CHAPTER man found in arms; and the puritan soldiers for IV. some time executed the stern commission with re CHAS. I. A.D. 1645. morseless vengeance. When a troop surrendered, whatever were the terms, the Irish were singled out and shot, if indeed they escaped a worse fate. Multitudes were hanged. At Conway, a number were tied back to back and thrown into the sea.* The slaughter was too often indiscriminate: no pains were taken to ascertain each man's guilt. At York, a company of Walloons, prince Rupert's mercenaries, were mistaken for Irish soldiers, and not one of them was spared. In various places great barbarities were practised. At Padstow an Irish ship was taken : its papers shewed that it was in the service of the rebels; it carried thirty men, and they were put to death by the townspeople. In the west of England, prince Rupert, in revenge, hung up the mayor and several of the chief citizens of the town of Dorchester, and carried on a system of reprisals. Thus, as in civil war it always happens, one outrage produced another; the war became every day more cruel, and each side gave way to the deadly passions of hatred and revenge. It is not easy to assign to either party its proper share of blame, except that in such matters the first aggressor is always the most culpable; and Charles, in bringing over the Irish troops, had aroused the parliament to vengeance. Each side, however, could at length point to some deed of cruelty in the other as a pretext for its own. Besides the introduction of the Irish many atrocities were charged upon the royalists, and the character of the chief *Whitelocke, p. 224. * IV. Prince He was uncon He could break CHAS. I. A.D. 1645. commanders was such as almost to ensure without CHAPTER inquiry the truth of these accusations. Rupert, second in command to the king himself, was rough and passionate; or, as described by his enemies, fierce and cruel. Goring, general of the horse, who was entrusted with the command of a separate army in the west of England, had not the slightest sense of religion, truth, or justice. Even honour, the idol virtue of the camp, was utterly unknown to him. To gain his ends, no wickedness was too gross, no action too foul. trolled by any fear of God or man. the most sacred trust and commit the basest treachery with a light heart and for any trifling consideration. In short, had it not been that he wanted application, he would have been as eminent in wickedness as any man of the age he lived in or of any age before.† Lord Wilmot, also a generalin-chief of cavalry, was a debauchee, who possessed no more integrity or honour than lord Goring; he was only more timid or more cautious in his vices; and yet no man in the army had more influence with the soldiers. From these commanders the army took its character. There were men of high rank it is true in the king's service, whose conduct was in everything the opposite to these; men who abhorred the licence and the levities with which they saw too many corrupted. Such were lord Hopton and sir Jacob Astley ;§ but they wanted the force of character to stem the tide which overflowed the camp with vice. The royal army too became at the * Clarendon, viii. p. 554. Ib. pp 481 and 555. + Ib. p. 555. IV. A.D. 1645. CHAPTER Conclusion of the war, in the military sense, demoralized. Repeated defeats and a hopeless prospect CHAS. I. had made it reckless, and in a beaten army recklessness is always cruel. The provocations offered by the royalists were great no doubt. They were enough to justify the puritans, according to the usual practice of the camp and the current opinions of mankind. They did but retaliate; they met cruelty with revenge; they returned evil for evil; they acted as ordinary men act under similar provocations. But this was not enough, for theirs was no ordinary quarrel. They had taken up arms in defence of law and righteousness, on behalf of religion and in the name of God, and their conduct was unworthy of their cause. But the long continuance of the war is sufficient to account for the bitterness which both sides displayed. It is surprising that at the close of such a conflict the christian virtues should still have found a home in England. The character which by degrees the war assumed was the most unfavourable to personal religion and the domestic virtues of gentleness and charity, that can well be imagined. Besides the great battles where the armies met each other in the field, there was a sort of guerilla warfare in every county, almost in every parish-a contest of individuals, of man with man. Every fortified house -and all the houses of the nobility and chief gentry were then fortified-became the centre of military operations: it either contained a garrison or stood a siege. The tenants of the estate on one side, and the neighbouring townsmen on the other, met in opposite array beneath its walls. Neighbours and IV. CHAS. I. A.D. 1645. relations were intermixed in battle: the animosities сCHAPTER at length were personal; the dying man told by what neighbour's hand he had received his wound 1; and the tenant of the next farm or the tradesman of the village was branded for life with the guilt of his blood. The stories of the siege of Lathom house and Wardour castle are amongst the romantic episodes of English history; and while they shew the valour of our ancestors they expose the miseries of a war at home, and explain too forcibly the causes of the decay of piety. Lathom house in Lancashire was the noble residence of the earl of Derby. He was absent with the king's army when his castle was invested by the forces of the parliament. It was defended by the countess, and by a brave garrison, whose courage was sustained by her example. The siege opened with a sermon on the previous Sunday, in the parish church of the neighbouring town of Wigan. One Bradshaw was the preacher; no illiterate fanatic, for he had been educated at Brazenose, Oxford. "Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about: all ye that bend the bow, shoot at her, spare no arrows: for she hath sinned against the Lord,"*-was his text. He gave the marks and signs of antichrist: he proved that the countess, who was of foreign descent, was the scarlet whore of Babylon; he shewed that Lathom house, with its seven towers, was a mystic Babylon itself; he foretold its coming desolation, and reserved the next verset to solemnize the triumph which he Jeremiah 1. 14. + "Shout against her round about: she hath given her hand: her foundations are fallen, her walls are thrown down for it is the vengeance IV. CHAPTER assured his hearers was at hand. On Tuesday the house was invested, and the next day a letter was CHAS. I delivered to the countess from sir Thomas Fairfax, A lofty A.D. 1644. courteously demanding her submission. of the Lord: take vengeance upon her; as she hath done, do unto her." |