Westminster became so startled, that some of the leading men prepared for quitting the realm. This was the turning point of the war. The self-denying ordinance was passed, which provided that no member of either house could enjoy any office or command, military or civil. Essex, who had lost his army in Cornwall, was compelled to retire, and Sir Thomas Fairfax became commander-in-chief. Sir Thomas found that no man would suit him for a lieutenant-general so well as Oliver Cromwell, and Oliver consequently escaped the ordinance by a special dispensation of parliament. The winter of 1644-45 was the time when the new model army was to be formed—the army which, under Fairfax and Cromwell, in about a year extinguished the power of the king, and put an end to the first civil war. It was at the very lowest ebb of the parliamentary fortunes that Blake exercised the greatest influence, and to him must be attributed in great measure the after course of success. We must, therefore, to understand the importance of his operations, consider not only the military incidents, but the extraordinary tact and resolution with which he engaged in a scheme that took up the attention of the royal troops. After the surrender of Essex's army, the king might possibly have felt himself in a position to concentrate his troops, and to strike a heavy blow at the declining cause of the roundheads. With the whole of the west country behind him entirely at his command, he might have swept on towards London: for there cannot be a doubt, that at this period, the parliamentarians were speculating on the probability of being hanged in case the king should apprehend them with arms in their hands. Though Marston moor had been fought, it is more than likely that a single battle in the open field, won by the king, would have produced a general panic, and perhaps have led to the flight of the parliamentary leaders.
Blake then resolved to do his best to hamper the royalist movements; and for this purpose occupied the town of Taunton in the summer of 1644. Taunton lay on the great highroad to Exeter, and the supplies for the king's army in the west must either go through the town, or take to cross roads eminently unfavourable for passage. In going westward the royal army had prudently let Taunton alone. On their return the royalists determined to capture the town, an achievement which seemed to present no great difficulty, as Blake was completely isolated, and could expect no succour. Charles, too much elated with his success over Essex, did not remain in the west, but passed on towards London, changed his mind at Salisbury, and retired to Oxford for the winter. The capture of Taunton was in the first place confided to a detachment at Bridgewater; no one supposing that Blake had serious thoughts of defending a town that had always changed hands according to the predominance of the forces in the field. First they summoned him with threats of fire and sword. "Last drop of our blood," replied Blake. Then they tried to storm him out, and were knocked on the head for their pains. Then they tried to starve him out. "Eat my boots first," said Blake. Then more troops arrived, quarrelled among themselves, and Taunton became a bone of contention at the royalist councils. "Why don't you storm him out?" said the west-country gentlemen. "Batter him out," said Goring, who was there with his crew. And thus they stormed and battered, but out of Taunton they could not get him. "I'll have him out," said Sir Richard Grenville, and vowed he would never leave the place till he was out—a rash vow, as all this time the new model army had been getting under weigh, with various matters in store of an entirely new model. So long as Blake could hold Taunton, the royalist army was of no manner of use, and therefore the cavaliers at last resolved to concentrate their forces for the purpose of taking the town, and then they would march eastward and perform wonders. Before that time arrived, however, a certain Oliver Cromwell had fairly taken the field with certain troops, which "truly never were beaten," as Oliver said. It was too late—month after month had passed away, and Blake could not be got out. They had stormed him, and starved him, and blockaded him, and battered him, but out he would not come.
In the beginning of May, 1645, Fairfax was on his march westward to the relief of Taunton. A counter order, however, reached him at Blandford, and he despatched Colonel Welden with four regiments to the aid of Blake, and on the 11th May Taunton was so far relieved. This, however, was only the first part of Blake's troubles. The king appears to have been infatuated, or not to have suspected the character of the new model army. He despatched Goring to make a new attack on Taunton, thinking, perhaps, that the war would go on in the quiet fashion of the previous year. On the 12th June, Oliver Cromwell joined Fairfax, and on the 14th was fought the battle of Naseby, in Northamptonshire, which for the most part destroyed the king's army, and ruined his power in the midland counties.
Now was seen the immense importance of Blake's defence of Taunton. Had there been no Blake and no Taunton, the whole of the west would still have been at the command of the royalists, who would not only have had free passage, but would have been able to concentrate their troops, and perhaps to fight another battle that would have gone far to redeem the reverse of Naseby. Every operation in the west, however, was defeated by Blake's obstinacy; in fact, his defence of Taunton broke the neck of the royal power in the west, and enabled Fairfax to take the western forces in detail. Immediately after Naseby, Fairfax set out for Taunton, which was then hotly besieged by Goring. On his approach. Goring withdrew to Langport, and there, on the 10th July, was fought the battle of Langport, where Goring was routed; "after which," says Dugdale, "nothing but loss and ruin every day ensued." "This engagement," says the Weekly Intelligencer, "happened the more opportunely in regard that if it had been deferred three days longer. Colonel Goring expected a recruit of about 6000 horse and foot from Grenville." [Mr. Carlyle, with a little slip of inaccuracy most unusual for him, seems to place the battle of Langport and the taking of Bridgewater subsequent to the storming of Bristol. These events, however, took place in July, whereas the storming of Bristol did not take place till September.] The battle of Langport finally relieved Blake. He had done his duty, steadily and well. He had held Taunton altogether for a year, and had stood two regular sieges occupying about three months. He was master of a ruined town, surrounded by a devastated country—but he was master, and that was much. In defending the town against Goring and the rabble which that cavalier officer seemed to have a peculiar talent for attracting to his standard, Blake was defending something even more sacred than any political cause—the honour of the hearth and home. Blake fought not merely for himself, but for every woman and every child that Providence had committed to his care; his triumph was over the rapine, plunder, and licentiousness that would inevitably have followed his defeat. Indeed, of all the honours to which the parliamentarians are entitled, not the least is that in their hands, and especially in the hands of Cromwell and Blake, war was less immoral and less wicked than in the hands of any other men who have ever handled a sword.
In the defence of Taunton Blake exhibited the first peculiarity of his genius—his genius for defence. Cromwell's genius was for attack—swift, heavy, and irresistible. But the genius of defence is perhaps of as high an order as the highest capacity for attack. Where all dash bravely on, he must be a craven indeed who would remain behind from the petty fear of injury to himself. But to be shut up day after day and night after night; hope sometimes taking wing, and hopelessness, not fear, shadowing coldly round the soul and quenching its native fortitude; when suffering stares wildly out from the hollow eye of hunger, and grim famine, like a demon before the time, sits scornfully in the portal of expectation, mocking at sorrow and hindering the entrance of faith; when the bugle call of the morning summons the eye to the spectacle of smouldering ruin, and the sound that breaks on the ear of the midnight sentinel is the wail of a famishing child; when even the Providence above seems to disregard the agony of desire, and the dark image of despair begins to loom fearfully in the vista of the future; when the brave are silent, and treachery begins to lurk in the furtive eye of the coward: it is the soul of the hero alone that remains unmoved—not unmoved in sympathy, but in resolution—with the bright star of honour still resplendent to the eye of faith, still beaming in its full effulgence, and beckoning onward in the path of duty, fail who list or come what may.
Such then was Blake—a man who had been tried in the furnace and came out shining like gold; and such was the man who in after years, in the sear and yellow autumn of his life, was to face the battle and the breeze, and to sweep from the ocean with the same unselfish heroism every antagonist of the commonwealth of England.
We now turn to Blake as a seaman. Before Blake's time the English navy was comparatively of little, importance. True,
