might have been made a friend; and as much to be apprehended where he was so, as any man could deserve to be. And therefore his death was no less pleasing to the party, than it was condoled in the other." *

"Rebellion," vol, iv. p. 92.

THE QUEEN JOINS HER HUSBAND

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CHAPTER XXV.

The queen joins her husband.--Various incidents of the war.-Bristol taken by assault.— Proposals for peace rejected by a small majority of the Commons-Popular disturb ances in London.-The siege of Gloucester,-Defence of Gloucester.-Essex marches to its relief. The king and his army retire.-The Parliamentary army march towards London. The battle of Newbury.-Prowess of the Trained Bands.-Death of lord Falkland. The Sortes Virgilianæ.-The royal success becoming more doubtful.Negotiations for an alliance between the Scots and the Parliament.-The solemn League and Covenant.-Essex returns to London.-Growing importance of Cromwell.-Skirmish of Winceby-Death of Pym.-The Covenant severely enforced.Ejected ministers.

FOUR months had elapsed between the landing of the queen in England and her return to her royal husband. However Charles might have been personally affected by her counsels, his best advisers, the moderate men who desired peace, were afraid of her influence, and she was suspicious of their, fidelity. Her dominant idea was to restore the absolute power of the king. Her ruling passion was hatred of the Parliament. She writes to Charles, "to die of consumption of royalty is a death which I cannot endure, having found by experience the malady too insupportable."* Again, "I do not see the wisdom of these Messieurs rebels, in being able to imagine that they will make you come by force to their object, and to an accommodation; for as long as you are in the world, assuredly England can have no rest nor peace, unless you consent to it, and assuredly that cannot be unless you are restored to your just prerogatives." She was a bold and determined woman, who aspired to direct councils and to lead armies. On the 27th of May she writes to the king from York, "I shall stay to besiege Leeds at once, although I am dying to join you; but I am so enraged to go away without having beaten these rascals, that, if you will permit me, I will do that, and then will go to join you; and if I go away I am afraid that they would not be beaten." She had her favourites, especially Jermyn and Digby, whose advancement she was constantly urging. The scandalous chroniclers of the time did not hesitate in casting the most de

* Green's "Letters," p. 117.

↑ Ibid., p. 108.

Ibid, p. 202.

grading suspicions upon the queen in connection with one of these. Jermyn was made a peer. He is pointed out as "somewhat too ugly for a lady's favourite, yet that is nothing to some; for the old lady [Mary de Medicis] that died in Flanders regarded not the feature." At length Henrietta Maria determined to leave the north, and join the king at Oxford. On the 11th of July she entered Stratford-upon-Avon, at the head of four thousand horse and foot soldiers. She slept at the house in which Shakspere lived and died,-then in the possession of his daughter, Mrs. Hall. On the 13th she met Charles where his first battle had been fought; and from Keinton they proceeded to Oxford. The tidings of a victory on the 15th over the parliamentary forces at Roundway Down, in Wiltshire, greeted their arrival. A previous victory over Sir William Waller at Lansdown, in Somersetshire, filled the royalists with the most sanguine hopes. Such partial successes on the other side as the brave defence of Nottingham Castle by colonel Hutchinson had no material influence upon the state of affairs. The feelings of the adverse parties were growing more bitter. We see the proud Cavaliers and the stern Puritans hating and hated. Female tenderness and courage shine out as sunny gleams in a dark day. On each side there were women as noble as Lucy Hutchinson, who thus describes what she was doing in the spirit of Christian love, whilst the so-called teachers of religion were cruel and revengeful:

"There was a large room, which was the chapel, in the castle; this they had filled full of prisoners, besides a very bad prison, which was no better than a dungeon, called the Lion's den; and the new captain Palmer and another minister, having nothing else to do, walked up and down the castle-yard, insulting and beating the poor prisoners as they were brought up. In the encounter, one of the Derby captains was slain, and five of our men hurt, who for want of another surgeon, were brought to the governor's wife, and she having some excellent balsams and plaisters in her closet, with the assistance of a gentleman that had some skill, dressed all their wounds, whereof some were dangerous, being all shots, with such good success, that they were all well cured in convenient time. After our hurt men were dressed, as she stood at her chamber-door, seeing three of the prisoners sorely cut, and carried down bleeding into the Lion's den, she desired the marshal to bring them in to her, and bound up and dressed their wounds also: * "Character of an Oxford Incendiary," Harleian Miscellany, vol. v. p. 346.

BRISTOL TAKEN BY RUPERT.

477

which while she was doing, captain Palmer came in and told her his soul abhorred to see this favour to the enemies of God; she replied, she had done nothing but what she thought was her duty, in humanity to them, as fellow-creatures, not as enemies."* In the summer of 1643 the power of the Parliament is visibly in danger. On the 27th of July, Bristol, a city only exceeded by London in population and wealth, is surrendered to Rupert, after an assault, with terrible slaughter on both sides. Nathaniel Fiennes, its governor, was described by Clarendon as "for root and branch" in 1640; but one whose courage being had "in disesteem," encouraged the plan of assaulting this important place. He was subsequently tried and condemned "for not having defended Bristol so well, and so long, as he ought to have done." He had interest enough to obtain a pardon; but he quitted the country. A design of sir John Hotham to surrender Hull to the king was detected. He and his son were committed to the Tower on a charge of betraying the cause of the Parliament. London was in a state of unusual agitation. The Lords came to resolutions, upon a proposal of peace, of a far more moderate character than had previously been determined on. There was a conference between the two Houses, in which the upper House urged that "these unnatural dissensions" would destroy all the former blessings of peace and abundance." The Commons, by a majority of nineteen, decided that the proposals of the Lords should be considered. The city was in an uproar. A petition from the common-council called for the rejection of the proposals. Multitudes surrounded the Houses to enforce the same demand. The proposals were now rejected by a majority of seven. An attempt was then made to enforce the demand for peace by popular clamour. Bands of women, with men in women's clothes, beset the doors of the House of Commons, crying out, "Give us up the traitors who are against peace. We'll tear them in pieces. Give us up that rascal Pym." The military forced them away; but they refused to disperse. They were at last fired upon, and two were killed, one of whom was an old ballad-singer of the London streets. Many peers now left Parliament and joined the king at Oxford, amongst whom was lord Holland. Those who remained, peers or commoners, saw that the greatest danger was in their own dissensions. The royalist army was growing stronger in every quarter. London was again in peril. There was one man of extraordinary vigor who felt the

Hutchinson's "Memoirs," vol. i. p. 274.

immediate danger of his own district. There is not a more characteristic letter of Cromwell than the following to the Commissioners at Cambridge, dated from Huntingdon on the 6th of August:"You see by this enclosed how sadly your affairs stand. It's no longer disputing, but out instantly all you can. Raise all your bands; send them to Huntingdon;-get up what volunteers you can; hasten your horses. Send these letters to Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, without delay. I beseech you spare not, but be expeditious and industrious! Almost all our foot have quitted Stamford; there is nothing to interrupt an enemy but our horse, that is considerable. You must act lively; do it without distraction. Neglect no means!"*

Had there been unanimity in the councils of the king at this period of dissensions in London amongst the people; with the two houses divided amongst themselves; men of influence deserting the parliamentary cause; no man yet at the head of the parliamentary forces who appeared capable of striking a great blow,-it is probable that if he had marched upon the capital the war would have been at an end. There would have been peace, and a military despotism. Charles sent sir Philip Warwick to the earl of Newcastle to propose a plan of co-operation between the armies of the south and north. "But I found him very averse to this," Warwick writes, "and perceived that he apprehended nothing more than to be joined to the king's army, or to serve under prince Rupert; for he designed himself to be the man that should turn the scale, and to be a self-subsisting and distinct army, wherever he was." With this serious difficulty in concentrating his forces, Charles determined upon besieging Gloucester. The garrison consisted of fifteen hundred men, under Edward Massey, the parliamentary governor. The inhabitants were under five. thousand. On the 10th of August the king's army was stationed upon a fair hill, in the clear view of the city, and within less than two miles of it." Charles sent a summons for its surrender, by a trumpet to the town, offering pardon to the inhabitants, and requir ing an answer within two hours. Clarendon has described, with more than his accustomed attention to details which regard the common people, how the answer was brought: "Within less than the time prescribed, together with the trumpeter returned two citizens from the town, with lean, pale, sharp, and bad visages, indeed faces so strange and unusual, and in such a garb and posture, * Carlyle's "Cromwell Letters," vol. i. p. 129. "Memoirs," p. 243.

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