A if \10Lf tyartttll ICaui %i\\xn\\ Ktbranj Cornell University Library DA 426.A15 1904 v.1-3 Letters and speeches of Oliver Cromwell, 3 1924 024 898 292 DATE DUE MAY^ »Wflw»T8r^ GAVLORD PRINTED IN US* THE LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF OLIVER CROMWELL VOL. I. The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024898292 THE LETTERS AND SPEECHES OF OLIVER CROMWELL WITH ELUCIDATIONS BV THOMAS CARLYLE edited in three volumes :nt BY S. 0. LOMAS WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY C. H. FIRTH, M.A. VOL. I. New York: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS London: METHUEN & CO. 1904 *£> v^oyi PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION THE First Edition of this Work 1 having, contrary to expectation, spread itself abroad with some degree of impetus, has, as in that case was partly natural, brought me into correspondence with various possessors and collectors of Cromwell Letters ; has brought obliging contributions, and indications true and fallacious, from far sources and from near ; and, on the whole, has disinterred from their widespread slumber a variety of Letters not before known to me, or not before remembered by me. With which new Letters it became a rather complex question what was now to be done. They were not, in general, of much, or almost of any, in- trinsic importance ; might here and there have saved some ugly labour and research, had they been known in time ; but did not now, as it turned out, tend to modify, in any essential particular, what had already been set down, and sent forth to the world as a kind of continuous connected Book. It is true, all clearly authentic Letters of Cromwell, never so unimportant, do claim to be preserved ; and in this Book, by the title of it, are naturally to be looked for. But, on the other hand, how introduce them now ? To unhoop your cask again, and try to insert new staves, when the old staves, better or worse, do already hang together, is what no cooper will recommend ! Not to say, that your Set of Cromwell Letters can never, in this Second or in any other Edition, be considered as complete : an uncounted handful of needles to be picked from an unmeasured con- 1 December 1845. vi PEEFACE TO SECOND EDITION tinent of hay, — how can you ever assure yourself that you have them all ? After deliberation, the law of the case seemed to be somewhat as follows : First, that whatever Letters would easily fit themselves into the Book as it stood, — easily, or even with labour if that were all, — should be duly admitted. Secondly, that for such Letters as tended to bring into better relief any feature of the Man or his Work, — much more, had they tended to correct or alter in any respect any feature I had assigned to him or to it : that for these an effort should be made, if needful ; even a considerable effort ; effort, in fact, to be limited only by this considera- tion, not to damage by it to a still greater degree the already extant, and so by one's effort accomplish only loss. Thirdly, that for such Cromwell Letters as did not fall under either of these descriptions, but were nevertheless clearly of his composition, there should be an Appendix provided. In which, without pretension to commentary, and not needing to be read along with the Text, but only apart from it if at all, they might at least stand correctly printed : — they, and certain other Pieces of more doubtful claim ; for most part Letters too, but of half, or in some cases of wholly, official character ; — if by chance they were elucidative, brief, and not easily attainable elsewhere. Into which Appendix also, as into a loose back-room or lumber- room, not bound to be organic or habitable, bound only to be maintained in a reasonably swept condition, any still new Letters of Cromwell might without ceremony be dis- posed. Upon these principles this Second Edition has been pro- duced. New Letters intercalated into the Text, and Letters lying in loose rank in the Appendix, all that I had, or could hear of or get any trace of hitherto, are here given. For purchasers of the First Edition, the new matter has been detached, printed as a Supplement, which the Book- seller undertakes to sell at prime cost. — And now, having twice escaped alive from these detestable Dust-Abysses, let me beg to be allowed to consider this my small act of Homage to the Memory of a Hero as finished ; — this PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION vii Second Edition of Oliver's Letters and Speeches as the final one. New Letters, should such still turn up, I will not, except they contradict some statement, or fibre of a state- ment, in the Text, undertake to introduce there ; but deposit them without ceremony in the loose lumber-room, in a more or less swept condition. T. CABLYLE. London, i\tk May, 1846. TO THE THIRD EDITION THE small leakage of new Cromwell matter that has oozed in upon me from the whole world, since the date of that Second Edition, has been disposed of according to the principles there laid down. Some small half-dozen of Authentic new Letters, pleasantly enough testifying (once they were cleared into legibility) how every new fact fits into perfect preestablished correspondence with all old facts, but not otherwise either pleasant or important, have come to me ; one or two of these, claiming more favour, or offering more facility, have been inserted into the Text ; the rest, as was my bargain in regard to all of them, have been sent to the Appendix. In Text or Appendix there they stand, duly in their places ; they, and what other smallest of authentic glimmerings of additional light (few in number, infinitesimally small in moment) came to me from any quarter : all new acquisitions have been punctually inserted ; — generally indicated as new, where they occur ; too insignificant for enumerating here, or indeed almost for indicating at all. On the whole, I have to say that the new Contributions to this Third Edition are altogether slight and insignificant, properly of no real moment whatever. Nay on looking back, it may be said that the new Contributions to any Edition have been slight ; that, for learning intelligibly what the Life of Cromwell was, the First Edition is still perhaps as recommendable a Book as either of its followers. Exposed, since that, to the influx of new Cromwell matter from all the world, one finds it worth observing how little of the smallest real importance has come in ; what of effort has had to expend itself, not in improving the x TO THE THIRD EDITION Book as a practical Representation of Cromwell's Existence in this world, but in hindering it from being injured as such, — from being swollen out of shape by superfluous details, defaced with dilettante antiquarianisms, nugatory tagrags ; and in short, turned away from its real uses, instead of furthered towards them. An ungrateful kind of effort, and growing ever more so, the longer it lasts ; — but one to which the Biographer of Cromwell by this method has to submit, as to a clear law of nature, with what cheerfulness he can. Certain Dictionary Lists, not immediately connected with Oliver, but useful for students of this Historical Period, a List of the Ijmg Parliament, and Lists of the Association Committees ; farther a certain Contribution called The Squire Papers, which is for the present, and must for a long time remain, of doubtful authenticity to the world : these I have subjoined to the Second Volume, which offered space for such a purpose x ; but have been careful, in Text, Appendix, Index, to make no reference to them, to maintain a perfect separation between all parts of the Book and them, and to signify that these are not even an Appendix, or thing hooked-on, but rather a mere Adjacency, or thing in some kind of contact, — kind of contact which can at any moment be completely dissolved, by the very Bookbinder if he so please. And in general, for the reader's sake, let me again say plainly that all these Appendixes and Adjuncts are in- significant ; that the Life of Cromwell lies in the Text ; and that a serious reader, if he take advice of mine, will not readily stir from that on any call of the Appendixes &c, which can only be a call towards things unessential, intrinsically superfluous, if extrinsically necessary here, and worthy only of a later and more cursory attention, if of any whatever, from him. T. C. London, \6th October, 1849. 1 [These are now omitted. The Returns of the Members of Parliament obviate the need for the first ; the second is too imperfect and confused to be useful, and with regard to The Squire Papers, see Mr. Firth's Introduction.] CONTENTS OF VOLUME I PAGE Preface to Second Edition v Preface to Third Edition ix Introduction by Mr. Firth xxi Editor's Note, igo4 liii INTRODUCTION Chapter I. Anti-Dryasdust , I „ II. Of the Biographies of Oliver 10 „ III. Of the Cromwell Kindred 16 ,, IV. Events in Oliver's Biography 29 „ V. Of Oliver's Letters and Speeches 67 PART I To the Beginning of the Civil War. 1636-43 Letter I. To Mr. Storie : St. Ives, nth January 1635-6 ... 75 Lectureship in Huntingdonshire. „ II. To Mrs. St. John : Ely, 13th October 1638 ... 83 Personal Affairs. Two Years 92 Letter III. To Mr. Willingham : London, February 1640-1 . . 96 The Scots Demands. In the Long Parliament g8 xii CONTENTS PART II To the End of the First Civil War. 1642-46 PAOE Preliminary 103 Letter IV. To R. Barnard, Esq. : Huntingdon, 23d January 1642-3 . 115 A Domiciliary Visit. Cambridge 117 Com. Cant. (" Cambridgeshire to wit ") 118 Contribution at Fen Drayton. Letter V. To Suffolk Committee : Cambridge, 10th March 1642-3 . 120 Captain Nelson : Money wanted. Lowestoft 121 Letter VI. To the Mayor of Colchester: Cambridge, 23d March 1642-3 126 Captain Dodsworth : Money and more Men. „ VII. To Sir J. Burgoyne : Huntingdon, 10th April 1643 . . 128 To assist against the Camdeners. „ VIII. To R. Barnard, Esq. : Huntingdon, 17th April 1643 . 129 Barnard may return. „ IX. To Lincoln Committee : Lincolnshire, 3d May 1643 . . 131 Rendezvous for Newark. „ X. To Sir Miles Hobart : Grantham, 13th May 1643 . . 134 Skirmish at Grantham. „ XI. To the Mayor of Colchester : Lincolnshire, 28th May 1643 136 Wants more Men. „ XII. To Suffolk Committee : Huntingdon, 31st July 1643 . 140 Action at Gainsborough. ,, XIII. Unknown : Huntingdon, 2d August 1643 . . . 145 Help from Young Men and Maids. „ XIV. To Cambridge Commissioners : Huntingdon, 6th August 1643 146 Lincoln lost : To rendezvous instantly. „ XV. To the same : Peterborough, 8th August 1643 . . . 148 Urgent for Men and Money. „ XVI. To Suffolk Committee : Cambridge, September 1643 . 153 Mr. Margery recommended. „ XVII. To O. St. John, Esq. : Eastern Association, nth Sep- tember 1643 .... .... 155 Much Want of Money : the Ironsides. CONTENTS xiii PAGE Letter XVIII. To Suffolk Committee : Holland, Lincolnshire 28th September 1643 158 Malignants' Horses. Winceby Fight . . .163 Letter XIX. To Rev. Mr. Hitch : Ely, 10th January 1643-4 . . 167 Ely Cathedral. „ XX. To Major-General Crawford : Cambridge, 10th March 1643-4 169 Admonition in behalf of Packer. „ XXI. To Col. Walton : York, 5th July 1644 . . . . 174 Marston Moor. „ XXII. To Ely Committee : Lincoln, 1st September 1644 . 179 Prisoners unduly discharged. Affairs of the Isle. „ XXIII. To Col. Walton : Sleaford, 6th or 5th September 1644 180 Essex in Cornwall. Three Fragments of Speeches. Self-denying Ordinance . . 182 Letter XXIV. To Sir T. Fairfax : Salisbury, gth April 1645 . . 189 Proceedings in the West: Goring, Greenvil, Rupert. „ XXV. To Committee of Both Kingdoms : Bletchington, 25th April 1645 192 Action at Islip Bridge. „ XXVI. To Governor R. Burgess : Farringdon, 2gth April 1645 194 Attack on Farringdon Garrison. (Action at Bampton the day before.) „ XXVII. To the same : same date 195 Same Subject. „ XXVIII. To Sir T. Fairfax : Huntingdon, 4th June 1645 . 196 Affairs at Ely. By Express 198 Letter XXIX. To Hon. W. Lenthall : Harborough, 14th June 1645 . 200 Battle of Naseby. „ XXX. To Sir T. Fairfax : Shaftesbury, 4th August 1645 . . 206 The Clubmen. „ XXXI. To Hon. W. Lenthall: Bristol, 14th September 1645 . 211 Storm of Bristol. ,, XXXII. To the same : Winchester, 6th October 1645 . . 220 Taking of Winchester. „ XXXIII. To the same : Basingstoke, 14th October 1645 . . 222 Basing House stormed. xiv CONTENTS Army Manifesto , PAGE Letter XXXIV. To Sir T. Fairfax : Wallop, 16th October 1645 . . 228 Marching to the West. „ XXXV. To Hon. W. Lenthall : Salisbury, 17th October 1645 . 230 Surrender of Langford House. PART III Between the two Civil Wars. 1646-48 Letter XXXVI. To T. Knyvett, Esq. : London, 27th July 1646 . . 236 Parishioners of Hapton. XXXVII. To Sir T. Fairfax : London, 31st July 1646 . . 238 Adjutant Fleming. XXXVIII. To the same : London, 10th August 1646 . . 240 News : Commissioners to the King and Scotch Army have re- turned. XXXIX. To J. Rushworth, Esq. : London, 26th August 1646 . 243 On behalf of Major Henry Lilburn. XL. To Sir T. Fairfax : London, 6th October 1646 . . . 244 Staffordshire Committee-men. XLI. To Mrs. Ireton : London, 25th October 1646 . . . 245 Fatherly Advice. XLII. To Sir T. Fairfax : London, 21st December 1646 . . 247 News, by Skippon : Agreement with the Scots concluded; City disaffected to Army. XLIII. To the same : London, nth March 1646-7 - . . 252 Army-matters ; City still more disaffected. XLIV. To the same : London, igth March 1646-7 . . . 253 Encloses an Order to the Army, Not to come within Twenty- five miles of London. 25s Letter XLV. To Archbishop of York : Putney, 1st September 1647 . 274 Williams in Conway Castle. ,, XLVI. To Col. Jones : Putney, 14th September 1647 . . 276 Congratulates on the Victory at Dungan Hill. „ XLVII. To Sir T. Fairfax : Putney, 13th October 1647 . . 278 Capt. Middleton, Court-Martial. „ XLVIII. To the same : Putney, 22d October 1647 . . , 280 Col. Overton for Hull Garrison. „ XLIX. To Hon. W. Lenthall: Hampton Court, nth No- vember 1647 282 King's Escape from Hampton Court. CONTENTS xv Letter L. To Col. Whalley : Putney, November 1647 The same. „ LI. To Dr. T. Hill : Windsor, 33rd December 1647 Interceding for a Young Gentleman. „ LII. To Col. Hammond : London, 3rd January 1647-8 Concerning the King in the Isle of Wight. „ LIII. To Col. Norton : London, 25th February 1647-8 On Richard Cromwell's Marriage. LIV. To Sir T. Fairfax : London, 7th March 1647-8 Has been dangerously ill. Free Offer. Letter LV. To Col. Norton : Farnham, 28th March 1648 . Richard Cromwell's Marriage. „ LVI. To the same : London, 3rd April 1648 . The same. „ LVII. To Col. Hammond : London, 6th April 1648 Isle-of- Wight Business ; King intends Escape. „ LVIII. To Col. Kenrick : London, 18th April 1648 . Recommends the Bearer for Employment. Prayer Meeting PAGE . 284 . 286 . 287 . 291 • 295 . 296 • 297 • 299 . 3°2 . 304 • 305 PART IV Second Civil War. 1648 Letter LIX. To Hon. W. Lenthall : Pembroke, 16th June 1648 Besieging Pembroke. „ LX. To Major Saunders : Pembroke, 17th June 1648 . . To seize Sheriff Morgan and Sir Trevor Williams, two Rebel Welshmen. 313 315 LXI. To Lord (late Sir Thomas) Fairfax: Pembroke, 28th June, 1648 317 Siege of Pembroke. LXII. To Hon. W. Lenthall : Pembroke, nth July 1648 Surrender of Pembroke. 324 Preston Battle 335 Letter LXIII. To Lancashire Committee : Preston, 17th August 1648 329 Battle of Preston. VOL. I. — b xvi CONTENTS PAGE Letter LXIV. To Hon. W. LenthaU : Warrington, 20th August 1648 331 Battle of Preston. „ LXV. To Sir H. Cholmley and Sir Edw. Rodes : Warrington, 20th August 1648 ... ; .... 345 To pursue the Scots. LXVI. To York Committee : Wigan, 23d August 1648 . . 34 6 The same. „ LXVII. To O. St. John, Esq. : Knaresborough, 1st September 1648 349 On Preston Battle : the Handful of Grass. „ LXVIII. To Lord Wharton : Knaresborough, 2d September 1648 , 35i Religious Reflections; Congratulations on public events and private. Declaration 355 Letter LXIX. To Lord Fairfax : Alnwick, nth September 1648 . 356 Col. Cowell's Widow. „ LXX. To the Governor of Berwick : Alnwick, 15th September 1648 357 Summons. „ LXXI. To Marquis Argyle, and the Well-affected Lords now in arms in Scotland : near Berwick, 16th Sep- tember 1648 358 Announces Messengers coming to them. „ LXXII. To Scots Committee of Estates : near Berwick, 16th September 1648 . ! 360 His Reasons for entering Scotland. „ LXXIII. To Earl Loudon : Cheswick, 18th September 1648 . 362 Intentions and Proceedings as to Scotland. Proclamation 366 Letter LXXIV. To Scots Committee of Estates : Norham, 21st Sep- tember 1648 . . . . , . . . . 367 In excuse for some disorder by the Durham horse in Scotland. " „ LXXV. To Hon. W. Lenthall : Berwick, 2d October 1648 . 369 Surrender of Berwick and Carlisle. „ LXXVI. To' Lord Fairfax: Berwick, 2d October 1648 . . 372 To have Sir Arthur Haselrig take care of Berwick. „ LXXVII. To Scots Committee of Estates: Edinburgh, 5th October 1648 ' 375 His Demands concerning Scotland. CONTENTS xvii PAGE Letter LXXVIII. To Hon. W. Lenthall : Dalhousie, 8th October 1648 378 Colonel R. Montgomery: For Two thousand of the Preston Captives. LXXIX. To the same : Dalhousie, gth October 1648 . . 379 Account of his Proceedings in Scotland. LXXX. To Governor Morris : Pontefract, 9th November 1648 382 Summons to Pontefract Castle. LXXXI. To Derby-House Committee : Knottingley, near Pontefract, 15th November 1648 383 What will be necessary for the Siege of Pontefract. LXXXII. To Jenner and Ashe : Knottingley, 20th November 1648 386 Rebuke for their Order concerning Col. Owen. LXXXIII. To Lord Fairfax: Knottingley, 20th November 1648 3go With certain Petitions from the Army. LXXXIV. To T. St. Nicholas, Esq. : Knottingley, 25th No- vember 1648 391 Wants of Hull Garrison. LXXXV. To Col. Hammond : Knottingley, 25th November 1648 393 Exhortation and Advice concerning the Business of the King. LXXXVI. To , Master and Fellows of Trinity Hall, Cam- bridge : London, 18th December 1648 .... 403 Dorislaus : For a Room in Doctors Commons. Death Warrant 404 PART V Campaign in Ireland. 1649 Letter LXXXVII. To Rev. Mr. Robinson ; Lpndon, 1st February 1648-9 411 This letter and the Three following relate to Richard Cromwell's Marriage. Pass 413 Letter LXXXVIII. To R. Mayor, Esq. : London, 12th February 1648-g 414 Order 416 xviii CONTENTS FAGS Letter LXXXIX. To R. Mayor, Esq. : London, 26th February 1648-9 418 „ XC. To the same : London, 8th March 1648-9 . . . 419 „ XCI. To Dr. Love : London, I4fh March 1648-g . Recommends a Suitor to him. „ XCII. To R. Mayor, Esq. : London, 14th March 1648-9 This and the Four following relate to Richard Cromwell's Marriage. ,, XCIII. To the same: London, 25th March 1649 „ XCIV. To the same : London, 30th March 1649 „ XCV. To the same : London, 6th April 1649 . ,, XCVI. To the same : London, 15th April 1649 The Levellers Letter XCVII. To Sir J. Harrington: London, 9th July 1649 . Earl of Thomond's Petition. XCVIII. To Hon; W. Lenthall : London, 10th July 1649 Recommends Mr. Lowry, his fellow Member. XCIX, To R. Mayor, Esq. : Bristol, irjth July 1649 In answer to a Recommendation. „ C. To the same : Milford Haven, 13th August 1649 News received from Ireland : J ones's 'Defeat of Ormond at Bagatratb. „ CI. To Mrs. Richard Cromwell : Milford Haven, 13th August 1649 Religious Advices. „ CII. To Hon. W. Lenthall : Dublin, 22d August 1649 . Vice-Admiral Ayscough's Lease. A Declaration by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland . Irish War Letter CIII. To the Chief Officer in Dundalk : Tredah, 12th Sep tember 1649 . . . . . . . Summons to Dundalk. CIV. To President Bradshaw : Dublin, 16th September 1649 Storm of Drogheda. CV. To Hon. W. Lenthall : Dublin, 17th September 1649 Storm of Drogheda. CVI. To the same : Dublin, 27th September 1649 . Venables in Ulster : Supplies. 422 424 427 43° 431 432 435 444 446 448 450 452 454 455 457 463 464 466 474 CONTENTS xix Letter CVII. To Hon. W. Lenthall : Wexford, 14th October 1649 March to Wexford : Capture of Wexford. CVIII. To Governor Taaff: Ross, 17th October 1649 Ross summoned. CIX. To the same : Before Ross, 19th October 1649 Terms for Ross. CX. To the same : same date . Same Subject. CXI. To the same : same date , Same Subject. CXII. To Hon. W. Lenthall : Ross, 25th October 1649 Account of the Gaining of Ross. CXIII. To R. Mayor, Esq. : Ross, 13th November 1649 Irish News, and Family Affairs. CXIV. To Hon. T. Scott : Ross, 14th November 1649 The Vote of Lands to Lieut. -Gen. Jones: Lord Broghil. CXV. To Hon. W. Lenthall : Ross, 14th November 1649 Proceedings in Munster; Cork, Youghal, Baltimore, Castle- haven; other Mercies. CXVI. To the same : Waterford, November 1649 . Reynolds takes Carrick-on-Suir ; defends it gallantly: Reflec- tions. CXVII. To the same : Cork, igth December 1649 . Waterford not taken; Death of Lieut. -Gen. Michael Jones; Repulse of the Enemy at Passage. CXVIII. To Lord Wharton ; Cork, 1st January 1649-50 . Wharton's Doubts. PAGE 476 49° 491 492 494 495 497 499 500 507 513 520 INTRODUCTION WHEN a biography has become a classic it is time to study the history of its composition. Such an en- quiry not only satisfies the natural curiosity of the reader, but is indispensable to the right understanding of the work itself. We need to know why, the author conceived the idea of writing the book, what the conception was which he sought to realise, under what conditions he wrote, and how far cir- cumstances hindered or furthered the fulfilment of his design. Our first business therefore is to examine into the origin of Carlyle's Cromwell and to follow its progress. One of Carlyle's earliest literary projects was to write a book upon Cromwell's times. In March 1822 he was reading Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, Ludlow's Memoirs, Milton's prose works, and other authorities for the history of the period, and by the end of April his vague interest in the subject had taken a more definite shape. "Within the last month," he wrote to his brother Alexander on 27th April, " I have well-nigh fixed Upon a topic. My purpose . . . is to come out with a kind of Essay on the Civil Wars [mid] the Commonwealth of England — not to write a history of then* — but to exhibit, if I can, some features of the national character as it was then displayed, supporting my remarks by mental portraits drawn with my best ability, of Cromwell, Laud, George Fox, Milton, Hyde, etc., the most distinguished of the actors in that great scene." In another letter, written to Miss Welsh in January 1823, he explained more fully the kind of treatment he intended to adopt in the projected book. " I had a splendid plan of treating the history of England during the Commonwealth in a new style — not by way of regular narrative — for which I felt too well my inequality, (xxi) xxii INTRODUCTION but by grouping together the most singular manifestations of mind that occurred then under distinct heads — selecting some remarkable person as the representative of each class, and trying to illustrate their excellences and defects, all that was curious in their fortunes as individuals, or in their forma- tion as members of the human family, by the most striking methods I could devise. Already my characters were fixed upon — Laud, Fox, Clarendon, Cromwell, Milton, Hampden ; already I was busied in the study of their works." J An engagement to translate Legendre's Elements of Geom- etry interrupted his studies, and then followed translations from the German, essays on German literature, and other engagements which occupied his mind and his time. It was not till about 1838 that he took up his seventeenth century project again, and then it was partly due to an accident. John Stuart Mill asked Carlyle to write an article on Crom- well for the London amd Westminster Review. Carlyle agreed to the proposal, and began to work upon the subject. Meanwhile Mill went abroad leaving the Review to be edited in his absence by John Robertson. Robertson, "a rude Aberdeen Longear," as Carlyle terms him, coolly informed Carlyle that he " meant to do Cromwell himself," which very naturally much incensed his eminent contributor. In his wrath Carlyle severed all connection with the Review, and determining to write something more to his mind than articles in reviews, took up his old project of a book on Cromwell and his times. 2 He began his task in January 1839. "I have my face turned partly towards Oliver Cromwell and the Covenant time in England and Scotland, and am reading books and meaning to read more for the matter, for it is large and full of meaning. But what I shall make of it, or whether I shall make anything at all, it would be premature J C. E. Norton, Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle, ii. 56, 170. Cf. Froude, Thomas Carlyle, a History of the First Forty Years of his Life, i. chap. ix. ; A. Carlyle, Historical Sketches, preface, v. 2 Froude, Carlyle 's Life in London, i. 149. Mr. Froude exaggerates the import- ance of the incident as determining Carlyle's choice of a subject, and makes no reference to his early attraction to the- subject. For an account of Robertson, see Espinasse, Literary Recollections, p. 124. Robertson's article was published in October 1839. INTRODUCTION xxiii to say as yet." 1 This was to his brother, and he announced his plan to Emerson in the same doubting fashion. 2 All through 1839 Carlyle read about Cromwell and the history of his period, though he found considerable difficulty in procuring the books he needed. 3 As his reading pro- gressed his conception of Cromwell's character became clearer. " Cromwell ! " he wrote in his journal in October 1839, " How on earth could he be treated ? Begin to see him at times in some measure, even to like him and pity him." i The more he studied the man the more his liking and his admiration in- creased. "I have got within this last twelve months," he wrote in September 1840, "actually as it were to see that this Cromwell was one of the greatest souls ever born of English kin." 5 The first fruit of these seventeenth century studies, the first revelation to the world of Carlyle's estimate of Cromwell, was contained in the sixth of the lectures on hero-worship, delivered at the Royal Institution on 22nd May, 1840. " Few Puritans of note but find their apologists some- where," declared Carlyle, " and have a certain reverence paid them by earnest men." Eliot, Pym, Hampden and others were all admitted to be a kind of heroes. "One Puritan, and almost he alone, our poor Cromwell, seems to hang yet on the gibbet and find no hearty apologist anywhere. Him neither saint nor sinner will acquit of great wickedness." 6 Carlyle's new presentation of Cromwell's character was well received. "The good people," he told his brother, "sate 1 Froude, Carlyle's Life in London, i. 150. 2 Norton, Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, i. 215. s Froude, Carlyle's Life in London, i. 151. i Itid., i. 176, 197. 6 Norton, Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, i. 304. Mr. Espinasse quotes from Carlyle's Wotton Reinfred, a fragment written probably about 1830, the follow- ing character of Cromwell supposed to be suggested by a portrait. It seems to show that at that date Carlyle still regarded Cromwell as half a hero and half a hypocrite. " This is the man whose words none could interpret, but whose thoughts were clearest wisdom, who spoke in laborious folly, in voluntary or involuntary enigmas, but saw and acted unerringly his fate. Confusion, ineptitude, dishonesty, are pictured on his countenance, but through these there shines a fiery strength, nay, a grandeur as of a true hero. You see there he was fearless, resolute as a Scanderbeg, yet cunning and double withal, like some paltry pettifogger. He is your true en- thusiastic hypocrite, at once crackbrained and inspired ; a knave and a demigod, in brief, old Noll as he looked and lived." Espinasse, Literary Recollections, p. 127. "Wotton Reinfred" was first printed in The New Review, Jan.-March, 1892, and was republished in the same year in Last Words of Thomas Carlyle. 6 Hero-worship, p. 191, people's edition. xxiv INTRODUCTION breathless, or broke out into all kinds of testimonies of good- will ; seemed to like very much indeed the huge ragged image I gave them of a believing Calvinistic soldier and reformer." 1 Yet though Carlyle felt that he had solved the problem of Cromwell's character it was not easy to embody his discovery in a history of Cromwell and his times. His difficulties grew greater rather than less. Upon a nearer acquaintance he did not like the period as much as he had expected. He pronounced it " far inferior in interest " to the French Revol- ution. "Not a tenth part such a subject as the French Revolution." At first sight none of the actors attracted him excepting Cromwell and Montrose, The authorities he was obliged to study were equally uninteresting. " One dreadful circumstance is that the books, without exception, the docu- ments, etc., one has to read, are of a dulness to threaten locked jaw. I never read such jumbling, drowsy, endless stupidities." 2 In the introduction to the Letters and Speeches Carlyle repeats his general verdict on the authorities, and proceeds to criticise them individually. He had read the Memorials of Bulstrode Whitehcke and the Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, but the " fat terrene mind " of Whitelocke, and the honest, dull, wooden head of Ludlow were incapable of compre- hending the hero whom they had seen face to face. There were some intelligent contemporary writers. Thomas Fuller was "a perfectly veracious and intelligent person," Robert Baillie a man " with a living heart, a seeing pair of eyes, above all, clearly a veracious man." 3 But unluckily they knew little of Cromwell personally. Of all the professed biogra- phers of Cromwell the only one Carlyle felt able to praise was John Forster. 4 As to the. great collections of contemporary documents, those unwieldy and badly indexed folios wearied and disgusted him. He styled Rushworth's Collection " an 1 Froude, Carlyle' s Life in London, i. 183. For an account of the lecture, by Caroline Fox, see Memories of old Friends, ed. 1883, p. 125. ' 2 Froude, Carlyle' s Life in London, i. 153, 199. 3 Letters and Speeches, i. 10-16 ; ii. 242 ; Miscellanies, vi. 213. 4 " Forster had finished his Life of Cromwell when Carlyle was beginning his seventeenth century studies, and their unpublished correspondence is full of applica- tions made at one time by Carlyle for the loan of books on the period, and of queries to be answered by Forster." Espinasse, Literary Recollections, p. 118. INTRODUCTION xxv inarticulate rubbish continent," and described Thurloe's seven volumes of State Papers as " shoreless lakes of ditchwater and bilgewater." 1 From these distasteful sources Carlyle laboured to extract the truth about Cromwell. " I say to myself, a great man does lie buried under this waste continent of cinders, and a great action. Canst thou not unbury them, present them visible, and so help, as it were, in the creation of them?" 2 Carlyle's method of working has been described by himself. The systematic steady jogtrot of the professional historian or man of letters was not possible to him. He could not, like Scott, say to himself that he would write so many hours before breakfast, or like Macaulay that he would compose so many pages per diem. The history of Carlyle's Cromwell falls naturally into two stages ; first of all a prolonged struggle to understand the subject, and lastly a shorter and more violent struggle — almost a convulsion of nature — to set forth the result for the world. According to him the essence of literary art consisted simply in " blazing radiant insight into the fact," and " blazing burning interest about it." This he said was the soul of Shakespeare's and Homer's "art," and of his own art, if he had anything of the kind. " My first and last secret ... is to get a thorough intelligence of theyactf to be painted, represented, or, in whatever way, set forth — {he fact deep as Hades, high as heaven, and written so, as to the visual face of it on our poor earth. This once blazing; within me, if it will ever get to blaze, and bursting to be out, one has to take the whole dexterity of adaptation one is master of, and with tremendous struggling, really frightful struggling, contrive to exhibit it, one way or the other." 8 In order to realise the facts of Cromwell's life the better, and so to be more able to make them real to his readers, Carlyle went to see the places where Cromwell lived and the fields where he fought. In May 1842 he visited Naseby in company with Dr. Arnold, and walked over the uplands where nearly two hundred years earlier the fate of England was 1 Letters and Speeches, i. 8 ; ii. 223. a Froude, Carlyle's Life in London, i. 199. s Ibid. , i. 231. ' xxvi INTRODUCTION decided. 1 "They are not properly hills at all," he writes, " but broad, blunt, clayey masses swelling towards and from each other like indolent waves of the sea, sometimes of miles in extent." Unluckily Carlyle and Arnold, misled by an obelisk which the owner of the property had set up on the highest part of the field, mistook the actual site of the battle, as Edward Fitzgerald, the owner's son, told him a few months later. Fitzgerald, by examining the ground and opening what local tradition pointed to as the graves of the slain, discovered the spot where the crisis of the battle took place, and Carlyle after some hesitation accepted his view. "Clearly enough," he wrote to him, "you are upon the very battle ground ; — and I, it is clear, have only looked up towards it from the slope of Mill Hill. The opening of that burial heap blazes strangely in my thoughts ; these are the very jawbones that were clenched together in deadly rage, on this very ground, 197 years ago. It brings the matter home to one, with a strange veracity, — as if for the first time one saw it to be no fable and theory but a dire fact." 2 In September 1842 Carlyle undertook a longer tour, hired a horse, which turned out " a heavy-footed beast," and set out on a three days' ride into " Cromwelldom." He went first to Ely, where Cromwell lived from 1636 to 1647, and found his house " though in a somewhat frail state still stand- ing." Lying by the door was " a huge horseblock " on which Carlyle sat and meditatively smoked a cigar; he brought away a chip of the block in his pocket. In the evening he visited the cathedral and " as the heaving bellows blew and the yellow sunshine streamed in through the high windows," he dreamt of the Reverend Mr. Hitch who refused to abandon his choral services, and of Cromwell's short way with Mr. 1 Froude, Carlyle' s Life in London, i. 255. s Wright, Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald, 1889, i. 103-114. Carlyle proposed that a new monument should be erected at Naseby marking the actual spot where the crisis of the struggle took place. He wrote an inscription for the " Naseby Pillar," as he termed it. But the property changed hands before the scheme could be carried out, and the new owner refused his consent to its erection. The old obelisk, therefore, still remains to delude visitors to the field. " It might as well stand at Charing Cross: the blockhead that is," said Carlyle. See also the same collection of Letters, i. 105, 109, 236-8, 333, 339, 353, 359, 363, 475. 485- INTRODUCTION xxvii Hitch. "I almost wept to stand upon the very flagstones under the setting sun, where he ordered the refractory parson, ' Leave off your fooling and come out, sir '." x On the second day Carlyle rode to St. Ives, where Crom- well lived from 1631 to 1636. "The lands he rented are still there, recognisable to the tourist : gross boggy lands, fringed with willow trees, at the east end of the small town." In one of the fields which had been Cromwell's Carlyle sat down, smoked another cigar, and meditated for a time. " Here of a certainty," he said, " Oliver did walk and look about him habitually during those five years. . . . His cattle grazed here, his ploughs tilled here, the heavenly skies and infernal abysses overarched and underarched him here." 2 Leaving St. Ives, Carlyle next proceeded to Huntingdon, where he found that the house in which Cromwell was born had been twice rebuilt since, and was now " a solid yellow brick-house, . . . occupied by some townsman of the wealthier sort." He then visited Hinchinbrook, once the house of Cromwell's grand- father, but now the seat of the Earls of Sandwich. "A stately pleasant house amongst its shady lawns and expanses on the left bank of the Ouse river, a short half-mile west of Huntingdon — still stands pretty much as Oliver Cromwell's grandfather left it ; rather kept good and defended from the inroads of time and accident than substantially altered." He had now finished his day's work, and mounting once more the " heavy-footed beast," he " rode with terrible determination to Cambridge the same evening." 3 On the morning of the third day Carlyle perambulated Cambridgej looked diligently at all the colleges within reach, and saw the famous portrait of Cromwell at Sidney Sussex College. What he thought of that portrait neither his letters nor his journals say, but memories of it inspire the word- pictures of Cromwell given in the Historical Sketches and in the Letters and Speeches. i The sight of this portrait was in reality the most important event of Carlyle's tour. It left *Froude, Carlyle's Life in London, i. 275-278. See also the preface to the second letter in Letters and Speeches. a Letters and Speeches, i. 77. 1 Froude, Carlyle's Life in London, i. 276. 4 Historical Sketches, pp. 312, 344; Letters and Speeches, ii. 3151 xxviii INTRODUCTION an ineffaceable impression upon his mind and permanently shaped his conception of Cromwell's character. For it was one of Carlyle's first principles that in forming an estimate of any historical character the impression produced by an authentic portrait of the person was evidence of the highest authority for a biographer. " I have to tell you," he says, " as a fact of personal experience that in all my poor histori- cal investigations it has been, and always is, one of the most primary wants to procure a bodily likeness of the personage inquired after ; a good portrait if such exists ; failing that, even an indifferent if sincere one. In short, any representa- tion made by a faithful human creature, of that face and figure, which he saw with his eyes, and which I can never see with mine, is now valuable to me, and much better than none at all. This, which is my own deep experience, I believe to be, in a deeper or less deep degree the universal one ; and that every student and reader of history, who strives earnestly to conceive for himself what manner of fact or man this or the other vague historical name can have been, will, as the first and directest indication of all, search eagerly for a por- trait, for all the reasonable portraits there are; and never rest till he have made out, if possible, what the man's natural face was like. Often I have found a portrait superior in real instruction to half a dozen written ' biographies,' as biographies are written ; — or rather, let me say, I have found that the portrait was as a small lighted candle by which the biographies could for the first time be read, and some human interpretation be made of them ; the biographied personage no longer an empty impossible phantasm, or distracting aggregate of inconsistent rumours . . . but yielding at last some features which one could admit to be human." 1 1 Letter to David Laing, 3rd May, 1854, on the *' Project of a National Exhibition of Scottish Portraits." Miscellanies, people's edition, vii. 129. Whenever Carlyle describes an historical personage he endeavours to realise the external man himself to make his readers see him. In describing the man's face it is always the predominant traits of the character, as expressed in the features, that he seeks to bring' out. The posthumous Historical Sketches are of special interest in this respect for students of the Letters and Speeches. In them Carlyle describes James I. (p. 43), Anne of Denmark (p. 129), Charles I. (p. 262), Laud (pp. 245, 306), Strafford (p. 324), Pym (p. 166% Hampden (p. 340), Hyde (p. 329), and others some briefly, others at full length. INTRODUCTION xxix With a clearer understanding of Cromwell's character, and with a definite conception of his environment during his early life, Carlyle returned to his books. From time to time he resumed his pilgrimages to Cromwellian battlefields. In July 1843 he paid a hasty visit to Worcester. On 3rd September, 1843, the anniversary of the battle, he saw the field of Dunbar. " I found the battle ground," he says, " much more recognisable than any I had yet seen ; indeed altogether what one would call clear. It is at the foot and further eastward along the slope of the hill they call the Doun that the Scots stood, Cromwell at Broxmouth (Duke of Rox- burghe's place) where he ' saw the sun rise over the sea ' and quoted a certain psalm. I had the conviction that I stood on the very ground." 1 Meanwhile 1842 had passed and 1843 was drawing to its close, yet Carlyle seemed to be no nearer the completion of his book. From the very outset of his enterprise its diffi- culty had oppressed him. " My reading goes on," he wrote in November 1840; "my stupidity seems to increase with it more and more. I get to see that no history in the strict sense can be made of that unspeakable puddle of a time." 2 Neither his reminiscences of Cromwell's battlefields nor the tangible relics of battle which he brought home from them supplied the inspiration Carlyle needed. Throughout, his conception of Cromwell's character remained clear. But it seemed impossible for him to mould the stubborn facts into shape, and to embody his conception of that character in a history of Cromwell and his times. In July 1842 he an- swered Emerson's inquiries with a cry of despair "You ask after Cromwell — Ask not of him ; he is like to drive me mad. There he lies shining clear enough to me, nay, glowing, or painfully burning ; but far down ; simk under two hundred years of cant, oblivion, unbelief, and triviality of every kind ; through all which and to the top of all which, what mortal industry or energy will avail to raise him ? " 3 1 Froude, Carlyle's Life in London, i. 314, 326. *Ibid., i. 199. A month later Carlyle was Writing: "In our whole English history there is surely nothing as great. If one can delineate anything of England, then this thing." Ibid., i. 202. 3 Norton, Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, ii. 6, xxx INTRODUCTION The cause of this dead-lock was partly the natural difficulty of the subject. It is hard for any man to realise unfamiliar conditions, and to put together from defective materials a coherent account of a complicated period, and a life-like picture of a great man. It was harder for Carlyle than for most historians because he could never surrender his mind to his subject ; because he was continually summoned from the past by the importunate problems of the present; because he was a prophet and a poet by nature and a historian only by accident. The condition of England weighed upon him. The misery of the poor ; the apathy of the rich ; the indiffer- ence of the rulers were always before his eyes. "Ought I," said he, " to write now of Oliver Cromwell ? . . . Again and again of late I ask myself in whispers, Is it the duty of a citizen to be silent, to paint mere heroisms, Cromwells, etc. ? . . . The look of the world is really quite oppressive to me. Eleven thousand souls in Paisley alone living on three-half- pence a day, and the governors of the land all busy shooting partridges, and passing corn-laws the while ! . . . My heart is sick to look at the things now going on in this England ; and the two millions of men sitting in poor-law Bastilles seem to ask of every English soul, ' Hast thou no word to say for us?'" 1 Night and day these thoughts passed through his mind, and till he had delivered his message about them he could not rest. " I found I could not go on with Cromwell, or with anything else, till I had disburdened my heart somewhat in regard to all that." The result was the writing and the publication in April 1843 of Past and Present. After this digression Carlyle returned to his task, and finally deter- mined on a complete alteration in his plan. One day in December 1843 while Mrs. Carlyle was " peace- fully darning his stockings " her husband rushed into the room and threw a pile of manuscript into the fire. "It was up the chimney in a fine blaze before I knew what he was burning," said Mrs. Carlyle. " This life of Oliver Cromwell looks to me as if it were never going to get itself written, 1 Froude, Carlytfs Life in London* i. 223, 285, 286. INTRODUCTION xxxi may." x Carlyle himself, however, felt that at last he was on the right track. " My book," he told his mother, " occasions -great difficulty. I not long ago fairly cast a great mass of it into the fire, not in any sudden rage at it, but after quiet deliberation, and deciding on this as the best that I could do. I am now trying the business on another side with hopes of better prosperity there." Instead of writing a consecutive history of the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth he resolved to attempt something much simpler — he would collect the authentic utterances of Cromwell and confine himself to a detailed commentary upon them. 2 At last in August 1845 he announced the completion of his task to his friend Emerson. " About four days ago I wrote my last word on Cromwell's Letters and Speeches. The book is nearly printed : two big volumes ; about a half of it, I think, my own ; the real utter- ances of the man Oliver Cromwell once more legible to earnest men. Legible really to an unexpected extent : for the book took quite an unexpected figure in my hands ; and is now a kind of life of Oliver, the best that circumstances will permit me to do : — whether I or England shall be, in my time, fit for a better, remains submitted to the destinies at present. I have tied up the whole Puritan Paper-Litter (considerable masses of it still unburnt) with tight strings, and hidden it at the bottom of my deepest repositories ; there shall it, if Heaven please, lie dormant for a time and times. Such an element as I have been in, no human tongue can give account of. The disgust of my soul has been very great, a really pious labour : worth very little when I have done it, but the best I could do ; and that is quite enough. I feel the liveliest gratitude to the gods that I have got out of it alive. The Book is very dull, but it is actually legible : all the ingenious faculty I had, and ten times as much would have been useful there, has been employed in elucidation; in saying, and 1 New Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle, i. 135; 30th December, 1S43. Fitzgerald says that Carlyle told him that he had buriit " at least six attempts at Cromwell's life." Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald, i. 373. 2 Froude, Carlyle 's Life in London, i. 331-5, 339- VOL. I. — C xxxii INTRODUCTION chiefly — in forbearing to say,— in annihilating continents of brutal wreck and dung : Ach Gott." 1 Carlyle's Cromwell was published about October 1845, and few historical works have attained more immediate success. A second edition was called for in 1846 and a third appeared in 1849. Neither Carlyle nor his publishers had expected so large a circulation. It is credibly stated that the publishers had undertaken to publish the Letters and Speeches with considerable reluctance, and only upon the understanding that Carlyle would afterwards give them a complete biog- raphy of Cromwell. 2 Carlyle confessed that he was not prepared for the popularity of the book. " The lively interest the people have taken in that heavy book — the numbers that read and in some good measure understand something of it ... is really surprising to me." 8 What gratified him more than popular success was the sense that he had not written in vain, and that he had taught the world to see that the Protector was an honest man. Critics who reviewed the book generally declined to accept his estimate of Cromwell's career without great reservation, but his estimate of Cromwell's character exerted a wide and an increasing influence. 4 It influenced all subsequent biographers and historians. Hitherto whatever party an historian belonged to, whether he was a Tory, a Whig or a Radical, Cromwell had incurred the same condemnation. It was much if they conceded that he might be an honest fanatic. Hume termed him a fanatical hypocrite, but admitted that his enthusiasm and his script- ural language were not all assumed. "He was at bottom as frantic an enthusiast as the worst of them, and in order to 'Norton, Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, ii. 94. The unburnt portion was published in 1898 under the title of Historical Sketches of Notable Persons and Events in the Reigns of Jdmes I. and Charles I. by Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle's friend John Chorley transcribed the original MS. about 1850, and added some notes and references ; Mr. Alexander Carlyle completed the task, and published the book. 2 Mr. Espinasse states this on the authority of Mrs. Carlyle. Literary Recollec- tions, p. 74. s Froude, Carlyle's Life in London, i. 377. 4 The most favourable contemporary criticism was an article in the Westminster Review, xlvi. 432. For hostile criticisms see Blackwood, lxi. 393, and J. B. Mozley's article in the Christian Remembrancer for April 1849, reprinted in his Essays Historical and Theological, 1884. INTRODUCTION xxxiii obtain their confidence, needed but to display those vulgar and ridiculous habits which he had early acquired, and on which he set so high a value." 1 Hallam, writing in 1827, compared Cromwell and Napoleon. The comparison is singularly superficial. A couple of sentences show its tone. " In civil government there can be no adequate parallel between one who had sucked only the dregs of a besotted fanaticism, and one to whom the stores of reason and philos- ophy were open. But it must here be added that Cromwell, far unlike his antitype, never showed any signs of a legis- lative mind, or any desire to fix his renown on that noblest basis, the amelioration of social institutions." 2 The first sentence is pure prejudice, the second pure ignorance. The force of Whiggery could no further go. Now to take an instance of the change effected by Carlyle. In 1839 John Forster had published a careful two volume life of Cromwell, representing him in the usual republican fashion as a patriot in the first part of his career, and an apostate and a tyrant in the last part. In 1856 Forster published in the Edinburgh Review 3 an article on Guizot's Cromwell and the English Commonwealth, which proves that his own estimate of Cromwell had been entirely altered by Carlyle's work. "This we hold to have been finally established by Mr. Carlyle, and to constitute the peculiar value of his labours in connection with the subject. To collect and arrange in chronological succession, and with elucidatory comment, every authentic letter and speech left by Cromwell, was to subject him to a test from which falsehood could hardly escape ; and the result has been to show, we think conclusively and beyond further dispute, that through all these speeches and letters one mind runs consistently. Whatever a man's former pre- possessions may have been, he cannot accompany the utterer of these speeches, the writer of these letters, from their first 1 History of England. 2 Constitutional History ', ii. 264, ed. 1863. 8 The essay is reprinted in Forster's Biographical Studies. Carlyle's comments on Guizot's book and on Forster's article are given by Mr. Espinasse, Literary Recollections, p. 85. See also a striking article in The Times for 4th January, 1855, on Carlyle and Guizot, apparently by Professor Goldwin Smith, judging from its resemblance to the lecture on Cromwell in his Three English Statesmen, 1868. xxxiv INTRODUCTION pages to the last, travelling with him from his grazing lands at St. Ives up to his Protector's throne ; watching him in the tenderest intercourse with those dearest to him ; observing him in affairs of state or in the ordinary business of the world, in offices of friendship or in conference with sovereigns and senates ; listening to him as he comforts a persecuted preacher, or threatens a persecuting prince ; and remain at last with any other conviction than that in all conditions, and on every occasion, Cromwell's tone is substantially the same, and that in the passionate fervour of his religious feeling, under its different and varying modifications, the true secret of his life must be sought, and will be found." Forster concludes that " to all practical intents, Cromwell was as far removed on the one hand from fanaticism, as on the other, from hypocrisy." x Forster was a convert worth making, for he was better quali- fied than any other contemporary historian to estimate the permanent value of Carlyle's contribution to the history of the period, and what he thought many others came to think. Carlyle had set out to prove that Cromwell was " the soul of the Puritan Revolt " and " not a man of falsehoods, but a man of truths." He believed that his collection of CromwelPs Letters and Speeches would make " the heart of that grand Puritan business once again visible," and then " the heart of this matter, and the heart of serious men once again brought into approximation, to write some History of it may be a little easier." 2 This he triumphantly achieved, and the impulse which his book gave to the study of that part of seventeenth century history has not yet died away. The view which subsequent historians have taken of Cromwell's character is substantially that set forth by Carlyle, though they naturally differ very widely from Carlyle in their estimate of his policy. Still greater and more immediate was the influence exerted by Carlyle's book upon the reading public in general. It changed the popular conception of Cromwell's character, and restored him to his proper place amongst English worthies. One sign of the change was that people began to talk of 1 Biographical Studies, p. 32. 2 Letters and Speeches, i. n. INTRODUCTION xxxv erecting statues to Cromwell. This was not one of the results Carlyle had aimed at producing, nor was it a mode of showing admiration for great men which he commended. There were too many ugly statues of undeserving people about England as it was. " I think," he growled, " they ought to leave Cromwell alone of their memorials, and try to honour him in some more profitable way — by learning to be honest men like him, for example." 1 But he made an exception in favour of localities with which Cromwell's life was intimately associated. When he was asked to help in promoting the erection of a statue of Cromwell at St. Ives he blessed the project in a most emphatic fashion. His letter to one of the promoters has been preserved. 2 "In the Birmingham newspaper, some ten days ago, a blaz- ing article was sent me about a general ' People's Statue ' for Oliver, to be set up at London, Huntingdon, or, failing both these, at St. Ives, or in Naseby Field. Some considerable notion, I find otherwise, has gone abroad of commemorating Cromwell in the . public statue way. To all which I have hitherto made little answer or none at all. " My private suspicion I confess is that the present genera- tion of Englishmen — who have filled their towns with such a set of ' public statues ' as were never before erected by any people, ugly brazen images (to mere commonplace adventurers with titles on them, and even sometimes to mere paltry scoundrels, worthy of immediate oblivion only), and who have winded up their enterprises in the statue or memorial line by subscribing ^25,000 to a memorial for King Hudson — are not likely to do themselves or anybody much good by setting up statues to Oliver Cromwell. I fear they have forfeited the right to remember Cromwell in a public manner. Cromwell's divine memory, sad, stern and earnest as the gods, says virtually to them ' Forget me and pass on, ye unhappy Canaille — carry your offerings to King Hudson and strive to emulate him ! ' Nevertheless I have privately resolved, if such a thing do go on, to subscribe my little mite to it on iFroude, Carlyle' s Life in London, i. 451. 2 Addressed to the Rev. I. K. Holland, and dated 16th April, 1849. Printed in the Hunts County News, 26th October, 1901, and also separately. xxxvi INTEODUCTION occasion, and to wish privately that it may prosper much better than I can with any assurance hope. I think it will be very difficult to avoid the introduction of such an ocean of flummery and mere idle balderdash into the affair (if the public are fairly awoken to it) as will be very distressing to any one who feels how a Cromwell ought to be honoured by the nation that produced him. " With regard to you and your townsmen, however, I per- ceive that, so far, you have sure ground to stand upon ; ground that is sure, and will carry such an enterprise in all times, even in the Hudson, Dundas, and Brazen Duke of York times. St. Ives wishes to claim authentically for itself the honour of having once been Oliver Cromwell's place of abode, an honour that is likely to last it, and be its most peculiar one for a thousand years to come. " Proper, good every way, and right on the part of St. Ives : while you keep within these limits, the soul of Oliver himself, if he looked down upon you, could not disapprove. Not to do Cromwell honour — that, owing to Hudson, etc., we un- fortunately cannot at present pretend to try ; not to do him honour, but to claim publicly our own property in him, and do honour to ourselves and our town — that we can pretend to, and will ! So far I say your enterprise is founded on the rock ; and however much further it may go, I think you should take care to maintain that particular foundation, and let nothing shift you from it. Namely, that your enterprise is to point out Oliver Cromwell's indisputable connexion with you, and to claim this publicly, and assert it in brass or stone for the coming ages and all persons that may forget or do not know it." Carlyle ended by recommending the market-place of St. Ives as the most suitable spot for the erection of the proposed memorial, and it was there that in October 1901 the statue of Cromwell was at last set up. But it is time to leave the question of the effect produced by Carlyle's book and to discuss the question of its permanent historical value. In reality it belongs rather to the domain of literature than to the domain of history. It might almost be considered a prose epic^telling the story of Cromwell's life, INTRODUCTION xxxvii and Carlyle sometimes spoke of it as a " Cromwelliad." 1 At times, too, he doubted whether prose was the right vehicle for conveying his ideas, or the fittest instrument for pro- ducing the desired effect. "I wish often," he said, "I could write rhyme. A new form from centre to surface, unlike what I find anywhere in myself or others, would alone be appropriate for . . . this subject." 2 Yet the wish was needless, for his own prose had all the epic and dramatic qualities which the subject required ; no poet has drawn a more vivid battle picture than Carlyle's Dunbar, and no tragedy has a nobler closing scene than his description of the death of Cromwell. Nevertheless, regarded simply as the biography of a great statesman and soldier Carlyle's book is fragmentary and in- complete. It follows the letters and speeches too closely, and where Cromwell says nothing Carlyle is silent. The turning- points in Cromwell's career and life are left in comparative darkness. You will search in vain through Carlyle s pages for any adequate account of Cromwell's share in the struggle between Army and Parliament in 1647 and 1648, or for any exact estimate of his part in bringing Charles I. to the scaffold. His account of the Protector's government is in clearness and fulness much inferior to that contained in Godwin's history of the Commonwealth published nearly twenty years earlier. 3 Besides these omissions there are a certain number of errors. Carlyle took great pains to be exact in his facts and his de- scriptions 4 and as a rule he is very accurate about dates and minor details. But sometimes he nodded, and made strange blunders. For instance he places the Uxbridge treaty be- tween the King and the Parliament in the spring of 1644 instead of in February 1645, and his account of the move- ments of Cromwell and the New Model Army after their victory at Naseby is strangely full of errors. The obvious explanation of these defects and omissions is 1 Letters and Speeches, i. 10. 2 Froude, Carlyle's Life in London, i. 279. 3 History of the Commonwealth of England, by William Godwin, 4 vols., 1824-8. 4 See for example the trouble taken by him to compare Cromwell's portrait with the death-mask, and to fix the proper position of the famous wart. Vide Mr. Anderson's article in the English Illustrated Magazine, November 1896, and the letters of Carlyle and Woolner on the subject therein printed. xxxviii INTRODUCTION that the book was intended to be not a life of Cromwell but a commentary on Cromwell's letters and speeches. Apart from the conception of Cromwell's character presented in its pages, it is a collection of materials brought together for the use of those who wish to study Cromwell's life for them- selves. 1 However, considered merely as a collection of docu- ments it has also some serious defects. Carlyle was a very laborious editor but much too arbitrary. He took great trouble to make Cromwell's speeches intelligible by supplying missing words, explaining allusions, breaking up long-winded sentences, adding commas, dashes, brackets and other typographical aids. For this labour he deserves sincere gratitude. On the other hand he modernized the speeches too much, allowed himself too great licence in the way of emenda- tion, and did not always compare with sufficient care the different versions of the same speech or find out the best text of a letter. 2 But Carlyle's greatest fault as an editor is the perpetual interpolation of his own comments in the text. His chorus of " Ha's " and " Hum's " and " Trul/s "—his jeers at " heavy Bulstrode " and " peppery Scot " — his exhortations to " my brave one," "my beautiful great soul," — become at last tedious and obtrusive. 5 It is as if the showman should suddenly bob his head up and personally assist Mr. Punch in his warfare with the devil. A number of these interpolations are explanations of Cromwell's involved grammar, or com- ments upon it. "Sentence catching fire explodes." "Sen- tence gone : meaning left clear enough." " Sentence may be said to burst asunder here for the present, but will gather itself together again perhaps."* "Sentence involving an incurable Irish bull; the head of it eating the tail of it, like a Serpent- of-Eternity ; but the meaning shining very clear through its contortions nevertheless." " His Highness, bursting with meaning, completes neither of these sentences ; 1 Letters and Speeches, i. 67. 2 See Mrs. Lomas's notes to the Speeches, passim. See also ' ■ Carlyle as Editor of Cromwell's Speeches " by Sir Reginald Palgrave, National Review, January 1887. 3 Letters and Speeches, ii. 530, 351 ; Hi- 70, 170, 173, 183. l Ibid., iii. 79, 80, 90, 95, 174. INTRODUCTION xxxix but pours himself, like an irregular torrent, through other orifices and openings." "Another little window into his Highness: almost a half soliloquy : you see the speech getting ready in the interior of his Highness." * In these comments Carlyle lets his imagination run riot. He realizes the scene so vividly himself that he insists that his readers shall see it as he does — they must see through his eyes and hear through his ears. He knows the exact tone of voice in which Cromwell spoke the words given on the printed page. Now it is a "sonorous bass," now "risen somewhat into alt and rolling with a kind of rough music in the tones of it," — now "reverberating like thunder from the roof of the Painted Chamber" — now the Protector's voice has " risen into a kind of recitative," and once it " ends, I think, in a kind of snort. " 2 He can tell you exactly how Cromwell looked when he spoke the words. At one time his face wears "a pleasant bantering look," at another " His Highness elevating his brows; face assuming a look of irony, of rough banter." The subject changes from light to serious, and the speaker's expression changes with it. We see " a certain truculency on his Highness's visage," or some nobler emotion than merely truculency reflected there. When the Protector tells his Parliament that rather than consent to the wilful throwing away of this government "I can sooner be willing to be rolled into my grave and buried with infamy," Carlyle pictures "the aspect of that face, with its lion-mouth and mournful eyes, kindled now, and radiant all of it, with sor- row, with rebuke, and wrathful defiance." 3 Again, when the Protector denounces the men who seek to stir up a new civil war in England, careless of the blood and misery they may cause, — " He that considereth not these," declares Cromwell, "must have the heart of a Cain. The wrath and justice of God will prosecute such a man to his grave, if not to Hell." In comes Carlyle with his comment ; — " Where is Sam Cooper or some prince of limners to take us that look of his Highness? I would give my ten best 1 Letters and Speeches, ii. 378, 379, 381 ; iii. 60. 2 Ibid. , ii. 381, 386, 550 ; iii. 80. i IUd., ii. 386, 528, 548 ; iii, 112. xl INTRODUCTION historical paintings for it, gilt frames and twaddle criticisms into the bargain." 1 Sometimes Carlyle describes the effect of the speeches on Cromwell's audience. At one remark "Lenthall tries to blush"; at another Lord Whitelocke's "heavy face en- deavours to smile in response " ; now there are " suppressed murmurs from Bradshaw and Company," and we behold "Haselrig and Scot looking very grim" as they listen. Once, by a bold piece of personification, the " Old Parliament dubiously rolls its eye." At need he even invents imaginary auditors ; — Cromwell's first speech is interrupted by " stifled cries from Dryasdust," and its progress is suspended whilst Carlyle has a couple of rounds with his old antagonist. " Patience, my friend, my estimable timber-headed, leaden- hearted friend." More groans from Dryasdust ; " Hush, my friend," cries Carlyle, and calls him " a human owl." 2 To some at least of Carlyle's readers these editorial eccen- tricities are distasteful. They find his comments, as Cromwell himself said of Mr. Hitch's choral services, " unedifying and offensive," and murmur, under their breaths, something about the dignity of history. But if we regard Carlyle's work as a " CromweUiad," or a kind of historical drama, we shall not find them out of place. They fulfil an artistic purpose like the comic scenes in a Shakespearian tragedy, and serve to heighten by contrast the loftier passion and purer enthu- siasm of Cromwell's own utterances. In dealing with the letters Carlyle was not tempted to indulge this licence of interpolation. He modernized and emended them much less than the speeches, though still a little too much. Another defect is the method of arranging the letters. The first edition contained 157 letters. The interest which it aroused led people to send Carlyle copies of letters of Cromwell's in their possession, or to point out to him the sources from which fresh letters might be obtained. In this way he collected about ninety letters and documents, of which he incorporated some fifty- three in his second edition, inserting the rest in a vast appendix. After this revision he 1 Letters and Speeches, iii. 174. Misprinted high-art paintings in people's edition. *Ibid., ii. 281, 391, 368, 369, 408 ; iii. 55, 78. INTRODUCTION xli resolved to make no further changes, refusing, as he said, to " unhoop his cask and insert new staves." For the future, " new letters, should such still turn up, I will not, except they contradict some statement, or fibre of a statement, in the text, undertake to introduce there; but deposit them with- out ceremony in the loose lumber-room, in a more or less swept condition." 1 New letters did continue to turn up, and Carlyle, as he threatened, relegated them to the lumber room of his appendix. The result is that several of the most interesting of " the authentic utterances of the man, Oliver Cromwell," may easily be overlooked by the student. The battle of Langport was one of the most important battles of the war, and Cromwell played a considerable part in it, but his letter about it, with its very characteristic reference to the battle of Naseby, is hidden away out of sight. The same fate befalls Cromwell's long and very instructive letter to John Sadler about the principles of Irish policy. 2 Most editors would have taken the small trouble necessary to in- sert such valuable additions in their right place in the text. Another defect of Carlyle as an editor is that he was somewhat careless and uncritical in accepting letters pur- porting to be written by Cromwell. Give him a memoir or a book — anything with a man visible behind it — and he judged its value with the greatest shrewdness, but when he had to deal with a single letter or a collection of letters he was less clear-sighted. In several cases he failed to distinguish the true from the false. There are two curious instances of this. Letter 200 in Carlyle's collection, a letter from Cromwell to Thurloe, is an eighteenth century forgery. 3 There was no external evidence to support the statement that the letter was by Cromwell, but Carlyle pronounced it " by internal evidence a genuine ■note." He saw, however, that there was something wrong with the letter, and mended it by omitting the most suspicious phrases, and otherwise improving the style. The strange thing is that he did not think it necessary to point out to his readers the nature of the alterations he had made ; and 1 Preface to second edition, May, 1846, vol. i. p. vi. 1 Letters and Speeches, Hi. 245, 266. 3 Ibid., ii. 453. xlii INTRODUCTION never saw that hy admitting the necessity of such alterations he was destroying all the claim of the letter to be held authentic. For that claim rested entirely on the credibility of its contents, and on nothing else. A more famous instance of the same kind is the case of the Squire Papers. These papers are a collection of letters attributed to Cromwell, and usually printed in the appendix to Carlyle's Cromwell. By competent judges it is now universally admitted that these letters are forgeries manu- factured for the express purpose of deceiving Carlyle. 1 Their author, William Squire, was a resident at Yarmouth, who combined an interest in local antiquities with a taste for practical jokes. In January 1847, just after the publication of the first edition of Cromwell, he wrote to Carlyle, saying that the book had given him great pleasure, and concluding with the statement that he had in his possession the journal of one of Oliver's troopers (one Sam Squire, an ancestor of his own) and other papers relating tp the period. Eventually he sent Carlyle copies of some thirty-five letters purporting to be written by Cromwell, which Carlyle printed in Preiser's Magazine for December 1847. In -this article Carlyle de- scribed the letters as " of indubitable authenticity," and their communicator as " a person of perfect veracity, and even of scrupulous exactitude in details." "Any remark or state- ment of his concerning them is to be entirely relied on." Nevertheless there were details in the phraseology of these letters which at once excited suspicion. Antiquaries began to express doubts of their authenticity, and one joined in after another, like " dogs answering each other's howls in the night," said Carlyle. But all their critical howling did not shake his faith. " You can say," ran the message which he sent to Squire, "I never for one moment* doubted of his letters, nor am likely, till the age of miracles come back." 2 What right had Carlyle to be so certain that the things were genuine ? What tests had he applied to these documents ? What precautions had he taken against deception ? 'For that reason " The Squire Papers" are omitted in this edition. 2 March 1848. INTRODUCTION xliii He had never seen the supposed originals of the letters, nor a single scrap of any one of them. He had accepted Squire's statements about the letters without any hesitation, though those statements were themselves contradictory. 1 In his first letter 2 Squire said that he thought of some day publishing his ancestor's papers. In his second letter 3 he promised Carlyle copies of the documents, but insisted that his own name and the name of his ancestor should remain a secret. He was afraid, he said, of offending some of his relatives and causing bad blood if he published them, and he would rather " see every scrap of old paper in ashes first." Three months later he sent copies of some of the letters, and added that he had just burnt the original letters and jour- nals. 4 When Carlyle heard this news he became nearly dis- tracted, but he still remained believing. He persuaded his friend Edward Fitzgerald, the poet, who lived in those parts, to find out Squire, to see if any remains could yet be saved, and to find out what manner of man Squire was. Fitzgerald reported that Squire was " a straight- forward, choleric, ingenuous fellow — a little mad," but he liked him, and thought Carlyle would like him. " He admires you," added Fitzgerald, " beyond measure," but on second thoughts crossed out the " beyond measure." So far as internal evidence went the letters seemed to Carlyle perfectly satisfactory. The nineteenth century phrases they contained did not make him turn a hair. But the absence of dates to some of the letters, and the unlikely dates assigned to others, seemed to demand explanation. Squire answered Carlyle's enquiries by saying that the letters in question were undated, or that he had supplied the dates conjecturally from his ancestor's journal, or that " damp and vermin " had eaten away the dates. "As to the dates of letters, many I guessed the year of, as they were so eaten away or red with 1 For the history of the letters and Squire's correspondence with Carlyle and Fitzgerald, see the documents published by Mr. Aldis Wright in the English Historical Review for April, 1886, p. jjn. 2 On 29th January, 1847. s On nth February, 1847. 1 Later still, in January 1848, Squire wrote to Carlyle saying, ' ' When I sent you copies I did not expect them ever getting printed, or I had burnt even them," and explaining that ' ' the earnest request of my father, now no more," was the source of his objection to their publication. xliv INTRODUCTION damp nothing was legible." But why the vermin dieted themselves exclusively on the dates he did not explain. So with perfect confidence Carlyle printed the letters, and not till more than a year later, in January 1849, did he first behold Squire in the flesh. Carlyle minutely describes their interviews, and sketches Squire's portrait. " A man of round rosy face, large grey eyes, full of innocence yet of unquiet vehemence. . . . Something radically honest, even brave and benevolent, was in the man's look, nay something bhwsy and almost jolly." Squire's manner was odd and flighty, his utterances were often rather incoherent ; he was certainly eccentric, and " of the kind called half mad." This he ac- counted for, to Carlyle's perfect satisfaction, by explaining that when he was a boy he had a fall whereby his skull was broken " into 37 pieces." Carlyle questioned him further, and found his answers rambling, incoherent, and even inclined to rave. In spite of all he concludes "an impetuous truthfulness does shine thro' all his crazy vehemences." But besides not being sane enough it was clear that Squire was not clever enough to forge the letters. 1 " A most entirely ignorant man," says Carlyle. When he was taken to the London Library he burst into " ignorant babble and wonder- ment " over the books shown him, and had never heard of Rushworth, Whitelocke, or any other authorities on the period. So that after that interview and a second one, Carlyle, though heartily sick of the whole subject, still believed in the authenticity of the letters. When he published the third edition of his Cromwell, he sent a copy to Squire, who answered that his heart had throbbed with feelings of delight on beholding his treasured autograph, that he felt honoured and proud that he had had the pleasure of seeing and hearing Carlyle, and signed himself "your delighted, faithful, and admiring servant." So ended Carlyle's connection with Squire. The comedy J Mrs. Carlyle mentions a rumour that Landor wrote the letters "for a joke against Carlyle." She concludes that fool though he was, he would hardly indulge in so bad a jest. New Letters, i. 241. INTRODUCTION xlv was played out. Carlyle had been taken in by an imposture which did not deceive the dull antiquaries on whom he had poured such scorn. The hater of shams had seen the impostor face to face and taken him for a true man. Squire's ignor- ance was merely assumed, Squire's craziness only a device for avoiding inconvenient questions. The 35 unpublished letters of Cromwell were as fictitious as the 37 pieces of Squire's skull. And that eminent humorist, having avenged Dryasdust, emi- grated to New Zealand, where, some twenty years later, he closed in peace those " large grey eyes full of innocence." Carlyle's unscientific treatment of documents does not neces- sarily affect the correctness of his j udgment on Cromwell. But there was one fundamental defect in his equipment which vitiated his views of Cromwell's character and of Cromwell's relation to his age. Carlyle's knowledge of previous English history, and — at that time — of later English history, was very slight. We have his own word for the fact. " I want," he wrote in 1839, " to get acquainted with England — a great secret to me always hitherto — and I may as well begin here as elsewhere." 1 Accordingly he read widely upon the period covered by Cromwell's life, but it is evident that he read little upon the period which preceded it or that which followed it. By this insufficient knowledge his conception of events was distorted and his understanding of Cromwell's time necessarily limited. He pictured English history before Oliver as a long tract of darkness — a dull and dismal labyrinth of which Dry- asdust was king. Then comes the short reign of heroisms and veracities, brief as the lightning in the night, and as swiftly swallowed up again by the darkness. Oliver dies : England goes back to shams and to sheltering fallacies in Church and State, and the genius of England, instead of soaring sunwards like the eagle, sticks its head in a bush like the ostrich, "intent on gross terrene provender." One must not take Carlyle's rhetorical figures too literally, but it is clear from his whole treatment of the subject that he regarded the Puritan Revolution as an isolated phenomenon, and did not fully appreciate its connection with the rest of English history. Puritanism was the product of the division 1 Froude, Carlyle's Life in London, i. 153. xlvi INTRODUCTION of opinion which 'began with the Reformation — a religious movement which circumstances developed into a political revolution. True to his principles as to the place of great men in history, Carlyle incarnates the whole movement in one man, and makes it die with him. " Oliver is gone, and with him English Puritanism," says Carlyle, but as a matter of fact the downfall of the Puritan government did not put an end to the Puritan movement. It continued to exist and to exert a profound influence on the political, social, and in- tellectual growth of England : its results are with us still. A great movement lives, not in any single life, but in the ideas it brings into the world, and leaves growing in the minds of men. Carlyle's prejudices as well as his theories warped his judg- ment. He approached the complex problems of seventeenth century politics as if they were a series of simple moral questions, and as if the great struggle between Puritans and Royalists had been a conflict in which God was on one side and the Devil on the other. To him the essential object for which the Puritans contended was "to see God's own law made good in the world," and he assumed that Vane's and Cromwell's interpretation of that law was right, and that of Laud and Falkland wrong. Though he saw the importance of the religious factor in the Civil War more clearly than any previous historian had done, his treatment of the issue was narrow and one-sided. At bottom he was always too much the Scotch Calvinist to be impartial. Religion, however, was only one factor in the Great Re- bellion. It was a struggle for self-government as well as for religious freedom. Carlyle had little sympathy with the demand for self-government, and hence he was unjust not only to the Royalists but also to the Republicans. In his account of the Protectorate the position and the ideals of the parliamentary opposition are never fairly stated. He argues that the Protector's government was a good one, the Protector a divinely inspired hero, and the refusal of the Republicans to accept them mere pedantry and blindness to facts. If we want a fair statement df the position of Cromwell's opponents we must go to a more sober and a more learned INTRODUCTION xlvii historian. " It was no merely theoretical constitutional difference," says Dr. Gardiner ; " Oliver was good, and his government was good, but he owed his position to military force. If military force was to settle affairs of government rightly to-day, it might settle them wrongly to-morrow. England would for ever be at the mercy of those who held the sword. Happily there was present to Englishmen the instinct or consciousness — call it .what you will — that it was better for a nation to blunder on, making mistakes as it goes, than to have the most excellent arrangements forced upon it by external violence." Carlyle shut his eyes to the principles which underlay the conflict between Cromwell and his parliaments, and regarded the whole struggle simply as a fight between a hero and a talking apparatus. According to Mr. Froude the lesson which Carlyle drew from his study of Cromwell's times was " a general inference of the incapacity of a popular assembly to guide successfully and permanently the destinies of this or any other country." It would be truer to say that he began his Cromwellian researches with this belief in his mind, and that it moulded all the conclusions he drew from the facts. His eyes might be on the pages of Rushworth or Whitelocke, but his heart was always in the nineteenth century, with " my own poor generation," as he called it. He had no scientific interest in the past, no interest in the seventeenth century for its own sake. " Thus," said he, " do the two centuries stand related to me — the seventeenth worthless except pre- cisely so far as it can be made the nineteenth." 1 Therefore he looked at the seventeenth century through the spectacles of the nineteenth, and brought to his study of it preconcep- tions which warped his view of men and things. Read Chartism or Past and Present, and they will explain Carlyle's Cromwell. When their writer looked around him at the England of 1843 he could see nothing but suffering and wrong. Parliamentary Reform had brought no remedy for the diseases of society, and party leaders seemed incapable of devising any. The time was out of joint, and it appeared to him that nothing but a hero could set it right. When 1 Norton, Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, ii. 10. VOL. I. — d xlviii INTRODUCTION Carlyle was making his hasty survey of the battle-field of Worcester he met a labouring man, and talked to him about the battle. The labourer said he " had heard of such a thing," and that he wished to God " we had another Oliver, sir ; times is dreadful bad." Carlyle put him down in his notes as "a shrewd, well-conditioned fellow," and gave him a shilling. 1 The shilling was well deserved, for in a few words the poor labourer had summed up the lesson which Carlyle's three volumes were meant to teach the world. Carlyle had said in his haste that parliamentary institutions were a failure, and he naturally discovered that the facts of Cromwell's career S>roved his conclusion. Like too many other historians he bund in the past just what he went to the past to find. To the end of his life Carlyle never ceased to reiterate the same doctrine. Mr. Espinasse, who helped him to prepare the second edition of the Letters and Speeches, describes what he used to see and hear when he visited the little house in Cheyne Row. " Carlyle," he tells us, " prized his success, no doubt for its own sake, but also because he attached great importance to his countrymen's adoption of his estimate of Cromwell. Once more his conversation, or rather his mono- logues, turned much on Cromwell, who for a long time coloured his thoughts and his waking dreams. I can see him now in an old brown dressing-gown, seated on a footstool on the hearth-rug close to the fire-place, in the little parlour, sending most deftly up the chimney whiffs from a long clay pipe. ... I can hear him bet ween' the whiffs, which served as commas and colons (there was never a full stop), pouring forth, in the strongest possible of Scotch accents, an oral Latter- Day Pamphlet, contrasting Cromwell and the Puritans with contemporary English politicians and the multitudes whom they were leading by the nose to the abyss. I see Mrs. Carlyle, with head bent and one hand covering her face, listening in silence. She had heard it all so often before, poor lady, and knew how little would come of it. I can hear her, when Carlyle's denunciation became terribly fierce, make the considerate appeal, 'Don't be angry with Mr. Espinasse, 1 Froude, Carlyle's Life in London, i. 314. INTRODUCTION xlix he is not to blame — ' or ' My dear, your tea is getting quite cold, that is the way with reformers.' " 1 For one moment Carlyle thought he had found in Sir Robert Peel the strong man whom the distracted times re- quired. The Repeal of the Corn Laws seemed to prove it. " Whatever," said he, " were the spoken unveracities of Parlia- ment — and they are many on all hands, lamentable to gods and men — here has a great veracity been done in Parliament, considerably our greatest for many years past ; a strenuous, courageous, and needful thing." Accordingly when the second edition of the Letters appeared a copy was sent to Peel, with a letter saying this and much more. " The book," he told him, " should you ever find leisure to read and master it, may perhaps have interest for you — may perhaps — who knows ? — have admonition, exhortation, in various ways instruction and encouragement for yet other labours which England, in a voiceless but most impressive manner, still expects and demands of you. The authentic words and actings of the noblest governor England ever had may well have interest for all governors of England ; may well be, as all Scripture is, as all genuine words and actings are, ' profit- able ' — profitable for reproof, for correction, and for edifying and strengthening withal." 2 Whether English prime ministers accepted the practical conclusions which Carlyle drew from Oliver's career or not, he was right in thinking that they might learn something from a study of Oliver's character. But Peel died out of office, and too soon to realize the hopes which he had aroused ; his successors showed no trace of any Cromwellian inspiration, and Carlyle relapsed into complete pessimism. Froude's description of Carlyle in his later years forms a companion picture to that drawn by Mr. Espinasse. " He -spoke much on politics and the character of public men. From the British Parliament he was firmly persuaded that no good was to be looked for. A democratic Parlia- ment, from the nature of it, would place persons at the head of affairs increasingly unfit to deal with them. Bad would 1 Espinasse, Literary Recollections, p. 82. 2 Froude, Carlyle 's Life in London, i. 376. 1 INTEODUCTION be followed by worse, and worse by worst, till the very fools would see that the system must end. Lord Wolseley, then Sir Garnet, went with me once to call in Cheyne Row, Carlyle having expressed a wish to see him. He was much struck with Sir Garnet, and talked freely with him on many subjects. He described the House of Commons as 'six hundred talking asses, set to make laws and to administer the concerns of the greatest empire the world had ever seen,' with other uncomplimentary phrases. When he rose to go, he said, ' Well, sir, I am glad to have made your acquaint- ance, and I wish you well. There is one duty which I hope may be laid upon you before you leave this world — to lock the door of yonder place, and turn them all about their business.' " 1 This fanatical hatred of parliamentary assemblies colours and distorts all Carlyle's account of the Protectorate. It led him — as we have seen — to misrepresent the attitude of Crom- well's parliaments towards Cromwell, and it led him to mis- represent Cromwell's attitude towards his parliaments. It made Carlyle — if one may use the phrase — more Cromwellian than Cromwell himself. For the Protector did not share his biographer's contempt for representative government. But for their general the army would have expelled the Long Parliament at least a year or two before they did. It was only after long reluctance, and only when all his efforts to bring about a compromise had failed, that Cromwell forcibly put a stop to its sittings. He did not do the act with a light heart, but looked upon it as a hard necessity. And when Cromwell had put the key of the House in his pocket, and had sent the members about their business, he did not decree (as Carlyle would have done) that henceforth there should be no more talking-shops in England. On the con- trary, the first thing he did was to call another, in order " to divest the sword of all power in the civil administration," and when that failed he called a second and a third. For Cromwell's political ideal was not a government without parliaments, but a government which worked with and through parliaments. Without the consent of the people of England in Parliament assembled he knew that he could 1 Froude, Carlyle's Life in London, ii. 446. INTRODUCTION li found nothing permanent, that he could not secure for posterity the civil and religious liberties for which so many men had died ; that he could not bridge over the gulf which the revolution had made between the past and the present. If Parliament would co-operate with him a lasting settlement of the nation might be effected, and he could lay down his dictatorship. " If," said he, " the wisdom of this parliament should have found a way to settle the interests of this nation, upon the foundations of justice, and truth, and liberty to the people of God and concernments of men as Englishmen — I would have lain at their feet, or at anybody else's feet, that things might have run in such a current." 1 Cromwell knew more than his biographer about governing men, and his own view of his position is a refutation of Carlyle's theory. The supremely able man is in power ; he has fifty thousand never-beaten swordsmen to keep him there ; yet he is unconscious that he possesses any divine right to rule, and eager to share his authority with those he governs ; he knows that he can enforce their obedience, but wears him- self out in the endeavour to obtain their co-operation ; and because he cannot obtain that co-operation he feels that he is a failure, and that his work is unfinished. When Carlyle has once taught us that Cromwell was an honest man, the historical value of the book lies not in Carlyle's representation of Cromwell, but in Cromwell's revela- tion of himself in its pages. There are some books which show us Cromwell as he appeared to contemporary observers, and many which show us Cromwell as he appears to posthu- mous idolaters or iconoclasts, but this is the only one which shows us Cromwell as he appeared to himself. By limiting himself to the collection of Cromwell's utterances Carlyle produced a more valuable book than he would have done if he had completed the history of Cromwell's times which he cast into the flames. We know what that history would have been like from the fragment which has been published. 2 It would have been a series of portraits and incidents, vigor- ously drawn, but loosely strung together, each individually full of life and colour, and sometimes touched with poetic 1 Speech xii. 2 Historical Sketches. lii INTRODUCTION imagination or glowing with prophetic fervour, but a narrative without order and without proportion. All Carlyle's finest qualities are in the book he did give us, and his history would neither have told us how the things really happened, nor taught us to understand the causes of the things. True history should do both. So also if Carlyle had given us a biography of Cromwell on the same scale as his biography of Frederick, the world might not have been the gainer by the exchange. We should have had a full-length portrait of Cromwell instead of a half- length, and the background and foreground would have been more carefully finished, but it would not have been a better likeness. It would have possessed the same merits and the same defects as the portrait of Cromwell given in the Letters and Speeches. As it is Carlyle himself has provided the means for testing and correcting his estimate of Cromwell. A collection of all the recorded utterances of a great man has qualities which the most skilful biography with its abstracts and extracts of those utterances never can possess. Such a collection, if it is carefully read, makes a sharper and a deeper impression on the mind than any life written by a later hand. Nothing intervenes between the reader and the records — as he reads, by degrees the facts group themselves together, the breath of life breathes upon the dry bones, and the figure of the man takes shape and rises before him. Tennyson has described the feeling which the reading of the letters of his dead friend produced upon himself : — So word by word, and line by line, The dead man touched me from the past, And all at once it seemed at last The living soul was flashed on mine. This is the process which takes place if we study the Letters and Speeches closely enough, and the effect which that study produces. It was for this reason that Carlyle brought them together, and in his eyes the text was of more value than his own commentary upon it. C. H. FIRTH. EDITOR'S NOTE, 1904 IT is perhaps necessary to give a short explanation of the method pursued in the present edition of Carlyle's Cromwell. As regards the text of the letters, every effort has been made to see the originals, when they exist, in order to correct any errors, either of transcription or printing, which have crept into the copies used by Carlyle. The Duke of Portland very courteously sent up to the Public Record Office, for this purpose, those volumes of his great series of manuscripts which contain Cromwell documents ; and Mrs. Alfred Morrison and Sir Richard Tangye kindly allowed me access to their collections. Mrs. Morrison pos- sesses (amongst others) the fine holograph letters which Carlyle calls the " Pusey seventeen," and which he knew only as they are printed in Harris's Life of Cromwell. The Cromwell letters printed in the Thurloe State Papers are mostly taken from the original drafts (or copies made at the time) in Thurloe's hand ; these drafts being preserved amongst the Thurloe MSS. at the Bodleian Library, although, curiously enough, Carlyle does not seem to have been aware of the fact. " The originals are gone with Birch," he wrote of Letters CCIV.-CCVL, " who has not even told us in whose "handwriting they were . . . the idle ineffectual Editor." The Thurloe letters have now been collated with these originals and some few mistakes found and corrected, but as a rule Birch's transcripts are admirably correct. Not content with using the immense amount of material in his hands, he, or he and his publisher, Mr. Gyles, appealed to the owners of manuscripts for any letters which would make the collec- tion more complete. Some interesting points in relation to the Cromwell letters are to be found in a volume of Birch's papers at the British Museum. (liii) liv EDITOR'S NOTE, 1904 In a letter written in 1740, one Mr. Theophilus Rowe, of Hampstead, offered for Birch's use the copy of a letter from Oliver Cromwell to Mazarin (Letter CCXVL), which copy was endorsed by his grandfather, Mr. William Rowe, as " his Highness' letter." This William Rowe was the well-known scout-master to the Parliament army, afterwards (conjointly with Rushworth), registrar of the Court of Admiralty ; a man of considerable influence " because of his near relation to Thurloe " (Egmont MSS.). Amongst his papers were also the reports of Cromwell's speeches of May 8 [but dated 7] and May 25, 1657, which are printed in Thurloe. These texts, therefore, as well as the Mazarin letter, are contemporary and above suspicion. In the same volume is a letter from Rawlinson, the antiquary, stating that he had "a remark- able canting letter of Oliver Cromwell's to Lord Wharton " (evidently Letter LXVIII.) which Birch might copy if he thought it worth including — as he naturally did Another source of Cromwell documents is the collection known as the Pell MSS. at the British Museum. All the letters derived from this collection have also been collated with the originals, but the text printed in Vaughan's Pro- tectorate (from which Carlyle copied them) has very few errors. There is no need to defend Birch from Carlyle's charges of idleness and inefficiency ; his colossal work speaks for itself. But there is one patient and painstaking worker of a bygone day on whose behalf fairness demands a word. Carlyle spares no opportunity of showing his contempt for the work of Mark Noble. He laughs at the "imbecility" of this careful investigator of marriage-contracts, parish registers, genealogies and pedigrees (see vol. i., p. 13) ; but when we examine the points which give rise to this scorn, we by no means find it to be justified. For instance, in relation to the birth of Richard Cromwell's first child, Carlyle writes, "Richard's first child, according to Noble's registers, was "not born till 3d Nov. 1652. . . . Noble's registers, as we " shall soon see, are very defective " (ii. 52 n). And again — " Dorothy Cromwell .... has a ' little brat ' ; — but the poor " little thing must have died soon : in Noble's inexact lists "there is no trace of its ever having lived " (ii. 69). Noble's EDITOK'S NOTE, 1904 Iv lists are not inexact. He gives the birth of Richard's first daughter as March 26, 1650, but, following a very usual plan, he puts the sons first, and our " impatient historian " has not troubled to turn the leaf. The " little brat " in question, so far from dying young, lived to be over eighty. Carlyle makes the same mistake a year later. In a letter written on June 28, 1651 (Letter CLXXVIIL, put by Carlyle, in error, to July) Cromwell refers to the expected birth of another child. " Noble's lists are very defective ! " Carlyle repeats ; " These " Letters, too, were before the poor man's eyes." But again, it is merely that Carlyle has failed to turn the leaf. To take a third case : he speaks of the list of estates which Cromwell died possessed of; — "which Schedule poor " Noble has found somewhere — not where he says he did, ' in " Commons Journals, 14 May, 1659 ' " (ii. 495). But Noble does not say so. He prints the schedule, dated as above, and states, rightly, that it is given in the Journals. It was not, however, read in the House until the 25th, and so appears under this date. If Carlyle had looked in the index, or even turned over a page or two, he would have found it Now, these points all give an impression of Noble's " extreme im- becility," and yet in each case he is right, and Carlyle is wrong. There are inaccuracies in dates in Noble's book, but these, apparently, are mostly printers'-errors, such as abound in many books of his day. Taking Car lyle's edition as a whole, the mistakes in the letters are very numerous, but not, as a rule, important. Some- times, however, they affect the sense, and in such cases Carlyle unhesitatingly inserted words of his own, without reflecting that, as Cromwell was a very accurate writer, he would not be likely to send out letters which needed such " embellishments " to explain them. See, for instance, Letter XCIII., written to Mr. Mayor on the subject of Richard Cromwell's marriage, and entirely in Cromwell's own hand. Into this short letter Carlyle in- serted nineteen words, most of which were quite unnecessary, and one or two misleading. Moreover, where Cromwell speaks of the contingency of Mayor himself having a son, Carlyle (who imagined him to be speaking of Richard) added a note, "Grandson, i.e. In the next sentence, die means lvi EDITOR'S NOTE, 1904 " more properly live." It is hardly necessary to say that, in an important business letter, Cromwell did not say "son" when he meant " grandson," or " die " when he meant " live ". To give another instance ; — in Letter XLIII., to Fairfax, "head-quarters" was substituted for "new quarters" and " Adjutant Allen " for " Mr. Allen ". There are two or three other small mistakes, and at the end of the letter, some words having been torn away with the seal, Carlyle supplied them conjecturally, but without any intimation of this fact. Also, he was rather fond of doing what he himself, in speak- ing of one of Cromwell's reporters, calls " paring down the warts " ; improving the composition a little by avoiding rep- etition of words, or the use of ambiguous pronouns. But as students must prefer to have Cromwell's letters as Crom- well himself wrote them, they are now given verbatim, Carlyle's " improvements " being added in the footnotes. In some few cases, the names of persons to whom the letters were written — not known to, or else mistaken by, Carlyle — have been found. Letter X., hitherto without ad- dress, was written to Colonel Hobart ; Letter XXXII. was not to Fairfax but to Lenthall ; Letter CCV. was certainly to Luke Stokes, Governor of Nevis, not to Searle, Governor of Barbados ; Letter CLXXXVIIL, which Carlyle addressed to a hypothetical Mr. Parker, " Agent for the Company of Adventurers, etc.," was evidently written to Major Packer; and Appendix No. 28 (5) was to Sir John Walsh, not to Sir John Wilde. In the Supplement will be found 145 letters, 1 not con- tained in Carlyle's collection. Many of these are of slight interest and no importance, and are only included on Carlyle's own principle that " all clearly authentic Letters of Cromwell "... in this book, by the title of it, are naturally to be " looked for." These unimportant letters are merely calen- dared, not printed in full, and in certain cases, such as letters of recommendation to the Heads of the Universities or to the Council in Ireland, specimens only are given. Of the ad- ditional letters, 35 are from the MSS. at the Public Record Office, London; 11 from the Public Record Office, Dublin; 1 Besides speeches and other documents. Letters on the same subject are some- times grouped together. EDITOK'S NOTE, 1904 Ivii 16 from MSS. at the British Museum; 17 from MSS. at Oxford (including those from the Clarke collection at Worcester College) ; 5 from Corporation archives ; 38 from private collections (most of this last group having been brought to the knowledge of students by the Reports of the Hist. MSS. Commissioners) ; and 1 from the French archives. All these are either the originals, or contemporary copies (usually official entries) ; 8 are from the old newspapers of the period and 14 from more modern printed sources. Most of these letters have appeared in print in one or another historical collection or magazine, but they are now for the first time gathered together, and in nearly all cases have been copied direct from the originals. The most important of the additional letters are those to Robert Hammond (Supplement, Nos. 26, 35, 65) which were found by Dr. Gardiner amongst the Marquis of Lothian's MSS. at Newbattle, and have been printed by Mr. Firth in the Clarke Papers. These Carlyle would have delighted in, with their affectionate interest in the young officer, and their quaint conceits of Brother Heron, Brother Fountain and Sir Roger. He would have been pleased also with the letter in favour of Dr. Welles (No. 9), hanging as a pendant to his own Letter I. The first letter in the Supplement (printed by the kind per- mission of Lady Newdigate-Newdegate) has a double interest, first as being a very early one, the earliest we have except the note to Downing (Appendix I.), and secondly, as shewing that already Cromwell had that interest in sport which, as Mr. Firth has shown, characterized him throughout his later life. The letter concerning Richard's marriage treaty (No. 43), completes the series on that subject, and contains a touch- ing reference to the illness of Cromwell's aged mother. A hitherto unpublished letter to Mazarin (No. 79 a), evidently written in the summer of 1653, has been communicated by M. Jean Lemoine, Bibliothecaire at the Paris Ministere de la Guerre, who has also been extremely kind in giving information concerning the other letters to Mazarin, obtained from the French archives and printed by Carlyle. There are several letters to Vice- Admiral or "General" Penn (Supplement, Nos. 58 (2), 76, 80, 94-97), partly in relation to naval affairs, and partly on behalf of Cromwell's lviii EDITOR'S NOTE, 1904 young kinsmen, Slingsby, Stewart and Whitstone. An im- portant letter to the Commanders in the West Indies (No. 119), printed in Thurloe, was omitted by Carlyle. He pro- bably had it copied with the rest, and mislaid it in some "shuffling of his paper-masses." Another long and inter- esting letter is that to Major Wilkes (No. 98), which was found by Mr. Firth amongst the Clarke Papers. There are three new letters from the Protector to his son Henry (Nos. 124, 134, 145) gathered respectively from the Public Record Office, the British Museum and the Irish Record Office. No. 134, which has only lately been acquired by the British Museum, is especially interesting, and is a fine holograph. Many of the additional letters throw fresh light on points in Cromwell's military movements in the Eastern Association, Wales, Yorkshire (six letters to Col. Charles Fairfax, from the originals in Sir Richard Tangye's collec- tion), Scotland and Ireland ; and a very large number show a kindly interest in the affairs of his fellow-men ; letters on behalf of a former school-fellow, an old Ironside, poor clerks, widows and orphans, royalists protected by Articles of War, and residents in Ireland in danger of transplantation. Of this last group there are so many amongst the State Papers at Dublin, that Mr. Herbert Wood, of the Irish Public Record Office, has been good enough to make a selection for me, it being impossible and unnecessary to include them all. The most interesting is one (No. 128) on behalf of the poet Spenser's grandson. See also those in relation to Lord Claneboye, Lord Coursey and Sir John Temple (Nos. 83, 103, 105) and one concerning the Irish troops sent to Spain (No. 132). ' It has been found rather difficult to draw the line between letters of Cromwell and letters of his Council, submitted to and signed by him, a class which Carlyle pretty rigorously excluded (as he did also the State letters in Latin, written by Milton, with one exception. See iii. 199). The tempta- tion was great to include the letter to Fleetwood in relation to the election of Parliament men in Ireland, printed by Mr. Firth in his edition of Ludlow's Memoirs (i. 387), and a letter to Scotland concerning the dissensions amongst the EDITOK'S NOTE, 1904 lix godly people there (S. P. Dom. I. 78, p. 557) ; but it was thought better not to admit them. Certain letters purport- ing to be written by Cromwell to his daughter, Mrs. Clayton, which appeared in Notes and Queries (Feb. 20, 1869) and were printed by Mr. Waylen in the first edition of his House of Cromwell, are also excluded, the internal evidence being strongly against their authenticity. The treatment of the Letters has been easy ; that of the Speeches very difficult. For here we are upon different ground : we have not what Cromwell said, but only what he is reported to have said, sometimes taken down in shorthand (a fruitful source of small errors) and often under disadvan- tages of time and place. In all probability, therefore, the text is at times corrupt, and, here and there, it is evidently so. Carlyle studied the speeches with sympathetic care, and reached very definite conclusions as to their meaning, and these volumes being only a new edition of Carlyle's Crom- well, the speeches have been for the most part left as he printed them. That is to say, where he has altered the wording in order to give what he believed to be the true sense, his version stands in the text ; also all his " embellishments " (as Dr. Gardiner called the interpolations), his ejaculations, lines of pause, and italics of emphasis. But a few small changes have been made. First, there seemed nothing gained by retaining the multitude of capital letters with which Carlyle bestrewed his pages, as they answer no good end and are troublesome to the eye. Secondly, Car- lyle of set purpose modernized the phraseology ; but (at the present day, at any rate, when Seventeenth Century documents have been so widely studied), the result of this is not greater clearness, but a sense of unreality and anachronism. These words have therefore been put back to their true form, and when small, unimportant alterations have a consensus of old authorities against them, they are omitted. Thirdly, Carlyle professed to distinguish words added by himself by putting them within single inverted commas, but the exceptions to this rule are very much more numerous than the examples of it These insertions are now exactly indicated. Finally, it must be remembered that in many cases Carlyle contented himself with using one printed text, with- lx EDITOE'S NOTE, 1904 out collating it. For instance, for the speeches contained in the old MS. book at the British Museum (Add. MS. 6125), he entirely trusted to Mr. Rutt's version, printed with Burton's Diary. This has many mistakes, and, misled by them, Carlyle has sometimes quite missed the point, and had to alter very much in order to make sense. All the texts have now been carefully collated, and when it is evident that Carlyle mis- read or mistook the meaning, the old text is given, Carlyle's version being relegated to a footnote. But, as a rule it is the old version or versions which are given in the footnotes — given perhaps even to a tiresome extent ; but it seemed desirable that, without going beyond these volumes, students should be able to see how the various texts render any given passage. This is, of course, a compromise, and no compromise can be altogether satisfactory. On the whole, it appeared to be the best plan, but no one can be more sensible than myself that it is open to criticism. To a certain extent, each one of the speeches has neces- sarily been treated on its own merits, for of some we have very good reports and of others very bad ones ; in some cases Carlyle used an excellent text, and in others a very poor one. For instance, for certain of the speeches on kingship, he relies on the reprint of Monarchy Asserted, given in Sowers' Tracts. He sighs and groans over this; declares that the words of Oliver, left in the pamphlet itself in " a very accidental con- dition," have been "growing ever more distracted, as each " new Imaginary-Editor and unchecked Printer, in succession, " did his part to them, till now, in Somers' Tracts, which is " our latest form of the business, they strike description silent. " Chaos itself is cosmos in comparison with that pamphlet "in Somers . . . those frightful jungles, trampled down for " two centuries now by mere bison and hoofed cattle " (iii. 22). But if Carlyle believed this to be the case, why did he not work from the pamphlet itself ? There are two copies of it at the British Museum. As a matter of fact, it is not the case at all. Scott simply reprinted the old pamphlet, and the only difference which the " two centuries " have produced is that there are some careless misprints and that it is even more badly punctuated than the original. But for two or three EDITOE'S NOTE, 1904 lxi of these speeches, and especially for the important No. XIII., there is a better text in the book already referred to (Add. MS. 6125) at the British Museum. Although, as before said, errors have evidently crept in, yet as regards most of the speeches, we may feel pretty con- fident that we have a very fair report of what Cromwell said ; for where two or more versions differ so much in detail as to make it unlikely that they are copied from the same source, or from each other, and yet agree not only in substance but in words and phrasing, we may be sure that we are not far from the true reading. A short footnote at the beginning of each speech explains what the authorities are. In one, and only in one speech, I have ventured to discard most of the embellishments, and to give the speech almost as it stands in the old pamphlet. This is No. IV., which is dis- tinctly stated (in a notice in the Clarke Papers) to have been revised by Oliver himself. Carlyle was, of course, not aware of this, but he evidently realized the comparative superiority of the text, for he altered it much less than any of the others. Of additional speeches, or abstracts of speeches, in the Supplement, there are about twenty ; far the most im- portant being those delivered in the various army councils in 1647. These were discovered by Mr. Firth amongst the Clarke MSS., and printed by him in the first volume of the Clarice Papers. It is greatly to be regretted that Carlyle did not know of them ; for they admirably fill up the hiatus which he so much lamented in Cromwell's authentic utter- ances at this date. Six great meetings are fully reported (Supplement, Nos. 21, 24, 25 (1, 2, 3, 4)) and at some of these Cromwell spoke several times. The speech upon his going for Ireland (No. 42, also taken from the Clarke Papers) is important and interesting, and there are several short reports of speehes which are very useful as being what Carlyle would call " little windows into his Highness's mind." The Supplement also contains a few other documents — Declarations, Articles of Surrender, etc. — which are either im- portant in themselves or helpful in throwing light on passages in Cromwell's history. lxii EDITOE'S NOTE, 1904 In these volumes the additional notes (which are placed within square brackets) are confined, as much as possible, to matters of fact. Any attempt to challenge Carlyle's views and opinions in relation to Church or Parliament would have been foreign to the scope of the edition. Where, here and there, some comment has seemed needful (as for instance, on the result of Cromwell's policy in Ireland), no apology will be required for giving the words of those who have been the foremost workers in the field rather than my own Some new facts in relation to the Cromwell family have been gleaned from the Barrington MSS. at the British Museum ; and, for the Protectorate, much use has been made of the dispatches of Bordeaux, the French ambassador in England, gathered from the admirable series of French transcripts at the Public Record Office. These dispatches are very valuable, for Bordeaux gained his information from good sources, and we have the testimony of Lockhart (Crom- well's ambassador to France) that his accounts of English affairs were accurate and fair. In conclusion, I have to express my very sincere gratitude to those who have kindly given me help and information. My obligations to the Duke of Portland, Mrs. Alfred Morrison, Sir Richard Tangye, Lady Newdigate-Newdegate, M. Jean Lemoine and Mr. Herbert Wood have been already mentioned. Thanks are also due to Dr. Stubbs, Dean of Ely ; Capt. Charles Lindsay ; Mr. Pelham R. Papillon ; Rev. C. T. Eland, vicar of Felstead; Rev. W. J. Henderson, Principal of the Baptist College, Bristol ; Mr. Richard Wel- ford, of Newcastle-on-Tyne ; Dr. T. K Abbott, librarian of Trinity College, Dublin ; and Mr. R A Roberts, of the Public Record Office. My indebtedness to Mr. Firth is beyond words. And finally it is almost needless to say how great has been the help which I have derived from the writings of Dr. S. R. Gardiner, whose name must ever be associated with Cromwell literature, and whose exhaustive researches have lightened the labours of all students of the Cromwell period. S. C. LOMAS. OLIVER CROMWELL'S LETTERS AND SPEECHES INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I ANTI-DRYASDUST What and how great are the interests which connect themselves with the hope that England may yet attain to some practical belief and understanding of its History during the Seventeenth Century, need not be insisted on at present ; such hope being still very distant, very uncertain. We have wandered far away from the ideas which guided us in that Century, and indeed which had guided us in all preceding Centuries, but of which that Century was the ultimate manifestation : we have wandered very far ; and must endeavour to return, and connect ourselves therewith again ! It is with other feelings than those of poor peddling Dilettantism, other aims than the writing of successful or unsuccessful Publications, that an earnest man occupies himself in those dreary provinces of the dead and buried. The last glimpse of the Godlike vanishing from this England ; conviction and veracity giving place to hollow cant and formulism, — antique ' Reign of God/ which all true men in their several dialects and modes have always striven for, giving place to modern Reign of the No-God, whom men name Devil : this, in its multitudinous meanings and results, is a sight to create reflections in the earnest man ! One wishes there were a History of English Puritanism, the last of all our Heroisms ; but sees small prospect of such a thing at present. vol. i. — 1 2 INTEODUCTION ' Few nobler Heroisms,' says a well-known Writer long occupied on this subject, 'at bottom perhaps no nobler Heroism ever ' transacted itself on this Earth ; and it lies as good as lost to ' us ; overwhelmed under such an avalanche of Human Stupidities ' as no Heroism before ever did. Intrinsically and extrinsically ' it may be considered inaccessible to these generations. Intrinsic- ' ally, the spiritual purport of it has become inconceivable, incred- 'ible to the modern mind. Extrinsically, the documents and ' records of it, scattered waste as a shoreless chaos, are not legible. ' They lie there, printed, written, to the extent of tons and square ' miles, as shot-rubbish ; unedited, unsorted, not so much as ' indexed ; full of every conceivable confusion ; — yielding light to ' very few ; yielding darkness, in several sorts, to very many. ' Dull Pedantry, conceited idle Dilettantism, — prurient Stupidity ' in what shape soever, — is darkness and not light ! There are ' from Thirty to Fifty Thousand unread Pamphlets of the Civil ' War in the British Museum alone : huge piles of mouldering 'wreck, wherein, at the rate of perhaps one pennyweight per ' ton, lie things memorable. They lie preserved there, waiting ' happier days ; under present conditions they cannot, except for 'idle purposes, for dilettante excerpts and such like, be got * examined. The Rushworths, Whitlockes, Nalsons, Thurloes ; ' enormous folios, these and many others have been printed, and ' some of them again printed, but never yet edited, — edited as ' you edit wagonloads of broken bricks and dry mortar, simply by ' tumbling up the wagon ! Not one of those monstrous old ' volumes has so much as an available Index. It is the general rule of editing on this matter. If your editor correct the press, 'it is an honourable distinction to him. 'Those dreary old records, they were compiled at first by ' Human Insight, in part ; and in great part, by Human Stupidity ' withal ; — but then it was by Stupidity in a laudable diligent ' state, and doing its best ; which was something : — and, alas, ' they have been successively elaborated by Human Stupidity in ' the idle state, falling idler and idler, and only pretending to be ' diligent ; whereby now, for us, in these late days, they have ' grown very dim indeed ! To Dryasdust Printing-Societies, and ' such like, they afford a sorrowful kind of pabulum ; but for all ' serious purposes, they are as if non-extant ; might as well, if ' matters are to rest as they are, not have been written or printed ' at all. The sound of them is not a voice, conveying knowledge ' or memorial of any earthly or heavenly thing ; it is a wide-spread ANTI-DRYASDUST 3 ' inarticulate slumberous mumblement, issuing as if from the lake ' of Eternal Sleep. Craving for oblivion, for abolition and honest ' silence, as a blessing in comparison !— 'This then,' continues our impatient friend, 'is the Elysium * we English have provided for our Heroes ! The Rushworthian ' Elysium. Dreariest continent of shot-rubbish the eye ever saw. ' Confusion piled on confusion to your utmost horizon's edge : ' obscure, in lurid twilight as of the shadow of Death ; trackless, ' without index, without finger-post, or mark of any human fore- * goer ; — where your human footstep, if you are still human, echoes ' bodeful through the gaunt solitude, peopled only by somnambu- 'lant Pedants, Dilettants, and doleful creatures, by Phantasms, 'errors, inconceivabilities, by Nightmares, pasteboard Norroys, ' griffins, wiverns, and chimeras dire ! There, all vanquished, over- ' whelmed under such waste lumber-mountains, the wreck and dead ' ashes of some six unbelieving generations, does the Age of Crom- ' well and his Puritans lie hidden from us. This is what we, for 'our share, have been able to accomplish towards keeping our ' Heroic Ones in memory. By way of sacred poet they have found 'voluminous Dryasdust, and his Collections and Philosophical ' Histories. ' To Dryasdust, who wishes merely to compile torpedo Histo- 'ries of the philosophical or other sorts, and gain immortal laurels ' for himself by writing about it and about it, all this is sport ; ' but to us who struggle piously, passionately, to behold, if but in ' glimpses, the faces of our vanished Fathers, it is death ! — O Dry- 'asdust, my voluminous friend, had Human Stupidity continued ' in the diligent state, think you it had ever come to this ? Surely ' at least you might have made an Index for these huge books ! ' Even your genius, had you been faithful, was adequate to that. 'Those thirty thousand or fifty thousand old Newspapers and ' Pamphlets of the King's Library, it is you, my voluminous friend, ' that should have sifted them, many long years ago. Instead of ' droning out these melancholy scepticisms, constitutional philo- ' Sophies, torpedo narratives, you should have sifted those old ' stacks of pamphlet matter for us, and have had the metal grains ' lying here accessible, and the dross-heaps lying there avoidable ; ' you had done the human memory a service thereby; some human ' remembrance of this matter had been more possible ! ' Certainly this description does not want for emphasis : but all ingenuous inquirers into the Past will say there is too much truth in it. Nay, in addition to the sad state of our Historical Books, 4 INTRODUCTION and what indeed is fundamentally the cause and origin of that, our common spiritual notions, if any notion of ours may still de- serve to be called spiritual, are fatal to a right understanding of that Seventeenth Century. The Christian Doctrines, which then dwelt alive in every heart, have now in a manner died out of all hearts, — very mournful to behold ; and are not the guidance of this world any more. Nay, worse still, the Cant of them does yet dwell alive with us, little doubting that it is Cant ; — in which fatal intermediate state the Eternal Sacredness of this Universe itself, of this Human Life itself, has fallen dark to the most of us, and we think that too a Cant and a Creed. Thus the old names suggest new things to us, — not august and divine, but hypocritical, piti- able, detestable. The old names and similitudes of belief still circulate from tongue to tongue, though now in such a ghastly condition : not as commandments of the Living God, which we must do, or perish eternally ; alas, no, as something very different from that ! Here properly lies the grand unintelligibility of the Seventeenth Century for us. From this source has proceeded our maltreatment of it, our miseditings, miswritings, and all the other 'avalanche of Human Stupidity,' wherewith, as our impatient friend complains, we have allowed it to be overwhelmed. We have allowed some other things to be overwhelmed ! Would to Heaven that were the worst fruit we had gathered from our Unbelief and our Cant of Belief! — Our impatient friend con- tinues : ' I have known Nations altogether destitute of printers-types ' and learned appliances, with nothing better than old songs, monu- ' mental stoneheaps and Quipothrums to keep record by, who 'had truer memory of their memorable things than this ! Truer 'memory, I say: for at least the voice of their Past Heroisms, 'if indistinct, and all awry as to dates and statistics, was still 'melodious to those Nations. The body of it might be dead ' enough ; but the soul of it, partly harmonised, put in real accord- ' ance with the " Eternal Melodies," was alive to all hearts, and ' could not die. The memory of their ancient Brave Ones did not ' rise like a hideous huge leaden vapour, an amorphous emana- 'tion of Chaos, like a petrifying Medusa Spectre, on those poor ' Nations : no, but like a Heaven's Apparition, which it was, it ' still stood radiant beneficent before all hearts, calling all hearts ' to emulate it, and the recognition of it was a Psalm and Song. 'These things will require to be practically meditated by and ' by. Is human Writing, then, the art of burying Heroisms, and AN?I-£>K¥ASt>UST 5 ' highest Facts, in Chaos ; so that no man shall henceforth con- ' template them without horror and aversion, and danger of 'locked-jaw ? What does Dryasdust consider that he was born ' for ; that paper and ink were made for ? ' It is very notable, and leads to endless reflections, how the ' Greeks had their living Iliad, where we have such a deadly inde- ' scribable Cromwelliad. The old Pantheon, home of all the gods, ' has become a Peerage-Book, — with black and white surplice-con- ' troversies superadded, not unsuitably. The Greeks had their ' Homers, Hesiods, where we have our Rymers, Rushworths, our ' Norroys, Garter- Kings, and Bishops Cobweb. Very notable, I ' say. By the genius, wants and instincts and opportunities of the ' one People, striving to keep themselves in mind of what was ' memorable, there had fashioned itself, in the effort of successive ' centuries, a Homer's Iliad : by those of the other People, in suc- 'cessive centuries, a Collins s Peerage improved by Sir Egerton ' Brydges. By their Pantheons ye shall know them ! Have not ' we English a talent for silence ? Our very Speech and Printed- ' Speech, such a force of torpor dwelling in it, is properly a higher 'power of Silence. There is no Silence like the Speech you 'cannot listen to without danger of locked-jaw ! Given a divine ' Heroism, to smother it well in human Dulness, to touch it with 'the mace of Death, so that no human soul shall henceforth 'recognise it for a Heroism, but all souls shall fly from it as 'from a chaotic Torpor, an Insanity and Horror,- — -I will back ' our English genius against the world in such a problem ! ' Truly we have done great things in that sort ; down from ' Norman William all the way, and earlier : and to the English ' mind at this hour, the past History of England is little other 'than a dull dismal labyrinth, in which the English mind, if 'candid, will confess that it has found of knowable (meaning ' even conceivable), of loveable, or memorable, — next to nothing. ' As if we had done no brave thing at all in this Earth ; — as if ' not Men but Nightmares had written of our History ! The 'English, one can discern withal, have been perhaps as brave a ' People as their neighbours ; perhaps, for Valour of Action and ' true hard labour in this Earth, since brave Peoples were first ' made in it, there has been none braver anywhere or any when : ' — but, also, it must be owned, in Stupidity of Speech they have ' no fellow ! What can poor English Heroisms do in such case, ' but fall torpid into the domain of the Nightmares ? For of a ' truth, Stupidity is strong, most strong. As the Poet Schiller 6 INTRODUCTION 'sings: "Against Stupidity the very gods fight unvictoriotis." ' There is in it an opulence of murky stagnancy, an inexhausti- bility, a calm infinitude, which will baffle even the gods, — which ' will say calmly, " Yes, try all your lightnings here ; see whether 'my dark belly cannot hold them ! " " Mit der Dummheit kampfen Gotter selbst vergebens." ' Has our impatient friend forgotten that it is Destiny withal as well as ' Stupidity ; ' that such is the case more or less with Human History always ! By very nature it is a labyrinth and chaos, this that we call Human History ; an abatis of trees and brushwood, a world-wide jungle, at once growing and dying. Under the green foliage and blossoming fruit-trees of Today, there lie, rotting slower or faster, the forests of all other Years and Days. Some have rotted fast, plants of annual growth, and are long since quite gone to inorganic mould; others are like the aloe, growths that last a thousand or three thousand years. You will find them in all stages of decay and preservation ; down deep to the beginnings of the History of Man. Think where our Alphabetic Letters came from, where our Speech itself came from ; the Cookeries we live by, the Masonries we lodge under ! You will find fibrous roots of this day's Occurrences among the dust of Cadmus and Trismegistus, of Tubalcain and Triptolemus ; the tap-roots of them are with Father Adam himself and the cinders of Eve's first fire ! At bottom, there is no perfect History ; there is none such conceivable. All past Centuries have rotted down, and gone confusedly dumb and quiet, even as that Seventeenth is now threatening to do. Histories are as perfect as the Historian is wise, and is gifted with an eye and a soul ! For the leafy blossoming Present Time springs from the whole Past, remembered and unremember- able, so confusedly as we say : — and truly the Art of History, the grand difference between a Dryasdust and a sacred Poet, is very much even this : To distinguish well what does still reach to the surface, and is alive and frondent for us ; and what reaches no longer to the surface, but moulders safe underground, never to send forth leaves or fruit for mankind any more : of the former we shall rejoice to hear ; to hear of the latter will be an affliction to us ; of the latter only Pedants and Dullards, and disastrous malefactors to the world, will find good to speak. By wise memory and by wise oblivion : it lies all there ! Without oblivion, there is no remembrance possible. When both oblivion ANTI-DRYASDUST 7 and memory are wise, when the general soul of man is clear, melodious, true, there may come a modern Iliad as memorial of the Past : when both are foolish, and the general soul is over- clouded with confusions,' with unveracities and discords, there is a ' Rushworthian chaos.! ? Let Dryasdust be blamed, beaten with stripes if you will ; but let it be with pity, with blame to Fate chiefly. Alas, when sacred Priests are arguing about ' black and white surplices ; ' and sacred Poets have long professedly deserted Truth, and gone a woolgathering after ' Ideals ' and such like, what can you expect of poor secular Pedants ? The labyrinth of History must grow ever darker, more intricate and dismal ; vacant cargoes of ' Ideals ' will arrive yearly, to be cast into the oven ; and noble Heroisms of Fact, given up to Dryasdust, will be buried in a very disastrous manner ! — But the thing we had to say and repeat was this, That Puritanism is not of the Nineteenth Century, but of the Seven- teenth ; that the grand unintelligibility for us lies there. The Fast-day Sermons of St. Margaret's Church Westminster, in spite of printers, are all grown dumb ! In long rows of little dumpy quartos, gathered from the bookstalls, they indeed stand here bodily before us : by human volition they can be read, but not by any human memory remembered. We forget them as soon as read ; they have become a weariness to the soul of man. They are dead and gone, they and what they shadowed ; the human soul, got into other latitudes, cannot now give harbour to them. Alas, and did not the honourable Houses of Parliament listen to them with rapt earnestness, as to an indisputable message from Heaven itself? Learned and painful Dr. Owen, learned and painful Dr. Burgess ; Stephen Marshall, Mr. Spur- stow, Adoniram Byfield, Hugh Peters, Philip Nye : the Printer has done for them what he could, and Mr. Speaker gave them the thanks of the House : — and no most astonishing Review- Article, or tenth-edition Pamphlet, of our day can have half such ' brilliancy,' such ' spirit,' ' eloquence,' — such virtue to produce belief, which is the highest and in reality the only literary success, — as these poor little dumpy quartos once had. And behold, they are become inarticulate quartos ; spectral ; and instead of speaking, do but screech and gibber ! All Puritanism has grown inarticulate ; its fervent preachings, prayings, pamphleteerings are sunk into one indiscriminate moaning hum, mournful as the voice of subterranean winds. So much falls silent : human Speech, unless by rare chance it touch on the ' Eternal Melodies,' 8 INTRODUCTION and harmonise with them ; human Action, Interest, if divorced from the Eternal Melodies, sinks all silent. The fashion of this world passeth away. The Age of the Puritans is not extinct only and gone away from us, but it is as if fallen beyond the capabilities of Memory herself; it is grown unintelligible, what we may call incredible. Its earnest Purport awakens now no resonance in our frivolous hearts. We understand not even in imagination, one of a thousand of us, what it ever could have meant. It seems delirious, delusive ; the sound of it has become tedious as a tale of past stupidities. Not the body of heroic Puritanism only, which was bound to die, but the soul of it also, which was and should have been, and yet shall be immortal, has for the present passed away. As Harrison said of his Banner, and Lion of the Tribe of Judah : " Who shall rouse him up ? " — 'For indisputably,' exclaims the above-cited Author in his ve- hement way, ' this too was a Heroism ; and the soul of it remains ' part of the eternal soul of things ! Here, of our own land and 'lineage, in practical English shape, were Heroes on the Earth * once more. Who knew in every fibre, and with heroic daring ' laid to heart, That an Almighty Justice does verily rule this ' world ; that it is good to fight on God's side, and bad to fight on ' the Devil's side ! The essence of all Heroisms and Veracities 'that have been, or that will be. — Perhaps it was among the 'nobler and noblest Human Heroisms, this Puritanism of ours : ' but English Dryasdust could not discern it for a Heroism at all ; ' — as the Heaven's lightning, born of its black tempest, and de- structive to pestilential Mud-giants, is mere horror and terror to 'the Pedant species everywhere; which, like the owl in any 'sudden brightness, has to shut its eyes, — or hastily procure ' smoked-spectacles on an improved principle. Heaven's bri^ht- 'ness would be intolerable otherwise. Only your eagle dares 'look direct into the fire-radiance; only your Schiller climbs 'aloft "to discover whence the lightning is coming." "Godlike ' men love lightning," says one. Our old Norse fathers called it *a God; the sunny blue-eyed Thor, with his all-conquering 'thunder-hammer, — who again, in calmer season, is beneficent ' Summer-heat. Godless men love it not ; shriek murder when ' they see it ; shutting their eyes, and hastily procuring smoked- ' spectacles. ^ O Dryasdust, thou art great and thrice great ! ' ' But alas,' exclaims he elsewhere, getting his eye on the real nodus of the matter, 'what is it, all this Rushworthian inarticulate AtfTt-DRtASt>t?ST 9 ' rubbish-continent, in its ghastly dim twilight, with its haggard * wrecks and pale shadows ; what is it, but the common Kingdom ' of Death ? This is what we call Death, this mouldering dumb ' wilderness of things once alive. Behold here the final evanes- ' cence of Formed human things ; they had form, but they are ' changing into sheer formlessness ; — ancient human speech itself 'has sunk into unintelligible maundering. This is the collapse, ' — the etiolation of human features into mouldy blank ; c&solu- ' tion ; progress towards utter silence and disappearance ; disas- ' trous ever-deepening Dusk of Gods and Men ! Why has the ' living ventured thither, down from the cheerful light, across the 'Lethe-swamps and Tartarean Phlegethons, onwards to these ' baleful halls of Dis and the three-headed Dog ? Some Destiny ' drives him. It is his sins, I suppose :— perhaps it is his love, * strong as that of Orpheus for the lost Eurydice, and likely to ' have no better issue ! ' — Well, it would seem the resuscitation of a Heroism from the Past Time is no easy enterprise. Our impatient friend seems really getting sad ! We can well believe him, there needs pious love in any ' Orpheus ' that will risk descending to the Gloomy Halls ; — descending, it may be, and fronting Cerberus and Dis, to no purpose ! For it oftenest proves so ; nay, as the Mythologists would teach us, always. Here is another Mythus. Balder the white Sungod, say our Norse Skalds, Balder, beautiful as the summer-dawn, loved of Gods and men, was dead. His Brother Hermoder, urged by his Mother's tears and the tears of the Universe, went forth to seek him. He rode through gloomy winding valleys, of a dismal leaden colour, full of howling winds and subterranean torrents ; nine days ; ever deeper, down towards Hela's Death-realm : at Lonesome Bridge, which, with its gold gate, spans the River of Moaning, he found the Portress, an ancient woman, called Modgudr, ' the Vexer of Minds,' keeping watch as usual : Modgudr answered him, " Yes, Balder passed this way ; but he is not here ; he is down yonder, — far, still far to the North, within Hela's Gates yonder." Hermoder rode on, still dauntless, on his horse, named ' Swiftness ' or ' Mane of Gold ; ' reached Hela's Gates ; leapt sheer over them, mounted as he was ; saw Balder, the very Balder, with his eyes : — but could not bring him back ! The Nomas were inexorable ; Balder was never to come back. Balder beckoned him mournfully a still adieu ; Nanna, Balder's Wife, sent ' a thimble ' to her 10 INTRODUCTION mother as a memorial : Balder never could return ! Is not this an emblem ? Old Portress Modgudr, I take it, is Dryasdust in Norse petticoat and hood; a most unlovely beldame, the ' Vexer of Minds ! ' We will here take final leave of our impatient friend, occupied in this almost desperate enterprise of his; we will wish him, which it is very easy to do, more patience, and better success than he seems to hope. And now to our own small enterprise, and solid despatch of business in plain prose ! CHAPTER II OF THE BIOGRAPHIES OF OLIVER Ours is a very small enterprise, but seemingly a useful one ; preparatory perhaps to greater and more useful, on this same matter : The collecting of the Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, and presenting them in natural sequence, with the still possible elucidation, to ingenuous readers. This is a thing that can be done ; and after some reflection, it has appeared worth doing. No great thing : one other dull Book added to the thousand, dull everyone of them, which have been issued on this subject ! But situated as we are, new Dulness is unhappily inevitable ; readers do not reascend out of deep confusions with- out some trouble as they climb. These authentic utterances of the man Oliver himself — I have gathered them from far and near ; fished them up from the foul Lethean quagmires where they lay buried ; I have washed, or endeavoured to wash them clean from foreign stupidities (such a job of buckwashing as I do not long to repeat) ; and the world shall now see them in their own shape. Working for long years in those unspeakable Historic Provinces, of which the reader has already had account, it becomes more and more apparent to one, That this man Oliver Cromwell was, as the popular fancy represents him, the soul of the Puritan Revolt, without whom it had never been a revolt transcendently memorable, and an Epoch in the World's History ; that in fact he, more than is common in such cases, does deserve to give his name to the Period in question, and have the Puritan Revolt considered as a CromtvelUad, which issue is already very visible BIOGBAPHIES OF OLIVEE 11 for it. And then farther, altogether contrary to the popular fancy, it becomes apparent that this Oliver was not a man of falsehoods, but a man of truths ; whose words do carry a meaning with them, and above all others of that time are worth con- sidering. His words, — and still more his silences, and uncon- scious instincts, when you have spelt and lovingly deciphered these also out of his words, — will in several ways reward the study of an earnest man. An earnest man, I apprehend, may gather from these words of Oliver's, were there even no other evidence, that the character of Oliver, and of the Affairs he worked in, is much the reverse of that mad jumble of 'hypo- crisies,' &c. &c, which at present passes current as such. But certainly, on any hypothesis as to that, such a set of Documents may hope to be elucidative in various respects. Oliver's Character, and that of Oliver's Performance in this world : here best of all may we expect to read it, whatsoever it was. Even if false, these words, authentically spoken and written by the chief actor in the business, must be of prime moment for understanding of it. These are the words this man found suitablest to represent the Things themselves, around him, and in him, of which we seek a History. The newborn Things and Events, as they bodied themselves forth to Oliver Cromwell from the Whirlwind of the passing Time, — this is the name and definition he saw good to give of them. To get at these direct utterances of his, is to get at the very heart of the business ; were there once light for us in these, the business had begun again at the heart of it to be luminous ! — On the whole, we will start with this small service, the Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell washed into something of legibility again, as the pre- liminary of all. May it prosper with a few serious readers. The heart of that Grand Puritan Business once again becoming visible, even in faint twilight, to mankind, what masses of brutish dark- ness will gradually vanish from all fibres of it, from the whole body and environment of it, and trouble no man any more ! Masses of foul darkness, sordid confusions not a few, as I calculate, which now bury this matter very deep, may vanish : the heart of this matter and the heart of serious men once again brought into approximation, to write some ' History ' of it may be a little easier, — for my impatient friend or another. To dwell on or criticise the particular Biographies of Cromwell, after what was so emphatically said above on the general subject, would profit us ibut little. Criticism of these poor Books cannot 12 INTRODUCTION express itself except in language that is painful. They far surpass in ' stupidity ' all the celebrations any Hero ever had in this world before. They are in fact worthy of oblivion, — of charitable Christian burial. Mark Noble reckons up some half dozen ' Original Biographies of Cromwell ; n all of which and some more I have examined ; but cannot advise any other man to examine. There are several laudatory, worth nothing ; which ceased to be read when Charles II. came back, and the tables were turned. The vituperative are many : but the origin of them all, the chief fountain indeed of all the foolish lies that have circulated about Oliver since, is the. mournful brown little Book called Flagellum, or the Life and Death of 0. Cromwell, the late Usurper, by James Heath ; which was got ready so soon as possible on the back of the Annus Mirabilis or Glorious Restoration, 2 and is written in such spirit as we may fancy. When restored potentates and high dignitaries had dug up ' above a hundred buried corpses, and flung them in ' a heap in St. Margaret's Churchyard/ the corpse of Admiral Blake among them, and Oliver's old Mother's corpse ; and were hanging on Tyburn gallows, as some small satisfaction to them- selves, the dead clay of Oliver, of Ireton, and Bradshaw ; — when high dignitaries and potentates were in such a humour, what could be expected of poor pamphleteers and garreteers ? Heath's poor little brown lying Flagellum is described by one of the moderns as a ' Flagitium ;' and Heath himself is called ' Carrion Heath,' — as being r an unfortunate blasphemous dullard, and ' scandal to Humanity ; — blasphemous, I say ; who when the ' image of God is shining through a man, reckons it in his sordid ' soul to be the image of the Devil, and acts accordingly ; who in ' fact has no soul, except what saves him the expense of salt ; who ' intrinsically is Carrion and not Humanity : ' which seems hard measure to poor James Heath. ' He was the son of the King's ' Cutler,' says Wood, ' and wrote pamphlets,' the best he was able, poor man. He has become a dreadfully dull individual, in addition to all ! — Another wretched old Book of his, called Chronicle of the Civil Wars, bears a high price in the Dilettante Sale-catalogues ; and has, as that Flagellum too has, here and there a credible trait not met with elsewhere : but in fact, to the ingenuous inquirer, this too is little other than a tenebrific Book ; 1 Noble's Cromwell, i. 294-300. His list is very inaccurate and incomplete, but not worth completing or rectifying. 2 The First Edition seems to be of 1663. BIOGEAPHIES OF OLIVER 13 cannot be read except with sorrow, with torpor and disgust, — and in fine, if you be of healthy memory, with oblivion. The latter end of Heath has been worse than the beginning was ! From him, and his Flagellums and scandalous Human Platitudes, let no rational soul seek knowledge. Among modern Biographies, the great original is that of Mark Noble above cited ; 1 such ' original ' as there is : a Book, if we must call it a Book, abounding in facts and pretended-facts more than any other on this subject. Poor Noble has gone into much research of old leases, marriage-contracts, deeds of sale and such like : he is learned in parish-registers and genealogies, has con- sulted pedigrees ' measuring eight feet by two feet four ; ' goes much upon heraldry ; — in fact, has amassed a large heap of evi- dences and assertions, worthless and of worth, respecting Crom- well and his Connexions ; from which the reader, by his own judgment, is to extract what he can. For Noble himself is a man of extreme imbecility ; his judgment, for most part, seeming to lie dead asleep ; and indeed it is worth little when broadest awake. He falls into manifold mistakes, commits and omits in all ways ; plods along contented, in an element of perennial dimness, purblindness ; has occasionally a helpless broad inno- cence of platitude which is almost interesting. A man indeed of extreme imbecility ; to whom nevertheless let due gratitude be borne. His book, in fact, is not properly a Book, but rather an Aggregate of bewildered jottings ; a kind of Cromwellian Bio- graphical Dictionary, wanting the alphabetical, or any other, arrangement or index : which latter want, much more remediable than the want of judgment, is itself a great sorrow to the reader. Such as it is, this same Dictionary without judgment and without arrangement, 'bad Dictionary gone to pie,' as we may call it, is the storehouse from which subsequent Biographies have all furnished themselves. The reader, with continual vigilance of suspicion, once knowing what man he has to do with, digs through it, and again through it ; covers the margins of it with notes and contradictions, with references, deductions, rectifica- tions, execrations, — in a sorrowful, but not entirely unprofitable manner. Another Book of Noble's, called Lives of the Regicides, written some years afterwards, during the French Jacobin time, 1 Memoirs 0/ the Protectoral House of Cromwell. By the Rev. Mark Noble. 2 vols. London, 1787. 14 INTRODUCTION is of much more stupid character ; nearly meaningless indeed ; mere water bewitched ; which no man need buy or read. And it is said he has a third Book, on some other subject, stupider still : which latter point, however, may be considered questionable. For the rest, this poor Noble is of very impartial mind respect- ing Cromwell ; open to receive good of him, and to receive evil, even inconsistent evil : the helpless, incoherent, but placid and favourable notion he has of Cromwell in 1 787 contrasts notably with that which Carrion Heath had gathered of him in l66S. For, in spite of the stupor of Histories, it is beautiful, once more, to see how the Memory of Cromwell, in its huge inarticulate significance, not able to speak a wise word for itself to any one, has nevertheless been steadily growing clearer and clearer in the popular English mind ; how from the day when high dignitaries and pamphleteers of the Carrion species did their ever-memorable feat at Tyburn, onwards to this day, the progress does not stop. In 1698, 1 one of the earliest words expressly in favour of Cromwell was written by a Critic of Ludlow's Memoirs. The anonymous Critic explains to solid Ludlow that he, in that solid but somewhat wooden head of his, had not perhaps seen entirely into the centre of the Universe, and workshop of the Destinies ; that, in fact, Oliver was a questionable uncommon man, and he Ludlow a common handfast, honest, dull and indeed partly wooden man, — in whom it might be wise to form no theory at all of Cromwell. By and by, a certain ' Mr. Banks,' a kind of Lawyer and Playwright, if I mistake not, produced a still more favourable view of Cromwell, but in a work otherwise of no moment ; the exact date, and indeed the whole substance of which is hardly worth remembering. 2 The Letter of ' John Maidston to Governor Winthrop,' — Win- throp Governor of Connecticut, a Suffolk man, of much American celebrity, — is dated 1659 ; but did not come into print till 1742, along with Thurloe's other Papers. 3 Maidston had been an Officer in Oliver's Household, a Member of his Parliaments, and knew him well. An Essex man he ; probably an old acquaintance of Winthrop's; visibly a man of honest affections, of piety, 1 So dated in Somers Tracts (London, 1811), vi. 416, — but liable to correction if needful. Poor Noble (i. 297) gives the same date, and then placidly, in the next line, subjoins a fact inconsistent with it. As his manner is ! 2 Short Critical Review of the Life of Oliver Cromwell. By a Gentleman of the Middle Temple. London, 1739. 'Thurloe, i. 763-8',— and correct Noble, i. 94. BIOGRAPHIES OF OLIVER 15 decorum, and good sense. Whose loyalty to Oliver is of a genuine and altogether manful nature, — mostly silent, as we can discern. His Letter gives some really lucid traits of those dark things and times ; especially a short portraiture of the Protector himself, which, the more you know him, you ascertain the more to be a likeness. Another Officer of Oliver's Household, not to be confounded with this Maidston, but a man of similar position and similar moral character to Maidston's ; a ' Groom of the Bed- chamber,' whose name one at length dimly discovers to be Harvey, 1 not quite unknown otherwise ; it is also well worth listening to on this matter. He, in 1659, a few months before Maidston wrote, had published a credible and still interesting little Pamphlet, Passages concerning his late Highness' s last Sickness ; to which, if space permit, we shall elsewhere refer. In these two little off-hand bits of writing, by two persons qualified to write and witness, there is a clear credibility for the reader ; and more insight obtainable as to Oliver and his ways than in any of the express Biographies. That anonymous Life of Cromwell, which Noble very ignorantly ascribes to Bishop Gibson, which is written in a neutral spirit, as an impartial statement of facts, but not without a secret decided leaning to Cromwell, came out in 1 724. It is the Life of Cromwell found commonly in Libraries : 2 it went through several editions in a pure state ; and I, have seen a ' fifth edition ' with foreign intermixtures, 'printed at Birmingham in 1778,' on gray paper, seemingly as a Book for Hawkers. The Author of it was by no means ' Bishop Gibson,' but one Rimber, a Dissenting Minister of London, known otherwise as a compiler of books. 3 He has diligently gathered from old Newspapers and other such sources ; narrates in a dull, steady, concise, but altogether unintelligent manner ; can be read without offence, but hardly with any real instruction. Image of Cromwell's self there is none, express or implied, in this Book ; for the man himself had none, and did 1 The ' Cofferer,' elsewhere called Steward of the Household, is ' Mr. Maidston : ' ' Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, Mr. Charles Harvey, Mr. Underwood.'— Prest- wich's Funeral of the Protector (reprinted in Forster's British Statesmen, v. 436, &c. ) 2 The Life of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. Imparti- ally collected, &c. London, 1724. Distinguished also by a not intolerable Portrait. 3 [It is, however, quite possible that the Gibson family may have assisted in com- piling the. book, for Bishop Gibson's uncle and patron, Dr. Thomas Gibson (a distinguished physician and a dissenter) married Richard Cromwell's daughter, Anna.] 16 INTRODUCTION not feel the want of any : nay in regard to external facts also, there are inaccuracies enough,— here too, what is the general rule in these books, you can find as many inaccuracies as you like : dig where you please, water will come ! As a crown to all the modern Biographies of Cromwell, let us note Mr. Forster's late one : 1 full of interesting original excerpts, and indications of what is notablest in the old Books ; gathered and set forth with real merit, with energy in abundance and superabundance ; amount- ing in result, we may say, to a vigorous decisive tearing up of all the old hypotheses on the subject, and an opening of the general mind for new. Of Cromwell's actual biography, from these and from all Books and sources, there is extremely little to be known. It is from his own words, as I have ventured to believe, from his own Letters and Speeches well read, that the world may first obtain some dim glimpse of the actual Cromwell, and see him darkly face to face. What little is otherwise ascertainable, cleared from the circum- ambient inanity and insanity, may be stated in brief compass. So much as precedes the earliest still extant Letters, I subjoin here in the form most convenient. CHAPTER III OF THE CROMWELL KINDRED Oliver Cromwell, afterwards Protector of the Commonwealth of England, was born at Huntingdon, in St. John's Parish there, on the 25th of April 1599. Christened on the 29th of the same month ; as the old Parish-registers of that Church still legibly testify. 2 His Father was Robert Cromwell, younger son of Sir Henry Cromwell, and younger brother of Sir Oliver Cromwell, Knights both ; who dwelt successively, in rather sumptuous fashion, at the Mansion of Hinchinbrook hard by. His Mother was Elizabeth Steward, daughter of William Steward, Esquire, in Ely; an opulent man, a kind of hereditary Farmer of the Cathedral Tithes and Church lands round that city ; in which capacity his son, Sir 1 Statesmen of the Commonwealth. By John Forster (London, 1840). Vols. iv. and v. 2 Noble, i. 92. THE CROMWELL KINDEED 17 Thomas Steward, Knight, in due time succeeded him, resident also at Ely. Elizabeth was a young widow when Robert Cromwell married her : the first marriage, to one ' William Lynne, Esquire, of Bassingbourne in Cambridgeshire,' had lasted but a year : hus- band and only child are buried in Ely Cathedral, where their monument still stands ; the date of their deaths, which followed near on one another, is 1589. * The exact date of the young widow's marriage to Robert Cromwell is nowhere given ; but seems to have been in 1591. 2 Our Oliver was their fifth child; their second boy ; but the first soon died. They had ten children in all ; of whom seven came to maturity, and Oliver was their only son. I may as well print the little Note, smelted long ago out of huge dross-heaps in Noble's Book, that the reader too may have his small benefit of it. 3 This Elizabeth Steward, who had now become Mrs. Robert Cromwell, was, say the genealogists, ' indubitably descended from the Royal Stuart Family of Scotland ; ' and could still count kindred with them. ' From one Walter Steward, who had ac- companied Prince James of Scotland,' when our inhospitable politic Henry IV. detained the poor Prince, driven in by stress of weather to him here. Walter did not return with the Prince to Scotland ; having ' fought tournaments,' — having made an advantageous marriage-settlement here. One of his descendants, Robert Steward, happened to be Prior of Ely when Henry VIII. 1 Noble, ii. 198, and Ms. penes me. 2 /iid., i. 88. 8 Oliver Cromwell's Brothers and Sisters Oliver's Mother had been a widow (Mrs. Lynne of Bassingbourne) before marry- ing Robert Cromwell ; neither her age nor his is discoverable here. 1. First child (seemingly), Joan, baptised 24th September 1592 ; she dfed in 1600 (Noble, i. 88). 2. Elizabeth, 14th October 1593 ; died unmarried, thinks Noble, in 1672, at Ely. See Appendix, No. 20, a Letter in regard to her, which has turned up. [Note 0/1857). 3. Henry, 31st August 1595 ; died young, ' before 1617.' 4. Catherine, '7th February 1596-7 ; married to Whitstone, a Parliamentary Officer ; then to Colonel [John] Jones. 5. Oliver, born 25th April 1599. 6. Margaret, 22d February 1600-1 ; she became Mrs. Wauton, or Walton, Huntingdonshire ; her son was killed at Marston Moor, — as we shall see. 7. Anna, 2d January 1602-3 '• Mrs. Sewster, Huntingdonshire ; died 1st Novem- ber 1646 :— her Brother Oliver had just ended the ' first Civil War ' then. 8., Jane, 19th January 1605-6 ; Mrs. Desborow, Cambridgeshire ; died, seemingly, in 1656. 9. Robert, 18th January 1608-9 ; died same April. 10. Robina, so named for the above Robert : uncertain date ; became Mrs. Dr. French ; then wife of Bishop Wilkins : her daughter by French, her one child, was married to Archbishop Tillotson. VOL. I. 2 18 INTRODUCTION dissolved the Monasteries ; and proving pliant on that occasion, Robert Steward, last Popish Prior, became the first Protestant Dean of Ely, and — ' was remarkably attentive to his family,' says Noble. The profitable Farming of the Tithes at Ely, above mentioned ; this, and other settlements, and good dotations of Church lands among his Nephews, were the fruits of Robert Steward's pliancy on that occasion. The genealogists say, there is no doubt of this pedigree ; — and explain in intricate tables, how Elizabeth Steward, Mother of Oliver Cromwell, was in- dubitably either the ninth, or the tenth, or some other fractional part of half a cousin to Charles Stuart King of England. 1 Howsoever related to Charles Stuart or to other parties, Robert Cromwell, younger son of the Knight of Hinchinbrook, brought her home, we see, as his Wife, to Huntingdon, about 1591 ; and settled with her there, on such portion, with such prospects as a cadet of the House of Hinchinbrook might have. Portion con- sisting of certain lands and messuages round and in that Town of Huntingdon, — where, in the current name ' Cromwell's Acre,' if not in other names applied to lands and messuages there, some feeble echo of him and his possessions still survives, or seems to survive. These lands he himself farmed : the income in all is guessed or computed to have been about SOOl. a year ; a tolerable fortune in those times ; perhaps somewhat like 1000£ now. Robert Cromwell's Father, as we said, and then his elder Brother, dwelt successively in good style at Hinchinbrook near by. It was the Father Sir Henry Cromwell, who from his sumptuosity was called the " Golden Knight " that built, or that enlarged, remodelled and as good as built, the Mansion of Hinchinbrook ; which had been a Nunnery while Nunneries still were : it was the son, Sir Oliver, likewise an expensive man, that sold it to the Montagues, since Earls of Sandwich, whose seat it still is. A stately pleasant House, among its shady lawns and expanses, on the left bank of the Ouse river, a short half mile west of Hunt- ingdon ; — still stands pretty much as Oliver Cromwell's Grand- father left it ; rather kept good and defended from the inroads of Time and Accident, than substantially altered. Several Por- traits of the Cromwells, and other interesting portraits and memorials of the seventeenth and subsequent centuries, are still there. The Cromwell blazonry ' on the great bay window," which 1 [This theory, however, has been entirely refuted by Mr. Walter Rye, who shows that Mrs. Cromwell was descended from an old Norfolk family, originally named Styward. See The Genealogist, 1885, p. 34.] THE CEOMWELL KINDEED 19 Noble makes so much of, is now gone, destroyed by fire ; has given place to Montague blazonry ; and no dull man can bore us with that any more. Huntingdon itself lies pleasantly along the left bank of the Ouse ; sloping pleasantly upwards from Ouse Bridge, which con- nects it with the old village of Godmanchester ; the Town itself consisting mainly of one fair street, which towards the north end of it opens into a kind of irregular market-place, and then con- tracting again soon terminates. The two churches of All-Saints and St. John's, as you walk up northward from the Bridge, appear successively on your left ; the churchyards flanked with shops or other houses. The Ouse, which is of very circular course in this quarter, ' winding as if reluctant to enter the Fen-country,' says one Topographer, has still a respectable drab-colour, gathered from the clays of Bedfordshire ; has not yet the Stygian black which in a few miles farther it assumes for good. Huntingdon, as it were, looks over into the Fens; Godmanchester, just across the river, already stands on black bog. The country to the East is all Fen (mostly unreclaimed in Oliver's time, and still of a very dropsical character) ; to the West it is hard green ground, agreeably broken into little heights, duly fringed with wood, and bearing marks of comfortable long-continued cultivation. Here, on the edge of the firm green land, and looking over into the black marshes with their alder-trees and willow-trees, did Oliver Cromwell pass his young years. Drunken Barnabee, who travelled, and drank, and made Latin rhymes, in that country about 1635, through whose glistening satyr-eyes one can still discern this and the other feature of the Past, represents to us on the height behind Godmanchester, as you approach the scene from Cambridge and the south, a big Oak-tree, — which has now disappeared, leaving no notable successor. Veni Godmanchester, ubi Ut Ixion captus nude, Sic, etc. And he adds in a Note, Quercus anilis erat, tamen emin-us oppida spectat ; Stirpe viam monstrat, plwmea fronde tegit ; — Or in his own English version, An aged Oak takes of this Town survey, Finds birds their nests, tells passengers their way. 1 1 Barnabee Itinerarium (London, 1818), p. 96. 20 INTRODUCTION If Oliver Cromwell climbed that Oak-tree, in quest of bird-nests or boy-adventures, the Tree, or this poor ghost of it, may still have a kind of claim to memory. The House where Robert Cromwell dwelt, where his son Oliver and all his family were born, is still familiar to every inhabitant of Huntingdon : but it has been twice rebuilt since that date, and now bears no memorial whatever which even Tradition can con- nect with him. It stands at the upper or northern extremity of the Town, — beyond the Market-place we spoke of; on the left or river-ward side of the street. It is at present a solid yellow brick house, with a walled court-yard ; occupied by some towns- man of the wealthier sort. The little Brook of Hinchin, making its way to the Ouse which is not far off, still flows through the court-yard of the place, — offering a convenience for malting or brewing, among other things. Some vague but confident tradi- tion as to Brewing attaches itself to this locality ; and traces of evidence, I understand, exist that before Robert Cromwell's time, it had been employed as a Brewery : but of this or even of Robert Cromwell's own brewing, there is, at such a distance, in such an element of distracted calumny, exaggeration and confusion, little or no certainty to be had. Tradition, ' the Rev. Dr. Lort's Manu- scripts, ' Carrion Heath, and such testimonies, are extremely in- secure as guides ! Thomas Harrison, for example, is always called * the son of a Butcher ; ' which means only that his Father, as farmer or owner, had grazing-lands, down in Staffordshire, where- from naturally enough proceeded cattle, fat cattle as the case might be, — well fatted, I hope. Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex in Henry Eighth's time, is in like manner called always ' the son of a Blacksmith at Putney ; ' — and whoever figures to himself a man in black apron with hammer in hand, and tries to rhyme this with the rest of Thomas Cromwell's history, will find that here too he has got into an insolubility. * The splenetic credulity 'and incredulity, the calumnious opacity, the exaggerative ill- ' nature and general flunkeyism and stupidity of mankind,' says my Author, ' are ever to be largely allowed for in such circum- stances.' We will leave Robert Cromwell's brewing in a very unilluminated state. Uncontradicted Tradition, and old printed Royalist Lampoons, do call him a Brewer : the Brook of Hinchin, running through his premises, offered clear convenience for malt- ing or brewing; — in regard to which, and*also to his Wife's assiduous management of the same, one is very willing to believe Tradition. The essential trade of Robert Cromwell was that of THE CEOMWELL KINDEED 21 managing those lands of his in the vicinity of Huntingdon : the grain of them would have to be duly harvested, thrashed, brought to market ; whether it was as corn or as malt that it came to market, can remain indifferent to us. For the rest, as documents still testify, this Robert Cromwell did Burgh and Quarter-Session duties ; was not slack but moder- ately active as a country-gentleman ; sat once in Parliament in his younger years ; 1 is found with his elder or other Brothers on various Public Commissions for Draining the Fens of that region, or more properly for inquiring into the possibility of such an operation ; a thing much noised of then ; which Robert Crom- well, among others, reported to be very feasible, very promising, but did not live to see accomplished, or even attempted. His social rank is sufficiently indicated ; — and much flunkeyism, falsity and other carrion ought to be buried ! Better than all social rank, he is understood to have been a wise, devout, sted- fast and worthy man, and to have lived a modest and manful life in his station there. Besides the Knight of Hinchinbrook, he had other Brothers settled prosperously in the Fen regions, where this Cromwell Family had extensive possessions. One Brother Henry was ' seated at Upwood,' a fenny district near Ramsey Mere ; one of his daughters came to be the wife, second wife, of Oliver St. John, the Shipmoney Lawyer, the political 'dark-lantern,' as men used to name him ; of whom we shall hear farther. Another Brother ' was seated ' at Biggin House between Ramsey and Upwood ; a moated mansion, with ditch and painted paling round it. A third Brother was seated at — my informant knows not where ! In fact I had better, as before, subjoin the little smelted Note which has already done its duty, and let the reader make of that what he can. 2 Of our Oliver's Aunts one was 1 ' 3Sto Eliz. : ' Feb.— April 1593 (Noble, i. 83 ; from Willis). 2 Oliver's Uncles. 1. Sir Oliver of Hinchinbrook : his eldest son John, born in 1589 (ten years older than our Oliver), went into the army, ' Colonel of an English regiment in the Dutch service : ' this is the Colonel Cromwell who is said, or fabled, to have sought a midnight interview with Oliver, in the end of 1648, for the purpose of buying off Charles I. ; to have ' laid his hand on his sword,' &c. &c. The story is in Noble, i. 51 ; with no authority but that of Carrion Heath. Other sons of his were soldiers, Royalists these : there are various Cousin Cromwells that confusedly turn up on both sides of the quarrel. [Sir Oliver's eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was the only one of his children who contributed towards the group of cousins by whom Oliver was surrounded. She married Sir Richard Ingoldsby, and their son was the Col. 22 INTRODUCTION Mrs. Hampden of Great Hampden, Bucks : an opulent, zealous person, not without ambitions ; already a widow and mother of two Boys, one of whom proved very celebrated as John Hampden ; she was Robert Cromwell's Sister. Another Cromwell Aunt of Oliver's was married to 'Whalley, heir of the Whalley family in Ingoldsby — " Dick Ingoldsby"— whom Richard Cromwell declared he would trust before all the rest of his officers ; although he could neither pray nor preach.] Robert Cromwell, our Oliver's Father, was the next brother of the Hinchinbrook Knight. The third Brother, second uncle, was 2. Henry Cromwell, of Upwood near Ramsey Mere : adventurer in the Virginia Company: sat in Parliament 1603-1611 ; one of his daughters Mrs. St. John. Died 1630 (Noble, i. 28). 3. Richard : ' buys in 1607 ' a bit of ground in Huntingdon ; died ' at Ramsey,' 1628 ; was member for Huntingdon in Queen Elizabeth's time : — Lived in Ramsey? Is buried at Upwood. 4. Sir Philip : Biggin House. ; knighted at Whitehall, 1604 (Noble, i. 31). His second son, Philip [Richard], was in Col. Ingoldsby's regiment ; wounded at the storm of Bristol, in 1645. Third son, Thomas, was in Ireland with Strafford (signs Mont- norris's death-warrant there, in 1630) ; lived afterwards in London ; became Major, and then Colonel, in the Kings Army. Fourth son, Oliver, was in the Parliamen- tary Army ; had watched the King in the Isle of Wight, — went with his cousin, our Oliver, to Ireland in 1649, and died or was killed there. [This Oliver — Major Oliver, of Sir Thos. Morgan's regiment of foot — is noteworthy from the fact that his signature is so much like that of his renowned cousin that care has to be taken to distinguish between them. Like many other officers, he was encouraged to make "discoveries" of Papists' and Delinquents' estates, and allowed half the prpceeds towards his arrears. See his Petition and Information to the Committee for Advance of Money, pp. 1028, 1030, in the Calendar of that Committee. He died before Waterford, of a fever, in October 1649, and his death is referred to in the Lord General's letter of 19th Dec. (No. cxvii.)] Fifth son, Robert, ' poisoned his Master, an Attorney, and was hanged at London? — if there be truth in ' Heath's Flagellum' (Noble, i. 35) ' and some Pedigrees ; ' — year not given ; say about 1635, when the lad, ' born 1617,' was in his 18th year ? I have found no hint of this affair in any other quarter, not in the wildest Royalist-Birkenhead or Walker's- Independency lampoon ; and consider it very possible that a Robert Cromwell having suffered ' for poisoning an Attorney,' he may have been' called the cousin of Cromwell by ' Heath and some Pedigrees.' But of course anybody can ' poison an Attorney,' and be hanged for it ! [Robert Cromwell was certainly accused of poisoning the Attorney. This is what his own relatives say about it. "My cousin, Robert Cromwell, son to Sir Philip, bound with an Attorney, is (upon his master's death) imprisoned and questioned for poisoning of him, which we hope he will be clear from in the close." (Sir Thos. Barrington to his mother, April, 1632. Barrington MSS. at the British Museum, Egerton MS. 2646, f. 17). " Yesterday your cousin Cromwell's trial was heard. The probabilities are foul, but he is likely to find great friends." (Judith Barrington to the same, Tuesday, Whitsun Week, 1632. Jiid., fol. 30). "My cousin Cromwell, condemned, is reprieved, and generally reputed a guiltless poor youth, and this evening my Lord of Holland endeavours his farther reprieve and pardon." (Sir Thomas to the same, May 25, 1632. Ibid., fol. 35). From which it may be hoped that he did not poison the Attorney after all.] [Amongst the Barrington MSS. are also letters from Sir Oliver and Henry Cromwell to their sister, Lady Barrington, in relation to the death of their brother Philip, which took place on January 24, 1627-8. He was buried on the 28th, at Ramsey. " He led a religious life," writes his brother Henry : " He hath left behind him many children with small means ; 100/. apiece will be the uttermost can be THE CROMWELL KINDRED 23 Notts ; ' another to the ' heir of the Dunches of Pusey, in Berk- shire ; ' another to — In short the stories of Oliver's ' poverty,' if they were otherwise of any amount, are all false ; and should be mentioned here, if still here, for the last time. The family was of the rank of substantial gentry, and duly connected with such in the counties round, for three generations back. Of the numerous and now mostly forgettable cousinry we specify farther only the Mashams of Otes in Essex, as like to be of some cursory interest to us by and by. There is no doubt at all but Oliver the Protector's family was related to that of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, the Putney ' Blacksmith's ' or Iron-master's son, transiently mentioned above ; the Malleus Monachorum, or, as old Fuller renders it, ' Mauler of Monasteries,' in Henry Eighth's time. The same old Fuller, a perfectly veracious and most intelligent person, does indeed re- port as of ' his own knowledge,' that Oliver Protector, once upon a time when Bishop Goodman came dedicating to him some unreadable semi-popish jargon about the 'mystery of the Holy Trinity,' and some adulation about ' his Lordship's relationship to the former great Purifier of the Church,' and Mauler of Monasteries, — answered impatiently, " My family has no relation wrought for them out of his estate " (Egerton MS. 2645, fol. 138). In 1630 are other letters from Sir Oliver and Henry, the former speaking of himself as grown old and being a poor man without a wife. His second wife, Anne, had died in 1626. ] Oliver's Aunt Elizabeth was married to William Hampden of Great Hampden, Bucks (year not given, Noble, i. 36, nor at p. 68 of vol. ii. ; nor in Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden) : he died in 1597 ; she survived him 67 years, continuing a widow (Noble, ii. 69). Buried in Great Hampden Church, 1664, aged 90. She had two sons, John and Richard : John, born 1594, — Richard, an Oliverian too, died in 1659 (Noble, ii. 70). Aunt Joan (elder than Elizabeth) was ' Lady Barrington ; ' [wife of Sir Francis Barrington, of Barrington Hall, Essex. " The Joan Barrington branch (of the Cromwell family) including Barringtons, Gerrards, Mashams and Bourchier, could muster, in about the fourth year of the Long Parliament, no less than seven mem- bers, namely : Sir Thomas Barrington the Protector's first cousin ; Sir John Bar- rington, young Gerrard and young Masham, his first cousins once removed ; Sir Gilbert Gerrard and Sir William Masham, who had married his first cousins, and lastly Sir John Bourchier. " See Mr. Stanley Weyman's article on ' ' Oliver Cromwell's Kinsfolk," English Historical Review, January, 1891.] Aunt Frances (younger) was Mrs. Whalley. Richard Whalley of Kerton, Notts ; a man of mark ; sheriff, &c. ; three wives, children only by his second, this 'Aunt Fanny.' Three children: — Thomas Whalley (no years given, Noble, ii. 141) died in his father's lifetime ; left a son who was a kind of Royalist, but yet had a certain acceptance with Oliver too. Edward Whalley, the famed ' Colonel,' and Henry Whalley, ' the Judge-Advocate : ' wretched biographies of these two are in Noble, pp. 141 , 143-56. Colonel Whalley and Colonel Goff, after the Restoration, fled to New England ; lived in ' caves ' there, and had a sore time of it : New England, in a vague manner, still remembers them. Enough of the Cousinry ! — 24 INTRODUCTION to his ! " This old Fuller reports, as of his own knowledge. I have consulted the unreadable semi-popish jargon, for the sake of that Dedication ; I find that Oliver's relationship to Thomas Cromwell is in any case stated wrong there, not right : I reflect farther that Bishop Goodman, oftener called ' Bishop Badman ' in those times, went over to Popery ; had become a miserable im- poverished old piece of confusion, and at this time could appear only in the character of begging bore, — when, at any rate, for it was in the year 1653, Oliver himself, having just turned out the Long Parliament, 1 was busy enough ! I infer therefore that Oliver said to him impatiently, without untruth, " You are quite wrong as to all that : good morning ! " — and that old Fuller, like- wise without untruth, reports it as above. But, at any rate, there is other very simple evidence entirely conclusive. Richard or Sir Richard Cromwell, great-grandfather of Oliver Protector, was a man well known in his day ; had been very active in the work of suppressing monasteries ; a righthand man to Thomas the Mauler : and indeed it was on Monastic Pro- perty, chiefly or wholly, that he had made for himself a sumptuous estate in those Fen regions. Now, of this Richard Cromwell there are two Letters to Thomas Cromwell, ' Vicar-General,' Earl of Essex, which remain yet visible among the Manuscripts of the British Museum ; in both of which he signs himself with his own hand, 'your most bounden Nephew,' — an evidence sufficient to set the point at rest. Copies of the Letters are in my possession ; but I grudge to inflict them on the reader. One of them, the longer of the two, stands printed, with all or more than all its original misspelling and confused obscurity, in Noble : z it is dated ' Stamford,' without day or year ; but the context farther dates it as contemporary with the Lincolnshire Rebellion, or 1 The date of Goodman's Book is 25th June 1653 ; here is the correct title of it (Kings Pamphlets, small 4to, no. 73, § 1) : * The two great Mysteries of Christian Religion ; the Ineffable Trinity and Wonderful Incarnation : by G. G. G. ' (mean- ing Godfrey Goodman, Glocestrensis). Unfortunate persons who have read Laud's writings are acquainted with this Bishop Goodman, or Badman ; he died a declared Papist. Poor man, his speculations, now become jargon to us, were once very serious and eloquent to him ! Such is the fate that soon overtakes all men who, quitting the 'Eternal Melodies,' take up their abode in the outer Temporary Discords, and seek their subsistence there ! This is the part of the Dedication that concerns us : 'To his Excellency my Lord Oliver Cromwell, Lord General. My Lord,— ' Fifty years since, the name of Socinus,' &c. — ' Knowing that the Lord Cromwell ' (your Lordship's great uncle) was then in great favour,' &c. — ' Godfree Good- man.' 2 i. 242. THE CEOMWELL KINDRED 26 Anti-Reformation riot, which was directly followed by the more formidable ' Pilgrimage of Grace ' in Yorkshire to the like effect, in the autumn of 1536. 1 Richard, in company with other higher official persons, represents himself as straining every nerve to beat down and extinguish this traitorous fanatic flame, kindled against the King's Maje,sty and his Reform of the Church ; has an eye in particular to a certain Sir John Thymbleby in Lincoln- shire, whom he would fain capture as a ringleader ; suggests that the use of arms should be prohibited to these treasonous popula- tions, except under conditions ; — and seems hastening on, with almost furious speed ; towards Yorkshire and the Pilgrimage of Grace, we may conjecture. 2 The second Letter, also without date except ' Tuesday,' 3 shadows to us an official man, again on business of hot haste ; journeying from Monastery to Monastery ; finding this Superior disposed to comply with the King's Majesty, and that other not disposed, but capable of being made so ; intimates farther that he will be at his own House (presumably Hinchinbrook), and then straightway 'home,' and will report progress to my Lord in person. On the whole, as this is the earliest articulate utterance of the Oliver Family ; and casts a faint glimmer of light, as from a single flint-spark, into the dead darkness of the foregone century ; and touches withal on an acquaintance of ours, the 'Prior of Ely,' — Robert Steward, last Popish Prior, first Protestant Dean of Ely, and brother of Mrs. Robert Cromwell's ancestor, which is curious to think of, — we will give the Letter, more especially as it is very short : " To my Lord Cromwell. " I have me most humbly commended unto your Lordship. I " rode on Sunday to Cambridge to my bed ; 4 and the next morn- 1 Herbert (in Rennet, ii. 204-5). 2 [This first letter is in the Harley MSS. (vol. 283, f. 156). It is clearly written in a clerk's hand, and the only ' ' obscurity " about it is that a good many contractions are employed, but they are used quite regularly. From its connexion with other letters of the same period, it must have been written on October 14, 1536. Sir John Thimbleby did not need capturing, as he had " come in " a day or two before.] 3 [It is dated Tuesday, 15th October, which fixes it to 1538, and it is calendared by Dr. Gairdner under this date. There are many letters from Richard Cromwell to his uncle at the Public Record Office. In one, written in May of this same year, he tells how the King went to Hunsdon to see his little son, " and there solaced all this day with much mirth and joy, dallying with him in his arms a long space, and so holding him in a window for the sight and great comfort of all the people " (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII., vol. xiii., pt. i., p. 372).] 4 From London, we suppose. 26 INTRODUCTION " ing was \ip betimes, supposing to have found at Ely Mr. Pollard "and Mr. Williams. But they were departed before my coming : "and so, 'they' being at dinner at Somersham with the Bishop " of Ely, I overtook them ' there.' 1 At which time, I opened " your pleasure unto them in everything. Your Lordship, I think, " shall shortly apperceive the Prior of Ely to be of a froward sort, " by evident tokens ; 2 as, at our coming home, shall be at large "related unto you. "At the making hereof we had done nothing at Ramsey " saving that over night I communed with the Abbot ; whom I " found comformable to everything as shall be at this time put "in ure. 8 According as your Lordship's will is, as soon as we " have done at Ramsey, we go to Peterborough, and from thence "to my house; and so home. 4 The which, I trust, shall be at " the farthest on this day come seven days. " Thus the Blessed Trinity preserve your Lordship's health. " Your Lordship's most bounden Nephew, " Richard Crumwell. " From Ramsey, on Tuesday in the morning ; being the 15th of October." 6 The other Letter is still more express as to the consanguinity ; it says, among other things, • And longer than I may have heart ' so, as my most bounden duty is, to serve the King's Grace with ' body, goods, and all that ever I am able to make ; and your ' Lordship, as Nature and also your manifold kindness bindeth, ' — I beseech God I no longer live.' 6 'As Nature bindeth.' Richard Cromwell then thanks him, with a bow to the very ground, for 'my poore wyef,' who has had some kind remem- brance from his Lordship ; thinks all ' his travail but a pastime ; ' and remains, ' at Stamford this Saturday at eleven of the clock, 1 The words within single commas, ' they ' and ' there,' are added for bringing out the sense ; a plan we shall follow in all the Original Letters of this Collection. a He proved tameable, Sir Richard,— and made your Great-grandson rich, for one consequence of that ! 3 [Carlyle printed "act" and explained it as meaning " brought to legal black and white," but the original has "put in ure," an old phrase meaning taken in hand, or put in practice. There were other mistakes in his transcript of the letter, which is here printed from the original.] 4 To London. S MSS. Cotton. Cleopatra E. IV. f. 235. The envelope and address are not here ; but this docket of address, given in a sixteenth-century hand, and otherwise indicated by the text, is not doubtful. The signature alone, is in Richard's hand. In the Letter printed by Noble the address remains in the hand of Richard's clerk. 6 [This is not a verbatim quotation. Carlyle has improved Cromwell's grammar a little.] THE CEOMWELL KINDEED 27 ' your humble Nephew most bounden/ as in the other case. A vehement, swift-riding man ! Nephew, it has been suggested, did not mean in Henry the Eighth's time so strictly as it now does brother's or sister's son ; it meant nepos rather, or kinsman of a younger generation : but on all hypotheses of its meaning, the consanguinity of Oliver Protector of England and Thomas Mauler of Monasteries is not henceforth to be doubted. 1 Another indubitable thing is, That this Richard, your Nephew most bounden, has signed himself in various Lawdeeds and Notarial papers still ^extant, ' Richard Cromwell alias Williams ; ' also that his sons and grandsons continued to sign Cromwell alias Williams ; and even that our Oliver himself in his youth has been known to sign so. And then a third indubitable thing on this matter is, That Leland, an exact man, sent out by Authority in those years to take cognisance, and make report, of certain points connected with the Church Establishments in England, and whose well-known Itinerary is the fruit of that survey, has written in that Work these words ; under the head, ' Commotes 2 in Glamorganshire : ' ' Kibworth lieth,' extendeth, ' from the mouth of Remny up to ' an Hill in the same Commote, called Kevenon, a six miles from 'the mouth of Remny. This Hill goeth as a wall over thwart 'betwixt the Rivers of Thave and Remny. A two miles from ' this Hill by the south, and a two miles from Cardiff, be vestigia * of a Pile or Manor Place decayed, at Egglis Newith in the Parish ' of Llandaff. 3 On the south side of this Hill was born Richard ' Williams alias Cromwell, in the Parish Llanilsen.' 4 That Richard Cromwell, then, was of kindred to Thomas Crom- well ; that he, and his family after him, signed ' alias Williams ; ' 1 [He was his nephew, son of his sister Katherine, who married Morgan Williams, brewer, of Putney. This son, Richard, took his mother's name, and entered the service of Henry VIII. In 1538, the priory of Hinchinbrook was bestowed on him, and in 1540 the site and part of the possessions of Ramsey Abbey.] 2 Commote is the Welsh word Cwmwd, now obsolete as an official division, equivalent to cantred, hundred. Kibworth Commote is now Kibbor Hundred. 3 ' Egglis Newith ' is Eglwys Newydd, New Church, as the Welsh peasants still name it, though officially it is now called White Church. River ' Thave ' means Taff. The description of the wall-like Hill between two streams, Taff and Remny, is recognisably correct : Kevenon, spelt Cevn-on, ' Ash-tree ridge,' is still the name of the Hill. 4 Noble, i. 238, collated with Leland (Oxford, 1769), iv. fol. 561 PP- 37i 3 8 - Le- land gathered his records ' in six years,' between 1533 and 1540 ; he died, en- deavouring to assort them, in 1552. They were long afterwards published by Hearne. 28 INTEODUCTION and that Leland, an accurate man, said and printed, in the official scene where Richard himself was living and conspicuous, He was born in Glamorganshire : these three facts are indubitable ; — but to these three we must limit ourselves. For, as to the origin of this same 'alias Williams,' whether it came from the general • Williamses of Berkshire,' 1 or from ' Morgan Williams a Glamorganshire gentleman married to the sister of Thomas Cromwell,' or from whom or what it came, we have to profess ourselves little able, and indeed not much concerned to decide. Williamses are many : there is Richard Cromwell, in that old Letter, hoping to breakfast with a Williams at Ely, — but finds both him and Pollard gone ! Facts, even trifling facts, when indisputable may have significance ; but Welsh Pedigrees, ' with seventy shields of arms,' ' Glothian Lord of Powys ' (prior or posterior to the Deluge), though ' written on a parchment eight 'feet by two feet four, bearing date 1602, and belonging to the ' Miss Cromwells of Hampstead,' 2 are highly unsatisfactory to the ingenuous mind ! We have to remark two things : First, that the Welsh Pedigree, with its seventy shields and ample extent of sheepskin, bears date London, 1602; was not put to- gether, therefore, till about a hundred years after the birth of Richard, and at a great distance from the scene of that event : circumstances which affect the unheraldic mind with some mis- givings. Secondly, that ' learned Dugdale,' upon whom mainly, apart from these uncertain Welsh sheepskins, the story of this Welsh descent of the Cromwells seems to rest, has unfortunately stated the matter in two different ways, ; — as being, and then also as not being, — in two places of his learned Lumber-Book. 3 Which circumstance affects the unheraldic mind with still fataller misgivings, — and in fact raises irrepressibly the question and admonition, " What boots it ? Leave the vain region of blazonry, " of rusty broken shields and genealogical marine-stores ; let it " remain forever doubtful ! The Fates themselves have appointed " it even so. Let the uncertain Simulacrum of a Glothian, prior " or posterior to Noah's Deluge, hover between us and the utter " Void ; basing himself on a dust-chaos of ruined heraldries, lying " genealogies, and saltires cheeky, the best he can ! " 1 Biographia Britannica (London, 1789), iv. 474. 2 Noble, i. 1. [But the pedigree, attested by York Herald, is very valuable for more historic times.] 3 Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 374, 393. [Carlyle has overlooked the fact that in the second notice, Dugdale is speaking of another branch of the family.] EVENTS IN OLIVER'S BIOGRAPHY 29 The small Hamlet and Parish Church of Cromwell, or Cram- well (the Well of Crum, whatever that may be), still stands on the Eastern edge of Nottinghamshire, not far from the left bank of the Trent ; simple worshippers still doing in it some kind of divine service every Sunday. From this, without any ghost to teach us, we can understand that the Cromwell kindred all got their name, — in very old times indeed. From torpedo rubbish- records we learn also, without great difficulty, that the Barons Cromwell were summoned to Parliament from Edward Second's time and downward ; that they had their chief seat at Tattershall in Lincolnshire ; that there were Cromwells of distinction, and of no distinction, scattered in reasonable abundance over that Fen- country, — Cromwells Sheriffs of their Counties there in Richard's own time. 1 The Putney Blacksmith, Father of the Malleus, or Hammer that smote Monasteries on the head, — a Figure worthy to take his place beside Hephaistos, or Smith Mimer, if we ever get a Pantheon in this Nation, — was probably enough himself a Fen-country man ; one of the junior branches, who came to live by metallurgy in London here. Richard, also sprung of the Fens, might have been his kinsman in many ways, have got the name of Williams in many ways, and even been born on the Hill behind Cardiff, independently of Glothian. Enough : Richard Cromwell, on a background of heraldic darkness, rises clearly visible to us; a man vehemently galloping to and fro, in that sixteenth century ; tourneying successfully before King Harry, 2 who loved a man ; quickening the death-agonies of Monasteries ; growing great on their spoil ;• — and fated, he also, to produce another Malleus Cromwell that smote a thing or two. And so we will leave this matter of the Birth and Genealogy. CHAPTER IV EVENTS IN OLIVER'S BIOGRAPHY The few ascertained, or clearly imaginable, Events in Oliver's Biography may as well be arranged, for our present purpose, in the form of annals. 1 Fuller's Worthies, § Cambridgeshire, &c. 2 Stowe's Chronicle (London, 1631), p. 580; Stowe's Survey, Holinshed, &c. 30 INTRODUCTION 1603 Early in January of this year, the old Grandfather, Sir Henry, ' the Golden Knight,' at Hinchinbrook, died : x our Oliver, not quite four years old, saw funerealia and crapes, saw Father and Uncles with grave faces, and understood not well what it meant, — understood only, or tried to understand, that the good old Grandfather was gone away, and would never pat his head any more. The maternal Grandfather, at Ely, was yet, and for above a dozen years more, living. The same year, four months afterwards, King James, coming from the North to take possession of the English crown, lodged two nights at Hinchinbrook ; with royal retinue, with immense sumptuosities, addressings, knight-makings, ceremonial exhibi- tions ; which must have been a grand treat for little Oliver. His Majesty came from the Belvoir-Castle region, 'hunting all the way,' on the afternoon of Wednesday 27th April l6'03 ; and set off, through Huntingdon and Godmanchester, towards Royston, on Friday forenoon. 2 The Cambridge Doctors brought him an Address while here ; Uncle Oliver, besides the ruinously splendid entertainments, gave him hounds, horses and astonishing gifts at his departure. In return there were Knights created, Sir Oliver first of the batch, we may suppose ; King James had decided that there should be no reflection for the want of Knights at least. Among the large batches manufactured next year was Thomas Steward of Ely, henceforth Sir Thomas, Mrs. Robert Cromwell's Brother, our Oliver's Uncle. Hinchinbrook got great honour by this and other royal visits ; but found it, by and by, a dear-bought honour. — Oliver's Biographers, or rather Carrion Heath his first Bio- grapher whom the others have copied, introduced various tales into these early years of Oliver : of his being run away with by an ape along the leads of Hinchinbrook, and England being all but delivered from him, had the Fates so ordered it ; of his seeing prophetic spectres ; of his robbing orchards, and fighting tyrannously with boys ; of his acting in School Plays ; of his &c. &c. — The whole of which, grounded on ' Human Stupidity ' and 1 Poor Noble, unequal sometimes to the copying of a Parish-register, with his judgment asleep, dates this event 1603-4 ( at P- 2 °. v °l- '•). and then placidly (at p. 40) states a fact inconsistent therewith. [Noble's dates are as a rule very accurate, but his book, like many of that day, has a good many misprints. Carlyle himself has one here, for the reference should be p. 22.] a Stowe's Chronicle, 812, &c. EVENTS IN OLIVEES BIOGEAPHY 31 Carrion Heath alone, begs us to give it Christian burial once for all. Oliver attended the Public School of Huntingdon, which was then conducted by a worthy Dr. Beard, of whose writing I possess a Book, 1 of whom we shall hear again : he learned, to appearance moderately well, what the sons of other gentlemen were taught in such places ; went through the universal destinies which conduct all men from childhood to youth, in a way not particularised in any one point by an authentic record. Readers of lively imagination can follow him on his bird-nesting expedi- tions, to the top of ' Barnabee's big Tree,' and elsewhither, if they choose ; on his fen-fowling expeditions, social sports and labours manifold ; vacation-visits to his Uncles, to Aunt Hampden and Cousin John among others : all these things must have been ; but how they specially were is forever hidden from all men. He had kindred of the sort above specified ; parents of the sort above specified, rigorous yet affectionate persons, and very religious, as all rational persons then were. He had two sisters elder, and gradually four younger ; the only boy among seven. Readers must fancy his growth there, in the North end of Huntingdon, in the beginning of the Seventeenth Century, as they can. In January 1 603-4, 2 was held at Hampton Court a kind of 1 The Theatre of God's Judgments : By Thomas Beard, Doctor of Divinity, and Preacher of the Word of God in the Town of Huntingdon : Third Edition, increased by many new Examples (' Examples' of God's Justice vindicating itself openly on Violaters of God's Law, — that is the purport of the Book) : Lond. 1631. — A kindly ingenious little Book ; still partly readable, almost loveable ; some thin but real vein of perennial ingenuity and goodness recognisable in it. What one might call a Set of ' Percy-Anecdotes ; ' but Anecdotes authentic, solemnly select, and with a purpose : ' Percy-Anecdotes ' for a more earnest Century than ours ! Dedicated to the Mayor and Burgesses of Huntingdon, — for sundry good reasons ; among others, ' Because, Mr. Maygr, you were my scholar, and brought up in my house.' 8 Here, more fitly perhaps than afterwards, it may be brought to mind, that the English year in those times did not begin till March ; that New Year's Day was the 25th of March. So in England, at that time, in all records, writings and books ; as indeed in official records it continued so till 1752. In Scotland it was already not so; the year began with January there ever since 1600; — as in all Catholic countries it had done ever since the Papal alteration of the Style in 1582 ; and as in most Protestant countries, excepting England, it soon after that began to do. Scotland in respect of the day of the month still followed the Old Style. ' New Year's Day the 25th of March : ' this is the whole compass of the fact ; with which a reader in those old books has, not without more difficulty than he expects, to familiarise himself. It has occasioned more misdatings and consequent confusions to modern editorial persons than any other as simple circumstance. So learned a man as Whitaker Historian of Whalley, editing Sir George Radcliffe's Correspondence (London, 1810), with the lofty air which sits well on him on other occasions, has altogether forgotten the above small circumstance : in consequence of which we have Oxford Carriers dying in January, or the first half of March, and to our great amazement going on to forward butter-boxes in the May following ; — and similar miracles not a few occurring : and in short the whole Correspondence 32 INTRODUCTION Theological Convention, of intense interest all over England, and doubtless at Huntingdon too ; now very dimly known, if at all known, as the ' Hampton-Court Conference.' It was a meeting for the settlement of some dissentient humours in religion. The Millennary Petition, — what we should now call the 'Monster Petition,' for the like in number of signatures was never seen before, — signed by near a thousand Clergymen, of pious straitened consciences : this and various other Petitions to his Majesty, by persons of pious straitened consciences, had been presented; craving relief in some ceremonial points, which, as they found no warrant for them in the Bible, they suspected (with a very natural shudder in that case) to savour of Idol-worship and Mimetic Dramaturgy, instead of God-worship, and to be very dangerous indeed for a man to have concern with ! Hampton- Court Conference was accordingly summoned. Four world- famous Doctors, from Oxford and Cambridge, represented the pious straitened class, now beginning to be generally conspicuous under the nickname Puritans. The Archbishop, the Bishop of London, also world-famous men, with a considerable reserve of other bishops, deans and dignitaries, appeared for the Church by itself Church. Lord Chancellor, the renowned Egerton, and the highest official persons, many lords and courtiers with a tincture of sacred science, in fact the flower of England, appeared as witnesses ; with breathless interest. The King himself presided ; having real gifts of speech, and being very learned in Theology, — which it was not then ridiculous but glorious for him to be. More glorious than the monarchy of what we now call Literature would be ; glorious as the faculty of a Goethe holding visibly of Heaven : supreme skill in Theology then meant that. To know God, ©cos, the Maker, — to know the divine Laws and inner Harmonies of this Universe, must always be the highest glory for a man ! And not to know them, always the highest disgrace for a man, however common it be ! — is jumbled to pieces ; a due bit of topsy-turvy being introduced into the Spring of every year; and the learned Editor sits, with his lofty air, presiding over mere Chaos come again! In the text here, we of course translate into the modern year, but leaving the day of the month as we find it ; and if for greater assurance both forms be written down, as for instance 1603-4, the last figure is always the modern one ; 1603-4 means 1604 for ourcalendar. [As regards social observances, however, New Year's Day was then as it is now. A letter so dated would be written on January 1, not March 25, and people wished each other a Happy New Year on the Feast of the Circumcision, not of the Annunciation. Thus Evelyn, on January 1, 1655, speaks of begging a blessing on the year which he was now entering.] EVENTS IN OLIVER'S BIOGRAPHY 33 Awful devout Puritanism, decent dignified Ceremonialism (both always of high moment in this world, but not of equally high) appeared here facing one another for the first time. The demands of the Puritans seem to modern minds very limited indeed : That there should be a new correct Translation of the Bible (granted), and increased zeal in teaching (omitted) ; That ' lay impropriations ' (tithes snatched from the old Church by laymen) might be made to yield a ' seventh part ' of their amount, towards maintaining ministers in dark regions which had none (refused) ; That the Clergy in districts might be allowed to meet together, and strengthen one another's hands as in old times (refused with indignation) ; — on the whole (if such a thing durst be hinted at, for the tone is almost inaudibly low and humble), That pious straitened Preachers, in terror of offending God by Idolatry, and useful to human souls, might not be cast out of their parishes for genuflexions, white surplices and such like, but allowed some Christian liberty in mere external things : these were the claims of the Puritans ; — but his Majesty eloquently scouted them to the winds, applauded by all bishops, and dignitaries lay and clerical ; said, If the Puritans would not conform, he would 'harry them out of the countiy ; ' — and so sent Puritanism and the Four Doctors home again, cowed into silence, for the present. This was in January 1604. 1 News of this, speech enough about it, could not fail in Robert Cromwell's house among others. Oliver is in his fifth year, — always a year older than the Century. In November 1605, there likewise came to Robert Cromwell's house, no question of it, news of the thrice unutterable Gun- powder Plot. Whereby King, Parliament, and God's Gospel in England, were to have been, in one infernal moment, blown aloft ; and the Devil's Gospel, and accursed incredibilities, idol- atries, and poisonous confusions of the Romish Babylon, substi- tuted in their room ! The eternal Truth of the Living God to be- come an empty formula, a shamming grimace of the Three-hatted Chimera ! These things did fill Huntingdon and Robert Crom- well's house with talk enough, in the winter of Oliver's sixth year. And again, in the summer of his eleventh year, in May 1610, there doubtless failed not news and talk, How the Great Henry was stabbed in Paris streets ; assassinated by the Jesuits ; — black sons of the scarlet woman, murderous to soul and to body. 1 Neal's History of the Puritans (London, 1754), i, 411, vol. i. — 3 34 INTRODUCTION Other things, in other years, the diligent Historical Student will supply according to faculty. The History of Europe, at that epoch, meant essentially the struggle of Protestantism against Catholicism, — a broader form of that same struggle, of devout Puritanism against dignified Ceremonialism, which forms the History of England then. Henry the Fourth of France, so long as he lived, was still to be regarded as the head of Protes- tantism ; Spain, bound up with the Austrian Empire, as that of Catholicism. Henry's ' Grand Scheme ' naturally strove to carry Protestant England along with it ; James, till Henry's death, held on, in a loose way, by Henry ; and his Pohtical History, so far as he has any, may be considered to lie there. After Henry's death, he fell off to ' Spanish Infantas,' to Spanish interests ; and, as it were, ceased to have any History, nay began to have a negative one. Among the events which Historical Students will supply for Robert Cromwell's house, and the spiritual pabulum of young Oliver, the Death of Prince Henry in 1612, 1 and the prospective accession of Prince Charles, fitter for a ceremonial Archbishop than a governing King, as some thought, — will not be forgotten. Then how the Elector Palatine was married ; and troubles began to brew in Germany ; and little Dr. Laud was made Archdeacon of Huntingdon : — such news the Historical Student can supply. And on the whole, all students and persons can know always that Oliver's mind was kept full of news, and never wanted for pabulum ! But from the day of his Birth, which is jotted down, as above, in the Parish-register of St. John's Huntingdon, there is no other authentic jotting or direct record concerning Oliver himself to be met with anywhere, till in the Admission-Book of Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge, we come to this, 2 1616 ' A Festo Annunciationis ad Feslum Sancti Michaelis Archangeli, 1616;' such (meaning merely, From New-year's-day, or 25th March, to 29th September) is the general Heading of the List of Scholars, or Admissi, for that Term ; — and first in order there, stands, ' Oliverius Cromwell Huntingdoniensis admissus ad com- ' meatum Sociorum, Aprilis vicesimo tertio ; Tutore Magistro Bicardo 1 6th Nov. (Camden's Annals). 'Noble, i. 254 ;— corrected by the College Book itself. [This must mean " collated with " as Noble's entry is quite accurate.] EVENTS IN OLIVER'S BIOGRAPHY 35 ' Howlet : ' Oliver Cromwell from Huntingdon admitted Fellow Commoner, 23d April 1616 ; Tutor Mr. Richard Howlet. — Between which and the next Entry some zealous individual of later date has crowded-in these lines : ' Hie fuit grandis Me ' Impostor, Carnifex perditissimus, qui pientisrimo Rege Carolo Primo ' nefarid ccede sublato, ipsum usurpavit Thronum, el Tria Regno, per ' quinque Jerme annorum spatium, sub Protectoris, nomine, indomitd ' tyrannide vexavit.' Had the zealous individual specifically dated this entry, it had been a slight improvement, — on a thing not much improvable. We can guess, After 1660, and not long after. Curious enough, of all days, on this same day Shakspeare, as his stone monument still testifies, at Stratford-on-Avon, died : Obiit Anno Domini 1616. j&tatis 53. Die 23 Apr. 1 While Oliver Cromwell was entering himself of Sidney-Sussex College, William Shakspeare was taking his farewell of this world. Oliver's Father had, most likely, come with him ; it is but some fifteen miles from Huntingdon ; you can go and come in a day. Oliver's Father saw Oliver write in the Album at Cambridge : at Stratford, Shakspeare's Ann Hathaway was weeping over his bed. The first world-great thing that remains of English History, the Literature of Shakspeare, was ending ; the second world-great thing that remains of English History, the armed Appeal of Puri- tanism to the Invisible God of Heaven against many very visible Devils, on Earth and Elsewhere, was, so to speak, beginning. They have their exits and their entrances. And one People, in its time, plays many parts. Chevalier Florian, in his Life of Cervantes, has remarked that Shakspeare's death-day, 23d April, 1616, was likewise that of Cervantes at Madrid. ' Twenty-third of April ' is, sure enough, the authentic Spanish date : but Chevalier Florian has omitted to notice that the English twenty-third is of Old Style. The brave Miguel died ten days before Shakspeare ; and already lay buried, smoothed right nobly into his long rest. The Historical Student can meditate on these things. — In the foregoing winter, here in England, there was much trying of Ker Earl of Somerset and my Lady once of Essex, and the poisoners of Overbury ; and before Christmas the inferior 1 Collier's Life of Shakspeare (London, 1845), p. 253. 36 INTRODUCTION murderers and infamous persons were mostly got hanged ; and in these very days, while Oliver began his studies, my Lord of Somerset and my Lady were tried, and not hanged. And Chief Justice Coke, Coke upon Lyttleton, had got into difficulties by the business. And England generally was overspread with a very fetid atmosphere of Court-news, murders, and divorce-cases, in those months ; which still a little affects even the History of England. Poor Somerset Ker, King's favourite, 'son of the Laird of Femiehirst,' he and his extremely unedifying affairs, — except as they might transiently affect the nostrils of some Cromwell of importance, — -do not much belong to the History of England I Carrion ought at length to be buried. Alas, if ' wise memory ' is ever to prevail, there is need of much ' wise oblivion ' first. — Oliver's Tutor in Cambridge, of whom legible History and 1 know nothing, was ' Magister Richard Howlet : ' 1 whom readers must fancy a grave ancient Puritan and Scholar, in dark anti- quarian clothes and dark antiquarian ideas, according to their faculty. The indubitable fact is, that he Richard Howlet did, in Sidney-Sussex College, with his best ability, endeavour to infiltrate something that he called instruction into the soul of Oliver Cromwell and of other youths submitted to him : but how, of what quality, with what method, with what result, will remain extremely obscure to every one. In spite of mountains of books, so are books written, all grows very obscure. About this same date, George Radcliffe, Wentworth Strafford's George, at Oxford, finds his green-baize table-cover, which his mother 1 [Mr. Howlett appears, some twenty years afterwards, in Ireland. Archbishop Usher, writing to Laud on July 9, 1638, in relation to the provostship of Trinity College, Dublin, says: "There is also here Mr. Howlett (who is to succeed the other [the newly-appointed Bishop of Cork and Ross], as they say, in the Deanery of Cashel), late fellow of Sidney College in Cambridge, an able man and very fit for government." Dr. Bramhall, Bishop of Deny, writes of him more at length. " There is now a treaty of marriage between Mr. Howlett, one who was ten years president (sic. ) of Sydney College and my tutor, so far as to bear my name on his books for some small time before I took my degree, though very little elder, and Mrs. Browne's only daughter. My Lord [Archbishop ?] hath expressed his approba- tion of it. He is his [pupil and erased] chaplain, and shall succeed the Provost in the Deanery of Cashel, and the Bishop of Cork in the rectory of Cargelene, and hath pretty land of his own in England, worth 600/. or a thousand marks. I never knew him quarrel with any man in my time. A moderate man in his tenets, far from Dr. Ward's rigidity and his way, and one to whom my Lord would desire sooner to trust the government of the College here than any man in the kingdom, as himself hath told me." 5. P. Dom. Ireland, Car. I., cclvi., 107, 108. Howlett was installed as Dean of Cashel on March 9, 1638-9 (Cotton's Fasti), but did not obtain the Provostship.] EVENTS IN OLIVER'S BIOGRAPHY 37 had sent him, too small ; has it cut into ' stockings ' and goes about with the same. 1 So unfashionable were young Gentlemen Commoners. Queen Elizabeth was the first person in this country who ever wore knit stockings. 1617 In March of this year, 1617, there was another royal visit at Hinchinbrook. 2 But this time, I conceive, the royal entertainment would be much more moderate ; Sir Oliver's purse growing lank. Over in Huntingdon, Robert Cromwell was lying sick, somewhat indifferent to royal progresses. King James, this time, was returning northward to visit poor old Scotland again, to get his Pretended-Bishops set into activity, if he could. It is well known that he could not, to any satisfac- tory extent, neither now nor afterwards : his Pretended- Bishops, whom by cunning means he did get instituted, had the name of Bishops, but next to none of the authority, of the respect, or alas, even of the cash, suitable to the reality of that office. They were by the Scotch People derisively called Tulchan Bishops. — Did the reader ever see, or fancy in his mind, a Tulchan ? A Tulchan is, or rather was, for the thing is long since obsolete, a Calf-skin stuffed into the rude similitude of a Calf, — similar enough to deceive the imperfect perceptive organs of a Cow. At milking - time the Tulchan, with head duly bent, was set as if to suckj the fond cow looking round fancied that her calf was busy, and that all was right, and so gave her milk freely, which the cunning maid was straining in white abundance into her pail all the while ! The Scotch milkmaids in those days cried, " Where is the Tulchan ; is the Tulchan ready ? " So of the Bishops. Scotch Lairds were eager enough to ' milk ' the Church Lands and Tithes, to get the rents out of them freely, which was not always easy. They were glad to construct a Form of Bishops to please the King and Church, and make the milk come without disturbance. The 1 " University College, Oxford, 4th Dec. 1610. " Loving Mother, — * * Send also, I pray, you by Briggs " (this is Briggs the Carrier, who dies in January, and continues forwarding butter in May), ' ' a green table-cloth of a yard and half a quarter, and two linen table-cloths. " * * If the green table-cloth be too little, I will make a pair of warm stockings " of it. * * — Thus remembering my humble duty, I take my leave. — Your "loving son, "George Radcliffe." Radcliffe's Letters, by Whitaker (London, 1810), p. 64-5. 2 Camden's Annals ; Nichols's Progresses. 38 INTRODUCTION reader now knows what a Tulchan Bishop was. A piece of mechanism constructed not without difficulty, in Parliament and King's Council, among the Scots ; and torn asunder afterwards with dreadful clamour, and scattered to the four winds, so soon as the Cow became awake to it !— Villiers Buckingham, the new favourite, of whom we say little, was of the royal party here. Dr. Laud, too, King's Chaplain, Archdeacon of Huntingdon, attended the King on this occasion ; had once more the pleasure of seeing Huntingdon, the cradle of his promotions, and the birth-place of Oliver. In Scotland, Dr. Laud, much to his regret, found " no religion at all," no surplices, no altars in the east or anywhere ; no bowing, no responding ; not the smallest regularity of fuglemanship or devotional drill- exercise ; in short " no religion at all that I could see," — which grieved me much. 1 What to us is greatly more momentous : while these royal things went on in Scotland, in the end of this same June at Huntingdon, Robert Cromwell died. His Will is dated 6th June. 2 His burial-day is marked in the Church of All-Saints, 24th June 1617. For Oliver, the chief mourner, one of the most pregnant epochs. The same year, died his old Grandfather Steward, at Ely. Mrs. Robert Cromwell saw herself at once fatherless and a second time widowed, in this year of bereave- ment. Left with six daughters and an only son ; of whom three were come to years. Oliver was now, therefore, a young heir ; his age eighteen, last April. How many of his Sisters, or whether any of them, were yet settled, we do not learn from Noble's confused searching of records or otherwise. 3 Of this Huntingdon household, and its new head, we learn next to nothing by direct evidence ; but can decisively enough, by inference, discern several things. 'Oliver returned no more to Cambridge.' It was now fit that he should take his Father's place here at Huntingdon, that he should, by the swiftest method, qualify himself in some degree for that. The universal very credible tradition is, that he, ' soon after,' proceeded to London, to gain some knowledge of Law. ' Soon after ' will mean certain months, we know not how many, after 'Wharton's Laud (London, 1695), pp. 97, 109, 138. 2 Noble, i. 84. 3 [His sister Margaret married Valentine Walton, June 20, 1617, on or about the day of her father's death (perhaps hurriedly, just before he died), as is shown by the register of St. John's, Huntingdon.] EVENTS IN OLIVER'S BIOGRAPHY 39 July 1617. Noble says, he was entered 'of Lincoln's Inn.' The Books of Lincoln's Inn, of Gray's Inn, of all the Inns of Court have been searched ; and there is no Oliver Cromwell found in them. The Books of Gray's inn contain these Cromwell Names, which are perhaps worth transcribing : Thomas Cromwell, 1524 ; Francis Cromwell, 1561 ; Gilbert Cromwell, 1609 ; Henry Cromwell, 1620 ; Henry Cromwell, 22d February, 1653. The first of which seems to me probably or possibly to mean Thomas Cromwell Malleus Monachorum, at that time returned from his Italian adventures, and in the service of Cardinal Wolsey ; — taking the opportunity of hearing the ' readers,' old Benchers who then actually read, and of learning Law. The Henry Crom- well of February 1653-4 is expressly entered as 'Second sonne to his Highness Oliver, Lord Protector : ' an interesting little fact, since it is an indisputable one. For the rest, Henry Crom- well was already a Colonel in the Army in 1651 : x in 1654, during the spring months he was in Ireland ; in the month of June he was at Chippenham in Cambridgeshire with his father-in-law, being already married ; 2 and next year he went again on political business to Ireland, where he before long became Lord Deputy : 3 if for a while, in the end of 1 654, he did attend in Gray's Inn, it can only have been, like his predecessor the Malleus, to gain some inkling of Law for general purposes ; and not with any view towards Advocateship, which did not lie in his course at all, and was never very lovely either to his Father or himself. Oliver Cromwell's, as we said, is not a name found in any of the Books in that period. Whence is to be inferred that Oliver was never of any Inn ; that he never meant to be a professional Lawyer ; that he had entered himself merely in the chambers of some learned gentle- man, with an eye to obtain some tincture of Law, for doing County Magistracy, and the other duties of a gentleman citizen, in a reputable manner. The stories of his wild living while in Town, of his gambling and so forth, rest likewise exclusively on 1 01d Newspaper, in Cromivelliana, p. 91. 2 ' 10th May 1653, — Mr. Henry Cromwell to Elizabeth Russel ' (Registers of Kensington Church, in Faulkener's History of Kensington, p. 360). * Here are the successive dates : 4th March 1653-4, he arrives at Dublin (Thurloe's State Papers, ii. 149) ; is at Chippenham, 18th June 1654 (id. ii. 381) ; arrives at Chester on his way to Ireland again, 22d June 1655 {ii. iii. 581) ;— produces his commission as Lord Deputy, 24th or 25th November 1657 (Noble, i. 202). 40 INTRODUCTION Carrion Heath ; and solicit oblivion and Christian burial from all men. We cannot but believe he did go to Town to gain some knowledge of Law. But when he went, how long he stayed, cannot be known except approximately by years ; under whom he studied, with what fruit, how he conducted himself as a young man and law-student, cannot be known at all. Of evidence that he ever lived a wild life about Town or elsewhere, there exists no particle. To assert the affirmative was then a great reproach to him ; fit for Carrion Heath and others : it would be now, in our present strange condition of the Moral Law, one knows not what. With a Moral Law gone all to such a state of moonshine ; with the hard Stone-tables, the god-given Precepts and eternal Penalties, dissolved all in cant and mealy-mouthed official flourishings, — it might perhaps, with certain parties, be a credit ! The admirers and the cehsurers of Cromwell have alike no word to record on the subject. 1618 Thursday, 2,9th October 1618. This morning, if Oliver, as is probable, were now in Town studying Law, he might be eye-wit- ness of a great and very strange scene : the Last Scene in the Life of Sir Walter Raleigh. 1 Raleigh was beheaded in Old Palaceyard ; he appeared on the scaffold there ' about eight o'clock' that morning; 'an immense crowd,' all London, and in a sense all England, looking on. A cold hoarfrosty morning. Earl of Arundel, now known to us by his Greek Marbles ; Earl of Doncaster (' Sardanapalus ' Hay, ultimately Earl of Carlisle) : these with other earls and dignitaries sat looking through win- dows near by ; to whom Raleigh in his last brief manful speech appealed, with response from them. He had failed of finding Eldorados in the Indies lately ; he had failed, and also succeeded, in many things in his time : he returned home with his brain and his heart ' broken,' as he said ; — and the Spaniards, who found King James willing, now wished that he should die. A very tragic scene. Such a man, with his head grown gray ; with his strong heart 'breaking,' — still strength enough in it to break with dignity. Somewhat proudly he laid his old grey head on the block ; as if saying, in better than words, " There then ! " The Sheriff offered to let him warm himself again, within doors 1 Camden ; Biog. Britan. EVENTS IN OLIVER'S BIOGRAPHY 41 again at a fire. "Nay, let us be swift," said Raleigh ; "in few "minutes my ague will return upon me, and if I be not dead " before that, they will say I tremble for fear." — If Oliver, among the ' immense crowd,' saw this scene, as is conceivable enough, he would not want for reflections on it. What is more apparent to us, Oliver in these days is a visitor in Sir James Bourchier's Town residence. Sir James Bourchier, Knight, a civic gentleman ; not connected at all with the old Bourchiers Earls of Essex, says my heraldic friend ; but seem- ingly come of City merchants rather, who by some of their quarterings and cognizances appear to have been ' Furriers,' says he : — Like enough. Not less but more important, it appears this Sir James Bourchier was a man of some opulence, and had daughters ; had a daughter Elizabeth, not without charms for the youthful heart. Moreover he had landed property near Felsted in Essex, where his usual residence was. Felsted, where there is still a kind of School or Free-School, which was of more note in those days than now. That Oliver visited in Sir James's [house] in Town or elsewhere, we discover with great certainty by the next written record of him. lo'20 The Registers of St. Giles's Church, Cripplegate, London, are written by a third party as usual, and have no autograph signa- tures ; but in the List of Marriages for 'August 1620,' stand these words, still to be read sic : ' Oliver Cromwell to Elizabeth Bourcher. 22.' Milton's burial-entry is in another Book of the same memorable Church, '12 Nov. 1674;' where Oliver on the 22d of August 1620 was married. Oliver is twenty-one years and four months old on this his wedding-day. He repaired, speedily or straightway we believe, to Huntingdon, to his Mother's house, which indeed was now his. His Law-studies, such as they were, had already ended, we infer : he had already set up house with his Mother ; and was now bringing a Wife home ; the due arrangements for that end having been completed. Mother and Wife were to live together ; the Sisters had got or were getting married, — Noble's researches and confused jottings do not say specially when : the Son, as new head of the house, an inexperienced head, but a teachable, ever- 42 INTRODUCTION learning one, was to take his Father's place ; and with a wise Mother and a good Wife, harmonising tolerably well we shall hope, was to manage as he best might. Here he continued, unnoticeable but easily imaginable by History, for almost ten years : farming lands ; most probably attending quarter-sessions ; doing the civic, industrial, and social duties, in the common way ; — living as his Father before him had done. His first child was born here, in October 1621 ; a son, Robert, baptised at St. John's Church on the 1 3th of the month, of whom nothing farther is known. 1 A second child, also a son, Oliver, followed, whose baptismal date is 6th February 1622-3, of whom also we have almost no farther account, — except one that can be proved to be erroneous. 2 The List of his other children shall be given by and by. 1623 In October 1 623, there was an illumination of tallow lights, a ringing of bells, and gratulation of human hearts in all Towns in England, and doubtless in Huntingdon too : on the safe return 1 Date of his burial discovered lately, in the old Parish-Register of Felsted in Essex ; recorded in peculiar terms, and specially in the then Vicar's hand : ' Roiertus ' Cromwell, Filius konorandi, viri M'"' (Militis) ' Oliveris Cromwell et Elizabeths ' Uxoris ejus, sepultus fuit 31 die Mali 1639. Et Robertus fuit eximie pius juvenis, Deu-m timens supra multos.' (See Edinburgh Review, No. 209, January 1856, p. 54.) So that Oliver's first great loss in his Family was of this Eldest Son, then in his 18th year ; not of a Younger one as was hitherto supposed. (Note of 1857.) [An attempt was made by a writer in the Essex Review (vol ii. , p. 124) to prove that this Robert was the son of Sir Oliver, the Protector's uncle. The argument was originally founded upon a mistaken idea that the date of the entry was 1623 ; but even after the writer discovered and acknowledged his mistake, he was apparently still inclined to think that the Oliver might better be the Protector's uncle than himself, on account of the difficulty caused by the word M tig . As the children of Sir Oliver by his first wife Elizabeth, were, in 1639, middle-aged men, and as his second wife was not Elizabeth, but Anne, this theory, in addition to other objections, would involve the necessity of giving Sir Oliver a third and quite unknown wife, as a mother for the equally unknown boy. In vol. v. of the same Review (p. 225) Mr. John French, in defending the Edinburgh Reviewer's (i.e. Mr. John Forster's) theory, gives an interesting description of the Registers of Felsted, and suggests that the Vicar might easily make the mistake of supposing Oliver to be a knight. As a matter of fact, the whole difficulty has been caused by a misreading of the entry. The Rev. C. T. Eland, Vicar of Felsted, has kindly allowed the present editor to inspect the register, and the true reading is as follows : Roiertus Cromwell, filius honorandi viri m.n (magistri) Oliveris Cromwell et Elizabetke uxoris ejus sepultus fuit 3imo die Maii : iste (?) Robertus fuit eximie spei juvenis deumque timens supra multos." The year date, 1639, appears only at the beginning of the entries for that year ; and not this entry " specially " but all of that period are in the then Vicar's hand.] 2 Noble, i. 132. EVENTS IN OLIVER'S BIOGRAPHY 43 of Prince Charles from Spain without the Infanta. 1 A matter of endless joy to all true Englishmen of that day, though no English- man of this day feels any interest in it one way or the other. But Spain, even more than Rome, was the chosen throne of Popery ; which in that time meant temporal and eternal Damna- bility, Falsity to God's Gospel, love of prosperous Darkness rather than of suffering Light, — infinite baseness rushing short- sighted upon infinite peril for this world and for all worlds. King James, with his worldly-wise endeavourings to marry his son into some first-rate family, never made a falser calculation than in this grand business of the Spanish Match. The soul of England abhorred to have any concern with Spain or things Spanish. Spain was as a black Domdaniel, which, had the floors of it been paved with diamonds, had the Infanta of it come riding in such a Gig of Respectability as was never driven since Phaeton's Sun-chariot took the road, no honest English soul could wish to have concern with. Hence England illuminated itself. The articulate tendency of this Solomon King had unfortunately parted company altogether with the inarticulate but ineradicable tendency of the Country he presided over. The Solomon King struggled one way ; and the English Nation with its very life- fibres was compelled to struggle another way. The rent by degrees became wide enough ! For the present, England is all illuminated, a new Parliament is summoned ; which welcomes the breaking of the Spanish Match, as one might welcome the breaking of a Dr. Faustus's Bargain, and a deliverance from the power of sorcerers. Uncle Oliver served in this Parliament, as was his wont, for Huntingdon- shire. They and the Nation with one voice impelled the poor old King to draw out his fighting tools at last, and beard this Spanish Apollyon, instead of making marriages with it. No Pitt's crusade against French Sansculottism in the end of the Eighteenth Century could be so welcomed by English Preservers of the Game, as this defiance of the Spanish Apollyon was by Englishmen in general in the beginning of the Seventeenth. The Palatinate was to be recovered, after all ; Protestantism, the sacred cause of God's Light and Truth against the Devil's Falsity and Darkness, was to be fought for and secured. Supplies were voted ; ' drums beat in the City ' and elsewhere, as they X H. L. (Hamorid L'Estrange) : Reign of King Charles (London, 1656), p. 3. ' October 5th,' the Prince arrived. 44 INTRODUCTION had done three years ago, 1 to the joy of all men, when the Palatinate was first to be ' defended : ' but now it was to be 'recovered;' now a decisive effort was to be made. The issue, as is well known, corresponded ill with these beginnings. Count Mansfeldt mustered his levies here, and set sail ; but neither France nor any other power would so much as let him land. Count Mansfeldt's levies died of pestilence in their ships ; ' their bodies, thrown ashore on the Dutch coast, were eaten by hogs,' till half the armament was dead on shipboard : nothing came of it, nothing could come. With a James Stuart for Generalissimo, there is no good fighting possible. The poor King himself soon after died ; 2 left the matter to develop itself in other still fataller ways. In those years it must be that Dr. Simcott, Physician in Hun- tingdon, had to do with Oliver's hypochondriac maladies. He told Sir Philip Warwick, unluckily specifying no date, or none that has survived, " he had often been sent for at midnight ; " Mr. Cromwell for many years was very " splenetic " (spleen- struck), often thought he was just about to die, and also "had fancies about the Town Cross." 8 Brief intimation ; of which the reflective reader may make a great deal. Samuel Johnson too had hypochondrias ; all great souls are apt to have, — and to be in thick darkness generally, till the eternal ways and the celestial guiding-stars disclose themselves, and the vague Abyss of Life knit itself up into Firmaments for them. Temptations in the wilderness, Choices of Hercules, and the like, in succinct or loose form, are appointed for every man that will assert a soul in himself and be a man. Let Oliver take comfort in his dark sorrows and melancholies. The quantity of sorrow he has, does it not mean withal the quantity of sympathy he has, the quantity of faculty and victory he shall yet have ? Our sorrow is the inverted image of our nobleness. The depth of our despair measures what capability, and height of claim we have to hope. Black smoke as of Tophet filling all your universe, it can yet by true heart-energy become flame, and brilliancy of Heaven. Courage ! It is therefore in these years, undated by History, that we must place Oliver's clear recognition of Calvinistic Christianity ; what he, with unspeakable joy, would name his Conversion ; his 1 nth June 1620 (Camden's Annals). 8 Sunday, 27th March 1625 (Wilson, in Kenhet, ii. , 790). 'Sir Philip Warwick's Memoirs (London, 1701), p. 249. EVENTS IN OLIVER'S BIOGRAPHY 45 deliverance from the jaws of Eternal Death. Certainly a grand epoch for a man : properly the one epoch ; the turning-point which guides upwards, or guides downwards, him and his ac- tivity forevermore. Wilt thou join with the dragons ; wilt thou join with the Gods ? Of thee too the question is asked ; — whether by a man in Geneva gown, by a man in ' Four surplices at Allhallowtide,' with words very imperfect ; or by no man and no words, but only by the Silences, by the Eternities, by the Life everlasting and the Death everlasting. That the 'Sense of difference between Right and Wrong ' had filled all Time and all Space for man, and bodied itself forth into a Heaven and Hell for him : this constitutes the grand feature of those Puritan, Old- Christian Ages ; this is the element which stamps them as Heroic, and has rendered their works great, manlike, fruitful to all gener- ations. It is by far the memorablest achievement of our Species ; without that element, in some form or other, nothing of Heroic had ever been among us. For many centuries, Catholic Christianity, a fit embodiment of that divine Sense, had been current more or less, making the generations noble : and here in England, in the Century called the Seventeenth, we see the last aspect of it hitherto, — not the last of all, it is to be hoped. Oliver was henceforth a Christian man ; believed in God, not on Sundays only, but on all days, in all places, and in all cases. 1624 The grievance of Lay Impropriations, complained of in the Hampton-Court Conference twenty years ago, having never been abated, and many parts of the country being still thought insufficiently supplied with Preachers, a plan was this year fallen upon to raise by subscription, among persons grieved at that state of" matters, a Fund for buying-in such Impropriations as might offer themselves ; for supporting good ministers therewith, in destitute places ; and for otherwise encouraging the ministerial work. The originator of this scheme was 'the famous Dr. Pres- ton,' 1 a Puritan College Doctor of immense ' fame ' in those and in prior years ; courted even by the Duke of Buckingham, and tempted with the gleam of bishoprics ; but mouldering now in great oblivion, not famous to any man. His scheme, however, 1 Heylin's Life of Laud. 46 INTRODUCTION was found good. The wealthy London Merchants, almost all of them Puritans, took it up ; and by degrees the wealthier Puritans over England at large. Considerable ever-increasing funds were subscribed for this pious object ; were vested in 'Feoffees/ — who afterwards made some noise in the world, under that name. They gradually purchased some Advowsons or Impropriations, such as came to market ; and hired, or assisted in hiring, a great many ' Lecturers/ persons not generally in full ' Priest's-orders ' (having scruples about the ceremonies), but in ' Deacon's ' or some other orders, with permission to preach, to 'lecture,' as it was called: whom accordingly we find lecturing in various places, under various conditions, in the subsequent years ; — often in some market-town, ' on market-day ; ' on ' Sunday-afternoon,' as supplemental to the regular Priest when he might happen to be idle, or given to black and white sur- plices ; or as ' running Lecturers/ now here, now there, over a certain district. They were greatly followed by the serious part of the community ; and gave proportional offence in other quarters. In some years hence, they had risen to such a height, these Lecturers, that Dr. Laud, now come into authority, took them seriously in hand, and with patient detail hunted them mostly out; nay brought the Feoffees themselves and their whole Enterprise into the Star-chamber, and there, with em- phasis enough, and heavy damages, amid huge rumour from the public, suppressed them. This was in 1633 ; a somewhat strong measure. How would the Public take it now, if, — we say not the gate of Heaven, but the gate of the Opposition Hustings were suddenly shut against mankind, — if our Opposition News- papers, and their morning Prophesyings, were suppressed ! — That Cromwell was a contributor to this Feoffee Fund, and a zealous forwarder of it according to his opportunities, we might already guess ; and by and by there will occur some vestige of direct evidence to that effect. Oliver naturally consorted henceforth with the Puritan Clergy in preference to the other kind ; zealously attended their ministry, when possible ; — consorted with Puritans in general, many of whom were Gentry of his own rank, some of them Nobility of much higher rank. A modest devout man, solemnly intent ' to make his calling and his election sure/ to whom, in credible dialect, the Voice of the Highest had spoken. Whose earnest- ness, sagacity and manful worth gradually made him conspicuous in his circle among such. — The Puritans were already numerous. EVENTS IN OLIVEE'S BIOGRAPHY 47 John Hampden, Oliver's Cousin, was a devout Puritan, John Pym the like ; Lord Brook, Lord Say, Lord Montague, — Puritans in the better ranks, and in every rank, abounded. Already either in conscious act, or in clear tendency, the far greater part of the serious Thought and Manhood of England had declared itself Puritan. 1625 Mark Noble, citing Willis's Notitia, reports that Oliver appeared this year as Member ' for Huntingdon ' in' King Charles's first Parliament. 1 It is a mistake ; grounded on mere blunders and clerical errors. Browne Willis, in his Notitia Parliamentaria, does indeed specify as Member for Huntingdonshire an ' Oliver Crom- well, Esq.,' who might be our Oliver. But the usual member in former Parliaments is Sir Oliver, our Oliver's Uncle. Browne Willis must have made, or have copied, some slip of the pen. Suppose him to have found in some of his multitudinous parch- ments, an ' Oliver Cromwell, Knight of the Shire : ' and in place of putting in the ' Sir,' to have put in ' Esq. ; ' it will solve the whole difficulty. Our Oliver, when he indisputably did afterwards enter Parliament, came in for Huntingdon Town ; so that, on this hypothesis, he must have first been Knight of the Shire, and then have sunk (an immense fall in those days) to be a Burgh Member ; which cannot without other ground be credited. What the original Chancery Parchments say of the business, whether the error is theirs or Browne Willis's, I cannot decide ; on inquiry at the Rolls' Office, it turns out that the Records, for some fifty years about this period, have vanished " a good while ago." 2 Whose error it may be, we know not ; but an error we may safely conclude it is. Sir Oliver was then still living at Hinchinbrook, in the vigour of his years, no reason whatever why he should not serve as formerly ; nay, if he had withdrawn, his young Nephew, of no fortune for a Knight of the Shire, was not the man to replace him. The Members for Huntingdon Town in this Parliament, as in the preceding one, are a Mr. Mainwaring and a Mr. St. John. The County Members in the preceding Parlia- ment, and in this too with the correction of the concluding 1 Noble, i. ioo. 2 [This can only mean that the original returns from the county of Huntingdon in this year (but by no means for fifty years) are wanting. The Crown Office list, how- ever, supplies the deficiency, and, of course, gives Oliver Cromwell, Knight, as the county member.] 48 INTRODUCTION syllable in this are ' Edward Montague, Esquire/ and ' Oliver Cromwell, Knight.' 1626 In the Ashmole Museum at Oxford stands catalogued a ' Letter 'from Oliver Cromwell to Mr. Henry Downhall, at St. John's 'College, Cambridge; dated, Huntingdon, 14 October 1626;' 1 which might perhaps, in some very faint way, have elucidated Dr. Simcott and the hypochondrias for us. On applying to kind friends at Oxford for a copy of this Letter, I learn that there is now no Letter, only a mere selvage of paper, and a leaf wanting between two leaves. It was stolen, none knows when ; but stolen it is ; — which forces me to continue my Introduction some nine years farther, instead of ending it at this point. Did some zealous Oxford Doctor cut the Letter out, as one weeds a hemlock from a parsley-bed ; that so the Ashmole Museum might be cleansed, and yield only pure nutriment to mankind ? Or was it some collector of autographs, eager beyond law ? 2 Whoever the thief may be, he is probably dead long since ; and has answered for this, — and also, we may fancy, for heavier thefts, which were likely to be charged upon him. If any humane individual ever henceforth get his eye upon the Letter, let him be so kind as send a copy of it to the Publishers of this Book, and no questions will be asked. 3 1627 A Deed of Sale, dated 20 June 1 627, still testifies that Hin- chinbrook this year passed out of the hands of the Cromwells into those of the Montagues.* The price was 30001. ; curiously divided into two parcels, down to shillings and pence, — one qf the parcels being already a creditor's. The Purchaser is 'Sir 1 Bodleian Library : Codices Mss. Ashmoleani, no. 8398. 2 [Mr. Sanford says of this : " I confess I strongly suspect Hearne to have been guilty of this peculation. His character in that respect is not immaculate, and the letter first appears in print in one of his miscellaneous antiquarian gatherings, the Liber Niger Scaccarii, appendix " (Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion, p. 227, note). It seems however very doubtful whether the original was ever in the Ashmole Museum at all, for after giving the letter Hearne prints the following note, " I copied this (saith Mr. Ashmole) from the original, being then in the said Mr. Downhall's hands. The child above mentioned was named Richard, who came to be Lord Protector, 1658."] 3 Letter found, worth nothing : Appendix, No. 1. (Note to Second Edition,} 4 Noble, i. 43. EVENTS IN OLIVEE'S BIOGEAPHY 49 ' Sidney Montague, Knight, of Barnwell, one of His Majesty's 'Masters of the Requests.' Sir Oliver Cromwell, son of the Golden Knight, having now burnt out his splendour, disappeared in this way from Hinchinbrook ; retired deeper into the Fens, to a place of his near Ramsey Mere, where he continued still thirty years longer to reside, in an eclipsed manner. It was to this house at Ramsey that Oliver, our Oliver, then Captain Cromwell in the Parliament's service, paid the domiciliary visit much talked of in the old Books. The reduced Knight, his Uncle, was a Royalist or Malignant ; and his house had to be searched for arms, for munitions, for furnishings of any sort, which he might be minded to send off to the King, now at York, and evidently intending war. Oliver's dragoons searched with due rigour for the arms ; while the Captain respectfully conversed with his Uncle ; and even ' insisted ' through the interview, say the old Books, * on standing uncovered : ' which latter circumstance may be taken as an astonishing hypocrisy in him, say the old block- head Books. The arms, munitions, furnishings were with all rigour of law, not with more rigour and not with less, carried away ; and Oliver parted with his Uncle, for that time, not ' craving his blessing,' I think, as the old blockhead Books say ; but hoping he might, one day, either get it or a better than it, for what he had now done. Oliver, while in military charge of that country, had probably repeated visits to pay to his Uncle ; and they know little of the man or of the circumstances, who suppose there was any likelihood or need of either insolence or hypocrisy in the course of these. As for the old Knight, he seems to have been a man of easy temper ; given to sumptuosity of hospitality ; and averse to severer duties. 1 When his eldest son, who also showed a turn for expense, presented him a schedule of debts, craving aid towards the payment of them, Sir Oliver answered with a bland sigh, " 1 wish they were paid." Various Crom wells, sons of his, nephews of his, besides the great Oliver, took part in the Civil War, some on this side, some on that, whose indistinct designa- tions in the old Books are apt to occasion mistakes with modern readers. Sir Oliver vanishes now from Hinchinbrook, and all the public business records, into the darker places of the Fens. 2 'Fuller's Worthies, § Huntingdonshire. 2 [There is a certificate from him to the Privy Council in October 1637, at the Public Record Office. See Calendars. P. Dam. Chas. I. Addenda, p. 743. Dugdale, in a letter written on Sept. 8, 1655, gives the following account of his death. VOL. I. 4 50 INTEODUCTION His name disappears from Willis : — in the next Parliament, the Knight of the Shire for Huntingdon becomes, instead of him, 'Sir Capell Bedall, Baronet.' The purchaser of Hinchinbrook, Sir Sydney Montague, was brother of the first Earl of Man- chester, brother of the third Lord Montague of Boughton, 1 and father of ' the valiant Colonel Montague,' valiant General Mon- tague, Admiral Montague, who, in an altered state of circumstances, became first Earl of Sandwich, and perished, with a valour worthy of a better generalissimo than poor James Duke of York, in the Seafight of Solebay (Southwold Bay, on the coast of Suffolk) in 1672.* In these same years, for the dates and all other circumstances of the matter hang dubious in the vague, there is record given by Dugdale, a man of very small authority on these Cromwell matters, of a certain suit instituted, in the King's Council, King's Court of Requests, or wherever it might be, by our Oliver and other relations interested, concerning the lunacy of his Uncle, Sir Thomas Steward of Ely. It seems they alleged, This Uncle Steward was incapable of managing his affairs, and ought to be restrained under guardians. Which allegation of theirs, and petition grounded on it, the King's Council saw good to deny : whereupon — Sir Thomas Steward continued to manage his affairs, in an incapable or semi-capable manner ; and nothing followed upon it whatever. Which proceeding of Oliver's, if there ever was such a proceeding, we are, according to Dugdale, to consider an act of villany, — if we incline to take that trouble. What we know is, That poor Sir Thomas himself did not so consider it ; for, by express testament some years afterwards, he declared Oliver his heir in chief, and left him considerable property, as if nothing had happened. So that there is this dilemma : If Sir Thomas was imbecile, then Oliver was right ; and unless Sir Thomas was imbecile, Oliver was not wrong ! Alas, all calumny and carrion, does it not incessantly cry, "Earth, oh, for pity's sake, a little earth ! " " His [the Protector's] uncle, Sir Oliver Cromwell, is lately dead by an unhappy accident, for I hear that he was out in the rain, and after his return sitting by a good fire without any company in the room, by some weakness or swoon fell into the fire, and was so scorched that he died about two days after." Fifth Report of the Hist. MSS. Commissioners, Appendix, p. 176.] 1 [Third Sir Edward, but first Baron.] a Collins's Peerage (London, 1741), ii. 286-9. EVENTS IN OLIVER'S BIOGRAPHY 51 1628 Sir Oliver Cromwell has faded from the Parliamentary scene into the deep Fen-country, but Oliver Cromwell, Esq. appears there as Member for Huntingdon, at Westminster on ' Monday the 17th of March' 1627-8. This was the Third Parliament of Charles : by much the most notable of all Parliaments till Charles's Long Parliament met, which proved his last. Having sharply, with swift impetuosity and indignation, dis- missed two Parliaments, because they would not ' supply ' him without taking ' grievances ' along with them ; and, meanwhile and afterwards, having failed in every operation foreign and domestic, at Cadiz, at Rhe, at Rochelle ; and having failed, too, in getting supplies by unparliamentary methods, Charles 'con- sulted with Sir Robert Cotton what was to be done ; ' who ' answered, Summon a Parliament again. So this celebrated Parliament was summoned. It met, as we said, in March 1628, and continued with one prorogation till March 1629. The two former Parliaments had sat but a few weeks each, till they were indignantly hurled asunder again ; this one continued nearly a year. Wentworth (Strafford) was of this Parliament ; Hampden too, Selden, Pym, Holies, and others known to us : all these had been of former Parliaments as well ; Oliver Cromwell, Member for Huntingdon, sat there for the first time. It is very evident, King Charles, baffled in all his enterprises, and reduced really to a kind of crisis, wished much this Parlia- ment should succeed ; and took what he must have thought incredible pains for that end. The poor King strives visibly throughout to control himself, to be soft and patient ; inwardly writhing and rustling with royal rage. Unfortunate King, we see him chafing, stamping, — a very fiery steed, but bridled, check- bitted, by innumerable straps and considerations ; struggling much to be composed. Alas, it would not do. This Parliament was more Puritanic, more intent on rigorous Law and divine Gospel, than any other had ever been. As indeed all these Parliaments grow strangely in Puritanism ; more and ever more earnest rises from the hearts of them all, "O Sacred Majesty, lead us not to Antichrist, to Illegality, to temporal and eternal Perdition ! " The Nobility and Gentry of England were then a very strange body of men. The English Squire of the Seven- teenth Century clearly appears to have believed in God, not as 52 INTRODUCTION a figure of speech, but as a very fact, very awful to the heart of the English Squire. ' He wore his Bible-doctrine round him/ says one, ' as our Squire wears his shot-belt ; went abroad with ' it, nothing doubting.' King Charles was going on his father's course, only with frightful acceleration : he and his respectable Traditions and Notions, clothed in old sheepskin and respectable Church-tippets, were all pulling one way ; England and the Eternal Laws pulling another ;— the rent fast widening till no man could heal it. This was the celebrated Parliament which framed the Petition of Right, and set London all astir with 'bells and bonfires' at the passing thereof; and did other feats not to be particularised here. Across the murkiest element in which any great Entity was ever shown to human creatures, it still rises, after much con- sideration, to the modern man, in a dim but undeniable manner, as a most brave and noble Parliament. The like of which were worth its weight in diamonds even now ; — but has grown very- unattainable now, next door to incredible now. We have to say that this Parliament chastised sycophant Priests, Mainwaring, Sibthorp, and other Arminian sycophants, a disgrace to God's Church ; that it had an eye to other still more elevated Church- Sycophants, as the mainspring of all ; but was cautious to give offence by naming them. That it carefully 'abstained from naming the Duke of Buckingham.' That it decided on giving ample subsidies, but not till there were reasonable discussion of grievances. That in manner it was most gentle, soft-spoken, cautious, reverential ; and in substance most resolute and valiant. Truly with valiant patient energy, in a slow stedfast English manner, it carried, across infinite confused opposition and dis- couragement, its Petition of Right, and what else it had to carry. Four hundred brave men, — brave men and true, after their sort ! One laments to find such a Parliament smothered under Dryas- dust's shot-rubbish. The memory of it, could any real memory of it rise upon honourable gentlemen and us, might be admonitory, — would be astonishing at least. We must clip one extract from Rushworth's huge Rag-fair of a Book ; and mournfullest torpedo rubbish-heap, of jewels buried under sordid wreck and dust and dead ashes, one jewel to the wagon-load ; — and let the reader try to make a visual scene of it as he can. Here, we say, is an old Letter, which ' old Mr. Chamberlain of the Court of Wards,' a gentleman entirely unknown to us, received fresh and new, before breakfast, on a June morning of the year 1628 ; of which EVENTS IN OLIVEK'S BIOGEAPHY 53 old Letter, we, by a good chance, 1 have obtained a copy for the reader. It is by Mr. Thomas Alured, a good Yorkshire friend, Member for Malton in that county ; — written in a hand which, if it were not naturally stout, would tremble with emotion. Worthy Mr. Alured, called also ' Al'red ' or ' Aldred ; ' uncle or father, we suppose, to a 'Colonel Alured,' well known after- wards to Oliver and us : he writes ; we abridge and present, as follows : " Friday, 6th June, 1628. " Sir, — Yesterday was a day of desolation among us in Parlia- " ment ; and this day, we fear, will be the day of our dissolution. " Upon Tuesday Sir John Eliot moved that as we intended to " furnish his Majesty with money, we should also supply him with " counsel. Representing the doleful state of affairs, he desired " there might be a Declaration made to the King, of the danger " wherein the Kingdom stood by the decay and contempt of re- ligion, by the insufficiency of his Ministers, by the" &c. &c. " Sir Humphrey May, Chancellor of the Duchy, said, ' it was a " strange language ; ' yet the House commanded Sir John Eliot " to go on. Whereupon the Chancellor desired, ' If he went on, " he the Chancellor might go out.' They all bade him ' begone : ' "yet he stayed, and heard Sir John out. The House generally " inclined to such a Declaration ; which was accordingly resolved " to be set about. " But next day, Wednesday, we had a Message from his Ma- " jesty by the Speaker, 2 That as the Session was positively to end " in a week, we should husband the time, and despatch our old " businesses without entertaining new !" Intending neverthe- less "to pursue our Declaration, we had, yesterday, Thursday " morning, a new Message brought us, which I have here enclosed. " Which requiring us Not to cast or lay any aspersion upon any Min- " ister of his Majesty, the House was much affected thereby." Did they not in former times proceed by fining and committing John of Gaunt, the King's own son ; had they not, in very late times, meddled with and sentenced the Lord Chancellor Bacon and others ? What are we arriving at ! — " Sir Robert Philips of Somersetshire spake, and mingled his 1 Rushworth's Historical Collections (London, 1682), i. 609-10. (Note, vols, ii. and iii. of this Copy are of 1680, a prior edition seemingly ; iv. and v. of 1692 ; vi. and vii. of 1701 ; viii. , Strafford's Trial, of 1700. ) [Carlyle is no doubt speaking of the copy he himself used. Part 1 was first published in 1659, and Strafford's Trial in 1680.] a Sir John Finch. 54 INTEODUCTION "words with weeping. Mr Pym did the like. Sir Edward " Cook " (old Coke upon Lyttleton), " overcome with passion, see- " ing the desolation likely to ensue, was forced to sit down when "he began to speak, by the abundance of tears." O Mr. Cham- berlain of the Court of Wards, was the like ever witnessed ? " Yea, the Speaker in his speech could not refrain from weeping " and shedding of tears. Besides a great many whose grief made " them dumb. But others bore up in that storm, and encouraged " the rest." We resolved ourselves into a Committee, to have freer scope for speech ; and called Mr. Whitby to the chair. The Speaker, always in close communication with his Majesty, craves leave from us, with much humility, to withdraw " for half an hour ; " which, though we knew well whither he was going, was readily granted him. It is ordered, " No other man leave the House upon pain of going to the Tower." And now the speaking commences, " freer and frequenter," being in Com- mittee, and old Sir Edward Coke tries it again. "Sir Edward Cook told us, 'He now saw God had not accepted " of our humble and moderate carriages and fair proceedings ; " and he feared the reason was, We had not dealt sincerely with " the King and Country, and made a true representation of the " causes of all those miseries. Which he, for his part, repented "that he had not done sooner. And therefore, not knowing " whether he should ever again speak in this House, he would " now do it freely ; and so did here protest, That the author and "cause of all those miseries was — The Duke of Buckingham.' "Which was entertained and answered with a cheerful accla- "mation of the House." (Yea, yea ! Well moved, well spoken! Yea, yea !) " As, when one good hound recovers the scent, " the rest come in with full cry ; so they (me) pursued it, and " every one came home, and laid the blame where he thought " the fault was," — on the Duke of Buckingham, to wit. " And " as we were putting it to the question, Whether he should be " named in our intended Remonstrance as the chief cause of all " our miseries at home and abroad, — the Speaker, having been, " not half an hour, but three hours absent, and with the King, " returned ; bringing this Message, That the House should " then rise (being about eleven o'clock), adjourn till the morrow " morning, and no Committees to sit, or other business to go on, "in the interim." And so, ever since, King's Majesty, Speaker, Duke and Coun- cillors, they have been meditating it all night ! EVENTS IN OLIVEE'S BIOGEAPHY 55 " What we shall expect this morning, therefore, God of Heaven " knows ! We shall meet betimes this morning ; partly for the " business' sake ; and partly because, two days ago, we made an " order, That whoever comes in after Prayers shall pay twelve " pence to the poor. " Sir, excuse my haste : — and let us have your prayers ; where- " of both you and we have need. I rest, — affectionately at your " service, "Thomas Alured." This scene Oliver saw, and formed part of; one of the me- morablest he was ever in. Why did those old honourable gentlemen 'weep ' ? How came tough old Coke upon Lyttleton, one of the toughest men ever made, to melt into tears like a girl, and sit down unable to speak ? The modern honourable gentle- man cannot tell. Let him consider it, and tiy if he can tell ! And then, putting off his Shot-belt, and striving to put on some Bible-doctrine, some earnest God's Truth or other,- — try if he can discover why he cannot tell ! — The Remonstrance against Buckingham was perfected ; the hounds having got all upon the scent. Buckingham was ex- pressly ' named,' — a daring feat : and so loud were the hounds, and such a tune in their baying, his Majesty saw good to con- firm, and ratify beyond shadow of cavil, the invaluable Petition of Right, and thereby produce 'bonfires,' and bob-majors upon all bells. Old London was sonorous ; in a blaze with joy-fires. Soon after which, this Parliament, as London, and England, and it, all still continued somewhat too sonorous, was hastily, with visible royal anger, prorogued till October next, — till January as it proved. Oliver, of course, went home to Huntingdon to his harvest-work ; England continued simmering and sounding as it might. The day of prorogation was the 26th of June. 1 One day in the latter end of August, John Felton, a short swart Suffolk gentleman of military air, in fact a retired lieutenant of grim serious disposition, went out to walk in the eastern parts of London. Walking on Tower Hill, full of black reflections on his own condition, and on the condition of England, and a Duke of Buckingham holding all England down into the jaws of ruin and disgrace, — John Felton saw, in evil hour, on some cutler's stall there, a broad sharp hunting-knife, price one shilling. John 1 Commons Journals, i. 920. 56 INTEODUCTION Felton, with a wild flash in the dark heart of him, bought the said knife ; rode down to Portsmouth with it, where the great Duke then was ; struck the said knife, with one fell plunge, into the great Duke's heart. This was on Saturday the 23d of August of this same year. 1 Felton was tried; saw that his wild flashing inspiration had been not of God, but of Satan. It is known he repented : when the death-sentence was passed on him, he stretched out his right hand ; craved that this too, as some small expiation, might first be stricken off; which was denied him, as against law. He died at Tyburn ; his body was swinging in chains at Portsmouth ; — and much else had gone awry, when the Parliament reassembled, in January following, and Oliver came up to Town again. 1629 The Parliament Session proved very brief ; but very energetic, very extraordinary. ' Tonnage and Poundage/ what we now call Customhouse Duties, a constant subject of quarrel between Charles and his Parliaments hitherto, had again been levied without Par- liamentary consent ; in the teeth of old Tallagio non concedendo, nay even of the late solemnly confirmed Petition of Right ; and naturally gave rise to Parliamentary consideration. Merchants had been imprisoned for refusing to pay it ; Members of Parliament themselves had been ' supcena'd : ' there was a very ravelled coil to deal with in regard to Tonnage and Poundage. Nay the Petition of Right itself had been altered in the Printing ; a very ugly business too. In regard to Religion also, matters looked equally ill. Syco- phant Mainwaring, just censured in Parliament, had been pro- moted to a fatter living. Sycophant Montague, in the like circumstances, to a Bishopric : Laud was in the act of consecrating him at Croydon, when the news of Buckingham's death came thither. There needed to be a Committee of Religion. The House resolved itself into Grand Committee of Religion ; and did not want for matter. Bishop Neile of Winchester, Bishop Laud now of London, were a frightfully ceremonial pair of Bishops ; the fountain they of innumerable tendencies to Papistry and the old-clothes of Babylon ! It was in this Committee of 1 Clarendon (i. 68) ; Hamond L'Estrange (p. go) ; D'Ewes (ms. Autobio- graphy), &o. ; all of whom report 'the minute circumstances of the assassination, not one of them agreeing completely with another. EVENTS IN OLIVEE'S BIOGEAPHY 57 Religion, on the 11th day of February 1628-9, that Mr. Cromwell, Member for Huntingdon, stood up and made his first Speech, a fragment of which has found its way into History, and is now known to all mankind. He said, " He had heard by relation from " one Dr. Beard " (his old Schoolmaster at Huntingdon), " that " Dr. Alablaster had preached flat Popery at Paul's Cross ; and " that the Bishop of Winchester " (Dr. Neile) " had commanded " him as his Diocesan, He should preach nothing to the contrary. " Mainwaring, so justly censured in this House for his sermons, " was by the same Bishop's means preferred to a rich living. If " these are the steps to Church-preferment, what are we to ex- pect?" 1 Dr. Beard, as the reader knows, is Oliver's old Schoolmaster at Huntingdon ; a grave, speculative, theological old gentleman, seemingly, — and on a level with the latest news from Town. Of poor Dr. Alablaster there may be found some indistinct, and instantly forgettable particulars in Wood's Athence. Paul's Cross, of which I have seen old Prints, was a kind of Stone Tent, ' with leaden roof,' at the north-east corner of Paul's Cathedral, where Sermons were still, and had long been, preached in the open air ; crowded devout congregations gathering there ; with forms to sit on, if you came early. Queen Elizabeth used to 'tune her pulpits,' she said, when there was any great thing on hand ; as Governing Persons now strive to tune their Morning Newspapers. Paul's Cross, a kind of Times Newspaper, but edited partly by Heaven itself, was then a most important entity ! Alablaster, '■Parliamentary History (London, 1763), viii. 289. [Of this speech, Dr. S. R. Gardiner observes: "Nicholas, who took down the speeches in shorthand, gives the speech thus : ' Mr. Cromwell saith that Dr. Beard told him that one Dr. Alablaster did at the Spital preach in a sermon tenets of popery, and Beard being to refute the same, the now Bishop of Winton, then Bishop of Lincoln, did send for Dr. Beard, and charge him, as his Diocesan, not to preach any doctrine contrary to that which Alablaster had delivered ; and when Dr. Beard did, by the advice of Bishop Felton, preach against Dr. Alablaster's sermon and person, Dr. Neile, now Bishop of Winton, did reprehend him, the said Beard, for it.' The remainder of the speech as printed from the Parliamentary History by Carlyle, referring to Main- waring and concluding ; ' if these are the steps to Church-preferment, what are we to expect ' is taken from another speech by another speaker on a different occasion." History of England, vol. vii. p. 55, note. Dr. Gardiner explains that it was the custom, on the First Sunday after Easter, for a preacher to be selected to sum up the main points of three other sermons preached before the Lord Mayor, &c, from a pulpit in Spital Square. It became known that Beard (thus selected in some year not later than 1617) intended to attack his predecessor Alablaster ; hence Neile's veto, it being easy to understand, "that the sight of one preacher ascending the pulpit to criticise the opinions of another which he was expected to condense, would be regarded as unseemly by a Bishop like Neile." Ibid, p. 56.] 58 INTRODUCTION to the horror of mankind, was heard preaching ' flat Popery ' there, — ' prostituting our columns ' in that scandalous manner ! And Niele had forbidden him to preach against it: 'what are we to expect ? ' The record of this world-famous utterance of Oliver still lies in manuscript in the British Museum, in Mr. Crewe's Notebook, or another's : it was first printed in a wretched old Book called Ephemeris Parliamentaria, professing to be compiled by Thomas Fuller ; and actually containing a Preface recognisable as his, but nothing else that we can so recognise : for ' quaint old Fuller ' is a man of talent ; and this Book looks as if compiled by some spiritual Nightmare, rather than a rational Man. Probably some greedy Printer's compilation ; to whom Thomas, in ill hour, had sold his name. In the Commons Journals, of that same day, we are farther to remark, there stands, in perennial preservation, this notice : ' Upon question, Ordered, That Dr. Beard of Huntingdon ' be written to by Mr. Speaker, to come up and testify against 'the Bishop; the order for Dr. Beard to be delivered to Mr. ' Cromwell.' The first mention of Mr. Cromwell's name in the Books of any Parliament. — A new Remonstrance behoves to be resolved upon ; Bishops Neile and Laud are even to be named there. Whereupon, before they could get well ' named,' perhaps before Dr. Beard had well got up from Huntingdon to testify against them, the King hastily interfered. This Parliament, in a fortnight more, was dissolved ; and that under circumstances of the- most unparalleled sort. For Speaker Finch, as we have seen, was a Courtier, in constant communication with the King : one day while these high matters were astir, Speaker Finch refused to ' put the question ' when ordered by the House ! He said he had orders to the contrary ; persisted in that ; — and at last took to weeping. What was the House to do ? Adjourn| for two days, and consider what to do ! On the second day, which was Wednesday, Speaker Finch signified that by his Majesty's command they were again ad- journed till Monday next. On Monday next, Speaker Finch, still recusant, would not put the former nor indeed any question, having the King's order to adjourn again instantly. He refused ; was reprimanded, menaced ; once more took to weeping ; then started up to go his ways. But young Mr. Holies, Denzil Holies, the Earl of Clare's second son, he and certain other honourable members were prepared for that movement : they seized Speaker Finch, set him down in his chair, and by main force held him EVENTS IN OLIVEE'S BIOGEAPHY 59 there ! A scene of such agitation as was never seen in Parlia- ment before. ' The House was much troubled.' " Let him go," cried certain Privy Councillors, Majesty's Ministers, as we should now call them, who in those days sat in front of the Speaker, " Let Mr. Speaker go ! " cried they imploringly. — " No ! " answered Holies ; " God's wounds, he shall sit there, till it please the House to rise ! " The House, in a decisive though almost distracted manner, with their Speaker thus held down for them, locked their doors ; redacted Three emphatic Resolutions, their Protest against Arminianism, against Papistry, against illegal Tonnage and Poundage ; 1 and passed the same by acclamation ; letting no man out, refusing to let even the King's Usher in ; then swiftly vanishing so soon as the resolutions were passed, for they understood the Soldiery was-coming. 2 For which surprising procedure, vindicated by Necessity the mother of Invention and supreme of Lawgivers, certain honourable gentlemen, Denzil Holies, Sir John Eliot, William Strode, John Selden, and others less known to us, suffered fine, imprisonment, and much legal tribulation : nay Sir John Eliot, refusing to submit, was kept in the Tower till he died. This scene fell out on Monday, 2d of March 1629. Directly on the back of which, we conclude, Mr. Cromwell quitted Town for Huntingdon again ; — told Dr. Beard also that he was not wanted now ; that he might at leisure go on with his Theatre of God's Judgments now. 3 His Majesty dissolved the Parliament by Proclamation ; saying something about ' vipers ' that had been there. It was the last Parliament in England for above eleven years. The King had taken his course. The King went on raising sup- plies without Parliamentary law, by all conceivable devices ; of which Shipmoney may be! considered the most original, and sale of Monopolies the most universal. The monopoly of ' soap ' itself was very grievous to men. 4 Your soap was dear, and it would not wash, but only blister. The ceremonial Bishops, Bishop or Archbishop Laud now chief of them, — they, on their side, went on diligently hunting out ' Lecturers,' erecting ' altars in the east end of churches ; ' charging all clergymen to have, in good repair 1 [The three Resolutions were : i. against Popery and Arminianism ; 2. against illegal levying of Tonnage and Poundage ; 3. against paying dues so levied.] 2 Rushworth, i. 667-9. 3 Third Edition, ' increased with many new examples,' in 1631. * See many old Pamphlets. 60 INTRODUCTION and order, ' Four surplices at Allhallowtide.' l Vexations spiritual and fiscal, beyond what we can well fancy now, afflicted the souls of men. The English Nation was patient ; it endured in silence, with prayer that God in justice and mercy would look upon it. The King of England with his chief-priests was going one way ; the Nation of England by eternal laws was going another : the split became too wide for healing. Oliver and others seemed now to have done with Parliaments ; a royal Proclamation forbade them so much as to speak of such a thing. 1630 In the ' new charter ' granted to the Corporation of Hunting- don, and dated 8th July 1630, Oliver Cromwell, Esquire, Thomas Beard, D.D. his old Schoolmaster, and Robert Barnard, Esquire, of whom also we may hear again, are named Justices of the Peace for that Borough. 2 I suppose there was nothing new in this nomination ; a mere confirming and continuing of what had already been. But the smallest authentic fact, any undoubted date or circumstance regarding Oliver and his affairs, is to be eagerly laid hold of. 3 1631 In or soon after 1631, as we laboriously infer from the imbro- glio records of poor Noble, Oliver decided on an enlarged sphere of action as a Farmer ; sold his properties in Huntingdon, all or some of them ; rented certain grazing-lands at St. Ives, five miles down the River, eastward of his native place, and removed thither. The Deed of Sale is dated 7th May 1631 ;* the pro- perties are specified as in the possession of himself or his Mother ; the sum they yielded was 1800/. With this sum Oliver stocked his Grazing-Farm at St. Ives. The Mother, we infer, continued 1 Laud's Diary, in Wharton's Laud. 2 Noble, i. 102. 3 [Cromwell objected to the terms of this new charter, and upon complaint of the Corporation to the Privy Council that he had made "disgraceful and unseemly speeches" to the Mayor and Mr. Barnard, was by the Council committed to custody, 2nd November 1630. The case was submitted to Henry, Earl of Man- chester, who blamed Cromwell's conduct, but ordered the charter to be amended to meet his objections. As for Cromwell's language, he found it to be "spoken in heat and passion and desired to be forgotten," and as Mr. Barnard was equally willing to be friends all parties were left reconciled. See Mr. Firth's Oliver Cromwell, pp, 31, 32. For a letter written in April, 1631, see Supplement No. i.l * Noble, i. 103-4. EVENTS IN OLIVERS BIOGEAPHY 61 to reside at Huntingdon, but withdrawn now from active oc- cupation, into the retirement befitting a widow up in years. There is even some gleam of evidence to that effect : her properties are sold ; but Oliver's children born to him at St. Ives are still christened at Huntingdon, in the Church he was used to ; which may mean also that their good Grandmother was still there. Properly this was no change in Oliver's old activities ; it was an enlargement of the sphere of them. His Mother still at Huntingdon, within few miles of him, he could still superintend and protect her existence there, while managing his new opera- tions at St. Ives. He continued here till the summer or spring of 1636. 1 A studious imagination may sufficiently construct the figure of his equable life in those years. Diligent grass-farm- ing ; mowing, milking, cattle-marketing : add ' hypochondria,' fits of the blackness of darkness, with glances of the brightness of very Heaven ; prayer, religious reading and meditation ; household epochs, joys and cares : — we have a solid substantial inoffensive Farmer of St. Ives, hoping to walk with integrity and humble devout diligence through this world ; and, by his Maker's infinite mercy, to escape destruction, and find eternal salvation, in wider Divine Worlds. This latter, this is the grand clause in his Life, which dwarfs all other clauses. Much wider destinies than he anticipated were appointed him on Earth ; but that, in comparison to the alternative of Heaven or Hell to all Eternity, was a mighty small matter. The lands he rented are still there, recognisable to the Tourist ; gross boggy lands, fringed with willow-trees, at the east end of the small Town of St. Ives, which is still noted as a cattle- market in those parts. The 'Cromwell Barn,' the pretended ' House of Cromwell,' the &c. &c. are, as is usual in these cases, when you come to try them by the documents, a mere jumble of incredibilities, and oblivious human platitudes, distressing/to the mind. But a Letter, one Letter signed Oliver Cromwell and dated St. Ives, does remain, still legible and indubitable to us. What more is to be said on St. Ives and the adjacent matters will best arrange itself round that Document. One or two entries here, and we arrive at that, and bring these imperfect Intro- ductory Chronicles to a close. 1 Firth's Oliver Cromwell, i. 106. 62 INTEODUCTION 1632 In January of this year Oliver's seventh child was born to him ; a boy, James ; who died the day after baptism. There remained six children, of whom one other died young ; it is not known at what date. Here subjoined is the list of them, and of those subsequently born ; in a Note, elaborated, as before, from the imbroglios of Noble. 1 1 Oliver Cromwell's Children. (Married to Elizabeth Bourchier, 22d August i6zo. ) i. Robert; baptised 13th October 1621. Named for his Grandfather. Nofarther account of him ; he died before ripe years. [Died in 1639 at Felsted. See note on p. 42 above. It was to his death that the Protector referred on his own deathbed, as he distinctly said "my eldest son." Carlyle put "Oliver" in, in brackets, in his early editions, and M. Guizot and others followed him, omitting the brackets.] 2. Oliver ; baptised 6th February 1662-3 [sic. Of course 1622-3 is meant] ; went to Felsted School. ' Captain in Harrison's Regiment,' — no. At Peterborough in 1643 (Noble, i. 133-4). He died, or was killed during the War ; date and place not yet discoverable. Noble says it was at Appleby; referring to Whitlocke. Whitlocke (p. 318 of 1st edition, 322 of 2d), on ransacking the old Pamphlets, turns out to be indisputably in error. The Protector on his death-bed alludes to this Oliver's death [sic] : "It went to my heart like a dagger, indeed it did." [He would appear to have been admitted as a pensioner at St. Catherine's College, Cambridge, in 1640, as amongst the entries in a book known as "Daniel Mills' register" is "Oliver, second son of Oliver Cromwell, Huntingdon". See Appendix to 4th Report of the Hist. MSS. Commissioners, p. 423. It is curious that Cromwell should be described as " of Huntingdon" at this late date, when he was living at Ely, but he perhaps still had some property there, and certainly kept up a connexion with the place after he left it. (See p. 61 above). On the breaking out of the Civil War, young Oliver became cornet in Lord St. John's troop of horse, and when the Ironsides were raised, was made captain of one of the troops. He probably died of small-pox at Newport Pagnell in the spring of 1644. See note on p. 176 below.] 3. Bridget ; baptised 4th August 1624. Married to Ireton, 15th June 1646 (Noble, i. 134, is twice in error) ; widow, 26th November 1651. Married to Fleetwood (exact date, after long search, remains undiscovered ; Noble, ii. 355, says ' before ' June 1652,— at random seemingly). Died at Stoke Newington, near London, September 1681. [Married to Fleetwood on June 8, 1652. See ii. 246.] 4. Richard ; born 4th October 1626. At Felsted School. ' In Lincoln's Inn, 27th May 1647:' an error? Married, in 1649, Richard Mayor's daughter, of Hursley, Hants. First in Parliament, 1654. Protector, 1658. Dies, poor idle Triviality, at Cheshunt, 12th July 1712. [Was a captain in Fairfax's life-guard.] 5. Henry ; baptised at All-Saints (the rest are at St. John's), Huntingdon, 20th January 1627-8. Felsted School. In the army at sixteen. Captain, under Harrison I think, in 1647. Colonel in 1649, and in Ireland with his Father. Lord Deputy there in 1657. In 1660, retired to Spinney Abbey, ' near Soham,' nearer Wicken, in Cambridgeshire. Foolish story of Charles II. and the 'stable-fork' there (Noble, i. 212). Died 23d March 1673-4 ! buried in Wicken Church. A brave man and true : had he been named Protector, there had, most likely, been quite another History of England to write, at present ! 6. Elizabeth ; baptised 2d July 1629. Mrs. Claypole, 1645-6. Died at 3 in the morning, Hampton-Court, 6th August 1658,— four weeks before her Father. A EVENTS IN OLIVER'S BIOGRAPHY 63 This same year, William Prynne first began to make a noise in England. A learned young gentleman 'from Swainswick near Bath/ graduate of Oxford, now ' an Outer Barrister of Lincoln's Inn ; ' well read in English Law, and full of zeal for Gospel Doctrine and Morality. He, struck by certain flagrant scandals of the time, especially by that of Play-acting and Masking, saw good, this year, to set forth his Histriomastix, or Player's Scourge ; a Book still extant, but never more to be read by mortal. For which Mr. William Prynne himself, before long, paid rather dear. The Book was licensed by old Archbishop Abbot, a man of Puritan tendencies, but now verging towards his end. Peter Heylin, ' lying Peter ' as men sometimes call him, was already with hawk's eye and the intensest interest reading this now un- readable Book, and, by Laud's direction, taking excerpts from the same. — It carries our thought to extensive world-transactions over sea, to reflect that in the end of this same year, ' 6th November 1 632,' the great Gustavus died on the Field of Liitzen ; fighting against Wallenstein ; victorious for the last time. While Oliver Crom- well walked peacefully intent on cattle-husbandry, that winter- graceful, brave, and amiable woman. The lamentation about Dr. Hewit and ' bloodshed ' (in Clarendon and others) Is fudge. [This may be so ; but there appears to be no doubt that she often interested herself in favour of the oppressed party. Thus Carrington writes : "How many of the Royalist prisoners got she not freed? How many did she not save from death whom the laws had con- demned . . . she employed her prayers even with tears to spare such men whose ill fortune had designed them to suffer." Life and Death of his most Serene Highness, Oliver, late Lord Protector, p. 264. At St. Ives and Ely : 7. James ; baptised 8th January 163 1-2 ; died next day. 8. Mary ; baptised (at Huntingdon still) gth February 1636-7. Lady Faucon- berg, 18th November 1657. Dean Swift knew her : ' handsome and like her Father.' (Journal to Stella, 13th November, 1710.) Died 14th March 1712 (1712-3? is not decided in Noble). Richard died within a few months of her. [Died in March 1712-3, eight months after Richard, to whom she acted as executrix.] 9. Frances ; baptised (at Ely now) 6th December 1638. ' Charles II. was for marrying her ; ' not improbable. Married Mr. Rich, Earl of Warwick's grandson, nth November 1657 : he died in three months, 16th February 1657-8. No child by Rich. Married Sir John Russel, — the Checquers Russels. Died 27th January 1719-20. [Should be 1720-1. Married John, afterwards Sir John, Russell of Chippenham on May 7, 1663. Chequers did not come to the Russells until more than a century later. There are letters and many notices of her and her sister Mary in the Hist. MSS. Commissioners' Report on Mrs. Frankland Russell A st ley's papers. ] In all, 5 sons and 4 daughters ; of whom 3 sons and all the daughters came to maturity. The Protector's Widow died at Norborough, her son-in-law Claypole's place (now ruined, patched into a farmhouse ; near Market Deeping ; it is itself in Northamptonshire), 8th October 1672. 64 INTRODUCTION day, on the grassy banks of the Ouse at St. Ives, Gustavus Adolphus, shot through the back, was sinking from his horse in the battle-storm far off, with these words : " Ich habe genug, Bruder j relte Dich. Brother, I have got enough ; save thyself." 1 On the 19th of the same month, November 1632, died likewise Frederick Elector Palatine, titular King of Bohemia, husband of King Charles's sister, and father of certain Princes, Rupert and others, who came to be well known in our History. Elizabeth, the Widow, was left with a large family of them in Holland, very bare of money, of resource, or immediate hope ; but conducted herself, as she had all along done, in a way that gained much respect. ' Allesfur Rukm und Ihr, All for Glory and Her/ were the words Duke Bernhard of Weimar carried on his Flag, through many battles in that Thirty-Years War. She was of Puritan tendency ; understood to care little about the Four surplices at Allhallowtide, and much for the root of the matter. Attorney- General Noy, in these months, was busy tearing up the unfortunate old manufacturers of soap ; tormenting mankind very much about soap. 2 He tore them up irresistibly, reduced them to total ruin ; good soap became unattainable. 1633 In May 1633, the second year of Oliver's residence in this new Farm, the King's Majesty, with train enough, passed through Huntingdonshire, on his way to Scotland to be crowned. The loud rustle of him disturbing, for a day, the summer husbandries and operations of mankind. His ostensible business was to be crowned ; but his intrinsic errand was, what his Father's formerly had been, to get his Pretended- Bishops set on foot there ; his Tulchans converted into real Calves ; — in which, as we shall see, he succeeded still worse than his Father had done. Dr. Laud, Bishop Laud, now near upon Archbishophood, attended his Majesty thither as formerly ; still found ' no religion ' there, but trusted now to introduce one. The Chapel at Holyrood-house was fitted up with every equipment textile and metallic ; and little Bishop Laud in person ' performed the service,' in a way to illuminate the benighted natives, as, was hoped, — show them how an Artist could do it. He had also some dreadful travelling through certain of the savage districts of that country. 1 Schiller : Geschichte des ^ajahrigen Kritges. a Rushworth, ii. 135, 25a, &c. EVENTS IN OLIVER'S BIOGRAPHY 65 Crossing Huntingdonshire, on this occasion, in his way North- ward, his Majesty had visited the Establishment of Nicholas Ferrar at Little Gidding, on the western border of that county. 1 A surprising Establishment, now in full flower ; wherein above fourscore persons, including domestics, with Ferrar and his Brother and aged Mother at the head of them, had devoted themselves to a kind of Protestant Monachism, and were getting much talked of in those times. They followed celibacy, and merely religious duties ; employed themselves in ' binding of Prayer-books,' embroidering of hassocks, in almsgiving also, and what charitable work was possible in that desert region ; above all, they kept up, night and day, a continual repetition of the English Liturgy ; being divided into relays and watches, one watch relieving another as on shipboard ; and never allowing at any hour the sacred fire to go out. This also, as a feature of the times, the modern reader is to meditate. In Isaac Walton's Lives there is some drowsy notice of these people, not unknown to the modern reader. A far livelier notice ; record of an actual visit to the place, by an Anonymous Person, seemingly a religious Lawyer, perhaps returning from Circuit in that direction, at all events a most sharp distinct man, through whose clear eyes we also can still look ; — is preserved by Hearne in very unexpected neigh- bourhood. 2 The Anonymous Person, after some survey and communing, suggested to Nicholas Ferrar, " Perhaps he had but " assumed all this ritual mummery, in order to get a devout life "led peaceably in these bad times?" Nicholas, a dark man, who had acquired something of the Jesuit in his Foreign travels, looked at him ambiguously, and said, " I perceive you are a person who know the world ! " They did not ask the Anony- mous Person to stay dinner, which he considered would have been agreeable. Note these other things, with which we are more immediately concerned. In this same year the Feoffees, with their Purchase of Advowsons, with their Lecturers and Running Lecturers, were fairly rooted out, and flung prostrate into total ruin ; Laud having set Attorney-General Noy upon them, and brought them into the Starchamber. ' God forgive them,' writes Bishop Laud, ' and grant me patience ! ' — ron hearing that they spake harshly 1 Rushworth, ii. 178. 2 Thomae Caii VindicitB Antiquitatis Academies Oxoniensis (Oxf. 1730), ii. 702- 794. There are two Lives of Ferrar ; considerable writings about him ; but, except this, nothing that much deserves to be read. vol. i. — 5 66 INTRODUCTION of him ; not gratefully, but ungratefully, for all this trouble he took ! In the same year, by procurement of the same zealous Bishop hounding-on the same invincible Attorney- General, William Prynne our unreadable friend, Peter Heylin having read him, was brought to the Starchamber ; to the Pillory, and had his ears cropt off, for the first time ;— who also, strange as it may look, manifested no gratitude, but the contrary, for all that trouble ! l 1634 In the end of this the third year of Oliver's abode at St. Ives, came out the celebrated Writ of Shipmoney. It was the last feat of Attorney-General Noy : a morose, amorphous, cynical Law-Pedant, and invincible living heap of learned rubbish ; once a Patriot in Parliament, till they made him Attorney- General, and enlightened his eyes : who had fished up from the dust-abysses this and other old shadows of 'precedents,' promising to be of great use in the present distressed state of the Finance Department. Parliament being in abeyance, how to raise money was now the grand problem. Noy himself was dead before the Writ came out ; a very mixed renown following him. The Vintners, says Wood, illuminated at his death, made bonfires, and ' drank lusty carouses : ' to them, as to every man, he had been a sore affliction. His heart, on dissection, adds old Anthony, was found ' all shrivelled up like a leather penny- purse ; ' which gave rise to comments among the Puritans. 2 His brain, said the pasquinades of the day, was found reduced to a mass of dust, his heart was a bundle of old sheep-skin writs, and his belly consisted of a barrel of soap. 3 Some indistinct memory of him still survives, as of a grisly Law Pluto, and dark Law Monster, kind of Infernal King, Chief Enchanter in the Domdaniel of Attorneys ; one of those frightful men, who, as his contemporaries passionately said and repeated, dare to ' decree injustice by a lam.' The Shipmoney Writ has come out, then ; and Cousin Hamp' den has decided not to pay it ! — As the date of Oliver's St. Ives Letter is 1635-6, and we are now come in sight of that, we will here close our Chronology. 1 Rushworth ; Wharton's Laud. a Wood's Athena (Bliss's edition, London, 1815), ii. 583. 3 Rushworth, OLIVER'S LETTERS AND SPEECHES 67 CHAPTER V OF OLIVER'S LETTERS AND SPEECHES Letters and authentic Utterances of Oliver lie scattered, in print and manuscript, in a hundred repositories, in all varieties, of con- dition and environment. Most of them, all the important of them, have already long since been printed and again printed ; but we cannot in general say, ever read : too often it is apparent that the very editor of these poor utterances had, if reading mean understanding, never read them. They stand in their old spelling ; mispunctuated, misprinted, unelucidated, unin- telligible, — defaced with the dark incrustations too well known to students of that Period. The Speeches above all, as hitherto set forth in The Somers Tracts, in The Milton State-Papers, in Burton's Diary, and other such books, excel human belief : certainly no such agglomerate of opaque confusions, printed and reprinted ; of darkness on the back of darkness, thick and three- fold ; is known to me elsewhere in the history of things spoken or printed by human creatures. 1 Of these Speeches, all except one, which was published by authority at the time, I have to believe myself, not very exultingly, to be the first actual reader for nearly two Centuries past. Nevertheless these Documents do exist, authentic though de- faced ; and invite every one who would know that Period, to study them till they become intelligible again. The words of Oliver Cromwell, — the meaning they had, must be worth recover- ing, in that point of view. To collect these Letters and authentic Utterances, as one's reading yielded them, was a comparatively grateful labour ; to correct them, elucidate and make them legible again, was a good historical study. Surely ' a wise memory ' would wish to preserve among men the written and spoken words of such a man ; — and as for the ' wise oblivion,' that is already, by Time and Accident, done to our hand. Enough is already lost and destroyed ; we need not, in this particular case, omit farther. Accordingly, whatever words authentically proceeding from Oliver himself I could anywhere find yet surviving, I have here 1 [All this is much exaggerated. And why Carlyle thought that no students had ever read the speeches in these collections is not very apparent. Beyond these reprints, Carlyle seldom troubled to go.] 68 INTRODUCTION gathered ; and will now, with such minimum of annotation as may suit that object, offer them to the reader. That is the pur- port of this Book. I have ventured to believe that, to certain patient earnest readers, these old dim Letters of a noble English Man might, as they had done to myself, become dimly legible again ; might dimly present, better than all other evidence, the noble figure of the Man himself again. Certainly there is His- torical instruction in these Letters : — Historical, and perhaps other and better. At least, it is with Heroes and god-inspired men that I, for my part, would far rather converse, in what dialect soever they speak ! Great, ever fruitful ; profitable for reproof, for encouragement, for building up in manful purposes and works, are the words of those that in their day were men. I will advise serious persons, interested in England past or present, to try if they can read a little in these Letters of Oliver Cromwell, a man once deeply interested in the same object. Heavy as it is, and dim and obsolete, there may be worse read- ing, for such persons in our time. For the rest, if each Letter look dim, and have little light, after all study ; — yet let the Historical reader reflect, such light as it has cannot be disputed at all. These words, expository of that day and hour, Oliver Cromwell did see fittest to be written down. The Letter hangs there in the dark abysses of the Past : if like a star almost extinct, yet like a real star ; fixed ; about which there is no cavilling possible. That autograph Letter, it was once all luminous as a burning beacon, every word of it a live coal, in its time ; it was once a piece of the general fire and light of Human Life, that Letter ! Neither is it yet entirely extinct : well read, there is still in it light enough to exhibit its own self ; nay to diffuse a faint authentic twilight some distance round it. Heaped embers which in the daylight looked black, may still look red in the utter darkness. These Letters of Oliver will convince any man that the Past did exist ! By degrees the combined small twilights may produce a kind of general feeble twilight, rendering the Past credible, the Ghosts of the Past in some glimpses of them visible ! Such is the effect of con- temporary letters always ; and I can very confidently recommend Oliver's as good of their kind. A man intent to force for him- self some path through that gloomy chaos called History of the Seventeenth Century, and to look face to face upon the same, may perhaps try it by this method as hopefully as by another. Here is an irregular row of beacon-fires, once all luminous as OLIVER'S LETTERS AND SPEECHES 69 suns ; and with a certain inextinguishable erubescence still, in the abysses of the dead deep Night. Let us look here. In shadowy outlines, in dimmer and dimmer crowding forms, the very figure of the old dead Time itself may perhaps be faintly discernible here ! — I called these Letters good, — but withal only good of their kind. No eloquence, elegance, not always even clearness of ex- pression, is to be looked for in them. They are written with far other than literary aims ; written, most of them, in the very flame and conflagration of a revolutionary struggle, and with an eye to the despatch of indispensable pressing business alone : but it will be found, I conceive, that for such end they are well written. Superfluity, as if by a natural law of the case, the writer has had to discard ; whatsoever quality can be dispensed with is indifferent to him. With unwieldy movement, yet with a great solid step he presses through, towards his object ; has marked out very decisively what the real steps towards it are ; discriminating well the essential from the extraneous ; — forming to himself, in short, a true, not an untrue picture of the business that is to be done. There is in these Letters, as I have said above, a silence still more significant of Oliver to us than any speech they have. Dimly we discover features of an Intelligence, and Soul of a Man, greater than any speech. The Intelligence that can, with full satisfaction to itself, come out in eloquent speaking, in musical singing, is, after all, a small Intelligence. He that works and does some Poem, not he that merely says one, is worthy of the name of Poet. Cromwell, emblem of the dumb English, is interesting to me by the very inadequacy of his speech. Heroic insight, valour and belief, without words, — how noble is it in comparison to the adroitest flow of words without heroic insight ! — I have corrected the spelling of these Letters ; I have punctu- ated, and divided them into paragraphs, in the modern manner. The Originals, so far as I have seen such, have in general no paragraphs : if the Letter is short, it is usually found written on the first leaf of the sheet ; often with the conclusion, or some postscript, subjoined crosswise on the margin, — indicating that there was no blotting-paper in those days ; that the hasty writer was loath to turn the leaf. Oliver's spelling and pointing are of the sort common to educated persons in his time ; and readers that so wish, may have specimens of him in abundance, and of all due dimness, in many printed Books : but to us, intent here 70 INTRODUCTION to have the Letters read and understood, it seemed very proper at once and altogether to get rid of that encumbrance. Would the rest were all as easily got rid of! Here and there, to bring out the struggling sense, I have added or rectified a word, — but taken care to point out the same ; what words in the Text of the Letters are mine, the reader will find marked off by single commas : it was of course my supreme duty to avoid altering, in any respect, not only the sense, but the smallest feature in the physiognomy, of the Original. And so, ' a minimum of annota- tion ' having been added, what minimum would serve the purpose, — here are the Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell; of which the reader, with my best wishes, but not with any very high immediate hope of mine in that particular, is to make what he can. Surely it is far enough from probable that these Letters of Cromwell, written originally for quite other objects, and selected not by the Genius of History, but by blind Accident which has saved them hitherto and destroyed the rest, — can illuminate for a modern man this Period of our Annals, which for all moderns, we may say, has become a gulf of bottomless darkness ! Not so easily will the modern man domesticate himself in a scene of things every way so foreign to him. Nor could any measurable exposition of mine, on this present occasion, do much to illuminate the dead dark world of the Seventeenth Century, into which the reader is about to enter. He will gradually get to understand, as I have said, that the Seventeenth Century did exist ; that it was not a waste rubbish-continent of Rushworth-Nalson State-papers, of Philosophical Scepticisms, Dilettantisms, Dryasdust Torpedo- isms ; — but an actual flesh-and-blood Fact ; with colour in its cheeks, with awful august heroic thoughts in its heart, and at last with steel sword in its hand ! Theoretically this is a most small postulate, conceded at once by everybody ; but practically it is a very large one, seldom or never conceded ; the due practical conceding of it amounts to much, indeed to the sure promise of all. — I will venture to give the reader two little pieces of advice, which, if his experience resemble mine, may prove furthersome to him in this inquiry : they include the essence of all that I have discovered respecting it. The first is, By no means to credit the wide-spread report that these Seventeenth-Century Puritans were superstitious crack- brained persons ; given up to enthusiasm, the most part of them ; the minor ruling part being cunning men, who knew how to assume the dialect of the others, and thereby, as skilful Machia- OLIVER'S LETTERS AND SPEECHES 71 vels, to dupe them. This is a wide-spread report ; but an untrue one. I advise my reader to try precisely the opposite hypothesis. To consider that his Fathers, who had thought about this World very seriously indeed, and with very considerable thinking faculty indeed, were not quite so far behindhand in their conclusions respecting it. That actually their 'enthusiasms,' if well seen into, were not foolish but wise. That Machiavelism, Cant, Official Jargon, whereby a man speaks openly what he does not mean, were, surprising as it may seem, much rarer then than they have ever since been. Really and truly it may in a manner be said, Cant, Parliamentary and other Jargon, were still to invent in this world. O Heavens, one could weep at the con- trast ! Cant was not fashionable at all ; that stupendous invention of ' Speech for the purpose of concealing Thought ' was not yet made. A man wagging the tongue of him, as if it were the clapper of a bell to be rung for economic purposes, and not so much as attempting to convey any inner thought, if thought he have, of the matter talked of, — would at that date have awakened all the horror in men's minds, which at all dates, and at this date too, is due to him. The accursed thing ! No man as yet dared to do it ; all men believing that God would judge them. In the History of the Civil War far and wide, I have not fallen in with one such phenomenon. Even Archbishop Laud and Peter Heylin meant what they say ; through their words you do look direct into the scraggy conviction they have formed : — or if ' lying Peter ' do lie, he at least knows that he is lying ! Lord Cla- rendon, a man of sufficient unveracity of heart, to whom indeed whatsoever has direct veracity of heart is more or less horrible, speaks always in official language ; a clothed, nay sometimes even quilted dialect, yet always with some considerable body in the heart of it, never with none ! The use of the human tongue was then other than it now is. I counsel the reader to leave all that of Cant, Dupery, Machiavelism, and so forth, decisively lying at the threshold. He will be wise to believe that these Puritans do mean what they say, and to try unimpeded if he can discover what that is. Gradually a very stupendous phenomenon may rise on his astonished eye. A practical world based on Belief in God ; — such as many centuries had seen before, but as never any century since has been privileged to see. It was the last glimpse of it in our world, this of English Puritanism : very great, very glorious ; tragical enough to all thinking hearts that look on it from these days of ours. 72 INTRODUCTION My second advice is, Not to imagine that it was Constitution, ' Liberty of the people to tax themselves,' Privilege of Parlia- ment, Triennial or annual Parliaments, or any modification of these sublime Privileges now waxing somewhat faint in our admirations, that mainly animated our Cromwells, Pyms, and Hampdens to the heroic efforts we still admire in retrospect. Not these very measurable ' Privileges/ but a far other and deeper, which could not be measured ; of which these, and all grand social improvements whatsoever, are the corollary. Our ancient Puritan Reformers were, as all Reformers that will ever much benefit this Earth are always, inspired by a Heavenly Purpose. To see God's own Law, then universally acknowledged for com- plete as it stood in the holy Written Book, made good in this world ; to see this, or the true unwearied aim and struggle to- wards this : it was a thing worth living for and dying for ! Eternal Justice ; that God's Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven : corollaries enough will flow from that, if that be there ; if that be not there, no corollary good for much will flow. It was the general spirit of England in the Seventeenth Century. In other somewhat sadly disfigured form, we have seen the same immortal hope take practical shape in the French Revolution, and once more astonish the world. That England should all become a Church, if you like to name it so : a Church presided over not by sham-priests in ' Four surplices at Allhallowtide,' but by true god-consecrated ones, whose hearts the Most High had touched and hallowed with his fire : — this was the prayer of many, it was the godlike hope and effort of some. Our modern methods of reform differ somewhat, — as indeed the issue testifies. I will advise my reader to forget the modern methods of Reform ; not to remember that he has ever heard of a modern individual called by the name of Reformer, if he would understand what the old meaning of the word was. The Crom- wells, Pyms, Hampdens, who were understood on the Royalist side to be firebrands of the Devil, have had still worse measure from the Dryasdust Philosophies, and sceptical Histories, of later times. They really did resemble firebrands of the Devil, if you looked at them through spectacles of a certain colour. For fire is always fire. But by no spectacles, only by mere blinders and wooden-eyed spectacles, can the flame-girt Heaven's-messenger pass for a poor mouldy Pedant and Constitution-monger, such as this would make him out to be ! On the whole, say not, good reader, as is often done, " It was OLIVER'S LETTERS AND SPEECHES 73 then all one as now." Good reader, it was considerably different then from now. Men indolently say, " The Ages are all alike ; "ever the same sorry elements over again, in new vesture ; the " issue of it always a melancholy farce-tragedy, in one Age as in " another ! " Wherein lies very obviously a truth ; but also in secret a very sad error withal. Sure enough, the highest Life touches always, by large sections of it, on the vulgar and uni- versal : he that expects to see a Hero, or a Heroic Age, step forth into practice in yellow Drury-lane stage-boots, and speak in blank verse for itself, will look long in vain. Sure enough, in the Heroic Century as in the Unheroic, knaves and cowards, and cunning greedy persons were not wanting, — were, if you will, extremely abundant. But the question always remains, Did they lie chained, subordinate in this world's business ; coerced by steel-whips, or in whatever other effectual way, and sent whim- pering into their due subterranean abodes, to beat hemp and repent ; a true never-ending attempt going on to handcuff, to silence and suppress them ? Or did they walk openly abroad, the envy of a general valet-population, and bear sway ; profess- ing, without universal anathema, almost with general assent, that they were the Orthodox Party, that they, even they, were such men as you had right to look for ? — Reader, the Ages differ greatly, even infinitely, from one another. Considerable tracts of Ages there have been, by far the majority indeed, wherein the men, unfortunate mortals, were a set of mimetic creatures rather than men ; without heart- insight as to this Universe, and its Heights and its Abysses ; without conviction or belief of their own regarding it, at all ; — who walked merely by hearsays, traditionary cants, black and white surplices, and inane confusion ; — whose whole Existence accordingly was a grimace ; nothing original in it, nothing genuine or sincere but this only. Their greediness of appetite and their faculty of digestion. Such unhappy Ages, too numerous here below, the Genius of Mankind indignantly seizes, as disgraceful to the Family, and with Rhadamanthine ruthlessness — annihi- lates ; tumbles large masses of them swiftly into Eternal Night. These are the Unheroic Ages ; which cannot serve, on the general field of Existence, except as dust, as inorganic manure. The memory of such Ages fades away forever out of the minds of all men. Why should any memory of them continue ? The fashion of them has passed away ; and as for genuine substance, they never had any. To no heart of a man any more can these Ages 74 INTRODUCTION become lovely. What melodious loving heart will search into their records, will sing of them, or celebrate them ? Even torpid Dryasdust is forced to give over at last, all creatures declining to hear him on that subject ; whereupon ensues composure and silence, and Oblivion has her own. Good reader, if you be wise, search not for the secret of Heroic Ages, which have done great things in this Earth, among their falsities, their greedy quackeries and wraheroisms ! It never lies and never will lie there. Knaves and quacks, — alas, we know they abounded : but the Age was Heroic even because it had declared war to the death with these, and would have neither truce nor treaty with these ; and went forth, flame-crowned, as with bared sword, and called the Most High to witness that it would not endure these ! But now for the Letters of Crom- well themselves. PART I TO THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR 1636— -164.2 LETTER I St. Ives, a small Town of perhaps fifteen hundred souls, stands on the left or Northeastern bank of the River Ouse, in flat grassy country, and is still noted as a Cattle-market in those parts. Its chief historical fame is likely to rest on the following one remain- ing Letter of Cromwell's, written there on the 11th of January 1635-6. The little Town, of somewhat dingy aspect, and very quiescent except on market-days, runs from Northwest to Southeast, parallel to the shore of the Ouse, a short furlong in length : it probably, in Cromwell's time, consisted mainly of a row of houses fronting the River ; the now opposite row, which has its back to the River, and still is shorter than the other, still defective at the upper end, was probably built since. In that case, the locality we hear of as the ' Green ' of St. Ives would then be the space which is now covered mainly with cattle-pens for market- business, and forms the middle of the street. A narrow steep old Bridge, probably the same which Cromwell travelled, leads you over, westward, towards Godmanchester, where you again cross the Ouse, and get into Huntingdon. Eastward out of St. Ives, your route is towards Earith, Ely and the heart of the Fens. At the upper or Northwestern extremity of the place stands the Church ; Cromwell's old fields being at the opposite extremity. The Church from its Churchyard looks down into the very River, which is fenced from it by a brick wall. The Ouse flows here, you cannot without study tell in which direction, fringed with gross (75) 76 BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR [11 Jan. reedy herbage and bushes ; and is of the blackness of Acheron, streaked with foul metallic glitterings and plays of colour. For a short space downwards here, the banks of it are fully visible ; the western row of houses being somewhat the shorter, as already hinted : instead of houses here, you have a rough wooden balustrade, and the black Acheron of an Ouse River used as a washing-place or watering-place for cattle. The old Church, suitable for such a population, stands yet as it did in Cromwell's time, except perhaps the steeple and pews ; the flagstones in the interior are worn deep with the pacing of many generations. The steeple is visible from several miles distance ; a sharp high spire, piercing far up from amid the willow-trees. The country hereabouts has all a clammy look, clayey and boggy ; the produce of it, whether bushes and trees, or grass and crops, gives you the notion of something lazy, dropsical, gross. — This is St. Ives, a most ancient Cattle-market by the shores of the sable Ouse, on the edge of the Fen-country ; where, among other things that happened, Oliver Cromwell passed five years of his existence as a Farmer and Grazier. Who the primitive Ives himself was, remains problematic ; Camden says he was ' Ivo a Persian ; ' — surely far out of his road here ! From him however, Phantasm as he is (being indeed Nothing, — except an ancient ' stone-coffin,' with bones, and tatters of 'bright cloth' in it, accidentally ploughed up in this spot, and acted on by opaque human wonder, miraculous 'dreams,' iand the 'Abbot of Ramsey'), 1 Church and Village indisputably took rise and name ; about the Year 1000 or later ; — and have stood ever since ; being founded on Cattle-dealing and the firm Earth withal. Ives or Yves, the worthy Frenchman, Bishop of Chartres in the time of our Henry Beauclerk ; neither he nor the other French Yves, Patron Saint of Attorneys, have anything to do with this locality ; but miracu- lous ' Ivo the Persian Bishop,' and that anonymous stone-coffin alone. — Oliver, as we observed, has left hardly any memorial of him- self at St. Ives. The ground he farmed is still partly capable of being specified, certain records or leases being still in existence. It lies at the lower or Southeast end of the Town ; a stagnant flat tract of land, extending between the houses or rather kitchen- gardens of St. Ives in that quarter, and the banks of the River, 1 His Legend (De Beato Yvone, Episcopo Persd), with due details, in Bollandus, Acta Sanctorum, Junii, torn. ii. (Venetiis, 1743), pp. 388-92. 1636.] LETTER I., ST. IVES 77 which, very tortuous always, has made a new bend here. If well drained, this land looks as if it would produce abundant grass, but naturally it must be little other than a bog. Tall bushy ranges of willow-trees and the like, at present, divide it into fields ; the River, not visible till you are close on it, bound- ing them all to the South. At the top of the fields next to the Town is an ancient massive Barn, still used as such ; the people call it * Cromwell's Barn : ' — and nobody can prove that it was not his ! It was evidently some ancient man's or series of ancient men's. Quitting St. Ives Fen-ward or Eastward, the last house of all, which stands on your right hand among gardens, seemingly the best house in the place, and called Slepe Hall, is confidently pointed out as ' Oliver's House.' It is indisputably Slepe-Hall House, and Oliver's Farm was rented from the estate of Slepe Hall. It is at present used for a Boarding-school : the worthy inhabitants believe it to be Oliver's ; and even point out his ' Chapel ' or secret Puritan Sermon-room in the lower story of the house : no Sermon-room, as you may well discern, but to appearance some sort of scullery or wash-house or bake-house. " It was here he used to preach," say they. Courtesy forbids you to answer, " Never ! " But in fact there is no likelihood that this was Oliver's House at all : in its present state it does not seem to be a century old -, 1 and originally, as is like, it must have served as residence to the Proprietors of Slepe-Hall estate, not to the Farmer of a part thereof. Tradition makes a sad blur of Oliver's memory in his native country ! We know, and shall know, only this, for certain here, That Oliver farmed part or whole of these Slepe-Hall Lands, over which the human feet can still walk with assurance ; past which the River Ouse still slumberously rolls, towards Earith Bulwark and the Fen-country. Here of a certainty Oliver did walk and look about him habitually, during those five years from 1631 to 1636; a man studious of many temporal and many eternal things. His cattle grazed here, his ploughs tilled here, the heavenly skies and infernal abysses overarched and underarched him here. In fact there is, as it were, nothing- whatever that still decisively to every eye attests his existence at St. Ives, except the following old Letter, accidentally preserved among the 1 Noble, i. 102, 106. [This reference means nothing, but on p. 261 , Noble says that Oliver's house is not standing.] 78 BEFORE THE CIVIL WAE [11 Jan. Harley Manuscripts in the British Museum. Noble, writing in 1787, says the old branding- irons, 'O. C.,' for marking sheep, were still used by some Farmer there ; but these also, many years ago, are gone. In the Parish-records of St. Ives, Oliver appears twice among some other ten or twelve respectable ratepayers; appointing, in 1633 and 1634, for 'St. Ives cum Slepa ' fit annual overseers for the ' Highway and Green : '—one of the Oliver Signatures is now cut out. Fifty years ago, a vague old Parish-clerk had heard from very vague old persons, that Mr. Cromwell had been seen attending divine service in the Church with ' a piece of red flannel round his neck, being subject to inflammation.' 1 Certain letters 'written in a very kind style from Oliver Lord Protector to persons in St. Ives,' do not now exist ; probably never did. Swords ' bearing the in- itials of O. C.,' swords sent down in the beginning of 1642, when War was now imminent, and weapons were yet scarce, — do any such still exist ? Noble says they were numerous in 1787 ; but nobody is bound to believe him. Walker 2 testifies that the Vicar of St. Ives, Rev. Henry Downhall, was ejected with his curate in 1642 ; 3 an act which Cromwell could have hindered, had he been willing to testify that they were fit clergymen. Alas, had he been able ! He attended them in red flannel, but had not exceedingly rejoiced in them, it would seem. — There is, in short, nothing that renders Cromwell's existence completely visible to us, even through the smallest chink, but this Letter alone, which, copied from the Museum Manuscripts, worthy Mr. Harris 4 has printed for all people. We slightly rectify the spelling, and reprint. 1 See Noble : his confused gleanings and speculations concerning St. Ives are to be found, i. 105-6, and again, i. 258-61. 2 Sufferings of the Clergy. See also Appendix, No. I. 3 [Walker says "about 1642." He does not mention a curate, or speak of Cromwell as having anything to do with the matter, but states that Downhall was turned out for "refusing to admit a factious lecturer."' Sufferings of the Clergy, part ii. p. 230.] 4 Life of Cromwell : a blind farrago, published in 1761, 'after the manner of Mr. Bayle,' — a very bad ' manner,' more especially when a Harris presides over it ! Yet poor Harris's Book, his three Books (on Cromwell, Charles and James I.) have worth : cartloads of Excerpts, carefully transcribed, — and edited, in the way known to us, 'by shoving up the shafts.' The increasing interest of the subject brought even these to a second edition in 1814. 1636.] LETTEE I, ST. IVES 79 To my very loving Friend Mr. Storie, at the Sign of the Dog in the Royal Exchange, London : Deliver these. St. Ives, nth January 1635. Mr. Storie, Among the catalogue of those good works which your fellow-citizens and our countrymen have done, this will not be reckoned for the least, that they have provided for the feeding of souls. Building of hospitals provides for men's bodies ; to build material temples is judged a work of piety ; but they that procure spiritual food, they that build up spiritual temples, they are the men truly charitable, truly pious. Such a work as this was your erecting the lecture in our country ; in the which you placed Dr. Welles, a man for goodness and industry, and ability to do good every way, not short of any I know in England : and I am persuaded that, sithence his coming, the Lord hath by him wrought much good amongst us. It only remains now that He who first moved you to this, put you forward to the continuance thereof : it was the Lord ; and therefore to Him lift we up our hearts that He would perfect it. And surely, Mr. Storie, it were a piteous thing to see a lecture fall, in the hands of so many able and godly men as I am persuaded the founders of this are ; in these times, wherein we see they are suppressed, with too much haste and violence, by the enemies of God his truth. Far be it that so much guilt should stick to your hands, who live in a city so renowned for the clear shining light of the gospel. You know, Mr. Storie, to withdraw the pay is to let fall the lecture : for who goeth to warfare at his own cost ? I beseech you therefore in the bowels of Christ Jesus put it forward, and let the good man have his pay. The souls of God his children will bless you for it : and so shall I ; and ever rest, — Your loving Friend in the Lord, Oliver Cromwell. 80 BEFORE THE CIVIL WAE [li Jan. Commend my hearty love to Mr. Busse, Mr. Bradly, 1 and my other good friends. I would have written to Mr. Busse ; but I was loath to trouble him with a long letter, and I feared I should not receive an answer from him : from you I expect one so soon as conveniently you may. Vale* Such is Oliver's first extant Letter. The Royal Exchange has been twice burned since this piece of writing was left at the Sign of the Dog there. The Dog Tavern, Dog Landlord, frequenters of the Dog, and all their business and concernment there, and the hardest stone masonry they had, have vanished irrecoverable. Like a dream of the Night ; like that transient Sign or Effigies of the Talbot Dog, plastered on wood with oil pigments, which invited men to liquor and house-room in those days ! The per- sonages of Oliver's Letter may well be unknown to us. Of Mr. Story, strangely enough, we have found one other notice : he is amongst the Trustees, pious and wealthy citizens of London for most part, to whom the sale of Bishops' Lands is, by act of Parliament, committed, with many instructions and conditions, on the 9th of October 1646. 2 'James Story' is one of these ; their chief is Alderman Fowke. From Oliver's ex- pression, ' our Country,' it may be inferred or guessed that Story was of Huntingdonshire : a man who had gone up to London, and prospered in trade, and addicted himself to Puritanism ; — much of him, it is like, will never be known ! Of Busse and Beadly (unless Busse be a misprint for Bunse, Alderman Bunce, another of the above ' Trustees '), there remains no vestige. Concerning the ' Lecture,' however, the reader will recal what was said above of Lecturers, and of Laud's enmity to them ; of the Feoffees who supported Lecturers, and of Laud's final sup- pression and ruin of those Feoffees in 1 633. Mr. Story's name is not mentioned in the List of the specific Feoffees ; but it need not be doubted he was a contributor to their fund, and probably ^Printed "Beadly" by Carlyle.l 2 Scobell's Acts and Ordinances (London, 1658), p. 99. * Harris (London, 1814), p. 12. This Letter, for which Harris, in 1761, thanks the Trustees of the British Museum,' is not now discoverable in that Establishment ; ' a search of three hours through all the Catalogues, assisted by one of the Clerks,' reports itself to me as fruitless. Does exist safe, nevertheless (Sloane mss. no. 2035b, fol. 3, a venerable brown Autograph) ; and, in the ' new Catalogue,' will be better indicated. ' Busse ' is by no means ' Busse ' as some have conjectured. ( Note to Third Edition. ) • 1636.] LETTER I., ST. IVES 81 a leading man among the subscribers. By the light of this Letter we may dimly gather that they still continued to subscribe, and to forward Lectureships where possible, though now in a less ostentatious manner. It appears there was a Lecture at Huntingdon : but his Grace of Lambeth, patiently assiduous in hunting down such objects, had managed to get that suppressed in 1633, 1 or at least to get the King's consent for suppressing it. This in 1633. So that 'Mr. Wells' could not, in l6'36, as my imbecile friend supposes, 2 be ' the Lecturer in Huntingdon,' wherever else he might lecture. Besides Mr. Wells is not in danger of suppression by Laud, but by want of cash ! Where Mr. Wells lectured, no mortal knows, or will ever know. Why not at St. Ives on the market-days ? Or he might be a ' Running Lecturer,' not tied to one locality : that is as likely a guess as any. Whether the call of this Wells Lectureship and Oliver's Letter got due return from Mr. Story we cannot now say ; but judge that the Lectureship, — as Laud's star was rapidly on the ascend- ant, and Mr. Story and the Feoffees had already lost 1800/. by the work, and had a fine in the Starchamber still hanging over their heads, — did in fact come to the ground, and trouble no Archbishop or Market Cattle-dealer with God's Gospel any more. Mr. Wells, like the others, vanishes from History, or nearly so. 3 In the chaos of the King's Pamphlets one seems to discern dimly that he sailed for New England, and that he returned in better times. Dimly once, in 1641 or 1642, you catch a momentary glimpse of a * Mr. Wells ' in such predicament, and hope it was this Wells, — preaching for a friend, 'in the afternoon,' in a Church in London. 4 Reverend Mark Noble says, the above Letter is very curious, 1 Wharton's Laud (London, 1695), p. 527. 2 Noble, i. 259. 8 [This is Dr. Samuel Welles, who upon the breaking out of the Civil War, became chaplain to Lord Essex's regiment of horse. There are many orders for payment to him amongst Essex's warrants. On July 20, 1644, the Earl writes to the Treasurer at War that ' ' whereas Mr. Samuel Wells, chaplain to my own regiment of horse, has served in my army a long time, and therein diligently discharged the duty of his place and being in much want for supplying of necessaries to his wife and family " he desires that ten pounds be paid him on account ; and again in the following January that 10/. be imprested to him, he having ' ' a long time served in the army, and duly and constantly attended the same, for which there is much pay due and arrears unto him, and he being at present in much want and necessity." Commonwealth Exchequer Papers, Public Record Office. These warrants are receipted by " Samuel Welles." About the same time Cromwell wrote a short letter in his favour, which will be found in the Supplement to these volumes ; No. 9.] 4 Old Pamphlet : Title mislaid and forgotten. VOL. I. 6 82 BEFORE THE CIVIL WAK [11 Jan. and a convincing proof how far gone Oliver was, at that time, in religious enthusiasm. 1 Yes, my reverend imbecile friend, he is clearly one of those singular Christian enthusiasts, who believe that they have a soul to be saved, even as you do, my reverend imbecile friend, that you have a stomach to be satisfied, — and who likewise, astonishing to say, actually take some trouble about that. Far gone indeed, my reverend imbecile friend ! This then is what we know of Oliver at St. Ives. He wrote the above Letter there. He had sold his Properties in Hunting- don for 1800/. ; with the whole or with part of which sum he stocked certain Grazing-Lands on the Estate of Slepe Hall, and farmed the same for a space of some five years. How he lived at St. Ives : how he saluted men on the streets ; read Bibles ; sold cattle ; and walked, with heavy footfall and many thoughts, through the Market Green or old narrow lanes in St. Ives, by the shore of the black Ouse River, — shall be left to the reader's imagination. There is in this man talent for farming ; there are thoughts enough, thoughts bounded by the Ouse River, thoughts that go beyond Eternity, — and a great black sea of things that he has never yet been able to think. I count the children he had at this time ; and find them six : Four boys and two girls ; the eldest a boy of fourteen, the youngest a girl of six ; Robert, Oliver, Bridget, Richard, Henry, Elizabeth. Robert and Oliver, I take it, are gone to Felsted School, near Bourchier their Grandfather's in Essex. Sir Thomas Bourchier the worshipful Knight, once of London, lives at Felsted; Sir William Masham, another of the same, lives at Otes, hard by, as we shall see. Cromwell at the time of writing this Letter was, as he himself might partly think probable, about to quit St. Ives. His mother's brother Sir Thomas Steward, Knight, lay sick at Ely in those very days. Sir Thomas makes his will in this same month of January, leaving Oliver his principal heir ; and on the 30th it was all over, and he lay in his last home : ' Buried in the Cathe- dral of Ely, 30 January 1635-6.' Worth noting, and curious to think of, since it is indisputable : On the very day while Oliver Cromwell was writing this Letter at St. Ives, two obscure individuals, ' Peter Aldridge and Thomas Lane, Assessors of Shipmoney,' over in Buckinghamshire, had assembled a Parish Meeting in the Church of Great Kimble, to 1 Noble, i. 259. 1636.] LETTER II., ELY 83 assess and rate the Shipmoney of the said Parish : there, in the cold weather, at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, '11 January 1635,' the Parish did attend, ' John Hampden, Esquire,' at the head of them, and by a Return still extant, 1 refused to pay the same or any portion thereof, — witness the above ' Assessors,' witness also two ' Parish Constables ' whom we remit from such unexpected celebrity. John Hampden's share for this Parish is thirty-one shillings and sixpence ; for another Parish it is twenty shillings ; on which latter sum, not on the former, John Hampden was tried. LETTER II. Oliver removed to Ely very soon after writing the foregoing Letter. There is a 'receipt for 10/.' signed by him, dated 'Ely, 10 June 1636 ; ' 2 and other evidence that he was then resident there. He succeeded to his Uncle's Farming of the Tithes ; the Leases of these, and new Leases of some other small lands or fields granted him, are still in existence. He continued here till the time of the Long Parliament ; and his Family still after that, till some unascertained date, seemingly about 1647, 3 when it became apparent that the Long Parliament was not like to rise for a great while yet, and it was j udged expedient that the whole household should remove to London. His mother appears to have joined him in Ely ; she quitted Huntingdon, returned to her native place, an aged grandmother, — was not, however, to end her days there. As Sir Thomas Steward, Oliver's Uncle, farmed the Tithes of Ely, it is reasonable to believe that he, and Oliver after him, occupied the House set apart for the Tithe-Farmer there ; as Mark Noble, out of dim Tradition, confidently testifies. This is ' the house occupied by Mr. Page ; ' 4 under which name, much better than under that of Cromwell, the inhabitants of Ely now know it. The House, though somewhat in a frail state, is still standing ; close to St. Mary's Churchyard ; at the corner of the great 1 Facsimile Engraving of it, in Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden (London, 1832), i. 231. 2 Noble, i. 107. 3 See Appendix, No. 7, last Letter there. (Note to Third Edition.) 4 Noble, i. 106. 84 BEFOEE THE CIVIL WAR [13 Oct. Tithe-barn of Ely, or great Square of tithe-bams and offices, — which ' is the biggest barn in England but one,' say the Ely people. Of this House, for Oliver's sake, some Painter will yet perhaps take a correct likeness : — it is needless to go to Stuntney, out on the Soham road, as Oliver's Painters usually do ; Oliver never lived there, but only his Mother's cousins ! Two years ago this House in Ely stood empty ; closed finally up, deserted by all the Pages, as ' the Commutation of Tithes ' had rendered it superfluous : this year (1845), I find it is an Alehouse, with still some chance of standing. It is by no means a sumptuous mansion ; but may have conveniently held a man of three or four hundred a year, with his family, in those simple times. Some quaint air of gen- tility still looks through its rugged dilapidation. It is of two stories, more properly of one and a half; has many windows, irregular chimneys and gables. 1 Likely enough Oliver lived here ; likely his Grandfather may have lived here, his Mother have been born here. She was now again resident here. The tomb of her first husband and child, Johannes Lynne 2 and poor little Catharina Lynne, is in the Cathedral hard by. ' Such are the changes which fleeting Time procureth.' — The Second extant Letter of Cromwell's is dated Ely, October 1638. 3 It will be good to introduce, as briefly as possible, a few Historical Dates, to remind the reader what o'clock on the Great Horologe it is, while this small letter is a-writing. Last year in London there had been a very strange spectacle ; and in three weeks after, another in Edinburgh, of still more significance in English History. On the 30th of June 1637, in Old Palaceyard, three men, gentlemen of education, of good quality, a Barrister, a Physician and a Parish Clergyman of London were set on three Pillories ; stood openly, as the scum of malefactors, for certain hours there ; and then had their ears cut off, — bare knives, hot branding-irons, — and their cheeks stamped ' S. L.,' Seditious Libeller ; in the sight of a great crowd, ' silent ' mainly, and looking ' pale.' * The men were our old friend William Prynne, — poor Prynne, who had got into new trouble, and here lost his ears a second and final 1 [The tithe barn was pulled down in 1842. Cromwell's house is now again in private hands and in good condition, but Carlyle's description does not fit it (as it now is, at any rate) for it has neither irregular chimneys nor gables. There is a photograph of it in Mr. Firth's Oliver Cromwell, in Mr. Kingston's Civil War in East Anglia, and elsewhere.] 2 He was William, son of John. 3 In Appendix, No. a, another note of his. ( Third Edition. ) * State Trials (Cobbett's, London, 1809), iii. 746. 1638.] LETTEK II., ELY 85 time, having had them ' sewed on again ' before : William Prynne, Barrister; Dr. John Bastwick; and the Rev. Henry Burton, Minister of Friday-street Church. Their sin was against Laud and his surplices at Allhallowtide, not against any other man or thing. Prynne, speaking to the people, defied all Lambeth, with Rome at the back of it, to argue with him, William Prynne alone, that these practices were according to the Law of England ; " and if I fail to prove it," said Prynne, "let them hang my body at the door of that Prison there," the Gate-house Prison. ' Whereat the people gave a great shout,' — somewhat of an ominous one, I think. Bastwick's wife, on the scaffold, received his ears in her lap, and kissed him. 1 Prynne's ears the executioner 'rather sawed than cut.' " Cut me, tear me," cried Prynne ; " I fear thee not ; I fear the fire of Hell, not thee ! " The June sun had shone hot on their faces. Burton, who had discoursed eloquent religion all the while, said, when they carried him, near fainting, into a house in King-street, " It is too hot to last." Too hot indeed. For at Edinburgh, on Sunday the 23d of July following, Archbishop Laud having now, with great effort and much manipulation, got his Scotch Liturgy and Scotch Pretended-Bishops ready, 2 brought them fairly out to action, — and Jenny Geddes hurled her stool at their head. " Let us read the Collect of the Day," said the Pretended- Bishop from amid his tippets ; — " De'il colic the wame of thee ! " answered Jenny, hurling her stool at his head. " Thou foul thief, wilt thou say mass at my lug ? " 3 I thought we had got done with the mass 'Towers's British Biography. 2 Rushworth, ii. 321, 343; iii. Appendix, 153-5; & c - 3 - 'No sooner was the Book opened by the Dean of Edinburgh, but a 1 number of the meaner sort, with clapping of their hands and outcries, made a ' great uproar ; and one of them, called Jane or Janot Gaddis (yet living at the ' writing of this relation), flung a little folding-stool, whereon she sat, at the Dean's ' head, saying, " Out thou false thief ! dost thou say the mass at my lug?" Which ' was followed with so great a noise, ' &c. These words are in the Continuation of Baker's Chronicle, by Phillips (Milton's Nephew) ; fifth edition of Baker (London, 1670), p. 478. They are not in the fourth edition of Baker, 1665, which is the first that contains the Continuation ; they follow as here in all the others. Thought to be the first grave mention of Jenny Geddes in Printed History ; a heroine still familiar to Tradition everywhere in Scotland. In a foolish Pamphlet, printed in 1661, entitled Edinburgh's Joy, &c, — Joy for the Blessed Restoration and Annus Mirabilis, — there is mention made of 'the immortal Janet Geddis,' whom the writer represents as rejoicing exceedingly in that miraculous event ; she seems to be a well-known person, keeping ' a cabbage-stall at the Tron Kirk,' at that date. Burns, in his Highland Tour, named his mare Jenny Geddes. Helen of Troy, for practical importance in Human History, is but a small Heroine to Jenny : — but she has been luckier in the recording ! — For these bibliographical notices I am indebted to the friendliness of Mr. David Laing of the Signet Library, Edinburgh. 86 BEFOEE THE CIVIL WAK [13 Oct. some time ago ; — and here it is again ! "A Pape, a Pape ! " cried others : " Stane him ! " J — In fact the service could not go on at all. This passed in St. Giles's Kirk, Edinburgh, on Sunday 23d July 1637. Scotland had endured much in the bishop way for above thirty years bygone, and endeavoured to say nothing, bitterly feeling a great deal. But now, on small signal, the hour was come. All Edinburgh, all Scotland, and behind that all England and Ireland, rose into unappeasable commotion on the flight of this stool of Jenny's ; and his Grace of Canterbury, and King Charles himself, and many others had lost their heads before there could be peace again. The Scotch People had sworn then- Covenant, not without ' tears ; ' and were in these very days of October 1638, while Oliver is writing at Ely, busy with their whole might electing their General Assembly, to meet at Glasgow next month. I think the Tulchan Apparatus is likely to be some- what sharply dealt with, the Cow having become awake to it ! Great events are in the wind ; out of Scotland vague news, of unappeasable commotion risen there. In the end of that same year, too, there had risen all over England huge rumour concerning the Shipmoney Trial at Lon- don. On the 6th of November 1637, this important Process of Mr. Hampden's began. Learned Mr. St. John, a dark tough man, of the toughness of leather, spake with irrefragable law- eloquence, law-logic, for three days running, on Mr. Hampden's side ; and learned Mr. Holborn for three other days ; — preserved yet by Rushworth in acres of typography, unreadable now to all mortals. For other learned gentlemen, tough as leather, spoke on the opposite side; and learned judges animadverted; — at endless length, amid the expectancy of men. With brief pauses, the Trial lasted for three weeks and three days. Mr. Hampden became the most famous man in England, 2 — by accident partly. The sentence was not delivered till April 1 638 ; and then it went against Mr. Hampden : judgment in Exchequer ran to this effect, ' Consideratum est per eosdem Barones quod prcedictus Johannes Hamp- ' den de iisdem viginli solidis oneretur,' He must pay the Twenty shillings, ' et inde satisfaciat.' 3 No hope in Law-Courts, then ; Petition of Right and Tallagio non concedendo have become an old song. If there be not hope in Jenny Geddes's stool and ' De'il colic the wame of thee,' we are in a bad way ! — 1 Rushworth, Kennet, Balfour. - Clarendon. 3 Rushworth, iii., Appendix, 159-216; ib. ii. 480. 1638.] LETTER II., ELY 87 During which great public Transactions, there had been in Cromwell's own Fen-country a work of immense local celebrity going on : the actual Drainage of the Fens, so long talked about ; the construction, namely, of the great Bedford Level, to carry the Ouse River direct into the sea ; holding it forcibly aloft in strong embankments, for twenty straight miles or so ; not leaving it to meander and stagnate, and in the wet season drown the country, as heretofore. This grand work began, Dryasdust in his be- wildered manner knows not when ; but it * went on rapidly,' and had ended in 1637. J Or rather had appeared, and strongly en- deavoured, to end in 1637 ; but was not yet by any means settled and ended ; the whole Fen-region clamouring that it could not, and should not, end so. In which wide clamour, against injustice done in high places, Oliver Cromwell, as is well known, though otherwise a most private quiet man, saw good to interfere ; to give the universal inarticulate clamour a voice, and gain a remedy for it. He approved himself, as Sir Philip Warwick will testify, 2 a ' man that would set well at the mark,' that took sure aim, and had a stroke of some weight in him. We cannot here afford room to disentangle that affair from the dark rubbish-abysses, old and new, in which it lies deep buried : suffice it to assure the reader that Oliver did by no means ' oppose ' the Draining of the Fens, but was and had been, as his Father before him, highly favourable to it ; that he opposed the King in Council wishing to do a public injustice in regard to the Draining of the Fens ; and by a ' great meeting at Huntingdon,' and other good measures, contrived to put a stop to the same. 3 At a time when, as Old 1 Dugdale's Hist, of Embankments ; Cole's, Wells's, &o. &c. History of the Fens. 2 Warwick's Memoirs (London, 1701), p. 250. 3 [" In 1638, the King intervened, declared the work of drainage incomplete, and undertook to complete it himself, announcing that the inhabitants of the district were to continue in possession of their lands and commons till the work was really finished. Nothing else is known of Cromwell's part in these disputes save a vague story told in the Memoirs of Sir Philip Warwick that ' the vulgar ' grew clamorous against the scheme and that Mr. Cromwell appeared as the head of their faction. Warwick, writing long after the events he referred to, assumed as a matter of course that Cromwell opposed the King, and the mistake found easy credence." Some years later, Cromwell came forward to defend the Rights of the Commoners of St. Ives, whose waste lands had been enclosed and sold to the Earl of Man- chester. The commoners petitioned the Long Parliament ; but the House of Lords intervened in favour of Manchester. ' ' Cromwell got the House of Commons to appoint a committee to consider the rights of the case. Hyde, its chairman, was greatly scandalised by the vehemence with which Cromwell advocated the rights of the Commoners before it. [See p. 101 below.] . . . This persistent championship of the rights of peasants and small freeholders was the basis of Cromwell's influence in the Eastern Counties. Common rights were something concrete and tangible, 88 BEFOEE THE CIVIL WAE [13 Oct. Palaceyard might testify, that operation of going in the teeth of the royal will was somewhat more perilous than it would be now ! This was in 1638, according to the good testimony of Warwick. 1 Cromwell acquired by it a great popularity in the Fen-country, acquired the name or nickname ' Lord of the Fens ; ' and what was much more valuable, had done the duty of a good citizen, whatever he might acquire by it. The disastrous public Events which soon followed put a stop to all farther operations in the Fens, for a good many years. These clamours of local grievance near at hand, these rumours of universal grievance from the distance, — they were part of the Day's noises, they were sounding in Cromwell's mind, along with many others now silent, while the following Letter went off to- wards 'Sir William Masham's House called Otes in Essex,' in the year 1638. — Of Otes and the Mashams in Essex, there must likewise, in spite of our strait limits, be a word said. The Mashams were distant Cousins of Oliver ; 2 this Sir William Masham, or Massam as he is often written, proved a conspicuous busy man in the Politics of his time ; on the Puritan side ; — rose into Oliver's Council of State at last. The Mashams became Lords Masham in the next generation, and so continued for a while ; one Lady Masham was a daughter of Philosopher Cud- worth, and is still remembered as the friend of John Locke, whom she tended in his old days ; who lies buried, as his monu- ment still shows, at the Church of High Laver, in the neighbour- hood of which Otes Mansion stood. High Laver, Essex, not far from Harlow Station on the Northeastern Railway. The Mashams are all extinct, and their Mansion is swept away as if it had not been. 'Some forty years ago,' says my kind informant, 'a ' wealthy Maltster of Bishop's Stortford became the proprietor ' by purchase ; and pulled the Manorhouse down ; leaving the ' outhouses as cottages to some poor people.' The name Otes, which appealed to many who were not Puritans, and came home to men to whom Parliamentary privileges were remote abstractions. Every village Hampden looked to Cromwell as a leader, and was ready to follow him. In 1643, a royalist newspaper nicknamed him ' The Lord of the Fens,' but his popularity with the fenmen began long before the military exploits which gained him the title." Firth's Cromwell, pp, 33, 34.] 1 Warwick's Memoirs, p. 350. Poor Noble blunders, as he is apt to do. [But Noble says 1638 ; see p. 107.] a [Sir William Masham's wife was Cromwell's own cousin, daughter of his Aunt Joan (Lady Barrington), and therefore cousin also to Mrs. St. John.] 1638.] LETTEE II., ELY 89 the tomb of Locke, and this undestroyed and now indestructible fraction of Ragpaper alone preserve the memory of Mashamdom in this world. We modernise the spelling ; let the reader, for it may be worth his while, endeavour to modernise the sentiment and subject matter. There is only this farther to be premised, That St. John, the celebrated Shipmoney Barrister, has married for his second wife a Cousin of Oliver Cromwell's, a Daughter of Uncle Henry's, whom we knew at Upwood long ago ; * which Cousin, and perhaps her learned husband reposing from his arduous law-duties along with her, is now on a Summer or Autumn visit at Otes, and has lately seen Oliver there. To my beloved Cousin Mrs. St. Johns, at Sir William Masham his House called Oates, in Essex : Present these. Ely, 13th October 1638. Dear Cousin, I thankfully acknowledge your love in your kind remembrance of me upon this opportunity. Alas, you do too highly prize my lines, and my company. I may be ashamed to own your expressions, considering how unprofitable I am, and the mean improvement of my talent. Yet to honour my God by declaring what He hath done for my soul, in this I am confident, and I will be so. Truly, then, this I find : That He giveth springs in a dry and barren wilder- ness where no water is. I live (you know where) in Mesheck, which they say signifies Prolonging ; in Kedar, which signifieth Blackness : yet the Lord forsaketh me not. Though He do prolong, yet He will (I trust) bring me to His tabernacle, to His resting-place. My soul is with the congregation of the firstborn, my body rests in hope, and if here I may honour my God either by doing or by suffering, I shall be most glad. Truly no poor creature hath more cause to put forth himself in the cause of his God than I. I have had plentiful wages 1 Antea, p. 20. [St. John's first wife was also a cousin of Cromwell's, a daughter of Lady Masham by her first husband. ] 90 BEFOEE THE CIVIL WAR [13 Oct. beforehand, and I am sure I shall- never earn the least mite. The Lord accept me in His Son, and give me to walk in the light, and give us to walk in the light, as He is the light. He it is that enlighteneth our blackness, our darkness. I dare not say, He hideth His face from me. He giveth me to see light in His light. One beam in a dark place hath exceeding much re- freshment in it : blessed be His Name for shining upon so dark a heart as mine ! You know what my manner of life hath been. Oh, I lived in and loved darkness, and hated the light ; I was a chief, the chief of sinners. This is true : I hated godliness, yet God had mercy on me. O the riches of His mercy. Praise Him for me, pray for me, that He who hath begun a good work would perfect it to the day of Christ. Salute all my good friends in that family whereof you are yet a member. I am much bound unto them for their love. I bless the Lord for them ; and that my son, by their procurement, is so well. Let him have your prayers, your counsel ; let me have them. Salute your husband and sister from me : — He is not a man of his word ! He promised to write about Mr. Wrath of Epping ; but as yet I received no letters : — put him in mind to do what with conveniency may be done for the poor cousin I did solicit him about. Once more farewell. The Lord be with you so : prayeth Your truly loving Cousin, Oliver Cromwell. 1 My wife's service and love presented to all her friends. There are two or perhaps three sons of Cromwell's at Felsted School by this time : a likely enough guess is, that he might have been taking Dick over to Felsted on that occasion when he came round by Otes, and gave such comfort by his speech to the pious Mashams, and to the young Cousin, now on a summer visit at 1 Thurloe's State Papers (London, 1742), i. 1. [A copy of this letter is calendared in the appendix to the 2nd Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commissioners. Noted by Mr. Horwood : " Religious and wordy."] 1638.] LETTER II., ELY 91 Otes. What glimpses of long-gone summers ; of long-gone human beings in fringed trouser-breeches, in starched ruff) in hood and fardingale ; — alive, they, within their antiquarian cos- tumes, living men and women ; instructive, very interesting to one another ! Mrs. St. John came down to breakfast every morning in that summer visit of the year 1638, and Sir William said grave grace, and they spake polite devout things to one another ; and they are vanished, they and their things and speeches, — all silent, like the echoes of the old nightingales that sang that season, like the blossoms of the old roses. O Death, Time !— For the soul's furniture of these brave people is grown not less unintelligible, antiquarian, than their Spanish boots and lappet caps. Reverend Mark Noble, my reverend imbecile friend, dis- covers in this Letter evidence that Oliver was once a very dissolute man ; that Carrion Heath spake truth in that Flagellum Balder- dash of his. O my reverend imbecile friend, hadst thou thyself never any moral life, but only a sensitive and digestive ? Thy soul never longed towards the serene heights, all hidden from thee ; and thirsted as the hart in dry places wherein no waters be ? It was never a sorrow for thee that the eternal pole-star had gone out, veiled itself in dark clouds ; — a sorrow only that this or the other noble Patron forgot thee when a living fell vacant ? 1 have known Christians, Moslems, Methodists, — and, alas, also reverend irreverent Apes by the Dead Sea 1 O modern reader, dark as this Letter may seem, I will advise thee to make an attempt towards understanding it. There is in it a 'tradition of humanity' worth all the rest. Indisputable certificate that man once had a soul ; that man once walked with God, — his little Life a sacred island girdled with Eternities and Godhoods. Was it not a time for heroes ? Heroes were then possible. I say, thou shalt understand that Letter ; thou also, looking out into a too brutish world, wilt then exclaim with Oliver Cromwell, — with Hebrew David, as old Mr. Rouse of Truro, and the Presbyterian populations, still sing him in the Northern Kirks : — Woe's me that I in Meshec am A sojourner so long, Or that I in the tents do dwell To Kedar that belong ! Yes,. there is a tone in the soul of this Oliver that holds of the Perennial. With a noble sorrow, with a noble patience, he longs 92 BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR [1639. towards the mark of the prize of the high calling. He, I think, has chosen the better part. The world and its wild tumults, — if they will but let him alone ! Yet he too will venture, will do and suffer for God's cause, if the call come. What man with better reason ? He hath had plentiful wages beforehand ; snatched out of darkness into marvellous light : he will never earn the least mite. Annihilation of self; Selbsttodtung, as Novalis calls it ; casting yourself at the footstool of God's throne, " To live or to die forever ; as Thou wilt, not as I will." Brother, hadst thou never, in any form, such moments in thy history? Thou knowest them not, even by credible rumour ? Well, thy earthly path was peaceabler, I suppose. But the Highest was never in thee, the Highest will never come out of thee. Thou shalt at best abide by the stuff; as cherished housedog, guard the stuff, — perhaps with enormous gold-collars and provender : but the battle, and the hero death, and victory's fire-chariot carrying men to the Immortals, shall never be thine. I pity thee ; brag not, or I shall have to despise thee. TWO YEARS Such is Oliver's one Letter from Ely. To guide us a little through the void gulf towards his next Letter, we will here in- tercalate the following small fractions of Chronology. 1639 May — July. The Scots at their Glasgow Assembly l had rent their Tulchan Apparatus in so rough a way, and otherwise so ill comported themselves, his Majesty saw good, in the beginning of this year, immense negotiation and messaging to and fro having proved so futile, to chastise them with an Army. By unheard-of exertions in the Extra-Parliamentary way, his Majesty got an Army ready; marched with it to Berwick, — is at Newcastle, 8th May 1639. 2 But, alas, the Scots, with a much better Army, already lay encamped on Dunse Law ; every nobleman with his tenants there, as a drilled regiment, round him ; old Fieldmarshal 1 Nov. 1638 : Baillie's Letters (Edinburgh, 1841), i. 118-176. 3 Rushworth, iii. 930. 1640.] TWO YEARS 93 Lesley for their generalissimo ; at every Colonel's tent this pennon flying, 1 For Christs Crown and Covenant : there was no fighting to be thought of. 2 Neither could the Pacification there patched up be of long continuance. The Scots disbanded their soldiers ; but kept the officers, mostly Gustavus-Adolphus men, still within sight. 1640 The Scotch Pacification, hastily patched up at Dunse Hill, did not last ; discrepancies arose as to the practical meaning of this and the other clause in it. Discrepancies which the farther they were handled, embroiled themselves the more. His Majesty having burnt Scotch paper Declarations 'by the hands of the common hangman,' and almost cut off the poor Scotch Chancellor Loudon's head, and being again resolute to chastise the rebel Scots with an Army, decides on summoning a Parliament for that end, there being no money attainable otherwise. To the great and glad astonishment of England ; which, at one time, thought never to have seen another Parliament ! Oliver Cromwell sat in this Parliament for Cambridge ; 3 recommended by Hampden, say some ; not needing any recommendation in those Fen-countries, think others. Oliver's Colleague was a Thomas Meautys, Esquire.* This Parliament met, 13th April 1640: it was by no means prompt enough with supplies against the rebel Scots ; the King dismissed it in a huff, 5th May ; after a Session of three weeks : Historians call it the Short Parliament. His Majesty decides on raising money and an Army ' by other methods ; ' to which end, Wentworth, now Earl Strafford and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, who had advised that course in the Council, did himself subscribe 20,000/. Archbishop Laud had long ago seen a ' cloud rising ' against the Four surplices at Allhallowtide ; and now it is cover- ing the whole sky, in a most dismal and really thundery-looking manner. His Majesty by ' other methods,' commission of array, benevo- 1 ["Everie companie had flying at the captaine's tent-doore" is what Baillie says.] *Ibid. iii. 926-49 ; Baillie, i. 184-221 ; King'sArmy ' dismissed' [after Pacification), 24th June (Rushworth, iii. 946). 8 Browne Willis, pp. 229, 30; Rushworth, iii. 1105. 4 [Thomas Meautys was elected as member for Cambridge in King James's parlia- ment of 1621, and sat for that borough in all the parliaments of King Charles's reign up to the Long Parliament. He was Clerk of the Privy Council from 1623 until within a short time of his death in 1642.] 94 BEFOEE THE CIVIL WAR [1640. lence, forced-loan, or how he could, got a kind of Army on foot, 1 and set it marching out of the several Counties of the South to- wards the Scotch Border: but it was a most hopeless Army. The soldiers called the affair a Bishops' War; they mutinied against their officers, shot some of their officers : in various Towns on t'leir march, if the Clerygyman were reputed Puritan, they went and gave him three cheers ; if of Surplice tendency, they sometimes threw his furniture out of window. 2 No fighting against poor Scotch Gospellers was to be hoped for from these men. — Meanwhile the Scots, not to be behindhand, had raised a good Army of their own ; and decided on going into England with it, this time, 'to present their grievances to the King's Majesty.' On the 20th of August 1640, they cross the Tweed at Coldstream ; Montrose wading in the van of them all. They wore uniform of hodden gray, with blue caps ; and each man had a moderate haversack of oatmeal on his back. 8 August Z&th. The Scots force their way across the Tyne, at Newburn, some miles above Newcastle ; the King's Army making small fight, most of them no fight ; hurrying from Newcastle, and all town and country quarters, towards York again, where his Majesty and Strafford were. 4 The Bishops' War was at an end. The Scots, striving to be gentle as doves in their behaviour, and publishing boundless brotherly Declarations to all the brethren that loved Christ's Gospel and God's Justice in England, — took possession of Newcastle next day ; took possession gradu- ally of all Northumberland and Durham, — and stayed there, in various towns and villages, about a year. The whole body of English Puritans looked upon them as their saviours : some months afterwards, Robert Baillie heard the London ballad-singers, on the streets, singing copiously with strong lungs, " Gramercy, good Master Scot," by way of burden. 6 His Majesty and Strafford, in a fine frenzy at this turn of affairs, found no refuge, except to summon a ' Council of Peers,' to enter upon a 'Treaty' with the Scots; and alas, at last, summon a New Parliament. Not to be helped in any way. Twelve chief Peers of the summoned ' Council ' petitioned for a Parliament ; the City of London petitioned for a Parliament, and would not lend money otherwise. A Parliament was appointed for the 3d of November next ; — whereupon London 1 Rushworth, iii. 1241. 2 Vicars' Parliamentary Chronicle (Lond. 1644), p. 20. 3 Old Pamphlets. * Rushworth, iii. 1236, &c. 5 Baillie's Letters. 1640.] TWO YEAES 95 cheerfully lent 200,000/. ; and the treaty with the Scots at Ripon, 1st October 1640, 1 by and by transferred to London, went peaceably on at a very leisurely pace. The Scotch Army lay quartered at Newcastle, and over Northumberland and Durham, on an allowance of 850/. a-day ; an Army indispensable for Puri- tan objects ; no haste in finishing its Treaty. The English Army lay across in Yorkshire ; without allowance except from the casualties of the King's Exchequer ; ' in a dissatisfied manner, and occasionally getting into 'Army- Plots.' This Parliament, which met on the 3rd of November 1640, has become very celebrated in History by the name of the Long Parliament. 2 It accomplished and suffered very singular destinies ; suffered a Pride's Purge, a Cromwell's Ejectment ; suffered Re- instatements, Re-ejectments ; and the Rump or Fag-end of it did not finally vanish till l6th March 1 659-60. Oliver Cromwell sat again in this Parliament for Cambridge Town ; Meautys, his old Colleague, is now changed for ' John Lowry, Esquire,' s probably a more Puritanic man. The Members for Cambridge University are the same in both Parliaments. 4 1 Rushworth, iii. 1282. 2 [Of the composition of the Long Parliament, Mr. Morley writes that the list reads like a catalogue of the existing county families, and that " it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the House of Lords now contains a smaller proportion of ancient blood than the famous lineages that figure in the roll of the great revolu- tionary House of Commons. It was essentially an aristocratic and not a popular bouse, as became only too clear five or six years later, when Levellers and soldiers came into the field of politics. The Long Parliament was made up of the very flower of the English gentry and the educated laity." Morley's Oliver Cromwell, P- 75-] 3 Willis ; Rushworth, iv. 3. See Cooper's Annals of Cambridge (London, 1845), iii. 303, 4. 4 [Mr. Weyman thus sums up Cromwell's position at the beginning of the Long Parliament. " He had had already some experience of the House, he bore a well- known name and had a fair estate, and the reputation in his own district of being a strenuous, stirring, stiff-backed man. But in addition he had — or he and his cousin, the already famous John Hampden had — the following kinsfolk among the members : Oliver St. John, the Solicitor-General, a first cousin ; Edmund Dunch, Sir Thomas Barrington and Edmund Waller, also first cousins ; Sir Richard Knightley, Sir Robert Pye and Sir John Trevor, Hampden's sons-in-law ; Valentine Walton, Crom- well's brother-in-law ; and Sir Gilbert Gerrard and Sir William Masham, the husbands of Cromwell's first cousins — ten votes ; with Cromwell and Hampden, twelve. Then, in addition to these he had in the House at its first sitting five distant connexions, the sons or kinsmen of the fore-going ; Francis Gerrard, Thomas Trevor, Sir Oliver Luke, Sir Samuel Luke and Humphrey Salwey. . . . From time to time, as vacancies occurred and royalists were disabled, this number was increased very considerably, Sir John Barrington, William Masham, John Trevor, John Jones, Thomas Waller, Richard Ingoldsby, Henry Ireton and Richard Salwey coming up to recruit the clan which, notwithstanding death and defection, can scarcely in 1647 have mustered less than twenty-three votes." "Oliver Cromwell's Kinsfolk," English Historical Review, January, 1891.] 96 BEFOEE THE CIVIL WAE [1640-1. LETTER III To my loving friend Mr. Willingham, at his House in Swithiris Lane : ' London, February 1640.' 1 SiH, I desire you to send me the reasons of the Scots to enforce their desire of Uniformity in Religion, expressed in their 8th Article ; I mean that which I had before of you. I would peruse it against we fall upon that debate, which will be speedily. Yours, Oliver Cromwell.* There is a great quantity of intricate investigation requisite to date this small undated Note, and make it entirely transparent ! The Scotch Treaty, begun at Ripon, is going on, — never ended : the agitation about abolishing Bishops has just begun, in the House and out of it. On Friday, 11th December 1640, the Londoners present their celebrated 'Petition,' signed by 15,000 hands, craving to have Bishops and their Ceremonies radically reformed. Then on Saturday, 23d January 1640-1, comes the still more celebrated ' Petition and Remonstrance from 700 Ministers of the Church of England, 2 to the like effect. Upon which Documents, especially upon the latter, ensue strenuous debatings, 3 ensues a ' Committee of Twenty-four ; ' a Bill to abolish Superstition and Idolatry ; and, in a week or two, a Bill to take away the Bishops' Votes in Parliament : Bills recommended by the said Committee. A diligent Committee ; which heard much evidence, and theo- logical debating, from Dr. Burgess and others. Their Bishops Bill, not without hot arguing, passed through the Commons ; was rejected by the Lords ; — took effect, however, in a much heavier shape, within year and day. Young Sir Ralph Vemey, son of Edmund the Standard-bearer, has preserved very careful J The words within single commas, here as always in the Text of Cromwell's Letters, are mine, not his ; the date in this instance is conjectural or inferential. 2 Commons Journals, ii. 72. * Ibid. ii. 81 ; 8th and 9th of February. See Baillie's Letters, i. 30a ; and Rush- worth, iv. 93 and 174. * Harris, p. 517 : Sloane MSS. no. 2035b, fol. 5. 1641.] LETTER III, ANTI-EPISCOPACY 97 Notes of the theological revelations and profound arguments, heard in this Committee from Dr. Burgess and others ; intensely interesting at that time to all ingenuous young gentlemen ; a mere torpor now to all persons. In fact, the whole world, as we perceive, in this Spring of 1641, is getting on fire with episcopal, anti-episcopal emotion ; and the Scotch Commissioners, with their Desire of Uniformity, are natur- ally the centre of the latter. Bishop Hall, Smectymnuus, and one Mr. Milton 'near St. Bride's Church,' are getting all their Pamphlets ready. — The assiduous contemporary individual who collected the huge stock of loose Printing now know as King's Pamphlets in the British Museum, usually writes the date on the title-page of each ; but has, with a curious infelicity, omitted it in the case of Milton's Pamphlets, which accordingly remain undateable except approximately. The exact copy of the Scotch Demands towards a Treaty I have not yet met with, though doubtless it is in print amid the unsorted Rubbish Mountains of the British Museum. Notices of it are to be seen in Baillie, also in Rushworth. 1 The first Seven Articles relate to secularities ; payment of damages ; punishment of incendiaries, and so forth : the Seventh is the ' recalling ' of the King's Proclamations against the Scots. The Eighth, ' anent a solid peace betwixt the Nations,' involves this matter of Uniformity in Religion, and therefore is of weightier moment. Baillie says : ' For the Eighth great Demand some days were spent in preparation.' The Lords would have made no difficulty about dismantling Berwick and Carlisle, or such like ; but finding that the other points of this Eighth Article were to involve the permanent relations of England, they delayed. 'We expect it this very day,' says Baillie (28th February 1640-1). Oliver Cromwell also expects it this very day, or 'speedily,' — and therefore writes to Mr. Willingham for a sight of the Documents again. Whoever wishes to trace the emergence, re-emergence, slow ambiguous progress, and dim issue of this ' Eighth Article,' may consult the opaque but authentic Commons Journals, and strive to elucidate the same by poor old brown Pamphlets, in the places cited below. 2 It was not finally voted in the affirmative till the 1 Baillie, i. 297, and antea zxApostea; Rushworth, iv. 166. 2 Commons Journals, ii. 84, 85 ; Diurnal Occurrences in Parliament (Printed for William Cooke, London, 1641, — often erroneous as to the day), 10th February, 7th March, 15th May. VOL. I. 7 98 BEFOEE THE CIVIL WAE [1641. middle of May ; and then still it was far from being ended. It ended, properly, in the Summoning of a ' Westminster Assembly of Divines/ To ascertain for us how ' the two Nations ' may best attain to ' Uniformity of Religion.' This ' Mr. Willingham my loving friend/ of whom I have found no other vestige anywhere in Nature, is presumably a London Puritan concerned in the London Petition and other such matters, to whom the Member for Cambridge, a man of known zeal, good connexion, and growing weight, is worth convincing. 1 Oliver St. John the Shipmoney Lawyer, now Member for Totness, has lately been made Solicitor-General ; on the 2d of February 164.0-1, D'Ewes says of him, 'newly created' ; a date worth attending to. 2 Strafford's Trial is coming on ; to begin on the 22d of March : Strafford and Laud are safe in the Tower long since ; Finch and Windebank, and other Delinquents in high places, have fled rapidly beyond seas. IN THE LONG PARLIAMENT That little Note, despatched by a servant to Swithin's Lane in the Spring of 1641, and still saved by capricious destiny while so much else has been destroyed, — is all of Autographic that Oliver Cromwell has left us concerning his proceedings in the first three-and-twenty months of the Long Parliament. 3 Months 1 [He was George Willingham, a prominent London merchant, a member of the London Sequestration Committee. A series of letters addressed to him by Nehemiah Wharton (preserved amongst the State Papers) will be found in A?xhce~ ologia, vol. xxxv, pp. 310-334. There are other notices of, and letters from him amongst the State Papers. See Calendars S.P. Dom. : Chas. I. , for the years 1641-1643 ; 1645-1647 ; and Addenda 1625-1649.] 2 Sir Simond D'Ewes's Notes of the Long Parliament (Harleian Mss. , nos. 162-6), fol. 189 a ; p. 156 of Transcript penes me. [The appointment was made 29th January.] 3 [All of ' ' autographic," perhaps, but there are several notices of Cromwell in the early days of the Long Parliament, to be found in D'Ewes' Diary. He moved the second reading of the Act for annual Parliaments in December, 1640, and he sup- ported the Londoners' petition for the abolition of episcopacy on 9th February, 1641. He so bluntly opposed the views of a member who urged its rejection that some were for having him called to the bar, but owing to the influence of Pym and Holies, he was allowed to go on. D'Ewes shortly reports what he said. " He did not understand why that gentleman that last spake should make an inference of parity from the church to the State, nor that there was any necessity of the great revenues of bishops. He was more convinced touching the irregularity of bishops than even before, because like the Roman hierarchy they would not endure to have their 1641.] IN THE LONG PARLIAMENT 99 distinguished, beyond most others in History, by anxieties and endeavours, by hope and fear and swift vicissitude, to all England as well as him : distinguished on his part by much Parliamentary activity withal ; of which, unknown hitherto in History, but still capable of being known, let us wait some other opportunity of speaking. Two vague appearances of his in that scene, which are already known to most readers, we will set in their right date and place, making them faintly visible at last ; and therewith leave this part of the subject. In D'Ewes's Manuscript above cited 1 are these words, relating to Monday, Qth November 1640, the sixth day of the Long Parliament : ' Mr. Cromwell delivered the Petition of John Lilburn,' — young Lilburn, who had once been Prynne's amanuensis, among other things, and whose ' whipping with 200 stripes from Westminster to the Fleet Prison,' had already rendered him conspicuous. This is the record of D'Ewes. To which let us now annex the following well-known passage of Sir Philip Warwick ; and if the reader fancy the Speeches on the previous Saturday, 2 and how the ' whole of this Monday was spent in hearing grievances ' of the like sort, some dim image of a strange old scene may perhaps rise upon him. 'The first time I ever took notice of Mr. Cromwell,' says Warwick, ' was in the very beginning of the Parliament held in ' November 1640 ; when I,' Member for Radnor, 'vainly thought 'myself a courtly young gentleman, — for we courtiers valued ' ourselves much upon our good clothes ! 1 came into the House ' one morning/ Monday morning, ' well clad ; and perceived a 'gentleman speaking, whom I knew not, — very ordinarily ap- ' parelled ; for it was a plain cloth suit, which seemed to have ' been made by an ill country-tailor ; his linen was plain, and not condition come to a trial." In May, 1641, he joined with Sir Henry Vane in bringing in the " Root and Branch Bill ; " in September he supported the suggestion for altera- tions in the Book of Common Prayer, declaring that there were passages in it to which "grave and learned divines" could not submit; in October he carried a resolution to confer with the Lords concerning the King's appointment of bishops to the vacant sees ; and in November another that the Lords should be asked to join in voting Essex as commander of the trained bands in the South of England. This brings us to the Grand Remonstrance. Also, as Mr. Sanford has calculated, during the first ten months of the Long Parliament, Cromwell was specially appointed to sit on eighteen committees, exclusive of those of which the knights and burgesses generally of the Eastern counties were members. (See Sanford's Studies and Illus- trations of the Great Rebellion, pp. 306, 670.).] 1 D'Ewes, fol. 4. 2 Commons Journals, 7th Nov. 1640 ; Rushworth, iv. 24, &c. 100 BEFOEE THE CIVIL WAR [1641. ' very clean ; and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his 'little band, which was not much larger than his collar. His ' hat was without a hat-band. His stature was of a good size ; ' his sword stuck close to his side : his countenance swoln and ' reddish, his voice sharp and untuneable, and his eloquence full 'of fervour. For the subject matter would not bear much of ' reason ; it being on behalf of a servant of Mr. Pry nne's who had ' dispersed Libels ; ' — yes, Libels, and had come to Palaceyard for it, as we saw : ' I sincerely profess, it lessened much my reverence 'unto that Great Council, for this gentleman was very much ' hearkened unto ; ' 1 which was strange, seeing he had no gold lace to his coat, nor frills to his band ; and otherwise, to me in my poor featherhead, seemed a somewhat unhandy gentleman ! The reader may take what of these Warwick traits he can along with him, and also omit what he cannot take ; for though Warwick's veracity is undoubted, his memory after many years, in such an element as his had been, may be questioned. The ' band,' we may remind our readers, is a linen tippet, properly the shirt-collar of those days, which, when the hair was worn long, needed to fold itself with a good expanse of washable linen over the upper-works of the coat, and defend these and their velvets from harm. The 'specks of blood,' if not fabulous, we, not without genera] sympathy, attribute to bad razors : as for the 'hatband,' one remarks that men did not speak with their hats on ; and therefore will, with Sir Philip's leave, omit that. The ' untuneable voice,' or what a poor young gentleman in these circumstances would consider as such, is very significant to us. Here is the other vague appearance ; from Clarendon's Life. 2 ' He,' Mr. Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon, ' was often heard to ' mention one private Committee, in which he was put accidentally ' into the chair ; upon an Enclosure which had been made of ' great wastes, belonging to the Queen's Manors, without the ' consent of the tenants, the benefit whereof had been given by ' the Queen to a servant of near trust, who forthwith sold the ' lands enclosed to the Earl of Manchester, Lord Privy Seal ; 'who together with his Son Mandevil were now most concerned ' to maintain the Enclosure ; against which, as well the inhabitants ' of other manors, who claimed Common in those wastes, as the ' Queen's tenants of the same, made loud complaints, as a great 1 Warwick, pi 247. 2 i. 78 (Oxford, 1761). 1641.] IN THE LONG PAELIAMENT ,101 ' oppression, carried upon them with a very high hand, and sup- ' ported by power. 'The Committee sat in the Queen's Court ; and Oliver Crom- ' well being one of them, appeared much concerned to counten- ' ance the Petitioners, who were numerous together with their ' Witnesses ; the Lord Mandevil being likewise present as a party, ' and by the direction of the Committee sitting covered. Crom- ' well, who had never before been heard to speak in the House 'of Commons,' — at least not by me, though he had often spoken, and was very well known there, — ' ordered the Witnesses and ' Petitioners in the method of the proceeding ; and seconded, and ' enlarged upon what they said, with great passion ; and the ' Witnesses and persons concerned, who were a very rude kind of ' people, interrupted the Counsel and Witnesses on the other side, ' with great clamour, when they said anything that did not please ' them ; so that Mr. Hyde (whose office it was to oblige men of ' all sorts to keep order) was compelled to use some sharp re- * proofs, and some threats, to reduce them to such a temper that ' the business might be quietly heard. Cromwell, in great fury, 'reproached the Chairman for being partial, and that he dis- ' countenanced the Witnesses by threatening them : the other 'appealed to the Committee; which justified him, and declared ' that he behaved himself as he ought to do ; which more inflamed ' him,' Cromwell, ' who was already too much angry. When ' upon any mention of matter-of-fact, or of the proceeding before * and at the Enclosure, the Lord Mandevil desired to be heard, ' and with great modesty related what had been done, or explained ' what had been said, Mr. Cromwell did answer, and reply upon ' him with so much indecency and rudeness, and in language so ' contrary and offensive, that every man would have thought, that 'as their natures and their manners were as opposite as it is ' possible, so their interest could never have been the same. In 'the end, his whole carriage was so tempestuous, and his be- ' haviour so insolent, that the Chairman found himself obliged to ' reprehend him ; and to tell him, That if he ' Mr. Cromwell ' pro- ' ceeded in the same manner, he ' Mr. Hyde ' would presently 'adjourn the Committee, and the next morning complain to the ' House of him. Which he never forgave ; and took all occasions ' afterwards to pursue him with the utmost malice and revenge, 'to Ms death,' — not Mr. Hyde's, happily, but Mr. Cromwell's, who at length did cease to cherish ' malice and revenge ' against Mr. Hyde ! 102 BEFOKE THE CIVIL WAE [1641, Tracking this matter, by faint indications, through various obscure courses, I conclude that it related to 'the Soke of Somersham,' 1 near St. Ives ; and that the scene in the Queen's Court probably occurred in the beginning of July 1641. 2 Crom- well knew this Soke of Somersham, near St. Ives, very well ; knew these poor rustics, and what treatment they had got ; and wished, not in the imperturbablest manner it would seem, to see justice done them. Here too, subtracting the due subtrahend from Mr. Hyde's Narrative, we have a pleasant visuality of an old summer afternoon * in the Queen's Court ' two hundred years ago. Cromwell's next Letters present him to us, not debating, or about to debate, concerning Parliamentary Propositions and Scotch ' Eighth Articles,' but with his sword drawn to enforce them ; the whole Kingdom divided now into two armed conflict- ing masses, the argument to be by pike and bullet henceforth. 1 Commons Journals, ii. 172. 2 J bid. 87; 150; 172; 192; 215; 218; 219, — the dates extend from 17th Feb- ruary to 21st July 1641. PART II TO THE END OF THE FIRST CIVIL WAR 1642-1646 PRELIMINARY There is therefore a great dark void, from February 1641 to January 1 643, through which the reader is to help himself from Letter III. over to Letter IV., as he best may. How has pacific England, the most solid pacific country in the world, got all into this armed attitude ; and decided itself to argue henceforth by pike and bullet till it get some solution ? Dryasdust, if there remained any shame in him, ought to look at those wagonloads of Printed Volumes, and blush ! We, in great haste, offer the necessitous reader the following hints and considerations. It was mentioned above that Oliver St. John, the noted Puritan Lawyer, was already, in the end of January 1641, made Solicitor- General. The reader may mark that as a small fraction of an event showing itself above ground, completed ; and indicating to him a grand subterranean attempt on the part of King Charles and the Puritan Leaders, which unfortunately never could become a fact or event. Charles, in January last or earlier (for there are no dates discoverable but this of St. John's), perceiving how the current of the Nation ran, and what a humour men were getting into, had decided on trying to adopt the Puritan leaders, Pym, Hampden, Holies and others, as what we should now call his ' Ministers : ' these Puritan men, under the Earl of Bedford as chief, might have hoped to become what we should now call a ' Majesty's Ministry,' and to execute peaceably, with their King presiding over them, what reforms had grown inevitable. A (103) 104 FIRST CIVIL WAR [1641. most desirable result, if a possible one ; for of all men these had the least notion of revolting, or rebelling against their King ! This negotiation had been entered into, and entertained as a possibility by both parties : so much is indubitable ; so much and nothing more, except that it ended without result. 1 It would in our days be the easiest negotiation ; but it was then an impossible one. For it meant that the King should content himself with the Name of King, and see measures the reverse of what he wished and willed, take effect by his sanction. Which, in sad truth, had become a necessity for Charles I. in the England of 1641. His tendency and effort has long been the reverse of England's ; he cannot govern England, whatever he may govern ! And yet to have admitted this necessity, — alas, was it not to have settled the whole Quarrel, without the eight-and-forty years of fighting, and confused bickering and oscillation, which proved to be needful first ? The negotiation dropped ; leaving for visible result only this appointment of St. John's. His Majesty on that side saw no course possible for him. Accordingly he tried it in the opposite direction, which also, on failure by this other, was very natural for him. He entered into secret tamperings with the Officers of the English Army ; which, lying now in Yorkshire, ill-paid, defeated, and in neigh- bourhood of a Scotch Army victoriously furnished with 850/. a-day, was very apt for discontent. There arose a ' first Army- Plot' for delivering Strafford from the Tower; then a second Army- Plot for some equally wild achievement, tending to deliver Majesty from thraldom, and send this factious Parliament about its business. In which desperate schemes, though his Majesty strove not to commit himself beyond what was necessary, it became and still remains indubitable that he did participate ; — as indeed, the former course of listening to his Parliament having been abandoned, this other of coercing or awing it by armed force was the only remaining one. These Army- Plots, detected one after another, and investigated and commented upon, with boundless interest, in Parliament and out of it, kept the Summer and Autumn of 1641 in continual alarm and agitation ; taught all Opposition persons,- and a factious Parliament in general, what ground they were standing on ; — and in the factious Parliament, especially, could not but awaken the liveliest desire of having the Military Force put in such hands 1 Whitlooke, Clarendon ; see Forster's Statesmen, ii. 150-7. 1641.] PRELIMINARY 105 as would be safe for them. ' The Lord-Lieutenants of Counties/ this factious Parliament conceived an unappeasable desire of knowing who these were to be :— this is what they mean by ' Power of the Militia ; ' on which point, as his Majesty would not yield a jot, his Parliament and he, — the point becoming daily more important, new offences daily accumulating, and the split ever widening, — ultimately rent themselves asunder, and drew swords to decide it. Such was the well-known consummation ; which in Cromwell's next Letter we find to have arrived. Here are a few Dates which may assist the reader to grope his way thither. From ' Mr Wil- lingham in Swithin's Lane' in February 1641, to the Royal Standard at Nottingham in August 1642, and ' Mr. Barnard at Huntingdon ' in January 1643, which is our next stage, there is a long vague road ; and the lights upon it are mostly a universal dance of will-o'-wisps, and distracted fire-flies in a state of excite- ment, — not good guidance for the traveller ! 1641 Monday, 3d May. Strafford's trial being ended, but no sentence yet given, Mr. Robert Baillie, Minister of Kilwinning, who was here among the Scotch Commissioners at present, saw in Palace- yard, Westminster, ' some thousands of Citizens and Apprentices ' (Miscellaneous Persons and City Shopmen, as we should now call them), who rolled about there ' all day,' bellowing to every Lord as he went in or came out, ' with a loud and hideous voice : ' " Justice on Strafford ! Justice on Traitors ! " l — which seemed ominous to the Reverend Mr. Baillie. In which same hours, amid such echoes from without, the honourable House of Commons within doors, all in great tremor about Army- Plots, Treasons, Death-perils, was busy redacting a ' Protestation ; ' a kind of solemn Vow, or miniature Scotch Cove- nant, the first of a good many such in those earnest agitated times, — to the effect : " We take the Supreme to witness that we will stand by one another to the death in prosecution of our just objects here ; in defence of Law, Loyalty and Gospel here." To this effect ; but couched in very mild language, and with a ' Preamble,' in which our Terror of Army- Plots, the moving principle of the affair, is discreetly almost shaded out of sight ; it being our object 1 Baillie, i. 351. 106 FIRST CIVIL WAR [1641. that the House should be ' unanimous ' in this Protestation. As accordingly the House was ; the House, and to a great extent the Nation. Hundreds of honourable Members, Mr. Cromwell one of them, sign the Protestation this day ; the others on the following days : their names all registered in due succession in the Books. 1 Nay, it is ordered that the whole Nation be invited to sign it ; that each honourable Member send it down to his constituents, and invite them to sign it. Which, as we say, the constituents, all the reforming part of them, everywhere in England, did ; with a feeling of solemnity very strange to the modern mind. Striking terror into all Traitors ; quashing down Army-Plots for the present, and the hopes of poor Strafford for- ever. A Protestation held really sacred ; appealed to, henceforth, as a thing from which there was no departing. Cavalcades of Freeholders, coming up from the country to petition the Hon- ourable House, — for instance, the Four-thousand Petitioners from Buckinghamshire, about ten months hence, — rode with this Protestation ' stuck in their hats.' 2 A very great and awe-inspir- ing matter in those days ; till it was displaced by greater of the like kind, — Solemn League and Covenant, and others. 3 Monday next, \0th May, his Majesty accordingly signed sen- tence on Strafford ; who was executed on the Wednesday following. No help for it. A terrible example ; the one supremely able man the King had. On the same Monday, J 0th May, his Majesty signed likewise another Bill, That this Parliament should not be dissolved with- out its own consent. A Bill signed in order that the City might lend him money on good Security of Parliament ; money being most pressingly wanted, for our couple of hungry Armies Scotch and English, and other necessary occasions. A Bill which seemed of no great consequence except financial ; but which, to a People reverent of Law, and never, in the wildest clash of battle-swords, giving up its religious respect for the constable's baton, proved of infinite consequence. His Majesty's hands are tied ; he cannot dismiss this Parliament, as he has done the others ; — no, not with- out its own consent. August 10th. Army- Plotters having fled beyond seas ; the Bill for Triennial Parliaments being passed ; the Episcopacy- Bill being got to sleep ; and by the use of royal varnish a kind of 1 Commons Journals, ii. 132, 3, &c. ; Rushworth, iv. 241, 4. 2 12th January 1641-2 ; Rushworth, iv. 486. 3 Copy of it, sent to Cambridge : Appendix, No. 3. 1641.] PRELIMINARY 107 composure, or hope of composure, being introduced ; above all things, money being now borrowed to pay the Armies and dis- band them, — his Majesty, on the 10th of the month, 1 set out for Scotland. To hold a Parliament, and compose matters there, as his Majesty gave out. To see what old or new elements of malign Royalism could still be awakened to life there, as the Parliament surmised, who greatly opposed his going. — Mr. Crom- well got home to Ely again, for six weeks, this autumn ; there being a recess from 9th September when the business was got gathered up, till 20th October when his Majesty was expected back. An Interim Committee, and Pym from his ' lodging at Chelsea,' 2 managed what of indispensable might turn up. November 1st. News came to London, to the reassembled Parliament, 3 that an Irish Rebellion, already grown to be an Irish Massacre, had broken out. An Irish Catholic imitation of the late Scotch Presbyterian achievements in the way of ' religious liberty ; ' — one of the best models, and one of the worst imitations ever seen in this world. Erasmus's Ape, observing Erasmus shave himself, never doubted but it too could shave. One knows what a hand the creature made of itself, before the edgetool could be wrenched from it again ! As this poor Irish Rebellion unfortunately began in lies and bluster, and proceeded in lies and bluster, hoping to make itself good that way, the ringleaders had started by pretending or even forging some warrant from the King ; which brought much undeserved suspicion on his Majesty, and greatly complicated his affairs here for a long while. November 22d. The Irish Rebellion blazing up more and more into an Irish Massacre, to the terror and horror of all Antipapist men ; and in England, or even in Scotland, except by the liberal use of varnish, nothing yet being satisfactorily mended, nay all things hanging now, as it seemed, in double and treble jeopardy, — the Commons had decided on a 'Grand Petition and Remonstrance,' to set forth what their griefs and necessities really were, and really would require to have done for them. The Debate upon it, very celebrated in those times, came on this day, Monday 22d November.* The longest Debate ever yet known in Parliament ; and the stormiest, — nay, had it not been for Mr. Hampden's soft management, ' we had like to 1 Wharton's Laud, p. 62. s 'His Report, Commons Journals, ii. 289. 3 Laud, 62 ; Commons Journals, in die. 4 Commons Journals, in die ; D'Ewes MSS. f. 179 b. 108 FIEST CIVIL WAE [1641. have sheathed our swords in each other's bowels/ says Warwick ; which I find otherwise to be true. The Remonstrance passed by a small majority. 1 It can be read still in Rushworth, 2 drawn up in precise business order ; the whole 206 Articles of it, — every line of which once thrilled electrically into all men's hearts, as torpid as it has now grown. ' The chimes of Margaret's were striking two in the morning when we came out.' — It was on this occasion that Oliver, ' coming down stairs,' is reported to have said, He would have sold all and gone to New England, had the Remonstrance not passed ; 3 a vague report, gathered over dining-tables long after, to which the reader need not pay more heed than it merits. His Majesty returned from Scotland on the Thursday' following ; and had from the City a thrice-glorious Civic Entertainment. 4 December 1 0th. The Episcopal business, attempted last Spring in vain, has revived in December, kindled into life by the Remon- strance ; and is raging more fiercely than ever ; crowds of Citizens petitioning, Corporation ' going in sixty coaches ' to petition ; 5 the Apprentices, or City Shopmen, and miscellaneous persons, petitioning : — Bishops ' much insulted ' in Palaceyard, as they go in or out. Whereupon hasty Welsh Williams, Archbishop of York, once Bishop of Lincoln and Lord Keeper, he with Eleven too hasty Bishops, Smectymnuus Hall being one of them, give in a Protest on this 10th of December, 6 That they cannot get to their place in Parliament ; that all shall be null and void till they do get there. A rash step ; for which, on the 30th of the same month, they are, by the Commons, voted guilty of Treason ; and ' in a cold evening,' with small ceremony, are bundled, the whole dozen of them, into the Tower. For there is again rioting, again are cries 'loud and hideous;' — Colonel Lunsford, a truculent one-eyed man, having ' drawn his sword ' upon the Apprentices in Westminster Hall, and truculently slashed some of them ; who of course responded in a loud and hideous manner, by tongue, by fist, and single-stick : nay, on the morrow, 28th December, 7 they came marching many thousands strong, with sword and pistol, out of the City, " Slash us now ! while we wait on the Honourable House for an answer to our petition!" — and insulted his Majesty's Guard at 1 [A majority of eleven only. ] 2 iv. 438-51 ; see also 436, 7. 3 Clarendon [iv. 52]. * Rushworth, iv. 429. 6 Vicars, p. 56. 6 Rushworth, iv. 467. 7 Ibid. , 464. 1642.] PEELIMINAEY 109 Whitehall. 1 What a Christmas of that old London, of that old Year ! On the 6th of February following, Episcopacy will be voted down, with blaze of ' bonfires,' and ' ringing ' of all the bells, — very audible to poor old Dr. Laud 2 over in the Tower yonder. 1642 January 4>th. His Majesty seeing these extremities arrive, and such a conflagation begin to blaze, thought now the time had come for snatching the main livecoals away, and so quenching the same. Such coals of strife he counts to the number of Five in the Commons House, and One in the Lords : Pym, Hampden, Haselrig, with Holies and Strode (who held down the Speaker fourteen years ago), these are the Five Commons ; Lord Kim- bolton, better known to us as Mandevil, Oliver's friend, of the ' Soke of Somersham,' and Queen's-Court Committee, he is the Lord. His Majesty flatters himself he has gathered evidence concerning these individual firebrands, That they ' invited the Scots to invade us ' in 1640 : he sends, on Monday 3d January, 3 to demand that they be given up to him as Traitors. Deliberate, slow and, as it were, evasive reply. Whereupon, on the morrow, he rides down to St. Stephen's himself, with an armed very mis- cellaneous force, of Five-hundred or of Three-hundred truculent braggadocio persons at his back ; enters the House of Commons, the truculent persons looking in after him from the lobby, — with intent to seize the said Five Members, five principal hot coals ; and trample them out, for one thing. It was the fatallest step this poor king ever took. The five members, timefully warned, were gone into the City ; the whole Parliament removed itself into the City, ' to be safe from armed violence.' From London City,- and from all England, rose one loud voice of lamentation, condemnation : Clean against law ! Paint an inch thick, there is, was, or can be, no shadow of law in this. Will you grant us the Militia now ; we seem to need it now ! — His Majesty's subsequent stages may be dated with more brevity. January 10th. The King with his Court quits Whitehall ; the Five Members and Parliament purposing to return tomorrow, 1 [On this same day, December 28, Cromwell moved an address to the King, praying him to remove the Earl of Bristol, who was believed to have advised the bringing in of the Scots army. (D'Ewes Diary.) ] 2 Wharton's Laud, p. 62 ; see also p. 65. 3 Commons Journals, ii. 367. 110 FIRST CIVIL WAR [1642. with the whole City in arms round them. 1 He left Whitehall ; never saw it again till he came to lay down his head there. March 9lh. The King has sent away his Queen from Dover, ' to be in a place of safety/ — and also to pawn the Crown Jewels in Holland, and get him arms. He returns Northward again, avoiding London. Many Messages between the Houses of Parliament and him : "Will your Majesty grant us Power of the Militia ; accept this list of Lord-Lieutenants ? " On the 9th of March, still advancing Northward without affirmative response, he has got to Newmarket ; where another Message overtakes him, earnestly urges itself upon him : Could not your Majesty please to grant us Power of the Militia for a limited time ? " No, by God ! " answers his Majesty, " not for an hour ! " 2 — On the 19th of March he is at York ; where his Hull Magazine, gathered for service against the Scots, is lying near ; where a great Earl of Newcastle, and other Northern potentates, will help him ; where at least London and its Puritanism, now grown so fierce, is far off. There we will leave him ; attempting Hull Magazine, in vain ; exchanging messages with his Parliament ; messages, missives, printed and written Papers without limit: — Law-pleadings of both parties before the great tribunal of the English Nation, each party striving to prove itself right, and within the verge of Law : preserved still in acres of typography, once thrillingly alive in every fibre of them ; now a mere torpor, readable by few creatures, not rememberable by any. It is too clear his Majesty will have to get himself an army, by Commission of Array, by subscriptions of loyal plate, pawning of crown jewels, or how he can. The Parliament by all methods is endeavouring to_ do the like. London subscribed ' Horses and Plate,' every kind of plate, even to women's thimbles, to an unheard-of amount ; 3 and when it came to actual enlisting, in London alone there were ' Four-thousand enlisted in a day.' 4 Four- thousand, some call it Five-thousand, in a day : the reader may meditate that one fact. Royal messages, Parliamentary messages ; acres of typography thrillingly alive in every fibre of them, — these go on slowly abating, and military preparations go on steadily increasing till the 23d of October next. The King's 'Commission of Array for Leicestershire ' came out on the 12th 1 Vicars, p. 64. 2 Rushworth, iv. 533. 3 Vicars, pp. 93, 109; see Commons Journals, ioth June 1642. 4 Wood's Athena, iii. 193. 1642.] PEELIMINAKY 111 of June, commissions for other counties following as convenient ; the Parliament's ' Ordinance for the Militia,' rising cautiously pulse after pulse towards clear emergence, had attained comple- tion the week before. 1 The question puts itself to every English soul, Which of these will you obey ? — and in all quarters of English ground, with swords getting out of their scabbards, and yet the constable's baton still struggling to rule supreme, there is a most confused solution of it going on. Of Oliver in these months we find the following things noted ; which the imaginative reader is to spread out into significance for himself the best he can. February 7th. ' Mr. Cromwell,' among others, ' offers to lend Three-hundred Pounds for the service of the Commonwealth,' 2 — towards reducing the Irish Rebellion, and relieving the afflicted Protestants there, or here. Rushworth, copying ia List of such subscribers, of date 9th April 1642, has Cromwell's name written down for '500/.' 3 — seemingly the same transaction ; Mr. Cromwell having now mended his offer : or else Mr. Rushworth, who uses the arithmetical cipher in this place, having misprinted. Hamp- den's subscription there is 1,000/. In Mr. Cromwell it is clear there is no backwardness, far from that : his activity in these months notably increases. In the D'Etves mss. 4 he appears and reappears ; suggesting this and the other, practical step, on be- half of Ireland oftenest ; in all ways zealously urging the work. 6 July \5tk. 'Mr. Cromwell moved that we might make an ' order to allow the Townsmen of Cambridge to raise two Com- ' panies of Volunteers, and to appoint Captains over them.' 6 On which same day, 15th July, the Commons Clerk writes these words : ' Whereas Mr. Cromwell hath sent down arms into the ' County of Cambridge, for the defence of that County, it is this 'day ordered,' 7 — that he shall have the ' 100/.' expended on that service repaid him by and by. 8 Is Mr. Cromwell aware that 1 Husbands the Printer's First Collection (Lond. 1643), pp. 346, 331. 2 Commons Journals, ii. 408. 3 Rushworth, iv. 564. 4 February — July 1642. s [Of Cromwell's relatives, Sir Thomas Barrington gave 1,200/. ; Sir Gilbert Gerard 1,000/. (according to the Commons Journals, Rushworth says 2,000/.) Sir William Masham and Oliver St. John each 600/.] 6 D'Ewes mss. f. 658-661. 7 Commons Journals, ii. 674. 8 [Cromwell's receipt for the money, written upon the back of the order sent down, and dated July 19, is amongst the State Papers at the Public Record Office, S.P. Dom. : Chas. I., vol. 491, No. 710. The arms were probably intended for the two companies of volunteers, for which, according to D'Ewes, he had just moved Parliament.] 112 FIRST CIVIL WAR [1642. there lies a colour of high treason in all this ; risk not of one's purse only, but of one's head ? Mr. Cromwell is aware of it, and pauses not. The next entry is still stranger. August 1 5th. 'Mr. Cromwell in Cambridgeshire has seized the ' Magazine in the Castle at Cambridge ; and hath hindered the * carrying of the Plate from that University ; which, as some re- ' port, was to the value of 20,000/. or thereabouts.' 1 So does Sir Philip Stapleton, member for Aldborough, member also of our new ' Committee for Defence of the Kingdom,' report this day. For which let Mr. Cromwell have indemnity. 2 — Mr. Cromwell has gone down into Cambridgeshire in person, since they began to train there, and assumed the chief management, — to some effect, it would appear. 3 The like was going on in all shires in England ; wherever the Parliament had a zealous member, it sent him down to his shire in these critical months, to take what management he could or durst. The most confused months England ever saw. In every shire, in every parish ; in courthouses, alehouses, churches, mar- kets, wheresoever men were gathered together, England, with sorrowful confusion in every fibre, is tearing itself into hostile halves, to carry on the voting by pike and bullet henceforth. Brevity is very urgent on us, nevertheless we must give this other extract. Bramston the Shipmoney Judge, in trouble with the Parliament and sequestered from his place, is now likely to get into trouble with the King, who in the last days of July has ordered him to come to York on business of importance. Judge Bramston sends his two sons, John and Frank, fresh young men, to negotiate some excuse. They ride to York in three days ; stay a day at York with his Majesty ; then return, ' on the same horses/ in three days, — to Skreens in Essex ; which was good 1 [There are some interesting depositions concerning this matter in the " case " of Capt. James Docwra, brought before the Committee for Compounding. See S.P. Dom. Interregnum, G. vol. 8o, pp. 649 et seq. See also Sir Richard Tangye's Two Protectors, p. 59.] 2 Commons Journals, ii. 720, 6. See likewise Tanner MS. lxiii. 116; Qtierela Cantabrigiensis (and wipe away its blubberings and inexactitudes a little), Life of Dr. Barwick, &c. , — Cambridge Portfolio (London, 1840), ii. 386-8. 3 [Another glimpse of Cromwell at Cambridge is given in one of the news-letters of the time. The heads of some of the Colleges, and the bishop of Ely, were struggling to put in force the King's Commission of Array, when down came Mr. Cromwell " in a terrible manner, with what force he could draw together, and sur- rounds divers colleges while we were at our devotions in our several chapels ; taking away several doctors of divinity, heads of colleges . . . and these he carries with him to London in triumph." King's Pamphlets at the British Museum (E. 115, No. 14.).] 1642.] PRELIMINARY 113 riding. John, one of them, has left a most watery incoherent Autobiography, now printed, but not edited, — nor worth editing, except by fire to ninety-nine hundredths of it ; very distracting ; in which, however, there is this notable sentence ; date about the middle of August, not discoverable to a day. Having been at York, and riding back on the same horses in three days : ' In our return on Sunday, near Huntingdon, between that and ' Cambridge, certain musketeers start out of the corn, and com- * mand us to stand ; telling us we must be searched, and to that ' end must go before Mr. Cromwell, and give account from ' whence we came and whither we were going. I asked, where ' Mr. Cromwell was ? A soldier told us, He was four miles off. ' I said, It was unreasonable to carry us out of our way ; if Mr. ' Cromwell had been there, I should have willingly given him all ' the satisfaction he could desire ; and putting my hand into my ' pocket, I gave one of them Twelvepence, who said, We might 'pass. By this I saw plainly it would not be possible for my ' Father to get to the King with his coach ; ' x — neither did he go at all, but stayed at home till he died. September 14 as before ; a Committee of Parliamenteers went with him. They soon drove-in Newcastle's ' Papist Army ' within narrower quarters ; in May, got Manchester with Cromwell and Fairfax brought across the Humber to join them, and besieged Newcastle himself in York. Which, before long, will bring us to Marston Moor, and Letter Trvenly-first. In this same month of January, 22d day of it, directly after Hitch's business, Colonel Cromwell, now more properly Lieu- tenant-General Cromwell, 3 Lieutenant to the Earl of Manchester in the Association, transiently appeared in his place in Parliament; complaining much of my Lord Willoughby, as of a backward General, with strangely dissolute people about him, a great sorrow to Lincolnshire ; * — and craving that my Lord Manchester might be appointed there instead : which, as we see, was done ; with good result. 1 [We cannot but feel that if the man who bravely dared to " pray and give thanks before his God as he did aforetime " had been on the other side, Carlyle would have looked upon him with very different eyes. Mr. Frederic Harrison says of this incident ' ' The ring of the ' sharp, untuneable voice ' is not pleasant here ; nor is driving a priest from his pulpit an honourable mission." Mr. Harrison's excuse for Cromwell is that " he was a soldier in a civil war, executing peremptory orders." Oliver Cromwell, p. 71. Possibly the harshness was more in appearance than in reality. The two men probably knew each other well, for Oliver, as farmer of the capitular tithes and fepffee of Parson's Charity (a somewhat close ecclesiastical body of which the Bishop and Dean are ex-officio chairmen) must have been brought into frequent association with the Cathedral authorities, and it is noticeable that he signs himself "Your loving friend." The name of Hitch does not occur amongst the Prebendaries at this time, but to the kindness of Dr. C. W. Stubbs, Dean of Ely, the present editor is indebted for the following note. "The Rev. William Hitch first appears in the Chapter books in 161 1, as vicar choral ; in 1614 as epistolar ; in 1617 as headmaster of the school, and in 1621 as precentor. These offices he held in 1642, at which date there is a break in the Chapter Account books. When they begin again in 1660, ' Mr. Hitch ' is again found as holder of the same offices, until 1685, without any intimation that it is not the same man. It would have been a little surprising however to find that the Precentor did not ' cease his fooling ' for another quarter of a century, until, indeed, he was 97, and from another MS. book amongst the Chapter archives it appears that William Hitch died in October, 1658 (having held the post of schoolmaster up to the time of his death) and that he was succeeded in this, and (at the Restoration) in his other offices, by his son Thomas, born in 1621."] 2 Rushworth, v. 603-6. 3 [He must have received his commission on January 22, as his allowances as Major-General ceased, and his pay as Lieutenant-General began on that date. See Raising of the Ironsides, p. 37.] * D'Ewes MSS. vol. iv., f. 280 b. [Harley MSS. 165, f. 280, b.] 1644.] LETTER XX., CAMBRIDGE 169 LETTER XX About the end of next month, February 1644, the Lieutenant- General, we find, has been in Gloucester, successfully convoying Ammunition thither, 1 and has taken various strong-houses by the road, — among others, Hilsden-House in Buckinghamshire, 2 with important gentlemen, and many prisoners ; which latter, 'Walloons, French, and other outlandish men,' appear in Cam- bridge streets in a very thirsty condition ; and are, in spite of danger, refreshed according to ability, by the loyal Scholars, and especially by ' Mrs. Cumber's maid,' with a temporary glass of beer. 3 'In this expedition there had gone with Cromwell a certain Major-General Crawford, whom he has left behind in the Hilsden neighbourhood ; to whom there is a Letter, here first producible to modern readers, and connected therewith a tale otherwise known. Letter Twentieth, which exists as a Copy, on old dim paper, in the Kimbolton Archives, addressed on the back of the sheet, with all reverence, To the Earl of Manchester, and forms a very opaque puzzle in that condition, — turns out, after due study, to have been a Copy by that Crawford, of a Letter addressed to himself : * Copy hastily written off, along with other hasty con- fused sheets still extant beside it, for the Earl of Manchester's use, on a certain Parliamentary occasion, which will by and by concern us too for a moment. 1 [He did not go himself to Gloucester, but merely carried out the orders sent him to see that the ammunition designed for that garrison arrived safely at Warwick. See Great Civil War, i. 311.] 2 [For a detailed account of the taking of Hilsden House, see a letter from Sir Samuel Luke to the Earl of Essex, printed in Sanford's Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion, Appendix B. See also Memoirs of the Verney Family, ii, 192.] 3 Querela (in Cooper's Annals, iii. 370); Cromwelliana, p. 8 (5th Mar. 1643). [The passage referred to is as follows : ' ' When the King's prisoners, taken at Hilsden House, were brought famished and naked in triumph by Cambridge to London, some of our scholars were knocked down in the streets only for offering them a cup of small beer to sustain nature, and the drink thrown in the kennel, rather than the famished and parched throats of the wicked, as they esteemed them, should usurp one drop of the creature. And it is much to be feared that they would have starved them in prison there, if a valiant chambermaid (Mistress Cumber's maid) had not relieved them by force, trampling under her feet in the kennel their great persecutor, a lubberly Scotch Major [Homes]." Mistress Cumber, it may be surmised, was the wife of Dr. Comber, Master of Trinity, who was ejected as a " delinquent " not long afterwards.] 4 [It appears to be in a clerk's hand ; almost certainly is a copy, but Cromwell's signature has been imitated.] 170 FIEST CIVIL WAE [10 March. A 'Lieutenant-Colonel/ Packer I dimly apprehend is the name of him, 1 has on this Hilsden-and-Gloucester expedition given offence to Major-General Crawford ; who again, in a some- what prompt way, has had Packer laid under arrest, under suspension at Cambridge ; in which state Packer still painfully continues. And may, seemingly, continue : for here has my Lord of Manchester just come down with a Parliamentary Com- mission ' to reform the University/ a thing of immense noise and moment, and ' is employed in regard of many occasions ; ' is, in fact, precisely in these hours, 2 , issuing his Summonses to the Heads of Houses ; and cannot spare an instant for Packer and his pleadings. Crawford is still in Buckinghamshire ; never- theless the shortest way for Packer will be to go to Crawford, and take this admonitory Letter from his superior in command : ' To Major-General Crawford : These ' Cambridge, ioth March ' 1643.' * Sir, The complaints you preferred to my Lord against your Lieutenant-Colonel, both by Mr. Lee and your own letters, have occasioned his stay here : my Lord being ' so ' employed, in regard of many occasions which are upon him, that he hath not been at leisure to hear him make his defence : which, in pure justice, ought to be granted him or any man before a judgment be passed upon him. During his abode here and absence from you, he hath acquainted me what a grief it is to him to be absent from his charge, especially now the regiment is called forth to action : and therefore, asking of me my opinion, I advised him speedily to repair unto you, and thought good by him thus to write unto you. Surely you are not well advised thus to turn off one so faithful to the Cause, and so able to serve you as this man is. Give me leave to tell 1 [This letter quite clearly relates to Crawford's own lieutenant-colonel, whose name was Henry Warner. Packer was not then— or ever — a lieutenant-colonel. At this time he was a lieutenant in Cromwell's regiment of horse. But he also about this time, had been arrested by Crawford, and Cromwell probably had him in his mind as well as Warner, although the latter furnished the text for his discourse. See Raising of the Ironsides, p. 41. Lee was a Presbyterian chaplain. See Lilburne's Innocency and Truth Justified, 1645, p. 42.] 2 nth March (Cooper iii. 371 ; details in Neal, ii. 79-89). 5 In Appendix, No. 6 : Letter from Oliver, notably busy, and not yet got to Cambridge. 1644.] LETTER XX., CAMBRIDGE 171 you, I cannot be of your judgment ; that if a man notorious for wickedness, for oaths, for drinking, hath as great a share in your affection as one that fears an oath, that fears to sin, that this doth commend your election of men to serve as fit instruments in this work. Ay, but the man is an Anabaptist. Are you sure of that. Admit he be, shall that render him incapable to serve the Public. He is indiscreet. It may be so, in some things, we have all human infirmities. I tell you, if you had none but such indiscreet men about you, and would be pleased to use them kindly, you would find as good a fence to you as any you have yet chosen. Sir, the State, in choosing men to serve them, takes no notice of their opinions, if they be willing faithfully to serve them, that satisfies. I advised you formerly to bear with men of different minds from yourself: if you had done it when I advised you to it, I think you would not have had so many stumblingblocks in your way. It may be you judge otherwise, but I tell you my mind. I desire you would receive this man into your favour and good opinion. I believe, if he follow my counsel, he will deserve no other but respect from you. Take heed of being sharp, or too easily sharpened by others, against those to whom you can object little but that they square not with you in every opinion concerning matters of religion. If there be any other offence to be charged upon him, that must in a judicial ' way ' receive a determination ; I know you will not think it fit my Lord should discharge an officer of the Field but in a regulate way. I question whether either you or I have any precedent for that. I have not further to trouble you, but rest, Your humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Adjoined to this Letter, as it now lies, — in its old repository at Kimbolton, copied and addressed in the enigmatic way above- mentioned, — there is, written in a Clerk's hand, but corrected in * Communicated, with much politeness, by the Duke of Manchester, from Family Papers at Kimbolton. [Now deposited at the Public Record Office.] 172 FIRST CIVIL WAR [10 March. the hand which copied the Letter, 1 a confused loud-spoken recriminatory Narrative, of some length, about the Second Battle of Newbury ; touching also, in a loud confused way, on the case of Packer and others : — evidently the raw-material of the Earl's Speech in defence of himself 2 in the time of the Self-denying Ordinance ; of which the reader will hear by and by. Assiduous Crawford had provided the Earl with these helps to prove Cromwell an insubordinate person, and what was equally terrible a favourer of Anabaptists. Of the Letter, Crawford, against whom also there lay accusations, retains the Original ; but furnishes this Copy ; — of which, unexpectedly, we too have now obtained a reading. This sharp Letter may be fancied to procure the Lieutenant- Colonel's reinstatement ; who, we have some intimation, does march with his regiment again, in hopes to take the Western Towns of Lincolnshire. Indeed Lieutenant-Colonel Packer, if this were verily Packer as he seems to be, became a distinguished Colonel afterwards, and gave Oliver himself some trouble with his Anabaptistries. 3 In the Letter itself, still more in the confused Papers adjoined to it, of Major- General Crawford's writing, — there is evidence enough of smouldering fire-elements in my Lord's Eastern- Association Army ! The Lieutenant-General Cromwell, one perceives, is justly suspected of a lenity for Sec- taries, Independents, Anabaptists themselves, provided they be ' men that fear God,' as he phrases it. Lieutenant- Colonel Lilburn (Freeborn John), Lieutenant-Colonel Fleetwood risen from Captaincy now : these and others, in the Crawford Docu- ments, come painfully to view in this Lincolnshire campaign and afterwards ; with discontents, with ' Petitions,' and one knows not what ; all tending to Sectarian courses, all countenanced by the Lieutenant-General. 4 Most distasteful to Scotch Crawford, to my Lord of Manchester, not to say criminal and unforgiveable to the respectable Presbyterian mind. Reverend Mr. Baillie is now up in Town again with the Scotch Commissioners, — for there is again a Scotch Commission here, 1 [This is a mistake ; they are not in the same hand. An additional interest has been given to these papers by the fact that Carlyle's autograph notes, sent to the late Duke of Manchester, are now annexed to them. The "loud-spoken" narrative has been printed under the title of A Narrative of the Earl of Manchester's Campaign. See note, p. 184 below.] 2 Rushworth, v. 733-6. 'Ludlow (London, 1721), ii. 599. [See his life in the Dictionary of National Biography]. * MS. by Crawford [?] at Kimbolton. 1644.] LETTER XX., CAMBRIDGE 173 now that their Army has joined us : Reverend Mr. Baillie, taking good note of things, has this pertinent passage some six months hence : ' The Earl of Manchester, a sweet meek man, did formerly ' permit Lieutenant-General Cromwell to guide all the Army at ' his pleasure : the man Cromwell is a very wise and active head ' — yes, Mr. Robert ! — ' universally well beloved as religious and ' stout ; but a known Independent or favourer of Sects,' — the issues of which might have been frightful ! ' But now our 'countryman Crawford has got a great hand with Manchester, ' stands high with all that are against Sects ; ' which is a blessed change indeed, 1 — and may partly explain this Letter and some other things to us ! Of Major-General Crawford, who was once a loud-sounding well-known man, but whose chance for being remembered much longer will mainly ground itself on a Letter he copied with very different views, let us say here what little needs to be said. He is Scotch ; of the Crawfords of Jordan-Hill, in Renfrewshire ; has seen service in the German Wars, and is deeply conscious of it ; — paints himself to us as a headlong audacious fighter, of loose loud tongue, much of a pedant and braggart, somewhat given to sycophancy too. Whose history may sum itself up, practically, in this one fact, That he helped Cromwell and the Earl of Manchester to quarrel ; and his character in this other, That he knew Lieutenant-General Cromwell to be a coward. This he, Crawford knew ; had seen it ; was wont to assert it, and could prove it. Nay once, in subsequent angry months, talking to the Honourable Denzil Holies in Westminster Hall, he asserted it within earshot of Cromwell himself; 'who was passing into the House, and I am very sure did hear it, as intended ; ' — who, however, heard it as if it had been no affair of his at all ; and quietly walked on, as if his affairs lay elsewhere than there ! 2 From which I too, the knowing Denzil, drew my inferences, — ignominious to the human character ! — Poor Crawford, after figuring much among the Scotch Committee-men and Presbyterian Grandees for a time, joined or rejoined the Scotch Army under Lesley ; and fell at the Siege of Hereford in 1645, fighting gallantly I doubt not, and was quiet thenceforth. 3 1 Baillie, ii. 229 (16th September 1644). 2 Holles's Memoirs : in Maseres's Select Tracts (London, 1815), i. 199. 3 Wood's Athence {Life, p. 8) ; Baillie, ii. 235 and scepius (correct ii. ii. p. 218 k,, and Godwin, i. 380) ; Holies ; Scotch Peerages, &c. &c. [See also his life in the Dictionary of National Biography. ] 174 FIRST CIVIL WAR [2 July. In these same weeks there is going on a very famous Treaty once more, ' Treaty of Uxbridge : ' with immense apparatus of King's Commissioners andParliament and Scotch Commissioners ; 1 of which however, as it came to nothing, there need nothing here be said. Mr. Christopher Love, a young eloquent divine, of hot Welsh blood, of Presbyterian tendency, preaching by appoint- ment in the place, said, He saw no prospect of an agreement, he for one ; " Heaven might as well think of agreeing with Hell ; " 2 words which were remembered against Mr. Christopher. The King will have nothing to do with Presbyterianism, will not stir a step without his Surplices at Allhallowtide ; there remains only War ; a supreme managing ' Committee of both Kingdoms ; ' combined forces, and war. On the other hand, his Majesty, to counter- balance the Scots, had agreed to a 'Cessation in Ireland,' sent for his ' Irish Army ' to assist him here, — and indeed already got them as good as ruined, or reduced to a mere marauding appa- ratus. 3 A new ' Papist ' or partly ' Papist Army,' which gave great scandal in this country. By much the remarkablest man in it was Colonel George Monk ; already captured at Nantwich, and lodged in the Tower. But now the Western Towns of Lincolnshire are all taken ; Manchester with Cromwell and Fairfax are across the Humber, joined with the Scots besieging York, where Major-General Crawford again distinguishes himself;* — and we are now at Marston Moor. LETTER XXI MARSTON MOOR In the last days of June 1644, Prince Rupert, with an army of some 20,000 fierce men, 6 came pouring over the hills from Lanca- 1 29th Jan. — 5th March, Rushworth, v. 844-946 ; Whitlocke, p. 122, 3. [Carlyle was very careful as a rule to discriminate between old and new styles, but for once he has failed to do so. The Treaty of Uxbridge was a year later than this, at the beginning of 1644-5.] 2 Wood, iii. 281 ; Commons Journals, &c. 3 Rushworth, v. 547 (Cessation, 15th September 1643) ; v. 299-303 (Siege of Nantwich, and ruin of the Irish Army, 21st November). 4 Fires a mine without orders ; storms in, hoping to take the city himself ; and is disastrously repulsed (Rushworth, v. 631 ; Baillie, ii. 200). 6 [This is too high an estimate. He had 14,000, or possibly 15,000. At the battle, after Newcastle's army had joined him, their combined forces were probably about ti.ooo foot and 6,500 or possibly 7,500 horse. See Mr. Firth's "Marston Moor," in the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 1899, pp. 20, 23.] 1644.] LETTER XXI., MARSTON MOOR 175 shire, where he had left harsh traces of himself, to relieve the Marquis of Newcastle, who was now with a force of 6,000 besieged in York, by the united forces of the Scots under Leven, the Yorkshiremen under Lord Fairfax, and the Associated Counties under Manchester and Cromwell. On hearing of his approach, the Parliament Generals raised the Siege ; drew out on the Moor of Long Marston, some four miles off, to oppose his coming. He avoided them by crossing the River Ouse ; relieved York, Monday, 1st July ; and might have returned successful ; but insisted on Newcastle's joining him, and going out to fight the Roundheads. The battle of Marston Moor, fought on the morrow evening, Tuesday, 2d July 1644, from 7 to 10 o'clock, was the result, — entirely disastrous for him. Of this Battle, the bloodiest of the whole War, I must leave the reader to gather details in the sources indicated below ; 1 or to imagine it in general as the most enormous hurlyburly, of fire and smoke, and steel-flashings and death-tumult, ever seen in those regions : the end of which, about ten at night, was ' Four- thousand one-hundred-and-fifty bodies ' to be buried, and total ruin to the King's affairs in those Northern parts. The Armies were not completely drawn up till after five in the evening ; there was a ditch between them ; they stood facing one another, motionless except the exchange of a few cannon- shots, for an hour-and-half. Newcastle thought there would be no fighting till the morrow, and had retired to his carriage for the night. 2 There is some shadow of surmise that the stray cannon-shot which, as the following Letter indicates, proved fatal to Oliver's Nephew, did also, rousing Oliver's humour to the charging point, bring on the general Battle. ' The Prince of Plunderers,' invincible hitherto, here first tasted the steel of Oliver's Ironsides, and did not in the least like it. ' The Scots ' delivered their fire with such constancy and swiftness, it was as ' if the whole air had become an element of fire,' — in the ancient summer gloaming there. 1 King's Pamphlets, small 4to, no. 164 (various accounts by eye-witnesses) ; no. 168, one by Simeon Ash, the Earl of Manchester's Chaplain ; no. 167, &c. : Rush- worth, v. 632 : Carte's Ormond Papers (London, 1739), i. 56 : Fairfax's Memorials (Samers Tracts, v. 389). Modern accounts are numerous, but of no value. 2 [Newcastle had strolled to his coach to take a pipe. Rupert was eating his supper in the rear. Carlyle's statement has been improved upon by other modern writers, one of whom states that all the royalist generals ' ' were comfortably settled for the night." ] 176 FIRST CIVIL WAR [5 July. ' To my loving Brother, Colonel Valentine Walton : These ' ' Leaguer before York,' 5th July 1644. Dear Sir, It's our duty to sympathise in all mercies ; that we may praise the Lord together in chastisements or trials, that so we may sorrow together. Truly England and the Church of God hath had a great favour from the Lord, in this great victory given unto us, such as the like never was since this war began. It had all the evi- dences of an absolute victory obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the godly party principally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. The left wing, which I commanded, being our own horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, 1 beat all the Prince's horse. God made them as stubble to our swords, we charged their regiments of foot with our horse, routed all we charged. The particulars I cannot relate now, but I believe, of twenty-thousand the Prince hath not four-thousand left. Give glory, all the glory, to God. Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon-shot. It brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he died. j Sir, you know my trials this way : 2 but the Lord supported 1 [Of this, Mr. Firth writes : "Cromwell's letter to Valentine Walton has been censured by historians on the ground that it does justice neither to the services of the Scots nor to those of David Leslie (Gardiner, Great Civil War, ii. 1 ; Markham, Great Lord Fairfax, p. 168), . . . but critics seem to forget that the letter in question is not a despatch but a letter of condolence, and the few lines it devotes to the battle are merely an introduction to the story of Captain Walton's death. . . . For the rest, the facts stated in the letter are rigidly accurate. It is perfectly true that the left wing, under Cromwell's command, beat all the royalist horse, and that it con- sisted of the cavalry of the Eastern Association, with a few Scots as its reserve. And the fact that this victorious cavalry was raised, trained and inspired as well as commanded by Cromwell, justifies the popular verdict which hailed him as the great agent in this victory." " Marston Moor," in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 1899, p. 61.] 2 1 conclude, the poor Boy Oliver has already fallen in these Wars, — none of us knows where, though his Father well knew 1 Note to Third Edition : In the Squire Papers (Fraser's Magazine, December 1847) is this passage ; ' Meeting Cromwell ' again after some absence, just on the edge of Marston Battle, Squire says, " I ' thought he looked sad and wearied, for he had had a sad loss ; young Oliver got ' killed to death not long before, I heard : it was near Knaresborough, and 30 more 1 got killed. " ' Note of 1857 : see antea, p. 62 n. [The Parliamentary Scout of March 15-22, 1644 (E. 38, No. 18) states that young Oliver had just died of 1644.] LETTEE XXI., MARSTON MOOR 177 me with this, That the Lord took him into the happiness we all pant after and live for. There is your precious child full of glory, to know sin nor sorrow any more. He was a gallant young man, exceeding gracious. God give you His comfort. Before his death he was so full of comfort that to Frank Russel and myself he could not express it, it was so great above his pain. This he said to us. Indeed it was admirable. A little after, he said, one thing lay upon his spirit. I asked him, what that was. He told me that it was, that God had not suffered him to be no more the executioner of His enemies. At his fall, his horse being killed with the bullet, and as I am informed three horses more, I am told he bid them open to the right and left, that he might see the rogues run. Truly he was exceed- ingly beloved I in the Army, of all that knew him. But few knew him, for he was a precious young man, fit for God. You have cause to bless the Lord. He is a glorious saint in Heaven, wherein you ought exceedingly to rejoice. Let this drink up your sorrow ; seeing these are not feigned words to comfort you, but the thing is so real and undoubted a truth. You may do all things by the strength of Christ. Seek that, and you shall easily bear your trial. Let this public mercy to the Church of God make you to forget your private sorrow. The Lord be your strength : so prays Your truly faithful and loving brother, Oliver Cromwell. My love to your daughter, and to my Cousin Percevall, Sister Desbrowe and all friends with you.* small-pox at Newport Pagnell. Dr. Gardiner writes of this : " The passage has a genuine ring about it, and I am quite incredulous about the story told in the Squire Papers." Great Civil War, i-,314- The statement in the Scout is supported by one in the Memoir of Richard Cromwell (Lives and Characters of illustrious persons dying in 1711) that Oliver " a very handsome young gentleman," died of small-pox soon after he had joined the army. Captain Walton commanded a troop in Crom- well's regiment.] * Seward's Anecdotes (London, 1798), i. 362: reproduced in Ellis's Original Letters (First Series), iii. 299. ' Original once in the possession of Mr. Langton of Welbeck Street,' says Ellis ; — ' in the Bodleian Library,' says Seward. [Now printed from the holograph original in the Morrison Collection]. VOL. I. 12 178 FIEST CIVIL WAR [5 July. Colonel Valentine Walton, already a conspicuous man, and more so afterwards, is of Great-Staughton, Huntingdonshire, a neighbour of the Earl of Manchester's ; Member for his County, and a Colonel since the beginning of the War. There had long been an intimacy between the Cromwell Family and his. His Wife, the Mother of this slain youth, is Margaret Cromwell, Oliver's younger Sister, next to him in the family series. ' Frank Russel ' is of Chippenham, Cambridgeshire, eldest Son of the Baronet there ; already a Colonel ; soon afterwards Governor of Ely in Oliver's stead. 1 It was the daughter of this Frank that Henry Cromwell, some ten years hence, wedded. Colonel Walton, if he have at present some military charge of the Association, seems to attend mainly on Parliament ; and this Letter, I think, finds him in Town. The poor wounded youth would have to lie on the field at Marston while the Battle was fought ; the whole Army had to bivouac there, next to no food, hardly even water to be had. That of ' Seeing the rogues run,' occurs more than once at subsequent dates in these Wars : 2 who first said it, or whether anybody ever said it, must remain un- certain. York was now captured in a few days : Prince Rupert had fled across into Lancashire, and so ' south to Shropshire, to recruit again,' 3 Marquis Newcastle with 'about eighty gentlemen,' dis- gusted at the turn of affairs, had withdrawn beyond seas. The Scots moved northward to attend the Siege of Newcastle, — ended it by storm in October next. On the 24th of which same month, 24th October 1644, the Parliament promulgated its Rhadamanthine Ordinance, To 'hang any Irish Papist taken in arms in this country ; ' 4 a very severe Ordinance, but not uncalled for by the nature of the 'marauding apparatus* in question there. 1 See Noble, ii. 407, 8, — with vigilance against his blunders. 2 Ludlow. 3 [" Rupert was made of sterner stuff. Collecting about 6,000 horse, who still remained together, he rode out of the gates of York, not to fly, but to retrieve, if it were yet possible, the great disaster." Great Civil War, i. 382.] 4 Rushworth, v. 783. 1644.] LETTER XXII., LINCOLN 179 LETTERS XXII, XXIII The next Two Letters represent the Army and Lieutenant- General got home to the Association again ; and can be read with little commentary. ' The Committee for the Isle of Ely,' we are to remark, consists of Honourable Members connected with that region, and has its sittings in London. 1 Of 'Major lreton ' we shall hear farther. ' Husband ' also is slightly met with elsewhere ; and ' Captain Castle ' grew, I think, to be Colonel Castle, and perished at the Storm of Tredah, some years afterwards. LETTER XXII For my noble Friends the Committee for the Isle of Ely : Present these Lincoln, ist September 1644. Gentlemen, I understand that you have lately released some persons committed by Major lreton and Captain Husbands, and one committed by Captain Castle, all ' committed ' upon clear and necessary grounds as they are represented unto me ; ' grounds ' rendering them as very enemies as any we have, and as much requiring to have them continued secured. I have given order to Captain Husbands to see them recom- mitted to the hands of my Marshal, Richard White. And I much desire you (for future) not to entrench upon me so much as to release them, or any committed in the like case by myself, or my Deputy and Commanders in the Garrison, until myself or some superior authority 2 be satisfied in the cause, and do give order in allowance for their enlargement, for I profess I will be no Governor, nor engage any other under me to undertake such a charge, upon such weak terms. 1 [The letter is to the local Committee at Ely.] 2 Not inferior ! 180 FIKST CIVIL WAS [6 or 5 Sept. I am so sensible of the need we have to improve the present opportunity of our being master in the field and having no enemy near the Isle, to spare what charge may be towards the making of those fortifications which may make it more defensible here- after if we shall have more need, as I shall desire you, for that end, to ease the Isle and Treasury from the superfluous charge of two several Committees for the several parts of the Isle ; and that one Committee, settled at March, may serve for the whole Isle. Wherefore I wish that one of your number may, in your courses, intend l and appear at that Committee, to manage and uphold it the better for all parts of the Isle. Resting upon your care herein, I remain Your friend to serve you, Oliver Cromwell.* LETTER XXIII Sleaford is in Lincolnshire, a march farther South. Lieut- General Cromwell with the Eastern-Association Horse, if the ' Foot ' were once settled, — might not he dash down to help the Lieutenant-General [sic] Essex and his ' Army in the West ? ' Of whom, and of whose sad predicament amid the hills of Cornwall there, we shall see the issue anon. Brother Walton, a Parliament man, has written, we perceive, to Cromwell, suggesting such a thing ; urging haste if possible. In Cromwell is no delay : but the Eastern- Association Army, horse or foot, is heavy to move, — beset, too, with the old internal discrepancies, Crawfordisms, scandals at Sectaries, and what not. 1 ' intend ' means ' take pains ; ' March is a Town in the Ely region. * Old Copy, now (January 1846) on sale at Mr. Graves's, Pall-Mall : printed in the Athenaum of 13th December 1845. Old copy, such as the Clerks of Honour- able Members were wont to take of Letters, read in the House, or officially else- where ; — worth copying for certain parties, in a time without Newspapers like ours. [Now printed from the copy in the possession of Sir Richard Tangye. The Athtnaum gave it correctly, but Carlyle altered it in several places.] 1644. j LETTEE XXIII, SLEAFORD 181 For Colonel ' Valentine ' Walton : These in London Sleaford, 6th or 5th September ' 1644.' Sir, We do with grief of heart resent the sad condition of our Army in the West, and of affairs there. That business hath our hearts with it, and truly had we wings, we would fly thither. So soon as ever my Lord and the Foot set me loose, there shall be no want in me to hasten what I can to that service, for indeed all other considerations are to be laid aside, and to give place to it, as being of far more importance. I hope the Kingdom shall see that, in the midst of our necessities, we shall serve them without disputes. We hope to forget our wants, which are exceeding great, and ill-cared for ; and desire to refer the many slanders heaped upon us by false tongues to God, who will, in due time, make it appear to the world that we study the glory of God, ' and ' the honour and liberty of the Parliament, for which we unanimously fight, without seeking our own interests. Indeed we find our men never so cheerful as when there is work to do. I trust you will always hear so of them. The Lord is our strength, and in Him is all our hope. Pray for us. Pre- sent my love to my friends : I beg their prayers. The Lord still bless you. We have some amongst us much 1 slow in action : if we could all intend our own ends less, and our ease too, our business in this Army would go on wheels for expedition. ' But ' because some of us are enemies to rapine, and other wickednesses, we are said to be factious, to seek to maintain our opinions in religion by force, which we detest and abhor. I profess I could never satisfy myself of the justness of this War, but from the authority of the Parliament to maintain itself in its rights ; and in this Cause I hope to approve myself an honest man and single- hearted. Pardon me that I am thus troublesome. I write but seldom ; 1 ' much ' is old for very. 182 FIRST CIVIL WAR [tt Not. it gives me a little ease to pour my mind, in the midst of calum- nies, into the bosom of a friend. Sir, no man more truly loves you than Your brother and servant, Oliver Cromwell.* THREE FRAGMENTS OF SPEECHES SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE The following Three small Fragments of Speeches will have to represent for us some six months of occasional loud debating, and continual anxious gestation and manipulation, in the Two Houses, in the Committee of Both Kingdoms, and in many other houses and places ; — the ultimate outcome of which was the celebrated ' Self-denying Ordinance,' and ' New Model ' of the Parliament's Army ; which indeed brings on an entirely New Epoch in the Parliament's Affairs. 1 Essex and Waller had, for the third or even fourth time, chiefly by the exertions of ever-zealous London, been fitted out with Armies ; had marched forth together to subdue the West ; — andiended in quite other results than that. The two Generals differed in opinion ; did not march long together : Essex, urged by a subordinate, Lord Roberts, who had estates in Cornwall and hoped to get some rents out of them, 2 turned down thitherwards to the left ; Waller bending up to the right ; — with small issue either way. Waller's last action was an indecisive, rather un- successful Fight, or day of skirmishing, with the King, at Cropredy Bridge on the border of Oxford and Northampton Shires, 3 three days before Marston Moor. After which both parties separated : the King to follow Essex, since there was now no hope in the North ; Waller to wander Londonwards, and gradually ' lose his Army by desertion,' as the habit of him was. As for the King, he followed Essex into Cornwall with effect ; * Seward's Anecdotes, ut suprct, 1. 362. x [Two notes to Cambridge, an order concerning sick soldiers, two letters to Sir Samuel Luke, and one to the sequestrators of the Isle of Ely help to fill the gap. See Supplement, Nos. 6-9. ] 2 Clarendon. 3 29th June 1644, Clarendon, ii. 655. 1644.] SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE 183 hemmed him in among the hills there, about Bodmin, Lostwithiel, Foy, with continual skirmishing, with ever-growing scarcity of victual ; forced poor Essex to escape to Plymouth by the Fleet, 1 and leave his Army to shift for itself as best might be : the horse under Balfour to cut their way through ; the foot under Skippon to lay down their arms, cease to be soldiers, and march away 'with staves in their hands' into the wide world. 2 This sur- render was effected 1st September 1644, two months after Mar- ston Moor. The Parliament's and Cromwell's worst anticipation, in that quarter, is fulfilled. The Parliament made no complaint of Essex ; with a kind of Roman dignity, they rather thanked him. They proceeded to recruit Waller and him, summoned Manchester with Cromwell his Lieutenant-General to join them ; by which three bodies, making again a considerable army, under the command of Man- chester and Waller (for Essex lay ' sick,' or seeming to be sick), the King, returning towards Oxford from his victory, was inter- cepted at Newbury ; and there, on Sunday, 27th October 1 644, fell out the Second Battle of Newbury. 3 Wherein his Majesty, after four hours confused fighting, rather had the worse ; yet contrived to march off, unmolested, ' by moonlight at 10 o'clock,' 4 towards Wallingford, and got safe home. Manchester refused to pursue : though urged by Cromwell, and again urged. Nay twelve days after, when the King came back, and openly revictualled Dennington Castle, an important strongplace hard by, — Manchester, in spite of Cromwell's urgency, still refused to interfere. 5 They in fact came to a quarrel here, these two : — and much else that was represented by them came to a quarrel ; Pres- bytery and Independency, to wit. Manchester was reported to 1 His own distinct, downright and somewhat sulky Narrative, in Rushworth, v. 701. 2 [This is not quite accurate. Being hard pressed, and in lack of forage, Essex decided that his horse must, if possible, break through and escape. This, under Sir William Balfour, they successfully did, on the early morning of August 31. Essex, with the foot, was forced back step by step, but it was not until next morning, when Skippon announced that the men could not be trusted to stir from their halting ground without taking to flight, that the Earl made up his mind to leave them.] s Clarendon, ii. 717. * [ Or rather, as soon as the moon (then in its first quarter) had set at ten o'clock. See Great Civil Warn, 51, note.] 5 [It was when the King came back to Donnington that Manchester did wish Cromwell to go against him, and Cromwell pleaded the spent and harassed state of his horses as mentioned below. Another instance, as Mr. Firth remarks in his article on "Cromwell and Sport," of Cromwell's consideration for his horses. See note on p. 164 above]. 184 FIRST CIVIL WAR [25 Nov. have said, If they lost this Army pursuing the King, they had no other ; the King ' might hang them all.' To Cromwell and the thoroughgoing party, it had become very clear that high Essexes and Manchesters, of limited notions and large estates and anxieties, who besides their fear of being themselves beaten utterly, and forfeited and ' hanged,' were afraid of beating the King too well, would never end this Cause in a good way. Whereupon ensue some six months of very complex manipulation, and public and private consultation, which these Three Fragments of Speeches, are here to represent for us. 1 I. In the House of Commons, on Monday 25th November, 1644, Lieutenant- General Cromwell did, as ordered on the Saturday be- fore, exhibit a charge against the Earl of Manchester, to this effect : That the said Earl hath always been indisposed and backward to engagements, and the ending of the War by the sword ; and 1 [For this matter, see The Quarrel between the Earl of Manchester and Oliver Cromwell, edited" by Mr. Bruce and Prof. Masson for the Camden Society. This volume contains inter alia, the Narrative of the Earl of Manchester's Campaign (mentioned on p. 172 above), the Statement by an Opponent of Oliver Cromwell, "and Notes of Evidence against the Earl of Manchester ; all taken from the MSS. of the Duke of Manchester, and also the so-called Narrative of Oliver Cromwell to the House, preserved amongst the State Papers at the Public Record office. Mr. Bruce thought this unlike Cromwell's style, and suggested that probably Waller, Hesilrige and Vane had a hand in drawing it up. Prof. Masson, on the other hand, believed it to be Cromwell's own, with perhaps suggestions from Hesilrige and Waller. In the Camden Miscellany No. 8. , Dr. Gardiner printed a letter from Manchester to the House of Lords, found amongst the Tanner MSS. which, as he observed, had an important bearing on the matter. After speaking of the discontents of his army ; of his endeavours to quiet them and of the value and esteem he has always had for many of those in his army who have differed from him in judgment, Manchester proceeds " Lieut. -General Cromwell shall be my compurgator in this matter. He knows that I always placed him in chiefest esteem and credit with me. But it is true that of late I have not given so free and full a power unto him as formerly I did, because I heard that he used his power so as in honour I could not avow him in it, and indeed I grew jealous that his designs were not as he made his professions to me ; for his expressions were sometimes against the nobility ; that he hoped to live to see never a nobleman in England, and he loved such better than others because they did not love lords. He hath further expressed himself with contempt of the Assembly of Divines, to whom I pay a reverence as to the most learned and godly convention that hath been this many ages, yet these he termed persecutors ; and that they persecuted honester men than themselves. His animosity against the Scotch nation . . . was such as he told me that in the way they now carried themselves, pressing for their discipline [i. e. urging the taking of the covenant], he could as soon draw his sword against them as against any in the King's army ; and he grew so pressing for his designs as he told me that he would not deny but that he desired to have none in my army but such as were of the Independent judgment, giving me this reason : — That in case there should be propositions for peace or any conclusion of a peace such as might not stand with those ends that honest men should aim at, this army might prevent such a mischief."] 1644.] SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE 185 ' always " for such a Peace to which a victory would be a dis- advantage ; — and hath declared this by principles express to that purpose, and ' by ' a continued series of carriage and actions answerable. And since the taking of York, 1 as if the Parliament had now advantage full enough, he hath declined whatsoever tended to farther advantage upon the Enemy ; ' hath ' neglected and stu- diously shifted-off opportunities to that purpose, as if he thought the King too low, and the Parliament too high, — especially at Dennington Castle. 2 That he hath drawn the Army unto, and detained them in, such a posture as to give the Enemy fresh advantages. ; and this, before his conjunction with the other Armies, 3 by his own absolute will, against or without his Council of War, against many commands of the Committee of both Kingdoms, and with contempt and vilifying 'of those commands ; — and, since the conjunction, sometimes against the Councils of War, and some- times ' by ' persuading and deluding the Council to neglect one opportunity with pretence of another, and this again of a third, and at last by persuading 'them ' that it was not fit to fight at all.* 4 To these heavy charges, Manchester, — furnished with his con- fused Crawford Documents, and not forgetting Letter Twentieth which we lately read, — makes heavy answer, at great length, about a week after : of which we shall remember only this piece of counter-charge, How his Lordship had once, in those very Newbury days, ordered Cromwell to proceed to some rendez- vous with the horse, and Cromwell, very unsuitably for a Lieutenant-General, had answered, The horses were already worn off their feet ; " if your Lordship want to have the skins of the horses, this is the way to get them ! " 6 Through which 1 Directly after Marston Moor. a [One of Cromwell's complaints was that Manchester was very backward and could hardly be persuaded to march for Welbeck. Mr. Kingston suggests that his hesitation here might be due to a chivalrous disinclination to disturb the family of his old enemy the Marquis of Newcastle. After the surrender of Welbeck, the Earl undertook the protection and maintenance of Newcastle's children. See East Anglia and the Great Civil War, p. 167.] 3 Waller's and Essex's at Newbury. 4 [It must be remembered, on Manchester's behalf, that his troops were weary, unpaid and in want of necessaries, and also that there was a very strong feeling in the Associated counties against their troops being sent away to the West. See East Anglia and the Great Civil War, p. 170 et seq.~\ 6 [See note on p. 183 above. Carlyle does not quite accurately give what Man- chester is reported to have said, viz.: that Cromwell came to him "and in a * Rushworth, v. 732 ; Common Journals, ih. 703, 5. 186 FIRST CIVIL WAR [9 Dec. small slit, one looks into large seas of general discrepancy in those old months ! Lieutenant-General Cromwell is also re- ported to have said, in a moment of irritation surely, "There would never be a good time in England till we had done with Lords." x But the most appalling report that now circulates in the world is this, of his saying once, " If he met the King in battle, he would fire his pistol at the King as at another ; " — pistol, at our poor semi-divine misguided Father fallen insane : a thing hardly conceivable to the Presbyterian human mind ! 2 II. In the House of Commons, on Wednesday §th December, all sitting in Grand Committee, ' there was a general silence for a good space of time,' one looking upon the other to see who would break the ice, in regard to this delicate point of getting our Essexes and Manchesters softly ousted from the Army ; a very delicate point indeed ; — when Lieutenant-General Cromwell stood up, and spake shortly to this effect : It is now a time to speak, or forever hold the tongue. The important occasion now, is no less than To save a Nation, out of a bleeding, nay almost dying condition : which the long continu- ance of this War hath already brought it into ; so that without a more speedy, vigorous and effectual prosecution of the War, — casting off all lingering proceedings like 'those of soldiers-of- fortune beyond sea, to spin out a war, — we shall make the king- dom weary of us, and hate the name of a Parliament. For what do the enemy say ? Nay, what do many say that were friends at the beginning of the Parliament ? Even this, That the Members of both Houses have got great places and commands, and the sword into their hands ; and, what by interest in the Parliament, what by power in the Army, will perpetually continue themselves in grandeur, and not permit the War speedily to end, lest their own power should determine with it. This ' that ' I speak here to our own faces, is but what others do utter discontented manner expressed himself, asking me whether I intended to flay my horse, for if I called them to a rendezvous, I might have their skins but no service from tbem". Rushworth, v. 734.] 1 Rushworth, v. 734. [This is not in Rushworth. ] 2 Old Pamphlets sapius, onwards to 1649. 1644.] SELF-DENYING OEDINANCE 187 abroad behind our backs. I am far from reflecting on any. I know the worth of those Commanders, Members of both Houses, who are yet in power : but if I may speak my conscience without reflection upon any, I do conceive if the Army be not put into another method, and the War more vigorously prosecuted, the People can bear the War no longer, and will enforce you to a dishonourable Peace. But this I would recommend to your prudence, Not to insist upon any complaint or oversight of any Commander-in-chief upon any occasion whatsoever ; for as I must acknowledge my- self guilty of oversights, so I know they can rarely be avoided in military matters. Therefore waving a strict inquiry into the cause of these things, let us apply ourselves to the remedy ; which is most necessary. And I hope we have such true English hearts, and zealous affections towards the general weal of our Mother Country, as no Members of either House will scruple to deny themselves, and their own private interests, for the public good ; nor account it to be a dishonour done to them, whatever the Parliament shall resolve upon in this weighty matter.* III. On the same day, seemingly at a subsequent part of the debate, Lieutenant-General Cromwell said likewise, as follows : Mr. Speaker, — I am not of the mind that the calling of the Members to sit in Parliament will break, or scatter our Armies. I can speak this for my own soldiers, that they look not upon me, but upon you ; and for you they will fight, and live and die * Rushworth, vi. 4. ["Such was the first speech of Cromwell's which has come down to us, where he appears as a statesman impressing his policy on Parliament and the nation. Both in form and in substance it is in the highest sense character- istic. There is the strong personality, the rough mother- wit, the vivid and racy phrase, as of a man in authority taking counsel with his familiars, not as of the orator addressing a senate. There is the directness of purpose with laborious care to avoid premature precision in detail, any needless opposition and all personal offence. The form is conciliatory, guarded and qualified, almost allusive ; even the specific measure recommended is left to be inferred or subsequently defined. Yet the general purpose how clear ! the will behind the words how strenuous ! " Harrison's Oliver Cromwell, p. 83.] 188 FIKST CIVIL WAR [1644 in your Cause ; x and if others be of that mind that they are of, you need not fear them. They do not idolize me, but look upon the Cause they fight for. You may lay upon them what com- mands you please, they will obey your commands in that Cause they fight for.* To be brief, Mr. Zouch Tate, Member for Northampton, moved this day a Self-denying Ordinance ; which, in a few days more, was passed in the Commons. It is not so easily got through the Lords ; but there too it had ultimately to pass. One of the most important clauses was this, introduced not without difficulty. That religious men might now serve without taking the Covenant as a Jirst preliminary, — perhaps they might take it by and by. This was a great ease to tender consciences : and indicates a deep split, which will grow wider and wider, in our religious affairs. The Scots Commissioners have sent for Whitlocke and Maynard to the Lord General's, to ask in judicious Scotch dialect, Whether there be not ground to prosecute Cromwell as an ' in- cendiary ? ' " You ken varry weel ! " — the two learned gentlemen shook their heads. 2 This Self-denying Ordinance had to pass ; it and the New Model wholly ; by the steps indicated below. 3 Essex was gratified by a splendid Pension, — very little of it ever actually paid ; for indeed he died some two years after : Manchester was put on the Committee of Both Kingdoms : the Parliament had its New-Model Army, and soon saw an entirely new epoch in its affairs. '[Cromwell was, however, engaging for his soldiers rather more than they were disposed to perform. They loved their leader, and were in no mind to be parted from him. On January 12, Sir Samuel Luke's Deputy at Newport Pagnell wrote to the Governor, then in London, ' ' I heard that there was a great mutiny at Cam- bridge by Colonel Cromwell's regiment, who was to be put under another Colonel, which is a Scotchman ; but they are resolved not to lay down their arms till, as they say, they have vindicated Colonel Cromwell." Luke's Letter Book, Stowe MS., 190, f. 104b.] 2 Whitlocke, iii. p. in. (December 1644). 3 Rushworth, vi. 7, 8 : Self-denying Ordinance passed in the Commons 19th December, and is sent to the Lords ; Conference about it, 7th January ; rejected by the Lords 15th January,— because "we do not know what shape the Army will now suddenly take." [The Lords rejected it on January 13. See Lords' Journals and text of Rushworth, though the margin gives it as the 15th.] Whereupon, 21st January, ' Fairfax is nominated General ; ' and on the 19th February, the New Model is completed and passed: " This is the shape the Army is to take." A second Self-denying Ordinance, now introduced, got itself finally passed 3d April 1645. * CromweLliana, p. 12. 1645.] LETTER XXIV., SALISBURY 189 LETTER XXIV Before the old Officers laid down their commissions, Waller with Cromwell and Massey were sent on an expedition into the West against Goring and Company ; x concerning which there is some echo in the old Books and Commons Journals, but no definite vestige of it, except the following Letter, read in the House of Commons, 9th [12th] April 1645; which D'Ewes happily had given his Clerk to copy. The Expedition itself, which proved successful, is now coming towards an end. Fairfax, the new General, is at Windsor all April ; full of business, regimenting, discharging, enlisting, new-modelling. LETTER XXIV For the Right Honourable Sir Thomas Fairfax, General of the Army : Haste, Haste : These : At Windsor ' Salisbury,' gth April (ten o'clock at night) 1645. Sir, Upon Sunday last we marched towards Bruton in Somersetshire, which was General Goring's head-quarter : but he would not stand us ; but marched away, upon our approach, to Wells and Glastonbury, whither we held it unsafe to follow him, lest we should engage our body of Horse too far into that enclosed country, not having foot enough to stand by them ; and partly because we doubted the advance of Prince Rupert with his force to join with Goring ; having some notice from Colonel Massey of the Prince his coming this way. 2 General Goring hath ' Sir Richard ' Greenvil in a near posture 1 [When in February, the regiment was ordered to join Waller's army, "it murmured, grew mutinous and seemed about to refuse obedience. On March 3, the House ordered Cromwell to go with it, its murmurs ceased, and obedience was immediately restored." Firth's Oliver Cromwell, p. 119. A short letter to Luke written just at the time of their starting for the West is in the Supplement, No. 10.] 3 See letter to Whalley, of same day. Supplement, No. 11. 190 FIRST CIVIL WAR [9 April. to join with them. He hath all their garrisons in Devon, Dorset and Somersetshire, to make an addition to him. Whereupon, Sir William Waller having a very poor Infantry of about 1,600 men, lest they, being so inconsiderable, should engage 1 our Horse, we came from Shaftesbury to Salisbury to secure our Foot ; to prevent the being necessitated to a too unequal engage- ment, and to be nearer a communication with our friends. Since our coming hither, we hear Prince Rupert is come to Marshfield, a market-town not far from Trowbridge. If the enemy advance altogether, how far we may be endangered, that I humbly offer to you ; entreating you to take care of us, and to send us with all speed such an assistance, to Salisbury, as may enable us to keep the field and to repel the enemy, if God assist us : at least to secure and countenance us so as that we be not put to the shame and hazard of a retreat ; which will lose the Parliament many friends in these parts, who will think them- selves abandoned upon our departure from them. Sir, I beseech you send what Foot and Horse you can spare towards Salisbury, by the way of Kingscleere, with what convenient expedition may be. Truly we look to be attempted upon every day. These things being humbly represented to your knowledge and care, I subscribe myself, Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* In Carte's Ormond Papers 2 (i. 79) is a Letter of the same date on the same subject, somewhat illustrative of this. See also Commons Journals, in die. 1 entangle or incumber. [Rather " force our Horse to engage."] 2 [The reference should be to Carte's Original Letters and Papers.'] *D'£wes MSS., vol. v. p. 189; [Harley MSS., vol. clxvi. p. 189] p. 445 of Transcript. 1645] LETTER XXV., BLETCHINGTON 191 LETTERS XXV— XXVII Prince Rupert had withdrawn without fighting; was now at Worcester with a considerable force, meditating new infall. For which end, we hear, he has sent 2,000 men across the country to his Majesty at Oxford, to convoy ' his Majesty's person and the Artillery ' over to Worcester to him, — both of which objects are like to be useful there. The Committee of Both Kingdoms order the said Convoy to be attacked. ' The charge of this service they recommended particularly to ' Lieutenant-General Cromwell, who looking on himself now as ' discharged of military employment by the New Ordinance, which ' was to take effect within few days, and to have no longer op- ' portunity to serve his country in that way, was, the night before, 'come to Windsor, from his service in the West, to kiss the ' General's hand and to take his leave of him : when, in the ' morning ere he was come forth his chamber, those commands, ' than which he thought of nothing less in all the world, came to •him from the Committee of Both Kingdoms.' 1 ' The night before ' must mean, to all appearance, the 2 2d of April. How Cromwell instantly took horse ; plunged into Oxford- shire, and on the 24th, at Islip Bridge, attacked and routed this said Convoy ; and the same day / merely by dragoons ' 2 and fierce countenance, took Bletchington House, for which poor Colonel Windebank was shot, so angry were they : all this is known from Clarendon, or more authentically from Rushworth ; 3 and here now is Cromwell's own account of it : 'Sprigge's Anglia Rediviva (London, 1647), p. 10. Sprigge was one of Fair- fax's Chaplains ; his Book, a rather ornate work, gives florid but authentic and sufficient account of this New-Model Army in all its features and operations, by which ' England ' had ' come alive again.' A little sparing in dates ; but correct where they are given. None of the old Books is better worth reprinting. — For some glimmer of notice concerning Joshua Sprigge himself, see Wood in voce, — and dis- believe altogether that ' Nat Fiennes ' had anything to do with this Book. 2 [Cromwell does not say this : what he means is that besides his horse he had only a few dragoons and no regular foot.] 3 vL.23. 4- 192 FIRST CIVIL WAR [25 April. LETTER XXV ' Committee of Both Kingdoms/ first set up in February gone a year, when the Scotch Army came to help, has been the Ex- ecutive in the War-department ever since ; a great but now a rapidly declining authority. Sits at Derby House : Four Scotch ; Twenty-one English, of whom Six a quorum. Johnston of War- riston is the notablest Scotchman ; among the leading English are Philip Lord Wharton and the Younger Vane. 1 ' Watlington ' is in the Southeast nook of Oxfordshire ; a day's march from Windsor. ' Major-General Browne ' commands at Abingdon ; a City Wood-merchant once ; a zealous soldier, of Presbyterian principles at present. The rendezvous at Watlington took place on Wednesday night ; the 25th of April is Friday. ' To the Right Honourable the Committee of Both Kingdoms, at Derby House : These ' Bletchington, 25th April 1643 My Lords and Gentlemen, According to your Lordships' appointment, I have attended your service in these parts, and have not had so fit an opportunity to give you an account as now. So soon as I received your commands, I appointed a rendezvous at Watlington. The body being come up, I marched to Wheatley Bridge, having sent before to Major-General Browne for intel- ligence, and it being market-day at Oxford, from whence I like- wise hoped, by some of the market-people, to gain notice where the enemy was. 1 List, and light as to its appointment, in Commons Journals (7th Feb. 1643-4), iii. 391 ; Baillie, ii. 141 et sapius. Its Papers and Correspondence, a curious set of records, lie in very tolerable order in the State-Paper Office. [The records of this great committee (known as State Papers. Interregnum E.) form one. of the most valuable sources of our knowledge of the military operations of the Parliament dur- ing the Civil War. For the year 1644, we have the daily proceedings of the com- mittee, the letters sent out to the commanders, and most important of all, the letters written to the Committee by the officers in the field. For the following years of the war the series is not so complete, the entry-books of letters from the commanders failing us after February 1645, and the day-books being many of them lacking. The entry-books of letters sent out to the commanders are almost perfect up to the dis- solution of the committee in December, 1648. These records are all included in the Calendars of the State Papers.] 1645.] LETTEE XXV., BLETCHINGTON 193 Towards night I received certain notice by Major-General Browne, that the carriages were not stirred, that Prince Maurice was not here ; and by some Oxford scholars, that there are four carriages and wagons ready in one place, and in another five, all, as I conceived, fit for a march. 1 1 received notice also that the Earl of Northampton's Regiment was quartered at Islip ; wherefore in the evening I marched that way, hoping to have surprised them, but, by the mistake and failing of the forlorn-hope, they had an alarm there, and to all their quarters, and so escaped me ; by means whereof they had time to draw all together. I kept my body all night at Islip, and, in the morning, a party of the Earl of Northampton's regiment, the Lord Wilmot's and the Queen's, came to make an infall upon me. Sir Thomas Fair- fax's regiment 2 was the first that took the field ; the rest drew out with all possible speed. That which is the General's Troop charged a whole squadron of the enemy, and presently broke it. Our other troops coming seasonably on, the rest of the enemy were presently put into confusion ; so that we had the chase of them three or four miles ; wherein we killed many, and took near two- hundred prisoners, and about four-hundred horse. Many of them escaped towards Oxford and Woodstock, divers were drowned, and others got into a strong house in Bletching- ton, belonging to Sir Thomas Cogan ; wherein Colonel Windebank kept a garrison with near two-hundred men, whom I presently summoned ; and after a long Treaty, he went out, about twelve at night, with these terms here enclosed ; leaving us between two and three-hundred muskets, besides horse arms, and other ammunition, and about threescore-and-eleven horses more. This was the mercy of God, and nr . ng is more due than a real acknowledgment. And though I have had greater mercies, yet none clearer : because, in the first ' place,' God brought them 1 ' march,' out towards Worcester. a ' which was once mine,' he might have added, but modestly does not ; only alluding to it from afar, in the next sentence. VOL. I. 13 194 FIRST CIVIL WAR [29 April. to our hands when we looked not for them ; and delivered them out of our hands, when we laid a reasonable design to surprise them, and which we carefully endeavoured. His mercy appears in this also, that I did much doubt the storming of the house, it being strong and well manned, and I having few dragoons, and this being not my business ; and yet we got it. I hope you will pardon me if I say, God is not enough owned. We look too much to men and visible helps : this hath much hindered our success. But I hope God will direct all to acknow- ledge Him alone in all ' things.' Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Poor Windebank was shot by sudden Court-martial, so enraged were they at Oxford, — for Cromwell had not even foot-soldiers, still less a battering gun. It was his poor young Wife, they said, she and other ' ladies on a visit there,' that had confused poor Windebank : he set his back to the wall of Merton College, and received his death-volley with a soldier's stoicism. 1 The Son of Secretary Windebank, who fled beyond seas long since. LETTER XXVI How Cromwell, sending off his new guns and stores to Abing- don, now shot across westward to ' Radcot Bridge ' or ' Bampton- in-the-Bush ; ' and on the 26th gained a new victory there ; and on the whole made a rather brilliant sally of it : — this too is known from Clarendon, or more authentically from Rushworth ; but only the concluding unsuccessful part of this, the fruitless Summons to Farringdon, has left any trace in autograph. 2 * Pamphlet in Parliamentary History, iii. 359 : read in the House, Monday 28th April ( Commons Journals, iv. 124). — Letter to Fairfax on the same subject, Appendix. No. 7(1). 1 Heath's Chronicle, p. 122. [Francis, the Secretary's second son.] 2 [In 1868 there was found amongst the MSS. of the House of Lords, a letter from Cromwell to the Committee of Both Kingdoms, which was printed by Carlyle in the later editions of his work. See Appendix 7 (2). It is also printed at full length in the Calendar of the MSS. of the House of Lords, sixth Report of the Historical MSS. Commissioners, p. 56 b. ] 1645.] LETTER XXVII., FARRINGDON 195 To the Governor of the Garrison in Farringdon 29th April 1645. Sir, I summon you to deliver into my hands the House wherein you are, and your ammunition, with all things else there, together with your persons, to be disposed of as the Parliament shall appoint, which if you refuse to do, you are to expect the utmost extremity of war. I rest, Your servant, Oliver Cromwell.* This Governor, ' Roger Burgess,' is not to be terrified with fierce countenance and mere dragoons ; he refuses. Cromwell withdraws into Farringdon Town, and again summons : LETTER XXVII To the same ; same date Sir, I understand by forty or fifty poor men whom you forced into your house, that you have many there whom you cannot arm, and who are not serviceable to you. If these men should perish by your means, it were great in- humanity surely. Honour and honesty require this, that though you be prodigal of your own lives, yet not to be so of theirs. If God give you into my hands, I will not spare a man of you, if you put me to a storm. Oliver Cromwell.* Roger Burgess, still unawed, refuses ; Cromwell waits for in- fantry from Abingdon ' till 3 next morning,' then storms ; loses fourteen men, with a captain taken prisoner ; 1 — and draws away, leaving Burgess to crow over him. The Army, which rose from * Rushworth, vi. 26. 1 [A newspaper of the day (Mercurius Aulicus, E. 285, No. 14) states that Crom- well lost two hundred killed, a captain, an ensign and eight men prisoners, and had many wounded. It also gives another letter from Cromwell to Burgess, written on April 30, after the attempt to storm, See Supplement, No. 12.] 196 FIEST CIVIL WAR [4 June. Windsor yesterday, gets to Reading this day, and he must hasten thither. Yesterday, Wednesday, 1 Monthly-fast day, all Preachers, by Ordinance of Parliament, were praying for ' God's merciful assist- ' ance to this New Army now on march, and His blessing upon 'their endeavours.' 2 Consider it; actually 'praying!' It was a capability old London and its Preachers and Populations had ; to us the incrediblest. LETTER XXVIII By Letter Twenty-eighth it will be seen that Lieutenant-General Cromwell has never yet resumed his Parliamentary duty. In fact, he is in the Associated Counties, raising force ; ' for protec- tion of the Isle of Ely,' and other purposes. 3 To Fairfax and his Officers, to the Parliament, to the Committee of Both Kingdoms, to all persons, it is clear that Cromwell cannot be dispensed with. Fairfax and his Officers petition Parliament 4 that he may be appointed their Lieutenant-General, Commander-in-Chief of the Horse. There is a clear necessity in it. Parliament, the Commons somewhat more readily than the Lords, continue, by instalments of ' forty days,' of ' three months,' his services in the Army ; and at length grow to regard him as a constant element there. A few others got similar leave of absence, similar dispensation from the Self-denying Ordinance. Sprigge's words, cited above, are no 1 [" Yesterday " was Tuesday, April 29. Fairfax did not start until the 30th, reaching Reading the same day. Cromwell joined him at Newbury on May 2/] 2 Rushworth, vi. 25. 3 [In a letter to Lenthall, of May 9 (See Supplement, No. 13) Cromwell declares his intention of going after Charles, but an old pamphlet tells us that ' ' he soon left following the King." He was summoned back from the pursuit by Fairfax in the middle of May, and on May 26 the House of Commons, "having great testimonies of the gallant, zealous and valiant services performed by Lieut. -General Cromwell " ordered him to go down into the Isle of Ely. {Commons Journals, iv. 155. Per- fect Diurnal, E. 261 (1)). He was, in fact, much needed in his own part of the world. " It was no sooner noised that Lieutenant-Colonel (sic) Cromwell was to be sent into the Isle of Ely but the courage of the Association began to be high with hope and the City to be full of joy" (see A Diary, E. 288 (5)). His stay, however, was very short, for Fairfax needed him even more than the Association did, and on June 12, he had rejoined the General. " To speak truth, at this instance, it were to be wished he were in the army, for its conceived by some the King will fight, and fighting he might put much courage into his friends." (Moderate Intelligencer, E. 288 (7).)] 4 Their Letter (Newspapers, gth-i6th June), in Cromwelliana, p. 18. 1645.] LETTEE XXVIII., HUNTINGDON 197 doubt veracious ; yet there is trace of evidence ' that Cromwell's continuance in the Army had, even by the framers of the Self- denying Ordinance, been considered a thing possible, a thing desirable. As it well might ! To Cromwell himself there was no overpowering felicity in getting out to be shot at, except where wanted ; he very probably, as Sprigge intimates, did let the matter in silence take its own course. 2 ' To the Right Honourable Sir Thomas Fairfax, General of the Parliament's Army ; These ' Huntingdon, 4th June 1645. Sir, I most humbly beseech you to pardon my long silence. I am conscious of the fault, considering the great obli- gations lying upon me. But since my coming into these parts, I have been busied to secure that part of the Isle of Ely where I conceived most danger to be. Truly I found it in a very ill posture, and it is yet but weak ; without works, ammunition or men considerable, and of money least : and then, I hope, you will easily conceive of the defence : and God has preserved us all this while to a miracle. The party under Vermuyden waits the King's army, and is about Deeping ; has a command to join with Sir John Gell, if he commands him. So ' too ' the Nottingham Horse. I shall be bold to present you with intelligence as it comes to me. We heard you were march- ing towards us, which was matter of rejoicing to us. 3 I am bold to present this as my humble suit : That you would be pleased to make Captain Rawlins, this bearer, a Captain of 1 Godwin's History of the Commonwealth (London, 1824), i. 405. 2 [" No direct evidence has yet been produced as to how far Cromwell had arranged his plans for being continued in command, or how far this purpose was generally understood and accepted. It would have been contrary to his nature of restless vigilance and of personal self-reliance either to commit to chance so momentous an office or willingly to stand aside out of romantic delicacy. We may doubt the discernment of the worthy Sprigge, when he tells us of the lieutenant-general ' that he thought of nothing less in the world. ' Cromwell must have known the counsels of the Committee. And doubtless he felt himself so necessary to the cause, and his ascendancy to be so complete, that he might safely leave others to determine the manner and season of his own personal exemption." Harrison's Oliver Crom- well, p. 88.] 3 [This sentence was omitted by Carlyle.] 198 FIRST CIVIL WAR [6 June. Horse. He has been so before ; was nominated to the Model ; is a most honest man. Colonel Sidney leaving his regiment, if it please you to bestow his troop on him, I am confident he will serve, you faithfully. So, by God's assistance, will Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* The ' Vermuyden ' mentioned here, who became Colonel Ver- muyden, is supposed to be a son of the Dutch Engineer who drained the Fens. 1 ' Colonel Sidney ' is the celebrated Algernon ; he was nominated in the ' Model,' but is ' leaving his regiment ; ' having been appointed Governor of Chichester. 2 Captain Rawlins does obtain a Company of Horse ; under ' Colonel Sir Robert Pye.' 3 — Colonel Montague, afterwards Earl of Sandwich, has a Foot- Regiment here. Hugh Peters is 'Chaplain to the Train.' BY EXPRESS Fairfax, with his New-Model Army, has been beleaguering Oxford, for some time past ; but in a loose way, and making small progress hitherto. The King, not much apprehensive about Oxford, is in the Midland Counties ; has just stormed Leicester (' last night of May,' says Clarendon, 4 a terrible night, and still more terrible ' daybreak ' and day following it), which perhaps may itself relieve Oxford. His Majesty is since at halt, or in loose oscillating movement, ' hunting ' on the hills, ' driving large herds of cattle before him,' — nobody, not even himself, yet knows whitherward. Whitherward ? This is naturally a very agitating question for the neighbouring populations ; but most of all, intensely agitating for the Eastern Association, — though Cromwell, in that Huntingdon Letter, occupied with Ely and other Garrisons, seems to take it rather quietly. But two days later, we have trace of him at Cambridge, and of huge alarm *Rushworth, vi. (London, 1701), p. 37. 1 [Colonel Vermuyden commanded a regiment of horse in the New Model Army, but resigned for private reasons just before Naseby, and was succeeded in command of the regiment by Cromwell.] 2 Commons Journals, iv. 136 (9th May 1645). 3 Army-List, in Sprigge (p. 330). 4 ii-857. 1645.] BY EXPRESS, CAMBRIDGE 199 round him there. Here is an old Piece of Paper still surviving ; still emblematic of old dead days and their extinct agitations, when once we get to decipher it! They are the Cambridge Committee that write ; ' the Army about Oxford/ we have seen, is Fairfax's. ' To the Deputy-Lieutenants of Suffolk : These ' Cambridge, 6th June 1645. Gentlemen, The cloud of the enemy's army hanging still upon the borders, and drawing towards Harborough, make some supposals that they aim at the Association. In regard whereof, we having information that the army about Oxford was not yesterday advanced, albeit it was ordered so to do, we thought meet to give you intelligence thereof; — and therewith earnestly to propound to your consideration, That you will have in readi- ness what Horse and Foot may be had, that so a proportion may be drawn forth for this service, such as may be expedient. And because we conceive that the exigence may require Horse and Dragoons, we desire that all your Horse and Dragoons may hasten to Newmarket ; where they will receive orders for farther advance, according as the motion of the enemy and of our army shall require. And to allow both the several troops of Dragoons and Horse one week's pay, to be laid down by the owner ; which shall be repaid out of the public money out of the county ; the pay of each trooper being 1 4 shillings per week, and of a dragoon 10*. 6d. per week. Your servants, H. Mildmay, W. Spring, W. Heveningham, Maurice Barrow, Ti. Midi/ton (sic), Nathaniel Bacon, 'P.S. ' The Place of Rendezvous for the Francis Russell, Horse and Dragoons is to be at Newmarket ; Oliver Cromwell, and for the Foot Bury. — Since the writing Hum. Walcot, hereof, we received certain intelligence that Isaak Puller, the enemy's body, with 60 carriages, was Ed [illegible.] 1 ^Probably Edward Clench.] 200 FIRST CIVIL WAR [UJune. upon his march towards the Association, 3 miles on this side Harborough, last night at 4 of the clock.* The Original, a hasty, blotted Paper, with the Signatures in two unequal columns (as imitated here), and with the Postscript crammed hurriedly into the corner, and written from another ink- bottle as is still apparent, — represents to us an agitated scene in the old Committee-rooms at Cambridge that Friday. In Rushrvorth (see vi. 36-8), of the same date, and signed by the same parties, with some absentees (Oliver among them, probably now gone on other business) and more new arrivals, — is a Letter to Fairfax himself, urging him to speed over, and help them in their peril. They say, 'We had formerly written to the Counties to raise their Horse and Dragoons, and have now written ' as above for one instance, ' to quicken them.' — The Suffolk and other Horse, old Ironsides not hindmost, did muster ; and in about a week hence, there came other news from 'this side Harborough last night ' ! LETTER XXIX NASEBY The old Hamlet of Naseby stands yet, on its old hill-top, very much as it did in Saxon days, on the Northwestern border of Northamptonshire ; some seven or eight miles from Market-Har- borough in Leicestershire ; nearly on a line, and nearly midway, between that Town and Daventry. A peaceful old Hamlet, of some eight-hundred souls ; clay cottages for labourers, but neatly thatched and swept ; smith's shop, saddler's shop, beer-shop, all in order ; forming a kind of square, which leads off Southwards into two long streets : the old Church, with its graves, stands in the centre, the truncated spire finishing itself with a strange old Ball, held up by rods ; a ' hollow copper Ball, which came from Boulogne in Henry the Eighth's time,' — which has, like Hudibras's breeches, ' been at the Siege of Bullen.' The ground is upland, moorland, though now growing corn ; was not enclosed till the last generation, and is still somewhat bare of wood. It stands * Original, long stationary at Ipswich, is now (Jan. 1849) the property of John Wodderspoon, Esq. , Mercury Office, Norwich. 1645] LETTER XXIX., NASEBY 201 nearly in the heart of England : gentle Dulness, taking a turn at etymology, sometimes derives it from Navel ; ' Navelsby, quasi Navelsby, from being/ &c. : Avon Well, the distinct source of Shakspeare's Avon, is on the Western slope of the high grounds ; Nen and Welland, streams leading towards Cromwell's Fen- country, begin to gather themselves from boggy places on the Eastern side. The grounds, as we say, lie high ; and are still, in their new subdivisions, known by the name of ' Hills,' ' Rutput Hill,' 'Mill Hill,' 'Dust Hill,' and the like, precisely as in Rushworth's time : but they are not properly hills at all ; they are broad blunt clayey masses, swelling towards and from each other, like indolent waves of a sea, sometimes of miles in extent. It was on this high moor-ground, in the centre of England, that King Charles, on the 14th of June 1645, fought his last battle ; dashed fiercely against the New-Model Army, which he had despised till then ; and saw himself shivered utterly to ruin thereby. ' Prince Rupert, on the King's right wing, charged up the hill, and carried all before him ; ' but Lieutenant-General Cromwell charged downhill on the other wing, likewise carrying all before him, — and did not gallop off the field to plunder, he. Cromwell, ordered thither by the Parliament, had arrived from the Association two days before, 'amid shouts from the whole Army : ' he had the ordering of the Horse this morning. 1 Prince Rupert, on returning from his plunder, finds the King's infantry a ruin ; prepares to charge again with the rallied Cavalry ; but the Cavalry too, when it came to the point, ' broke all asunder,' — never to reassemble more. The chase went through Harborough ; where the King had already been that morning, when in an evil hour he turned back, to revenge some ' surprise of an outpost at Naseby the night before,' and give the Roundheads battle. Ample details of this Battle, and of the movements prior and posterior to it, are to be found in Sprigge, or copied with some abridgment into Rushworth ; who has also copied a strange old Plan of the Battle ; half plan, half picture, which the Sale-Cata- logues are very chary of, in the case of Sprigge. By assiduous attention, aided by this Plan, as the old names yet stick to the localities, the Narrative can still be, and has lately been, pretty accurately verified, and the Figure of the old Battle dimly brought 1 [Fairfax had been in some doubt whether he might not have to fight before Cromwell could reach him, in which case he had meant " to decline the usual way of a General, and to assume the command of the horse" himself. (Moderate In- telligencer, E. 288 (7).)] 202 FIRST CIVIL WAR [14 June. back again. 1 The reader shall imagine it, for the present. — On the crown of Naseby Height stands a modern Battle-monument ; but, by an unlucky oversight, it is above a mile to the east of where the Battle really was. There are likewise two modern Books about Naseby and its Battle ; both of them without value. 2 The Parliamentary Army stood ranged on the Height still partly called ' Mill Hill,' as in Rushworth's time, a mile and half from Naseby ; the King's Army, on a parallel ' Hill,' its back to Harborough ; — with the wide table of upland now named Broad Moor between them ; where indeed the main brunt of the action still clearly enough shows itself to have been. There are hollow spots, of a rank vegetation, scattered over that Broad Moor ; which are understood to have once been burial mounds ; — some of which, one to my knowledge, have been (with more or less of sacrilege) verified as such. A friend of mine 3 has in his cabinet two ancient grinder-teeth, dug lately from that ground, — and waits for an opportunity to rebury them there. Sound effectual grinders, one of them very large ; which ate their breakfast on the fourteenth morning of June two hundred years ago, and, except to be clenched once in grim battle, had never work to do more in this world ! — a stack of dead bodies, perhaps about 100, ' had been buried in this Trench ; piled as in a wall, a man's ' length thick : the skeletons lay in courses, the heads of one ' course to the heels of the next ; one figure, by the strange ' position of the bones, gave us the hideous notion of its having ' been thrown in before death ! We did not proceed far : — perhaps 1 Appendix, No. 8. 2 [For modern accounts of the battle with value, see Dr. Gardiner's Great Civil War, and Mr. Firth's Oliver Cromwell.] 3 [The friend was Edward Fitzgerald. In 1842, Carlyle and Dr. Arnold made a pilgrimage to the field of Naseby, but were misled by the position of the obelisk erected by Fitzgerald's father (mentioned above) and which, Carlyle afterwards wrote in disgust, " might as well stand at Charing Cross." " They saw nothing," wrote Fitzgerald, "and walked over what was not the field of battle." However, at Carlyle's request, Fitzgerald — to whom the land belonged — undertook some investi- gations, guided by Carlyle's letters, which contained very clear descriptions of what he ought to see, and also had the trench excavated as mentioned above, watched by an old Scotch farmer who thought the soil would be very good as manure for turnips ! Of this, Carlyle wrote to Fitzgerald: "The opening of that burial heap blazes strangely in my thoughts ; these are the very jawbones that were clenched together in deadly rage, on this very ground, 197 years ago. It brings the matter home to one with a strange veracity ; as if for the first time one saw it to be no fable and theory, but a dire fact. I will beg for a tooth and a bullet ; authenticated by your own eyes and word of honour. Our Scotch friend too, making turnip manure of it, he is part of the picture. . . Honour to thrift. If of 5000 wasted men, you can make a few usable turnips, why, doit !" {Letters of Edward Fitzgerald, ed. 1894, vol. i. pp. 125-138.)] 1645.] LETTER XXIX., NASEBY 203 •some half-dozen skeletons. The bones were treated with all ' piety ; watched rigorously, over Sunday, till they could be covered ' in again.' 1 Sweet friends, for Jesus' sake forbear ! — At this Battle Mr. John Rushworth, our Historical Rushworth, had, unexpectedly, for some instants, sight of a very famous per- son. Mr. John is Secretary to Fairfax ; and they have placed him today among the Baggage-wagons, near Naseby Hamlet, above a mile from the fighting, where he waits in an anxious manner. It is known how Prince Rupert broke our left wing, while Cromwell was breaking their left. ' A Gentleman of Public Employment in the late Service near Naseby ' writes next day, ' Harborough, 1 5th June, 2 in the morning,' a rough graphic Letter in the Newspapers, 2 wherein is this sentence : * * ' A party of theirs that broke through the left wing ot ' horse, came quite behind the rear to our Train ; the Leader of ' them, being a person somewhat in habit like the General, in a * red montero, as the General had. He came as a friend ; our ' commander of the guard of the Train went with his hat in his ' hand, and asked him, How the day went ? thinking it had been ' the General : the Cavalier, who we since heard was Rupert, ' asked him and the rest, If they would have quarter ? They ' cried No ; gave fire, and instantly beat them off. It was a ' happy deliverance,' — without doubt. There were taken here a good few ' ladies of quality in car- riages ; ' — and above a hundred Irish ladies not of quality, tattery camp-followers ' with long skean-knives about a foot in length,' which they well knew how to use ; upon whom I fear the Ordi- nance against Papists pressed hard this day. 3 The King's Car- riage was also taken, with a Cabinet and many Royal Autographs in it, which when printed made a sad impression against his Majesty, — gave in fact a most melancholy view of the veracity of his Majesty, " On the word of a King." 4 All was lost ! — 6 1 MS. penes me. 2 Kings Pamphlets, small 4to, no. 212, § 26, p. 2: the contemporaneous Col- lector has named him with his pen : ' Mr. Rushworth's Letter, being the Secretary to his Excellency. ' " Whitlocke. 4 The Kings Cabinet opened; or Letters taken in the Cabinet at Naseby Field (London, 1645) : — reprinted in Harleian Miscellany (London, 1810), v. 514. 6 [One of the old newspapers gives us a peep at the Ironsides after the battle. ' ' We hear Cromwell's sometime regiment are grown wiser, if it may be so called ; for having helped to beat the enemy out of the field, they did not, as at Marston Moor, leave them that fought least to get most, but fell upon the good booty as well as others" {Moderate Intelligencer, E. 289 (17).)] 204 FIRST CIVIL WAR [U June. Here is Cromwell's Letter, written from Harborough, or 'Haverbrowe' as he calls it, that same night; after the hot Battle and hot chase were over. The original, printed long since in Rushworth, still lies in the British Museum, — with ' a strong steady signature,' which one could look at with interest. ' The Letter consists of two leaves ; much worn, and now sup- ' ported by pasting ; red seal much defaced ; is addressed on the ' second leaf : ' For the Honourable William LenthaU, Speaker of the Commons House of Parliament : These Harborough, 14th June 1645. Sir, Being commanded by you to this service, I think myself bound to acquaint you with the good hand of God towards you and us. We marched yesterday after the King, who went before us from Daventry to Harborough ; and quartered about six miles from him. This day we marched towards him. He drew out to meet us ; both armies engaged. We, after three hours fight very doubtful, at last routed his army ; killed and took about 5,000, very many officers, but of what quality we yet know not. We took also about 200 carriages, all he had ; and all his guns, being 1 2 in number, whereof two were demi-cannon, two demi- culverins, and. (I think) the rest sackers. We pursued the enemy from three miles short of Harborough to nine beyond, even to the sight of Leicester, whither the King fled. Sir, this is none other but the hand of God ; and to Him alone belongs the glory, wherein none are to share with Him. 1 The General served you with all faithfulness and honour : and the best commendations I can give him is, that I dare say he attri- butes all to God, and would rather perish than assume to him- self. Which is an honest and a thriving way, and yet as much for bravery may be given to him, in this action, as to a man. 1 [See Cromwell's remarks upon Naseby in his letter announcing the victory of Langport, Appendix, No, 9.] 1645.] LETTEK XXIX., NASEBY 205 Honest men served you faithfully in this action. Sir, they are trusty ; I beseech you in the name of God, not to discourage them. I wish this action may beget thankfulness and humility in all that are concerned in it. He that ventures his life for the liberty of his country, I wish he trust God for the liberty of his conscience, and you for the liberty he fights for. 1 In this he rests, who is Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* John Bunyan, I believe, is this night in Leicester, 2 not yet writing his Pilgrim's Progress on paper, but acting it on the face of the Earth, with a brown matchlock on his shoulder. Or rather, without the matchlock, just at present ; Leicester and he having been taken the other day. ' flarborough Church ' is get- ting ' filled with prisoners ' while Oliver writes, — and an immense contemporaneous tumult everywhere going on ! 3 The ' honest men who served you faithfully ' on this occasion are the considerable portion of the Army who have not yet suc- ceeded in bringing themselves to take the Covenant. Whom the Presbyterian Party, rigorous for their own formula, call ' Schismatics/ 'Sectaries,' 'Anabaptists,' and other hard names; whom Cromwell, here and elsewhere, earnestly pleads for. To Cromwell, perhaps as much as to another, order was lovely, and disorder hateful ; but he discerned better than some others what order and disorder really were. The forest-trees are not in ' order ' because they are all dipt into the same shape of Dutch-dragons, and forced to die or grow in that way ; but because in each of them there is the same genuine unity of life, 1 ["So little did the House of Commons share Cromwell's sentiments on this matter," writes Dr. Gardiner, " that in sending his letter to the press, they omitted this paragraph," but "the House of Lords, probably in mere thoughtlessness, simul- taneously ordered a complete copy of the letter to be sent forth to the world." (Great Civil War, ii. 252). Both versions are amongst the King's Pamphlets (E. 288, Nos. 26 and 27), and Thomason imagined the curtailed copy to be the true one, writing upon it, "This is Crumwell's owne trew letter," and upon the un- mutilated copy, " a false letter in the conclusion".] 2 [Mr. E. G. Atkinson's discovery of the Muster-rolls of the Newport Pagnell garrison at the Public Record Office, proves that it was there, and not at Leicester that Bunyan served.] 3 [See letter to Sir Samuel Luke, written next day. Supplement No. 14.] * Harl. MSS., No. 7502, art. 5, p. 7; Rushworth, vi. 45. 206 FIRST CIVIL WAR [4 Aug. from the inmost pith to the outmost leaf, and they do grow according to that ! — Cromwell naturally became the head of this Schismatic Party, intent to grow not as Dutch-dragons, but as real trees ; a Party which naturally increased with the increasing earnestness of events and of men. — The King stayed but a few hours in Liecester ; he had taken Leicester, as we saw, some days before, and now it was to be re- taken from him some days after : — he stayed but a few hours here ; rode on, that same night, to Ashby-de-la-Zouch, which he reached ' at daybreak,' — poor wearied King ! — then again swiftly Westward, to Wales, to Ragland Castle, to this place and that ; in the hope of raising some force, and coming to fight again ; which, however, he could never do. 1 Some ten months more of roaming, and he, 'disguised as a groom,' will be riding with Parson Hudson towards the Scots at Newark. The New-Model Army marched into the Southwest ; very soon 'relieved Colonel Robert Blake' (Admiral Blake), and many others ; — marched to ever new exploits and victories, which excite the pious admiration of Joshua Sprigge ; and very soon swept all its enemies from the field, and brought this War to a close. 2 The following Letters exhibit part of Cromwell's share in that business, and may be read with little commentary. LETTER XXX THE CLUBMEN The victorious Army, driving all before it in the Southwest, where alone the King had still any considerable fighting force, found itself opposed by a very unexpected enemy, famed in the old Pamphlets by the name of Clubmen. The design was at bottom Royalist ; but the country-people in those regions had been 1 Iter Carolinnm ; being a succinct Relation of the necessitated Marches, Retreats and Sufferings of his Majesty Charles the First, from ioth January 1641 till the time of his Death, 1648 : Collected by a daily Attendant upon his Sacred Majesty during all the said time. London, 1660. — It is reprinted in Somers Tracts (v. 263), but, as usual there, without any editing except a nominal one, though it somewhat needed more. 2 A Journal of every day's March of the Army under his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax (in Sprigge, p. 331). 1645.] LETTER XXX, THE CLUBMEN 207 worked upon by the Royalist Gentry and Clergy, on the some- what plausible ground of taking up arms to defend themselves against the plunder and harassment of both Armies. 1 The great mass of them were Neutrals ; there even appeared by and by various transient bodies of 'Clubmen' on the Parliament side, whom Fairfax entertained occasionally to assist him in pioneer- ing and other such services. They were called Clubmen, not, as M. Villemain supposes, 2 because they united in Clubs, but because they were armed with rough country weapons, mere bludgeons if no other could be had. Sufficient understanding of them may be gained from the following Letter of Cromwell, prefaced by some Excerpts. From Rushworth : ' Thursday, July 3d, Fairfax marched from ' Blandford to Dorchester, 12 miles ; a very hot day. Where 'Colonel Sidenham, Governor of Weymouth, gave him infor- * mation of the condition of those parts ; and of the great ' danger from the Club-risers ; ' a set of men ' who would not 'suffer either contribution or victuals to be carried to the 'Parliament's garrisons. And the same night Mr. Hollis of ' Dorsetshire, the chief leader of the Clubmen, with some others ' of their principal men, came to Fairfax : and Mr. Hollis owned ' himself to be one of their leaders ; affirming that it was fit the ' people should show their grievances and their strength. Fairfax ' treated them civilly, and promised they should have an answer ' the next morning. For they were so strong at that time, that it 'was held a point of prudence to be fair in demeanour towards ' them for a while ; for if he should engage with General Goring ' and be put to the worst, these Clubmen would knock them on 'the head as they should fly for safety. 3 — That which they ' desired from him was a safe-conduct for certain persons to go 1 [They originated amongst the farmers in the West, for suppressing plundering by the soldiers. See The Desires and Resolutions of the Clubmen (E. 292, No. 24).] 2 Our French friends ought to be informed that M. Villemain's Book on Cromwell is, unluckily, a rather ignorant and shallow one. — Of M. Guizot, on the other hand, we are to say that his Two Volumes, so far as they go, are the fruit of real ability and solid studies applied to those Transactions. 3 [The General did engage with General Goring, but was not " put to the worst ". For Cromwell's account of the battle of Langport, fought July 10, see Appendix, No. 9 ; on this same day he wrote a letter on behalf of Lieutenant-Colonel John Lilburn, for which see Supplement, No. 15. On the following day, he had rather a narrow escape, for, going with some of his officers to view Bridgwater, and ' ' making some stay upon a discourse, the enemy shot a brace of musket bullets, which killed a cornet of his regiment, but the Lieut.-General was preserved." (Mercurius Civicus, E. 293(7)-)] 208 FIRST CIVIL WAR [4 Aug. ' to the King and Parliament with petitions : ' 1 which Fairfax in a very mild but resolute manner refused. From Sprigge, 2 copied also into Rushworth with some inaccu- racies : ' On Monday, August 4th, Lieutenant-General Cromwell, 'having intelligence of some of their places of rendezvous for ' their several divisions, went forth ' from Sherborne ' with a party ' of Horse to meet these Clubmen ; being well satisfied of the 'danger of their design. As he was marching towards Shaftes- ' bury with the party, they discovered some colours upon the top ' of a high hill, full of wood and almost inaccessible. A Lieutenant 'with a small party was sent to them to know their meaning, ' and to acquaint them that the Lieutenant-General of the Army ' was there ; whereupon Mr. Newman, one of their leaders, thought ' fit to come down, and told us, The intent was to desire to know ' why the gentlemen were taken at Shaftesbury on Saturday ? 3 ' The Lieutenant-General returned him this answer : That he ' held himself not bound to give him or them an account ; what ' was done was by authority, and they that did it were not re- ' sponsible to them that had none : but not to leave them wholly • unsatisfied, he told him that those persons so met had been the ' occasions and stirrers of many tumultuous and unlawful meet- ' ings ; for which they were to be tried by law ; which trial ought 'not by them to be questioned or interrupted. Mr. Newman ' desired to go up to return the answer ; the Lieutenant-General ' with a small party went with him ; and had some conference ' with the people ; to this purpose : That whereas they pretended ' to meet there to save their goods, they took a very ill course for ' that : to leave their houses was the way to lose their goods ; 'and it was offered them, that justice should be done upon any ' who offered them violence ; and as for the gentlemen taken 'at Shaftesbury, it was only to answer some things they were ' accused of, which they had done contrary to law and the peace ' of the Kingdom. — Herewith they seeming to be well satisfied, * promised to return to their houses ; and accordingly did so. 'These being thus quietly sent home, the Lieutenant-General ' advanced further, to a meeting of a greater number, of about ' 4000, who betook themselves to Hambleton Hill, near Shrawton. ' At the bottom of the hill ours met a man with a musket, and 1 Rushworth, vi. 52. * pp. 78, 9. 8 [Owing to the antagonistic attitude of the Dorset Club-men, Fairfax, then engaged at the siege of Sherburne, had sent Fleetwood against them, and forty of the ring- leaders were seized at Shaftesbury.] 1645.] LETTER XXX., THE CLUBMEN 209 ' asked, whither he was going ? he said, To the Club Army ; ours ' asked, what he meant to do. He asked, what they had to do ' with that. Being required to lay down his arms, he said he * would first lose his life ; but was not so good as his word, for ' though he cocked and presented his musket, he was prevented, ' disarmed, and wounded, but not ' — Here, however, is Cromwell's own Narrative : To the Right Honourable Sir Thomas Fairfax, Commander-in-Chief of the Parliament's Forces, ' at Sherborne : These ' ' Shaftesbury,' 4th August 1645. Sir, I marched this morning towards Shaftesbury. In my way I found a party of clubmen gathered together, about two miles of this side of the town, towards you ; and one Mr. Newman in the head of them, who was one of those who did attend you at Dorchester, with Mr. Hollis. I sent to them to know the cause of their meeting : Mr. Newman came to me and told me, that the clubmen in Dorset and Wilts, to the number of ten-thousand, were to meet about their men which were taken away at Shaftesbury, and that their intendment was to secure themselves from plundering. To the first, I told them, that al- though no account was due to them, yet I knew the men were taken by your authority, to be tried judicially for raising a third party in the Kingdom ; and if they should be found guilty, they must suffer according to the nature of their offence ; if innocent, I assured them you would acquit them. Upon this they said, if they have deserved punishment, they would not have any thing to do with them ; and so were quieted as to that point. For the other ' point,' I assured them, that it was your great care, not to suffer them in the least to be plundered, and that they should defend themselves from violence, and bring to your army such as did them any wrong, where they should be punished with all severity : upon this, very quietly and peaceably they marched away to their houses, being very well satisfied and con- tented. vol. 1. — 14 210 FIRST CIVIL WAR [4 Aug. We marched on to Shaftesbury, where we heard a great body of them was drawn together about Hamilton [Hambledon] Hill ; — where indeed near two-thousand were gathered. I sent a forlorn of about fifty Horse ; who coming very civilly to them, they fired upon them ; and they desiring some of them to come to me, were refused with disdain. They were drawn into one of the old camps, 1 upon a very high hill : I sent one Mr. Lee 2 to them, To certify the peaceableness of my intentions, and to desire them to peaceableness, and to submit to the Parliament. They refused, and fired at us. I sent him a second time, to let them know, that if they would lay down their arms, no wrong should be done them. They still (through the animation of their leaders, and especially two vile ministers) refused ; I commanded your Captain-Lieutenant to draw up to them, to be in readiness to charge ; and if upon his falling on, they would lay down arms, to accept them and spare them. When he came near, they refused his offer, and let fly at him ; killed about two of his men, and at least four horses, and passage not being for above three a -breast, kept them out: whereupon Major Desburgh wheeled about ; got in the rear of them, beat them from the work, and did some small execution upon them ; I believe killed not twelve of them, but cut very many, and we have taken about 300 ; many of which are 3 poor silly creatures, whom if you please to let me send home, they promise to be very dutiful for time to come, and will be hanged before they come out again. The ringleaders which we have, I hope to bring to you. They had taken divers of the Parliament soldiers prisoners, besides Colonel Fienes his men ; and used them most barbarously ; bragging, they hoped to see my Lord Hopton, that he is to command them ; they expected from Wilts great store ; and gave out they meant to raise the siege at Sherborne 4 when they 1 Roman Camps (Gough's Camden, i. 52). 2 ' One Mr. Lee who, upon the approach of ours, came from them. ' (Sprigge, p. 79-) 8 ["a" in oi-ig."\ *[" Shaftesbury" erased.] 1645.] LETTER XXXI., BRISTOL 211 were all met. We have gotten good store of their arms, and they carried few or none home. We quarter about ten miles off, and purpose to draw our quarters near to you to-morrow. Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* ' On Tuesday at night, August 5th, the Lieutenant-General ' Cromwell 'with his party returned to Sherborne,' where the General and the rest were very busy besieging the inexpugnable Sir Lewis Dives. 'This work,' which the Lieutenant-General had now been upon, continues Sprigge, ' though unhappy, was very necessary.' l No messenger could be sent out but he was picked up by these Clubmen ; these once dispersed, ' a man might ride very quietly from Sherborne to Salisbury.' The inexpugnable Sir Lewis Dives (a thrasonical person known to the readers of Evelyn), after due battering, was now soon stormed : whereupon, by Letters found on him, it became apparent how deeply Royalist this scheme of Clubmen had been ; ' Commissions for raising Regiments of Clubmen ; ' the design to be extended over England at large, ' yea into the Associated Counties : ' however, it has now come to nothing ; and the Army turns Northward to the Siege of Bristol, where Prince Rupert is doing all he can to entrench himself. 2 LETTER XXXI STORM OF BRISTOL 'On the Lord's Day, September 21, according to Order of Par- 'liament, Lieutenant-General Cromwell's Letter on the taking ' of Bristol was read in several Congregations about London, and * Newspapers {Cromwelliana, p. 20). [Now printed from the holograph original in Tanner MS S. lx. 236.] 1 Sprigge, p. 81. 2 [On arriving at Keynsham, a little to the south of Bristol, Cromwell seems to have escaped a danger of another sort, for the Moderate Intelligencer for the week August 28-Sept. 4 states that the general officers had been called away from the place, and that " it was since understood that the contagion was in the house where Lieut.-Gen. Cromwell, Lieut.-Gen. Hammond and Col. Pickering lay ; but the zeal to the public makes those things looked over." (E. 299 (8).)] 212 FIRST CIVIL WAK [14 Sept. ' thanks returned to Almighty God for the admirable and wonder- ' ful reducing of that city. The Letter of that renowned Com- ' mander is well worth observation.' l For the Siege itself and what preceded and followed it, see, besides this Letter, Rupert's own account, 2 and the ample details of Sprigge copied with abridgment by Rush worth : Sayer's History of Bristol gives Plans, and all manner of local details, though in a rather vague way. For the Honourable William Lenthall, Speaker of the Commons House of Parliament : These Bristol, 14th September 1645. Sir, It hath pleased the General to give me in charge to represent unto you a particular account of the taking of Bristol ; the which I gladly undertake. After the finishing of that service at Sherborne, it was disputed at a council of war, Whether we should march into the West or to Bristol. Amongst other arguments, the leaving so considerable an enemy at our backs, to march into the heart of the Kingdom ; the undoing of the country about Bristol, which was exceedingly harassed by the Prince his being but a fortnight thereabouts ; the correspondence he might hold in Wales ; the possibility of uniting the enemy's forces where they pleased, and especially the drawing to an head the disaffected clubmen of Somerset, Wilts and Dorset, when once our backs were towards them: these con- siderations, together with the taking so important a place, so advantageous for the opening of trade to London, did sway the balance, and begat that conclusion. When we came within four miles of the city, we had a new debate, whether we should endeavour to block it up, or make a regular siege. The latter being overruled, Colonel Welden with his brigade marched to Pile Hill, on the south side of the city, being within musket-shot thereof: where in a few days they made a good quarter, overlooking the city. Upon our advance, the enemy fired Bedminster, Clifton, and some other villages, 1 Newspapers, Cromwelliana, p. 24. 2 Rushworth, vii. 69, &c. 1645.] LETTEE XXXI. , BEISTOL 213 and would have fired the country thereabouts if our unexpected coming had not hindered. The General caused some Horse and Dragooners under Commissary- General Ireton to advance over Avon, to keep-in the enemy on the north side of the town, until the foot could come up : and after a day, the General, with Colonel Montague's and Colonel Rainsborowe's brigades, marched over at Keynsham to Stapleton, where he quartered that night. The next day, Colonel Montague, having his post assigned with his brigade, was to secure all between Froom and Avon. He came up to Lawford's Gate, 1 within musket-shot thereof. Colonel Rainsborowe's post was near to Durdham Down, where the Dragooners and three regiments of Horse made good a post upon the Down, between him and the River Avon, on his right hand, and from Colonel Rainsborowe's quarters to Froom River, on his left. A part of Colonel Birch and Major-General Skippon's regiments were to maintain that post. These posts being thus settled, our Horse were forced to be upon exceeding great duty, to stand by the Foot, lest the Foot, being so weak in all their posts, might receive an affront ; and truly herein we were very happy, that we should receive so little loss by sallies, considering the paucity of our men to make good their posts, and the strength of the enemy within. By sallies (which were three or four) I know not that we lost thirty men, in all the time of our siege. Of officers of quality, only Colonel Okey was taken, by mistake going to the enemy, thinking them to be friends, and Captain Guilliams slain in a charge. We took Sir Bernard Asteley ; and killed Sir Richard Crane, men very considerable with the Prince. We had a council of war concerning the storming of the town, about eight days before we took it ; and in that there appeared great unwillingness to the work, through the unseason- ableness of the weather, and other apparent difficulties. Some 1 One of the Bristol Gates. 214 FIEST CIVIL WAE [14 Sept. inducement to bring us thither was the report of the good affection of the townsmen to us; but that did not answer expectation. Upon a second consideration, it was overruled for a storm, which no sooner concluded, but difficulties were removed, and all things seemed to favour the design ; and indeed there hath been seldom the like cheerfulness in officers and soldiers to any work like to this, after it was once resolved on. The day and hour of our storm was appointed to be Wednesday morning, the tenth, about one of the clock. We chose to act it so early because we hoped thereby to surprise the enemy ; with this resolution also (to avoid confusion and falling foul one upon another), that when we had recovered 1 the line, and forts upon it, we would not to («c) advance further until day. The general signal unto the storm, was, the firing of straw, and discharging four piece of cannon at Prior Hill Fort. The signal was very well perceived by all, and truly the men went on with great resolution, and very presently recovered the line, making way for the Horse to enter. Colonel Montague and Colonel Pickering, who stormed at Lawford's Gate, where was a double work, well filled with men and cannon, presently entered, and with great resolution beat the enemy from their works, and possessed their cannon. Their expedition was such that they forced the enemy from their advantages, without any considerable loss to themselves. They laid down the bridges for the Horse to enter ; Major Desborowe commanding the Horse, who very gallantly seconded the Foot. Then our Foot advanced to the city walls, where they possessed the gate against the Castle Street : whereinto were put an hundred men, who made it good. Sir Hardresse Waller, with his and the General's regiment, with no less resolution, entered on the other side of Lawford's Gate, towards Avon River ; and put themselves into an immediate conjunction with the rest of the brigade. During this, Colonel Rainborowe and Colonel Hammond at- 1 recovered means ' taken,' ' got possession of : ' the Lifie is a new earthen work outside the walls ; very deficient in height, according to Rupert's account. 1645.] LETTEE XXXI., BRISTOL 215 tempted Prior Hill Fort, and the line downwards towards Froome ; Colonel Birch and the Major-General's regiment being to storm towards Froome River. Colonel Hammond possessed the line immediately, and beating the enemy from it, made way for our Horse to enter. Colonel Rainborowe, who had the hardest task of all at Prior Hill Fort, attempted it ; and fought near three hours for it, and indeed there was great despair of carrying the place ; it being exceeding high, a ladder of thirty rounds scarcely reaching the top thereof; but his resolution was such that, not- withstanding the inaccessibleness and difficulty, he would not give it over. The enemy had four piece of cannon upon it ; which they played with round and case shot upon our men : his Lieu- tenant-Colonel Bowen and others were two hours at push of pike, standing upon the palisadoes, but could not enter. Colonel Hammond being entered the line, Captain Ireton, 1 with a forlorn of Colonel Riche's regiment (interposing with his Horse between the enemy's Horse and Colonel Hammond), received a shot with two pistol-bullets, which broke his arm. Bymeans of his entrance, Colonel Hammond did storm the Fort on that part which was inward ; by which means, Colonel Rainborowe and Colonel Hammond's men entered the Fort, and immediately put to the sword almost all in it, and as this was the place of most difficulty, so 'it was ' of most loss to us on that side, and of very great honour to the undertakers. The Horse did second them with great resolution : 2 both those Colonels do acknowledge that their in- terposition between the enemy's Horse and their Foot was a great means of obtaining this strong Fort, without which all the rest of the line to Froome River would have done us little good : and indeed neither Horse nor Foot would have stood in all that way, in any manner of security, had not the Fort been taken. Major Bethel's were the first Horse entered the line ; who did behave himself very gallantly, and was shot in the thigh, had one or two shot more, and his horse shot under him. Colonel Birch 1 This is not the famous Ireton ; this is his Brother. ' Commissary-General Ireton,' as we have seen (p. 213), is also here ; he is not wedded yet. 2 [" And indeed" erased, apparently by Cromwell.] 216 FIEST CIVIL WAE [14 Sept. with his men, and the Major-General's regiment, entered with very great resolution where their post was ; possessing the enemy's guns, and turning them upon them. By this, all the line from Prior Hill Fort to Avon, which was a full mile, with all the forts, ordnance and bulwarks, were possessed by us but one, wherein there were about 1 20 men of the Enemy 1 which the General summoned, and all the men submitted. The success on Colonel Welden's side did not answer with this ; and although the Colonels, and other the officers and soldiers both Horse and Foot, testified very much resolution, as could be expected, Colonel Welden, Colonel Ingoldsby, Colonel Herbert, and the rest of the Colonels and Officers, [both of Horse and Foot], 2 doing what could be well looked for from men of honour ; yet what by reason of the height of the works, which proved higher than report made them, and the shortness of the ladders, they were repulsed, with the loss of about 100 men. Colonel Fortescue's Lieutenant-Colonel was killed, Major Crom- well 3 dangerously shot and two of Colonel Ingoldsby's brothers hurt ; with some officers. Being possessed of thus much as hath been related, the town was fired in three places by the enemy, which we could not put out ; and this begat a great trouble to the General and us all, fearing to see so famous a city burnt to ashes before our faces. Whiles we were viewing so sad a spectacle, and consulting which way to make further advantage of our success, the Prince sent a trumpet to the General to desire a treaty for the surrender of the town, to which the General agreed ; and deputed Colonel Montague, Colonel Rainborowe, and Colonel Pickering for that service ; authorising them with instructions to treat and conclude the Articles, which are these enclosed ; for performance whereof hostages were mutually given. 4 1 [Rushworth says 220, but Sprigge gives the number correctly.] 2 [These words inserted in Cromwell's hand.] 3 A cousin. [Richard, second son of Sir Philip.] J [A letter written to the Speaker on the 10th, by the commissioners with the army, giving an account of the day's work, is printed in the Hist. MSS. Com- missioners' Report on the Portland MSS. i, 268.] 1645.] LETTER XXXI, BRISTOL 217 On Thursday about two of the clock in the afternoon, the Prince marched out ; having a convoy of two regiments of Horse from us ; and making election of Oxford for the place he would go to, which he had liberty to do by his Articles. The cannon which we have taken are about 1 40 mounted ; about 100 barrels of powder already come to our hands, with a good quantity of shot, ammunition, and arms. We have found already between 2000 and 3000 muskets. The Royal Fort had in it victuals for one-hundred-and-fifty men, for three-hundred- and-twenty days ; the Castle victualled for near half so long. The Prince had Foot of the Garrison (as the Mayor of the City informed me), two-thousand five-hundred, and about one thousand Horse, besides the Trained Bands of the town, and Auxiliaries 1200, some say 1500. I hear but one man hath died of the plague x in all our army, although we have quartered amongst and in the midst of infected persons and places. We had not killed of ours in this storm, nor all this siege, 200 men. Thus I have given you a true, but not a full account of this great business ; wherein he that runs may read, That all this is none other than the work of God. He must be a very Atheist that doth not acknowledge it. It may be thought that some praises are due to these gallant men, of whose valour so much mention is made : their humble suit to you and all that have an interest in this blessing, is, That in the remembrance of God's praises they may be forgotten. It's their joy that they are instruments to God's glory, and their country's good ; it's their honour that God vouchsafes to use them. Sir, they that have been employed in this service know, that faith and prayer obtained this city for you : I do not say ours only, but of the people of God with you and all England over, who have wrestled with God 2 for a blessing in this very thing. Our desires are, that God may be glorified by the same spirit of a [The scribe wrote " black,'' which is corrected to " plague" by Cromwell.] 2 ["waited on God" is corrected to " wrestled with God " by Cromwell's own hand.] 218 FIEST CIVIL WAE [14 Sept. faith by which we asked all our sufficiency, and having received it, it's meet that He have all the praise. Presbyterians, Inde- pendents, all had here the same spirit of faith and prayer ; the same pretence and answer ; they agree here, know no names of difference : pity it is it should be otherwise anywhere. All that believe, have the real unity, which is most glorious, because in- ward and spiritual, in the Body, and to the Head. * As for being united in forms, commonly called Uniformity, every Christian will for peace-sake study and do, as far as conscience will permit ; and from brethren, in things of the mind we look for no compul- sion, but that of light and reason. In other things, God hath put the sword into the Parliament's hands, for the terror of evil- doers, and the praise of them that do well. If any plead exemption from it, he knows not the Gospel : if any would wring it out of your hands, or steal it from you under what pretence soever, I hope they shall do it without effect. That God may maintain it in your hands, and direct you in the use thereof, is the prayer of Your humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* These last paragraphs are, as the old Newspapers say, 'very remarkable.' If modern readers suppose them to be ' cant,' it will turn out an entire mistake. I advise all modern readers not only to believe that Cromwell here means what he says ; but even to try how they, each for himself in a new dialect, could mean the like or something better ! — 1 ' Head ' means Christ ; ' Body ' is True Church of Christ. * Rushworth, vi. 85 ; Sprigge, pp. 112-118. [The original (from which it is now printed) signed and here and there corrected by Cromwell, is at Welbeck. It agrees with the version in Lords Journals, which differs in many small points from that given by Sprigge and Rushworth. But the Lords' version is given as if sent by Fairfax himself, and wherever the words ' ' the General " occur in Cromwell's letter, they are omitted or altered. Also, the last part of the letter, from " two hundred men," is left out altogether. The official copies of Cromwell's despatches usually left out his religious meditations and exhortations. Of this Dr. Gardiner writes : ' ' Of Cromwell's warnings the Commons took little heed. They indeed ordered that his despatch should be printed, but they took care to mutilate it, as they had mutilated his despatch from Naseby. No word of his referring to the difference between Presbyterians and Independents was, for the time, suffered to meet the 1645.] LETTER XXXII, WINCHESTER 219 Prince Rupert rode out of Bristol amid seas of angry human faces, glooming unutterable things upon him ; growling audibly, in spite of his escort, " Why not hang him ! " For indeed the poor Prince had been necessitated to much plunder ; commanding ' the elixir of the Blackguardism of the Three Kingdoms,' with very insufficient funds for most part ! — He begged a thousand muskets from Fairfax on this occasion, to assist his escort in pro- tecting him across the country to Oxford ; promising, on his honour, to return them after that service. Fairfax lent the muskets ; the Prince did honourably return them, what he had of them, — honourably apologising that so many had ' deserted ' on the road, of whom neither man nor musket were recoverable at present. x LETTERS XXXII— XXXV From Bristol the Army turned Southward again, to deal with the yet remaining force of Royalism in that quarter. Sir Ralph Hopton, with Goring and others under him, made stubborn resistance ; but were constantly worsted, at Langport, at Torring- ton, wheresoever they rallied and made a new attempt. 2 The Parliament Army went steadily and rapidly on ; storming Bridge- water, storming all manner of Towns and Castles ; clearing the public eye." Great Civil War, ii. 320. The omitted paragraph was afterwards printed in a pamphlet entitled Strong Motives (E. 304, No. 15). The action of Parlia- ment may, however, conceivably have been due simply to a desire, not to suppress but to compress Cromwell's account, publishing the news for the information of the public, but omitting the reflections which, they perhaps thought, were intended only for themselves.] 1 [It will be remembered that as Rupert surrendered Bristol to Fairfax in 1645, so Fiennes had surrendered it to Rupert in 1643. After its recovery, Fairfax wrote a congratulatory letter to Fiennes' father, Lord Say, telling him that his son's "honour and innocency " were now fully vindicated, and stating that Lieut. -General Cromwell intended to make a full relation, clearing the whole business. In the pamphlet in which this letter is printed, is also a Declaration by Fairfax and his officers, in vin- dication of Fiennes, which Mr. Firth thinks may be the " Relation" in question. See Notes and Queries, 7th series, ix. p. 181.] 2 [This account is confused. The battle of Langport, as we have seen, was fought on July io, two months before Bristol was taken, and Bridgewater was stormed on July 22. Torrington, on the other hand, was Hopton's last stand and was not stormed until February 16, 1645-6. The chief places taken in the interval between the surrender of Bristol and of Winchester were Devizes, Laycock House, and Berkeley Castle.] 220 FIRST CIVIL WAR [6 Oct. ground before them : till Sir Ralph was driven into Cornwall ; and, without resource or escape, saw himself obliged next spring 1 to surrender, and go beyond seas. A brave and honourable man ; respected on both sides ; and of all the King's Generals the most deserving respect. He lived in retirement abroad ; taking no part in Charles Second's businesses ; and died in honourable poverty before the Restoration. The following Three Letters 2 are what remain to us concern- ing Cromwell's share in that course of victories. He was present in various general or partial Fights from Langport to Bovey Tracey ; became especially renowned by his Sieges, and took many Strong Places besides those mentioned here. LETTER XXXII For the Right Honourable William Lenthall, Esq., Speaker of the House of Commons : 3 Winton, 6th October 1645. Sir, I came to Winchester on the Lord's day, being the 28th of September, with Colonel Pickering, commanding his own, Colonel Mountague's, and Sir Hardress Waller's regiments. After some dispute with the Governor, we entered the town. I summoned the Castle; was denied ;* whereupon we fell to prepare our batteries, which we could not perfect (some of our guns being out of order) until Friday following. Our battery was six guns ; which being finished, — after one firing of them round, I sent him a second summons for a treaty ; which he refused ; whereupon we went on with our work, and made a . breach in the wall near the Black Tower ; which, after about 200 shot, we thought stormable ; and purposed on Monday morning to attempt 1 Truro, March 14, 1645-6 (Rushworth, vi. no). 2 Appendix, No. 9, contains Two more: Battle of Langport, and Summons to Winchester (Note of 1857). 3 [The original of this letter is at Welbeck. Carlyle, following Rushworth, sup- posed it to be written to Fairfax.] 4 [See Appendix, No. 9 (2) for the summons, and note on the same for the Governor's answer.] 1645.] LETTER XXXII., WINCHESTER 221 it. On Sunday night, about ten of the clock, the Governor beat a parley, desiring to treat. I agreed unto it ; and sent Colonel Hammond and Major Harrison in to him, who agreed upon these enclosed Articles. Sir, this is the addition of another mercy. You see God is not weary in doing you good : I confess, Sir, His favour to you is as visible, when He comes by His power upon the hearts of your enemies, making them quit places of strength to you, as when He gives courage to your soldiers to attempt hard things ; His goodness in this is much to be acknowledged. For the Castle was well manned with 680 foot and horse, there being near 200 gentlemen, officers, and their servants ; well victualled, with very great store of wheat and beer, 1 15,000 weight of cheese, near 20 barrels of powder, 7 piece of cannon ; the works were exceeding good and strong. It's very likely it would have cost much blood to have gained it by storm. We have not lost twelve men : this is repeated to you, that God may have all the praise, for it's all His due. Sir, I rest, Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* P.S. I understand exceptions are taken at my giving a pass to Mr. Chichley to come into Cambridgeshire to see his lady. Truly, Sir, I did it upon the suggestion of his lady's being very 1 [Spelt ' ' beare " in the original. The editor of the ist volume of the Report on the Portland MSS. suggests that it may mean the corn of that name, but cheese, wheat and beer are very commonly mentioned together, while the mention of ' ' beare " is not very usual, except in Ireland. Moreover, the scribe originally wrote " great store of wheat, 15,000 weight of cheese and beare " afterwards erasing the beer and entering it above instead ; and in the list given in Rushworth, we find 112 hogsheads of beer, but no grain except wheat.] *Sprigge, p. 128; Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 25); Rushworth, iv. 91. [Now printed from the original at Welbeck, with the addition of the postscript, which is not in any of the printed texts. With the original is also the copy of Articles stated by Cromwell to be enclosed. This is printed by Rushworth (iv. 1. 91), but with two mistakes. In the first Article, "function" should be "furniture," and in the fifth, " be in their own time " should be ' ' live at their own homes. " Rush- worth also prints a list of the provisions found in the castle. Hugh Peters was chaplain to the train of artillery. It does not appear that he acted as Cromwell's secretary.] 222 FIKST CIVIL WAE [14 Oct. ill and much desiring to see him, she being (as 1 believe you will hear) a virtuous woman and sister to a true servant of yours. Colonel Russells. I thought it to be an act of humanity. I shall not hereafter presume. I can say I have done you service by some civilities, nor have I taken liberty this way, 1 hope I never shall, but out of judgment to serve you. If it offend the House, I ask their pardon, and had rather be chidden by you than accused by them from whom I have not deserved any jealousy of me, who truly bear an upright heart to the public, and am sorry I need this apology. Sir, Mr. Peeters is to wait upon you with some considerations concerning the army which it may be are not so fit to be com- mitted to writing, yet very fit you should seasonably be acquainted with them, wherein I beseech you to hear him. 'Lieutenant-General Cromwell's Secretary,' who brings this Letter, gets 501. for his good news. 1 By Sprigge's account, 2 he appears to have been ' Mr. Hugh Peters,' this Secretary. Peters there makes a verbal Narrative of the affair, to Mr. Speaker and the Commons, which, were not room so scanty, we should be glad to insert. It was at this surrender of Winchester that certain of the cap- tive enemies having complained of being plundered contrary to Articles, Cromwell had the accused parties, six of his own sol- diers, tried : being all found guilty, one of them by lot was hanged, and the other five were marched off to Oxford, to be there disposed of as the Governor saw fit. The Oxford Governor politely returned the five prisoners, ' with an acknow- ledgment of the Lieutenant-General's nobleness.' 3 LETTER XXXIII Basing House, Pawlet Marquis of Winchester's Mansion, stood, as the ruined heaps still testify, at a small distance from Basingstoke in Hampshire. It had long infested the Parlia- 1 Commons Journals, 7th October 1645. 2 p. 129. 3 Sprigge, p. 133. 1645.] LETTER XXXIII, BASINGSTOKE 223 ment in those quarters ; and been especially a great eyesorrow to the ' Trade of London with the Western Parts.' With Dennington Castle at Newbury, and this Basing House at Basingstoke, there was no travelling the western roads, except with escort, or on sufferance. The two places had often been attempted ; but always in vain. Basing House especially had stood siege after siege, for four years ; ruining poor Colonel This and then poor Colonel That ; the jubilant Royalists had given it the name of Basting House : 1 there was, on the Parliament side a kind of passion to have Basing House taken. The Lieutenant-General, gathering all the artillery he can lay hold of; firing incessantly, 200 or 500 shot at some given point till he see a hole made ; and then storming like a fire-flood : — he perhaps may manage it. [To the Honourable William Lenthall, Speaker of the Commons House of Parliament : These] Basingstoke, 14th October 1645. Sir, a I thank God, I can give you a good account of Basing. After our batteries placed, we settled the several posts for the storm : Colonel Dalbier was to be on the north side of the House near the Grange ; Colonel Pickering on his left hand, and Sir Hardress Waller's and Colonel Montague's regiments next him. We stormed, this morning, after six of the clock : the signal for falling on was the firing four of our cannon ; which being done, our men fell on with great resolu- tion and cheerfulness. We took the two houses without any considerable loss to ourselves. Colonel Pickering stormed the New House, passed through, and got the gate of the Old House ; whereupon they summoned a parley, which our men would not hear. In the meantime Colonel Montague's and Sir Hardress Wal- ler's regiments assaulted the strongest work, where the enemy kept his court of guard ; which, with great resolution, they recovered ; beating the enemy from a whole culverin, and from 1 [But Loyalty House was what its owner loved to call it. See p. 227 below.] 224 FIRST CIVIL WAR [14 Oct. that work : which having done, they drew their ladders after them, and got over another work, and the house-wall, before they could enter. In this Sir Hardress Waller, performing his duty with honour and diligence, was shot in the arm, but not dangerous. We have had little loss : many of the Enemy our men put to the sword, and some officers of quality ; most of the rest we have prisoners, amongst which the Marquis ' of Winchester him- self/ and Sir Robert Peake, with divers other officers, whom I have ordered to be sent up to you. We have taken about ten pieces of ordnance, with much ammunition, and our soldiers a good encouragement. I humbly offer to you, to have this place utterly slighted, for these following reasons : It will ask about eight-hundred men to manage it ; it is no frontier ; the country is poor about it ; the place exceedingly ruined by our batteries and mortar-pieces, and by a fire which fell upon the place since our taking it. If you please to take the Garrison at Farnham, some out of Chichester, and a good part of the foot which were here under Dalbier, and to make a strong quarter at Newbury with three or four troops of horse, I dare be confident it would not only be a curb to Dennington, but a security and a frontier to all these parts ; inasmuch as Newbury lies upon the river, and will prevent any incursion from Dennington, Wallingford or Farringdon into these parts; and by lying there, will make the trade most secure between Bristol and London for all carriages. And I believe the gentlemen of Sussex and Hampshire will with more cheerfulness contribute to maintain a garrison on a frontier than in their bowels, which will have less safety in it. Sir, I hope not to delay, but march towards the West tomorrow ; and to be as diligent as I may in my expedition thither. I must speak my judgment to you, That if you intend to have your work carried on, recruits of Foot must be had, and a course taken to pay your army ; else, believe me, Sir, it may not be able to answer the work you have for it to do. 1645.] LETTEK XXXIII, BASING HOUSE 225 I entreated Colonel Hammond to wait upon you, who was taken by a mistake whilst we lay before this Garrison, whom God safely delivered to us, to our great joy ; but to his loss of almost all he had, which the enemy took from him. The Lord grant that these mercies may be acknowledged with all thank- fulness : God exceedingly abounds in His goodness to us, and will not be weary until righteousness and peace meet and that He hath brought forth a glorious work for the happiness of this poor Kingdom. Wherein desires to serve God and you, with a faithful heart, Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Colonel Hammond, whom we shall by and by see again, brought this good news to London, and had his reward, of 200/. ; x Mr. Peters also, being requested. f to make a relation to the House of Commons, spake as follows.' The reader will like to hear Mr. Peters for once, a man concerning whom he has heard so many falsehoods, and to see an old grim scene through his eyes. Mr. Peters related : " That he came into Basing House some time after the storm," on Tuesday 14th of October 1645 ; — "and took a view first of " the works ; which were many, the circumvallation being above "a mile compass. The Old House had stood (as it is reported) " two or three hundred years, a nest of Idolatry ; the New House " surpassing that, in beauty and stateliness ; and either of them " fit to make an emperor's court. " The rooms before the storm (it seems), in both Houses, were " all completely furnished ; provisions for some years rather than " months ; 400 quarters of wheat ; bacon divers rooms-full, con- " taming hundreds of flitches ; cheese proportionable ; with oat- "meal, beef, pork ; beer divers cellars-full, and that very good," — Mr. Peters having taken a draught of the same. "A bed in one room, furnished, which cost 1,300/. Popish "books many, with copes, and such utensils. That in truth, " the House stood in its full pride ; and the Enemy was per- * Sprigge, pp. 137-9 1 Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 27) ; and Harl. MSS. 787. [f. 73. An old copy.] 1 Commons Journals (15th October 1645), iv. 309. VOL. I. 15 226 FIRST CIVIL WAR [H Oct. "suaded that it would be the last piece of ground that would " be taken by the Parliament, because they had so often foiled "our forces which had formerly appeared before it. In the " several rooms and about the House, there were slain seventy- "four, and only one woman, the daughter of Dr. Griffith, who "by her railing," poor lady, "provoked our soldiers (then in " heat) into a further passion. There lay dead upon the ground, " Major Cuffle ; — a man of great account amongst them, and a " notorious Papist ; slain by the hands of Major Harrison (that "godly and gallant gentleman)", — all men know him; "and " Robinson the Player, 1 who, a little before the storm, was known "to be mocking and scorning the Parliament and our Army. "Eight or nine gentlewomen of rank, running forth together, ''were entertained by the common soldiers somewhat coarsely, "yet not uncivilly, considering the action in hand. " The plunder of the soldiers continued till Tuesday night : " one soldier had an hundred-and-twenty Pieces in gold for his " share ; others plate, others jewels ; — amongst the rest, one got " three bags of silver, which (he being not able to keep his own " counsel) grew to be common pillage amongst the rest, and the " fellow had but one half-crown left for himself at last. — Also " the soldiers sold the wheat to country-people ; which they held " up at good rates awhile ; but afterwards the market fell, and " there were some abatements for haste. After that, they sold the " household stuff, whereof there was good store, and the country " loaded away many carts ; and continued a great while, fetching " out all manner of household stuff, till they had fetched out all " the stools, chairs, and other lumber, all which they sold to the " country-people by piecemeal. " In all these great houses, there was not one iron bar left in " all the windows (save only what was in the fire), before night. " And the last work of all was the lead ; and by Thursday "morning, they had hardly left one gutter about the House. " And what the soldiers left, the fire took hold on, which made " more than ordinary haste ; leaving nothing but bare walls and " chimneys in less than twenty hours ; — being occasioned by the "neglect of the Enemy in quenching a fire-ball of ours at first." — What a scene ! " We know not how to give a just account of the number of "persons that were within. For we have not three-hundred 1 [' ' Robinson the player was taken there. He was in Drury Lane, a comedian, but now he acted his own tragedy." (Diary, or an Exact Journal, E. 305. 7.)] 1645.] LETTER XXXIII, BASING HOUSE 227 " prisoners ; and it may be, an hundred slain, — [of] whose bodies, " some, being covered with rubbish, came not to our view, 1 only, " riding to the House on Tuesday night, we heard divers crying " in vaults for quarter ; but our men could neither come to them, "nor they to us. But amongst those that we saw slain, one of " their officers lying on the ground, seeming so exceeding tall, was " measured ; and from his great toe to his crown was 9 foot in " length " (sic). " The Marquis being pressed, by Mr. Peters arguing with him," which was not very chivalrous in Mr. Peters, "broke out and " said, ' That if the King had no more ground in England but " Basing House, he would adventure as he did, and so maintain " it to the uttermost ; ' — meaning with these Papists ; comforting " himself in this disaster, ' That Basing House was called Loyalty.' " But he was soon silenced in the question concerning the King " and Parliament ; only hoping that the King might have a day " again. — And thus the Lord was pleased in a few hours to show " us what mortal seed all earthly glory grows upon ; and how "just and righteous the ways of God are, who takes sinners in "their own snares, and lifteth up the heads of His despised " people. " This is now the twentieth garrison that hath been taken in " this Summer, by this Army ; — and, I believe most of them the " answers of the prayers, and trophies of the faith, of some of " God's servants, the Commander of this Brigade," Lieutenant- General Cromwell, " having spent much time with God in prayer " the night before the storm ; — and seldom fighting without some "Text of Scripture to support him. This time he rested upon "that blessed word of God, written in the hundred-and-fifteenth " Psalm, eighth verse, They that make them are like unto them ; so "is every one that Irusteth in them, which, with some verses going " before, was now accomplished." 2 1 [The number of the slain was never accurately known. Dr. Gardiner thinks this estimate is probably about right (Great Civil War, ii. 364), but Vicars says near three hundred (Burning Busk, p. 291) and Mr. Firth believes this number to be more likely (Oliver Cromwell, p. 133). Peters appears to have gone off to London before there had been time to ascertain the exact details. The volume of the King's Pamphlets, E. 305, has various notices of the storm.] 2 ' Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy Name give glory ; for thy mercy ' and for thy truth's sake. Wherefore should the Heathen say, Where is now their ' God ? Our God is in the Heavens : he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased ! — ' Their Idols are silver and gold ; the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but ' they speak not ; eyes have they, but they see not : they have ears, but they hear ' not ; noses have they, but they smell not ; they have hands, but they handle not ; 228 FIRST CIVIL WAR [16 Oct. 'Mr. Peters presented the Marquis's own Colours, which he 'brought from Basing ; the Motto of which was, Donee pax redeat ' terns : the very same King Charles gave upon his Coronation- ' money, when he came to the Crown.' 1 — So Mr. Peters ; and then withdrew, — getting by and by 200/. a-year settled on him. 2 This Letter was read in all Pulpits next Sunday, with thanks rendered to Heaven, by order of Parliament. Basing House is to be carted away ; ' whoever will come for brick or stone shall freely have the same for his pains.' 3 Among the names of the Prisoners taken here one reads that of Inigo Jones, — unfortunate old Inigo. Vertue, on what evidence I know not, asserts farther that Wenceslaus Hollar, with his graving tools, and unrivalled graving talent, was taken here. 4 The Marquis of Winchester had been addicted to the Arts, — to the Upholsteries perhaps still more. A magnificent kind of man : whose 'best bed,' now laid bare to general inspection, excited the wonder of the world. LETTER XXXIV Fairfax, with the Army, is in Devonshire ; the following Letter will find him at Tiverton ; Cromwell marching that way, having now ended Basing. It is ordered in the Commons House that Cromwell be thanked ; moreover that he now attack Den- nington Castle, of which we heard already at Newbury. These messages, as I gather, reached him at Basing, late ' last night,' — Wednesday 15th, the day they were written in London. 6 Thursday morning early, he marched ; has come (' came,' he calls it) as far as Wallop ; purposes still to make a forced march ' to Langford House to-night ' 6 (probably with horse only, and ' feet have they, but they walk not : neither speak they through their throat ! They ' that make them are like unto them ; so is every one that trusteth in them.'— These words, awful as the words of very God, were in Oliver Cromwell's heart that night. 'Sprigge, pp. 139-42. [But the Marquis's own motto was Aymez loyaulti.} 2 Whitlocke. 3 Commons Journals, iv. 309. 4 Life of Hollar. 5 Commons Journals (iv. 309), 15th Oct. 1645. 6 [There were several mis-readings in this letter as printed by Carlyle, one or two of which altered the sense. Reading ■ ' in today's march I came to Wallop," and, further on, " I shall be at Langford House to-night," he supposed that Cromwell did the whole in one day, whereas, no doubt, he started on Wednesday, the 15th (as in his letter of the 14th he announced his intention of doing) and arrived at Langford on the 17th, as he states in his next letter.] 1645.] LETTER XXXIV., WALLOP 229 leave the foot to follow) ; — answers meanwhile his messages here (see next Letter), and furthermore writes this : To Ike Right Honourable Sir Thomas Fairfax, General of the Parliament' s Army : 1 Haste : These Wallop, 16th October 1645. Sir, In two days march I came to Wallop, twenty miles from Basing, towards you. That night I received this enclosed from the Speaker of the House of Commons, which I thought fit to send you ; and to which I returned an answer, a copy whereof I have also sent enclosed to you. 2 I perceive that it's the desire to have the place 3 taken-in. But truly I could not do other than let them know what the condition of affairs in the West are, and submit the business to them and you. I shall be at Langford tomorrow night, if God please. I hope the work will not be long. If it should, I will rather leave a small part of the foot (if Horse will not be sufficient to take it in), than be detained from obeying such commands as I shall receive. 1 humbly beseech you to be confident that no man hath a more faithful heart to serve you than myself, nor shall be more strict to observe your commands than Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell. Sir, I beseech you to let me have your resolution in this busi- ness with all the possible speed that may be ; because whatsoever I be designed to, I wish I may speedily endeavour it, time being so precious for action in this season.* Langford House, whither Oliver is now bound, hoping to arrive 1 Marching from Collumpton to Tiverton, while Cromwell writes (Sprigge, p. 334). [This letter to Lenthall has not been discovered.] 3 Dennington Castle. * Sloane MSS. 1519, fol. 61 [127]— only the Signature is in Oliver's hand. [Sealed with the Cromwell arms.] 230 FIRST CIVIL WAR [17 Oct. tonight, is near Salisbury. 1 He did arrive accordingly ; drew out part of his brigade, and summoned the place ; — here is his own most brief account of the business. LETTER XXXV To the Honourable William henthall, Esquire, Speaker to the Honourable House of Commons : These Salisbury, 17th October (12 at night) 1645. Sir, I gave you an account, the last night, of my marching to Langford House, whither I came this day, and immediately sent them in a summons. The Governor desired I should send two Officers to treat with him, and I accordingly appointed Lieutenant-Colonel Hewson and Major Kelsey there- unto. The Treaty produced the Agreement, which I have here enclosed to you. The General, I hear, is advanced as far West as Collumpton, and hath sent some Horse and Foot to Tiverton. It is earnestly desired, that this force 2 might march up to him ; — it being con- venient that we stay a day for our Foot that are behind and coming up. I wait your answer to my Letter ' last night ' from Wallop : I shall desire that your pleasure may be speeded to me ; — and rest, Sir, Your humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* 1 [Langford House belonged to Lord Coleraine. Lieut. -Gen. Sir Bartholomew Pell was governor. It had been unsuccessfully besieged by Waller and Cromwell in the previous April (See A Diary, E. 278 (29)). Early in October there was a report in London that it had fallen on the 3rd inst. On October 7 the Moderate Intelligencer wrote : ' ' They say there will be wagers laid that Basing is taken before Langford. When both are taken, then the way is open, and passage for trade clear, which is worth a little more than thanks." (E. 304 (11).) Major William Ludlow was appointed governor ; Col. Hewson reported the surrender, and got sol. to buy himself two good horses.] '["those Foot" in pamphlet ; printed " more foot " by Carlyle.] *King's Pamphlets, small 4to, no. 229 [E. 305], art. 19 (no. 42 of The Weekly Account). [Now printed from the original in the possession of Captain Lindsay. 1645.] LETTER XXXV., SALISBURY 231 Basing is black ashes, then ; and Langford is ours, the Garri- son to march forth tomorrow at twelve of the clock, being the 1 8th instant. 1 And now the question is, Shall we attack Den- nington or not ? — Colonel Dalbier, a man of Dutch birth, well known to readers of the old Books, is with Cromwell at present ; his Second in command. It was from Dalbier that Cromwell first of all learned the mechanical part of soldiering ; he had Dalbier to help him in drilling his Ironsides ; so says Heath, credible on such a point. 2 Dennington Castle was not besieged at present ; it surrendered next spring to Dalbier. 8 Cromwell returned to Fairfax ; served through Winter with him in the West, till all ended there. About a month before the date of this Letter, the King had appeared again with some remnant of force, got together in Wales ; with intent to relieve Chester, which was his key to Ireland : but this force too he saw shattered to pieces on Rowton Heath, near that City. 4 He had also had an eye towards the great Montrose in Scotland, who in these weeks was blazing at his highest there : but him too David Lesley with dragoons, emerging from the mist of the Autumn morning, on Philipshaugh near Selkirk, had, in one fell hour, trampled utterly out. The King had to retire to Wales again ; to Oxford and obscurity again. On the 14th of next March, as we said, Sir Ralph Hopton surrendered himself in Cornwall. 6 On the 22d of the same month, Sir Jacob Astley, another distinguished Royalist General, the last of them all, — coming towards Oxford with some small force he had gathered, — was beaten and captured at Stow among the Wolds of Gloucestershire : 6 surrendering himself, the brave veteran said, or is reported to have said, "You have now done your work, and may go to play, — unless you will fall out among yourselves." Signed. Seal of Arms. On outside, note in different hand ' ' on Tuesday night last the forces of Abbington and Hame House went to Farrington, and took 200 horse and 60 foot, and were like to take the garrison."] 1 Sprigge, p. 14^. 2 [Mr. Firth thinks Heath's story improbable ' ' as Dalbier served under Essex, and not in the army of the Eastern Association ". See life of Dalbier, Diet. Nat. Biog. Supplement.] = ist April 1646 (Rushworth. vi. 252). 4 24th September 1645 (Rushworth, vi. 117 ; Lord Digby's account of it, Ormond Papers, ii. 90). B Hopton's own account of it, Ormond Papers, ii. 109-26. 6 Rushworth, vi. 139-41. 232 FIRST CIVIL WAR [27 April On Monday night, towards twelve of the clock, 27th April 1646, the King in disguise rode out of Oxford, somewhat un- certain whitherward, — at length towards Newark and the-Scots Army. 1 On the Wednesday before, Oliver Cromwell had returned to his place in Parliament. 2 Many detached Castles and Towns still held out, Ragland Castle even till the next August ; scattered fires of an expiring conflagration, that need to be extinguished with effort and in detail. Of all which victorious sieges, with their elaborate treaties and moving accidents, the theme of every tongue during that old Summer, let the following one brief glimpse, notable on private grounds, suffice us at present. Oxford, the Royalist metropolis, a place full of Royalist digni- taries, and of almost inexpugnable strength, had it not been so disheartened from without, — was besieged by Fairfax himself in the first days of May. There was but little fighting, there was much negotiating, tedious consulting of Parliament and King ; the treaty did not end in surrender till Saturday 20th June. And now, dated on the Monday before, at Holton, a country Parish in those parts, there is this still legible in the old Church Register, — intimately interesting to some friends of ours ! 'Henry Ireton, Commissary-General to Sir Thomas Fairfax, 'and Bridget, Daughter to Oliver Cromwell, Lieutenant- ' General of the Horse to the said Sir Thomas Fairfax, — were 'married, by Mr. Dell, in the Lady Whorwood her House in ' Holton, 15th June 1646. — Alban Eales, Rector. 3 Ireton, we are to remark, was one of Fairfax's Commissioners on the Treaty for surrendering Oxford, and busy under the walls there at present : Holton is some five miles east of the City ; Holton House we guess by various indications to have been Fairfax's, own quarter. Dell, already and afterwards well known, was the General's Chaplain at this date. Of ' the Lady Whorwood ' I have traces, rather in the Royalist direction ; her 1 Rushworth, vi. 267 ; Iter Carolinum. [At three in the morning of the 27th, Payne says. See Cary, Memorials of the Civil War, i. p. 12.] 3 Cromwelliana, p. 31. [ " The ever-renowned and never to be forgotten Lieut. - Gen. Cromwell came this day [23rd] into the House of Commons and sat there as a member, the house much rejoicing at his presence and welfare " and desiring Mr. Speaker to give him hearty thanks for his great services, "which Mr. Speaker did accordingly." (Perfect Diurnal, E. 506. (35).] 3 Parish Register of Holton (copied, Oct. 1846). Poor Noble (i. 134) seems to have copied this same Register, and to have misread his own Note : giving instead of Holton, Nalton, an imaginary place ; and instead of June, January, an .mpos- sible date. See antea, p. 62 ; postea. Letter XLI. p. 245. 1646.] LETTER XXXV., NEW MEMBERS 233 strong moated House, very useful to Fairfax in those weeks, still stands conspicuous in that region, though now under new figure and ownership ; drawbridge become fixed, deep ditch now dry, moated island changed into a flower-garden ; — ' rebuilt in 1807.' Fairfax's Lines, we observe, extended 'from Heading- ton Hill to Marston,' several miles in advance of Holton House, then ' from Marston across the Cherwell, and over from that to 'the Isis on the North side of the City;' southward and else- where, the besieged, 'by a dam at St. Clement's Bridge, had laid the country all under water : ' ] — in such scene, with the treaty just ending and general Peace like to follow, did Ireton welcome his Bride, — a brave young damsel of twenty-one ; escorted, doubtless by her Father among others, to the Lord General's house ; and there, by the Rev. Mr. Dell, solemnly handed over to new destinies ! This wedding was on Monday 1 5th June ; 2 on Saturday came the final signing of the treaty : and directly thereupon, on Monday next, Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice took the road, with their attendants, and their passes to the sea-coast ; a sight for the curious. On Tuesday ' there went about 300 persons, mostly of quality ; ' and on Wednesday all the Royalist force, ' 3,000 ' (or say 2,000) ' to the Eastward, 500 to the North ; ' with ' drums beating, colours flying,' for the last time ; all with passes, with agitated thoughts and outlooks : and in sacred Oxford, as poor Wood intimates, 8 the abomination of desolation supervened ! — Oxford surrendering with the King's sanction quickened other surrenders ; Ragland Castle itself, and the obstinate old Marquis, gave in before the end of August : and the First Civil War, to the last ember of it, was extinct. The Parliament, in these circumstances, was now getting itself 'recruited,' — its vacancies filled up again. The Royalist Mem- bers who had deserted three years ago, had been, without much difficulty, successively ' disabled,' as their crime came to light : but to issue new writs for new elections, while the quarrel with the King still lasted, was a matter of more delicacy ; this too, however, had at length been resolved upon, the Parliament Cause now looking so decidedly prosperous, in the Autumn of 1645. Gradually, in the following months, the new Members 1 Rushworth, vi. 279-285. 2 [In the Supplement (No. 16) will be found a letter to the Earl of Clare, written the day after the wedding.] 8 Fasti, ii. 58, sec. edit. 234 FIRST CIVIL WAR [1646. were elected, above Two-hundred-and-thirty of them in all. These new Members, ' Recruiters,' as Anthony Wood and the Royalist world reproachfully call them, were by the very fact of their standing candidates in such circumstances, decided Puritans all, — Independents many of them. Colonel, afterwards Admiral Blake (for Taunton), Ludlow, Ireton (for Appleby), Algernon Sidney, Hutchinson, known by his Wife's Memoirs, were among these new members. Fairfax, on his Father's death some two years hence, likewise came in. 1 1 The Writ is issued 16th March 1647-8 (Commons Journals). PART III BETWEEN THE TWO CIVIL WARS 1646—1648 LETTERS XXXVI— XLII The conquering of the King had been a difficult operation ; but to make a Treaty with him now when he was conquered, proved an impossible one. The Scots, to whom he had fled, entreated him, at last, ' with tears ' and ' on their knees,' to take the Covenant, and sanction the Presbyterian worship, if he could not adopt it : on that condition they would fight to the last man for him ; on no other condition' durst or would a man of them fight for him. The English Presbyterians, as yet the dominant party, earnestly entreated to the same effect. In vain, both of them. The King had other schemes : the King, writing privately to Digby before quitting Oxford, when he had some mind to venture privately on London, as he ultimately did on the Scotch Camp, to raise Treaties and Caballings there, had said, " — endeavouring " to get to London ; being not without hope that I shall be able "so to draw either the Presbyterians or the Independents to " side with me for extirpating one another, that I shall be really " King again." 1 Such a man is not easy to make a Treaty with, — on the word of a King ! In fact, his Majesty, though a belli- gerent party who had not now one soldier on foot, considered himself still a tower of strength ; as indeed he was ; all men having a to us inconceivable reverence for him, till bitter Neces- sity and he together drove them away from it. Equivocations, 1 Oxford, 26th March 1646 ; Carte's Life ofOrmond, iii. (London, 1735), p. 452. (235) 236 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [27 July. spasmodic obstinacies, and blindness to the real state of facts, must have an end. — The following Seven Letters, of little or no significance for illustrating public affairs, are to carry us over a period of most intricate negotiation ; negotiation with the Scots, managed man- fully on both sides, otherwise it had ended in quarrel ; negotia- tions with the King ; infinite public and private negotiations ; — which issue at last in the Scots marching home with 200,000/. as ' a fair instalment of their arrears,' in their pocket ; and the King marching, under escort of Parliamentary Commissioners, to Holmby House in Northamptonshire, to continue in strict though very stately seclusion, ' on 50/. a day,' 1 and await the destinies there. LETTER XXXVI Knyvett, of Ashwellthorpe in Norfolk, is one of the un- fortunate Royalist Gentlemen whom Cromwell laid sudden hold of at Lowestoff, some years ago, and lodged in the Castle of Cambridge, — suddenly snuffing out their Royalist light in that quarter. Knyvett, we conclude, paid his ' contribution,' or due fine, for the business ; 2 got safe home again ; and has lived quieter ever since. Of whom we promised the reader some transitory glimpse once more. 3 Here accordingly is a remarkable Letter to him, now first ad- justed to its right place in this Series. The Letter used to be in the possession of the Lords Berners, whose ancestor this Knyvett was, one of whose seats this Ashwellthorpe in Norfolk still is. With them, however, there remains nothing but a Copy now, and that without date, and otherwise not quite correct. Happily it had already gone forth in print with date and address in full ; — has been found among the lumber and innocent marine-stores of Syhanus Urban, communicated, in an incidental way, by 'a Gentleman at Shrewsbury,' who, in 1787 4 had got possession of it, — honestly, we hope ; and to the comfort of readers here. 1 Whitlooke, p. 244. 2 [This is just what apparently he had not done. See p. 124s above.] 3 Antea, p. 123. 4 [This should be 1784.] 1646.] LETTER XXXVI. , LONDON 237 For my noble Friend Thomas Knyvett, Esquire, at his House at Ashrvellthorpe, Norfolk : These London, 27th July 1646. Sir, I cannot pretend to any interest in you for anything I have done, nor ask any favour for any service I may do you. But because I am conscious to myself of a readiness to serve any gentleman in all possible civilities, I am bold to be beforehand with you to ask your favour on the behalf of your honest poor neighbours of Hapton, who, as I am informed, are in some trouble, and are likely to be put to more, by one Robert Browne, your tenant, who, not well pleased with the way of those men, seeks their disquiet all he may. Truly nothing moves me to desire this, more than the pity I bear them in respect of their honesties, and the trouble I hear they are like to suffer for their consciences. And however the world interprets it, I am not ashamed to solicit for such as are anywhere under a pressure of this kind ; doing herein as I would be done by. Sir, this is a quarrelsome age ; and the anger seems to me to be the worse, where the ground is things of difference in opinion ; l which to cure, to hurt men in their names, persons or estates, will not be found an apt remedy. Sir, it will not repent you to protect those poor men of Hapton from injury and oppression : which that you would is the effect of this letter. Sir, you will not want the grateful acknowledgment, nor ut- most endeavours of requital from Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Hapton is a Parish and Hamlet some seven or eight miles south of Norwich, in the Hundred of Depwade ; it is within a mile or two of this Ashwellthorpe ; which was Knyvett's 1 [The words ' difference in ' are crossed over with the pen. Note, in Gentle- man's Magazine.] * Gentleman' s Magazine, 1787, [1784] liv. 337. 238 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAKS [31 July. residence at that time. What 'Robert Browne your Tenant' had in hand or view against these poor Parishioners of Hapton, must, as the adjoining circumstances are all obliterated, remain somewhat indistinct to us. We gather in general that the Parishioners of Hapton were a little given to Sectarian, In- dependent notions ; which Browne, a respectable Christian of the Presbyterian strain could not away with. The oppressed poor Tenants have contrived to make their case credible to Lieutenant-General Cromwell, now in his place in Parliament again ; — have written to him ; perhaps clubbed some poor six- pences, and sent up a rustic Deputation to him : and he, 'however bhe respectable Presbyterian world may interpret it, is not ashamed to solicit for them : ' with effect, either now or LETTER XXXVII For his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax, General of the Parliament's Forces ; 1 These ' London,' 31st July 1646. Sir, I was desired to write a letter to you by Adjutant Fleming. The end of it is, To desire your letter in his recommendation. He will acquaint you with the sum there- of, more particularly what the business is. I most humbly sub- mit to your better judgment, when you hear it from him. Craving pardon for my boldness in putting you to this trouble, I rest, Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Adjutant Fleming is in Sprigge's Army-list. I suppose him to be the Fleming who, as Colonel Fleming, in Spring 1 648, had rough service in South Wales two years afterwards ; and J At Ragland, or about leaving Bath for the purpose of concluding Ragland Siege (Rushworth, vi. 290). * Sloane MSS. 1519, fol. 70. [144. Signed only.] 1646.] LETTER XXXVII, LONDON 239 was finally defeated, — attempting to ' seize a Pass ' near Pem- broke Castle, then in revolt under Poyer; was driven into a Church, and there slain, — some say, slew himself. 1 Of Fleming's present ' business ' with Fairfax, whether it were to solicit promotion here, or continued employment in Ireland, nothing can be known. The War, which proved to be but the ' First War,' is now, as we said, to all real intents, ended : Ragland Castle, the last that held out for Charles, has been under siege for some weeks ; and Fairfax, who had been ' at the Bath for his health,' was now come or coming into those parts for the per- emptory reduction of it. 2 There have begun now to be discussions and speculations about sending men to Ireland ; 3 about sending Massey (famed Governor of Gloucester) to Ireland with men, and then also about disbanding Massey's men. Exactly a week before, 24th July 1646, the united Scots and Parliamentary Commissioners have presented their ' Propositions ' to his Majesty at Newcastle : 4 Yes or No, is all the answer they can take. They are most zealous that he should say Yes. Chancellor Loudon implores and prophesies in a very remark- able manner : " all England will rise against you ; they," these Sectarian Parties, "will process and depose you, and set up another Government," unless you close with the Propositions. 5 1 Rushworth, vii. 1097, 38: — a little 'before' 27th March 1648. [Captain Fleming was in Colonel Graves's regiment, and was Adjutant-General of the horse in the New Model army. He was captain of a troop of horse at Abingdon in 1645, under Major-General Browne, which was sent in July to join Fairfax's army (Cal. S. P. Dom. 1645-1647, p. 28). He is called captain as late as March 22, 1648, but spoken of as Colonel on April 7. (Cal. S. P. Dom. 1648, 1649, pp. 34, 41.) The news of his death reached London on April 29 (Rushworth vii. 1174).] 2 Ibid. vi. 293 ; — Fairfax's first Letter from Ragland is of 7th August ; 14th August he dates from Usk ; and Ragland is surrendered on the 17th. 3 Cromwelliana, April, 1646, p. 31. 4 [The Commissioners did not reach Newcastle until July 30, but Charles had received a copy of the Propositions at the end of June.] 5 [As the chief demands of the Propositions were that the King should accept the "Respectable Presbyterianism " of which Carlyle is so impatient, and should en- force the taking of the Covenant throughout the kingdom, it is difficult to see how closing with them would have put an end to the antagonism of the sectaries. The following is Dr. Gardiner's account of the "haughty no." "It can surprise no one that Charles refused to give way ; but there can hardly be one, even amongst his most devoted admirers, who can approve of the manner in which, after rejecting the offer of the Scots, he replied to the English Commissioners. He did not flash out into becoming indignation at the suggestion that he should — as he would him- self have expressed it — abandon the Church, his crown and his friends. Neither did he clearly say what he was himself ready to grant. He merely handed to the Commissioners on August 1 a letter in which he complained of the difficulty of giving a decided answer in the short time allowed to him, and pressed once more for leave to come to London to discuss more thoroughly the points which had been raised, 240 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [10 Aug. His Majesty, on the 1st of August (writing at Newcastle, in the same hours whilst Cromwell writes this in London), answers in a haughty way, No. 1 LETTER XXXVIII August I Oth. The Parliamentary Commissioners have returned, and three of the leading Scots with them, — to see what is now to be done. The ' Chancellor ' who comes with Argyle is Loudon, the Scotch Chancellor, a busy man in those years. Fairfax is at Bath ; and ' the Solicitor,' St. John, the Shipmoney Lawyer, is there with him. For his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax, the General : These London, ioth August 1646. Sir, Hearing you were returned from Ragland to the Bath, I take the boldness to make this address unto you. Our Commissioners sent to the King came this night to Lon- don. 2 I have spoken with two of them, and can only learn these generals, That there appears a good inclination in the Scots to the rendition of our town, 3 and to their march out of the King- dom. When they bring in their papers, we shall know more. Argile, the Chancellor, and Dunfarlin are come up. Duke of Hamilton is gone from the King into Scotland. I hear that Montrose his men are not disbanded. The King gave a very general answer. Things are not well in Scotland ; would they were in England ! We are full of faction and worse. I hear for certain that Ormond hath concluded a Peace with the Rebels. 4 Sir, I beseech you command the Solicitor to come He would never, he vaguely added, ' consent to anything destructive to that just power which by the laws of God and the land, he is born unto,' but on the other hand he was ready to pass all bills ' really for the good and peace of his people.' " Great Civil War, vol. iii. p. 133.] 1 Rushworth, vi. 319-21. 3 Commons Journals, nth Aug, 1646. 3 [z. e. , Newcastle. ] 4 [Proclaimed on July 30. ] 1646.] LETTER XXXVIII., LONDON 241 away to us. His help would be welcome. Sir, I hope you have not cast me off. Truly I may say, no [one] more affectionately honours nor loves you. You and yours are in my daily prayers. You have done enough to command the uttermost of, Your faithfullest and most obedient servant, Oliver Cromwell.* 'P.S.' I beseech you, my humble service may be presented to your Lady. ' P.S. 2d.' l The money for disbanding Massey's men is got- ten, and you will speedily have directions about them from the Commons House. ' Our Commissioners ' to Charles at Newcastle, who have re- turned ' this night,' were : Earls Pembroke and Suffolk, from the Peers ; from the Commons, Sir Walter Earle (Weymouth), Sir John Hippesley (Cockermouth), Robert Goodwin (East Grinstead, Sussex), Luke Robinson (Scarborough). 2 ' Duke of Hamilton : ' the Parliamentary Army found him in Pendennis Castle, — no, in St. Michael's Mount Castle, — when they took these places in Cornwall lately. The Parliament has let him loose again ; — he has begun a course of new diplomacies, which will end still more tragically for him. Ormond is, on application from the Parliament, ostensibly ordered by his Majesty not to make peace with the outlaw Irish rebels ; detestable to all men : — but he of course follows his own judgment of the necessities of the case, being now nearly over with it himself, and the King under restraint unable to give any real ' orders.' The truth was, Ormond' s Peace, odious to all English Protestants, had been signed and finished in March last ; with this condition among others, That an Army of 10,000 Irish were to come over and help his Majesty ; which truth is now beginning to ooze out. A new Ormond Peace : — not materially different I think from the late very sad Glamorgan one ; which had been made in secret, through the Earl of Glamorgan, in Autumn last ; and then, when by ill chance it came to light, had * Shane MSS. 1519, fol. 63. [131. Holograph, sealed with the Cromwell arms.] 1 This second Postscript has been squeezed-in above the other, and is evidently written after it. 2 Rushworth, vi. 309, where the proposals are also given. VOL. I. 16 242 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [10 Aug. needed to be solemnly denied in Winter following, and the Earl of Glamorgan to be thrown into prison to save appearances ! On the word of an unfortunate King ! J — It would be a comfort to understand farther, what the fact soon proves, that this new Peace also will not hold ; the Irish Priests and Pope's Nuncios disapproving of it. Even while Oliver writes, an Excommunica- tion or some such Document is coming out, signed " Frater O'Farrel," " Abbas O'Teague," and the like names : poor Ormond going to Kilkenny, to join forces with the Irish rebels, is treacher- ously set upon, and narrowly escapes death by them. 2 Concerning 'the business of Massey's men,' there are some notices in Ludlow. 3 The Commons had ordered Fairfax to dis- band them, and sent the money, as we see here ; whereupon the Lords ordered him, Not. Fairfax obeyed the Commons ; apolo- gised to the Lords, — who had to submit, as their habit was. Massey's Brigade was of no particular religion ; Massey's Miscel- lany, — 'some of them will require passes to ^Ethiopia,' says ancient wit. But Massey himself was strong for Presbyterianism, for strict Drill-sergeantcy and Anti-heresy of every kind: the Lords thought his Miscellany and he might have been useful. 4 1 Rushworth, vi. 239-247 ; Birch's Inquiry concerning Glamorgan ; Carte's Ormond ; he. Correct details in Godwin, ii. 102-124. 2 Rushworth, vi. 416 ; Carte's Life of Ormond. [From the reference it appears that Carlyle means the Declaration of the " Congregation of both clergies of Ireland" on August 12, signed by the Nuncio, and many bishops and abbots. Low down in the list come the two names which Carlyle has selected ; O'Farrel, Provincial Prior of the preaching Friars, and O'Teg or O'Teige, not an abbot, but merely proctor for the Bishop of Armagh. Carlyle's account of Ormond's danger is exaggerated. He was summoned by the Supreme Council in consequence of the refusal of the Nuncio's party to accept the peace, and reached Kilkenny in safety ; but hearing that Owen O'Neil was on the march and that the tribes of Carlow and Wexford were preparing to rise, he withdrew to Dublin, to save himself from the risk of being taken prisoner. According to the author of the Aphorismical Dis- covery, the Nuncio and Congregation were so alarmed by Ormond's advance to Kilkenny, that they hastily retreated to Waterford, and summoned O'Neil to their rescue, " as they were in mighty danger to be taken prisoners ". But on hearing of O'Neil's approach, Ormond in his turn took fright, and hurried back to Dublin, "breathless and fearful as to a sanctuary," Gilbert's Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland, i. 125, 126.] ^Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow (London, 1722), ii. 181 [ed. Firth i., 141, also Appendix B. , ibid. 481.] 4 [Massey afterwards went over to the King. See his Life in the Diet. Mat. Biography. \ 1646] LETTEE XXXIX., LONDON 243 LETTER XXXIX His Excellency, in the following Letter, is Fairfax ; John Rushworth, worthy John, we already know ! Fairfax has returned to the Bath, still for his health ; Ragland being taken, and the War ended. For John Rushworth, Esquire, Secretary to his Excellency, at Bath : These The House 'of Commons,' 26th August ' 1646.' Mr. Rushworth, I must needs entreat a favour on the behalf of Major Lilburne, who has a long time wanted employment, and by reason thereof 1 his necessities may grow upon him. You should do very well to move the General to take him into favourable thoughts. I know, a reasonable employment will content him. As for his honesty and courage, I need not speak much of ' that,' seeing he is so well known both to the Genera and yourself. I desire you answer my expectation herein so far as you may. You shall very much oblige, Sir, Your real friend and servant, Oliver Cromwell.* This is not ' Freeborn John,' the Sectarian Lieutenant-Colonel once in my Lord of Manchester's Army ; the Lilburn whom Cromwell spoke for, when Sir Philip Warwick took note of him ; the John Lilburn ' who could not live without a quarrel ; 'who if he were left alone in the world would have to divide ' himself in two, and set the John to fight with Lilburn, and the ' Lilburn with John ! ' Freeborn John is already a Lieutenant- Colonel by title ; was not in the New Model at all ; is already deep in quarrels, — lying in limbo since August last, for abuse of 1 [Printed ' ' reason good " by Carlyle.] * Shane MSS. 1519, fol. 71 [f. 146] ; — Signature alone is Oliver's. 244 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [6 Oot. his old master Prynne. 1 He has quarrelled, or is quarrelling, with Cromwell too ; calls the Assembly of Divines an Assembly of Dry-vines ; — will have little else but quarrelling henceforth. — This is the Brother of Freeborn John ; one of his two Brothers. Not Robert, who already is or soon becomes a Colonel in the New Model, and does not 'want employment.' This is Henry Lil- bum : appointed, probably in consequence of this application, Governor of Tynemouth Castle : revolting to the Royalists, his own Soldiers slew him there, in 1648. These Lilburns were from Durham County. LETTER XL •'Delinquents,' conquered Royalists, are now getting them- selves fined 2 according to rigorous proportions, by a Parliament Committee, which sits, and will sit long, at Goldsmiths' Hall, making that locality very memorable to Royalist gentlemen. 3 The Staffordshire Committee have sent a Deputation up to Town. They bring a Petition ; very anxious to have 2,000/. out of their Staffordshire Delinquents from Goldsmiths' Hall, or even 4,000/., — to pay off their forces, and send them to Ireland ; which lie heavy on the County at present. 4 'Wood, iii. 353. 2 [The Lord Cromwell amongst the rest. See Oliver's letter on his behalf, Supplement, No. 17.] 3 The proceedings of it, all now in very superior order, still lie in the State-Paper Office. [Now at the Public Record Office. When Carlyle wrote this, the two great series known as the Royalist Composition Papers were already admirably arranged and had Manuscript indexes — had been partly arranged, indeed, by the officers of the Committee itself. But the great collection of records of the Com- mittee — order books, letter books, treasurers' books, &c. — as well as a mass of miscellaneous papers, were practically useless, in view of the immense labour of searching for notices of any particular person or place, until the publication, in the series of Calendars of State Papers, of the Calendar of Committee for Com- pounding, edited by Mrs. Everett Green, who brought together under one heading all notices of each of the seven thousand " cases" and upwards calendared in her volumes.] 4 [In the early days of the Parliament rule, the fines of delinquents were mostly paid in to the County Committees, who, after satisfying the claims made upon them by their county forces, their own expenses, &c. , sent the balance (often a very small one, and truly it is a wonder there was any at all) to the central Committee. But after the royalists were allowed to compound directly at Goldsmiths' Hall, the County Committees were often hard put to it to get money enough to answer the demands made upon them.] 1646.] LETTER XLL, LONDON 245 For his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax, ' General of the Parliament's Army : ' These London, 6th October 1646. Sir, I would be loath to trouble you with anything ; but indeed the Staffordshire Gentlemen came to me this day, and with more than ordinary importunity did press me to give their desires furtherance to you. Their letter will show what they entreat of you. Truly, Sir, it will not be amiss to give them what ease may well be afforded, and the sooner the better, especially at this time. 1 I have no more at present, but to let you know the business of your Army is like to come on tomorrow. You shall have account of that business so soon as I am able to give it. I humbly take leave, and rest, Your Excellency's most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* The Commons cannot grant the prayer of this Petition ; 2 Staffordshire will have to rest as it is for some time. 'The business of your army ' did come on 'tomorrow ; ' and assessments for a new six-months were duly voted for it, and other proper arrangements made. 3 LETTER XLI Colonel Ireton, now Commissary-General Ireton, was wedded, as we saw, to Bridget Cromwell on the 1 5th of June last. A man ' able with his pen and his sword ; ' a distinguished man. 1 ' and the sooner,' &c. . these words are inserted above the line, by way of caret and afterthought. 2 7th December 1646, Commons Journals, v. 3. 3 7th October 1646, Ibid. , iv. 687. * Sloane MSS. 1519, fol. 72 [f. 148] — Oliver's own hand.— Note, his signature seems generally to be Oliver Cromwell, not O. Cromwell ; to which practice we conform throughout, though there are exceptions to it. [The exceptions are probably quite as numerous — and if we include all his army warrants, very much more numerous — than the rule.] 246 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [25 Oct. Once B.A. of Trinity College, Oxford, and Student of the Middle Temple ; then a gentleman trooper in my Lord General Essex's Life-guard ; now Colonel of Horse, soon Member of Parlia- ment : rapidly rising. A Nottinghamshire man ; has known the Lieutenant-General ever since the Eastern-Association times. Cornbury House, not now conspicuous on the maps, is discoverable in Oxfordshire, disguised as Blandford Lodge, — not too far from the Devizes, at which latter Town Fairfax and Ireton have just been, disbanding Massey's Brigade. The following Letter will require no commentary. For my beloved Daughter Bridget Ireton, at Cornbury, the General's Quarters : These London, 25th October 1646. Dear Daughter, I write not to thy husband ; partly to avoid trouble, for one line of mine begets many of his, which I doubt makes him sit up too late ; partly because I am myself indisposed 1 at this time, having some other considerations. Your friends at Ely are well : your Sister Claypole is (I trust in mercy) exercised with some perplexed thoughts. She sees her own vanity and carnal mind, bewailing it : she seeks after (as I hope also) that which will satisfy. And thus to be a seeker 2 is to be of the best sect next to a finder ; and such an one shall every faithful humble seeker be at the end. Happy seeker, happy finder ! Who ever tasted that the Lord is gracious, with- out some sense of self, vanity, and badness ? Who ever tasted that graciousness of His, and could go less 3 in desire, and less than pressing after full enjoyment ? Dear Heart, press on ; let not husband, let not anything cool thy affections after Christ. I hope he 4 will be an occasion to inflame them. That which is best worthy of love in thy husband is that of the image of Christ he bears. Look on that, and love it best, and all the rest for that. I pray for thee and him ; do so for me. 1 not in the mood at this time, having other matters in view. '[Probably an allusion to the sect known as the Seekers.] less is an adjective ; to go, in such case, signifies to become, as ' go mad,' &c. * thy husband. 1646] LETTER XLIL, LONDON 247 My service and dear affections to the General and Generaless. I hear she is very kind to thee ; it adds to all other obligations. My love to all. I am Thy dear Father, Oliver Cromwell.* Bridget Ireton is now Twenty-two. Her Sister Claypole (Elizabeth Cromwell) is five years younger. They were both wedded last Spring. ' Your Friends at Ely ' will indicate that the Cromwell Family was still resident in that city ; 1 though, I think, they not long afterwards removed to London. Their first residence here was King-Street, Westminster ; 2 Oliver for the present lodges in Drury Lane : fashionable quarters both, in those times. 3 General Fairfax had been in Town only three days before, at- tending poor Essex's funeral : a mournful pageant, consisting of ' both the Houses, Fairfax and all the Civil and Military Officers 'then in Town, the forces of the City, a very great number 'of coaches and multitudes of people ; ' with Mr. Vines to preach ; — regardless of expense, 5,000/. being allowed for it.* LETTER XLII The intricate Scotch negotiations have at last ended. The paying of the Scots their first instalment, and getting them to march away in peace, and leave the King to our disposal, is the great affair that has occupied Parliament ever since his Majesty refused the Propositions. Not till Monday the 21st December * ' A Copy of Oliver Cromwell's Letter to his Daughter Ireton, exactly taken from the Original.' Harkian MSS. no. 6988, fol. 224 (not mentioned in Harleian Catalogue). — In another Copy sent me, which exactly corresponds, is this Note: ■ Memo : The above Letter of Oliver Cromwell Jn° Caswell Merch' of London had ' from his Mother Linington, who had it from old Mrs. Warner, who HVd with Oliver ' Cromwell's Daughter. And was Copied from the Original Letter, which is in the ' hands of John Warner Esq? of Swanzey, by Cha 8 Norris, 25th Mar : 1749.' 1 See also Appendix, No. 8, last Letter there (Note to Third Edition.) 2 Cromwelliana, p. 60. 8 [They had come up in the summer, and their first residence was in Drury Lane. They moved to King Street the following year.] 4 Rushworth, vi. 339 ; Whitlocke, p. 230, 248 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAES [21 Deo. could it be got 'perfected' or 'almost perfected.' After a busy- day spent in the Commons House on that affair, 1 Oliver writes the following Letter to Fairfax. The ' Major-General ' is Skippon. Fairfax, ' since he left Town,' is most likely about Nottingham, the head-quarters of his Army, which had been drawing rather northward, ever since the King appeared among the Scots. Fairfax came to Town 12th November, with great splendour of reception ; left it again ' 1 8th December.' On the morrow after that, 19th December 1646, the Londoners presented their Petition, not without tumult ; complaining of heavy expenses and other great grievances from the Army ; and craving that the same might be, so soon as possible disbanded, and a good Peace with his Majesty made. 2 The first note of a very loud controversy which arose between the City and the Army, between the Presbyterians and the Inde- pendents, on that matter. Indeed the humour of the City seems to be getting high ; impatient for ' a just peace' now that the King is reduced. On Saturday 6th December, it was ordered that the Lord Mayor be apprised of tumultuous as- semblages which there are, ' to the disturbance of the peace ; ' and be desired to quench them, — if he can. For his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax, General of the Parliament's Armies : These London, 21st December 1646. Sir, Having this opportunity by the Major-General to present a few lines unto you, I take the boldness to let you know how our affairs go since you left the Town. We have had a very long Petition from the City : how it strikes at the Army, and what other aims it has, you will see by the contents of it ; as also what the prevailing temper is at this present, and what is to be expected from men. But this is our comfort, God is in heaven, and He doth what pleaseth Him ; His and only His counsel shall stand, whatever the designs of men, and the fury of the people be. 1 Commons Journals, v. 22, 23. ' Kings Pamphlets, small 4to, no. 390 [E, 366, 14] (cited by Godwin, ii, a6o), 1646.] LETTEE XLIL, LONDON 249 We have now, I think, almost 1 perfected all our business for Scotland. I believe Commissioners will speedily be sent down to see agreements performed ; it's intended that Major-General Skippon have authority and instructions from your Excellency to command the Northern Forces, as occasion shall be, and that he have a Commission of Martial Law. Truly I hope that the having the Major-General to command 2 this Party will appear to be a good thing, every day more and more. Here has been a design to steal away the Duke of York from my Lord of Northumberland : one of his own servants, whom he preferred to wait on the Duke, is found guilty of it ; the Duke himself confessed so. I believe you will suddenly hear more of it. 1 have no more to trouble you ' with ; ' but praying for you, rest, Your Excellency's most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Skippon, as is well known, carried up the cash, 200,000/., to Newcastle successfully, in a proper number of wagons ; got it all counted there, 'bags of 100/., chests of 1000/.,' (5th- 16th January 1 6*6-7) ; after which the Scots marched peaceably away. The little Duke of York, entertained in a pet-captive fashion at St. James's, did not get away at this time ; but managed it, by and by, with help of a certain diligent intriguer and turncoat called Colonel Bamfield ; 3 of whom we may hear farther. On Thursday, 11th February 1646-7, on the road between Mansfield and Nottingham, — road between Newcastle and Holm- by House, — ' Sir Thomas Fairfax went and met the King ; who 1 ' almost ' is inserted with a caret. 2 At this point, the bottom of the page being reached, Oliver takes to the broad margin, and writes the remainder there lengthwise, continuing till there is barely room for his signature, on the outmost verge of the sheet ; which, as we remarked already, is a common practice with him in writing Letters : — he is always loath to turn the page ; — having no blotting-fafer at that epoch ; having only sand to dry his ink with, and a natural indisposition to pause till he finish ! ' Clarendon, iii. 188. * Sloane MSS. 1519, fol. 78, p. 147. [f. 150. Holograph.] 250 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAES [March. ' stopped his horse ; Sir Thomas alighted, and kissed the King's ' hand ; and afterwards mounted, and discoursed with the King * as they passed towards Nottingham.' l The King had left New- castle on the 3d of the month ; got to Holmby, or Holdenby, on the 13th; — and 'there,' says the poor Iter Carolinum, 'during pleasure.' LETTERS XLIII, XLIV Before reading these two following Letters, read this Extract from a work still in Manuscript, and not very sure of ever getting printed : 'The Presbyterian "Platform" of Church Government, as ' recommended by the Assembly of Divines or " Dry- Vines," has ' at length, after unspeakable debatings, passings and re passings ' through both Houses, and soul's-travail not a little, about '"ruling-elders," "power of the keys," and such like, — been ' got finally passed, though not without some melancholy shades ' of Erastianism, or " the Voluntary Principle," as the new phrase ' runs. The Presbyterian Platform is passed by Law ; and Lon- ' don and other places, busy " electing their ruling-elders," are 'just about ready to set it actually on foot. And now it is hoped ' there will be some " uniformity " as to that high matter. ' Uniformity of free-growing healthy forest-trees is good ; uni- ' formity of clipt Dutch-dragons is not so good ! The question, 'Which of the two? is by no means settled, — though the * Assembly of Divines, and majorities of both Houses, would fain 'think it so. The general English mind, which, loving good 1 Whitlocke, p. 274 ; Iter Carolinum (in Somers Tracts, vi. [v.] 274) : Whitlocke's date, as usual, is inexact. [So is the Iter. Fairfax met the King on Friday, the 12th. "Yesterday," says a news-letter, "his Majesty came from Mansfield, and the General went out to meet him" — met him two miles from the town, as other letters say, and escorted him into Nottingham. " Upon the 13th of February, being Saturday, the King's Majesty at seven of the clock in the morning went out of Nottingham attended by the General and officers " (E. 377, No. 12). He meant to have reached Holmby on Monday night, the 15th, but did not arrive there until the next day. " There were great triumphs at Northampton on Tuesday last when the tidings were brought that his Majesty was near Holmby. The bells rang and the great guns went off. . . . Multitudes of people resorted to welcome his Majesty, the road from Harborow to Holmby being adorned with thousands and thousands of spectators crying with a loud voice ' God bless your Majesty '. The King smiling upon them passed along cheerfully, saying he hoped this journey would prove a prosperous voyage both to him and his posterity." (IHd. No. 16. ).] 1647.] LETTERS XLIIL, XLIV. 251 ' order in all things, loves regularity even at a high price, could 'be content with this Presbyterian scheme, which we call the ' Dutch- dragon one ; but a deeper portion of the English mind ' inclines decisively to growing in the forest-tree way, — and indeed ' will shoot out into very singular excrescences, Quakerisms and 'what not, in the coming years. Nay already we have Ana- ' baptists, Brownists, Sectaries and Schismatics springing up very ' rife : already there is a Paul Best, brought before the House of ' Commons for Socinianism ; nay we hear of another distracted 'individual who seemed to maintain, in confidential argument, ' that " God was mere Reason." x There is like to be need of ' garden-shears, at this rate ! The devout House of Commons, ' viewing these things with a horror inconceivable in our loose ' days, knows not well what to do. London City cries, " Apply ' the shears ! " — the Army answers, " Apply them gently ; cut off ' nothing that is sound ! " The question of garden-shears, and ' how far you are to apply them, is really difficult ; — the settling ' of it will lead to very unexpected results. London City knows * with pain, that there are " many persons in the Army who have 'never yet taken the Covenant;" the Army begins to consider ' it unlikely that certain of them will ever take it ! ' — These things premised, we have only to remark farther, that the House of Commons, meanwhile, struck with devout horror, has, with the world generally, spent Wednesday the 10th of March 1646-7, as a Day of Fasting and Humiliation for Blas- phemies and Heresies. 2 Cromwell's Letter, somewhat remark- able for the grieved mind it indicates 3 was written next day. Fairfax with the Army is at Saffron Walden in Essex ; there is an Order this day 4 that he is to quarter where he sees best. There are many Officers about Town ; soliciting payments, attending private businesses : their tendency to Schism, to Ana- baptistry and Heresy, or at least to undue tolerance for all that, is well known. This Fast-day, it would seem, is regarded as a 1 Whitlocke. 2 Ibid., p. 243. 3 [A manifest attack upon him had been made in the Resolutions of the House on March 8, that except the Lord General, there should remain no officer in the new army of horse and dragoons, of higher rank than a colonel. Dr. Gardiner suggests that " it was probably on this occasion that the bitterness of his soul found expres- sion in a conversation with Ludlow. ' It is a miserable thing,' he is reported to have said, ' to serve a Parliament, to which let a man be never so faithful, if one pragmatical fellow amongst them rise and asperse him, he shall never wipe it off, whereas, when one serves a general, he may do as much service and yet be free from all blame and envy.'" Great Civil War, iii. 221.] 4 Commons Journals, v. no, 252 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [11 March. kind of covert rebuke to them. Fast-day was Wednesday ; this is Thursday evening : LETTER XLIII For his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax, General of the Parliament's Army, 'at Saffron Walden:' These ' London, nth March 1646.' 1 Sir, Your letters about your new quarters, 2 directed to the Houses, 3 came seasonably, and were to very good purpose. There want not, in all places, men who have so much malice against the army as besots them : the late Petition, which sug- gested a dangerous design upon the Parliament in ' your ' coming to those quarters 4 doth sufficiently' evidence the same : but they got nothing by it, for the House did assoil the army from all suspicion, and have left you to quarter where you please. 6 Never were the spirits of men more embittered than now. Surely the Devil hath but a short time. Sir, it's good the heart be fixed against all this. The naked simplicity of Christ, with that wisdom He please to give, and patience, will overcome all this. That God. would keep your heart as He has done hitherto, is the prayer of Your Excellency's most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell. 'P.S.' 6 I desire my most humble service maybe presented to my Lady. — Mr. Allen 2 desires Colonel Baxter, 7 sometime 1 [Dr. Gardiner is inclined to put the date of this letter a few days later.] a [Carlyle printed "head" quarters and "adjutant" Allen, but the words are quite plainly as given above.] 3 Commons Journals, v. no, nth March 1646 (Letter is dated Saffron Walden, 9th March). 4 Saffron Walden, in the Eastern Association : 'Not to quarter in the Eastern Association,' had the Lords, through Manchester their Speaker, lately written (Commons Journals, infra) ; but without effect. 6 Commons Journals, v. no, nth March 1646. 6 Written across on the margin, according to custom, ''[i.e., Col. John Barkstead.] 1647.] LETTER XLIV., LONDON 253 Governor of Reading, may be remembered. I humbly desire Colonel Overton may not be out of your remembrance. He is a deserving man, and presents his humble service to you. Upon the Fast- [day divers] soldiers were raised (as I hear), both horse and foot, near 200 in Covent Garden, To prevent [us soldiers] from cutting the Presbyterians' throats ! These are fine tricks to mock God with.* This flagrant insult to ' us soldiers,' in Covent Garden and doubtless elsewhere, as if the zealous Presbyterian Preacher were not safe from violence in bewailing Schism, — is very significant. The Lieutenant-General himself might have seen as well as ' heard ' it, — for he lived hard by, in Drury Lane I think ; but was of course at his own Church, bewailing Schism too, though not in so strait-laced a manner. — Oliver's Sister Anna, Mrs Sewster, of Wistow, Huntingdon- shire, had died in these months, 1st November 1646. 1 Among her little girls is one, Robina, for whom there is a distinguished Scotch Husband in store ; far off as yet, an 'Ensign in the French Army ' as yet, William Lockhart by name ; of whom we may hear more. This Letter lies contiguous to Letter XXXIV. in the Sloane Volume : Letter XXXIV. is sealed conspicuously with red wax ; this Letter, as is fit, with black. The Cromwell crest, ' lion with ring on his fore-gamb,' — the same big seal, — is on both. LETTER XLIV Commons Journals, 17th March 1646: 'Ordered, That the Com- * mittee of the Army do write unto the General, and acquaint ' him that this House takes notice of his care in ordering that ' none of the Forces under his Command should quarter nearer * Sloane MSS. 1519, fol. 62. [f. 129]. [The words now placed in square brackets were supplied by Carlyle, though he did not indicate the fact. The original is too much damaged in these two places for us to know what the actual words were, but in the second hiatus they cannot have been " us soldiers ", as the last three letters are visible and are ies, oes or ces ; also the army was not in London. Perhaps it should be " the sectaries."] !See antea, p. 17 ; and Noble, i. 89. 254 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [19 March. ' than Five-and-twenty Miles of this City : That notwithstanding ' his care and directions therein, the House is informed that some f of his Forces are quartered much nearer than that; and To ' desire him to take course that his former Orders, touching the ' quartering of his Forces no nearer than Twenty-five Miles, may 'be observed.' For his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax, General of the Parliament's Army : These London, 19th March 1646. Sir, This enclosed order I received ; but, I suppose, letters from the Committee of the Army to the effect of this are come to your hands before this time. I think it were very good that the distance of twenty-five miles be very strictly observed ; and they are to blame that have exceeded the distance, contrary to your former appointment. This letter I received this evening from Sir William Massam, 1 a member of the House of Commons ; which I thought fit to send you ; his house being much within the distance of twenty-five miles of London. I have sent the officers down, as many as I could well light of. Not having more at present, I rest, Your Excellency's most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* The troubles of the Parliament and Army are just beginning. The order for quartering beyond twenty-five miles from London, and many other ' orders ' were sadly violated in the course of this season. 'Sir W. Massam's House,' 'Otes in Essex/ is a place known to us since the beginning of these Letters. The Officers ought really to go down to their quarters in the Eastern Counties ; Oliver has sent them off, as many of them as he ' could well light of.' The Presbyterian System is now fast getting into action : on the 20th of May 1647, the Synod of London, with due Prolocutor 1 Masham. * Sloane MSS. 1519, fol. 74. [f. 151. Holograph.] 1647.] ARMY MANIFESTO 255 or Moderator, met in St. Paul's. 1 In Lancashire too the System is fairly on foot ; but I think in other English Counties it was somewhat lazy to move, and never came rightly into action, owing to impediments. — Poor old Laud is condemned of treason, and beheaded, years ago ; the Scots, after Marston Fight, press- ing heavy on him; Prynne too being very ungrateful. That ' performance ' of the Service to the Hyperborean populations in so exquisite a way, has cost the Artist dear ! He died very gently ; his last scene much the best, for himself and for us. The two Hothams also, and other traitors, have died. ARMY MANIFESTO Our next entirely authentic Letter is at six months distance : a hiatus not unfrequent in this Series ; but here most especially to be regretted ; such a crisis in the affairs of Oliver and of England transacting itself in the interim. The Quarrel between City and Army, which we here see begun ; the split of the Parliament into two clearly hostile Parties of Presbyterians and Indepen- dents, represented by City and Army ; the deadly wrestle of these two Parties, with victory to the latter, and the former flung on its back, and its ' Eleven Members ' sent beyond Seas : all this transacts itself in the interim, without autograph note or indisputably authentic utterance of Oliver's to elucidate it for us. 2 We part with him labouring to get the Officers sent down to Saffron Walden ; sorrowful on the Spring Fast-day in Covent Garden : we find him again at Putney in Autumn ; the insulted Party now dominant, and he the most important man in it. One Paper which I find among the many published on that occasion, and judge pretty confidently, by internal evidence, to be of his writing, is here introduced ; and there is no other that I know of. How this Quarrel between City and Army, no agreement with the King being for the present possible, went on waxing ; 1 Rushworth, vi. 489 ; Whitlocke (p. 249) dates wrong. a [This hiatus is now very much filled up by the notes on the meetings of the Council of the Army found by Mr. Firth amongst the Clarke MSS. (See Supple- ment, Nos. 21-25, a °d for letters, Appendix 10 and Supplement, 18-20, 33.) For a concise account of the position of the army at this time, in relation to its own officers, the Parliament and the King, see Mr. Firth's Preface to Clarke Papers vol. i.] 256 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [10 June. developing itself more and more visibly into a Quarrel between Presbyterianism and Independency ; attracting to the respective sides of it the two great Parties in Parliament and in England generally : all this the reader must endeavour to imagine for himself, — very dimly, as matters yet stand. In books, in Narra- tives old or new, he will find little satisfaction in regard to it. The old Narratives, written all by baffled enemies of Cromwell, 1 are full of mere blind rage, distraction and darkness ; the new Narratives, believing only in ' Machiavelism,' &c, disfigure the matter still more. Common History, old and new, represents Cromwell as having underhand, — in a most skilful and indeed prophetic manner, — fomented or originated all this commotion of the elements ; steered his way through it by ' hypocrisy,' by 'master-strokes of duplicity,' and such like. As is the habit hitherto of History. 'The fact is,' says a Manuscript already cited from, 'poor ' History, contemporaneous and subsequent, has treated this ' matter in a very sad way. Mistakes, misdates ; exaggerations, ' unveracities, distractions ; all manner of misseeings and mis- 'notings in regard to it, abound. How many grave historical 'statements still circulate in the world, accredited by Bishop ' Burnet and the like, which on examination you will find melt 'away into after-dinner rumours, — gathered from ancient red- ' nosed Presbyterian gentlemen, Harbottle Grimston and Com- 'pany, sitting over claret under a Blessed Restoration, and 'talking to the loosely recipient Bishop in a very loose way! ' Statements generally with some grain of harmless truth, mis- ' interpreted by those red-nosed honourable persons ; frothed up ' into huge bulk by the loquacious Bishop above mentioned, and 'so set floating on Time's Stream. Not very lovely to us, they, ' nor the red-noses they proceed from ! I do not cite them here ; ' I have examined most of them ; found not one of them fairly ' believable ; — wondered to see how already in one generation, ' earnest Puritanism being hung on the gallows or thrown out in ' St. Margaret's Churchyard, the whole History of it had grown ' mythical, and men were ready to swallow all manner of nonsense ' concerning it. Ask for dates, ask for proofs : Who saw it, heard ' it ; when was it, where ? A misdate, of itself, will do much. ' So accurate a man as Mr. Godwin, generally very accurate in 1 Holles's Memoirs; Waller's Vindication of his Character; Clement Walker's History of Independency, &c. &c. 1647.] ARMY MANIFESTO 257 ' such matters, makes " a master-stroke of duplicity " merely by ' mistake of dating : l the thing when Oliver did say it, was a ' credible truth, and no master-stroke or stroke of any kind ! '"Master-strokes of duplicity ; " " false protestations ; " "fo- 'menting of the Army discontents:" alas, alas! It was not ' Cromwell that raised these discontents ; not he, but the ele- ' mental Powers ! Neither was it, I think, " by master-strokes of ' duplicity " that Cromwell steered himself victoriously across ' such a devouring chaos ; no, but by continuances of noble manful 'simplicity, I rather think, — by meaning one thing before God, * and meaning the same before men, not as a weak but as a strong ' man does. By conscientious resolution ; by sagacity, and silent ' wariness and promptitude ; by religious valour and veracity, — vy ' which, however it may fare with foxes, are really, after all, the ' grand source of clearness for a man in this world ! ' We here close our Manuscript. 2 Modern readers ought to believe that there was a real impulse of heavenly Faith at work in this Controversy ; that on both sides, more especially on the Army's side, here lay the central element of all ; modifying all other elements and passions ; — that this Controversy was, in several respects, very different from the common wrestling of Greek with Greek for what are called 1 Godwin, ii. 300, — citing Walker, p. 31 (should be p. 33). 2 [Mr. Firth says, in the Preface to vol. i. of the Clarke Papers : " The theory of Cromwell's opponents is that he first by his false protestations that the army should disband whensoever they should be commanded, induced the Parliament to pass the disbanding votes, and then, by means of the Agitators, induced the army to refuse to disband. This is the theory set forth by Colonel Wogan. It is also the theory of Clement Walker. ... A similar theory is embodied in Butler's well- known verses : — " So Cromwell with deep oaths and vows, Swore all the Commons out 0' th' house, Vowed that the red-coats should disband Ay marry would they, at their command ; And trolled them on, and swore and swore Till th' Army turned them out of door." — Hudibras, pt. 2, canto ii. But Mr. Firth goes on to show that on the very day when the first disbanding vote was passed, Cromwell was ' ' dangerously ill with an imposthume in his head " ; that his dissatisfaction with the policy of the Presbyterians was notorious ; that he stayed much away at this time both from the House and the Committee of both kingdoms, and that he even thought of leaving England and taking service under the Elector Palatine. The Clarke Papers show us what his attitude really was, and that he did his utmost, with all sincerity, to mediate between the army and the Parliament ; for which he was much abused by the extreme men, such as John Lilburn and Wildman.] VOL. I. 17 258 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAKS [10 June. 'Political objects!' — Modern readers, mindful of the French Revolution, will perhaps compare these Presbyterians and Inde- pendents to the Gironde and the Mountain. And there is an analogy ; yet with differences. With a great difference in the situations ; with the difference, too, between Englishmen and Frenchmen, which is always considerable; and then with the difference between believers in Jesus Christ and believers in Jean Jacques, which is still more considerable ! 1 A few dates, and chief summits of events, are all that can be indicated here, to make our ' Manifesto ' legible. From the beginnings of this year 1647 and earlier, there had often been question as to what should be done with the Army. The expense of such an Army, between twenty and thirty thou- sand men, was great ; the need of it, Royalism being now subdued, seemed small ; besides it was known that there were many in it who ' had never taken the Covenant,' and were never likely to take it. This latter point, at a time when Heresy seemed rising like a hydra, 2 and the Spiritualism of England was developing itself in really strange ways, became very important too, — became gradually most of all important, and the soul of the whole Controversy. Early in March, after much debating, it had been got settled that there should be Twelve-thousand men employed in Ireland 3 which was now in sad need of soldiers. The rest were, in some good way, to be disbanded. The ' way,' however, and whether it might really be a good way, gave rise to considerations. — With- out entering into a sea of troubles, we may state here in general that the things this Army demanded were strictly their just right : Arrears of pay, ' three-and-forty weeks ' of hard-earned pay ; indemnity for acts done in War ; and clear discharge ac- cording to contract, not service in Ireland except under known Commanders and conditions, — ' our old Commanders,' for ex- ample. It is also apparent that the Presbyterian party in Parlia- 1 [Mr. Morley says of this : " It would be nearer the mark to say that the sectaries were beforehand with Jean Jacques, and that half the troubles that confronted Cromwell and his men sprang from the fact that English sectaries were now saying to one another something very like what Frenchmen said in Rousseau's dialect a hundred and forty years later. " But surely Carlyle's meaning is more than this. Our English sectaries, in their wildest moods, never ceased to look up to something higher than mere earthly guidance, to some one above a mere human teacher. The goddess of reason was never enthroned in Westminster Abbey.] 2 See Edwards's Gangrcsna (London, 1646) for many furious details of it. 3 6th March, Commons Journals, v. 107, 1647.] AEMY MANIFESTO 259 ment, the leaders of whom were, several of them, Colonels of the Old Model, did not love this victorious Army ; that indeed they disliked and grew to hate it, useful as it had been to them. Denzil Holies, Sir William Waller, Harley, Stapleton, these men, all strong for Presbyterianism, were old unsuccessful Colonels or Generals under Essex ; and for very obvious reasons looked askance on this Army, and wished to be, so soon as possible, rid of it. The first rumour of a demur or desire on the part of the Army, rumour of some Petition to Fairfax by his Officers as to the ' way ' of their disbanding, was by these Old-Military Parliament men very angrily repressed ; nay, in a moment of fervour, they proceeded to decree that whoever had, or might have, a hand in promoting such Petition in the Army was an ' Enemy to the State, and a Disturber of the Public Peace,' — and sent forth the same in a ' Declaration of the 30th of March,' which became very celebrated afterwards. This unlucky ' Declaration,' Waller says, was due to Holies, who smuggled it one evening through a thin House. " Enemies to the State, Disturbers of the Peace : " it was a severe and too proud rebuke ; felt to be unjust, and looked upon as ' a blot of ignominy ; ' not to be forgotten, nor easily for- given, by the parties it was addressed to. So stood matters at the end of March. At the end of April they stand somewhat thus. Two Parlia- ment Deputations, Sir William Waller at the head of them, have been at Saffron Walden, producing no agreement : x five digni- taries of the Army, ' Lieutenant-General Hammond, Colonel Hammond, Lieutenant-Colonel Pride,' and two others, 2 have been summoned to the bar ; 3 some subalterns given into custody ; Ireton himself ' ordered to be examined ; ' — and no ' satisfaction to the just desires of the Army ; ' on the contrary, the ' blot of ignominy ' fixed deeper on it than before. We can conceive a universal sorrow and anger, and all manner of dim schemes and consultations going on at Saffron Walden and the other Army- quarters, in those days. Here is a scene from Whitlocke, worth looking at, which takes place in the Honourable House itself; date 30th April 1647 : 4 1 Waller, pp. 42-85. [March 21 ; April 14.] 2 [Oneofthe "two others" was Lieut. -Col. Grimes; the other, Robert Lilburn. Ireton was already in town. See Clarke Papers, i. xi.] 3 Commons Journals, v. 129 (29th March 1647). 4 Whitlocke, p. 249 ; Commons Journals in die ; and a fuller account in Rush- worth, vi. 474. [See also Clarke Papers, i. Appendix B. ] The ' Letter,' immediately referred to, is in Cary's Memorials (Selections from the Tanner MSS.; London, 1842), i. 201. 260 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAES [10 June. 'Debate upon the Petition and Vindication of the Army. ' Major-General Skippon, in the House, produced a Letter ' presented to him the day before by some Troopers, in behalf of 'Eight Regiments of the Army of" Horse. Wherein they ex- ' pressed some reasons, Why they could not engage in the service 'of Ireland under the present Conduct,' under the proposed Commandership, by Skippon and Massey ; ' and complained, Of 'the many scandals and false suggestions which were of late ' raised against the Army and their proceedings ; That they were ' taken as enemies ; That they saw designs upon them, and upon ' many of the Godly Party in the Kingdom ; That they could ' not engage for Ireland till they were satisfied in their expecta- ' tions, and their just desires granted. — Three Troopers, Edward 'Sexby, William Allen, Thomas Sheppard, who brought this ' Letter, were examined in the House, touching the drawing and ' subscribing of it ; and, Whether their Officers were engaged in ' it or not ? They affirmed, That it was drawn up at a Rendez- * vous of several of those Eight Regiments ; and afterwards at ' several 'meetings by Agents or Agitators, for each Regiment ; * and that few of their Officers knew or took notice of it. ' Those Troopers being demanded, Whether they had not been ' Cavaliers ? — it was attested by Skippon, that they had con- stantly served the Parliament, and some of them from the ' beginning of the War. Being asked concerning the meaning 'of some expressions in the Petition,' especially concerning '"certain men aiming at a Sovereignty," — 'they answered, That 'the Letter being a joint act of those Regiments, they could ' not give a punctual answer, being only Agents ; but if they ' might have the queries in writing, they would send or carry 'them to those Regiments, and return their own and their ' answers. — They were ordered to attend the House upon sum- ' mons.' Three sturdy fellows, fit for management of business ; let the reader note them. They are ' Agents ' to the Army : a class of functionaries called likewise * Adjutators ' and misspelt ' Agita- tors ; ' : elected by the common men of the Army, to keep the ![Dr. Murray, in the New English Dictionary, writes: " Careful investigation satisfies me that Agitator was the actual title, and Adjutator only a bad spelling of soldiers familiar with Adjutants and the Adjutors of 1642. Adjutator has naturally seemed more plausible to recent writers unfamiliar with this old sense of ' to agitate,' " this old sense being to do the actual work of (the affairs of) another, to manage, to act as agent. See Great Civil War, vol. iii. p. 243, where Dr. Gardiner gives the chronology of the word. ] 1647.] ARMY MANIFESTO 261 ranks in unison with the Officers in the present crisis of their affairs. This is their first distinct appearance in the eye of History ; in which, during these months, they play a great part. Evidently the settlement with the Army will be a harder task than was supposed. During these same months some languid negotiation with the King is going on ; Scots Commissioners come up to help in treat- ing with him ; but as he will not hear of Covenant or Presbytery, there can no result follow. It was an ugly aggravation of the blot of ignominy which the Army smarts under, — the report raised against it, That some of the Leaders had said, "if the King would come to them, they would put the crown on his head again." — Cromwell, from his place in Parliament, earnestly watches these occurrences ; waits what the great ' birth of Pro- vidence ' in them may be ; — ' carries himself with much weari- ness ; ' is more and more looked up to by the Independent Party, for his interest with the Soldiers. One day, noticing the ' high carriages ' of Holies and Company, he whispers Edmund Ludlow who sat by him, " These men will never leave till the Army pull them out by the ears ! " 1 Holies and Company, who at present rule in Parliament, pass a New Militia Ordinance for London ; put the Armed Force of London into hands more strictly Presbyterian. 1 * There have been two London Petitions against the Army, and two London Petitions covertly in favour of it ; the Managers of the latter, we observe, have been put in prison. May 8th \lth\. A new and more promising Deputation, Crom- well at the head of it. ' Cromwell, Ireton, Fleetwood, Skippon,' proceed again to Saffron Walden ; investigate the claims and grievances of the Army ; 3 engage, as they had authority to do, that real justice shall be done them ; and in a fortnight return with what seems an agreement and settlement ; for which Lieutenant-General Cromwell receives the thanks of the House. 4 1 Ludlow, i. 189 ; see Whitlocke, p. 252. [Mr. Firth thinks that this speech was made between August 6 and 20, as Major Huntington tells much the same story, assigning it to that date (see Ludlow's Memoirs, ed. Firth, i. 148), but as Huntington says that Cromwell often said it, it seems quite conceivable that he may have made the remark to Ludlow earlier in the year. At any rate he must have been quite angry enough to think it, if he did not say it.] 2 4th May 1647, Commons Journals, v. 160: — 'Thirty-one Persons,' their names given. 3 Letters from them, in Appendix, No. 10. [And Cromwell's speech to the officers in Saffron Walden Church. Supplement, No. 21.] 4 May 21st, Commons Journals, v. 181. [Only two of their number, Cromwell and Fleetwood, returned to London. See Supplement, No. 22.] 262 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [lOJune. The House votes what it conceives to be justice, ' eight weeks of pay ' in ready money, bonds for the rest, — and so forth. Con- gratulations hereupon ; a Committee of Lords and Commons are ordered to go down to Saffron Walden, to see the Army dis- banded. May 28th. On arriving at Saffron Walden, they find that their notions of what is justice, and the Army's notions, differ widely. 1 " Eight weeks of pay," say the Army ; " we want nearer eight times eight ! " Disturbances in several of the quarters : — at Oxford the men seize the disbanding-money as part of payment, and will not disband till they get the whole. A meeting of Ad- jutators, by authority of Fairfax, convenes at Bury St. Edmund's, 2 — a regular Parliament of soldiers, 'each common man paying fourpence to meet the expense ; ' it is agreed that the Army's quarters shall be ' contracted/ brought closer- together ; that on Friday next, 4th of June, there shall be a Rendezvous, or General Assembly of all the Soldiers, there to decide on what they will do." June 4ith and 5th. The Newmarket Rendezvous, ' on Kentford Heath,' a little east of Newmarket, is held ; a kind of Covenant is entered into, and other important things are done : — but elsewhere in the interim a thing still more important had been done. On Wednesday June 2d, Cornet Joyce, — once a London tailor they say, evidently a very handy active man, — he, and Five-hundred common troopers, a volunteer Party, not expressly commanded by anybody i but doing what they know the whole 1 [The eight weeks' pay had been in the first instance agreed upon with the army by the commissioners. What roused the anger of the soldiers was that although upon the return of Cromwell and his fellows, the House had resolved that " a real and visible security " should be given for the rest of the arrears — instead of passing an ordinance which should give effect thereto, they determined to proceed at once to the disbandment.] 2 [It was not a meeting of the Agitators, but a Council of War called by Fairfax which met at Bury on May 29. The petition from the Agitators (for a rendezvous) was read at it, having been presented to the General that morning.] 3 Rushworth, vi. pp. 496-510. 4 [It is of course quite unlikely that Joyce acted without orders. Major Hunt- ington says that the cornet declared that Lieutenant-General Cromwell " gave him' orders in London to do what he had done." Another witness says that it was resolved at a meeting at Cromwell's house that Joyce should tie ordered "either to secure the person of the King from being removed by any other, or, if occasion were, to remove him to some place of better security . . . which was accordingly done, both with the knowledge and approbation of Lieutenant-General Cromwell, though he afterwards, like a subtle fox, would not be pleased to take notice of it. " See Great Civil War, iii. 267, 272. The probability is that Cromwell gave orders for the seizing but not for the removal of the King, unless a rescue was attempted.] 1647.1 ARMY MANIFESTO 263 Army wishes to be done, sally out of Oxford, where things are still somewhat disturbed ; proceed to Holmby House ; and, after two days of talking, bring 'the King's Person' off with them. To the horror and despair of the Parliament Commissioners in attendance there ; but clearly to the satisfaction of his Majesty, — who hopes, in this new shuffle-and-deal, some good card will turn up for him ; hopes, with some ground, ' the Presbyterians and Independents may now be got to extirpate one another.' His Majesty rides willingly ; the Parliament Commissioners accompany, wringing their hands ; — to Hinchinbrook, that same Friday night ; where Colonel Montague receives them with all hospitality, entertains them for two days. Colonel Whalley with a strong party, deputed by Fairfax, had met his Majesty ; offered to deliver him from Joyce, back to Holmby and the Parlia- ment ; but his Majesty positively declined. 1 — Captain Titus, quasi Tighthose, very well known afterwards, arrives at St. Stephens' with the news ; has 50l. voted him ' to buy a horse,' for his great service ; and fills all men with terror and amazement. The Honourable Houses agree to 'sit on the Lord's day;' have Stephen Marshal to pray for them ; never were in such a plight before. The Controversy, at this point, has risen from Eco- nomical into Political : Army Parliament in the Eastern Counties, against Civil Parliament in Westminster ; and, ' How the Nation shall be settled ' between them ; whether its growth shall be in the forest-tree fashion, or in the dipt Dutch-dragon fashion ? — Monday, June 1th. All Officers in the House are ordered forthwith to go down to their regiments. Cromwell, without order, not without danger of detention, say some, — has already gone : this same day, ' General Fairfax, Lieutenant-General Cromwell and the chief men of the Army,' have an interview with the King, 'at Childerley House between Huntingdon and Cambridge:' his Majesty will not go back to Holmby; much prefers ' the air ' of these parts, the air of Newmarket for instance ; and will continue with the Army. 2 Parliament Commissioners, with new Votes of Parliament, are coming down ; the Army must have a new Rendezvous, to meet them. New Rendezvous 1 [On Sunday, the 6th, Whalley wrote to Fairfax : " His Majesty about five of the clock this afternoon was pleased to be a little merry, and laughingly told me he now perceived your Excellency would not force him back to Holdenby ... he desired to give order to his servants to prepare to go to Newmarket tomorrow. . . . His Majesty longs to be there, and this night expects to hear from you, and to be answered in his desires." Clarke Papers, i. 122.] 2 Rushworth, vi. 549. 264 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [10 June. at Royston, more properly on Triploe Heath near Cambridge, is appointed for Thursday ; and in the interim a ' Day of Fasting and Humiliation' is held by all the soldiers, — a real Day of Prayer (very inconceivable in these days), For God's enlighten- ment as to what should now be done. Here is Whitlocke's account of the celebrated Rendezvous itself, — somewhat abridged from Rushworth, and dim enough ; wherein, however, by good eyes a strange old Historical Scene may be discerned. The new Votes of Parliament do not appear still to meet ' the just desires ' of the Army ; meanwhile, let all things be done decently and in order. ' The General had ordered a Rendezvous at Royston ; ' properly on Triploe Heath, as we said; on Thursday 10th June 1647: the Force assembled was about Twenty-one thousand men, the remarkablest Army that ever wore steel in this world. 'The 'General and the Commissioners rode to each Regiment. They ' first acquainted the General's Regiment with the Votes of the ' Parliament ; and Skippon,' one of the Commissioners, ' spake to ' them to persuade a compliance. An Officer of the Regiment ' made answer, That the Regiment did desire that their answer 'might be returned after perusal of the Votes by some select ' Officers and Agitators, whom the Regiment had chosen ; and ' said, This was the motion of the Regiment. ' He desired the General and Commissioners to give him leave 'to ask the whole Regiment if this mas their answer. Leave ' being given, they cried, " All." Then he put the question, If ' any man were of a contrary opinion he should say, No ; — and 'not one man gave his "No." — The Agitators in behalf of the ' soldiers pressed to have the question put at once, Whether the ' Regiment did acquiesce and were satisfied with the Votes ? ' The Agitators knew well what the answer would have been ! — ' But in regard the other way was more orderly, and they might * after perusal proceed more deliberately, that question was laid ' aside. 'The like was done in the other Regiments; and all were ' very unanimous ; and always after the Commissioners had done 'reading the Votes, and speaking to each Regiment, and had ' received their answer, all of them cried out, " Justice, Justice ! " ' — not a very musical sound to the Commissioners. ' A Petition was delivered in the field to the General, in the ' name of " many well-affected people in Essex ; " desiring, That ' the Army might not be disbanded ; in regard the Commonwealth 1647.] AEMY MANIFESTO 265 ' had many enemies, who watched for such an occasion to destroy ' the good people.' x Such, and still dimmer, is the jotting of dull authentic Bul- strode, — drowning in official oil, and somnolent natural pedantry and fat, one of the remarkablest scenes our History ever had : An Armed Parliament, extra-official, yet not without a kind of sacredness, and an Oliver Cromwell at the head of it ; demanding with one voice, as deep as ever spake in England, "Justice, Justice ! " under the vault of Heaven. That same afternoon, the Army moved on to St. Albans, 2 nearer to London ; and from the Rendezvous itself, a joint Letter was despatched to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, which the reader is now at last to see. I judge it, pretty confidently, by evidence of style alone, to be of Cromwell's own writing. 3 It differs totally in this respect from any other of those multitudin- ous Army- Papers ; which were understood, says Whitlocke, to be drawn up mostly by Ireton, ' who had a subtle working brain ; ' or by Lambert, who also had got some tincture of Law and other learning, and did not want for brain. They are very able Papers, though now very dull ones. This is in a far different style ; in Oliver's worst style ; his style when he writes in haste, — and not in haste of the pen merely, for that seems always to have been a most rapid business with him ; but in haste before the matter had matured itself for him, and the real kernels of it got parted from the husks. A style of composition like the structure of a block of oak-root, — as tortuous, unwedgeable, and as strong ! Read attentively, this Letter can be understood, can be believed : the tone of it, the ' voice ' of it, reminds us of what Sir Philip Warwick heard ; the voice of a man risen justly into a kind of chaunt, — very dangerous for the City of London at present. 1 Whitlocke, p. 255. [See also Perfect Diurnal, E. 515, 19. ] 3 [That day it only advanced as far as Royston, and there the letter was written.] 3 [Dr. Gardiner says that ' ' Carlyle fixed on it as Cromwell's production from its style. The evidence of its ideas is quite as striking. It is apparently in reference to Cromwell's language in proposing this letter that we are told that ' O. Crom- well spake as gallantly and as heroic as if he had been charging his enemies in the field.' (Clarke Papers, i. 134.) . . . Not only is most of it written in his style but it is redolent of his ideas. It displays Cromwell as concealing from himself that he was really executing a change of front, and tenaciously holding to his old doctrine that the intervention of an army in affairs of state is a grave evil, whilst in reality he was furthering a course which he had long condemned. By a strange self-delusion, he refused to admit that he was giving his approval to an enterprise in which soldiers were attempting to bend the course of politics by the employment of their swords. What they required to be done was required by them not as soldiers but as English- men, and their being soldiers could not strip them of their interest in the welfare of their country." Great Civil War, iii. 287. J 266 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAES [10 June. To the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council of the City of London : These Royston, 10th June 1647. Right Honourable and Worthy Friends, Having, by our letters and other addresses presented by our General to the Honourable House of Commons, endeavoured to give satisfaction of the 1 clearness of our just demands ; and ' having ' also, in papers published by us, remon- strated the grounds of our proceedings in prosecution thereof; — all which having been exposed to public view, we are confident have come to your hands, and at least received a charitable con- struction from you ; — the sum of all these our Desires as Soldiers is no other than a desire of satisfaction to our demands as soldiers ; and reparation upon those who have, to the utmost, improved all opportunities and advantages, by false suggestions, misre- presentations and otherwise, for the destruction of this Army with a perpetual blot of ignominy upon it. Which ' injury ' we should not value, if it singly concerned our own particulars, being ready to deny ourselves in this, as we have done in other cases, for the Kingdom's good : but under this pretence, we find no less involved than the overthrow of the privileges both of Parliament and People ; wherein rather than they 1 shall fail in their de- signs, or we receive what in the eyes of all good men is just [it is] endeavoured to engage the kingdom in a new war, and this singly by those who, when the truth of these things shall be made to appear, will be found the authors of these evils that are feared ; — as having no other way to protect themselves from ques- tion and punishment but by putting the Kingdom into blood, under pretence of the honour of and their love to the Parliament, as if that were dearer to them than us ; or as if they had given greater proof of their faithfulness to it than we. But we perceive that, under these veils and pretences, they seek to interest in their design the city of London : — as if that 1 The Presbyterian leaders in Parliament, Holies, Stapleton, Harley, Waller, &c. 1647.] ARMY MANIFESTO 267 city ought to make good their miscarriages, and should prefer a few self-seeking men before the welfare of the public. And in- deed we have found these men so active to accomplish their designs, and to have such apt instruments for their turn in that city, that we have cause to suspect they may engage many therein upon mistakes, — which are easily swallowed, in times of such prejudice against them 1 that have given (we may speak it without vanity) the most public testimony of their good affec- tions to the public, and to that city in particular. ' As ' for the thing we insist upon as Englishmen, — and surely our being soldiers hath not stript us of that interest, although our malicious enemies would have it so, — we desire a settlement of the peace of the Kingdom and of the liberties of the subject, according to the votes and declarations of Parliament, which, before we took up arms, were, by the Parliament, used as argu- ments and inducements to invite us and divers of our dear friends out ; some of which have lost their lives in this war, which being, by God's blessing, finished, we think we have as much right to demand, and desire to see, a happy settlement, as we have to our money and the other common interest of soldiers which we have insisted upon. 2 We find also the ingenious and honest people, in almost all the parts of the Kingdom where we come, full of the sense of ruin and misery if the Army should be disbanded before the peace of the Kingdom, and those other things before mentioned, have a full and perfect settlement. We have said before, and profess it now, We desire no al- teration of the Civil Government. We desire not to intermeddle with, or in the least to interrupt, the settling of the Presbyterial Government. Nor did we seek to open a way to licentious liberty, under pretence of obtaining ease for tender consciences. We profess, as ever in these things, when the State have once made a settlement, we have nothing to say but to submit or 1 Oblique for ' us. ' 2 [Dr. Gardiner suggests that this passage was possibly not written by Cromwell. Mr. Firth thinks it was. ] 268 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [10 June. suffer. Only we could wish that every good citizen, and every man that walks peaceably in a blameless conversation, and is beneficial to the Commonwealth, may have liberty and encourage- ment ; it being according to the just policy of all States, even to justice itself. These things are our desires, and the things for which we stand ; beyond which we shall not go. And for the obtaining of these things, we are drawing near your city ; 1 — professing sin- cerely from our hearts, ' that ' we intend not evil towards you ; declaring, with all confidence and assurance, that if you appear not against us in these our just desires, to assist that wicked Party that would embroil us and the Kingdom, nor we nor our Soldiers shall give you the least offence. We come not to do any act to prejudice the being of Parliaments, or to the hurt of this ' Parliament ' in order to the present settlement of the King- dom. We seek the good of all. And we shall here wait, or remove to a farther distance there to abide, if once we be assured that a speedy settlement of things be in hand, — until they be ac- complished. Which done, we shall be most ready, either all of us, or so many of the Army as the Parliament shall think fit, to disband, or go for Ireland. And although you may suppose that a rich city may seem an enticing bait to poor hungry soldiers to venture far to gain the wealth thereof, — yet, if not provoked by you, we do profess, rather than any such evil should fall out, the soldiers shall make their way through our blood to effect it. And we can say this for most of them, for your better assurance, that they so little value their pay, in comparison of higher concernments to a public good, that rather than they will be unrighted in the matter of their honesty and integrity (which hath suffered by the Men they aim at and desire justice upon), or want the settlement of the King- dom's peace, and theirs with their fellow-subjects' Liberties, they will lose all. Which may be a strong assurance to you 1 That is the remarkable point ! 1647.] AEMY MANIFESTO 269 that it's not your wealth they seek, but the things tending in common to your and their welfare. That they may attain ' these/ you shall do like fellow-subjects and brethren if you solicit the Parliament for them, on their behalf. If after all this, you, or a considerable number of you, be seduced to take up arms in opposition to, or hindrance of, these our just undertakings, we hope by this brotherly premoni- tion, to the sincerity whereof we call God to witness, we have freed ourselves from all that ruin which may befall that great and populous City ; having hereby washed our hands thereof. We rest, Your affectionate Friends to serve you, Thomas Fairfax. Henry Ireton. Oliver Cromwell. Robert Lilburn. Robert Hammond. John Desborow. Thomas Hammond. Thomas Rainsborow. Hardress Waller. John Lambert. Nathaniel Rich. Thomas Harrison.* Thomas Pride. This Letter was read next day in the Commons House, 1 — not without emotion. Most respectful answer went from the Guild- hall, ' in three coaches with the due number of outriders.' On June l6th, the Army, still [now] at St. Albans, accuses of treason Eleven Members of the Commons House by name, as chief authors of all these troubles ; whom the Honourable House is respectfully required to put upon their Trial, and prevent from voting in the interim. These are the famed Eleven Members ; Holies, Waller, Stapleton, Massey are known to us ; the whole List, for benefit of historical readers, we subjoin in a Note. 2 They * Rushworth, vi. 554. [Carlyle made a good many alterations in the text, which is now printed as given in Rushworth. Compare with this a letter from the officers written on June 13 — but probably not sent — " to several Counties." Clarke Papers, i. 130.] 1 Commons Journals, v. 208. 2 Denzil Holies (Member for Dorchester), Sir Philip Stapleton (Boroughbridge), Sir William Waller (Andover), Sir William Lewis (Petersfield), Sir John Clotworthy (Maiden), Recorder Glynn (Westminster), Mr. Anthony Nichols (Bodmin) ; these Seven are old Members, from the beginning of the Parliament ; — the other Four 270 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAKS [June. demurred ; withdrew ; again returned ; in fine, had to ' ask leave to retire for six months/ on account of their health, we suppose. They retired swiftly in the end ; to France ; to deep concealment, — to the Tower otherwise. The history of these six weeks, till they did retire and the Army had its way, we must request the reader to imagine for himself. 1 Long able Papers, drawn by men of subtle brain and strong sincere heart : the Army retiring always to a safe distance when their Demands are agreed to ; straightway advancing if otherwise, — which rapidly produces an agreement. A most re- markable Negotiation ; conducted with a method, a gravity and decorous regularity beyond example in such cases. The ' shops ' of London were more than once ' shut ; ' tremor occupying all hearts : — but no harm was done. 2 The Parliament regularly paid the Army ; the Army lay coiled round London and the Parlia- ment, now advancing, now receding ; saying in the most respectful emblematic way, " Settlement with us and the Godly People, or ! " — The King, still with the Army, 3 and treated like a are ' recruiters,' elected since 1645 : Major-General Massey (Wootton Basset), Colonel Walter Long (Ludgershall), Colonel Edward Harley (Herefordshire), Sir John Maynard (Lostwithiel). J [For Cromwell's speeches at the Council of the Army on 16th July, see Supple- ment, No. 24.] 2 [In the collection of Captain Lindsay are three very interesting letters to Colonel John Moore (then in Ireland) from his wife, describing the state of affairs in London during this month of June. In the first, dated June 22, she wrote : • ' Things are in the most saddest condition that ever mortals beheld. Every day we look for Sir Thomas Fairfax his army, whether in love or with force it is not known. The army doth carry themselves so fair that they gain the hearts of all the counties, and they petition to Sir Thomas Fairfax that he shall not lay down arms till things be settled. The army doth accuse four of the Lords and eleven of the House of Commons ... I have much ado to keep my goods, for the Parliament, to please the city, hath passed an order that no parliament man's goods nor lands shall be protected. . . . The plague is very hot here. It is the next door but two to Sir Gregory Norton's, over against us. . . . The King is at Newmarket ; the army doth not much regard him, for he is very stubborn to them. The Lord knows their intention. The Cavaliers are very merry to see us contend, but I hope they will have no cause ". A week later she wrote again. ' ' We are here in less safety than you, for there you know your enemies and here we do not. The Lord in mercy look upon us, for the divisions of Reuben are great ; the army is very high and the King is stubborn. The Parliament stand upon their own guard ; we look every day for a siege but I hope God will protect his own. The army will never rest till they have purged some of their gross injustice and bribery ". These letters were formerly the property of Captain Stewart of Alltyrodyn, and are calendared in the 10th Report of the Hist. MSS. Commissioners, Appendix iv. p. 97.] '[At the end of June, by order of Parliament, and with consent of the Lord General, the King was removed to Richmond, under escort of Colonel Whalley. See letter from Cromwell and Hewson to Whalley, Supplement, No. 23. There 1647.] ARMY MANIFESTO 271 King, endeavoured to play his game, ' in meetings at Woburn ' and elsewhere ; but the two Parties could not be brought to extirpate one another for his benefit. Towards the end of July, matters seem as good as settled : the Holies ' Declaration,' that ' blot of ignominy,' being now expunged from the Journals ; 1 the Eleven being out ; and now at last, the New Militia Ordinance for London (Presbyterian Ordinance brought in by Holies on the 4th of May) being revoked, and matters in that quarter set on their old footing again. The two Parties in Parliament seem pretty equal in numbers ; the Pres- byterian Party, shorn of its Eleven, is cowed down to the due pitch ; and there is now prospect of fair treatment for all the Godly Interest, and such a Settlement with his Majesty as may be the best for that. Towards the end of July, however, London City, torn by factions, but Presbyterian by the great majority, rallies again in a very extraordinary way. Take these glimpses from contemporaneous Whitlocke ; and rouse them from their fat somnolency a little. July 26th. Many young men and Apprentices of London came to the House in a most rude and tumultuous manner ; and pre- sented some particular Desires. 2 Desires, That the Eleven may come back ; that the Presbyterian Militia Ordinance be not revoked, — that the Revocation of it be revoked. Desire, in short, That there be no peace made with Sectaries, but that the London Militia may have a fair chance to fight them ! — Drowsy Whitlocke continues ; almost as if he were in Paris in the eighteenth century : ' The Apprentices, and many other rude ' boys and mean fellows among them, came into the House of ' Commons ; and kept the Door open and their hats on ; and ' called out as they stood, " Vote, Vote ! " and in this arrogant ' posture, stood till the votes passed in that way. To repeal the ' Ordinance for change of the Militia, to ' &c. ' In the evening can be no doubt that at this time Cromwell, supported by Ireton, was doing his utmost to bring about an agreement with the King. See note on p. 282, below. A letter preserved amongst the Duke of Sutherland's MSS. , written on Sept. 28, states, ' ' The division in the Army increases between Cromwell's and the Agitators' factions ; these suspect Cromwell and his faction, who, they conceive, labour to in- sinuate too much into the King's favour ... I have been certainly informed that Cromwell spoke much on the King's behalf when his answers to the Propositions were controverted in the House ". W. Langley to John Langley, Hist. MSS. Commissioners' Reports., App., p. 179.] 1 Asterisks still in the place of it, Commons Journals, 29th March 1647. s [The petition was from the Common Council itself, but the mob of apprentices, etc. , followed the deputation which came to present it. ] 272 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [July. ' about seven o'clock, some of the Common Council came down ' to the House : ' but finding the Parliament and Speaker already had been forced, they, astute Common-Council men, ordered their Apprentices to go home again, the work they had set them upon being now finished. 1 This disastrous scene fell out on Monday 26th July 1647 : the Houses, on the morrow morning, without farther sitting, adjourned till Friday next. On Friday next, behold, the Two Speakers, ' with the Mace,' and many Members of both Houses, have withdrawn ; and the Army, lately at Bedford, is on quick march towards London ! Alarming pause. ' About noon,' however, the Re- mainders of the Two Houses, reinforced by the Eleven who reappear for the last time, proceed to elect new Speakers, ' get the City Mace ; ' order, above all, that there be a vigorous enlistment of forces under General Massey, General Poyntz, and others. ' St. James's Fields ' were most busy all Saturday, all Monday ; shops all shut ; drums beating in all quarters ; a most vigorous enlistment going on. Presbyterianism will die with harness on its back. Alas, news come that the Army is at Colnebrook, advancing towards Hounslow ; news come that they have rendezvoused at Hounslow, and received the Speakers and fugitive Lords and Commons with shouts. Tuesday, 3d August 1647, was such a day as London and the Guildhall never saw before or since ! Southwark declares that it will not fight ; sends to Fairfax for Peace and a ' sweet composure ; ' comes to the Guildhall in great crowds petitioning for Peace ; — at which sight, General Poyntz, pressing through for orders about his enlistments, loses his last drop of human patience ; ' draws his sword ' on the whining multitudes, * slashes several persons, whereof some died.' 2 The game is nearly up. Look into the old Guildhall on that old Tuesday night : the palpitation, tremulous expectation ; wooden Gog and Magog themselves almost sweating cold with terror : ' General Massey sent out scouts to Brentford : but Ten men ' of the Army beat Thirty of his ; and took a flag from a Party ' of the City. The City Militia and Common Council sat late ; ' and a great number of people attended at Guildhall. When a ' scout came in and brought news, That the Army made a halt ; * or other good intelligence, — they cry, " One and all ! " But if ' the scouts reported that the Army was advancing nearer them, 1 Whitlocke, p. 263. 2 [These things happened on Monday, August 2.] 1647.] LETTER XL V., PUTNEY 273 ' then they would cry as loud, " Treat, treat, treat ! " So they ' spent most part of the night. At last they resolved to send ' the General an humble letter, beseeching him that there ' might be a way of composure.' l On Friday morning, was ' a meeting at the Earl of Holland's House in Kensington ' (the Holland House that yet stands), and prostrate submission by the Civic Authorities and Parliamentary Remainders ; after which the Army marched ' three deep by Hyde Park ' into the heart of the City, ' with boughs of laurel in their hats ; ' — and it was all ended. 2 Fair treatment for all the Honest Party : and the Spiritualism of England shall not be forced to grow in the Presbyterian fashion, however it may grow. Here is another entry from somnolent Bulstrode. The Army soon changes its headquarters to Putney ; 3 one of its outer posts is Hampton Court, where his Majesty, obstinate still, but somewhat despondent now of getting the two Parties to extirpate one another, is lodged. Saturday, ' September 1 Stk. After a sermon in Putney Church, ' the General, many great Officers, Field-Officers, inferior Officers ' and Adjutators, met in the Church ; debated the Proposals of ' the Army ' towards a Settlement of this bleeding Nation ; ' altered some things in them ; — and were very full of the ' Sermon, which had been preached by Mr. Peters.' 4 LETTERS XLV— LVIII These Fourteen Letters, touching slightly on public affairs, with one or two glimpses into private, must carry us, without com- 1 Whitlocke, p. 265. [The letter was sent on the morning of Tuesday, August 3-] 2 [On Friday, the 6th, the General, with two regiments of horse and foot, ' ' came to bring in the Lords and Members of the House of Commons that were enforced away," and having escorted them to the Parliament House, was himself received in the House of Lords with much honour, Lieut -Gen. Cromwell and his other chief officers being in attendance on him. The march into the city was on Saturday, the 7th. In the early days of September, Cromwell seems to have taken a short holiday. " Cromwell is gone to the Isle of Wight," wrote a Royalist newspaper; " Col. Ham- mond is governor thereof . . . only Master Cromwell is Dominus fac totum ".~\ 3 28th August, Rushworth, vii. 792. [The 27th appears to have been the date. Dr. Gardiner says the 26th, but Rushworth, writing on the 28th, distinctly says that the General held a Council of War at Kingston "yesterday" and removed to Putney " last night." ] 4 Whitlocke, p. 272. VOL. I. 18 274 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAES [l Sept. mentary, in a very dim way, across to the next stage in Oliver's History and England's : the Flight of the King from Hampton Court and the Army, soon followed by the actual breaking-out of the Second Civil War. LETTER XLV Williams, Archbishop of York, ' hasty hot Welsh Williams,' — whom we once saw, seven years ago, as Bishop of Lincoln, get- ting jostled in Palaceyard, protesting thereupon, and straightway getting lodged in the Tower, 1 — is to concern us again for one moment. A man once very radiant to men, as obscure as he has now grown : a most high-riding far-shining Solar Luminary in that epoch ; obscure to no man in England for thirty years last past ! A man of restless mercurial vivacity, of endless superficial dexterity and ingenuity, of next to no real wisdom; — very fit to have swift promotions and sudden eclipses in a Stuart Court ; not worthy of much memory otherwise. Of his rapid rises, culminations, miraculous faculties and destinies, to us all useless, indifferent and extinct, let there be silence here, — reference to Bishop Hacket and the Futile Ingenuities. 2 Archbishop Williams, — for he got delivered from the Tower at that time, and recovered favour, and was ' enthroned Arch- bishop at York' while his Majesty was raising his War-standard there, — found, after a while, that there was little good to be got of his Archbishophood ; that his best weapon would be, not the crosier, but the linstock and cannon-rammer, at present: he went to his Welsh estate of Aberconway, and ' procuring a Com- mission from his Majesty,' fortified Conway Castle 'at his own expense,' and invited the neighbouring gentry to lodge their plate and valuables there, as in a place of security. Good ; — for the space of a year or two. But now, some time ago in the death-throes of the late War, while North Wales was bestirring itself as in last-agony for his Majesty's behoof, — there came a certain Colonel Sir John Owen, of whom we shall hear again ; he, this Owen, came before Castle Conway with large tumultuary force ; demanded the same in his Majesty's name, to be governed 1 Antea, p. 108. 2 Hacket's Life of Archbishop Williams (a considerable Folio, Lond. 1712) ; Philip's Life of Williams (an Octavo Abridgment of that); &c. 1647.] LETTER XLV., PUTNEY 275 by him Sir John Owen, as essential for his Majesty's occasions at that time. High-sniffing, indignant refusal on the part of Williams : impetuous capture and forcible possession, on the part of Owen. Hot Williams, blown all to flame hereby, applied to Col. Mitton, the Parliamentary Colonel of those parts ; said to him, " Expel me this intolerable Owen ; Owen out, I will hold this Castle for the Parliament and you, — his Majesty seems nearly done with fighting now." A thing difficult to explain completely to the Royalist mind : Bishop Hacket has his own ados with it ; and in stupid Saunderson 1 and others, it is one loud howl, " Son of the morning, how art thou fallen ! " Explained or not, ' my Lord of York ' does hold Conway Castle on those terms, at this date ; is taking a certain charge of North Wales in his busy way ; and has even been corresponding with Cromwell, on the subject. They had known one another in old years : Buckden, the Bishop of Lincoln's House, is in the neigh- bourhood of Huntingdon ; where Cromwell, it is understood, used occasionally to wait upon him ; pleading for oppressed Lecturers and the like, — the Bishop having, from political or other biases, a kind of lenity for Puritans. 2 Cromwell is very brief with him here ; courteous as to an old neighbour rather in eclipse ; but evidently wishing to have no unnecessary business with the Governor of Conway. We see he could on occasion jocosely claim ' kindred ' with him, as himself a ' Williams : ' and that perhaps is the chief interest of this small Document, which the reader will now abundantly understand. For the Right Honourable my Lord of York ; These ' Putney,' 1st September 1647. My Lord, Your advices will be seriously considered by us. We shall endeavour our uttermost, so to settle the affairs of North Wales as, to the best of our understandings, does most conduce to the public good thereof and of the whole. And that without private respect, or to the satisfaction of any humour, which has been too much practised by the occasion of our troubles. 1 History of Charles I. 2 [Had, indeed, such strong Puritan leanings himself as had brought him, in past years, into perpetual conflict with Laud ; into Star Chamber processes and im- prisonment.] 276 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAKS [14 Sept. The drover you mention will be secured (as far as we are able) in his affairs, if he come to ask it. Your kinsman shall be very welcome to me : I shall study to serve him for kindred's sake ; among whom let not be forgotten, My Lord, Your cousin and servant, Oliver Cromwell. The Governor of Conway will not be forgotten, to prevent his abuse.* My Lord of York still lived some year or two in Conway Castle ; saw his enemy Sir John Owen in trouble enough ; but died before long, — chiefly of broken heart for the fate of his Majesty, thinks Bishop Hacket. A long farewell to him. LETTER XLVI The Marquis of Ormond, a man of distinguished integrity, patience, activity and talent, had done his utmost for the King in Ireland, so long as there remained any shadow of hope there. His last service, as we saw, was to venture secretly on a Peace with the Irish Catholics, — Papists, men of the Massacre of 1641, men of many other massacres, falsities, mad blusterings and confusions, — whom all parties considered as sanguinary Rebels, and regarded with abhorrence. Which Peace, we saw farther, Abbas O'Teague and others threatening to produce excommuni- cation on it, the ' Council of Kilkenny ' broke away from, — not in the handsomest manner. Ormond, in this Spring of 1647, finding himself reduced to 'seven barrels of gunpowder' and other extremities, without prospect of help or trustworthy bargain on the Irish side, — agreed to surrender Dublin, and what else he had left, rather to the Parliament than to the Rebels ; his Majesty, from England, secretly and publicly advising that course. The Treaty was completed : ' Colonel Michael Jones,' lately Governor of Chester, arrived with some Parliamentary Regiments, with certain Parliamentary Commissioners, on the * Glntleman's Magazine (1789), lix. 877. 1647.] LETTEE XL VI, PUTNEY 277 7th of June : 1 the surrender was duly effected, and Ormond withdrew to England. A great English force had been anticipated ; but the late quarrel with the Army had rendered that impossible. Jones, with such inadequate force as he had, made head against the Rebels ; gained ' a great victory ' over them on the 8th of August, at a place called Dungan Hill, not far from Trim : 2 ' the most signal victory we had yet gained ; ' for which there was thank- fulness enough. Four days before that Sermon by Hugh Peters, followed by the military conclave in Putney Church, Cromwell had addressed this small Letter of Congratulation to Jones, whom, by the tone of it, he does not seem to have as yet person- ally known : For the Honourable Colonel Jones, Governor of Dublin, and Commander-in-Chief of all the Forces in Leinster : These ' Putney,' 14th September 1647. Sir, The mutual engagement 3 and agreement we have in the same Cause 4 give me occasion, as to congratulate, so abundantly to rejoice in God's gracious Dispensation unto you and by you. We have (both in England and Ireland), found the immediate presence and assistance of God, 6 in guiding and suc- ceeding our endeavours hitherto ; and therefore ought (as I doubt not both you and we desire), to ascribe the glory 6 of all to him, and to improve all we receive from him unto him alone. Though, it may be, for the present a cloud may lie over our actions to them 6 who are not acquainted with the grounds of them ; r yet we doubt not but God will clear our integrity and innocency from any other ends we aim at but his 8 glory and the 1 Carte's Ormond, i. 603. 2 Rushworth, vii. 779 ; Carte, ii. 5. 3 [Carlyle printed "interest."] 4 Word uncertain to the Copyist ; sense not doubtful. [Word not doubtful either.] '[" God's " in the original. The word has been followed by others subsequently erased (might be "gracious hand," but this is very doubtful) and the s of God's was not erased.] 6 [Printed "glories" and "those" by Carlyle.] 7 [Written over an erasure " our T — "; might be "transactions."] 8 [Written over " God's " erased. ] 278 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [13 Oct. public good. And as you are an instrument herein, so we shall 1 (as becometh us), upon all occasions, give you your due honour. For mine own particular, wherein I may have your commands to serve you, you shall find none more ready than he that sincerely desires to approve himself, Your affectionate friend and humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Michael Jones is the name of this Colonel ; there are several Colonel Joneses ; difficult to distinguish. One of them, Colonel John Jones, Member for Merionethshire, and known too in Ire- land, became afterwards the Brother-in-law of Cromwell ; and ended tragically as a Regicide in 1661. Colonel Michael gained other signal successes in Ireland ; welcomed Oliver into it in 1649 ; and died there soon after of a fever. 2 One of the remarkablest circumstances of this new Irish Cam- paign is, that Colonel Monk, George Monk, is again in it. He was taken prisoner, fresh from Ireland, at Nantwich, three years ago. After lying three years in the Tower, seeing his Majesty's affairs now desperate, he has consented to take the Covenant, embark with the Parliament ; and is now doing good service in Ulster. LETTER XLVII For his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax ; These Putney, 13th October 1647. Sir, The case concerning Captain Middleton 8 hears 4 ill, inasmuch as it is delayed (upon pretences) from 1 [" shall " inserted with caret ; the next word (apparently " doe") erased.] 2 [See his Life in the Did. Nat. Biography.'] 3 [Captain in Cromwell's own (formerly Vermuyden's) regiment.] 4 sounds. [The original has ' ' heeres ". Carlyle's is probably, but not quite certainly the true interpretation. In the last paragraph of the letter, Carlyle (or his copyist) read "feared" instead of "scarce" and had to insert "to" in order to make sense.] * MS. Volume of Letters in Trinity-College Library, Dublin (marked ; F. 3. 18), fol. 62 [now No. 1]. Holograph. Docketed by Jones himself, of whom the Volume contains other memorials. [The exact reading kindly communicated by the Rev. T. K. Abbott, librarian of Trinity College.] 1647.] LETTER XL VII., PUTNEY 279 coming to a trial. It is not (I humbly conceive) fit that it should stay any longer. The Soldiers complain thereof, and their witnesses have been examined. Captain Middleton, and some others for him, have made stay thereof hitherto. I beseech your Excellency to give order it may be tried on Friday, or Saturday at farthest, if you please ; and that so much may be signified to the Advocate. Sir, I pray excuse my not-attendance upon you. I scarce miss the House a day, where it's very necessary for me to be. I hope your Excellency will be at the head-quarter tomorrow, where, if God please, I shall wait upon you. I rest, Your Excellency's most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Captain Middleton and his case have vanished completely out of the records ; whether it was tried on Saturday, and how de- cided, will never now be known. Doubtless Fairfax ' signified ' somewhat to the Advocate about it, but let us not ask what. ' The Advocate ' is called ' John Mills, Esquire, Judge-Advocate ;' x whose military Law-labours have mostly become silent now. The former Advocate was Dr Dorislaus ; of whom also a word. Dr. Dorislaus, by birth Dutch ; appointed Judge- Advocate at the beginning of Essex's campaignings ; known afterwards on the King's Trial ; and finally, for that latter service, assassinated at the Hague, one evening, by certain highflying Royalist cut- throats, Scotch several of them. The Portraits represent him as a man of heavy, deep-wrinkled, elephantine countenance, pressed down with the labours of life and law ; the good ugly man here found his quietus. The business in the House, ' where it's necessary for me to be ' without miss of a sitting, is really important, or at least critical, in these October days : Settlement of Army arrears, duties and arrangements ; Tonnage and Poundage ; business of the London Violence upon the Parliament (pardoned for the most part) ; business of Lieutenant-Colonel John Lilburn, now growing very * Shane MSS. 1519, fol. 80 [f. 160. Holograph.] ^prigge, p. 326. 280 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAES [22 Oct. noisy ; — above all things, final Settlement with the King, if that by any method could be possible. The Army- Parliament too still sits ; ' Council of War ' J with its Adjutators meeting fre- quently at Putney. 2 In the House, and out of the House, Lieutenant-General Cromwell is busy enough. This very day, 'Wednesday 13th October 1647,' we find him deep in debate ' On the farther establishment of the Presbyterial Government ' (for the law is still loose, the Platform except in London never fairly on foot) ; and Teller on no fewer than three divisions. First, Shall the Presbyterian Government be limited to three years ? Cromwell answers Yea, in a House of 73 ; is beaten by a majority of 3. Second, Shall there be a limit of time to it ? Cromwell again answers Yea ; beats, this time by a majority of 1 4, in a House now of 74 (some individual having dropt in). Third, Shall the limit be seven years ? Cromwell answers Yea; and in a House still of 74 is beaten by 8. It is finally got settled that the limit of time shall be ' to the end of ' the next Session of Parliament after the end of this Present 'Session,' — a very vague Period, this 'present session' having itself already proved rather long ! Note, too, this is not yet a Law ; it is only a Proposal to be made to the King, if his Majesty will concur, which seems doubtful. Debating enough ! — Satur- day last there was a call of the House, and great quantities of absent Members ; ' cegrotantes,' fallen ill, a good many of them, — sickness being somewhat prevalent in those days of waiting upon Providence. 3 LETTER XLVIII To his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax ; These Putney, 22d October 1647. Sir, Hearing the Garrison of Hull is much dis- tracted in the present government, and that the most faithful and honest Officers have no disposition to serve there any longer under the present Governor ; and that it is their earnest desires, 1 [i.e. Council of the Army ; though often called Council of War.] 2 Rushworth, vii. 849, &c. 3 Commons Journals, v. 329; id. 332. 1647.] LETTER XLVIIL, PUTNEY 281 with all the faithful and trusty inhabitants in the Town, to have Colonel Overton sent to them to be your Excellency's deputy over them, I do humbly offer to your Excellency, whether it might not be convenient that Colonel Overton be speedily sent down ; that so that garrison may be settled in safe hands. And that your Excellency would be pleased to send for Colonel Over- ton, and confer with him about it, that either the regiment ' now ' in the town may be so regulated as your Excellency may be confident that the garrison may be secured by them ; or otherwise it may be drawn out, and his own regiment in the Army be sent down thither with him. But I conceive, if the regiment in Hull can be made serviceable to your Excellency, and included in the Establishment, it will be better to continue it there, than to bury a regiment of your Army in that garrison. Sir, the expedition 1 will be very necessary, in regard of the present distraction there. This I thought fit to offer to your Excellency's consideration. I shall humbly take leave, and subscribe myself, Your Excellency's Most Humble 'and faithful servant, Oliver Cromwell.' * After Hotham's defection and execution, the Lord Ferdinando Fairfax, who had valiantly defended the place, was appointed Governor of Hull ; which office had subsequently been conferred on the Generalissimo Sir Thomas, his Son ; and was continued to him, on the readjustment of all Garrisons in the Spring of this same year. 2 Sir Thomas therefore was express Governor of Hull at this time. Who the Substitute or Deputy under him was, I do not know. 3 Some Presbyterian man ; unfit for the stringent 1 [Carlyle rendered this "expedient," which possibly is what Cromwell meant. But it is more likely that he is emphasizing the need for Overton to be " speedily sent down."] 2 13th March 1646-7 (Commons Journals, v. in). 3 [He appears to have been John Mauleverer. See Tanner M SS. lix, 661.] * Shane MSS. 1519, fol. 82 [f. 164]. — Signature, and all after ' humble,' is torn off. The Letter is not an autograph ; it has been dictated, apparently in great haste. 282 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAES [11 Nov. times that had arrived, when no algebraic formula, but only direct vision of the relations of things would suffice a man. Colonel Overton was actually appointed Governor of Hull : there is a long Letter from the Hull people about Colonel Overton's laying free billet upon them, a Complaint to Fairfax on the subject, next year. 1 He continued long in that capacity ; zealously loyal to Cromwell and his cause, 2 till the Protectorship came on. His troubles afterwards, and confused destinies, may again concern us a little. This Letter is written only three weeks before the King took his flight from Hampton Court. One spark illuminating (very faintly) that huge dark world, big with such results, in the Army's quarters about Putney, and elsewhere ! 3 LETTER XLIX The immeasurable Negotiations with the King, ' Proposals of the Army,' 'Proposals of the Adjutators of the Army/ still occupying tons of printed paper, the subject of intense debatings and considerations in Westminster, in Putney Church, and in every house and hut of England, for many months past, — suddenly contract themselves for us, like a universe of gaseous vapour, into one small point : the issue of them all is failure. The Army Council, the Army Adjutators, and serious England at large, were in earnest about one thing ; the King was not in earnest, except about another thing : there could be no bargain with the King. Cromwell and the Chief Officers have for some time past ceased frequenting his Majesty or Hampton Court; such visits being looked upon askance by a party in the Army, 4 they have 1 4th March 1647-8 (Rushworth, vii. 1020). 2 Sir James Turner's Memoirs. Milton State-Papers (London, 1743), pp. 10, 24, 161, — where the Editor calls him Colonel Richard Overton : his name was Robert : ' Richard Overton ' is a ' Leveller,' unconnected with him ; ' Colonel Richard Over- ton ' is a non-existence. 3 [ For Cromwell's speeches in the General Council of Officers at Putney, October 28-November 1, see Supplement, No. 25.! 4 [" Cromwell's negotiations with the King, his speeches in favour of monarchy, his modification of the terms offered by the army to Charles, and his attempt to moderate the terms offered by Parliament, all exposed him to suspicion. . . . The pamphleteers of the Levellers, as the extreme Radicals were popularly termed, published broadcast vague charges of treachery and double-dealing against the army leaders. . . In their appeals to Cromwell there was a touch of surprise and sorrow. 1647.] LETTER XLIX., HAMPTON COURT 283 left the matter to Parliament ; only Colonel Whalley, with due guard, and Parliament Commissioners, keep watch 'for the security of his Majesty.' In the Army, his Majesty's real purpose be- coming now apparent, there has arisen a very terrible ' Levelling Party ; ' a class of men demanding punishment not only of Delinquents, and Deceptive Persons who have involved this Nation in blood, but the ' Chief Delinquent ; ' minor Delinquents getting punished, how should the Chief Delinquent go free ? A class of men dreadfully in earnest ; — to whom a King's Cloak is no impenetrable screen ; who within the King's Cloak discern that there is a Man, accountable to a God ! The Chief Officers, except when officially called, keep distant : hints have fallen that his Majesty is not out of danger. — In the Commons Journals this is what we read : 'Friday 12th November 1647. A Letter from Lieutenant- ' General Cromwell, of 11th November, twelve at night, was ' read ; signifying the escape of the King ; who went away about '9 o'clock yesterday' evening. 1 Cromwell, we suppose, lodging in head-quarters about Putney, had been roused on Thursday night by express That the King was gone ; had hastened off to Hampton Court ; and there about ' twelve at night ' despatched a Letter to Speaker Lenthall. The Letter, which I have some confused recollection of having, somewhere in the Pamphletary Chaos, seen in full, refuses to disclose itself at present except as a Fragment : 'For the Honourable William Lenthall, Speaker of the House of Commons ; These ' ' Hampton Court, Twelve at night, nth November 1647.' 'Sir,' * * * * Majesty * * withdrawn himself * * at nine o'clock. The manner is variously reported ; and we will say little of it at present, but that his Majesty was expected at supper, when ' Oh my once much honoured Cromwell,' wrote Wildman, ' can that breast of yours — the quondam palace of freedom — harbour such a monster of wickedness as this regal principle. ' While Wildman hoped ' to waken Cromwell's conscience from the dead,' Lilburn, confessing that his good thoughts of Cromwell were not yet wholly gone, threatened to pull him down from his fancied greatness before he was three months older." Firth's Oliver Cromwell, p. 175.] 1 Commons Journals, v. 356. 284 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAKS [Nov. the Commissioners and Colonel Whalley missed him ; upon which they entered the room, and found his Majesty had left his cloak behind him in the Gallery in the private way. He passed, by the backstairs and vault, towards the water-side. He left some letters upon the table in his withdrawing room, of his own handwriting ; whereof one was to the Commissioners of Parliament attending him, to be communicated to both Houses, ' and is here enclosed.' * * * ' Oliver Cromwell.' * We do not give his Majesty's Letter 'here enclosed: ' it is that well-known one where he speaks, in very royal style, still every inch a King, Of the restraints and slights put upon him, — men's obedience to their King seeming much abated of late. So soon as they return to a just temper, "I shall instantly break through this cloud of retirement, and show myself ready x to be Pater Patrice," — as I have hitherto done. LETTER L The Ports are all ordered to be shut ; embargo laid on ships. Read in the Commons Journals again : ' Saturday 1 3tk Nov. ' Colonel Whalley was called in ; and made a particular Relation ' of all the circumstances concerning the King's going away from ' Hampton Court 1 1° Novembris last. He did likewise deliver-in 'a Letter directed unto him from Lieutenant-General Crom- ' well, concerning some rumours and reports of some design of ' danger to the person and life of the King : The which was ' read. Ordered, That Colonel Whalley do put in writing the said ' Relation, and set his hand to it ; and That he do leave a true 'Copy of the said Letter from Lieutenant-General Cromwell.' 2 Colonel Whalley's Relation exists ; and a much fuller Relation and pair of Relations concerning this Flight and what preceded and followed it, as viewed from the Royalist side, by two parties * Rushworth, vii. 871. 1 [" really" in Lords Journals , ix. 519.] s Commons Journals, v. 358. 1647.] LETTEE L., PUTNEY 285 to the business, exist : x none of which shall concern us here. Lieutenant-General Cromwell's Letter to Whalley also exists ; a short insignificant Note : here it is, fished from the Dust-Abysses, which refuse to disclose the other. Whalley is 'Cousin Whalley,' as we may remember ; Aunt Frances's and the Squire of Kerton's Son, — a Nottinghamshire man. 2 For my beloved Cousin, Colonel Whalley, at Hampton Court ; These ' ' Putney, November 1647.' Dear Cos. Whalley, There are rumours abroad of some intended attempt on his Majesty's person. Therefore I pray have a care of your guards, for if any such thing should be done, it would be accounted a most horrid act. * * * Yours, Oliver Cromwell.* See, among the Old Pamphlets, Letters to the like effect from Royalist Parties : also a Letter of thanks from the King to Whalley ; — ending with a desire, ' to send the black-gray bitch to the Duke of Richmond,' on the part of his Majesty : Letters from &c, Letters to &c, in great quantities. 3 For us here this brief notice of one Letter shall suffice : 'Monday 15tk November 1647. Letter from Colonel Robert 'Hammond, Governor of the Isle of Wight, from Comes, of 13° 1 Berkley's Memoirs (printed, London, 1699) ; Ashburnham's Narrative (printed, London, 1830) ; — which require to be sifted, and contrasted with each other and with third parties, by whoever is still curious on this matter ; each of these Narra- tives being properly a Pleading, intended to clear the Writer of all blame, in the first place. 2 See antea, p. 23, note. 3 Pari. Hist. xvi. 324-30. * King's Pamphlets, small 4to, no. 337, § 15, p. 7 [E. 413]. [Probably written on the morning of the nth, after Fleetwood's violent speech in the Commons, and sent off by express, as Whalley states that it reached him on this date. (See his More Full Relation 4, E. 416, 23. ) Berkley says that a letter was received from Crom- well that day containing great fears of the intentions of the Levelling party against the King. {Memoirs, 50. ) He may be speaking of this letter to Whalley, as we have only a fragment of it. The King also alludes in writing to Whalley to " the letter you showed me to-day." But this allusion might be to the letter to himself signed E. R. , printed in the Old Parliamentary History, xvi. 328. Dr. Gardiner and Mr. Firth have disposed of the theory that Cromwell frightened the King from Hampton Court. See Great Civil War, iv. 17, and Firth's Oliver Cromwell, p. 185.] 286 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [23 Deo. ' Novembris, signifying that the King is come into the Isle of ' Wight' J The King, after a night and a day of riding, saw not well whither else to go. He delivered himself to Robert Hammond;" 2 came into the Isle of Wight. Robert Hammond is ordered to keep him strictly within Carisbrook Castle and the adjoining grounds, in a vigilant though altogether respectful manner. This same ' Monday ' when Hammond's Letter arrives in Lon- don is the day of the mutinous Rendezvous 'in Corkbush Field, between Hertford and Ware ;' 3 where Cromwell and the General Officers had to front the Levelling Principle, in a most dangerous manner, and trample it out or be trampled out by it on the spot. Eleven Mutineers are ordered from the ranks ; tried by Court- Martial on the Field ; three of them condemned to be shot ; — throw dice for their life, and one is shot, there and then. The name of him is Arnald ; long memorable among the Levellers. A very dangerous Review service ! Head-quarters now change to Windsor. LETTER LI A small charitable act, for one who proved not very worthy. Friends of a young gentleman in trouble, Mr. Dudley Wyatt by name, have drawn this word from the Lieutenant-General, who on many grounds is powerful at Cambridge. ' To Dr. Thomas Hill, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge ' Windsor, 23d December 1647. Sir, As I am informed, this Gentleman the Bearer hereof, in the year 1641, had leave of his College to travel into Ireland for seven years ; and in his absence he (being then actu- ally employed against the Rebels in that Kingdom) was ejected out of his fellowship 4 by mistake, the College Registry being not looked into, to inquire the cause of his non-residence. 1 Commons Journals, in die (v. 359). 2 Berkley's and Ashburnham's Narratives. 3 Rushworth, vii. 875. * [Carlyle altered this to ' ' College. " ] 1647.] LETTER LII, LONDON 287 I cannot therefore but think it a just and reasonable request, that he be readmitted to all the benefits, rights and privileges which he enjoyed before that ejection ; and therefore desire you would please to effect it accordingly. Wherein you shall do a favour will be owned by Your affectionate friend and servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Dudley Wyatt, Scholar of Trinity College, 25th April 1628 ; B.A., 1631 ; Fellow, 4th October 1633 ; vanishes from the Bursar's Books in 1645 : no notice of him farther, or of any effect produced by the Lieutenant-General's Letter on his behalf, is found in the College records. Indeed, directly after this Letter, the young gentleman, of a roving turn at any rate, appears to have dis- covered that there was new war and mischief in the wind, and better hope at Court than at College for a youth of spirit. He went to France to the Queen (as we may gather) ; went and came ; developed himself into a busy spy and intriguer ; — attained to Knighthood, to be the 'Sir Dudley Wyatt' of Clarendon's History ; J whom, and not us, he shall henceforth concern. LETTER LII Robert Hammond, Governor of the Isle of Wight, who has for the present become so important to England, is a young man ' of good parts and principles : ' a Colonel of Foot ; served formerly as Captain under Massey in Gloucester ; — where, in October 1644, he had the misfortune to kill a brother Officer, one Major Gray, in sudden duel, ' for giving him the lie ; ' he was tried, but ac- quitted, the provocation being great. He has since risen to be * ' Muniment Room, Trinity College, Cambridge (Collection entitled Papers 'relating to Trin. Coll., vol. 3): a Transcript, Original not now forthcoming, — ' docketed in the hand of one Porter, Clerk to Thomas Parne, about 1724, L. P. ' Cromwell's Letter concerning Sir Dudley Wyatt.' (Communicated by the Rev. J. Edleston, Fellow of Trinity, March 1849.) — Harl. MSS. no. 7053, f. 153 b. : printed, from the latter, in Hartshorne's Book Rarities in the University of Cam- bridge (London, 1829), p. 277. The Harl. MSS. copy adds: 'N.B. Upon this Letter, Sir Dudley Wyatt was readmitted,' — but did not stay, as would appear. 1 ii. 959, iii. 22, &c. 288 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAKS [3 Jan. Colonel, and become well known. 1 Originally of Chertsey, Surrey ; his Grandfather, and perhaps his Father, a Physician there. His Uncle, Thomas Hammond, is now Lieutenant- General of the Ordinance ; a man whom, with this Robert, we saw busy in the Army Troubles last year. The Lieutenant- Genera], Thomas Hammond, persists in his democratic course ; patron at this time of the Adjutator speculations ; sits afterwards as a King's-Judge. In strong contrast with whom is another Uncle, Dr. Henry Hammond, a pattern-flower of loyalty, one of his Majesty's favourite Chaplains. It was Uncle Thomas that first got this young Robert a Commission in the Army : but Uncle Henry had, in late months, introduced him to his Majesty at Hampton Court, as an ingenuous youth, repentant, or at least sympathetic and not without loyalty. Which circumstance, it is supposed, had turned the King's thoughts in that bewildered Flight of his, towards Colonel Robert and the Isle of Wight. Colonel Robert, it would seem, had rather disliked the high course things were sometimes threatening to take, in the Putney Council of War ; and had been glad to get out of it for a quiet Governorship at a distance. But it now turns out, he has got into still deeper difficulties thereby. His ' temptation ' when the King announced himself as in the neighbourhood, had been great : Shall he obey the King in this crisis ; conduct the King whitherward his Majesty wishes ? Or be true to his trust and the Parliament ? He ' grew suddenly pale ; ' — he decided as we saw. The Isle of Wight, holding so important a deposit, is put under the Derby-House Committee, old 'Committee of Both Kingdoms/ some additions being made thereto, and some ex- clusions. Oliver is of it, and Philip Lord Wbarton, among others. Lord Wharton, a conspicuous Puritan and intimate of Oliver's ; of whom we shall afterwards have occasion to say somewhat. This Committee of Derby House was, of course, in continual communication with Robert Hammond. Certain of their Letters to him had, after various fortune, come into the hands of the Honourable Mr. Yorke (Lord Hardwicke) ; and were lying in his '[He is the Colonel Hammond mentioned as being at the siege of Bristol (p. 214 above) and was connected with Cromwell by his marriage to John Hampden's daughter. There are some important letters to him from Cromwell in the Supple- ment, Nos. 26, 35, 65.] 1648.] LETTEE LII, LONDON 289 house, when it and they were, in 1752, accidentally burnt. A Dr. Joseph Litherland had, by good luck, taken copies ; Thomas Birch, lest fire should again intervene, printed the Collection, — a very thin Octavo, London, 1764. He has given some intro- ductory account of Robert Hammond ; copying, as we do mainly here, from Wood's Athenas ; l and has committed — as who does not? — several errors. His Annotations are sedulous but inef- fectual. What of the Letters are from Oliver we extract with thanks. A former Letter, of which Oliver was ' the penner,' is now lost. 2 ' Our brethren ' in the following letter are the Scots, now all excluded from Derby-House Committee of Both Kingdoms. The ' Recorder ' is Glyn, one of the vanished Eleven, Stapleton being another ; for both of whom it has been necessary to appoint substitutes in the said Committee. For Colonel Robert Hammond, Governor of tlie Isle of Wight : These, for the Service of the Kingdom. Haste : Post Haste ' London,' 3d January 1647. (My Lord Wharton's, near ten at night.) Dearest Robin, Now (blessed be God) I can write and thou receive freely. I never in my life saw more deep sense, and less will to show it unchristianly, than in that which thou didst write to us when we were at Windsor, and thou in the midst of thy temptation, which indeed, by what we understand of it, was a great one, and occasioned 3 the greater by the letter the General sent thee ; of which thou wast not mistaken when thou didst challenge me to be the penner. How good has God been to dispose all to mercy ! And although it was trouble for the present, yet glory has come out of it ; for which we praise the Lord with thee and for thee. And truly thy carriage has been such as occasions much honour to the name of God and to religion. Go on in the strength of the Lord ; and the Lord be still with thee. 1 iii. 500. 2 [Perhaps Fairfax's letter of December 28 . One from Cromwell himself, probably written at the end of December, will be found in the Supplement, No. 26.] 3 rendered. VOL. I. 19 290 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [3 Jan. But, dear Robin, this business hath been (I trust) a mighty providence to this poor Kingdom and to us all. The House of Commons is very sensible of the King's dealings, and of our brethren's, in this late transaction. You should do well, if you have anything that may discover juggling, to search it out, and let us know it. It may be of admirable use at this time ; because we shall (I hope) instantly go upon business in relation to them, 1 tending to prevent danger. The House of Commons has this day voted as follows : 1st, They will make no more Addresses to the King ; 2nd, None shall apply to him without leave of the two Houses, upon pain of being guilty of high treason ; 3rd, They will receive nothing from the King, nor shall any other bring anything to them from him, nor receive anything from the King ; 2 lastly, the Members of both Houses who were of the Committee of Both Kingdoms are established in all that power in themselves, for England and Ireland, which they ' formerly ' had to act with Both Kingdoms ' England and Scotland ' : and Sir John Evelyn of Wilts is added in the room of Mr. Recorder and Nathaniel Fiennes in the room of Sir Philip Stapleton, and my Lord of Kent in the room of the Earl of Essex. 3 I think it good you take notice of this, the sooner the better. Let us know how it is with you in point of strength, and what 1 the Scots. a [The following is a Royalist account of Cromwell's own part in the debate. ' ' Of his (Lieut. -Gen. Cromwell's) power and greatness we have a very pregnant instance by his lordly carriage in the House, upon debate of that vote which denies all addresses to or returns from his Majesty ; for when Mr. Maynard stood up and gave reasons against the passing of such a vote . . . then Mr. Cromwell (to show that this was no time to speak sense and reason) stood up, and the glow- worm glistening in his beak, he began to spit fire ; and as the devil quoted scripture against our Saviour, so did he against his sovereign, and told the House : It is written, Thou shalt not suffer an hypocrite to reign ; and what then (I pray you) will become of himself? But to show that it was so decreed, I am told he laid his hand upon the hilt of his sword, as the only graceful conclusion of so gallant a piece of oratory." Mercuri-us Pragmaticus, Jan. 4-11. E. 422 (17).] 3 Essex is dead ; Stapleton, one of the Eleven who went to France, is dead ; Recorder Glyn, another of them, is in the Tower. For the ' Votes,' see Commons Journals, v. 415 (3d January 1647-8). [Recorder Glynne, however, emerged from the Tower and grew into high favour with Oliver, who made him Lord Chief Justice in 1655, and a member of his Upper House.] 1648.] LETTER LIIL, LONDON 291 you need from us. Some of us think the King well with you, and that it concerns us to keep that Island in great security, because of the French, &c. : and if so, 1 where can the King be better ? If you have more force ' sent,' you will be sure of full provision for them. The Lord bless thee. Pray for Thy dear friend and servant, Oliver Cromwell.* In these same days noisy Lilburn has accused Cromwell of meaning or having meant to make his own bargain with the King, and be Earl of Essex and a great man. Noisy John thinks all great men, especially all Lords, ought to be brought low. The Commons have him at their bar in this month. 2 LETTER LIII Here, by will of the Destinies preserving certain bits of paper and destroying others, there introduces itself a little piece of Domesticity ; a small family-transaction, curiously enough peering through by its own peculiar rent, amid these great world-transactions : Marriage-treaty for Richard Cromwell, the Lieutenant-General's eldest Son. What Richard has been doing hitherto no Biographer knows. In spite of Noble, I incline to think he too had been in the Army ; in October last there are two Sons mentioned expressly as being officers there : ' One of his Sons, Captain of the General's Lifeguard ; his other Son, Captain of a troop in Colonel Harrison's Regiment,' — so greedy is he of the Public Money to his own family ! 3 Richard is now heir-apparent ; our poor Boy Oliver therefore, ' Cornet Oliver,' we know not in the least where, must have died. " It went to my heart like a dagger ; 1 if we do secure and fortify it. 2 19th January, Commons Journals, v. 437. 3 5th October 1647 (Royalist Newspaper, citing a Pamphlet of Lilburn's), Crom- welliana, p. 36. * Birch's Hammond Letters, p. 23, Given also in Harris, p. 497. 292 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [25 Feb. indeed it did." 1 The phrase of the Pamphlet itself, we observe, is ' his other Son,' not ' one of his other Sons,' as if there were now but two left. If Richard was ever in the Army, which these probabilities may dimly intimate, the Lifeguard, a place for persons of consequence, was the likeliest for him. The Captain in Harri- son's Regiment will in that case be Henry. — The Cromwell family, as we laboriously guess and gather, has about this time removed to London. 2 Richard, if ever in the Lifeguard, has now quitted it : an idle fellow, who could never relish soldiering in such an Army ; he now wishes to retire to Arcadian felicity and wedded life in the country. The 'Mr. M.' of this Letter is Richard Mayor, Esquire, of Hursley, Hants, 3 the young lady's father. Hursley, not far from Winchester, is still a manorhouse, but no representative of Richard Mayor's has now place there or elsewhere. The treaty, after difficulties, did take effect. 4 Mayor, written also Major and Maijor, a pious prudent man, becomes better known to Oliver, to the world and to us in the sequel. Richard Norton, Member for Hants since 1645, is his neighbour; an old fellow-soldier under Manchester, fellow -colonel in the Eastern Association, seemingly very familiar with Oliver, he is applied to on this delicate occasion. For my noble Friend Colonel Richard Norton : These ' London,' 25th February 1647. Dear Norton, I have sent my son over to thee, being willing to answer Providence ; and although I confess I have had an offer of a very great proposition, from a father, of his daughter, yet truly I rather incline to this in my thoughts ; because, though 1 [Richard was certainly in Fairfax's Life Guard. For Oliver's death, see p. 176 above. Carlyle left this quotation even in his latest edition, but evidently by inadvertence, as he had discovered that it referred to Robert, not Oliver.] 2 [They were in London before this. See note on p. 247 above.] 3 Noble, ii. 436-42. 4 [So little, says Mr. Firth, did Cromwell ' ' dream of ever becoming himself the ruler of England, that at the very moment when fortune had opened the widest field to ambition, he began negotiations for the marriage of his eldest son to the daughter of a private gentleman of no great influence or position. " Oliver Cromwell, p. 192. Perhaps, however, it was Richard who did not dream, or would not wait. At that time, Cromwell had difficulty enough in giving even the modest settlements which Mr. Mayor demanded.] 1648.] LETTER LIIL, LONDON 293 the other be very far greater, yet I see difficulties, and not that assurance of godliness ; yet indeed fairness. I confess that which is told me concerning [the] estate of Mr. M. is more than I look for, as things now stand. If God please to bring it about, the consideration of piety in the parents, and such hopes of the gentlewoman in that respect, make the business to me a great mercy ; concerning which I desire to wait upon God. I am confident of thy love ; and desire things may be carried with privacy. The Lord do His will : that's best ; to which submitting, I rest, Your humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* What other Father it was that made ' the offer of a very great proposition ' to Oliver, in the shape of his Daughter as Wife to Oliver's Son, must remain totally uncertain for the present ; per- haps some glimpse of it may turn up by and by. There were ' difficulties ' which Oliver did not entirely see through ; there was not that assurance of ' godliness ' in the house, though there was of ' fairness ' and natural integrity ; in short, Oliver will pre- fer Mayor, at least will try him, — and wishes it carried with privacy. The Commons, now dealing with Delinquents, do not forget to reward good Servants, to ' conciliate the Grandees,' as splenetic Walker calls it. For above two years past, ever since the War ended, there has been talk and debate about settling 2,500/. a- year on Lieutenant-General Cromwell ; but difficulties have arisen. First they tried Basing-House Lands, the Marquis of Winchester's, whom Cromwell had demolished ; but the Marquis's affairs were in disorder ; it was gradually found the Marquis had for most part only a Life-rent there : — only ' Abbotston and Itchin ' in that quarter could be realised. Order thereupon to settle ' Lands of Papists and Delinquents ' to the requisite amount, wheresoever convenient. To settle especially what Lands the Marquis of Worcester had in that ' County of Southampton ; ' * Harris, p. 501. Copy of this, and of the next Two Letters to Norton, by Birch, in Ayscough MSS. 416a, f. 56, &c. [But now printed from the holograph original in the Morrison Collection.] 294 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [7 March. which was done, — though still with insufficient result. 1 Then came the Army Quarrels, and an end bf such business. But now in the Commons Journals, 7th March, the very day of Oliver's next Letter, this is what we read : 2 ' An ordinance for 'passing unto Oliver Cromwell, Esquire, Lieutenant-General, ' certain Lands and Manors in the Counties of Gloucester, Mon- * mouth and Glamorgan, late the lands of the Earl of Worcester 3 ' was this day read the third time and, upon the question, passed ; * and ordered to be sent unto the Lords for their concurrence.' Oliver himself, as we shall find, has been dangerously sick. This is what Clement Walker, the splenetic Presbyterian, ' an elderly ' gentleman of low stature, in a gray suit, with a little stick in ' his hand,' reports upon the matter of the Grant : 'The 7th of March, an Ordinance to settle 2,500/. a-year of ' Land, out of the Marquis of Worcester's Estate,' — old Marquis of Worcester at Ragland, father of my Lord Glamorgan, who in his turn became Marquis of Worcester and wrote the Century of Inventions, — 2,5001. a-year out of this old Marquis's Estate ' upon ' Lieutenant-General Cromwell ! I have heard some gentlemen ' that know the Manor of Chepstow and the other Lands affirm ' that in reality they are worth 5,000/. or even 6,000/. a-year ; — which is far from the fact, my little elderly friend ! 4 ' You see,' 1 Commons Journals (iv. 416), 23d January 1645-6 ; the Marquis of Worcester's Hampshire Lands. lb. 426, a week afterwards : ' Abberaton and Itche//,' meaning Abbotston and Itchin, Marquis of Winchester's there. See also Letter of Oliver St. John to Cromwell, in Thurloe, i. 75. — Commons Journals (v. 44) about a year afterwards, 7th January 1646-7 : 'remainder of the 2,500/.' from Marquis of Win- chester's Lands in general ; which in a fortnight more is found to be impossible : whereupon ' Lands of Delinquents and Papists,' as in the Text. None of these Hampshire Lands, except Abbotston and Itchin, are named. Noble says, ' Fawley Park ' in the same County ; which is possible enough. 2 v. 482. 3 [Parliament did not recognise his title of Marquis, conferred in 1642.] 4 [Probably at first he only had the rents, not actual possession of the estates, then all under sequestration. Cromwell's expression " bestowed 1680/. per annum out of the Earl of Worcester's estate" (see p. 296 below) seems to mean this. Ap- parently Chepstow was not settled until 1650 (see Cal. of Com. for Compounding, p. 603.) And it must be remembered that Cromwell by no means succeeded to an unencumbered or uncontested estate. There are many indications in the State Papers of the difficulty he had in substantiating his claim. In January, 1651, for instance, Thurloe wrote that the Monmouth County Committee had been taking the rents of the Manor of Crym, which should have been sent to the General. They apologised, said they did not understand, but a year and a half afterwards had not repaid them. In July, 1651, Thurloe complained again ; this time against divers persons in Gloucestershire, who still held possession of estates granted to the General; to his great detriment. And when Chepstow and other lands were settled in 1650, it was expressly with saving to all ' ' claims " (except those of the Worcester family or other delinquents). What these "claims" meant, and how 1648.] LETTER LIV, LONDON 295 continues he, 'though they have not made King Charles "a 'Glorious King," ' as they sometimes undertook, 'they have settled 'a Crown- Revenue upon Oliver, and have made him as glorious * a King as ever John of Leyden was ! ' l A very splenetic old gentleman in gray ; — verging towards Pride's Purge, and lodg- ment in the Tower, I think ! He is from the West ; known long since in Gloucester Siege ; Member now for Wells ; but terminates in the Tower, with ink, and abundant gall in it, to write the History of Independency there. LETTER LIV For his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax, General of the Parliament's Armies at Windsor : These ' London,' 7th March 1647. Sir, It hath pleased God to raise me out of a dangerous sickness ; and I do most willingly acknowledge that the Lord hath (in this visitation) exercised the bowels of a Father towards me. I received in myself the sentence of death, that I might learn to trust in him that raiseth from the dead, and have no confidence in the flesh. It's a blessed thing to die daily, for what is there in this world to be accounted of. The best men according to the flesh, and things, are lighter than vanity. I find this only good, to love the Lord and his poor despised people, to do for them, and to be ready to suffer with them : and he that is found worthy of this hath obtained great favour from the Lord ; and he that is established in this shall (being conformed to 2 Christ and the rest of the Body) 3 par- ticipate in the glory of a 4 Resurrection which will answer all. 6 they interfered with the "enjoyment" of the confiscated estates, may be read on almost every page of the Calendar of Committee for Compounding. For abstracts of those made on Lord Worcester's estates, see his case in the Calendar, pp. 1705-1715-)] 1 History of Independency (London, 1648), Part i. 83 and 55. '[Written above " after conformity with " erased.] 3 Christ's Body, his Church. * [Written above " the " erased.] "Turns now to the margin of the sheet, lengthwise. 296 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [21 March. Sir, I must thankfully confess your favour in your last letter. I see I am not forgotten ; and truly, to be kept in your remem- brance is very great satisfaction to me ; for I can say in the sim- plicity of my heart, I put a high and true value upon your love, which when I forget, I shall cease to be a grateful and an honest man. I most humbly beg my service may be presented to your Lady, to whom I wish all happiness, and establishment in the truth. Sir, my prayers are for you, as becomes Your Excellency's Most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell. ' P.S.' Sir, Mr. Rushworth will write to you about the Quar- tering, and the letter lately sent you ; and therefore I forbear.* FREE OFFER From the Committee of the Lords and Commons for the Affairs of Ireland sitting at Derby House, Sir John Evelyn reports a certain offer from Lieutenant-General Cromwell ; which is read in the words following : ' To the Honourable the Committee of Lords and Commons for the Affairs of Ireland, sitting at Derby House : The Offer of Lieu- tenant-General Cromwell for the Service of Ireland' 21° Martii 1647. The two Houses of Parliament having lately bestowed 1,680/. per annum upon me and my heirs, out of the Earl of Worcester's Estate ; the necessity of affairs requiring assistance, I do hereby offer one-thousand pounds annually to be paid out of the rents * Shane MSS. 1519, fol. 79 [f. 158. Holograph. Seal with the Cromwell arms]. 1648.] LETTER LV., FARNHAM 297 of the said land ; that is to say, 500/. out of the next Michael- mas rent, and so on, by the half years, for the space of five years, if the war in Ireland shall so long continue, or that I live so long : to be employed for the service of Ireland, as the Par- liament shall please to appoint ; provided the said yearly rent of 1,680/. become not to be suspended by war or other accident. And whereas there is an arrear of pay due unto me whilst I was Lieutenant-General unto the Earl of Manchester, of about 1,500/., audited and stated ; as also a great arrear due for about two years being Governor of the Isle of Ely : I do hereby discharge the State from all or any claim to be made by me thereunto. Oliver Cromwell.* ' Ordered, That this House doth accept of the Free Offer of 'Lieutenant-General Cromwell, testifying his zeal and good ' affections, to the service of Ireland.' My splenetic little gentle- man in gray, with the little stick in his hand, takes no notice of this ; which modifies materially what the Chepstow Connois- seurs and their ' five or six thousand a-year ' reported lately ! : LETTER LV Here is Norton and the Marriage again. Here are news out of Scotland that the Malignant Party, the Duke of Hamilton's Faction, are taking the lead there ; and about getting up an Army to attack us, and deliver the King from Sectaries : 2 Reverend Stephen Marshall reports the news. Let us read : * Commons Journals, v. 513. 1 [Moreover Cromwell's pay had lately been reduced from 4/. to 3/. a day. Dr. Gardiner calculates that for the next five years he would only have about 75/. per annum left of the grants for his own use. And as the calculation does not take into account the resignation of his arrears as Governor of Ely, the balance would be even less. Great Civil War, iv. 79. J 9 Rush worth, vii. 1040, &c. 298 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAES [28 March. For my noble Friend Col. Richard Norton : These Farnham, 28th March 1648. Dear Dick, It had been a favour indeed to have met you here at Farnham, but I hear you are a man of great business ; therefore I say no more : if it be a favour to the House of Com- mons to enjoy you, what is it to me. But, in good earnest, when will you and your Brother Russell be a little honest, and attend your charge. Surely some expect it, especially the good fellows who chose you. I have met with Mr. Mayor ; we spent two or three hours together last night. I perceive the gentleman is very wise and honest, and indeed much to be valued. Some things of common fame 1 did a little stick : I gladly heard his doubts, and gave such answer as was next at hand, I believe, to some satisfaction. Nevertheless I exceedingly liked the gentleman's plainness and free dealing with me. I know God has been above all ill reports, and will in His own time vindicate me ; I have no cause to com- plain. I see nothing but that this particular business between him and me may go on. The Lord's will be done. For news out of the North there is little, only the mal[ignant] party is prevailing in the Parliament of S[cotland]. They are earnest for a war ; the ministers 2 oppose as yet. Mr. Marshall is returned, who says so, and so do many of our letters. Their great Committee of Dangers have two malignants for one right. It's said they have voted an army of 40,000 in Parliament ; so ' say ' some of yesterday's letters. But I account my news ill bestowed, because upon an idle person. 1 shall take speedy course in the business concerning my Tenants ; for which, thanks. My service to your Lady. I am really, Your affectionate servant, Oliver Cromwell.* 1 Against myself : — ' favour for Sectaries,' and so forth. 2 Clergy. * Harris, p. 502. [Printed now from the holograph original in the Morrison Collection. Endorsed " No. 2." See p. 41m below.] 1648.] LETTER LVI, LONDON 299 Had Cromwell come out to Farnham on military business ? Kent is in a ticklish state ; it broke out some weeks hence in open insurrection, 1 — as did many other places, when once the ' Scotch Army of 40,000 ' became a certainty. ' The business concerning my Tenants ' will indicate that in Hampshire, within ken of Norton, in Fawley Park, in Itchin, Abbotston, or elsewhere, ' my Tenants ' are felling wood, cutting copses, or otherwise not behaving to perfection : but they shall be looked to. For the rest, Norton really ought to attend his duties in Par- liament! In earnest 'an idle fellow,' as Oliver in sport calls him. Given to Presbyterian notions ; was purged out by Pride ; came back ; dwindled ultimately into Royalism. ' Brother Russel ' means only brother member. He is the Frank Russel of the Letter on Marston Moor. Now Sir Francis ; and sits for Cambridgeshire. A comrade of Norton's ; seemingly now in his neighbourhood, possibly on a visit to him. The attendance on the House in these months is extremely thin ; the divisions range from 200 to as low as 70. Nothing going on but Delinquents' fines, and abstruse negotiations with the Isle of Wight, languid Members prefer the country till some result arrive. LETTER LVI Here is a new phasis of the Wedding-treaty ; which, as seems, 'doth now a little stick.' Prudent Mr. Mayor insists on his advantages ; nor is the Lieutenant-General behindhand. What ' lands ' all these of Oliver's are, in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Hampshire, no Biographer now knows. Portions of the Par- liamentary Grants above alluded to ; perhaps ' Purchases by Debentures,' some of them. Soldiers could seldom get their Pay in money ; with their 'Debentures' they had to purchase Forfeited Lands ; — a somewhat uncertain investment of an uncertain currency. The Mr. Robinson mentioned in this Letter is a pious Preacher at Southampton. 2 ' My two little Wenches ' are Mary and Frances : Mary aged now near twelve ; Frances ten. 3 1 24th or 35th May 1648 (Rushworth, vii. 1128). 2 Harris, p. 504. s See antea, p. 63. 300 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [3 April. ' For my noble Friend Colonel Richard Norton : These ' London, 3d April 1648. Dear Norton, I could not in my last give you a perfect account of what passed between me and Mr. M[ayor], because we were to have a conclusion of our speech x that morning after I wrote my letter to you. 2 Which we had ; and having had a full interview of one another's minds, we parted with this : That both would consider with our relations, and according to satisfactions given there, acquaint each other with our minds. I cannot tell how better to do it, to receive or give satis- faction, than by you who (as I remember), in your last, said that) if things did stick between us, you would use your endeavour towards a close. The things insisted upon were these (as I take it). Mr. Mayor desired 400/. per annum of Inheritance 3 lying in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, to be presently settled, 4 and to be for maintenance, wherein I desired to be advised by my Wife. I offered the land in Hampshire for present maintenance, which I dare say, with copses and ordinary fells, 5 will be, communions annis, 5001. per annum : besides 500/. per annum in Tenants' hands holding but for one life, and about 300/. per annum, some for two lives, some for three lives. But as to this, if the latter be not liked of, I shall be willing a further conference be had in ' regard to ' the first. In point of jointure I shall give satisfaction, and as to the settlements of lands given me by the Parliament, satisfaction to be given in like manner, according as we discoursed. In what else was demanded of me, I am willing (so far as I remember any demand was) to give satisfaction. Only, I having been informed by Mr. Robinson that Mr. Mayor did, upon a former '[Harris, followed by Carlyle, misread this " speed ".] » Letter LV »[*.«.. his own lands, not those granted by Parliament as were the Hampshire lands. Therefore considered as of safer tenure.] 4 On the Future Pair. 5 fellings 1648.] LETTER LVL, LONDON SOI match, offer to settle the Manor wherein he lived, and to give 2,000Z. in money, I did insist upon that ; and do desire it may not be with difficulty. The money I shall need for my two little wenches, and thereby I shall free my Son from being charged with them. Mr. Mayor parts with nothing in present but that money, saving their board, which I should not be unwilling to give them, to enjoy the comfort of their society ; which it's reason he smart for, if he will rob me altogether of them. Truly the land to be settled, — both what the Parliament gives me, and my own, — is very little less than 3,000/. per annum, all things considered, if I be rightly informed. And a lawyer of Lincoln's Inn, having searched all the Marquis of Worcester's writings, which were taken at Ragland and sent for by the Parliament, and this gentleman appointed by the Com- mittee to search the said writings, assures me there is no scruple concerning the title. And it so fell out that this gentleman who searched was my own lawyer, a very godly able man, and my dear friend, which I reckon no small mercy. He is also possessed of the writings for me. 1 I thought fit to give you this account, desiring you to make such use of it as God shall direct you, and I doubt not but you will do the part of a friend between two friends. I account myself one, and I have heard you say Mr. Mayor was entirely so to you. What the good pleasure of God is, I shall wait ; there is only rest. Present my service to your Lady, to Mr. Mayor, &c. I rest, Your affectionate servant, Oliver Cromwell. ' P.S.' I desire you to carry this business with all privacy. I beseech you to do so, as you love me. Let me entreat you not to lose a day herein, that I may know Mr. Mayor's mind, for I think I may be at leisure for a week to attend this business, to 1 holds these Ragland Documents on my behalf. 302 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [6 April. give and take satisfaction ; from which perhaps I may be shut up afterwards by employment. 1 I know thou art an idle fellow, but prithee neglect me not now; delay may be very incon- venient to me ; I much rely upon you. Let me hear from you in two or three days. I confess the principal consideration as to me, is the absolute settlement ' by Mr. Mayor ' of the Manor wherein he lives ; which he would do but conditionally, in case he prove to have no son, and but 3,000l. in case he have a son. 2 But as to this, I hope farther reason may work him to more.* Of ' my two little Wenches,' Mary, we may repeat, became Lady Fauconberg ; Frances was wedded to the Honourable Mr. Rich; then to Sir John Russell. Elizabeth and Bridget are already Mrs. Claypole and Mrs. Ireton. Elizabeth, the younger, was first married. They were all married very young ; Elizabeth, at her wedding, was little turned of sixteen. LETTER LVII For Colonel Robert Hammond ' London,' 6th April 1648. Dear Robin, Your business is done in the House : your 10/. by the week is made 20/. ; 1000/. given you; and Order to Mr. Lisle to draw up an Ordinance for 500/. per annum to be settled upon you and your heirs. This was done with smooth- ness ; your friends were not wanting to you. I know thy burden ; this is an addition to it : the Lord direct and sustain thee. 1 Went to Wales in May. 2 [Carlyle altered this into ' ' which he would not do but conditionally, in case they have a son, and but 3000/. in case they have no son," supposing evidently that in case "he prove, etc.," related to Richard (and his wife), but Mayor is no doubt providing for the contingency of himself having an heir male. Comp. pp. 425, 428, below.] * Harris, p. 502. [Now printed from the holograph original in the Morrison Collection. Endorsed "No. 3."] 1648.] LETTEE LVIL, LONDON 303 Intelligence came to the hands of a very considerable person, that the King attempted to get out of his window ; and that he had a cord of silk with him whereby to slip down, but his breast was so big the bar would not give him passage. This was done in one of the dark nights about a fortnight ago. A gentleman with you led him the way, and slipped down. The Guard, that night, had some quantity of wine with them. The same party assures that there is aquafortis gone down from London, to re- move that obstacle which hindered ; and that the same design is to be put in execution in the next dark nights. He saith that Captain Titus and some others about the King are not to be trusted. He is a very considerable person of the Parliament who gave this intelligence, and desired it should be speeded to you. The gentleman that came out of the window was Master Firebrace ; the gentlemen doubted are Cresset, Burrowes, and Titus ; the time when this attempt of escape was, the 20th of March. Your servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Henry Firebrace is known to Birch, and his Narrative is known. ' He became Clerk of the Kitchen to Charles II. ' — The old Books are full of King's Plots for escape, by aquafortis and otherwise. 1 His Majesty could make no agreement with the Parliament, and began now to smell War in the wind. His presence in this or the other locality might have been of clear advantage. But Hammond was too watchful. Titus, with or without his new horse, attends upon his Majesty ; James Harrington also (after- wards author of Oceana) ; and ' the Honourable Thomas Herbert,' who has left a pleasing Narrative concerning that affair. These, though appointed by the Parliament, are all somewhat in favour with the King. Hammond's Uncle the Chaplain, as loo favour-, able, was ordered out of the Island about Christmas last, * Birch, p. 40. The Original in cipher. 1 Lilly's Life ; Wood, § Hammond ; &c. &c, 304 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAKS [18 April. LETTER LVIII 'The Gentleman I mentioned to you,' who is now travelling towards Dover with this hopeful Note in his pocket, must remain forever anonymous. Of Kenrick I have incidentally heard, at Worcester Fight or elsewhere ; but of 'the Gentleman ' nowhere ever. A Shadow, sunk deep, with all his business, in the Land of Shadows ; yet still indisputably visible there : that is the miracle of him ! To Colonel Kenrick, Lieutenant of Dover Castle : These ' London,' iSth April 1648. Sir, This is the gentleman I mentioned to you. I am persuaded you may be confident of his fidelity to you in the things you will employ him in. I conceive he is fit for any civil employment, as having been bred towards the law, and having beside very good parts. He hath been a captain-lieutenant : and therefore I hope you ' will ' put such value upon him, in ' the ' civil way, as one that hath borne such a place shall be thought by you worthy of. Whereby you will much oblige, Your affectionate servant, Oliver Cromwell. ' P.S.' I expect to hear from you about your defects in the Castle, that so you may be timely supplied.* ' Defects in the Castle,' and in all Castles, were good to be amended speedily, — in such predicaments as we are now again on the eve of. kind Gentleman's Magazine (179 1 ). lx >- S 2 ° I without comment or indication,of any 1648.] PRAYER-MEETING 305 PRAYER-MEETING The Scotch Army of Forty-thousand, ' to deliver the King from Sectaries/ is not a fable but a fact. Scotland is distracted by dim disastrous factions, very uncertain what it will do with the King when he is delivered : but in the meanwhile Hamilton has got a majority in the Scotch Parliament ; and drums are beating in that country : the ' Army of Forty-thousand, certainly coming,' hangs over England like a flaming comet, England itself being all very combustible too. In few weeks hence, discontented Wales, the Presbyterian Colonels declaring now for Royalism, will be in a blaze ; large sections of England, all England very ready to follow, will shortly after be in a blaze. The small Governing Party in England, during those early months of 1648, are in a position which might fill the bravest mind with misgivings. Elements of destruction everywhere under and around them ; their lot either to conquer, or igno- miniously to die. A King not to be bargained with ; kept in Carisbrook, the centre of all factious hopes, of world-wide in- trigues : that is one element. A great Royalist Party, subdued with difficulty, and ready at all moments to rise again : that is another. A great Presbyterian Party, at the head of which is London City, ' the Purse-bearer of the Cause,' highly dissatisfied at the course things had taken, and looking desperately round for new combinations and a new struggle : reckon that for a third element. Add lastly a headlong Mutineer, Republican, or Level- ling Party: and consider that there is a working House of Commons which counts about Seventy, divided in pretty equal halves too, — the rest waiting what will come of it. Come of it, and of the Scotch Army advancing towards it ! — Cromwell, it appears, deeply sensible of all this, does in these weeks make strenuous repeated attempts towards at least a union among the friends of the Cause themselves, whose aim is one, whose peril is one. But to little effect. Ludlow, with visible satisfaction, reports how ill the Lieutenant-General sped, when he brought the Army Grandees and Parliament Grandees ' to a Dinner' at his own house, 'in King Street,' and urged, a cordial agreement : they would not draw together at all. 1 Parliament 'Ludlow, i. 238 [i. 184, ed. Firth. This is the meeting when, according to Ludlow, he and Cromwell threw cushions at each other.] vol. i.— 20 306 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WAKS [1648. would not agree with Army; hardly Parliament with itself: as little, still less, would Parliament and City agree. At a Common Council in the City, prior or posterior to this Dinner, his success, as angry little Walker intimates, was the same. ' Saturday 8th April 1648,' having prepared the ground beforehand, Cromwell with another leader or two, attended a Common Council ; spake, as we may fancy, of the common dangers, of the gulfs now yawning on every side : ' but the City,' chuckles my little gentle- man in gray, with a very shrill kind of laughter in the throat of him, ' were now wiser than our First Parents ; and rejected the ' Serpent and his subtleties.' 1 In fact, the City wishes well to Hamilton and his Forty- thousand Scots ; the City has, for some time, needed regiments quartered in it, to keep down open Royalist- Presbyterian insurrection. It was precisely on the morrow after this visit of Cromwell's that there rose, from small cause, huge Apprentice-riot in the City : discomfiture of Trainbands, seizure of arms, seizure of City Gates, Ludgate, Newgate, loud wide cry of " God and King Charles ! " — riot not to be appeased but by ' desperate charge of cavalry,' z after it had lasted forty hours. 3 Such are the aspects of affairs, near and far. Before quitting Part Third, I will request the reader to under- take a small piece of very dull reading ; in which however, if he look till it become credible and intelligible to him, a strange thing, much elucidative of the heart of this matter, will disclose itself. At Windsor, one of these days, unknown now which, 4 there is a Meeting of Army Leaders. Adjutant-General Allen, a most authentic earnest man, whom we shall know better after- wards, reports what they did. Entirely amazing to us. These are the longest heads and the strongest hearts in England ; and this is the thing they are doing ; this is the way they, for then- part, begin despatch of business. The reader, if he is an earnest man, may look at it with very many thoughts, for which there is no word at present. 1 History of Independency, part i. 85. a ["The Lieutenant-General drew forth a party of horse, fell upon them, killed him who carried the colours, and one or two more were slain, and divers of them cut and hacked by the troopers, whereupon they soon fled and were dissipated." See News letter from London, Clarke Papers, ii. 3.] 3 Rushworth, vii. 1051. 4 [" The beginning of 1648" (see next page) means, of course after 25th March. From passages in Mercurius Pragmaticus, Whitlocke's Memorials and the Clarendon MSS., Dr. Gardiner concludes that the days of the conference were April 29, 30, and May 1. Great Civil War, iv. p. 117.] 1648.] PRAYER-MEETING 307 ' In the year Forty-seven, you may remember/ says Adjutant Allen, ' we in the Army were engaged in actions of a very high ' nature ; leading us to very untrodden paths, — both in our Con- ' tests with the then Parliament, as also Conferences with the ' King. In which great works, — wanting a spirit of faith, and ' also the fear of the Lord, and also being unduly surprised with ' the fear of man, which always brings a snare, we, to make haste, * as we thought, out of such perplexities, measuring our way by ' a wisdom of our own, fell into Treaties with the King and his ' Party : which proved such a snare to us, and led into such laby- ' rinths by the end of that year, that the very things we thought ' to avoid, by the means we used of our own devising, were all, ' with many more of a far worse and more perplexing nature, 'brought back upon us. To the overwhelming of our spirits, ' weakening of our hands and hearts ; filling us with divisions, ' confusions, tumults, and every evil work ; and thereby en- ' dangering the ruin of that blessed Cause we had, with such * success, been prospered in till that time. ' For now the King and his Party, seeing us not answer their * ends, began to provide for themselves, by a Treaty with the ' then Parliament, set on foot about the beginning of Forty-eight. 'The Parliament also was, at the same time, highly displeased ' with us for what we had done, both as to the King and them- ' selves. The good people likewise, even our most cordial friends ' in the Nation, beholding our turning aside from that path of ' simplicity we had formerly walked in, and been blessed in, and 'thereby much endeared to their hearts, — began now to fear, ' and withdraw their affections from us, in this politic path which * we had stepped into, and walked in to our hurt, the year before. ' And as a farther fruit of the wages of our backsliding hearts, 'we were also filled with a spirit of great jealousy and divisions ' amongst ourselves ; having left that Wisdom of the Word, ' which is first pure and then peaceable ; so that we were now ' fit for little but to tear and rend one another, and thereby pre- ' pare ourselves, and the work in our hands, to be ruined by our ' common enemies. Enemies that were ready to say, as many 'others of like spirit in this day do, 1 of the like sad occasions ' amongst us, " Lo this is the day we looked for." The King ' and his party prepare accordingly to ruin all ; by sudden In- 1 1659 ; Allen's Pamphlet is written as a Monition and Example to Fleetwood and the others, now in a similar peril, but with no Oliver now among them. 308 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [1648. ' surrections in most parts of the Nation : the Scot, concurring 'with the same designs, comes in with a potent Army under 'Duke Hamilton. We in the Army, in a low, weak, divided, ' perplexed condition in all respects, as aforesaid : — some of us 'judging it a duty to lay down our arms, to quit our stations, 'and put ourselves into the capacities of private men, — since ' what we had done, and what was yet in our hearts to do, tending 'as we judged to the good of these poor Nations, was not accepted 'by them. ' Some also even encouraged themselves and us to such a thing, ' by urging for such a practice the example of our Lord Jesus ; ' who, when he had borne an eminent testimony to the pleasure ' of his Father in an active way, sealed it at last by his sufferings ; ' which was presented to us as our pattern for imitation. Others 'of us, however, were different-minded; thinking something of ' another nature might yet be farther our duty ; — and these there- ' fore were, by joint advice, by a good hand of the Lord, led to ' this result ; viz., To go solemnly to search out our own iniquities, ' and humble our souls before the Lord in the sense of the same ; ' which, we were persuaded, had provoked the Lord against us, ' to bring such sad perplexities upon us at that day. Out of ' which we saw no way else to extricate ourselves. ' Accordingly we did agree to meet at Windsor Castle about ' the beginning of Forty-eight. And there we spent one day ' together in prayer ; inquiring into the causes of that sad dis- ' pensation,' — let all men consider it ; ' coming to no farther result ' that day ; but that it was still our duty to seek. And on the ' morrow we met again in the morning ; where many spake from ' the Word, and prayed ; and the then Lieutenant-GeneraLCrom- ' well,' — unintelligible to Posterity, but extremely intelligible to 'himself, to these men, and to the Maker of him and of them, — 'did press very earnestly on all there present, to a thorough con- ' sideration of our actions as an Army, and of our ways particularly ' as private Christians : to see if any iniquity could be found in ' them ; and what it was, that if possible we might find it out, ' and so remove the cause of such sad rebukes as were upon us ' (by reason of our iniquities, as we judged) at that time. And ' the way more particularly the Lord led us to herein was this : ' To look back and consider what time it was when with joint 'satisfaction we could last say to the best of our judgments, 'The presence of the Lord mas amongst us, and rebukes and 'judgments were not as then upon us. Which time the Lord 1648.] PEAYER-MEETING 309 ' led us jointly to find out and agree in ; and having done so, ' to proceed, as we then judged it our duty, to search into all ' our public actions as an Army afterwards. Duly weighing (as 'the Lord helped us) each of them, with their grounds, rules, ' and ends, as near as we could. And so we concluded this ' second day, with agreeing to meet again on the morrow. Which 'accordingly we did upon the same occasion, reassuming the ' consideration of our debates the day before, and reviewing our ' actions again. ' By which means we were, by a gracious hand of the Lord, ' led to find out the very steps (as we were all then jointly con- ' vinced) by which we had departed from the Lord, and provoked '.Him to depart from us. Which we found to be those cursed ' carnal Conferences our own conceited wisdom, our fears, and ' want of faith had prompted us, the year before, to entertain ' with the King and his Party. And at this time, and on this * occasion, did the then Major GofFe (as I remember was his title) ' make use of that good Word, Proverbs First and Twenty-third, ' Turn you at my reproof '; behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you, ' I will make known my words unto you. Which, we having found ' out our sin, he urged as our duty from those words. And the ' Lord so accompanied by His Spirit, that it had a kindly effect, 'like a word of His, upon most of our hearts that were then * present : which begot in us a great sense, a shame and loathing 'of ourselves for our iniquities, and a justifying of the Lord as 'righteous in His proceedings against us. ' And in this path the Lord led us, not only to see our sin, but ' also our duty ; and this so unanimously set with weight upon ' each heart that none was able hardly to speak a word to each 'other for bitter weeping,' — does the modern reader mark it; this weeping, and who they are that weep ! Weeping ' partly ' in the sense and shame of our iniquities ; of our unbelief, base ' fear of men, and carnal consultations (as the fruit thereof) with ' our own wisdoms, and not with the Word of the Lord, — which ' only is a way of wisdom, strength and safety, and all besides it ' are ways of snares. And yet we were also helped, with fear 'and trembling, to rejoice in the Lord; whose faithfulness and ' loving-kindness, we were made to see, yet failed us not ; — who ' remembered us still, even in our low estate, because His mercy ' endures for ever. Who no sooner brought us to His feet, ac- ' knowledging Him in that way of His (viz. searching for, being 'ashamed of, and willing to turn from, our iniquities), but He 310 BETWEEN THE CIVIL WARS [1648. ' did direct our steps ; and presently we were led and helped to ' a clear agreement amongst ourselves, not any dissenting, That ' it was the duty of our day, with the forces we had, to go out ' and fight against those potent enemies, which that year in all ' places appeared against us.' Courage ! ' With an humble con- ' fidence, in the name of the Lord only, that we should destroy ' them. And we were also enabled then, after serious seeking ' His face, to come to a very clear and joint resolution, on many 'grounds at large there debated amongst us, That it was our 'duty, if ever the Lord brought us back again in peace, to call ' Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for that blood ' he had shed, and mischief he had done to his utmost, against 'the Lord's Cause and People in these poor Nations.' Mark that also ! ' And how the Lord led and prospered us in all our undertak- ' ings that year, in this way ; cutting His work short, in righteous- ' ness ; making it a year of mercy, equal if not transcendent to ' any since these Wars began ; and making it worthy of remem- 'brance by every gracious soul, who was wise to observe the ' Lord, and the operations of His hands, — I wish may never be ' forgotten.' Let Fleetwood, if he have the same heart, go and do likewise. 1 Abysses, black chaotic whirlwinds : — does the reader look upon it all as Madness ? Madness lies close by ; as Madness does to the Highest Wisdom, in man's life always : but this is not mad ! This dark element, it is the mother of the lightnings and the splendours ; it is very sane this ! — 1 A faithful Memorial of that remarkable Meeting of many Officers of the Army in England at Windsor Castle, in the year 1648, &c. &c. (in Somen Tracts, vi. 499-501.) PART IV SECOND CIVIL WAR 1648 LETTERS LIX— LXII About the beginning of May 1648, the general Presbyterian- Royalist discontent announces itself by tumults in Kent, tumults at Colchester, tumults and rumours of tumult far and near ; portending, on all sides, that a new Civil War is at hand. The Scotch Army of Forty-thousand is certainly voted ; certainly the King is still prisoner at Carisbrook ; factious men have yet made no bargain with him : certainly there will and should be a new War ? So reasons Presbyterian Royalism every- where. Headlong discontented Wales in this matter took the lead. Wales has been full of confused discontent all Spring ; this or the other confused Colonel Poyer, full of brandy and Presbyterian texts of Scripture, refusing to disband till his arrears be better paid, or indeed till the King be better treated. To whom other confused Welsh Colonels, as Colonel Powel, Major-General Laughern, join themselves. There have been tumults at Cardiff, tumults here and also there ; open shooting and fighting. Drunken Colonel Poyer, a good while ago, in March last, seized Pembroke ; flatly refuses to obey the Parliament's Order when Colonel Fleming presents the same. — Poor Fleming, whom we saw some time ago soliciting promotion ; 1 he here, attempting i Letter XXXVIL (311) 312 SECOND CIVIL WAR [May. to defeat some insurrectionary party of this Poyer's ' at a Pass ' (name of the Pass not given), is himself defeated, forced into a Church, and killed. 1 Drunken Poyer, in Pembroke strong Castle, defies the Parliament and the world : new Colonels, Parliament- ary and Presbyterian-Royalist, are hastening towards him, for and against. Wales, smoking with confused discontent all Spring, has now, by influence of the flaming Scotch comet or Army of Forty-thousand, burst into a general blaze. ' The gentry are all for the King ; the common people understand nothing, and follow the gentry.' Chepstow Castle too has been taken ' by a stratagem.' The country is all up or rising: 'the smiths have all fled, cutting their bellows before they went ; ' impossible to get a horse shod, — never saw such a country ! 1 On the whole, Cromwell will have to go. Cromwell, leave being asked of Fair- fax, is on the 1st of May ordered to go ; marches on Wednesday the 3d. Let him march swiftly ! Horton, one of the Parliamentary Colonels, has already, while Cromwell is on march, somewhat tamed the Welsh humour, by a good beating at St. Fagan's : St. Fagan's Fight, near Cardiff, on the 8th of May, where Laughern, hastening towards Poyer and Pem- broke, is broken in pieces. Cromwell marches by Monmouth, 2 by Chepstow (11th May); takes Chepstow Town; attacks the Castle, Castle will not surrender, — he leaves Colonel Ewer to do the Castle ; who, after four weeks, does it. Cromwell, by Swansea and Carmarthen, advances towards Pembroke ; quelling disturbance, rallying force, as he goes ; arrives at Pembroke in some ten days more ; and, for want of artillery, is like to have a tedious siege of it. 3 1 Rushworth, vii. 1097. 2 [He was at Gloucester on May 8 ; and on May 9, either from that city or from Monmouth, wrote to Fairfax, and also to Captain Roberts, a local officer. See Supplement, Nos. 27, 28. On the 16th he was at Cardiff. See his letter to Capt. Crowther, Hid. No. 29.] 8 Abundant details lie scattered in Rushworth, vii. : Poyer and Pembroke Castle, in March, p. 1033 ; Fleming killed (1st May), p. 1097. [° n p. 239* above Carlyle says "before March 27". As the news was received in London on April 29 (Rushworth, vii. p. 1174) it was probably about the middle of ApriL] Chepstow surprised (" beginning of May'), p. 1109,— retaken (29th May), p. 1130; St. Fagan's Fight (8th May), p. 1110 ; Cromwell's March, pp. 1121-9. 1648.] LETTER LIX., PEMBROKE 313 LETTER LIX Here is his first Letter from before the place : a rugged rapid despatch, with some graphic touches in it, and rather more of hope than the issue realised. Guns of due quality are not to be had. In the beginning of June, 1 ' Hugh Peters ' went across to Milford Haven, and from the Lion, a Parliament Ship riding there, got ' two drakes, two demi-culverins, and two whole culverins,' and safely conveyed them to the Leaguer ; with which new implements an instantaneous essay was made, and a '.storming' thereupon followed, but without success. — Of 'the Prince,' Prince Charles and his revolted ships, of the ' victory in Kent ' and what made it needful, we shall have to speak anon. ' To the Honourable William Lenthall, Esquire, Speaker of the House of Commons ; These ' Leaguer before Pembroke, 16th June 1648. 2 Sir, All that you can expect from hence is a relation of the state of this Garrison of Pembroke, which is briefly thus : They begin to be in extreme want of provision, so as in all probability they cannot live a fortnight without being starved. But we hear that they mutinied about three days since ; cried out, " Shall we be ruined for two or three men's pleasure ? Better it were we should throw them over the walls.'' It's certainly reported to us that within four or six days they'll cut Poyer's throat, and come all away to us. Poyer told them, Saturday last, that if relief did not come by Monday night, they should no more believe him, nay they should hang him. We have not got our guns and ammunition from Wallingford as yet, but, however, we have scraped up a few, which stand us in very good stead. Last night, we got two little guns planted, which in twenty-four hours will take away their Mills, and then, 1 Cromwelliana, p. 40. 2 [CarIyle dated it June 14th, but probably only by inadvertence.] 314 SECOND CIVIL WAR [16 June. as Poyer himself confesses, they are all undone. We made an attempt to storm it, about ten days since ; but our ladders were too short, and the breach so as men could not get over. We lost a few men, but I am confident the enemy lost more. Captain Flower, of Colonel Dean's regiment, was wounded ; and Major Grigg's Lieutenant and Ensign slain ; Captain Burges lies wounded, and very sick. I question not, but within a fortnight we shall have the town ; ' and ' Poyer hath engaged himself to the officers of the town, not to keep the castle longer than the town can hold out. Neither indeed can it [? he] ; for we can take away his water in two days, by beating down a staircase, which goes into a cellar where he hath a well. They allow the men half-a-pound of beef, and as much bread a-day, but it is almost spent. We must rejoice at what the Lord hath done for you in Kent. Upon our thanksgiving x for that victory, which was both from sea and leaguer, Poyer told his men, that it was the Prince, ' Prince Charles and his revolted ships,' was coming with relief. The other night they mutinied in the town. Last night we fired divers houses ; which ' fire ' runs up the town still : it much frights them. Confident I am, we shall have it in fourteen days by starving. I am, Sir, Your servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Precisely in about ' Fourteen days ' a new attempt was made, 2 not without some promising results, but again ineffectual. ' The Guns are not come from Bristol, for want of wind ; ' and against hunger and short scaling-ladders Poyer is stubborn. Three days after this Letter to Lenthall, some three weeks since the siege began, here is another, to Major Saunders. 1 By Cannon-volleys. 2 Rushworth, vii. 1175. * Rushworth, vii. 1159 : read in the House, aoth June 1648 (Commons Journals, ». 608). 1648.] LETTEE LX., PEMBROKE 315 LETTER LX Of this Major, afterwards Colonel, Thomas Saunders, now lying at Brecknock, there need little be said beyond what the Letter itself says. He is ' of Derbyshire,' it seems ; sat afterwards as a King's-Judge, or at least was nominated to sit ; continued true to the Cause, in a dim way, till the very Restoration ; and withdrew then into total darkness. This Letter is endorsed in Saunders own hand, ' The Lord ' General's order for taking Sir Trevor Williams, and Mr. Morgan, ' Sheriff of Monmouthshire.' Of which two Welsh individuals, except that Williams had been appointed Commander-in-chief of the Parliament's forces in Monmouthshire some time ago, and Morgan High Sheriff there, 1 both of whom had now revolted, we know nothing, and need know nothing. The Letter has come under cover enclosing another Letter, of an official sort, to one ' Mr. Rumsay ' 2 (a total stranger to me) ; and is superscribed, For Yourself. To Major Thomas Saunders, at Brecknock ; These ' ' Before Pembroke,' 17th June 1648. Sir, I send you this enclosed by itself, because it's of greater moment. The other you may communicate to Mr. Rumsey as far as you think fit and I have written. I would not have him or other honest men be discouraged that I think it not fit, at present, to enter into contests ; it will be good to yield a little, for public advantage, and truly that is my end, wherein I desire you to satisfy them. 1 have sent, as my Letter mentions, to have you remove out of Brecknockshire ; indeed, into that part of Glamorganshire which lieth next Monmouthshire, for this end : We have plain discoveries that Sir Trevor Williams, of Llangibby, 3 about two miles from Usk in the county of Monmouth, was very deep in 1 10th January 1645-6, Williams ; 17th November, 1647, Morgan : Commons Journals, in diebus. 2 [Written, like the other, to Saunders, but which Mr. Rumsay may see- No doubt Edward Rumsay is meant; one of the Commissioners for South Wales.] 3 He writes ' Langevie ; ' ■ Munmoutb ' too. 316 SECOND CIVIL WAE [17 June. the plot of betraying Chepstow Castle ; so that we are out of doubt of his guiltiness thereof. x I do hereby authorise you to seize him ; as also the High Sheriff of Monmouth, Mr. Morgan, who was in the same plot. But, because Sir Trevor Williams is the more dangerous man by far, I would have you seize him first, and the other will easily be had. To the end you may not be frustrated and that you be not deceived, I think fit to give you some characters of the man, and some intimations how things stand. He is a man, as I am informed, full of craft and subtlety, very bold and resolute ; hath a house at Llangibby well stored with arms, and very strong ; his neighbours about him very malignant, and much for him ; who are apt to rescue him if apprehended, much more to discover anything which may prevent it. He is full of jealousy, partly out of guilt, but much more because he doubts some that were in the business have discovered him, which indeed they have, and also because he knows that his servant is brought hither, and a minister to be examined here, who are able to discover the whole plot. If you should march directly into that county and near him it's odds he either fortifies his house, or gives you the slip : so also, if you should go to his house, and not find him there, or if you attempt to take him, and miss to effect it, or if you make any known inquiry after him, it will be discovered. Wherefore, ' as ' to the first, you have a fair pretence of going out of Brecknockshire to quarter about Newport and Caerleon, which is not above four or five miles from his house. You may send to Colonel Herbert, whose house lieth in Monmouthshire ; who will certainly acquaint you where he is. You are also to send to Captain Nicholas, who is at Chepstow, to require him to assist you, if he ' Williams ' should get into his house and stand upon his guard. Samuel Jones, who is Quartermaster to Colonel Herbert's troop, will be very assisting to you, if you send to him 1 [See letter to Richard Herbert of St. Jillians, Appendix, No. 11 (3).] 1648.] LETTER LXI., PEMBROKE 317 to meet you at your quarters, both by letting you know where he is, and also in all matters of intelligence. If there shall be need, Captain Burges his troop, now quartered in Glamorganshire, shall be directed to receive orders from you. You perceive by all this that we are (it may be) a little too much solicitous in this business ; it's our fault, and indeed such a temper causeth us often to overact business. Wherefore, with- out more ado, we leave it to you, and you to the guidance of God herein, and rest, Yours, Oliver Cromwell. ' P.S. ' If you seize him, bring, (and let him be brought with a strong guard), to me. If Captain Nicholas should light on him at Chepstow, do you strengthen him with a good guard to bring him. "If you seize his person, disarm his house ; but let not his arms be embezzled. If you need Captain Burges his troop, it quarters between Newport and Chepstow. * Saunders, by his manner of endorsing this Letter, seems to intimate that he took his two men ; that he keeps the Letter by way of voucher. Sir Trevor Williams by and by 1 compounds as a Delinquent, — retires then into ' Langevie House ' in a dimini- shed state, and disappears from History. 2 Of Sheriff Morgan, except that a new Sheriff is soon appointed, we have no farther notice whatever. 3 LETTER LXI Since Cromwell quitted London, there have arisen wide com- motions in that central region too ; the hope of the Scotch Army and the certainty of this War in Wales excite all unruly things * Harris, p. 549 ; and Forster, iv. 339. 1 Commons Journals. 2 [Williams was sequestered, but discharged on appeal by the Barons of the Exchequer. (See his case in the Calendar of Committee for Compounding, p. 2947). The William Morgan there joined with him is the Sheriff.] 3 Note to Colonel Hughes, 26th June 1648, in Appendix, No. n (1). 318 SECOND CIVIL WAR [28 June. and persons. At Pembroke lately we heard the cannons fire, both from Leaguer and Ships, for a 'victory in Kent:' con- cerning which and its origins and issues, take the following indications. May 16th. Came a celebrated 'Surrey Petition:' highflying armed cavalcade of Freeholders from Surrey, with a Petition craving in very high language that Peace be made with his Majesty : they quarrelled with the Parliament's Guard in West- minster Hall, drew swords, had swords drawn upon them ; ' the Miller of Wandsworth was run through with a halbert,' he and others ; and the Petitioners went home in a slashed and highly indignant condition. Thereupon, May %Mh, armed meeting of Kentish-men on Blackheath ; armed meeting of Essex-men ; several armed meetings, all in communication with the City Presbyterians : Fairfax, ill of the gout, has to mount, — in ex- tremity of haste, as a man that will quench fire among smoking flax. June 1st. Fairfax, at his utmost speed, smites fiercely against the centre of this Insurrection ; drives it from post to post : drives it into Maidstone ' about 7 in the evening,' ' with as hard fighting as I ever saw ; ' tramples it out there. The centre-flame once trampled out, the other flames, or armed meetings, hover hither and thither ; gather at length, in few days, all at Colchester in Essex ; where Fairfax is now besieging them, with a very obstinate and fierce resistance from them. This is the victory in Kent, these are the ' glorious successes God has vouchsafed you,' which Oliver alludes to in this Letter. We are only to notice farther that Lambert is in the North ; waiting, in very inadequate strength, to see the Scots arrive. Oliver in this Letter signifies that he has reinforced him with some ' horse and dragoons,' sent by ' West Chester,' which we now call Chester, where ' Colonel Duckenfield ' is Governor. The Scots are indubitably coming : Sir Marmaduke Langdale (whom Oliver, we may remark, encountered in the King's left wing at Naseby Fight) has raised new Yorkshiremen, has seized Berwick, seized Carlisle, and joined the Scots ; it is becoming an openly Royalist affair. In Lancashire a certain Sir Richard Tempest, very forward in his Royalism, goes suddenly blazing abroad ' with 1,000 horse and many knights and gentlemen,' threatening huge peril; but is, in those very hours, courageously set upon by Colonel Robert Lilburn with what little compact force there is, and at once extinguished : — an acceptable service on the part of 1648.] LETTEE LXL, PEMBEOKE 319 Colonel Robert ; for which let him have thanks from Parliament, and reward of 1.000/. 1 Very desirable, of course, that Oliver had done with Pembroke, and were fairly joined with Lambert. But Pembroke is strong ; Poyer is stubborn, hopes to surrender ' on conditions ; ' Oliver, equally stubborn, though sadly short of artillery and means, will have him ' at mercy of the Parliament/ so signal a rebel as him. 2 Fairfax's Father, the Lord Ferdinando, died in March last ; 3 so that the General's title is now changed : To his Excellency the Lord Fairfax, General of the Parliament's Army : These Before Pembroke, 28th June 1648. My Lord, I have some few days since despatched horse and dragoons for the north. I sent them by the way of West Chester, thinking it fit so to do in regard of this enclosed letter which I received from Colonel Duckenfield, requiring them to give him assistance in the way. And if it should prove that a present help would not serve the turn, then I ordered Captain Pennyfeather's troop 4 to remain with the Governor ' Duckenfield ; ' and the rest immediately to march towards Leeds, and to send to the Committee of York, or to him that commands the forces in chief there, for directions whither they should come, and how they shall be disposed of. The number I sent are six troops, four of horse, and two of 1 Whitlocke, pp. 312, 313 ; Commons Journals (5th July 1648), v. 624 ; &c. [The first news of the victory came from Lancashire, but the fight was in Northumber- land, Tempest having been sent thither by Langdale, and lying about Whitting- ham and Eslington and along Coquet Water, bee Hesilrige's letter, Rushworth, Part iv., vol. ii., p. 1177.] 2 [The Moderate for the week June 29- July 6 (E. 451, 18), mentions letters from Cromwell to Fairfax and the Derby House Committee, of June 27, which letters " say that they within the town and castle cannot hold out above ten days at farthest; that Poyer sent out a message to the Lieut. -Gen. admiring that a David should be so persecuted by a Saul, having been always faithful to the Parliament . . . but the honour of Parliament and their general lying so deep at stake, the Lieut. -Gen. would not admit of any response or capitulation, though the governor inclined thereunto. "] 8 13th March 1647-8 (Rushworth, vii. 1030). * [Of Colonel Horton's regiment of horse.] 320 SECOND CIVIL WAR [28 June. dragoons ; whereof three are Colonel Scrope's, and Captain Pennyfeather's troop, and the other two dragoons. I could not, by the judgement of the Colonels here, spare more, nor send them sooner, without manifest hazard to these parts. Here is (as I have formerly acquainted your Excellency) a very desperate enemy, who, being put out of all hope of mercy, are resolved to endure to the uttermost extremity ; being very many ' of them ' gentlemen of quality, and men thoroughly resolved. They have made some notable sallies upon Lieutenant-Colonel Reade's quarter, 1 to his loss. We are forced to keep divers posts, or else they would have relief, or their horse break away. Our foot are about three or four-and-twenty hundred, we being necessitated to leave some in garrisons. The Country, since we sat down before this place, have made two or three insurrections, and are ready to do it every day ; so that, what with looking to them, and disposing our horse to that end, and to get us in provisions, (without which we should starve) this country being so miserably exhausted and so poor, and we no money to buy victuals, that indeed, whatever may be thought, it's a mercy we have been able to keep our men together in the midst of such necessities, the sustenance of the foot (for the most part) being but bread and water. 2 Our guns, through the unhappy accident at Berkley, not yet come to us ; (and indeed it was a very unhappy thing they were brought thither), the winds having been also so cross, that since they were recovered from sinking, they could not ' come to us,' and this place not being to be had 1 Reade had been entrusted with the Siege of Tenby : that had ended June 2d (Commons Journals, v. 588) ; and Reade is now assisting at Pembroke. [He had been a captain in Colonel Holborne's regiment of foot in Essex's army ; was now in command of Colonel Overton's foot regiment. Colonel Richard Lehunt (see' page 322) was a captain in Fleetwood's regiment of horse in Manchester's army. During 1644, his troop, with some others, was under the temporary command of Colonel Vermuyden at Chesterfield. In 1651, he had command of a regiment of foot in Ireland.] 2 [Some of the soldiers seized cattle belonging to Major-General Laugharne, (then in Pembroke, "very sick of body and mind,") but his wife appealed to Cromwell, who not only ordered their restoration but gave her permission to go into the castle to her husband and to take a doctor with her. Moderate Intelli- gencer, June 1-8 ; Perf. Occurrences, June 9-16. (E. 446 (28) ; 522 (40)).] 1648.] LETTER LXL, PEMBROKE 321 without fit instruments for battery, except by starving. 1 And truly I believe the enemy's straits does increase upon them very fast, and that within a few days an end will be put to this business ; which surely might have been before, if we had received things wherewith to have done it. But it will be done in the best time. 2 1 rejoice much to hear of the blessing of God upon your Excellency's endeavours. I pray God teach 3 this nation, and those that are over us, and your Excellency and all us that are under you, what the mind of God may be in all this, and what our duty is. Surely it is not that the poor godly people of this Kingdom should still be made the object of wrath and anger, nor that our God would have our necks under a yoke of bondage ; 4 for these things that have lately come to pass have been the wonderful works of God ; breaking the rod of the oppressor, as in the day of Midian, not with garments much rolled in blood, but by the terror of the Lord ; who will yet save His people and confound His enemies, as in that day. The Lord multiply His spirit upon you, and bless you, and keep your heart upright ; and then, though you be not conformable to the men of this world, nor to their wisdom, yet you shall be precious in the eyes of God, and He will be to you a sun and a shield. My Lord, I do not know that I have had a letter from any of your Army, of the glorious successes God has vouchsafed you. I 1 ' Without either fit instruments for battering [battery] except by starving. ' Great haste, and considerable stumbling in the grammar of this last sentence ! After ' starving,' a mere comma ; and so on. 2 God's time is the best. 3 [Carlyle printed " that " instead of "teach," and so had to alter the sentence into : " I pray God that this nation . . . and all we that are under you ' may dis- cern ' what the mind of God may be," in order to make sense. There were several other mis-readings in his copy of the letter, the most curious being one near the end, where he printed " a horn and a shield" instead of " a sun and a shield."] 4 ["What a light is thrown upon Cromwell's thoughts by these words! No Parliamentary supremacy or rule of the majority . . . was uppermost in his mind. Security for those he styled 'the poor godly people' was the mam object of his striving, though he was too large-minded not to assign a large, if but a secondary place, to questions relating to the fall or preservation of Kings and Parliaments, as the institutional framework of political order without which even ' the poor godly people ' could not enter the haven of safety," Gardiner's Cromwell, p. 95- ] VOL. I. 21 322 SECOND CIVIL WAR [28 June. pray pardon the complaint because I long to rejoice with you. I take leave ; and rest, My Lord, Your most humble and faithful servant, Oliver Cromwell. 'P.S.' Sir, I desire you that Colonel Lehunt may have a com- mission to command a troop of Horse, the greatest part whereof came from the enemy to us ; and that you would be pleased to send blank commissions for his inferior officers, — with what speed may be.* In Rushworth, under date March 24th, is announced that 'Sir ' W. Constable has taken care to send ordnance and ammunition 'from Gloucester, for the service before Pembroke.' 1 'The unhappy accident at Berkley/ I believe, is the stranding of the ' Frigate,' or Shallop, that carried them. Guns are not to be had of due quality for battering Pembroke. In the mean time, several bodies of ' horse ' are mentioned as deserting, or taking quarter and service on the Parliament side. 2 It was over these that Lehunt is to be appointed Colonel [sic] ; and to Fairfax as General-in-chief 'of all the Parliament's Forces raised or to be raised,' it belongs to give him and his subordinates the due commissions. July 5th. Young Villiers Duke of Buckingham, son of the assassinated Duke ; he with his Brother Francis, with the Earl of Holland, and others who will pay dear for it, started up about Kingston on Thames with another open Insurrectionary Arma- ment ; guided chiefly by Dutch Dalbier, once Cromwell's in- structor, but now gone over to the other side. Fairfax and the Army being all about Colchester in busy Siege, there seemed a good opportunity here. They rode towards Reigate, these King- ston Insurgents, several hundreds strong : but a Parliament Party ' under Major Gibbons ' drives them back ; following close, comes to action with them between ' Nonsuch Park and Kingston,' where the poor Lord Francis, Brother of the Duke, fell mortally wounded ; — drives them across the river ' into Hertfordshire ; ' into the * Sloane MSS, 1519, f. 90 [f. 180]. 1 vi . 1036. 2 Rushworth, Cromwelliana. 1648.] LETTER LXIL, PEMBROKE 323 lion's jaws. For Fairfax sent a Party out from Colchester ; over- took them at St. Neot's ; and captured, killed, or entirely dis- sipated them. 1 Dutch Dalbier was hacked in pieces, 'so angry were the soldiers at him.' 2 The Earl of Holland stood his trial afterwards ; and lost his head. The Duke of Buckingham got off; — might almost as well have died with poor Brother Francis here, for any good he afterwards did. Two pretty youths, as their Vandyke Portraits in Hampton Court still testify ; one of whom lived to become much uglier ! July 8th. Duke Hamilton, with the actual Scotch Army, is 'at Annan' on the Western Border, ready to step across to England. Not quite Forty-thousand ; yet really about half that number, tolerably effective. Langdale, with a vanguard of Three- thousand Yorkshiremen, is to be guide ; Monro, with a body of horse that had long served in Ulster, is to bring up the rear. The great Duke dates from Annan, 8th July 1648. 3 Poor old Annan ; — never saw such an Army gathered, since the Scotch James went to wreck in Solway Moss, above a hundred years ago ! 4 Scotland is in a disastrous, distracted condition ; overridden by a Hamilton majority in Parliament. Poor Scotland will, with exertion, deliver its ' King from the power of Sectaries ; ' and is dreadfully uncertain what it will do with him when de- livered ! Perhaps Oliver will save it the trouble. July lltk. Oliver at last is loose from Pembroke; as the following brief Letter will witness. 1 Rushworth, vii. 1178, 82. 2 [Sir Michel Livesey , Major Gibbons and Captain Pretty went with the troops against them. The party from Colchester was commanded by Colonel Scrope. The Dutchman, Dalbier, had served the late Duke of Buckingham before ever he served Parliament. There are two letters on this affair amongst the papers of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu. The first is from Cromwell's old acquaintance, Robert Barnard of Huntingdon, who says that on coming to St. Neot's the insurgents ' ' took up Inns, were very quiet and sleepy; like young soldiers, though chased from Kingston, yet set no guards." Dalbier, at any rate, was an old enough soldier to know better, but perhaps they thought precaution useless. Holland, Barnard says, was taken in his chamber. The Duke, with a small party, charged twice, then rode away and escaped. The second letter is from the widow of Sir Ralph Winwood to her son-in- law, Lord Montagu of Boughton. He had asked if she was not affrighted by the near approach of the rebels to Ditton. Truly, she says, not much ; for they " heard not of the dangers till it was past." See Hist. MSS. Commissioners' Report on Lord Montagu's MSS., pp. 161, 162.] 3 Rushworth, vii. 1184. 4 James V. A.D. 1542. 324 SECOND CIVIL WAK [11 July. LETTER LXII For the Honourable William Lenthall, Esquire, Speaker to the House of Commons : These ' Pembroke,' nth July 1648. 1 Sm, The town and Castle of Pembroke were sur- rendered to me this day, being the eleventh of July, upon the propositions which I send you here enclosed. 2 What arms, ammunition, victual, ordnance and other necessaries of war are in ' the ' town, I have not to certify you, the Commissioners I sent in to receive the same not being yet returned, nor like suddenly to be ; and I am unwilling to defer the giving you an account of this mercy for a day. The persons excepted are such as have formerly served you in a very good cause, but, being now apostatised I did rather make election of them than of those who had always been for the King, judging their iniquity double, because they have sinned against so much light, and against so many evidences of Divine Presence going along with and prospering a righteous cause, in the management of which they themselves had a share. I rest, Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Drunken Colonel Poyer, Major-General Laughern and certain o'hers, 'persons excepted,' have had to surrender at mercy ; 3 a •[The year date is added in different ink. The letter is endorsed " Lieutt. enerall Cromwell's letter touching the surrender of Pomfrett (sic) Castle."] 2 Given in Rushworth, vii. 1190. s [Laugharne, Poyer and Powell were sent up from Nottingham to London; there told to draw lots which should be put to death. The lot fell upon Poyer, who was accordingly shot in the Piazza of Covent Garden.] * Copy in Tanner MSS. lxii. 159 : printed, correctly, in Grey on the Third Volume of NeaVs Puritans (Appendix, p. 129), from another source. |Now printed from the original (signed and sealed by Cromwell) at Welbeck, where are also the " propositions" or articles of surrender here mentioned as enclosed. These latter are given by Rushworth in substance only. For Cromwell's last summons to Pem- broke, see Supplement, No. 30. Grey's text of this letter was quite correct, but Carlyle, besides one or two small deviations, printed the last line but one, "evidences of Divine Providence going along with and prospering a just cause."] 1648.] LETTER LXIIL, PRESTON BATTLE 325 great many more on terms : Pembroke happily is down ; — and the Welsh War is ended. 1 Cromwell hurries northward : by Gloucester, Warwick ; gets ' 3,000 pairs of shoes ' at Leicester ; leaves his prisoners at Nottingham (with Mrs. Hutchinson and her Colonel, in the Castle there) ; joins Lambert among the hills of Yorkshire, 2 where his presence is much needed now. July 27th. In these tumultuous months the Fleet too, as we heard at Pembroke once, 3 has partially revolted ; * set Colonel Admiral Rainsborough ashore/ in the end of May last. The Earl of Warwick, hastily sent thither, has brought part of it to order again ; other part of it has fled to Holland, to the Young Prince of Wales. The Young Prince goes hopefully on board, steers for the coast of England ; emits his summons and manifesto from Yarmouth roads, on the 27th of this month. 4 Getting nothing at Yarmouth, he appears next week in the Downs ; orders London to join him, or at least to lend him 20,000£. 5 It all depends on Hamilton and Cromwell now. His Majesty from Carisbrook Castle, the revolted Mariners, the London Pres- byterians, the Besieged in Colchester, and all men, are waiting anxiously what they now will make of it when they meet. LETTERS LXIII— LXVI PRESTON BATTLE The Battle of Preston or Battle-and-Rout of Preston lasts three days ; and extends over many miles of wet Lancashire country, — from ' Langridge Chapel a little on the east of Preston/ 1 Order, ■ 12th July 1648' (the day after Pembroke), for demolishing the Castle of Haverfordwest : in Appendix, No. 11 (4). 2 At Barnard Castle, on the 27th July, ' his horse ' joined (Rushworth, vii. 1211) ; he himself not till a fortnight after, at Wetherby farther south. [Lambert and he met at Leeds according to the Moderate Intelligencer. Before going west, Crom- well marched against Pontefract, and seized the town, but there was no hope at this time of gaining the Castle " unless by famine ; so hard is it to gain that which so easily is lost ". E. 459 (19).] 3 Antea, p. 314. 4 [The news was forwarded from Colchester on the 27th, but the Prince had left Yarmouth on the 24th. See a letter of that date printed in Lords Journals, x. 399. "This day in the morning," the bailiffs wrote, they had sent messengers aboard the Prince's ship to whom he had given his declaration, and "This after- noon the ships weighed anchor . . . and are gone for the Downs."] 5 Rushworth, vii. ; 29th May, p. 1131 ; 8th June, nth June, pp. 1145, 1151 ; 27th July, pp. 1207, 1215, &c. 326 SECOND CIVIL WAR [17 Aug. southward to Warrington Bridge, and northward also as far as you like to follow. A wide-spread, most confused transaction; the essence of which is, That Cromwell, descending the valley of the Ribble, with a much smaller but prompt and compact force, finds Hamilton flowing southward at Preston in very loose order ; dashes in upon him, cuts him in two, drives him north and south, into as miserable ruin as his worst enemy could wish. 1 There are four accounts of this Affair by eye-witnesses, still accessible : Cromwell's account in these Two Letters ; a Captain Hodgson's rough brief recollections written afterwards ; and on the other side, Sir Marmaduke Langdale's Letter in vindication of his conduct there ; and lastly the deliberate Narrative of Sir James Turner (' alias Dugald Dalgetty/ say some). 2 As the Affair was so momentous, one of the most critical in all these Wars, and as the details of it are still so accessible, we will illustrate Crom- well's own account by some excerpts from the others. Combin- ing all which, and considering well, some image of this rude old tragedy and triumph may rise upon the reader. Captain Hodgson, an honest-hearted, pudding-headed York- shire Puritan, now with Lambert in the Hill Country, hovering on the left flank of Hamilton and his Scots, saw Cromwell's face at Ripon, much to the Captain's satisfaction. 'The Scots,' says he, ' marched towards Kendal ; we towards Ripon, where Oliver ' met us with horse and foot. We were then betwixt Eight or ' Nine thousand : a fine smart Army, and fit for action. We 'marched up to Skipton; the Forlorn of the Enemy's horse,' Sir Marmaduke's, ' was come to Gargrave ; . . . having made havoc ' of the country, it seems, intending never to come there again.' ' Stout Henry Cromwell,' he gave them a check at Gargrave ; 3 — and better still is coming. Here, however, let us introduce Sir James Turner, a stout 1 [" This was the first time that Cromwell had actually been in supreme command in a great victory, and too much praise cannot be accorded him for his hardihood, energy and skill. The speed of his motions and his prompt decision had rendered it possible for him to strike home at his adversary in the flank and to eat him up piecemeal. During three days of incessant marching and fighting he halted only to do battle or to take the rest absolutely needed, and at the end of that time the enemy's foot had been killed, captured or dispersed to the last man, and his horse was a beaten rabble, flying toward the border." Roosevelt's Cromwell, p. 129.] 2 [Also, A Letter from Holland (E. 467, 21), a narrative by an English royalist with the army.] * Hodgson's Memoirs (with Slingsby's Memoirs, Edinburgh, 1808 ; a dull auth- entic Book, left full of blunders, of darkness natural and adscititious, by the Editor), PP- "4. 5- 1648.] LETTER LXIIL, PEESTON BATTLE 327 pedant and soldier-of-fortune, original Dugald Dalgetty of the Novels, who is now marching with the Scots, and happily has a turn for taking Notes. The reader will then have a certain ubiquity, and approach Preston on both sides. Of the Scotch Officers, we may remark, Middleton and the Earl of Calendar have already fought in England for the Parliament : Baillie, once beaten by Montrose, has been in many wars, foreign and domestic ■ he is lefthand cousin to the Reverend Mr. Robert, who heard the Apprentices in Palace-yard bellowing "Justice on Strafford ! " long since, in a loud and hideous manner. Neither of the Lesleys is here, on this occasion ; they abide at home with the oppressed minority. The Duke, it will be seen, marches in extremely loose order ; vanguard and rearguard very far apart, — and a Cromwell attending him on flank ! 'At Hornby,' says the learned Sir James alias Dugald, 'a day's ' march beyond Kendal, it was advised, Whether we should march ' by Lancashire, Cheshire, and the Western Counties ; or if we ' should go into Yorkshire, and so put ourselves in the straight ' road to London, with a resolution to fight all 'who' would oppose ' us ? Calendar was indifferent ; Middleton was for Yorkshire ; ' Baillie for Lancashire. When my opinion was asked, I was for ' Yorkshire ; and for this reason only, That I understood Lan- ' cashire was a close country, full of ditches and hedges ; which ' was a great advantage the English would have over our raw and ' undisciplined musketeers ; the Parliament's army consisting of ' experienced and well-trained soldiers, and excellent firemen ; ' on the other hand, Yorkshire being a more open country ' and full of heaths, where we both might make use of our horse, ' and come sooner to push of pike ' with our foot. ' My Lord * Duke was for Lancashire way ; and it seemed he had hopes that 'some forces would join with him in his march that way. I have ' indeed heard him say, that he thought Manchester his own if he 'came near it. Whatever the matter was, I never saw him ' tenacious in anything during the time of his command but in ' that. We chose to go that way, which led us to our ruin. ' Our march was much retarded by most rainy and tempestuous ' weather, the elements fighting against us ; and by staying for ' country horses to carry our little ammunition. The vanguard 'is constantly given to Sir Marmaduke, upon condition he ' should constantly furnish guides ; pioneers for clearing the ' ways ; and, which was more than both these, to have good and * certain intelligence of all the Enemy's motions. But whether 328 SECOND CIVIL WAR [17 Aug. ' it was by our fault or his neglect, want of intelligence helped ' to ruin us ; for/ — in fact we were marching in extremely loose order ; left hand not aware what the right was doing ; van and rear some twenty or thirty miles apart ; — far too loose for men that had a Cromwell on their flank ! On the night of Wednesday l6th August 1648, my Lord Duke has got to Preston with the main body of his foot ; his horse lying very wide, — ahead of him at Wigan, arear of him, one knows not where, he himself hardly knows where. Sir Marma- duke guards him on the left, ' on Preston Moor, about Langridge Chapel,' some four miles up the Ribble, — and knows not, in the least, what storm is coming. For Cromwell, this same night, has got across the hills to Clitheroe and farther; this same Wednesday night he lies ' at Stonyhurst,' where now the College of Stonyhurst is, — ' a Papist's house, one Sherburne's ; ' and tomorrow morning there will be news of Cromwell. ' That night,' says Hodgson, ' we pitched our camp at Stanyares ' Hall, a Papist's house, one Sherburne : and the next morning ' a Forlorn was drawn out of horse and foot. And at Langridge ' Chapel our horse ' came upon Sir Marmaduke ; ' drawn up very ' formidably. One Major Poundall' (Pownel, you pudding-head !) ' and myself commanded the Forlorn of foot. And here being ' drawn up by the Moorside (a mere scantling of us, as yet, 1 not ' half the number we should have been), the General ' Cromwell ' comes to us, and commands to march. 2 We not having half of " our men come up, desired a little patience ; he gives out the ' word " March ! " ' — not having any patience, he, at this moment! And so the Battle of Preston, the first day of it, is begun. Here is the General's own Report of the business at night. Poor Langdale did not know at first, and poor Hamilton did not know all day, that it was Cromwell who was now upon them. 3 Sir 1 ["that scattering we had, being not half" is what Hodgson writes.] 2 [This hardly gives a true idea of the relative proportions of the forces engaged at this point ; where " Langdale's 3,600 Englishmen, unsupported except by Hamilton's small body of horse, were exposed to the attack of more than double their number of the best soldiers in the world. ... By the admission of friend and foe, Langdale and his Englishmen fought like heroes. Yet after four hours' struggle, they were at last compelled to give way and to fall back upon the town. " (Great Civil War, iv. p. 187.) Later in the day most of his infantry surrendered, his horse and Hamilton's escaping northward to join Munro ; Baillie and the Scottish infantry were driven across the Darwen, and the bridge over this stream, as well as that over the Ribble, was occupied by Cromwell. Hamilton's army had lost 1,000 killed and 4,000 prisoners. This was the position at the end of the first day's battle. ] 3 Sir Marmaduke's Letter. 1648.] LETTER LXIIL, PRESTON BATTLE 329 Marmaduke complains bitterly that he was not supported ; that they did not even send him powder, — marched away the body of their force as if this matter had been nothing ; ' merely some flying party, Ashton and the Lancashire Presbyterians.' Crom- well writes in haste, late at night. LETTER LXIII For the Honourable Committee of Lancashire sitting at Man- chester. (I desire the Commander of the Forces there to open this Letter if it come not to their hands) Preston, 17th August, 1648. Gentlemen, It hath pleased God, this day, to show His great power by making the Army successful against the common Enemy. We lay the last night at Mr. Sherburn's of Stonihurst, nine miles from Preston, which was within three miles of the Scots quarters. We advanced betimes next morning towards Preston, with a desire to engage the Enemy ; and by that time our for- lorn had engaged the Enemy, we were about four miles from Preston, and thereupon we advanced with the whole Army : and the enemy being drawn out upon a moor betwixt us and the town, the Armies on both sides engaged ; and after a very sharp dispute, continuing for three or four hours, it pleased God to enable us to give them a defeat ; which I hope we shall improve, by God's assistance, to their utter ruin : and in this service your countrymen have not the least x share. We cannot be particular, having not time to take account of the slain and prisoners ; but we can assure you we have many prisoners, and many of those of quality ; and many slain ; and the Army so dissipated 'as I say.' The principal part whereof, with Duke Hambleton, is on south side Ribble and Darwain 1 means ' the not least. ' 330 SECOND CIVIL WAR [17 Aug. [Darwen] Bridge, and we lying with the greatest part of the Army close to them ; nothing hindering the ruin of that part of the enemy's Army but the night. It shall be our care that they shall not pass over any ford beneath the Bridge, 1 to go northward, or to come betwixt us and Whalley. We understand Colonel-General Ashton's are at Whalley ; we have seven troops of horse and dragoons that we believe he at or near Clitheroe. This night I have sent order to them expressly to march to Whalley, to join to those companies ; that so we may endeavour the ruin of this enemy. You perceive by this letter how things stand. By this means the enemy is broken ; and most of their Horse being gone northwards, and we having sent a considerable party at the very heel of them, and the enemy having lost almost all his ammunition, and near four- thousand arms, so that the greatest part of the Foot are naked : and therefore, in order to perfecting this work, we desire you to raise your county ; and to improve your forces to the total ruin of that enemy, which way soever they go ; and if 2 you shall accordingly do your part, doubt not of their total ruin. We thought fit to speed this to you ; to the end you may not be troubled if they shall march towards you, but improve your interest as aforesaid, that you may give glory to* God for this unspeakable mercy. This is all at present from, Your very humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Commons Journals, Monday 21° Augusti 1648 : 'The Copy of a ' Letter from Lieutenant-General Cromwell, from Preston, of ] 7° 'Augusti 1648, to the Committee of Lancashire sitting at Man- ' chester, enclosed in a Letter from a Member of this House from 1 There is such a ford, rideable if tide and rain permit. 2 ' that ' in the Original. — The punctuation and grammar of these sentences might have been improved; but their breathless impetuosity, directness, sincere singleness of purpose, intent on the despatch of business only, would have been ob- scured in the process. * Lancashire during the Civil War (a Collection of Tracts republished by the Chetham Society, Manchester, 1844), p. 256. The Letter is in many old Pamphlets of the time. Langdale's Letter is also given in this Chetham Book, p. 267. 1648.] LETTER LXIV., PRESTON BATTLE 331 'Manchester, of 19° Augusti 1648, were this day read. Ordered, ' That it be referred to the Committee at Derby House to send * away a' copy of Lieutenant-General Cromwell's Letter to the ' General ' Fairfax, ' and to the Lord Admiral ' Warwick, to en- courage them in their part of the work. — The enclosing ' Letter from the Member of this House at Manchester/ short and in- significant, about ' dispensations,' ' providences,' &c. is also given in the old Pamphlets, and in this Chetham Book now before us. He signs himself 'W. L. ';' probably William Langton, the new Member for Preston. LETTER LXIV Cromwell, on this Thursday Night, does not yet know all the havoc he has made. Listen to stout Sir James from the other side ; and pity poor men embarked in a hollow Cause, with a Duke of Hamilton for General ! ' Beside Preston in Lancashire,' says the stout Knight, ' Crom- ' well falls on Sir Marmaduke's flank. The English ' of Sir Marmaduke 'imagine it was one Colonel Ashton, a powerful ' Presbyterian, who had got together about 3,000 men to oppose us, ' because we came out of Scotland without the General Assembly's ' permission. Mark the quarrel. While Sir Marmaduke disputes 'the matter, Baillie, by the Duke's order, marches to Ribble ' Bridge, and passeth it with all the foot except two brigades.' Never dreaming that Cromwell is upon us ! ' This was two miles ' from Preston. By my Lord Duke's command, I had sent some 'ammunition and commanded-men to Sir Marmaduke's assist- ' ance : but to no purpose ; for Cromwell prevailed ; so that our 'English first retired, and then fled. It must be remembered ' that, the night before this sad encounter, Earl Calendar and ' Middleton were gone to Wigan, eight miles from thence, with ' a considerable part of the cavalry. Calendar was corned back, ' and was with the Duke,' while the action took place ; ' and so ' was I : but upon the rout of Sir Marmaduke's people, Calendar ' got away to Ribble, where he arrived safely by a miracle, as I ' think ; for the Enemy was between the Bridge and us, and had ' killed or taken the most part of our two brigades of foot,' which was all that Baillie had left here. 332 SECOND CIVIL WAR [17 Aug. ' The Duke with his guard of horse, Sir Marmaduke with many ' officers, among others myself, got into Preston Town, with in- ' tention to pass a ford below it, though at that time not rideable. • At the entry of the Town, the enemy pursued us hard. The ' Duke faced about, and put two troops of them to a retreat ; ' but so soon as we turned from them, they ' again ' turned upon us. ' The Duke facing the second time, charged them, which suc- ' ceeded well. Being pursued the third time, my Lord Duke ' cried To charge once more for King Charles ! One trooper ' refusing, he beat him with his sword. At that charge we put ' the enemy so far behind us, that he could not overtake us so ' ' soon again.' Then Sir Marmaduke and I entreated the Duke to ' haste him to his Army ; and truly he showed here as much per- ' sonal valour as any man could be capable of. We swam the ' River ; and so got to the place where Lieutenant-General ' Baillie had advantageously lodged the foot, on the top of a Hill, 1 among very fencible enclosures. 'After Calendar came to the infantry, he very unadvisedly ' sent six hundred musketeers to defend Ribble Bridge ; for 'the way Cromwell had to it was a descent from a hill that 'commanded all the champaign; which was about an English ' quarter of a mile in length between the Bridge and that Hill ' where our foot were lodged. So that our musketeers, having 'no shelter, were forced to receive all the musket-shot of ' Cromwell's infantry, which was secure within thick hedges ; * and after the loss of many men, were forced to run back to our 'foot. Here Claud Hamilton, the Duke's Lieutenant-Colonel, ' had his arm broke with a musket-bullet. 'The Bridge 'of Ribble' being lost, the Duke called all the ' Colonels together on horseback to advise what was next to be 'done. We had no choice but one of two: Either stay, and 'maintain our ground till Middleton (who was sent for) came ' back with his cavalry ; Or else march away that night, and 'find him out. Calendar would needs speak first; whereas ' by the custom of war he should have told his opinion last, — ' and it was, To march away that night so soon as it was dark. 'This was seconded by all the rest, except by Lieut.-General ' Baillie and myself. But all the arguments we used, — as the ' impossibility of a safe retreat, from an enemy so powerful of ' horse in so very foul weather, and extremely deep way ; our ' soldiers exceeding wet, weary and hungry ; the inevitable ' loss of all our ammunition, — could not move my Lord Duke by 1648.] LETTER LXIV., PRESTON BATTLE 333 'his authority to contradict the shameful resolution taken by 'the major part of his officers. ' After that the drumless march is resolved on, and but few ' horse appointed to stay in rear of the foot, I enquired, What ' should become of our unfortunate Ammunition, since forward ' with us we could not get it ? It was not thought fit to blow it ' up that night, lest thereby the Enemy should know of our ' retreat, or rather flight. I was of that opinion too ; but for ' another reason : for we could not have blown it ' up ' then, •without a visible mischief to ourselves, being so near it. It ' was ordained it should be done three hours after our departure, ' by a train : but that being neglected, Cromwell got it all. ' Next morning we appeared at Wigan Moor ; half our number ' less than we were ; — most of the faint and weary soldiers having ' lagged behind ; whom we never saw again. Lieutenant-General ' Middleton had missed us,' such excellent order was in this Army ; ' for he came by another way to Ribble Bridge. It was ' to be wished he had still stayed with us ! He, not finding us ' there, followed our track : but ' he was himself hotly pursued by ' Cromwell's horse ; with whom he skirmished the whole way 'till he came within a mile of us. He lost some men, and ' several were hurt, among others Colonel Urrey 1 got a danger- ' ous shot on the left side of his head ; whereof, though he was 'afterwards taken prisoner, he recovered. In this retreat of ' Middleton' s, which he managed well, Cromwell lost one of the * gallantest officers he had, Major Thornhaugh ; who was run 'into the breast with a lance, whereof he died. ' After Lieutenant-General Middleton's coming, we began to ' think of fighting in that Moor : but that was found impossible, 'in regard it was nothing large, and 'was' environed with enclo- 1 sures which commanded it, and these we could not maintain ' long, for want of that ammunition we had left behind us ; 'and therefore we marched forward with intention to gain ' Warrington, ten miles from the Moor we were in ; and ' there we conceived we might face about, having the command ' of a Town, a River, and a Bridge. Yet I conceive there was 'but few of us thought we might be beaten, before we were ' masters of any of them. ' It was towards evening and in the latter end of August,' Friday 18th of the month, 'when our horse began to march. 1 Sir John Hurry, the famous Turncoat, of whom afterwards. 334 SECOND CIVIL WAR [18 Aug. ' Some regiments of them were left with the rear of the foot : ' Middleton stayed with them ; my Lord Duke and Calendar •were before. As I marched with the last brigade of foot ' through the Town of Wigan, I was alarmed, That our horse 'behind me were beaten, and run several ways, and that the ' enemy was in my rear. I faced about with that brigade ; and 'in the Market-place, serried the pikes together, shoulder to • shoulder, to keep up any that should charge : and sent orders ' to the rest of the brigades before, To continue their march, and 'follow Lieutenant-General Baillie who was before them. It 'was then night, but the moon shone bright. A regiment of ' horse of our own appeared first, riding very disorderly. I got ' them to stop, till I commanded my pikes to open, and give ' way for them to ride or run away, since they would not stay. ' But ' now ' my pikemen, being demented (as I think we were all), ' would not hear me : and two of them ran full tilt at me,' — poor Dalgetty ! ' One of their pikes, which was intended for ' my belly, I gripped with my left hand ; the other ran me ' near two inches in the inner side of my right thigh ; all of ' them crying/ of me and those horse, ' That all of us were Crom- 1 well's men ! This was an unseasonable wound ; for it made me, ' after that night, unserviceable. This made me forget all rules ' of modesty, prudence and 'discretion,' — my choler being up, and my blood flowing ! ' I rode to our horse, and desired them 'to charge through these foot. They fearing the hazard of the ' pikes, stood : I then made a cry come from behind them, That ' the enemy was upon them. This encouraged them to charge ' my foot so fiercely, that the pikemen threw down their pikes, ' and got into houses. All the horse galloped away, and as I ' was told afterwards, rode not through but over our whole foot, ' treading them down ; and in this confusion Colonel Lock- ' hart,' — let the reader note that Colonel, — ' was trod down from ' his horse, with great danger of his life. ' Though the enemy was near, yet I beat drums to gather my ' men together. Shortly after came Middleton with some horse. ' I told him what a disaster I had met with, and what a greater ' I expected. He told me he would ride before, and make the ' horse halt. I marched, however, all that night till it was fair ' day ; and then Baillie, who had rested a little, entreated me to ' go into some house and repose on a chair ; for I had slept none ' in two nights, and eaten as little. I alighted ; but the constant 'alarms of the Enemy's approach made me resolve to ride for- 1648.] LETTER LXIV., PEESTON BATTLE 335 ' ward to Warrington, which was but a mile ; and indeed I may * say I slept all that way, notwithstanding my wound.' While the wounded Dalgetty rides forward, let us borrow another glimpse from a different source ; * of bitter struggle still going on a little to the rear of him. ' At a place called Red- bank,' near Winwick Church, two miles from Warrington, 'the • Scots made a stand with a body of pikes, and lined the hedges ' with muskets ; who so rudely entertained the pursuing Enemy, ' that they were compelled to stop until the coming up of Colonel ' Pride's regiment of foot, who, after a sharp dispute, put those ' same brave fellows to the run. They were commanded by a 'little spark in a blue bonnet, who performed the part of an ' excellent commander, and was killed on the spot.' Does any one know this little spark in the blue bonnet ? No one. His very mother has long ceased to weep for him now. Let him have burial, and a passing sigh from us ! — Dugald Turner con- tinues : ' I thought to have found either the Duke or Calendar, or ' both here,' at Warrington : ' but I did not ; and indeed I was •often told that Calendar carried away the Duke with him, 'much against his mind. Here did the Lieutenant- General of ' the foot meet with an Order, whereby he is required " To ' make as good conditions for himself and those under him as ' he could ; for the horse would not come back to him, being 'resolved to preserve themselves for a better time." Baillie ' was surprised with this : and looking upon that action which ' he was ordered to do, as full of dishonour, he lost much of that ' patience of which naturally he was master ; and beseeched any ' that would to shoot him through the head,' — poor Baillie ! 'At length having something composed himself, and being ' much solicited by the officers who were by him, he wrote to ' Cromwell. I then told him, That so long as there was a reso- ' lution to fight, I would not go a foot from him ; but now that ' they were to deliver themselves prisoners, I would preserve my ' liberty as long as I could : and so took my leave of him, carry - 'ing my wounded thigh away with me. I met immediately ' with Middleton ; who sadly condoled the irrecoverable losses ' of the two last days. Within two hours after, Baillie and all ' the officers and soldiers that were left of the foot were Crom- ' well's prisoners. I got my wound dressed that morning by my 1 Heath's Chronicle, p. 323. 336 SECOND CIVIL WAE [20 Aug. * own surgeon ; and took from him those things I thought neces- * sary for me ; not knowing when I might see him again ; as 'indeed I never saw him after.' 1 This was now the Saturday morning when Turner rode away, ' carrying his wounded thigh with him ; and got up to Hamilton and the vanguard of horse ; who rode, aimless or as good as aimless henceforth, till he and they were captured at Uttoxeter, or in the neighbourhood. Monro with the rajr-guard of horse, ' always a day's march behind,' hearing now what had befallen, instantly drew bridle ; paused uncertain ; then, in a marauding manner, rode back towards their own country. Of which disastrous doings let us now read Cromwell's victori- ous account, drawn up with more deliberation on the morrow after. ' This Gentleman,' who brings up the Letter, is Major Berry ; ' once a Clerk in the Shropshire Iron- works ; ' now a very rising man. 2 'He had lived with me,' says Richard Baxter, 'as guest in my own house ; ' he has now high destinies' before him, — which at last sink lower than ever. 3 To the Honourable William Lenthall, Esquire, Speaker of the House of Commons : These 1 Warrington,' 20th August 1648. Sir, I have sent up this gentleman to give you an account of the great and good hand of God towards you, in the late victory obtained against the enemy .in these parts. After the conjunction of that party which I brought with me out of Wales with the northern forces about Knaresborough and Weatherby, hearing that the enemy was advanced with their army into Lancashire, we marched the next day, being the 1 3th of this instant August, to Oatley (having cast off our train, and sent it to Knaresborough, because of the difficulty of the 1 Memoirs of his own Life and Times, by Sir James Turner (Edinburgh, 1829), pp. 63-7. 2 [This is the James Berry who was Captain-Lieutenant of Cromwell's own troop of the Ironsides in 1643, and who slew Charles Cavendish at Gainsborough (Letter XI.). In August, 1644, he succeeded to the command of the 6th troop, formerly Captain Ayres'. In 1647 ne became Major of Colonel Twisleton's regiment ; in 1651 obtained a regiment of his own, and in 1655 was made one of Cromwell's Major-Generals. See his life in the Dictionary of National Biography.] 'Baxter's Life, pp. 57, 97, 58, 72, 1648.] LETTEE LXIV., PRESTON BATTLE 337 marching therewith through Craven, and to th' end we might with more expedition attend the enemy's motion) : and on the 1 4th to Skipton, the 1 5th to Gisborn, the 1 6th to Hodder Bridge over Ribble ; 1 where we held a council of war. At which we had in consideration, Whether we should march to Whalley that night, and so on, to interpose between the enemy and his further progress into Lancashire and so southward, which we had some advertisement the enemy intended, and ' we are ' since confirmed that they intended for London itself: Or whether to march immediately over the said Bridge, there being no other betwixt that and Preston, and engage the enemy there, who we did believe would stand his ground, because we had information that the Irish forces under Monro lately come out- of Ireland, which consisted of twelve-hundred horse and fifteen-hundred foot, were on their march towards Lancashire to join with them. It was thought that to engage the enemy to fight was our business, and the reason aforesaid giving us hopes that our marching on the north side of Ribble would effect it, it was resolved we should march over the Bridge ; which accordingly we did ; and that night quartered the whole Army in the field by Stonihurst Hall, being Mr. Sherburn's house, a place nine miles distant from Preston. Very early the next morning we marched towards Preston : having intelligence that the enemy was drawing together thereabouts from all his out-quarters, we drew out a forlorn of about two-hundred horse and four-hundred foot, the horse commanded by Major Smithson, the foot by Major Pounel. Our forlorn of horse marched within a mile ' to ' where the enemy was drawn up, in the enclosed grounds by Preston, on that side next us, and there, upon a moor, about half a mile 1 Over Hodder rather, which is the chief tributary of the Ribble in those upland parts, and little inferior to the main stream in size. Ribble from the Northeast, Hodder from the North, then a few miles farther, Calder from the South : after which Ribble pursues its old direction ; draining an extensive hill-tract by means of frequent inconsiderable brooks, and receiving no notable stream on either side till, far down, the Darwen from the East and South falls in near Preston, and the united waters, now a respectable River, rush swiftly into the Irish sea. vol. i. — 22 338 SECOND CIVIL WAR [20 Aug. distant from the enemy's Army, met with their scouts and out- guard, and did behave themselves with that valour and courage as made their guards (which consisted both of horse and foot) to quit their ground, and took divers prisoners ; holding this dispute with them until our forlorn of foot came up for their justification, and by those we had opportunity to bring up our whole Army. So soon as our foot and horse were come up, we resolved that night to engage them if we could, and therefore, advancing with our forlorn, and putting the rest of our Army into as good a posture as the ground would bear (which was totally in- convenient for our horse, being all enclosure and miry ground), we pressed upon them. The regiments of foot were ordered as followeth. There being a lane, very deep and ill, up to the enemy's Army, and leading to the town, we commanded two regiments of horse, the first whereof was Colonel Harrison's and next was my own, to charge up that lane ; and on either side of them advanced the ' main '-battle, — which were Lieutenant- Colonel Read's, Colonel Dean's and Colonel Pride's on the right, Colonel Bright's and my Lord General's on the left, and Colonel Ashton with the Lancashire regiments in reserve. We ordered Colonel Thornhaugh's and Colonel Twisleton's regi- ments of horse on the right, and one regiment in reserve for the lane ; and the remaining horse on the left : so that, at last, we came to a hedge-dispute, the greatest of the impression from the enemy being upon our left wing, and upon the ' main '- battle on both sides the lane, and upon our horse in the lane : in all which places the enemy were forced from their ground, after four hours dispute, until we came to the town ; into which four troops of my regiment first entered, and, being well seconded by Colonel Harrison's regiment, charged the enemy in the town and cleared the streets. There came no bands 1 of your foot to fight that day but did J [" hands" in the Chetham Book.] 1648.] LETTER LXIV., PRESTON BATTLE 339 it with incredible valour and resolution ; among which Colonel Bright's, my Lord General's, Lieutenant-Colonel Read's and Colonel Ashton's had the greatest work, they often coming to push of pike and to close firing, and always making the enemy to recoil. And indeed I must needs say, God was as much seen in the valour of the officers and soldiers of these before-men- tioned as in any action that hath been performed ; the Enemy making, though he was still worsted, very stiff and sturdy re- sistance. Colonel Dean's and Colonel Pride's, outwinging the enemy, could not come to so much share of the action ; the enemy shogging 1 down towards the Bridge, and keeping almost all in reserve, that so he might bring fresh hands 2 often to fight, which we not knowing, but lest we should be outwinged, * we ' placed those two regiments to enlarge our right wing, which was the cause they had not at that time so great a share in that action. At the last the enemy was put into disorder, many men slain, many prisoners taken ; the Duke, with most of the Scots horse and foot, retreated over the bridge, where, after a very hot dispute betwixt the Lancashire regiments, part of my Lord General's, and them, being at push of pike, they were beaten from the bridge, and our horse and foot, following them, killed many and took divers prisoners, and we possessed the bridge over Darwent ' also,' and a few houses there ; the enemy being driven up within musket-shot of us where we lay that night, 3 we not being able to attempt farther upon the enemy , the night preventing us. In this posture did the enemy and we lie the most part of that night. Upon entering the town, many of the enemy's horse fled towards Lancaster, in the chase of whom went divers of our horse, who pursued them near ten miles, and had 1 Shog is from the same root as shock; 'shogging,' a word of Oliver's in such cases, signifies moving by pulses, intermittently. Rihble Bridge lay on the Scotch right ; Dean and Pride, therefore, who fought on the English right, got gradually less and less to do. [Cromwell uses the term " shogging down " also in his account of the battle of Dunbar. See ii. , 105, below. The Chetham. Book has ' shaging.'] '[Perhaps this also should be " bands."] 3 The Darwen between us and them. 340 SECOND CIVIL WAE [*>:Ang. execution of them, and took about five-hundred horse and many prisoners. We possessed in this fight very much of the enemy's ammunition, I believe they lost four or five thousand arms. The number of slain we judge to be about a thousand ; the prisoners we took were about four-thousand. In the night the Duke was drawing off his Army towards Wiggon ; we were so wearied with the dispute that we did not so well attend the enemy's going off as might have been, by means whereof the enemy was gotten at least three miles with his rear, before ours got to them. I ordered Colonel Thornhaugh to command two or three regiments of horse to follow the enemy, if it were possible to make him stand till we could bring up the Army. The enemy marched away seven or eight thousand foot and about four-thousand horse ; we followed him with about three-thousand foot and two- thousand five-hundred horse and dragoons, and, in this prosecution, that worthy gentleman, Colonel Thornhaugh, pressing too boldly, was slain, being run into the body and thigh and head by the enemy's lancers. 1 And give me leave to say, he was a man as faithful and gallant in your service as any, and one who often heretofore lost blood in your quarrel, and now his last. He hath left some behind him to inherit a father's honour, and a sad widow ; both now the interest of the Commonwealth. Our horse still prosecuted the enemy, killing and taking divers all the way. At last the enemy drew up within three miles of Wiggon, and by that time our Army was come up, they drew off again, and recovered Wiggon before we could attempt any thing upon them. We lay that night in the field close by the enemy, being very di^ty and weary, and having marched twelve miles of such ground as I never rode in all my life, the day being very wet. We had some skirmishing, that night, with the enemy, near the town, where we took General Van Druske 1 ' Run through with a lancier in Chorley, he wanting his arms,' say Hodgson. For ' arms ' read ' armour,' corslet, &c. This is the Colonel Thornhaugh so often mentioned, praised and mourned for, by Mrs. Hutchinson. 1648.] LETTEELXIV., PRESTON BATTLE 341 and a Colonel, and killed some principal Officers, and took about a hundred prisoners ; where I also received a Letter from Duke Hamilton, for civil usage towards his kinsman Colonel Hamilton, 1 whom he left wounded there. We took also Colonel Hurrey and Lieutenant-Colonel Ennis [Innes], sometimes in your service. The next morning the enemy marched towards Warrington, and we at the heels of them. The town of Wiggon, a great and poor town, and very malignant, were plundered almost to their skins by them. We could not engage the enemy until we came within three miles of Warrington, and there the enemy made a stand, at a pass near Winwicke. We held them in some dispute till our Army came up, they maintaining the pass with great resolution for many hours ; ours and theirs coming to push of pike and very close charges, and forced us to give ground ; but our men, by the blessing of God, quickly recovered it, and charging very home upon them, beat them from their standing, where we killed about a thousand of them, and took (as we believe) about two- thousand prisoners, and prosecuted them home to Warrington Town, where they possessed the bridge, which had a strong barricado and a work upon it, formerly made very defensive. As soon as we came thither, I received a message from Lieut. - General Bailly, desiring some capitulation ; to which I yielded. Considering the strength of the pass, and that I could not go over the River ' Mersey ' within ten miles of Warrington with the Army, I gave him these terms : That he should surrender himself and all his officers and soldiers prisoners of war, with all his arms and ammunition and horses, to me, I giving quarter for life, and promising civil usage. Which accordingly is done : and 1 Claud Hamilton; see Turner supra. Who 'Van Druske' is, none knows. 1 Colonel Hurry ' is the ever-changing Sir John Hurry, sometimes called Urry and Hurrey, who whisks like a most rapid actor of all work, ever on a new side, ever charging in the van,;through this Civil-War Drama. The notablest feat he ever did was leading Prince Rupert on that marauding party, from Oxford to High Wycombe, on the return from which Hampden met his death (Clarendon, ii. 351). Hurry had been on the Parliament-side before. He was taken, at last, when Montrose was taken; and hanged out of the way. Of Innes ('Ennis') I know nothing at present. 342 SECOND CIVIL WAR [20 Aug. the Commissioners deputed by me have received, and are receiv- ing, all the arms and ammunition, which will be, as they tell me, about four-thousand complete arms, and as many prisoners : and thus you have their Infantry totally ruined. What colonels and officers are with Lieut.-General Bailly, I have not yet received the list. The Duke is marching with his remaining Horse, which are about three-thousand, towards Namptwich, where the gentlemen of the county have taken about five-hundred of them, of which they sent me word this day. The country will scarce suffer any of my men to pass, except they have my hand-' writing ; ' telling them, They are Scots. They bring in and kill divers of them, as they light upon them. Most of the nobility of Scotland are with the Duke. If I had a thousand horse that could .but trot thirty miles, I should not doubt but to give a very good account of them, but truly we are so harassed and haggled out in this business, that we are not able to do more than walk ' at ' an easy pace after them. I have sent post to my Lord Grey, to Sir Henry Cholmely and Sir Edward Roads [Rodes] to gather all together, with speed, for their prosecution ; as likewise to acquaint the Governor of Stafford therewith. I hear Munroe is about Cumberland with the horse that ran away, 1 and his ' own ' Irish horse and foot, which are a considerable body. I have left Colonel Ashton's three regiments of foot, with seven troops of horse (six of Lancashire and one of Cumberland), at Preston ; and ordered Colonel Scroop with five troops of horse and two troops of dragoons, ' and ' with two regiments of foot (Colonel Lassalls' and Colonel Wastal's), to embody with them, by which I hope he will be able to make a resistance till we can come up to them, and have ordered them to put their prisoners to the sword if the Scots shall presume to advance upon them, because they cannot bring them off with security. 2 1 Northward from Preston on the evening of the 17th, the Battle-day. 2 It is to be hoped the Scots under Monro will not presume to advance, for the prisoners here in Preston are about four-thousand ! These are not Baillie's Warring- ton men ' who surrendered on quarter for life : ' these are ' at discretion.' 1648.] LETTER LXIV.; PRESTON BATTLE 343 Thus you have a narrative of the particulars of the success which God hath given you : which I could hardly at this time have done, considering the multiplicity of business, but truly, when I was once engaged in it, I could hardly tell how to say less, there being so much of God ' in it ' ; and I am not willing to say more, lest there should seem to be any of man. Only give me leave to add one word, showing the disparity of forces on both sides ; that so you may see, and all the world acknowledge, the great hand of God in this business. The Scots Army could not be less than twelve-thousand effective foot, well armed, and five-thousand horse ; Langdale not less than two-thousand five hundred foot, and fifteen-hundred horse : in all twenty-one- thousand ; and truly very few of their foot but were as well armed if not better than yours, and at divers disputes did fight two or three hours before they would quit their ground. Yours were about two-thousand five-hundred horse and dragoons of your old Army ; about four-thousand foot of your old Army ; also about sixteen-hundred Lancashire foot, and about five-hundred Lancashire horse : in all, about eight-thousand six-hundred. You see by computation about two-thousand of the enemy slain ; be- twixt eight and nine thousand prisoners, besides what are lurking in hedges and private places, which the country daily bring in or destroy. Where Langdale and his broken forces are, I know not, but they are exceedingly shattered. Surely, Sir, this is nothing but the hand of God, and where- ever anything in this world is exalted, or exalts itself, God will pull it down, for this is the day wherein He alone will be exalted. It is not fit for me to give advice, nor to say a word what use should be made of this, more than to pray you, and all that acknowledge God, that they would exalt Him, and not hate His people, who are as the apple of His eye, and for whom even Kings shall be reproved ; and that you would take courage to do the work of the Lord, in fulfilling the end of your magis- tracy, in seeking the peace and welfare of the people of this Land, that all that will live quietly and peaceably may have 344 SECOND CIVIL WAS [20 Aug. countenance from you, and they that are implacable and will not leave troubling the Land may speedily be destroyed out of the land. And if you take courage in this, God will bless you, and good men will stand by you, and God will have glory, and the Land will have happiness by you in despite of all your enemies. Which shall be the prayer of, Your most humble and faithful servant, Oliver Cromwell. Postscript. We have not, in all this, lost a considerable officer but Colonel Thornhaugh, and not many soldiers, con. sidering the service : but many are wounded, and our horse much wearied. I humbly crave that some course may be taken to dispose of the prisoners. The trouble, and extreme charge of the country where they lie, is more than the danger of their escape. I think they would not go home if they might, without a convoy, they are so fearful of the country, from whom they have deserved so ill. Ten men will keep a thousand from running away.* Commons Journals, Wednesday 23d August 1648 : '. Ordered, 'That the sum of Two -hundred Pounds be bestowed upon ' Major Berry, and the sum of One-hundred Pounds upon Edward ' Sexby, who brought the very good news of the very great ' Success obtained, by the great mercy of God, against the whole ' Scots Army in Lancashire, and That the said respective sums 'shall be' — in short, paid directly. Of Major Berry, Richard Baxter's friend, we have already heard. Captain Edward Sexby, here known to us as Captain for the first time, — did we not once see him in another character ? One of Three Troopers with a Letter, in the Honourable House, in the time of the Army Troubles ? x He will again turn up, little to his advantage, by and by. A Day of universal Thanksgiving for this 'wonderful great Success ' is likewise ordered ; and a printed schedule of items to be thankful for, is despatched, ' to the number of 10,000/ into all places. 2 * Chetham-Socieiy Book, ut supra, pp. 259-267. 1 Antea, p. 260 ; and Ludlow i. 189. 2 Commons Journals, v. 685. 1648.] LETTER LXV., WAREINGTON 345 LETTER LXV Let the following hasty Letter, of the same date with that more deliberate one to Lenthall, followed by another as hasty, terminate the Preston Business. Letters of hot Haste, of Hue- and-Cry ; two remaining out of many such, written ' to all the Countries,' in that posture of affairs ; — the fruit of which we shall soon see. Colonels 'Cholmely, White, Hatcher, Rhodes,' Country Colonels of more or less celebrity, need not detain us at present. 1 To the Honourable Sir Henry Cholmley and Sir Edward Rodes : near Pontefract. Haste, haste. Warrington, 20th August 1648. ' Gentlemen,' We have quite tired our horse in pursuit of the enemy : we have killed, taken and dissipated all his foot, and left him only some horse, with whom the Duke is fled into Delamere Forest, having neither foot nor dragoons. They have taken five-hundred of them there, I mean the country forces ' have,' as they send me word this day. They 2 are so tired, and in such confusion, that if my Horse could but trot after them, I could take them all, but we are so weary, we shall scarce be able to do more than walk after them. I beseech you therefore, let Sir Henry Cholmley, Sir Edward Rodes, Colonel Hacker, and Colonel White, and all the countries about you, be sent to, to rise with you and follow them. For they are the miserablest party that ever was : I durst engage myself with five-hundred fresh horse, and five- 1 [Sir Henry Cholmely was in command of some of the Yorkshire militia forces. Sir Edward Rodes was county commissioner and afterwards High Sheriff for York- shire. Colonel White is the Colonel Charles White mentioned in Mrs. Hutchinson's life of her husband. He was in command of some horse from Nottinghamshire. In 1659 he headed the revolt in Derbyshire in connexion with Sir George Booth's insurrection. Colonel Hatcher was a misprint. It is Colonel Fras. Hacker, best known to the world from having been on guard at the King's execution. At this time he commanded the Leicester, Notts and Derby horse. He had a regiment under Cromwell in the Scotch war ; see letter to him, No. clxii. and Carlyle's note thereon. His life is in the Dictionary of National Biography.'] 2 The Scots. 346 SECOND CIVIL WAR [23 Aug. hundred nimble foot, to destroy them all. My horse are miser- ably beaten out, and I have ten-thousand of them prisoners. We have killed we know not what, but a very great number, having done execution upon them at the least thirty miles together, besides what we killed in the two great fights, the one at Preston and the other at Warrington 'or Winwick Pass.' The enemy was four and twenty thousand horse and foot in the day of the fight, whereof eighteen-thousand foot and six- thousand horse : and our number about six-thousand foot and three- thousand horse at the utmost. This is a glorious day : God help England to answer His minds ! I have no more, but beseech you in all your parts to gather into bodies, and pursue them. I rest, Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell. ' P.S.' The greatest part, by far, of the Nobility of Scotland are with Duke Hamilton.* Underwritten. The address, as above, and order that it be shown to the Committee of York, Col. Bethel and Capt. Crackinthorp, again signed by Cromwell. LETTER LXVI ' For the Honourable the Committee at York : These ' Wigan, 23d August 1648. Gentlemen, I have intelligence even now [comej to my hands, That Duke Hamilton with a wearied body of Horse is drawing towards Pomfret ; where probably he may lodge him- self, and rest his horse, as not daring to continue in these Countries where we have driven him, the Country-people rising in such numbers, and stop[ping] his passage at every bridge. Major-General Lambert, with a considerable force, pursues * Copy in the possession of W. Beaumont, Esq. , Warrington. [But now corrected from the signed original, in the possession of Sir Richard TangycJ 1648.] LETTER LXVL, WIGAN 347 him at the heels. I desire you that you would get together what force you can, to put a stop to any further designs he may have, and to be ready to join with Major-General Lambert, if there shall be need. I am marching Northward with the greatest part of the Army, where I shall be glad to hear from you. I rest, gentlemen, Your very affectionate friend and servant, Oliver Cromwell. I could wish you would draw out whatever force you have ; either to be in his rear or to impede his march. For I am per- suaded if he, or the greatest part of those that be with him be taken, it would make an end of the Business of Scotland. O. Cromwell* This Letter, carelessly printed in the old Newspaper, is with- out address ; but we learn that it ' came to my hands this present afternoon,' 'at York,' 26th August 1648; — whither also truer rumours, truer news, as to Hamilton and his affairs, are on the road. On Friday 25th, at Uttoxeter in Staffordshire, the poor Duke of Hamilton, begirt with enemies, distracted with mutinies and internal discords, surrenders and ceases ; ' very ill, and unable to march.' 'My Lord Duke and Calendar,' says Dalgetty, 'fell out and were at very high words at supper, where I was,' the night before ; ' each blaming the other for the misfortune and mis- carriage of our affairs : ' a sad employment ! Dalgetty himself went prisoner to Hull ; lay long with Colonel Robert Overton, an acquaintance of ours there. ' As we rode from Uttoxeter, we ' made a stand at the Duke's window ; and he looking out with ' some kind words, we took our eternal farewell of him,' — never saw him more. He died on the scaffold for this business ; 1 being •Newspaper, Packets of Letters from Scotland and the North, no. 24 (London, printed by Robert Ibbitson in Smithfield, 29th August 1648). [E. 461, No. 29.] See in Appendix, no. 12, Letter of same date to Derby-House Committee, requesting supplies (Note of 1857). [The letter is now printed from a contemporary MS. copy, in the possession of Sir Richard Tangye.] 1 [At his trial he spoke gratefully of Cromwell's courtesy and civility, and of his favour to the " poor wounded gentlemen " who were left behind, saying that " truly he performed more than he did capitulate for." (See Gardiner's Great Civil War, vol. iv. p. 206.)] 348 SECOND CIVIL WAR [23 Aug. Earl of Cambridge, and an English Peer as well as Scotch : — the unhappiest of men; one of those 'singularly able men' who, with all their 'ability/ have never succeeded in any enterprise whatever ! — Colchester Siege, one of the most desperate defences, being now plainly without object, terminates, on Monday next. 1 Sur- render, ' on quarter ' for the inferior parties, ' at discretion ' for the superior. Two of the latter, Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle, gallant Officers both, are sentenced and shot on the place. ' By Ireton's instigation,' say some : 2 yes, or without any special instigation; merely by the nature of the case ! They who, contrary to Law and Treaty, have again in- volved this Nation in blood, do they deserve nothing ? — Two more, Goring 3 and Lord Capel, stood trial at Westminster ; of whom Lord Capel lost his head. He was ' the first man that rose to complain of Grievances' in November 1640; being then Mr. Capel, and Member for Hertfordshire. The Prince with his Fleet in the Downs, too, so soon as these Lancashire tidings reached him, made off for Holland ; ' entered the Hague in thirty coaches,' and gave up his military pursuits. The Second Civil War, its back once broken here at Preston, rapidly dies everywhere ; is already as good as dead. In Scotland itself there is no farther resistance. The oppressed Kirk Party rise rather, and almost thank the conquerors. 'Sir George Monro,' says Turner, ' following constantly a whole day's march to the rear of us,' finding himself, by this unhappy Battle, cut asunder from my Lord Duke, and brought into contact with Cromwell instead, — 'marched straight back to Scotland and joined with Earl Lanark's forces,' my Lord Duke's brother. ' Straight back,' as we shall find, is not the word for this march. ' But so soon as the news of our Defeat came to Scotland,' continues Turner, ' Argyle and the Kirk Party rose in arms ; every 1 28th August, Rushworth, vii. 1242. 2 [See the curious wrangle between Lucas and Ireton, given in the Clarke Papers, vol. ii. pp. 31-39. To Sir Charles' demand to know by whom he was condemned, whether by Fairfax alone or by a Council of War, Ireton replied ' ' You were con- demned by the Parliament, upon your own actions. [The War] wherein you have so voluntarily a second time engaged, hath rendered you in their judgment in general your whole party deserving death, and yourself in some particular exceptions." He goes on to argue that Parliament having declared all engaging in the second war to be traitors and rebels, the General and his Council have not to pass judgment, but only to decide who come under the judgment already pronounced. ] 3 [i.e. the Earl of Norwich.] 1648.] LETTERS LXVII. - LXXIX. 349 mother's son ; and this was called the " JVhiggamore Raid : " ' 1648, — first appearance of the Whig Party on the page of His- tory, I think ! ' David Lesley was at their head, and old Leven,' the Fieldmarshal of 1 639, ' in the Castle of Edinburgh ; who ' cannonaded the Royal ' Hamilton ' troops whenever they came in ' view of him ! ' 1 Cromwell proceeds northward, goes at last to Edinburgh itself, to compose this strange state of matters. LETTERS LXVII— LXXIX Monro with the rearward of Hamilton's beaten Army did not march ' straight back ' to Scotland as Turner told us, but very obliquely back ; lingering for several weeks on the South side of the Border ; collecting remnants of English, Scotch, and even Irish Malignants, not without hopes of raising a new Army from them, — cruelly spoiling those Northern Counties in the interim. Cromwell, waiting first till Lambert with the forces sent in pur- suit of Hamilton can rejoin the main Army, moves Northward, to deal with these broken parties, and with broken Scotland generally. The following Thirteen Letters bring him as far as Edinburgh : whither let us now attend him with such lights as they yield. LETTER LXVII. Oliver St. John, a private friend, and always officially an im- portant man, always on the Committee of Both Kingdoms, Derby-House Committee, or whatever the governing Authority might be, — finds here a private Note for himself; one part of which is very strange to us. Does the reader look with any intelligence into that poor old prophetic, symbolic Deathbed-scene at Preston? Any intelligence of Prophecy and Symbol, in genera] ; of the symbolic Man-child Mahershalal-hashbaz at Jerusalem, or the handful of Cut Grass at Preston ; — of the opening Portals of Eternity, and what last departing gleams there 1 Turner, ubi supra ; Guthry's Memoirs (Glasgow, 1748), p. 285. 350 SECOND CIVIL WAR [l Sept. are in the Soul of the pure and just ? — Mahershalal-hashbaz (' Hasten-to-the-spoil,' so called), and the bundle of Cut Grass are grown somewhat strange to us ! Read ; and having sneered duly, — consider : For my worthy Friend Oliver St. John, Esquire, Solicitor-General : These, at Lincoln's Inn Knaiesboiough, ist Sept. ' 1648.' Dear Sir, I can say nothing but surely the Lord our God is a great and glorious God. He only is worthy to be feared and trusted, and His appearances patiently to be waited for. He will not fail His people. Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Remember my love to my dear brother H. V[ane] I pray he make not too little, nor I too much, of outward dispensations : l God preserve us all, that we, in simplicity of our spirits, may patiently attend upon them ; let us all not be careful what use men will make of these actings. They shall, will they, nill they, fulfil the good pleasure of God, and so shall serve our gene- rations. Our rest we expect elsewhere : that will be durable. Care we not for tomorrow, nor for anything. This Scripture has been of great stay to me : read it ; Isaiah eighth, 10, 11, 14 ; — read all the chapter. 2 1 [When, in 1656, the Protector proceeded against Sir Harry Vane for his ' ' Healing Question," Vane wrote a letter in which he alludes to this. ' ' The message which in former times you sent me is in my memory still. It was immediately after the Lord had appeared with you against Duke Hamilton's army, when you bid a friend of mine tell your brother Vane (for so you then thought fit to call me), that you were as much unsatisfied with his passive and suffering principles as he was with your active. And indeed I must crave leave to make you this reply at this time ; that I am as little satisfied with your active and self-establishing principles, in the lively colours wherein daily they show themselves, as you are or can be with my passive ones, and am willing in this to join issue with you and to beg of the Lord to judge between us and to give the decision according to truth and righteousness." See letter printed at the end of The Proceeds of the Protector . . . against Sir Henry Vane in 1656. E. 889, 11.] 2 Yes, the indignant symbolic ' Chapter,' about Mahershalal-hashbaz, and the vain desires of the wieked, is all worth reading ; here are the Three Verses referred to, more especially : ' Take council together,' ye unjust, ' and it shall come to ' naught ; speak the word, and it shall not stand. For God is with us. — Sanctify the ' Lord of Hosts ; and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread. And He ' shall be for a sanctuary : — but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to 1648.] LETTER LXVIII. 351 I am informed from good hands, that a poor godly man died in Preston, the day before the fight, and being sick, near the hour of his death, he desired the woman that looked to him, To fetch him a handful of grass. She did so, and when he received it, he asked Whether it would wither or not, now it was cut ? The woman said, Yea. He replied, So should this Army of the Scots do, and come to nothing, so soon as ours did but appear, or words to this effect ; and so immediately died. My service to Mr. W. P., Sir J. E., and the rest of our good friends. I hope 1 do often remember you. Yours, Oliver Cromwell. My service to Frank Russell and honest Pickering.* 'Sir J. E.,' when he received this salutation, was palpable enough ; but has now melted away to the Outline of a Shadow ! I guess him to be Sir John Evelyn of Wilts ; and, with greater confidence, ' Mr. W. P.' to be William Pierpoint, Earl of King- ston's Son, a man of superior faculty, of various destiny and business, ' called in the Family traditions, Wise William ; ' Ancestor of the Dukes of Kingston (Great-grandfather of that Ladij Mary, whom as Wortley Montagu all readers still know) ; and much a friend of Oliver, as we shall transiently see. LETTER LXVIII Another private Letter : to my Lord Wharton ; to congratulate him on some ' particular mercy,' seemingly the birth of an heir, and to pour out his sense of these great general mercies. This Philip Lord Wharton is also of the Committee of Derby House, the Executive in those months ; it is probable, 1 Cromwell had been sending despatches to them, and had hastily enclosed these private Letters in the Packet. ' both the Houses of Israel ; for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jeru- ' salem ! And many among them shall stumble and fall, and be broken, and be ' snared, and be taken.' This last verse, we find, is often in the thoughts of Oliver. * Ayscough MSS. 4107, f. 94 [13] ; a copy by Birch. 1 Commons Journals, vi. 6, 5th September. 352 SECOND CIVIL WAK [2 Sept. Philip Lord Wharton seems to have been a zealous Puritan, much concerned with Preachers, Chaplains &c. in his domestic establishment ; and full of Parliamentary and Politico-religious business in public. He had a regiment of his own raising at Edgehill Fight ; but it was one of those that ran away ; where- upon the unhappy Colonel took refuge ' in a sawpit,' — says Royalism confidently, crowing over it without end. 1 A quarrel between him and Sir Henry Mildmay, Member for Maiden, about Sir Henry's saying, " He Wharton had made his peace at Oxford " in November 1643, is noted in the Commons Journals, iii. 300. It was to him, about the time of this Cromwell Letter, that one Osborne, a distracted King's flunkey, had written, accusing Major Rolf, a soldier under Hammond, of attempting to poison Charles in the Isle of Wight. 2 — This Philip's patrimonial estate, Wharton, still a Manor-house of somebody, lies among the Hills on the southwest side of Westmoreland ; near the sources of the Eden, the Swale rising on the other watershed not far off. He seems, however, to have dwelt at Upper Winchington, Bucks, 'a. seat near Great Wycomb.' He lived to be a Privy Councillor to William of Orange. 3 He died in 1696. Take this other anecdote, once a very famous one : 'James Stewart of Blantyre in Scotland, son of a Treasurer ' Stewart, and himself a great favourite of King James, was a * gallant youth ; came up to London with great hopes : but a ' discord falling out between him and the young Lord Wharton, ' they went out to single combat each against the other ; and at ' the first thrust each of them killed the other, and they fell dead ' in one another's arms on the place.' 4 The ' place ' was Islington fields; the date 8th November 1609. The tragedy gave rise to much balladsinging and other rumour. 5 Our Philip is that slain Wharton's Nephew. This Letter has been preserved by Thurloe ; four blank spaces ornamented with due asterisks occur in it, — Editor Birch does not inform us whether from tearing off the Seal, or why. In these blank spaces the conjectural sense, which I distinguish here as usual by commas, is occasionally somewhat questionable. 1 Wood's Atherue, iii. 177, and in all manner of Pamphlets elsewhere. 2 Wood, iii. 501 ; Pamphlets ; Commons Journals, &c. 3 Wood, iv. 407, 542 ; Fasti, i. 325 ; Nicolas's Synopsis of the Peerage. * Scotstarvet 's Staggering State (Edinburgh, 1754, a very curious little Book), 32- 8 Bibliotheca Topographica, no. xlix. 1648.] LETTER LXVIII. 353 For the Right Honourable the Lord Wharton ; These ' Knaresborough,' 2d Sept. 1648. My Lord, You know how untoward I am at this business of writing, yet a word. I beseech the Lord make us sensible of this great mercy here, which surely was much more than ' the sense of it ' the House expresseth. 1 I trust ' to have, through ' the goodness of our God, time and opportunity to speak of it to you face to face. When we think of our God, what are we. Oh, His mercy to the whole society of saints, despised, jeered saints ! Let them mock on. Would we were all saints. The best of us are (God knows) poor weak saints, yet saints ; if not sheep, yet lambs, and must be fed. We have daily bread, 2 and shall have it, in despite of all enemies. There's enough in our Father's house, and He dispenseth it. 3 I think, through these outward mercies (as we call them), Faith, Patience, Love, Hope, all are exercised and perfected, yea, Christ formed, and grows to a per- fect man within us. I know not how well to distinguish, the difference is only in the subject, 'not in the object ; ' to a worldly man they are outward, to a saint Christian, but I dispute not. My Lord, I rejoice in your particular mercy. I hope that ' it ' is so to you. If so, it shall not hurt you ; not make you plot or shift for the young Baron to make him great. You will say, He is God's to dispose of, and guide for ; and there you will leave him. My love to the dear little Lady, 4 better 'tome' than the chilu. The Lord bless you both. My love and service to all friends 1 The House calls it ' a wonderful great mercy and success,' this Preston victory (Commons Journals, v. 680) ;— and then passes on to other matters, not quite adequ- ately conscious that its life had been saved hereby ! What fire was blazing, and how high, in Wales, and then in Lancashire, is known only in perfection to those that trampled it out. 2 Spiritual food, encouragement of merciful Providence, from day to day. s There follows here in the Birch edition : ' As our eyes ' [seven stars] ' behinde, then wee can ' [seven stars 1 ' we for him : ' words totally unintelligible ; and not worth guessing at, the original not being here, but only Birch's questionable reading of it. 4 [The " little lady" was Jane, daughter of Arthur Goodwyn of Upper Winchenden, who sat for his county, together with John -Hampden, at the beginning of the Long Parliament. She was Lord Wharton's second wife.] vol. 1.— 23 354 SECOND CIVIL WAK [2 Sept. high and low ; if you will, ' to ' my Lord and Lady Mulgrave and Will Hill. I am truly, Your faithful friend and humblest servant, Oliver Ceomwell.* During these very days, perhaps it was exactly two days after, * on Monday last,' if that mean 4th September, 1 — Monro, lying about Appleby, has a party of horse ' sent into the Bishopric ; ' firing ' divers houses ' thereabouts, and not forgetting to plunder ' the Lord Wharton's tenants ' by the road : "Cromwell penetrating towards Berwick, yet still at a good distance, scatters this and other predatory parties rapidly enough to Appleby, — as it were by the very wind of him ; like a coming mastiff smelt in the gale by vermin. They are swifter than he, and get to Scotland, by their dexterity and quick scent, unscathed. ' Across to Kelso ' about September 8th. 2 Mulgrave in those years is a young Edmund Sheffield, of whom, except that he came afterwards to sit in the Council of State, and died a few days before the Proctector, History knows not much. — 'Will Hill' is perhaps William Hill, a Puritan Merchant in London, 3 ruined out of ' a large estate ' by lending for the public service ; who, this Summer, and still in this very month, is dunning the Lords and Commons, the Lords with rather more effect, to try if they cannot give him some kind of payment, or shadow of an attempt at payment, — he having long lain in jail for want of his money. A zealous religious, and now destitute and insolvent man ; known to Oliver ; — and suggests himself along with the Mulgraves by the contrast of 'Friends high and low.' Poor Hill did, after infinite struggling, get some kind of snack at the Bishops' Lands by and by. 4 The ' young Baron ' now born is father, I suppose, — he or his brother is fathei, 6 — of the far-famed high-gifted half-delirious Duke of Wharton, *Thurloe, i. 99. 1 Cromwelliana, p. 45. 2 Rushworth, vii. 1250, 3. 9, 60. 3 [There was, however, a William Hill, a Justice of the Peace for Buckingham- shire (see Calendar of Committee for Compounding, p. 631) whom it is more likely that Cromwell means.] 4 Commons Journals, vi. 29, 243. 5 He, Thomas, the one now born ; subsequently Marquis, and a man otherwise of distinction; who 'died, 12th April 1715, in the 67th year of his age:' Boyer's Political State of Great Britain (April 1715, London), p. 305. (Note to Third Edition; communicated by Mr. T, Watts of the British Museum.) 1648] DECLAEATION 355 On the 8th of September, Cromwell is at Durham, 1 scaring the Monro fraternity before him ; and publishes the following DECLARATION Whereas the Scottish Army, under the command of James Duke of Hamilton, which lately invaded this nation of England, is, by the blessing of God upon the Parliament forces, defeated and overthrown, and some thousands of their soldiers and officers are now prisoners in our hands, so that, by reason of their great number, and want of sufficient guards and watches to keep them so carefully as need requires (the Army being employed upon other duty and service of the Kingdom), divers may escape away, and many, both since and upon the pursuit, * do ' lie in private places in the country : I thought it very just and necessary to give notice to all, and accordingly do declare, That if any Scottishmen (officers or soldiers) lately members of the said Scottish Army, and taken or escaped in or since the late fight and pursuit, shall be found straggling in the countries, or running away from the places assigned them to remain in till the pleasure of the Parliament, or ' of ' his Excellency the Lord General be known, — It will be ac- counted a very good and acceptable service to the country and Kingdom of England, for any person or persons to take and apprehend all such Scottishmen, and to carry them to any officer having the charge of such prisoners ; or, for want of such officer, to the Committee or Governor of the next Garrison for the Parliament within the county where they shall be so taken ; to be secured and kept in prison, as they shall find most convenient. And the said Committee, Officer, or Governor respectively, are desired to secure such of the said prisoners as shall be so appre- hended and brought unto them, accordingly. And if any of the said Scottish officers or soldiers shall make any resistance, and 1 Commons Journals, vii, 1260. [He reached it on or before the 7th. See Supplement No. 32.] 356 SECOND CIVIL WAR [ll Sept. refuse to be taken or render themselves, all such persons well- affected to the service of the Parliament and Kingdom of England, may and are desired to fall upon, fight with, and slay such refusers : but if the said prisoners shall continue and remain within the places and guards assigned for the keeping of them, that then no violence, wrong, nor injury be offered to them by any means. Provided also, and special care is to be taken, That no Scottish- man residing within this kingdom, and not having been a member of the said Army, or such of the said Scottish prisoners as shall have liberty given them, and sufficient passes to go to any place appointed, may not be interrupted or troubled hereby. Oliver Cromwell.* ' Durham,' 8th September I648. LETTER LXIX Fairfax is still at Colchester, arranging the 'ransoms,' and confused, wrecks of the Siege there ; Cromwell has now reached Berwick, 1 at least his outposts have, — all the Monroes now fairly across the Tweed. ' Lieutenant-Colonel Cowell,' I conclude, was mortally wounded at Preston Battle ; and here has the poor Widow been, soliciting and lamenting. 2 For his Excellency the Lord Fairfax, General of all the Parliament's Armies : These ' Alnwick,' nth September 1648. My Lord, Since we lost Lieutenant-Colonel Cowell, his Wife came to me near Northallerton, much lamenting her loss, and the sad condition she and her children, were left in. He was an honest worthy man. He spent himself in your and the kingdom's service. He being a great trader in London, * Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 46). 1 Rushworth, vii. 125. 2 [Lieut. -Colonel William Cowell, of Fairfax's regiment of foot, previously Major of the regiment. He probably was wounded at Preston, as we know from Letter LXIV. that Fairfax's foot regiment was engaged there. No record of any payment to his widow is to be found amongst the papers of the Committee for Advance of Money, or of the Committee for Compounding. Perhaps Cromwell's letter of the 7th (Supplement No. 32) had relation to this same matter.] 1648.] LETTER LXX., ALNWICK 357 deserted it to serve the kingdom. He lent 1 much moneys to the State ; and I believe few outdid him. He hath a great arrear due to him. He left a wife and three small children but meanly provided for. Upon his deathbed, he commended this desire to me, That I should befriend his to the Parliament or to your Excellency. His wife will attend you for letters to the Parlia- ment, which 1 beseech you to take into a tender consideration. I beseech you to pardon this boldness to, Your Excellency's most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* On the 19th June 1649, ' Widow Cowell ' is ordered to be paid her Husband's Arrears by the Committee at Haberdashers' Hall. 2 One hopes she received payment, poor woman ! ' Upon his death- bed her Husband commended this desire to me.' In the very hours while this Letter is a- writing, ' Monday 1 1th September 1648,' Monro, now joined with the Earl of Lanark, presents himself at Edinburgh : but the Whiggamore Raid, all the force of the West Country, 6,000 strong, is already there ; ' draws out on the crags be-east the Town,' old Leven in the Castle ready to fire withal ; and will not let him enter. Lanark and Monro, after sad survey of the inaccessible armed crags, bend westward, keeping well out of the range of Leven's guns, — to Stirling ; meet Argyle and the Whiggamores, make some Treaty or Armistice, and admit them to be the real ' Committee of Estates,' the Hamilton Faction having ended. 3 Here are Three Letters, Two of one date, directly on the back of these occurrences. LETTER LXX For the Governor of Berwick : These Alnwick, 15th September 1648. Sir, Being come thus near, I thought fit to demand the town of Berwick to be delivered into my hands, to the use '[Carlyle printed "lost".] 2 Commons Journals, vi. 237. 3 Guthry, pp. 288-97. * Lansdowne MSS, 1236, fol. 89. 358 SECOND CIVIL WAR [16 Sept. of the Parliament and kingdom of England, to whom of right it belongeth. I need not use any arguments to convince you of the justice hereof. The witness that God hath borne against your Army, in their Invasion of those who desired to sit in peace by you, doth at once manifest His dislike of the injury done to a Nation that meant you no harm, but hath been all along desirous to keep amity and brotherly affection and agreement with you. If you deny me in this, we must make a second appeal to God, putting ourselves upon Him, in endeavouring to obtain our rights, and let Him be judge between us. And if our aim be anything beyond what we profess, He will requite it. If further trouble ensue upon your denial, we trust He will make our innocency to appear. I expect your answer to this summons, this day, and rest, Your servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Ludovic Lesley, the Scotch Governor of Berwick, returns ' a dilatory answer,' not necessary for us to read. Here is a more important message : LETTER LXXI For the Right Honourable the Lord Marquis of Argyle, and the rest of the well-affected Lords, Gentlemen, Ministers, and People now in arms in the Kingdom of Scotland : Present ' Near Berwick,' 16th Septembei 1648. My Lords and Gentlemen, Being (in prosecution of the common enemy) advanced, with the Army under my command, to the borders of Scotland, I thought fit, to prevent any misapprehension or pre- judice that might be raised thereupon, to send your Lordships * Lords Journals (in Parliamentary History, xvii. 485). 1648.] LETTEE LXXL, NEAR BERWICK 359 these Gentlemen, Colonel Bright, Scoutmaster-General Rowe, and Mr Stapylton, to acquaint you with the reasons thereof: concerning which I desire your Lordships to give them credence, I remain, My Lords, Your very humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Colonel Bright and Scoutmaster Rowe are persons that often occur, though somewhat undistinguishably, in the Old Pamphlets. 1 Bright in the end of this month, was sent over, ' from Berwick ' apparently, to take possession of Carlisle, now ready to surrender to us. 2 ' Scoutmaster ' is the Chief of the Corps of ' Guides,' as soldiers now call them. As to Stapylton or Stapleton, we have to remark that, besides Sir Philip Stapleton, the noted Member for Boroughbridge, and one of the Eleven, who is now banished and dead, there is a Bryan Stapleton now Member for Aldborough ; he in January last 3 was Commissioner to Scotland : but this present Stapylton is still another. Apparently, one Robert Stapylton ; a favourite Chaplain of Cromwell's ; an Army- Preacher, a man of weight and eminence in that character. From his following in the rear of Colonel and Scoutmaster, instead of taking precedence in the Lieutenant-General's Letter, as an M.P. would have done, we may infer that this Reverend Robert Stapylton is the Cromwell Messenger, — sent to speak a word to the Clergy in particular. Scoutmaster Rowe, William Rowe, appears with an enlarged sphere of influence, presiding over the Cromwell spy-world in a very diligent, expert and almost respectable manner, some years afterwards, in the Milton State-Papers. His counsel might be useful with Argyle ; his experienced eye, at any rate, might take a glance of the Scottish Country, with advantage to an invading General. * Thurloe, i. ioo. 1 [Col. John Bright commanded a regiment in Lord Fairfax's Army. When these northern regiments passed under Sir Thomas Fairfax's command in the summer of 1647, his regiment was added to the New Model Army, of which he remained a member until 1650. (See his life in the Dictionary of National Biography. ) William Rowe succeeded Leonard Watson as Scout-Master General. Many of his letters are printed in Nickoll's Letters and Papers of State, i.e., the Milton State-Papers.] 2 Cromwelliana, p. 48. Commons Journals, v. 442 ; Whitlocke, p. 290. 360 SECOND CIVIL WAE [16 Sept. Of the Reverend Mr. Stapylton's proceedings on this occasion we have no notice : but he will occur afterwards in these Letters ; and two years hence, on Cromwell's second visit to those Northern parts, we find this recorded : ' Last Lord's Day,' 29th September 1650,' Mr. Stapylton preached in the High Church,' of Edinburgh, while we were mining the Castle ! — ' forenoon and afternoon, ' before his Excellency with his Officers ; where was a great ' concourse of people ; many Scots expressing much affection at 'the doctrine, in their usual way of groans.' 1 In their usual way of groans, while Mr. Stapylton held forth : consider that ! — Mr. Robert, 'at 10 o'clock at night on the 3d September' next year, writes, ' from the other side of Severn,' a copious despatch con- cerning the Battle of Worcester, 2 and then disappears from History. The following Letter, of the same date, was brought by the same Messengers for the Committee of Estates. LETTER LXXII For the Bight Honourable the Committee of Estates for the Kingdom of Scotland : These ' Near Berwick,' i6th September 1648. Right Honourable, Being upon my approach to the borders of the kingdom of Scotland, I thought fit to acquaint you of the reason thereof. It is well known how injuriously the kingdom of England was lately invaded by the Army under Duke Hamilton, contrary to the Covenant and ' to ' our leagues of amity, and against all the engagements of love and brotherhood between the two nations. And notwithstanding the pretence of your late Declaration, 3 published to take with the people of this kingdom, the Commons of England in Parliament assembled declared the said Army so entering as enemies to the kingdom ; and those of England who 1 Cromwelliana, p. 02. [This is not an exact quotation.] "Hid., pp. 112, 113. 3 To be found in Rushworth; read it not ! 1648.] LETTEE LXXII, NEAR BERWICK 361 should adhere to them, as traitors. And having 1 received com- mand to march with a considerable part of their Army, to oppose so great a violation of faith and justice ; what a witness God, being appealed to, 2 hath borne, upon the engagement of the two Armies, against the unrighteousness of man, not only yourselves, but this kingdom, yea and a great part of the known world will, 1 trust, acknowledge. How dangerous a thing is it to wage an unjust war ; much more, to appeal to God the Righteous Judge therein. We trust He will persuade you better by this manifest token of His displeasure, lest His hand be stretched out yet more against you, and your poor people also, if they will be deceived. That which I am to demand of you is, The restitution of the garrisons of Berwick and Carlisle into my hands, for the use of the Parliament and kingdom of England. If you deny me herein, I must make our appeal to God, and call upon Him for assistance, in what way He shall direct us ; wherein we are, and shall be, so far from seeking the harm of the well-affected people of the kingdom of Scotland, that we profess as before the Lord, that (what difference an Army, necessitated in a hostile way to recover the ancient rights and inheritance of the kingdom under which they serve, can make 3 ) we shall use our endeavours to the utmost that the trouble may fall upon the contrivers and authors of this breach, and not upon the poor innocent people, who have been led and compelled into this action, as many poor souls now prisoners to us confess. We thought ourselves bound in duty thus to expostulate with you, and thus to profess, to the end we may bear our integrity 1 The grammar requires ' I having,' but the physiognomy of the sentence requires nothing. 2 on Preston Moor. 3 Means ; ' so far as an army, necessitated to vindicate its country by War, can make a discrimination. ' The ' ancient rights and inheritance ' are the right to choose our own King or No-King, and so forth. [Cromwell was simply demanding the restitution of Berwick and Carlisle, "the ancient rights and inheritance of the Kingdom of England." Dr. Gardiner says " Carlyle is certainly wrong in inter- preting these words to imply ' the right to choose our own King or No-King, and so forth.' " Great Civil War, iv. 229.] 362 SECOND CIVIL WAR [18 Sept. out before the world, and may have comfort in God, whatever the event be. Desiring your answer, I rest, Your Lordships' humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* The troubles of Scotland are coming thick. The ' Engagers/ those that ' engaged ' with Hamilton, are to be condemned ; then, before long, come ' Resolutioners ' and ' Protesters ; ' and in the wreck of the Hamilton-Argyle discussions, and general cuncta- tions, — all men desiring to say; Yes and No instead of Yes or No, — Royalism and Presbyterianism alike are disastrously sinking. The Lordships here addressed as ' Committee of Estates ' can make no answer, for they do not now exist as Committee of Estates ; — Argyle and Company are now assuming that character : the shifting of the dresses, which occasions some complexity in those old Letters, is just going on. From Argyle and Company, how- ever, who see in Cromwell their one sure stay, there are already on the road conciliatory congratulatory messages, by Lairds and Majors, ' from Falkirk,' where the Whiggamore Raid and Lanark are making their Armistice or Treaty. Whereupon follows, with suitably vague Superscription, for Argyle and Company : LETTER LXXIII To the Right Honourable the Earl of Loudon, Chancellor of the Kingdom of Scotland ; To be communicated to the Noblemen, Gentlemen, and Burgesses now in arms, 1 mho dissented in Parliament from the late Engagement against the Kingdom of England. Cheswick," 18th Sept. 1648. Right Honourable, We received yours from Falkirk of the 15th September instant. We have had also a sight of your Instructions *Thurloe, i. 100. 1 ' The Whiggamore Raid,' as Turner calls it, now making a Treaty with Lanark, Monro, and the other Assignees of the bankrupt Hamilton concern. Expressly ad- dressed, in the next Letter, as ' Committee of Estates,' they now. 2 Cheswick, still a Manor-house ' of the Family of Strangeways,' lies three or four miles south of Berwick, on the great road to Newcastle and London. 1648.] LETTEE LXXIIL, CHESWICK 363 given to the Laird of Greenhead and Major Strahan, as also other two papers concerning the treaty between your Lordships and the enemy, wherein your care of the interest of the kingdom of England, for the delivery of their towns x unjustly taken from them, and * your ' desire to preserve the unity of both nations, appears. By which also we understand the posture you are in to oppose the enemies of the welfare and the peace of both the kingdoms, for which we bless God for His goodness to you, and rejoice to see the power of the kingdom of Scotland in a hopeful way to be invested in the hands of those who, we trust, are taught of God to seek His honour, and the comfort of His people. And give us leave to say, as before the Lord, who knows the secrets of all hearts, that, as we think one especial end of Pro- vidence in permitting the enemies of God and goodness in both kingdoms to rise to that height, and exercise such tyranny over His people, was to show the necessity of unity amongst those of both nations, so we hope and pray that the late glorious dispensation, in giving so happy success against your and our enemies in our victories, may be the foundation of union of the people of God in love and amity. Unto that end we shall, God assisting, to the utmost of our power endeavour to perform what may be behind on our part, and when we shall, through any wilfulness, fail therein, let this profession rise up in judgment against us, as having been made in hypocrisy, a severe avenger of which God hath lately appeared, in His most righteous wit- nessing against the Army under Duke Hamilton, invading us under specious pretences of piety and justice. We may humbly say, we rejoice with more trembling 2 than to dare to do so wicked a thing. Upon our advance to Alnwick, we thought fit to send a good body of our horse to the borders of Scotland, and thereby a summons to the Garrison of Berwick ; 3 to which having received 1 Berwick and Carlisle, which by agreement in 1646-7 were not to be garrisoned except by consent of both Kingdoms. 2 ' Join trembling with your mirth ' (Second Psalm). [" Rejoice with trembling," Authorised Version^ ! Letter LXX. 364 SECOND CIVIL WAE [18 Sept. a dilatory answer, I desired a safe-convoy for Colonel Bright and the Scoutmaster-General of this Army to go to the Committee of Estates in Scotland, who, I hope, will have the opportunity to be with your Lordships before this come to your hands, and, according as they are instructed, will let your Lordships in some measure (as well as we could in so much ignorance of your condition) know our affections to you. And understanding things more fully by yours, we now thought fit to make you this ' present ' return. The command we received, upon the defeat of Duke Hamilton, was, to prosecute this business until the enemy were put out of a condition or hope of growing into a new Army, and the garrisons of Berwick and Carlisle were reduced. Four regiments of our horse and some dragoons, who had followed the enemy into the south parts, 2 being now come up ; and this country not able to bear us, the cattle and old corn thereof having been wasted by Monro and the forces with him ; the Governor of Berwick also victualling his garrison from Scotland side ; and the enemy yet in so considerable a posture as by these gentlemen and your papers we understand, still prosecuting their former design, having gotten the advantage of Stirling Bridge, and so much of Scotland at their backs to enable them thereunto, and your Lordships' condition not being such, at present, as may compel them to submit to the honest and necessary things you have proposed to them for the good of both the kingdoms : we have thought fit, out of the sense of our duty to the commands laid upon us by those who have sent us, and to the end we might be in a posture more ready to give you assistance (and not be wanting to what we have made so large professions of), to advance into Scotland with the Army. 3 And we trust, by the blessing of God, the common enemy will thereby the sooner be brought to a submission 1 [Thurloe has " Lieutenant-General," probably a mistake of the transcriber.] a Uttoxeter and thereabouts. 3 Neither does the sentence end even here ! It is dreadfully bad composition yet contains a vigorous clear sense in it. 1648.] LETTEE LXXIIL, CHESWICK 365 to you : and we thereby shall do what becomes us in order to the obtaining of our garrisons, engaging ourselves that, so soon as we shall know from you that the enemy shall yield to the things you have proposed to them, and we have our garrisons delivered to us, we shall forthwith depart out of your kingdom, and in the meantime be 'even' more tender towards the Kingdom of Scotland, in the point of charge, than if we were in our own native kingdom. If we shall receive from you any desire of a more speedy advance, we shall readily yield compliance therewith, desiring also to hear from you how affairs stand. This being the result of a Council of War, I present it to you as the expression of their affections and of my own, who am, My Lords, Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Cheswick, where Oliver now has his head-quarter, lies, as we said, some three or four miles south of Berwick, on the English side of Tweed. Part of his forces crossed the River, I find, next day ; a stray regiment had without order gone across, the day before. — The 'Laird of Greenhead,' Sir Andrew Ker, is known in the old Scotch Books ; still better, Major Strahan, who makes a figure on his own footing by and by. The Anti- Hamilton or Whiggamore Party are all inclined to Cromwell ; inclined, and yet averse : wishing to say " Yes and No : " if that were possible ! — The answer to this Letter immediately follows in Thurloe ; but it is not worth giving. The intricate longwindedness of mere Loudons, Argyles and the like, on such subjects at this time of day, is not tolerable to either gods or men. "We, Loudon, Argyle, and Company, are very sensible how righteously ' God who judgeth the Earth ' has dealt with Hamilton and his followers ; an intolerable, unconscionable race of men, tending towards mere ruin of religion, and ' grievously oppressive ' to us. We hope all things from you, respectable Lieutenant-General. We have sent influential persons to order the giving up of Berwick and Carlisle instantly ; and hope these Garrisons will obey them. We rest, — Humbly devoted, — Argyle, Loudon, and Company," * Thurloe, i. 101, 366 SECOND CIVIL WAR [20 Sept. Influential Persons : ' Friday last, the 22d September, the ' Marquis of Argyle, the Lord Elcho, Sir John Scot and others ' came as Commissioners from the Honest Party in Scotland to 'the Laird of Mordington's House at Mordington, to the Lieu- ' tenant-General's quarters, two miles within Scotland. That night ' the Marquis of Argyle sent a trumpet to Berwick,' J — Berwick made delays, needed to send to the Earl of Lanark first. Lanark, it is to be hoped, will consent. Meanwhile the Lieutenant- General opens his parallels, diligently prepares to besiege, if necessary. Among these influential Persons, a quick reader notices ' Sir John Scot,' — and rejoices to recognise him, in that dim transient way, for the ' Director of the Chancery,' and Laird of Scotstarvet in Fife, himself in rather a staggering state 2 at present, worthy old gentleman ! PROCLAMATION Whereas we are marching with the Parliament's Army into the kingdom of Scotland, in pursuance of the remaining part of the enemy who lately invaded the kingdom of England, and for the recovery of the garrisons of Berwick and Carlisle : These are to declare, that if any officer or soldier under my command shall take or demand any money, or shall violently take any horses, goods or victual, without order, or shall abuse the people in any sort, he shall be tried by a Council of War : and the said person so offending shall be punished, according to the Articles of War made for the government of the Army in the kingdom of England, which ' punishment ' is death. Each colonel, or other chief officer in every regiment, is to transcribe a copy of this, and to cause the same to be delivered to each captain of his regiment : and every said captain of each respective troop and company is to publish the same to his troop 1 Rushworth, vii. 1282. 2 Scott of Scotstarvet 's Staggering State of Scots Statesmen is the strange Title of his strange little Book : not a Satire at all, but a Homily on Life's Nothingness, enforced by examples ; gives in this brief compass, not without a rude Laconic geniality, the cream of Scotch Biographic History in that age, and unconsciously a curious self-portrait of the Writer withal. 1648.] LETTEE LXXIV., NORHAM 367 or company, and to take a strict course that nothing be done contrary hereunto. Given under my hand, this 20th September 1648. Oliver Cromwell,* LETTER LXXIV For the Right Honourable the Committee of Estates of the Kingdom of Scotland, at Edinburgh; These Norham, 2ist Sept. 1648. Right Honourable, We perceive that there was, upon our advance to the Borders, the last Lord's Day, 1 a very disorderly carriage by some horse, who, without order, did steal over the Tweed, and plundered some places in the kingdom of Scotland, and since that, some stragglers have been alike faulty, to the wrong of the inhabitants, and to our very great grief of heart. I have been as diligent as I can to find out the men that have done the wrong, and I am still in the discovery thereof, and I trust it shall appear to you that there shall be nothing wanting on my part that may testify how much we abhor such things, and to the best of my information I cannot find the least guilt of the fact 2 to lie upon the regiments of this Army, but upon some of the Northern horse, who have not been under our discipline and government, until just that we came into these parts. I have commanded those forces away back again into England, and I hope the exemplarity of justice will testify for us our great detestation of the fact. 2 For the remaining forces, which are of our old regiments, we may engage for them their officers will keep them from doing any such things, and we are confident that, saving victual, they shall not take anything from the inhabitants, and in that also they shall be so far from being their own carvers, * Newspapers in Cromwelliana, p. 46. 1 zist Sept. 1648 is Thursday ; last Sunday is 17th, ? ' fait. ' 368 SECOND CIVIL WAR [21 Sept. as that they shall submit to have provisions ordered and propor- tioned by the consent, and with the direction, of the committees and gentlemen of the country, and not otherwise, if they J please to be assisting to us therein. 1 thought fit, for the preventing of misunderstanding, to give your Lordships this account ; and rest, My Lords, Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* ' Upon our entrance into Scotland, a regiment lately raised in the ' Bishopric of Durham, under Colonel Wren, behaved themselves ' rudely ; 2 which as soon as the Lieutenant-General of this Army ' Cromwell ' had notice of, he caused it to rendezvous upon Tweed ' banks ; and the Scottish people having challenged several horses 'taken from them by that Regiment, the Lieutenant-General ' caused the said horses to be restored back, and the plunderers ' to be cashiered. A Lieutenant that countenanced such deeds ' was delivered into the Marshal's hands ; and the Colonel himself, ' conniving at them, and not doing justice upon the offenders ' when complaints were brought in to him, was taken from the ' head of his Regiment, and suspended from executing his place, ' until he had answered at a Council of War for his negligence in ' the performance of his duty. This notable and impartial piece 1 These Committees. 2 [Col. Francis Wren, afterwards Commissioner and Treasurer for the county of Durham. His men do not seem to have confined their ill-conduct to the Scottish side of the Tweed, for an unfortunate dweller in Northumberland, near the border, lamented that his estate had been wasted by the Cavaliers, the Scottish Army, General Cromwell's Army coming and going, and especially by Col. Wren's regiment, which last plundered him of all he had. See Calendar of Committee for Compounding, p. 1048. These northern troops, who had never been under his " discipline and government," must have been a sore trial to Cromwell. Perhaps it is of the same regiment that a Lancashire letter complains so bitterly. "Within three days after that General Cromwell had left Preston to pursue the Duke, there came up to Preston to follow him a regiment of Northern men out of the Bishopric of Durham, carrying all black 'Curllers'. . . . These were the most thievish companies that ever the Country was pestered with during the war. Notwithstanding they had extraordinary allowances out of the parish [of Kirkham] so that at the least they had 100/. for three days' quarter, yet they went most of the parish over, plundering and stealing whatever they could conveniently carry away." A Discourse of the War in Lancashire, p. 67.] * Thurloe, i. 103 (From the Public Records of Scotland, in the Laigh Parliament- House at Edinburgh). 1648.] LETTER LXXV., BERWICK 369 ' of justice did very much take with the people ; and the Regiment ' is ordered back into Northumberland,' 1 — as we see. The answer of ' Loudon Cancellarius ' to this Letter from Nor- ham is given in the old Newspapers. 2 The date is Edinburgh, 28th September 1648. Loudon of course is very thankful for such tenderness and kind civilities ; thankful especially that the Honourable Lieutenant-General has come so near, and by the dread of him forced the Malignants at Stirling Bridge to come to terms, and leave the Well-affected at peace. A very great blessing to us 'the near distance, of your forces at this time,' — though once {you ken varry tveel, and Whitlocke kens,) we con- sidered you an incendiary, and I, O honourable Lieutenant- General, would so fain have had you extinguished, — not knowing what J did ! Norham lies on the South shore of the Tweed, some seven miles above Berwick : ' Day set on Norham's castled steep.' 3 Cromwell went across to Mordington, and met the ' Influential Persons,' on the morrow. As the following Letter, taking a comprehensive survey of the matter, will abundantly manifest. LETTER LXXV ' To the Honourable William Lenthall, Speaker of the House of Commons : These ' Berwick, 2d October 1648. Sir, I have formerly represented to the Committee at Derby House, 4 how far I have prosecuted your business in relation to the commands I did receive from them, to wit : that I having sent a party of horse with a summons to Berwick, and a letter to the Committee of Estates, which I supposed did consist of the Earl of Lanerick and his participates, and a letter 1 Perfect Diurnal, October 2d to 9th (in Cromwelliana, p. 47). 2 Ibid. , p. 47. 3 Scott's Marmian. 4 Long Letter, dated 20th September, recapitulating what is already known to us here. Appendix, No. 13. VOL. I. — 24 370 SECOND CIVIL WAR [2 Oct. of kindness and affection to the Marquis of Argyle and the well- affected party in arms at ■ or about ' Edinburgh, with credence to Colonel Bright and Mr. William Rowe, Scoutmaster of the Army, To let them know upon what grounds and with what intentions we came into their kingdom, and how that, in the mean time, the Marquis of Argyle and the rest at Edinburgh had sent Sir Andrew Carr, Laird of Greenhead, and Major Straughan to me, with a letter, and papers of instructions, expressing their good affection to the kingdom of England, and disclaiming the late Engagement ; together with my answer to the said letters and papers, duplicates of all which I sent to the Committee at Derby House, and therefore forebear to trouble you with the things themselves. I think now fit to give you an account, what further progress has been made in your business. The two ' Scotch ' Armies being drawn up, the one under Lanerick and Munro at Stirling, and the other under .the Earl of Leven and Lieutenant- General Lesley betwixt that and Edin- burgh ; the heads of the two Armies being upon treaties concerning their own affairs, and I having given (as I hoped) sufficient satis- faction concerning the justice of your cause, and the clearness of my intentions in entering that kingdom, — ' I ' did (upon Thursday being the one and twentieth of September, and two days before the Tweed being fordable), march over Tweed at Norham into Scotland, with four regiments of horse, and some dragoons, and six regiments of foot, and there quartered; my head-quarters being at the Lord Mordington's House. Where hearing of the Marquis of Argyle, the Lord Elcho, and some others, were coming to me from the Committee of Estates assembled at Edinburgh, — I went, on Friday the two and twentieth of September, some part of the way to wait upon his Lordship. Who, when he was come to his quarters, delivered me a letter, of which this enclosed is a copy, 1 signed by the Lord Chancellor, by warrant of the Committee of Estates. And after 1 Conceivable by us here. 1648.] LETTEE LXXV., BERWICK 371 some time spent in giving and receiving mutual satisfaction concerning each other's integrity and clearness (wherein I must be bold to testify for that noble Lord the Marquis, the Lord Elcho, and the other gentlemen with him, that I have found nothing in them but what becomes Christians and men of honour), the next day it was resolved, that the command of the Committee of Estates to the Governor of Berwick, for rendering the town, should be sent to him, by the Lord Elcho and Colonel Scott, which accordingly was done. But he, pretending that he had not received the command of that place from those that now demanded it of him, desired liberty to send to the Earl of Lanerick, engaging himself then to give his positive answer, and intimating it should be satisfactory. Whilst these things were in transacting, I ordered Major- General Lambert to march towards Edinburgh, with six regiments of horse and a regiment of dragoons, who accordingly did so, and quartered in East Louthian, within six miles of Edinburgh ; the foot lying in his rear at Coperspeth and thereabout. 1 Upon Friday, the 29th of September, came an order from the Earl of Lanerick, and divers other Lords of his party, requiring the Governor of Berwick to march out of the town ; which ac- cordingly he did, on Saturday the last of September, at which time I entered ; having placed a garrison there for your use. The Governor would fain have capitulated for the English ' who were with him,' but we, having this advantage upon him, would not hear of it : so that they are submitted to your mercy, and are under the consideration of Sir Arthur Heselrige, who (I believe) will give you a good account of them ; and who has already turned out the malignant Mayor, and put an honest man in his room. I have also received an order for Carlisle, and have sent Colonel Bright, with horse and foot to receive it, Sir Andrew Carr and Colonel Scott being gone with him to require an observance of 1 What follows now, is published as a fragment in the Newspapers. 372 SECOND CIVIL WAE [2 Oct. the order ; there having been a treaty and an agreement betwixt the two parties in arms in Scotland, to disband all forces, except fifteen-hundred horse and foot under the Earl of Leven, which are to be kept up to see all remaining forces disbanded. And having some other things to desire from the Committee of Estates at Edinburgh for your service, I am myself going thitherward this day ; and so soon as I shall be able to give you a further account thereof, I shall do it. In the mean time, I make it my desire that the garrison of Berwick (into which I have placed a regiment of foot, and ' which ' shall be attended also by a regiment of horse) may be provided for, and that Sir Arthur Heselrige may receive commands to supply it with guns and am- munition from Newcastle, and be otherwise enabled by you to furnish this garrison with all other necessaries, according as a place of that importance will require. Desiring that these mercies may beget trust and thankfulness to God the only author of them, and an improvement of them to His glory and the good of this poor kingdom, I rest, Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* LETTER LXXVI Follows here a small Note, enclosing a duplicate of the above Letter, for Fairfax ; written chiefly to enforce the request as to Haselrig and Berwick, — ' Hasleridge * and ' Barwick,' as Oliver here spells. Haselrig is Governor of Newcastle, a man of chief authority in those Northern regions. — Fairfax, who has been surveying, regulating, and extensively dining in Townhalls, through the Eastern Counties, is now at St. Albans, 1 — the Army's head-quarters for some time to come. * Tanner MS. [lvii. 330, Signed.] (in Cary's Memorials ii. 18) ; Newspapers (Cromwelliana, p. 48). 1 Since 16th September, Rushworth, vii. 1271. 1648.] LETTER LXXVL, BERWICK 373 For his Excellency the Lord General Fairfax, at St. Albans: These Berwick, 2d October 1648. May it please your Excellency, I received your late directions with your Com- missions, how they shall be disposed, which I hope I shall pursue to your satisfaction. I having sent an account to the House of Commons, concerning affairs here, am bold (being straitened in time) to present you with a duplicate thereof, which I trust will give you satisfaction. I hope there is a very good understanding between the honest party of Scotland and us here, and better than some would have. Sir, I beg of your Excellency to write to Sir A. Haselrige to take care of Berwick ; he having all things necessary for the Garrison ' here,' at Newcastle ; which is left destitute of all, and may be lost if this be not 'done.' I beg of your Lordship a commission to be speeded to him. I have no more at present ; but rest, My Lord, Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* In these weeks, once more, there is an intensely interesting Treaty going on in the Isle of Wight ; Treaty of Forty days with the King ; solemn Parliamentary Commissioners 011 one hand, Majesty with due Assistants on the other, very solemnly debating and negotiating day after day, for forty days and longer, in the Town of Newport there. 1 The last hope of Presbyterian Royalism in this world. Not yet the last hope of his Majesty ; who still, after all the sanguinary ruin of this year, feels himself a tower of strength ; inexpugnable in his divine right, which no sane man can question ; settlement of the Nation impossible without him. Happily, at any rate, it is the last of the Treaties with Charles Stuart, — for History begins to be weary of them. Treaty which * Sloane MSS. 1519, P- 92. [f. 183. Holograph.] 1 Warwick, pp. 321-9 ; Rushworth, vii. &c. &c. Began 18th September ; was lengthened out by successive permissions to the 18th, 25th, and even 27th of November. 374 SECOND CIVIL WAR [2 Oct. came to nothing, as all the others had done. Which indeed could come only to nothing ; his Majesty not having the smallest design to abide by it ; his Majesty eagerly consulting about ' escape ' all the while, — escape to Ormond who is now in Ireland again, escape somewhither, anywhither; — and considering the Treaty mainly as a piece of Dramaturgy, which must be handsomely done in the interim, and leave a good impression on the Public. 1 Such is the Treaty of Forty Days ; a mere torpor on the page of His- tory ; which the reader shall conceive for himself ad libitum. The Army, from head-quarters at St. Albans, regards him and it with a sternly watchful eye ; not participating in the hopes of Presbyterian Royalism at all ; — and there begin to be Army Coun- cils held again. As for Cromwell, he is gone forward to Edinburgh ; reaches Seaton, the Earl of Winton's House, which is the head-quarters of the horse, a few miles east of Edinburgh, on Tuesday evening. Next day, Wednesday 4th October 1648, come certain Dignitaries of the Argyle or Whiggamore Party, and escort him honourably into Edinburgh ; 'to the Earl of Murrie's House in the Cannigate ' (so, in good Edinburgh Scotch, do the old Pamphlets spell it) ; ' where a strong guard,' an English Guard, ' is appointed to keep constant watch at the Gate ; ' and all manner of Earls and persons of Whiggamore quality come to visit the Lieutenant-General ; and even certain Clergy come, who have a leaning that way. 2 — The Earl of Moray's House, Moray House, still stands in the Canongate of Edinburgh, well known to the inhabitants there. A solid spacious mansion, which, when all bright and new two- hundred years ago, must have been a very adequate lodging. There are remains of noble gardens ; one of the noble state-rooms, when I last saw it, was an extensive Paper Warehouse. There is no doubt but the Lieutenant-General did lodge here ; Guthry seeming to contradict this old Pamphlet, turns out to confirm it. s The Lieutenant-General has received certain Votes of Parlia- ment, 4 sanctioning what he has done in reference to these Scotch 1 His own Letters (in WagstarFs Vindication of the Royal Martyr, in Carte's Ormond, &c.) ; see Godwin, ii. 608-23. 2 True Account of the great Expressions of Love from the Noblemen &c. of Scotland unto Lieutenant-General Cromwell and his Officers ; In a Letter to a Friend (London, 1648 ; Kings Pamphlets, small 4W, no. 392, § 26 [E. 468], dated with the pen 23d October) ; Abridged in Rushworth, vii. 1295. 8 Guthry's Memoirs, p. 297. For a description of the place, see Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, 21st January 1837. 4 Commons Journals, 28th September 1648. 1648.] LETTEK LXXVIL, EDINBUEGH 375 Parties, and encouraging and authorising him to do more. Of which circumstance, in the following official Document, he fails not to avail himself, on the morrow after his arrival. LETTER LXXVII For the Right Honourable the Committee of Estates for the Kingdom of Scotland ; These Edinburgh, 5th October 1648. Right Honourable, I shall ever be ready to bear witness of your Lordships' forwardness to do right to the kingdom of England, in restoring the garrisons of Berwick and Carlisle ; and having received so good a pledge of your resolutions to maintain amity and a good understanding between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, it makes me not to doubt but that your Lord- ships will further grant what in justice and reason may be demanded. I can assure your Lordships, that the kingdom of England did foresee that wicked design of the malignants in Scotland to break all engagements of faith and honesty between the nations, and to take from the kingdom of England the towns of Berwick and Carlisle. And although they could have prevented the loss of those considerable towns, without breach of the treaty, by laying forces near unto them, yet such was the tenderness of the Parlia- ment of England not to give the least suspicion of a breach with the kingdom of Scotland, that they did forbear to do anything therein. And it is not unknown to your Lordships, when the malignants had gotten the power of your kingdom, how they protected and employed our English malignants, though de- manded by our Parliament, arid possessed themselves of those towns, and with what violence and unheard-of cruelties they raised an Army, and began a war, and invaded the kingdom of England, and endeavoured, to the uttermost of their power, to 376 SECOND CIVIL WAS [5 Oct. engage both kingdoms in a perpetual quarrel, and what blood they have spilt in our kingdom, and what great loss and prejudice was brought upon our nation, even to the endangering the total ruin thereof. And although God did, by a most mighty and strong hand, and that in a wonderful manner, destroy their designs, yet it is appa- rent that the same ill-affected spirit still remains ; and that divers Persons of great quality and power, who were either the contrivers, actors, or abettors of the late unjust war made upon the kingdom of England, are now in Scotland, who undoubtedly do watch for all advantages and opportunities to raise dissensions and divisions between the Nations. Now forasmuch as I am commanded to prosecute the remain- ing part of the Army that invaded the kingdom of England, wheresoever it should go, to prevent the like miseries : And considering that divers of that Army are retired into Scotland, and that some of the heads of those malignants were raising new forces in Scotland to carry on the same design, and that they will certainly be ready to do the like upon all occasions of advantage : And forasmuch as the kingdom of England hath lately received so great damage by the failing of the kingdom of Scotland in not suppressing malignants and incendiaries as they ought to have done, and by suffering such persons to be put in places of great trust in the kingdom, who by their interest in the Parliament and the countries, brought the kingdom of Scotland so far as they could, by unjust Engagement, to invade and make war upon their brethren of England : ' Therefore,' my Lords, I hold myself obliged, in prosecution of my duty and instructions, to demand, that your Lordships will give assurance in the name of the kingdom of Scotland, that you will not admit or suffer any that have been active in, or consenting to, the said Engagement against England, or have lately been in Arms at Stirling or elsewhere in the maintenance of that Engage- ment, to be employed in any public place or trust whatsoever. And this is the least security I can demand, I have received an 1648.] LETTER LXXVIL, EDINBURGH 377 order from both Houses of the Parliament of England, 1 which I hold fit to communicate to your Lordships, whereby you will understand the readiness of the kingdom of England to assist you who were dissenters from the Invasion, and I doubt not but your Lordships will be as ready to give such further satisfaction as they in their wisdoms shall find cause to desire. Your Lordships' most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* This was presented on Thursday to the Dignitaries sitting in the Laigh Parliament-House in the City of Edinburgh. During which same day came ' the Lord Provost to pay his respects ' at Moray House ; came ' old Sir William Dick,' an old Provost nearly ruined by his well-affected Loans of Money in these Wars, ' and made an oration in name of the rest ; ' — came many persons, and quality carriages, making Moray House a busy place that day ; ' of which I hope a good fruit will appear.' Loudon Cancellarius and Company, from the Laigh Parliament- House, respond with the amplest assent next day : 2 and on the morrow, Saturday, all business being adjusted, and Lambert left with two horse-regiments to protect the Laigh Parliament-House from Lanarks and Malignants, — ' when we were about to come r away, several coaches were sent to bring up the Lieutenant- ' General, the Earl of Leven ' Governor of the Castle and Scotch Commander-in-Chief, ' with Sir Arthur Haselrig and the rest of ' the Officers, to Edinburgh Castle ; where was provided a very ' sumptuous Banquet,' old Leven doing the honours, ' my Lord ' Marquis of Argyle and divers other Lords being present to grace 'the entertainment. At our departure, many pieces of ordnance ' and a volley of small shot was given us from the Castle ; and ' some Lords convoying us out of the City, we there parted.' The Lord Provost had defrayed us, all the while, in the handsomest manner. We proceeded to Dalhousie, the Seat of the Ramsays, near Dalkeith : on the road towards Carlisle and home, — by Selkirk and Hawick, I conclude. Here we stay till Monday morning, and leave orders, and write Letters. 1 Votes of September 28th ; Commons Journals, vi. 37 : ' received the day we entered Edinburgh' (Rushworth, ubi supra). *Ibid. * King's Pamphlets, small 4to, no. 392, § 19 [E. 468, 19]. Printed by Order of Parliament. 378 SECOND CIVIL WAR [8 Oct. LETTER LXXVIII A private Note in behalf of ' this Bearer, Colonel Robert Mont- gomery/ now hastening up to Town ; with whom we shall make some farther acquaintance, in another quarter, by and by. Doubt- less the request was complied with. For the Honourable William Lenthall, Esquire, Speaker of the Honourable House of Commons : These Dalhousie, near Edinburgh, 8th October, 1648. Sm, Upon the desire of divers noblemen and others of the kingdom of Scotland, I am bold to become a suitor to you on the behalf of this gentleman, the bearer, Colonel Robert Montgomery, son x of the Earl of Eglinton, whose faithfulness to you in the late troubles may render him worthy of a far greater favour than I shall, at this time, desire for him : for I can assure you, that there is not a gentleman of that kingdom that appeared more active against the late invaders of England than himself. Sir, it's desired that you would please to grant him an order for two-thousand of the common prisoners that were of Duke Hamilton's Army. 2 You will have very good security that they shall not for the future trouble you : he will ease you of the charge of keeping them, as speedily as any other way you can dispose of them ; besides their being in a friend's hands, so as there need be no fear of their being ever employed against you. Sir, what favour you shall please to afford the gentleman will very much oblige many of your friends of the Scottish nation ; and particularly Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* '[Carlyle, following Cary, printed "son in law," adding the note, "Mistake of the Lieutenant-General's for 'son;' — 'youngest son,' say the Peerage Books." But Cromwell simply wrote "son."] 2 [Montgomery's intention was to sell them to the King of Spain for service in the Low Countries. He had difficulty in getting his number, and more difficulty with the Spanish government, which delayed so long that he ultimately transferred his offer to France. The negotiations were still proceeding when the King's death was followed by the recall of the French ambassador from St. James's. (See Great Civil War, iv. 231.)] * Tanner MSS. [lvii. 346, Signed.] (in Cary, ii. 32). 1648.] LETTER LXXIX., DALHOUSIE 379 LETTER LXXIX The next, of Monday, is on public business ; deliberately look- ing before and after. To the Honourable William Lenthall, Esquire, Speaker of the Honourable House of Commons : These Dalhousie, gth October 1648. Sir, In my last, wherein I gave you an account of my despatch of Colonel Bright to Carlisle, after the rendition of Berwick, I acquainted you with my intentions to go to the head- quarters of my horse at the Earl of Wynton's, within six miles of Edinburgh ; that from thence I might represent to the Com- mittee of Estates what I had further to desire in your behalf. The next day after I came thither, I received an invitation from the Committee of Estates to come to Edinburgh, they sending to me the Lord Kirkcudbright and Major-General Hol- born x for that purpose ; with whom I went the same day, being Wednesday 4th of this instant October. We fell into considera- tion, what was fit further to insist upon. And being sensible that the late agreement between the Committee of Estates and the Earls of Crawford, Glencarn, and Lanerick, did not suffi- ciently answer my instructions, which was, to disenable them from being in power to raise new troubles to England : therefore I held it my duty, not to be satisfied only with the disbanding of them, but considering their power and interest, I thought it necessary to demand concerning them and all their abettors, according to the contents of the paper 2 here enclosed. Wherein (having received that very day your votes for giving them further assistance) I did in the close thereof acquaint them there with it ; reserving such further satisfaction to be given by the kingdom of Scotland, as the Parliament of England should 1 (James Holborne. He had had command of a regiment of foot in Essex's army.] Letter LXXVII, 380 SECOND CIVIL WAE [9 Oct. in their wisdom see cause to desire. The Committee of Estates sent the Earl of Cassilis, Lord Warriston, and two gentlemen more to me, to receive what I had to offer unto them, which upon Thursday I delivered. Upon Friday I received by the said persons this enclosed answer, 1 which is the original itself. Having proceeded thus far as a soldier, and I trust, by the blessing of God, not to your disservice ; and having laid the business before you, I pray God direct you to do further as may be for His glory, the good of the nation wherewith you are intrusted, and the comfort and encouragement of the saints of God in both kingdoms and all the world over. I do think the affairs of Scotland are in a thriving posture, as to the interest of honest men ; and ' Scotland is ' like to be a better neighbour to you now than when the great pretenders to Covenant, religion and treaties (I mean Duke Hamilton, the Earls of Lauderdale, Traquair, Carnegy, and their confederates), had the power in their hands. I dare say 2 that that party, with their pretences, had not only, through the treachery of some in England (who have cause to blush), endangered the whole State and kingdom of England ; but also ' had ' brought Scotland into such a con- dition, as that no honest man who had the fear of God, or a conscience of religion, the just ends of the covenant and treaties, could have a being in that kingdom. But God, who is not to be mocked or deceived, and is very jealous when His Name and religion are made use of to carry on impious designs, hath taken vengeance of such profanity, even to astonishment and admira- tion. And I wish from the bottom of my heart, it may cause all to tremble and repent, who have practised the like, to the blas- pheming of His Name, and the destruction of His people ; so as they may never presume to do the like again ! And I think it is not unseasonable for me to take the humble boldness to say thus much at this time. 1 Already referred to; antea, p. 377. 2 [Carlyle printed ' ' I dare be bold to say " ; but " I dare say " in the 17th century had only its true meaning of " I venture to say ".] 1648.] LETTER LXXIX., DALHOUSIE 381 All the enemy's forces in Scotland are now disbanded. The Committee of Estates have declared against all of that party's sitting in Parliament. 1 Good elections are 'already' made in divers places, of such as dissented from and opposed the late wicked Engagement : and they are now raising a force of about 4,000 Horse and Foot, which until they can complete, they have desired me to leave them two regiments of Horse, and two troops of Dragoons. Which accordingly I have resolved, conceiving I had warrant by your late votes so to do, and have left Major- General Lambert to command them. I have received, and so have the officers with me, many honours and civilities from the Committee of Estates, the City of Edinburgh, and ministers ; with a noble entertainment, which we may not own as done to us, but as your servants. I am now marching towards Carlisle, and I shall give you such further accounts of your affairs as there shall be occasion. I am, Sir, Your humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Cromwell, at Carlisle on the 14th, has received delivery of the Castle there, for which good news let the Messenger have 100/. 2 Leaving all in tolerable order in those regions, the Lieutenant- General hastens into Yorkshire to Pontefract or Pomfret Castle; 3 a strong place which had been surprised in the beginning of the year, and is stubbornly defended ; — surrender being a very serious matter now ; the War itself being contrary to Law and Treaty, and as good as treason, think some. 1 The Scotch Parliament, which is now getting itself elected. 2 Cmnmons Journals, 20th October 1648. [On Oct. 25, he was at Barnard Castle, arranging for the service of Carlisle garrison ; and on Nov. 2, at Byron. See Supplement, Nos. 33, 34.] 'Appendix, No. 14. * Kings Pamphlets, small 4to, no. 392, § 19 [E. 468] ; see Commons Journals, vi. 54. [Printed by order of the House by Edward Husbands, printer to the House of Commons.] 382 SECOND CIVIL WAE [9 Nov. LETTERS LXXX— LXXXVI The Governor of Pontefract Castle is one Morris, once the Earl of Strafford's servant ; a desperate man : this is the Lieutenant- General's summons to him. LETTER LXXX For the Governor of Pontefract Castle ' Pontefract,' 1 gth November, 1648. Sir, Being come hither for the reduction of this place, I thought fit to summon you to deliver your garrison to me, for the use of the Parliament. Those gentlemen and soldiers with you may have better terms than if you should hold it to extremity. I expect your answer this day, and rest, Your servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Governor Morris stiffly refuses ; 2 holds out yet a good while, — and at last loses his head at York assizes by the business. 3 Royalism is getting desperate ; has taken to highway robbery ; is assassinating, and extensively attempting to assassinate. 4 Two weeks ago, Sunday 29th October, a Party sallied from this very Castle of Pontefract ; rode into Doncaster in disguise, and there, about five in the afternoon, getting into Colonel Rainsborough's lodging, stabbed him dead : — murder, or a very questionable kind of homicide ! 1 [This letter would probably be dated from Knottingley, as were others at this time. See a long letter to Hammond written on Nov. 6, and other letters dated Nov. 6-11 ; Supplement, Nos. 35, 36 (1-5).] 2 [Governor Morris's reply was as follows ; " I am confident you do not expect that I should pass my answer before I be satisfied that the summoner has power to perform my conditions, which must be confirmed by Parliament, beside, the dispute betwixt yourself and Sir Henry Cholmley, commander-in-chief by commission of the militia of Yorkshire [see note on p. 385 below], which, as I am informed, denies all subordination to your authority. When my understanding is cleared in this con- cerning [i.e. important] scruple, I shall endeavour to be as modest in my reply as I have read you in your summons." Moderate Intelligencer, Nov. 9-16, E. 472, ii.] 3 State Trials. 4 Rushworth, vii. 1279 &c. , 1315. * Newspapers [Cromwelliana, p. 48); [Moderate Intelligencer, Nov. 9-16] Rushworth, vii. 1325. 1648.] LETTEE LXXXL, KNOTTINGLEY 383 LETTER LXXXI As to Pontefract and Governor Morris, here are some pertinent suggestions, ' propositions,' the old Pamphlet calls them, sent ' in a Letter from Lieutenant-General Cromwell and his Officers ; ' which are 'read in the House,' and straightway acted upon, to a certain extent : — had they been acted upon in full, that business might have ended sooner. For the Right Honourable the Committee of Lords and Commons sitting at Derby House : These present Knottingley, near Pontefract, 15th November 1648. My Lords and Gentlemen, So soon as I came into these parts, I met with an earnest desire from the Committee of this county to take upon me the charge here, for the reducing of the garrison of Pomfret. I received also commands from my Lord General to the same effect. I have had the sight of a letter to the House of Commons, wherein things are so represented, as if this siege were at such a pass that the prize were already gained. In consideration where- of, I thought fit to let you know what the true state of this garrison is, as also the condition of the country, that so you may not think my desire 1 for such things as would be necessary to carry on this work unreasonable. My Lords, the Castle hath been victualled with two-hundred and twenty or forty fat cattle, within these three weeks, and they have also gotten in (as I am credibly informed) salt enough for them and more, so that I apprehend they are victualled for a twelvemonth. The men within are resolved to endure to the utmost extremity, expecting no mercy, as indeed they deserve none. The place is very well known to be one of the strongest inland garrisons in the kingdom, well watered, situated upon a rock in every part of it, and therefore difficult to mine. The walls very thick and high, with strong towers, and if battered, very difficult of access, by reason of the depth and steepness 1 [Carlyle printed "demands," and omitted "to carry on this work."] 384 SECOND CIVIL WAE [15 Nov. of the graft. The country is exceedingly impoverished, not able to bear free-quarter, nor well able to furnish provisions, if we had moneys. The work is like to be long, if materials be not furnished answerable. I therefore think it my duty to re- present unto you as followeth : viz. — 1 . That moneys be provided for three complete regiments of Foot, and two of Horse ; 2. That money be provided for all con- tingencies which are in view, too many to enumerate. 3. That five-hundred barrels of powder, ' and ' six good battering-guns, with three-hundred shot to each gun, be speedily sent down to Hull : 4. We desire none may be sent less than demi-cannon. 5. We desire also some match and bullet. And if it may be, we should be glad that two or three of the biggest mortar-pieces with shells may likewise be sent. And although the desires of such proportions may seem costly, yet I hope you will judge it good thrift ; especially if you con- sider that this place hath cost the kingdom some hundred-thousands of pounds already. And for aught I know, it may cost you one more, if it be trifled withal, besides the dishonour of it, and what other danger may be emergent, by its being in such hands. It's true, here are some two or three great guns in Hull, and here- abouts, but they are unserviceable, and your garrisons in Yorkshire are very much unsupplied at this time. I have not as yet drawn any of our Foot to this place * only I make use of Colonel Fairfax's and Colonel Maleverie's Foot regiments and keep the rest of the guards with the Horse, purposing to bring-on some of our Foot to-morrow, the rest being a little dispersed in Lincoln and Nottingham Shires (these parts being not well able to bear them) for some refreshment ; which after so much duty they need, and a little expect. And indeed I would not satisfy myself nor my duty to you and them, to put the poor men, at this season of the year, to lie in the field, before we be furnished with shoes, stockings and x [ i.e. , not any of the regular foot of the army ; Fairfax's and Mauleverer's being Yorkshire militia regiments. ] 1648.] LETTER LXXXL. KNOTTINGLEY 385 clothes, for them to cover their nakedness (which we hear are in preparation, and would 1 be speeded) and until we have deal- boards to make them courts-of-guard, and tools to cast up works to secure them. 2 These things I have humbly represented to you ; and waiting for your resolution and command, I rest, Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Due Orders of the House in consequence, dated Saturday 1 8th November, can be read in the same old Pamphlet ; 3 most prompt Orders, giving if not ' Five-hundred Barrels of powder/ yet ' Two- hundred-and-fifty ; ' a middle term, or compliance halfway, which perhaps is as much as one could expect ! Pontefract did not surrender till the end of March next. 4 Meanwhile, the Royal Treaty in Newport comes to no good issue, and the Forty Days are now done ; the Parliament by small and smaller instalments prolongs it, still hoping beyond hope for a good issue. The Army, sternly watchful of it from St. Albans, is presenting a Remonstrance, That a good issue lies not in it ; that a good issue must be sought elsewhere than in it. By bring- ing Delinquents to justice ; and the Chief Delinquent, who has again involved this Nation in blood ! To which doctrine, various petitioning Counties and Parties, and a definite minority in Parlia- ment and England generally, testify their stern adherence, at all risks and hazards whatsoever. 'Old for 'should.' 2 [Concerning the want of necessaries, compare the letter from Col. Rainborowe to Fairfax, written on October 15, preserved amongst the Clarke MSS. at Littlecote. Also, a letter from Robert Spavin, Cromwell's secretary, dated November 2. Both speak of the cordiality of the Yorkshire colonels, Charles Fairfax and Maul- everer, and both complain of Sir Henry Cholmley's animosity. " Cholmley," writes Spavin, ' ' a very knave, hates us to the death ; leapt at the news of Col. Rainborowe being killed." (See Hist. MSS. Commissioners' Report on Mr. Leyborne-Popham's MSS. , pp. 7, 8. ). Cromwell's men seem to have thought that three weeks would end the siege. Their chief apparently knew better.] 3 See also Commons Journals, vi. 81. 4 ' 22d March ' [Commons Journals, vi. 174). * Kings Pamphlets, small 4to, no. 397, § 12. [Packets of letters, etc. E. 473]. VOL. I. 25 386 SECOND CIVIL WAR [20 Nov. LETTER LXXXII Jenner Member for Cricklade, and Ashe Member for Westbury ; these two, sitting I think in the Delinquents' Committee at Gold- smiths' Hall, 1 — seem inclined for a milder course. Wherein the Lieutenant-General does by no means agree with the said Jenner and Ashe ; having had a somewhat closer experience of the matter than they ! ' Colonel Owen ' is a Welsh Delinquent ; I find he is a Sir John Owen, 2 — the same Sir John who seized my Lord Archbishop's Castle of Conway, in that violent manner long since. 3 A violent man, now got into trouble enough ; of whom there arises life-and- death question by and by. 'The Governor of Nottingham' is Colonel Hutchinson, whom we know. 4 Sir Marmaduke Langdale we also know, — and ' presume you have heard what is become of him ? ' Sir Marmaduke, it was rigorously voted- on the 6th of this month, is one of the ' Seven that shall be excepted from pardon ; ' whom the King himself, if he bargain with us, shall never forgive. 5 He escaped afterwards from Nottingham Castle, by industry of his own. For my honoured Friends Robert Jenner and John Ashe, Esquires, ' at London ; ' These Knottingley, near Pontefract, 20th November 1648. Gentlemen, I received an order from the Governor of Not- tingham, directed to him from you, To bring up Colonel Owen, 1 [John Ashe was chairman of the Committee of Compounding until its recon- struction in the spring of 1650, and Jenner was one of its most active members. These two were usually deputed by the Committee to report matters to the House of Commons. ] 2 [It is not Sir John Owen who is here referred to, but another [vide Mrs. Hutchin- son's Life of her Husband, ed. Firth, ii. 385-7). Sir John was taken on June 5, and imprisoned in Denbigh Castle (vide J. R. Phillips' Civil War in Wales, i. 410, and Rushworth, vii. 1146, 1204). Sir John moreover had compounded in May, 1647, and so could not now be petitioning to do so. This is Col. William Owen, of Shropshire, whose case will be found in the Calendar of Committee for Com- pounding, p. 1861. If the Committee had received Cromwell's letter on the 23rd, as is possible, they took no notice of it, for on that day they issued a fresh order to the Governor to " yield conformity " and send up Owen " in pursuance of an Act of Parliament of November 9."] 3 Antea, p. 274. * [The Governor of Nottingham here alluded to was more probably Thomas Poulton, deputy for Col. Hutchinson. See Calendar of Committee for Compounding, p. 1856]. Commons Journals, vi. 70. 1648.] LETTEE LXXXIL, KNOTTINGLEY 387 or take bail for his coming up to make his composition, he having made an humble petition to you * for the same. I must profess to you, I was not a little astonished at the thing. If I be not mistaken, the House of Commons did vote all those traitors that did adhere to, or bring in, the Scots in their late invading of this kingdom under Duke Hamilton, and not without very clear justice, this being a more prodigious Treason than any that had been perpetrated before ; because the former quarrel on their part was that Englishmen might rule over one another ; this to vassalise us to a foreign nation. 2 And their fault who have appeared in this summer's business is certainly double to theirs who were in the first, because it is the repetition of the same offence against all the witnesses that God has borne, 3 by making and abetting to a second war. And if this was their justice,* and upon so good grounds, I wonder how it comes to pass that so eminent actors should so easily be received to compound. You will pardon me if I tell you that, if it were contrary to some of your judgments that at the rendition of Oxford, though we had the town in consideration, 5 and blood saved to boot, yet two years purchase was thought too little to expiate their offence ; a but now, when you have such men 1 [Carlyle altered this to " petition to the Parliament " but Cromwell was right. The petitions to compound were usually addressed to the Committee.] 2 ["Here was the sting, for we have never to forget that Oliver, like Milton, was ever English of the English." Morley's Cromwell, p. 266.] 3 From Naseby downwards, God, in the battle-whirlwind, seemed to speak and witness very audibly. 4 House of Commons. fl Town as some recompense. 6 Oxford was surrendered 20th-24th June 1646 (antea, p. 199); the Malignants found there were to have a composition, not exceeding Two Years revenue for estates of inheritance (Rushworth, vi. 280, 5), — which the victorious Presbyterian Party, belike Jenner and Ashe amongst the rest, had exclaimed against as too lenient a procedure. Very different now when the new Malignants, though a doubly criminal set, are bone of their own bone ! [Carlyle — saying that this sentence is " unin- telligible to the careless reader, so hasty is it and overcrowded with meaning in the original" — altered it to "you will pardon me if I tell you how contrary this is to some of your judgments at the rendition of Oxford, though we had the town in consideration and ' our ' blood saved to boot ; yet two years perhaps was thought too little to expiate their offence ; " but as we have the original of the letter we know that the text as printed above is what Cromwell really wrote, and although the sentence will not construe, the meaning is quite clear. There were several other alterations (or mistakes) in Carlyle's version of this letter. Besides some unim- portant errors, and printing "petition to the Parliament" in line 4, instead of ' ' petition to you," he left out the next phrase altogether. He had ' ' perfected " instead 888 SECOND CIVIL WAR [20 Nov. in your hands, and it will cost you nothing to do justice ; now after all this trouble and the hazard of a second war, for a little more money 1 all offences shall be pardoned ! This gentleman was taken with Sir Marmaduke Langdale, in their flight together : I presume you have heard what is become of him. Let me remember you that out of this garrison was fetched not long since (I believe whilst we were in heat of action) Colonel Humphrey Mathews, than whom this cause we have fought for has not had a more dangerous enemy ; and he not guilty only of being an enemy, but he apostatised from your cause and quarrel ; having been a colonel, if not more, under you, and ' then ' the desperatest promoter of the Welsh rebellion amongst them all. And how near you were brought to ruin thereby, all men that know anything can tell ; 2 and this man was taken away to composition, by what order I know not. 3 Gentlemen, though my sense does appear more severe than perhaps you would have it, yet give me leave to tell you I find a sense amongst the officers concerning such things as these, even to amazement ; which truly is not so much to see their blood made so cheap, as to see such manifest witnessings of God (so terrible and so just) no more reverenced. I have directed the Governor to acquaint the Lord-General herewith, and rest, Gentlemen, Your most obedient servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Endorsed, " Lieutenant- General Cromwell about prisoners." of " perpetrated " in line 10 ; " perhaps " instead of " purchase ' in line 22, and " those men" instead of "these, even" in line 41, which last misreading involved the insertion of " the treatment of" before the word " those" in order to make sense.] 1 Goldsmiths' Hall has a true feeling for Money ; a dimmer one for Justice, it seems ! a Witness Chepstow, St. Fagan's, Pembroke: — 'this man' is Mathews. '[The order was made by the Committee for Compounding itself (as Cromwell probably knew very well) on September 26, that he might prosecute his com- position, bail being taken of two sureties in 2,500/. apiece. Hi- fine, fixed at a third, was 1,397/. &>• 8<£ and was paid the following spring. An interesting point about his case is that 500/. of his fine was to be paid " to Mr. Thomason, for the library of MSS. bought from him." See Calendar of Committee for Compounding, P- 1855.] * Shane MS. 15191 fol. 94 [f. 186. Signed only]. 1648.} LETTEKLXXXIL, KNOTTINGLEY 389 Here is a sour morsel for Jenner and Ashe ; different from what they were expecting ! It is to be hoped they will digest this piece of admonition, and come forth on the morrow two sadder and two wiser men. For Colonel Owen, at all events, there is clearly no outlook, at present, but sitting reflective in the strong-room of Nottingham Castle, whither his bad Genius had led him. May escape beheading on this occasion ; but very narrowly. He ' was taken with Sir Marmaduke in their flight together : ' one of the confused Welshmen discomfited in June and July last, who had fled to join Hamilton, and be worse dis- comfited a second time. The House some days ago had voted that ' Sir John Owen,' 1 our ' Colonel Owen,' should get off with ' banishment ; ' likewise that Lord Capel, the Earl of Holland, and other capital Delinquents should be ' banished ; ' and even that James Earl of Cambridge (James Duke of Hamilton) should be 'fined 100,000/.' Such votes are not unlikely to produce 'a. sense amongst the Officers,' who had to grapple with these men, as with devouring dragons lately, life to life. Such votes — will need to be rescinded. a Such, and some others ! For indeed the Presbyterian Party has rallied in the House during the late high blaze of Royalism ; and got a Treaty set on foot as we saw, and even got the Eleven brought back again. — Jenner and Ashe are old stagers, having entered Parliament at the beginning. They are frequently seen in public business ; assiduous subalterns. Ashe sat afterwards in Oliver's Parlia- ments. 3 Of this Ashe I will remember another thing : once, some years ago, when the House was about thanking some Monthly-fast Preacher, Ashe said pertinently, "What is the use of thanking a Preacher who spoke so low that nobody could hear him ? " 4 Colonel Humphrey Mathews, we are glad to discover, 6 was one of the persons taken in Pembroke Castle by Oliver himself in July last : brought along with him, on the march towards Preston, and left, as the other Welsh Prisoners were, at Nottingham ; — out of which most just durance some pragmatical official, Ashe, Jenner, or another, ' by what order I know not,' has seen good to deliver him ; him, ' the desperatest promoter of the Welsh Rebellion amongst them all.' Such is red-tape even in a Heroic 1 [This is Sir John Owen ; not " our Colonel Owen " of Nottingham Castle.] Passed, ioth November 1648 (Commons Journals, vi. 3); repealed, 13th De- cember (with a Declaration ; Somers Tracts, v. 167). s Parliamentary History, xxi. 3. 4 D'Ewes MSS. p. 414. 5 Cromwelliana, pp. 41, 42. 390 SECOND CIVIL WAR [20 Nov. Puritanic Age! No wonder 'the Officers have a sense of it/ amounting even 'to amazement.' Our blood that we have shed in the Quarrel, this you shall account as nothing, since you so please ; but these ' manifest witnessings of God, so terrible and so just,' — are they not witnessings of God ; are they mere sports of chance ? Ye wretched infidel red-tape mortals, what will or can become of you ? By and by, if this course hold, it will appear that ' you are no Parliament ; ' that you are a nameless unbelieving rabble, with the mere title of Parliament, who must go about your business elsewhither, with soldiers' pikes in your rearward ! — This Lieutenant-General is not without temper, says Mr. Maid- ston : ' temper exceeding fiery, as I have known ; yet the flame ' of it kept down for most part, or soon allayed ; — and naturally ' compassionate towards objects in distress, even to an effeminate ■ measure. Though God had made him a heart wherein was left ' little room for any fear but what was due to God Himself, yet ' did he exceed in tenderness towards sufferers/ 1 — yes, and in rigour against infidel quacks and godless detestable persons, which is the opposite phasis of that, he was by no means wanting ! LETTER LXXXIII 'All the Regiments here have petitioned my Lord General ' against the Treaty ' at Newport, ' and for Justice and a Settle- ' ment of the Kingdom. They desired the Lieutenant-General ' to recommend their Petition ; which he hath done in the Letter ' following ; ' — which is of the same date, and goes in the same bag with that to Jenner and Ashe, just given. 2 For his Excellency the Lord General Fairfax, ' at St Albans : These ' Knottingley, 20th November 1648, My Lord, I find a very great sense in the officers of the regiments of the sufferings and the ruin of this poor kingdom, and 1 Maidston's Letter to Winthrop (Thurloe, i. 766). 8 [ The petition from Cromwell's own regiment to himself, sent to him along with that for presentation to the Lord General, is amongst the Clarke papers at Little- cote. It is signed by seventeen of his officers (See Hist. MSS. Commissioners' Report on Mr. Leyborne-Popham' s MSS., p. 9). The troops in Yorkshire were following the lead of Ireton's regiment, whose petition was published on October 19.} 1648.] LETTEE LXXXIV., KNOTTINGLEY 391 in them all a very great zeal to have impartial justice done upon Offenders ; and I must confess, I do in all, from my heart, concur with them ; and I verily think and am persuaded they are things which God puts into our hearts. I shall not need to offer anything to your Excellency : I know God teaches you, and that He hath manifested His presence so to you as that you will give glory to Him in the eyes of all the world. I held it my duty, having received these petitions and letters, and being ' so ' desired by the framers thereof, to present them to you. The good Lord work His will upon your heart, enabling you to it ; and the presence of Almighty God go along with you. Thus prays, My Lord, Your most humble and faithful servant, Oliver Cromwell.* This same day, Monday 20th November 1648, the Army from St. Albans, by Colonel Ewer and a Deputation, presents its humble unanimous ' Remonstrance ' to the House ; craving that the same be taken ' into speedy and serious consideration ' 1 It is indeed a most serious Document ; tending to the dread Unknown! Whereupon ensue ' high debates,' Whether we shall take it into consideration ? Debates to be resumed this day week. The Army, before this day week, moves up to Windsor ; will see a little what consideration there is. Newport Treaty is just expir- ing ; Presbyterian Royalism, on the brink of desperate crisis, adds still two days of life to it. LETTER LXXXIV The Army came to Windsor on Saturday the 25th ; on which same day Oliver, from Knottingley, is writing a remarkable Letter, the last of the series, to Hammond in the Isle of Wight, * Rushworth, vii. 1339. 1 Commons Journals, vi. 81 ; Remonstrance itself in Rushworth, vii. 1330. [Rushworth gives only an abstract, but there is a copy amongst the King's Pamphlets, E. 473 (11).] 392 SECOND CIVIL WAR [25 Nov. who seems to be in much strait about ' that Person ' and futile Treaty now under his keeping there. 1 First, however, read this Note, of like date, on a local matter : one of many Notes which a vigilant Lieutenant-General, be where he may, has to importune the Governing Powers with. Hull Garrison and Governor Overton, like most garrisons and persons, are short of pay. Grocers' Hall, Haberdashers' Hall, or some section of the Finance Department, ought absolutely to take thought of it. For my noble Friend Thomas St. Nicholas, Esquire : ' These, at London ' 2 Knottingley, 25th November 1648. Sir, I suppose it's not unknown to you how much the country is in arrear to the garrison of Hull ; as likewise how probable it is that the garrison will break, unless some speedy course be taken to get them money ; the soldiers at the present being ready to mutiny, as not having money to buy them bread, and without money the stubborn townspeople will not trust them for the worth of a penny. Sir, I must beg of you that, as you tender the good of the country, so far as the security of that garrison is motioned, you would give your assistance to the helping of them to their money which the country owes them. The Governor 3 will apply himself to you, either in person or by letter. I pray you do for him herein as in a business of very high consequence. I am the more earnest with you, as having a very deep sense how dangerous the event may be, of their being neglected in the matter of their pay . I rest upon your favour herein, and subscribe myself, Sir, Your very humble servant, . Oliver Cromwell.* '[And, two or three days later, a letter to Fairfax concerning the "Remon- strance." See Supplement, No. 37.] 2 [Certainly not London. Probably York ; possibly Wakefield.] 8 [Col. Robert Overton.] * Kimber's (anonymous) Life of Cromwell (4th edition, London, 1741), p. 92 ; Not given in the 1st edition ; no notice whence. 1648.] LETTER LXXXV., KNOTTINGLEY 393 Hull Garrison does not ' break : ' doubtless St. Nicholas, a chief Clerk, of weight in his department, did what he could. A Kentish man this St. Nicholas, 1 if any one could be supposed to care what he was ; came to be Recorder of Canterbury, and even refractory Member for Canterbury ; ' 2 has his seat, for the present, in the Grocers'-Hall region, among the budgets or 'bottomless bags,' as Independency Walker calls them. And now for the remarkable Letter contemporaneous with this : LETTER LXXXV To Colonel Robert Hammond : These ' Knottingley, near Pontefract,' 25th November 1648. Dear Robin, No man rejoiceth more to see a line from thee than myself. I know thou hast long been under trial. Thou shalt be no loser by it. All ' things ' must work for the best. Thou desirest to hear of my experiences. I can tell thee : I am such a one as thou didst formerly know, having a body of sin and death, but I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord there is no condemnation, though much infirmity, and I wait for the redemption. And in this poor condition I obtain mercy, and sweet consolation through the Spirit, and find abundant cause every day to exalt the Lord, and abase flesh, and herein 3 I have some exercise. As to outward dispensations, if we may so call them, we have not been without our share of beholding some remarkable 1 [Of Yorkshire, in the first instance. At this time he was Treasurer or Receiver of the County Committee of the West Riding. Hence Cromwell's application to him. He removed into Kent in 1649 or 1650. See Calendar of Committee for Com- pounding, pp. 379, 380. After his removal to Kent, he was made one of the counsel to the Committee for Compounding, Clerk of the Parliament and, in 1659, Recorder of Canterbury. It is unlikely that he ever had anything to do with Grocers' Hall, but Carlylc more than once speaks of that committee as if it were connected with the Committee for Compounding. ] 2 Whitlocke, September 1656 (2d edition, p. 642) ; Old Parliamentary History, xxi. 8 ; and Commons Journals, vii. 650, 730. s ' and in the latter respect at least. ' 394 SECOND CIVIL WAR [25 Nov. providences, and appearances of the Lord. His presence hath been amongst us, and by the light of His countenance we have prevailed. 1 We are sure, the good-will of Him who dwelt in the bush has shined upon us, and we can humbly say, We know in whom we have believed, who is able and will perfect what remaineth, and us also in doing what is well-pleasing in His eyesight. I find some trouble in your spirit ; occasioned first, not only by the continuance of your sad and heavy burden, as you call it, upon you, but ' also ' by the dissatisfaction you take at the ways of some good men whom you love with your heart, who through this principle, That it is lawful for a lesser part, if in the right, to force * a numerical majority ' &c. To the first : call not your burden sad or heavy. If your Father laid it upon you, He intended neither. He is the Father of lights, from whom comes every good and perfect gift, who of His own will begot us, and bade us count it all joy when such things befall us ; they being for the exercise of faith and patience, whereby in the end we shall be made perfect (James i.). Dear Robin, our fleshly reasonings ensnare us. These make us say, heavy, sad, pleasant, easy. Was there not a little of this when Robert Hammond, through dissatisfaction too, desired re- tirement from the Army, and thought of quiet in the Isle of Wight ? 2 Did not God find him out there ? I believe he will never forget this. And now I perceive he is to seek again ; partly through his sad and heavy burden, and partly through his dis- satisfaction with friends' actings. Dear Robin, thou and I were never worthy to be door-keepers in this service. If thou wilt seek, seek to know the mind of God in all that chain of Providence, whereby God brought thee thither, and that person to thee ; how, before and since, God has ordered him, and affairs concerning him : and then tell me, whether there be not some glorious and high meaning in all this, 1 At Preston, &c. a 6th September of the foregoing Year. 1648.] LETTEK LXXXV., KNOTTINGLEY 395 above what thou hast yet attained? And, laying aside thy fleshly reason, seek of the Lord to teach thee what that is ; and He will do it. I dare be positive to say, it is not that the wicked should be exalted, that God should so appear as indeed He hath done. 1 For there is no peace to them. No, it is set upon the hearts of such as fear the Lord, and we have witness upon wit- ness, That it shall go ill with them and their partakers. I say again, seek that spirit to teach thee ; which is the spirit of know- ledge and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, of wisdom and of the fear of the Lord. That spirit will close thine eyes and stop thine ears, so that thou shalt not judge by them, but thou shalt judge for the meek of the earth, and thou shalt be made able to do accordingly. The Lord direct thee to that which is well-pleasing in His eyesight. As to thy dissatisfaction with friends' actings upon that supposed principle, I wonder not at that. If a man take not his own burden well, he shall hardly others', especially if involved by so near a relation of love and Christian brotherhood as thou art. I shall not take upon me to satisfy, but I hold myself bound to lay my thoughts before so dear a friend. The Lord do His own will. You say : " God hath appointed authorities among the nations, "to which active or passive obedience is to be yielded. This "resides in England in the Parliament. Therefore active or " passive *' &c. 2 Authorities and powers are the ordinance of God. This or that species is of human institution, and limited, some with larger, others with stricter bands, each one according to its con- stitution. ' But ' I do not therefore think the authorities may do anything, 3 and yet such obedience 'be' due, but all agree there are cases in which it is lawful to resist. If so, your ground fails, 1 For other purposes that God has so manifested Himself as, in these transactions ot ours, He has done. a [Carlyle added the word ' ' resistance," but the syllogism would rather require "obedience."] 3 Whatsoever they like. 396 SECOND CIVIL WAR [25 Nor. and so likewise the inference. Indeed, dear Robin, not to multiply words, the query is, Whether ours be such a case ? This ingenuously is the true question. To this I shall say nothing, though I could say very much ; but only desire thee to see what thou findest in thy own heart as to two or three plain considerations. First, whether Salus Populi be a sound position ? J Secondly, whether in the way in hand, 2 really and before the Lord, before whom conscience must stand, this be provided for, or the whole fruit of the war like to be frustrated, and all most like to turn to what it was, and worse ? And this, contrary to engagements, declarations, implicit covenants with those 8 who ventured their lives upon those covenants and engagements, without whom perhaps, in equity, relaxation ought not to be ? Thirdly, Whether this Army be not a lawful power, called by God to oppose and fight against the King upon some stated grounds ; and being in power to such ends, may not oppose one name of authority, for those ends, as well as another, the out- ward authority that called them, not by their power making the quarrel lawful, but it being so in itself? 4 If so it may be acting will be justified inforo humano. — But truly these kinds of reason- ings may be but fleshly, either with or against : only it is good to try what truth may be in them. And the Lord teach us. My dear friend, let us look into providences ; surely they mean somewhat. They hang so together ; have been so constant, so clear and unclouded. Malice, swoln malice against God's people, now called Saints, to root out their name ; and yet they, 'these poor Saints,' by providence, having arms, and therein blessed with defence and more. I desire, he that is for a principle of suffering 5 would not too much slight this. I slight not him who is so minded : but let us beware lest fleshly reason- 1 ' The safety of the people the supreme law : ' is that a true doctrine or a false one? s By this Parliamentary Treaty with the King. s Us soldiers. '[Carlyle altered this to : " for those ends, as well as another Name, — since it was not the outward Authority summoning them that by its power made the quarrel law- ful, but the quarrel was lawful in itself? "] 6 Passive obedience. 1648.] LETTEE LXXXV., KNOTTINGLEY 397 ing see more safety in making use of this principle than in acting. Who acts, and resolves not through God to be willing to part with all ? Our hearts are very deceitful, on the right and on the left. What think you of Providence disposing the hearts of so many of God's people this way, especially in this poor Army, wherein the great God has vouchsafed to appear. I know not one officer among us but is on the increasing hand. 1 And let me say it is here in the North, after much patience, we trust the same Lord who hath framed our minds in our actings, is with us in this also. And this contrary to a natural tendency, and to those comforts our hearts could wish to enjoy with others. And the difficulties probably to be encountered with, and the enemies, not few, even all that is glorious in this world, with appearance of united names, titles and authorities, and yet not terrified, 2 only desiring to fear our great God, that we do nothing against His will. Truly this is our condition. 3 And to conclude. We in this Northern Army were in a waiting posture, desiring to see what the Lord would lead us to. And a Declaration * is put out, at which many are shaken : although we 1 Come or coming over to this opinion. 2 [Carlyle altered this paragraph, but gave the original in a footnote, with the observation ' ' The incorrect original, rushing on in an eager, ungrammatical manner, were it not that common readers might miss the meaning of it, would please me better; at any rate, I subjoin it here as somewhat characteristic." As it does not seem to need a very uncommon reader to grasp Cromwell's meaning, what he did say has now been given in the text. This is what Carlyle thinks he ought to have said, "And let me say, it is after much patience — here in the North. We trust, the same Lord who hath framed our minds in our actings is with us in this also. And all contrary to a natural tendency, and to those comforts our hearts could wish to enjoy as well as others. And the difficulties probably to be en- countered with, and the enemies : — not few ; even all that is glorious in this world. Appearance of united names, titles and authorities ' all against us ;' — and yet not ■terrified, 'we;'.] b [" Briefly stated, Cromwell's argument was that the victories of the army, and the convictions of the godly, were external and internal evidence of God's will, to be obeyed as a duty. It was dangerous reasoning, and not less dangerous that secular and political motives coincided with the dictates of religious enthusiasm. Similar arguments might be held to justify not merely the temporary intervention of the army, but its permanent assumption of the government of England. Practical good sense and conservative instincts prevented Cromwell from adopting the extreme consequences of his theory ; with most of his comrades the logic of fanaticism wa* qualified by no such considerations." Firth's Cromwell, p. 213.] 4 Remonstrance of the Armv, presented by Ewer on Monday last. 398 SECOND CIVIL WAR [25 Not. could perhaps have wished the stay of it till after the treaty, yet seeing it is come out, we trust to rejoice in the will of the Lord, waiting His further pleasure. Dear Robin, beware of men, look up to the Lord. Let Him be free to speak and command in thy heart. Take heed of the things I fear thou hast reasoned thyself into, and thou shalt be able through Him, without consulting flesh and blood, to do valiantly for Him and for His people. Thou mentionest somewhat as if, by acting against such op- position as is like to be, there will be a tempting of God. Dear Robin, tempting of God ordinarily is either by acting presumptu- ously in carnal confidence, or in unbelief through diffidence : both these ways Israel tempted God in the wilderness, and He was grieved by them. The encountering 'of difficulties, therefore, makes us not to tempt God ; but acting before and without faith. 1 If the Lord have in any measure persuaded His people, as gener- ally He hath, of the lawfulness, nay of the duty, this persuasion prevailing upon the heart is faith, and acting thereupon is acting in faith, and the more the difficulties are, the more faith. And it is most sweet that he that is not persuaded have patience to- wards them that are, and judge not : and this will free thee from the trouble of others' actings, which, thou sayest, adds to thy grief. Only let me offer two or three things, and I have done. Dost thou not think this fear of the Levellers (of whom there is no fear) that they would destroy nobility, had caused some to rake up corruption ; to find it lawful to make this ruining hypo- critical agreement, on one part ? 2 Hath not this biased even some good men ? I will not say, their fear will come upon them ; but if it do, they will themselves bring it upon themselves. Have not some of our friends, by their passive principle (which I judge not, only I think it liable to temptation as well as the active, and neither good but as we are led into them by God, — neither to be reasoned into, because the heart is deceitful), been occasioned to overlook what is just and honest, and ' to ' think the people of 1 Very true, my Lord General,— then, now, and always ! 2 Hollow Treaty at Newport, 1648.] LETTER LXXXV., KNOTTINGLEY 399 God may have as much or more good the one way than the other ? Good by this Man, against whom the Lord hath witnessed ; and whom thou knowest. Is this so in their hearts ; or is it reasoned; forced in ? 1 Robin, I have done. Ask we our hearts, whether we think that, after all, these dispensations, the like to which many gene- rations cannot afford, should end in so corrupt reasonings of good men, and should so hit the designings of bad ? Thinkest thou, in thy heart, that the glorious dispensations of God point out to this ? Or to teach His people to trust in Him, and to wait for better things, when, it may be, better are sealed to many of their spirits ? 2 And as a poor looker-on, I had rather live in the hope of that spirit 'which believes that God doth so teach us,' and take my share with them, expecting a good issue, than be led away with the other. 3 1 1 think it is ' reasoned ' in, and by bad arguments too, my Lord General ! The inner heart of the men, in real contact with the inner heart of the matter, had little to do with all that : — alas, was there ever any such ' contact ' with the real truth of any matter, on the part of such men, your Excellency ! ["Surely we have here laid bare before us Cromwellian opinion in the making. As in other men, the wish was father to the thought. The desire, whether for private or for public ends, shapes the thoughts, and, in Cromwell's case, as the desires swept a wider compass than with most men, the thoughts took a larger scope, and, to some extent, jostled with one another. The cloudy mixture would clear itself soon enough. " Gardiner's Cromwell, p. 101.] 2 Already indubitably sure to many of them. '[Mr. Morley says that Cromwell in this — " one of the most remarkable letters he ever wrote" — produces three arguments. " First, is it sound to stand on safety of the people as the supreme law ? Second, will the treaty between King and Parlia- ment secure the safety of the people, or will it not frustrate the whole fruit of the war and bring back all to what it was and worse? Third, is it not possible that the army too may be a lawful power, ordained by God to fight the King on stated grounds, and that the army may resist on the same grounds one name of authority, the Parliament, as well as the other authority, the King. Then he suddenly is dissatisfied with his three arguments. . . . Cromwell's understanding was far too powerful not to perceive that salus populi and the rest of it would serve just as well for Strafford or for Charles as it served for Ireton and the army, and that usurpation by troopers must be neither more nor less hard to justify in principle than usurpation by a King. So he falls back on the simpler ground of ' providences,' always his favourite stronghold. . . . From the point of a modern's carnal reasoning all this has a thoroughly sophistic flavour, and it leaves a doubt of its actual weight in Oliver's own mind. ... In concluding the letter he denounces the Treaty of Newport as a ' ruining hypocritical agreement ' and remonstrates with those of their friends who expect good from Charles. ... A writer of a hostile school has remarked in this memorable letter * its cautious obscurity, shadowy significance ; its suavity, tender- ness, subtlety ; the way in which he alludes to more than he mentions, suggests more than pronounces his own argumentative intention, and opens an indefinite view, all 400 SECOND CIVIL WAR [25 Not. This trouble I have been at, because my soul loves thee, and I would not have thee swerve, nor lose any glorious opportunity the Lord puts into thy hand. The Lord be thy counsellor. Dear Robin, I rest thine, Oliver Cromwell,* Colonel Hammond, the ingenuous young man whom Oliver much loves, did not receive this Letter at the Isle of Wight whither it was directed ; young Colonel Hammond is no longer there. On Monday the 27th, there came to him Colonel Ewer, he of the Remonstrance ; Colonel Ewer with new force, with an Order from the Lord General and Army-Council that Colonel Hammond do straightway repair to Windsor, being wanted at head-quarters there. A young Colonel, with dubitations such as those of Hammond's, will not suit in that Isle at present. 1 Ewer, on the Tuesday night, a night of storm and pouring rain, besets his Majfsty's lodgings in the Town of Newport (for his Majesty is still on parole there), with strange soldiers, in a strange state of readiness, the smoke of their gun-matches poisoning the air of his Majesty's apartment itself; — and on the morrow morning at eight of the clock, calls out his Majesty's coach ; moves off with his Majesty in grim reticence and rigorous military order, to Hurst Castle, a small solitary stronghold on the opposite beach yonder. 2 For, at London, matters are coming rapidly to a crisis. 3 The resumed Debate, " Shall the Army Remonstrance be taken into the hard features of which he softly puts aside.' [J. B. Mozley]. Quite true; but what if this be the real Cromwell, and represents the literal working of his own habit and temper." Morley's Cromwell, p. 268.] * Birch, p. ior ; ends the Volume. 1 [Hammond evidently wrote to the army authorities what he had said to Crom- well ; that his obedience was due to Parliament. He refused to imprison the King, and renewed this refusal when Ewer arrived with orders to that effect on November 27. But Ewer did not himself remove the King. He left the island with Hammond, next day ; Lieutenant-Colonel Cobbet and Captain Merriman were sent over by Fairfax and the Council of Officers, took the King out of the hands of Hammond's deputies on the morning of Friday, December 1, and conveyed him to Hurst Castle. The warrant to Cobbett and Merriman is printed in the Clarke Papers, ii. 63. The Governor of Hurst Castle was Captain Thomas Eyre, and to this similarity of name is due the confusion in the contemporaneous accounts which led Carlyle to believe that Ewer had carried Charles to the mainland.] a Colonel Cooke's Narrative, in Rushworth, vii. 1344. '[See Cromwell's letter to Fairfax, Supplement 37.] 1648.] LETTER LXXXV., KNOTTINGLEY 401 consideration ? " does not come out affirmative ; on the contrary, on Thursday the 30th, it comes out negative by a Majority of Ninety : " No, we will not take it into consideration." — " No ? " The Army at Windsor, thereupon, spends again 'a day in Prayer.' The Army at Windsor has decided on the morrow that it will march to London : — marches, arrives accordingly, on Saturday December 2d ; quarters itself in Whitehall, in St. James's ; ' and ' other great vacant Houses in the skirts of the City and Villages ' about, no offence being given anywhere.' J In the drama of Modern History one knows not any graver, more noteworthy scene ; — earnest as very Death and Judgment. They have decided to have Justice, these men ; to see God's Justice done, and His judgments executed on this Earth. The abysses where the thunders and the splendours are bred, — the reader sees them again laid bare ; and black Madness lying close to the Wisdom which is brightest and highest : — and owls and godless men who hate the lightning and the light, and love the mephitic dusk and darkness, are no judges of the actions of heroes ! ' Shedders of blood ? ' Yes, blood is occasionally shed. The healing Surgeon, the sacrificial Priest, the august Judge pronouncer of God's oracles to men, these and the atrocious Murderer, are alike shedders of blood ; and it is an owl's eye that, except for the dresses they wear, discerns no difference in these ! — Let us leave the owl to his hootings ; let us get on with our Chronology and swift course of events. On Monday 4>th December, the House, for the last time, takes ' into farther debate ' the desperate question, Whether his Ma- jesty's concessions in that Treaty of Newport are a ground of settlement ? — debates it all Monday ; has debated it all Friday and Saturday before. Debates it all Monday, 'till five o'clock next morning ; ' at five o'clock next morning, decides it, Yea. By a Majority of Forty-six. One-hundred-and-twenty-nine to Eighty-three, it is at five o'clock on Tuesday morning decided, Yea, they are a ground of settlement. The Army Chiefs and the Minority consult together, in deep and deepest deliberation, through that day and night ; not, I suppose, without Prayer ; and on the morrow morning this is what we see : Wednesday 6th December 1648, 'Colonel Rich's regiment of ' horse and Colonel Pride's regiment of foot were a guard to the ' Parliament ; and the City Trainbands were discharged ' from 1 Rushworth, vii. 1350. vol. i.— 26 402 SECOND CIVIL WAR [25 Nov. that employment. 1 Yes, they were ! Colonel Rich's horse stand ranked in Palaceyard, Colonel Pride's foot in Westminster Hall and at all entrances to the Commons House, this day : and in Colonel Pride's hand is a written list of names, names of the chief among the Hundred-and-twenty-nine ; and at his side is my Lord Grey of Groby, who, as this Member after that comes up, whispers or beckons, " He is one of them : he cannot enter ! " And Pride gives the word, "To the Queen's Court ; " and Mem- ber after Member is marched thither, Forty-one of them this day : and kept there in a state bordering on rabidity, asking, By what Law ? and ever again, By what Law ? Is there a colour or faintest shadow of Law, to be found in any of the Books, Year- books, Rolls of Parliament, Bractons, Fletas, Cokes upon Lyttleton, for this ? Hugh Peters visits them ; has little comfort, no light as to the Law ; confesses, " It is by the Law of Necessity ; truly, by the Power of the Sword." It must be owned the Constable's baton is fairly down, this day ; overborne by the Power of the Sword, and a Law not to be found in any of the Books. At evening the distracted Forty-one are marched to Mr. Duke's Tavern hard-by, a 'Tavern called Hell ; ' and very imperfectly accommodated for the night. Sir Symonds D'Ewes, who has ceased taking notes long since ; Mr. William Prynne, louder than any in the question of Law ; Waller, Massey, Harley, and other remnants of the old Eleven, are of this unlucky Forty-one ; among whom too we count little Clement Walker ' in his gray suit with his little stick,' 2 — asking in the voice of the indomitablest terrier or Blenheim cocker, " By what Law ? I ask again, By what Law ? " Whom no mortal will ever be able to answer. Such is the far-famed Purging of the House by Colonel Pride. This evening, while the Forty-one are getting lodged in Mr. Duke's, Lieutenant-General Cromwell came to Town. 3 Pontefract Castle is not taken ; he has left Lambert looking after that, and come up hither to look after more important things. The .Commons on Wednesday did send out to demand 'the 1 Rushworth, vii. 1353 : — see Whitlocke (2d edition, p. 360), Walker's Indepen- dency, &c. 2 List in Rushworth, p. 1355. '["Lieutenant-General Cromwell, the night after the interruption of the House, arrived from Scotland and lay at Whitehall, where, and at other places, he declared that he had not been acquainted with this design ; yet since it was done, he was glad of it, and would endeavour to maintain it." Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 211, ed. Firth.] 1648.] LETTER LXXXVL, LONDON 403 Members of this House ' from Colonel Pride ; but Pride made respectful evasive answer ; — could not, for the moment, comply with the desires of the Honourable House. On the Thursday Lieutenant-General Cromwell ,is thanked ; and Pride's Purge continues : new men. of the Majority are seized ; others scared away need no seizing ; — above a Hundred in all ; 1 who are sent into their countries, sent into the Tower ; sent out of our way, and trouble us no farther. The Minority has now become Majority ; there is now clear course for it, clear resolution there has for some time back been in it. What its resolution was, and its action that it did in pursuance thereof, 'an action not done in a corner, but in sight of all the Nations,' and of God who made the Nations, we know, and the whole world knows ! — LETTER LXXXVI Dutch Dorislaus, the learned Doctor, late Judge-Advocate, employed in many weighty things, and soon to be employed in the weightiest, wants now a very small accommodation which is in the gift of certain Cambridge people. A busy Lieutenant-General, while the world-whirlwind is piping loud, has to write for him this small Note withal : To the Right Worshipful the Master and Fellows of Trinity ige : These ' London,' 18th December 1648. Hall in Cambridge : These Gentlemen, I am given to understand that by the late decease of Dr. Duck, his chamber is become vacant in the Doctors Commons, to which Dr. Dorislaus now desireth to be your tenant : who hath done service unto the Parliament from the beginning of these wars, and hath been constantly employed by the Parliament in many weighty affairs, and especially of late, beyond the seas, with the States General of the United Provinces. If you please to prefer him before any other, paying rent and 1 List in Somers Tracts, vi. 37 ; very incorrect, as all the Lists are. 404 SECOND CIVIL WAE [29 Jan. fine to your College, I shall take it as a courtesy at your hands whereby you will oblige, Your assured friend and servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Whether Dorislaus got Duck's Chamber, we shall not ask ; being, some three weeks hence, employed as Advocate in the King's Trial, and shortly after assassinated at the Hague for that work, 1 it proved to be of no importance to Dorislaus. The loud world-whirlwind pipes as before. 8 DEATH-WARRANT The Trial of Charles Stuart falls not to be described in this place ; the deep meanings that he in it cannot be so much as glanced at here. Oliver Cromwell attends in the High Court of Justice at every session except one ; Fairfax sits only in the first. Ludlow, Whalley, Walton, names known to us, are also constant attendants in that High Court, during that long-memorable Month of January 1649. The King is thrice brought to the Bar ; refuses to plead, comports himself with royal dignity, with royal haughtiness, strong in his divine right ; ' smiles ' con- temptuously, 'looks with an austere countenance;' — does not seem, till the very last, to have fairly believed that they would dare to sentence him. But they were men sufficiently provided with daring ; men, we are bound to see, who sat there as in the Presence of the Maker of all men, as executing the judgments of Heaven above, and had not the fear of any man or thing on the Earth below. Bradshaw said to the King, "Sir, you are not "permitted to issue out in these discoursings. This Court is "satisfied of its authority. No Court will bear to hear its "authority questioned in that manner." — ".Clerk, read the " sentence ! " 3 — * Trinity-Hall MSS. ; in Cambridge Portfolio (London, 1840), ii. 390. 1 Antea, p. 279; Wood, iii. 666-8. a [Under date Dec. 22, are two letters from Cromwell to the Governor of Windsor Castle and to Col. Harrison concerning the safe guarding of the King. See Supple- ment, Nos. 38, 39.] » [" By what authority. . . . This was indeed the question that the King put and would never let drop. . . . The authority of the tribunal was founded on nothing more valid than a mere resolution, called an ordinance, of some fifty members — what 1649.] DEATH-WARRANT 405 And so, under date, Monday 29th January 1648-9, there is this stern Document to be introduced ; not specifically of Oliver's composition ; but expressing in every letter of it the conviction of Oliver's heart, in this, one of his most important appearances on the stage of earthly life. 1 To Colonel Francis Hacker, Colonel Huncks, and Lieutenant-Colonel Phayr, and to every of them At the High Court of Justice for the Trying and Judging of Charles Stuart, King of England, 29th January 1648. Whereas Charles Stuart, King of England, is and standeth convicted, attainted and condemned of High Treason and other high Crimes ; and Sentence upon Saturday last was pronounced against him by this Court, To be put to death by the severing of his head from his body ; of which Sentence execution yet re- maineth to be done : These are therefore to will and require you to see the said Sentence executed, in the open Street before Whitehall, upon the morrow, being the Thirtieth day of this instant month of January, between the hours of Ten in the morning and Five in the after- was in truth little more than a bare quorum of a single branch of parliament, origin- ally composed of nearly ten times as many, and deliberately reduced for the express purpose of such a resolution by the violent exclusion of one hundred and forty three of its members. If the legal authority was null, the moral authority for the act creating the high court was no stronger. It might be well enough to say that the people are the origin of power, but as a matter of fact, the handful who erected the high court of justice notoriously did not represent the people in any sense of that conjurer's word. They were never chosen by the people to make laws apart from king and lords, and they were now picked out by the soldiers to do the behest of soldiers." Morley's Cromwell, p. 280.] 1 [But the conviction was arrived at very slowly. " Ireton," says Bishop Burnet, 1 ' was the person that drove it on ; for Cromwell was all the while in some suspense about it." Cromwell " approved of the seizure of Charles, and had no doubt of the justice of bringing him to trial, but he doubted the policy of the King's trial and condemnation if any other satisfactory expedient could be devised. . . . We get glimpses of Cromwell negotiating with lawyers and judges about the settlement of the nation, inspiring a final attempt to come to terms with Charles, and arguing that it would be safe to spare the King's life if he would accept the conditions now offered him. All these attempted compromises failed. The King preferred to part with his life rather than with his regal power. ... So the military revolution, for a moment arrested in its progress, moved inevitably forward, and Cromwell went with it." Firth's Cromwell, p. 315. See also Dr. Gardiner, Great Civil War, iv. pp, 281-286.] 406 SECOND CIVIL WAR [29 Jan. noon of the same day, with full effect. And for so doing, this shall be your sufficient warrant. And these are to require all Officers, Soldiers, and others the good People of this Nation of England, to be assisting unto you in this service. Given under our hands and seals, John Bradshaw. Thomas Grey, ' Lord Grey of Groby.' Oliver Cromwell. ('and Fifty-six others.')* " Telrce helium, ac molossis suis ferociores, Hideous monsters, more ferocious than their own mastiffs ! " shrieks Saumaise ; 1 shrieks all the world, in unmelodious soul-confusing diapason of distraction, — happily at length grown very faint in our day. The truth is, no modern reader can conceive the then atrocity, ferocity, unspeakability of this fact. First, after long reading in the old dead Pamphlets does one see the magnitude of it. To be equalled, nay to be preferred think some, in point of horror, to ' The Crucifixion of Christ.' Alas, in these irreverent times of ours, if all the Kings of Europe were cut in pieces at one swoop, and flung in heaps in St. Margaret's Churchyard on the same day, the emotion would, in strict arithmetical truth, be small in comparison ! We know it not, this atrocity of the English Regicides ; shall never know it. I reckon it perhaps the most daring action any Body of Men to be met with in History ever, with clear consciousness, deliberately set themselves to do. Dread Phantoms, glaring supernal on you, — when once they are quelled and their light snuffed out, none knows the terror of the Phantom ! The Phantom is a poor paper-lantern with a candle- end in it, which any whipster dare now beard. A certain Queen in some South-Sea Island, I have read in Missionary Books, had been converted to Christianity ; did not any longer believe in the old gods. She assembled her people ; said to them, " My faithful People, the gods do not dwell in that burning-mountain in the centre of our Isle. That is not God ; * Rushworth, vii. 1426 ; Nalson's Trial of King Charles (London, 1684) ; Phelpes's Trial of &c. &c. 1 Salmasii Defensio Regia (Sumptibus regiis, 1650), p, 6. 1649.] DEATH-WARRANT 407 no, that is a common burning-mountain, — mere culinary fire burning under peculiar circumstances. See, I will walk before you to that burning-mountain ; will empty my wash-bowl into it, cast my slipper over it, defy it to the uttermost, and stand the consequences ! " — She walked accordingly, this South-Sea Heroine, nerved to the sticking-place ; her people following in pale horror and expectancy : she did her experiment ; — and, I am told, they have truer notions of the gods in that Island ever since ! Ex- periment which it is now very easy to repeat, and very needless. Honour to the Brave who deliver us from Phantom-dynasties, in South-Sea Islands and in North ! This action of the English Regicides did in effect strike a damp like death through the heart of Flunkeyism universally in this world. Whereof Flunkeyism, Cant, Cloth-worship, or whatever ugly name it have, has gone about incurably sick ever since ; and is now at length, in these generations, very rapidly dying. 1 The like of which action will not be needed for a thousand years again. Needed, alas — not till a new genuine Hero-worship has arisen, has perfected itself; and had time to degenerate into a Flunkey- ism and Cloth- worship again ! Which I take to be a very long date indeed. Thus ends the Second Civil War. In Regicide, in a Common- wealth and Keepers of the Liberties of England. In punishment of Delinquents, in abolition of Cobwebs ; — if it be possible, in a Government of Heroism and Veracity ; at lowest, of Anti- Flunkey- ism, Anti-Cant, and the endeavour after Heroism and Veracity. 1 [" This is not the tone in which the terrible but high-souled fanatics who did it would have spoken of their own deed. . . . Nothing, unhappily, can be less true than that the act of the regicides struck a damp through the heart of flunkeyism, or that flunkeyism has gone about incurably sick of it ever since. It is liberty, if any- thing, that has gone about sick of it. " Goldwin Smith's Three English. Statesmen , PP- 7°. 73- . , , , . " Cant, alas, is not slain on any such easy terms by a single stroke ot tne re- publican headsman's axe. As if, for that matter, force, violence, sword and axe, never conceal a cant and an unveracity of their own, viler and crueller than any other." Morley's Cromwell, p. 285.] PART V CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND 1649 LETTERS LXXXVII— XCVI On Tuesday SOih January 1648-9, it is ordered in the Commons House, ' That the Post be stayed until tomorrow morning, ten of the clock ; ' and the same afternoon, the King's Execution having now taken place, Edward Dendy, Sergeant-at-Arms, with due trumpeters, pursuivants, and horse-troops, notifies, loud as he can blow, at Cheapside and elsewhere, openly to all men, That who- soever shall proclaim a new King, Charles Second or another, without authority of Parliament, in this Nation of England, shall be a Traitor and suffer death. For which service, on the morrow, each trumpeter receives ' ten shillings ' of the public money, and Sergeant Dendy himself — shall see what he will receive. 1 And all Sheriffs, Mayors of Towns and such like are to do the same in their respective localities, that the fact be known to every one. After which follow, in Parliament and out of it, such debatings, committee-ings, consultings towards a Settlement of this Nation, as the reader can in a dim way sufficiently fancy for himself on considering the two following facts. First, That on February 13th, Major Thomas Scott, an honour- able Member whom we shall afterwards know better, brings in his Report or Ordinance for a Council of State, to be henceforth the Executive among us ; which Council, to the number of Forty-one Persons, is thereupon nominated by Parliament ; and begins its 1 Commons Journals, vi. ia6 ; Scobell's Acts and Ordinances (London, 1658, I6S7). »• 3- (409) 410 CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND [l Feb. Sessions at Derby House on the 17th. Bradshaw, Fairfax, Cromwell, Whitlocke, Harry Marten, Ludlow, Vane the Younger, and others whom we know, are of this Council. Second, That, after much adjustment and new-modelling, new Great Seals, new Judges, Sergeants-maces, there comes out, on May \Qth, an emphatic Act, brief as Sparta, in these words: 'Be ' it declared and enacted by this present Parliament, and by the ' authority of the same : That the People of England, and of all ' the dominions and territories thereunto belonging, are and shall ' be, and are hereby constituted, made, established and confirmed ' to be, a Commonwealth or Free-State ; and shall from hence- ' forth be governed as a Commonwealth and Free-State, — by the ' Supreme Authority of this Nation the Representatives of the ' People in Parliament, 1 and by such as they shall appoint and ' constitute officers and ministers under them for the good of the ' People ; and that without any King or House of Lords.' 2 — What modelling and consulting has been needed in the interim, the reader shall conceive. Strangely enough, among which great national transactions the following small family-matters again turn up ; asserting that they too had right to happen in this world, and keep memory of themselves, — and show how a Lieutenant-General's mind, busy pulling down Idolatrous Kingships, and setting up Religious Commonwealths, has withal an idle eldest Son to marry ! — There occurred r a stick,' as we saw some time ago, 3 in this Marriage-treaty : but now it gathers life again ; — and, not to agitate the reader's sympathies overmuch, we will say at once that it took effect this time ; that Richard Cromwell was actually wedded to Dorothy Mayor, at Hursley, on May day 1649 ;* and, one point fairly settled at last ! — But now mark farther how 1 [Yet never was the Parliament less representative of the people than now. " By the expulsion of royalist members during the war, and of Presbyterians in 1648, it had been, as Cromwell said, ' winnowed and sifted and brought to a hand- ful.' When the Long Parliament met in November 1640, it consisted of about 490 members. In January 1649, those sitting or at liberty to sit in the House were not more than ninety. Whole districts were unrepresented. In the list of sitting members given in a contemporary pamphlet, there are none from the counties of Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Cumberland and Lancashire, or from any borough within their limits. Wales was represented by three persons, and London by but a single citizen." Firth's Cromwell, p. 235.] ■ Scobell, ii. 30 ; Commons Journals, 19th May. 3 Letter LVI. * Noble ii. 188. 1649.] LETTEE LXXXVIL, LONDON 411 Anne, second daughter of the House of Hursley, came to be married not long after to ' John Dunch of Pusey in Berkshire ; ' 1 which Dunch of Pusey had a turn for collecting Letters. How Dunch, groping about Hursley in subsequent years, found 'Seventeen Letters of Cromwell,' and collected them, and laid them up at Pusey ; how, after a century or so, Horace Walpole, likewise a collector of Letters, got his eye upon them ; trans- scribed them, imparted them to dull Harris. 2 From whom, accordingly, here they still are and continue. This present fascicle of Ten is drawn principally from the Pusey stock ; the remainder will introduce themselves in due course. 8 LETTER LXXXVII Colonel Norton, ' dear Dick,' was purged out by Pride ; lazy Dick and lazy Frank Russel were both purged out, or scared away, and are in the lists of the Excluded. Dick, we infer, is now somewhat estranged from Cromwell ; probably both Dick and Frank : Frank returned ; Dick too, though in a fitful manner. And so, there being now no ' dear Norton ' on the spot, the Lieutenant-General applies to Mr. Robinson, the pious Preacher at Southampton, of whom we transiently heard already ; — a priest and counsellor, and acting as such, to all parties. For my very loving Friend Mr. Robinson, Preacher at Southampton : These ' London,' ist February 1648. Sir, I thank you for your kind letter. As to the business you mention, I desire to use this plainness with you. '[Dunch himself was related to Cromwell, whose youngest aunt, Mary, had married Sir William Dunch, of Little Wittenham, Berkshire. John Dunch was their grandson, and therefore Oliver's first cousin once removed.] 3 Harris, p. 504. 8 [At some time, the letter to Barrington, Supplement, No. 5, and the two letters to Norton (of March 28, and April 3, 1648) stated by Harris to be " in the posses- sion of Robert Symmer Esq. , of Mount St. Grosvenor Square," must have been with these Pusey letters, as they are numbered, 1-3, and the Pusey letters 4-21, in the same hand. Number 9 is missing, but the rest are now all in the Morrison Collection, a fine series of holographs, mostly in excellent condition. As they are numbered chronologically, the missing one should be dated between March 14 and 25, 1648-9. Those to Mr. Mayor are endorsed by himself, and have shorthand notes jotted on the back, apparently of his replies.] 412 CAMPAIGN IN IEELAND [l Feb. When the last overture was, between me and Mr. Mayor, by the mediation of Colonel Norton, after the meeting 1 had with Mr. Mayor at Farnham, I desired the Colonel (finding, as I thought, some scruples and hesitation in Mr. Mayor), to know of him whether his mind was free to the thing or not. Colonel Norton gave me this account, that Mr. Mayor, by reason of some matters as they then stood, was not very free thereunto, where- upon I did acquiesce, submitting to the providence of God. Upon your reviving of the business to me, and your letter, I think fit to return you this answer, and to say in plainness of spirit to you : that, upon your testimony of the gentlewoman's worth, and the common report of the piety of the family, I shall be willing to entertain the renewing of the motion, upon such considerations as may be to mutual satisfaction ; only I think that a speedy resolution will be very convenient to both parties. The Lord direct all to His glory. I desire your prayers therein ; and rest, Your very affectionate friend, Oliver Cromwell.* 'February 1st,' — it is Thursday; the King was executed on Tuesday: Robinson at Southampton, I think, must have been writing at the very time. On Tuesday night last, a few hours after the King's Execution, Marquis Hamilton had escaped from Windsor, and been retaken in Southwark next morning, Wednesday morning. ' Knocking at a door,' he was noticed by three troopers ; who questioned him, detected him ; * and bringing fiim to the Parliament Authorities, made 40/. apiece by him. He will be tried speedily, by a new High Court of Justice ; he and others. * Harris, p. 504 ; one of the seventeen Letters found at Pusey. [Now printed from the holograph original in the Morrison Collection. Endorsed No. 4.] 1 Cromwelliana, p. 51. 1649.] PASS 413 PASS To all Officers and Soldiers, and all Persons whom these may concern Whereas John Stanley of Dalegarth, in the county of Cum- berland, Esquire, hath subscribed to his composition, and paid and secured his fine, according to the direction of Parliament : These are to require you to permit and suffer him and his servants quietly to pass into Dalegarth above-said, with their horses and swords, and to forbear to molest or trouble him or any of his family there ; without seizing or taking away any of his horses, or other goods or estate whatsoever ; and to permit and suffer him or any of his family, at any time, to pass to any place, about his or their occasions ; without offering any injury to him or any of his family, either at Dalegarth, or in his or their travels : As you will answer your contempt at your utmost perils. Given under my hand and seal this 2d of February 1648. Oliver Cromwell.* Oliver's seal of ' six quarterings ' is at the top. Of course only the seal and signature are specially his : but this one Pass may stand here as the sample of many that were then circulating, — l emblem of a time of war, distress, uncertainty and danger, which then was. The 2d of February is Friday. Yesterday, Thursday, there was question in the House of ' many Gentlemen from the Northern Counties, who do attend about Town to make their compositions,' and of what is to be done with them. 2 The late business that ended in Preston Fight had made many new delinquents in those * Jefferson's History and Antiquities of Allerdale Ward, Cumberland (Carlisle, 1842), p. 284. 1 [Some were circulating which had not been issued by Cromwell at all. One Capt. Mitchell, a Leveller, but also a solicitor for Delinquents' Causes at Gold- smiths' Hall, had been accustomed to procure such passes from Robert Spavin, Cromwell's secretary, and had also received from that treacherous person a large number, either blanks, with Cromwell's genuine signature, or forgeries of Spavin's, by means of which the confederates had made considerable sums. Spavin was found out and dismissed, but they had a counterfeit seal made, and continued their operations some time longer.] a Commons Journals, in die. 414 CAMPAIGN IN IKELAND [12 Feb. parts ; whom now we see painfully with pale faces dancing attend- ance in Goldsmiths' Hall, — not to say knocking importunately at doors in the gray of the morning, in danger of their life ! Stanley of Dalegarth has happily got his composition finished, his Pass signed by the Lieutenant-General ; and may go home, with sub- dued thankfulness, in a whole skin. 1 Dalegarth Hall is still an estate or farm, in the southern extremity of Cumberland ; on the Esk river, in the Ravenglass district : not far from that small Lake which Tourists go to see under the name of Devock Water. Quiet life to Stanley there ! LETTER LXXXVIII For my very worthy Friend Richard Mayor, Esquire : These ' London,' 12th February 1648. Sib, I received some intimations formerly, and by the last return from Southampton a letter from Mr. Robinson, concerning the reviving the last year's motion touching my son and your daughter. Mr. Robinson was also pleased to send me •[There are, however, very few traces of the Preston campaign amongst the papers of the Committee for Compounding. In the first place, excepting Lang- date's troops and Sir Philip Musgrave's men at Carlisle, there were next to no Englishmen engaged in the business. Secondly, most of the North Country gentle- men who were allowed to compound, had already done so. Thirdly, those taken actually in arms and not protected by articles, would only under special circum- stances be admitted to composition at all. Fourthly, the march of the Scottish army was too " outside" a thing to rouse the enthusiasm of the border English, always jealous of their Scotch neighbours, and in this case irritated by the plunder- ing of Hamilton's men. It is not at all likely that Stanley had been concerned in the Preston business at all, as he compounded in April 1647, and his fine, set on January 27, 1649, was only a tenth, far too low for any one who had been lately actively engaged against Parliament. Cromwell speaks of his having " paid and secured his fine." Probably he paid part, and asked permission to go home and find the rest, as the payment and discharge of the estate are not entered until the following June. Even then he was not left to a quiet life, further demands being made upon him the next year, after his father's death. See Calendar of Committee for Compounding, p. 1719. In the Supplement (No. 41) will be found a kind letter written a few days later in favour ot another compounder who had "come in more than four years before this, but whose business was not yet settled. The special activity at this time was due to the fact that the Committee for Compounding had just been re-modelled, and that Parliament had issued strict orders for giving in of accounts, and for sequestration of those delinquents who were in arrears.] 1649.] LETTER LXXXVIIL, LONDON 415 enclosed in his a letter from you to him, bearing date the 5th of this instant February, wherein I find your willingness to entertain any good means for the completing of that business. From whence I take encouragement to send my son to wait upon you, and by him to let you know, that my desires are (if Providence so dispose), very full and free to the thing, if, upon an interview, there prove also a freedom in the young persons thereunto. What liberty you will give herein, I wholly submit to you. I thought fit, in my letter to Mr. Robinson, to mention some- what of expedition, because indeed I know not how soon I may be called into the field, or other occasions may remove me from hence ; having for the present some liberty of stay in London. The Lord direct all to His glory. I rest, Sir, Your very humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* Thomas Scott is big with the Council of State at present, he produces it in the House tomorrow morning, 1 3th February ; and the List of actual Councillors, as we say, is voted the next day. There is also frequent debate about Ireland 1 in these days, and what is to be done for relief of it ; the Marquis of Ormond, fur- nished with a commission from the Prince, who now calls himself Charles II., reappeared there last year ; has, with endless patience and difficulty, patched up some kind of alliance with the Papists, Nuncio Papists and Papists of the Pale ; and so far as numbers go, looks very formidable. 2 One does not know how soon one ' may be called into the field.' However, there will several things turn up to be settled first. * Harris, p. 505 ; one of the Pusey seventeen. [No. 5. Holograph. In the Morrison Collection.] „ 1 Cromwelliana, 14th February, &c. 2 [It is hardly necessary to say that Ormond's alliance was not with the party of he Nuncio.] 416 CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND [22 Feb. ORDER On the Saturday 17th February 1648-9, more properly on Monday 19th, the Council of State first met, to constitute itself and begin despatch of business. 1 Cromwell seems to have been their first President. At first it had been decided that they should have no constant President ; but after a time, the incon- veniences of such a method were seen into, and Bradshaw was appointed to the office. The Minute-book of this Council of State, written in the clear old hand of Walter Frost, still lies complete in the State-Paper Office ; as do the whole Records of the Committee of Both King- doms, of the Committee of Sequestrations in Goldsmiths' Hall, and many other Committees and officialities of the Period. By the long labour of Mr. Lemon, these waste Documents, now gathered into volumes, classed, indexed, methodised, have become singularly accessible. Well read, the thousandth or perhaps ten- thousandth part of them well excerpted, and the nine-hundred- and-ninety-nine parts well forgotten, much light for what is really English History might still be gathered there. Alas, if the Half million of money, or but the twentieth part of it, wasted in mere stupidities upon the old-parchment Record Commission, had been expended upon wise labours here ! 2 — But to our ' Order.' Sir Oliver Fleming, a most gaseous but indisputable historical Figure, of uncertain genesis, uncertain habitat, glides through the old Books as 'Master of the Ceremonies,' — master of one knows not well what. In the end of 1643 he clearly is nominated 1 Commons Journals, vi. 146. 2 [The records and papers of the Council of State, known as Interregnum I., are now calendared amongst the general State Papers of their period. So are those of the Committee of Both Kingdoms (Interregnum E.). The Goldsmiths' Hall Committee is always known as the Committee for Compounding, although in later years its official title was Committee for Sequestrations, this later name being already appropriated by the original Sequestration Committee, one of the earliest of all, sitting at Armourers' Hall. The Committee for Compounding Calendar, already often quoted, was compiled by Mrs. Everett Green, and she also arranged the Sequestration Committee's papers, which, however, have not been calendared. Mr. Lemon's labours— most helpful to his successors— did not extend quite so far as Carlyle's words would lead us to suppose. Even yet, these Committee papers are only partially " gathered into volumes," and until they were calendared, it was impossible to index them at all adequately. Our archaeologists would hardly endorse Carlyle's views on the Record Com- mission !] 1649.] ORDER 417 ' Master of the Ceremonies ' by Parliament itself; J and glides out and in ever after, presiding over ' Dutch Ambassadors/ ' Swedish Ambassadors ' and such like, to the very end of the Protectorate. 2 A Blessed Restoration, of course, relieved him from his labours. He, for the present, wants to see some Books in the late Royal Library of St. James's. This scrap of paper still lies in the British Museum. To the Keeper of the Library of St. James's These are to will and require you, upon sight hereof, to deliver unto Sir Oliver Fleming, or to whom he shall appoint, two or three such books as he shall choose, of which there is a double copy in the Library : to be by him disposed c of ' as there shall be direction given him by the Council. Of which you are not to fail, and for which this shall be your warrant. Given at the Council of State, this 22d day of February 1648. Signed in the name, and by order of, the Council of State appointed by authority of Parliament, Oliver Cromwell, (Presses pro tempore).* There is already question of selling the late King's goods, crown-jewels, plate, and 'hangings,' 3 under which latter title, we suppose, are included his Pictures, 4 much regretted by the British * Additional Ayscough MSS. 12,098 [f. i], 1 2d November 1643, Commons Journals, iii. 299. 2 [See his Humble Narrative, Somers Tracts vii. , 499, ed. Scott. Amongst the State Papers is a long letter from Sir Oliver to the Council of State, written in April, 1649, in relation to the titles to be given to the Common- wealth and the Council of State when conversing with foreign ministers, &c. , it being to be expected "that we must wrestle with many difficulties incidental to a new government." Also offering suggestions as to the reception of foreign ministers, one of which is that " before the wardrobe stuff (of the King) be put up for sale, a sufficient proportion of hangings and other furniture be kept" for the use of am- bassadors extraordinary. See Calendar S. P. Dom.; Commonwealth, 1649, 1650, P- "3-] 3 [" They might have reserved the hangings for themselves, ' a Royalist newspaper observed.] 4 [It is not at all likely that the "hangings " (always a very important item in the inventories of those days) included the pictures. Indeed these last, with the statues and books, were not handed over to the Trustees for the sale of the King's goods, but were reserved to be disposed of by the Council of State. On July 20, Somerset House was assigned to the Trustees, in order ' ' to sell the goods to most advan- vol. i. — 27 418 CAMPAIGN IN IEELAND [26 Feb. connoisseur at present. They did not come actually to market till July next. 1 LETTER LXXXIX Reverend Mr. Stapylton, of whom we heard once before in Edinburgh, has been down at Hursley with Mr. Richard ; Miss Dorothy received them with her blushes, with her smiles ; the elder Mayors with ' many civilities : ' and the Marriage-treaty, as Mr. Stapylton reports, promises well. For my very worthy Friend Richard Mayor, Esquire : These ' London,' 26th February 1648. Sir, I received yours by Mr. Stapleton, together with an account of the kind reception and the many civilities afforded especially to my Son, in the liberty given him to wait upon your worthy Daughter, the report of whose virtue and godli- ness has so great a place in my heart, that I think fit not to neglect anything, on my part, which may conduce to consummate a close of the business, if God please to dispose the young ones' hearts thereunto, and other suitable ordering 'of affairs towards mutual satisfaction appear in the dispensation of Providence. For which purpose, and to the end matters may be brought to as near an issue as they are capable of (not being at liberty, by reason of public occasions, to wait upon you, nor, as I understand, your health permitting), I thought fit to send this Gentleman, Mr. Stapleton, instructed with my mind, to see how near we may come to an understanding one of another therein. And although I could have wished the consideration of things had been between tage," and on August 31, the Lord General and his officers could not yet be accom- modated there, there being need to use the rooms to show the said goods. The actual sale does not seem to have begun before October 2. See Calendar of State Papers, 1649, 1650, under the above dates. The pictures were not sold and dispersed until 1651.] 1 Scobell, Part ii. 46, the immense Act of Parliament for sale of them. 1649.] LETTEE XC, LONDON 419 us two, it being of so near concernment, yet Providence for the present not allowing, I desire you to give him credence on my behalf. Sir, all things which yourself and I had in conference at Farn- ham do not occur to my memory, through multiplicity of business intervening. I hope I shall with a very free heart testify my readiness to that which may be expected from me. I have no more at present, but desiring the Lord to order this affair to His glory and the comfort of His servants, I rest, Sir, Your humble servant, Oliver Cromwell.* LETTER XC This Thursday 8th March 1648-9, they are voting and debating in a thin House, hardly above 60 there, Whether Duke Hamilton, Earl Holland, Lords Capel, Goring, and Sir John Owen, — our old friend ' Colonel Owen ' of Nottingham Castle, Jenner and Ashe's old friend, 1 — are to die or to live ? 2 They have been tried in a new High Court of Justice, and all found guilty of treason, of levying war against the Supreme Authority of this Nation. Shall they be executed ; shall they be respited ? The House by small Majorities decides against the first three ; decides in favour of the last ; and as to Goring, the votes are equal, — the balance -tongue trembles, " Life or Death ! " Speaker Lenthall says, Life. 3 Meanwhile, small private matters also must be attended to. * Harris, p. 505 ; one of the Pusey seventeen. Signature only is in Cromwell's hand. [No. 6. Holograph, Seal of Arms. In the Morrison Collection. Carlyle puts here Harris's statement about the signature, which belongs to the next letter.] 1 Letter LXXXII. 2 [Hamilton was, throughout these proceedings, spoken of by his English title, Earl of Cambridge. Lord Goring was the Earl of Norwich ; his higher title, like all the others granted by the King after the breaking out of the war, not being recognised by Parliament. Sir John Owen, formerly Governor of Conway for the King, who was tried with them, was not "Colonel Owen of Nottingham Castle," as is shown on page 386 above.] s Commons Journals, vi. 159. 420 CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND [8 March. For my very worthy Friend Richard Mayor, Esquire : These l ' London,' 8th March 1648. Sir, Yours I have received ; and have given further instructions to this bearer, Mr. Stapylton, to treat with you about the business in agitation between your daughter and my son. I am engaged 2 to you for all your civilities and respects already manifested. I trust there will be a right understanding between us, and a good conclusion : and though I cannot parti- cularly remember the things spoken of at Farnham, to which your letter seems to refer me, yet I doubt not but I have sent the offer of such things now which give mutual satisfaction to us both. My attendance upon public affairs will not give me leave to come down unto you myself; I have sent unto you this gen- tleman with my mind. 1 salute Mrs. Mayor, though unknown, with the rest of your family. I commit you, with the progress of the business, to the Lord ; and rest, Sir, Your assured friend to serve you, Oliver Cromwell.* On the morrow morning, poor versatile Hamilton, poor ver- satile Holland, with the Lord Capel who the first of all in this Parliament rose to complain of Grievances, meet their death in Palaceyard. The High Court was still sitting in Westminster Hall as they passed through 'from Sir Robert Cotton's house.' Hamilton lingered a little, or seemed to linger, in the Hall ; still hopeful of reprieve and fine of 100,000/. : but the Earl of Denbigh, his brother-in-law, a Member of the Council of State, stept up to him ; whispered in his ear ; — the poor Duke walked on. That is the end of all his diplomacies ; his Scotch Army of '[Headed by Harris, " No direction. In another hand, but signed by himself." Harris was mistaken, however. It is in Cromwell's hand throughout.] 2 obliged. * Harris, p. 506 ; one of the seventeen. [No. 7. Holograph. In the Morrison Collection.] 1649.] LETTEE XC, LONDON 421 Forty-thousand, his painful ridings to Uttoxeter, and to many other places, have all issued here. The Earl of Lanark will now be Duke of Hamilton in Scotland : may a better fate await him ! The once gay Earl of Holland has been ' converted ' some days ago, as it were for the nonce, — poor Earl ! With regard to my Lord Capel again, who followed last in order, he behaved, says Bulstrode, ' much after the manner of a stout Roman. He had no ' Minister with him, nor showed any sense of death approaching ; ' but carried himself all the time he was upon the scaffold with ' that boldness and resolution as was to be admired. He wore a ' sad-coloured suit, his hat cocked up, and his cloak thrown under ' one arm ; he looked towards the people at his first coming up, ' and put off his hat in manner of a salute ; he had a little dis- ' course with some gentlemen, and passed up and down in a care- ' less posture.' 1 Thus died Lord Capel, the first who complained of Grievances : in seven years time there are such changes for a man ; and the first acts of his Drama little know what the last will be !— 2 This new High Court of Justice is one of some Seven or Eight that sat in those years, and were greatly complained of by Con- stitutional persons. Nobody ever said that they decided contrary to evidence ; but they were not the regular Judges. They took the Parliament's law as good, without consulting Fleta and Bracton about it. They consisted of learned Sergeants and other weighty persons nominated by the Parliament, usually in good numbers, for the occasion. Some weeks hence, drunken Poyer of Pembroke and the con- fused Welsh Colonels are tried by Court Martial ; Poyer, Powel, Laughern are found to merit death. Death however shall be executed only upon one of them ; let the other two be pardoned : let them draw lots which two. ' In two of the lots was written, ' Life given by God ; the third lot was a blank. The Prisoners 1 Whitlocke, p. 380 (the first of the two pages 380 which there are). 2 [Capel's ' ' frank and open nature, which had kept him unstained 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 commandment. 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." Gardiner's History of the Commonwealth and Protect- orate, i. 12.] 422 CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND [14 March. ' were not willing to draw their own destiny ; but a child drew ' the lots, and gave them : and the lot fell to Colonel Poyer to ' die.' 1 He was shot in Covent Garden ; died like a soldier, poor confused Welshman ; and so ended. 2 And with these executions, the chief Delinquents are now got punished. The Parliament lays up its axe again ; willing to par- don the smaller multitude, if they will keep quiet henceforth. LETTER XCI For my worthy Friend Dr. Love, Master of Bennett College, ' Cam- bridge : ' These ' London,' 14th March 1648. Sir, I understand one Mrs. Nutting is a suitor unto you, on the right of her Son, about the renewing of a lease which holds of your College. The old interest I have had makes me presume upon your favour. I desire nothing but what is just ; leaving that to your judgment ; and beyond which I neither now nor at any time shall move. If I do, denial shall be most welcome and accepted by, Sir, Your affectionate servant, Oliver Cromwell.* This is not the Christopher Love who preached at Uxbridge, during the Treaty there in 1 644 ; who is now a minister in London, and may again come before us ; this is a Cambridge ' Dr. Love,' of whom I know nothing. Oliver, as we may gather, had befriended him in the old Cambridge days ; nothing hard 1 Whitlooke, 21st April, 1649. 2 [This was on April 25, 1649. " It is observable," writes William Clarke, "that the lot should fall upon him, who was the first beginner of the second war." (See Hist. MSS. Commissioners' Report on Mr. Leyborne-Popham's MSS. p. 15.)] * Lansdown MSS., 1236, fofe 87. [Holograph. Sealed. "My Lord Pagett" written outside, in pencil.] 1649.] LETTER XCL, LONDON 423 had befallen him during the reform of that University in 1644. Probably in Baker's Manuscripts it might be ascertained in what year he graduated, where he was born, where buried ; but nothing substantial is ever likely to be known of him, — or is indeed neces- sary to be known. 1 ' Mrs. Nutting ' and he were evidently children of Adam, breathing the vital air along with Oliver Cromwell ; and Oliver, on occasion, endeavoured to promote justice and kindness between them ; and they remain two 'shadows of small Names.' 2 Yesterday, Tuesday 13th March, there was question in the Council of State about ' modelling of the forces that are to go to Ireland ; ' and a suggestion was made, by Fairfax probably, who had the modelling to do, that they would model much better if they knew first under what Commander they were to go. 3 It is thought Lieutenant-General Cromwell will be the man. On which same evening, furthermore, one discerns in a faint but an authentic manner, certain dim gentlemen of the highest authority, young Sir Harry Vane to appearance one of them, repairing to the lodging of one Mr. Milton, 'a small house in Holborn which opens backwards into Lincoln's Inn Fields ; ' to put an official question to him there ! Not a doubt of it they saw Mr. John this evening. In the official Book this yet stands, legible : 'Die Martis, 13° Martii 1648.' 'That it is referred to the same ' Committee,' Whitlocke, Vane, Lord Lisle, Earl of Denbigh, Harry Marten, Mr. Lisle, ' or any two of them, to speak with Mr. Milton, 'to know, Whether he will be employed as Secretary for the ' Foreign Languages ? and to report to the Council.' 4 I have authority to say that Mr. Milton, thus unexpectedly applied to, consents ; is formally appointed on Thursday next ; makes his 1 [This much may perhaps be said : that he, Dr. Richard Love, had at one time been chaplain to the Earl of Newport ; that he kept his mastership of " Bennett " College through all these troublous times and that he was made Dean of Ely in 1660, but apparently died only a few months after his appointment.] 2 Cooper's Annals, iii. 491 ; Master's History of Corfus-Christi College (Cam- bridge, 1753), pp. 143-54. — Mrs. Nutting, it appears, succeeded (Cambridge MS., penes me. ) 3 Order-Book of the Council of State (in the State-Paper Office), i. 86. [Present reference, S. P. Interregnum, I. 62, pp. 82-87, at thePublic Record Office. Calendared in the volume for 1649, 1650, p. 37. There had been reports flying about that, in consequence of the proclamation of the young King in Scotland, Cromwell meant to march thither, and that he had said that if he had 10,000 men, he could " crush them in the shell." The rumour probably arose from the preparations for Ireland ; 10,000 men being the number voted for that service.] i I6id. ; Todd's Life of Milton (London, 1826), p. 96, 108-123. 424 CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND [H March. proof-shot, ' to the Senate of Hamburgh/ l about a week hence ; — and gives, and continues to give, great satisfaction to that Council, to me, and to the whole Nation now, and to all Nations ! Such romance lies in the State-Paper Office. Here, however, is another Letter on the Hursley Business, of the same date as Letter XCI. ; which must also be read. I do not expect many readers to take the trouble of representing before their minds the clear condition of 'Mr. Ludlow's lease,' of 'the 250/.,' 'the 150/.,' &c, in this abstruse affair: but such as please to do so, will find it all very straight at last. We observe, Mr. Mayor has a decided preference for ' my ould land ; ' land that I inherited, or bought by common contract, instead of getting it from Parliament for Public Services ! In fact, Mr. Mayor seems somewhat of a sharp man : but neither has he a dull man to deal with, — though a much bigger one. LETTER XCII 'For my worthy Friend Richard Mayor, Esquire, at Hursley : These' 2 ' London,' 14th March 1648. Sib, I received your paper by the hands of Mr. Stapilton. I desire your leave to return my dissatisfaction therewith. I shall not need to premise how much I have desired (I hope upon the best grounds) to match with you. The same desire still continues in me, if Providence see it fit. But I may not be so much wanting to myself nor family as not to have some equality of consideration towards it. 3 I have two young daughters to bestow, if God give them life 1 Senatus Populusque Anglicanus Amplissimo Civitatis Hamburgensis Senatui, Salutem. (In Milton's Litem Senatus Anglicani, OsAsfirst Letter to the Ham- burgers is not given.) '[Headed by Harris, " No direction, but wrote on the back, ' L. G. Cromwell's letter of exceptions.' "] " it ' is not the family, but the match. 1649.] LETTEE XCIL, LONDON 425 and opportunity. According to your offer, I have nothing for them ; nothing at all in hand. If my son die, what consideration is there to me, and yet a jointure parted with. If she die, there is little ; if you have an heir male, then but 3,000/., without time ascertained. 1 But for these things, I doubt not but, by one interview between you and myself, they might be accommodated to mutual satisfac- tion ; and in relation to these, I think we should hardly part, or have many words, so much do I desire a closure with you. But to deal freely with you : the settling of the Manor of Hursley, as you propose it, sticks so much with me, that either I understand you not, or else it much fails my expectation. As you offer it> there is 400/. per annum charged upon it. For the 1 50/. to your Lady, for her life, as a jointure, I stick not at that : but the 250/. per annum until Mr. Ludlow's lease expire, the term whereof I know not, and so much of the 250/. per annum as exceeds that lease in annual value for some time also after the expiration of the said lease, 2 gives such a maim to the Manor of Hursley as in- deed renders the rest of the Manor very inconsiderable. Sir, if I concur to deny myself in point of present moneys, as also in the other things mentioned, as aforesaid, I may and I do expect the Manor of Hursley to be settled without any charge upon it, after your decease, saving your Lady's jointure of 150/. per annum, which if you should think it fit to increase, I should not stand upon it. Your own estate is best known to you : but surely your personal estate, being free for you to dispose, will, with some small matter of addition, beget a nearness of equality, 'See Letter LVI. [Carlyle added many words here, printing: "And yet a jointure parted with ' on ray side.' If she die there is ' on your side ' little ' money parted with, even ' if you have an heir male, ' there is ' but 3,000/. , ' and ' without time ascertained. "] 2 ' Ludlow's Lease,' &c. is not very plain. The ' tenor of Ludlow's Lease ' is still less known to us than it was to the Lieutenant-General ! [Harris read " tenor " in- stead of term.] This much is clear: 250 + 150 = 400 pounds are to be paid off Hursley Manor by Richard and his Wife, which gives a sad ' maim ' to it. When Ludlow's Lease falls in, there will be some increment of benefit to the Manor ; but we are to derive no advantage from that, we are still to pay the surplus ' for some time after.' 426 CAMPAIGN IN IEELAND [U March. if I hear well from others ; and if the difference in that were not very considerable, I should not insist upon it. What you demand of me is very high in all points. I am willing to settle as you desire in everything, saving for present maintenance 400/. per annum, 300/. per annum. 1 I would have somewhat free, to be thanked by them for. The 300/. per annum of my old land 2 for a jointure, after my wife's decease, I shall settle ; and in the mean time out of other lands at your election ; and truly, Sir, if that be not good, nor will any lands, I doubt. I do not much distrust your principles in other things have acted 3 you towards confidence. You demand in case my son have none issue male but only daughters, then the 4 lands in Hantshire, Monmouth and Gloucestershire to descend to the daughters, or 3,000/. apiece. The first would ' be ' most unequal ; the latter is too high. They will be well provided for by being inheritrixes of their mother ; and I am willing to [for ?] 2,000/. apiece to be charged upon those lands 'for them.' Sir, I cannot but with very many thanks acknowledge your good opinion of me and of my son ; as also your great civilities towards him, and your daughter's good respects, whose goodness (though known to me only at such a distance by the report of others) I much value. And indeed that causeth me so cheerfully to deny myself as I do in the point of moneys, and so willingly to comply in other things. But if I should not insist as before, I should in a greater measure deny both my own reason and the advice of my friends than were meet ; which I may not do. Indeed, Sir, I have not closed with a far greater offer of estate, but rather chose to fix here : I hope I have not been wanting to Providence in this. 1 Means, in its desperate haste ; ' except that instead of 400A per annum for maintenance, we must say 300/.' 2 Better than Parliament-land, thinks Mayor ! Oliver too prefers it for his Wife ; but thinks all land will have a chance to go, if that go. 3 actuated or impelled. 4 [Carlyle inserted " Cromwell" here, but the lands in the counties of Hants, Monmouth and Gloucester were just what were not his own but those of the Marquis of Winchester and of Worcester. ] 1649.] LETTER XCIIL, LONDON 427 I have made myself plain to you, desiring you will make my son the messenger of your pleasure and resolution herein as speedily as with conveniency you may. I take leave, And rest, Your affectionate servant, Oliver Cromwell. I desire my service may be presented to your Lady and daughters.* On the morrow, which is Thursday the 15th, day also of John Milton's nomination to be Secretary, Lieutenant-General Crom- well was nominated Commander for Ireland ; x satisfactory appointments both. LETTER XCIII The Lieutenant-General is in hot haste to-day ; sends a brief Letter 'by your Kinsman,' consenting to almost everything. — Mayor, as we saw before, decidedly prefers ' my ould land ' to un- certain Parliamentary land. Oliver (see last Letter) offered to settle the 300/. of jointure upon his old land, after his Wife's decease ; he now agrees that half of it, 150/., shall be settled directly out of the old land, and the other half out of what Par- liamentary land Mayor may like best. — The Letter breathes haste in every line ; but hits, with a firm knock, in Cromwell's way, the essential nails on their head, as it hurries on. ' Your Kinsman,' who carries this Letter, turns out by and by to be a Mr. Barton ; a man somewhat particular in his ways of viewing matters ; unknown otherwise to all men. The Lieu- tenant-General getting his Irish Appointment confirmed in Par- liament, and the conditions of it settled, 2 is naturally very busy. * Harris, p. 507 ; Dunch's Pusey seventeen. [No. 8. Holograph. In the Morrison Collection.] x [For his speech on the subject of taking the command in Ireland, see Supple- ment, No. 42.] 2 Cromwelliana, p. 54 ; Commons Journals, &c. 428 CAMPAIGN IN IEELAND [25 March. For my worthy Friend Richard Mayor, Esquire, at Hursley : These - ' London,' 25th March 1649. Sir, You will pardon the brevity of these lines ; the haste I am in, by reason of business, occasions it. To testify the earnest desire I have to see a happy period to this treaty between us, I give you to understand, that I agree to 1501. per annum out of the 300/. per annum of my old land for your Daughter's jointure, over the 150/. where you please; 400/. for present maintenance where you shall choose ; either in Hantshire, Gloucester- or Monmouthshire ; those lands ' to be ' settled upon my son and his heirs male by your daughter; and in case of daughters only, 2,000/. apiece charged upon those lands. 400/. per annum free, 1 to raise portions for my two daughters. I expect the Manor of Hursley to be settled upon your eldest daughter and her heirs. 2 Your Lady a jointure of 1 50/. per annum out of it For compensation to your younger daughter, I agree to leave it in your power, after your decease, to charge it with as much as will buy in the lease of the term of Allington 3 by a just com- putation. I expect, so long as they live with you, their diet, as you expressed ; or in case of voluntary parting 1 50/. per annum ; 3,000/. in case you have a son, 4 to be paid in two years next 1 Means, ' shall be settled on Richard and his Wife, that I may be left free. ' [This meaning is at anyrate doubtful.] 2 [" The heirs of her body " added in another hand.] 3 ' Ludlow's Lease,' I fancy. [Harris printed this, " lease of the farm at Alling- ton," but it is difficult to accept the word as " ferme," the first letter seeming to be clearly a t, also the following word is certainly not " at," but " of." If we read " term " the allusion must be to one of the leases for terms of lives of which Crom- well has spoken before, perhaps to Ludlow's, as Carlyle suggests.] Anne Mayor, 'your younger Daughter,' married Dunch of Pusey; John Dunch, to whom we owe these seventeen Letters. See also Letter, 27th August 1657. 4 Grandson, i.e. : in the next sentence ' die' means more properly live. [Crom- well does not mean grandson ; see letters LVI. , XCII. Nor does die mean live. The point is that if Mayor has no son of his own, the manor house is to go to his eldest daughter and her heirs, but if he should have a son, he is to pay her 3,000/. within two years after the boy's birth. The time is now fixed for the first time ; in letter XCII., Cromwell complained that it was left uncertain. And if his daughter die without issue, Richard is to have 1,000/. within six months of her death. Carlyle printed ' ' within six months ' of the marriage,' " and inserted several other words, ' '•] 1649.] LETTER XCIII, LONDON 429 following ; in case your daughter die without issue, 1,000Z. within six months. Sir, if this satisfy, I desire a speedy resolution. I should the rather desire so because of what your kinsman can satisfy you in. The Lord bless you and your family, to whom I desire my affec- tions and service may be presented. I rest, Your humble servant, O. Cromwell.* Your Kinsman can in part satisfy you what a multiplicity of business we are in : modelling the Army for Ireland ; — which in- deed is a most delicate dangerous operation, full of difficulties perhaps but partly known to your Kinsman ! For, in these days, John Lilburn is again growing very noisy ; bringing out Pamphlets, England's New Chains Discovered, in several Parts. As likewise, The Hunting of the Foxes from T?iploe Heath to Whitehall by Five Small Beagles, 1 — the tracking out of Oliver Cromwell and his Grandees, onward from their rendezvous at Royston or Triploe,all the way to their present lodgment in Whitehall and the seat of authority. ' Five small Beagles,' Five vociferous petitionary Troopers, of the Levelling species, who for their high carriage and mutinous ways have been set to ' ride the wooden horse ' lately. Do military men of these times understand the wooden horse ? He is a mere triangular ridge or roof of wood, set on four sticks, with absurd head and tail superadded ; and you ride him bare-backed, in face of the world, frequently with muskets tied to your feet, — in a very uneasy manner! To Lieutenant-Colonel Lilburn and these small Beagles it is manifest we are getting into New Chains, not a jot better than the old ; and certainly Foxes ought to be hunted and tracked. Three of the Beagles, the best-nosed and loudest-toned, by names Richard Overton, William Walwyn, Thomas Prince, — these, with Lieu- tenant-Colonel Lilburn, huntsman of the pack, are shortly after this lodged in the Tower ; 2 ' committed to the Lieutenant,' to be in mild but safe keeping with that officer. 3 There is, in fact, a * Harris, p. 508 ; one of the seventeen. [No. 10. Holograph. Seal of arms, black. In the Morrison Collection.] 1 Given in Somen Tracts, vi. 44-60. '27th March, nth April 1649 (Commons Journals, in diebus). 3 [Eight troopers were originally associated with Lilburne in drawing up Eng- land s New Chains, and all eight names are appended to the petition to the General 430 CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND [30 March. very dangerous leaven in the Army, and in the Levelling Public at present, which thinks with itself : God's enemies having been fought down, chief Delinquents all punished, and the Godly Party made triumphant, why does not some Millennium arrive ? LETTER XCIV 'Compensation,' here touched upon, is the 'compensation to your younger Daughter ' mentioned in last Letter ; burden settled on Hursley Manor, 'after your decease,' 'to buy-in the Lease of Allington Farm.' Mayor wants it another way ; which ' seems very inconvenient,' and in brief cannot be. For my esteemed good Friend Richard Mayor, Esquire, These : at Hursley ' London,' 30th March 1649. Sir, I received yours of the 28th instant. I desire the matter of compensation may be as in my last to you. You propose another way ; which truly seems to me very inconvenient. I have agreed to all other things, as you take me (and that rightly), repeating particulars in your paper. The Lord dispose this great business (great between you and me) for good. You mention to send by the post on Tuesday. 1 I shall speed things here as I may. I am designed for Ireland, which will be and Council of officers (demanding the re-establishment of the court of agitators) in the copy amongst the Clarke Papers ; via. : Robert Ward, Thomas Watson, William Sawyer, Simon Graunt, George Jellis, Richard Rumball, John Benger and Thomas Harbye. The first five names only are printed in the Hunting of the Foxes, and they are probably the "five small beagles." This pamphlet was published about a fortnight after they were cashiered. Dr. Gardiner seems to intimate that they were set on their own horses, but the expression in the Diurnal " sentenced to ride the horse, with their faces to the tail," would appear rather to mean what Carlyle supposes. Overton, Prince and Walwyn were not, properly speaking, "beagles" at all, but were imprisoned with Lilburne as having been associated with him in the composition of the Second Part of England's New Chains.] 1 The 30th of March is Friday ; Tuesday is the 3d of April. 1649.] LETTEE XCV., LONDON 431 speedy. I should be very glad to see things settled before I go, if the Lord will. My service to all your family. I rest, Sir, Your affectionate servant, 'Oliver Cromwell.'* LETTER XCV Who the Lawyer, or what the "arrest" of him is, which oc- casions new expense of time, I do not know. On the whole, one begins to wish Richard well wedded ; but the settlements do still a little stick, and we must have patience. For my worthy Friend Richard Mayor, Esquire, at Hursley : These ' London,' 6th April 1649. Sir, I have received your papers enclosed in your Letter ; although I know not how to make so good use of them as otherwise might have been, to have saved expense of time, if the arrest of your lawyer had not fallen out at this time. I conceive a draught, to your satisfaction, by your own lawyer, would have saved much time ; which to me is precious. I hope you will send some ' one ' up, perfectly instructed. I shall en- deavour to speed what is to be done on my part ; not knowing how soon I may be sent down towards my charge for Ireland. And I hope to perform punctually with you. Sir, my son had a great desire to come down and wait upon your daughter. I perceive he minds that more than to attend business here. 1 I should be glad to see him settled, and all things * Harris, p. 508. [" Name torn off" as Harris says. No. n. Holograph. In the Morrison Collection. ] 1 The dog ! 432 CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND [15 April. finished before I go. I trust not to be wanting therein. The Lord direct all our hearts into His good pleasure. I rest, Sir, Your affectionate servant, Oliver Cromwell. My service to your Lady and family.* There is much to be settled before I can 'be sent down to my charge for Ireland.' The money is not yet got ;— and the Army has ingredients difficult to model. Next week, a Parliamentary Committee, one of whom is the Lieutenant-General, and another is Sir Harry Vane, have to go to the City, and try if they will lend us 120,000/. for this business. Much speaking in the Guild- hall there, in part by Cromwell. 1 The City will lend ; and now if the Army were once modelled, and ready to march ? — LETTER XCVI Here, at any rate/is the end of the Marriage-treaty, — not even Mr. Barton, with his peculiar ways of viewing matters, shall now delay it long. For my worthy Friend Richard Mayor, Esquire : These ' London,' 15th April 1649. Sir, Your kinsman Mr. Barton and myself, repair- ing to our counsel for the perfecting this business so much con- cerning us, did, upon Saturday this 15th of April, draw our counsel to a meeting : where, upon consideration had of my letter to yourself expressing my consent to particulars, which ' letter,' Mr. Barton brought to your counsel Mr. Hales of Lincoln's Inn ; 2 — upon the reading that which expresseth the way of your settling Hursley, your kinsman expressed a sense of yours * Harris, p. 509. [No. 12. Holograph. In the Morrison Collection.] 1 12th April 1649, Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 55). 2 ' Hales ' is the future Judge Hale. 1649.] LETTER XCVL, LONDON 433 contrary to the paper under my hand, as also to that under your hand of the 28th of March, which was the same with mine as to that particular. 1 And indeed I know nothing of doubt, in that which I am to do, but do agree it all to your kinsman, his satisfaction. Nor is there much material difference save in this, wherein both my paper sent by you to your counsel, and yours of the 28th, do in literal and all equitable construction agree, vis. : To settle an estate in fee-simple upon your daughter, after your decease ; which Mr. Barton affirms not to be your meaning, although he has not (as to me) formerly made this any objection ; nor can the words bear it ; nor have I anything more considerable in lieu of what I part with than this. And I dare appeal 2 to yours or any counsel in England, whether it be not just and equal that I insist thereupon. And this misunderstanding (if it be yours, as it is your kins- man's), put a stop to the business ; so that our counsel could not proceed, until your pleasure herein were known. Wherefore it was thought fit to desire Mr. Barton to have recourse to you to know your mind, he alleging he had no authority to understand that expression so, but the contrary, which was thought not a little strange, even by your own counsel. I confess I did apprehend we should be incident to mistakes, treating at such a distance, although I may take the boldness to say, there is nothing expected from me but I agree ' to ' it to your kinsman's sense to a tittle. Sir, I desired to know what commission your kinsman had to help this doubt by an expedient, who denied to have any ; but did think it were better for you to part with some money, and keep the power in your own hands as to the land, to dispose thereof as you should see cause. Whereupon an overture was 1 A mere comma here, instead of new paragraph ; greatly obscuring the sense : — ■ ' as to that particular, and I know nothing of doubt in that which I am to doe, but doe agree itt all,' &c. 2 [Harris mis-read this "have appealed."] vol. i.— 28 434 CAMPAIGN IN IKELAND [15 April. made, and himself and your counsel desired to draw it up ; the effect whereof this enclosed paper contains. And although I should not like change of agreements, yet to show how much I desire the perfecting of this business, if you like thereof (though this be far the worse bargain), I shall submit thereunto ; your counsel also thinking that things may be settled this way with more clearness and less intricacy. There is mention made of 900/. per annum to be reserved : but it comes to but about 800/. ; my lands in Glamorganshire being but little above 400/. per annum; and the 400/. per annum out of my manors in Gloucester- and Monmouth-shire. I wish a clear understanding may be between us ; truly I would not willingly mistake, desiring to wait upon Providence in this business. I rest, Sir, Your affectionate friend and servant, Oliver Cromwell. I desire my service may be presented to your Lady and daughters.* This is the last of the Marriage-treaty. 1 Mr. Barton, whom * no Counsel in England ' could back, was of course disowned in his over- zeal ; the match was concluded ; solemnised, 1st May 1649. 2 Richard died 12th July 1712, at Cheshunt, age 86 ; 3 his Wife died 5th January 1675-6, at Hursley, and is buried there, — where, ever after Richard's Deposition, and while he travelled on the Continent, she had continued to reside. In pulling down the old Hursley House, above a century since, when the Estate had passed into other hands, there was found in some crevice of the old walls a rusty lump of metal, evidently an antiquity ; which was carried to the new Proprietor at Winchester ; who sold it as 'a Roman weight,' for what it would bring. When scoured, it turned out, — or is said by vague Noble, quoting vague ' Vertue,' * Harris, p. 509. [No. 13. Holograph— Seal of arms. In the Morrison Collection.] 1 [There is one letter more, written on April 28. See Supplement, No. 43.] a Noble, i. 188. >/iid., i. 176, 188. 1649.] THE LEVELLERS 435 'Hughes's Letters/ and 'Ant. Soc' (Antiquarian Society), to have turned out, — to be the Great Seal of the Commonwealth. 1 If the Antiquaries still have it, let them be chary of it. THE LEVELLERS While Miss Dorothy Mayor is choosing her wedding-dresses, and Richard Cromwell is looking forward to a life of Arcadian felicity now near at hand, there has turned up for Richard's Father and other parties interested, on the public side of things, a matter of very different complexion, requiring to be instantly dealt with in the interim. The matter of the class called Levellers ; concerning which we must now say a few words. In 16*7, as we saw, there were Army Adjutators ; and among some of them wild notions afloat, as to the swift attainability of Perfect Freedom civil and religious, and a practical Millennium on this Earth ; notions which required, in the Rendezvous at Corkbushfield, ' Rendezvous of Ware ' as they oftenest call it, to be very resolutely trodden out. Eleven chief mutineers were ordered from the ranks in that Rendezvous ; were condemned by swift Court- Martial to die ; and Trooper Arnald, one of them, was accordingly shot there and then ; which extinguished the mutiny for that time. War since, and Justice on Delinquents, England made a Free Commonwealth, and such like, have kept the Army busy : but a deep republican leaven, working all along among these men, breaks now again into very formidable development. 2 As the following brief glimpses and excerpts may satisfy an attentive reader who will spread them out, to the due expansion, in his mind. Take first this glimpse into the civil province ; and discern, with amazement, a whole submarine world of Calvinistic Sansculottism, Five -point Charter and the Rights of Man, threat- ening to emerge almost two centuries before its time ! 'The Council of State,' says Whitlocke, 3 just while Mr. Barton 1 Noble, i. 195. Bewildered Biography of the Mayors, 'Majors or Maijors,' ibid. , ii. 436-40. 3 [There is a curious account in a Royalist newspaper of a quarrel in the House between Cromwell and H. Marten, in February, 1649, when Cromwell is said to have drawn his dagger, and " clapping it on the seat by him, expressed great anger against Harry and his levelling crew. Merc. Prag., Feb. 27-Mar. 5.] 3 17th April 1649, p. 384. 436 CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND [20 April. is boggling about the Hursley Marriage-settlements, ' has intelli- ' gence of certain Levellers appearing at St. Margaret's Hill, near * Cobham in Surrey, and at St. George's Hill/ in the same quarter : ' that they were digging the ground, and sowing it with roots and 'beans. One Everard, once of the Army, who terms himself a ' Prophet, is the chief of them : ' one Winstanley is another chief. 'They were Thirty men, and said that they should be shortly ' Four-thousand. They invited all to come in and help them ; and ' promised them meat, drink, and clothes. They threaten to pull ' down Park-pales, and to lay all open ; and threaten the neigh- ' bours that they will shortly make them all come up to the hills 'and work.' These infatuated persons, beginning a new era in this headlong manner on the chalk hills of Surrey, are laid hold of by certain Justices, 'by the country-people,' and also by 'two troops of horse ; ' and complain loudly of such treatment ; appeal- ing to all men whether it be fair. 1 This is the account they give of themselves when brought before the General some days after- wards : 'April 20th, 1649- Everard and Winstanley, the chief of those ' that digged at St. George's Hill in Surrey, came to the General 'and made a large declaration, to justify their proceedings. Eve- 'rard said, He was of the race of the Jews,' as most men, called Saxon and other, properly are ; ' That all the Liberties of the ' People were lost by the coming in of William the Conqueror ; * and that, ever since, the People of God had lived under tyranny 'and oppression worse than that of our Forefathers under the ' Egyptians. But now the time of deliverance was at hand ; and 'God would bring His People out of this slavery, and restore ' them to their freedom in enjoying the fruits and benefits of the ' Earth. And that there had lately appeared to him, Everard, a 'vision; which bade him, Arise and dig and plough the Earth, 'and receive the fruits thereof. That their intent is to restore ' the Creation to its former condition. That as God had promised ' to make the barren land fruitful, so now what they did, was to 'restore the ancient Community of enjoying the Fruits of the ' Earth, and to distribute the benefit thereof to the poor and 'needy, and to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. That 1 Kings Pamphlets, small 4to, no. 427, § 6 (Declaration of the bloody and un- christian Acting of William Star, &c. in opposition to those that dig upon George- Hill in Surrey) ; it. no. 418, § 5, &c. [A great deal of information about the Diggers, and the very curious Diggers' song, will be found in the Clarke Papers, ii. 210, el seq.~\ 1649.] THE LEVELLEES 437 'they intend not to meddle with any man's property, nor to break 'down any pales or enclosures/ in spite of reports to the con- trary ; ' but only to meddle with what is common and untilled, 'and to make it fruitful for the use of man. That the time will ' suddenly be, when all men shall willingly come in and give up 'their lands and estates, and submit to this Community of ' Goods.' These are the principles of Everard, Winstanley, and the poor Brotherhood,seemingly Saxon, but properly of the race of the Jews, who were found dibbling beans on St. George's Hill, under the clear April skies in 1649, and hastily bringing in a new era in that manner. ' And for all such as will come in and work 'with them, they shall have meat, drink, and clothes, which is ' all that is necessary to the life of man : and as for money, there ' is not any need of it ; nor of clothes more than to cover naked- 'ness.' For the rest, 'That they will not defend themselves by ' arms, but will submit unto authority, and wait till the promised 1 opportunity be offered, which they conceive to be at hand. And 'that as their forefathers lived in tents, so it would be suitable ' to their condition, now to live in the same. 'While they were before the General, they stood with their ' hats on ; and being demanded the reason thereof, they said, 'Because he was but their fellow-creature. Being asked the ' meaning of that phrase, Give honour to whom honour is due, — ' they said, Your mouths shall be stopped that ask such a ques- 'tion.' 1 Dull Bulstrode hath ' set down this the more largely because it was the beginning of the appearance ' of an extensive levelling doctrine, much to be ' avoided ' by judicious persons, seeing it is 'a weak persuasion.' The germ of Quakerism and much else is curiously visible here. But let us look now at the military phasis of the matter ; where ' a weak persuasion ' mounted on cavalry horses, with sabres and fire-arms in its hand, may become a very perilous one. Friday, 9.0th April 1649. The Lieutenant-General has con- sented to go to Ireland ; the City also will lend money ; and now this Friday the Council of the Army meets at Whitehall to decide what regiments shall go on that service. ' After a solemn seek- ing of God by prayer,' they agree that it shall be by lot : tickets are put into a hat, a child draws them : the regiments, fourteen 1 Whitlocke, p. 384. 438 CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND [36 April. of foot and fourteen of horse, are decided on in this manner. ' The officers on whom the lot fell, in all the twenty-eight regi- 'ments, expressed much cheerfulness at the decision.' The officers did : — but the common men are by no means all of that humour. The common men, blown upon by Lilburn and his five small Beagles, have notions about England's new Chains, about the Hunting of Foxes from Triploe Heath, and in fact ideas concern- ing the capability that lies in man and in a free Commonwealth, which are of the most alarming description. Thursday 26th April. This night at the Bull in Bishopgate there has an alarming mutiny broken out in a troop of Whalley's regiment there. Whalley's men are not allotted for Ireland : but they refuse to quit London, as they are ordered ; they want this and that first : they seize their colours from the Cornet, who is lodged at the Bull there : — the General and the Lieutenant- General have to hasten thither ; quell them, pack them forth on their march ; seizing fifteen of them first, to be tried by Court- Martial. Tried by instant Court-Martial, five of them were found guilty, doomed to die, but pardoned ; and one of them, Trooper Lockyer, is doomed and not pardoned. Trooper Lockyer is shot, in Paul's Churchyard, on the morrow. A very brave young man, they say ; though but three-and-twenty, ' he has served seven years in these Wars,' ever since the Wars began. ' Religious ' too, ' of excellent parts and much beloved ; ' — but with hot notions as to human Freedom, and the rate at which the millenniums are attainable, poor Lockyer ! He falls shot in Paul's Churchyard on Friday, amid the tears of men and women. Paul's Cathedral, we remark, is now a Horseguard ; horses stamp in the Canon's stalls there : and Paul's Cross itself, as smacking of Popery, where in fact Alablaster once preached flat Popery, is swept altogether away, and its leaden roof melted into bullets, or mixed with tin for culinary pewter. Lockyer's corpse is watched and wept over, not without prayer, in the eastern regions of the City, till a new week come ; and on Monday, this is what we see advancing west- ward by way of funeral to him. ' About one hundred went before the Corpse, five or six in a ' file ; the Corpse was then brought, with six trumpets sounding ' a soldier's knell ; then the Trooper's Horse came, clothed all 'over in mourning, and led by a footman. The Corpse was * adorned with bundles of Rosemary, one half stained in blood ; ' and the Sword of the deceased along with them. Some thou- 'aands followed in rank and file : all had seagreen-and-black 1649.] THE LEVELLEES 439 ' Ribbon tied on their hats, 1 and to their breasts : and the women ' brought up the rear. At the new Churchyard in Westminster, ' some thousands more of the better sort met them, who thought 'not fit to march through the City. Many looked upon this ' funeral as an affront to the Parliament and Army ; others called 'these people "Levellers ; " but they took no notice of any one's ' sayings.' 2 That was the end of Trooper Lockyer : six trumpets wailing stern music through London streets ; Rosemaries and Sword half-dipt in blood ; funeral of many thousands in seagreen Ribbons and black : — testimony of a weak persuasion now looking some- what perilous. Lieutenant-Colonel Lilburn and his five small Beagles, now in a kind of loose arrest under the Lieutenant of the Tower, make haste to profit by the general emotion ; publish on the 1st of May 3 their ' Agreement of the People/ — their Bentham- Sieyes Constitution ; Annual very exquisite Parliament, and other Lilburn apparatus ; whereby the Perfection of Human Nature will with a maximum of rapidity be secured, and a millennium straightway arrive, sings the Lilburn Oracle. 4 May 9th. Richard Cromwell is safe wedded ; Richard's Father is reviewing troops in Hyde Park, ' seagreen colours in some of their hats.' The Lieutenant-General speaks earnestly to them. Has not the Parliament been diligent, doing its best ? It has punished Delinquents ; it has voted, in these very days, resolu- tions for dissolving itself and assembling future Parliaments. 5 It has protected trade ; got a good Navy afloat. You soldiers, there is exact payment provided for you. Martial Law ? Death, or other punishment, of Mutineers ? Well ! Whoever cannot stand Martial Law is not fit to be a soldier : his best plan will be to lay down his arms ; he shall have his ticket, and get his arrears as we others do, — we that still mean to fight against the enemies of England and this Cause. 6 — One trooper showed signs of inso- lence ; the Lieutenant-General suppressed him by rigour and by clemency ; the seagreen ribbons were torn from such hats as had them. The humour of the men is not the most perfect. This Review was on Wednesday : Lilburn and his five small Beagles 1 [The sea-green ribbons first appeared at Rainborowe's funeral, perhaps, as Dr. Gardiner suggests, as being considered appropriate to a sea-man.] s Whitlocke, p. 385. s Whitlocke's date, p. 385. 4 [Under date April 28, is a short letter from Cromwell concerning the troops in Hampshire. See Supplement, No. 44.] 8 15th April 1649, Commons Journals. •Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 56). 440 CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND [HMay. are, on Saturday, committed close Prisoners to the Tower, each rigorously to a cell of his own. It is high time. For now the flame has caught the ranks of the Army itself, in Oxfordshire, in Gloucestershire, at Salisbury where head-quarters are ; and rapidly there is, on all hands, a dangerous conflagration blazing out. In Oxfordshire, one Captain Thompson, not known to us before, has burst from his quarters at Banbury, with a Party of Two-hundred, in these same days ; has sent forth his England's Standard Advanced ; 1 insisting passionately on the New Chains we are fettered with ; indig- nantly demanding swift perfection of Human Freedom, justice on the murderers of Lockyer and Arnald ; — threatening that if a hair of Lilburn and the five small Beagles be hurt, he will avenge it ' seventy-and-seven fold.' This Thompson's Party, swiftly attacked by his Colonel, is broken within the week ; he himself escapes with a few, and still roves up and down. To join whom, or to communicate with Gloucestershire where help lies, there has, in the interim, open mutiny, 'above a Thousand strong,' with subalterns, with a Cornet Thompson brother of the Captain, but without any leader of mark, broken out at Salisbury : the General and Lieutenant-General, with what force can be raised, are hastening thitherward in all speed. Now were the time for Lieutenant-Colonel Lilburn ; now or never might noisy John do some considerable injury to the Cause he has at heart : but he sits, in these critical hours, fast within stone walls ! Monday 1 ith May. All Sunday the General and Lieutenant- General marched in full speed, by Alton, by Andover, towards Salisbury ; the mutineers, hearing of them, start northward for Buckinghamshire, then for Berkshire ; the General and Lieuten- ant-General turning also northward after them in hot chase. The mutineers arrive at Wantage ; make for Oxfordshire by New- bridge ; find the Bridge already seized ; cross higher up by swim- ming ; get to Burford, very weary, and ' turn out their horses to grass ; ' — Fairfax and Cromwell still following in hot speed, ' a march of near fifty miles ' that Monday. What boots it ; there is no leader, noisy John is sitting fast within stone walls ! The mutineers he asleep in Burford, their horses out at grass ; the Lieutenant-General, having rested at a safe distance since dark, bursts into Burford as the clocks are striking midnight. He has beset some hundreds of the mutineers, ' who could only fire some 1 Given in Walker's History of Independency, part ii. 168 ; dated 6th May. 1649.] THE LEVELLERS 441 shots out of windows ; ' — has dissipated the mutiny, trodden down the Levelling Principle out of English affairs once more. Here is the last scene of the business ; the rigorous Court- Martial hav- ing now sat ; the decimated doomed Mutineers being placed on the leads of the Church to see : Thursday, 1 1th May. ' This day in Burford Churchyard, Cornet ' Thompson, brother to Thompson the chief leader, was brought ' to the place of execution ; and expressed himself to this purpose, ' That it was just what did befall him ; that God did not own the ' ways he went ; that he had offended the General : he desired ' the prayers of the people ; and told the soldiers who were ap- ' pointed to shoot him, that when he held out his hands, they 'should do their duty. And accordingly he was immediately, ' after the sign given, shot to death. Next after him was a ' Corporal, brought to the same place of execution ; where, look- ' ing upon his fellow-mutineers, he set his back against the wall ; 'and bade them who were appointed to shoot, "Shoot!" and ' died desperately. The third, being also a Corporal, was brought ' to the same place ; and without the least acknowledgment of ' error, or show of fear, he pulled off his doublet, standing a pretty ' distance from the wall ; and bade the soldiers do their duty ; 'looking them in the face till they gave fire, not showing the 'least kind of terror or fearfulness of spirit.' — So die the Leveller Corporals ; strong they, after their sort, for the Liberties of Eng- land ; resolute to the very death. Misguided Corporals ! But History, which has wept for a misguided Charles Stuart, and blubbered, in the most copious helpless manner, near two centuries now, whole floods of brine, enough to salt the Herringfishery, — will not refuse these poor Corporals also her tributary sigh. With Arnald of the Rendezvous at Ware, with Lockyer of the Bull in Bishopsgate, and other misguided martyrs to the Liberties of England then and since, may they sleep well ! Cornet Dean 1 who now came forward, as the next to be shot, ' expressed penitence ; ' got pardon from the General : and there was no more shooting. Lieutenant-General Cromwell went into the Church, called down the Decimated of the Mutineers ; re- buked, admonished ; said, The General in his mercy had forgiven them. Misguided men, would you ruin this Cause, which mar- vellous Providences have so confirmed to us to be the Cause' of 1 [Comet Henry Denne, author of a pamphlet on the rising in question, called The Levellers Designe Discovered. ] 442 CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND [17 May. God ? Go, repent ; and rebel no more, lest a worst thing befall you ! ' They wept/ says the old Newspaper ; they retired to the Devizes for a time ; were then restored to their regiments, and marched cheerfully for Ireland. — Captain Thompson, the Cornet's brother, the first of all the Mutineers, he too, a few days after- wards, was fallen-in with in Northamptonshire, still mutinous : his men took quarter ; he himself ' fled to a wood ; ' fired and fenced there, and again desperately fired, declaring he would never yield alive ; — whereupon ' a Corporal with seven bullets in his carbine ' ended Captain Thompson too ; and this formidable conflagration, to the last glimmer of it, was extinct. Sansculottism, as we said above, has to lie submerged for al- most two centuries yet. Levelling, in the practical civil or military provinces of English things, is forbidden to be. In the spiritual provinces it cannot be forbidden ; for there it everywhere already is. It ceases dibbling beans on St. George's Hill near Cobham ; ceases galloping in mutiny across the Isis to Burford ; — takes into Quakerisms, and kingdoms which are not of this world. My poor friend Dryasdust lamentably tears his hair over the ' intolerance ' of that old Time to Quakerism and such like : if Dryasdust had seen the dibbling on St. George's Hill, the threatened fall of 'Park-pales,' and the gallop to Burford, he would reflect that Conviction in an earnest age means, not lengthy Spouting in Exeter- Hall, but rapid silent Practice on the face of the Earth ; and would perhaps leave his poor hair alone. On Thursday night, 17th of the month, the General, Lieu- tenant-General, and chief Officers arrive at Oxford ; lodge in All-Souls College ; head-quarters are to be there for some days. Solemnly welcomed by the reformed University; bedinnered, bespeeched ; made Doctors, Masters, Bachelors, or what was suitable to their ranks, and to the faculties of this reformed University. Of which high doings, degrees and convocation- dinners, and eloquence by Proctor Zanchy, we say nothing, — being in haste for Ireland. This small benefit we have from the business : Anthony Wood, in his crabbed but authentic way, has given us biographical sketches of all these Graduates ; biographies, very lean, very perverse, but better than are commonly going then, and in the fatal scarcity not quite without value. 1 1 Wood's Athena, iv, (Fasti, ii. 127-155): the Graduates of Saturday, 19th May 1649, are, Fairfax, p. 148 ; Cromwell, p. 152 ; Colonels Scrope, Grosvenor, Sir Hardress Waller, Ingoldsby, Harrison, Goff, Okey ; Adjutant-General Sedascue, Scoutmaster Rowe : and of Monday, 21st, Lieutenant-Colonel Cobbet, p. 140 ; John 1649.] LETTERS XCVII— CII 443 Neither do we speak of the thanking in the House of Com- mons ; l or of the general Day of Thanksgiving for London, which is Thursday the 7th June (the day for England at large being Thursday 21st), 2 — and of the illustrious Dinner which the City gave the Parliament and Officers, and all the Dignitaries of England, when Sermon was done. It was at Grocers' Hall, this City dinner ; really illustrious. Dull Bulstrode, Keeper, or one of the Keepers, of the Commonwealth Great Seal, was there, — Keeper of that lump of dignified metal, found since all rusty in the wall at Hursley : and my Lord of Pembroke, an Earl and Member of the Council of State, ' speaking very loud ' as his manner was, insisted that illustrious Bulstrode should take place above him. I have given place to Bishop Williams when he was Keeper ; and the Commonwealth Great Seal is as good as any King's ever was ; — illustrious Bulstrode, take place above me : so ! 3 ' On almost every dish was enamelled a bandrol with the ' word Welcome. No music but that of drum and trumpet ; ' no balderdash, or almost none, of speech without meaning ; ' no drink- ing of healths or other incivility ; ' — drinking of healths ; | a kind of invocation or prayer, addressed surely not to God, in that humour ; probably therefore to the Devil, or to the Heathen gods ; which is offensive to the well-constituted mind. Four-hundred pounds were given to the Poor of London, that they also might dine. 4 — And now for Bristol and the Campaign in Ireland. LETTERS XCVII— CII Tuesday, 10th July 1649. 'This evening about five of the clock, 'the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland began his journey ; by the way ' of Windsor, and so to Bristol. He went forth in that state and ' equipage as the like hath hardly been seen ; himself in a coach •with six gallant Flanders mares, whitish gray; divers coaches ' accompanying him ; and very many great Officers of the Army ; 'his Lifeguard consisting of eighty gallant men, the meanest Rushworth, Cornet Joyce, p. 138 : — of whom those marked here in Italics have biographies worth looking at for an instant. 1 [This was on May 26, by which time Cromwell was back in London. On the 31st he wrote a letter about the disposition of the troops. See Supplement, No. 45.] 2 Commons Journals, 2dlh May 1649. 3 Whitlocke, p. 391. 4 Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, pp. 59, 60). 444 CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND [9 July. ' whereof a Commander or Esquire, in stately habit ; — with ' trumpets sounding, almost to the shaking of Charing Cross, had ' it been now standing. Of his Lifeguard many are Colonels ; ' and believe me, it's such a guard as is hardly to be paralleled ' in the world. And now have at you, my Lord of Ormond ! ' You will have men of gallantry to encounter ; whom to over- ' come will be honour sufficient, and to be beaten by them will be 'no great blemish to your reputation. If you say, Caesar or ' Nothing : they say, A Republic or Nothing. The Lord Lieu- ' tenant's colours are white.' 1 Thus has Lord-Lieutenant Cromwell gone to the Wars in Ire- land. But before going, and while just on the eve of going, he has had the following, among a multiplicity of other businesses, to attend to. LETTER XCVII Barnabas O'Brven, Sixth Earl of Thomond, Twentieth-and-odd King of Thomond, a very ancient Irish dignitary of the Limerick regions, whom it were still worth while to conciliate, has fallen into ' straits,' distresses ; applies to the Lord Lieutenant to help him a little. The Lord Lieutenant thinks his case good ; for- wards it with recommendation to Harrington, of the Council of State, the proper official person in such matters. Note, this is by no means Harrington of the Oceana, this ' Sir James ; ' this is Member ('recruiter') for Rutlandshire, and only a distant cousin of the Oceana's. What the Earl of Thomond's case was, as we have not seen the ' enclosed ' statement of it, shall remain somewhat vague to us. Thomond had not joined the Irish Massacre, in 1641 : but neither would he join against it ; he apologised to the King's Lieutenant on that occasion, said he had no money, no force ; retired with many apologetic bows into England to the King himself; leaving his unmonied Castle of Bunratty to the King's Lieutenant, — who straightway found some 2,000/. of good money lying hidden in it, and cheerfully appropriated the same. I incline to think, it may be for this Two-thousand-and-odd pounds, to have it acknowledged as a debt and allowed on the Earl of Peterborough's estate, that the poor Earl, ' in the modesty of his 1 Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 62). 1649.] LETTEE XCVIL, LONDON 445 desires/ is now pleading. For he has been in active Royalist services since that passive one ; in Ormond Wars, cessations, sequestrations, is a much-mulcted, impoverished man. And as for the Earl of Peterborough his son-in-law, he was one of poor Earl Holland's people in that fatal futile rising of St. Neot's last year ; and is now wandering in foreign parts, in a totally ruined condition. Readers who are curious may follow the indications in the note. 1 Earl Thomond's modest desire was allowed. Bun- ratty Castle, where that 2,000/. was found 'buried in the walls,' is now quite deserted by the Thomonds ; is now ' the largest Police-Barrack ' in those Limerick regions. To my worthy friend Sir James Harrington, 'Knight, of' the Council of State : These ' ' London,' gth July 1649. Sir, You see by this enclosed, how great damage the Earl of Thomond hath sustained by these troubles, and what straits he and his family are reduced unto by reason thereof. You see the modesty of his desires to be such as may well merit consideration. I am confident, that which he seeks is not so much for advantage of himself, as out of a desire to preserve his son-in-law the Earl of Peterburgh's fortune and family from ruin. 2 If the result of the favour of the House fall upon him, although but in this way, it is very probable it will oblige his Lordship to endeavour the peace and quiet of this Commonwealth, which will be no disservice to the State ; perhaps of more advantage 1 Ludlow, i. 21 ; Whitlocke (2d edit.), p. 420, see also p. 201 ; Commons Journals, vi. 279, 445 (15th August 1649, and 23d July 1650) ; Collins's Peerage, ii. 216 ; &c. &c. 2 [The Parliament order of July 23, given probably in consequence of Cromwell's application, speaks of the money — 2812/. — as "lent for the service of the State." Lord Peterborough, petitioning the Committee for Compounding in the previous March, states that his father-in-law's real estate is in the hands of the Irish rebels, and his personal estate "disposed for service of Parliament," for which they are debtors to him for 16,000/. ; that the Committee to which this matter has been referred have resolved that the fine set on petitioner may be allowed to Lord Thomond in part to satisfy his debt and he is Willing to accept it, but by reason of public business, the report cannot be made to Parliament. See Calendar of Committee for Compounding, p. 1208, Thomond yielded Bunratty to Parliament in 1646.] 446 CAMPAIGN IN IEELAND [10 July. than the extremity of his fine. Besides, you showing your readi- ness to do a good office herein will very much oblige, Sir, Your affectionate servant, Oliver Cromwell.* LETTER XCVIII Here likewise is a Letter which the Lord Lieutenant, in still greater haste, now in the very act of departing, has had to write, 1 — on behalf of his ' Partner ' or fellow Member for Cambridge ; which likewise the reader is to glance at, before going : For the Honourable William Lenthall, Esquire ' London,' ioth July 1649. Sir, I beseech you, upon that score of favour (if I be not too bold to call it friendship) which I have ever had from you, let me desire you to promote my partner's humble suit to the house ; and obtain (as far as possible you may) some just satisfaction for him. I know his sufferings for the public have been great, besides the loss of his calling by his attendance here. His affections have been true and constant ; and, I believe, his decay great in his estate. It will be justice and charity to him ; and I shall acknowledge it as a favour to, Your most humble servant, Oliver Cromwell. + John Lowry, Esquire, is Oliver's fellow Member for Cambridge. What Lowry's 'losses,' 'estate,' 'calling,' or history in general were, remains undiscoverable. One might guess that he had * Tanner MSS. (in Cary, ii. 150). [Vol. lvi. f. 69 in Tanner ; a copy evidently made for use in the House, as it is endorsed, " When the Lord Turaend or the Lord Peterburroughs business comes in, give this to Mr. Speaker."] t Harris, p. 516 ; Harkian MSS. no. 6988— collated, and exact. 1 [The letter in favour of Captain Richard Price (Supplement, No. 46), was prob- ably also written during these last days in town. ] 1649.] LETTER XCVIIL, LONDON 447 been perhaps a lawyer, some call him a * chandler ' or trader, 1 of Puritan principles, and fortune already easy. He did not sit in the -short Parliament of 1640, as Oliver had done ; Oliver's former 'Partner/ one,Meautys as we mentioned already, gave place to Lowry when the new Election happened. Lowry in 1645 was Mayor of Cambridge. Some controversy as to the Privileges of the University there, which was now re- formed according to the Puritan scheme, had arisen with the Town of Cambridge : a deputation of Cambridge University men, with ' Mr. Vines ' at their head, comes up with a Petition to the House of Commons, on the 4th of August 1645 ; reporting that they are like to be aggrieved, that the ' new Mayor of Cambridge will not take the customary oaths,' in respect to certain privileges of the University ; and praying the House, in a bland and flatter- ing way, to protect them. The House answers : " Yours is the University which is under the protection of this House ; " Ox- ford, still in the King's hands, being in a very unreformed state : "this House can see no learning now in the Kingdom but by your eyes ;" — certainly you shall be protected ! — Counter- Petitions come from Lowry and the Corporation ; but we doubt not the University was protected in this controversy, and Gown made good against Town. 2 What the controversy specially was, or what became of it, let no living man inquire. Lowry here vanishes into thick night again ; nowhere reappears till in this Letter of Cromwell's. 3 Letter written, as its date bears, on the very day when he set out towards Bristol, to take the command in Ireland, ' 10th July 1649, about five in the afternoon.' In some Committee-room, or other such locality, in the thick press of business, Lowry had contrived to make his way to the Lord Lieutenant, and to get this Letter out of him. Which indeed proved very helpful. For on that day week, the 17th of July 1649, we find as follows: ' The humble Petition of John Lowry, Esquire, was this day read. ' Ordered, That the sum of Three-hundred pounds be allowed ' unto the said Mr. John Lowry, for his losses in the said Petition ' mentioned : and that the same be charged upon the revenue : 1 Cooper's Annals of Cambridge. 2 See Commons Journals, vi. 229, 241. 3 [There is a letter of Lowry's amongst the papers of the Committee for Com- pounding, written in the May of the following year ; praying that John Jenkinson, his son-in-law, an honest and able man, a good lawyer and late under-sheriff, may be appointed steward to the Cambridge Commissioners. (See Calendar of Com- mittee for Compounding, pp. 189, 233.)] 448 CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND [i9J-ul y . 'and the Committee of Revenue are authorised and appointed ' to pay the same : and the same is specially recommended to Sir ' Henry Vane, Senior, to take care the same be paid accordingly/ 1 — which we can only hope it was, to the solace of poor Mr. Lowry, and the ending of these discussions. Ten years later, in Protector Richard's time, on Friday 22d July 1659, a! John Lowry, Esquire, now quite removed from Cam- bridge, turns up again ; claiming to be continued ' Cheque in Ward in the Port of London,' — which dignity is according assured him till 'the first day of October next.' 2 But whether this is our old friend the Mayor of Cambridge, and what kind of pro- vision for his old age this same Chequeship in Ward might be, is unknown to the present Editor. Not the faintest echo or vistage henceforth of a John Lowry either real or even possible. The rest — gloomy Night compresses it, and we have no more to say. LETTER XCIX Mayor of Hursley, with whom are the young Couple, is con- nected now with an important man : he has written in behalf of ' Major Long ; ' for promotion as is likely. The important man does not promote on the score of connexion ; and mildly signifies so much. For my very loving Brother Richard Mayor, Esquire, at Hursley ; These Bristol, igth July 1649. Loving Brother, I received your letter by Major Longe, and do in answer thereunto according to my best understanding, with a due consideration to those gentlemen who have abid the brunt of the service. I am very glad to hear of your welfare, and that our children have so good leisure to make a journey to eat cherries : — it's very excusable in my daughter, I hope she may have a very good pretence for it ! I assure you, Sir, I wish her very well, 1 Commons Journals, vi. 263. ^liid. vii. 727. 1649.] LETTER XCIX., BRISTOL 449 and I believe she knows it. I pray you tell her from me, I expect she writes often to me ; by which I shall understand how all your family doth, and she will be kept in some exercise. I have delivered my son up to you, and I hope you will counsel him : he will need it, and indeed I believe he likes well what you say, and will be advised by you. I wish he may be serious, the times require it. I hope my sister 1 is in health, to whom I desire my very hearty affections and service may be presented, as also to my Cousin Ann, 2 to whom I wish a good husband. I desire my affections may be presented to all your family, to which I wish a blessing from the Lord. I hope I shall have your prayers in the business to which I am called. My wife, I trust, will be with you before it be long, in her way towards Bristol. — Sir, discompose not your thoughts nor estate for what you are to pay me. Let me know wherein I may comply with your occasions and mind, and be confident you will find me to you as your own heart. Wishing your prosperity and contentment very sincerely, with the remembrance of my love, I rest, Your affectionate brother and servant, O. Cromwell.* Mayor has endorsed this Letter: 'Received 27th July 1649, per Messenger express from Newbury.' He has likewise, says Harris, jotted on it 'some shorthand/ and 'an account of his cattle and sheep.' — Who the ' Major Long ' was, we know not : Cromwell undertakes to 'do' for him what may be right and reasonable, and nothing more. Cromwell, leaving London as we saw on Tuesday evening July 1 Oth, had arrived at Bristol on Saturday evening, which was the 14th. He had to continue here, making his preparations, gathering his forces, for several weeks. 3 Mrs. Cromwell means 1 Mrs. Mayor. 2 Miss Mayor, afterwards Mrs. Dunch of Pusey. 3 [There is a short note from him to the Justices of Peace in those parts, dated July 2i, in the Supplement, No. 47.] * Harris, p. 510 : No. 8 of the Pusey seventeen. [It is No. 14, which would be No 10 of the Pusey seventeen. Holograph. Sealed. In the Morrison Collection.] VOL. I. 29 450 CAMPAIGN IN IEELAND [13 Aug. seemingly to pass a little more time with him before he go. In the end of July, he quits Bristol ; moving westward by Tenby 1 and Pembroke, where certain forces were to be taken up, — towards Milford Haven ; where he dates his'next Letters, just in the act of sailing. LETTER C The new Lord Lieutenant had at first designed for Munster, where it seemed his best chance lay. Already he has sent some regiments over, to reinforce our old acquaintance Colonel, now Lieutenant-General Michael Jones, at present besieged in Dublin, and enable him to resist the Ormond Army there. But on the 2d of August an important Victory has turned up for Jones ; sur- prisal, and striking into panic and total rout, of the said Ormond Army ; 2 which fortunate event, warmly recognised in the follow- ing Letter, clears Dublin of siege, and opens new outlooks for the Lord Lieutenant there. He sails thitherward ; from Milford Haven, Monday, August 13th. Ireton, who is Major- General, or third in command, Jones being second, follows with another division of the force, on Wednesday. Hugh Peters also went; and ' Mr. Owens ' also, for another chaplain. The good ship John is still lying in Milford waters, we suppose, waiting for a wind, for a turn of the tide. ' My Son ' Richard Cromwell, and perhaps Richard's Mother, we may dimly surmise, had attended the Lord Lieutenant -thus far, to wish him speed on his perilous enterprise ? ' For my loving Brother Richard Mayor, Esquire, at Hursley : These ' ' Milford Haven,' from Aboard the John, 13th August 1649. Loving- ' Brother, I could not satisfy myself to omit this oppor- tunity by my son of writing to you ; especially there being so 1 At Tenby, 2d August, Commons Journals, vi. 277. 2 Rout at Rathmines or Bagatrath: Ormond's own Account of it, in Carte's Ormond Papers, ii. 403, 407-n : Jones's Account, in Gary's Memorials, ii. 159-62. Commons Journals, vi. 278 (14th August 1649). 1649.] LETTEE C, MILFOED HAVEN 451 late and great an occasion of acquainting you with the happy news I received from Lieutenant-General Jones yesterday. The Marquis of Ormond besieged Dublin with nineteen- thousand men or thereabouts ; seven-thousand Scots and three- thousand more were coming to that work. Jones issued out of Dublin with four-thousand foot and twelve-hundred horse ; hath routed his whole Army ; killed about four-thousand upon the place, and taken 2,517 prisoners, above three-hundred 'of them' officers, some of great quality. 1 This is an astonishing mercy ; so great and seasonable as indeed we are like them that dreamed. What can we say ! The Lord fill our souls with thankfulness, that our mouths may be full of His praise,— and our lives too ; and grant we never forget His goodness to us. 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. I have committed my son to you ; pray give him advice. I envy him not his contents ; but I fear he should be swallowed up of them. I would have him mind and understand business, read a little history, study the mathematics and cosmography : — these are good, with subordination to the things of God. Better than idleness, or mere 2 outward worldly contents. These fit for public services, 3 for which a man is born. Pardon this trouble. I am thus bold because I know you love me ; as indeed 1 do you, and yours. My love to my dear sister, and my Cousin Ann your daughter, and all friends. I rest, Sir, Your loving brother, Oliver Cromwell. ' P.S.' Sir, I desire you not to discommodate yourself because of the money due to me. Your welfare is as mine : and therefore 1 The round numbers of this account have, as is usual, come over greatly exag- gerated (Carte, uti supra): 2 [" more" in Forster, but Carlyle's emendation is probably correct.] s Services useful to all men. 452 CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND [13 Aug. let me know, from time to time, what will convenience you in any forbearance ; 1 shall answer you in it, and be ready to accom- modate you. And therefore do your other business, let not this hinder.* Of Jones and his Victory, and services in Ireland, there was on the morrow much congratulating in Parliament : revival of an old Vote, which had rather fallen asleep, For settling Lands of a Thousand Pounds a-year on him ; and straightway, more special speedy Vote of 'Lands to the value of Five-hundred Pounds a-year for this last service ; ' — which latter Vote, we hope, will not fall asleep as the former had done. 1 LETTER CI Same date, same conveyance. To my beloved Daughter Dorothy Cromwell, at Hursley : These From Aboard the John, 13th August 1649. Mv dear Daughter, Your letter was very welcome to me. I like to see anything from your hand, because indeed I stick not to say I do entirely love you. And therefore I hope a word of advice will not be unwelcome nor unacceptable to thee. I desire you both to make it above all things your business to seek the Lord : to be frequently calling upon Him, that He would manifest Himself to you in His Son, and be listening what returns He makes to you, for He will be speaking in your ear and in your heart, if you attend thereunto. I desire you to pro- voke your husband likewise thereunto. As for the pleasures of this life, and outward business, let that be upon the bye. Be above all these things, by faith in Christ, and then you shall have * Forster's Statesmen of the Commonwealth, iv. 267 : From certain MSS. of Lord Nugent's. 1 Commons Journals, vi. 278, 81 (14th, 18th August 1649). 1649.] LETTER CI, ABOAED THE JOHN 453 the true use and comfort of them, and not otherwise. 1 I have much satisfaction in hope your spirit is this way set, and I desire you may grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and that I may hear thereof. The Lord is very near, which we see by His wonderful works, and therefore He looks that we of this generation draw near Him. This late great mercy of Ireland is a great manifestation thereof. Your husband will acquaint you with it. We should be much stirred up in our spirits to thankfulness. We much need the spirit of Christ, to enable us to praise God for so admirable a mercy. The Lord bless thee, my dear daughter. I rest, Thy loving Father, Oliver Cromwell. 'P.S.' I hear thou didst lately miscarry. Prithee take heed of a coach by all means ; borrow thy father's nag when thou intendest to go abroad.* Is the last phrase ironical ; or had the ' coach,' in those ancient roads, overset, and produced the disaster ? Perhaps ' thy Father's nag ' is really safer ? Oliver is not given to irony ; nor in a tone for it at this moment. These gentle domesticities and pieties are strangely contrasted with the fiery savagery and iron grimness, stern as Doom, which meets us in the next set of Letters we have from him ! On the second day following, on the 15th of August, 2 Crom- well with a prosperous wind arrived in Dublin ; ' where,' say the old Newspapers, 3 'he was received with all possible demonstrations ' of joy ; the great guns echoing forth their welcome, and the 'acclamations of the people resounding in every street. The 'Lord Lieutenant being come into the City, — where the con- 1 How true is this ; equal, in its obsolete dialect, to the highest that man has yet attained to, in any dialect old or new ! 2 Carte, ii. 83. 3 In Kimber : Life of Cromwell (London, 1724), p. 126. [From the Perfect Politician, 1660.] * Forster, iv. 268 : From certain MSS. of Lord Nugent's. 454 CAMPAIGN IN IRELAND [22 Aug. ' course of the people was very great, they all flocking to see him ' of whom before they had heard so much, — at a convenient place ' he made a stand/ rising in his carriage we suppose, ' and with ' his hat in his hand made a speech to them.' Speech unfortun- ately lost : it is to this effect ; " That as God had brought him " thither in safety, so he doubted not but by Divine Providence "to restore them all to their just liberties and properties," much trodden down by those unblessed Papist- Royalist combinations, and the injuries of war: "and that all those whose hearts' affec- " tions were real for the carrying on of the great work against " the barbarous and bloodthirsty Irish and their adherents and "confederates for propagating the Gospel of Christ, of the " establishing of Truth and Peace, and restoring that bleeding " Nation ' of Ireland ' to its former happiness and tranquillity, — "should find favour and protection from the Parliament of " England and himself, and withal should receive such endow - " ments and gratuities as should be answerable to their merits." 'This Speech,' say the old Newspapers, 'was entertained with 'great applause by the people ; who all cried out, "We will live 'and die with you ! " ' LETTER CII Sir George Ayscough, now vigilantly cruising on those coasts, ' Vice- Admiral of the Irish Seas,' who has done good service more than once, — he ought not to suffer in his private economics by absence on the Public Service. For the Honourable William Lenthall, Esquire, Speaker of the Parliament : These Dublin, 22 involved in 'reasonings,' in painful labyrinths of constitutional and other logic, for the present. Of which sort there are now many. Who indignantly drew the sword, and long zealously, fought and smote with it, nothing doubting ; and are now some- what astonished at the issue that has come of it ! , Somewhat uncertain whether these late high actings, executing judgment on your King, abolition of your Honse of Lords, and so forth, are owned by the Eternal Powers or not owned., Of Temporal Powers there is clearly none that will own them ; and unless the other do — ? The Lord' Lieutenant intimates, in his friendliest way, that surely it is indispensable to have ' satisfaction ' on that score ; also that it is perilous not to get it ; and furthermore that labyrinths of constitutional and other logics are by no means the course towards that. 1 Whitlocke, p. 422. 3 Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 77). 3 Appendix, No. 17 ; Letter, of 31st December, recommending a Chief- Justice for Munster. 1650.] LETTER CXVIIL, CORK 521 For the Right Honourable the Lord Wharton : These Cork, ist Jan. 1649. My dear Friend, my Lord; If I know my heart, I love you in truth : and therefore if, from the jealousy of unfeigned love, I play the fool a little, and say a word or two at guess, I know you will pardon it. It were a vain thing, by letter, to dispute over your doubts, or to undertake answer your objections. I have heard them all ; and 1 have rest from the trouble of them, and * of ' what has risen in my own heart ; for which I desire to be humbly thankful. I do not condemn your reasonings ; I doubt them. It's easy to object to the glorious actings of God, if we look too much upon instruments. I have heard computations made of the members in Parliament : ' The ' good kept out, the worst left in ; x it has been so this nine years, yet what has God wrought. The greatest works last; and still is at work. Therefore take heed of this scandal. Be not offended at the manner ' of God's working ; ' perhaps no other way was left. What if God accepted the zeal, as He did that of Phineas, 2 whose reason might have called for a jury ! 3 What if the Lord have witnessed his approbation and acceptance to this also, not only by signal outward acts, but to the heart also ? What if I fear my friend should withdraw his shoulder from the Lord's work (Oh, it's grievous to do so) through scandals, through false 4 mistaken reasonings. 1 Original has, ' most bad remaining ; ' ' these nine years ' means, ever since the Parliament first met. 2 ' And behold, one of the Children of Israel came,and brought unto his brethren ■ a Midianitish woman ; in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the Congregation ' of the Children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the Tabernacle of ' the Congregation, '— by reason of those very sins. ' And when Phinehas the son ' of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the Priest, saw it, he rose up from among the Con- 1 gregation, and took a javelin in his hand ; and he went after the man of Israel ' into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman, ' through the belly. So the plague was stayed from the Children of Israel.' (Numbers, xxv. 6-8.) '[Carlyle altered to "whom reason might have called before a jury," but Cromwell wrote as above, and his meaning evidently is that Phineas inflicted summary justice, instead of waiting for the culprits to be punished by ordinary forms of law. ] * |This word erased. ] VOL. I.- 522 CAMPAIGN IN IEELAND [l Jan. There's difficulty, there's trouble; in the other way, there's safety, ease, wisdom : in the one no clearness (this is an obj^ot- tion indeed), in the other satisfaction. It's well ii'we thought of that first, and severed from the other considerations, 1 which do often bias, if not bribe the mind, whereby mists are often raised in the way we slioi'M walk in, and we call it darkness or dis- satisfaction : Gi*/i DJwrT»iKiful hearts ! Oh, this pleasing world ! How great is it to be the Lord's servant in any drudgery a (I thought*' 1 1 i-'fc, ib .niflil' i Written near the other side: love will not let me. alone ; I h?.v/- ?ruM often provoked 'to it by \ in in all hazards Hi ; .,ay so; we cannot of ourselves. How hard a thing is it to reason ourselves up to the Lord's service, though it be so honourable ; how easy to put ourselves out of it, where the flesh has so many advantages ! You was desired to go along with us : I wish it still. 8 Yet we are not triumphing ; we may (for aught flesh knows) suffer after all this : the Lord prepare us for His good pleasure ! You were with us in the Form of things : why not in the Power ? * I am persuaded your heart hankers after the hearts of your poor friends ; and will, until you can find others to close with : which, I trust (though we in ourselves be contemptible), God will not let you do ! My service to the dear little Lady: I wish you make her not a greater temptation than she is. Take heed of all relations. Mercies should not be temptations : yet we too oft mnl-c them so. The Lord direct your thoughts into the obedience of His will, and give you rest and peace in the truth. Pray for Your most true and affectionate Servant in the Lord, Oliver Cromwell. 1 of ' safety,' profit, &c. 2 Turns the leaf, we perceive. 'Shadow of condescension, implied in this, strikes his Excellency; which he hastens to retract. 4 [Carlyle printed " You were with us in the Power : why not in the Form ?"] 1650.] LETTER CXVIIL, CORK 523 'P.S.' I received a Letter from Robert Hammond, whom truly I love in the Lord with most entire affection : it much grieved me, not because I judge, but feared the whole spirit of it was from temptation ; indeed I thought I perceived a proceeding in that which the Lord will (I trust) cause him to unlearn. 1 would fain have written to him, but am straitened in time. Would he would be with us a little ! Perhaps it would be no hurt to him.* Of Wharton and his dubitations, which many share in, we shall again hear. Of Wharton, young Colonel Hammond, young Colonel Montague, Tom Westrow, Henry Lawrence, idle Dick, men known to us, and men unknown ; — of them and their abstruse 'reasonings,' and communings with the Lord Lieutenant in St. James's Park, we shall have a hint by and by. Some of whom received full ' satisfaction,' and others never could. * Gentleman's Magazine (London, 1814), lxxxiv. p. 418. Given there without editing ; no notice whence ; clearly genuine. Note to Third Edition. Original, in autograph, endorsed by Wharton, ' rec ; 30th January 1649, from my Lord Leefetennant of Ireland, from Ireland,' is now (1848) in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Postscript here is added from the Original. [But the postscript is given in the Gentleman's Magazine, where the letter is printed very correctly. The alterations in it were made by Carlyle.] This Letter, and two others to be given by and by (CXLVI. and CLXXXI. ), came to the Fitzwilliam Museum, some thirty years ago ; discovered ' among the Court-rolls of the Manor of Wymondham Crom- well, Norfolk.' End of Vol. I. THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED I ■