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Pattern for a crown of the Irotector Oliver Cromwell. Obv.: OLIVAR. D. G. R. P. ANG. SCO. HIB &C PRO. Bust of Protector to left. Rev. PAX. QVERITVR. BELLO. Crowned shield with arms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the coat of Cromwell in an escutcheon of pretense; above, 1658.

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§ 1. State of England, Scotland, and Ireland. § 2. Cromwell's Campaign in Ireland. § 3. Charles II. in Scotland. Cromwell's Campaign in Scotland. Battle of Dunbar. § 4. Charles crowned at Scone. He advances into England. Battle of Worcester. Flight and Escape of Charles. § 5. Settlement of the Commonwealth. § 6. Dutch War. Blake and Van Tromp. § 7. Cromwell expels the Parliament. § 8. Barebone's Parliament. Cromwell Protector. § 9. Defeat of the Dutch and Peace with Holland. § 10. Cromwell's Administration. His first Parliament. Royalist Insurrection. War with Spain. § 11. Blake's naval Exploits. Jamaica conquered. Death of Blake. § 12. Cromwell's vigorous Government. His Character. § 13. His second Parliament. He refuses the Crown. The "humble Petition and Advice." § 14. Dunkirk taken. Discontents and Insurrections. § 15. Cromwell's Sickness, Death, and Character. § 16. Richard Cromwell Protector. His Deposition. § 17. Long Parliament restored and expelled. Committee of Safety. § 18. General Monk declares for the Parliament. The Parliament restored. Monk enters London. Long Parliament dissolved. § 19. A new Parliament. The Restoration.

§ 1. THE death of the king was followed by a dissolution of all authority, both civil and ecclesiastical. Every man had framed the model of a republic; every man had adjusted his own system of religion. The Millenarians, or Fifth Monarchy men, required that government itself should be abolished, and all human powers be laid in the dust, in order to pave the way for the dominion of Christ, whose second coming they suddenly expected. One party declaimed against tithes and a hireling priesthood; another inveighed against the law and its professors. The Royalists, consisting of the nobles and more considerable gentry, were inflamed

with the highest resentment and indignation against those ignoble adversaries who had reduced them to subjection. The Presbyterians, whose credit at first supported the arms of the Parliament, were enraged to find that, by the treachery or superior cunning of their associates, the fruits of all their successful labors were ravished from them. The young king, poor and neglected, living sometimes in Holland, sometimes in France, sometimes in Jersey, comforted himself amid his present distresses with the hopes of better fortune.

The only solid support of the Republican independent faction was an army of nearly 50,000 men. But this army, formidable from its discipline and courage as well as its numbers, was actuated by a spirit that rendered it dangerous to the assembly which had assumed the command over it. Cromwell alone was able to

guide and direct all these unsettled humors. But, though he retained for a time all orders of men under a seeming obedience to the Parliament, he was secretly paving the way to his own unlimited authority.

The Parliament began gradually to assume more the air of a legal power. They admitted a few of the excluded and absent members, but on condition that they should sign an approbation of whatever had been done in their absence with regard to the king's trial. They issued some writs for new elections in places where they hoped to have interest enough to bring in their own friends and dependents. They named an executive council of state, 38 in number; and as soon as they should have settled the nation, they professed their intention of restoring the power to the people, from whom they acknowledged they had entirely derived it.

The situation alone of Scotland and Ireland gave any immediate disquietude to the new republic. After the successive defeats of Montrose and Hamilton, and the ruin of their parties, the whole authority in Scotland fell into the hands of Argyle and the rigid Churchmen. Though invited by the English Parliament to model their government into a republican form, they resolved still to adhere to monarchy, which, by the express terms of their covenant, they had engaged to defend. After the execution, therefore, of the king, they immediately proclaimed his son and successor Charles II. (Feb. 5), but upon condition of his strict observance of the Covenant. The affairs of Ireland demanded more immediate attention. When Charles I. was a prisoner among the Scots, he sent orders to Ormond, if he could not defend himself, rather to submit to the English than the Irish rebels; and accordingly, the lord lieutenant, being reduced to extremities, delivered up Dublin, Drogheda, Dundalk, and other garrisons, to

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A.D. 1649.

AFFAIRS IN IRELAND.

453

Colonel Jones, who took possession of them in the name of the English Parliament. Ormond himself went over to England, and after some time joined the queen and the Prince of Wales in France. Meanwhile, the Irish Catholics, disgusted with the indiscretion and insolence of Rinuccini, the papal nuncio, and dreading the power of the English Parliament, saw no resource or safety but in giving support to the declining authority of the king. The Earl of Clanricarde secretly formed a combination among the Catholics; he attacked the nuncio, whom he chased out of the island; and he sent to Paris a deputation, inviting the lord lieutenant to return and take possession of his government.

Ormond, on his arrival in Ireland, had at first to contend with many difficulties. But in the distractions which attended the final struggle in England, the Republican faction totally neglected Ireland, and allowed Jones, and the forces in Dublin, to remain in the utmost weakness and necessity. The lord lieutenant, having at last assembled an army of 16,000 men, advanced upon the Parliamentary garrisons. Dundalk, Drogheda, and several other towns surrendered or were taken. Dublin was threatened with a siege; and the affairs of the lieutenant appeared in so prosperous a condition, that the young king entertained thoughts of coming in person into Ireland.

When the English commonwealth was brought to some tolerable settlement, men began to cast their eyes toward the neighboring island. After the execution of the king, Cromwell himself began to aspire to a command where so much glory, he saw, might be won, and so much authority acquired; and he was appointed by the Parliament lord lieutenant and general of Ireland.

§ 2. The new lieutenant immediately applied himself, with his wonted vigilance, to make preparations for his expedition. He sent a re-enforcement of 4000 men to Colonel Jones, who unexpectedly attacked Ormond near Dublin; chased his army off the field; seized all their tents, baggage, ammunition; and returned victorious to Dublin, after killing 1000 men, and taking above 2000 prisoners (Aug. 2). This loss, which threw some blemish on the military character of Ormond, was irreparable to the royal cause. Cromwell soon after arrived with fresh forces in Dublin, where he was welcomed with shouts and rejoicings (Aug. 18). He hastened to Drogheda, which, though well fortified, was taken by assault, Cromwell himself, along with Ireton, leading on his men. A cruel slaughter was made of the garrison, orders having been issued to give no quarter (Sept. 12). Cromwell pretended to retaliate, by this severe execution, the cruelty of the Irish massacre; but he well knew that almost the whole garrison was English; and his justice was only a barbarous policy, in order to terrify all

other garrisons from resistance. His policy, however, had the desired effect. Wexford was taken, and the same severity exercised as at Drogheda. Every town before which Cromwell presented himself now opened its gates without resistance. Next spring, having received a re-enforcement from England, he made himself master of Kilkenny and Clonmel, the only places where he met with any vigorous resistance. Ormond soon after left the island, and delegated his authority to Clanricarde, who found affairs so desperate as to admit of no remedy. The Irish were glad to embrace banishment as a refuge. Above 40,000 men passed into foreign service; and Cromwell, well pleased to free the island from enemies who never could be cordially reconciled to the English, gave them full liberty and leisure for their embarkation.

§ 3. While Cromwell proceeded with such uninterrupted success in Ireland, which in the space of nine months he had almost entirely subdued, fortune was preparing for him a new scene of victory and triumph in Scotland. Charles, by the advice of his friends, who thought it ridiculous to refuse a kingdom merely from regard to Episcopacy, had been induced to accept the crown of Scotland on the terms offered by the commissioners of the Covenanters. But what chiefly determined him to comply was the account brought him of the fate of Montrose, which blasted all his hopes of recovering his inheritance by force. That gallant but unfortunate nobleman, having received some assistance from a few of the northern powers, had landed in the Orkneys with about 500 men, most of them Germans. He armed several of the inhabitants of the Orkneys, and carried them over with him to Caithness, but was disappointed in his hopes that affection to the king's service, and the fame of his former exploits, would make the Highlanders flock to his standard. Strahan, one of the generals of the Covenanters, fell unexpectedly on Montrose, who had no horse to bring him intelligence. The Royalists were put to flight, all of them either killed or taken prisoners, and Montrose himself, having put on the disguise of a peasant, was perfidiously delivered into the hands of his enemies by a friend to whom he had intrusted his person. In this disguise he was carried to Edinburgh, amid the insults of his enemies, when he was tried and condemned by the Parliament, and hanged with every circumstance of ignominy and cruelty (May 21, 1650).

The king, after the defeat of Montrose, assured the Scotch Parliament that he had forbidden his enterprise, though there can be no doubt that he had sanctioned it. He then set sail for Scotland, but before he was permitted to land he was required to sign the Covenant; and many sermons and lectures were made him, exhorting him to persevere in that holy confederacy. He soon

A.D. 1649, 1650.

CAMPAIGN IN SCOTLAND.

455

found that he was considered as a mere pageant of state, and that the few remains of royalty which he possessed served only to draw on him the greater indignities. He was constrained by the Covenanters to issue a declaration, wherein he desired to be deeply humbled and afflicted in spirit because of his father's opposing the Covenant and shedding the blood of God's people throughout his dominions; lamented the idolatry of his mother, and the toleration of it in his father's house; and professed that he would have no enemies but the enemies of the Covenant. Still, the Covenanters and the clergy were diffident of his sincerity; and he found his authority entirely annihilated, as well as his character degraded. He was consulted in no public measure; and his favor was sufficient to discredit any pretender to office or advancement.

As soon as the English Parliament found that the treaty between the king and the Scots would probably terminate in an accommodation, they made preparations for a war, which, they saw, would in the end prove inevitable. Cromwell, having broken the force and courage of the Irish, was sent for, and he left the command of Ireland to Ireton. It was expected that Fairfax, who still retained the name of general, would continue to act against Scotland. But he entertained insurmountable scruples against invading the Scots, whom he considered as united to England by the sacred bands of the Covenant; and he accordingly resigned his commission, which was bestowed on Cromwell, who was declared captain general of all the forces in England. Cromwell crossed the Tweed on July 16, and entered Scotland with an army of 16,000 men. Lesley, the Scotch general, intrenched himself in a fortified camp between Edinburgh and Leith, and took care to remove every thing from the country which could serve for the subsistence of the English army. Cromwell, having advanced to the Scottish camp, and vainly endeavored to bring Lesley to a battle, began to be in want of provisions, which reached him only by sea. He therefore retired to Dunbar. Lesley followed him, and he encamped on Down Hill, which overlooked that town. There lay many difficult passes between Dunbar and Berwick, and of these Lesley had taken possession. The English general was reduced to extremities. He had even embraced a resolution of sending by sea all his foot and artillery to England, and of breaking through, at all hazards, with his cavalry. The madness of the Scottish ecclesiastics saved him from this loss and dishonor. Night and day the ministers had been wrestling with the Lord in prayer, as they termed it, and they fancied that the sectarian and heretical army, together with Agag, meaning Cromwell, was delivered into their hands. Upon the faith of these visions, they

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