given a new army wherewith again to engage Hopton and Maurice, the task of saving Gloucester from the king’s army fell to Essex, who was heavily reinforced and drew his army together for action in the last days of August. Resort was had to the press-gang to fill the ranks, recruiting for Waller’s new army was stopped, and London sent six regiments of trained bands to the front, closing the shops so that every man should be free to take his part in what was thought to be the supreme trial of strength.
On the 26th, all being ready, Essex started. Through Aylesbury and round the north side of Oxford to Stow-on-the-Wold the army moved resolutely, not deterred by want of food and rest, or by the attacks of Rupert’s and Wilmot’s horse on its flank. On the 5th of September, just as Gloucester was at the end of its resources, the siege was suddenly raised and the Royalists drew off to Painswick, for Essex had reached Cheltenham and the danger was over. Then, the field armies being again face to face and free to move, there followed a series of skilful manœuvres in the Severn and Avon valleys, at the end of which the Parliamentary army gained a long start on its homeward road via Cricklade, Hungerford and Reading. But the Royalist cavalry under Rupert, followed rapidly by Charles and the main body from Evesham, strained every nerve to head off Essex at Newbury, and after a sharp skirmish on Aldbourne Chase on the 18th of September succeeded in doing so. On the 19th the whole Royal army was drawn up, facing west, with its right on Newbury and its left on Enborne Heath. Essex’s men knew that evening that they would have to break through by force—there was no suggestion of surrender.
11. First Battle of Newbury, September 20, 1643.—The ground was densely intersected by hedges except in front of the Royalists’ left centre (Newbury Wash) and left (Enborne Heath), and, practically, Essex’s army was never formed in line of battle, for each unit was thrown into the fight as it came up its own road or lane. On the left wing, in spite of the Royalist counter-strokes, the attack had the best of it, capturing field after field, and thus gradually gaining ground to the front. Here Lord Falkland was killed. On the Reading road itself Essex did not succeed in deploying on to the open ground on Newbury Wash, but victoriously repelled the royal horse when it charged up to the lanes and hedges held by his foot. On the extreme right of the Parliamentary army, which stood in the open ground of Enborne Heath, took place a famous incident. Here two of the London regiments, fresh to war as they were, were exposed to a trial as severe as that which broke down the veteran Spanish infantry at Rocroi in this same year. Rupert and the Royalist horse again and again charged up to the squares of pikes, and between each charge his guns tried to disorder the Londoners, but it was not until the advance of the royal infantry that the trained bands retired, slowly and in magnificent order, to the edge of the heath. The result of it all was that Essex’s army had fought its hardest and failed to break the opposing line. But the Royalists had suffered so heavily, and above all the valour displayed by the rebels had so profoundly impressed them, that they were glad to give up the disputed road and withdraw into Newbury. Essex thereupon pursued his march, Reading was reached on the 22nd after a small rearguard skirmish at Aldermaston, and so ended one of the most dramatic episodes of English history.
12. Hull and Winceby.—Meanwhile the siege of Hull had commenced. The Eastern Association forces under Manchester promptly moved up into Lincolnshire, the foot besieging Lynn (which surrendered on the 16th of September) while the horse rode into the northern part of the county to give a hand to the Fairfaxes. Fortunately the sea communications of Hull were open. On the 18th of September part of the cavalry in Hull was ferried over to Barton, and the rest under Sir Thomas Fairfax went by sea to Saltfleet a few days later, the whole joining Cromwell near Spilsby. In return the old Lord Fairfax, who remained in Hull, received infantry reinforcements and a quantity of ammunition and stores from the Eastern Association. On the 11th of October Cromwell and Fairfax together won a brilliant cavalry action at Winceby, driving the Royalist horse in confusion before them to Newark, and on the same day Newcastle’s army around Hull, which had suffered terribly from the hardships of continuous siege work, was attacked by the garrison and so severely handled that next day the siege was given up. Later, Manchester retook Lincoln and Gainsborough, and thus Lincolnshire, which had been almost entirely in Newcastle’s hands before he was compelled to undertake the siege of Hull, was added in fact as well as in name to the Eastern Association.
Elsewhere, in the reaction after the crisis of Newbury, the war languished. The city regiments went home, leaving Essex too weak to hold Reading, which the Royalists reoccupied on the 3rd of October. At this the Londoners offered to serve again, and actually took part in a minor campaign around Newport Pagnell, which town Rupert attempted to fortify as a menace to the Eastern Association and its communications with London. Essex was successful in preventing this, but his London regiments again went home, and Sir William Waller’s new army in Hampshire failed lamentably in an attempt on Basing House (November 7), the London trained bands deserting en bloc. Shortly afterwards Arundel surrendered to a force under Sir Ralph, now Lord Hopton (December 9).
13. The “Irish Cessation” and the Solemn League and Covenant.—Politically, these months were the turning-point of the war. In Ireland, the king’s lieutenant, by order of his master, made a truce with the Irish rebels (Sept. 15). Charles’s chief object was to set free his army to fight in England, but it was believed universally that Irish regiments—in plain words, papists in arms—would shortly follow. Under these circumstances his act united against him nearly every class in Protestant England, above all brought into the English quarrel the armed strength of Presbyterian Scotland. Yet Charles, still trusting to intrigue and diplomacy to keep Scotland in check, deliberately rejected the advice of Montrose, his greatest and most faithful lieutenant, who wished to give the Scots employment for their army at home. Only ten days after the “Irish cessation,” the Parliament at Westminster swore to the Solemn League and Covenant, and the die was cast. It is true that even a semblance of Presbyterian theocracy put the “Independents” on their guard and definitely raised the question of freedom of conscience, and that secret negotiations were opened between the Independents and Charles on that basis, but they soon discovered that the king was merely using them as instruments to bring about the betrayal of Aylesbury and other small rebel posts. All parties found it convenient to interpret the Covenant liberally for the present, and at the beginning of 1644 the Parliamentary party showed so united a front that even Pym’s death (December 8, 1643) hardly affected its resolution to continue the struggle.
The troops from Ireland, thus obtained at the cost of an enormous political blunder, proved to be untrustworthy after all. Those serving in Hopton’s army were “mutinous and shrewdly infected with the rebellious humour of England.” When Waller’s Londoners surprised[1] and routed a Royalist detachment at Alton (December 13, 1643), half the prisoners took the Covenant. Hopton had to retire, and on the 6th of January 1644 Waller recaptured Arundel. Byron’s Cheshire army was in no better case. Newcastle’s retreat from Hull and the loss of Gainsborough had completely changed the situation in the midlands, Brereton was joined by the younger Fairfax from Lincolnshire, and the Royalists were severely defeated for a second time at Nantwich (January 25). As at Alton, the majority of the prisoners (amongst them Colonel George Monk) took the Covenant and entered the Parliamentary army. In Lancashire, as in Cheshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, the cause of the Parliament was in the ascendant. Resistance revived in the West Riding towns, Lord Fairfax was again in the field in the
- ↑ For the third time within the year the London trained bands turned out in force. It was characteristic of the early years of the war that imminent danger alone called forth the devotion of the citizen soldier. If he was employed in ordinary times (e.g. at Basing House) he would neither fight nor march with spirit.
