Rebellion: The History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution (43 page)

The flight of the king to the Scottish army had precipitated the final split between the forces of his enemies. The Scottish army and parliament now deeply distrusted one another, and their differences were reflected in the open divisions between the Presbyterians and Independents at Westminster. It is of no importance whether we choose to call them religious sects or political parties; now they were both. They were known as ‘factions’ or ‘juntoes’ or ‘cabals’.

The Presbyterian cause, in its ideal state, proposed that its Church should rule by inherent right as the one divinely ordained form of religious government, and that no other churches or sects should be permitted. The Independent cause rested on the belief that a true Church was a voluntary association of believers and that each congregation had the right to self-government; it was Calvinist in tendency but it favoured toleration. Cromwell had said that ‘he that ventures his life for the liberty of his country, I wish he trust God for the liberty of his conscience’. A Presbyterian divine stated, however, that ‘to let men serve God according to the persuasion of their own consciences, was to cast out one devil that seven worse might enter’. Another Presbyterian divine, Thomas Edwards, published a book entitled
Gangraena
in which he listed the heresies of the radical sectarians, each one to be crushed in its egg ‘before it comes to be a flying serpent’. Here, then, was the great divide. In the broadest secular terms the Presbyterians supported parliament, while the Independents favoured the army.

Conflicts and divisions arose frequently in parliamentary debate. On one occasion the Commons spent the day discussing matters of religion until darkness fell upon the assembly; a motion was advanced to bring in candles, but this was disputed. When a division was called it was already too dark to count the members on either side, and it was suggested that candles be introduced to resolve the issue. But could candles be brought in before the house had formally requested them? So the affairs of the nation were determined. This was a new age of political life.

The eventual refusal of the king to take the covenant undermined his value to the Scottish Presbyterians, who now thought it best to make a bargain with parliament. On receipt of the moneys owing to them, they would hand back the sovereign; under these circumstances, perhaps, Charles might negotiate a treaty with their allies at Westminster. So for the sum of £400,000 he was surrendered. The haggling over money damaged their credibility, however, and the earl of Lauderdale predicted that it ‘would make them to be hissed at by all nations; yeah, the dogs in the street would piss upon them’. As the army marched out of Newcastle, leaving the king behind, the fishwives of the city cried out, ‘Judas! Judas!’ The king himself said that they had sold him at too cheap a rate.

Charles set out for parliamentary custody at the beginning of February 1647 almost as a conquering hero, and cheering crowds lined his route. At Ripon he touched for the king’s evil, thus asserting his divine power over the disease of scrofula. At Nottingham the lord general of the New Model Army, Sir Thomas Fairfax, dismounted and kissed his hand. The king arrived at Holmby House, in Northamptonshire, in the middle of February. He remained for five months; he spent much time in his private quarters or ‘closet’, played at bowls or rode in the neighbourhood.

The Presbyterians and their supporters at Westminster now began to plan for the disbandment of the New Model Army and for its replacement by a less sectarian and more reliable force. They also ignored the English army’s demands for payment of arrears in wages, and for an indemnity against prosecution for any actions committed in the late war. It was now becoming a dangerous dispute between army and parliament. In this period Oliver Cromwell collapsed, and almost died, from something known as an ‘impostume in the head’; it was some kind of swelling or abscess, perhaps in part induced by nervous strain.

The sectarians and supporters of the army, or as they called themselves ‘well-affected persons’, sent a ‘Large Petition’ to parliament in which they asserted the supreme authority of the people; they also demanded that the Lords and Commons exempt ‘matters of religion and God’s worship from the compulsive and restrictive power of any authority upon earth’. Among these passionate sectarians emerged a group that were known as ‘the levellers’. Royalist newsletters had given them the name, since ‘they intend to set all straight, and raise a parity and community in the kingdom’. We might perhaps describe them as spiritual egalitarians.

They were essentially a London group who issued several hundred tracts, and could muster perhaps a few hundred sympathizers; their colour was sea-green and they wore sea-green scarves or ribbons. One of their unofficial leaders, John Lilburne, wrote to Cromwell in this year that he and his co-religionists ‘have looked upon you as the most absolute single-hearted great man in England, untainted or unbiased with ends of your own’.

The army itself was in a state of agitation close to mutiny, and sent a petition of complaint to Sir Thomas Fairfax. In turn parliament passed a declaration denouncing ‘enemies of the state and disturbers of the peace’. The army that had saved parliament was therefore branded as an enemy, which in turn was considered to be in effect a declaration of war. ‘The Apology of the Soldiers to their Officers’, published at the beginning of May, complained that their intentions were ‘grossly and foully misconstrued’ and asked ‘Was there ever such things done by a parliament … is it not better to die like men than to be enslaved and hanged like dogs?’

Against this background the people of England suffered. This year, 1646, marked the beginning of six terrible harvests in a period when the price of bread doubled and the cost of meat rose by more than a half. The agriculture of England was its life and staple; its partial collapse therefore shook the already troubled kingdom.

The members of the New Model Army were quartered at Saffron Walden, where some parliamentary commissioners came to recruit soldiers for service in Ireland; they were greeted with complaints and questions. The troops wanted to know when, in particular, their arrears of payment would be met; they received no coherent response. Eight of the ten cavalry regiments then chose representatives who would in time become known as ‘adjutators’ (or, as their opponents called them, ‘agitators’) for the army’s cause. Cromwell pleaded for a compromise, arguing that if parliamentary authority ‘falls to nothing, nothing can follow but confusion’. Yet parliament was in turn determined to crush the army, on the principle that ‘they must sink us, or we sink them’. It was now being whispered that the army sought an accommodation with the king, whereby it might contrive to destroy the Presbyterian cause. Fairfax explained that Charles had become ‘the golden ball cast between the two parties’. Which way would he roll, or be rolled?

The army leaders believed that parliament was about to establish a new army with the king at its head, so they moved to act first. At six in the morning of 4 June 1647, the king emerged from Holmby House to be confronted by a party of 500 horse, drawn up in neat ranks, under the command of Cornet Joyce. Joyce asked permission to escort Charles to some other place. The king demanded to see his commission, but Joyce prevaricated. ‘I pray you, Mr Joyce, deal with me ingenuously and tell me what commission you have.’

‘Here is my commission.’

‘Where?’

Joyce turned around and gestured towards the assembled horsemen. ‘It is behind me.’

‘It is as fair a commission,’ the king replied, ‘and as well written as I have seen a commission written in my life: a company of as handsome, proper gentlemen, as I have seen a great while.’

The New Model Army took him to the village of Childerley outside Cambridge. Charles did not particularly care in whose camp he rested; it was enough for him, as he put it, to set his opponents by the ears. Yet, with the king in its hands, the army had now become a political as well as a military force. The role of Cromwell in the Holmby House plot has never been clear; Joyce visited him five days before the action, however, and it is not likely that they discussed horsemanship. When Cromwell told the king that Joyce had acted entirely on his own initiative Charles retorted that ‘I’ll not believe you unless you hang him’. In fact Joyce received promotion and a generous pension.

On the day after Charles had been taken to Childerley Hall the regiments met near Newmarket in order to draw up a ‘solemn engagement’ in which they pledged to stay together until their legitimate demands were met. ‘Is that the opinion of you all?’ ‘It is, of all, of all.’ There were also cries of ‘Justice, justice, we demand justice!’ A new ‘general council of the army’ was established, with Cromwell among its members. He had ridden to the army headquarters at Newmarket from London, having heard rumours that the Presbyterians were about to consign him to the Tower. He had endeavoured to hold the peace between the opposing factions, but now he formally took the army’s part as its chief representative.

On hearing the news of the king’s seizure, parliament convened and hastily granted all arrears of pay to the New Model Army; the city fathers now demanded that a force of cavalry be raised for the defence of the capital. The army itself was on the move and marched to Triploe Heath, 7 miles nearer London, and began to advance ever closer to the city. Cromwell wrote a letter to the civic authorities, asking for a just settlement of the liberties of the people under the aegis of parliament; he warned, however, that if the army met concerted opposition it would be freed from the blame for ‘all that ruin which may befall that great and populous city’.

When the army reached St Albans, a little over 20 miles from London,
The Declaration of the Army
was published in which were proposed shorter and more representative parliaments beyond the reach of oligarchy or regal authority; no force in the nation should have ‘unlimited power’. Its author was Sir Henry Ireton, Cromwell’s new son-in-law. The
Declaration
was accompanied by charges against eleven named Presbyterian members of parliament; they were accused of treasonable dealings with royalists at home and abroad. Parliament seemed willing and able to defend them but, on 26 June 1647, the eleven men thought it prudent to withdraw from Westminster and eventually to flee abroad. This was the period in which ‘purge’ entered the English political vocabulary. The great constitutional historian Henry Hallam wrote that on this day ‘may be said to have fallen the legislative power and civil government of England’.

Throughout the month of June the leaders of the army were in constant and courteous contact with the king. It is clear enough that they still wished to reach a settlement which would allow him to retain his throne with altered powers; he was the only power that might conceivably unite the nation now dangerously divided between army and parliament. Yet he was still beset by accusations of hypocrisy and double-dealing. At one point the king told Henry Ireton that ‘I shall play my game as well as I can’; to which Ireton replied that ‘if your majesty have a game to play, you must give us also liberty to play ours’.

The New Model Army had by now worked its way around to Reading, which provided a more convenient route to London. The more radical of the ‘agitators’ now pressed for a final march upon the city, but Cromwell favoured delay and negotiation. Ireton had drafted a policy document,
Heads of the Proposals
, that effectively repeated the propositions set out in
The
Declaration of the Army
including a biennial parliament and a new council of state.

Parliament, noticeably more moderate or more fearful after the expulsion of the eleven members, voted to accept the proposals. They agreed in particular that control of the city militia should be returned to the old committee of militia, which meant effectively that the city force would be under the command of the now dominant army. The Lords and Commons, however, had not calculated the ferocious response of the Presbyterians in London itself who feared for their lives and property if the army came to rule. A crowd of citizens and apprentices accompanied a deputation of Londoners and besieged the Lords, shouting that ‘they would never come out’ unless they reversed their decision. Another crowd, or mob, burst into the Commons and demanded that they repeal their earlier judgement. ‘Vote! Vote!’ The members were too terrified to do anything other than comply. Parliament had proved itself to be at the mercy of any powerful group, and was thus unable to legislate for anything; sixty of the Independent members, together with the Speaker, now fled to the army at Reading for safety. They lent added legitimacy to the soldiers’ cause.

The
Heads of the Proposals
had been submitted for the king’s consideration. Some of the terms were mild enough. The bishops would not be abolished but deprived of the power of coercion; the old liturgy and the new covenant would have equal force in a broad context of religious liberty and toleration. The army and navy would be returned to the king after ten years. Only five royalists would be excluded from pardon. If Charles had accepted these terms, he could have returned to the throne with his honour intact. The king, however, rejected the document without giving it any serious consideration. His stated response was that ‘you cannot be without me. You will fall to ruin if I do not sustain you.’ One of his advisers, Sir John Berkley, whispered to him, ‘Sir, your majesty speaks as if you had some secret strength and power that I do not know of.’ The moderates on both sides now began to lose all hope.

The intimidation of parliament by the London mob, and the failure of negotiations with the king, prompted the New Model Army finally to march upon London. A brigade of horse took Southwark on the night of 3 August, and the civic leaders of the city woke up to find their principal avenue across London Bridge in the hands of what must now be called the enemy. The sudden occupation ‘struck them dead’, according to Clarendon, and ‘put an end to all their consultation for defence’. Their only object now was to conciliate those whom they had previously offended and to prevent the army from firing and plundering their mansions.