d LVIII. 1616. others, having promised never more to bear arms, CHA P. payed compositions to the parliament, and procured their pardon. And thus Fairfax, after taking Exeter, which completed the conquest of the west, marched with his victorious army to the centre of the kingdom, and fixed his camp at Newbury. The prince of Wales, in pursuance of the king's orders, retired to Scilly, thence to Jersey; whence he went to Paris; where he joined the queen, who had fled thither from Exeter, at the time the earl of Essex conducted the parliamentary army to the west. In the other parts of England, Hereford was taken by surprise: Chester surrendered: Lord Digby, who had attempted with 1200 horse, to break into Scotland and join Montrose, was defeated at Sherburn, in Yorkshire, by colonel Copley; his whole force was dispersed; and he himself was obliged to fly, first to the Isle of Man, thence to Ireland. News too arrived that Montrose himself, after some more successes, was at last routed; and this only remaining hope of the royal party finally extinguished. This WHEN Montrose descended into the southern counties, the covenaters, assembling their whole forces, met him with a numerous army, and gave him battle, but without success, at Kilsyth. was the most complete victory that Montrose ever obtained. The royalists put to the sword six thousand of their enemies, and left the covenanters no remains of any army in Scotland. The whole kingdom was shaken with these repeated successes of Montrose; and many noblemen, who secretly favoured the royal cause, now declared openly for it, when they saw a force able to support them. The marquis of Douglas, These compositions were different, according to the demerits of the person: But by a vote of the house they could not be under two years rent of the delinquent's estate. Journ. 14th of August 1648. Whitlocke, p. 160. Rush. vol. vii. p. 108. f 15th August 1645. LVIII. CHA P. Douglas, the earls of Annandale and Hartfield, the lords Fleming, Seton, Maderty, Carnegy, with 1646. many others, flocked to the royal standard. Edinburgh opened its gates, and gave liberty to all the prisoners there detained by the covenanters. Among the rest was lord Ogilvy, son of Airly, whose family had contributed extremely to the victory gained at Kilsyth." David Lesly was detached from the army in England, and marched to the relief of his distressed party in Scotland. Montrose advanced still farther to the south, allured by vain hopes, both of rousing to arms the earls of Hume, Traquaire, and Roxborough, who had promised to join him; and of obtaining from England some supply of cavalry, in which he was deficient. By the negligence of his scouts, Lesly, at Philip-haugh in the Forest, surprised his army, much diminished in numbers, from the desertion of the Highlanders, who had retired to the hills, according to custom, in order to secure their plunder. After a sharp conflict, where Montrose exerted great valour, his forces were routed by Montrose, Lesly's cavalry: And he himself was obliged to fly Defeat of h with his broken forces into the mountains; where he again prepared himself for new batttles and new enterprises. THE Covenanters used the victory with rigour, Their prisoners, sir Robert Spotiswood, secretary of state, and son to the late primate, sir Philip Nisbet, sir William Rollo, colonel Nathaniel Gordon, Andrew Guthery, son of the bishop of Murray, William Murray, son of the earl of Tullibardine, were condemned and executed. The sole crime imputed to the secretary was, his delivering to Montrose the king's commission to be captain general of Scotland. Lord Ogilvy, who was again taken prisoner, would have undergone the same fate, had not Rush. vol. vii. p. 230, 231. Wishart, cap. 13. 13th of Sept. 1645. his LVIII. 1646. his sister found means to procure his escape, by CHA P. changing clothes with him. For this instance of courage and dexterity, she met with harsh usage. The clergy solicited the parliament, that more royalists might be executed; but could not obtain their request. AFTER all these repeated disasters, which everywhere befel the royal party, there remained only one body of troops, on which fortune could exercise her rigour. Lord Astley, with a small army March 22. of 3000 men, chiefly cavalry, marching to Oxford, in order to join the king, was met at Stowe by colonel Morgan, and entirely defeated; himself being taken prisoner. "You have done your work," said Astley to the parliamentary officers; "and may now go to play, unless you chuse to fall out among "yourselves." THE Condition of the king, during this whole winter, was to the last degree disastrous and melancholy. As the dread of ills is commonly more oppressive than their real presence, perhaps in no period of his life was he more justly the object of compassion. His vigour of mind, which, though it sometimes failed him in acting, never deserted him in his sufferings, was what alone supported him; and he was determined, as he wrote to lord Digby, if he could not live as a king, to die like a gentleman; nor should any of his friends, he said, ever have reason to blush for the prince whom they had so unfortunately served." The murmurs of discontented officers, on the one hand, harrassed their unhappy Guthry's Memoirs. Rush. vol. vii. p. 232. 1 Rush. vol. vii. p. 141. It was the same Astley who, before he charged at the battle of Edgehill, made this short prayer, O Lord! thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget thee, do not thou forget me. And with that rose up, and cry'd March on boys! Warwick, p. 229. There were certainly much longer prayers said in the parliamentary army; but I doubt if there were so good a one. "Carte's Ormond, vol. iii. No. 433. LVIII. CHAP. unhappy sovereign; while they over-rated those services and sufferings which, they now saw, must 1646. for ever go unrewarded." The affectionate duty, on the other hand, of his more generous friends, who respected his misfortunes and his virtues, as much as his dignity, wrung his heart with a new sorrow; when he reflected, that such disinterested attachment would so soon be exposed to the rigour of his implacable enemies. Repeated attempts, which he made for a peaceful and equitable accommodation with the parliament, served to no purpose but to convince them, that the victory was entirely in their hands. They deigned not to make the least reply to several of his messages, in which he desired a passport for commissioners. At last, after reproaching him with the blood spilt during the war, they told him, that they were preparing bills for him; and his passing them would be the best pledge of his inclination towards peace: In other words, he must yield at discretion. He desired a personal treaty, and offered to come to London, upon receiving a safe-conduct for himself and his attendants: They absolutely refused him admittance, and issued orders for the guarding, that is, the seizing of his person, in case he should attempt to visit them." A new incident, which happened in Ireland, served to inflame the minds of men, and to increase those calumnies with which his enemies had so much loaded him, and which he ever regarded as the most grievous part of his misfortunes. AFTER the cessation with the Irish rebels, the king was desirous of concluding a final peace with them, and obtaining their assistance in England: And • Rush. vol. vii. p. 215, &c. Clarendon, vol. iv. p. 744. Clarendon, vol. iv. p. 741. "Walker, p. 147. laws LVIII. And he gave authority to Ormond, lord lieutenant, CHA P. to promise them an abrogation of all the penal enacted against catholics; together with the suspen- 1646., sion of Poining's statute, with regard to some_particular bills, which should be agreed on. Lord Herbert, created earl of Glamorgan (though his patent had not yet passed the seals), having occasion for his private affairs to go to Ireland, the king considered, that this nobleman, being a catholic, and allied to the best Irish families, might be of service: He also foresaw, that farther concessions with regard to religion might probably be demanded by the bigoted Irish; and that, as these concessions, however necessary, would give great scandal to the protestant zealots in his three kingdoms, it would be requisite both to conceal them during some time, and to preserve Ormond's character, by giving private orders to Glamorgan to conclude and sign these articles. But as he had a better opinion of Glamorgan's zeal and affection for his service, than of his capacity, he enjoined him to communicate all his measures to Ormond; and though the final conclusion of the treaty must be executed only in Glamorgan's own name, he was required to be directed, in the steps towards it, by the opinion of the lord lieutenant. Glamorgan, bigoted to his religion, and passionate for the king's service, but guided in these pursuits by no manner of judgment or discretion, secretly, of himself, without any communication with Ormond, concluded a peace with the council of Kilkenny, and agreed, in the king's name, that the Irish should enjoy all the churches of which they had ever been in possession since the commencement of their insurrection; on condition that they should assist the king in England with a body of ten thousand men. This transaction was discovered by accident. The titular archbishop of Tuam being killed by a sally of the garrison of Sligo, the articles of the treaty were found F 2 |