great artillery, and divers ships. The Enemy's affairs are in some discomposure, as we hear. Surely the Lord will blow upon them. 'I rest,' Your most humble servant, OLIVER CROMWELL.* LETTER CXXII. IN effect the crisis is now arrived. The Scotch King and Army finding their supplies cut off, and their defences rendered unavailing, by this flank-movement,—break up suddenly from Stirling ;† march direct towards England,—for a stroke at the heart of the Commonwealth itself. Their game now is, All or nothing. A desperate kind of play. Royalists, Presbyterian-Royalists and the large miscellany of Discontented Interests, may perhaps join them there;-perhaps also not! They march by Biggar; enter England by Carlisle,‡ on Wednesday, 6th of August, 1651. At Girthead, in the Parish of Wamphray, in Annandale,' human Tradition, very faintly indeed, indicates some Roman Stones or Mile-stones, by the wayside, as the place where his Sacred Ma jesty passed the Tuesday night ;-which are not quite so venera ble now as formerly.§ To the Honorable William Lenthall, Speaker of the Parliament SIR, Leith, 4th August, 1651. In pursuance of the Providence of God, and that blessing lately given to your forces in Fife; and finding that the Enemy, being masters of the Pass at Stirling, could not be gotten out there except by hindering his provisions at St. Johnston,-we, by general advice, thought fit to attempt St. Johnston; knowing that that would necessitate him to quit his Pass. Wherefore, leaving with Major-General Harrison about three-thousand horse and dragoons, besides those which are with Colonel *Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 107). Last day of July' (Bates, ii., 120). Whitlocke, p. 474. § Nicholas Carlisie's Topographical Dict. of Scotland, Wamphray. Rich, Colonel Saunders, and Colonel Barton, upon the Borders, we marched to St. Johnston ;* and lying one day before it, we had it surrendered to us. During which time we had some intelligence of the Enemy's marching southward; though with some contradictions, as if it had not been 80. But doubting it might be true, we (leaving a Garrison in St. Johnston, and sending Lieutenant-General Monk with about Five or Six thousand to Stirling to reduce that place, and by it to put your affairs into a good posture in Scotland), marched, with all possible expedition, back again; and have passed our foot and many of our horse over the Frith this day; resolving to make what speed we can up to the Enemy, —who, in his desperation and fear, and out of inevitable necessity, is run to try what he can do this way. I do apprehend that if he goes to England, being some few days march before us, it will trouble some men's thoughts; and may occasion some inconveniences;-which I hope we are as deeply sensible of, and have been, and I trust shall be, as diligent to prevent, as any. And indeed this is our comfort, That in simplicity of heart as towards God, we have done to the best of our judgments; knowing that if some issue were not put to this Business, it would occasion another Winter's war to the ruin of your soldiery, for whom the Scots are too hard in respect of enduring the Winter difficulties of this Country; and to the endless expense of the treasure of England in prosecuting this War. It may be supposed we might have kept the Enemy from this, by interposing between him and England. Which truly I believe we might: but how to remove him out of this place, without doing what we have done, unless we had a commanding Army on both sides of the River of Forth, is not clear to us; or how to answer the inconveniences aforementioned, we understand not. We pray therefore that (seeing there is a possibility for the Enemy to put you to some trouble) you would, with the same courage, grounded upon a confidence in God, wherein you have been supported to the great things God hath used you in hitherto,-improve, the best you can, such forces as you have in readiness, or 'as' may on the sudden be gathered together, To give the Enemy some check, until we shall be able to reach up to him; which we trust in the Lord we shall do our utmost endeavor in. And indeed we have this comfortable experience from the Lord, That this Enemy is heart-smitten by God; and whenever the Lord shall bring us up to them, we believe the Lord will make the des perateness of this counsel of theirs to appear, and the folly of it also. * 2 August, 1651 (Balfour, iv., 313). When England was much more unsteady than now; and when a much more considerable Army of theirs, unfoiled, invaded you; and we had but a weak force to make resistance at Preston,-upon deliberate advice, we chose rather to put ourselves between their Army and Scotland: and how God succeeded that, is not well to be forgotten! This 'present movement' is not out of choice on our part, but by some kind of necessity; and, it is to be hoped, will have the like issue. Together with a hopeful end of your work ;-in which it's good to wait upon the Lord, upon the earnest of former experiences, and hope of His presence, which only is the life of your Cause. Major-General Harrison, with the horse and dragoons under him, and Colonel Rich and the rest in those parts, shall attend the motion of the Enemy; and endeavor the keeping of them together, as also to impede his march. And will be ready to be in conjunction with what forces shall gather together for this service:-to whom orders have been speeded to that purpose; as this enclosed to Major-General Harrison will show. Major-General Lambert, this day, marched with a very considerable body of horse, up towards the Enemy's rear. With the rest of the horse, and nine regiments of foot, most of them of your old foot and horse, I am hasting up; and shall, by the Lord's help, use utmost diligence. I hope I have left a commanding force under Lieutenant-General Monk in Scotland. This account I thought my duty to speed to you; and rest, The Scots found no Presbyterian Royalists, no Royalists Proper to speak of, nor any Discontented Interest in England disposed to join them in present circumstances. They marched, under rigorous discipline, weary and uncheered, south through Lancashire; had to dispute their old friend the Bridge of Warrington with Lambert and Harrison, who attended them with horse-troops on the left; Cromwell with the main Army steadily advancing behind. They carried the Bridge at Warrington; they summoned various Towns, but none yielded; proclaimed their King with all force of lungs and Heraldry, but none cried, God bless him. Summoning Shrewsbury, with the usual negative response, they quitted the London road; bent southward towards Worcester, a City of slight Garrison and loyal Mayor; there to entrench Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, pp. 107, 8). themselves and repose a little.-Poor Earl Derby, a distinguished Royalist Proper, had hastened over from the Isle of Man, to kiss his Majesty's hand in passing. He then raised some force in Lancashire, and was in hopes to kindle that country again, and go to Worcester in triumph :-but Lilburn, Colonel Robert, whom we have known, fell upon him at Wigan; cut his force in pieces the poor Earl had to go to Worcester in a wounded and wrecked condition. To Worcester,-and alas, to the scaffold by and by, for that business. The Scots at Worcester have a loyal Mayor, some very few adventurous loyal Gentry in the neighborhood; and excitable Wales, perhaps again excitable, lying in the rear: but for the present, except in their own poor Fourteen-thousand right-hands, no outlook. And Cromwell is advancing steadily; by York, by Nottingham, by Coventry and Stratford; raising all the County Militias,' who muster with singular alacrity ;flowing towards Worcester like the Ocean-tide; begirdling it with upwards of Thirty-thousand men.' His Majesty's royal summons to the Corporation of London is burnt there by the hands of the common hangman; Speaker Lenthall and the Mayor have a copy of it burnt by that functionary at the head of every regiment, at a review of the Trainbands in Moorfields.* London, England generally, seems to have made up its mind. At London, on the 22d of August, a rigorous thing was done : Rev. Christopher Love, eloquent zealous Minister of St. Lawrence. in the Jewry, was, after repeated respites and negotiations, beheaded on Tower Hill. To the unspeakable emotion of men. Nay, the very Heavens seemed to testify a feeling of it,-by a thunderclap, by two thunderclaps. When the Parliament passed their votes, on the 4th of July, That he should die, according to the sentence of the Court, there was then a terrible thunderclap, and darkening of daylight. And now when he actually dies, 'directly after his beheading,' arises thunderstorm that threatens the dissolution of Nature! Nature, as we see, survived it. The old Newspaper says, It was on the 22d August, 1642, that Charles late King erected his Standard at Nottingham; and now on this same day, 22d August, 1651, Charles Pretender erects Bates, ii., 122; Whitlocke, p. 492. his at Worcester,-and the Rev. Christopher dies. Men may make their reflections.-There goes a story, due to Carrion Heath or some such party, That Cromwell being earnestly solicited for mercy to this poor Christopher, did, while yet in Scotland, send a Letter to the Parliament, recommending it; which Letter, however, was seized by some roving outriders of the Scotch Worcester Army; who reading it, and remembering Uxbridge Sermon, tore it, saying, "No, let the villain die !"—after the manner of Heath. Which could be proved, if time and paper were of no value, to be, like a hundred other very wooden myths of the same Period, without truth. Guarda e passa. Glance at it here for the last time, and never repeat it more!— Charles's Standard, it would seem then, was erected at Worcester on the 22d: on the 28th, came Cromwell's also, furled or floating, to that neighborhood; from the Evesham side; with upwards of Thirty-thousand men now near it; and some say, upwards of Eighty-thousand rising in the distance to join it if need were. |