Reign of Charles I. (Continued.) page 6

Both parties claimed the victory, but if remaining on the field of battle, and being the last to march away, are any criterions of success, these were on the side of Essex. His men lay in the field all night, a keenly frosty one, without covering, but supplied with meat and beer; and the next morning Charles marched away to Banbury. It was said that gunpowder failed in Essex's army, or that he would have pursued the royal army up the hill. As it was, though strengthened by the arrival of most of his forces left behind under Hampden, he did not think fit to follow Charles the next day, but allowed him to continue his route, himself retreating to Warwick. This was not the part of a victor, so that neither could be said to have won. The number of slain has been variously estimated; most writers state them at about five thousand, but the clergyman of Keinton, who buried the dead, the best authority, reports them only twelve hundred.

Charles marched from Banbury to Oxford, where a number of gentlemen, well mounted, having heard his engagement at Edge Hill represented as a victory, came in, and thus recruited the wasted body of his cavalry. Rupert, during the king's stay, kept up that species of warfare which he had been taught to admire in count Mansfeldt, in Germany. He made rapid rides round the country, to Abingdon. Henley, and other towns, where he levied contributions without scruple from the roundhead partizans. The Londoners were in the greatest alarm at the tidings of the king's growing army at Oxford, and sent pressing orders to Essex to hasten to the defence of the capital. The trainbands were kept constantly under arms, trenches were thrown up round the city, forces were despatched to hold Windsor Castle, seamen and boatmen were sent up the Thames to prevent any approach in that direction, and the apprentices were encouraged to enrol themselves by the promise of the time they served being reckoned in the term of their apprenticeship. At length Essex reached London, posted his men about Acton on the 7th of November, and rode to Westminster, to give an account of his campaign. It could not be said that he had shown much generalship, but it was not a time to be too critical with commanders: the brilliant military genius of Cromwell had not yet revealed itself, therefore the parliament gave him hearty thanks, voted him five thousand pounds, arid recommended the capital to his care.

Essex was scarcely arrived when news came that Charles had quitted Oxford, and was directing his march on London. Henry Martin, a member of the commons, who commanded at Reading, considering that town untenable, fell back on London. The panic in the capital was great. A deputation was sent, consisting of the earl of Northumberland and three members of the commons, to meet the king and present a petition for an accommodation. They encountered him at Colnbrook: he received the petition very graciously, and called God to witness that he desired nothing so much as peace, and the sparing of his bleeding country. This being reported to parliament, they ordered Essex to suspend hostilities, and sent Sir Peter Killigrew to request the same on the part of the king, supposing that after this gracious message, in which he promised to reside near London till the differences were settled, that lie would have ceased all offensive operations, But scarcely was Killigrew gone, when parliament was startled by the sound of artillery, and Essex rushed from the house and rode in the direction of the sound. He found prince Rupert closely followed by the king in the full attack of Brentford, which was defended by a small force of Hollis's horse. The king had taken advantage of a thick November fog, to endeavour to steal a march on London; but Hollis's horse, though few, were stout, and withstood the whole weight of the attack till reinforced by the regiments of Hampden and Brooke. Thus the king's object was defeated, and the next day, the 14th of November, being Sunday, there was such an outpouring from London of the train bands, and of zealous citizens, that Essex found himself at the head of twenty-four thousand men, drawn up on Turnham Green. Hampden, Hollis, and all the members of parliament advised sending a body of soldiers to make a detour and get into the king's rear, and then to fall vigorously on in front, and Hampden, with his regiment, was despatched on this service. But Essex speedily recalled him, saying he would not divide his forces; and thus, not only was the retreat left open to the king, but three thousand troops, which had been posted at Kingston Bridge, were called away to add to the force in London. Charles, therefore, finding a very formidable body in front, and the way open behind, drew off his forces, and retreated to Reading, and then again to his old quarters at Oxford. Again Essex had displayed miserably defective tactics, or he might have readily surrounded and cut up the royal force. It was in vain that the parliamentary leaders urged Essex to give instant pursuit of the retreating army; but other officers thought it was better to let him take himself away. The parliament, in great indignation at this conduct of the king, passed a resolution never to enter into any future negotiations with him again; and Charles, on his part, pretended equal surprise and resentment, declaring that the parliament had thrown three regiments into Brentford after sending to treat with him. But it must be remembered that they proposed this accommodation at Colnbrook, and what business, then, had he at Brentford? The march, and the hour of it, were sufficiently decisive of Charles being the aggressor.

Charles lay with his army at Oxford during the winter, and prince Rupert exercised his marauding talents in the country round. Of the parliamentary proceedings or preparations we have little account, except that the parliamentarians were generally discontented with Essex, who was slow, by no means sagacious, and, many believed, not hearty in the cause. Sir William Waller, however, drove Goring out of Portsmouth and took possession of it, so that he was dubbed by the people William the Conqueror, and it was agitated to put him at the head of the army in the place of Essex. There was, however, another man, Cromwell, who had quitted his farm and raised a regiment of his own. He was colonel Cromwell now, and his son Oliver captain. He had told Hampden at the battle of Edge Hill, where they both were, that it would never do to trust to a set of poor tapsters and town apprentices for lighting against men of honour. They must have men, too, imbued with a principle still higher, and that must be religion. Hampden said it was a good notion if it could be carried out; and from that time Cromwell kept it in view, and so collected and trained that regiment of serious religious men, known the world over, and to be known while the world stands, as his invincible Ironsides. Cromwell was active all this winter along the eastern coast, in Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, Essex, and elsewhere, raising supplies, stopping those of the enemy, and forming associations of counties for mutual defence. Four or six were formed, but all soon went to pieces except that of the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, Herts, of which lord Grey of Wark was the commander, and Oliver, his lieutenant, the soul. This association maintained its district during the whole war. In February we find Cromwell at Cambridge, the castle of which, with its magazines, he had taken by storm, and had now collected there great forces from Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk.

In February, whilst Cromwell was thus engaged, the queen landed at Burlington, in Yorkshire. She had come over from Scheveling in a first-rate English ship, the Princess Royal, having eleven transports filled with ammunition and stores for the king's army. As the parliamentary fleet was on the watch and guarding the English coast, she was convoyed by the celebrated admiral Van Tromp. She landed on the 22nd under protection of Van Tromp's fleet, and of one thousand cavaliers on land. Her voyage had been stormy, and she was got to bed in Burlington, when a brisk cannonade roused her, the balls whistling over and through the house where she lay. It was from five English men-of-war under admiral Batten, which had come on hi all haste from Newcastle, but being too late to prevent her landing, vented their unmanly spite in endeavouring to destroy the queen in her lodging. She was obliged to rush from the house half dressed, without stockings and shoes, the balls falling fast around her and her attendants as they hurried out of the town and took shelter beneath a high bank. There even the balls passed close over their heads, and actually threw the earth and stones over the queen. One of her servants was killed within seventy paces of her.

Batten did not stay to fight with Van Tromp, so the queen returned into Burlington, and remained there seven days. Henrietta took up her head-quarters at Boynton Hall, the seat of Sir William Strickland, a regular roundhead, but where the ladies of the family entertained her courteously, and imprudently brought out in her honour all their old family plate. The queen's eye caught the sight instantly, and she said she must make a loan of it, for all means were necessary to raise funds for the war, the roundheads doing the same; but she pledged herself to see it returned or paid for if she lived, and till then left a fine portrait of herself, done at the court of Holland. The plate, of course, was never restored, but the painting became in course of time of equal value.

The queen's arrival created immense enthusiasm amongst the cavaliers. Her spirit, her manners, her condescension fascinated all who came near her. She was in every sense now a heroine, and the fact of the parliament having impeached her of high treason, and her head being forfeited if she fell into their hands, only raised her own resolution and the devotion of all around her. She was conducted to York by a guard of two thousand cavaliers, headed by the marquis of Montrose himself, and attended by six pieces of cannon, two mortars, and two hundred and fifty wagons of ammunition. The lord Fairfax, who was the only parliamentary general with any force in the north besides the governor of Hull, was gallant enough to offer to escort her himself with his roundheads; but she knew she was outlawed, and declined the honour. She rode on horseback on the march, calling herself the "she-majesty-generalissima," ate her meals in the sight of the army, in the open air, and delighted the soldiers by talking familiarly to them. She moreover set at liberty a captain of one of Batten's ships which had attacked her, and said to be the very man who had pointed the cannon at her window, as he was on his way to be hanged, having been captured directly after. Could she have infused this politic spirit into her husband, he might yet have been saved. She remained nearly four months at York, doing wonderful service to the king's cause, and, as we shall find, succeeding even in corrupting the faith of the Hot-hams, father and son, at Hull. Her arrival gave new spirit to the royal cause, but was undoubtedly, at the same time, the most fatal thing which could have happened to it, as it strengthened the king in his obstinate determination to refuse all accommodation with the parliament.

And although the parliament, in its resentment at the king's treachery at Brentford, had vowed never to treat with him again, in March, 1643, it made fresh overtures to him. The deputation sent to him consisted of the earls of Northumberland, Pembroke, Salisbury, and Holland, viscounts Wenman and Dungarvon, John Holland and William Litton, knights, and William Pierpoint, Bulstrode Whitelock, Edmund Waller, and Richard Winwood, esquires. They were received by the king in the garden of Christchurch, and permitted to kiss his hands. On Waller performing that ceremony, Charles said graciously, "You are the last, but not the worst, nor the least in my favour." In fact, Waller at that moment was engaged in a plot for the king, whence the significant remark. As the two parties insisted on their particular demands, the interview came to nothing. Courteous as the king was to Waller, he was otherwise by no means so to the deputation. The queen was in the country with abundant supplies of arms and ammunition, and he was elated with the fact. He interrupted so rudely the earl of Northumberland, and so frequently, whilst reading the parliamentary proposals, that the earl stopped, and demanded proudly whether his majesty would allow him to proceed. To which Charles replied curtly, "Aye! aye!" The negotiations continued for several weeks, but during their abortive proceedings military movement was going on. Essex took Reading after a siege of ten days, and Hampden proposed to invest Oxford and finish the war at once, which Clarendon confesses would have clone it, for the town was ill fortified, was so crowded with people that it could not long hold out, and Charles had not then received his ammunition from the queen. The dilatory spirit of Essex, however, and his officers prevailed, and this opportunity was lost. In May the ammunition arrived, and whilst Charles was preparing to act, the parliament was busy in unravelling different plots against them. One was that in which Waller was engaged. This was a most daring one. Waller, as we have seen, had been one of the most determined and ultra -declaimers in parliament against the king; but now he had been won over by lord Falkland, and had entered into a scheme for betraying London to the royalists, and seizing the leaders of the opposition. In this scheme were himself, Tomkins, his brother-in-law, Challoner, Blinkhorne, and others. A commission of array was smuggled into the city through lady Aubigny, whose husband fell at Edge Hill, by which all inclined to the king's service might, receive due authority. But the servant of Tomkins overheard the conspirators, carried the news to Pym, and they were speedily in custody. Tomkins and Challoner were hanged within sight of their own houses; Blinkhorne, White, Hasell, and Waller were, by the intercession of Essex, reprieved, but Waller was lined ten thousand pounds, and confined in the Tower for a year.

About the same time a similar plot was detected for betraying Bristol by colonel Fiennes, the governor, son of lord Say and Sele. The chief conspirators were Robert and William Yeomans, who were condemned to be executed; but one of them was saved by the king declaring that he would hang as many of his prisoners. The prospect which was opened of terror and barbarity by such retaliation, put an end to it, and saved at this time colonel Lilburne, who had been taken at Brentford. Lilburne was a most ultra-republican, and at the same time declaimer from the Bible on the mischief of kings. He had been whipped in Westminster, but had only been made more outrageous, and was so pugnaciously inclined, that it was said that if he were left alone in the world, John would be against Lilburne, and Lilburne against John. Charles ordered his execution, but the threats of the parliament of sweeping retaliation saved the democratic orator and soldier.