The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (407 page)

That the king might have less reason to exult in the advantages, which he had obtained in the west, the parliament opposed to him very numerous forces. Having armed anew Essex’s subdued, but not disheartened troops, they ordered Manchester and Cromwell to march with their recruited forces from the eastern association; and joining their armies to those of Waller and Middleton, as well as of Essex, offer battle to the king. Charles chose his post at Newbury,

where the parliamentary armies, under the Earl of Manchester, Second battle of

attacked him with great vigour; and that town was a second time Newbury.

the scene of the bloody animosities of the English. Essex’s

soldiers,

exhorting one another to repair their broken honour, and revenge 27th Oct.

the disgrace of Lestithiel, made an impetuous assault on the royalists; and having recovered some of their cannon, lost in Cornwall, could not forbear embracing them with tears of joy. Though the king’s troops defended themselves with valour, they were overpowered by numbers; and the night came very seasonably to their relief, and prevented a total overthrow. Charles, leaving his baggage and cannon in Dennington-castle, near Newbury, forthwith retreated to Wallingford, and thence to Oxford. There, prince Rupert and the earl of Northampton joined him, with considerable bodies of cavalry. Strengthened by this reinforcement, he ventured to advance towards the enemy, now employed before Dennington-castle.
y

Essex, detained by sickness, had not joined the army, since his misfortune in Cornwall. Manchester, who commanded, though his forces were much superior to those of the king, declined an engagement, and rejected Cromwell’s advice, who earnestly pressed him not to neglect

so favourable an opportunity of finishing the war. The king’s 9th Nov.

army, by bringing off their cannon from Dennington-castle, in the face of the enemy, seemed to have sufficiently repaired the honour which they had lost at Newbury; and Charles, having the satisfaction to excite, between Manchester and Cromwell, equal animosities with those which formerly took place between Essex

and Waller;z
distributed his army into winter-quarters.

Those contests among the parliamentary generals, which had

23d Nov.

distributed their military operations, were renewed in London during the winter-season; and each being supported by his own faction, their mutual reproaches and accusations agitated the whole city and parliament. There had long prevailed, in that party, a secret distinction, which, though the dread of the king’s power had hitherto suppressed it, yet, in proportion as the hopes of success became nearer and more immediate, began to discover itself, with high contest and animosity.

The Independents, who had, at first, taken shelter and concealed themselves under the wings of the Presbyterians, now evidently appeared a distinct party, and betrayed very different views and pretensions. We must here endeavour to explain the genius of this party, and of its leaders, who henceforth occupy the scene of action.

PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

288

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/792

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 5

During those times, when the enthusiastic spirit met with such Rise and character of

honour and encouragement, and was the immediate means of

the Independents.

distinction and preferment; it was impossible to set bounds to these holy fervours, or confine, within any natural limits, what was directed towards an infinite and supernatural object. Every man, as prompted by the warmth of his temper, excited by emulation, or supported by his habits of hypocrisy, endeavoured to distinguish himself beyond his fellows, and to arrive at a higher pitch of saintship and perfection. In proportion to its degree of fanaticism, each sect became dangerous and destructive; and as the independents went a note higher than the presbyterians, they could less be restrained within any bounds of temper and moderation. From this distinction, as from a first principle, were derived, by a necessary consequence, all the other differences of these two sects.

The independents rejected all ecclesiastical establishments, and would admit of no spiritual courts, no government among pastors, no interposition of the magistrate in religious concerns, no fixed encouragement annexed to any system of doctrines or opinions. According to their principles, each congregation, united voluntarily and by spiritual ties, composed, within itself, a separate church, and exercised a jurisdiction, but one destitute of temporal sanctions, over its own pastor and its own members. The election alone of the congregation was sufficient to bestow the sacerdotal character; and as all essential distinction was denied between the laity and the clergy, no ceremony, no institution, no vocation, no imposition of hands, was, as in all other churches, supposed requisite to convey a right to holy orders. The enthusiasm of the presbyterians led them to reject the authority of prelates, to throw off the restraint of liturgies, to retrench ceremonies, to limit the riches and authority of the priestly office: The fanaticism of the independents, exalted to a higher pitch, abolished ecclesiastical government, disdained creeds and systems, neglected every ceremony, and confounded all ranks and orders. The soldier, the merchant, the mechanic, indulging the fervors of zeal, and guided by the illapses of the spirit, resigned himself to an inward and superior direction, and was consecrated, in a manner, by an immediate intercourse and communication with heaven.

The catholics, pretending to an infallible guide, had justified, upon that principle, their doctrine and practice of persecution: The presbyterians, imagining that such clear and certain tenets, as they themselves adopted, could be rejected only from a criminal and pertinacious obstinacy, had hitherto gratified, to the full, their bigotted zeal, in a like doctrine and practice: The independents, from the extremity of the same zeal, were led into the milder principles of toleration. Their mind, set afloat in the wide sea of inspiration, could confine itself within no certain limits; and the same variations, in which an enthusiast indulged himself, he was apt, by a natural train of thinking, to permit in others. Of all christian sects, this was the first, which, during its prosperity, as well as its adversity, always adopted the principle of toleration; and, it is remarkable, that so reasonable a doctrine owed its origin, not to reasoning, but to the height of extravagance and fanaticism.

Popery and prelacy alone, whose genius seemed to tend towards superstition, were treated by the independents with rigour. The doctrines too of fate or destiny, were PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

289

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/792

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 5

deemed by them essential to all religion. In these rigid opinions, the whole sectaries, amidst all their other differences, unanimously concurred.

The political system of the independents kept pace with their religions. Not content with confining, to very narrow limits, the power of the crown, and reducing the king to the rank of first magistrate, which was the project of the presbyterians; this sect, more ardent in the pursuit of liberty, aspired to a total abolition of the monarchy, and even of the aristocracy; and projected an entire equality of rank and order, in a republic, quite free and independent. In consequence of this scheme, they were declared enemies to all proposals for peace, except on such terms as, they knew, it was impossible to obtain; and they adhered to that maxim, which is, in the main, prudent and political, that whoever draws the sword against his sovereign, should throw away the scabbard. By terrifying others with the fear of vengeance from the offended prince, they had engaged greater numbers into the opposition against peace, than had adopted their other principles with regard to government and religion. And the great success, which had already attended the arms of the parliament, and the greater, which was soon expected, confirmed them still further in this obstinacy.

Sir Harry Vane, Oliver Cromwell, Nathaniel Fiennes, and Oliver St. John, the solicitor-general, were regarded as the leaders of the independents. The earl of Essex, disgusted with a war, of which he began to foresee the pernicious consequences, adhered to the presbyterians, and promoted every reasonable plan of accommodation.

The earl of Northumberland, fond of his rank and dignity, regarded with horror a scheme, which, if it took place, would confound himself and his family with the lowest in the kingdom. The earls of Warwic, and Denbigh, Sir Philip Stapleton, Sir William Waller, Hollis, Massey, Whitlocke, Mainard, Glyn, had embraced the same sentiments. In the parliament, a considerable majority, and a much greater in the nation, were attached to the presbyterian party; and it was only by cunning and deceit at first, and afterwards by military violence, that the independents could entertain any hopes of success.

The earl of Manchester, provoked at the impeachment, which the king had lodged against him, had long forwarded the war with alacrity; but, being a man of humanity and good principles, the view of public calamities, and the prospect of a total subversion of government, began to moderate his ardor, and inclined him to promote peace on any safe or honourable terms. He was even suspected, in the field, not to have pushed to the utmost against the king the advantages, obtained by the arms of the parliament; and Cromwell, in the public debates, revived the accusation, that this nobleman had wilfully neglected at Dennington-castle a favourable opportunity of finishing the war by a total defeat of the royalists. “I showed him evidently,” said Cromwell, “how this success might be obtained; and only desired leave, with my own brigade of horse, to charge the king’s army in their retreat; leaving it in the earl’s choice, if he thought proper, to remain neuter with the rest of his forces: But, notwithstanding my importunity, he positively refused his consent; and gave no other reason but that, if we met with a defeat, there was an end of our pretensions: We should all be rebels and traitors, and be executed and forfeited by law?”
a

PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

290

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/792

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 5

Manchester, by way of recrimination, informed the parliament, that, at another time, Cromwell, having proposed some scheme, to which it seemed improbable the parliament would agree, he insisted and said,
My lord, if you will stick firm to honest
men, you shall find yourself at the head of an army, which shall give law both to king
and parliament.
“This discourse,” continued Manchester, “made the greater impression on me, because I knew the lieutenant-general to be a man of very deep designs; and he has even ventured to tell me, that it never would be well with England till I were Mr. Montague, and there were ne’er a lord or peer in the kingdom.”
b
So full was Cromwell of these republican projects, that, notwithstanding his habits of profound dissimulation, he could not so carefully guard his expressions, but that sometimes his favourite notions would escape him.

These violent dissensions brought matters to extremity, and pushed the independents to the execution of their designs. The present generals, they thought, were more desirous of protracting than finishing the war; and having entertained a scheme for preserving still some balance in the constitution, they were afraid of entirely subduing the king, and reducing him to a condition, where he should not be intitled to ask any concessions. A new model alone of the army could bring compleat victory to the parliament, and free the nation from those calamities, under which it laboured. But how to effect this project was the difficulty. The authority, as well as merits, of Essex was very great with the parliament. Not only he had served them all along with the most exact and scrupulous honour: It was, in some measure, owing to his popularity, that they had ever been enabled to levy an army or make head against the royal cause.

Manchester, Warwic, and the other commanders had likewise great credit with the public; nor were there any hopes of prevailing over them, but by laying the plan of an oblique and artificial attack, which would conceal the real purpose of their antagonists. The Scots and Scottish commissioners, jealous of the progress of the independents, were a new obstacle; which, without the utmost art and subtlety, it

would be difficult to surmount.c
The methods, by which this intrigue was conducted, are so singular, and show so fully the genius of the age, that we shall give a detail of

them, as they are delivered by lord Clarendon.d

A fast, on the last Wednesday of every month, had been ordered by the parliament at the beginning of these commotions; and their preachers, on that day, were careful to keep alive, by their vehement declamations, the popular prejudices entertained against the king, against prelacy, and against popery. The king, that he might combat the parliament with their own weapons, appointed likewise a monthly fast, when the people should be instructed in the duties of loyalty and of submission to the higher powers; and he chose the second Friday of every month for the devotion of the

royalists.e
It was now proposed and carried in parliament, by the independents, that a new and more solemn fast should be voted, when they should implore the divine assistance for extricating them from those perplexities, in which they were at present involved. On that day, the preachers, after many political prayers, took care to treat of the reigning divisions in the parliament, and ascribed them entirely to the selfish ends, pursued by the members. In the hands of those members, they said, are lodged all the considerable commands of the army, all the lucrative offices in the civil administration: And while the nation is falling every day into poverty, and groans under an insupportable load of taxes; these men multiply possession on possession, PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

291

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/792