592 



BRITAIN. 



Britain. 



tlOM.MON- 

 IV ALTH. 



1649. 

 Proceed- 

 ings of the 

 republi- 

 cans. 



The Scolch 

 acknow- 

 ledge 

 diaries II. 



Proceed 

 ings in Ire- 

 land. 



arrives ill 



u,; to the spectators, whose sobs and Inmeniations 

 were intermixed with the acclamations of the tol- 

 diery. 



Whilst the general propensity of the English to 

 monarchy, and of men to pity royal misfortunes, was 

 excited by this tragical event, the republican spirit, 

 on the other hand, misguided by fanaticism, began 

 to threaten the wildest i-xcesses ; and sects arose un- 

 der the name of Levellers, Milliiiarmns, and Antinomi- 

 ans, whose object was u. abolish all the forms of go- 

 vernment, and rights of property. But the civil and 

 military power acquired by Cromwell, was built suf- 

 ficient to restrain those turbulent spirits. (See 

 CRIMWELL.) Soon after the king's death, the Home 

 of Peers was abolished as useless by the commons ; 

 and it was voted high treason to acknowledge the son 

 ef Charles his successor in the throne. The first 

 year of freedom was inscribed on the new great seal 

 of England ; and public business was transacted by 

 those who were called, the keepers of the liberties 

 of England. A council of 38 performed the func- 

 tions of the executive, and digested all business pre- 

 paratory to laying it before parliament. It was de- 

 clared, (and probably with sincerity by many of 

 those,) that they intended to settle a new representa- 

 tive, and restore liberty to the people. 



The Scottish nation was invited to form a confe- 

 derate republic ; but irritated at the fate of Hamil- 

 ton, who was executed after the victory of Cromwell, 

 and at the many indignities offered by the Indepen- 

 dents, they acknowledged Charles II. as their king. 

 As Argyle and the strong Covenanters still predo- 

 minatedin Scotland, they made their loyalty condi- 

 tional to the king's good behaviour. 



Ireland demanded more immediate efforts. After 

 the cessation between the late king and the Catholics, 

 war had been kept alive by the parliamentary and 

 Scotch Protestants ; but while Ormond rested secure 

 in his compromise with the council of Kilkenny, the 

 Pope's nuncio assumed an active influence over the 

 bigotry of the ancient natives, turned his arms indis- 

 criminately against Ormond and the other Protestants, 

 and obliged Ormond to submit, for his own preserva- 

 tion, his royal garrisons to Jones, the parliamentary 

 general. The Earl of Clanricarde, however, forming 

 a party among the loyal Catholics, succeeded in cha- 

 sing the nuncio out of the kingdom, and recalled Or- 

 mond, who had fled to France. Ormond, in spite of 

 many difficulties, raised an army of 16,000 men, re- 

 covered Dundalk, Newry, Tredah, and other forts 

 from the republicans. Affairs were in this state, 

 when Cromwell, who was nominated to the govern- 

 ment of Ireland, was for a short time detained by the 

 mutinous spirit of the Levellers in his own army. 

 Four thousand of these assembled at Burtord, who 

 were seduced by the appearance of a treaty ; but be- 

 ing attacked while unprepared for defence, 400 were 

 taken prisoners, and after some severe examples, the 

 mutinous spirit gave way. 



Cromwell first detached a strong force to Ireland 

 to the support of Jones, who was threatened in Dub- 

 lin by the besieging army of Ormoad. By a fortu- 

 nate sally, the parliamentary general obliged his an- 

 tagonists to raise the siege, and Cromwell soon after 

 arriving in the Irish capital, was welcomed with 



general rejoicings. The progress of Cromwell's arms 

 was rapid, bloody, and irresistible. He firt.t stormed 

 the garrison of Tredah, which he butchered to one [ 

 man : he next made a similar massacre at Wexford. 

 Evi-ry town before which he presented himself, sur- 

 rendered in terror at these severe examples; and 

 when his forces were beginning to decay from sick- 

 ness and difficulties, they were recruited by the vo- 

 luntary desertion from all the English garrisons in 

 Munster. Ormond despairing of the cause, fled, and 

 left the management of the Catholics to Clanricarde, 

 who was glad to bargain for banishment. Forty 

 thousand native Irish were allowed by Cromwell to 

 pass into foreign service. 



The offers of the Scottish parliament to receive the 

 young Charles as their sovereign, were renewed to 

 the Prince at Breda ; but as Charles had already en- 

 joined Montrose to make a descent in his favour by 

 force of arms upon Scotland, he protracted the trea- 

 ty with duplicity, till he should know the result of 

 the enterprise. Montrose, with arms and money fur- 

 nished by Sweden and Denmark, and about 600 Ger- 

 mans, arrived from Hamburgh on the Orkney isles, 

 and by a forced levy on the poor islanders, raised his 

 army to 1400. The northern Scotch remembering 

 his cruelties, fled with horror before his standard. 

 Advancing beyond the pass of Invercarron, he was 

 surprized, surrounded, and conveyed to Edinburgh. 

 He was there doomed, by a sentence pronounced on 

 his former attainder, to be hanged on a gibbet 30 feet 

 high, and his limbs were stuck up in the principal 

 towns of the kingdom. His defeat was productive 

 of only a further limitation, or rather explanation of 

 the former condition offered by the Scotch to their 

 king. Charles no longer refused to accept the con- 

 ditions, and receive the covenant (if required,) on his 

 arrival, and embarking with his court in a Dutch 

 fleet, arrived at the mouth of the Spey. As the 

 jealousy of the Scotch was increased by the late in- 

 vasion, the covenant was exacted from him before he 

 was suffered to land. His English attendants, all 

 but a few complying persons, were dismissed, and 

 he soon found that he had only exchanged exile for 

 imprisonment. He was surrounded by the clergy, 

 who approached his person in the humblest postures, 

 but with exhortations full of bitter invectives against 

 the iniquity of his father's house, the idolatry of 

 his mother, and his own connexion with inveterate 

 malignants. He listened to their sermons, and tried 

 to follow their observance of the Sabbath with all 

 his gravity, but neither disgust nor insincerity cuuld 

 entirely e&cape the notice of his attendants. 



The Scutch were disappointed in their expectations 

 of maintaining peace with Ireland, by observing 

 neutrality. Cromwell, after Fairfax had conscien- 

 tiously refused to draw his sword against his Scottish 

 brothers of the covenant, received the command of 

 the troops, and was within a month, from ihe time of 

 the king's arrival, on the banks of the Tweed with 

 16,000 men. Argyle, at the head of thecommiti.ee of 

 estates, made the most vigorous preparations for his 

 reception. Lesly,a general who had m-vcr beenbeaten, 

 opposed his cool sagacity to the genius of Cromwelr. 

 He entrenched himself in a forftied camp between 

 Edinburgh and Leith, and wasted Merse und the 



1 



Mont; 



lands 



Orkm 



isles. 



1650. 



Hei 



priso- 

 and e 

 cd at 



burg] 



Char 

 arriv 

 Scot) 

 and. 

 ceivi 

 cove 



Croi 



inva 

 Scot 



