B R I T A I N. 





J83 



har.d kissed, and may retain llie title- of Majesty, hut 

 I should remain but the mtts'ult', the fidttre, the sign 



' of .1 king." 



In all the commands which the parliament issued, 

 they bound the persons to whom they were directed, 

 to obey the orders of his majesty signified by both 

 houses of parliament ; and, distinguishing between 

 the office and person of the king, those forces which 

 they employed against him they levied in his name, 

 and by his authority. To their ordinance respecting 

 the militia, the king opposed his commissions of ar- 

 ray. The counties obeyed the one or the other ac- 

 cording as they stood affected, and in many places 

 skirmishes immediately ensued. The magazine of 

 Hull contained the arms of all the forces levied 

 against the Scots. Charles expected to overawe the 

 governor, Hotham, into submission, if he could gain 

 admission with his retinue ; but the governor shut 

 the gates against him. 



Never did a war seem more unequal than the pre- 

 sent at its commencement. The king's revenue, 

 which had been scantily dealt out to him before, was 

 stopt after he fled to York. The armies raised for 

 Ireland by parliament, were now devoted to act a- 

 gainst him, under the command of Essex. In Lon- 



. don, no less than 4000 enlisted in one day. The re- 

 quisition of the parliament for loans of money and 

 plate was so well obeyed, that there was hardly 

 room to stow the treasure, or men to receive it ; and 

 such zeal animated the city, that the rich women be- 

 stowed their plate and ornaments, and the poorer 

 their siivi : tliinMos and bodkins. London, and all 

 the sea ports except Newcastle, were in the hands 

 of parliament ; of which the customs yielded them a 

 certain and considerable supply, and the seamen natu- 

 rally fulluwec: the disposition of the ports to which 

 tlu-y Ij.li^ig.d. 



The king, it is true, was surrounded by a spleudid 



' nobility, and a faithful body of gentry, who diffused 

 their loyalty among the rustic and hardy retainers 

 whom they raised on their own estates. Above forty 

 peers of the first rank attended him. The bishops 

 and the clergy, too, were on his side, although these, 

 in a war with Puritans, were not likely to overawe 

 their enemies. Spain, from motives of bigotry, sup- 

 plied some money and arms to his unpopular auxi- 

 liaries the Irish ; and the Prince of Orange encoura- 

 ged some English officers in his service to enlist on 

 Charles's behalf. But the forts, magazines, arms, 

 and fleet, were in the hands of his enemies. Only a 

 part of the queen's succours arrived from Holland ; 

 and Charles was obliged, in order to arm his follow- 

 ers, to borrow the weapons of the train-bands, under 

 a promise of restoring them when peace should be 

 settled. 



The royal standard was first erected at Notting- 

 ham ; but whether from a natural hesitation to com- 

 mence hostilities, or from inattention to the prepara- 

 tions of a feeble enemy, the parliament, with a supe- 

 rior force at Northampton, neglected to dissipate the 

 few troops that resorted at first to the king. Charles 

 was suffered to retire unmolested to Shrewsbury, to 

 collect his levies, and to interpose with an equal ar- 

 my between Essex, the parliamentary general, and 

 the capital. On mustering his army in that situa- 



tion, the king found it amount to 16,000 mfn. The Briiaia. 



Earl of Lindc'sey, who had acquired some military ~* -" 



experience in the Low Countries, was made general ( Jg^o 



Prince: Rupert, a son of the elector palatine, who was 



early in the war, distinguished by his promptitude 



and courage, commanded the horse ; Sir Jacob Ant- 



ley the foot ; Sir Arthur Aston the dragoons ; Sir 



John Hey don the artillery. Such was the low state 



of military skill in England, produced by a long 



peace, that, after the hostile armies set out, the 



king's from Shrewsbury, the other from Worcester, 



they marched ten days in mutual ignorance of each 



other's motions. On the 23d of October they met Bnttlf a: 



at Keinton, or Edgehill, in the county of Warwick. Edgchill. 



Both the wings of Essex, the parliamentary general, ^ ltl - " 



were at first put to flight by the shock of: Prince 



Rupert's cavalry, and the troops under Wilmot and 



Sir Arthur Aston ; but the king's reserve, judging, 



like raw soldiers, that the day was won, took too 



prompt a share in the chase, and were watched by- 



Sir \V. Balfour, the commander of the parliamentary 



reserve, who wheeled upon them suddenly, and con- 



verted their victory into a doubtful defeat. Return- 



ing to the charge, the two armies faced each other 



for some time, without courage on either side to re- 



new the attack. All night they lay under arms. 



Next day Essex first drew off towards Warwick, and 



the king to his former quarters. Five thousand are 



said to have perished, in nearly equal shares, on both 



sides. Charles's nearer advance to London, and a 



few slight successes after this victory, brought on 



the treaty of Oxford, when winter concluded this Trca- 



first campaign. As the condition of Charles'? recal, Oxtorv! 



the parliamentary commissioners required the militia 



to be left to the disposal of the two houses, Episco- 



pacy to be quite abolished, and ecclesiastical contro- 



versies to be determined by an assembly of divines. , 



From their private conferences, it was obvious that 



much would have been deducted from these demands, 



if Charles h-jj not been extravagant in his ; and the 



failure of the negotiation may, on the authority of 



Clarendon, be ascribed to Charles's fidelity to an un- 



happy promise which he had made to his queen, to 



accede to no terms without her intervention, and re- 



store none to favour without her consent. 



The parliamentary army took the field next spring Thepnrira- 

 21,000 strong: The campaign of 1613 was, on the meutary 

 whole, unfavourable to them ; and, considering the army again 

 difficulty of raising money among the king's friends |.^ b lhe 

 by spontaneous exertions, compared to the facility ' ' 

 with which their antagonists recruited their finances 

 by taxes, that success is surprisingly honourable to 

 the royalists. The city of Reading, however, sur- 

 rendered to Essex, at the head of 18,000 men. In 

 the north, Lord Fairfax, who commanded for the 

 parliament, was dislodged by the Earl of Newcastle on ( 

 from Tadcaster, but the victory proved indecisive, sides. 

 Waller, the poet, distinguished himself on the parlia- 

 mentary side, by taking Winchester, Chichester, and 

 Hereford. These successes were counterbalanced by 

 victories of the royalists in the west, where, at Bra- 

 de down, in Cornwall, the Cornishmen overthrew 

 General Ruthven, and chased General Stamford back 

 to Plymouth and Exeter. The return of Stamford's 

 forces under Major-General Chidley, in the tame di- 



1613 



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