CHAP. V THE CRISIS OF THE REBELLION 219

the presbyterian royalist at Westminster to fast and pray ? It was the sorest dilemma of his life.

If this was the supreme crisis of the rebellion, it was the supreme moment for Cromwell. On May 1, 1648, by order of Fairfax and the council of war, he rode off to South Wales to take command of the parliamentary forces there. He carried in his breast the unquenched assurance that he went forth like Moses or like Joshua, the instrument of the purposes of the Most High; but it was not in his temperament to forget that he might peradventure be misreading the divine counsels, and well he knew that if his confidence were not made good, he was leaving relentless foes in the parliament behind him, and that if he failed in the hazardous duty that had been put upon him, destruction sure and unsparing awaited both his person and his cause. While Cromwell thus went west, Fairfax himself conducted a vigorous and decisive campaign in Kent and Essex, and then (June 13) sat down before Colchester, into which a strong body of royalists had thrown themselves, and where they made a long and stubborn defence. Lambert, with a small force, was despatched north to meet Langdale and the northern cavaliers, and to check the advance of the Scots. Here (July 8) Hamilton crossed the border at the head of ten thousand men, ill equipped and ill trained, but counting on others to follow, and on the aid of three thousand more under Langdale. Three days later, as it happened, Cromwell's operations in Wales came to a successful end with the capture of Pembroke Castle. He instantly set his face northward, and by the end of the month reached Leicester. The marches were long and severe. Shoes and stockings were worn out, pay was many months in arrear, plunder was sternly forbidden, and not a few of the gallant warriors tramped barefoot from Wales into Yorkshire. With fire in their hearts, these tattered veterans carried

with them the issue of the whole long struggle and the destinies of the three kingdoms. The fate of the king, the power of parliament, the future of constitutions, laws, and churches, were known to hang upon the account which these few thousand men should be able to give of the invaders from over the northern border. If the parliament had lost Naseby, the war might still have gone on, whereas if Hamilton should now reach London, the king would be master for good.

It was on August 12 that Cromwell joined Lambert on the high fells between Leeds and York, the united force amounting to some eight thousand men. Still uncertain whether his enemy would strike through Yorkshire or follow a western line through Lancashire and Wales, he planted himself here so as to command either course. Scouts brought the intelligence that the Scots and Langdale's force, afterwards estimated by Oliver at twenty-one thousand men, were marching southward by way of Lancashire and making for London. As Cromwell knew, to hinder this was life and death, and to engage the enemy to fight was his business at all cost. Marching through the Craven country down the valley of the Ribble, he groped his way until he found himself in touch with the enemy's left flank at Preston. Hamilton was no soldier: his counsels were distracted by jealousy and division, national, political, and religious; his scouting was so ill done that he did not know that any serious force was in his neighbourhood; and his line extended over seven leagues from north to south, Preston about the centre, and the van towards Wigan, with the Ribble between van and rear. For three days of hard fighting the battles, named from Preston, lasted. That they were the result of a deliberately preconceived flank attack, ingeniously planned from the outset, is no longer believed. Things are hardly ever so in war, the military critics say. As in

CHAP. V

IN LANCASHIRE

221

politics, Oliver in the field watched the progress of events, alert for any chance, and ever ready to strike on the instant when he knew that the blow would tell. The general idea in what was now done, was that it would be better to cut off Hamilton from Scotland, than directly to bar his advance to London.

The first encounter at Preston (August 17) was the hardest, when English fell upon English. For four fierce hours Langdale and his north-country royalists offered "a very stiff resistance" to the valour and resolution of Cromwell's best troops, and at this point the Cromwellians were superior in numbers. At last the royalists broke; the survivors scattered north and south, and were no more heard of. Next day it was the turn of Hamilton and his Scots. With difficulty they had got across the Ribble overnight, wet, weary, and hungry, and Oliver's troopers were too weary to follow them. At daybreak the Scots pressed on, the Ironsides at their heels in dogged pursuit, killing and taking prisoners all the way, though they were only fiftyfive hundred foot and horse against twice as large a force of Scots. By night, says Oliver, we were very dirty and weary, having marched twelve miles of such ground as I never rode in my life, the day being very wet." On the third day (August 19) the contest went fiercely forward. At Winwick the Scots made a resolute stand for many hours, and for a time the English gave way. Then they recovered, and chased the Scots three miles into Warrington. Hamilton lost heart, and directed Baillie to surrender his infantry to Cromwell, while he himself marched on with some three thousand horse over the Cheshire border into Delamere Forest. "If I had a thousand horse," wrote Cromwell, "that could but trot thirty miles, I should not doubt but to give a very good account of them; but, truly, we are so harassed and haggled out in this business that we are not able to do more than walk at an easy pace after them. . . .

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They are the miserablest party that ever was; I durst engage myself with five hundred fresh horse and five hundred nimble foot, to destroy them all. My horse are miserably beaten out, and I have ten thousand of them prisoners." Hamilton was presently taken (August 25), and so the first campaign in which Cromwell had held an independent command-in-chief came to a glorious close. When next year Hamilton was put upon the trial that ended in the scaffold, he said of Cromwell that he was so courteous and civil as to perform more than he promised, and that acknowledgment was due for his favour to the poor wounded gentlemen that were left behind, and by him taken care of, and "truly he performed more than he did capitulate for.'

The military student counts Preston the finest exploit of the war, and even pronounces it the mark of one of those who are born commanders by the grace of God. At least we may say that in the intrepid energy of the commander, the fortitude, stoutness, and discipline of the men, and the momentous political results that hung upon their victory, the three days of Preston are among the most famous achievements of the time. To complete his task,-for he was always full of that instinct of practical thoroughness which abhors the leaving of a ragged edge, Cromwell again turned northward to clear the border of what had been the rear of Hamilton's force, to recover the two great border strongholds of Berwick and Carlisle, and so to compose affairs in Scotland that the same perilous work should not need to be done over again. He bargained with Argyle, who desired nothing better, for the exclusion from power of the rival faction of Hamiltonians and Engagers, and left a government of ultra-presbyterians installed, to the scandal of the English independents, but in fact Cromwell never showed himself more characteristically politic.

CHAP. V

CONFLICTING INTERESTS

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The local risings in England had been stamped out either by the alertness of the parliamentary authorities on the spot, or by the extraordinary vigour of the Derby House Committee, which was mainly independent. Fairfax never showed himself a better soldier. The city, as important a factor as the Houses themselves, and now leaning to the king upon conditions, threatened trouble from time to time; but opinion wavered, and in the end the city made no effective move. The absence of political agreement among the various elements was reflected in the absence of royalist concert. The insurrection in England was too early, or else the advance from Scotland was too late. By the time when Cromwell was marching through the Midlands to join Lambert in Yorkshire, the dead-weight of the majority of the population, who cared more for quiet than for either king or parliament, had for the time put out the scattered fires. The old international antipathy revived, and even royalists had seen with secret satisfaction the repulse of the nation who in their view had sold their king.

Meanwhile in parliament the presbyterians at first had not known what to wish, but they were now at no loss about what they had to fear. The paradox had turned out ill. The invaders had been beaten, but then the invaders were of their own persuasion, and the victors were the hated sectaries with toleration inscribed upon their banners. The soldier's yoke would be more galling than ever, and the authority of Cromwell, which had been at its lowest when he set out for Wales, would be higher than it had ever been when he should come back from Scotland.

The Lords had become zealous royalists. They would not even join the Commons in describing the invading Scots as enemies. In both Houses the presbyterians had speedily taken advantage of the absence of some of the chief independents in the field,