CHAPTER V.

THE FIRST BLOW.

THE KING AND THE CAVALIERS LEAVE NOTTINGHAM. THE ROUNDHEAD ARMY.- RUPERT'S LEVIES. GENERAL RENDEZVOUS AT STAFFORD, BATTLE OF WORCESTER.

"This was but the hand of that cloud, which was soon after to overspread the whole kingdome, and cast all into disorder and darknesse." Icon Basilicon, CHARLES I.

"Warre is an appeal to Heaven, when Justice cannot be had on earth."

WARD.

Two great parties-the one desiring to extend, the other to contract, the democratic principle in our Constitution-have long and irreconcilably divided England, while mutually advancing her great destinies. These two parties were now arrayed in arms against each other. Before, and since that terrible strife, this antagonism has no doubt produced progression, and the more rapid development of our constitutional character: each party, alternately in the ascendant, moving forward as best it can, stimulated by the rivalry, yet rendered cautious by the vigilant enmity of its opponents. But, now, the great question was to be resolved by arms; each party had been driven to

extremes, and the original conflict of opinion was soon embittered and inflamed by personal animosity. Religion itself was distorted into an additional element of discord, imparting to the excited minds of political combatants all the characteristics of a Holy War. Religious controversy, at all times a bitter strife, never improves the temper or the truthfulness of men; political controversy is in itself a war, without weapon or bloodshed, but scarcely less fierce and cruel: the evil genius of the Court had had the ingenuity to raise each of these controversies into red heat, and then fuse them into one. Each party now claimed to wield the sword of the Lord, as well as of Gideon, and hence, the internecine nature of the war and its persistency: no battle could decide, no treaty heal the difference; destruction alone could still the opposition.

The King continued to hold his Court at Nottingham, until the 13th of September; inclined to peace, but preparing diligently for war. Prince Rupert, and his principal officers, strongly objected

1 I think I am justified in saying so by the assertion of one who very much disapproved of the King's cause, though he adhered to it as preferable to that of the Parliamentary faction. In Lord Sunderland's melancholy letter to his wife, quoted a few pages back, he thus explains the reason of his being found in the Royal camp; but he says that the "King, when he sent those messages, did heartily desire peace, though now [two months after] averse to it." Indeed, the attitude of the Parliamentary army, and the condition of his own may well vouch for his sincerity, and must have rendered him anxious to postpone any trial of physical strength with his sinewy opponents.

to the treaties negotiated with Parliament. They were unlearned in, and, probably, contemptuous of "moral force" doctrines; they only recognized the indubitable fact, that such temporizing materially interfered with the progress of the levies, and endangered such as were already made.1 On the return of Lord Falkland from London, however, the war-party was fully satisfied: his mission had been contemptuously frustrated. Following on his steps, in a few days came Essex," with great solemnitie," to take command of the army against his King. His instructions were brief, simple, and momentous: the Lord - General was to transmit terms of unconditional submission to the King [under the name of a petition]; and, that failing, he was, "by battle, or otherwise," to bring back to the Parliament, the King and his two sons.2 Lord Essex was a discontented and disappointed man; his career, as a courtier and a lover, had been equally unfortunate; but he was a high-minded, chivalrous soldier, and held many scruples and sympathies in common with the Cavaliers: the former bias prompted him to undertake his present office; the latter disqualified him from fulfilling it with the unscrupulous zeal that it required. Important as he was to his new Roundhead masters,

1 Clarendon's Rebellion, iii. 217.

2 Parl. Hist. ii. Whitelocke's.

2

3 "If the Earl [of Essex] had refused that command, our cause in all likelihood had sunk, we having never a nobleman either willing or capable of it."-Observations, &c., Lilly.

from his military character and his high caste, they were too keen-sighted not to have discovered the drawbacks to such high qualities. For his nominal assistance, therefore, and, virtually, for his control, he was accompanied by a committee of Parliament; it consisted of twelve lords and twenty-four commoners, a heavy and unwelcome incumbrance on a general's staff.

On the 9th of September, 1642, the Lord-General set forth from London, to enter on his command. The hope of the "cause" was centred in his person, and the City escorted him, by guilds and companies, with all honour beyond its boundaries. A large company of armed gentlemen formed his body-guard; applauding crowds accompanied his progress, with the most extravagant exclamations;1 every window was filled with his countrywomen, and the grim old streets were adorned, as if for a triumph. Orange scarfs and shawls, and ribbons, abounded everywhere, and became thenceforth the badge of party. On his arrival at Northampton, the Lord-General found about 14,000 men, of all

1 On September 9, 1642, sets forth the Earl of Essex out of London towards St. Albans and his army; in way of triumph he went out waited on by Parliament, and millions of people lining the highways, throughout attended with the gallantry of his great commanders, with such of the nobility and gentry as favoured his design, the multitude crying out "Hosanna!" Others said "that even so was said and done to his father in his expedition towards Ireland, who returned back a traitor and lost his head at last."-Sanderson's Charles I., p. 577. "Because the

2 May, Long Parl., ii. 57; Whitelocke, p. 50.

arms, mustered under his banner. These troops were well equipped with the Royal stores from Hull; and with arms last taken from the Tower when the Armada was approaching: much of this antique armour resumed its old place in the Tower, and may be there at this day. The bright orange scarf, and steel cuirass, however, enveloped a different stamp of men, from those who gathered round the King at Nottingham, unarmed and ill-provided as the latter were. No Norman chivalry swelled the ranks of the Roundheads, and those of gentle blood among them were so few, as to be summed up in half a column of our histories. "Your troops," said the great spirit of that age, "your troops are, most of them, decayed serving men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows; and the King's troops are gentlemen's sons, younger sons, and persons of quality. Do you think, that the spirit of such base and mean fellows will be ever able to encounter gentlemen, that have honour and courage and resolution in them." Thus spoke Cromwell, but he soon proved that he

Earl of Essex gave a deep yellow for his colours, every citizen's dame, to the draggletail of her kitchen, had got up that colour of the cause."-Sanderson's Charles I.

1 May, Hist. Parl., lib. iii. 5. The "cornet" or standard of Essex's own regiment bore on one side the Parliamentary motto, "God with us," on the other, "Cave adsum !”—Life of Hampden, ii. 200. The latter afforded sometimes abundant subject to the witty Cavaliers when it was seen in retreat, or warning the terrified farmers of approaching contributions.

2 Lord Nugent's Life of Hampden, ii. 203.-Clarendon and Whitelocke, compared, 1727.

3 Forster's Statesmen, iv. 92.