and this allowed Charles greatly to reinforce the cavalry under his nephew, who, though (at this time at least) wholly deficient in the qualities of a general, possessed those of a dashing cavalry officer in great perfection. Issuing from Oxford, Prince Rupert scoured the country, visited Abingdon, Henley, and other towns, and returned with great booty. Within a few days he made still nearer approaches towards London, penetrating as far as Staines and Egham, but with a flying army, resting in no place, but moving like a free corps of the partisans of the famous Count Mansfeldt in the Palatinate, the tradition of whose exploits was likely to be deeply impressed on the mind of Rupert. The parliament and the city of London were thrown into consternation, but they provided with spirit for their defence. Trenches were dug, and ramparts thrown up round the capital; seamen were embarked in boats and small vessels, and sent up the river; forces were detached to possess and fortify Windsor Castle. The train-bands of London, Middlesex, and Surrey were concentrated, and kept continually under arms. A declaration was published for the encouragement of apprentices that would enlist, who were to have the time they served in the army allowed in their apprenticeship; and as the London apprentices were very stirring and bold, this little measure contributed greatly to reinforce the parliament army. Associations of counties for mutual defence had already been allowed and recommended by the two Houses, and those bonds were now drawn closer at the approach of danger. In the eastern counties the association, which had been mainly organised and directed by Oliver Cromwell, was exceedingly formidable. The parliament, taking notice that the king had, by a formal commission, empowered Sir William Gerrard, Sir Cecil Trafford, and other popish gentlemen, to take arms with their tenants and servants, resolved to strengthen themselves by the Presbyterian interest, and they applied to the Scots for immediate assistance. Many disaffected persons were seized in the city of London, where plots were suspected similar to those which had been detected at Hull, and preachers and proclamations kept alive the enthusiasm of the citizens. Very varying news blew hot and cold among the Londoners: it was rumoured that Essex was entirely defeated; that he had wavered and gone over to the king; that the king was marching with the two united armies to wreak his vengeance on the capital: but, at last, the Earl of Essex reached the neighbourhood of London, with his army in good condition and disposition; and, quartering his men about Acton, he himself (on the 7th of November) rode into Westminster to give the parliament an account of his campaign. It was clear to most men that Essex had been far from doing the best that might have been done, but the two Houses wisely welcomed him, voted him thanks, and presented him with a gift of 5000/., as an acknowledgment of his care, pains, and valour. The earl had scarcely arrived in the capital when the king, quitting Oxford, marched upon Reading. Mr. Henry Martin, one of the most remarkable men in the House of Commons, commanded at this town; but, considering the place. untenable with the forces he had with him, he evacuated it at the king's approach, and fell back upon London. Charles then advanced to Colnbrook, where he was met by the Earl of Northumberland and three members of the House of Commons, who presented a petition for an accommodation. Charles seemed to receive their address with great willingness, and he returned them a fair and smooth answer, calling God to witness that he was tenderly compassionate of his bleeding people, and so desirous of nothing as for a speedy peace. The deputation, well pleased, returned to the parliament, where the king's gracious answer, wherein he promised to reside near London till commissioners might settle the existing differences, was read to both Houses. Thereupon the Earl of Essex rose, and asked whether he was now to pursue or suspend hostilities? Parliament ordered the earl to suspend them, and dispatched Sir Peter Killigrew to require a like cessation on the part of the royalists, not having, however, the smallest doubt that Charles would consider himself bound by his entertaining their propositions of an accommodation, and by his gracious message of the preceding evening, to remain in a state of truce. But Killigrew was scarcely gone when the loud roar of cannon was heard in the House of Lords. The Earl of Essex rushed out of the House, mounted his horse, and gallopped across the parks and through Knightsbridge, in the direction of the ominous sound. As he approached Brentford the earl learned, to his astonishment, the trick had been played. Prince Rupert, closely followed by the king in person and by the whole royal army, taking advantage of a dense November fog, had advanced and fallen unexpectedly upon Brentford, which was occupied by a broken regiment of Colonel Hollis's, "but stout men all, who had before done good service at Edgehill." The royalists fancied they should cut their way through Brentford without any difficulty, get on to Hammersmith, where the parliament's train of artillery lay, and then perhaps take London by a sudden night assault. But Hollis's men, with unspeakable courage, opposed their passage, and stopped their march so long at Brentford, that the gallant regiments of Hampden and Lord Brooke had time to come up. These three regiments, not without great loss, completely barred the road; and when Essex, who had gathered a considerable force of horse as he rode along, came to the spot, he found that the royalists had given over the attack, and were lying quietly on the western side of Brentford. Charles had kept himself safe at Hounslow, and there he lay that night. "All that night," says May, "the city of London poured out men towards Brentford, who every hour marched thither; and all the lords and gen tlemen that belonged to the parliament army were there ready by Sunday morning, the 14th of November." The city bands had marched forth cheerfully under the command of Major-General Skippon, who enjoyed the entire confidence of parliament and the extraordinary favour of the Londoners.* The Earl of Holland, who showed excessive zeal and good skill in martial affairs, assisted Essex, who found himself in the course of this Sunday at the head of 24,000 men, who were drawn up in battle array on Turnham-green, -"stout, gallant, proper men; as well habited and armed as were ever seen in any army, and of as good courage to fight the enemy."+ Hampden, with his brave men of Buckinghamshire, by the Lord Essex's orders, began to make a detour with the intention of falling upon the king's rear, while the rest of the parliamentarians should attack him in front and turn his flanks; but they had scarcely marched a mile when Sir John Merrick, Essex's major-general, gallopped after them, and told them that the general had changed his mind as to dividing his forces, and ordered them back. Hampden and his green coats, exceedingly troubled, fell back accordingly. If the business had been conducted with only moderate skill and decision, the king must have been surrounded, and his retreat to Oxford cut off. Three thousand parliamentarians had taken post at Kingston-bridge, but these, too, were removed from the king's rear, and brought round by London-bridge to join Essex and cover the western approaches to the capital. "The reason of that strange command," says May, as afterwards given, was, that the lord-general was not assured of strength enough to stop the enemy from London, nor could beforehand be assured of so great an army as came thither to join him." And, thus, leaving the king's rear unencumbered, the parliamentarians stood at gaze, facing the royalists, but doing nothing. At last it was consulted whether the parliament army should not advance and fall upon the king's forces, as was advised by most of the members of parliament and gentlemen who were officers, but the soldiers of fortune, who love long campaigns as physicians love long diseases, were altogether against it; and, while they were consulting, Charles drew off his carriages and ordnance, and, when every one had spoken his opinion, the general gave his orders as he thought best. The good wives of the city and others, mindful of their husbands and friends, sent many cart-loads of provisions and wine and other good things to Turnham-green, with which the city Skippon was a character. He was accustomed to make very short, pithy, and homely speeches to the train-bands and cockney troops, the most zealous of which were, of course, all puritans. On this occasion, Whitelock tells us, his speech was to this effect :Come, my boys, my brave boys, let us pray heartily, and fight heartily. I will run the same fortunes and hazards with you. Remember the cause is for God, and for the defence of yourselves, your wives, and children. Come, my honest, brave boys, pray heartily and fight heartily, and God will bless us." "Thus," continues Whitelock," he went all along with the soldiers, talking to them, sometimes with one company, sometimes to another; and the soldiers seemed to be more taken with it than with a set, formal oration." † Whitelock. soldiers refreshed themselves and made merry; and Whitelock slily adds, that they made merrier still when they understood that the king and all his army were in full retreat. Upon this there was another consultation, whether the parliamentarians should pursue. Again, Hampden, Hollis, all the members of parliament, all the gentlemen who had become soldiers only for their principles, were for the bolder course, and all the old soldiers of fortune, the men who had made war their regular trade and profession, were against it, representing that it would be too hazardous to follow the enemy, and that the king's retreat was honour and safety enough to the parliament. Charles, scarcely crediting his good luck, got safe to Kingston, and crossed the bridge there without opposition, and without ammunition enough in his own army to have lasted a quarter of an hour. He then retired more slowly to Reading, and from Reading he repaired to Oxford, his most convenient quarters.* The parliament, in their indignation, voted that they would never again treat with the king or enter into any accommodation; yet at the opening of the following year (1643) they entertained more pacific notions, and in the month of March they began a hopeless treaty at Oxford, where Charles still lay, to the delight perhaps of the very loyal university, though certainly not to the comfort of the neighbouring country, which was swept, ravaged, and pillaged in all directions by the flying squadrons of Prince Rupert. The parlia ment commissioners were the Earls of Northumberland, Pembroke, Salisbury, and Holland; the Viscounts Wenman and Dungarnon; Sir John Holland, Sir William Litton, knights; William Pierpoint, Bulstrode Whitelock, Edmund Waller, and Richard Winwood, esquires. These noblemen and gentlemen had their first access to the king in the garden of Christchurch, where he was walking with the young prince. All of them kissed his hand according to their several degrees, for the court, even in these extremities, was mindful of etiquette; thus, Mr. Pierpoint kissed hands before the knights, because he was an earl's son; and Mr. Winwood kissed hands before Mr. Whitelock, he being the eldest knight's son. The last to perform the ceremony was Edmund Waller the poet, who was least in rank. The king said graciously to him, "Though you are the last, yet you are not the worst, nor the least in my favour." We shall find an explanation of this courtesy to Waller presently. But to the very noble Earl of Northum berland, who read the parliament's propositions with a sober and stout carriage, Charles was much less courteous, interrupting him frequently. The blood of the Percy took fire, and the earl said, smartly, "Your majesty will give me leave to proceed?" Charles replied, "Aye! aye!" and so the earl read the proposition all through. The heads were these,-that Charles should disband his army and return to his parliament, leaving delinRushworth.-May.-Ludlow.-Clarendon.-Warwick. quents to trial and papists to be disarmed; pass a bill for abolishing bishops, &c., and such other bills. as should be presented for reformation; consent to the removal of malignant counsellors, the settling the militia as parliament desired, &c.; and, further, that he should pass a bill to vindicate the Lord Kimbolton and the five members; that he should enter into an alliance with his Protestant neighbours; grant a general pardon, excepting therefrom the Earl of Newcastle, the Lord Digby, and others; and restore parliament members to their offices, and recompense them for the losses they had sustained. Charles, on the other side, made his demands in the following terms:- That his revenue, magazines, towns, ships, and forts be restored. That what hath been done contrary to law and the king's right may be recalled. That all illegal power claimed, or acted by order of parliament, be disclaimed. As the king will consent to the execution of all laws concerning popery or reformation, so he desires a bill for preserving the Book of Common Prayer against sectaries. That all persons excepted against in the treaty may be tried per pares, with a cessation of arms, and for a free trade." After the negotiations had been drawn through several weeks they ended in nothing. They had not, however, interrupted the progress of hostilities; and the warlike operations in the interval had, on the whole, been favourable to the parliamentarians. The Earl of Essex took Reading after a siege of ten days. Then Hampden, ever the proposer or advocate of bold measures, recommended the immediate investing of Oxford, hoping to finish the war at once by the capture of Charles and his court. Clarendon confesses that, if this measure had been adopted, it could scarcely have failed of success; for Oxford was not even tolerably fortified, nor was that over-crowded city supplied with provisions to stand a siege: but, again, the Earl of Essex, who must ever be suspected of being averse to pushing the war to an extremity, objected, and consulted his professional officers, who agreed in representing the enterprise as too hazardous; and nearly six weeks were wasted in the neighbourhood of Reading. The king, who had already deliberated respecting a retreat into the North, took fresh courage. The parliament at this time, or a little before, entertained the project of superseding Essex, and intrusting the conduct of the war to Sir William Waller, who had driven Goring out of Portsmouth, and taken Winchester, Chichester, and Hereford. His valour and his activity had acquired him such reputation, that Waller was popularly nicknamed William the Conqueror; but the change did not take place, and the favourite general continued to serve under Essex, declining rather than rising in reputation. Before the beginning of the treaty at Oxford the queen had arrived in Burlington Bay, on the coast of Yorkshire, where the Earl of Newcastle waited upon her with his army to conduct her to York. She remained four months in Yorkshire, exerting herself to the utmost and in all directions to strengthen the royalist party. Again overtures were made to Sir John Hotham and to many of the officers serving under him in Hull; and the Earl of Newcastle was so considerably reinforced (partly by papists, who joined the queen with enthusiastic haste),that Lord Fairfax, the general for the parliament in the North, could scarcely make head against him. A' fierce war of outposts ensued between these two commanders; and Sir Thomas Fairfax, then a young man and general of the horse to his father, began to acquire in this service that military skill and experience which subsequently rendered him one of the best officers in England. By the month of May Henrietta Maria was enabled to send arms and ammunition to her husband at Oxford, who had for some time been lying inactive for want of gunpowder. Charles then prepared to act, but, that he might commence a sanguinary campaign with peaceful professions, he sent a message to the parliament to speak again of accommodation. The Lords, or that minority of them which remained in London, received his message with respect: the Commons threw his messenger into prison, and then impeached the queen of high treason. Pym carried up the impeachment to the Lords," where it stuck many months." The Commons and the city were at this moment much excited by the discovery of an extensive and formidable conspiracy, headed by Waller the poet, who had been for some time in communication with Lord Falkland, now the king's secretary, and had engaged to do the king's will. The poet, in conjunction with Tomkins, who was his brother-in-law, Challoner, Blinkhorne, and a few others, had undertaken to seize the persons of the leading members of the House of Commons, and to deliver up the city to Charles, who had sent in a commission of array very secretly by means of the Lady Aubigny, whose husband had fallen at Edgehill. A servant of Tomkins overheard the conversation of the conspirators, and revealed what he knew to Pym, who presently seized their chief, and brought him to trial, where he confessed everything with amazing alacrity, and crawled in the dust in the hope of saving his life. The jury in Guildhall found a verdict of guilty against all the prisoners: Tomkins and Challoner were hanged, the one in Holborn, the other in Cornhill, both within sight of their own dwelling-houses; Blinkhorne, Hasell, White, and Waller were, by the mercy of parliament and the lord-general Essex, reprieved, and eventually saved. Waller, the chief of them, was detained in the Tower, but about a year after, upon payment of a fine of 10,000l., he was pardoned, "and released to go travel abroad."* About the same time, in the busy month of May, the Commons unanimously took a solemn vow never Whitelock.-May.-Journals.-May thus comments on the conduct of the poet, who, as the reader will remember, had been one of the most eloquent champions on the popular side in the Lower House:-" It was much wondered at, and accordingly discoursed of by many at that time, what the reason should be why Master Waller, being the principal agent in that conspiracy (where Master Tomkins and Master Challoner, who were drawn in by him, as their own confessions even at their deaths expressed, were both executed) did escape with life. The only reason which I could ever hear given for it was, that Master Waller had been so free in his confessions at the first, without which the plot could not have been clearly (detected, that Master Pym, and other of the examiners, had engaged their promise to do whatever they could to preserve his life. He seemed also much smitten in conscience, and desired the comfort of godly ministers, being extremely penitent for that foul offence; and afterwards, in his speech to the House (when he came to be put out of it), much bewailed his offence, thanking God that so mischievous and bloody a conspiracy was discovered before it could take effect." to consent to lay down their arms so long as the papists in open war against the parliament should be protected from the justice thereof, made a new great seal, and passed the act for an assembly of divines to settle religion. The Lords, who now went with them reluctantly in most things, offered some resistance to these measures, but, in the end, they concurred with the Commons. Commissioners were appointed to execute the office of lord keeper, and the first day that the seal was brought into play, which was not until several months after, no fewer than five hundred writs were passed under it. An important plot had also been discovered at Bristol, where Robert Yeomans, late sheriff, William Yeomans, his brother, and some other royalists, had engaged to deliver that city to the king's forces under the command of Prince Rupert. Colonel Fiennes, the governor, son of the Lord Saye and Sele, discovered this plot in good time, apprehended the conspirators, and brought them to trial before a council of war, which condemned four of them to the gallows. The king interfered to save their lives, telling the governor of Bristol that Robert Yeomans had his majesty's commission for raising a regiment for his service; that William Yeomans and the two others had only expressed their loyalty to his majesty, and endeavoured his service; and that if he presumed to execute any of them he (the king) would do the same by four prisoners taken in rebellion and now at York. Governor Fiennes replied, that if Robert Yeomans had made use of his commission in an open way, he would have been put into no worse condition than others, but that the laws of nature among all men, and the laws of arms among soldiers, made a difference between open enemies and secret spies and conspirators. And we do further advertise you," continued Fiennes, "that if, by any inhuman and unsoldierlike sentence, you shall proceed to the execution of the prisoners by you named, or any other of our friends in your custody that have been taken in a fair and open way of war, then Sir Walter Pye, Sir William Crofts, and Colonel Connesby, with divers others whom we have here in custody, must expect no favour or mercy."* The king ordered the mayor of Bristol to hinder the murder of his loyal subjects, but Fiennes forthwith hanged Robert Yeomans, the chief conspirator, and George Bourchier. Luckily the king did not retaliate as he had threatened. But before this correspondence took place, Charles had been obliged to acknowledge the laws of war, and to treat his prisoners, not as captured rebels, but as soldiers fighting with a sufficient commission. Among the prisoners he had taken at Brentford was that dare-devil John Lilburneour old acquaintance "Free-born John,”—whom the parliament had liberated from the Fleet prison. Free-born John, then a captain, was obnoxious on many accounts, and he probably, as was his wont, incensed his captors by the violence of his language, and his denunciations of all royalty, all Rushworth. power and dominion, except such as was exercised by and for the people. Charles ordered him to be proceeded against as a traitor; but the parliament instantly declared that they would retaliate, and so no beginning was made in a system which would have rendered the war atrocious.* By means of the supplies which he had received from the queen, Charles was enabled to renew active operations; and Prince Rupert and the cavalry during the month of June swept the whole country between Oxford and Bath on one side, and on the other, where Essex's lines were too much extended, broke through and pillaged in Berkshire and in Buckinghamshire. At this time Colonel Hurry, or Urrie, one of the lord-general's soldiers of fortune, deserted to the king, and informed Prince Rupert that two parliament regiments, detached and open to attack, lay at Wycombe. The The royalists at Oxford had also resolved to treat as traitors Captains Clifton, Catesby, and Vivers, who had been made prisoners with Lilburne, and used, as the parliament said, most barbarously. Both Houses had then regularly voted that, if the said persons, or any of them, or any other, should be put to death, or otherwise hurt, or violently treated, the like punishment should be inflicted upon such prisoners as had been or should be taken by the forces raised by parliament.-Rushworth. | prince resolved upon a night attack. On Saturday, the 17th of June, about four o'clock in the afternoon, his trumpets sounded through the streets of Oxford to boot and saddle; and in less than half an hour his cavalry crossed over Magdalen bridge, and, being joined by some infantry, pushed on rapidly towards the parliament country. They were 2000 men, but they were allowed to pass within two or three miles of Thame, where Essex now lay with the main body of the parliament army, without interruption or challenge. They crossed the Cherwell at Chiselhampton bridge, and, stealing through the woodlands about Stokenchurch, they got to the quiet little hamlet of Postcombe at about three o'clock in the morning. There, apparently to their surprise, they found a troop of horse, who mounted, and, after a slight skirmish, retired in good order, beating up the people, and giving the alarm to other picquets and outposts. Thereupon, instead of pushing forward to the two regiments at Wycombe, Rupert turned aside with his whole force of cavalry to Chinnor, where he slaughtered some fifty parliamentarians, and dragged away half naked at the horses' sides |