320 Cromwell and toleration.

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began to raise their voices against the uniformity which was now to be enforced, and in favour of toleration still more complete than that which men like Fuller and Chillingworth would have been willing to allow. The Baptists even advocated a complete separation of Church and State. Roger Williams published, early in 1644, his tract, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecutions; pamphlets by other writers upheld full liberty of conscience. It was ominous that some of these men began to lean towards the King. So early as October, 1643, Thomas Ogle had carried to Oxford overtures for a settlement on the basis of a restricted Episcopacy, combined with toleration of objectors. The Westminster Assembly itself felt obliged to issue a declaration in favour of "the rights of particular congregations" (December 23); and this seems to have put an end to intrigues with the King. How potent an ally the Independents were subsequently to find in Cromwell was not yet apparent; for, though he did not sign the Covenant till February, 1644, when he was appointed Lieutenant-General, and though he soon showed a reluctance, for military reasons, to impose it on the army, his tolerance was rather the result of political insight than of personal feeling. It was not till September, 1644, that he persuaded Parliament to pass a resolution instructing the Committee appointed to treat with the Scottish Commissioners and the Assembly of Divines to "endeavour the finding out some way, how far tender consciences . . . may be borne with according to the Word." The resolution gave grievous umbrage to the Scots; but it marked out Cromwell as the leader of the party which was to raise him to power, and contained the germ of one of the greatest political changes of the seventeenth century.

We must now return to military matters. The beginning of 1644 found the King master of two-thirds of the country; but the tide was turning, and time was on the side of the Parliament. Its troops were learning their trade, and were becoming more than a match for the Cavaliers. Its northern ally was about to come into the field. It still held several ports in the west - Poole, Lyme, Plymouth, Pembroke, and Liverpool. An ordinance was passed (February 16) appointing a Committee of Both Kingdoms to manage the war, to consist of seven peers, fourteen members of the House of Commons, and four Scottish Commissioners. It superseded the original Committee of Safety, and was given much larger powers as a responsible executive. Essex, Manchester, Waller, and Cromwell were members of it.

On January 19 the Scottish army crossed the Tweed, under Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven. It consisted of 18,000 foot and about 3000 horse and dragoons. Newcastle (who had been made a Marquis in October) hurried northward to meet it, leaving Lord Bellasis to hold Yorkshire. He succeeded in throwing himself into the city of Newcastle before the leisurely Scots arrived there; but he had only 5000 foot and 3000 horse,

1644] The Fairfaxes in the north.-Rupert in Yorkshire 321

and he asked that Rupert should come to his assistance. Left to his own resources, he had to fall back on Durham. Sir Thomas Fairfax had gone to Cheshire at the end of 1643, to help Brereton; and on January 25 the two Parliamentary commanders fell upon Byron, who was besieging Nantwich, and defeated him with a loss of 1500 prisoners, more than half of whom enlisted under Fairfax. Among the prisoners was George Monck; on the other side, John Lambert commanded a regiment of Fairfax' horse.

The only Royalist stronghold in Lancashire was Lathom House, held by the Countess of Derby. Fairfax summoned it in vain, but did not stay for the siege, which lasted three months and proved in the end ineffectual. Returning to Yorkshire, he joined his father near Selby, which was stormed on April 11, Bellasis being among the prisoners. taken. This blow obliged Newcastle to come southward and shut himself up in York. The armies of Leven and Fairfax encamped before York on April 22, and were joined there on June 2 by Manchester with the troops of the Eastern Association. These troops had been raised to a strength of 14,000 men during the winter. Cromwell, now Lieutenant-General, complained in Parliament of the backwardness of Lord Willoughby, who commanded the Lincolnshire forces; and they had been placed under Manchester.

During these months Rupert had not been idle. In January he made an unsuccessful attempt on Aylesbury, having been led to believe it would be betrayed to him. In March he went to the relief of Newark, and obliged Meldrum, who was besieging it, to capitulate. "The enemy ... was so confident that he had not a strength to attempt that work, that he was within six miles of them before they believed he thought of them." He swept over Lincolnshire; but, in spite of Newcastle's appeals, he was then obliged to restore his troops to the garrisons from which he had borrowed them, and return to the Welsh border. In the middle of May he set out from Shrewsbury for Yorkshire, having persuaded the King with difficulty to adopt his plan of campaign, viz. that, while he himself pushed the war in the north, and his brother Maurice in the west, Charles should manoeuvre on the defensive round Oxford.

Marching by way of Lancashire, he relieved Lathom House, and stormed Bolton and Liverpool. Goring joined him with forces which brought his numbers up to nearly 15,000 men. The Parliamentarians raised the siege of York on his approach, and encamped near Long Marston to bar his road; but he worked round by the north, crossed the Ouse, and joined Newcastle. The King had written to him (June 14): "If York be relieved and you beat the rebels' armies of both kingdoms which were before it, then, but otherways not, I may possibly make a shift upon the defensive to spin out time until you come to assist me." Rupert construed this as "a positive and absolute command to fight the enemy"; and, though Newcastle demurred, he drew out his troops

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next day (July 2) for that purpose on Marston Moor. He was afterwards blamed for so doing, but he could not stay in Yorkshire; and to have returned without a battle, leaving the enemy to resume their siege, would have been a lame conclusion.

The two armies were nearly equal in cavalry, each having about 7000; but of infantry the Royalists had 11,000, the Parliamentarians 20,000, so that they had a longer line and overlapped the Royalist right. They began the battle by a general advance about 5 P.M. The horse forming their right wing, under Sir Thomas Fairfax, were driven back by Goring, who pursued them to their camp. In the centre, the Yorkshire infantry under Lord Fairfax was also repulsed and broken; but five or six regiments of Scots, which were to the right of it, stood firm though assailed both by horse and foot. The East-Anglian troops formed the left of the Parliamentary army, with some Scottish horse in reserve. After hard fighting, with some alternations of fortune, Cromwell and David Leslie defeated the Royalist cavalry on that wing; Rupert was unable to turn the tide, and was himself driven off the field. Sending the Scottish light horsemen in pursuit, Cromwell halted and reformed his regiments; Crawford brought up the foot, which had got the better of the troops opposed to it; and the whole, wheeling to the right, attacked the flank of the victorious Royalists. Goring's troopers returning from their pursuit were met and routed by Cromwell. Newcastle's whitecoats made a gallant stand, but were nearly all cut to pieces. The King's army broke up; and Manchester's scoutmaster says that "Major-General Leslie, seeing us thus pluck a victory out of the enemies' hands, professed Europe had no better soldiers."

Marston Moor was the greatest battle of the war, and also its turningpoint. It damaged the prestige of Rupert, and destroyed the hopes that had been built on the northern army. Newcastle, disgusted and despairing, went abroad. If not the paragon he seemed to his wife, his efforts and achievements for the King's cause deserved something better than Clarendon's sarcasms. Rupert made his way back to Lancashire with 6000 horse; and York surrendered a fortnight afterwards. The Parliamentary forces then separated, the Scots marching north to besiege Newcastle, which held out till the middle of October, and Manchester returning to Lincolnshire; while the Fairfaxes set themselves to recover Pontefract, Scarborough, and other places still held by the Cavaliers in Yorkshire. Before they parted, Leven, Manchester, and Lord Fairfax sent a joint letter to the Committee of Both Kingdoms, recommending the establishment of Presbyterianism, and the making of peace with the King. Vane had sounded the generals in June about the deposition of Charles; but they would not entertain the thought of it.

The hopes that had been built on the Royalist army of the west broke down even sooner. Half of it, under Maurice, was besieging Lyme, when the other half, under Hopton, was attacked and beaten by Waller

1644] Queen leaves England. Capitulation of Lostwithiel 323

at Cheriton (near Alresford, March 29). Essex and Waller then marched upon Oxford. The Queen's state of health made it necessary for her to leave a city which might be besieged; she took what proved to be a last farewell of her husband, and went to Exeter. After there giving birth to the Princess Henrietta (afterwards Duchess of Orleans), she embarked at Falmouth for France (July 14). Oxford was invested by Essex on the east, by Waller on the south and west; but Charles, breaking out with 3000 horse and 2500 musketeers (June 3), retreated to Worcester, and thence to Bewdley. It was the intention of the Committee that in such a contingency Essex should watch the King, and Waller should go into the west; but Essex reversed this arrangement, on the ground that he had the heavier train, and the greater strength of foot. When the King knew of their separation, he doubled back to Oxfordshire, evading Waller, raised his numbers to nearly 10,000 men by drawing troops from the garrison of Oxford, and advanced to Buckingham. He had some thought of trying a stroke at London, which was almost unguarded; but, while he hesitated, Waller was coming up behind him, and had to be dealt with. At Cropredy Bridge (June 29) Waller was defeated in an attempt to cut off the King's rearguard; but he was able to effect a junction with Browne, who was bringing him a reinforcement of 4000 men, while Charles went back to Evesham.

As soon as the emergency was over, Waller's army, largely composed of trained bands, began to melt away. He assured the Committee that "an army compounded of these men will never go through with your service; and, till you have an army merely your own, that you may command, it is in a manner impossible to do anything of importance.' Washington wrote to Congress in 1776 in much the same strain; and just as Congress was at length persuaded to form a "continental army," to serve till the end of the war, so Parliament passed an ordinance (July 12) raising a new force of 13,000 men for permanent service.

Waller's army was unfit to keep the field, and could only garrison Abingdon and Reading. Freed from all concern about it, Charles decided to follow Essex, who had raised the siege of Lyme, and gone on towards Plymouth. On the King's approach, Essex marched into Cornwall; but he had only 10,000 men; the country was against him; and by the middle of August he found himself shut up in the Fowey peninsula by an army of 16,000. His cavalry broke out and reached Plymouth, and he himself escaped thither by sea; but his infantry was forced to surrender (September 2). They were released, after laying down their arms, on condition that they should not fight against the King till they had reached Portsmouth or Southampton. The easy terms made the Lostwithiel capitulation far from an equivalent to Marston Moor. In London it was said that "by that miscarriage we are brought a whole summer's travel back"; but it paved the way for the replacement of Essex by a more vigorous and capable commander.

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The rank and moral worth of Essex, and his staunchness to the Parliamentary cause, had given him a hold upon the office of general which nothing short of such a failure could shake.

The King was not in a position to reap substantial advantage from his success. His army was reduced in numbers, and mutinous in temper. Horses, clothes, and money were wanting. Weariness of war made some of his officers turn to that solution which the Parliamentary generals rejected the deposition of Charles in favour of his son. Wilmot, who was said to have thrown out this suggestion, was arrested; and the command of the cavalry was given to Goring. Rupert was raising fresh troops in Wales and the Marches, of which he had been made President; but, mortified by his failure and disgusted with the course of affairs, he had fallen into despondency, and gave himself up to selfindulgence at Bristol. It was near the end of October when he set out to join the King with 5000 men.

By the middle of that month Charles reached Salisbury. His immediate object was to relieve the Royalist outposts, Basing House and Donnington Castle (near Newbury). But he had only 10,000 men, and, when he arrived at Whitchurch, he found an army of nearly twice that strength in front of him. It was made up of the troops of Waller, Essex, and Manchester, and was commanded by a council of war which included two civilians. Essex himself was ill at Reading. Finding himself unable to reach Basing House, the King turned northward to Donnington Castle, the siege of which was raised on his approach. The Parliamentary army followed; and a second battle of Newbury was fought (October 27). The Royalists were in a strong position, in the angle formed by the Lambourne and the Kennet. Waller, accompanied by Cromwell, made a circuit and attacked them from the west, while Manchester made a belated and unsuccessful attack from the north-east. The King's army was beaten, but by the fault of Manchester was able to escape in the night without much loss.

The King reached Oxford on November 1, and was joined there next day by Rupert, who was made general in place of Brentford. The reinforced army then returned to Newbury, where the Parliamentary army still lay. It declined the offer of a fresh battle, and fell back to Reading, allowing the Royalists to raise the siege of Basing House. There was great disappointment in London; and Cromwell, called upon in Parliament to say what he knew about the causes of the miscarriage, laid the whole blame on Manchester. That "sweet, meek man," as Baillie calls him, had lost all zeal for the war. He argued that it was useless to continue it, for "if we beat the King ninety and nine times, yet he is King still, and so will his posterity be after him; but if the King beat us once we shall be all hanged, and our posterity made slaves." After Marston Moor Manchester had found excuses for remaining inactive at Lincoln till the beginning of September; and it was tardily