ever, the advantage lay decidedly with the Royalists, whose troops were composed of better materials, and were better commanded than those of the Roundheads. John Hampden had fallen in a skirmish at Chalgrovefield; Pym and other leaders were dead; many others had deserted the cause, and the Parliament at Westminster began to despond. But a new leader appeared, in the person of Oliver Cromwell. He belonged to the extreme party in the Parliament, and was the leader of the Independents. He saw that the parliamentary army must be reconstructed of better materials. As a model he raised his own regiment: it was composed of stern religious zealots, who fought against the king less from political than religious motives. They became famous as Cromwell's Ironsides; and in the battle of Marston Moor, fought in 1644, near York, the victory was decided for the Parliament by the troops Cromwell commanded and had trained.

In 1645, at the battle of Naseby, in spite of the valiant resistance of the cavaliers, Cromwell utterly dispersed the royal army, and Charles fled to the Scots, who had taken part in the war, and united themselves to the English Parliament by the Solemn League and Covenant. The Scotch delivered the king up to the parliament, who confined him, first, in Holdenby Castle, afterwards at Hampton Court, and finally at Carisbrook Castle in the Isle of Wight.

That

Cromwell was now at the head of a victorious army, and no longer inclined to obey the Parliament. assembly had been gradually lessened by deaths and desertion; and now, by Cromwell's influence, the more moderate party of Puritans, who were inclined still to

treat with Charles, were expelled. The Independents, supported by Cromwell's veteran army, put down the risings which took place in various parts. In Scotland an army was raised, and was about to march into England to rescue the king; but the parliamentary army, under Cromwell, succeeded in restraining them.

When Cromwell returned from Scotland he went down to the House of Commons, and expelled all the members, save fifty of his own adherents, who, under the name of the Rump, were allowed to remain. The austere warriors who ruled the nation now determined to bring Charles to the block. A high court of justice, consisting of 150 members, was constituted, under the presidency of John Bradshaw. Before this tribunal Charles was charged with high treason against the Parliament and people. He defended himself with spirit, but in vain; he was condemned to death, and on the 30th of January, 1649, was beheaded in front of Whitehall, in the presence of thousands of spectators, many of whom testified their grief and horror by loud murmurs; but they were kept in check by the soldiers, who surrounded the scaffold to prevent any attempt at

a rescue.

Thus died Charles, by an unjust and cruel sentence perhaps, but the victim of his own obstinacy and insincerity. The feelings of pity excited by his death, and the misfortunes of his family, were the means of leading back the affections of the majority of the nation to royalty, and caused them to forget very rapidly all the misfortunes they had suffered from arbitrary power, and to long for the restoration of their ancient line of princes.

CHAP. XXIX.

THE COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE. 1649-1660.

THE Lower House was now reduced by death and desertion from 500 to about 80 members. They abolished the House of Lords, as no longer useful, and declared that any person acknowledging Charles Stuart, the late king's eldest son, should be guilty of high treason to the commonwealth of England.

All the power of state was vested in the Committee of government, or Council of state, of which Bradshaw, the king's judge, was president, and John Milton, foreign secretary. The principal members of this Council were Cromwell, Fairfax, Vane, and Whitelock.

Cromwell was, soon after this, sent to Ireland, to undertake the war against the Royalists there, who had proclaimed Charles the Second, and were determined not to submit to the English Parliament. Everything yielded to the vigour and ability of Cromwell. In a few months he subjugated Ireland as it had never been subjugated during the five centuries of slaughter which had elapsed since the landing of the first Norman settlers. His fierce and enthusiastic Puritan soldiers regarded the Irish as a race doomed by God to destruction. At the storming of Drogheda and Wexford, they put the garrison to the sword, and it seemed as if their design was to exterminate the native

race, and hand over an unpeopled country to Protestant colonists from England and Scotland.

In Scotland, also, Prince Charles had been proclaimed on his father's death; and the Duke of Montrose had landed with an army to support his cause; but Montrose was captured and executed in Edinburgh by the Scots, who, though inclined to restore Charles, wished to do it in their own way. They determined that Charles should swear to the Solemn League and Covenant. He consented to do this, and they raised an army to restore him. Cromwell landed in Scotland

to oppose this movement in favour of Charles, and at the battle of Dunbar, on the 3rd of September, 1650, defeated a large Scottish army.

In 1651, Charles was crowned at Scone, and immediately marched, at the head of a Scottish force, into England, expecting to be supported by a rising of the English Royalists; but so thoroughly had the Parliament crushed this party, that few joined Charles: and Cromwell, at the head of an army of 30,000 men, utterly routed Charles, who had not more than half that number, at the battle of Worcester, on the 3rd of September, 1651. The whole of the Royalist army were either killed or taken prisoners, and Charles himself escaped from the field with great difficulty. He tried to reach France, and in his effort to do so, passed though many strange adventures. He first fled, with a few friends, to the cottage of William Pendrill, at Boscobel, where he was disguised in rustic dress, and passed under the name of William Jones. Near this cottage stood the famous "Royal Oak," in which Charles hid himself when the pursuit after him was

hot. When in the branches of this tree, a troop of the Parliament's horse, in search of him, passed under his hiding-place, without discovering him. At length, after five weeks of continued danger, he managed to reach the coast of France in safety.

The Commonwealth engaged in a sanguinary war with the Dutch republic, which was now the great commercial rival of England. The Dutch fleet was commanded by the most celebrated admirals of Holland, -Van Tromp, De Witt, and De Ruyter. At first the war was conducted with little success on either side, till, in the spring of 1653, Admiral Blake defeated a large fleet under Van Tromp, and captured or destroyed several vessels.

The Rump Parliament soon became odious to the nation and the army; and Cromwell determined to dissolve it. In April, 1653, he went down to the house with a troop of soldiers, and, after making a speech, in which he accused the members of unfaithfulness, misgovernment, and other crimes, he gave a signal to his soldiers to clear the House, which they did very rapidly. Pointing to the mace on the table, he said, "Take away that bauble;" and, after locking the doors, put the keys in his pocket, and returned to Whitehall, where, as Lord General, he resided.

He then summoned another Parliament, called in derision, from one of its members, a leather-seller, Barebones' Parliament. This Parliament, however, despised as it was, set about the business of the nation in an earnest and sensible manner. They issued commissions for the reform of the courts of law, and especially of the Court of Chancery; and they deter