LETTER LXV. LET the following hasty Letter, of the same date with that more deliberate one to Lenthall, followed by another as hasty, terminate the Preston Business. Letter of hot Haste, of Hue-and-Cry; two remaining out of many such, written "to all the Countries," in that posture of affairs; - the fruit of which we shall soon see. Colonels "Cholmely, White, Hatcher, Rhodes," Country Colonels of more or less celebrity, need not detain us at present. For the Honourable the Committee at York: These. 'GENTLEMEN,' Warrington, 20th August 1648. We have quite tired our horses in pursuit of the Enemy: we have killed, taken and disabled all their Foot; and left them only some Horse, with whom the Duke is fled into Delamere Forest, having neither Foot nor Dragooners. They have taken Five-hundred of them, I mean the Country Forces 'have,' as they send me word this day. * They are so tired, and in such confusion, that if my Horse could but trot after them, I could take them all. But we are so weary, we can scarce be able to do more than walk after them. I beseech you therefore, let Sir Henry Cholmely, Sir Edward Rhodes, Colonel Hatcher, and Colonel White, and all the Countries about you, be sent to, to rise with you and follow them. For 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. We have killed we know not what; but a very *The Scots. great number; having done execution upon them above thirty miles together, besides what we killed in the Two great Fights, the one at Preston, the other at Warrington 'or Winwick Pass.' The Enemy was Twentyfour-thousand horse and foot; whereof Eighteen-thousand foot and Six-thousand horse: and our number about Sixthousand foot and Three-thousand horse at the utmost. This is a glorious Day: God help England to answer His mercies! I have no more; but beseech you in all your parts to gather into bodies, and pursue. I rest, Your most humble servant, OLIVER CROMWELL. 'P.S.' The greatest part, by far, of the Nobility of Scotland are with Duke Hamilton. § LETTER LXVI. 'For the Honourable the Committee at York: These.' GENTLEMEN, Wigan, 23d August 1648. I have intelligence even now come to my hands, That Duke Hamilton with a wearied Body of Horse is drawing towards Pontefract; where probably he may lodge himself, and rest his Horse; as not daring to continue in those Countries whence we have driven him; the Country-people rising in such numbers, and stopping his passage at every bridge. Major-General Lambert, with a very considerable force, pursues him at the heels. I desire you that you would get together what force you can, to put a stop to any further designs they may have; and so be ready to join with Major-General Lambert, if there § Copy in the possession of W. Beaumont, Esq., Warrington. shall be need. I am marching Northward with the greatest part of the Army; where I shall be glad to I rest, hear from you. I could wish you would draw out whatever force you have; either to be in his rear or to impede his march. For I am persuaded if he, or the greatest part of those that are with him be taken, it would make an end of the Business of Scotland. § This Letter, carelessly printed in the old Newspaper, is without address; but we learn that it "came to my hands this present afternoon, ""at York," 26th August 1648; — whither also truer rumours, truer news, as to Hamilton and his affairs, are on the road. On Friday 25th, at Uttoxeter in Staffordshire, the poor Duke of Hamilton, begirt with enemies, distracted with mutinies and internal discords, surrenders and ceases; "very ill, and unable to march.' "My Lord Duke and Calendar," says Dalgetty, "fell out and were at very high words at supper, where I was," the night before; "each blaming the other for the misfortune and miscarriage of our affairs:" a sad employment! Dalgetty himself went prisoner to Hull; lay long with Colonel Robert Overton, an acquaintance of ours there. “As "we rode from Uttoxeter, we made a stand at the Duke's "window; and he looking out with some kind words, we took (6 'our eternal farewell of him,"-never saw him more. He died on the scaffold for this business; being Earl of Cambridge, and an English Peer as well as Scotch: — the unhappiest of men; one of those "singularly able men" who, with all their § Newspaper, Packets of Letters from Scotland and the North, no. 24 (London, printed by Robert Ibbitson in Smithfield, 29th August 1648). See, in Appendix, no. 11, Letter of same date to Derby-House Committee, requesting supplies (Note of 1857). "ability," have never succeeded in any enterprise whatever! Colchester Siege, one of the most desperate defences, being now plainly without object, terminates, on Monday next. Surrender, "on quarter" for the inferior parties, "at discretion" for the superior. Two of the latter, Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle, gallant Officers both, are sentenced and shot on the place. "By Ireton's instigation" say some: yes, or without any special instigation; merely by the nature of the case! They who, contrary to Law and Treaty, have again involved this Nation in blood, do they deserve nothing? - Two more, Goring and Lord Capel, stood trial at Westminster; of whom Lord Capel lost his head. He was "the first man that rose to complain of Grievances" in November 1640; being then Mr. Capel, and Member for Hertfordshire. The Prince with his Fleet in the Downs, too, so soon as these Lancashire tidings reached him, made off for Holland; "entered the Hague in thirty coaches," and gave up his military pursuits. The Second Civil War, its back once broken here at Preston, rapidly dies éverywhere; is already as good as dead. In Scotland itself there is no farther resistance. The oppressed Kirk Party rise rather, and almost thank the conquerors. "Sir George Monro," says Turner, "following constantly a whole day's march to the rear of us," finding himself, by this unhappy Battle, cut asunder from my Lord Duke, and brought into contact with Cromwell instead, "marched straight back to Scotland and joined with Earl Lanark's forces," my Lord Duke's brother. "Straight back," as we shall find, is not the word for this march. "But so soon as the news of our Defeat came to Scotland," continues Turner, "Argyle and the Kirk Party rose in arms; every mother's son; and this was called the 'Whiggamore Raid:"" 1648, - first appearance of the Whig Party on the * 28th August, Rushworth, vii. 1242. page of History, I think! "David Lesley was at their head, and old Leven," the Fieldmarshal of 1639, “in the Castle of "Edinburgh; who cannonaded the Royal" Hamilton "troops "whenever they came in view of him!"* Cromwell proceeds northward, goes at last to Edinburgh itself, to compose this strange state of matters. LETTERS LXVII.-LXXIX. MONRO with the rearward of Hamilton's beaten Army did not march "straight back' to Scotland as Turner told us, but very obliquely back; lingering for several weeks on the South side of the Border; collecting remnants of English, Scotch, and even Irish Malignants, not without hopes of raising a new Army from them, - cruelly spoiling those Northern Counties in the interim. Cromwell, waiting first till Lambert with the forces sent in pursuit of Hamilton can rejoin the main Army, moves Northward, to deal with these broken parties, and with broken Scotland generally. The following Thirteen Letters bring him as far as Edinburgh: whither let us now attend him with such lights as they yield. LETTER LXVII. OLIVER ST. JOHN, a private friend, and always officially an important man, always on the Committee of Both Kingdoms, Derby-House Committee, or whatever the governing Authority might be, finds here a private Note for himself; one part of which is very strange to us. Does the reader look with any intelligence into that poor old prophetic, symbolic Deathbedscene at Preston? Any intelligence of Prophecy and Symbol, in general; of the symbolic Man-child Mahershalal-hashbaz at Jerusalem, or the handful of Cut Grass at Preston; of the opening Portals of Eternity, and what last departing gleams there are in the Soul of the pure and just? - Mahershalal hashbaz ("Hasten-to-the-spoil," so called), and the bundle of * Turner, ubi supra; Guthry's Memoirs (Glasgow, 1748), p. 285. |