CHAP. III DUNBAR 279 Fabian strategy, and could not restrain their exultation at the sight of the hated sectaries lying entrapped at their feet, shut in between the sea at their back and a force twice as strong as themselves in front, with another force cutting them off from the south in a position that ten men could hold against forty. Their minds were full of Saul, Amalekites, Moabites, the fords of Jordan, and all the rest of it, just as Oliver was full of the Mount of the Lord, taking care, however, never to let texts do duty for tactics. In an evil moment on the morning of September 2 the Scots began to descend the hill and to extend themselves on the ledge of a marshy glen at the foot, with intention to attack. Cromwell walking about with Lambert, with a watchful eye for the hills, discerned the unexpected motions. "I told the Major-General," says Cromwell, "I thought it did give us an opportunity and advantage to attempt upon the enemy. To which he immediately replied, that he had thought to have said the same thing to me. So that it pleased the Lord to set this apprehension upon both of our hearts at the instant." They called for Monk; then going to their quarters at night they all held a council of war, and explained their plans to some of the colonels; these cheerfully concurred. Leslie's move must mean either an immediate attack, or a closer blockade; in either case, the only chance for the English was to be first to engage. They determined to fall on at daybreak, though as it happened the actual battle did not open before six (Sept. 3). The weather was wet and stormy. The voice of prayer and preaching sounding through the night watches showed the piety and confirmed the confidence of the English troopers. The Scots sought shelter behind the shocks of corn against the wind and rain from the sea, instead of obeying the orders to stand to their arms. 66 It was our own laziness, said Leslie; "I take God to witness that we might have as easily beaten them as we did James Graham at Philiphaugh, if the officers had stayed by their troops and regiments." The rout of Dunbar has been described by Carlyle, in one of the famous masterpieces of modern letters, with a force of imagination, a moral depth, a poetic beauty, more than atoning for the perplexing humours and whimsical philosophies that mar this fine biography. It is wise for others not to attempt to turn into poetry the prose of politics and war. The English and the Scots faced one another across a brook with steep banks, and narrow fords at more than one place. The first operation was the almost uncontested passage of Cromwell's forces across the stream before the Scots were ready to resist them. The two armies, gradually drawn up in order of battle, engaged on the Berwick side of the burn, the English facing the hill, and the Scots facing the sea.1 Then the battle began. It opened with a cannonade from the English guns, followed by a charge of horse under Lambert. The enemy were in a good position, had the advantage of guns and foot against Lambert's horse, and at first had the best of it in the struggle. Before the English foot could come up, Cromwell says, "the enemy made a gallant resistance, and there was a very hot dispute at swords' point between our horse and theirs." Then the first line of foot came up, and "after they had discharged their duty (being overpowered with the enemy) received some repulse which they soon recovered. For my own regiment did come seasonably in, and at the push of pike did repel the stoutest regiment the enemy 1 The old story was that the real battle consisted in the forced passage of the stream, but Mr. Firth seems to establish the version above (Transactions of Historical Society, November 16, 1899). Mr. Firth quotes the tale of a servant of Sir Arthur Haselrig's, who was present at the battle, how Cromwell "rid all the night before through the several regiments by torchlight, upon a little Scots nag, biting his lip till the blood ran down his chin without his perceiving it, his thoughts being busily employed to be ready for the action now at hand." CHAP. III DUNBAR 281 had there, which proved a great amazement to the residue of their foot. The horse in the meantime did with a great deal of courage and spirit beat back all opposition; charging through the bodies of the enemy's horse and of their foot; who were after the first repulse given, made by the Lord of Hosts as stubble to their swords. The best of the enemy's horse being broken through and through in less than an hour's dispute, their whole army being put into confusion, it became a total rout, our men having the chase and execution of them near eight miles." Such is the story of this memorable hour's fight told by the victor. Rushworth, then Cromwell's secretary, is still more summary. "About twilight the General advanced with the army, and charged them both in the valley and on the hill. The battle was very fierce for the time; one part of their battalion stood very stiffly to it, but the rest was presently routed. I never beheld a more terrible charge of foot than was given by our army; our foot alone making the Scots foot give ground for three quarters of a mile together." Whether the business was finally done by Lambert's second charge of horse after his first repulse, or whether Cromwell turned the day by a flank movement of his own, the authorities do not enable us to settle. The best of them says this :-" The day broke, and we in disorder, and the Major-General (Lambert) awanting, being ordering the guns. The General was impatient; the Scots a-preparing to make the attempt upon us, sounding a trumpet, but soon desisted. At last the Major-General came, and ordered Packer, major to the General's regiment, Gough's and our two foot regiments, to march about Roxburgh House towards the sea, and so to fall upon the enemy's flank, which was done with a great deal of resolution; and one of the Scots brigades of foot would not yield, though at push of pike and butt-end of musket, until a troop of our horse charged from 66 one end to another of them, and so left them at the mercy of the foot. The General himself comes in the rear of our regiment, and commands to incline to the left; that was to take more ground, to be clear of all bodies. And we did so, and horse and foot were engaged all over the field; and the Scots all in confusion. And the sun appearing upon the sea, I heard Noll say, 'Now let God arise, and his enemies shall be scattered'; and he following us as we slowly marched, I heard him say, 'I profess they run!' and then was the Scots army all in disorder and running, both right wing and left and main battle. They routed one another, after we had done their work on their right wing; and we coming up to the top of the hill with the straggling parties that had been engaged, kept them from bodying." Cromwell's gazette was peculiar, perhaps not without a moral for later days. "Both your chief commanders and others in their several places, and soldiers also were acted (actuated) with as much courage as ever hath been seen in any action since this war. I know they look not to be named, and therefore I forbear particulars." Nor is a word said about the precise part taken by himself. An extraordinary fact about the drove of Dunbar is that though the battle was so fierce, at such close quarters, and lasted more than an hour, yet according to the highest account the English did not lose thirty men ; as Oliver says in another place, not even twenty. They killed three thousand, and took ten thousand prisoners.1 1 Mr. Firth explains this as due to the fact that the Scottish infantry had not in most cases got their matches alight, and so could do no execution worth mentioning with their fire-arms. CHAPTER IV FROM DUNBAR TO WORCESTER For nearly a year after the victory at Dunbar Cromwell remained in Scotland, and for five months of the year with short intervals followed by relapses, he suffered from an illness from which he thought he should die. On the day after Dunbar he wrote to his wife :-"My weak faith hath been upheld. I have been in my inward man marvellously supported, though I assure thee, I grow an old man, and feel infirmities of age marvellously stealing upon me. Would my corruptions did as fast decrease." He was only fifty years old, but for the last eight years his labours, hardships, privations, and anxieties had been incessant and severe. The winter in Ireland had brought on a long and sharp attack of feverish ague. The climate of Scotland agreed with him no better. The baffled marches and counter-marches that preceded Dunbar, in dreadful weather and along miry ways, may well have depressed his vital energies. His friends in London took alarm (Feb. 1651) and parliament despatched two physicians from London to see him, and even made an order allowing him to return into England for change of air. Of this unsolicited permission he did not avail himself. Both the political and the military operations in Scotland between Dunbar and Worcester are as intricate a tangle as any in Cromwell's career. The student who unravels them in detail may easily |
