It was, says Hume, the fate of the House of Stuart to govern England at a period when the old source of royal authority was much diminished, and before the latter--a large and steady revenue-began to flow in any abundance. It chanced, unhappily for Charles I., that he had fully as high and exalted an opinion of the royal prerogative as either his father or Queen Elizabeth, while he had to rule a people who were already different, and who possessed a more advanced state of public opinion and of personal and political freedom. From the beginning of his reign there were recurrences of discontent against him in the Lower House. There changes and reforms were aimed at, which he deemed incompatible with monarchical government; and Charles, resenting this, regarded it as a sacred duty to transmit his regal power unimpaired to his

successors.

The calamitous Civil War of his reign forms, perhaps, the most interesting portion of English history; and whether it be regarded as evidence of the national character when armed in defence of its rights, or as the period when the sovereign power or the idea of that power, as transmitted by the tyrannical Plantagenets and Tudors-received its first check, must be for ever memorable.

How the breach between Charles and his Parliament became irreparable belongs chiefly to political history. Several reduced officers and young gentlemen of the Inns of Court, during this time of, growing danger and disorder, offered their services to Charles; and many men whose virtues and abilities would have done virtue to any cause, ranged themselves by his side. Between them and the populace, skirmishes, attended by more or less bloodshed, were of frequent occurrence. By way of reproach, those gentlemen gave the rabble the appellation of "Roundheads," in consequence of the mean mode in which their hair was shorn. These called the others "Cavaliers," in consequence of their free haughty manners, and bravery of apparel; and thus the nation, which was before sufficiently provided with religious as well as civil dissensions, was now supplied with two party-names, under which the rival factions might rendezvous, and manifest their mutual hatred.

At length the sword was drawn, in August, 1642; and soon after, in every shire of England, two hostile factions appeared against each other in arms, and

for a time it was not easy to say which of the adverse parties was the more formidable. The Houses of Parliament held London, and commanded the adjacent counties, the large towns and seaports, the fleet, and the river Thames. They had at their disposal nearly all the military stores of the kingdom, and were able to impose duties on goods imported from abroad and on various productions of home industry; while the luckless king was ill provided with artillery and ammunition. The taxes which he was enabled to lay on those rural districts which were temporarily occupied by his troops produced a far less sum than Parliament could draw from the city of London alone. For pecuniary aid he relied chiefly on the generous munificence of his opulent and generally high-born adherents. Many of these deeply mortgaged their old ancestral estates, pawned their jewels, melted their plate, the wassail bowls and silver chargers, in order to assist their struggling king. "But experience," says Macaulay, "has fully proved that the voluntary liberality of individuals, even in times of the greatest excitement, is a poor financial resource when compared with severe and methodical taxation, which presses on the willing and unwilling alike."

When the factions flew to arms, the soldiers of the king were chiefly gentlemen and their immediate dependants, well mounted and skilled in the use of arms; while the ranks of the Parliament were filled with ploughmen and tradesmen, as yet raw and untrained. The king in person commanded the Cavaliers, the splendour of whose appearance quite eclipsed that of the Roundheads at Westminster, who chose the Earl of Essex as their leader; while Prince Rupert, the nephew of Charles, led the Royalist cavalry.

Excluded from Hull, where all the arms procured for the campaign against the Scots were yet stored, Charles unfurled the royal standard at Nottingham, on the 25th of August, and ultimately 18,000 men gathered around it.

Charles had found that the Parliament denounced his proclamations; he resolved, therefore, on hostile measures. Having sounded the disposition of the loyal and gallant cavaliers of Yorkshire, he summoned all his "loving subjects" north of the Trent, and within twenty miles south of that river, to meet him in arms at Nottingham, on the date above

Edgehill.]

given. On that day, the royal standard, on which was a hand pointing to a crown with the motto, "Give to Cæsar his due," was carried by a guard of 600 infantry from the castle into a large field. King Charles followed, with a retinue of 2,000 men, and the inhabitants crowded around to hear the proclamation which was read by a herald-at-arms. This solemn ceremony, called the raising of the royal standard, was deemed equivalent to a declaration of hostilities by the Parliamentarians and Puritans, and led to the most dreadful of national calamities that England had seen since the battle of Bosworth-a civil war.

Preluded by a skirmish at Powick Bridge, in which Prince Rupert was victorious, the opening and first pitched battle of the great Civil War was fought at Edgehill, on the 23rd of October, 1642.

At first the muster of the king's force at Nottingnam was so small, that he did not feel himself justified in attempting to attack the Earl of Essex, who, when the dispersed bodies of the Parliamentary army joined him at Northampton, found himself at the head of 15,000 men. Charles, there fore, deemed it more prudent to retire by slow marches towards Derby, and thence to Shrewsbury, in order to countenance the levies which his friends were making in those parts.

At Wellington he made a rendezvous of all his forces, and caused his military orders to be read at the head of every regiment; and that he might bind himself to his people by ties that were reciprocal, he made the following declaration before his whole army:

"I do promise, in the presence of Almighty God, and as I do hope for His blessing and protection, that I will, to the utmost of my power, defend and maintain the true Reformed Protestant religion established in the Church of England; and, by the grace of God, in the same will live and die.

"I desire that the laws may ever be the measure of my government, and that the liberty and property of the subject may be preserved by them with the same care as my own just rights. And, if it please God, by His blessing on this army raised for my necessary defence, to preserve me from the present rebellion, I do solemnly and faithfully promise in the sight of God to maintain the just privileges and freedom of Parliament; and to govern to the utmost of my power by the known statutes and customs of the kingdom, and particularly to observe inviolably the laws to which I have given my consent in this Parliament. Meanwhile, if this emergency, and the great necessity to which I am driven, beget any violation of law, I hope it

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shall be imputed by God and man to the authors of this war, and not to me, who have so honestly laboured to preserve the peace of the kingdom.

"When I wilfully fail in these particulars, I shall expect no aid or relief from man, nor any protection from above; but in this resolution, I hope for the cheerful assistance of all good men, and am confident of the blessing of Heaven."

Under the king, the Earl of Lindsay, who had served in the Low Countries and at the Isle of Rhé, was general; Prince Rupert, we have said, commanded the cavalry; Sir Jacob Astley (who cut such a poor figure at Newcastle) led the infantry; Sir Arthur Aston the dragoons; Sir John Heyden the artillery; and the troop of Guards was commanded by Lord Bernard Stuart, sixth son of Esme, Duke of Lennox, Lord High Admiral of Scotland. The servants of these Cavaliers formed a separate troop, under Sir William Killigrew. There was also one regiment of Scots, under Ludovic, Earl of Crawford, Sergeant-Major-General of Horse; it was 400 strong, and officered by gentlemen of his own name, Lindsay. There were with the king nearly sixty other Scottish officers who had served in the German wars. To be a "Low Country officer" was then deemed a warrant for military experience.

With these forces the king marched from Shrewsbury, intending to give battle as soon as possible to those of the Parliament, which were continually being augmented by recruits from London; and in order to bring that crisis about, he moved in the direction of the capital, which he knew Essex would not abandon to him. Two days after, the earl began his march from Worcester. "Though," says Hume, "it be commonly easy in civil wars to get intelligence, the armies were within six miles of each other ere either of the generals was acquainted with the approach of his enemy. Shrewsbury and Worcester, the places from which they set out, are not above twenty miles distant; yet had the two marched ten days in this mutual ignorance. So much had military skill, during a long peace, decayed in England.”

The army of the king was at Banbury; that of the Parliament at Keinton, in Warwickshire, when the active and fiery Prince Rupert brought intelligence of the advance of the latter; and though the day was considerably spent, the king, who was brave, resolute, and ardent, resolved on immediate battle. When asked by those about him, says Père d'Orleans, what he meant to do, "To fight," said he, "with the help of God and my good subjects!"

As the king's troops marched over the hills, they

saw those of Essex getting into position on a plain called the Vale of the Red Horse, which lies midway between Keinton and Edgehill, and the latter place gave its name to the battle that ensued.

Having left in his rear no less than 2,000 infantry, 500 horse, and some of his artillery, Essex was in no hurry to engage, and was satisfied that he had arrested the king's march on London.

Prince Rupert commanded the right wing of cavalry. The left was under Commissary-General Wilmot, aided by Sir Arthur Aston; Lord Lindsay led the infantry, and under him was his son, Lord Willoughby, with the king's own regi

ment.

The right wing of the Parliamentary army, consisting of

three regiments of horse, with the heaviest cannon, was led by Sir Philip Stapleton, Sir William Balfour, and the Lord Fielding. The brigade of Sir John Meldrum, a Scottish Puritan, led the van. Essex led the centre, Lord Brooke and Hollis the rear. The left wing consisted of twenty-four troops of horse, led by Sir James Ramsay, a Scoto-Swedish officer (Clarendon and Rushworth).

Concerning Edgehill, Denzil, Lord Hol

which General Ludlow says lasted for about an hour, when the infantry began to engage. Prior to this, Prince Rupert, marching down the slope with the Royal right wing, to charge the enemy's left, was suddenly joined from amid their ranks by an entire troop, under Sir Faithful Fortescue, who had just come over from Ireland. Wheeling about, his soldiers now charged sword in hand upon those they had deserted. This incident inspired such doubt in the cavalry of Essex, each man then mistrusting his comrade, that they failed to withstand the fury of Rupert's attack. They broke, were utterly routed, and pursued upon the spur for more than two miles from the field of battle. By this unadvised pursuit, observes Rapin, the king was in danger of the same fate which his predecessor had at the battle of Lewes. The fugitives fled at full speed, and were pursued, hacked, hewed, cut down, or shot, with the same imprudent fury. To add to the king's peril, one of his reserve regiments of horse, thinking the victory was now certain, joined in the chase "with spurs and loosened reins, and could not

lis, tells us the following singular story about Oliver Cromwell, in these words :-"He was as arrant a coward as he was notoriously perfidious, ambitious, and hypocritical. This was his base keeping out of the field of Keinton, where he with his troop of horse came not in, impudently and ridiculously affirming, the day after, that he had all that day been seeking the army and place of fight, though his quarters were at a village near at hand, whence he could not find his way, nor be directed by his ear, when the ordnance was heard for twenty or thirty miles off!"

About two in the afternoon, the king, who was accoutred in almost complete mail, give the signal for battle, by firing a cannon with his own hand. Then ensued between the two armies a cannonade,

be hindered by their commanders."

All this time the pikemen and musketeers on both sides had been engaged without any advantage on either hand. The king's infantry, when endeavouring to line some hedges on the right of Essex, were driven in by dragoons, but the main body, with the royal standard, pressed on within musket-shot of the enemy.

"Upon which," says Ludlow, "we, observing no horse to encounter withal, charged them with some loss from their pikes, though very little from their shot; but not being able to break them, we retreated to our former station, and Sir Philip Stapleton, our captain, wishing for a regiment of foot to secure the cannon, we promised to stand by him in defence of them, causing one of our

servants to load and level one of them, which he had scarcely done, when a body of horse appeared advancing towards us from that side where the enemy was. We fired at them with case-shot (i.e., all kinds of old iron, stones, nails, musket-balls, &c.), but did no other mischief save only wounding one man through the hand, our gun being overloaded and planted on high ground; which fell out very happily, this body being of our own army and commanded by Sir William Balfour."

Essex had sent two regiments of horse in succession to charge the centre with the royal standard; and then Sir William Balfour, a well-trained Scottish officer, finding that Prince Rupert, in his wild pursuit, was fairly out of the field with nearly all the cavalry of the king, swept round with his squadrons, made a flank movement, and falling on the centre where Charles was, with sword and pistol, made such havoc and disorder that the king and the boyprinces, his sons, were in imminent danger of being taken. The Earl of Lindsay (Robert Bertie) was wounded in the thigh, and captured. His son, who fought valiantly to rescue him, was also taken. He died next day. Sir Edmund Verney, who bore the royal banner, was slain, and the standard taken; but it was recovered by John Smith, lieutenant of the Lord John Stuart's (of Lennox) troop, who putting over his shoulder an orange scarf (the Earl of Essex's colour), torn probably from some dead Puritan, gallantly galloped into the midst of the enemy, tore it from the hands of him who bore it, and laid it at the feet of the king, who made him a knight-banneret that evening.

Ludlow calls the man who was displaying the captured standard Lieutenant-Colonel Middleton. In addition to breaking the centre, he tells us that Balfour succeeded in spiking several of the king's cannon. The return of Prince Rupert with the horse alone prevented the total defeat of Charles, whose right flank he had left completely exposed; for Balfour, who, by the flight of the cavalry, had now only a small body of the reserve with which to act, fell back and secured himself near the infantry of Essex.

This officer was Sir William Balfour, of Pitcullo, in Fifeshire, whose daughter Isabel was married to John Balfour, Lord Burleigh. If the king and Prince Rupert had persuaded their cavalry to charge the infantry of Essex, who were now almost unsupported, they might have been sure of a victory; but the Royal cavalry came back in such extreme disorder, so blown and loose in hand, that they would not attack the steady front shown by the pikemen and musketeers of Essex, who were formed in the best order to resist a charge. He

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did not feel him.self sufficiently strong to advance towards the king. The battle closed as it began,

by a desultory cannonade; and Essex kept his ground till the darkness freed him from apprehension of closer engagement.

Rupert's cavalry when returning were assailed by Essex's guard of horse, which fell upon their rear, and killed many of them. "In which attempt," says General Ludlow, "being dismounted, I could not without great difficulty recover on horseback again, being loaded with cuirassier's arms, as the rest of the guard also were. The night after the battle our army quartered upon the same ground. No man nor horse got any meat that night, and I had touched none since the Saturday before; neither could I find my servant, who had my cloak, so that having nothing to keep me warm but a suit of iron, I was obliged to walk about all the night, which proved very cold, by reason of a sharp frost."

All night both armies lay under arms. When day broke they were still face to face; but neither thought themselves in a condition to renew the attack, though the absent forces of Essex had all— save Cromwell's troop-come in, under Colonel Hampden, during the night, with the remainder of his cannon. The whole day passed, and the armies lay with the dead and wounded between them, without a shot being fired. Whitelock states that Essex was advised to attack the king by some of his officers, but preferred the wish of Colonel Dalbier, who dissented; and ordering his baggage to be drawn off, marched to Warwick in the evening; while the king retired to the quarters he had occupied before the battle, which may justly be deemed a drawn one.

On the side of the king there fell, in addition to Earl Lindsay, the Lord John Stuart and the Lord Stuart d'Aubigné, Sir Edward Verney, and John Wishart, of Pitarrow. On the other side there fell the Lord St. John, of Bletzo, and Colonel Charles Essex; many prisoners were taken, with no less than sixty standards, as Père d'Orleans states. The greatest slaughter among the Puritans was made of those who fled; among the Royalists, of those who kept their ground. Of these, says Ludlow, "I saw about threescore lie within the compass of threescore yards, upon the ground whereon that brigade fought, in which the king's standard was. That night the country (people) brought in some provisions; but when I got meat, I could scarcely eat it, my jaws, for want of use, having almost lost their natural faculty."

The number slain on the field was about 5,000; Lord Clarendon states that, on the king reviewing