'Dunbar

Drove.'

by Lambert's horse, crossed below Brant's Mill, and were supported by the great guns planted above it. A force of Scots, early astir to cross the ford on the Berwick road, met the English and for an hour gallantly contested the passage, at length being forced back.1 Lambert headed for the Scottish cavalry, but his first onset was repulsed. The foot under Monck attacked the Scottish centre and were driven back. The check was temporary. Pride's brigade advanced to the attack, Monck's division rallied, and although one Scottish foot regiment, under Campbell of Lawers, gallantly withstood a flank attack from Lambert's infantry, until cavalry broke through their ranks, the Scottish centre gave way.

The left wing of the Scots, flanked by a small body of horse, was in too confined a position to act effectively, and was held in check by the English artillery. The right wing of the Scots was thus driven diagonally towards the left, the troopers, with all their colours flying, riding pell-mell over their comrades. At this moment the red sun rose out of the German Ocean. Cromwell was heard to exclaim : 'Now let God arise, and His enemies shall be scattered'; then a little afterwards: 'I profess they run.' He recorded how the Scots were 'made as by the Lord of Hosts as stubble to their swords.' 2 It was a cowardly stampede. As many fugitives escaped unhurt as Cromwell had men to chase them. The Lord General sounded the rally, halted the victors, sang the hundred and seventeenth psalm, and unleashed the rested chargers again upon the bloody pursuit. It was the very shortest canticle which the avenger chose for praise, not wishing to defraud the thirsty sabres of their due. The singing veteran himself rode to the slaughter. Three thousand men fell and ten thousand men were taken, along with nearly two hundred standards and thirty guns. The most notable among the mortally wounded was Winram, Lord Libbertoun, negotiator at Breda and Dunfermline. A few colonels died at their posts. The craven generals, Council of War, the entire cavalry, and the officers of the infantry fled and left

1 Douglas, Cromwell's Campaigns, 109 note.

2 Letter cxl.

3 Alex. Jaffray, Diary, 163. Jaffray, Libbertoun, Gillespie, Waugh were taken prisoners.

the rank and file to their fate. Cromwell asserted that only twenty men and officers on his side were placed hors de combat. This indicates the absence of hand-to-hand combats, and of any serious. defence by the Scots. An eye-witness declared that after the first onset 'wee lost none, they giving themselv's cheap to the execution." The craven Leslie laid the blame of the disaster on the chickenhearted officers. He wrote to Argyll, 5th September: 'I tak God to witness wee might have as easily beaten them as wee did James Graham at Philipshauch, if the officers had stayed by theire troops and regiments.'2

3

Cromwell released over five thousand wounded men, and marched Cruel fate of Scots prisoners. nearly four thousand prisoners into England. These famished men, by hundreds, died of dysentery, contracted through the hardships of the campaign, and the eating of raw vegetables in a garden at Morpeth, where the prisoners were confined. In November only fourteen hundred of them survived. Cromwell gave the Countess of Winton a thousand 'in a gallantry.' The English Council of State ordered that the sound prisoners should be deported to the plantations of Virginia and New England, and to French military service, and some kept for English salt-works.* Few escaped from the scourge of disease to enter upon their servitude. Cromwell triumphantly wrote to Lenthall, the Speaker: 'It would do you good to see and hear our poor foot to go up and down making their boast of God for one of the most signal mercies God hath done for England and His people.' Clarendon, on the other hand, noted the absence of lamentation in Royalist society: 'So the King was glad of it, as the greatest happiness that could befall him, in the loss of so strong a body of his enemies.' Charles was even credited with falling on his knees and thanking God for the victory. Rutherford and the Godly Party also indulged in a pious joy because God had testified to His wrath.

Cromwell gave God the glory for having appeared at Dunbar 'to the refreshment of His saints.' He speedily followed up his advan''A Brief Relation,' Terry, Leslie, 478. 2 Ancram and Lothian Correspondence, ii. 298. 4 Cal. State Pap., ii. 334, 346.

1 Walker, Hist. Disc., 181.

5 Letter cxl.

Cromwell

enters Edin

burgh,

tage and captured Edinburgh and Leith, the Castle of Edinburgh, however, holding out. Arriving at Edinburgh on Saturday, 7th September, Cromwell found that, while the military had converted 7th September. St. Giles' Church into a store for munitions of war, the city ministers had sought safety in the Castle and deserted their pulpits. He invited them to return to their duty. They not only refused, but also sent to him an insolent reply, taunting him and the Sectaries with persecuting the English clergy. Even John Livingstone refused to meet Cromwell.1 Cromwell took the trouble personally to answer their unfounded accusations. He severely reprimanded them for not 'yielding to the mind of God in the great day of His power and visitation,' and pointed out their mistake in supposing that their present policy would work out the blessed Reformation. Never had the preachers received so well merited a castigation. Their craven conduct makes a poor contrast beside that of Zachary Boyd, who stayed to confront Cromwell in the Cathedral of Glasgow, a month later. That bold rhymer improved the occasion in flouting the Sectaries to their faces. The irate Ironsides would have pistolled him on the spot had Cromwell not reserved the audacious railer for a worse revenge-a compulsory hearing of Old Noll's own interminable prayers.

Leslie's troubles.

If Cromwell could read the clerical mind he could also anticipate the next royal move. From the battlefield he wrote in a prophetic mood to Haselrig: 'Surely it's probable the Kirk has done their do. I believe their King will set up upon his own score now; wherein he will find many friends.'' Cromwell lost no time in seeking an encounter with Leslie, who had raked together his runaways at Stirling and occupied a position too strong for Cromwell to take. Leslie had more irritating opponents in his own camp. Colonels Strachan and Gilbert Ker, the victors of Carbisdale and other fights for the Covenant, the Gideons of the extreme party, the irreconcilable malcontents at the West Kirk meeting, with other anti-Malignants, publicly and rightly accused Leslie of losing the battle of Dunbar, and 1 Select Biog., i. 186.

2 Letters cxlvii., cxlviii.

3 Letter cxli.

refused to serve under him, or Leven. It is painful to think that after Worcester fight Charles should have made a similar charge of cowardice and implied treachery against Leslie.1 Leslie resigned his commission and, following the example of Baillie, resumed it on the entreaty of the Estates.

Resolutions.

The Royalist party, including the King, resolved if possible to The Public effect a conjunction of the diverse parties in the State and Church for the good of religion and the safety of the kingdom, and this proposal was discussed by the leaders of both Estates assembled in Stirling. Opinions differed as to the wisdom of acquiescing in this proposal, which afterwards was known as The Public Resolutions, and soon there were two opposing parties, laymen and clerics associated, for and against the proposal.

Harmony in the Scottish camp was now impossible. The opponents of the new policy of enlisting all and sundry into the Royalist ranks-Ker, Strachan, Chiesley, and others—were permitted to go into south-west Scotland and there to raise an independent command of untainted brethren in the valleys of Clyde, Ayr, and Nith. Sir Edward Walker is the authority for the story that Strachan wrote to Cromwell a letter, which was intercepted, assuring Cromwell that if he would quit Scotland, Strachan 'would so use the matter as that he should not fear any prejudice from this nation.' 2

This Godly Party assured themselves that God would strengthen them to cope with the opponents of the Covenant without the aid of foreign arms.

and the

While these dissensions tore the army, the Commission of the James Guthrie General Assembly also met in Stirling. The influence of James Protesters. Guthrie, minister there, Patrick Gillespie, Johnston of Wariston, Samuel Rutherford, and other opponents of Malignancy was paramount. The fruit of their labours was A Shorte Declaratione and Varninge to all the congregations, which was issued on 12th September. This document urged all parties to search for the

3

1 Cal. State Pap., iii. xxi. ; iv. 2.

3 Balfour, iv. 98; Row, Blair, 246 note.

VOL. II.

с

2 Hist. Disc., 189.

The King under surveillance.

iniquities which had provoked God to visit Scotland with His wrath, and summoned the King to mourn for the provocations of his guilty father and himself, as well as to consider if his hypocritical acceptance of the Covenant, in order to gain an earthly crown, was not another sin depriving him of a heavenly crown. The 'honest party' had not done. This summons prefaced another document, entitled 'Causes of a soleme public humiliatione vpone the defait of the Armey, to be keepit throughout all the Congregations of the Kirk of Scotland,' which, under thirteen heads, called on the kingdom to humble itself because of national sin, the provocation of the King's House, the home-coming of Malignants and the neglecting to expatriate them, the crooked ways of some negotiators sent to Breda, ingratitude to God, and the selfish policy of officials and officers in places of power and trust.1 These edicts, however, were not well received in many places. Some ministers in Fife refused to publish the documents, and even went the length of demanding the restoration to public employment of such of their own parishioners as had satisfied the Church for the sin of the Engagement.

2

Sir John Chiesley of Kerswell, speaking of these would-be penitents, as he laid his hand significantly on his sword, said, 'I would rather join with Cromwell than with them.' This was the voice of the 'honest party,' who preferred an alliance with the Sectaries to government by indifferent Discovenanters, whom Argyll, in his weak-kneed policy of moderation, was reintroducing into official life, at least such as were personally friendly to himself.

During all this time Charles was treated with a courteous vigilance usually reserved for suspects, and for useful recreation he was expected to absorb, with the avidity of a proselyte, the Puritanical dogmatics he was treated to. In this enforced novitiate the carnal youth tried to look as grave as possible. Burnet testifies that Charles mortified his flesh,

1 Balfour, Annals, iv. 102. This document was the groundwork of Guthrie's famous Causes of God's Wrath, etc., published in 1653, the writing of which formed an item in his indictment. During these interminable dissensions David Calderwood, the historian of the Church, and a sufferer for Presbyterianism, died at Jedburgh in the seventy-fifth year of his age, 29th October 1650. 2 Cheisley or Chiesly: Walker, 187.