as Generalissimo of the Commonwealth army, to crush at once this Scotch attempt, which, by making Charles the covenanted King of Scotland, prepared for making him the covenanted King of England. Not to have endeavoured to put a stop to this enterprise, would have been suicidal infatuation on the part of the founder of the English Commonwealth. The great captain had crossed the Tweed on the 22nd of July, with no such faith in the Covenant as the Scotch brethren cherished; nay, looking on their faith in it as superstitious, and saying even to the General Assembly: "There may be, as well, a carnal confidence upon misunderstood and misapplied precepts, which may be called spiritual drunkenness. There may be a Covenant made with death and hell.” Weston and O'Neile had left the King on the 29th of August, and in some slowly-sailing smack had reached Holland, bringing 'glorious" news, which turned out in the end to be very false, and was soon followed by other news very disastrous. By Cromwell's “defeat”—the report of which, as related, did not satisfy Mr. George Radcliffe-must have been meant the retreat of the army from Edinburgh after a skirmish on the 27th, "Wherein," says Cromwell, "we had near twenty killed and wounded, but not one commission officer. The enemy, as we are informed, had about eighty killed, and some considerable officers. Seeing they would keep their ground, from which we could not remove them, and our bread being spent, we were necessitated to go for a new supply, and so marched off about ten or eleven o'clock on Wednesday morning."1

66

Four days before Radcliffe's letter was written, something had occurred very different indeed from the royalist report.

1 Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, by Carlyle, 20, 28.

Late in the blustering night of the 2nd of September, as the blasts shook the tents at Dunbar, and the sleet cut the faces of the sentries, Leslie on the Scotch side, and Cromwell on the English, were encamped front to front, prepared for battle; the former sure of victory from what he gathered as to the condition of the invaders. Cromwell intended to begin the attack at daybreak, and, as the moon rode high, gleaming through the rent clouds, and the first blush of dawn streaked the horizon, he was ready; but the action hardly began before sunrise. And yet, an hour later-when the September mist rolled off the German ocean, and the sun broke all silvery on the waters, lighting up St. Abb's Head, while the cry of the English commander was heard along the line, "Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered,"-his soldiers, with a tornado rush, had swept down the foe. Thousands were slain, the rest routed, and by nine o'clock Leslie rode into Edinburgh, a brave but beaten soldier.

Cromwell, as he rode into the same city a conqueror, found the clergy had left the churches. He sent a trumpet to the castle, to assure the Governor that the clergy might return in peace, that he would not hinder the preaching of the Gospel; only preachers must remember not to rail at their superiors and "overtop the civil power." In reply to the complaint that the pulpit had been opened to sectaries and laymen, the victorious Independent put another question :-" Are you troubled that Christ is preached? Is preaching so exclusively your function? Doth it scandalize the reformed kirks and Scotland in particular? Is it against the Covenant? Away with the Covenant if this be so! I thought the Covenant and these professors of it' could have been willing that any should speak good of the name of Christ;

if not, it is no Covenant of God's approving; nor are these kirks you mention in so much the spouse of Christ. Where do you find in the Scripture a ground to warrant such an assertion, that preaching is exclusively your function? Though an approbation from men hath order in it, and may do well, yet he that hath no better warrant than that, hath none at all. I hope He that ascended up on high may give His gifts to whom He pleases, and if those gifts be the seal of mission, be not you' envious though Eldad and Medad prophesy." In this rather uncouth phraseology may be discerned a certain soldierly instinct, not very different from what is so noticeable in the despatches of a modern general of a far different school. Cromwell, like Wellington, could use words, even as the soldiers at Waterloo and in the civil wars could use swords, cleaving a subject asunder down to the very heart, at a single stroke.

Presbyterian Scotland, honest to the core, stood faithful to what as it believed was God's own cause. Shall our glorious Covenant-not of earth, but of heaven -be crushed by this Independent captain, brave though he be; shall it be buried on the field of this Dunbar fight? No, no! Looking thus at the subject, the leaders, clerical as well as lay, in spite of tormenting divisions in the nation and in the kirk, soon busied themselves with preparations for another trial of arms. "All of us in pulpit," writes Robert Baillie, "myself as much as others, did promove the work. In a very short time three thousand five hundred horse are gotten together, with hopes by volunteers, to make them above five thousand."2 But all went not on smoothly. Hopes were soon blasted. Hot controversy arose as to whether the lawfulness of a war

1 Carlyle, ii. 58, 64.

2 Letters and Journals, iii. 112.

against Cromwell could be justified by the Covenant. Some went so far as to say: "That the commission of the Kirk would approve nothing that was right; that a hypocrite ought not to reign over us-that we ought to treat with Cromwell, and give him security not to trouble England with a king—and who marred this treaty, the blood of the slain in this quarrel be on their head!"

However, the ruling party in Kirk and Court continued staunch to the Covenant, and to the King whom they had persuaded to entrust his crown to their keeping. That crown with all solemnity they placed upon the Prince's head on New Year's day, 1651. The ceremony took place at Scone, whose ancient abbey had witnessed the coronation of so many kings of Scotland, as they sat on "the stone of destiny"-still preserved under Edward the Confessor's chair at Westminster. But the solemnities on this occasion appeared shorn of all the splendid ritualism which in other days had adorned the inauguration of a new reign. Mr. Douglas preached upon the crowning of King Joash, "a very pertinent, wise, and good sermon." Charles then swore, in the presence of Almighty God, the searcher of hearts, that he would prosecute the ends prescribed in the Covenant, and agree to all Acts of Parliament for the establishment in his Scotch realm, of Presbyterian rule, of the Directory, the confession and the catechism of the Kirk; and also consent to Acts of Parliament enjoining the same throughout the rest of his dominions. The Earl of Argyle brought forth the crown, and lifted it on the head of the chosen King. Mr. Robert Douglas prayed; and when the Chancellor had conducted the Prince to the throne of his ancestors, the same minister addressed to him an exhortation, pressing on him the duty of constancy to the Covenant, and reminding him how his grandfather

James had broken his vow, the consequences of which pursued his family-" God casting the King out of His lap"-and how the plagues of heaven would fall on himself, if he failed to keep the oath of his coronation day. The service closed "with a prayer, and the twentieth psalm.”

Charles was forced into a confession of his father's sin in marrying an idolatress, of his own bad education, of the prejudices against God's cause which he had imbibed in his boyhood, and of his manifold transgressions. He also declared his detestation of Popery and Prelacy, and his resolution, inasmuch as he had obtained mercy of the Lord, to be on the Lord's side, to do nothing but with the advice of His Kirk. After all this hypocrisy he felt now in his new position-even as he deserved-that he had a very hard time of it. Tedious forms were imposed

upon him; six sermons at one sitting being preached in his presence. Not a walk was allowed him on a Sunday. Mewed up, as he considered it, he had to spend hours in distasteful religious exercises, or in such society. as his keepers pleased: and if he ventured to dance, or play at cards-which was a great delight to his frivolous nature-some ministers, who had caught Knox's mantle, administered reproof in a tone like that of the bold Reformer to Mary Stuart, whose levity, fascinating manners, and some other qualities, had descended to her great grandson.

Honest fanaticism, apparent throughout the treatment. which Charles received, manifested itself in some other rather curious ways. First, in excluding from the King's army all who had incurred the taint of malignancy,

'An account of the coronation is given in Baillie's Letters and Journals, iii. 128.