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Reign of Charles I. (Continued.) page 9


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The close of this year was saddened to the parliament by the death of Pym. It was, indeed, a serious loss, following that of Hampden. No man had contributed so much to give firmness to the conduct of the commons, and clearness to the objects at which it aimed. His mind was formed on the old classic model of patriotic devotion. He had no desire to pull down the crown or the church, but he would have the one restrained within the limits of real service to the country, and the other to those of its spiritual benefit. Therefore he recommended sternly resistance to the royal power, preferring civil war to perpetual slavery, and the exemption of bishops and clergymen from all civil offices. Seeing from the first the ends that he would attain, guided by the most solemn and perspicuous principles, he never swerved from them under the pressure of flattery or difficulty, and he would not let the state swerve. His eloquence and address, but far more his unselfish zeal, enabled him to draw the commons and intimidate the lords. He boldly told the peers that they must join in the salvation of the country, or see it saved without them, and take the consequences in the esteem or the contempt of the people. They would have fared better had they profited by his warning. Pym was the Aristides of the time: he sought no advantage to himself, he derived nothing from his exertions or his prominent position, but the satisfaction of seeing his country saved by his labours. He derived no influence from his wealth or rank, for he had none of either; his whole prestige was intellectual and moral; he wore himself out for the public good, and died as poor as he commenced, the only grant which he received from the state being an honourable burial in Westminster Abbey. The sycophants of royalty, on the return of monarchy, cast out his remains from that miscellaneous charnel-house of kings, patriots, poets, sycophants, and kept mistresses; but there was a monument which they dared not touch, in which his memory lives, the heart of the nation, for there is no man to whom posterity owes, and will owe, more of the glory, the freedom, and the daily comforts of Englishmen. Wherever we go, we walk over his tomb, for it embraces every foot of English ground, and out of it springs perpetually the ennobling and enfranchising consciousness of what, as a nation, we are and must be.

At the opening of 1644 Charles had devised a scheme for undermining the authority of the parliament, which was by issuing a proclamation for its extinction. Clarendon, who was now the lord chancellor, very wisely assured him that the members of the parliament sitting at Westminster would pay no heed to his proclamation, and that a better measure would be to summon parliament to meet at Oxford. That would give every member of both houses, who were at all inclined to again recognise the royal authority, the opportunity to join him; and, on the other hand, a parliament assembling by call and authority of the king at his court, would stamp the other as illegal and rebellious. The advice was adopted, and at the summons forty-three peers and one hundred and eighteen commoners assembled at Oxford. These, however, consisted of such as had already seceded from the parliamentary party, and the king claimed as the full number of his parliament at Oxford, eighty-three lords, and one hundred and seventy-five commons. According to Whitelock, there met at Westminster twenty-two lords only, and eleven more were excused on different accounts, making thirty-three; of the commons there were more than two hundred and eighty. The king, in his parliament, promised all those privileges which he had so pertinaciously denied to all his past parliaments, and a letter, subscribed by all the members of both houses, was addressed to the earl of Essex, requesting him to inform "those by whom he was trusted," that they were desirous to receive commissioners, to endeavour to come to a peaceable accommodation on all matters in. dispute. Essex returned the letter, refusing to forward a paper which did not acknowledge the authority of the body addressed. The point was conceded, and Charles himself then forwarded him a letter addressed to the lords and commons of parliament assembled at Westminster in his own name, soliciting, by advice of the lords and commons of parliament assembled at Oxford, the appointment of such commissioners "for settling the rights of the crown and parliament, the laws of the land, and the liberties and property of the subject."

In this letter appeared a remarkable sentence, no other than a recommendation of toleration on religious subjects. the first mention of such topic, as Dr. Lingard has observed, in the history of England. This was, we may feel assured introduced not from any conviction in the royal mind, or in those of his advisers, of the Christianity of such a principle, for neither his church nor any other, except the independents, had for a long time posterior any idea of such a thing. All the other parties, the church, the catholics, as exemplified in Ireland, wherein they had the power, the Scotch presbyterians, and the English puritans, had yet so ill-read the Gospels, that they were rampant to insist on the supremacy of their own creed, and the rigorous suppression of all others. Nor were Charles and his advisers the first to name the new word "toleration." It had been stated in the preceding autumn in the assembly of divines at Westminster by Selden, Whitelock, and others, of the independent persuasion, and as violently resisted by the presbyterians. Selden, who was far more profound scholar than the generality of the :ministers, continually contradicted their gloomy and persecuting doctrines from the original Greek and Hebrew of the Scriptures. "Perhaps," he would say, "in your little pocket Bibles with gilt leaves, the translation may be thus, but the Greek, or the Hebrew, signifies thus and thus," says Whitelock, and so would totally silence them. But he could not silence them long or altogether. "Toleration!" they exclaimed. "Toleration would make the kingdom a chaos, a Babel, another Amsterdam, a Sodom, an Egypt, a Babylon. Toleration is the grand work of the devil, his masterpiece, and chief engine to uphold his tottering kingdom. It is the most compendious, ready way to destroy all religion, lay all waste, and bring in all evil. As original sin is the fundamental sin, having the seed and spawn of all sin in it," so they declared that "toleration had all errors in it, and all evils." And they petitioned parliament against the smallest admission of it. "We detest and abhor," they said, "this much endeavoured toleration. Our bowels are stirred within us, and we could even drown ourselves in tears when we call to mind how long and sharp a travail this kingdom hath been in for many years together to bring forth that blessed fruit of a pure and perfect reformation; and now, at last, after all our pains, and dolours, and expectations, this real and thorough reformation is in danger of being strangled in the birth by a lawless toleration that strives to be brought forth before it."

Such were the notions of "the liberty of the gospel" at that time of day. But the independents were beginning to let light in on that head, and Charles, who saw that they were a strong party, thought he should catch them by this feeler, or at least throw discord into the camp of his enemies. But it did not succeed. The parliament of Westminster took exception to the phrase in the king's letter of "the members of both houses meeting in a full and free convention of parliament," &c., as implying that theirs was not such a full convention. They denounced the whole scheme as popish and Jesuitical, to beguile them into renouncing their own authority, and called on the king to join his legitimate parliament. There was no possibility of peace, and the Oxford parliament proceeded to proclaim the Scots, who had entered England contrary to the pacification, and all who countenanced them guilty of high treason.

The Scots passed the Tweed on the 16th of January, 1644. The winter was very severe, and the march of the army was dreadful. They made their way, however, to Newcastle, where the marquis of Newcastle had just forestalled them, by getting possession of it. They then went on to Sunderland. Newcastle came out and offered them battle, but the Scots, though suffering from the weather and want of provisions, having posted themselves in a strong position, determined to wait for the arrival of parliamentary forces to their aid. The defeat of lord Byron at Nantwich with his Irish regiments, permitted Sir Thomas Fairfax and lord Fairfax, his father, to draw towards them, and these generals having also defeated the royalists under lord Bellasis, the son of lord Falconberg, at Leeds, Newcastle betook himself to York, where he was followed by both the Fairfaxes and the Scots.

Charles was lying at Oxford with a force of ten thousand men; Waller and Essex, with the parliamentary army, endeavoured to invest him in that city, but as they were marching down upon him from two different quarters, he issued from the city with seven thousand men, and made his way to Worcester. As these two generals detested each other, and could not act in concert, Essex turned his march towards the west of England, where prince Maurice lay, and Waller gave chase to the king. Charles, by a feint of marching on Shrewsbury, induced Waller to proceed in that direction, and then suddenly altering his course at Bewdley, regained Oxford, and after beating up the parliamentary quarters in Buckinghamshire, encountered and worsted Waller at Copredy Bridge, and then marched westward after Essex.

Whilst these manoeuvres were in progress, the earl of Manchester, having as his lieutenant-general Oliver Cromwell, marched northward to co-operate with Leslie and the Fairfaxes at York against Newcastle. Charles, who saw the imminent danger of Newcastle, and the loss of all the north if he were defeated, sent word to prince Rupert to hasten to his assistance. Rupert had been gallantly fighting in Nottinghamshire, Cheshire, and Lancashire, and everywhere victorious. He had compelled the parliamentary army to raise the siege of Newark, had taken Stockport, Bolton, and Liverpool, and raised the siege of Latham House, which had been nobly defended for eighteen weeks by the countess of Derby. On receiving the king's command, he mustered what forces he could, and reached York on the 1st of July. The parliamentary generals, at his approach, raised the siege, and withdrew to Marston Moor, about four miles from the city. Rupert had about twenty thousand men, with which lie had committed dreadful ravages on the Lancashire hills; he had now relieved the marquis, and might have defended the city with success, but he was always ready to fight, and Newcastle having six thousand men, altogether twenty-six thousand, he persuaded him to turn out with him and chastise the roundheads. The English and Scotch had about the same number. So little did the parliamentarians expect a battle, that they were in the act of drawing off their forces to a greater distance, when Rupert attacked their rear with his cavalry. On this they turned, and arranged themselves in front of a large ditch or drain, and the royalists posted them-selves opposite. The Scotch and English occupied a large rye field on a rising ground, bounded by this ditch, and they placed their troops in alternate divisions, so that there should be no jealousy between them. It was not till five o'clock in the afternoon that the two armies had arranged themselves for the fight, and then they stood solemnly gazing on each other for two hours, each loth to undertake the disadvantage of crossing the ditch first. Newcastle, who did not want to fight, had retired to his carriage in ill-humour, and all began to think that there would be no battle till the morrow, when Rupert, who was posted on the right wing with his cavalry, another body of cavalry covering the flank of the infantry on the left, made one of his sudden and desperate charges. Like all these exploits of his, it was so impetuous, that it bore the parliamentary cavalry on their left wing clear away before it, and the officers and their horse were speedily in full flight, pursued by the fiery Rupert, who, as was his wont, forgot all but the fugitives before him, and with three thousand cavalry galloped after them for some miles. The royalist infantry followed up the effect by attacking that of the parliament with such fury, that the latter was thrown into confusion, and the three generals, Manchester, lord Fairfax, and Leslie, believing all lost, fled with the rest, in the direction of Tadcaster and Cawood Castle. Cromwell, who commanded the right wing of the parliamentary army, was thus left to fight or flee, as might happen, but nothing-daunted, he attacked the royalist cavalry with such vigour, that he completely routed them, and then turned again to oppose the horse of Rupert, who were just returning from the chase, to find the rest of their troops in flight. These and a body of pikemen, called "white coats," fought desperately. The cavalry, on exhausting their charges, flung their pistols at each other's heads, and then fell to with their swords. At length the victory remained with Cromwell, Rupert drew off, and Cromwell remained all night on the field. He sent messages after the fugitive generals to recall them, but Leslie was already in bed at Leeds when the news reached him, when he exclaimed, "Would to God I had died on the place!" Cromwell won wondrous renown by this action. He kept the field all night with his troopers, who were worn out by the tremendous exertions of the day, and were in expectation every moment of a fresh attack from Rupert, who might have collected a large body of troops together to overwhelms him. But he had lost the battle by his incurable rashness, after having induced the unwilling Newcastle to risk the engagement, and he made his retreat into Lancashire, and thence into the western counties.

Four thousand one hundred and fifty bodies of the slain were buried on the moor; the greater part of the arms, ammunition, and baggage of the royalists fell into the hands of Cromwell, with about a hundred colours and standards, including that of Rupert himself, and the arms of the Palatinate. Newcastle evacuated York and retired to the continent, accompanied by the lords Falconberg and Widderington, and about eighty gentlemen, who believed the royal cause was totally ruined. This bloodiest battle of the war was fought on the 2nd of July, and on the morning of the 4th the parliamentary forces were again in muster, and sate down under the walls of York. On the 7th, being Sunday, they held a public thanksgiving for their victory, and on the 11th being ready to take the city by escalade, Glenham, the governor, came to terms, on condition that the garrison should be allowed to march out with all the honours of war, and retire to Skipton. On the 16th they evacuated the city, and the parliamentarians entered, and marched directly to the cathedral, to return thanks for their victory. The battle of Marston Moor had indeed utterly destroyed the king's power in the north. Newcastle only stood out; but this the Scots invested, and readily reduced, taking up their quarters there for the present.

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