THE CLUBMEN
The victorious Army, driving all before it in the Southwest, where alone the King had still any considerable fighting force, found itself opposed by a very unexpected enemy, famed in the old Pamphlets by the name of Clubmen. The design was at bottom Royalist; but the country-people in those regions had been worked upon by the Royalist Gentry and Clergy, on the somewhat plausible ground of taking up arms to defend themselves against the plunder and harassment of both Armies. The great mass of them were Neutrals; there even appeared by and by various transient bodies of ‘Clubmen’ on the Parliament side, whom Fairfax entertained occasionally to assist him in pioneering and other such services. They were called Clubmen, not, as M. Villemain supposes,[1] because they united in Clubs, but because they were armed with rough country weapons, mere bludgeons if no other could be had. Sufficient understanding of them may be gained from the following Letter of Cromwell. prefaced by some Excerpts.
From Rushworth: ‘Thursday July 3d, Fairfax marched from Blandford to Dorchester, 12 miles; a very hot day. Where Colonel Sidenham, Governor of Weymouth, gave him information of the condition of those parts; and of the great danger from the Club-risers;’ a set of men ‘who would not suffer either contribution or victuals to be carried to the Parliament’s garrisons. And the same night Mr. Hollis of Dorsetshire, the chief leader of the Clubmen, with some others of their principal men, came to Fairfax: and Mr. Hollis owned himself to be one of their leaders; affirming that it was fit
- ↑ Our French friends ought to be informed that M. Villemain’s Book on Cromwell is, unluckily, a rather ignorant and shallow one.—Of M. Guizot, on the other hand, we are to say that his Two Volumes, so far as they go, are the fruit of real ability and solid studies applied to those Transactions.
