ment eight vessels ready to start were at anchor in the
Thames; upon one of them it is said Cromwell had already
embarked. He obeyed the prohibition, but the others con-
tinued on their way in search of a more hospitable soil.
From 1635 to 1637 were formed the colonies of Connecticut,
Rhode Island, and the Providence plantations.

Hampden's trial, however, should have enlightened the
king and his ministers (1636). The immense popularity
which he immediately enjoyed because he had known
how to oppose a calm refusal and legal resistance to the tax
of ship-money made it sufficiently plain to the govern-
ment that its policy was contrary to the sentiment of the
nation. The ministers were obstinate in their blindness.
Strafford, Viceroy of Ireland, had organized there a standing
army, thanks to which he could boast of having rendered
the king as absolute in the island as was any prince in the
world. Laud on his part was ferreting out the Noncon-
formists and was punishing them with such rigor that all
England put on the mask of religious submission. On the
very eve of the revolution the bishops reported to him that
they could not find a single Dissenter in their dioceses, just
as the ministers of Louis XIV. announced to him after the
repeal of the edict of Nantes that there were no more
Protestants in the kingdom. Laud wished to extend his
victory over Presbyterian Scotland and to impose upon her
a new liturgy which resembled the Catholic ritual. A re-
bellion broke out in Edinburgh (1637). The king refused
to yield. Then the Presbyterians, under the name of the
Covenant, formed an association at once political and reli-
gious, which soon counted the entire Scottish population
as its adherents (1638). Charles marched against the
Covenanters with 20,000 men; but he did not dare to offer
battle and granted the abolition of Laud's liturgy to the
rebels (1639).

It was a serious defeat; Charles, at the end of his re-
sources, summoned a fourth Parliament. That assembly
refused to grant the least subsidy until redress had been
made of the nation's grievances; it demanded that the
king should be bound to convoke Parliament every three
years, that independence in elections and debate should be
assured, that political liberty should be firmly guaranteed.
"It is necessary," Strafford remarked, whom Charles had



29 6 THE ASCENDENCY OF FRANCE. [BOOK V.

recalled from Ireland, "to restore these people to common
sense by blows," and the Short Parliament was dissolved.
But the English army, full of sympathy for its Scottish
brethren, dispersed rather than fight, and Strafford was
forced to fall back upon York (1640). Royalty was in-
volved in inextricable difficulty. It had drawn the sword
and it had not a crown to maintain the war. The system
of confiscations, fines, and arbitrary taxes was exhausted.
Charles, confessing himself worsted, had recourse to a fifth
Parliament. This was that renowned assembly "which, in
spite of many errors and disasters, is justly entitled to the
reverence and gratitude of all who, in any part of the world,
enjoy the blessings of constitutional government" (Lord
Macaulay).

After eleven years of despotism Charles I., by making

an appeal to the country, furnished a striking contradiction

to the system which he had followed up to

The Long . J ....

Parliament that time. The king recognized his own
(1640-49). inability to rule England alone. It belonged

to the Commons to act their legitimate part ; but liberty,
too long oppressed, wanted to take revenge, and, as
always happens, overshot the mark. Parliament took pos-
session of the power. It encroached upon the collection
and management of taxes, and loans, and even upon all the
functions, all the rights of the executive power. It abol-
ished exceptional tribunals, declared its own periodicity,
and -finally issued a bill of indictment against the Earl of
Strafford, in whom was personified the whole royal policy
for eleven years.

This trial excited immense interest. In reality it was
the trial of royalty, prior to the trial of the king. Clever,
eloquent, courageous, the accused in the face of danger
showed a grandeur of soul that caused his faults to be for-
gotten. "During seventeen days he discussed the crimes
that were imputed to him, alone against thirteen accusers,
who relieved each other in turn. A great number were
proved, full of iniquity and tyranny; but others, exaggerated
or made much of by hatred, were easy to refute; and none,
to say the truth, came within the legal definition of high
treason. Strafford strove carefully to strip them of this
character, speaking nobly of his imperfections, of his weak-
nesses, opposing a modest dignity to the violence of his
adversaries, without invectives making evident the preju-



CHAP. XIX.] ENGLAND UNDER THE STUARTS. 297

diced illegality of their proceedings. Odious restrictions
hampered his defense. His counsel, obtained at great
difficulty and in spite of the Commons, were not permitted
to speak upon the facts nor to interrogate the witnesses;
permission to summon witnesses in rebuttal was accorded
to him only three days before the opening of the pleas, and
the most of them were in Ireland. At every opportunity he
claimed his rights, thanked his judges if they consented to
recognize them, did not complain of their refusal, and to his
enemies, who were exasperated by the delays caused by his
able resistance, replied simply: 'I believe it belongs to me
to defend my life as well as to any other to attack it '
(Guizot).

The House of Lords was going to absolve him; the
Commons by a bill of attainder placed him outside the
law. Charles alone could save him by refusing to sanction
the bill. Strafford in a sublime letter offered to sacrifice
himself. The king had the weakness to accept the sacrifice
and signed his minister's death warrant. Strafford as his
only answer raised his hands to Heaven and murmured:
"Nolite confidere principibus et filiis hominum, quia non
est salus in illis." The governor of the Tower urged him
to take a carriage in order to avoid the violence of the
people; he refused, and set out on foot, preceding the
guards, and turning his gaze in all directions as if he were
marching at the head of his troops. Arrived at the
scaffold, he said: "I pray for this kingdom every earthly
prosperity; living, I have always prayed it; dying, it is my
only prayer. But I beseech each one who hears me to con-
sider earnestly, with his hand upon his heart, whether the
beginning of a kingdom's reformation ought to be written
in characters of blood ; think well upon this as you go to
your homes." Then he placed his head upon the block,
and gave the signal himself (May 27, 1641). Laud,
imprisoned at the same time as Strafford, was not con-
demned and executed until four years later.

The punishment of the Earl of Strafford, the great
apostate, as he was called, struck with terror all the agents of
the government, and gave over the entire royal power into
the hands of the two Houses. Meanwhile the Irish re-
volted and massacred 40,000 English Protestants. The
queen's Catholic intrigues caused the king to be suspected,
and he himself, trying to deceive Argyle and Hamilton, the



298 THE ASCENDENCY OF FRANCE. [BOOK V.

leaders of the Covenanters in Scotland, warranted the belief
that a vast scheme had been formed by the court against
the popular leaders. When he demanded the means of
reducing Ireland, Parliament replied by a bitter remon-
strance, wherein were narrated in detail all the grievances
of the nation since the beginning of the reign. At the same
same time ^300,000 sterling were paid to the Scotch as
indemnity and compensation, and the Militia Bill was
carried, by which Parliament was to interfere in the organi-
zation of the army and the appointment of its leaders.

Charles attempted a coup d 'e'tat to regain the power; he
went in person to Parliament to arrest the leaders of the
opposition. But the House refused to give up the mem-
bers, and before the threatening attitude of the people the
king did not dare to use force. He quitted London to
commence the civil war (1642).

The parliamentary party was in possession of the capital,
the large cities, the harbors, and the fleet. The king had
the greater part of the nobility, better trained in arms than
the parliamentary troops. In the northern and western
counties the royalists, or Cavaliers, predominated; the par-
liamentarians, or Roundheads, had those of the east, center,
and southeast, the most thickly populated, the richest, and
which, besides being adjacent, formed, as it were, a belt
about London.

At first the king had the advantage. From Nottingham,
where he had raised his standard (August 23, 1642), he
marched toward the western counties, more favorable to
his cause, to recruit volunteers, met the parliamentary army
at Worcester, but without engaging in a pitched battle, and
took the road to London. Essex to arrest his march
fought the bloody and indecisive battle of Edgehill
(October 24, 1642). With no further hope of taking the
capital by surprise Charles withdrew to Oxford, where he
took up his winter quarters, waiting for the aid which the
queen was to bring him from Holland. The campaign fol-
lowing opened well for him ; everywhere the parliamentary
troops were defeated, and a number of towns in the north
and southwest were captured. But Parliament redoubled
its energy ; several members of the Commons took up arms.
Hampden levied among his own tenants, friends, and neigh-
bors a regiment of infantry which soon became noted for
its discipline and courage. Oliver Cromwell, who was



CHAP. XIX.] ENGLAND UNDER THE STUARTS. 299

then beginning to emerge from obscurity, with the sons of
yeomen and small proprietors in the eastern counties
formed a picked squadron who opposed their religious zeal
to the feelings of honor which animated the Cavaliers. The
king laid siege to Gloucester, the only city which still ham-
pered his movements in the west. It made a noble resist-
ance, which gave Parliament time to reassemble its forces.
At the approach of Essex Charles retired, but maneuvered in
such a way as to cut off the earl from the road to London,
and stationed himself at Newbury; the parliamentary troops
routed the royalist army after a desperate struggle in which
Lord Falkland, the pride of the royalist party, perished.
This victory influenced Parliament to join with the Scotch,
and a solemn covenant was sworn between the two peoples.
On his side the king attempted to raise the Highlanders,
and treated with the Catholics of Ireland, who had been in
arms ever since the great massacre. He recalled the troops
charged with resisting them.

Parliament was only a coalition of opposite parties.
United against the king's claims to absolute power, they did
not agree any farther upon the conditions of government.
Presbyterians, who had abolished hierarchy in the Church,
were willing to preserve it in the state; the Independents
rejected the peerage as well as episcopacy, the political
sovereignty of the king as well as his religious supremacy.
Bolder and more consistent than their rivals, they appealed
to the most active sentiments of the human heart, love of
liberty and need of equality. Around them were grouped
the thousand sects sprung from Puritanism: Levelers,
Anabaptists, Millenarians. Finally, they had at their head
men of consummate ability Ludlow, Vane, Haselrig, and
above all Oliver Cromwell. All the qualities of the latter
had pleased from the first his religious enthusiasm, his
readiness to make himself the equal and companion of his
coarsest friends, his mystical and familiar language, his
manner, by turns commonplace and enthusiastic, which
gave him the air sometimes of inspiration, sometimes of
frankness, even that free and supple genius which seemed
to place at the service of a holy cause all the resources
of earthly skill. Thus he had soon acquired a powerful
control.

If discord prevailed among the Parliamentarians, it also
existed in the royalist party. At Oxford, as at Whitehall,



300 THE ASCENDENCY OF FRANCE. [BOOK V.

the court was divided by miserable intrigues. A Parlia-
ment that Charles formed with his faithful friends was use-
less, and in spite of its docile compliance angered the
king, who adjourned it to free himself from what he called
cowardly and seditious motions, so vexatious to him was
even the shadow of a free discussion.

The campaign of 1644 was remarkable for the large dis-
play of forces on both sides. The royal army in the north,
commanded by Prince Rupert, was completely defeated at
Marston Moor near York (July 2). This grand success
was due to Cromwell's genius and to the invincible tenacity
of his squadrons. They won the name of Ironsides upon
the battlefield. In the south Essex and Waller, the Presby-
terian generals, suffered defeat after defeat; the first was
forced to capitulate. In Scotland the brave Marquis of
Montrose had landed with an Irish contingent, roused
the Highlanders to action, and won victories in quick
succession. For the third time the king marched upon
London ; the people were closing their shops, praying, and
fasting, when they heard that Charles had just been
defeated at Newbury by Cromwell and Manchester. The
parliamentary troops had accomplished prodigies; at the
sight of the cannon which they had lost just before in the
county of Cornwall they rushed upon the royal batteries and
recaptured their pieces, embracing them as they dragged
them back.

Cromwell's successes rendered the Independent party
more daring. A minority in Parliament, they took control
of the war by passing the celebrated Self-denying Ordi-
nance, which excluded the members, that is to say, the first
parliamentary generation, from public offices, an error
which was revived by the first French Constitutional Assem-
bly (1792). The Earl of Essex, a Presbyterian general,
tendered his resignation; he was succeeded by Fairfax, an
Independent, over whom Cromwell exercised absolute
control.

The Independents, masters of the army, took prompt
measures ; at Naseby they crushed the last army of the king
(1645). Among Charles' baggage they found proof that, in
spite of his declarations to the contrary, he had summoned
the aid of foreigners, and especially of the Irish. At the
same time Montrose was surprised and defeated by the
Scotch Covenanters. Prince Rupert surrendered Bristol



CHAP. XIX.] ENGLAND UNDER CROMWELL. 3<>1

without striking a blow. The king in despair, through
weariness rather than by choice, retired to the Scotch camp,
where the French minister had caused him to hope for a
shelter, and where he soon learned that he was a prisoner
(1646). The Scotch surrendered him to Parliament for
^400,000 sterling (1647).

The Presbyterians and the Independents had with diffi-
culty acted in concert during the struggle, in the face of
danger; it was much worse after the victory. Since the
Presbyterians predominated in Parliament and their adver-
saries in the army, antagonism broke out between these two
bodies. Parliament, under the pretext that the war was
finished, wished to disband a portion of the army. Then a
threatening agitation manifested itself among the soldiers.
The army addressed petitions to the Commons, which might
pass for orders. The House rejected them in an energetic
manner. "These people," said Cromwell, "will have no
rest until the army has turned them out by the ears." He
took upon himself the accomplishment of this prediction.

A little more and these dissensions would have caused
Charles to regain all the territory which he had lost. The
two parties contended for the king. A detachment of the
army removed him from Holmby, where he was at the dis-
cretion of Parliament. Cromwell and the Independent
generals opened negotiations with him. But Charles was
not sincere. "Do not be uneasy about the concessions that
I shall make," he wrote to the queen. "I know well, when
the time comes, how one must act with these knaves, and
instead of a silk garter I will adjust a hempen one for
them." Cromwell intercepted the letter and from that day
resolved upon the king's ruin. Charles, to whom he sent
some threatening advice, escaped and took refuge in the
Isle of Wight, of which the governor was a tool of Crom-
well.

This flight of the king was the signal to the Cavaliers for
a new seizure of arms and a second civil war. But Crom-
well, who had just restored discipline among his soldiers by
intimidating the Levelers, joyfully seized upon the oppor-
tunity of re-establishing his influence by the war He con-
quered the royalists in Wales, while Fairfax defeated them
near London, and when the Scotch attempted an invasion
of England he advanced to meet them and crushed them
at Preston.



302 THE ASCENDENCY OF FRANCE. [BOOK V.

Meanwhile the Presbyterians, bolder in his absence,
opened new negotiations with Charles I., and after a few
conferences proclaimed through the House of Commons that
the king's concessions afforded a sufficient basis for them to
treat for peace. Immediately Cromwell caused the prince
to be removed from the Isle of Wight and "purged" Parlia-
ment. All the Presbyterians were expelled; the assembly
was reduced to eighty members, and no voice was after-
ward raised to disturb the Independent party in its victory.
The king's trial began. Charles appeared before a high
court of justice, presided over by John Bradshaw, Milton's
cousin, and directed by Cromwell. He refused to recog-
nize them as judges, but was nevertheless condemned, and,
in spite of the interference of the Dutch ambassadors, exe-
cuted. He displayed great composure upon the scaffold,
regretting of all his acts only his weakness at the time of
Strafford's trial. "Heaven forbid that I should complain,"
he said. "The unjust decision whose execution I permitted
in the case of Strafford is requited now by another unjust
decision" (February 9, 1649).

"In no long time it became manifest that those political
and religious zealots to whom this deed is to be ascribed
had committed not only a crime but an error. They had
given to a prince hitherto known to his people chiefly by
his faults an opportunity of displaying, on a great theater,
before the eyes of all nations and all ages, some qualities
which irresistibly call forth the admiration and love of man-
kind, the high spirit of a gallant gentleman, the patience
and meekness of a penitent Christian; nay, they had so con-
trived their revenge that the very man whose whole life had
been a series of attacks on the liberties of England now
seemed to die a martyr in the cause of those very liberties.
No demagogue ever produced such an impression on the
public mind as the captive king, who, retaining in this ex-
tremity all his regal dignity, and confronting death with
dauntless courage, gave utterance to the feelings of his
oppressed people, manfully refused to plead before a court
unknown to the law, appealed from military violence to
the principles of the constitution, asked by what right the
House of Commons had been purged of its most respectable
members and the House of Lords deprived of its legisla-
tive functions, and told his weeping hearers that he was
defending not only his own cause but theirs. His long mis-



CHAP. XIX.] ENGLAND UNDER CROMWELL. 33

government, his innumerable perfidies, were forgotten. His
memory was in the minds of the great majority of his
subjects associated with those free institutions which he
had, during many years, labored to destroy; for those free
institutions had perished with him, and, amid the mournful
silence of a community kept down by arms, had been
defended by his voice alone. From that day began a
reaction in favor of monarchy and of the exiled house, a
reaction which never ceased till the throne had again been
set up in all its old dignity" (Macaulay).

The Independents had proclaimed the Commonwealth.
But Scotland protested. She now remembered that the
Stuarts were of Scottish race, and the national
wealth of^Eng- feeling ran so high at the news of Charles'
land (1649-60;). execution that the Duke of Argyle, governor
in the name of Parliament, was carried away by it ; Charles
II., the late king's eldest son, was declared King of Scotland,
England, France, and Ireland on condition of recognizing
the Covenant. Charles retired to The Hague in Holland,
refused to sign the clauses they wished to impose upon him,
and scorning the Scotch Presbyterians, went to his mother,
Henrietta, in France, that from there he might join the Irish
royalists.

It was all over with the English government and the Prot-
estant oppression of Ireland if the union of the pretender
and the rebels was effected. The English Parliament
hastened to appoint Cromwell Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
He was not willing to start out except with immense forces.
Besides the standing army of 45,000 men, he obtained a
body of 12,000 veterans, and nothing that he demanded
was refused, either money, provisions, or stores. The
royalists had already just been completely routed near Dub-
lin, at the battle of Rathmines. Cromwell was able to
reap the fruits of this great victory, and opened the cam-
paign by the siege of Drogheda. The city was taken by
storm; the whole garrison was massacred; more than a
thousand inhabitants who had taken refuge in the cathe-
dral suffered the same fate. These horrible scenes were re-
peated a month later at Wexford. Inhabitants, soldiers, all
were put to the edge of the sword. Even the women were
killed (1649). Such barbarity drove the Irish to despair.
Kilkenny and Clonmell defended themselves with such
energy that the lord lieutenant was obliged to grant them an



304 THE ASCENDENCY OF FRANCE. [BOOK V.

honorable capitulation (1650). In the midst of his suc-
cesses, whose glory was stained with blood, Cromwell was
recalled to England by the threatening progress of the
Scotch.

The disaster at Rathmines had prevented Charles from
landing in Ireland, and had forced him to renew negotia-
tions with the Scotch Presbyterians. Before accepting the
rigorous conditions at the price of which they offered him
the crown he tried to conquer it by the sword of the val-
iant Marquis of Montrose. This heroic man had landed in
Scotland with 1200 men; but the Highlanders refused to
ally themselves with him, and he was defeated by the Pres-
byterians at Corbiesdale. He was sentenced to be hanged
upon a gibbet thirty feet high. His head was to be exposed
upon a pike in Edinburgh, his arms upon the gates of Perth
and Stirling, his legs upon those of Glasgow and Aberdeen.
He replied that he gloried in his fate, and only regretted
that he had not limbs enough to furnish every city in the
kingdom with a proof of his loyalty. .As a last disgrace the
executioner had suspended around his neck his recent proc-
lamation with the story of his early exploits. He smiled,
saying that his enemies gave him a more brilliant decora-
tion than the order of the Garter, with which his sovereign
had honored him. Charles II. hastened to disavow Mont-
rose, accepted without reserve all the demands of the Scotch
ambassadors, swore never to allow the free exercise of the
Catholic religion in Scotland, "or in any part of his domin-
ions, and immediately left Holland to take possession of the
throne which was offered to him.

Thus the alliance of the king and the Presbyterians was
finally concluded and signed over the corpse of the most
heroic royalist leader. The Independents comprehended
the gravity of the danger and recalled Cromwell. He
crossed the Tweed with 16,000 veteran soldiers. The
Scotch general, David Leslie, in spite of the superior
number of his troops, carefully refrained from risking a
battle, and lay obstinately in his lines for a month. He
wanted to wear out the English army; but the mad eager-
ness of the Presbyterian ministers carried the day. They
forced Leslie to the attack. The engagement took place
near Dunbar. At the first onset the Independents were
overthrown; Cromwell with his troopers renewed the fight,
put the Scotch completely to rout, slew 3000 men, captured



CHAP. XIX.] ENGLAND UNDER CROMWELL. 305

10,000 with their artillery, stores, and baggage. Edinburgh
and Leith surrendered without resistance (1650).

The defeat at Dunbar was-more advantageous to Charles
II. than a victory. It diminished the blind austerity of the
ministers, and made the king cautious. By pretending to
love the Covenant he conciliated the Presbyterians; by giv-