First English Civil War

Rupert's Northern March

The Herefordshire and Worcestershire peasantry, weary of military exactions, were in arms. Though they would not join Parliament, and for the most part dispersed after stating their grievances, the main enterprise was wrecked. This was but one of many ill-armed crowds, the "Clubmen" as they were called, that assembled to enforce peace on both parties. A few regular soldiers were sufficient to disperse them in all cases, but their attempt to establish a third party in England was morally as significant as it was materially futile.

The Royalists were now fighting with the courage of despair. Those who still fought against Charles did so with the full determination to ensure the triumph of their cause, and with the conviction that the only possible way was the annihilation of the enemy's armed forces. The majority, however, were so weary of the war that the Earl of Manchester's Presbyterian royalism, which had contributed so materially to the prolongation of the struggle, would probably have been accepted by four-fifths of all England as the basis of a peace. It was, in fact, in the face of almost universal opposition, that Fairfax and Cromwell and their friends at Westminster guided the cause of their weaker comrades to complete victory.

Cromwell's Raid

Having without difficulty, rid himself of the Clubmen, Rupert was eager to resume his march into the north. It is unlikely that he wished to join Montrose, though Charles himself favoured that plan. However, he certainly intended to fight the Scottish army, more especially as after Inverlochy, it had been called upon to detach a large force to deal with Montrose. But this time there was no Royalist army in the north to provide infantry and guns for a pitched battle. Rupert had perforce to wait near Hereford till the main body, and in particular the artillery train, could come from Oxford and join him.

It was on the march of the artillery train to Hereford that the first operations of the New Model centred. The infantry was not yet ready to move, in spite of all Fairfax's and Skippon's efforts. It became necessary to send the cavalry, by itself, to prevent Rupert from gaining a start. Cromwell, then under Waller's command, had come to Windsor to resign his commission, as required by the Self-denying Ordinance. Instead, he was placed at the head of a brigade of his own old soldiers, with orders to stop the march of the artillery train.

On 23 April, Cromwell started from Watlington, north-westward. At dawn on the 24th, he routed a detachment of Royalist horse at Islip. On the same day, though he had no guns and only a few firearms in the whole force, he terrified the governor of Bletchingdon House into surrender. Riding thence to Witney, Cromwell won another cavalry fight at Bampton-in-the-Bush on the 27th, and attacked Faringdon House, though without success, on the 29th. Thence, he marched at leisure to Newbury. He had done his work thoroughly. He had demoralised the Royalist cavalry, and, above all, had carried off every horse on the countryside. To all Rupert's entreaties, Charles could only reply that the guns could not be moved till the 7 May, and he even summoned Goring's cavalry from the west to make good his losses.

Civilian strategy

Cromwell's success thus forced the King to concentrate his various armies in the neighbourhood of Oxford. The New Model had, so Fairfax and Cromwell hoped, found its target. But the "Committee of Both Kingdoms" on the one side, and Charles, Rupert, and Goring, on the other, held different views. On 1 May, Fairfax, having been ordered to relieve Taunton, set out from Windsor for the long march to that place. Meeting Cromwell at Newbury on the 2nd, he directed the lieutenant-general to watch the movements of the King's army. He himself marched on to Blandford, which he reached on 7 May. Thus, Fairfax and the main army of Parliament were marching away in the west, while Cromwell's detachment was left, as Waller had been left the previous year, to hold the King, as best he could.

On the very evening that Cromwell's raid ended, the leading troops of Goring's command destroyed part of Cromwell's own regiment near Faringdon. On the 3rd, Rupert and Maurice appeared with a force of all arms at Burford. Yet the "Committee of Both Kingdoms", though aware on the 29th of Goring's move, only made up its mind to stop Fairfax on the 3rd, and did not send off orders till the 5th. These orders were to the effect that a detachment was to be sent to the relief of Taunton, and that the main army was to return. Fairfax gladly obeyed, even though a siege of Oxford, and not the enemy's field army, was the objective assigned him. But long before he came up to the Thames valley, the situation was again changed.

Rupert, now in possession of the guns and their teams, urged upon his uncle, the resumption of the northern enterprise, calculating that with Fairfax in Somersetshire, Oxford was safe. Charles accordingly marched out of Oxford on the 7th towards Stow-on-the-Wold, on the very day as it chanced, that Fairfax began his return march from Blandford. But Goring and most of the other generals were for a march into the west, in the hope of dealing with Fairfax as they had dealt with Essex in 1644. The armies therefore parted, as Essex and Waller had parted at the same place in 1644. Rupert and the King were to march northward, while Goring was to return to his independent command in the west.

Rupert, not unnaturally, wishing to keep his influence with the King and his authority as general of the King's army, unimpaired by Goring's notorious indiscipline, made no attempt to prevent the separation, which in the event proved wholly unprofitable. The flying column from Blandford relieved Taunton long before Goring's return to the west. Colonel Weldon and Colonel Graves, its commanders, set him at defiance even in the open country. As for Fairfax, he was out of Goring's reach, preparing for the siege of Oxford.

Charles in the Midlands

On the other side also, the generals were working by data that had ceased to have any value. Fairfax's siege of Oxford, ordered by the Committee on the 10 May, and persisted in, after it was known that the King was on the move, was the second great blunder of the year. The blunder was hardly redeemed, as a military measure, by the visionary scheme of assembling the Scots, the Yorkshiremen, and the midland forces to oppose the King. It is hard to understand how, having created a new model army, "all its own" for general service, Parliament at once tied it down to a local enterprise, and trusted an improvised army of local troops to fight the enemy's main army.

In reality, the Committee seems to have been misled by false information to the effect that Goring and the governor of Oxford were about to declare for Parliament. Had they not despatched Fairfax to the relief of Taunton in the first instance, the necessity for such intrigues would not have arisen. However, Fairfax obeyed orders, invested Oxford, and so far as he was able, without a proper siege train, besieged it for two weeks, while Charles and Rupert ranged the midlands unopposed.

At the end of that time came news, so alarming that the Committee hastily abdicated their control over military operations, and gave Fairfax a free hand. "Black Tom" gladly and instantly abandoned the siege and marched northward to give battle to the King. Meanwhile, Charles and Rupert were moving northward. On 11 May, they reached Droitwich, from where after two days' rest they marched against Brereton. The latter hurriedly raised the sieges he had on hand, and called upon Yorkshire and the Scottish army there for aid. But only the old Lord Fairfax and the Yorkshiremen responded. Leven had just heard of new victories, won by Montrose. He could do no more than draw his army and his guns over the Pennine chain into Westmorland, in the hope of being in time to bar the King's march on Scotland via Carlisle.

Dundee

After the destruction of the Campbells at Inverlochy, Montrose had cleared away the rest of his enemies without difficulty. He now gained a respectable force of cavalry by the adhesion of Lord Gordon and many of his clan. This reinforcement was the more necessary, as detachments from Leven's army under Baillie, and Hurry's disciplined infantry and cavalry, were on the march to meet him. The Royalists marched by Elgin and through the Gordon country to Aberdeen, and thence across the Esk to Coupar-Angus, where Baillie and Hurry were encountered. A war of manoeuvre followed, in which they thwarted every effort of the Royalists to break through into the Lowlands. In the end, however, they retired into Fife. Montrose thereupon marched into the hills, with the intention of reaching the upper Forth and thence, the Lowlands.

Montrose did not disguise from himself the fact that there, and not in the Highlands, would the quarrel be decided. He was sanguine — in fact over-sanguine, as the event proved — as to the support, he would obtain from those who hated the kirk and its system. But he had called to his aid, the semi-barbarous Highlanders, and however much the Lowlands resented a Presbyterian inquisition, they hated and feared the Highland clans beyond all else. He was equally disappointed in his own army.

For a war of positions, the Highlanders had neither aptitude nor inclination, and at Dunkeld, the greater part of them went home. If the small remnant was to be kept to its duty, plunder must be found, and the best objective was the town of Dundee. With a small force of 750 foot and horse, Montrose brilliantly surprised the town on 4 April. Baillie and Hurry, however, were not far distant, and before Montrose's men had time to plunder the prize, they were collected to face the enemy.

Montrose's retreat from Dundee was considered a model operation by foreign students on the art of war (then, almost as numerous as now). What surprised them most was that Montrose could rally his men after a sack had begun. The retreat itself was remarkable enough. Baillie moved parallel to Montrose on his left flank towards Arbroath, constantly heading him off from the hills and attempting to pin him against the sea. Montrose, however, halted in the dark so as to let Baillie get ahead of him and then turned sharply back, crossed Baillie's track, and made for the hills. Baillie soon realised what had happened and turned back also, but he was an hour too late. By the 6th, the Royalists were again safe in the broken country of the Esk valley. But Montrose cherished no illusions as to joining the King at once. All he could do, he now wrote, was to neutralise as many of the enemy's forces as possible.

Auldearn

For a time, he wandered in the Highlands seeking recruits. But soon, he learned that Baillie and Hurry had divided their forces, the former remaining about Perth and Stirling to observe him, the latter going north to suppress the Gordons. Strategy and policy combined to make Hurry the objective of the next expedition. But the soldier of fortune who commanded the Covenanters at Aberdeen was no mean antagonist. Marching at once with a large army (formed on the nucleus of his own trained troops and for the rest composed of clansmen and volunteers), Hurry advanced to Elgin, made contact with Montrose there, and, gradually and skillfully retiring, drew him into the hostile country round Inverness. Montrose fell into the trap, and Hurry took his measures to surprise him at Auldearn so successfully that (May 9) Montrose, even though the indiscipline of some of Hurry's young soldiers during the night march gave him the alarm, had barely time to form up before the enemy was upon him. But the best strategy is of no avail when the battle it produces goes against the strategist, and Montrose's tactical skill was never more conspicuous than at Auldearn. Alastair Macdonald, with most of the Royalist infantry and the Royal standard, was posted to the right (north) of the village to draw upon himself the weight of Hurry's attack; only enough men were posted in the village itself to show that it was occupied, and on the south side, out of sight, was Montrose himself with a body of foot and all the Gordon horse. It was the prototype, on a small scale, of Austerlitz. Macdonald resisted sturdily while Montrose edged away from the scene of action, and at the right moment and not before, though Macdonald had been driven back on the village and was fighting for life amongst the gardens and enclosures, Montrose let loose Lord Gordon's cavalry. These, abandoning for once the pistol tactics of their time, charged home with the sword. The enemy's right wing cavalry was scattered in an instant, the nearest infantry was promptly ridden down, and soon Hurry's army had ceased to exist.

Campaign of Naseby

If the news of Auldearn brought Leven to the region of Carlisle, it had little effect on his English allies. Fairfax was not yet released from the siege of Oxford, in spite of the protests of the Scottish representatives in London. Massey, the active and successful governor of Gloucester, was placed in command of a field force on the 25 May, but he was to lead it against, not the King, but Goring. At that moment the military situation once more changed abruptly. Charles, instead of continuing his march on to Lancashire, turned due eastward towards Derbyshire. The alarm at Westminster when this new development was reported was such that Cromwell, in spite of the Self-Denying Ordinance, was sent to raise an army for the defence of the Eastern Association. Yet the Royalists had no intentions in that direction. Conflicting reports as to the condition of Oxford reached the royal headquarters in the last week of May, and the eastward march was made chiefly to "spin out time" until it could be known whether it would be necessary to return to Oxford, or whether it was still possible to fight Leven in Yorkshire his move into Westmorland was not yet known and invade Scotland by the easy east coast route.

Goring's return to the west had already been countermanded and he had been directed to march to Harborough, while the South Wales Royalists were also called in towards Leicester. Later orders (May 26) directed him to Newbury, whence he was to feel the strength of the enemy's positions around Oxford. It is hardly necessary to say that Goring found good military reasons for continuing his independent operations, and marched off towards Taunton regardless of the order. He redressed the balance there for the moment by overawing Massey's weak force, and his purse profited considerably by fresh opportunities for extortion, but he and his men were not at Naseby. Meanwhile the King, at the geographical centre of England, found an important and wealthy town at his mercy. Rupert, always for action, took the opportunity, and Leicester was stormed and thoroughly pillaged on the night of the 30 May–31 May.

There was the usual panic at Westminster, but, unfortunately for Charles, it resulted in Fairfax being directed to abandon the siege of Oxford and given carte blanche to bring the Royal army to battle wherever it was met. On his side the King had, after the capture of Leicester, accepted the advice of those who feared for the safety of Oxford. Rupert, though commander-in-chief, was unable to insist on the northern enterprise and had marched to Daventry, where he halted to throw supplies into Oxford.

Thus Fairfax in his turn was free to move, thanks to the insubordination of Goring, who would neither relieve Oxford nor join the King for an attack on the New Model. The Parliamentary general moved from Oxford towards Northampton so as to cover the Eastern Association. On the 12 June the two armies were only a few miles apart, Fairfax at Kislingbury, Charles at Daventry, and, though the Royalists turned northward again on the 13th to resume the Yorkshire project under the very eyes of the enemy, Fairfax followed close. On the night of the 13th Charles slept at Lubenham, Fairfax at Guilsborough. Cromwell, just appointed lieutenant-general of the New Model, had ridden into camp on the morning of the 13th with fresh cavalry from the eastern counties, Colonel Rossiter came up with more from Lincolnshire on the morning of the battle, and it was with an incontestable superiority of numbers and an overwhelming moral advantage that Fairfax fought at Naseby (q.v.) on the 14 June. The result of the battle, this time a decisive battle, was the annihilation of the Royal army. Part of the cavalry escaped, a small fraction of it in tolerable order, but the guns and the baggage train were taken, and, above all, the splendid Royal infantry were killed or taken prisoners to a man.

Effects of Naseby

After Naseby, though the war dragged on for another year, the King never succeeded in raising an army as good as, or even more numerous than that, which Fairfax's army had so heavily outnumbered on 14 June. That the fruits of the victory could not be gathered in a few weeks was due to a variety of hindrances (rather than to direct opposition):

the absence of rapid means of communication;
the paucity of the forces engaged on both sides, relative to the total numbers under arms; and
from time to time, to the political exigencies of the growing quarrel between Presbyterians and Independents.
As to the latter, within a few days of Naseby, the Scots rejoiced that the "back of the malignants was broken". They demanded reinforcements, as a precaution against "the insolence of others", i.e., Cromwell and the Independents, "to whom alone the Lord has given the victory of that day".

Leven had by now returned to Yorkshire, and a fortnight after Naseby, Carlisle fell to David Leslie's besieging corps, after a long and honourable defence by Sir Thomas Glemham. Leicester was reoccupied by Fairfax on the 18th, and on the 20th, Leven's army, moving slowly southward, reached Mansfield. This move was undertaken largely for political reasons, i.e. to restore the Presbyterian balance, as against the victorious New Model. Fairfax's army was intended by its founders to be a specifically English army, and Cromwell for one, would have employed it against the Scots, almost as readily as against malignants.

But for the moment, the advance of the northern army was of the highest military importance, for Fairfax was thereby set free from the necessity of undertaking sieges. Moreover, the publication of the King's papers, taken at Naseby, gave Fairfax's troops, a measure of official and popular support, which a month before, they could not have been said to possess. It was now obvious that they represented the armed force of England against the Irish, Danes, French, Lorrainers, etc., whom Charles had for three years been endeavouring to let loose on English soil. Even the Presbyterians abandoned for the time, any attempt to negotiate with the King, and advocated a vigorous prosecution of the war.

Fairfax's Western Campaign

This, in the hands of Fairfax and Cromwell, was likely to be effective. While the King and Rupert, with the remnant of their cavalry, hurried into South Wales to join Sir Charles Gerard's troops, and to raise fresh infantry, Fairfax decided that Goring's was the most important Royalist army in the field. He turned to the west, reaching Lechlade on the 26th, less than a fortnight after the battle of Naseby. One last attempt was made to dictate the plan of campaign from Westminster, but the Committee refused to pass on the directions of the Houses, and Fairfax remained free to deal with Goring, as he desired.

Time pressed. Charles in Monmouthshire and Rupert at Bristol were well placed for a junction with Goring, which would have given them a united army, 15,000 strong. Taunton, in spite of Massey's efforts to keep the field, was again besieged. In Wilts and Dorset, numerous bands of Clubmen were on foot, which the King's officers were doing their best to turn into troops for their master. But the process of collecting a fresh royal army was slow, and Goring and his subordinate, Sir Richard Grenville, were alienating the King's most devoted adherents by their rapacity, cruelty and debauchery.

Moreover, Goring had no desire to lose the independent command, he had extorted at Stow-on-the-Wold in May. Still, it was clear that he must be disposed of, as quickly as possible. On 26 June, Fairfax requested the Houses to take other measures against the King. This, they did by paying up the arrears due to Leven's army, and bringing it to the Severn valley. On 8 July, Leven reached Alcester, bringing with him a Parliamentarian force from Derbyshire, under Sir John Gell. The design was to besiege Hereford.

Langport

By that time, Fairfax and Goring were at close quarters. The Royalist general's line of defence faced west along the Yeo, and the Parrett, between Yeovil and Bridgwater and thus, barred the direct route to Taunton. Fairfax, however, marched from Lechlade via Marlborough and Blandford, hindered only by Clubmento, the friendly posts of Dorchester and Lyme. With these as his centre of operations, he was able to turn the headwaters of Goring's river-line via Beaminster and Crewkerne.

The Royalists, at once, abandoned the south and west side of the rivers. The siege of Taunton had already been given up, and passed over to the north and east bank. Bridgwater was the right of this second line, as it had been the left of the first; the new left was at Ilchester. Goring could thus remain in touch with Charles in south Wales, through Bristol. The siege of Taunton having been given up, there was no longer any incentive for remaining on the wrong side of the water-line. But Goring's army was thoroughly demoralised by its own licence and indiscipline; and the swift, handy and resolute regiments of the New Model made short work of its strong positions.

On 7 July, demonstrating against the points of passage between Ilchester and Langport, Fairfax secretly occupied Yeovil. The post at that place, which had been the right of Goring's first position, had perhaps rightly been withdrawn to Ilchester, when the second position was taken up. Fairfax repaired the bridge without interruption. Goring showed himself unequal to the new situation. He might, if sober, make a good plan when the enemy was not present to disturb him, and he certainly led cavalry charges with boldness and skill. But of strategy in front of the enemy, he was incapable. On the news from Yeovil, he abandoned the line of the Yeo, as far as Langport, without striking a blow. Fairfax, having nothing to gain by continuing his detour through Yeovil, came back and quietly crossed at Long Sutton, west of Ilchester on 9 July.

Goring had by now formed a new plan. A strong rearguard was posted at Langport, and on high ground east and north-east of it, to hold Fairfax. He himself, with the cavalry, rode off early on the 8th to try and surprise Taunton. This place was no longer protected by Massey's little army, which Fairfax had called up to assist his own. But Fairfax, who was not yet across Long Sutton bridge, heard of Goring's raid in good time, and sent Massey after him with a body of horse. Massey surprised a large party of the Royalists at Ilminster on the 9th, wounded Goring himself, and pursued the fugitives up to the south-eastern edge of Langport. On the 10th, Fairfax's advanced guard, led by Major Bethel of Cromwell's own regiment, brilliantly stormed the position of Goring's rearguard, east of Langport. The cavalry of the New Model, led by Cromwell himself, swept in pursuit right up to the gates of Bridgwater, where Goring's army, dismayed and on the point of collapse, was more or less rallied.

Thence, Goring himself retired to Barnstaple. His army, under the regimental officers, defended itself in Bridgwater resolutely till 23 July, when it capitulated. The fall of Bridgwater gave Fairfax complete control of Somerset and Dorset, from Lyme to the Bristol channel. Even in the unlikely event of Goring's raising a fresh army, he would now have to break through towards Bristol by open force, and a battle between Goring and Fairfax could only have one result. Thus, Charles had perforce to give up his intention of joining Goring, and of resuming the northern enterprise, begun in the spring. His recruiting operations in south Wales had not been as successful as he had hoped, owing to the apathy of the people, and the vigour of the local Parliamentary leaders.

Schemes of Lord Digby

This time Rupert would not be with him. The prince, now despairing of success and hoping only for a peace on the best terms procurable, listlessly returned to his governorship of Bristol and prepared to meet Fairfax's impending attack. The influence of Rupert was supplanted by that of George Digby, Earl of Bristol. As sanguine as Charles and far more energetic, he was for the rest of the campaign the guiding spirit of the Royalists, but being a civilian he proved incapable of judging the military factors in the situation from a military standpoint, and not only did he offend the officers by constituting himself a sort of confidential military secretary to the King, but he was distrusted by all sections of Royalists for his reckless optimism. The resumption of the northern enterprise, opposed by Rupert and directly inspired by Digby, led to nothing.

Montrose's Last Victories

David Leslie did not pursue him. Montrose, though the King did not yet know it, had won two more battles, and was practically master of all Scotland. After Auldearn, he had turned to meet Baillie's army in Strathspey, and by superior mobility and skill, forced that commander to keep at a respectful distance. He then turned upon a new army which Lindsay, titular Earl of Crawford, was forming in Forfarshire, but that commander betook himself to a safe distance, and Montrose withdrew into the Highlands to find recruits (June). The victors of Auldearn had mostly dispersed on the usual errand, and he was now deserted by most of the Gordons, who were recalled by the chief of their clan, the Marquess of Huntly, in spite of the indignant remonstrances of Huntly's heir, Lord Gordon, who was Montrose's warmest admirer.

Baillie now approached again, but he was weakened by having to find trained troops to stiffen Lindsay's levies, and a strong force of the Gordons had now been persuaded to rejoin Montrose. The two armies met in battle near Alford on the Don; little can be said of the engagement, save that Montrose had to fight cautiously and tentatively as at Aberdeen, not in the decision-forcing spirit of Auldearn. In the end, Baillie's cavalry gave way, and his infantry was cut down as it stood. Lord Gordon was amongst the Royalist dead (July 2). The plunder was put away in the glens before any attempt was made to go forward, and thus the Covenanters had leisure to form a numerous, if not very coherent, army on the nucleus of Lindsay's troops. Baillie, much against his will, was continued in the command, with a council of war (chiefly of nobles whom Montrose had already defeated, such as Argyll, Elcho and Balfour) to direct his every movement. Montrose, when rejoined by the Highlanders, moved to meet him, and in the last week of July and the early part of August, there were manoeuvres and minor engagements round Perth.

About 7 August, Montrose suddenly slipped away into the Lowlands, heading for Glasgow. Thereupon, another Covenanting army began to assemble in Clydesdale. But it was clear that Montrose could beat mere levies, and Baillie, though without authority and despairing of success, hurried after him. Montrose then, having drawn Baillie's Fifeshire militia far enough from home to ensure their being discontented, turned upon them on the 14 August near Kilsyth. Baillie protested against fighting, but his aristocratic masters of the council of war decided to cut off Montrose from the hills by turning his left wing. The Royalist general seized the opportunity, and his advance caught them in the very act of making a flank march (August 15). The head of the Covenanters' column was met and stopped by the furious attack of the Gordon infantry, and Alastair Macdonald led the men of his own name and the Macleans against its flank. A breach was made in the centre of Baillie's army at the first rush: and then, Montrose sent in the Gordon and Ogilvy horse. The leading half of the column was surrounded, broken up and annihilated. The rear half, seeing the fate of its comrades, took to flight, but in vain, for the Highlanders pursued outrance. Only about one hundred Covenanting infantry out of six thousand escaped. Montrose was now indeed the King's lieutenant in all Scotland.

Fall of Bristol

But Charles was in no case to resume his northern march. Fairfax and the New Model, after reducing Bridgwater, had turned back to clear away the Dorsetshire Clubmen and to besiege Sherborne Castle. On the completion of this task, it had been decided to besiege Bristol, and on 23 August while the King's army was still in Huntingdon, and Goring was trying to raise a new army to replace the one he had lost at Langport and Bridgwater the city was invested. In these urgent circumstances Charles left Oxford for the west only a day or two after he had come in from the Eastern Association raid. Calculating that Rupert could hold out longest, he first moved to the relief of Worcester, around which place Leven's Scots, no longer having Leslie's cavalry with them to find supplies, were more occupied with plundering their immediate neighbourhood for food than with the siege works. Worcester was relieved on 1 September by the King.

David Leslie with all his cavalry was already on the march to meet Montrose, and Leven had no alternative but to draw off his infantry without fighting. Charles entered Worcester on the 8th, but he found that he could no longer expect recruits from South Wales. Worse was to come. A few hours later, on the night of the 9th-10th, Fairfax's army stormed Bristol. Rupert had long realised the hopelessness of further fighting the very summons to surrender sent in by Fairfax placed the fate of Bristol on the political issue, the lines of defence around the place were too extensive for his small force, and on the 10th he surrendered on terms. He was escorted to Oxford with his men, conversing as he rode with the officers of the escort about peace and the future of his adopted country.

Charles, almost stunned by the suddenness of the catastrophe, dismissed his nephew from all his offices and ordered him to leave England, and for almost the last time called upon Goring to rejoin the main army, if a tiny force of raw infantry and disheartened cavalry can be so called, in the neighbourhood of Raglan. But before Goring could be brought to withdraw his objections Charles had again turned northward towards Montrose.

A weary march through the Welsh hills brought the Royal army on the 22nd of September to the neighbourhood of Chester. Charles himself with one body entered the city, which was partially invested by the Parliamentarian colonel Michael Jones, and the rest under Sir Marmaduke Langdale was sent to take Jones's lines in reverse. But at the opportune moment Poyntz's forces, which had followed the King's movements since he left Doncaster in the middle of August, appeared in rear of Langdale, and defeated him in the battle of Rowton Heath (September 24), while at the same time a sortie of the King's troops from Chester was repulsed by Jones. Thereupon the Royal army withdrew to Denbigh, and Chester, the only important seaport remaining to connect Charles with Ireland, was again besieged.

Philiphaugh

Nor was Montrose's position, even after Kilsyth, encouraging, in spite of the persistent rumours of fighting in Westmorland that reached Charles and Digby. Glasgow and Edinburgh were indeed occupied, and a parliament summoned in the King's name. But Montrose had now to choose between Highlanders and Lowlanders. The former, strictly kept away from all that was worth plundering, rapidly vanished, even Alastair Macdonald going with the rest.

Without the Macdonalds and the Gordons, Montrose's military and political resettlement of Scotland could only be shadowy, and when he demanded support from the sturdy middle classes of the Lowlands, it was not forgotten that he had led Highlanders to the sack of Lowland towns. Thus his new supporters could only come from amongst the discontented and undisciplined Border lords and gentry, and long before these moved to join him the romantic conquest of Scotland was over.

On the 6 September David Leslie had recrossed the frontier with his cavalry and some infantry he had picked up on the way through northern England. Early on the morning of the 13th he surprised Montrose at Philiphaugh near Selkirk. The King's lieutenant had only 650 men against 4000, and the battle did not last long. Montrose escaped with a few of his principal adherents, but his little army was annihilated. Of the veteran Macdonald infantry, 500 strong that morning, 250 were killed in the battle and the remainder put to death after accepting quarter. The Irish, even when they bore a Scottish name, were, by Scotsmen even more than Englishmen, regarded as beasts to be knocked on the head. After Naseby the Irishwomen found in the King's camp were branded by order of Fairfax; after Philiphaugh more than 300 women, wives or followers of Macdonald's men, were butchered. Montrose's Highlanders at their worst were no crueler than the sober soldiers of the kirk.

Digby's Northern Expedition

Charles received the news of Philiphaugh on the 28 September, and gave orders that the west should be abandoned, the prince of Wales should be sent to France, and Goring should bring up what forces he could to the Oxford region. On the 4 October Charles himself reached Newark (whither he had marched from Denbigh after revictualling Chester and suffering the defeat of Rowton Heath). The intention to go to Montrose was of course given up, at any rate for the present, and he was merely waiting for Goring and the Royalist militia of the westeach in its own way a broken reed to lean upon. A hollow reconciliation was patched up between Charles and Rupert, and the court remained at Newark for over a month. Before it set out to return to Oxford another Royalist force had been destroyed.

On the 14 October, receiving information that Montrose had raised a new army, the King permitted Langdale's northern troops to make a fresh attempt to reach Scotland. At Langdale's request Digby was appointed to command in this enterprise, and, civilian though he was, and disastrous though his influence had been to the discipline of the army, he led it boldly and skillfully. His immediate opponent was Poyntz, who had followed the King step by step from Doncaster to Chester and back to Welbeck, and he succeeded on the 15th in surprising Poyntz's entire force of foot at Sherburn. Poyntz's cavalry were soon after this reported approaching from the south, and Digby hoped to trap them also.

At first all went well and body after body of the rebels was routed. But by a singular mischance the Royalist main body mistook the Parliamentary squadrons in flight through Sherburn for friends, and believing all was lost took to flight also. Thus Digby's cavalry fled as fast as Poyntz's and in the same direction, and the latter, coming to their senses first, drove the Royalist horse in wild confusion as far as Skipton. Lord Digby was still sanguine, and from Skipton he actually penetrated as far as Dumfries. But whether Montrose's new army was or was not in the Lowlands, it was certain that Leven and Leslie were on the Border, and the mad adventure soon came to an end. Digby, with the mere handful of men remaining to him, was driven back into Cumberland, and on the 24 October, his army having entirely disappeared, he took ship with his officers for the Isle of Man. Poyntz had not followed him beyond Skipton, and was now watching the King from Nottingham, while Rossiter with the Lincoln troops was posted at Grantham.

The King's chances of escaping from Newark were becoming smaller day by day, and they were not improved by a violent dispute between him and Rupert, Maurice, Lord Gerard and Sir Richard Willis, at the end of which these officers and many others rode away to ask Parliament for leave to go over-seas. The pretext of the quarrel mattered little, the distinction between the views of Charles and Digby on the one hand and Rupert and his friends on the other was fundamental to the latter peace had become a political as well as a military necessity. Meanwhile south Wales, with the single exception of Raglan Castle, had been overrun by Parliamentarians. Everywhere the Royalist posts were falling. The New Model, no longer fearing Goring, had divided, Fairfax reducing the garrisons of Dorset and Devon, Cromwell those of Hampshire. Amongst the latter was the famous Basing House, which was stormed at dawn on the 14 October and burnt to the ground. Cromwell, his work finished, returned to headquarters, and the army wintered in the neighbourhood of Crediton.

End of the First War

The military events of 1646 call for no comment. The only field army remaining to the King was Goring's, and though Hopton, who sorrowfully accepted the command after Goring's departure, tried at the last moment to revive the memories and the local patriotism of 1643, it was of no use to fight against the New Model with the armed rabble that Goring turned over to him. Dartmouth surrendered on January 18, Hopton was defeated at Torrington on February 16, and surrendered the remnant of his worthless army on March 14. Exeter fell on April 13. Elsewhere, Hereford was taken on December 17, 1645, and the last battle of the war was fought and lost at Stow-on-the-Wold by Lord Astley on March 21, 1646.

Newark and Oxford fell respectively on May 6 and June 24. Wallingford Castle, the last English royalist stronghold, fell after a 65-day siege on July 27. On August 31 Montrose escaped from the Highlands. On the 19th of the same month Raglan Castle surrendered, and the last Royalist post of all, Harlech Castle, maintained the useless struggle until March 13, 1647. Charles himself, after leaving Newark in November 1645, had spent the winter in and around Oxford, whence, after an adventurous journey, he came to the camp of the Scottish army at Southwell on May 5, 1646.

The close of the First Civil War left England and Scotland in the hands potentially of any one of the four parties or any combination of two or more that should prove strong enough to dominate the rest. Armed political Royalism was indeed at an end, but Charles, though practically a prisoner, considered himself and was, almost to the last, considered by the rest as necessary to ensure the success of whichever amongst the other three parties could come to terms with him. Thus he passed successively into the hands of the Scots, Parliament and the New Model, trying to reverse the verdict of arms by coquetting with each in turn. The Presbyterians and the Scots, after, Cornet Joyce of Fairfax's horse seized upon the person of the King for the army (June 3, 1647), began at once to prepare for a fresh civil war, this time against Independency, as embodied in the New Model Army and after making use of its sword, its opponents attempted to disband it, to send it on foreign service, to cut off its arrears of pay, with the result that it was exasperated beyond control, and, remembering not merely its grievances but also the principle for which it had fought, soon became the most powerful political party in the realm. From 1646 to 1648 the breach between the New Model Army and Parliament widened day by day until finally the Presbyterian party, combined with the Scots and the remaining Royalists, felt itself strong enough to begin a second civil war.