Act was passed expedients, charging the excise with 400,000/., and on the 29th another Act authorised the immediate borrowing of 150,000/. on that security. 5 A popular government, indeed, would have T found no difficulty in raising the money on such good win not security ; but the Government was not popular, espe- cially in London, and the city merchants, instead 1 Whitelocke, 406. 2 Walker's Hist, of Ind. ii. 202 ; Salvetti's despatch of July ^, Add, MSS. 27,962, M. fol. 327b. 3 C.J. vi. 229. 4 lb. vi. 232, 239. s lb. vi. 245. 1649 THE ROYALISTS IN IRELAND 87 of taking up the loan, offered to bet twenty to one that Cromwell would never leave England. l The delay was the more annoying as news of the increased activity of the enemy had for some time been pouring in from News from Ireland. On the other hand, it was satisfactory to Ireland. know that the mastery of the sea had passed into the hands of the Commonwealth. On May 22 Blake arrived off Kinsale and blockaded the harbour. Rupert's Mav 22. . l Kinsa'ie ships were as yet too scantily manned to break out, 2 blockaded. r. rT > , ,- , T , . . • \ and it Dublin and Londonderry were to be besieged by the Royalists, they would be besieged, like Hull and Ply- mouth in the English Civil War, on the land side alone. Yet, even with the sea open behind them, Dublin and Londonderry were exposed to no slight danger. About the middle of May, Ormond sent Castlehaven in advance to clear the way for his own march to Dublin, and Castlehaven reduced Maryborough Ma , on the 1 6th and Athy on the 21st. Yet even in the Castle- midst of these successes the inherent weakness of a reduces military undertaking based on no sound financial borough organisation was plainly to be seen. Castlehaven and Athy. had started with 5, ooo foot and 1,000 horse. His half-starved men deserted in shoals, and he had to complain after the capture of Athy that only 1,500 of his Desertions *\ . . } . i from his infantry remained with him, and that they were only kept alive by stealing cows. " God Almighty," he wrote to Ormond, " bless all, but to my thinking our business for as much as concerns this army hath but a scurvy face." 3 Ormond was more sanguine. He thought that so small a May 23 . sum as 5,000/. would make the King absolute master r?o7e° n for of Ireland, and that there would not be much difficulty the best. m ra i s i n g it. 4 Encouraged by this hope, he deter- 1 The Mode rale, E, 565, II. 2 Legge to Ormond, May 22 ; Castlehaven to Ormond, May 26 ; Sir E. Butler to Ormond, May 27 ; Carte MSS. xxiv. fol. 765, 782, 784 ; A Perfect Summary, E, 531, 20. 3 Castlehaven's Memoirs (ed. 1680), 85; Castlehaven to Ormond, May 14, 16, 19, 31, 22 ; Carte MSS. xxiv. fol. 701, 719, 742, 755, 764. 1 Ormond to Jermyn, May 23, ib. xxiv. fol. 772. &8 DUNDALK AND RATHMINES cha?. IV. mined to set out for Dublin, the gate of Ireland, where the girdling wall of mountains falls back for a space and leaves free access to the central plain. On May 29 he assured Nicholas that the King could dispose of at least 10,000 foot His view and 3,000 horse. On the other hand, he allowed military that if Irish soldiers were to be brought under situation. m ilitary discipline, they must be constantly paid, which, added the unhappy Lord Lieutenant, ' they can never be.' Inchiquin's men, mainly recruited amongst the English settlers in Munster, were no less clamorous 'for impossible sums of money.' Yet Ormond was full of hope to carry Dublin ' and, in consequence, the whole kingdom.' As yet he knew nothing of the agreement between Monk and O'Neill, and he hoped that the hostility of Royalists and Levellers would be enough to hinder Cromwell from bringing or sending any considerable assistance to Jones. 1 On May 30 the combined forces of Ormond and Inchiquin, numbering 6,000 foot and 2,000 horse, broke up from Kil- kenny. It was not an army from which united Ormond's' action could be expected. Between Inchiquin's advance. p ro testants and the Catholics who had been handed over to Ormond by the Supreme Council no good understand- ing prevailed. It was comparatively easy to smooth away personal asperities. Preston, for instance, who was annoyed by the appointment of Lord Taaffe to the post of Master to be a of the Ordnance, which he coveted for himself, and viscount. w j iQ j^ evgn ente red into a correspondence with Jones, was consoled with the promise of a viscountcy. 2 1 Ormond to Nicholas, May 29, Carte's Orig. Letters, ii. 379. 2 Ormond to Charles, June 1 ; Ormond to Long, June 1 ; Carte MSS. xvi. foil. I, 3. For Preston's communication with Jones, see the extract at p. 85, note. According to a letter from Rochfort to Jones of June 4 (il>. cxviii. 45), Preston engaged in a plot to seize Ormond at a dinner to which he was invited, as he passed through Carlow on the 31st. The plot, wrote Rochfort, failed, because Ormond came accompanied with an armed guard. It is possible that Preston listened to the scheme in order to frustrate it, and the evidence is, at all events, insufficient to fix so deep a slain on his character. 1649 ORMOND'S MARCH UPON DUBLIN 89 Such rivalries might be dangerous in the future, but for the present Ormond was, at least in appearance, in the full tide of success, whereas it was amongst his opponents that the disin- tegrating effect of differences of opinion and sentiment was most clearly to be seen. It was not only by the Scots in the north that regicide was abhorred. One fortified post Surrender after another was voluntarily surrendered to Ormond tresses to by officers in the employment of the English Parlia- Ormond. me nt, Ballysonan being the only one to hold out. Sir Thomas Armstrong deserted to him with a strong body _ . of horse, and his example was followed by other Par- Desertions „ . from Jones, hamentary officers. On June 14, indeed, Jones, June 14. accompanied by Monk, who had come southwards attempts to consult him on his own difficulties, sallied forth Ormond's fr° m Dublin to obstruct Ormond's march, but he advance. was sa( j]y out-numbered, and on the 17th he was June 17. out-manceuvred and forced to draw back into the retreat. city. l On the 21st Ormond reached Castleknock, June 21. and occupied the grounds of Phoenix Lodge with his WorT cavalry. Before long he established his headquarters Dublin. at Fi n gi as on t he northern-side of Dublin.'-^/* In reality everything depended on Ormond's promptness in assailing Dublin before succour could arrive. Yet he deter- mined to play a waiting game. He may have dis- Ormond » . •• r , • , , resolves trusted the quality of his troops, and he certainly wafting 3 underestimated the power of the English Govern- game. ment to hasten the succours which had been so long delayed. He appears to have thought that the difficulty of obtaining provisions from the neighbourhood of Dublin, together with the pressure exercised by a disaffected popula- tion, would compel Jones to surrender, although the sea was still open for the introduction of supplies. Jones, on the other hand, with none of the unconquerable optimism of his 1 Ormond to the King, June 28, Carte's Orig. Letters, ii. 383 ; The Moderate Intelligencer, E, 562, 2 ; The Moderate Mercury, E, 562, 4 ; The Present Condition of Dublin, E, 562, II. 1 Blacknall's advices, Carte MSS. xxv. fol. 35. 90 DUNDALK AND RATHMINES chap. iv. opponent, busied himself in repairing the fortifications, and drove out of the gates the Roman Catholic citizens Joness ° prepara- and all others, whether civilians or soldiers, whom he suspected of treachery. 1 Ormond at all events had no fear of the result. He de- spatched Inchiquin first to reduce Drogheda, and then to fall inchiquin upon Monk and rally the Ulster Scots to the Royal against cause. On the 28th he invited his young sovereign Drogheda. t consider how the total reduction of Ireland might 1 be best improved and made use of towards the regaining of ' June 28. nis other dominions. How great were the difficulties Ormonds j n t h e wa y of that final consummation was not un- bodings. known to him. Irishmen, he was well aware, thought far more of seeing their own grievances redressed in their own way than of restoring Charles to the throne. " It is easily foreseen," he wrote, " that, upon the full subduing of those that hold in this kingdom for the rebels in England, and before those heretofore of the Confederate party will consent to the sending away or disbanding of any considerable number of their best men, they will expect a confirmation by Act of Parliament of what they have gained by the late peace ; and it is to be feared that their clergy will not rest there, but will press for such enlargement in point of ecclesiastical livings and jurisdiction— the true and original ground of the Irish rebellion — as may not consist with your Majesty's honour, safety, or conscience to allow them. Yet I His advice, conceive it is not impossible but that your Majesty, by securing to the generality by Parliament and by some par- ticular instances of bounty and trust what is already granted, which carries with it all reasonable advantages and security as to temporal interests and very large freedoms for the exercise of their religion, may so far gain upon them that it will not be difficult to carry them to what new action your Majesty shall please, and yet not entangle yourself in such further conces- sions to them as may lose the hearts of the Protestants without whom your Majesty's work here, much less in England and Scotland, is not to be done." 1 The Present Condition of Dublin, E, 563, 4. i6 4 9 THE SIEGE OF DUBLIN ?KTin2b '•L June a-Aug.2, 1648. - F.S.WcUt 92 DUNDALK AND RATHMINES chap. iv. The disruption of the alliance which he had so laboriously concluded stared Ormond in the face. "How this Parliament," He invite ^ e contmue d, " can De without your Majesty's pre- charies to sence ... I cannot see ; nor any assurance with- out a Parliament of sending any considerable body of Irish hence with the consent of those entrusted by them 1 to see the performance of the conditions with them ; and unless the greater number be of them, 2 the Protestants interested here will not hold it safe that any number of themselves be sent." The expected conquest of Ireland, in short, must lead to an outbreak "of hostility between the two sections of Or- mond's supporters, which could only be averted by Charles's personal intervention. 3 Evidently the danger of an Irish invasion of England was greater in appearance than in reality j but history is full of Cromwell examples of menaces which become formidable meet v th e t0 ^ tnev are not met **& vigour and decision. danger. Cromwell at least had no doubt as to the necessity of putting an end for ever to threats which had been suspended over England since the utterance of those hasty words which more than anything else had cost Strafford his head. Another Royal Lord Lieutenant appeared to be repeating Strafford's words : " Your Majesty hath an army in Ireland which you may employ to reduce this kingdom." Yet Cromwell, eager as he was to set forth, was still tied to Westminster by his finan- cial needs, perhaps, too, by the necessity of assuring himself that there was no immediate risk of a Scottish invasion. About the time that Ormond sat down before Dublin, June 20. public attention was called to the events passing in £eunder-° f Ulster. 4 On June 20 a rumour was spread in standing London, with no basis of fact, that Monk and O'Neill O'Neill. had marched together to relieve Dublin More accu- 1 I.e. the Commissioners of Trust, see p. 13. 2 I.e. of Protestants. 8 Ormond to Charles, June 28, Carte's Orig. Letters, ii. 383. 4 The Moderate Mercury, E, 561, 1 ; The Moderate Intelligencer, E, 56 1 , 2. From the Royalist Merc. Pragmaticus ( E, 56 1 , 1 7 ) published on June 26. it appears that no definite information had as yet been published. l6 4 9 THE COUNCIL OF STATE AND O'NEILL 93 rate information was on the way, and on June 28 a part of June 28. the correspondence between Monk and O'Neill was sp^ndence published in London ; and soon afterwards arrived a Monk^nd pamphlet containing, not only the correspondence, ^wished. but the treat y itsen "- This pamphlet had been The e-u printed at Cork, and was sent to the press by an published, officer serving under Monk, who was almost certainly Colonel Mark Trevor, and who announced his intention of deserting to Ormond, partly on the ground of his abhorrence of the murderers of the king, but still more on account of the treaty with O'Neill. 1 There is no doubt that the Council of State shared Trevor's opinions on the last point, but the treaty had still more than a month to run, and the Council was most unwilling cii anxious to drive O'Neill into active warfare sooner than was cession e necessary. Doubtless with this object, the Council, unbroken. ^j^ h a( i hitherto shown little disposition to give ear to the propositions of the Abbot Crelly on behalf of Antrim j u i y . and O'Neill, 2 now instructed its committee to hear before a wbat ne nac * to sa y- Crelly asked, as O'Neill had committee, asked before, for indemnity for the Irish in arms in Ulster, and for ' the enjoyment of their religion and estates for the time to come.' As far as can be gathered from his own language, he also asked for a general toleration of all Catholics within the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth. 3 Every one of 1 General Owen O'Neill's Letter, E, 562, I ; The Propositions of Owen Roe O'Neill, E, 562, 15. 2 See p. 82. 3 Ludlow, i. 228 ; Ludlow, as usual, gives no date, but Crelly's own account points to his having been before the committee early in July. " Intra paucos dies," he writes, " confidenter praesume me intellecturum realem eventum propositi de quo quantocyus Dominationem vestram illustrissimam certiorem reddam. . . . Deum Maximum testor quantum in iis laboravi et cum quibus periculis ac difficultatibus ; licet nondum absolverim censeo, et non absque fundamento, quod infra terminum viginti dierum per me ipsum vel per alium expressum Dominationi suae illustrissimse," i.e. Rinuccini, "omnia referre valuero. Res de quibus ago sunt generales et graves, et cum grandibus consilio grandium deliberate ductus in iis procedo, quandoquidem de re totius Religionis 94 DUNDALK AND RATHMINES chap, iv his demands was ultimately rejected, but for the present he was put in hope of a satisfactory answer. Evidently the Council expected that O'Neill would thereby be induced to observe the cessation to the end. The maxim that it is as justifiable to defeat a public enemy by craft as by valour finds easy access to the breasts of even high-minded statesmen. It can hardly be doubted that Cromwell gave his assent to this manoeuvre of his fellow-councillors. His own plans were Cromwell's grounded on a policy very different from that of an plans. alliance with any body of Irish Catholics. He was prepared to make his own the old policy of Strafford and to subordinate every other consideration in the government of Ireland to the work of upholding the ' English interest,' and ol making Protestant English colonists supreme in that country. Thus alone, he imagined, could chaos be reduced to order. With this object in view, Cromwell, whilst pushing forward towards Chester a sufficient force to relieve Jones from danger, Jones to be was despatching the bulk of his army towards Bristol relieved by anc i Milford Haven, from which port was the nearest way of " r Chester. passage to Cork and the southern coast of Munster. Cromwell There was to be found the English colony which had land in '° sprung up mainly through the enterprise of the first Munster, £arl Qf q q ^ ^^ ha( j j^ j^ ground a g a j n - st t h e Confederate Catholics at the time of the cessation in 1643, ' and which furnished the strength of Inchiquin's army now fighting, not without reluctance, by the side of the Confederates, and com Through one of his officers, Colonel Phayre, municates vith Inchi- Cromwell had already been in communication with quin's"' "" some of the officers in Inchiquin's army, and had asked them to continue their service in that army, in order that when the proper moment arrived they might turn against their own commander with more effect. 2 Catholicre agitur et aliquando demonstrabitur." Crelly to (?) July T 9 g , Lord Leicester's MS. fol. 2,800b. 1 See the map in Great Civil War, i. 224. 2 "Some of these," Phayre afterwards declared, "stayed, by bis advice, in Inchiquin's army on purpose to serve said interest." Phayre's 1649 CROMWELL AND LORD BROCIIILL 95 By this time, too, Cromwell had on his side a man whose influence over the English in Munster was beyond dispute. Lord Brog- Lord Broghill, the fifth son of the Earl of Cork, had to'serve"^ taken part with Inchiquin in his early resistance to a Royalist. t h e Confederate Catholics, but had been for some time living in retirement, first in Ireland and then in Somerset. The execution of the King roused him from his life of ease, and in the spring of 1649 he came to London with the inten- tion of crossing to the Continent to ask Charles for a commis- sion in Ireland. Whilst waiting for a passport he was surprised by a visit from Cromwell, who told him that his wins him design was discovered, and that he would soon be in the Tower unless he consented to abandon it. He had himself, said Cromwell, obtained leave from the Council to make the attempt to bring him to a better mind If he would serve against the Irish, ' he should have a general officer's command, and should have no oaths nor engagements laid upon him, nor should be obliged to fight against any but the Irish.' He must, however, make up his mind at once, one way or other. On this, Broghill, in whom antipathy to the Irish was more deeply seated than devotion to the Royal cause, accepted the proposal, and from that time became one of Cromwell's most trusted supporters in Ireland. ' deposition, Caulfield's Council Book of the Corporation of Cork, p. 1 165. The passage is not quite free from ambiguity, as it might mean that they stayed after the defeat at Rathmines ; but I feel very little doubt that the interpretation given to it in the text is right. 1 Morrice's Memoirs of Orrery, prefixed to The State Letters of Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery, 10. This is the same source from which the story of Cromwell and Ireton at the Blue Boar is taken {Great Civil War, iv. 27). It would be unwise to guarantee the story as accurate in every detail, but it fits in with Cromwell's designs at the time, though his intention to land in Munster must have been forgotten when it was written. Indirect confirmation of the part relating to Cromwell's promise that Broghill should fight with the Irish only is given by a letter from Inchiquin to Ormond of Dec. 9 (Clarendon Sr. P. ii. 500). " My Lord of Broghill," he writes, "sent me some messages; first, that he assures me he does not act for them, nor by their commission, that he will never 96 DUNDALK AND RATHMINES chap. iv. The beginning of July found Cromwell still in straits for money, and he adhered to his resolution that without money Cromwell he would not lead his men across the sea. His "hewestof P resence m tne West of England was, however, England. needed to restore discipline among his troops. A few weeks before a party of thirty soldiers burst into Prynne's house in Somerset, climbing over the walls and break- treated by ing down the doors. When entrance had been gained they beat his servants, drew their swords on himself, forced their way into his beer-cellar, and possessed themselves of the money and clothes of his household. Having done thus much they ' hollowed, roared, stamped, beat the tables with their swords and muskets like so many bedlams, swearing, cursing, and blaspheming at every word.' They smashed the crockery, threw a joint of beef at the head of the maid who was placing it on the table for their use, and insisted on having turkeys fetched out of the farmyard. At supper they drank so hard that ' most of them were mad-drunk, and some of them dead-drunk under the table.' l Prynne's experience was pro- bably exceptional, but men guilty of such conduct, even in the house of so notorious an antagonist of the Commonwealth, were not likely to be well-behaved elsewhere. It was time for Cromwell to intervene. On July 12 he set out for Bristol with unwonted state, in a coach drawn by six July 12. grey Flanders mares and protected by a life-guard seis^u'lor every member of which was ' either an officer or an Bristol. esquire.' Above him floated a milk-white standard, 2 symbolising, as it would seem, his hope to bring back white- robed Peace from amidst the horrors of war. Yet, long as the starting of his expedition had been delayed, it seemed His arrival likely to be kept back for seme time longer. He arrived at Bristol on the 14th, but was then com disserve the King, though he act in this national quarrel, and that, though perhaps I may not believe it, yet he would be glad to do me personal service. " 1 A Legal Vindication, E, 565, 3. This took place on May 22. 2 A Perfect Diurnal, E, 531, 21, i6 4 9 INCHIQUIN'S SUCCESS 97 pelled to assure his troops that until money arrived for their support he would not order them to embark. • He did every- thing necessary to complete his preparations for sailing when the proper moment arrived, and whilst pushing on his regiments towards Milford Haven, he continued to keep up his com- munications with the English soldiers in Munster. Unless „. _ Ormond was grossly misinformed, Cromwell offered His offer to 71 the Governor 6,oooZ. to the Governor of Cork to open the gates of of Cork. ' , . . . . , l ° ,. that city on his arrival, and there is reason to believe that similar overtures were made to persons in authority in Kinsale and Wexford, and possibly in other ports on the southern coast. 2 Whilst Cromwell was thus preparing for a landing in Munster he did not neglect those who were holding out in Reinforce- other parts of Ireland. Three regiments of foot Jones and under Venables, Moore, and Huncks, and one of Coote. horse under Reynolds, were forwarded to Chester, part of that under Huncks being destined for Londonderry, whilst the remaining forces were to make all speed to Dublin. Some of Reynolds's troopers mutinied on their way through Wrexham, and committed outrages in the neighbourhood; 3 but the greater part remained with their colours, and the four regiments reached Chester without much loss. Whilst these reinforcements were still on the way, events were occurring in Ireland which seriously increased the difficul- juiyn. ties of the Parliamentary commanders. On July n Drgheda w Drogheda surrendered to Inchiquin. Of the 700 foot inchiquin. anc j 2 ^ horse of which the garrison was composed, 1 Merc, Pragmaticus, E, 565, 21 ; The Moderate Intelligencer, E, 564. 6. 2 Advices from Blacknall, June 21 ; Long to Ormond, jf^'*, Carte MSS. xxv. fol. 35, 140; Ormond to Digby, July 19 ; Ormond to Byron, Sept. 29 ; Carte's Orig. Letters, ii. 391, 407 ; Intelligence of Cromwell's Embarkation, Gilbert's Coit. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 223. * C. of St. to Walley, June 26, Interr. I, 94, p. 264 ; Order Book of the C. of St. Interr. I, 62, p. 533 ; Wrexham is there miswritten Wex- ford. See C. of St. to Cromwell, July 17, Interr. I, 94, p. 313. VOL. I. H 98 DUNDALK AND RATHMINES chap. iv. no fewer than 600 foot and 220 horse took service with the victorious party. 1 Inspirited by this success, Inchiquin pursued his march. In Ulster, Sir George Monro, who was in arms for the King, Monro and after reducing Coleraine, had crossed the Bann, and in e the° ts naa - °P ene( i communications with Lord Montgomery North. f Ards, and other commanders, who were chafing under the unpractical refusal of the Presbyterian clergy to permit them to fight for an uncovenanted king. They now resolved to throw off the yoke, and Montgomery, having obtained admission into Belfast on the plea of defending it against Monro, had gained over the soldiers of the garrison, 2 Mont- an d joining with Monro had made himself master of dedaresfor Carrickfergus as well. Montgomery then openly the King. declared himself for Charles II., in the teeth of the protests of the clergy. The storm would soon fall on Dundalk, where Monk still held out In his desperation he sent to O'Neill for assistance against Inchiquin in accordance with their agree- DundaiL ment, offering to supply him with the gunpowder of He applies which he stood in need. Accordingly on July 23 a to O'Neill. p ar ty of O'Neill's men appeared in Dundalk to fetch J"!y. 2 3- away the store. Once within the walls, the Irishmen sends for dispersed amongst the drink shops, and when at last ammunition. * ° ,, .,,.,, they staggered through the gates with their loads, they were in no plight to resist an enemy. Unluckily for them Inchiquin was in the immediate neighbourhood. defeated by The Irishmen were cut down or put to flight, whilst iqum. t k e ammunition they carried passed into the hands of the victors. On the morning of the 24th Inchiquin opened an attack on the fortress. Monk's own garrison, however, refused to fight 1 Letter from an officer, July 16, in Perf. Occurrences, E, 532, 1 ; Ormond to Charles, July 18 ; Carte's Orig. Letters, ii. 388. 2 Adair's Irish Presb. Church, 165-173 ; the complaint of the Boutefeu, E, 566, 18 ; Monro to Gemill, July 30 ; Carte MSS. xxv. fol. 105. 1649 ORMOND BEFORE DUBLIN 99 for the ally of O'Neill, and he had no course open but to come to terms with Inchiquin. On a promise that he and all July 24. who chose to follow him should be allowed to depart der r of"" unharmed, he threw open the gates. Inchiquin Dundaik. received a hearty welcome, and almost the whole of the garrison took service under him. 1 Inchiquin had now accomplished his work in the North, and leaving Monro and Montgomery to overpower Coote in Londonderry, he returned „ to take his share in the siege of Dublin. The Castle Surrender . ° of Trim of Trim surrendered to him as he passed, and, as m lg °' Sligo had about the same time submitted to Clanricarde, Dublin and Londonderry were at the end of July the only fortified posts of any importance holding out against the Royalists. Whilst these operations were in progress, Ormond had clung to his head-quarters at Finglas, probably in order to Ormond at hinder Jones from marching to the relief of Monk. Fmgias. Though he knew that Cromwell was expected in Ireland, he looked forward to his coming without anxiety. " If July 18 Cromwell come over," he wrote on the 18th, "we He pro- shall more dread his money than his face. 2 We fessesnot •.*«•• to fear have none but what we force from this exhausted Wantsof ' kingdom." In spite of this avowal, he was strangely Kswy- confident. "That," he continued, "which only threatens any rub to our success is our own wants, which have been and are such that soldiers have actually starved by their arms, and many of less constancy have run home ; yet, upon a view yesterday taken, we are about 5,000 foot and 2,000 horse here, besides 1,200 horse and 2,000 foot about Dundaik and Trim. Many of the foot are weak, but I despair not to be able to keep them together and strong enough to reduce Dublin if good supplies come not speedily to relieve it. I am confident I can persuade the one-half of this army to starve outright, and 1 Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 37 ; A Perfect Diurnal \ E, 552, 10. 1 So in the MS. — ' force ' as printed. H 2 IOO DUNDALK AND RATHMINES chap. IV. I shall venture far upon it rather than give off a game so fair on our side and so hard to be recovered if given over." ' A few days after this letter was written the four regiments destined to relieve Jones reached Dublin. On July 26 the last July 22-26. man of them stepped on shore. 2 Jones thus found mentsTfnd himself at the head of a force at least equal in at Dublin, numbers to the enemy and far superior in cohesion as well as in all military qualities. This inauspicious moment was, however, seized by Ormond to assume the offensive. On the 25 th, encouraged by the news of Inchiquin's success at Dundalk, he transferred the bulk of his forces to Rathmines on the southern side of Dublin, leaving Lord Dillon at Finglas July 27. with 2,000 foot and 500 horse. 3 On the 27th, when seiuio Wn Inchiquin had brought back his forces, another Munster. council of war was held to discuss the course to be taken in view of Cromwell's landing in Munster, a danger which was believed to be immediately impending. In the end Inchiquin was despatched with a regiment of horse to Munster, whilst Ormond was to push on the siege of Dublin, beginning with an attack on Rathfarnham, a fortified house owned by Sir Adam Loftus and situated in the rear of the quarters of the Royalists. 4 On the 28th Rathfarnham was taken without much difficulty, and though, at another council of war, voices were raised against remaining so near a powerful garrison which Rathfam-' had recently been reinforced, it was determined to fall back on a plan for reducing the city without exposing a plan of the besiegers to the hazard of an assault. The horses acuon. Q f Reynolds's ne wly arrived cavalry, it was thought, might be deprived of the necessary forage if the besiegers could 1 Ormond to Charles, July 18, Carte's Orig. Letters, ii. 388. About this time there was a plot to betray Dublin Castle, but the negotiation was carried on directly with the King, and Ormond appears to have known nothing of it. Advices from Blacknall, July 11 ; Wilson to Blacknall, July 30 ; Ormond to Long, Sept. 28 ; Carte MSS. xxv. fol. 35, 203, 614. 2 Jones to Lenthall, Aug. 6, Cary's Mem. of the Civil War, ii. 153. * Carte's Ormond, v. 120. 4 Minutes of a Council of War, July 27, Carte MSS. xxv. fol. 39. 1649 ORMOND S ADVANCE IOI gain possession of the meadows which stretched from Trinity College to Ringsend on the shore of Dublin Bay. Accordingly, on the 29th, Ormond ordered Sir Thomas Armstrong to sweep these meadows with a party of horse, and to carry off the horses and cattle grazing on them. sirT. ' He was, however, driven back with some loss. driven™" 8 Amongst the prisoners taken by the garrison was a young nephew of Jones named Eliot, who had recently gone over to the Royalists. Jones promptly hanged him as a deserter, thus reaping the admiration of the Parlia- mentary newspapers in London as a second Brutus. 1 Armstrong's failure stirred Ormond to more decisive action. On the evening of August 1 he directed Major-General Purcell Aug. 1. t0 l ea d J ,5°° foot under cover of the night to the t B o a te font ground in dispute, and to fortify the old castle of fied - Bagotrath, which not only commanded the meadows which fed Jones's horses, but was also near enough to the sea to throw shot across the entrance of the Liffey, and thereby to hinder Jones from receiving further supplies. Purcell, however, was led astray in the dark by incompetent or Purceii' at treacherous guides, and did not reach Bagotrath till agotrat . ^ ^^j. b e f ore daybreak on the 2nd. When Ormond arrived on the scene, accompanied by Sir William Vaughan and a party of horse, he found that little progress had been made with the works, but that large parties of Jones's men were clustering in front of the city wall. Ormond gave directions to Purcell and Vaughan to protect the working party, after which, having waited in vain for an Purcell attack, he retired to his tent at nine in the morning routed. t0 s j ee p fl- t h e fatigues of the night. He was soon aroused by the sound of firing, and he then discovered that Jones had fallen on Purcell with superior force, and had recovered Bagotrath. 2 More than this Jones had not hoped to 1 Per/. Occurrences, E, 532, 13. 2 The statement that Purcell was dismissed by Ormond for his conduct on this day is an exaggeration, as he is frequently mentioned afterwards as Major-Gcneral Purcell. 102 DUNDALK AND RATHMINES chap. iv. do, but his victory had been so easy that he resolved to follow it up, and pushed on against Ormond's main station at Rath- Ormond mines. In vain Ormond, now roused from sleep, Rath? at drew out h^ s troops and exhorted them to stand firm, mines. One regiment after another either threw down its arms or fled, and though Ormond summoned to his aid the regiments quartered at Finglas they refused to stir, in spite of the urgency of their commanders. In a very short time a grave disaster had befallen the Royal cause. The two commanders were even more at variance than is usual in their accounts of the losses suffered by the defeated Ormond's army. Jones declared that he had slain 4,000 and losses. ^ad ca ptured 2,5 1 7. Ormond put the number of the killed no higher than 600, and alleged that most of them had been ' butchered in cold blood after they had laid down their arms upon promise of quarter and had been for almost an hour prisoners, and divers of them murdered after they were brought within the works of Dublin.' J So definite a statement is not refuted by the silence maintained on the other side, but it must be remembered that a considerable number of Ormond's soldiers had gone over to him from the enemy, and that it is not unreasonable to conjecture that Jones held, as he had held in the case of his own nephew, that no promise of quarter could be successfully pleaded by a deserter. 2 However this may have been, Jones's victory turned the tide of affairs in Ireland. Till the news of it reached England the Royalists had been confident of Ormond's turned in success. On the very day when the two armies Ireland. W£re strU ggij n g at Rathmines a pamphlet, published rions'ofthe m London, announced that an infant had been found Realists * n a ^ e ^ near Leominster, which had prophesied in articulate speech that Charles, after rallying Ireland to his cause, would cross into England and would in three 1 Narrative of Military Operations, Carte MSS. xxvi. fol. 440. 2 Ormond to Charles, Aug. 8 ; Ormond to Byron, Sept. 29 ; Carte's Orig. Letters, ii. 392, 407 ; Jones to Lenthall, Aug. 6, Cary's Mem. of the Civil War, ii. 159. 1649 CROMWELL AND MONK 103 years be restored to the throne of his ancestors. 1 In the City wagers were freely offered that Dublin had already surrendered, at the enormous odds of 100/. to 5s.' 2 Against Jones's success was to some extent to be set Monk's expulsion from Dundalk. On July 26 Monk himself July 2 6. landed at Chester, whence he hastened on to Monk at London, where he arrived on August i. 3 After a Chester. , ° hurried interview with the Council of State he was despatched to give an account to Cromwell of the state of affairs in Ireland, and doubtless also to seek his advice on the Aug. 1. Dest way of meeting the outcry which had been t^TT 5 r£USe d m London against the convention with O'Neill. an°d d °es He *° un( * Cromwell at Milford Haven with a pro- ontosee spect of embarking speedily. At last the financial romwe . diffi cu iti e s in his way had been .overcome, and on July 31, 100,000/. had been forwarded to him from London, thus enabling him to start without violating the promise made to his soldiers that-he would not lead them across the sea until he had enough money to secure their pay on the other side. 4 The exact nature of Monk's communications with Cromwell on the subject of his agreement with O'Neill must remain Probable uncertain, but it was probably arranged between nfscom° f them that Monk was to make public the truth, if not t^ons'with the whole truth. He was to take upon himself the Cromwell. blame of accepting the agreement, saying nothing of 1 Vox Infantis, E, 566, 27. The field is there strangely said to have been near Leominster in Herefordshire, ' hard by a village called the Hove, not far from Corfe Castle.' 2 The Army's Painful Messenger, E, 566, 25. 3 A letter from Chester dated July 26 in The Moderate (E, 532, 4) says that Monk had gone to meet Cromwell ; but almost every other newspaper speaks of his arrival in London. In Perfect Occurrences (E, 532, 7) we find, under the date of Aug. 1, ' Colonel Monk came over to Chester and to London, but went away the same night again towards the Lord Lieutenant in Pembrokeshire.' Very likely he originally intended to go to Cromwell, but thought it best to see the Council of State first. 4 Merc. Pragmaticus, E, 565, 21 ; The Moderate Intelligencer, E, 566, 23. 104 DUNDALK AND RATHMINES chap. iv. Cromwell's preliminary authorisation of some kind of negotia- tion, if such authorisation there was, 1 and keeping silence on the secrecy maintained by the Council of State with the view of postponing a rupture as long as possible. 2 Accordingly, on August 10, Scot, in the name of the Council of State, laid a report before Parliament. As soon as . it had been read Monk was called to the bar and Aug. 10. Scot's asked by whose advice the convention had been the con- made. "I did it," he replied, "in my own name with only, having formerly had discourse with Colonel o Neiii. j ones • Colonel Jones told me that if I could keep off Owen Roe 3 and Ormond from joining it would be a good service." To a further question he answered no less positively. "I deny expressly," he said, "that I had any advice Monk cen- , . . r , _ nx . „ _ , , sured and or direction from the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland or from the Council of State or from Parliament or any member of either ; but I did it only on my own score, con- sidering it was for the preservation of the English interest there, and that they have had some fruits thereof accordingly." On this, the House, after perfunctorily censuring the agreement, 1 See p. 83, note 4. • "What we have greatest reason to take notice of was a letter from Oliver to the Council of State, wherein he certifies in the behalf of Colonel Monk, the bearer, how well he did approve of the reasons he gave for endeavouring a conjunction with O'Neill, but, because the soldiery were much startled at the news thereof and many deserted him only on that ground, he therefore desired that the design might be wholly disowned by the House, and get the Colonel cleared, and something published to give satisfaction to the people." Merc. Pragmaticus, E, 569, 7. The evidence is not of a high order, but it is likely that the story was true in the main, and that Cromwell thought Monk justified in concluding a cessation for three months for practical reasons, though he disliked any actual combination with O'Neill, and agreed, on that score, with popular opinion. The dates favour the supposition that Cromwell was consulted. Monk left London on the night of Aug. 1, and was back on the 7th, so far as can be inferred from an Order of the Council of Slate relating to the affair being dated on that day. Milford Haven is 257 miles from London. 3 I.e. Owen Roe O'Neill. i6 4 9 CROMWELL SAILS FOR IRELAND 105 declared that as Monk's motives had been good, he should not 'at any time be called in question.' l Monk's steadfast adherence to military duty would in itself have been enough to secure Cromwell's goodwill, and Cromwell Monk certainly had no wish to blame him for the act by SomwdTi which he had sheltered ' the English interest ' in the goodwill. North from the storm by which it had been threatened. It can hardly be doubted that Monk seized the opportunity of his visit to Milford Haven to warn Cromwell against the danger of throwing his whole force into Munster. Jones's victory was not at that time known in England, and Cromwell's plans must have been affected by the tidings that Drogheda and Dundalk were in the hands of the Royalists, and that the way to Dublin lay open to the march of Montgomery and the Scots. In any case it appears to have been about this time that Cromwell resolved not to betake himself in person to Munster, but to send thither two-thirds of his army Cromwell s ■ . . . * army to be under Ireton, whilst the remaining third proceeded, under his own command, to Dublin. He was now ready to set out. The money he needed had arrived, and some signs of mutiny which had showed themselves amongst his Aug. 12. troops died away. On August 12, as he was prepar- ed oneX m S to embark, he was gladdened by the news of victory. Ormond's defeat. " This," he wrote, "is an astonish- ing mercy, so great and seasonable that we are like them that dreamed. . . . These things seem to strengthen our faith and love against more difficult times. Sir, pray for me that I may walk worthy of the Lord in all that He hath called me unto." 2 i On August 13 Cromwell sailed with his portion Cromwe 1 !?' of the army. The sea was rough, and Hugh Peters, who had been on board before the sailing of the expe- pd'ifnds 5 ' dition, noted that • the Lord Lieutenant was as sea- in Dublin. sick as eyer j gaw a man m my life ^3 Qll the 15th 1 C.J. vi. 277. - Cromwell to Mayor, Aug. 13, Carlyle, Letter C. 8 Peters to the Council of State, Aug. 16, A Perfect Diurnal, E, 532, 32. 106 DUNDALK AND RATHMINES chap. iv. Cromwell landed in Dublin. Before many days he was re- joined by Ireton and the remainder of the army. Ireton's change of plan was publicly ascribed to the direction of the wind, 1 but there is some reason to think that he had expected to be admitted into Youghal by the treachery of its governor, Sir Pierce Smith, and that his hopes had been baffled by Inchiquin's arrest of those who had been entrusted with its defence. 2 Not long after Ireton reached Dublin Hugh Peters arrived with the stragglers left behind at Milford Haven for want of shipping to convey them. 3 1 Peters to the Council of State, Aug. 16, Great Britain's Painful Messenger, E, 571, 22; The Moderate, E, 571, 7; The Moderate Intelligencer, E, 572, 10 ; Per/. Occurrences, E, 532, 29. 2 "We have also certain assurance . . . that the crossness of the winds was not the only cause that drave Ireton into Youghal Road, but the hopes he had of being admitted to land there— as formerly he thought to have done at Cork but failed of it — by the treachery of Pierce Smith, the Governor of Youghal, who had contracted with Cromwell to deliver the town to him for 2,000/." Inchiquin, continues the writer, had arrested Smith, and so baffled the design, Merc. Elencticus, E, 573, 2. The Moderate Intelligencer (E, 572, 26), after attributing Ireton's return to a calm of six days, prints a letter from Chester in which it is said that 1 Major-General Ireton designed for Munster, hovering at Cabel Island ' (i.e. Capel Island off Knockadoon Head) • some days, did not see ground to put in there.' The same newspaper states that ' Inchiquin hath purged all Munster garrisons of such as he suspected might prove friends to the Lord Lieutenant.' 3 Peters to , Sept. 1, Pet/. Occurrences, E, 533, 1. it ■9 , New fork "Gentlemen," he is reported to have said to his officers, "to demonstrate to the world that I value the service of my King and the welfare of my nation, as I always did, I now forget and forgive the Supreme Council and my enemies their ill practices, and all the wrongs they did me from time to time, and will now embrace that peace which I formerly denied out of a good intent." 3 There was doubtless something of impetuous generosity in the words in which O'Neill announced this time printed in London, but they were mere forgeries. Ormond had lost his cipher at Rathmines, and did not dare to write secrets when there was danger of their being disclosed. • See p. 78. 2 Col. Henry O'Neill's relation, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Irish Affairs, vol. Hi. 211. This seems the most trustworthy statement. Sir R. Stewart, writing to Charles on °-^\, says that O'Neill had 5,000/. and some oxen, Carte MSS. cxxx. fol. 94. 3 Henry O'Neill (Gilbert, iii. 211) is mistaken in thinking that Daniel O'Neill was with Owen when these words were spoken, but this does not militate against the general truthfulness of his narrative. 1649 CROMWELL LANDS IN IRELAND IOQ his intention of restoring the fortunes of his King ; but there was probably also the shrewd calculation that his country was more in danger from Cromwell than from Ormond, and that he would serve her best by throwing all his weight into the scale of the weaker party. Ormond had gathered from O'Neill's overtures that he might look to him for aid in his dire necessity. On August 12 Aug. 12. he entreated him ' to bring those seasonable and, we as™ hdp hope, real inclinations which we hear you have lately £°™ ... expressed to his Majesty's service to a due and wished-for perfection.' On the same day he urged from Mont- Montgomery to bring up his Scots at once. In a gomery, letter to Clanricarde on the 13th his sanguine nature andaanri- once more asserted itself; when the troops he now carde. expected had come up, he would, he said, be able ' to attempt the reduction of Dublin.' ' Such was the position of affairs when Cromwell landed. Until this cloud in the North had been dispersed, his Munster scheme must be postponed. He knew, however, that there was scarcely one of Inchiquin's officers who was not eager to change sides, and he therefore released some of them who had been taken at Rathmines, sending them to Munster, with as- Cromweii's surances that his coming would be as little delayed Monster. 10 as possible. 2 For the present he must strain every He aims at nerve t0 break up Ormond's new combination, and Drogheda. ^g fi rst b\ ow must b e aimed at Drogheda that it might not serve as a screen behind which Ormond could collect the scattered forces on which he counted for the re- newal of the campaign. He could not, however, move at once. His men required rest after their voyage, and Jones s regi- . . "* , , . . T , mentsre- Jones's regiments had to be re-organised to fit them organised. ^ ^^ ^^ -^ ^ com j n g cam p a ig n .3 1 Ormond to O'Neill, Aug. 12; Ormond to Montgomery, Aug. 12; Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 227, 229 ; Ormond to Clanricarde, Aug. 13, Carte MSS. xxv. fol. 252. 2 Phayre's Deposition, Caulfield's Council Book of the Corporation of Cork, 1 1 64. 3 The Moderate (E, 573, 7) says they were ' dissolute and debauched,' * I IO DROGHEDA AND WEXFORD chap. v. Cromwell was determined that under his command the plundering habits of the soldiery in Ireland should be aban- — doned. O n August 24 he issued a declaration Cromwell's ordering that no violence was to be offered to the ec ~ ara 10 "' life or property of persons not in arms. A market would be opened in his camp where ready money would be paid to all who brought provisions for sale. Those who wished to remain in their homes would, on payment of contributions fairly imposed, be protected in their persons and estates till January 1, when they would have to apply to the Attorney- General for what further protection they might require. 1 Whilst Cromwell was, out of necessity, tarrying at Dublin, Ormond was doing everything in his power to strengthen Drogheda. On the 17 th he appeared in person in Otmondat the town, and superseded Lord Moore, who had been appointed Governor by Inchiquin, in favour of Sir Arthur Aston, 2 a Catholic officer who had been Governor of Reading in 1643 and of Oxford in 1644. In the sir Arthur latter employment he had lost a leg through a fall P oint n ed P " from his horse, 3 and the wooden substitute had Dvernor. made him a well-known figure in Charles's army. He was no less notorious for his stern and unbending nature. On August 30, by which time all the regiments detailed for service had marched in, the garrison was composed of 2,871 men including officers. 4 They were in truth the Number/of flower of Ormond's army; his own regiment, under the command of Sir Edmund Verney, having lately arrived to support the three foot regiments which were already in the place when it was attacked by Jones. Of the other three regiments one under Colonel Byrne which had been left behind but, according to Perfect Occurrences, it was a mere matter of the thinness of the ranks. Two regiments had to be combined into one, and the superfluous officers got rid of. 1 A Declaration, Aug. 24, Carlyle, following Letter cii. 2 Commission to Aston, Aug. 24, Carte MSS. clxii. fol. 46. 3 Wood's Fasti, Ann. 1644. 4 Garrison in . . . Drogheda, Aug. 30, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel, vol. ii. 496. There were 2,552 foot and 319 horse. 1649 ORMOND AND O'NEILL III by Inchiquin was composed of Englishmen and Protestants, whilst the other two under Wall and Warren were for the most part, if not altogether, composed of Irish Catholics. It is mair.ly *L .. r • , • • r composed of Of Ormond s own regiment we have no certain infor- mation, but if it was, as may reasonably be supposed, levied in the neighbourhood of Kilkenny, it is not likely that there were many Englishmen or Protestants to be found in its ranks. The seven troops of horse were mainly composed of Irish Catholics. 1 Whilst Ormond was thus, as he fondly hoped, securing Drogheda against danger, he was unremitting in his urgency Aug. 23. wltn O'Neill to hasten to its aid. On August 23 he En'ds'to dispatched the Catholic Bishop of Raphoe and O'Neill. Colonel Audley Mervyn to press him to march at once. 2 Mervyn took the opportunity of deserting to Coote. On September 1 the bishop reported that he had re- O'Neiii ' ceived a friendly message from O'Neill excusing him- self from receiving him, on the ground ' that he was in Sir Charles's quarters,' and ' that his honour was engaged, which to him was dearer than his life.' The bishop shrewdly suspected that O'Neill was waiting for payment of the money still due to him from Coote. O'Neill, added the bishop, had with him about 5,000 foot and 300 horse, but would have no difficulty in increasing his army to 10,000 foot and 2,000 horse. 3 No wonder Ormond was eager to obtain the assistance of 1 When Jones appeared before Drogheda the two regiments which had just marched in ' had scarce time to quarter themselves conveniently, much less to contract such an acquaintance with the inhabitants, who were, for the most part, English ; or the regiment of English commanded there by one Colonel Byrne since the taking of it by the Lord Inchiquin, as was in truth necessary for the security of each other's fidelity and concurrence in the defence of so important a garrison. ' Narrative of Military Operations, Carte MSS. xxvi. fol. 440. According to the Moderate Intelligencer, ' Sir A. Aston chose rather to have Irish than English for his garrison.' E, 573, 19. 2 Ormond to O'Neill, Aug. 23, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, oj Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 230 ; Instructions to the Bishop of Raphoe and Col. Mervyn, Aug. 23, Carte MSS. xxv. fol. 351. 3 The Bishop of Raphoe to Ormond, Sept. 1, id. fol. 442. 112 DROGHEDA AND WEXFORD chap. v. such a force. He had himself taken up a position at Tecro- Ormond at ghan, the house of Sir Luke Fitzgerald in the south- Tecroghan. western CO rner of Meath, ready, if occasion served, to carry aid to the defenders of Drogheda ; but he had with him merely a small force of 1,000 horse, and though he hoped to make up his numbers to 4,000 foot and to 2,400 horse, he based his expectations only on the problematical arrival of a detachment from the Ulster Scots, of Clanricarde's men from Connaught, and of a detachment which he expected Inchiquin to send him from Munster. 1 Even before the bishop's despatch was written, Or- mond, to add weight to his mission, had sent after him DanTeT ° Daniel O'Neill, who had negotiated with his uncle, °' Nei11 ' Owen O'Neill, in the spring. On September 5, Or- Fpndf'owen mond's new emissary wrote that he had found Owen O'Neill. at Ballykelly, twelve miles east of Londonderry, and Scknlss 5 therefore still in Coote's quarters, but unable to move as quickly as he wished on account of a swelling in his knee. " This day," added Daniel, " he has a litter made for him ; if to-morrow he has any manner of ease he intends to march. Whether it be his sickness or that he intends to oblige your Excellency the more, he has not talked anything as yet of his conditions. All his officers to a very few, and His eager- . .' ~ . . ness to help those ol least consideration, are as passionate for his rm01 V submission to his Majesty's service as Sir Luke Fitz- gerald would have them. The number of foot he hopes to bring your Excellency will be near 6,000, and about 500 horse, truly not so contemptible for their number as some persuaded me they were ; they are well horsed and armed to a very few." 2 „ Ormond's forces, in short, were scattered whilst Sept. 1. ' ' Cromwell his opponent's were well in hand. On September 1 Dublin. Cromwell, having sent Michael Jones in advance, set Sept. 3 . out from Dublin. On the 3rd his whole army, be'tbre* 6 ' numbering about 10,000 men, was before Drogheda. Drogheda. Q n fc s wa y he was gladdened by the desertion of 1 Ormond to Clanricarde, Aug. 21, Carte MSS. xxv. fol. 337. 2 D. O'Neill to Ormond, Sept. 5, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 251. VOL 114 DROGHEDA AND WEXFORD chap. v. Captain Wentworth from the enemy with 150 of Inchiquin's horse, forming part of the cavalry which was with Ormond at Tecroghan. The divisions between English and Irish in the hostile ranks were beginning to serve Cromwell well. 1 It would still, however, be some days before batteries could be opened. Trenches had to be dug and the siege cannon brought by sea from Dublin. In one way Drogheda was admirably situated for resist- ance. It was divided into two parts, separated by the deep Situation of channel of the Boyne, and only joined by a single Drogheda. bnclg e- It was therefore impossible for a besieger, unless his numbers were far greater than those of which Cromwell could dispose, to assail it on both sides, or even to stop the entrance of supplies. On the other hand, these advantages would be of little value unless Ormond had a force outside strong enough to make use of them, and it soon be- came evident that he was in too destitute a condition to aid Se t g the garrison. On September 8 Aston informed Wants of the Ormond that his ammunition was running short, garrison. . * . . . _ his money spent, his stock 01 provisions low. On Vemeys ' the 9th he begged Ormond to fall on the camp of the enemy. 2 Neither he nor his subordinates, how- ever, allowed their courage to fail. " Warren and Wall," wrote Verney to Ormond, "are my most intimate comrades, and indeed I have not in my life known more of diligence and circumspection than in these two gentlemen. We ordinarily meet once a day to discourse of our condition and what is fit to be done. . . . We are informed that your Excellency hath a considerable army, and our humble opinions have been that you might advance and lodge at Slane Bridge with safety, and that the enemy could no way force you to fight unless to their 1 The Kingdom 's Weekly Intelligencer, E, 373, 10 ; A Moderate Narrative, E, 574, 17; Narrative of Military Operations, Carte MSS. xxvi. fol. 440. Sir Theophilus Jones, Michael's brother, was left behind as temporary Governor of Dublin. 2 Aston to Ormond, Sept. 5, 8, 9, Gilbert's Cont. Hut. of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 250, 253, 258. 1649 THE WALLS OF DROGHEDA I 1 5 infinite disadvantage, and certainly they could much less main- tain their siege ; their camp is much subject to wants, they bringing their supplies by sea." 1 Unhappily for the besieged, Ormond had no ' considerable army ' to dispose of, and the preparations of the enemy were being rapidly completed. On the 10th Cromwell Cromw'eii ' summoned Aston to surrender, and on his rejection AsTonTnd of the offer opened a steady cannonade. Both parts Smnonade. °f the tovvn rising steeply from the river were pro- De'ences tected by a high wall of the mediaeval type, and of prog- it was against the southern face of this wall that Cromwell's attack was necessarily directed. A deep ravine protected the eastern wall of the southern part against attack, whilst there was a less pronounced falling away of the ground on the western side. Here, however, the comparative weakness of the barrier was supplemented by a huge artificial mound known as the Mill Mount, on two sides of which the western wall ran, making a re-entering angle, the southern wall being therefore the only assailable part of the defences on the southern bank of the Boyne. Near the western end of this southern wall was the Duleek Gate, whilst just behind its eastern extremity was St. Mary's Church, offering a strong position to the defenders. Against the wall at the south-eastern corner and the church behind it, Cromwell had erected two batteries. By the evening . of the 10th he had demolished the steeple of the Cromwell'i church, had made a small breach apparently near the corner of the wall, and another more consider- able in its southern face. 2 1 Verney to Ormond, Sept. 9, Carle MSS. xxv. fol. 501. 2 Cromwell speaks of breaches ■ on the east and south wall,' and of both being stormed. It seems impossible that he should have stormed across the ravine, and it is therefore probable that by the east wall he means the eastern end of the south wall. The story of the siege is given in Cromwell's despatch to Lenthall (Carlyle, Letter cv.), which should be compared with Hewson's letter in Perfect Occurrences, E, 533, 15, and two anonymous letters in The Kingdom's Faithful and Impartial Scout, E, 533, 16. 1 i Il6 DROGHEDA AND WEXFORD chap. V. Though even the larger breach was not yet practicable, Aston had little doubt what would be the result of the next Aston day's cannonade. "The soldiers," he wrote to tolieat Ormond, "say well— I pray God, do well. I will his post. assure your Excellency speedy help is much desired. I refer all things unto your Excellency's provident care. Living I am, and dying will end, my Lord, your Excellency's most faithful and most obliged humble servant, Arthur Aston." Then came a postscript referring to a letter just received, in which Ormond had announced that Colonel Trevor was approaching with supplies from, Dundalk. " I hear nothing," wrote Aston, " nor have not done, of Colonel Trevor. My ammunition decays apace, and I cannot help it." l These were the last written words of a brave and honour- able soldier. On the day on which they were penned Ormond Ormond heard of O'Neill's sickness, and of the uselessness poknedof °f expecting immediate help from that quarter. 2 succour. Neither Inchiquin nor Clanricarde had sent the reinforcements on which he had counted, and though Trevor was on the way, he advanced so slowly that it was hardly possible for him to arrive in time. On the morning of the nth, whilst Cromwell's batteries were enlarging the breach, the defenders of Drogheda were not idle. They threw up a triple line of earthworks, Prepara- ' starting from behind the church, and reaching to the the n de° r wall on either side, so as to form a protection after the enemy had poured over the outer defences. It was not till five in the afternoon that Cromwell gave the word to storm. Three regiments — those of Ewer, Hewson, and Castle — rushed up the perilous slope, and endeavoured to surmount the fragments of the broken wall. They were met by hearts as stout as their own. Twice 3 they 1 Aston to Ormond, Sept. 10, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 259. - Ormond to D. O'Neill, Sept. 11, ib. 261. 3 Cromwell writes of only one repulse, but even his own narrative countenances the other witnesses who mention two. 1649 THE STORM OF DROGHEDA 117 were hurled back with loss, Colonel Castle being amongst the slain. Then Cromwell himself leapt forward to head the baffled column to one last attempt. Encouraged by their great captain's word and presence, the men whom he had so often led to victory showed themselves invincible. The breach so hotly contested was won at last, and the English veterans, The posi- when once they had poured over the broken rampart, sSS carried the newly raised earthworks as well. Unless carried. t h e acc0 unts of those few Royalists who survived are to be altogether rejected, many of the defenders were at this time admitted to quarter. 1 Whilst the mass of the defeated garrison fled hurriedly down the sloping streets to gain the bridge, Aston and his on P rmc ipal officers, followed by some three hundred of the Mill the soldiers of the garrison, climbed the lofty steep of the Mill Mount, either to seek a refuge or to sell their lives as dearly as they could. It is possible that Cromwell, heated by the passion of the fight, ascribed their action to the latter motive. Cromwell's rages were never premeditated, and it always required some touch of concrete fact to arouse the slumbering wrath which lay coiling about his heart. Was the struggle, he may well have thought, not to be 1 Sir Lewis Dyves, writing some months after the event, expressed his belief that Aston would have made his defence good ' had not Colonel Wall's regiment, after the enemy had been twice bravely repulsed, upon the unfortunate loss of their colonel in the third assault, been so unhappily dismayed as to listen, before they had need, unto the enemy offering quarter, and admitted them in upon these terms, thereby betraying both themselves and all their fellow-soldiers to the slaughter.' A Letter from Sir L. Dyves, E, 616, 7. Ormond, writing to Byron nearer the time, says that Cromwell carried the breach on the third assault, ' all his officers and soldiers promising quarter to such as would lay down their arms, and performing it as long as any place held out, which encouraged others to yield ; but when they had once all in their power and feared no hurt that could be done them, the word " No quarter ! " went round.' Ormond to Byron, Sept. 29, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 271. This account is doubtless too highly coloured, but it is unlikely that the state- ment that quarter was offered is without foundation. I 18 DROGHEDA AND WEXFORD chap. v. ended after he had burst over wall and entrenchment ? \hZ* all events, it was not till he reached the foot of that mighty mound that a command to put to the sword all who were upon the height above rose to Cromwell's lips. The law Cromwell ° * orders the of war as it stood then, and long afterwards/ of a tifede r . authorised him to give the order to slay the en ers ' defenders of an indefensible post, and what better evidence would there be that the post was indefensible than that its appointed guardians had failed to make good their ground ? The deed of horror was all Cromwell's own. Till he spoke the words of fate, the soldiers above were breaking down the defences of the Mount, and some of them were on the Mill offering quarter to its defenders. 3 Cromwell's order put an end to these proffers of mercy, and with few 1 To appreciate the probability that this thought must have come into Cromwell's mind, it is necessary to have stood at the foot of the Mill Mount. 2 Mr. Firth has drawn my attention to the following extract from one of Wellington's letters: " I believe it has always been understood that the defenders of a fortress stormed have no claim to quarter ; and the practice which prevailed during the last century of surrendering a fortress when a breach was opened in the body of the place, and the counterscarp had been blown in, was founded on this understanding. Of late years the French have availed themselves of the humanity of modern warfare, and have made a new regulation that a breach should stand one assault at least. The consequence of this regulation was to me the loss of the flower of the army in the assaults of Ciudad Rodrigo and of Badajoz. I certainly should have thought myself justified in putting both garrisons to the sword ; and if I had done so to the first, it is probable I should have saved 5,000 men in the assault of the second. I mention this in order to show you that the practice of refusing quarter to a garrison which stands an assault is not a useless effusion of blood." Wellington to Canning, Feb. 3, 1820. Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda of Arthur, Duke of Wellington, I, 93. 3 This is shown in the only full account of the taking of the Mill Mount from the Parliamentary side. " The mount was very strong of itself, and manned with 250 of their principal men, Sir Arthur Aston being in it, who was Governor of the town, which, when they saw their men retreat, were so cast down and disheartened that they thought it in vain to :649 THE MASSACRE 119 exceptions the Royalists on the Mill Mount were butchered as they stood. Aston's head, it is said, was beaten in with his own wooden leg, which the soldiers had torn away in the belief that he had concealed treasure in it. 1 Still Cromwell's wrath was not satiated. In the heat of action there stood out in his mind, through the blood-red haze of war, thoughts of vengeance to be taken for the Ulster massacre confusedly mingled with visions of peace more easily secured by instant severity. Save at the storming of Basing House, he had never yet exercised the rights which the stern law of war placed in his hands ; but he had one measure for Protestants and another for arms to be ' Papists,' and especially for Irish 'Papists.' The spare ' stern command to put all to the sword who ' were in arms in the town,' leapt lightly from his lips. Then ensued a scene, the like of which had seldom been witnessed in the English war. Amidst shrieks and groans and A general shouts of triumph, pike and sword plied their fiendish massacre wor k down the sloping streets. The flying wretches garrison. were j n n0 case t block the narrow passage of the bridge, and the slaughter continued as pursuers and pursued breasted the steep hill on the northern side of the Boyne. A thousand were slain in or around St. Peter's Church at the top of the hill. When Cromwell came up he found that about eighty had taken refuge in the steeple. These he summoned to The refugees _ ° . L , ,., in St. Peter's surrender to mercy, but such a summons aid not steeple. necessarily imply that their lives would be spared, make any further resistance, which, if they had, would have killed some hundreds of our men before we could have taken it. Lieutenant-Colonel Axiell, of Colonel flewson's regiment, with some twelve of his men, went up to the top of the mount and demanded of the Governor the surrender of it ; who was very stubborn, speaking very big words, but at length was persuaded to go into the windmill on the top of the mount, and as many more of the chiefest of them as it would contain, where they were disarmed, and afterwards all slain." Letter from Drogheda, Per/. Diurnal, E, 553, 17- 1 After his death, however, 200 gold pieces were found in his girdle. Wood's Fasti, ii. 72 ; Ludlow's Memoirs (ed. 1751), i. 261, 120 DROGHEDA AND WEXFORD chap. v. and hopeless as their position was they refused the offer. After a fruitless attempt to blow up the tower with gunpowder, Crom- well gave orders to drag the seats in the church beneath it and The steeple to set them on fire. As the flames gained the structure burnt. above, the unhappy victims attempted to escape to the roof. Some fifty of them were there killed by the soldiers, whilst the remaining thirty perished in the burning steeple. The authors of this cruel deed comforted themselves by re- cording the imprecations of the tortured wretches, as if no fate could be too horrible for men who died with profane oaths upon their li ps.^ J p On thef olio wing morning it having been discovered that a few survivors who had taken refuge in two towers in the wall refused to yield, Cromwell set a guard to watch them Two towers till hunger drove them down. From one of the towers shots were fired, and some of the watch were killed, and wounded. When the inevitable surrender came, Cromwell, instead of directing a promiscuous slaughter, ordered that the officers should be ' knocked on the head, and every tenth man of the soldiers shipped for the Barbados,' whilst the whole garrison of the other tower was spared, though they too were sent to Barbados. 2 1 In Perfect Occurrences (E, 533, 15) we are told that ' they refusing to come down, the steeple was fired, and then fifty of them got out at the top of the church, but the enraged soldiers put them all to the sword, and thirty of them were burnt in the fire, some of them cursing and crying out " God damn them ! " and cursed their souls as they were burning.' I have added some particulars from a tract by Dr. Bernard lent me by Mr. Firth. Its title-page is lost, so that I am unable to quote it more precisely. 2 Cromwell to Lenthall, Sept. 17, Carlyle, Letter cv. It will be seen that I have made no use of the story told by Thomas Wood, a soldier in Cromwell's army, to his mother and his brother the antiquary, Anthony Wood, in 1650, and related by the latter in his own life, prefixed to Ath. Oxonienses. " He told them," writes the latter, " that 3,000 at least, besides women and children, were, after the assailants had taken part and afterwards all the town, put to the sword on Sept. 11 and 12, 1649 ; . . . that when they were to make their way up the lofts and galleries in the church and up to the tower where the enemy had fled, each of the assailants would take up a child and use [it] as a buckler of defence when 1649 CONTINUED SAVAGERY 121 fWith these exceptions Cromwell showed no pity. What was worse, even the few who by the connivance of the soldiers had escaped death on the Mill Mount were sought out and killed in cold blood.""] Amongst these was Verney, vemey and the noble son of a noble father, who was enticed even from the presence of Cromwell by a certain Roper, who then ' ran him through with a tuck.' Lieutenant- Colonel they ascended the steps, to keep themselves from being shot or brained. After they had killed all in the church, they went into the vaults under- neath, where all the flower and choicest of the women and ladies had hid themselves. One of these, a most handsome virgin, arrayed in costly and gorgeous apparel, kneeled down to Thomas Wood with tears and prayers to save her life ; and, being strucken with a profound pity, took her under his arm, went with her out of the church with intentions to put her over the works to shift for herself ; but a soldier, perceiving his intentions, he ran his sword up her belly, . . . whereupon Mr. Wood, seeing her gasping, took away her money, jewels, &c, and flung her down over the works, &c." Anthony further tells us that his brother had served as a Royalist, and, having engaged in the Cavalier plot in 1648, had fled to Ireland, where, to escape the gallows, he became an officer in the regiment of Colonel Henry Ingoldsby. Ingoldsby said of him that he was ' a good soldier, stout and venturous, and, having an art of merriment called buffooning, his company was desired and loved by the officers of his regiment.' Just the sort of man, in short, to invent a story to shock his mother and his steady, antiquarian brother. This suspicion is confirmed by Dr. Bernard, to whose tract I have referred in the last note. He was the preacher at St. Peter's, and lived hard by. He narrates at some length the dangers which he had himself escaped, and then proceeds to tell what happened in the church. "Not long afterwards," he says, " came Colonel Hewson, and told the Doctor he had orders to blow up the steeple (which stood between the choir and the body of the church), where about threescore men were run up for refuge, but the three barrels of powder which he had caused to be put under it for that end, blew up only the body of the church, and the next night "—this should have been ' the same night ' — " Hewson caused the seats of the church to be broken up, and made a great pile of them under the steeple, which, firing it, took the lofts wherein five great bells hun<;, and from thence it flamed up to the top, and so at once men and bells and roof came all down together, the most hideous sight and terrible that ever he was witness of at once." Not only does Bernard say nothing of Wood's 122 DROGHEDA AND WEXFORD chap. v. Boyle was summoned from dinner by a soldier, and shot as soon as he had left the room. 1 Though we have no particulars of the and of deaths of Colonel Warren and Captain Finglas, it warren can hardly be doubted that they shared the fate of and Finglas. T7 . j -r> i o Verney and Boyle. 2 It was not only upon the soldiers of the garrison that destruction fell. Every friar in the town was knocked on the head, and a few civilians perished, either being mistaken for soldiers or through the mere frenzy of the conquerors. 3 horrors, but he implicitly denies their existence when he writes that ' when that town was stormed and all that bare arms in it put to the sword.' Bernard was a strong Royalist, having taken a prominent part in pro- claiming Charles II. at Drogheda. He had been threatened with death by Cromwell and had no reason to spare him, especially as his tract was published after the Restoration. In examining the story itself we come upon inherent improbabilities. It makes children to be found in the church, where they are said to have been caught up by the soldiers, and the women in the vaults beneath. Surely the children would have been with their mothers, either below, or, far more probably, in their own houses. Moreover, when handsome virgins want to hide themselves on such an occasion, they are not accus- tomed to array themselves in jewels and gorgeous apparel. After this it is hardly worth while to ask what Wood meant by saying he dropped the girl's corpse over the works. The works were high walls— at least twenty feet high. Did he really take the trouble to climb up for the purpose ? 1 Lady Verney's Verney Family, ii. 344. 2 "Many men and some officers have made their escapes out of Drogheda. . . . All conclude that no man [had] quarter with Cromwell's leave ; that yet many were privately saved by officers and soldiers ; that the Governor was killed in the Mill Mount after quarter given by the officer that came first there ; that some of the towers were defended until yesterday, quarter being denied them ; and that yesterday morning the towers wherein they were were blown up ; that Verney, Finglas, Warren, and some other officers were alive in the hands of some of Cromwell's officers twenty-four hours after the business was done, but whether their lives were obtained at Cromwell's hands, or that they are yet living, they cannot tell." Inchiquin to Ormond, Sept. 15, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Ireh vol. ii. Pref. xxviii. 3 Carlyle was exceedingly indignant with the editor of the Old Parlia- mentary History for printing a postscript to one of Cromwell's letters, in which a list of the slain soldiers is given with the addition ' and many 1649 CROMWELL'S DEFENCE 1 23 When all was over Cromwell appears to have felt the necessity of justifying himself. On the 12th he despatched Sept. 12. Venables with a compact force to recover Dundalk, 2d5£ eD anc * g ave Wm a letter to the Royalist governor of himself. t hat town. "I offered mercy," he wrote, "to the inhabitants,' which he says has no authority in contemporary copies. It, however, appears in the official contemporary copy in Letters from Ireland, E, 575, 7- Dr. Bernard's experience, as told in the pamphlet referred to in the note to p. 120, throws some light on the question. After telling how the mayor and other principal Protestants took refuge in his house, and how it was the first to be attacked after the town was fully taken, he proceeds as follows: "There came five or six who were sent from a principal officer— the Doctor's former acquaintance -under a pretence of a guard for his house, but had a command from him, as soon as they were entered, to kill him, which an ear-witness hath since assured him of. The Doctor denying to open the door to them, one of them discharged a musket bullet at him ; it passed through the door, and only fired the .--kin of one of his fingers, leaving a spot upon it, which burned four or five days after, and did him no more hurt. "Then a cornet of a troop of horse came to his relief, and pretending he had order from the General to take care of that house, the soldiers withdrew, and so at a back door he brought in his quartermaster, whom he left to secure him. About a quarter of an hour after another troop of horse came to the window, and demanded the opening of the door. The quartermaster and himself, with an old servant, left him . . . stood close together, and told them it was the minister's house, and all therein were Protestants. As soon as they heard the Doctor named and his voice, one of them discharged his pistol at him, wherein being a brace of bullets, with the one the quartermaster was shot quite through the body, and died in the place, and the other shot his servant through the throat, but recovered ; the Doctor only was untouched." Ultimately the soldiers betook them- selves to plunder the house till the arrival of Ewer, who turned them out. This was written after the Restoration, but in a sermon preached in Feb. 1649, appended to the third edition of The Penitent Death of a IVoful Sinner, p. 310 (112 1, b. 19), Bernard speaks of the storming of the town " when not only your goods— according to the custom of war— were made a spoil of, but your lives were in the like danger, and were in an equal hazard, but by a special providence of God was preserved." This is hardly language which would have been used if more than a very few of the inhabitants had been killed, and it is therefore possible that ' the many 124 DROGHEDA AND WEXFORD chap. v. garrison of Drogheda } in sending the Governor a summons before I attempted the taking of it, which being refused brought this evil upon them. If you being warned thereby, shall surrender your garrison to the use of the Parliament of England . . . you may thereby prevent effusion of blood. If upon refusing this offer, that which you like not befalls you, you will know whom to blame." 2 Cromwell was probably the only man in the victorious army who imagined that what had taken place needed any excuse at Cromwell all. 3 The persistency with which he defended his excuses conduct is sufficient evidence that his conscience himself. was not altogether at ease. " Truly," he wrote to Sept. 16. Bradshaw on the 16th, " I believe this bitterness will save much effusion of blood through the goodness of God. I wish that all honest hearts may give the glory of this to God alone, to whom indeed the praise of this mercy belongs." On the following day, writing more fully to Lenthall, he brought forward yet another argument. " I am persuaded," he wrote, " that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood, and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret." 4 inhabitants' was an exaggeration. That any civilians were killed in Ireland without an attempt to punish their murderers, was aftenvards explicitly denied by Cromwell. "Give us," he wrote, |'an instance of one man since my coming into Ireland, not in arms, massacred, destroyed, or banished, concerning the massacre or destruction of whom justice hath not been done, or attempted to be done." Declaration printed by Carlyle after Letter cxviii. 1 ' Tredah ' in the original. 2 Cromwell to the chief officer at Dundalk, Sept. 12, Carlyle, Letter ciii. 3 When Monk's storm of Dundee in 1651 was followed by a massacre, he said nothing in his own justification. 4 Cromwell to Bradshaw, Sept. 16 ; Cromwell to Lenthall, Sept. 17 ; Carlyle, Letters civ. cv. It is necessary to keep in mind the prevalence i6 4 9 AN ENGLISH VIEW OF IRELAND 125 It is in the highest degree unlikely that any single man amongst the defenders of Drogheda had had a hand in the Ulster massacre ; but to Cromwell, as to the majority tionofhis of Englishmen of his time, every Irishman, and still more every English defender of the Irish cause, had made himself an accomplice in the misdeeds of certain Irish- men. For that which appears now to have been the blackest part of his conduct, the killing of Verney and his companions in cold blood, twenty-four hours after the general massacre was ended, Cromwell made no excuse. If conjecture as to his motives be allowed, he may be credited with a determination that where the private soldiers had suffered, the English officers, whose guilt was, in his eyes, far greater, should not be per- mitted to escape. 1 Having once convinced himself that he was but executing justice on criminals, it was easy for Cromwell to bolster up his case with the further argument that the slaughter of well-nigh three thousand men would tend to prevent the effusion of blood. For a time, indeed, this horrible slaughter might procure for him an easy entrance into strongholds to which he would not otherwise have been readily admitted ; but, in the long run, the indignation caused by the butchery which he had ordered would steel the hearts of brave men to defy the worst rather than yield to the perpetrator of the massacre of Drogheda. Of the thoughts and feelings of Irishmen, Cromwell took no heed. 2 " We are marching our army to Dublin," wrote Crom- of a belief in the most exaggerated accounts of the Ulster massacre. Sir J. Temple's Irish Rebellion, in which they were contained, had been published in 1646, and they were again given in May's Hist, of the Parliament published in 1647. 1 Elucidation of Cromwell's views on the criminality of the Irish will le found in his reply to the Declaration of the Prelates at Clonmacnoise ; see p. 147. 8 Those modern critics who argue that Cromwell merely put in force the law of war, as exercised by Tilly and others, forget that the question is whether he did more than he had himself done in England. There, except at Basing House, he had been uniformly merciful. He now treated Irishmen worse than he treated_Englishmen. This is the only thing of \ 126 DROGHEDA AND WEXFORD chap. v. well to Bradshaw on September 16, "and then shall, God willing, advance towards the southern design — you know what — only we think Wexford will be our first undertaking Tbesoiithl in order to the other." ' Wexford, in short, the home esign. ^ t ^ e privateers from which English commerce had grievously suffered, was first to be taken and converted into a basis of operations before Cromwell made his way into the friendly districts on the Munster coast. Before marching, Cromwell appointed Hewson Governor of Dublin. As had been arranged before the army left England, Michael Jones, who had previously held that post, was Governor now to serve as Lieutenant-General,' 2 whilst the lower office of Major-General was given to Ireton. Theophilus joneTto Jones was sent to support Venables in the North, tenant" Venables had very soon accomplished the greater part General. f hj s ^g^ Trim and Dundalk were abandoned by the sneers of enemy without fighting, and Carlingford and Newry in the submitted without difficulty. 3 Cromwell need have no fear lest the Ulster Scots should advance to Dublin in his absence. importance. The question of his allowing prisoners, who had been admitted to quarter, to be put to death stands apart. It was contrary to the military practice of his own day. At the siege of Limerick Ireton cashiered an officer who had killed prisoners received to quarter by a sub- ordinate, and made ample apologies to the commander of the place. Several Proceedings, E, 786, 29. It has, however, to be proved that Cromwell knew at the time that he gave the command that some of the enemy had been admitted to quarter. 1 Cromwell to Bradshaw,Sept. 16, The Kingdom 's Weekly Intelligencer, E, 575, 5- This passage is omitted in most of the copies printed in the newspapers, and is not to be found in Carlyle. 2 Jones is first styled Lieutenant-General in a letter of the Council of State {Interr. I, 94, p. 376). It was written just after the reception of the news from Rathmines, but a formal appointment by the Council or Parliament would have been officially recorded, and it is, therefore, probable that the appointment proceeded directly from Cromwell. 3 Cromwell to Lenthall, Sept. 27, Carlyle, Letter cvi. ; Sir E Butler to Ormond, Sept. 29 ; Castlehaven to Ormond, Oct. 1 ; Carte MSS. xxv. foil. 624, 644 ; Hewson to ? Oct. 29, Collections of Letters, 1 649 CROMWELL BEFORE WEXFORD 127 Oct. 1. Cromwell's advanced Cromwell therefore set out with high hope for Wexford. Paying his way and maintaining the strictest discipline, he met with no resistance on the march. On October 1 his advanced posts were before the town, and the re- mainder of his army arrived on the following day. He had already been obliged to dissipate some of his troops in garrisons, and he now counted about 7,000 foot and 2,000 horse under his orders. Wexford is a town of no great breadth, but it runs to a considerable length Iv Vexford. Oct. 2. His whole army arrives. A""' t iff""*. { £ i along the shores of its harbour. At its south-western extremity was a castle, and it was opposite this that Cromwell " e at P ta e ck ares prepared to plant his batteries on a rocky emi- the castle. nence. E, 579, 10. In addition to Cromwell's letters, the best authorities for the siege of Wexford from the besiegers' point of view are two letters printed in A very Full and Particular Relation, E, 576, 6. As both are anonymous, I shall quote them as First Letter and Second Letter respectively. 128 DROGHEDA AND WEXFORD chap. v. For some days the inhabitants had been fluctuating between fear and hope. A lawyer named Rochford had been active in persuading them to surrender. On September 28 within the Castlehaven, who had been entrusted by Ormond with a special command over forces destined for the Synott 28 ' rene f °f the southern towns, now acting at the re- Governor 1 Q uest °f the Corporation, appointed Colonel Synott Governor of the town. Synott, however, had served under Preston, the General of the Confederation, whereas the most vigorous of the inhabitants of Wexford had attached them- selves to the party of the Nuncio. Before the day was over the Corporation urged Castlehaven to cancel his nomination. Castlehaven refused, and, but for the appearance of Sir Arrival f Edmund Butler, who had been specially despatched Sir e. by Ormond to provide for the defence of the town, Butler. / , • , 1 , ,ii « the population would have settled the question in Synott m ' dispute by a resolution to open the gates to Crom- despair. we ^ Though this danger was averted, Synott wrote to Ormond that he would soon be driven to throw up his command. 1 Cromwell on his side had to suffer from heavy rain. The ground on which he bivouacked was converted into a quagmire Cromwell's and his army was thinned by dysentery. Ormond's difficulties flying parties hovered about and cut off supplies. It was therefore indispensable to open a communication with the sea. On October 2 Jones was sent against Fort Fort Ross- Rosslare, which commanded the entrance to the lare taken, h ar b our- The garrison fled at his approach, and the Cromwell* Parliamentary fleet at once entered the harbour with w mn f 01 d provisions and the siege-train from Dublin. 2 On the following day Cromwell summoned the town. Synott, 1 Castlehaven to Ormond, Sept. 28 ; Sir E. Butler to Ormond, Sept. 29 ; Carte MSS. xxv. fol. 608, 624 ; Synott to Ormond, Sept. 30, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 282 ; Castlehaven's Memoirs, 78. 2 Cromwell to Lenthall, Oct. 14, Carlyle, Letter cvii. ; First Letter, E, 576, 6 ; Hugh Peters to ? Oct. 3, Several Proceedings, E, 533, 20. 1649 THE DEFENCE OF WEXFORD 1 29 having reconsidered his resolution to throw up his command, opened a dilatory correspondence with the object of gaining time till reinforcements should arrive from Ormond. 1 Synott obtained what he wanted. On the 6th, when 1,500 Ulster foot had been thrown into the town by Castlehaven,* Oct. 6. Synott broke off his correspondence with Cromwell. riso e n S re r - By this time Ormond had advanced to Ross, where bWd. he learnt that sir pierce Smith) who had f ormer i y SkPiercf been prepared to surrender Youghal to Ireton, had Smith. declared for Cromwell in concert with three of Inchiquin's colonels. The treason was premature, and Youghal was speedily reduced, but Inchiquin's army was honeycombed with disaffection, and it was thought advisable to make no serious attempt to punish the offenders. 3 Ormond hoped better things from the Governor of Wexford. On the 8th he appeared in person on the northern side of the ferry which connected the town with the country to Ormond at the north of the harbour. He there conferred with erry ' Synott, and on the following morning with the prin- 0ct ' 9 ' cipal townsmen. To them he gave promises of further support and of the appointment of Sir Edmund Butler Oct. 11. t0 supersede the unpopular governor. On the nth lut^i in Butler, who had gone off to fetch help, reappeared, Wexford. an d gave orders to ferry over 500 men whom he had brought with him. Before his orders could be carried out Wexford was in the enemy's hands. 4 On that very morning Cromwell's batteries had batters the opened fire upon the castle. So destructive was the result, that Synott renewed his correspondence with 1 Correspondence, Oct. 3-6, appended to Carlyle, Letter cvii. 2 Castlehaven's Memoirs, 6-8 ; Synott to Ormond, Oct. 6, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 286 ; Cromwell to Lenthall, Oct. 14, Carlyle, Letter cvii. » Ormond to Clanricarde, Oct. 6, Carte MSS. xxv. fol. 674. 4 Ormond to the Mayor of Wexford, Oct. 10 ; Ormond to the Com- missioners of Trust, Oct. 1 1 ; Narrative of Military Operations, Carte MSS. xxv. fol. 717, xxvi. 440. VOL. I. K 130 DROGHEDA AND WEXFORD chap. v. Cromwell, this time offering to surrender if complete religious liberty and municipal independence were granted to the town. Cromwell scouted the proposal, offering in turn to negotia- protect the lives and property of the inhabitants and give quarter to the officers, and to allow the privates to return to their homes on engaging never again to take arms against Parliament. Before Synott's commissioners returned with this answer, one of their number, Captain betrays Stafford, the governor of the castle, agreed to betray his trust and to admit the besiegers into his fortress. Stafford's treason had an immediate effect upon the defenders of the wall opposite. Seeing the guns of the castle Kffectof turned on them, some leapt over the works and onthe 350 " called for quarter, but the greater number deserting town. t i ie j r p sts hurried to the shore, hoping to escape across the water. Cromwell's soldiers were not slow to take advantage of their flight. Planting their pikes in the crannies The wail OI " tne wau \ a f ew clambered up to the undefended scaled. t0 p Then ladders were brought, and masses of soldiers poured over into the town. It was in and round the market-place that they first met with resistance. The streets approaching it were guarded by cables stretched in the from wall to wall. 1 Behind these improvised barri- cades stood at bay a party of soldiers supported by a larger body of townsmen, whom a long course of privateering had made bitterly hostile to the English. 2 Before long, how- ever, their resistance was overpowered and the horrors of 1 The author of the First Letter (E, 576, 6) says that • they had gabled all their streets.' Dr. Murray and Mr. Henry Bradley are both of opinion that • gabled ' is a form of ' cabled,' unless, indeed, it is a mis- print, and that ropes were fastened across the streets. At all events, some form of obstruction is implied. 2 " Occupato insperate . . . castro ... in civitatem irruit ; oppo- suSre se viiiliter aggressori Prsesidiarii, simul cum civibus ; pugnatumque est ardentissime per unius horse spatium inter partes in foro. " Bruodinus, Propugnaculum Catholica veritatis, 681. The testimony of this hostile witness disposes of the usual supposition that the soldiers originally fell upon harmless townsmen. 1649 THE SLAUGHTER AT WEXFORD I3( Drogheda were repeated at Wexford. Here, too, priests and friars were butchered without mercy. It is said that some of Another these unfortunate men, hoping to move the infuriated massacre. so ldiery to mercy, approached them with crucifixes in their hands, and were at once put to death as idolators. 1 Cromwell and his officers refused to interfere on behalf of those who had stood to arms in the market, 2 and these in their rush to the water's edge found themselves in the midst of a struggling multitude of men and women. All who could threw themselves into boats, but boats pressed down by an agonised crowd could not long float, and it was reckoned that about 300 persons were drowned. The wrath of the soldiers was indeed mainly directed against those who had resisted, but it was im- possible to distinguish between one townsman and another, and all were involved, at least in the belief of the soldiers, in the common guilt of piracy. 3 It is possible that some women ' The Second Letter, E, 576, 6. 2 " Seeing thus the righteous hand of God upon such a town and people, we thought it not good nor just to restrain off our soldiers from their right of pillage nor from doing of execution upon the enemy, where the entrance was by force, and a resistance endeavoured, though too late." The Second Letter, E, 576, 6. 3 There can be no doubt that many of the townsmen were killed. Cromwell writes that ' most of them are run away, and many of them killed in this service.' The evidence of the writer of the Second Letter, E, 576, 6, is to the same effect. "There was more sparing of lives, of the soldiery part of the enemy here than at Drogheda ; yet of their soldiers and townsmen here were about 1,500 slain and drowned in boats sunk by the multitude and weight of people pressing into them." This number exactly agrees with that given in a petition from the inhabitants of Wex- ford to Charles II. after the Restoration, printed in Gale's Inquiry into the Ancient Corporate System of Ireland, App. cxxiv. After asserting that Cromwell put • man, woman, and child to a very few to the sword,' the petitioners estimate the loss of life of ' the soldiers and inhabitants ' at 1,500. It is obvious that if this figure is correct the whole population, 'man, woman, and child,' cannot have been killed. No doubt we have sweeping statements, especially from ecclesiastics. Dr. French, Bishop of Ferns, for instance, writing as late as in 1673, and not having himself been present at the siege, tells us that priests were massacred and a young gardener and a sacristan {Spicileginm Ossoriense, i. 510), both of whom K 2 132 DROGHEDA AND WEXFORD chap. v. fell victims to the madness of the slaughterers, though on this head it is impossible to speak with certainty, and it is probable that most of those women who actually perished were either crushed in the throng or drowned in attempting the passage across the water. 1 it may be remarked were cqnnected with the clergy. In another letter printed in the introduction to Moran's Memoirs of O, iver Plunket, xxiii. , the same writer speaks generally of ' the inhabitants weltering in blood and gore,' and of 'the few survivors of his 'flock.' Writing in 1650, and, therefore, not long after the occurrence, Dr. Lynch, Archbishop of Dublin, says that there were killed ' multi sacerdotes, nonnulli religiosi, plurimi cives, et duo millia militum ' (Spic. Oss. i. 341), the latter being an evident exaggeration. We have no direct evidence from the side of the besieged as to the townsmen bearing arms, but Synott, in one of his early letters, complains that he cannot get the townsmen to muster (Synott to Ormond, Sept. 30, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. ii. 282), and they may have come forward on Sir E. Butler's appointment. The evidence of Bruodinus has already been quoted. From the other side we have the statement of the author of the First Letter (E, 576, 6) that 'the town within had 2,000 able men, mostly mariners,' besides the soldiers of the garrison. This seems to regard them as joining in the defence. It may be added that according to the law of war at a much later period, men defending a fortified town after the defences had been captured were liable to be put to death. "Je m'empressai," wrote Marbot of the siege of Ratisbon in 1809, " de dire au chef de bataillon que, la ville etant prise d'assaut et occupee par nos troupes, il ne lui restait plus qu'a mettre bas les armes sous peine d'etre passe au fil de Tepee." Marbot, Memoires, ii. 138. 1 The legend of the two or three hundred women killed round the cross need not be taken seriously. It first appears in a volume published in 1763, where it is said that Cromwell ' fit egorger au pied de la Croix de cette ville au nombre de deux cens qui imploroient en vain miseVicorde a genous, les yeux baignes de larmes.' MacGeoghegan's Histoire de Vlrlande, iii. 691. It is to no purpose to say that the story is confirmed by local tradition, unless it can be shown that the tradition existed before the story was in print. Against it is the silence of all contemporary writers. The cross, too, appears to have stood in the market-place, and if so it was the least likely place in the whole town to be chosen as a place of refuge, it being in the centre of the preparations for resistance. With respect to the slaughter of women generally, -we have nothing but generalities. The author of the Aphorismical Discovery (Gilbert's Cont, 1649 CROMWELL ON THE MASSACRE 1 33 As at Drogheda, Cromwell sought to thrust the respon- sibility for the slaughter upon God. " Indeed," he wrote to Cromweiis Lenthall, " it hath not without cause been deeply set comment. upon Qur hearts that we, intending better to this place than so great a ruin, hoping the town might be of more use to you and your army, yet God would not have it so ; but by an unexpected providence in His righteous justice brought a just judgment upon them, causing them to become a prey to the soldiers who in their piracies have made preys of so many families, and now with their bloods to answer the cruelties which they exercised upon the lives of divers poor Protestants." l Such language seems strange enough now, though there was nothing in it which sounded strange to Puritan Englishmen of that day. Those who regard war from a more mundane point of view, can only say that the slaughter of Wexford was at least less unjustifiable than the slaughter at Drogheda. son be- At Drogheda soldiers had fought hard to drive back two mas- the enemy from a breach so far defensible that two sacres ' assaults were repulsed from it. At Wexford soldiers and townsmen resisted after the defences of the place had been captured, and, striving to inflict a purposeless loss of life on the victorious enemy, paid the penalty in their own persons. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 54), for instance, says Cromwell slaughtered ' all that came in his way without exception of sex or person, age or condition, only such as were of the conspiracy ; many of the soldiers . . . saved themselves by boats or swimming, but great mortality did accom- pany that fury of both soldiers and natives, all sex and age indifferently then perished.' Bruodinus continues his account of the fight in the market-place (see p. 130, note 2) with the words ' sed impari congressu, nam cives fere omnes una cum militibus sine status sexiis aut reiatis discrimine Cromweli gladius absumpsit.' All this looks like mere rhetorical exaggeration, and is easily accounted for by the writers mixing up the losses by drowning with those by massacre. If any large number of women had been deliberately killed, I feel sure that it would have been mentioned somewhere in Ormond's voluminous correspondence. 1 Cromwell to Lenthall, Oct. 14, Carlyle, Letter cvii. 134 CHAPTER VI CORK, KILKENNY, AND CLONMEL " The town," wrote Cromwell to the Speaker, after the capture of Wexford, " is now so in your power that of the former Cromwell inhabitants I believe scarce one in twenty can the^Xoduc- challenge any property in their houses. Most of vTnlh them are run way, and many of them killed in this settlers. service ; and it were to be wished that an honest people would come and plant here." * Once more the keynote of Cromwell's policy, the subordination of Ireland to t he English, was clearly sounded. What Elizabeth, and James, and Strafford had attempted in vain, was to be carried out thoroughly at last. For the moment, at least, Cromwell gained strength by his avowal of a resolution to protect • the English Hese interest.' He was now ready to march where his out for policy, fraught with future evil, would stand him in good stead. As soon as the plunder of Wexford had been shipped for Dublin, 2 he took the road leading to the port towns of Munster, with which he had long been in com- munication. The first obstacle on his way was New Ross, a fortified town commanding a ferry over the Barrow. On October 17 0ct j Cromwell summoned its governor, Sir Lucas Taaffe. Ross sum- " I have this witness for myself," he wrote, " that T have endeavoured to avoid effusion of blood— this 1 Cromwell to Lenthall, Oct. 14, Carlyle, Letter cvii. * Roche to Taaffe, Oct. 14, Carte MSS. xxv. fol. 759. 1649 SURRENDER OF ROSS IJ5 being my principle that the people and places where I come may not suffer except through their own wilfulness." The terror of Drogheda and Wexford was upon the garrison, and Oct. 19. Taaffe began to waver. On the 19th he asked for tL"ici°* leave for his soldiers and such of the townsmen who opened. wished it to depart in safety, and for liberty of con- science to such as remained. " I meddle not with any man's conscience," was Cromwell's prompt reply ; " but if by liberty of conscience you mean liberty to exercise the mass, I judge it best to use plain dealing, and to let you know where the Parliament of England have power that will not be allowed of." Before the end of the day terms of capitulation were agreed tion of to. The soldiers were to march away, leaving behind their cannon and ammunition. Those of the towns- men who within three months elected to depart were to be allowed to do so. Those who remained behind were to be protected in person and goods. 1 When Taaffe marched out, five hundred of his soldiers took service under Cromwell. They were of English birth, Deserters an( ^ tne * r exam pl e was "likely to prove contagious. ( ' om Cromwell, indeed, sadly stood in need of help. His army was thinned by dysentery and fever, as well as Cromwell's , . . ... ■ , r , ,i^i armydi- by the necessity of garrisoning the fortresses that he m.mshed. had ^^ and j t j s doubtful whether he could now place more than 5,000 men in the field. For the moment, too, He con- his movements were hampered by the necessity of bride* ov« constructing a bridge over the Barrow, without which the Barrow. h e fad not venture to continue his forward march. Yet he could not endure to be idle, and a spell of fine weather having set in he despatched Jones with 2,000 men to assail Duncannon fort, which, being situated on the eastern of Dun- se side of the united estuaries of the Barrow and the cannon. g^ g Uar d ec i the access to Waterford from the sea. A few days later Cromwell followed in person. 2 1 Correspondence between Cromwell and Taaffe, Oct. 17, 19, Carlyle, Letters cviii.-cxi. * Cliffe's Narrative, Borlace (ed. 1743). App. 3. 136 CORK, KILKENNY, AND CLONMEL chap. vi. At first the fort seemed unlikely to give much trouble to the besiegers. The Irish soldiers within it deserted in such numbers that Roche, the governor, assured Ormond that it was impossible to hold out. Ormond, in reply, superseded Oct. 23. Roche, appointing in his place Wogan, who, in 1648, ^pfAedes ^ad deserted Fairfax and carried his troop over to Roche. the Scots. With Wogan, Ormond sent his own life- guard 1 to stiffen the resistance. Wogan soon made it evident that Taaffe's example was not to be followed at Duncannon. The siege had not proceeded long before Cromwell was gladdened with the news for which he had been long thirsting. On October 16 the English officers and soldiers of Rising at' the garrison of Cork backed by the English in- habitants declared for Parliament, expelled their governor, and drove out the Irish, wounding many of them in the fray. The example of Cork told upon Inchiquin's English soldiers. Before the 24th he had been deserted by from all but two hundred of his foot, and Ormond, when nc iqum. ^ ^^ Q j- t k e disaster, was of opinion that even these would join their comrades on the following day. 2 The direct accession of strength which accrued to Cromwell from the revolt of Cork was but a part of his advantage. It Irish dis- widened the breach, wide enough already, in the £" st o{ ranks of his opponents. Ormond was assailed with Protestants. Irish complaints of his folly in trusting English Oct. 27. Protestants. " It is noted by many," wrote Muskerry remon^ rry s in the part of a candid friend, " that Protestants and strance. English do share your favours amongst them in that measure as there is no room left for the Catholic natives to pretend unto them." Ormond's soldiers, continued the writer, were charged with oppressing the country, and it was said that every article of the treaty was explained to the disadvantage of 1 These are the ' kurisees ' who puzzled Carlyle. See his observa- tions on Letter cxvii. 2 Depositions in Caulfield's Council Book of the Corporation of Cork, App. B ; Lady Fanshawe's Memoirs, 77 ; Ormond to Castlehaven, Oct. 24, Carte MSS. xxvi. fol. 23. 1649 THE ENGLISH IN MUNSTER 1 37 the clergy. Ormond's reply was dignified and pathetic, 1 but he could not harmonise the discordant elements of his party. 0ct o So loud was the outcry against his alleged favour to Ormonds Protestants that he was obliged to send the incom- petent Roche back to Duncannon, though he insisted that he should serve under Wogan till the siege was at an end. 2 Within the fort this conciliatory measure had its full effect. The Catholic priest and the Protestant minister were on the The defence ^ est °f terms > and shared in the use of the garrison of Dun- chapel. The constancy of the defenders was cannon. . J . crowned with success, and in the night of November 5 The siege the besiegers, unwilling to continue their operations at so advanced a season, marched away. It seemed as if the effect of the massacres at Drogheda and Wexford was already spent. 3 In the meanwhile the revolt of the English settlers in Munster was assuming larger proportions. On the first news Progress of the rising of Cork, Cromwell despatched Broghill revolt of t0 s P rea d and organise the insurrection. With him Munster. wen t Colonel Phayre, who held the threads of the secret negotiation which had preceded it. 4 Broghill was also accompanied by another companion, in after days more illus- trious than any other Englishman then living save Cromwell himself. Blake, whose squadron had been driven by a storm from before Kinsale, had had the mortification of knowing that Ruperts Rupert had effected his escape in the interval, escape. Cromwell knew his worth too well to chide him for his misfortune, and after vainly urging him to return to the Blake land service as major-general under himself, 5 sent him Cork!° to Cork in the frigate in which Broghill and Phayre 1 Muskerry to Ormond, Oct. 27 ; Ormond to Muskerry, Oct. 30, ib. fol. 45, 55. 1 Ormond to Castlehaven, Oct. 30, ib. fol. 54. 3 Castlehaven to the Commissioners of Trust, Oct. 27 ; Castlehaven to Ormond, Nov. 4, 6, Carte MSS. xxvi. fol. 78, 97, 106. 4 Cromwell to Scot, Nov. 14 ; Cromwell to Lenthall, Nov. 14, Carlyk, Letters cxiv. cxv. See pp. 95, 97. b C.J. vi. 30. I38 CORK, KILKENNY, AND CLONMEL chap. VI. were conveyed as passengers. On the way Cromwell's com- Nov . missioners learnt that Youghal had declared for An entbu- Parliament. On their arrival at Cork, on November x, siastic re- #- . ception. they were received with boundless enthusiasm. 1 So strongly pronounced was the manifestation of English feeling in Munster, that even Inchiquin fell under suspicion, inchi uin Antrim accused him of having agreed to come to charged terms with Cromwell. Ormond accepted Inchiquin's with offering ,.,. , .. ., , . to join disclaimer, but it is certain that a letter was in circulation, dated October 16, the day before Cromwell summoned Ross, which, if it were, as many believed it to be, in Inchiquin's handwriting, would place his treason beyond doubt. 2 Whatever the truth may have been, the mere fact that the charge was made weakened the authority of Inchiquin, weak enough already. Every blow struck at the alliance between Inchiquin's English Protestants and the Irish Confederate Catholics made Ormond more anxious to rally the purely Celtic The Celtic , T . , , • , V. 1 element element in the Irish population to the Royal cause, m re an . ^ ^ a( j a i re ady made some progress in this direction. In the latter part of September Daniel O'Neill was able to report well of his uncle's disposition to bring real assistance to 1 Blake to Cromwell, Nov. 5, Tanner MSS. lvi. fol. 137. 2 In a letter to Ormond of Nov. 17 [Carte MSS. xxvi. fol. 223) it is said that Father John Farral declared publicly in Waterford that he had Inchiquin's contract with the Parliament under his own hand. On the 18th (id. fol. 227) he said that Father Patrick stated that he had seen a copy of Inchiquin's contract with Cromwell, dated Oct. 16, and that after the delivery of Youghal Inchiquin was to have the command of 6,000 men. Further, a colonel in Ormond's army wrote in the following year, that ' the original of Inchiquin's propositions to Cromwell when he was before Ross,' was taken from Bishop Egan when he was captured and hanged (Clarendon MSS. ii. 355). On the other hand, we have Inchiquin's own vindication of Dec. 6 (Carte MSS. xxvi. fol. 330), which is vague and inconclusive, and a letter of the same date to Michael Jones (id. fol. 33), in which he btgs him to state that the part assigned to him was not in accordance with fact. The story seems to have been that Jones got the letter and gave it to Antrim to take to the Bishop of Clogher. 1649 ORMOND AND O'NEILL 1 39 Ormond. On the 25th Owen, who was then at Omagh, talked of reaching Westmeath in six days, and he was en- Sept. 25. couraged in his purpose by a special offer of favours Damei ° f to ^ e conferred on himself sent from Charles by the O'Neill. hands of Father Talbot. 1 In the meanwhile commis- sioners appointed by Ormond and Owen O'Neill met at Finnea in the county of Longford, and there, on October 20, Oct. 20. J . ' ' ' Agreement an agreement was signed. Ormond bound himself ormond and to accept O'Neill as commander of 6,000 foot and o Neiii. g oQ norsGj to a ]i ow tne nobility and gentry of Ulster to name his successor in the event of his death, to annul all grants of lands formerly belonging to him and his partisans, which had been confiscated since the rising in 1641, and even to admit O'Neill and his followers as tenants of lands which they and their predecessors had lost at the time of the Ulster plantation. Moreover the Roman Catholic clergy were to retain all churches and livings held by them in Ulster at the date of the signature of the treaty, and to be reasonably con- tented—whatever that might mean — in respect of churches and livings still in possession of the enemy. 2 The acceptance of a dominant Roman Catholic Church with a virtually independent Celtic Ulster was the policy to Ormond's which Ormond had now perforce committed himself, policy. H j s ] d allies, the Confederate Catholics of the South, had also been compelled to humiliate themselves before O'Neill by engaging to sue at Rome for absolution from the excommunication which Rinuccini had pronounced against them. 3 The common enemy had become too strong to allow n the continuance of intestine quarrels. In the North p'ariia'- ' of Ireland the Parliamentary commanders had over- Mcceaesfai powered their enemies. After narrowly escaping a the North. defeat> Venables had secured Lisburn and Belfast, 1 Commission from Charles, ^r* Ormond to O'Neill, Sept. 28, Gilbert's Cont. Hut. of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 255, 279. 1 Articles between Ormond and O'Neill, Oct. 20, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 300. 3 Aphorismical Discovery, ib. 52. 140 CORK, KILKENNY, AND CLONMEL chai\ vi. whilst Coote, now strengthened by the whole of Huncks's regiment, had recaptured Coleraine and had almost completely subdued Down and Antrim. By the end of October the only important places holding out for the King in those counties were Charlemont and Carrickfergus. S All this would doubtless have served as a spur to O'Neill if his condition had been such as to allow him to move forwards. Q>N ..., Ill as he had been when he left Coote's quarters, he illness was now rapidly growing worse, and on November 6 Nov. 6. the one commander who had succeeded in inspiring Celtic Ireland with enthusiasm breathed his last. 1 Contemporary admirers without a shadow of foundation attributed his death to poison. Later writers have fondly imagined that if he had lived to cross swords with Cromwell, the event of the war would have been other than it was. He was in fact a trained soldier, who had gained the hearts of the Irish peasants, and had thereby succeeded in keeping them together under the most adverse circumstances. The forces which he commanded were badly supplied and badly paid, and were driven of necessity to subsist by plunder. It is highly to O'Neill's credit that under such circumstances he succeeded in maintaining discipline at all, and still more that his career was not stained, like that of Cromwell, by any acts of deliberate cruelty. It was totally impossible for him with the materials at his disposal to display the qualities of a great commander. O'Neill's last wish 2 was that Ormond would procure for his son, Colonel Henry O'Neill, those Royal favours which had been offered to himself. The appointment of his message to successor in the command of* the Ulster army lay, according to agreement, with the nobility and gentry of the province. 3 Before his death he had pushed on a considerable detachment under Lieutenant-General Ferrall to Ormond's assistance in the South. 1 Aphorismical Discovery in Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 62. 2 O'Neill to Ormond, Nov. 1, ib. 315. s See p. 139. 1649 AN ATTACK ON WATER FORD I41 Before Ferrall appeared on the scene Cromwell had com- pleted his bridge at Ross, and had been joined by reinforce- The bridge ments which enabled him to place 7,000 men in the at Ross. field. 1 On November 15, being himself confined to Nov. 15. bed by illness, he sent Jones and Ireton across the irTtonTross Barrow to bring Ormond if possible to a decisive arrow. act ; on Ormond, however, took refuge in an unas- sailable position at Thomastown, and the Parliamentary com- manders, having but a short supply of provisions, were com- pelled to return to Ross, though they were able to despatch Carrick Reynolds to seize Carrick, an operation which he sdzed. performed without difficulty. The possession of Carrick gave Cromwell, who was now recovered, a bridge over the Suir, thus enabling him to approach Waterford Cromwell 1 ' on the land-side. He at once took advantage of the leaves Ross pp 0rtun i t y thus offered to him. On November 24 and^sT ears ne arr i ve d before Waterford, finding the country un- hefore touched by the ravages of war and well stocked with provisions. The weather had suddenly improved, but Cromwell would hardly have undertaken so hazardous an operation as a siege merely on the chance of the continuance of fair weather in the last week of November. In reality he counted on the divisions which existed amongst the townsmen. So strong was the party of the late Nuncio within the walls of the palace, and so bitterly were Ormond and his supporters detested, that when Castlehaven appeared on the 21st to strengthen the Cast°eha 2 ven garrison he was refused admission. On the 23rd, rejected. indeed, when Cromwell's approach was known, the OrmomUo municipal authorities appealed to Ormond for assist- ed Fer- ance, but they imposed on him the condition that no rail's men. ' * j ,, „. troops were to be sent unless they belonged to ferrall s contingent from Ulster. In order to gain time they applied to Cromwell for a cessation for fifteen days, and, though Cromwell 1 Cromwell to Lenthall, Nov. 14, Carlyle, Letter cxv. ; Cliffe': Narrative, Borlace (ed. 1743), App. 5. 142 CORK, KILKENNY, AND CLONMEL chap. VI. refused their request as exorbitant, he granted a cessation for five. As his siege-guns would certainly not arrive before the Nov. 24. time had expired he lost nothing, and he made use of g r r °™^" his leisure to seize the fort at Passage, on the western cessation. gj^g f the estuary, nearly opposite Duncannon. 1 The difficulty thrown in the way of the relief of Waterford cut Ormond to the heart. " The Roman Catholics," he complained, " that stood so rigidly with the King Ormond's" upon religion— and that, as they called it, in the splendour of it — are with much ado withheld from sending commissioners to entreat Cromwell to make stables of their churches. An army we have superior in numbers to the enemy, but no industry of mine is able to provide so for it as to keep it one week at once together." 2 Depressed as he was, Ormond started for Waterford, taking with him out for Ferrall and two thousand Ulster Celts, who could easily find admittance, as the town was not blocked up on the river-side. Even before Ormond's arrival Cromwell had found his undertaking desperate. The shori spell of fine weather came Cromwell to an en ^ an0 - tne soa king rain made the roads in straits. impassable for the heavy guns on which the besiegers counted. Even if the guns had arrived it was doubtful whether they could be placed in position on the sodden ground. Provisions, too, ceased to find their way into the camp, and diseases again spread rapidly amongst the besiegers. 3 On December 2, ' being,' as he wrote, ' as terrible a day He raises as ever I marched in all my life,' Cromwell raised the t e siege. s jggg As he took his course by the southern bank of the river he witnessed the approach of Ferrall's troops on the opposite side. 1 The Mayor of Waterford to Ormond, Nov. 21, 23 ; Castlehaven to Ormond, Nov. 22, Carte MSS. xxvi. fol. 247, 263, 252 ; Cliffe's Narrative, Borlace (ed. 1743), App. 6; Cromwell's Correspondence with the Mayor of Waterford, Nov. 21-24, Carlyle, App. No. 15. 2 Ormond to Jerniyn, Nov. 30, Carte's Orig. Letters, ii. 415. * Rushworth to Lenthall, Dec, 20, 4 Per/, Diurnal, E, 533, 35. i6 4 9 CROMWELL AND BROGHILL I43 On the following day Cromwell received a better welcome. Broghill met him at the head of 1,200 horse and foot which he Dec had raised in Munster, bringing news that the garri- a meeting son of Dungarvan had come over that very morning. 1 hill. Bandon and Kinsale had submitted not long before, Surrender of and the outlying garrisons of Baltimore and Castle- KanXT^d haven soon followed their example. In the North, Kmsaie. Carrickfergus surrendered to Coote on December 13, 2 and at the end of the year Cromwell's hold upon the coast line from Londonderry to Cape Clear was broken at VVaterford alone. The line held by Cromwell was indeed a thin one, exposed to attack from a vigilant and well-prepared enemy. The enemy, however, was neither vigilant nor well prepared, and Ennis- the only loss suffered by Cromwell was that of Ennis- corthy, which was betrayed by some soldiers of the garrison. Everywhere else his soldiers showed themselves capable of holding their own. At Arklow, at Carrick, and at Passage they repulsed attacks made by enemies considerably superior in number. Cromwell's army, in fact, suffered far more from disease than from the sword of the enemy, and amongst the many vic- ninessof tims to the dampness of the Irish climate was one Jones. w ^ could [\\ De S p are d. Jones was stricken down with fever on the march from the camp before Waterford, and was left behind at Dungarvan, where he died on December 10. " What England lost thereby," wrote Cromwell, " is above me to speak. I am sure I lost a noble friend and companion in labours. You see how God mingles out the cup unto us. Indeed we are at this time a crazy company : — yet we live in His sight, and shall work the time that is appointed to us, and shall rest after that in peace." 3 1 Broghill to ? Dec. 19, Several Proceedings, E, 533, 36; Crom- well to Lenthall, Dec. 19, Carlyle, Letter cxvii. 2 Basil to Bradshaw, Dec. 12; Coote to Lenthall, Dec. 13, Several Proceedings, E, 433, 32, 34 ; The Irish Mercury, E, 592, 5. 3 Carlyle, Letter cxvii. The story told in Morrice's Memoirs of Orrery (p. 16) that Jones in his illness urged Broghill to declare against 144 CORK, KILKENNY, AND CLONMEL chap. vi. Cromwell was now compelled to go into winter quarters till the weather improved sufficiently to allow the resumption of _ . active enterprise. If he had actually subdued but a Cromwell in . r f • winter quar- small portion of the country, he had potentially sub- dued it all. It was hardly likely that any place would be more bravely defended than Drogheda had been, and it was still more unlikely that any Irish army would be sufficiently well supplied to hold the field against Cromwell's regiments with the whole of England at their backs. Ormond was now as depressed as nine months before he had been exuberant. On September 1 7 Charles had landed in Jersey l on Charles in his way to Ireland, but he did not venture to move further till he received from Ormond information which the Lord Lieutenant, whose cipher had been lost at Rathmines, was unable to give him. At last Charles, impatient . . of delay, sent Henry Seymour with orders, after con- Henry veying to Ormond the garter which was the token of Seymour. . . . . . . . , ' his sovereign s gratitude, to bring back a full report of the condition of the country. Ormond's report, which was drawn up on November 30, was indeed gloomy. He could still dispose, he said, of 5,000 foot and 1,300 horse, as his own immediate following, Ormond's but he knew not how to maintain such a force in the the state of field ; ' our wants,' he complained, ' having occasioned disorder, and that disorder the spoil of the country, and that spoil the flight of the country from us as from an enemy.' In Connaught the only county which might be looked to for assistance was that of Galway, and Galway was Cromwell is inadmissible, but it may possibly have a foundation in some words uttered in delirium. We have reason to think (see p. 72) that Jones disapproved of Cromwell's part in the King's execution, and this thought may have come up in his mind when he was under the fever. It is noteworthy that none of the letters telling of his death speak of him as making a pious end, though we hear much of this in other cases. See especially one from Jones's brother, the Bishop of Clogher, in A Perf. Diurnal (E, 533), in which the contrast is marked. 1 Hoskins' Charles II. in the Channel Islands, ii. 310. 1649 A DESPONDENT REPORT 145 so devastated by the plague as to be altogether helpless. Else- where the Irish were too jealous of the English, and the English too diffident of their own ability to resist, to make it easy to keep them together. The Ulster army was indeed considerable in numbers, but now that O'Neill was dead it woClld fall into disputes about the succession to the command. Possibly an army of 20,000 foot and 5,000 horse might be brought together out of the whole of Ireland, but for this it was absolutely necessary that his Majesty should send money enough not only to raise troops, but subsequently to maintain them. Without such supplies — and Ormond must have known perfectly well that it was entirely out of Charles's power to provide them — he did not dare to advise him to come to Ireland. 1 Ormond thus virtually acknowledged that his policy of effecting a Royalist restoration in England by a combination of Irish parties with English and Scottish settlers had Failure of . l ° Ormond's failed disastrously. If resistance to a fresh English P ° lcy ' conquest of Ireland was to be prolonged, the burden of the war must fall on the Irish population alone, and especially on that purely Celtic population by which the English Increasing . .,, , . . . . . . p.edomi- agrarian system was still regarded with loathing. In Celtic ' e proportion as this Celtic resistance predominated element. power would naturally fall into the hands of the Catholic priesthood, the only bond of union between otherwise discordant parties. To take upon themselves the authority thus thrust upon them, the Irish prelates met on December 4 at Clonmacnoise. Their first act was the issue of a Declaration warning Manifesto oi their flocks that Cromwell intended to extirpate the a'Tcionmac! Catholic religion, which could not ' be effected with- n01se " out the massacring or banishment of the Catholic inhabitants.' Those whose lives were spared, they argued, could not hope to retain their property. By English Acts of Parliament ' the estates of the inhabitants of this kingdom are 1 Ormond's statement, Nov. 30, Gilbert's Con/. Hist, of Ajf. in Irel. vol. ii. 329. VOL. I. L l\6 CORK, KILKENNY, AND CLONMEL chap. vi. sold, so there remaineth now no more but to put the purchasers in possession by the power of forces drawn out of England, and for the common sort of people, towards whom they show any more moderate usage at the present, 1 it is to no other end but for their private advantage and for the better support of their army, intending at the close of their conquest — if they can effect the same, as God forbid — to root out the commons also, and plant this land with colonies, to be brought hither out of England — as witness the number they have already sent hence for the Tobacco Islands — and put enemies in their place.' On the 13th the prelates sent forth a second Declaration, in which they announced that, as far as they were themselves con- cerned, they had brought to an end the feud which a second had divided the partisans of Rinuccini from the partisans of the Supreme Council. From henceforth they would be united in contending ' for the interest and im- munities of the Church and every prelate and bishop thereof, and for the honour and dignity, estate, right, and possession of all and every said archbishop, bishop, and other prelates ; and we will, as one entire and united body, forward by our counsel, action, and device the advancement of his Majesty's rights and the good of this nation in general.' 2 l6 . . News did not circulate freely in Ireland, and it CromwdT" was not ^ t ' ie m iddle of January that these declara- hears of tions fell into the hands of Cromwell on his return the mani- festoes, to Youghal after completing a tour of inspection His amongst the Munster garrisons. 3 He at once dashed decora- off a reply 'for the undeceiving of deluded and seduced people.' He flew at once at the assumption tion. 1 Carlyle imagined that these words showed that the prelates did not believe in the massacre of civilians at Drogheda and Wexford. The sentence, however, clearly refers to property only. 2 Declarations of the prelates at Clonmacnoise, Spicileghim Ossoriense, ser. ii. 38, 39. 3 Kinsale is the farthest point indicated as reached by Cromwell in contemporary newspapers. His alleged visit to Glengariff and the legend of the bridge may be safely left to the guide-books. The reception of the 1650 CROMWELL ON HIS DEFENCE 147 by the clergy of a right to guide the laity, and asserted that the very words ' clergy ' and ' laity ' were ' unknown to any He attacks save the anti-christian Church and such as derive theda.ms themselves from her.' At the call to Irishmen to clergy; combine against "the common enemy' Cromwell blazed up into indignation, fj.' Who is it," he asked the clergy, and pro- "that created this common enemy? I suppose you EnVsh" mean Englishmen. The English ! Remember, ye men are hypocrites, Ireland was once united to England ; common Englishmen had good inheritances which many of them purchased with their money; they or their ancestors from many of you and your ancestors. They had _ ,„ good leases from Irishmen for loni* time to come, Cromwell s ° view of the great stocks thereupon : houses and plantations relation- . ,* ship be- erected at their cost and charge. They lived peace- English ably and honestly amongst you ; you had generally and insh. e q Ua j benefit of the protection of England with them, and equal justice from the laws — saving what was necessary for the State, upon reasons of State, to put upon some few people apt to rebel upon the instigation of such as you. You broke the union, you unprovoked put the English to the most un- heard-of and most barbarous massacre, without respect of sex or age, that ever the sun beheld, and at a time when Ireland was in perfect peace, and when through the example of English industry, through commerce and traffic, that which was in the natives' hands was better to them than if all Ireland had been in their possession and not an Englishman in it ; and yet then, I say, was this unheard-of villainy perpetrated by your instigation who boast of peace-making and union against the common enemy. What think you by this time ? Is not my assertion true? Is God— will God be with you? I am confident He will not. "J As a contribution to Irish history, nothing could be more ludicrously beside the mark than these burning words. The Declarations at Youghal is shown by the tone in which Cromwell writes in a letter written to Lenthall on Jan. 16, not printed by Carlyle. It is in Several Proceedings, E, 534, 4. L 2 I48 CORK. KILKENNY, AND CLONMEL chap. VI. idyllic picture drawn of Irishmen and Englishmen living together in peace till wicked priests stirred up the sleeping Cromwell's passions of the Irish has no foundation in the domain tionoP'*' °f ^ lct - Cromwell knows nothing of the mingled the past. chicanery and violence which made the Ulster Planta- tion hateful in the eyes of every Irishman. He knows nothing of lands filched away, of the injustice of legal tribunals by which judgments were delivered in an alien speech in accordance with an alien law, of the bitterness caused by the proscription of a religion clung to all the more fondly because it was not the religion of the English oppressor. Nevertheless, as an explanation of Cromwell's own conduct in Ireland, this Declaration is of supreme importance. Granted His own ms honest belief in the view of Irish history which he e ° n ?a1ned h ere P uts f° rt h> it becomes impossible to convict b y «• him of anyth'ng worse than ignorance in ordering the slaughter of Drogheda. If the collective priesthood of Ireland had hounded on a peaceful people to outrage and massacre, every priest taken deserved to be knocked on the head. If Irish, or, still worse, English soldiers, stood to arms to defend a system based on outrage and massacre, they deserved all that the cruel law of war of that age allowed to the captors of a besieged fortress. Poisonous as in this case was the fruit which grew upon the tree of error, the error was not Cromwell's only. He said no more than was said by ever}- writer in England who touched on Irish affairs.' His belief in English innocence and 1 Mr. Eirth had drawn my attention to a passage in May's Hist, of the Pari. lib. ii. 4, published in 1647. "The innocent Protestants were upon a sudden deprived of their estates, and the persons of above two hundred thousand men, women, and children murdered, many of them with exquisite tortures, within the space of one month. That which in- creased the amazement of most men was the consideration that the ancient hatred which the Irish — a thing incident to conquered nations — had borne to the English did now seem to be quite buried and forgotten ; forty years of peace had compacted those two nations into one body and cemented them together by all conjunctures of alliance, intermarriages, and con- sanguinity, which was in outward appearance strengthened by frequent entertainments and all kinds of friendly neighbourhood. . . . The present 1 650 CROMWELL'S IRISH POLICY 1 49 his exaggeration of Irish crime were common to all who thought or spoke on the subject. He had the mind of England as well as its sword at his disposal For the rest Cromwell's intentions were as benevolent to the mass of the Irish people as Strafford's had formerly been. Cromwell's " We are come," he says, " to take an account of the intentions. i nn0 cent blood that hath been shed, and to endeavour to bring them to account — by the blessing and presence of Almighty God, in Whom alone is our hope and strength — who by appearing in arms seek to justify the same. We come to break the power of a company of lawless rebels who, having cast off the authority of England, live as enemies to human society, whose principles — the world hath experience of — are to destroy and subjugate all men not complying with them. We come — by the assistance of God — to hold forth and maintain the lustre and glory of English liberty, in a nation where we have an undoubted right to do it, whereas the people of Ireland — if they listen not to such seducers as you are — may equally participate in all benefits to use liberty and fortune equally with Englishmen, if they keep out of arms." ' Not to meddle with any man's conscience, but to prescribe Substance the worship which confirmed and strengthened it ; to weii's " 1 " P ut t0 death all who resisted him in this enterprise, policy. b ut to treat non-combatants with moderation in the hope that they would become like Englishmen, was the sub- stance of Cromwell's policy in Ireland. To carry out this policy, Cromwell set forth from Youghal on January 29, having heard rumours that his recall had been Jan. 29. determined on in England, and being therefore ka°?s We11 anxious to accomplish as much as possible before Youghal. positive orders reached him. By this time he had received considerable reinforcements, new uniforms for his government was full of lenity and moderation, and some redress of former grievances had been newly granted by the King to his Irish subjects." Surely Cromwell had found time to read this. 1 A Declaration of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, E, 596, 6. Printed with some alterations by Carlyle. ISO CORK, KILKENNY, AND CLONMEL chap. vi. infantry, and money wherewith to pay his men. 1 His object was to master the counties of Kilkenny and Tipperary, where Jan. 29- the head-quarters of the Catholic Confederation had Cromwdi 12 ' formerly been. For seven weeks he and his sub- kenny'and ordinates reduced one stronghold after another, for Tippirary. tn e most part receiving the submission of the garrisons, but slaughtering without mercy those who ventured to reject a summons, even when it had been tendered before a breach had been effected. By the end of the third week in March, Hewson from Dublin had overrun a great part of the county of Kildare, Cook from Wexford had recovered Ennis- corthy, Broghill had gained ground in the county of Limerick, whilst in the region in which Cromwell himself was operating, two fortresses alone, those of Kilkenny and Clonmel, still held out. The enemy had no army in the field strong enough to resist him, and Cromwell already regarded the two places as his own. 2 The two sieges cost him more than he had anticipated. On March 23 he summoned Kilkenny in vain. Though the plague, March 23. imported from Galway, was raging within the walls, Simmons' Sir Walter Butler, the governor of the town, held Kilkenny. out bravely, and though Cromwell's troops gained ground in the suburbs, they were repulsed in every attempt to storm the main defences. The civilian population with the mayor at its head was, however, anxious to treat, and the soldiers of the garrison were too few to enable the governor to resist the importunity of the citizens. Cromwell being probably impatient to finish his work before he was summoned from Ireland, abandoned his claim to devote to death soldiers who had resisted him so stubbornly, and granted favourable terms. March 28. The soldiers were merely to evacuate the place. of 1 Kii ndei Tli e townsmen were to be freed from plunder on kenny. payment of 2,ooo/. 3 After Kilkenny was occupied 1 The Irish Mercury, E, 594, 5. 2 Cromwell to Lenthall, Feb. 15, April 2, Carlyle, Letters cxix. cxxx. 3 Carlyle, Letters cxxii.-cxxx. ; Butler to Ormond, Nov. 3, Carte MSS. xxvii. fol. 240. 1650 TERMS GRANTED TO ENGLISHMEN 151 there was much smashing of crosses and fonts, of altars and coloured glass, but no injury was offered to any laymen, and the statement that priests were slain rests merely on rumour or tradition. 1 Cromwell, whilst conducting the siege of Kilkenny, had been protected by the activity of Lord Broghill. On April 10 Broghill fell on a large body of the enemy, which had advanced out of Kerry as far as Macroom. Their rout was complete. Prisoners were few, as Broghill had given orders to knock on the head all who were taken. Amongst the captives was Egan, the Catholic Bishop of Ross. Broghill sent him before the walls of the castle of Carrigadrohid, bidding the officer who conducted him to spare his life if the governor would surrender, but to hang him if the governor refused. The answer was a refusal, and the bishop was promptly hanged. 2 In Egan his pocket was found a letter, alleged to be in Inchi- ange ' quin's handwriting, in which that nobleman offered to submit to Cromwell. 3 Whatever may have been the truth about Inchiquin, there could be no doubt that the English who still served under him were anxious to obtain honourable terms. Scouted by the inchi uin's I^sh* tnev knew their very lives to be in danger from English their own allies, 4 and they despatched two emissaries, and men Captain Daniel and Dean Boyle, to make an arrange- Aprii 2 6. ment with Cromwell. Cromwell received the mes- temiswith sengers gladly, and, on April 26, signed articles Cromwell, allowing all Protestant Englishmen and Scotchmen, whether soldiers or not, to betake themselves to the Continent, 1 Against the tradition mentioned by Mr. Prim (Transactions of the Kilkenny Arch. Soc. 1851, p. 460) and the vague rumour recorded by Dr. Lynch (Spicilegium Ossoriense, i. 335) must be set the Jesuit relations [ib. ii. 58), in which nothing is said of the murder of priests. - Broghill to ? April 16, Several Proceedings, E, 777, 6. 3 Letter .from Ja. Barn. (?) Clarendon MSS. ii. 355. Broghill in the letter quoted above says : ' I found some papers of singular consequence in the bishop's pocket, which I hope shall not want improving. ' 4 Inchiquin to the Commissioners of Trust, April 17, Carle MSS. xxvii. fol. 311. 152 CORK, KILKENNY, AND CLONMEL chap. vi. or to retire into such parts of Ireland as were under the authority of Parliament. As to their estates, if they had any, they were to retain them till the pleasure of Parliament was known ; or till they had paid compositions in the same proportion as had been paid by other English Protestants who had recently sub- mitted. 1 Cromwell, indeed, did his best to urge the deputies to include both Ormond and Inchiquin in the agreement, and he Cromwell actually sent passes to enable these two noblemen to TndudV leave Ireland without molestation. 2 By Ormond the SiTinchi- passport was contemptuously returned. 3 Inchiquin, quin. deserted by his followers and distrusted by the Irish, remained for a time in Ireland, though Ormond thought it expedient to deprive him of a command which had by this time become merely nominal. 4 Ormond was now driven to rely almost entirely on Celtic Ireland. In Waterford, indeed, Ferrall and his Ulstermen, having been discredited by their defeat at Passage and being ill-supported by the townsmen, had returned to their Preston own country. Ferrall's place was taken by Preston, 'Femdiat who had early in February been appointed by Or- waterford. mon ^ t0 the CO mmand. 5 In the north and west of Ireland, the only organising force lay in the prelates of the Roman Catholic Church, and there the appointment iat e e s a r nd of Preston, who had sided with the Supreme Coun- t e war. c ji a g amst RJnuccini, to any office whatever would have been out of the question. Making a virtue of necessity 1 Cromwell's articles, April 26, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 393. 2 Boyle to Ormond, April 30; Passport- for Ormond, May 7, ib. vol. ii. 400, 405 ; Passport for Inchiquin, May 7, Carte MSS. xxvii. fol. 463. 3 Ormond to Cromwell, May 17, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 411. 4 Inchiquin to Ormond, May 24, Carte MSS. xxvii. 553. 5 Ormond to the Commissioners of Trust, Feb. 7 ; Commission to Preston, Feb. 8, ib. xxvi. fol. 28, clxii. fol. 131, Aph. Disc, in Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 67. 1650 A CLERICAL GENERAL 1 53 Ormond summoned the prelates, together with the Commis- sioners of Trust, to meet at Limerick on March 8. When they came together, instead of taking measures for the steady Meeting at prosecution of the war, they proposed to tie Ormond's Limerick. . , . . . hands by the appointment of a Privy Council, and to give to themselves— though the demand was expressed with some circumlocution— a veto on all military appoint- March 2 i ments - On March 21 Ormond replied with dignity, Ormond's pointing out that in time of war control over the army must be in a single hand, and asking for further explanation on points in which the intention of the authors of the proposals was only too clear. 1 Ormond would hardly be benefited by the retention of au- thority over his diminishing regiments in the south unless the Ulster army was at his disposal to create a diversion in the north. According to agreement the gentry and nobility of Ulster met at Belturbet on March 18, to choose a successor to Owen O'Neill. The rival candidates were many ; some of the March 18. principal officers of the army were naturally men- meeting at tioned, and Antrim, in spite of his recent tergiversa- Beiturbet. tions, was suggested as being likely to reconcile the Scottish Royalist Presbyterians under Monro with the Catholic Celts who abounded around them. In the midst of distracted counsels the clergy steadily pushed their way, and in the end, on the pretext of avoiding a ruinous competition, they obtained the election of one of themselves, Emer Macmahon, Bishop of Clogher. The bishop was a man of energy and Bishop of capacity, but he was singularly unfitted by his pro- choferT fession from exercising military command, and it was general. hardly likely that the old warriors, the Ferralls and O'Neills who had supported Owen's authority without a thought of rivalry, would willingly submit on the field of battle to even the most energetic priest. Nothing could have served Cromwell's interest better than 1 Remedies proposed, March 13 ; Ormond's reply, March 21, Cox, Hib. Angl. ii. App. xlv. The date of Ormond's reply is taken from the copy in the Carte MSS. xxvii fol. 10a. 154 CORK, KILKENNY, AND CLONMEL chap. vi. this election. In it the Celtic element in the Irish resistance asserted itself without contradiction. In Ulster the children The Celtic or grandchildren of the men who had been expelled predomi- °y the great Plantation threw themselves on the lands nant - still remaining in the possession of the settlers, and appropriated them without scruple. Monro, who had charge of the garrison of Inniskillen, and had long been discontented with the turn of events, now admitted a Parliamentary force into the castle. Ormond, as a Protestant, was an object of special detestation to the party now in the ascendant, and proposals were openly made to replace him by Antrim, or by some other Catholic. ' Ormond was despondent, and talked of leaving Ireland to its fate. Castlehaven urged him to reconsider his determina- March 2 8. tion. "Leave not this kingdom," he wrote; "you Wn e an d y° ur family will perish abroad . . . Recover the urges kingdom or perish. Make friendship with the bishops remain. and nation." Ormond bowed his head to necessity, April i. as he had often done before, and on April i signed c r mm"s- s a commission appointing Bishop Macmahon to the Bishop command of the Ulster army. Yet he felt the blow Macmahon. severe i V- T n Limerick, he complained, the clergy had ' absolute dominion.' He found it hard to say whether it was better for the King's interest ' to prevail by such hands or to be destroyed by Cromwell' 2 Bishop I 1 * s probable that Bishop Macmahon did every- and Cmabon tnm g m n ' s power to soothe the wounded feelings of Ormond. the Lord Lieutenant. His own language was con- 1 Galbraith to Ormond, March 26, Monro to Ormond, March 26, April 18, Carte MSS. xxvii. foil. 200, 333 ; Bishop Macmahon to Ormond, May 4, Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Ire I. vol. ii. 404, Aph. Discovery, ib. vol. ii. 70. The author of the Hist, of the War in Irel. tells the story (p. 113), but he cannot be trusted in details. He ascribes the bishop's election to the showing of a commission from Ormond, which, however, was not signed till April 1. 2 Castlehaven to Ormond, March 28, Ormond to Bramhall, April 10, Carte MSS. xxvi. foil. 217, 285 ; Commission to Bishop Macmahon, April 1. Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 39c 1650 THE SIEGE OF CLONMEL 1 55 ciliatory ' and he showed by his actions his determination to prosecute the war vigorously. It is possible that it was through his influence that the language of the Catholic prelates and April 25. nobility assumed a milder tone. They met again at Lo^ghrla.' Loughrea, on April 25, "and on the 30th they offered to . ., do their utmost to incline the people to obedience to April 30. r r Offer of his Majesty's authority, though, as they truly remarked, latesand they could ' not undertake to remove at present the no ' Ity ' distrusts and jealousies the people entertain through the want of success in services, the sense of their sufferings and apprehensions for want of redress of their grievances.' 2 Since the taking of Kilkenny, Cromwell's activity had been for some little time intermitted. He was occupied in making Cromwtii arrangements with the English of Inchiquin's army, 3 towards an( ^ *' was not ^ these had been completed that he cionmei. moved forward to assail Clonmel. The town, which February. ues along the north bank of the Suir, 4 had in Feb- O'rfeiiiin ruary been entrusted by Ormond to Hugh O'Neill, 5 cionmei. Owen's nephew, an officer of undoubted vigour and capacity, who like his uncle had served in the Spanish army in the Low Countries. O'Neill had under his command a force of Ulster Celts numbering some 1,200 men, of whom all but fifty-two were infantry. 6 The place had been more or less blocked up ever since his appointment, but it was only on April 27 that Cromwell appeared before it to open a formal ~, XT .„ attack. O'Neill called on Ormond for succour ' to O Neill asks for prevent any bloody tragedy to be acted here as in Succour. r , . e r • i i-r.7^ i other places for want 01 timely relief. ' Ormond 1 Bishop Macmahon to Monro, April 20; Bishop Macmahon to Ormond, April 27, ib. vol. ii. 390, 398. - The address of the clergy and nobility, April 30, Cox, Hib. AngL ii. App. xlvi. » See p. 151. 4 In the map of Ireland the town is wrongly placed to the south of the river. 1 Ormond to Hugh O'Neill, Feb. 16, Gilbert's Con/. Hist, of A(f. in Irel. vol. ii. 361. 6 Muster Roll, ib. vol. ii. App. 3. 7 Hugh O'Neill to Ormond, April 27, ib. vol. ii. 398; Perf. Diunial, E, 777. I- 1 56 CORK, KILKENNY, AND CLONMEL chai\ vi. would gladly have responded to the appeal, but it was hopeless to expect that the Ulster army would march so far away whilst May 2. their own province remained in danger, and all that relief*" ne cou ld do was to direct Lord Castle Connell to ordered. reinforce the garrison with 400 men. 1 Before this petty relief had time to arrive the crisis of the siege had come. Cromwell's batteries had effected a breach, and on the 9th he gave the order to storm it. a storm Never had the Parliamentary army met with such stout repulsed. . , T .it , resistance. It was hard enough to surmount the breach in the teeth of the dogged resistance of the defenders ; but when once the breach was surmounted those who entered found the prize slipping from their grasp. A new wall drawn in a semicircle and approachable only by crossing a deep ditch confronted them, and the wall, as well as the houses behind, was manned by men who did not flinch in their death struggle with their hereditary foe. Caught in a trap the Cromwellian soldiers bore themselves bravely as was ever their wont, but the plunging shots tore their ranks, and strewed the ground with slain. To break through that semicircle of fire was beyond their power, and when night fell the survivors stag- gered back, to acknowledge that for once they had been foiled. Their loss had been enormous ; according to one ac- count it was reckoned at no less than 2,500 men. Successful as they had been, the victorious garrison could prolong the struggle no longer. Neither Ormond nor Castle- haven was strong enough to take the field against of the the besiegers, and their own ammunition had run out in the fierce wrestle. In the dead of night Hugh O'Neill with his brave followers slipped away, marching in the direction of Waterford. He left instructions with the mayor to make his peace with the enemy, and accordingly, on the morn- ing of the 10th, Cromwell received a deputation, to Surrender _ which he readily granted the lives and estates of the inhabitants, on condition of the surrender of the 1 Ormond to Byrne, May 2, Carte MSS. cxlii. 227. of Clonmel. 1650 CROMWELL RECALLED TO ENGLAND I 57 ' town and garrison.' Only after the articles had been agreed on did he discover that he had been deceived. Angry as he- was, he stood by his word, and when his soldiers entered the town, they offered no damage to life or property. 1 The abortive storm of Clonmel was Cromwell's last feat of arms in Ireland. Pressing letters of recall compelled him to May 26. abandon all thought of continuing the campaign in £aves We11 person, and on May 26, 2 leaving Ireton behind him Ireland. as L or( j Deputy, he sailed for Bristol. If he had not conquered Ireland he had done enough to make its con- Thecon- quest a mere matter of time, though it was likely mattwof to ta ^ e a lon g er time than he himself anticipated, time. So f ar f rom sparing effusion of blood, his cruelty at Drogheda and Wexford, successful at Ross and at a few lesser strongholds, had only served to exasperate the garrisons of Duncannon, of Kilkenny, and of Clonmel, and in his later move- ments Cromwell, always prepared to accept the teaching of events, had discovered that the way of clemency was the shortest road to conquest. Neither he nor any of his fellow- countrymen were prepared to concede to the conquered Irish even such reasonable consideration of their demands as was compatible with the military and political predominance of England. That the predominance of England would be secured when once an armed struggle began was a foregone conclusion. In Causes of the first place, Ireland was divided, whilst at least mfnance'of f° r military purposes England was united as it had England. never been before. In the second place, Ireland, especially that part of Ireland which maintained its independ- 1 Letter from Clonmel, May 10, Several Proceedings, E, 777, 6, Aph. Disc, in Gilbert's Cont. Hist, of Aff. in Irel. vol. ii. 611. I am doubtful about this story of Fennell's treachery. The alleged attempt to storm the gate is only mentioned by this last authority, and seems to be merely a misplaced account of what really happened in the final storm. Other authorities are collected by Mr. Gilbert, Hi. vol. ii. 412. 1 Bishop Jones's Diary, in the Journal of the Soc. of Antiquaries of Ireland, for March 1893, p. 52. 158 CORK, KILKENNY, AND CLONMEL chap. VI. ence when Cromwell left it, was miserably poor, whilst Eng- land was exceedingly rich. Whilst Hugh O'Neill was com- pelled to abandon the blood-stained walls of Clonmel because neither Ormond nor anyone else could either keep an army in the field to relieve him or supply him with enough ammunition to enable him to hold out longer, Cromwell had no such diffi- culties to face. Reinforcements, siege-guns, clothing, am- munition, and provisions were at his disposal, if not at every moment in the campaign, at all events in sufficiency. The financial difficulties which had prevented Parliament from sup- plying him with money whilst he lingered in London and in Wales had at last been got over, and between March i, 1649, Large pay- and February 16, 1650, no less than 715,166/. had Cromweii^a b een disbursed in money or in money's worth for arm y- the use of the Cromwellian army in Ireland. 1 In the weakness of Ireland lies in some sort the justifica- tion of the Cromwellian conquest. A nation politically ripe and strong with the consciousness of its unity can be treated with respect as a friend or as a foe. A people divided inter- nally, and without the elements of political organisation, invites the sword of the conqueror. To do the Irish justice, not one of the parties which disputed for the pre-eminence had seriously aimed at sending forth an army to invade England ; but they had allowed themselves to be dragged in the wake of an English political party, and to threaten even more than they were themselves inclined to perform. From the days of Straf- ford to the days of Ormond the apprehension of an irruption of an Irish army had weighed like a nightmare on the breasts of Englishmen, and what wonder was it that Englishmen roused themselves at last to bring the danger to an end? Historians may remember that but for former wrongs Irishmen would never have thought of assisting one English party or another. 1 Interr. I, p. 118. Mrs. Everett Green gives a total of only 535,590/., but she omits a statement of additional payments, which is at the end of the MS. she was calendaring. Of the sum paid, 100,028/. was on account of arrears previously due. i6 5 u AN EMPHATIC NEGATIVE 159 Large bodies of men do not even note such considerations. They see the present danger, and they strike home. That his policy served to inflame, and not to extinguish, the distractions of Ireland was the true ' curse of Cromwell.' Yet it is hard to see how he could have done other 'curse of than he did. In dealing with Ireland, as in dealing with the King, he imposed an emphatic negative on a situation which had become intolerable. In England there was to be no kingship without good faith. In Ireland there was to be no meddling with English political life, no attempt to constitute an independent government in the hands of the enemies of the religion and institutions of England. i6o CHAPTER VII THE TRIAL OF JOHN LILBURNE The victories of Cromwell had no doubt strengthened the position of the Government of the Commonwealth ; but, on 1649. tne otner hand, nothing had been done to dispel the t P h°e Govern- belief that il was the creature of the army. That ment - belief was the chief source of its weakness, and as long as Lilburne was able to wield the pen it was not likely to ^ be forgotten. There had been long delay in bringing Lilburne to trial, probably through fear of provoking so redoubtable an antago- Deiayin nist. Early in May 1649 an attempt was made to niburne provoke him to treasonable action. Tom Verney, to tnai. the ignoble member of an honourable family, was employed to write to Lilburne offering to bring men from Buckinghamshire ' and the neighbouring counties to assist the 1 Levellers, in the extreme form of Diggers, had some hold on Bucks. See Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, E, 548, 9 ; A Declaration of the Well-affected in theCounty of Buckinghamshire', E, 555, I. Verney's letters are in A Preparative to a Hue and Cry after Sir Arthur Hazlerigg, E, 573, 16. Tom Verney was the- second son of Sir Edmund Verney, slain at Edgehill. Lilburne adds that Tom Verney had recently been employed to kidnap Charles. As a confirmation of Lilburne's view that Verney was in the pay of the Council of State, it can be shown that on June 18 the Council ordered his apprehension, and called on him to answer certain charges (Warrant, Interr. I, 62, p. 448). On the 27th, however, an order was made to give him satisfaction for his services (C. of St. Order Book, Interr. I, 62, 482). It looks as if he were imprisoned that he might act as a spy. 1649 LILBURNE ASSAILS CROMWELL l6l mutineers, who had not yet, at that time, been chased into Burford. Lilburne knew Verney too well to trust him, told him that he was a villain, and refused to hold any further com- munication with him. It was impossible to keep Lilburne from writing, and on June 1 8 he published The Legal Fundamental Liberties of the People of England, a long, rambling production, in Th.- Legal which, after vindicating his own conduct, he de- mtnttd nounced Cromwell and his principal officers as having Li ertus. es t a bHshed a despotism by means of Pride's Purge. 1 A still more violent attack on Cromwell and Ireton was com- pleted on July 17, though it was not immediately published. July 18. On the 1 8th, however, an order of Parliament, pro- bated on cure d by Henry Marten, gave permission to the bail - Lieutenant of the Tower to set him at liberty on bail, thus enabling him to visit his wife and children, who were seriously ill. 2 - In the end two of his children died. Severe as the blow was it did not distract his attention from matters of public concernment, and it was at this time that he listened to certain members of Parliament who were' anxious to induce him to desist from his extreme pretensions. Whatever may have been the precise nature of these over- tures, they led to nothing. On August 10 Lilburne published the pamphlet which he had written in the Tower, An /f«- 10- giving it the title of An Lmpeachment of High Treason ^pfHi'gh 1 * . against Oliver Cromwell and his Son-in-laiv Ifenry Treason. freton. 3 Stripped of the violent personalities in which his argument was clothed, Lilburne's position was that in ex- ceptional cases it was lawful to take arms against a tyrant, but only on condition that the armed force should at once give way { to the sovereign people organised in accordance with the de- mocratic principles of the latest edition 4 of the Agreement of tlie People. So bitterly was Lilburne opposed to the rule of the sword that he preferred a restoration of the monarchy on 1 The Legal Fundamental Liberties, E, 560, 14. ' l C.f. vi. 264. 3 Impeachment of High Treason, E, 568, 20. 4 See p. 47. VOL. I. M 1 62 THE TRIAL OF JOHN LILBURNE chap. vii. fair conditions to a continuance of the present usurpation of the people's authority. " If we must have a king," he declared, " I for my part would rather have the Prince than any man in the world because of his large pretence of right, which if he come not in by conquest, by the hands of foreigners — the bare attempt- ing of which may apparently hazard him the loss of all at once by gluing together the now divided people to join as one man against him — but by the hands of Englishmen by contract upon the principles aforesaid," that is to say, the principles of the Agreement of the People, " which is easy to be done, the people will easily see that presently thereupon they will enjoy this transcendent benefit, he being at peace with foreign nations, and having no regal pretended competitor, viz. the immediate disbanding of all armies, garrisons, and fleets, saving the old cinque-ports, and so those three grand plagues of the people will cease, viz. free-quarter, taxations, and excise ; by means of which the people may once again really say they enjoy something they can in good earnest call their own, whereas for the present army to set up the pretended Saint Oliver or any other as their elected king, there will be nothing thereby from the beginning of the chapter to the end thereof but wars and the cutting of throats year after year ; yea and the absolute keeping up of a perpetual and everlasting army under which the people are absolute and perfect slaves." It is impossible to treat the man who could write these words as a mere vulgar broiler. Unfortunately he had no sense of the line which divides the practicable from the im- Liibume's practicable, and he was at the mercy of impostors who persuaded him, often on very little ground, that his political opponents were villains of the deepest dye. 1 Up to this time the Council of State had treated Lil- burne with considerable leniency. He had been allowed to 1 See, for instance, the wild story in A Preparative to a Hue and Cry after Sir A. Hazlerigg (E, 573, 16), which is given on the authority of William Blank. Blank's story was not only inherently improbable, but is shown to have been a fabrication in An Anatomy of L. C. Lilburne's Spirit, by T. M[ay], E, 575, 21. 1649 LILBURNE AND THE COUNCIL 163 pass his time in or out of the Tower at his pleasure. 1 On August 20 they issued a warrant for his apprehension and the Aug. 20. seizure 'of his books and papers. 2 Though the execu- An order to tj on f the warrant was entrusted to forty musketeers, seize Lil- , , J ' bume and Lilburne so terrified the soldiers by the strength of his books. ... , , . , , . his language that they came away without making any Liibifr'ne 1 ' serious attempt to carry out their orders. 3 For some resists. t j me ^ c ounc }i made no attempt to recover the ground they had lost, and, on September 1, Lilburne published a small tract even more audacious than those which had preceded it. Sept. 1. It bore the title of An Outcry of the Young Men and i/the Utcry Apprentices of London, and was printed with the Young Men. signatures of ten apprentices, Lilburne's own name not appearing on the title-page or anywhere else. It was a I mere incitement to the soldiers to rise in vindication of the Agreement of the People, and to show by their actions their sympathy with the martyrs of Burford. 4 That after this out- burst Lilburne should have been allowed to remain at liberty can only be accounted for by the timidity of the Council of State. The time soon arrived when it ceased to be possible to treat Lilburne with consideration. A copy of the Outcry of the Men having been transmitted to a soldier at a mutiny at Oxford fell upon well-prepared soil. On September 8 the garrison called on its officers to join in demanding a free Parliament according to the Agreement of the People, the restitution of the General Council of the Army, the immediate abolition of tithes, and the payment of arrears without deduc- tion for food consumed. Failing to elicit a satisfactory re- sponse, they seized on New College where the magazine was stored, and placed their officers under arrest. The Council of State took alarm, the more readily as it had reason to suspect a combination between Royalists and Levellers, and as the 1 On Aug. 18 he writes from the Tower, A Preparative, E, 575, 16. On the 2 1 st he is at liberty. 2 Warrant, Aug. 20, Interr. I, 63, 7. 8 Great Britain's Manifest Messenger, E, 571, 22. 4 An Outcry, E, 572, 13, m 2 164 THE TRIAL OF JOHN LILBURNE chap. vii. mutineers had boasted that half the army in England was pre- pared to join them. At the request of the Council, Fairfax at once despatched Ingoldsby, the Governor of Oxford, to his post, and gave orders for a considerable force to follow under the command of no less a personage than Lambert. Fortunately no movement of troops on a large scale was needed. Ingoldsby's presence was sufficient to win back the soldiers to their duty, and on the morning of the 10th the ringleaders were in custody, and discipline restored. 1 The next step was taken on the nth, when Parliament ordered the contrivers of the Outcry of the Young Men tobepro- Sept. 11 secuted under the clause of the new Act of treason t^vereofthe directed against those who stirred up mutiny in the Outcry to be army. 2 On the 13th, in a new pamphlet, 3 Lilburne assailed Hazlerigg with extraordinary virulence, and A Pre'/ara. published the letters in which Tom Verney had HuJand attempted to lure him into treason. On the 14th he Cry - was brought before the Attorney-General, but, as he refused in any way to acknowledge his offence, a warrant for his recommittal to the Tower was at last issued on the 19th, though it was not till the 27th that he was actually lodged Liitmrne 7 ' within its walls. 4 On October 13 the Council of to n the ack State after long consultations with Prideaux, the Tower. Attorney-General, announced to Parliament that sufficient evidence had been discovered to convict Lilburne, and directed a special commission to be issued for his trial at Guildhall, the date ultimately fixed being October 24.* Accordingly on that day thirty-nine of the forty-one com- 1 The fullest account is in Wagstaff s report, in The Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer, E, 573, 27. See also The Moderate, E, 573, 7 ; The Im- partial Intelligencer, E, 573, 13 ; The Moderate Intelligencer, E, 573, 19. 2 See p. 55. * A Preparative to a Hue and Cry after Sir A. Hazlerigg, -E, 573, 16. 4 Strength out of Weakness, E, 575, 18. 5 C. of St. Order Book, Oct. 13, Interr. I, 63, p. 38 ; C. of St. to the Sheriffs of London, Oct. 22, Interr. I, 94, p. 502. 1649 LILBURNE BEFORE THE COURT l6$ missioners nominated appeared at Guildhall, the approaches to which were strongly guarded by a large force of the City trained Oct. 24. bands. 1 Keble, as one of the commissioners of mLlionT^ tne Great Seal, presided over the Court, and was at Guiidhaii. assisted by no fewer than seven of the common law judges, amongst whom Jermyn took the leading part The first day's proceedings took place before the grand jury, a true bin and in the end a true bill was found, though if the found. report made by Lilburne's friends is to be trusted, some of the jurors only intended to avow that part of the charge against him was true. On the morning of the 25th John Lilburne took his place at the bar. Voluble and pugnacious, he had a memory well stored with legal lore, and an absolute contempt for Liibume the time-honoured commonplaces which passed as legal wisdom. He soon discovered that the court which was to try him was as much upon its defence as he was himself, and would be loth to interrupt him lest any appearance He refuses OI " harshness should alienate the jury. When called on the P !ndfct° t0 P^d- to hi s indictment he entered on a long argu- ment, ment against his case being heard with closed doors, which only came to an end when the presiding judge attracted his attention to a door that stood open, perhaps in consequence of an order given after his argument had begun. Then came an almost interminable wrangle as to the legality of the commis- He consents si° n under which he was tried. In the end he con- to plead, sented to plead Not guilty, though not in the usual form. 1 The account of the trial printed in State Trials, iv. p. 1269, is a reprint of the Trial of L. C. Lilburne (£,584, 9), published by Theodoras Verax, i.e. Clement Walker. This report was taken in the shorthand of the day, according to Trutli's Victory (E, 579, 12), by Mr. Reade — per- haps John Reade, one of the grand jury — and others. Subsequently appeared The Second Part of the Trial of Lieutenant-Colonel John Lilburne (E, 598, 12), adding an account of the proceedings which took place before the grand jury on the 24th, and containing errata, as well as additions to the former report of the proceedings on the 25th and 26th. These additions are not to be found in the reproduction in the State Trials, where, moreover, the date is wrongly given. l66 THE TRIAL OF JOHN LILBURNE chap. vn. So far Lilburne had presented himself in the character of the litigious disputant. He now stepped on firmer ground, and asks I" defending his own person he stood forward as the forcounsd legal reformer. He asked that counsel might be and delay. °. ... ° assigned to him as legal points were certain to arise upon the evidence produced against him, and that some days might intervene between his first sight of the indictment and his trial, in order that he might have time to consider how to meet the charges against him, and to summon witnesses in his favour. The Court would hear nothing of his objections. Counsel should be assigned to him when any point of law arose, but not before, and the only delay granted should be to the following morning. Subsequent legislation on trials for treason in the reign of William and Mary did justice to Lilburne's reasoning. Even in his own day his condemnation of the irrational conclusions of the lawyers was shared by many, and would probably have been shared by more if he had not been himself too ready to take refuge in those very technical niceties which he condemned in others. The next day's proceedings opened in an unexpected way. Lilburne produced in support of his demand for counsel the case of Major Rolph, who in the preceding year had Roiph's ' been accused of treason. 1 Counsel had then been ise quote . ass ig nec i to tne p r j sone r, whose life had been saved by the ingenuity of that counsel. The Court refused to be bound by the precedent, silenced Lilburne for the time, and a jury im- ordered the jury to be impanelled. When this had panelled. been done the i n di c tment was read. There was no mention of the publication on account of which Lilburne had been committed to the Tower in March, 2 the charge of treason being made to rest on his more recent pamphlets. Evidence was then brought that the incriminated books had either been written or circulated by Lilburne, and passages Evidence were read which showed that Lilburne regarded the brought. power of Parliament since Pride's Purge as an illegal 1 Great Civil War, iv. 131, note 2. * See p. 36. 1649 CHARACTER OF LILBURNE'S DEFENCE 167 and tyrannical usurpation resting on the sword alone, and that he had proposed the calling of what in modern language would be styled a Convention to prepare for a new representative body chosen in accordance with the rules laid down in the Levellers' Agreement of the People} When the Attorney- General had completed his task, Lilburne once more pleaded for counsel and for further time to consider the indictment. He was weary, he said, with standing for many hours. Yet weary as he was he was bidden to proceed with his defence. Lilburne's defence is to those who look for an argument going to the root of the questions in dispute in the highest Lilburne's degree disappointing. There is much urging of defence. legal technicalities, much questioning whether the books which everyone knew had issued from his pen had legally been proved to be his own, and a flattering call to the jury to remember that they were judges of law as well as of fact, and that the judges on the bench were no more than Norman intruders and in truth, as soon as the jury pleased to pronounce their verdict, no more than ciphers. 2 Impossible as it is to pry into the hearts of the jury, it is hardly likely that when, at five in the afternoon, after having _ , ... sat for ten hours, they began to consider their Real point ' ' b before the verdict, they were much moved by any of these things. The broad issue had been revealed, if not in Lilburne's speech in defence, in the copious extracts from his writings which had been read aloud by the clerk at the instigation of the Attorney-General. Was England to be governed in accordance with the will of its freely elected representatives, or by a little knot of men who owed what authority they possessed to the swords of a victorious army ? The decision was the easier because the jury had not to come to a resolution on a question of abstract politics. They had simply to determine whether they would hang the prisoner for expressing his disapproval of acts which had so dubious an origin. 1 See p. 47. * In the text it is ' are no more but ciphers to pronounce their verdict,' which is evidently corrupt. 168 THE TRIAL OF JOHN LILBURNE chap. vn. The substance of Lilburne's best defence lay in a passage in the Outcry of the Young Men, a portion of which had been read in Court : " It is not imaginable— except Substance of , , , r Liibume's among bears, wolves, and lions — that brethren ot one cause, one nation and family, can without remorse and secret check of conscience, impose such iron yoke of cruelty and oppression upon their fellows as by the awe and force of your sword rampant is imposed upon the people of this nation ; we are at the best but your hewers of wood and drawers of water ; our very persons, our lives and properties, are all over-awed to the supportation only of the raging lawless sword, drenched in the precious blood of the people. The ancient and famous magistracy of this nation, the Petition of Right, the Great Charter of England, above thirty times con- firmed in open and free Parliament, with all other the funda- mental laws, safeties, and securities of the people, which our ancestors at an extraordinary dear rate purchased for the inheritance of us and the generations after us, and for which you pretendedly took up arms against the late King and his party, are now all subverted, broken down and laid waste, the military power being thrust into the very office and seat of civil authority : — the King not only most illegally put to death by a strange, monstrous, illegal, arbitrary court such as England never knew, monarchy extirpated not rectified, without and beside the consent of the people, though the actors of that bloody scene have owned and declared them to be the original of all just human authority, but l even our Parliaments — the very marrow and soul of all the native rights of the people — put down, and the name and power thereof transmitted to a picked party of your forcible selecting, and such as your officers — our lords and riders — have often and frequently styled no better than a mock Parliament, a shadow of a Parliament, a seeming authority, or the like, pretending the continuance thereof but till a new and equal Representative, 1 The extract read in court begins, for obvious reasons, with this word, The Trial of L. C.John Lilburne (E, 584, 9), p. 94. 1649 LILBURNE ACQUITTED 169 by mutual agreement of the free people of England, could be elected, although now, for subserviency to their exaltation and kingship, they prorogue and perpetuate the same, in the name and under colour thereof introducing a Privy Council, or, as they call it, a Council of State, of superintendency and suppression to all future successive Parliaments for ever, erecting a martial government by blood and violence impulsed upon us." 1 Rhetorically exaggerated as the words were, Lilburne's diagnosis of the situation was sufficiently near the mark to win The v d ; sympathy from the tradesmen who composed the jury, and who detested nothing so much as the military compulsion which bore them down. When after an adjournment of an hour, the Court called on the foreman of the jury for the verdict, he was able to reply in a loud voice, ' Not guilty,' in the name of all the twelve. Then ensued a scene, the like of which had in all proba- bility never been witnessed in an English court of justice, and Popular was never again to be witnessed till the seven bishops applause. we re freed by the verdict of a jury from the rage of James II. From every part of the crowded hall 'a loud and unanimous shout ' arose in triumph. For a full half hour the cries of joy continued to be raised. The only man unmoved was the prisoner himself, who had just escaped from the jaws of death. The judges grew pale with alarm lest the excitement in the auditory should lead to an attack on the bench. There was, however, no bitterness in that outpouring of thankfulness, and when order had been at last restored, the judges directed that the prisoner should be led back to the Tower. If there was any intention of trying him for some lighter offence, the v idea was abandoned, and on November 8 the i.iibunJe ' Council of State gave orders for his liberation. On the same day his three companions in misfortune, VValwyn, Prince, and Overton, were also set at liberty. 2 1 An Outcry of the Young Men (E, 572, 13), p. I. 2 Warrants, Nov. 8, Interr. I, 63, pp. 234-236. I JO THE TRIAL OF JOHN LILBURNE chap. vii. The cry of the citizens in Guildhall was substantially identical with the cry which eleven years later was to call for a Free Parliament, and thereby to bring about the Restoration. In the meanwhile it might be permitted to those who had to face the immediate dangers of the situation to ask how the How was government was to be carried on. It is certain that mern°to e be" ^ eW ' ^ anV > °^ the men m possession of pOWer COn- carried on? templated a permanent tenure of it at the will of the military commanders. They imagined it possible that at no distant time they would be able to retire in favour of another Parliament chosen by a new constituency, as free, if Parliament not quite as democratic, as that which Lilbume declared to be the sole legitimate representative of the nation. To prepare the way for this result, the existing Parliament was anxious to win the hearts of the masses to the new Commonwealth by popular legislation. Of such legislation legislation they had already given a specimen by proposed. ° * i r, 1 the Act for poor prisoners, passed on September 4. Actforpoor The condition of insolvent debtors was most un- prisoners. ^^ To a man with property who was unwilling or unable to meet his creditors, the imprisonment to which he was subjected brought with it the enjoyment of a riotous life under sordid conditions. To a poor man it brought untold misery. Unable to pay the fees required for food and maintenance, he was thrust into the beggars' ward, where his sole means of existence was the charity of passers-by, who might chance to be touched by his doleful appeals. Amidst dirt and vermin, disease spread fast. Vice added its scourge, and the life of the insolvent debtor of this class was seldom prolonged. By the new Act he was enabled to obtain his liberty, if he could show that he did not possess more than the value of 5/. in addition to the necessaries of life. On December 21 it was it is re- * re-enacted with amendments which placed the whole enacted with . , . . , * . _ TT . , amend- transaction under the safeguard of a jury. With unwise narrowness all persons who had taken the 1649 HIGHWAY ROBBERY 171 King's side in the late war were excluded from the benefit of this law. 1 An attempt to remedy another evil was less successful than it deserved. Since the end of the war highway robbery had Highway been on the increase, as disbanded soldiers, robbery. especially from the Royal army, found in it a con- genial occupation. In the first year of the Commonwealth it assumed alarming proportions. The roads round London had become notoriously unsafe, and robbery was not unfrequently Nov i accompanied by murder. On November 14 Fairfax Soldiers to was directed by the Council of State to employ his ■ pu ' "' soldiers in clearing the roads, while power was given to the officers to search inns and ale-houses, and to require from the landlords a strict account of their guests. 2 Unfor- tunately experience shows that a regular army is little calcu- ated for the suppression of crime, and the experience of the Commonwealth was no exception to the rule. However desirous Parliament may have been of initiating generous legislation, it was constantly thrown back upon its own defence by the necessities of its position. Though liberty a body mainly consisting of Independents could hardly avoid attempting to legalise religious liberty, it was often driven to bethink itself of contriving limits to the excesses of its opponents. The Presbyterian clergy gave special annoyance. On July 9 Parliament, stung by these Resolution attacks, passed a resolution declaring all ministers to pofidwi be delinquents if they preached or prayed against sermons. ^ p resent Government, publicly mentioned Charles or James Stuart, or refused to keep days of public humiliation, or to publish Acts and Orders of Parliament. It is to the credit of Cromwell and Ireton, who were at that time still at 1 Scobell, ii. 87, 99. See The (Economy of the Fleet, edited by Dr. Jessopp, for the Camden Soc. Before May 25, 1653, one hundred and thirty persons took the oath, and were liberated under the Act. A Schedule . . . of ihe Prisoners in the Fleet, E, 698, 1 3. At that date two hundred and thirty-four were still in prison. 2 C. of St. Order Book, Jnterr. I, 63, p. 258. 172 THE TRIAL OF JOHN LILBURNE chap. vii. Westminster, that they acted as tellers against a scheme which would place restrictions on their own bitterest enemies ; but they only secured sixteen votes, whilst those given on the other side amounted to twenty-eight. 1 On August 6 the House took into consideration a declara- tion on the government of the Church, and it was significant Aug. 6. of the feeling which prevailed, that a proposal to to'b^com- declare the payment of tithe compulsory was rejected puisory., by twenty-five to sixteen. 2 Other questions were . , referred to a committee, and on the i6th, before its Aug. 16. .... Petition report was given in, a petition was presented from Council Fairfax and the Council of Officers asking that penal • laws in matters of religion might be swept away, yet that the liberty so accorded might not ' extend to the toleration of popery, prelacy, the Book of Common Prayer, public scorn or contempt for God and His Word.' The petitioners also asked for the punishment of all who committed ' open acts ol profaneness, as drunkenness, swearing, uncleanness, and the like.' 3 A similar request was made by Cromwell, writing from and of Milford Haven, but it was remarked at the time that Cromwell. ^ e om itted any mention of restrictions to full re- ligious liberty. 4 On the 21st, on the receipt of Cromwell's letter, Parliament to some extent responded by the appointment Aug. 21. of a committee to consider how persons who had tee^n""" 1 " scruples about the Presbyterian form of ordination ordination. m ight be admitted to the ministry. 5 As far as Roman Catholics were concerned, the House soon showed that it agreed with Fairfax. On August 31 it ordered the arrest of Sir John Winter, who, in the teeth of an order of Parliament, 6 was still in England, and the banishment of Sir Kenelm Digby and Walter Montague. 7 If Cromwell still differed, his experience in Ireland would soon bring him to concur in this matter with Fairfax. 1 C.J. vi. 257. 2 lb. vi. 275. 8 lb. vi. 279 ; The Petition of His Excellency, E, 569, 22. * The Moderate, E, 572, 1. 5 C.J. vi. 282. 6 See p. 82. ■ C.J. vi. 289. 1649 RELIGION AND THE PRESS 173 On Sunday, September 9, a practical attempt to secure liberty of worship was made in London, when the service Sept. 9 . enjoined by the Book of Common Prayer was freely mon Prayer read in man )' Lon don churches. In one a troop b°L k ondon of norse intervened, stopped the service, and inflicted severe injuries on some of the congregation who cierk^ 61 ^ rallied round the minister. In another place a lawyer's clerk, attempting to preach, was interrupted by a number of people said to have been Presbyterians or Royalists, and it was only owing to the assistance of soldiers that he was able to continue his sermon. 1 Parliament seems to have been alarmed at the course matters were taking. An Act for the Relief of Tender Con- Act for sciences, which was at this time in the hands of a sciences "" committee, was allowed to sleep, and on September 28 proposed. the House ordered the issue of a declaration in Sept. 28. which strong language was used against the Levellers, ration and an attempt was made to win over the moderate Presbyterians by a protest that Parliament enter- reiigionfo tained no intention of 'countenancing a universal be limited, toleration,' and that it would proceed effectually against all who abused the liberty granted. 2 It was not only in respect to religious matters that Parlia- ment had convinced itself that liberty to be worth having must Sept. 20. be regulated. The virulence of Lilburne's pamphlets restricting an d °f tne Royalist newspapers had led to the $ e the berty preparation of a measure for the restriction of the p r =ss. Press, and an Act for that purpose was finally passed on September 20. 3 The Act was directed not against opinion, but against false news and misrepresentation of the proceedings and intentions of the Government. No ' book or pamphlet, treatise, sheet or sheets of news ' was to be published without a licence. The penalty for spreading abroad scandalous or ■ The Moderate Intelligencer, E, 573, 19. 8 A Declaration, E, 575, 9. Thomason's date of publication is Oct. 3. See p. 172. a ScobelL ii. 88. 174 THE TRIAL OF JOHN LILBURNE chap. vii. libellous books was to be 10/. or forty days' imprisonment for the author, 5/. or twenty days' imprisonment for the printer, and 2/. or ten days' imprisonment for the seller, whilst the purchaser was to forfeit 1/. if he did not give information within four and twenty hours. 1 It was easier to pass such an Act than to enforce it. With London hungry for writings which would turn the laugh against the Government, unlicensed presses easily kept them- Hcensed selves in existence. Of the three principal Royalist newspapers, one, Mercurhis Elencticus, disappeared after November 5. The other two, Mercurius Pragmaticus and The Man in the Moon, were still in full swing at the end of the year. Nor was it easy to stop the flow of political pamphlets directed against the Commonwealth. Clement Walker, for instance, issued, under the title of Anarchia Anglicana, a second part of his History of Independency, in which he virulently attacked the existing Government. On October 24, Order for' Parliament ordered the arrest of the author, and on ofCkment November 13, undeterred by its failure in Lilburne's Walker. cage ^ sent j^ to t h e Tower and ordered him to be Walker 13 ' tried f0r Hi § h TreaSOn - 2 sent to the The attempt thus made to suppress false news was accompanied by an effort to replace it by news more favourable to the Government. On October 2 appeared the first number of A Brief Relation? published by authority Oct. 2. under the superintendence of Gualter Frost, the rS&. Secretary of the Council of State. On October 9 Oct appeared the first number of Several Proceedings, S p?Zcud. w * tn tne ucence of Henry Scobell, Clerk of the *ngs. Parliament. Both papers were eminently respectable, and are amongst our most valuable sources of information. 1 See Masson'sZ^/fc of Milton, iv. 118, where it is pointed out that only newspapers and political pamphlets were aimed at. 2 C.f. vi. 312, 322. s A Brief Relation. The first number (E, 575, 6) is ' published by authority.' The second number (E, 575, 15) is 'licensed by Gualter Frost, Esq., &c.' i6 4 9 THE EIKONOKLASTES 175 Without any distinct line being traceable between them, Several Proceedings l devoted itself principally to domestic affairs, whilst A Brief Relation is for the most part filled with news from foreign countries, and especially with those which concerned the exiled family. Transactions in Scotland and Ireland furnished a common ground to both. Amongst the literary defenders of the Government must be counted Milton, whose Eikonoklastes appeared on October 6. Oct. 6. It is barely more than a Miltonic piece of hack-work. EillTo- Even if Milton had thrown into it his heart and soul, Wastes. the method adopted, perhaps adopted by order, was fatal to the production of a great work. The provision of a counterpart to each separate division of the Eikon Basilike, showing that Charles under each heading was despicable rather than admirable, makes toilsome reading, and, however much it accorded with the literary fashion of the day, 2 was not the way to win adherents. With all its faults the Eikon Basilike went straight to the hearts of thousands. The picture of the Royal sufferer would not be erased from their memories by an exag- gerated display of his despotism, or even of his personal fail- ings. In such a case mere negative criticism avails but little. What was needed was the development of a higher loyalty to the nation in the place of the lower loyalty to the King, and the quickening of a sense of the exuberant vitality of the col- lective life of the people in the place of devotion to the head of the national organisation. Time had been when Milton had struck that key, and gazed on the vision of a ' noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep and shaking her invincible locks.' He could not speak in that strain of a Commonwealth supporting itself on an armed force, though he still might hope that, under the guidance of the statesman who now watched over its destinies, the time would 1 Several Proceedings (E, 575, 14) is not said to be printed by authority, but has the name of ' Hen. Scobell, Cleric. Parliamenti,' printed under the title. 2 Chillingworth, for instance, adopted this method in his Religion of Protestants. 176 THE TRIAL OF JOHN LILBURNE chap. vii. yet come when such glories would again present themselves as realities. Parliament itself was not without hopes that this vision would some day be realised. On October 11, it resolved that 'the committee for regulating elections and their Committee equal distribution ' should meet from day to day, inge e ifc- at " an d report to the House on the 30th. Yet it was nons. impossible for the members to prepare for fresh elec- MUgivings tions without misgiving. In a declaration recently issued l they had accused the Levellers of urging a dissolution, though they knew ' that, as the present distemper of the people was the violence of faction, and activity of their secret enemies, either these elections could not be free, or the people must have lost their liberty by it.' To provide, in some way, against the choice of a Royalist Parliament, the House resolved that every member then sitting, or hereafter chosen, The engage- should sign the engagement which had been taken by Sken'by 6 most of th e members of the Council of State : " I members do declare and promise that I will be true and faith- ful to the Commonwealth of England as the same is now established, without a King or House of Lords." On the following day the obligation of signing this engage- ment was extended to officers of the army and navy, to all Oct. 12. soldiers and sailors under their command, to judges officials an d officials of the Courts of Law, to members of the generally. i nns f Court, as well as to all who held municipal offices, or sat in municipal councils j to all graduates and officers in the Universities, and to the masters, fellows, school- masters, and scholars of the Colleges of Eton, Winchester, and Westminster ; to all ministers admitted to a benefice, and finally to all who received pensions from the State. The intention of the Legislature was evidently to create a state within the nation, upon which authority could rest a state to securely, thus following, in one respect at least, the w!th r in a the Agreement of the People. Yet though the engage- nation, ment was freely taken by officials during the following 1 See p. 173. 1649 MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS IN LONDON 177 weeks, the attitude of the London citizens after Lilburne's acquittal gave cause to suspect that even this test would be insufficient to keep out the enemies of the Commonwealth at the election of Common Councillors which was to take place Dec. i 4 . on December 21. Accordingly, on the 14th, Parlia- decdor.s ment passed a new Act disabling from holding office in London. or f rom vo ti n g at elections in the City during the ensuing year, any person who had ' been imprisoned,' or had 1 had his estate sequestered for delinquency,' had ' assisted the late King against the Parliament,' had taken part in bringing in the Scots, had subscribed ' the treasonable engagement ' which had led to Hamilton's invasion, or had abetted the tumults in London and the neighbouring counties in the year 1648. Further, all who had supported any engagement for a personal treaty with the late King in London, or who now refused to sign the new engagement, were disqualified from holding office in the City. 1 The net had been spread widely enough to exclude Presby- terian Royalists, as well as Cavalier, Royalists, but there was nothing in it to exclude Levellers. Lilburne had, i.iibunie 1 ' since his trial, taken up his abode in the City, and aCommon when the day of election arrived, he was duly chosen Councillor. to a seat fa t ^ e c ommon Council. Being challenged Takes the to ta> v e t h e engagement, he at once expressed his engagement ° ° ' l . withaquaii- readiness to do so, but accompanied his unusual compliance with a declaration that by the Common- wealth to which, he promised fidelity, he understood ' all the good and legal people of England to be meant,' not 'the pre- sent Parliament, Council of State, or Council of the Army.' ■ Action of Scandalised at this evasion, the Lord Mayor and mI ^and aldermen committed to prison Lilburne's chief sup- aidermen. porters, Chetwin and Caverly, and on the 26th Dec. 26. brought the matter before Parliament. Parliament election * at once quashed Lilburne's election, as well as that of quashed. Lieutenant-Colonel Fenton of whom no particulars 1 An Act Disabling the Election of Divers Persons, E, 1,060, No. 72. 2 The Engagement Vindicated and Explained, E, 590, 4. VOL. I. N l;8 THE TRIAL OF JOHN LILBURNE chap. vii.. are known. Chetvvin was disfranchised and sent prisoner to Windsor Castle. Caverly received no further punishment, and it is therefore probable that he had in the meantime made his peace with the City authorities. 1 Even this last affront did not rouse Lilburne to break the silence which he had maintained since his acquittal. " I have been judged by man," he is reported to have said, temporary " but God and men will have to judge between Cromwell and me." 2 Yet he was in no haste to appeal to the tribunal of public opinion. For the present he betook himself to the occupation of a soap-boiler, 3 leaving politics alone for a time, unless, indeed, he took part in the overtures which his comrades were at that time making to Charles on the ground that more was to be expected from a Royalist restoration than from the oligarchy which had usurped the name of a Commonwealth. 4 That Lilbume, consciously or unconsciously, was playing into the hands of the Royalists was the best justification of the high-handed measures employed against the Level- from lers. It was fortunate for the Commonwealth that the relations between the continental Governments 1 C.J. vi. 337. 2 He said 'qu'il avoit este" juge par des hommes, mais qu'il falJoit que Dieu et les mesmes hommes fussent encore juges entre Cromwell et luy.' Croulle to Mazarin ^^-^, Arch, des Aff. £trangeres, li. fol. 303. 3 The project of 'the wild levelling representative,' writes Merc. Politicus, on June 12, 1650, ' is at an end since John Lilburne turned off the trade of State-mending to take up that of soap-boiling.' 1 " During the time of his attendance at Court, and especially since John Lilburne was acquitted upon his trial, there came several overtures from the people that go under the notion of Levellers to the King of Scotland." Their letters • did contain a demand from the King of some assurance for a full and general liberty, or to that purpose, and an offer upon those terms to give him assistance for the suppression of the present power.' Coke's examination, Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii. App. i. 591. That Lilburne was likely to share the opinions of other Levellers in this matter is shown by the extract from An Impeachment of High Treason, quoted at p. 162. 1649 FOREIGN POLITICS 1 79 were such that even those most ready to take umbrage at the apparition of a military republic in England were in no case improba- to give armed assistance to the claimant of the conuniir.' throne. Mazarin had on his hands not only a war mliJtewM 1 " w * tn Spain, but a revolutionary movement in France interfere. itself. Charles's brother-in-law, the Prince of Orange, had entered on an embittered controversy with the Provincial States of Holland, whilst the King of Spain had enough to do in making head against the armies of France. There were, however, elements enough of disorder in Europe— disbanded soldiers, unemployed officers, and discontented princes — which Charles might turn to account, if only he could find a basis of operations to substitute for the one which he had lately hoped to secure in Ireland. Every fresh victory of Cromwell hastened the day when Charles would, however much against his will, be driven to capitulate to the Covenanters at Edinburgh. As far as the continental Governments were concerned, the leaders of the Commonwealth knew better than to assume a *tone of weakness. In the Netherlands their agent, Strickland, was directed to protest against the refusal of the States General to admit him to an audience, and to return to England if the Strickland's refusal was repeated. 1 For the present, however, recall. tne order was suspended, perhaps because Strickland was needed to give warning of the movements of the Royalists in Holland, and it was not till the following July that he actually left the Netherlands. 2 The attitude of the English Government towards France and Spain was no less decided. Croulle, the French agent, and France and Cardenas, the Spanish ambassador, were told that no qSiredtore- business would be transacted with them till they re- cognise the CO gnised the Commonwealth. With France the In- Common- ° wealth. dependents had long been on bad terms, and the seizure in the Mediterranean of eight ships of the Levant Com- pany, valued, together with their cargoes, at 300,000/., by French 1 C. of St. Order Book, Interr. I, 63, pp. 196, 561. * lb. 64, p. 171 ; Admiralty Committee Day Book, Interr. I, 123, PP- 376-379- l8o THE TRIAL OF JOHN LILBURNE chap. vii. men-of-war, had caused considerable indignation in England. 1 On August 23, on the plea that the French Government had Aug. 23. i n tne preceding year forbidden the importation of dtfreprisah English draperies, Parliament prohibited the impor- on France, tation of French wine, as well as of French woollen and silken manufactures. 2 So hostile was the feeling at West- minster that it was believed that France and England were on the brink of war. Towards the end of October it was reported that Cromwell had declared that if he were ten years younger every king in a saying Europe would tremble before him. He had a better ""cronv 1 cause than the late King of Sweden, and he thought wel1 - himself able to do more for the good of the peoples than Gustavus had done for his own ambition. Such words were most unlikely to have been Cromwell's, 3 but they gave ex- pression to an opinion which was beginning to take root in the minds of the more ardent supporters of the new system. With Spain the Council of State was, outwardly at least, on a better footing. Though nothing could exceed the detesta- 1 A petition of the Levant Company to the Council of State in February 1649 (■$• P- Dom. i. 10) complains of having suffered ' by the injurious and hostile attempts of the French fleet within the Streights, who continue to seize upon your petitioners' ships and estate to a great value ; not only to their heavy loss, but to the unspeakable prejudice of this Commonwealth ; by the decay of shipping, diminution of custom, and in conclusion a total loss of this ample trade into the Levant which had been so advantageous and honourable to this land. A list of the ships already taken by them, together with a valuation of their lading, being hereto annexed.' The list gives the names of eight ships ' that have been lately sur- prised and sunk or taken by the French fleet within the Straits, whereof seven (besides others also of smaller value) have been taken within twelve months past ; which ships with their lading amount to 300,000/. and upwards. ' This French fleet must have been a fleet of the French king's, which explains the resolution of the authorities of the Commonwealth to hold the French king a special wrong-doer, and bound to make com- pensation in his own name above such as might be due for the action of privateers. 2 C.J. vi. 285. 3 Croulle to Mazarin, Nov. i, Arch, des Aff. Etrangeres, lix. fol. 306. Croulle did not himself believe that the saying was Cromwell's. 1649 THE REPUBLIC AND SPAIN l8l tion with which Philip IV. and his advisers regarded a regicide republic, they knew that those who directed its course were _ . hostile to their French enemies, and though Cardenas Spam and . ° . . the Com- was not instructed to give it formal recognition, he monwealth. ,., ,,, • • • , • was authorised to hold secret communications with its leading statesmen. Early in August he informed his Govern- ment that they were anxious to despatch an ambassador to August. Madrid. 1 In the winter this desire was strengthened fnfbaTsy! 6 * 1 b y the news that Cottington and Hyde had crossed 0ct 1 the frontier on October 19, and that though the Cottington Spanish Government had done everything in its in Spain. power to interpose delays, they had reached Madrid on November 26. 2 Philip indeed showed no readiness to comply with their demands for pecuniary assistance; but it was manifestly undesirable in the eyes of the English Govern- ment that their diplomacy should remain uncounteracted. In one quarter especially the Council of State might fairly calculate on the goodwill of Spain. Since his escape from Kinsale, Rupert had been making prizes of English makes shipping and had been permitted by the King of carries Them Portugal, John IV., to bring them into the Tagus to Lisbon. and tQ d ; spose of them at Lisbon. To be the friend of Portugal was to be the enemy of Spain, and the English Government was not unreasonable in hoping that Philip might be induced to make common cause with them against Rupert, or at least to refuse him permission jan. 5 io. to enter a Spanish harbour. Accordingly, on Ascham^ January 16, Anthony Ascham was appointed to go and Vane. ag English Agent to Madrid, whilst Charles Vane was to go in a similar capacity to Lisbon to remonstrate with the Blake to King. It was hoped that their mission would be command t h e m0 re efficacious as they were to be conveyed in Rupert. a powerful fleet about to sail against Rupert under the command of Blake. 3 1 Cardenas to Philip IV., Guizot, i. App. ix. 4. 2 Edgeman's Diary, Clarendon MSS. They were detained at St. Sebastian nineteen days. s C. of St. Order Hook, Into). I, 63, p. 525. 182 CHAPTER VIII the conference at breda Firm as was the attitude of the Commonwealth towards domestic enemies and foreign rivals, its leaders could not but i6 49 . watch with anxiety the development of events in from Ser Scotland. They were well aware that efforts were Scotland. being made to renew the negotiation which had been broken off at the Hague. Argyle, though he would doubtless still have preferred an alliance with the Argyie's ' English Commonwealth, had recognised it to be im- practicable, and was now doing everything in his power to remove the difficulties in the way of an understand- juiy. ing with Charles. At a conference held at Edin- atEd[n- ence Dur g n early in July between five ministers and five burgh. f t h e leading statesmen, Johnston, Chiesley and one of the ministers argued in favour of the English alliance, whilst the others who were present, including Argyle and Loudoun, came to the conclusion that, if only the King would give satis- fy faction about religion and the Covenant, they were bound to shed the last drop of their blood in his cause. 1 It is hardly likely that Argyle at least was blind to the difficulties in the way of such a policy,- but it was enough for him that any 1 Balfour, iii. 416. 2 According to Graymond, the Covenanters considered the English as enemies of the Covenant, and Charles • comme une personne qui n'est pas beaucoup portee pour luy.' The Covenanters, he adds, were ' generale- ment tous les ministres et le parlement excepte environ sept ou huict des 1649 POLICY OF ARGYLE 1 83 attempt on his part to stem the popular current would be the signal for his own expulsion from power. A few days after this decision had been taken Will Murray arrived in Edinburgh with letters from Charles to Argyle and July x S . nis principal colleagues. Argyle gathered from their ^ ers contents that it was still possible to continue the Charles. negotiation, if only the extreme demands of the Covenanters were relaxed. He therefore seized an opportunity when the warmest partisans of the Kirk were absent from Parliament, to obtain the consent of that body to a scheme for sending Lothian to the King, Lothian being, like mission of himself, desirous of paying some consideration to Lothian. Charles's feelings. So loud, however, was the outcry witr U am 7 ' raised that Lothian refused to go. On August 7, foi b him Itcd tne name 0I " George Winram of Liberton was sub- stituted for that of Lothian. Winram, like Lothian, belonged to Argyle's following, and when he found that Parlia- ment intended to entrust him with a letter in which Charles was asked to acknowledge the legality of the existing truncated Parliament, and also to meet commissioners who would expect ' a full agreement upon the grounds contained in the former desires,' he too declined to set forth on a hopeless errand. 1 Argyle was taught that he had no power to make his party mere reasonable than it was. Winram's objection to undertaking the mission was, how- ever, not one of principle, and when the news of Cromwell's principaux qui, pour se conserver absolument le maniement des affaires en ce pays, ne feroient jamais difficulte de recognoistre la republique pretendue des Independans.' Graymond to Brienne, Aug. ■£, Harl. MSS. 4,551, fol. 414. 1 Balfour, iii. 417 ; Bail tie, iii. 99 ; Acts of Pari, of Scot I. vi. part ii. 538, 739, 740. The letter, says Baillie, was 'drawn by Sir John Chiesley,' and was, ' though much smoother than the Church's, drawn hy Mr. James Wood, yet so harsh, and the instructions so scabrous, that there was no hope of doing any good with the King thereby.' Chiesley was, as has been seen, in favour of the English alliance, and there- fore inclined to throw difficulties in the way of an understanding with Charles. 1 84 THE CONFERENCE AT BREDA chap. viii. success at Drogheda came to convince him that Charles was more likely to prove flexible, he consented to set out. On October n he sailed from Leith. 1 Taking Holland on his way 2 he opened communications with a knot of English Pres- Oct. ii. byterian exiles, amongst whom Lord Willoughby of saUs'from Parham, Massey, Graves, and Alderman Bunce were Le.th. the most notable. With them was Colonel Silas Titus, TheEng- who had at one time fought in the Parliamentary byterians in ranks, but who had transferred his allegiance to the late King, in whose service he had been during his Silas Titus. capt i v j t y at Carisbrooke. He now offered himself as a medium of communication between the Queen's ministers, Jermyn and Percy, in whom the Scottish alliance found warm supporters, and the London Presbyterians who were working in the same direction. When Titus set out for Jersey in Winram's company, he had with him a list of eighty London citizens favourable to a restoration of monarchy, and asserted boldly that if only Charles would ' agree with the Scots, he should want neither men nor money.' 3 For a disciple of the Kirk, Winram may be regarded as a moderate man. He did not wish to push matters to extremities Winram's against the Engagers. 4 Yet, though he had been principles, unwilling to undertake a bootless mission, he was incapable of comprehending that there could be any valid objection to the acceptance of the Covenant, to 'win " Now," he wrote to a clerical friend, " is the time to pray that the Lord would prevent the King with His tender mercies, for indeed he is brought very low, when he has 1 Balfour, iii. 432. 2 According to Balfour, the Committee thought that Charles was still at Brussels. In any case, Winram's route lay through the Nether- lands and France, unless he was to run the risk of being seized by an English cruiser. 3 State Trials, v. 43 ; Coke's Examination, Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii. App. i. 585. Compare the papers in the Appendix to Hillier's Narrative of the Attempted Escapes of Charles I. 4 Winram to Douglas, Oct. 31 (? Oct. |i) ; Baillie, iii. 522. 1649 WINRAM*S MISSION TO CHARLES 185 not bread both for himself and his servants, and betwixt him and his brother not one English shilling, and worse yet, if I durst write it. I am confident no ingenuous spirit will take advantage of his necessities ; but, for all this, use him princely. . . His case is very deplorable, being in prison where he is, living in penury, surrounded by his enemies, not able to live anywhere else in the world unless, he would come to Scotland by giving them satisfaction to their just demands ; yet his pernicious and devilish council will suffer him to starve _ before they will suffer him to take the League and Covenant. I am persuaded no rational man can think he will come that length at first ; but if he could once be extricate from his wicked council, there might be hope." ' Winram and those who sent him were right in supposing that Cromwell's successes would have great influence over h Charles's resolutions. Yet though Henry Seymour Charles' had been despatched to Ormond in October to in- newTfrom' quire into the truth of conflicting rumours, 2 some Ireland. t j me must: elapse before an answer could be Seymour's received. Uncertainty about the progress of his cause in Ireland did not as yet breed in Charles any desire to relax his opposition to the Covenant. On October 31 he issued a manifesto, in which he called on 0ct- „ Englishmen to rally round him as their lawful king, manifesto an( * to f ree themselves from a tyrannical usurpation, Nov without implying by a single word any intention to Hismes- make the slightest concession to the Presbyte- Queenof e rians. 3 In November he sent a messenger to Sweden Feehng ' chiefly to satisfy the Queen of the unreasonableness agai!, r st7he °f the Scots.' 4 Among Charles's younger followers Scots. tne feeling against the Scots was very strong. " I had 1 Winram to Douglas, Nov. jg ; Baillie, iii. 522. 2 See p. 144. Seymour was descended from the elder branch of the family of Protector Somerset. 3 His Majesty's Declaration, Oct. 31, E, 578, 2. 1 Trethewy to Edgeman, Nov. \\, Hoskins, Charles II. in the Channel Islands, ii. 348. 1 86 THE CONFERENCE AT BREDA chap. viii. forgot to tell you," wrote one of Hyde's correspondents, " that Winram was expected at Jersey before my coming from thence. I believe he will think he hath made a good voyage if he escape with a broken pate : the gallants talked before I came away of throwing him over the wall." l Diplomatic proprieties were too strong for such a practical solution. Winram on his landing was received with all due winram's respect, and as only three of Charles's councillors recepuon. were at t k at t j me j n j erS ey, the propositions of the envoy were laid before a body in which all the lords then in the island were included. Charles spoke Winram fairly, but he delayed giving him a definite answer in the hope that Seymour's return with a favourable report would relieve him from the necessity of placing his neck under the Scottish yoke. Dec. 27. On December 27, Seymour at last arrived with the new^from worst of tidings. 2 Charles learnt from his lips that Ireland. Munster had revolted, and knew that, unless he could bend himself to accept the Scottish terms, he would have to wait, as an impoverished exile, the day on which a victorious Montrose might summon him to reascend his ancestral thrones. It is not strange that Charles hoped to find a way out of the hideous dilemma. Might not the Scots even yet be induced to desist from their harsh requirements? hopeVto His Council, like himself, resolved that ' a treaty on his diiem^. honourable term£ ' with those by whom Winram had i6 been sent would probably lead to an agreement with An advice of Scotland by which Ireland might be saved and the Council. ' & England recovered. Nicholas was alone in pro- posing to declare that honourable terms were inconsistent with the abandonment of Ormond or Montrose. 3 CTo await events and to avoid all definite resolutions was the course which most commended itself to Charles's mind|\ • Berkeley to Hyde, ^- 3 3 , Charles II. and Scotland, I. 2 Intelligence from Jersey, Jan. i, Clarendon MSS. ii. No. 213; Seymour to Ormond, March j^, Carte A/SS. ccxiii. fol. 12. 3 Proceedings in Council, Jan., Nicholas Papers, i. 160. 1650 CHARLES'S REPLY 1 87 On January 11, taking no notice of the Parliament's pre- liminary request for the recognition of its legality further than by addressing his letter to the Committee of Estates, His letter to Charles expressed a wish to receive commissioners mitteeof at Breda on March 15, to treat of the just satisfaction of his subjects in Scotland, and of assistance to be given for bringing his father's murderers to punishment, and for the recovery of his own rights. To this Charles added a strong hint that he expected the Committee to be guided by a 'just and prudent moderation.' He then referred to the earnest desire which he himself entertained to oblige all his subjects in that kingdom. A junction of the existing Govern- ment with the Engagers, and if possible even with Montrose, in defence of his own rights in England, would evidently have been most in accordance with his wishes. 1 Two days later he Jan. 13. gave Titus a reply to an address from the English «ptyto S the Presbyterians, in which he urged them 'to send PrSb^ presently into Scotland to prevail with them to bring terians. such reasonable demands to the treaty as, meeting with our inclinations and resolution to accord all just and reasonable things, may, by the blessing of God, produce a full and happy agreement.' 2 If Charles's quest after moderation in Scotland was not a hopeful one, he was at least shrewd enough not to trust solely to the equity of the Committee of Estates. "To His letter to the end," he wrote to Montrose, " you may not apprehend that we intend, either by anything con- tained in these letters or by the treaty we expect, to give the least impediment to your proceedings, we think fit to let you know that as we conceive that your preparations have been one 1 Charles II. to the Committee of Estates, Jan. 1 1, Carte's Orig. Letters, i. 355. 2 Message sent by Titus, Jan. lj}, Hillier's Narrative of the attempted escapes of Charles /., 321. In a letter to Robert Douglas of Feb. fa Charles wrote in the same strain : "I entreat you, therefore, to use your credit amongst the ministers to persuade them to reasonable moderation." Bail/ie, iii. 524. 188 THE CONFERENCE AT BREDA chap. viii. effectual motive that hath induced them to make the said address to us, so your vigorous proceeding will be a good means to bring them to such moderation in the said treaty as probably may produce an agreement and a present union of that whole nation in our service. We assure you therefore that we will not, before or during the treaty, do anything con- trary to that power and authority which we have given you by our commission, nor consent to anything that may bring the least degree of diminution to it. . . . We require and authorise you therefore to proceed vigorously and effectually in your undertaking. . . . Wherein we doubt not but all our loyal and well-affected subjects of Scotland will cordially and effectually join with you; and by that addition of strength either dispose those that are otherwise minded to make reasonable demands to us in the treaty, or be able to force them to it by arms in case of their obstinate refusal." In a private letter written at the same time Charles assured Montrose that he would never fail in his friendship towards Charles's ^im, and bade him to proceed in his business with private a ll alacrity. 1 As a further token of the warm feeling he entertained towards his chivalrous champion, he Montrose sent him the insignia of the Order of the Garter. 2 the Garter. That there was thoughtlessness in forgetting that the mere existence of a negotiation with the Covenanting Govern- ment would make .Scottish Royalists unwilling to compromise themselves by joining Montrose is not to be denied. Apart from this, however, the scheme is not deserving of censure, especially as it was known that Montrose was about to sail for Scotland from Sweden, and as rumour credited him with the possession of supplies and forces which would be sufficient to enable him to hold his own, even if not a single Scotsman de- clared in his favour. 3 • Charles II. to Montrose, Jan. §§, Carte's Orig. Letters, i. 356; Charles II. to Montrose, Jan. l§, Napier's Memoirs of Montrose, ii. 752. 2 lb. 753- 3 Proceedings of the Marquis of Montrose, Jan. gg; Nicholas to Ormond, undated ; Carte's Orig. Letters, ii. 345, 359. These exaggerated 1649 KINNOUL'S MISSION 1 89 In real earnest Montrose's position was by no means so satisfactory as was supposed in Jersey. In the preceding July, before he left the Netherlands, he learnt that the July'. Elector of Brandenburg — the great Elector as he Mrfthe* was afterwards called — who had promised to borrow n'anden / f° r mm I0 ) 000 rix-dollars, professed himself unable bur s- to obtain the money. 1 Sending off the Earl of Aug. Kinnoul to the Orkneys with about 100 Danish and Kinnoul . . J sent to the other recruits and with eighty officers - who were to neys- raise and train the islanders, Montrose addressed himself to tread the weary round of Courts profuse in promise Montrose an d slack in performance, where his breath would be northern the was ted in warning rulers exhausted by the wasting Courts. calamities of the long war from which they had but recently escaped, that they had a common interest in relieving from misfortune a disinherited king. Kinnoul indeed landed safely in the Orkneys, and was well received by his uncle, the Earl of Morton, who encouraged the islanders to enlist in the Royal cause. On the day Kinnoui's after his landing a Captain Hall arrived with a ship preparations. j a( j en w j^ agnas anc j ammunition sent by Argyle Hairs'" to his own clansmen in the West Highlands, all of shlp ' which he cheerfully made over to the representative of the King. In October, indeed, David Leslie hurried north- wards, but the Committee of Estates had no navy, and being unable to cross the Pentland Firth, Leslie contented Leslie in the himself with leaving a few garrisons behind him, and retired into winter quarters in the south. Beyond the reach of attack by an enemy without a fleet, the Orkneys formed an impregnable fortress for the Royalists, within reach accounts are later than the date of Charles's letters to Montrose, but the news may have arrived earlier ; and even before the end of November good news arrived in Jersey. See Berkeley to Hyde, *°* "^ Charles II, and Scotland, 3. 1 Montrose to the Elector of Brandenburg, July 22 ; the Elector to Montrose, July 27 ; Deeds of Montrose, App. iv. - Balfour, iii. 431. • I90 THE CONFERENCE AT BREDA chap. viii. of that Celtic part of Scotland where Montrose's earlier victories had been won. Unluckily for Montrose, Morton died in November, and a few days later Kinnoul followed him to the grave. 1 There was no one left in the Orkneys capable of taking up their work. Montrose himself met with but scanty success. From Hamburg he could gain nothing, and though the King Montrose in of Denmark, Frederick III., spoke him fair, he could not compel the Danish nobles, with whom all real authority lay, to disburse a penny. Towards the end of October Montrose was enlisting men secretly at Copenhagen, but with his scanty supply of money he failed to obtain more than 200 recruits.-' It was time for him to seek his fortunes elsewhere. Early in November, before leaving Denmark, he published a Declaration in which he demanded the aid of all who had ' any duty left them to God, their king, country, friends, homes, wives, children, or would change now, at least, the tyranny, violence and oppression of those rebels with the mild and innocent government of their ' just prince.' 3 About November 12 he arrived Montrose at at Gothenburg, where he hoped great things from I s ' Queen Christina. Christina, however, did but close her eyes to his presence, and though she sold him a small vessel, she had no further help to give. One friend at least Montrose found in John Maclear, a wealthy Scottish merchant settled at Gothenburg, who not only hospitably entertained him, but advanced him 60,000 rix-dollars, a sum equivalent to 13,500/., and also made over to him a considerable quantity of arms, forming half of those which had been begged from Chris- tina by Brentford in the spring, the other half having been destined for Ormond. 4 Before the end of the year, therefore, 1 Captain Gwynne's Memoirs, 83-88 ; Gordon's Geneal. Hist, of the Earls of Sutherland, 551 ; Balfour, iii. 433. 2 Deeds of Montrose, 259-266. Letter from the Swedish Resident, il>. 264, note 61, where 'in al stilhed' is mistranslated. 8 lb. 267. * There is frequent mention of these arms in the Carte MSS. 1650 MoXTKOSE AT KIRKWALL IQI Montrose had before him the prospect of reaching Scotland with a force not altogether contemptible, at least as a nucleus for the native troops which he expected to rally round him. On December 15 he made ready to sail on the morrow with Dec. 15. , two ships, 1 but some cause now unknown detained SSfatf* him, possibly his expectation of being joined by sailing. j j0r( j Eythin, who hoped to gather in Sweden a notable reinforcement to Montrose's numbers. On January 1650. IO ' Montrose was on board, this time with some Jan. 10. I30 o men. A strong frost, however, set in, and on Montrose ' t » > ) > on board the 1 8th his vessels were frozen in about two leagues with i 200 men. ' from the shore, and only regained the port with Jan. 18. some difficulty. 2 In the middle of February, there badTby" being still no news of Eythin, he succeeded in de- the ice. spatching his remaining force. He himself travelled through Norway, and sailing from Bergen reached Kirkwall at some time before March 23. It was thus under the sense of an impending but not very imminent danger that, on Winram's return on February 2, the Feb. 2. Scottish Committee of Estates addressed itself to 1 aTrTveTin consider their future relations with the young King. I Scotland. Eager as every party was to have the King amongst ( them, his sentiments were sufficiently known to give pause to all except the extreme Royalists. Charles had authorised Montrose ' to communicate and publish his letter to all whom he thought fit,' apparently in order to make it known that his very tenta- tive acceptance of the Scots' proposals did not imply the aban- donment of the true Royalists. 3 This letter, together with the 1 Montrose to Seafurth, Dec. 15, Deeds of Montrose, 274. 8 Ribbing to Torstenson, Dec. 16, Jan. II, 1618. ib. 511, 513, 514; Letter from Stockholm, [™0, Charles II. and Scotland, 5. This letter is the foundation of the paper which appears in Balfour, iii. 437, where the detention by the ice is mixed up with the story of the wreck of some of Montrose's vessels. As Ribbing's letters contain no information of any wreck, it is possible that it took place nearer the Orkneys, if it took place at all. ' 3 Charles II. to Montrose, Jan. Jf, Carte's Orig. Letters, i. 358. 192 THE CONFERENCE AT BREDA chap. viii. other letter to the Committee of Estates, 1 had fallen into the hands of a certain Wood, Montrose's agent in Paris, and by him both were translated into French and published. They afterwards appeared, on February 19, in an English re-transla- tion in a London newspaper, 2 and already copies in the French form were in the hands of members of the Committee of Estates when they met to discuss the steps to be taken in con- sequence of Winram's tidings. That meeting took place on February 21. So stormy was the debate that an Englishman, who reported the proceedings, Feb. 21. could only compare them ' to those in England in rf™ h e ting the reign of Holies and Stapleton.' Argyle, Lou- rfEstates? doun, and all the lords present, with the exception of Two Cassilis, were for sending commissioners to treat at parties. Breda without further question. Cassilis and John- Coramis- ston of Warriston were for merely repeating to b^sent ° Charles the demand that he should acknowledge the to Breda. legality of the existing Parliament, and should give a safe-conduct for commissioners. 3 In a committee, numbering nearly fifty, only nineteen votes were given for this last proposal. J Argyle's view of the case, therefore, prevailed. Then came a long struggle over the instructions to be given to the Com- missioners. Here, the party opposed to Argyle instruc- gained the upper hand, and it was resolved to re- quire of Charles the same absolute surrender which had been required of him at the Hague. 4 fin the selection of the Commissioners both parties were The Com- equally represented. Cassilis, Alexander Brodie, and repres"nt S Alexander Jaffray would have preferred no negotia- tes tion at a11 - Lothian, Winram, and Sir John Smith equally. were attached to Argyle, and would be ready, so far 1 See p. 187. 2 A Brief Relation, E, 593, 14. 3 See p. 183. 4 Balfour, iv. 2 ; a Letter from Scotland, Feb. 19 ; Intelligence from Scotland, Feb. 26 ; Milton St. P. 3, 4. Balfour gives the date of the meeting as Jan. 12, the figures having been transposed. That the Commissioners were taken equally from the two parties appears from the Life of Livingstone in the Wodrow Society's Select Biographies, L 172. 1649 THE SCOTTISH COMMISSIONERS IQ3 as it was possible, to make some concessions to the young King7\ They were, however, bound by their instructions to conclude nothing of their own authority. There were also Commissioners sent independently by the Kirk, sionersof three ministers, Livingstone, Wood, and Hutchinson being associated with Cassilis and Brodie, who sat in both bodies. As might have been expected, the negotiation between Charles and the Scots caused no slight alarm at Westminster ; all the more because it seemed probable that the De 4 c!' English Presbyterians, who had stood aloof from the wS£J£. Royalists in 1648, might throw in their lot with sfer - them in 1650. On December 25, upon the reading Dec. 25. of a letter from Strickland — doubtless containing ;S of information about Winram's conferences with the estates. Presbyterian exiles in Holland — Parliament ordered Dec. 28. the sequestration of the estates of Willoughby, w^ake' Massey, and Bunce. 1 On the 28th, a proposed Act gagement *° r compelling the whole population to take the compoi- engagement to be faithful to the Commonwealth, without King or House of Lords, was taken into consideration. 2 As originally drafted, the Act directed that the Courts of Law should refuse justice to all persons who had not taken the engagement. An attempt to exempt those who had constantly adhered to Parliament from its operation if they would promise to live peaceably was rejected, and the only amendment of importance admitted was one which saved women from persecution by the substitution of ' men ' for ' persons ' in the enacting clause. This amendment was moved by Marten in a speech in which he expressed a hope that ' though they baited the bull, they would not bait the cow too.' 3 Thus altered the Act became law on January 2. 1 C.J. vi. 337. ■ lb. vi. 339. 3 Merc. Pragm. E, 587, 8. The story is confirmed by the use of the word ' persons ' in an amendment rejected on the 28th, and by its occur- rence in every part of the Act except in the enacting words. VOL. I. 194 THE CONFERENCE AT BREDA chap. viii. The new Act, l as foolish as it was tyrannical, was admirably calculated, as Algernon Sidney had said of a former attempt to * force a similar test on the Council of State, to ' prove Jan. 2. a snare to every honest man, whilst every knave the S Acf.° would slip through it.' 2 How real was the alarm its tyran. felt by those who passed it, was shown by their vote A racter? ha " on J anuar y 8, recalling Cromwell to England in the g midst of his career of victory. 3 Further intelligence, Cromwell however, convinced them that the danger was less recalled. . .. - , , , , , , immediate than they supposed, and the order was tacitly allowed to remain unexecuted for a time. It was, in fact, perfectly clear that no Scottish invasion and no English insurrection need be feared till Charles and the Feb Scots had actually come to terms. On February 13 Charles Charles left Jersey. 4 On the 21st 5 he reached jerley, Beauvais, where he was met by his mother and Feb. 21. remained in consultation with her for nearly a androids fortnight. Henrietta Maria, now that her hope of wkhhls *" sn ass i st ance had been disappointed, was dis- mother at tinctlv in favour of an understanding with the Scots : Beauvais. but she placed too high a value on the English ^C- Cavaliers to make her willing to alienate them by extreme con- cessions to the Presbyterian clergy. She therefore urged Charles not to take the Covenant, abandon the Irish, or give up his own faithful supporters. When Henrietta Maria left Beauvais she had reason to believe that he intended to follow her advice. Even amongst those Englishmen who most eagerly pressed Charles to agree with the Scots, there were few, if any, who Feeling at thought otherwise than the Queen. The Earl of his Court. Cleveland threatened to cane any one who called him a Presbyterian. 7 In truth not a man at Charles's Court 1 An Act for Subscribing the Engagement, E, 1,060, No. 77. 2 See p. 5. s C.J. vi. 344. 4 Trethewy's Intelligence, Clarendon AISS. ii. No. 254. 5 Letter from Paris, f^gf 7 ' Charles II. and Scotland, 15. *' Henrietta Maria to Charles II., May i|, id. ic6. 7 Watson to Edgeman, Apiil |=, ib. 60. 1650 ENGLISH FEELING 195 contemplated a straightforward acceptance of any terms likely to be advanced by the Scots. The only point on which his advisers differed was that some of them counselled him to make promises which he had no intention of performing, whilst others urged him summarily to reject the monstrous claim of his northern subjects to force upon Englishmen an uncongenial religion. When, on March 16, Charles arrived at Breda, 1 he had leisure before giving audience to the Scottish Commissioners March 16. to take into consideration the proposals of his >Br^d!r at partisans in England. One report, at least, that March 18 °f Colonel Keane, his agent for London and the He re- Western Counties, was submitted to him on the 18th, Keane's and it is probable that advices from other agents report. reached him about the same time. The chief London London Royalists, it seemed, urged a union with Royalists. Montrose rather than with 'the contrary faction,' suggested the appointment of a special agent in London, and recommended that a private assurance of liberty of conscience should be given to the Catholics. They also asked that they might themselves be allowed to take the engagement without prejudice to their loyalty to the King, as it would be necessary for them to do so ' for their preservation in order to his service.' In Cornwall the Arundells asked that Sir Richard Comish Grenvile might be sent to Scilly with 1,000 foot and 300 horse. If the King were to land in some other part of England, and the Parliamentary forces had been with- drawn from Cornwall, Grenvile, if he brought with him a sufficient quantity of arms, would not only be able to secure the county, but would be joined by 3,000 foot and 200 horse ready to follow him in any direction. A further force of 4,000 foot and 1,000 horse would be provided by Devon, Somerset, Hants, and Dorset. An attempt was to be made to secure the co-operation of the Levellers, 2 who, ever since 1 Letter from Breda, March §g, Charles II. and Scotland, 39. 2 Colonel Keane's Memorial, March £§, ib. 36. Compare T. Coke's Confession, Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii. App. i. 577. o 2 *• I96 THE CONFERENCE AT BREDA chap. viii. Lilburne's trial, had been deeply dissatisfied with the Govern- ment of the Commonwealth, and had already made frequent overtures to the King. 1 Whatever Charles may have thought of the prospect of a rising in England, he at least showed what were his feelings March towards Montrose. On March 19 he signed a Warrants warrant appointing Eythin Montrose's lieutenant- to.Eythin. general, and on the following day he enlarged Eythin's powers, giving him full authority to command in case of Montrose's absence. 2 Nor was it to Montrose and the English Cavaliers alone that Charles was looking for help. In March, Meynell, the agent whom he had unavowedly sent to Rome in the ap^iesto preceding summer, 3 had, by his orders, been urging the ope, p p e innocent X. to impress upon the whole Catholic world the duty of assisting the young King to recover his throne. 4 About the same time Charles himself applied to the Duke of Lorraine, as his father had done before, to the . Duke of begging him to lead an army into England. On the 1 duke's refusal, the hopes of the exile were placed on Von Karpfen, formerly a general in the service of the Landgrave of Hesse, who had engaged to levy 4,000 men in his service, and who was now sent to extract money from the impoverished German princes assembled in Diet at Nuremberg. German In the absence of Von Karpfen, overtures were princes, entertained from Count Waldemar, a son of Count Christian IV. of Denmark by a morganatic marriage, waldemar. who offered to raise at least 8,000 men if 50,000/. could be placed in his hands. .. . Such were the schemes with which Charles's head March 25. The Scot-' was full, when, on March 25, he received from the Scottish Commissioners a complete statement of their 1 Coke's Confession, Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii. App. i. 591. 2 Warrants, March 19, 20, Charles II. and Scotland, 38, 39. * See p. 70. 4 Many of Meynell's letters are printed in the Clarendon State Papers. 1650 EXORBITANT DEMANDS 197 terms. As in the preceding year, they asked him to swear to the two Covenants, to assent to Acts establishing the Presby- terian system in England and Ireland, to observe the ofthe" S Presbyterian discipline in his own person and house- sioner" of hold, and to engage never to make opposition thereto, went" Secondly, he was to acknowledge the legality of the late sessions of the Scottish Parliament, and to agree that all civil matters in Scotland should be determined by the parlia- ments of that kingdom, and matters ecclesiastical by the general assemblies of the Kirk. Finally, he was to put in operation all Acts made 'against the liberty or toleration of the Popish religion ' in any of his dominions, and to make void all treaties contrary to those Acts, besides recalling all declarations issued in his name, and making void all commissions issued by himself, in case that such declarations or commissions were prejudicial to the Covenant. In other words, he was to abandon both Ormond and Montrose. Even if Charles bowed himself under the yoke, he was to receive no promise of armed assistance. All that the Commissioners had to say on this head was that they were confident that, if their proposals were accepted, God would ' shine upon his counsels and affairs.' Of these demands the first alone was repeated by the Com- missioners of the Kirk, as the only one dealing with purely Demands ecclesiastical matters, but they added a warning against ofthe the sin of the young King in 'granting to the Irish sioners of rebels the liberty of the Popish religion,' and in giving a commission ' to that justly excommunicate rebel, James Graham, to raise new troubles ' in Scotland. ' We may well believe that, on listening to these outrageous demands, Charles's thoughts turned to Montrose. It is said Charles tnat he now intended to carry out a plan formed at •^V* Beauvais, and to offer — if the Commissioners refused joining ' Montrose. to modify their terms— to take shipping to plead his cause in person at Edinburgh. Once on board ship, he was to 1 The Commissioners of Parliament to Charles II., -J£%f ; The Commissioners of the Kirk to Charles TI., Tp jf l Clar. St. P. ii. App. Ii. liii. I9« THE CONFERENCE AT BREDA chap. viii. direct his course — not to Leith, but to some northern port in which he would be under the protection of Montrose. 1 Closely connected with Montrose's preparations for a descent in Scotland were the plans for a rising of the English Cavaliers. March 29. On March 29 Charles instructed Keane to urge the tionsto London Royalists to collect money for his service. Keane. Cavaliers might take the engagement without forfeit- ing their character for loyalty, and those of them who were Catholics were to be promised liberty of conscience. The Cornishmen were to be told that arms and ammunition had been despatched to Scilly, and they were, therefore, to be in readiness to seize Pendennis, Plymouth, and even Weymouth. Even the discontented Levellers were to be encouraged to declare for the King. 2 Four days later Charles drafted a letter for the Queen of Sweden, in which he assured her that he had little hope of being able to satisfy the demands of the Scots, and begged her a dmft 2 ' to do her uttermost to support Montrose and Eythin. Queen Though the letter was never sent, it is none the less Christina. s ig n i nca tive of the thoughts of the writer. 3 On April 5 a letter s ' a letter actually sent by Charles to the young Lord to Lord Napier tells the same tale. " I pray," he wrote, " con- tinue your assistance to the Marquis of Montrose." " It is certain," observed one who had his eye on the game, "some good news from Montrose ... would soon spoil the treaty." 4 For all that, Charles came to no open breach with the Com- missioners. He indeed accentuated his desire to come to an 1 Letter from Breda, *g£f 8 , Charles II. and Scotland, 45- The newswriter is corroborated by Livingstone's language, "It is like the King come to Scotland whether we agree or not. " Livingstone to Johnston ofWarriston, ~~, Deeds of Montrose, 300. 2 Answer to P Colonel Keane's Paper, S-jgff* , Charles II. and Scot- land, 48. 8 Charles II. to Christina, Draft, Apiil & id. 5°- 4 Letter from Breda, April £, id. 51 ; Charles II. to Napier, April & ; Napier's Memoirs of Montrose, ii. 75^- 1650 CHARLES IN THE TOILS 199 understanding with them by ordering their chief opponents, Nicholas and Hopton, to absent themselves from the Council Charles Table, whilst Hamilton, Newcastle, and Buckingham, continues all of them supporters of an understanding with the tion with ' Scots, were nominated Privy Councillors and entrusted with the conduct of the negotiation. 1 The Com- missioners were approached privately in the hope that they would agree to a modification of their terms. Charles indeed Proposal na d reason to believe that, but for their instructions, Mo e nTos°e y at least three of them woultl g ladl >' comply with his in Ireland, wishes. They themselves suggested that Montrose, whose arrival in the Orkneys was now known in Holland, should be employed against Cromwell in Ireland.-' Under these circumstances the Prince of Orange offered his mediation. Coming to Breda on the 8th he urged the Com- missioners to yield to a compromise. Charles was to Mediation accept the Presbyterian system in Scotland and to Prince of approve of the taking of the Covenant in England by Orange. those who voluntarily came forward to do so. He was also — not indeed to assent to the Bills establishing Presby- terianism in England which his father had rejected, but to accept such Bills as might be presented to him with the same object by a Parliament freely elected after his restoration. 3 To this reasonable compromise the Commissioners refused to listen. Even such of them who were contented to accept Charles's assent to Bills hereafter to be presented, wished those Bills to be prepared by the existing Parliament reinforced by the ad- mission of the Presbyterian members excluded by Pride's Purge. 4 No Scottish Presbyterian could be brought to admit that the religion of England must be left to the decision of Englishmen themselves. 1 Nicholas to Ormond, April ~ , May T 2 5 , Carte's Orig. Letters, i. 375, 378. ■ Letter from 'Breda, April -£, Charles IT. and Scotland, 51. * See two undated papers published by Dr. Wijnne, De Geschillen, frc, 93, 114 ; and Charlts II. and Scotland, 55, 56. 4 See Coke's examination, Hist. AISS. Cow. Rep. xiii. App. i. 596. 200 THE CONFERENCE AT BREDA chap. vill. Vexed at the stubbornness of the Commissioners the Prince of Orange abandoned his self-imposed task. When he left April ii. Breda on the nth 'he told them plainly that he its failure, thought they intended little peace, and would so declare it to the world on behalf of his brother, to whom, he added, he would be no mediator for a dishonourable peace, whatsoever were his hazard.' So irritated were Charles's con- fidants that ' scarce one would profess himself a Presbyterian.' In vain Lothian and Lauderdale whispered ' up and down that the Covenant would not be pressed.' When Newcastle visited Cassilis to seek an explanation of these words, all that he could draw from him was a pious rebuke ' for his customary swearing.' l y The less Charles was able to count on Presbyterian Scotland the more inclined was he to rely on the English Cavaliers. Charles The notion of sending a foreign army to form a sendinga rallying point for their risings had for some time arm' S to occupied his mind. 2 Finding it still hopeless to England. gain the co-operation of the Duke of Lorraine, he was anxiously expecting the result of Von Karpfen's mission to Nuremberg, and in the meanwhile opened a negotiation with some merchants of Amsterdam for the loan of A loan proposed on the 50,000/. which had been required by Count of the Sciiiy Waldemar for his expenses in raising an army for the invasion of England. Charles offered the Scilly Isles as a security for the repayment of the money. By the middle of April it was evident that there was small probability of these schemes ending otherwise than in failure. At the same time Charles was warned by Bunce I Approach- ' ing failure that the Presbyterian Londoners would keep back of Charles's , . ... . r , projects. their contributions unless they were assured of Bunce's Charles's intention to co-operate with the Presby- waming. t erian Scots and not with Montrose and the English Cavaliers. 3 Under these discouraging circumstances Charles was the 1 Watson to Edgeman, April J|, Charles II. and Scotland. 2 See p. 196. 8 Coke's Confession, Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii. App. i. 594 ; Peti- 1650 A TEMPTING SUGGESTION 201 more ready to listen to a suggestion made by some of the April i 4 . Commissioners which would at least postpone the a su g - evil day when he would be compelled to break with gestion of . r the Com- his supporters in England. " If in any particular," nussioners. they wrote on the 15th, "our answers be not fully satisfactory to his Majesty's desires, we humbly conceive it more expedient that his Majesty, putting himself on the affec- tio,ns of his people, should refer them to his Parliament, where his Royal presence will obtain more than we are warranted to grant." l Though two out of the three signatures appended to this letter were those of members of the austere party, there is some reason for thinking that the suggestion emanated from _ Argyle. His special agent, Will Murray, had re- Murray's cently arrived at Breda, charged to warn Charles against too close a dependence on the Hamiltons, and to offer him the hand of Argyle's own daughter, Ann Campbell, as a means of strengthening his interest in Scotland. What is more likely than that Argyle should also have wished to transfer the negotiation itself to. Edinburgh, where his own influence would be better felt ? 2 The temptation to procrastinate was too alluring tempted to be readily dismissed from Charles's mind. Yet comp y. k aser ar g Umen t s urged him in the same direction. tion of Von Karpfen, Declaration of Charles II., Charles II. and Scotland, 92, 94. See also Letters from Breda, ^~^", May T 9 g, Charles II. and Scotland, 77, 88. The affair of the Scilly Isles is treated of in a paper printed by Dr. Wijnne, Geschillen, &>c, 106 ; but we learn from Coke's confession that the matter had been under consideration for some time. See also Instructions to Berkeley concerning the business of Scilly, Carte MSS. cxxx. fol. 222. Count Waldemar was at Breda on April £, Charles II. and Scotland, 54. 1 Cassilis, Lothian, and Jaffray to the Prince of Orange, April ||, ib. 67. 1 We do not know the day on which Murray arrived at Breda, but Graymond, writing on April ^, notices that he was then about to leave Scotland {Harl. MSS. 4, 551, fol. 493). The marriage scheme is con- nected with him in Livingstone's Life (Wodrow Soc. Select Biographies, i. 170). See also letters from the Hague, May |g, Charles II. and Scot- land, 114, and Nicholas to Hatton, May ^, Nicholas Papers, i. 172. 202 THE CONFERENCE AT BREDA chap. viii. The Duke of Lorraine, the Queen of Sweden, and the Prince of Orange are said to have combined in urging him to promise anything with the direct intention of breaking his word when- ever he was strong enough to do it with impunity. ' That time, he may well have thought, would not be long postponed, perhaps only till he had secured the opportunity of showing himself to his Scottish subjects. Not without hesitation, Charles yielded to the tempters. On April 17 he made one more appeal to the Commissioners, \prii j De ggi n g tnat there might be ' a reconciliation of all Charles parties, and a union of them in his Majesty's service,' again asks for con- and that ' the Lords and others of the late engage- ment might be restored to their votes in Parliament and all other capacities for public trusts in that kingdom, and that all censures, civil and ecclesiastical, be taken off them.' 2 Whatever else the Commissioners might concede to Charles's Refusal of P ersona l wishes, they refused to concede that, 3 and the Scots. in the course of the day Charles gave way almost Charles entirely. The only point on which he made any gives way. difficulty was tnatj though he was willing to promise to put in execution the penal laws against the Roman Catholics, he objected to annul treaties made with them ; that is to say, Ormond's treaty in which, as far as Ireland was con- cerned, the Roman Catholics were exempted from the opera- tion of those laws. 4 As might have been expected, the Parliamentary Com- missioners took umbrage at Charles's omission of the words The con- condemning the Irish Treaty. He struggled hard, of the aUon an d for a few days he even threatened to throw up Treaty tne wn °l e negotiation rather than submit. 5 As the urged. end of April drew nigh, his prospect of receiving 1 Coke's Confession, Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii. App. i. 595 ; Letter from Breda, -£~f , May £ ; Charles II. and Scotland, 77, 80. 2 His Majesty's Demands, April Af, Clar. St. P. ii. App. lv. 3 The Scottish Commissioners' Answers, undated, ib. ii. App. Ivi. 4 Reply of Charles II., April if, Clarendon MSS. ii. No. 291. 6 Dean King to Ormond, Oct. 15, Charles II. and Scotland, 140. 1650 CHARLES CAPITULATES 203 help from other quarters than Scotland grew desperate. Von Karpfen arrived with information that no money was to be I expected from the German princes, whilst the negotiation for the mortgage of the Scilly Isles was no nearer a conclusion than it had been at the beginning of the month. Count Waldemar withdrew his offer to raise an army and returned to A rii 2 8 Germany. 1 Accordingly, a few days before the end a P ri«te of the month, Charles, in a private note placed in engagement ,._,... . ., on the Irish the custody of Cassihs, promised to insert the re- rea y * quired form of words after his landing in Scotland, if the Parliament should require him so to do. 2 That he should have fancied for a moment that a Scottish Parliament could be induced to pass over his alliance with Irish Catholics is unanswerable evidence of his confidence that the party of the Kirk would melt away in his presence. The Commissioners now professed themselves satisfied, and April 29. on the 2 9 th ^ey formally invited Charles to intuecfto Scotland. The Engagers, they said, would be Scotland. admitted to the enjoyment of their personal rights, though it might be that Parliament would take exception to the return of some of them. On this point, however, they assured Charles that his presence and desires would have great weight. 3 Fortified by these assurances, Charles, on May i, 4 appended his signature to the draft of an a draft ' agreement which usually goes by the name of the agreement. f reat y Q f Bred a. 5 Even now he was not left in o\th r dis° f peace. Between him and the Commissioners of cussed. tne K j rk there was st [\\ a ] on g wra ngle upon the > Letter from Paris, A jg^ 4 , Charles II. and Scotland, 77. 2 Clar. St. P. ii. App. lviii., note. 1 Paper of Invitation, ^~p, ib. * This is the date given m J. P.'s letter of May £, Charles II. and Scotland, 83. For the date of May 3, usually given, see ib. 85, note 1. & The official phrase at the time is the Treaty at Breda, meaning the whole negotiation carried on there, and its final result signed on board ship off Heligoland. 204 THE CONFERENCE AT BREDA chap. viii. form of the oath by which he was to signify his acceptance of the Covenant 1 That Charles was now playing a double game is beyond dispute. He had but lately assured Nicholas that he Charles would never consent to anything prejudicial to §S? a the Irish Treaty. 2 Even now he found it hard to game. dissemble, and those about him had no difficulty in divining his true feelings. There were bickerings between him and the Commissioners on the subject of his English chaplains, whose services he wished to retain in Scotland, and on one occasion he is said to have broken out ' into a great passion and bitter execration.' " It is easy to see," continues the reporter of this scene, " that the Scots' edge is much taken off from him. They say they find nothing but vanity and lightness in him, and that he never will prove a strenuous in will defender of their faith ; and 'tis evident still that he Charles 1 perfectly hates them, and neither of them can so CommTs- dissemble it but each other knows it ; and 'tis a sioners. matter of pleasant observation to see how they endeavour to cheat and cozen each other. The King strokes them till he can get into the saddle, and then he will make them feel his spurs for all their old jade's tricks they have played his father and for their present restiveness, and they know it, and therefore will not agree that he shall back them with his heels armed. They hate the thing monarchy, but they must have the name of it, and they care not for the person of the man but his relations. 3 They must make a property of him ; no other will serve them to stalk their ends by." 4 It was an ill-natured, but probably fairly accurate, of the view of the situation. To Charles's cavalier sup- porters, ignorant of his secret intentions and too honest to approve them even if they had been admitted to his 1 The Commissioners of the Kirk to Charles II., A jgJ* 3 , May ±§, Clar. St. P. ii., App. Ivii. lxii. 2 Nicholas to Ormond, May T 2 5 , Carte's Orig. Letters, i. 378. 3 I.e. his being the representative of the monarchical idea. 4 Letter from Breda, May fe Charles II. and Scotland, 80. 1650 CAVALIERS INDIGNANT 205 confidence, this bowing down to the Presbyterian idol was but as gall and wormwood. " Our religion," wrote one of them, " is gone, and within few days is expected the funeral of our liturgy which is dead already. . . . To call the greatest abetter of this whole business yet a Presbyterian, breeds a mortal quarrel, so much ashamed are they of themselves." l Even Henrietta Charles's own mother was shocked by his promise to accept the Covenant. She told him that though she 1 would never cease to love him as a son, she would never again **^ be his political adviser. 2 1 Watson to Edgeman, May ^, Charles II. and Scotland, 81. See also Hatton to Nicholas, May ££, Nicholas Papers, i. 173. 2 Henrietta Maria to Charles, ib. 106. 206 CHAPTER IX THE LAST CAMPAIGN OF MONTROSE Charles was too thoroughly disgusted with the Covenanters to lose sight of Montrose. There can be no doubt that before he signed the draft agreement, he had received An indem- ° . ' , nityfor assurances that it Montrose would lay down his arms, not only he and his troops, but the Scottish Royalists in Holland should receive complete indemnity. 1 Though the evidence is far from complete, there are reasons for thinking that these assurances were given, not by the official commissioners, but by Will Murray acting as Argyle's agent. 2 It seems to have been Charles's intention to employ for his Montrose against the English, probably to supply emp oyment. ^ pi ace f c oun t Waldemar in the projected land- ing on the East Coast. 3 Sir William Fleming, the confidential agent of the Engagers, was to be sent to acquaint Montrose with the arrangement ; but he was directed to consult Murray on certain points, a course which would hardly have been taken unless Argyle had been privy to the transaction. 4 1 Long's Notes, May ^, Charles II. and Scotland, 126. On May ^ Charles told his mother that he had made provision for the royal party. J. P. to - ? ib. 86. 2 For a discussion on Argyle's share in the matter, see Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1894, p. 154. 3 On May ■£-, Charles instructed Sir W. Fleming to assure Montrose that ' we shall shortly have an honourable employment for him in our service against the rebels in England. ' He can hardly have intended to subordinate Montrose to Leslie. 4 It is possible that Argyle had agreed to the employment of Montrose in Ireland, and that Charles hoped to obtain his assent to his employ- 1650 FLEMING'S MISSION 207 On May 3, Charles instructed Fleming to inform Montrose of the reasons which had induced him to accept the terms of the Covenanters. The European powers were un- Fiemings willing or unable to assist him. He had been dis- appointed in his hopes from Ireland, and the force which Mpntrose had brought across the sea was, through no fault of his own, far smaller than had been expected. More- over, even if Montrose succeeded in gaining the upper hand, it would only drive the Covenanters into the arms of the English rebels. If Montrose would now disband his men and leave the kingdom, he had hopes ' upon good grounds ' to ' be able in a little time to make his peace in Scotland.' Fleming also carried two letters addressed to Montrose, ordering him to carry the substance of these instructions into effect. 1 On May 8, Charles wrote to the Scottish Parliament, requesting that suitable conditions might be made for the disbandment of Montrose's troops. 2 It is no wonder that the young man's mind misgave him. It might be that these elaborate arrangements had, after all, been made in vain, and that the gulf between Mont- Hesitation rose and the Covenanters was too wide to be bridged over. It was not impossible that 'the prevailing party now in Scotland ' had no intention of accepting the con- cessions made to them, and had only entered on the negotiation at Breda in order to wrest Montrose's arms out of his hands. If that appeared to Fleming to be the case, he was, as he was told by fresh instructions delivered to him on the 9th, to see that Montrose continued on his guard. So, too, if the Scottish Royalists thought it desirable that he should remain armed, they were to be encouraged to place themselves under his orders. If, however, Montrose did lay down arms — the con- dition, though not expressed, is plainly intended — Fleming was, meat in England. See Letter from Breda, April & Charles If. and Scotland, 65. 1 Instructions to Fleming, May T ^, { z ; Charles to Montrose, May A 5. ; Wigton Papers, in Maitland Club Miscellany, ii. 472. 1 Charles to the Scottish Parliament, May T H 5 , ib. ii. 478. 208 THE LAST CAMPAIGN OF MONTROSE chap. ix. if Montrose proved to have a considerable force, to do his best, with the advice of Murray, ' to get them not to be disbanded.' If the men were few ' they might be disbanded, but if possible entertained in other troops,' evidently in the Scottish service. There was— it may be supposed — to be an understanding with Argyle that the men might be made useful for the further -^ designs with the execution of which Charles hoped to entrust ^Montrose. 1 Fleming's well-intended mission was all too late to effect the object for which it was designed. It was as easy to check 7 March, a cannon ball in its course as to hold back Montrose. Montrose when Montrose reached the Orkneys in March, he Orkneys. learned, if he did not know it before, that Kinnoul had died in November, leaving no one to carry on his task of bringing the levies of the islands under military discipline. It ., . was, however, the letter written by the King from March 23. J ° He receives Jersey, 2 which cut him to the heart. Announcing letterfrom Charles's intention to treat with the Covenanters, jersey. an( j ass jg n i n g t Montrose the task of frightening them into the acceptance of reasonable conditions, it in reality landed him in a situation from which there was no escape. Montrose was too experienced a soldier not to be aware that few, if any, of the professing Royalists of Scotland would rally round the King's standard in the hands of a man whom the King might at any moment disavow. When, therefore, Montrose sat down on March 26 to reply to the letter which had reached him three days before, he was March 26. weighed down by visible emotion. " I have received," bst n ietter' s ^ e wrote ^th touching dignity, " your Majesty's of to Charles. t he 1 2 th of January, together with that mark of your 1 Further instructions to Sir W. Fleming, May £, Wigton Papers, Maitland Club Miscellany, ii. 479. It will be observed that it is only on the last point that Murray was to be consulted, not on the possible retention of an armed force by Montrose. I believe that the explanation I have given to it is the true one, but the language is obscure. It must be remembered that Charles gave verbal instructions to Fleming, who would be able to clear up all doubtful points. " See p. 187. .I.,* , f *~r,™ 1650 A LAST LETTER 209 Majesty's favour wherewithal you have been pleased to honour me, 1 for which I can make your Majesty no other humble acknowledgment, but with the more alacrity and bensell 2 abandon still my life to search my death for the interests of your Majesty's honour and service, with that integrity and dearness a.9 your Majesty and all the world shall see that it is not your fortunes in you, but your Majesty, in whatsomever fortunes, that I make sacred to serve. ... If I may make bold to let fall to your Majesty a part of my humble thoughts, it should be my wish and humble desires your Majesty would be pleased, from all former experiences, to have a serious eye, now at last, upon the too open crafts are used against you chiefly in this conjuncture, and that it would please your Majesty to be so just to yourself as ere you make a resolve upon your affairs or your person, your Majesty may be wisely pleased to hear the zealous opinions of your faithful servants who have nothing in their hearts, nor before their eyes, but the joy of your Majesty's prosperity and greatness." 3 Having written these words of warning, the last ever addressed by him to his Sovereign, Montrose turned to his great enterprise as calmly as if he had known nothing of the Montrose's malign influences which threatened to blast his career, chances. j t j s true j.]^ a p ar t f rom th e dangers revealed in Charles's letter, his prospects might seem hopeful even to one less sanguine than himself. The Act of Classes and the ex- clusiveness of the Kirk party had irritated considerable numbers of the Lowland gentry, to whom Montrose had despatched Colonel Sibbald — his faithful companion in his first hazardous ride out of England — to warn them to be ready for his coming. Further north, the new Marquis of Huntly — the Lord Lewis Gordon of Montrose's earlier campaign — promised to bring with him the Gordon following. Montrose's greatest danger lay in Leslie's disciplined army, a very different body of men from flie^alf^Tne d bu r g hers and peasants who had fallen 1 The Order of the Garter. 2 I.e. force or vigour. 3 Montrose to Charles II., ^ruy, Charles II. and Scotland, 42. VOL. I. ** 2IO THE LAST CAMPAIGN OF MONTROSE chap. ix. before his sword at Tippermuir and Kilsyth. Yet even here hope was not wanting. Middleton, who had commanded the horse in Hamilton's expedition, was in ill odour with the Kirk, and he now professed to have such influence over Leslie's cavalry that he could bring them over to the Royal cause. 1 If Middleton was as good as his word, Leslie would be disarmed, and all Scotland would be at Montrose's feet. For Montrose, therefore, the one thing needful was to find a district in the Highlands where he could be safe from the attack of disciplined cavalry till Middleton's entice- Stateofthe ^ . ' . northern ments had time to work. Such a district might seem to be offered him by the Mackenzies, who spread over the western coast from Kintail on the south to the borders of Assynt on the north. That the Macleods of Assynt would declare in his favour was at that time expected by Montrose, and further north were the Mackays, whose chief, Lord Reay, was an undoubted Royalist. Nor did Montrose entertain any doubt that the Mackenzies could be trusted, as their chief, Seaforth — uncertain as his allegiance had been in the former war — had given Montrose every possible assurance of fidelity, though in his safe retirement in Holland he avoided running any personal risk in the approaching campaign. His brother, however, Thomas Mackenzie of Pluscardine, who had taken a leading part in the Royalist insurrection of the preceding year, 2 had remained in Scotland, and was probably expected to supply the place of the chief. On April 9, Montrose gave orders to his old adversary Hurry — who, with his usual readiness to attach himself indis- Aprii 9 . criminately to either side, was now serving as his SrderTto * Major-General — to conduct part of the forces to the Hurry. mainland. Hurry landed at Thurso, whence he was to make his way as rapidly as possible to the Ord of Caithness, » " Middleton . . . can take off the most part of all their horse, to go along with him any way that he pleases to command them, but chiefly in the King's service." Ogilvy of Powrie to Montrose, March 3, Deeds of Montrose, 286-7. Compare May to Charles, March 30. Charles II. and Scotland, 49. * See p. 63 OrxL of CaithjiSAS If O R T H SEA V THE NORTH. OF SCOTLAND "Mtmavxe's March thxLS — ■ - Fltxcea un*lerLiji4$£i.thu£, Tcnujtif garrutanjed, "by SuthrrlaruT * FLuxs uruixrlmttLthi garruiotLed, by LeMie i?_ London. Wkm York Sc Somhay 1650 MONTROSE ON THE MAINLAND 211 a high hill overhanging the sea, over the precipices of which lay the only track by which an advancing army could make its way into Sutherland, 1 a district held for the Covenanters by the Hurry in Earl of Sutherland. Hurry on the way captured Caithness. Dunbeath Castle, which was sacked by his men contrary to the terms of the capitulation. 2 Then pushing rapidly on he seized the important position of the Ord, where after no long delay he was joined by Montrose himself. Montrose, having been compelled to leave parties of his followers behind to hold Dunbeath Castle and to raise troops „ . in Caithness, now found himself at the head of He is ' joined by about 40 mounted officers and some 1,200 footmen, of whom about 450 were Danes or Germans, and the remainder peasants from the Orkneys. Above him waved the standard of the King, of the dead King rather than of the living one. It was ' of black damask with three pair of hands folded in each other,' representing doubtless those of the three kingdoms, ' and on each side of them three hands and naked arms out of a cloud with swords drawn.' To the foot was designed a standard of black taffety, in the middle of which was a man's head 'bleeding as if cut off from a body.' Montrose's own characteristic device showed a lion about to spring across a rocky chasm, with the motto of Nil Medium. No mean intrigue, no thought of personal interest lurked in that gallant heart. Once over the Ord, Montrose 3 pushed on along the coast till he was confronted by the works of Dunrobin Castle, 1 Order to Hurry, April 9, Deeds of Montrose, 294. 2 Gordon of Sallagh's Continuation 0/ the Geneal. Hist, of the Earls of Sutherland, 552. So far from Gordon's political bias making him • a doubtful authority ' on the charge of plundering, as the editors of the Deeds of Montrose suggest (297, note 32), the language of Gray- mond's despatch oi^~f o (Harl. MSS. 4,551, fol. 504) is far stronger than his. 3 The only contemporary accounts of the movements which follow are those of Gordon of Sallagh, noticed above, and a despatch, perhaps Strachan's, on which is based an account printed in Balfour's Anna/s (Hist. Works, iv. 8). For these and for a criticism of the evidence on P 2 212 THE LAST CAMPAIGN OF MONTROSE chap. ix. garrisoned by Sutherland's tenants, as were also the neighbour- ing fortresses of Skelbo, Skibo and Dornoch. To Montrose ° . in Suther- avoid these garrisons, as well as those which had been placed in Brahan Castle and Cromarty by Leslie, Montrose turned aside up Strath Fleet, making his way H m k s s l ow ty towards Strath Oykell, where he might expect for Strath to receive intelligence that Pluscardine and the Mackenzies were ready to welcome him to their glens. Pluscardine was far away on the lands of the abbey l from which he derived his title, 2 and without him the Mackenzies showed no signs of a disposition to rise. Was it merely that Pluscardine, having made his peace with the Covenanting Government, was unwilling to endanger his own safety, or was it that Seaforth himself had sent secret orders to his clansmen to keep aloof from Montrose ? Not a particle of evidence exists on the subject, but from all that is known of Seaforth's character, it seems probable that he would prefer a return to Scotland as the result of an agreement between Charles and the Covenanting Government, to a hazardous enterprise which would expose him to the implacable hostility of the latter. (Whatever the explanation may be, Montrose's ruin can be indirectly traced to Charles's resolution to play fast and loose with diplomacy and war, The defection of the Mackenzies forced Montrose back upon the eastern coast where cavalry charges were possible, and where therefore his deficiency in that arm would expose him to almost certain destruction^} No one knew better than the victor of Philiphaugh how formidable a body of disciplined cavalry was against Montrose's infantry. When therefore Leslie heard of Montrose's A rendezvous landing, he did not content himself with ordering a general rendezvous at Brechin on April 25. He also which this account of the battle is based, I would refer my readers to an article in the Edinburgh Review for January 1894. 1 A few miles from Elgin. 2 When Montrose was led as a prisoner through that part of the country Pluscardine came to greet him. 1650 LIEUTENANT-COLONEL STRACHAN 213 gave special directions to Lieutenant- Colonel Strachan, who was nearer the scene of action, l to push rapidly forwards and to gather round him the garrisons — almost entirely composed of cavalry — of the posts occupied by the Covenanters in the neighbourhood of the Dornoch Firth. Strachan indeed was admirably fitted for the work on hand. He had served as a Major in the English army against Hamilton in 1648, and had been entrusted by Cromwell with the message to Argyle which resulted in their combination against the Engagers. 2 He had been the first to bring to 1649. Edinburgh the news of the execution of Charles I. 3 strachan' He not unnaturally became an object of suspicion to March"? 1, tne commission of the Kirk, which, on February 5, and allowed 1640, directed a committee to examine the scandals to sign the // . •,,,,, Covenant, arising from his conduct. It was not till March 14 that, after considerable discussion, he was allowed to sign the League and Covenant and admitted to the Presbyterian fold. 4 Whatever may have been Strachan's hesitation on points of discipline, on points of practice he counted amongst the strictest of Presbyterian zealots. He would have the State position in and army purged of all malignants and Engagers, army. an ^ ^ ^^ f fa e L orc [ done by the godly alone. 5 1 We do not know where Strachan was posted, but it is certain, as the editors of the Deeds of Montrose (p. 303, note 45) remark, that he cannot have started with Leslie from Edinburgh so as to reach Brechin on the 25th, and yet have fought at Carbisdale on the 27th. 2 Life of Blair, 206. 3 Graymond to Biienne, Feb. £}, Harl. MSS. 4.55 1 . f °l- 3°2. See P- IS- 4 Minutes of the Commission of the General Assembly, Feb. 8, March 1, X, 13, 14, 1649. 5 For Strachan's views, see his letter published in the Deeds of Mont- rose, 302. The date is torn away, but is given in Wodrow's Index as June 3. The editors, seeing that June 3, 1650, is obviously impossible, assign it to Jan. 3, 1650, which is also impossible, as it is addressed to Guthrie as minister of Lauder, from which place he removed to Stirling in November 1649. I believe the real date to have been June 3, 1649. This view is confirmed by Strachan's language about purging the army, in 214 THE LAST CAMPAIGN OF MONTROSE chap. ix. Though accepted by the Kirk, he got into difficulties with Leslie, who objected to allow a companion of sectaries to serve in his ranks. Leslie's scruples, however, gave way before the arguments of Mungo Law, one of the notable preachers of the day, who told him that if he cashiered Strachan he 'would want the prayers of 10,000 of the saints and godly of Edinburgh.' * Not long afterwards the part taken by Strachan in the dispersal of Pluscardine's forces at Balvenie gave him an assured position. Leslie now knew his man. It might be doubtful whether Strachan could be trusted to fight against the English. It was certain that he could be trusted to fight against Montrose. When, therefore, on the morning of April 27, a Council of War at which Strachan and the Earl of Sutherland were l6so present was held at Tain, it was resolved that a council of Sutherland and his followers should be sent off to WaratTain. guard their own district in Montrose's rear, and to pre- vent him from receiving reinforcements from the extreme north. The debate then turned on the question whether it was desirable to march at once with the remainder of the troops against Montrose, who was supposed to be still in Strath Oykell. Those who opposed an immediate advance, did so on the ground that, as it was Saturday, and they could not expect to come up with the enemy till the morrow, it was unseemly to make preparations for a battle to be fought on the Lord's day. Before a resolution was taken news arrived that Montrose had moved down by the side of the Kyle of Sutherland, where the united waters of the Oykell and the Shin flow through a chain of lakelets into the Dornoch Firth. On the reception of this intelligence it was determined to bring on a conflict without further delay. Of Montrose's movements during the week before the which he takes no notice of the Act relating to the subject passed on June 21, 1649. Acts of Pari, of Scotl. vi. part ii. 446. 1 Balfour, iii. 413, 414. Balfour puts this at the beginning of May, a month too late. See Graymond to Brienne, April ig, Harl. MSS. 4,551, fol. 341. 1650 MONTROSE AT CARBISDALE 21 5 battle, whether he spent one day or six in Strath Oykell, it is impossible to speak with certainty. 1 There can, however, be no Montrose's doubt tllat on th