Page images
PDF
EPUB

From this summary of the events of the war in the different parts of England as far as to June 1643 it will be seen that though there had been much agony and bloodshed, there had been little progress towards a conclusion. If the Parliament had won in some parts, it had lost in others; and, on the whole, regard being had to what had been done by Hopton and the Marquis of Hertford in the South-West, and by the Earl of Newcastle in the North, the King might be thought the gainer. Desertions to his side, and meditated desertions, implied such a belief. That Urry, or Hurry, major-general of horse under Sir William Balfour, had resigned his commission, and gone to Oxford to better his prospects under Lord Forth and Prince Rupert, was nothing. He was but a Scottish soldier of fortune, a Dugald Dalgetty. More important, if not more significant, were the desertion to the King of such men as Sir Hugh Chomley, M.P. for Scarborough, the known wavering of the two Hothams in the same county of York, and the discovered treachery of the poet Waller, M.P. for St. Ives. Waller's was a very flagrant case. He and some other men of influence in London had been lured into a plot for a stroke against Parliament and its chiefs. The plot was discovered at the end of May 1643. The plotters were arrested; two of the subordinates were hanged; Waller also, after a most abject admission of his guilt, was sentenced to death. The sentence was not executed; and, after a year's imprisonment and a fine of 10,000., Waller was permitted to carry his damaged character, and his poetical and gentlemanly tastes, abroad till easier times.1

Little wonder that the Parliamentarians, and especially the Londoners, heavily taxed in their purses for the current expenses of the war, and inconvenienced besides by the stoppage of their coal from Newcastle, were disgusted with

grouping two or three times before settling on what I found the clearest. As one has frequently to object to Clarendon's inaccuracy and partisanship, I may here say that, in his narration of the events of the war, his grasp of these events, and his skill as a literary artist, deserve the highest admiration. Read

ing Clarendon in most places is like walking on velvet. Faults and all, he is a splendid writer, and, even while doubting him, one has again and again to go to him in order to understand things.

1 Clar. 347, and 389-394; Parl. Hist. III. 120-129, and 140-143.

1

the state of affairs. Secretly, if not openly, it was Essex that was blamed. Was he not too slow, too aristocratically reverent, too much impeded by fears of the issues of the very movement he had been appointed to lead? His single feat in seven months had been the siege of Reading. Was that enough? Might there not be a better generalissimo? Sir William Waller, for example? He was not much to look at beside Essex, being but a little man personally; but he had succeeded yet in everything he had tried, and his principles both in Church and State would carry him farther than Essex was likely to go. For the moment, Waller was decidedly the favourite. People had begun, in consequence of his uniform and easy success hitherto, to call him "William the Conqueror." Then, again, failing Waller, was there not Hampden? Every one knew his principles, and what a man he was when his mind was made up. Might they not make Hampden general-in-chief? Alas! whatever hopes there might have been in that scheme, it could never be tried. Hampden's days were numbered. The alert young Rupert, acting on information he had received from the deserter Urry, was dashing east from Oxford among outlying parties of Essex's horse on the borders of Bucks. He had made one successful raid, and was returning from another, when he found himself pursued by a body of horse sent by Essex for the purpose. He faced about to meet them. It was the morning of the 18th of June, 1643, and the place was Chalgrove Field in Bucks, not far from the borders of Oxfordshire. Rupert beat his pursuers and escaped before Essex himself could come up. The Parliamentarian Colonel or Major Gunter was killed in the skirmish, and Hampden was carried off the field mortally wounded. Like Douglas in the old ballad,

Never after in all his life-days

He spoke mo words but one:

"Fight ye, my merry men, whiles ye may,
For my life-days be gone." 2

1 Wood's Ath. III. 814.

2 Rushworth, V. 274; Clar. 385, 395, and 401.

CHAPTER II.

MILTON NOT IN THE ARMY: HIS TURNHAM

INTEREST IN THE SIEGE OF READING:
POWELLS OF FOREST HILL.

GREEN SONNET, AND
HIS MARRIAGE-THE

IF there was any man in England of whom one might have surely expected that he would be in arms among the Parliamentarians, that man was Milton. Four years before, when the news of the rupture between the King and the Scots had reached him at Naples, had he not abandoned the intended prolongation of his tour into Sicily and Greece, and returned homewards, expressly on the ground that it would be disgraceful for him to be enjoying himself abroad while his fellow-countrymen at home were fighting for liberty?1 Was not this a pledge that, if that rising of the Scots did extend to England, he would be in the midst of it with heart and limb as well as with head and pen? And had not all that he had done since committed him farther to such a course? While over the whole of England men who had hitherto been saying little were fighting and dying for the Parliament, and even the merchants and apprentices of London were going about in uniform and ready to fight, how could this man of note, this writer of Anti-Episcopal Pamphlets, this out-of-doors friend and ally of all that was extreme and Root-and-Branch within the Parliament-how could he be absent from the ranks? He had no domestic ties to keep him back. He was a bachelor, well-off, and in the prime of life and health, and his household consisted but of himself, two nephews, and one woman-servant_or 1 See antè, Vol. I. p. 764.

housekeeper. For active service in some post in Essex's army, or surely at least among the London Trained Bands and Volunteers, here was the very man.

Was Milton in any such post? I am afraid not. But it is a matter about which evidence is desirable.

At some time or other during his life, and by some means or other, I am perfectly sure, Milton had acquired some practical knowledge of drill and of military forms and manœuvres. That he habitually or generally wore a sword, and that he considered himself an extremely good swordsman, and more than a match at that weapon for men of far heavier weight than himself, we know on his own testimony.1 This only implies, however, that he had been taught fencing in his youth, probably at Cambridge. What I mean at present is something more. There are passages in Paradise Lost which prove to me that Milton knew the pike-manual, company and battalion drill, and something of officer's work at parade and review, and also of artillery practice.

Take the description of the collected host of rebel-Angels, after they have been roused from their first stupor in Hell, mustering on the sulphur-plain before their commander Satan (P. L., I. 549—571):—

Anon they move

In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood
Of flutes and soft recorders-such as raised
To highth of noblest temper heroes old
Arming to battle, and instead of rage

Deliberate valour breathed, firm and unmoved
With dread of death to flight or foul retreat;
Nor wanting power to mitigate and swage
With solemn touches troubled thoughts, and chase
Anguish and doubt and fear and sorrow and pain
From mortal or immortal minds. Thus they,
Breathing united force, with fixed thought
Moved on in silence to soft pipes that charmed
Their painful steps o'er the burnt soil. And now
Advanced in view they stand, a horrid front
Of dreadful length and dazzling arms, in guise
Of warriors old, with ordered spear and shield,

1 See antè, Vol. I. p. 276.

Awaiting what command their mighty chief
Had to impose. He through the armed files
Darts his experienced eye, and soon traverse
The whole battalion views, their order due,
Their visages and stature as of gods;
Their number last he sums.

There is much here that a mere occasional onlooker at reviews might have compassed; but there are touches in the description (as, for example, the ordering of arms at the moment of halt, and without word of command) too exact and technical to have occurred to a mere civilian.Again, at the same review, when Satan, standing with his staff around him, wishes to address his army, here figured as a battalion, how is the incident described (P. L., I. 615—618)?

He now prepared

To speak; whereat their doubled ranks they bend
From wing to wing, and half enclose him round
With all his peers: attention held them mute.

To the present day this is the very process, or one of the processes, when a commander wishes to address his men. They wheel inwards, and stand at " attention."But, for a passage showing even more intricate knowledge of military methods, take the account of the procedure of Gabriel when, having reason to think that Satan has stealthily made his way into Paradise on some bad errand, and is somewhere within its precincts, he orders his company of guardian-Angels out on their rounds of night-watch, and otherwise sees to the protection of Adam and Eve from their wily foe (P. L., IV. 777-799). Understand, first, that Paradise is described as a kind of oblong of garden-ground and woodland enclosed within walls, and that the station, or let us say armoury or guard-house, where Gabriel and his Angels have their post, is at the eastern gate of Paradise, at the middle of one of the narrow sides of the oblong. There, while daylight lasted, the Angels had been exercising themselves, like young soldiers, in heroic games, while Gabriel sat and looked on; but this was over, and it was

« PreviousContinue »