Sources Adams and Stephens, Select Documents, nos. 195–206; Colby, Selections from the Sources, nos. 71, 72; Kendall, Source-Book. nos. 76-78; Gardiner, Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, pt. ii.; Gee and Hardy, Documents of Church History, nos. xcviii.-cvi.; Lord Holles, Memoirs (1641-1642); Forster, Life of Sir John Eliot (letters and speeches); Carlyle, Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, pt. i.; Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, bks. i.-V. CONTEST OF FIRST STUARTS AND PARLIAMENT Parliament claims jurisdiction over elections to Parliament Commons impeaches king's officers (Chancellor, Treasurer). Commons refuses supplies. King raises money by forced loans and illegal taxation King violates Petition of Right by forced loans Commons, protesting, is dissolved; king rules without Parlia ment Commons dictates its own duration; abolishes Courts of Star Commons passes Grand Remonstrance; king attacks liberty of 1641 1642 CHAPTER XXIII. THE GREAT REBELLION (1642-1649) 366. Mili AT the outbreak of the Civil War, the wealthy and populous districts in the south and east of England were on the whole friendly to Parliament, and the rural districts of the north and west were loyal to the king. One body of his forces was in Cornwall, another in York; between these two regions lay a line of important towns, Northampton, tary situa tion (1642) CAVALRY AND PIKEMEN AT THE BATTLE OF EDGEHILL, 1642. From a broadside published after the Restoration. Coventry, Warwick, and Worcester, which had been seized and garrisoned with parliamentary troops by Essex, commander in chief of the parliamentary forces. On August 22, 1642, the king practically declared war by raising the royal standard at Nottingham. With the forces which quickly came in, he moved westward to Shrewsbury, so as to raise the Catholic gentry of western England and to secure the important Severn valley. Then he undertook to capture London and Westminster, the commercial and political centers of the kingdom, The names within the circle suggest the importance of Oxford as a strategic center. and pressed southeastward across mid-England, ignoring Essex and the parliamentary army at Worcester. In order to save London, Essex followed close upon the 367. Begin- king's heels, and forced his army to turn and fight the ning of hos- opening skirmish of the war on the slope of Edgehill tilities (1642-1643) (October 23, 1642). Essex, however, was repulsed, and Charles advanced to the outskirts of London; but instead of attacking the city, he remained inactive for a day (as if afraid of the forces which hastily rallied to the defense of London), and then retired unmolested to Oxford, thenceforth the center of his military operations. He thus gained the advantage of a central position from which to strike unexpected blows in any direction, but lost all control of the sea and its opportunities for quick transit, and for coöperation from without the kingdom. During the summer months of 1643, Charles's nephew, Prince Rupert, led a series of brilliant cavalry maneuvers from Oxford, and won minor victories for the king. The dashing "Cavaliers" learned to scorn the ill-trained parliamentary armies filled with psalm-singing Puritans, whom, from the close-cropped hair, they nicknamed "Roundheads." At Shelton, at Bath, at Devizes, and at Bristol, parliamentary armies met disasters. John Hampden, worth more than many regiments, was mortally wounded in a skirmish with Rupert's cavalry at Chalgrove, near Oxford (June 18). At the end of twelve months, Parliament retained of important points in the north only the fortress of Hull; in the west, only Gloucester. The sieges of those two places failed, however, and the star of Charles began to wane. Not only did his forces win no further important successes, but the Scots were now enlisted on the side of Parliament, and the organization of an Association of the Eastern Counties (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, and Huntingdon), under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, gave stability and strength to the parliamentary cause. A CAVALIER DANDY. From a seventeenth century etching. 368. The September 25, 1643, Pym induced Parliament to make an alliance with the Scots, so that after February, 1644, the conduct of the war was under the control of a Committee of Both Kingdoms. Parliament secured this alli ance only by ratifying the Solemn League and Covenant, which was signed by the twenty-five peers who still remained at Westminster, and by two hundred and eighty-eight commoners. By this Covenant Parliament bound itself to "make religion as uniform as possible in England, Ireland, and Scotland, and to reform the Church according to the Word of God and the example of the best reformed churches." All civil, military, and ecclesiastical officers in the kingdom were required to accept the Covenant; and the expulsion of some two thousand clergymen who refused to take the oath left the state church entirely in the hands of Presbyterians. 369. Rise of the Inde pendents The Scottish alliance and Pym's death, in December, 1643, mark a turning point in the history of the Long Parliament. Henceforth the strife was to be between the victorious Presbyterians and the Independents, a body of religious radicals already numerous in the army. The Independ ents believed that churches should be voluntary associations for divine worship, each independent of all control by the state, or by any authority outside of its own membership. Between this party and the triumphant Presbyterians a clash was certain to arise, and hence the Scottish alliance tended to discord and weakness, rather than to strength. This was the more unfortunate because, of those prominent in ParliamentEssex, Kimbolton (now Earl of Manchester), Holles, Vane, Waller, and Cromwell, no one was as yet strong enough to take Pym's place as leader. Early in 1644 the Scots advanced into England with 22,000 370. Battle men, threatening to entrap the royal forces under the Duke of Newcastle between their own army and that of Fairfax, the parliamentary general. Newcastle fell back of Marston Moor (July 2, 1644) |