indiscipline of some of Hurry’s young soldiers during the night march gave him the alarm, had barely time to form up before the enemy was upon him. But the best strategy is of no avail when the battle it produces goes against the strategist, and Montrose’s tactical skill was never more conspicuous than at Auldearn. Alastair Macdonald with most of the Royalist infantry and the Royal standard was posted to the right (north) of the village to draw upon himself the weight of Hurry’s attack; only enough men were posted in the village itself to show that it was occupied, and on the south side, out of sight, was Montrose himself with a body of foot and all the Gordon horse. It was the prototype, on a small scale, of Austerlitz. Macdonald resisted sturdily while Montrose edged away from the scene of action, and at the right moment and not before, though Macdonald had been driven back on the village and was fighting for life amongst the gardens and enclosures, Montrose let loose Lord Gordon’s cavalry. These, abandoning for once the pistol tactics of their time, charged home with the sword. The enemy’s right wing cavalry was scattered in an instant, the nearest infantry was promptly ridden down, and soon Hurry’s army had ceased to exist.
35. Campaign of Naseby.—If the news of Auldearn brought Leven to the region of Carlisle, it had little effect on his English allies. Fairfax was not yet released from the siege of Oxford, in spite of the protests of the Scottish representatives in London. Massey, the active and successful governor of Gloucester, was placed in command of a field force on the 25th of May, but he was to lead it against, not the king, but Goring. At that moment the military situation once more changed abruptly. Charles, instead of continuing his march on to Lancashire, turned due eastward towards Derbyshire. The alarm at Westminster when this new development was reported was such that Cromwell, in spite of the Self-Denying Ordinance, was sent to raise an army for the defence of the Eastern Association. Yet the Royalists had no intentions in that direction. Conflicting reports as to the condition of Oxford reached the royal headquarters in the last week of May, and the eastward march was made chiefly to “spin out time” until it could be known whether it would be necessary to return to Oxford, or whether it was still possible to fight Leven in Yorkshire—his move into Westmorland was not yet known—and invade Scotland by the easy east coast route.
Goring’s return to the west had already been countermanded and he had been directed to march to Harborough, while the South Wales Royalists were also called in towards Leicester. Later orders (May 26) directed him to Newbury, whence he was to feel the strength of the enemy’s positions around Oxford. It is hardly necessary to say that Goring found good military reasons for continuing his independent operations, and marched off towards Taunton regardless of the order. He redressed the balance there for the moment by overawing Massey’s weak force, and his purse profited considerably by fresh opportunities for extortion, but he and his men were not at Naseby. Meanwhile the king, at the geographical centre of England, found an important and wealthy town at his mercy. Rupert, always for action, took the opportunity, and Leicester was stormed and thoroughly pillaged on the night of the 30th-31st of May. There was the usual panic at Westminster, but, unfortunately for Charles, it resulted in Fairfax being directed to abandon the siege of Oxford and given carte blanche to bring the Royal army to battle wherever it was met. On his side the king had, after the capture of Leicester, accepted the advice of those who feared for the safety of Oxford—Rupert, though commander-in-chief, was unable to insist on the northern enterprise—and had marched to Daventry, where he halted to throw supplies into Oxford. Thus Fairfax in his turn was free to move, thanks to the insubordination of Goring, who would neither relieve Oxford nor join the king for an attack on the New Model. The Parliamentary general moved from Oxford towards Northampton so as to cover the Eastern Association. On the 12th of June the two armies were only a few miles apart, Fairfax at Kislingbury, Charles at Daventry, and, though the Royalists turned northward again on the 13th to resume the Yorkshire project under the very eyes of the enemy, Fairfax followed close. On the night of the 13th Charles slept at Lubenham, Fairfax at Guilsborough. Cromwell, just appointed lieutenant-general of the New Model, had ridden into camp on the morning of the 13th with fresh cavalry from the eastern counties, Colonel Rossiter came up with more from Lincolnshire on the morning of the battle, and it was with an incontestable superiority of numbers and an overwhelming moral advantage that Fairfax fought at Naseby (q.v.) on the 14th of June. The result of the battle, this time a decisive battle, was the annihilation of the Royal army. Part of the cavalry escaped, a small fraction of it in tolerable order, but the guns and the baggage train were taken, and, above all, the splendid Royal infantry were killed or taken prisoners to a man.
36. Effects of Naseby.—After Naseby, though the war dragged on for another year, the king never succeeded in raising an army as good as, or even more numerous than, that which Fairfax’s army had so heavily outnumbered on the 14th of June. That the fruits of the victory could not be gathered in a few weeks was due to a variety of hindrances rather than to direct opposition—to the absence of rapid means of communication, the paucity of the forces engaged on both sides relatively to the total numbers under arms, and from time to time to the political exigencies of the growing quarrel between Presbyterians and Independents. As to the latter, within a few days of Naseby, the Scots rejoiced that the “back of the malignants was broken,” and demanded reinforcements as a precaution against “the insolence of others,” i.e. Cromwell and the Independents—“to whom alone the Lord has given the victory of that day.” Leven had by now returned to Yorkshire, and a fortnight after Naseby, after a long and honourable defence by Sir Thomas Glemham, Carlisle fell to David Leslie’s besieging corps. Leicester was reoccupied by Fairfax on the 18th, and on the 20th Leven’s army, moving slowly southward, reached Mansfield. This move was undertaken largely for political reasons, i.e. to restore the Presbyterian balance as against the victorious New Model. Fairfax’s army was intended by its founders to be a specifically English army, and Cromwell for one would have employed it against the Scots almost as readily as against malignants. But for the moment the advance of the northern army was of the highest military importance, for Fairfax was thereby set free from the necessity of undertaking sieges. Moreover, the publication of the king’s papers taken at Naseby gave Fairfax’s troops a measure of official and popular support which a month before they could not have been said to possess, for it was now obvious that they represented the armed force of England against the Irish, Danes, French, Lorrainers, &c., whom Charles had for three years been endeavouring to let loose on English soil. Even the Presbyterians abandoned for the time any attempt to negotiate with the king, and advocated a vigorous prosecution of the war.
37. Fairfax’s Western Campaign.—This, in the hands of Fairfax and Cromwell, was likely to be effective. While the king and Rupert, with the remnant of their cavalry, hurried into South Wales to join Sir Charles Gerard’s troops and to raise fresh infantry, Fairfax decided that Goring’s was the most important Royalist army in the field, and turned to the west, reaching Lechlade on the 26th, less than a fortnight after the battle of Naseby. One last attempt was made to dictate the plan of campaign from Westminster, but the Committee refused to pass on the directions of the Houses, and he remained free to deal with Goring as he desired. Time pressed; Charles in Monmouthshire and Rupert at Bristol were well placed for a junction with Goring, which would have given them a united army 15,000 strong. Taunton, in spite of Massey’s efforts to keep the field, was again besieged, and in Wilts and Dorset numerous bands of Clubmen were on foot which the king’s officers were doing their best to turn into troops for their master. But the process of collecting a fresh royal army was slow, and Goring and his subordinate, Sir Richard Grenville, were alienating the king’s most devoted adherents by their rapacity, cruelty and debauchery. Moreover, Goring had no desire to lose the independent command he had extorted at Stow-on-the-Wold in May.
