Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/635

CROMWELL 601 government in Ireland were a general peace and prosperity, admitted, even by his bitterest enemies, to be without example in the previous history of that misgoverned country. On 29th January 1650 he again took the field. Success everywhere attended him and his lieutenants. At Clonmel 2000 men of Ulster made a last desperate effort in the royal cause. After a fierce and gallant resistance the place was stormed, and surrendered on 9th May. Cromwell had some time previously received orders to return to England ; and having thus, within the brief space of nino months, reduced a hostile kingdom to com parative obedience, he sailed for England, leaving Ireton as his deputy, and entered London in triumph on 31st May. The threatening aspect of affairs in Scotland had hastened his recall. Charles, willing " to sign anything," had taken the Covenant, and forces were being raised against the Commonwealth. The command of the northern expedition was offered to Fairfax, but he declined to act against the Scottish Presbyterians, save in the event of their invading England; and on 26th June Cromwell was nominated captain-general of all the forces of the Commonwealth. He made his preparations with his usual promptitude, and on the 29th marched from London, Lambert, Fleetwood, Whalley, Monk, Pride, and Overton commanding under him. On 23d July he crossed the border at Berwick. The inhabitants everywhere fled at his approach, the clergy having represented the English invaders as " sectaries and blasphemers," " monsters of the world," who would * put all the men to the sword, an. I thrust hot irons through the women s breasts." By dint, h >wcver, of encouraging proclamations, combined v.-ith tho extreme discipline pre served in the army, the confidence of the people was gradually restored. On 28th July Cromwell encamped at Musselburgh. The Scotch army, commanded by David Lesley, as superior to the English in numbers as it was inferior in discipline, lay strongly fortified between Edinburgh and Leith. On the second day after the arrival of Cromwell the enemy made a vigorous sail", but were repulsed with loss. " This," wrote Cromwell to the president of the council, " is a sweet beginning of your business, or rather the Lord s." Lesley, however, was not to be drawn into an open encounter. Fabius himself was not more skilful in wearing out by cautious manoeuvring the patience of an enemy. During a whole month Cromwell marched and countermarched round Edinburgh, in vain attempting to provoke a battle, his supplies failing, the season advancing, and sickness reducing his men " beyond imagination." Declarations and responses, with no satisfaction on either side, had meanwhile passed between him and the Scotch commissioners. On 31st August he left Musselburgh, and fell back upon Dunbar, where his ships lay. Lesley immediately hastened to cut off his retreat, and, pressing closely in the rear, took possession of the heights above Dunbar, and the only pass that left a southward opening to the enemy. Thus hemmed in, the sea behind, the enemy encircling him on the hills, 23,000 strong, his own men reduced by sickness from 14,000 to 11,000, Cromwell s good fortune seemed, on the 2d September 1650, to have at length forsaken him. " Before the fight," he afterwards wrote to Ireton, " our condition was made very sad, the enemy greatly insulted and menaced us." Not even then, however, did his strong trust in God and in himself for a moment desert him. " He was a strong man," said one who knew him ; " in the dark perils of war, in the high places of the field, hope shone in him like a pillar of fire, when it had gone out in all the others." " In the mount the Lord would be seen ; He would find out a way of deliverance and salvation." 1 On the afternoon 1 Letters and Speeches, iii. 40, 59. of that gloomy day, Cromwell, reconnoitring the enemy s position, saw that Lesley was moving his forces to the right, and " shogging " down his right wing to more open ground. At once recognizing the advantage this offered for " attempting upon the enemy," he decided, after con sulting his officers, to begin the attack on the morrow before dawn. The battle, however, did not begin till six. The " dispute " was hot on the right for about an hour, when Cromwell s own regiment came to the charge, and " at the push of pike " drove in " the stoutest regi ment " of the enemy, At that moment the sun s beams broke out through the morning mist, over the hills and the sea, and the flashing lines o r steel. Then was Oliver heard to say, in the words of the Psalmist, " Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered ! " Horse and foot now charged resistlessly on every side ; the Scottish ranks fell back in wild confusion, wrecked and scattered in tumultuous flight. Before 9 o clock 3000 of them were slain, and 10,000 prisoners, with all their baggage, train, and artillery, were in the hands of the English, who "lost not thirty men." He now took possession of Edinburgh, where he spent the most of the winter and spring. The city clergy had shut themselves up in the castle, and refused on his invita tion to return to their flocks. Some correspondence ensued ; in the course of which the general showed himself rather more than a match for the theologians even on their own ground. In February a deputation from Oxford came to inform him of his election as chancellor of the university. Shortly after, we find him pleading in behalf of a " pious and laudable scheme" for establishing a college at Durham. About this time he was seized with a dangerous illness, brought on by exposure to wet and cold, which, after a temporary convalescence, broke cut in several severe relapses. The Council of State expressed their consideration by sending two physicians frcm London to attend him. In the interval he spent ten dajs in Glasgow, here he held a friendly conference with seme of the leading Presby terian ministers. The Scotch aimy meantime lay intrenched at Torwood near Stirling. Towards the end of June, Cromwell, having recovered ficm his illness, moved west ward. Finding the enemy too strorg to be dislodged, l;e sent a portion of his army under Lambert aciessthe Firth. At Inverkeithing they defeated a large btdy cf the enemy, killing about 2000 men. Inchgarvie ai d Buintisland soon after surrendered to Monk; End Cren.well, crossing with his army to Fife, marched upon Perth, which surrendered on the second day. Charles, finding his supplies thus ci;t off, determined on a bold stroke, and, breaking up his camp, marched into England. Cromwell, leaving Monk behind him, sent his light horse in advance, unccr Ltmlert, joined by Harrison, and followed at sen:e distance. The tidings of the royal movement excited great alaim in London, and it was even suspected that the general had betrayed the Comnu nwealth. Crcmwell, not unawaie that such fears would arise, wrote to the Parliament simply relating the facts, and expressing full confidence of success. The militia flocked to his standard all along his march ; and by the time he reached Worcester he found himself at the head of upwards of 30,000 men. There, on the 3d of September 1654, the anniversary of Dunbar, after a fierce and unequal contest, the Scotch army was shivered into ruin, and the last hope of royalism buried. "lhe dimensions of this mercy," said Cromwell in his despatch, " are above my thoughts. It is, for aught I know, a crowning mercy." At this point Cromwell s career as a soldier ends, and the events of his life become identified with the general history of Britain. After the battle of Worcester, the- management of Scotland, whre his deputy Monk had been completely successful in crushing royalism, naturally fell

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