indulgent sovereign, undertook by his own credit, and that of a few friends, who had not yet forgotten their allegiance, to raise such commotions in Scotland as should oblige the covenanters to recall their forces. With a body of men from Ireland, amounting to about twelve hundred, and eight hundred Highlanders, indifferently armed, he defeated an army of six thousand covenanters, under lord Elcho, near Perth, and killed or wounded two thousand of them '.

In consequence of this victory, by which he acquired arms and ammunition, Montrose was enabled to prosecute his enterprise, in defiance of the opposition of the covenanters. His daring soul delighted in perilous undertakings: he eluded every danger, and seized the most unexpected advantages. He retreated sixty miles in the face of a superior army without sustaining any loss: he took Dundee by assault, and defeated the marquis of Argyle at Inverlochy, after having gratified the Macdonalds with the pillage of that nobleman's country. The power of the Campbells being thus broken, the Highlanders, who were in general well affected to the royal cause, joined Montrose in more considerable bodies. By their assistance he successively defeated Baillie and Urry, two officers of reputation sent from England to crush him, and who were confident of victory from the superiority of their numbers, as well as from the discipline of their troops. He defeated Baillie a second time, with great slaughter, at Alford. And the terror of his name, and the admiration of his valour, being now great over all the north of Scotland, he summoned his friends and partisans, and prepared to march into the southern provinces, that he might restore the king's authority, and give a final blow to the power of the covenanters 2.

But, unhappily for Charles, before Montrose could prosecute his success so far as to oblige the covenanters to withdraw any part of their forces, events had taken place in England which rendered the royal cause almost desperate. In consequence of the change in the formation of the parliamentary army, the officers, in most regiments, assumed the spiritual as well as military command over their men. They supplied the place of chaplains; and, during the intervals of action, occupied themselves in sermons, prayers, and pious exhortations. These wild effusions were mistaken by the soldiers, and perhaps even by

1 Rushworth, vol. vi.-Wishart, chap. v.

2 Burnet's Hist. vol. i.-Wishart, chap. 10, 11.-Rushworth.

those who uttered them, for divine illuminations; and gave new weight to the authority of the officers, and new energy to the valour of their troops. In marching to battle, they lifted up their souls to God in psalms and hymns, and made the whole field resound with spiritual as well as martial music'. The sense of present danger was lost in the prospect of eternal felicity; wounds were esteemed meritorious in so holy a cause, and death martyrdom. Every one seemed animated, not with the vain idea of conquest or the ambition of worldly greatness, but by the brighter hope of attaining in heaven an everlasting crown of glory.

The royalists, ignorant of the influence of this enthusiasm in rousing the courage of their antagonists, treated it with contempt and ridicule. In the mean time, their own licentious conduct, if less ludicrous, was less consistent with the character of soldiers or of citizens. As formidable even to their friends as they were to their enemies, they in some places laid the country waste by their undistinguishing rapine. So mischievous were their practices, that many of the most devoted friends of the church and monarchy now wished for such success to the parliamentary forces as might put a stop to these oppressions: and the depredations committed in Scotland, by the Highlanders under Montrose, made the approach of the royal army the object of terror to both parties, over the whole island'.

Under these disadvantages, it was impossible for the king much longer to continue the war: the very licentiousness of his own troops was sufficient to ruin his cause. On the opening of the campaign, however, being joined by the princes Rupert and Maurice, he left Oxford with an army of fifteen thousand men, in the hope of striking some decisive blow. The new modelled parliamentary army under Fairfax and Cromwell, was posted at Windsor, and amounted to about twenty-two thousand men. Yet Charles, in spite of their vigilance, effected the relief of Chester, which had long been blockaded by Sir William Brereton; and, in his return southward, he took Leicester by storm,

1 Rushworth, vol. vi.-Harris's Life of Oliver Cromwell.

2 Rushworth, vol. vii.-Clarendon, vol. iv. This licentiousness was partly occasioned by the want of pay; but other causes conspired to carry it to its present degree of enormity. Prince Rupert, negligent of the interests of the people, and fond of the soldiery, had ever indulged the latter in unwarrantable liberties. Wilmot, a man of dissolute manners, had promoted the same spirit of disorder; and too many other commanders improved on the pernicious example.

after a furious assault, and gratified his soldiers with a valuable booty. Fifteen hundred prisoners fell into his hands'.

Alarmed at this success, Fairfax, who had received orders from the parliament to besiege Oxford during the king's absence, immediately left that place, and marched to Leicester, with an intention of giving battle to the royal army. Charles, in the mean time, was advancing toward Oxford, in order to raise the siege, which he apprehended was already in some forwardness; so that the two armies were within a few miles of each other, before they were aware of their danger. The king called a council of war; in which it was rashly resolved, through the influence of prince Rupert and the impatient spirit of the nobility and gentry, that Fairfax should be attacked without delay, though the royalists had the prospect of being soon reinforced with three thousand horse and two thousand foot, under experienced officers. They accordingly advanced upon the parliamentarians, who appeared in order of battle on a rising ground, near Naseby in the county of Northampton.

June 14.

The king himself commanded the main body of the royal army, prince Rupert the right wing, and sir Marmaduke Langdale the left. The main body of the parliamentary army was conducted by Fairfax, seconded by Skippon; the right wing by Cromwell; the left by Ireton, Cromwell's son-in-law. The prince began the charge with his usual impetuosity and success. Ireton's whole wing was routed and chased off the field, and himself wounded and taken prisoner. The king led on his main body with firmness; and displayed in the action all the conduct of an experienced general, and all the courage of a gallant soldier. The parliamentary infantry gave way, in spite of the utmost efforts of Fairfax and Skippon, and would have been totally routed, if the body of reserve had not been brought to their relief. Meanwhile Cromwell, having broken the left wing of the royalists under Langdale, and pursued it a little way, returned upon the king's infantry, and threw them into confusion. At length prince Rupert, who had imprudently wasted his time in a fruitless attempt to seize the enemy's artillery, joined the king with his cavalry, though too late to turn the tide of battle. "One charge more," cried Charles, "and we recover the day!" But his troops, aware of the disadvantage under which they laboured, could by no means be prevailed on to renew the com

1 Clarendon, vol. iv.

bat. He was obliged to quit the field: and although the parliament had eight hundred, and he only six hundred men slain, scarcely any victory could be more complete. About four thousand five hundred royalists were taken prisoners, among whom were three hundred officers; and all the king's baggage, artillery, and ammunition, fell into the hands of the enemy'.

LETTER VII.

Of the Affairs of England, from the Battle of Naseby to the Execution of Charles I. and the Subversion of the Monarchy in 1649.

AFTER the battle of Naseby, the king's affairs so rapidly declined in all quarters, that he ordered the prince of Wales, now fifteen years of age, to retire beyond sea, and save at least one part of the royal family from the violence of the parliament. The prince retired to Jersey, and afterwards to Paris, where he joined the queen, who had fled thither from Exeter, when the earl of Essex conducted the parliamentary army to the West. The king himself retreated first to Hereford, then to Abergavenny; and remained some time in Wales, in hopes of raising a body of infantry in that loyal but exhausted country.

In the mean time the parliamentary generals and the Scots made themselves masters of almost every place of importance in the kingdom, and every where routed and dispersed the royalists. Fairfax and Cromwell immediately retook Leicester; and having also reduced Bridgewater, Bath, and Sherbourne, they resolved, before they divided their forces, to besiege Bristol, into which prince Rupert had thrown himself, with an intention of defending to the utmost a place of so much consequence. Vast prepara

1 Whitelocke, p. 145, 146.-Rushworth, vol. vii.-Clarendon, vol. iv. Among other spoils, the king's cabinet fell into the hands of the enemy. It contained copies of his letters to the queen, which were afterwards wantonly published by the parliament, accompanied with malicious comments. They are written with delicacy and tenderness; and, at worst, only show that he was too fondly attached to a woman of wit and beauty, who had the misfortune to be a papist, and who had acquired a dangerous influence over him. She is certainly chargeable with some of his most unpopular and even arbitrary measures.

tions were made for an enterprise, which, from the strength of the garrison, and the reputation of the governor, was expected to require the greatest exertions of valour and perseverance. But so precarious a quality, in most men, is military courage, that a more feeble defence was not made by any town during the course of the war. Though prince Rupert had written a letter to the king, in which he undertook to hold out four months if the garrison did not mutiny, he surrendered the place a few days after, on articles of capitulation, and at the first summons'.

Sept. 10.

Charles, astonished at this unexpected event, which was scarcely less fatal to the royal cause than the battle of Naseby, and full of indignation at the manner in which so important a city had been given up at the very time he was collecting forces for its relief, instantly recalled all Rupert's commissions, and ordered him to quit the kingdom. After an unsuccessful attempt to raise the siege of Chester, the king himself took refuge with the remains of his broken army in Oxford, where he continued during the winter2.

Fairfax and Cromwell, having divided their armies, after the surrender of Bristol, reduced to obedience all the west and middle counties of England; while the Scots took Carlisle, and other places of importance in the North. Lord Digby, in attempting to break into Scotland, and join Montrose with twelve hundred horse, was defeated at Sherbourne in Yorkshire, by colonel Copley; and, to complete the king's misfortunes, news soon after arrived, that Montrose himself, the only remaining hope of the royal party, was at last routed.

That gallant nobleman, having descended into the low country, had defeated the whole force of the covenanters at Kilsyth, and left them no remains of an army in Scotland. Edinburgh opened its gates to him; and many of the nobility and gentry, who secretly favoured the royal cause, when they saw a force able to support them, declared openly for it. But Montrose, advancing still farther south, in hopes of being joined by lord Digby, was surprised through the negligence of his scouts, at PhilipSept. 13. haugh, near Selkirk, by a strong body of cavalry, under David Leslie, who had been detached from the Scottish army in England, in order to check the career of this heroic leader; and,

1 Rushworth, vol. vii.-Clarendon, vol. iv.

2 Id. ibid.