tingham. This melancholy act took place, to the general sadness of the town, August 25, 1642; and it was observed, as an ill omen to Charles, that a tempestuous wind overturned the standard the very same evening it was erected.

In the preceding brief narration of the principal events which prepared the way to this calamitous civil war, very much, since the present volume does not affect the character of a history of those times, has naturally been omitted. Some rather important features of that singular era, unregarded by our best known historians, have, however, been given: and such a notice of those events will be allowed to have been necessary to complete a portraiture of Cromwell, by recalling to view that extraordinary combination of external circumstances, to which his most remarkable characteristics, and the general turn given to his genius and public conduct, must in such great measure be ascribed. A mighty theatre was now opened to his view, in which a mournful but grand spectacle was about to be displayed.Liberty, disguised indeed under a cloud of errors, was on the eve of conflict with tyranny, but little veiled by much personal virtue, and many amiable qualities, in the tyrant. Talents, of all kinds, that, happily perhaps for their possessors, slumbered, and would have been bu

ried, beneath the calm of national concord, rose rapidly to their level amidst the uproar of a kingdom in arms; and became the speedy harbingers to numbers, of success, fame, victory, of glorious, or ignominious death.-The wonderful powers of Cromwell's mind, and their applicability to any employment in which they could find scope, will be at once apparent from the consideration, that he had now passed fortythree years of his life, without a seeming opportunity to imbibe a single military idea; and yet, that a very short career in the military profession, sufficed to place him in the very foremost rank of able and successful captains, whether of ancient or modern times.

CHAPTER IV.

FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CIVIL WAR TO THE PARLIAMENT'S ORDINANCE FOR NEW MODELLING THEIR ARMY.

Cromwell's Activity at this Period.-Notices of him by various Contemporaries.-Mode of Disciplining his Soldiers.Visits his Uncle Sir Oliver, en militaire.-Situation of the Opposed Parties.-Battle of Edgehill.-Grantham Fight.Death of Hampden.-Cromwell relieves Gainsborough.— Battle near Horncastle.-The Scots enter England.-Battle of Marston Moor.-Various Engagements.-Treaty of Uxbridge.-Proceedings of the Parliament.-Supposed Real Conduct of Cromwell relative to the "Self-Denying Ordinance."-The Army New-Modelled.-Cromwell prepares to resign his Command.

PREVIOUSLY to the actual breaking out of the war, Cromwell, who appears to have all along resolved to stand or fall with the Parliament, had proved himself an active partizan, by distributing arms in the town of Cambridge, which he represented; by raising a troop of horse out of that county and Hunts, in both of which he was well known and respected by the popular party; by seizing the magazine in Cambridge Castle, for the use of the Parliament; and by stopping a quantity of plate, that was on its

way from that University to the King at York. Acts, all of these, which, though among the most prominent of that early period, were justified (if, as Cromwell deemed, the popular cause was justifiable) by the hostile attitude of the King, and by the Parliament's sanction and co-operation. He did yet more: for he 'contributed, by his great wisdom and indefatigable industry, to crush in the beginning all the endeavours of the King's party, in several counties, to raise a force for the King' :* nay, he actually arrested the High-Sheriff of Hertfordshire, at the moment when the latter was proceeding to St. Alban's, to publish the King's proclamation, which declared the Parliament-Commanders all traitors.' The conduct, sagacity, and the peculiar policy he evinced in these enterprizes, and more particularly in the choice and discipline of his men, have been noticed and admired by writers of the most opposite character. Whitelock says, 'He had a brave troop of horse of his countrymen, most of them freeholders and freeholders' sons, who, upon matter of conscience, engaged in this quarrel with Cromwell. And thus being well armed within, by the satisfaction of their own consciences, and without in good iron armour, they would as one man stand firmly, and charge

* May.

desperately.' As for Noll Cromwell,' said the editor of a newspaper of the day, (the then celebrated Marchamont Needham,) with to the full as much truth as intended sarcasm, 'he is gone forth in the might of his spirit, with all his train of disciples; every one of whom is as David, a man of war, and a prophet; gifted men all, that resolve to their work better than any of the sons of Levi,' &c. (h) At his first entrance into the wars,' observe the "Reliquiæ Baxterianæ," "being but captain of horse, he had a special care to get religious men into his troop: these men were of greater understanding than common soldiers, and therefore were more apprehensive of the importance and consequences of the war,' &c.-'By this means indeed, he sped better than he expected.Hereupon he got a commission to take some care of the associated counties; where he brought this troop into a double regiment of fourteen full troops, and all these as full of religious men as he could get: these, having more than ordinary wit and resolution, had more than ordinary success.'

*

* Mrs. Hutchinson informs us, that the neighbouring counties every where associated, for the mutual assistance of each other: the example, however, was first set by the Earl of Newcastle, who, at an early period of the troubles, associated the loyalists of some of the counties for the King.