by Cromwell Thus he progressed from New-market to Royston thence by S. Albans to Hatfeild to Windsor being carried towards London almost in the same Road in which he was driven thence to Caversham back again to Maiden-head to Latimer Stoke Oatlands Sion-House almost in view and hearing of those Tumults which forced him away while in the interim Oliver having made a Pique against the Citizens and revenged one Tumult by another had made the City Submit and receive the Domineering Army in Triumph through their Streets with Lawrel and other Ensigns of victory in their hats With the Army returned those Fugitive Members that left the Parliament upon the same Tumults being invited by Cromwell to his Sanctuary of Redcoats while the remaining members had voted the Kings present coming to London to treat personally with his two Houses all which votes being Tumultuously obtained by instinct of some of Cromwell's own sending to encrease the violence were afterwards vacated after a long struggling in the Parliament as contrary to Priviledge and the secluded Members who had resumed their seats deserted London and went some over Sea others with passes to their own homes in the Country resigning their ill employed power to Cromwell and his Faction in the Parliament who abused it ten times more In Justification of this insolence they published a Declaration wherein they said that the Parliament had declared that it is no resistance of Magistracy to side with just principles and the Law of Nature and Nations being the same Law upon which they had assisted them that the soldiers may lawfully hold the hands of the Generall who will turn his Cannon upon the Army on purpose to destroy them The Seamen the hands of the Pilot who willfully runs the Ship upon a Rock as their Brethren the Scotch-men had also argued The said Declaration still-directing them to the equitable sense of all Laws and constitutions as dispensing with the very letter of the same and being supreme to it when the safety and preservation of all is concerned and assured them That all Authority is fundamentally seated in the Office anâ but ministerially in the persons But before this great successe the dubious Expectation thereof had caused Cromwell to stagger now and then at his first resolutions which it prosperous would at all times help themselves and there ultimately he was fixed whatever conditions and promises cross accidents should extort from him and therefore he was dealing with the King in way of recompence and reward for his Service in his restitution that he should be made Earl of Essex and a Knight of the Garter his eldest Son to be of the Bedchamber to the Prince his Son in Law Ireton to be either Lord Deputy or at least Feild Marshall Generall of Ireland and it was reported by Henry Cromwell that then Commanded the Generalls Lifeguard that the King had put himself upon his Father and Brother Ireton to make his terms for him and restore him to his Crown which grant of the Kings caused and produced those proposals beforementioned to be contrived but now in the very nick of this Juncture set forth and published called the Proposals for the setling a just and lawfull peace where in the three first and last particulars the Authority was left as entire in the King as before the rest were some Caprichio's of Bienniall Parliaments and the like Figaries whose impertinences discredited the important veracity of the other But this feud betwixt the Presbyterians and Cromwell ending so fortunately for him there being nothing at present to withstand his first and grand intendment he began to waive his respects to the King and cast off those disguises wherewith he had made himself acceptable to the Kings adhaerents and laid aside the King and them The King therefore gently reminds Cromwell of his promises repeats to him his Protestations and urgeth the Proposals aforesaid and not only so but in confidence of the fair meaning of the Army declines a speedier accommodation with the Parliament but Cromwell begins to turn a deaf ear to deny many things what he had said and promised to retract from others pretending the difference of times and circumstances that they cannot be performed telling the King moreover that He did mistake and not rightly understand his meaning and in short that though he would keep his word with His Majesty that now it was not in his power for that the Adjutators were grown to such an ungoverned and insolent licentiousnesse that untill the Discipline of the Army could be recovered it were in vain to expect any such things as he when he promised really intended The King was at this time at Hampton-Court perplext on the one hand with the obstinacy of the Parliament in their Propositions being more rigid since the last garbling by the Army and on the other with the dangerous Positions of the Adjutators and the Levelling party both in Camp and City in which last John Lilburn was Chief of the Faction who decryed Monarchy and all former forms of Government having something which Ireton spread by the by as it were among the Souldiery in projection on purpose to stave off all manner and means of settlement This at last came to a Systeme or Consistency and was styled an Agreement of the people and was now the onely darling of the Army and the Sectaries being a mixture or miscellany of Politique Notions no way practicable among English-men being a deformation or destruction of all things but an establishment of nothing a meer temporary expedient and shift of design except always their Arrears Indemnity and the Period to the Parliament and this shape Cromwell assumes also confessing and acknowledging the excellence acquity and goodnesse of the same the only fault in it was the unseasonablenesse for as yet it was not his time and his cue to appear so publiquely against the King and this his Character of it was drest out and enlarged with such taking Saint-like Language as the Phanatick rabble might best be surprized and not suspect any of his own venemous designs to be lurking under the leaf of His holy and sacred pretences Withall when his Plot against the King vvas ripe for Execution he caused a Fast to be published in the Army a certain forerunner of mischief with him where he was as usually observed to howl and cry and bedew his Cheeks with the Tears of Hypocrisie cruelty and deceit and after this mock-duty performed he and the rest of the Officers pretended to confesse their iniquity and abomination in declining the Cause of the people and tampering with the King and then in the presence of the All-seeing God acknowledge the way of an Agreement of the People to be the way to peace and freedom The King was in the mean while by the fallacious advice of Whalley and the practises of Cromwell who had caused frequent rumours to be whispered of some Assassinate intended by the Levellers against his person frighted
Cromwell in this Province which like a peice of the former Heptarchy he himself ruled and governed absolutely and pro imperio His next peice of Service was of the like nature and of the same evil Consequence to the King For divers Gentlemen of the County of Suffolk another of the associated Counties resenting this Curb upon their Allegiance and the sawcy Edicts and Commands of the Committees which were made up of the meanest of the Gentry and Burgesses of the Towns designed together to free themselves and their Country from the yoake of these new Lords the chief of these Gentlemen were Sir John Peâ—tus Sir Edw. Barker c. who having in order to their Conjuncture rendezvouzed at Lowerstofe in that County were by the preventing diligence of Cromwell seized and secured and thereby such a Break-neck given to any future Royal undertakings in those parts the rendition of Lyn Regis which then held for the King soon after following this defeat and disappointment that throughout the whole course of the War there happened not any the least Commotion in favour of His Majesties Arms either by supply assistance or diversion Things being thus quieted thereabouts and disposed to the Interest of the Juncto there remained after the military part a Scholastical labour for this Parliamentary Hercules the zealons cleansing of the University of Cambridge the Parent of this Viper who just before his infectious production into the main Army whither he was now designed did miserably exenterate her leaving her a sad and doleful Skeleton deprived of so many learned and religious persons whose only charge was that they adhered to the Dictates of their Conscience and the Obligations of those Oaths which just Authority had enjoyned against the novel and illegal Commands and Covenants forcibly imposed and obtruded on them In this destructive work his module and method of Ambition Cromwell was mainly and chiefly active as also against the Orthodox and Protestant Ministry and their Churches defacing all the Ornaments and Beauty thereof leaving them the ruinous Spectacle of his Reformation And from this Employment now finished he was Commissioned Lieutenant General to the Earl of Manchester who had the separate command in a distinct Supremacy of these associated Counties and was designed to march Northwards with those Forces and joyn with the Scots newly entred England and the Lord Fairfax against the Marquiss of Newcastle who was General for the King in those parts and yet ballanced the Fortune of War against that potent Scotch Invasion but upon the conjuncture and addition of the Earl of Manchester's fresh and well disciplined and armed forces the said Marquiss was constrained to quit the field and distribute his Army into the Garrisons he himself shutting up the best part of it in the City of York which the Confederates presently besieged and made several venturous attempts wherein Cromwell was none of the backwardest though always repulsed with losse and considerable slaughter The importance of this place and juncture of time which either won or lost the North to the King who had newly had great successe in the West by the defeating of the Earl of Essex at Lestithiel in Cornwall caused him to send away Prince Rupert as Generalissimo with a very potent Army to raise that Siege and fight the Enemy if he found occasion The Prince accordingly advanced and upon his approach the Confederates drew off from their Leagure affording the Garrison liberty to joyn with their friends when it was resolved by the Prince without any delay to give Battel though the Marquiss knowing what hazzard the Kings Interest and his own and all the Loyal parties Estates would thereby be put to did very much diswade the suddennesse of the Encounter which notwithstanding ensued on the Evening of the same day July 2. On Marston-Moor within Three miles of York and lasted till Night It will be tedious and beside our purpose to relate the whole order and manner of the Battell further then this that the Scots and my Lord Fairfaxes Forces were totally routed and perâ—ued some miles out of the field and the day given for lost when Cromwell with his associated Horse most of them Curassiers in the left wing seeing this discomfiture fell on with great resolution and courage and worsted the Prince and his reserves and with the same fury fell upon the Marquisses foot whose Regiment of White-Coats and therefore called his Lambs yet stood and could not be broken till the field being almost cleared the Parliaments Infantry came up and then both horse and foot charged and broke them Cromwell here made a very great Slaughter and Carnage especially in the rout and pursuit purposely to make his name terrible this being his first and grand appearance gaining here the Title of Ironsides from the impenetrable strength of his Troops which could by no means be broken or divided The successe of this day made him indeed highly famous and his Lawrells most verdant and flourishing the Victory being principally ascribed to his courage and conduct His Cunctation and temperate delay were highly magnified and then his Resolution in the desperation of the Event extolled the firmnesse and constant equality of his mind when intrepidly and fixedly he beheld the overthrow of the grosse of their Army and thereby animated his Troops to the more vigorous recovery of the day now that the adverse fury was spent in the chase of their Fellows the Scots whom Cromwell ever afterwards though in Covenant with them most disdainfully despised but not only for this reason The Credit of this Atchievement was industriously cryed up at Westminster and all the Grandezza's of Scriptural Ovation fitted and accommodated thereto He himself with the same conquering Troops as yet in the same quality under the Earl of Manchester was remanded from the North to oppose the King then returning victorious out of the West and because the Earl of Essex had hither to been unfortunate therefore this lucky Cheiftain was added as his better Star at the second Battel of Newberry within font Months after Marston Moor and here again the Fates favoured him though not with a complete Victory yet on that side where he fought with a part of one and so much as endangered the person of the King if the noble and stout Earl of Cleveland had not hazardously interposed and bore off the pursuit This indifference of Fortune begot very great differences among the Parliament Commanders one Taxing the other of Neglect Treachery or Cowardize and by what means it could come to passe that nothing was yet effected against the King whom in the beginning of the War they had thought to have swallowed up presently Not were the divisions lesse at home then in the camp â—or now the younger Brother of the Rebellion the Independant Faction began to appear a preciser and severer sort of Zealots who thought Essex and his Army not righteous enough nor fit instruments in whose hands the work of Reformation should
and after a very short Dispute wherein the English forces under Sir Marmaduke Langdale made him the greatest Opposition totally routed the Scotch Army taking all their Artillery Bag and Baggage and some 9000 prisoners with the Duke himself in the pursuit Southwards while he followed the Main of the flying Army Northwards with a resolution of putting a final end to that businesse and to rid himself of the Fears which from thence had hitherto perplexed him Upon this his hasty advance Major General Monro who commanded the reserve of 6000 Men to the former Army and was marching after them immediately returned to Berwick and so back into Scotland Berwick upon Cromwells approach rendred it self upon terms and hindred not his advance to Edinburgh where by the Committee of Estates he was very sumptuously welcomed Monro as yet and the Earl of Lanerick with him stood to their Arms upon the Hamilton account in the West of Scotland and the Marquess Arguile with another party stood for the purer Kirk which since the Dukes march had recovered its Magistracy and Superiority and with Cromwell's accessionall Troops could give Law to the Kingdome but because Cromwell was loth to venture a new War there so far distant from his main design which the Army successes at home had now matured and his presence only wanting to accomplish it he so ordered the matter that a Treaty was procured by which all parties were to lay down their Arms a greater assurance to him then if the Kirk had been absolute victor the Hamiltonians to have indempnity but none of them to be admitted or elected for the next Parliament or Assembly Generall so that he so absolutely manacled that Nation that they had no other use of their hands then to hold them up to Heaven at the dolefull murther of their natural Prince whom by their primitive rebellion they had brought to the Block Things thus settled in Scotland he departed thence having been most highly and magnificently treated by the Grandees of that Kingdome before and at his departure and complemented by the Kirk as their deliverer which he regested in as good Scriptural Language laying his hand on his breast and demurely looking on their Scotch screwed faces and laughing to himself what Ideots he had made of those Polititians at their own sanctified Weapons In his way homeward he visited the Seige of Pomfret and was by the Commander in Chief against that place importuned to see it reduced it being beleived that his fortune or experience Mastered all things as he was afterwards at Scarborough which being upon the point of Surrender he dispenced for the Honour thereof to stay at the last place and have it delivered into his hands and so posted for the head Quarters of the Army then at St. Albans having subdued all the opposition made this Summer 1648 where he vvas welcomed with the highest gratulations of his late atchievement especially by the Officers for as yet the Souldiers knew not what to think of him as to their nevv Agreement of the People vvhich vvas novv began again and favoured already by Ireton so much as that he had it under consideration and promised to return it vvith some additions and amendments of his ovvn And that proved that accursed Remonstrance of the Army in vvhich all the former freaks of policy were inserted to make up the number but the burthen thereof was the Treasonable Contrivance of the Kings Death and the altering the Government for first they remonstrated to the Parliament That all persons of whatsoever quality or condition not excepting the King that had been guilty of the blood spilt in the late War should be brought to justice and condigne punishment Next That a day should be set for the summoning the Prince and the Duke of York to appear and clear themselves of such things as should be laid to their charge and if they did not then to be declared incapable of succeeding in the Government Many such there were of the like Batch but all of them concluded with a most favourable Aspect to the Royal party whose fines and compositions they pretended to have mitigated and many more Good Morrows on purpose to amuse even them too as they had deceived and outwitted the Presbyterian This pestilent paper Cromwell got delivered to the House of Commons by a select number of Officers just as they had almost concluded with the King by a Treaty in the Isle of Wight to the amazement and fright of all good Christians and Subjects And here Cromwell terminated and centred all the crooked lines of his most Impious ambition resolving to stand or fall by this Conclusion and therefore immediately the Army being then advanced to London to prosecute this Remonstrance as he had dispatched Collonel Ewer to take the King out of the Custody of Hammond and carry him over to Hurst-Castle a most unhealthful place so did be upon notice that the Parliament had voted the Kings Concession a ground for a peace and settlement of the Kingdome command Coll. Pride a fellow who had not wit enough to consider his businesse to seize upon the avennues and passages to the Parliament House and exclude above a 140 Members whose names were given him in a Roll which unheard of and unparallell'd Violation was back'd and sccured by Force of Horse and Foot quartering up and down the City and Suburbs another lawlesse and forcible Intrusion upon their Charter The House being thus purged as they called it others besides those that were forcibly secluded absenting themselves for fear of being engaged and overpowered in those wicked Councells which this Action portended the remaining Juncto of his culling a great part whereof were Army Officers not amounting in all to 60. passed an Ordinance for Tryal of the King the manner whereof by a High Court of Justice of his and Iretons own forming and Conception was fully agreed upon and the King brought from the said Hurst Castle by Winchester Farnham and Windsor to St James's in order thereunto But of this lamentable Tragedy so much hath already been said that I will not add this supernumerary load to him here though it were his principal guilt and to which all his other perpetrations were but as subservient I will only instance two particulars relating to this sad and fatal businesse which discover the Abysse of this mans Villany There was mention made before of Coll. John Cromwell This Gentleman upon the news the States of Holland had received of this proceeding against the King at the instance of Our Soveraign then Prince of Wales residing at the Hague to them to mediate and interpose in the businesse was pitcht upon by them as the only fit person because of his relation to Cromwell who was look'd upon there as the only Author and Contriver of this mischief to be employed in a Message to him with Credential Letters from the said States whereunto was added a Blank with the Kings Signet and another of