PRINCE RUPERT AND THE CAVALIERS.* MR. WARBURTON spends too much time, and onethird of his work, on preliminary points, which, having been more fully investigated still by other historians, women-marriage-rings, thimbles, silver hair-pins, ear-rings- "Charles immediately attempted to follow this example, but have not the interest to us now that the warlike exploits of the brave and chivalrous Prince Rupert possess. The second volume virtually commences the history of the grand struggle. The burghers and the yeomen of England were arrayed against the nobility and their followers. Feudalism on the one side, freedom on the other, animated the combatants. The former was beginning to fade and lose its power in England: Hampden and Milton were making li berty better understood. Then it was the aristocracy of the North that, says Warburton, "promptly and prondly raised itself up against the democracy of the South." Now it is the democracy of the North who struggle against the aristocracy of the South. Then it was Buckinghamshire for liberty against Lancashire. For some time past it has been Lancashire for freeWe assure Mr. Warburton that neither the specudom against Buckinghamshire. Coal and cotton have lations in South-Sea schemes, railways, nor Aaron's calf, changed the apparent position of parties; and yet furnish a just and judicious comparison with the contheir real position is not so greatly altered. The well-tributions of the poor and married females of Londonbeing of England-its power and liberties-were the the wedding rings, the thimbles, and the silver hair-pins, great objects for which Hampden and his friends strug-to the common fund raised to defend the common gled, on views not dissimilar, perhaps, to those enter- people against the tyranny of king, priest, and cavalier. tained now by Buckinghamshire yeomen. The most A cause for which the matrons amongst the artisan remarkable change has occurred in the distribution of classes give their marriage rings has acquired a sacred religious elements. Buckinghamshire and the south-character in their eyes, and may not be safely despised ern counties were then the cradle and strongholds of Presbyterianism and Puritanism; while the North was Laudite and Romanistically inclined. The Yorkshire gentlemen of those days were zealous for the bishops; and the Lord Stanley of the times-the heir of the house of Derby-was surrounded by Roman Catholic friends and followers. The people of London at once furnished the Parliament with funds for the strife. London was the capital of the English freemen of the day; and, as often before, and some times since, its duty was enthusiastically done. Even in our times, such semi-cavaliers as our author express astonishment at the zeal of the London commoners in the Parliamentary cause. Mr. Warburton thus describes their activity in this respect "There was still much money required to fit out the Roundhead troopers, and the Parliament appealed at once to the sympa thies and the speculations of their city friends. They published a proclamation, inviting all well-affected persons to bring their plate and money to Guildhall, for the use of Parliament, engaging to pay 8 per cent. interest on the money, and that the plate, &c., should be liberally valued, and the same interest allowed upon the valuation.' If there are sometimes strange panics in the money market, there are also still more unaccountable contrasts, for which there is no name; South Sea Bubbles, Lotteries, Railways, and other stimulants to stagnant wealth; but none of these ever produced such an effect--because none were ever backed by the excitement of party and religious zeal- -as this proclamation of the Parliament. The streets became choked with crowds hurrying to the Roundhead receiving office. Capacious as were the apartments destined to contain the spoil, they were soon glutted: sufficient men could not be found to receive the deposits, and many were obliged to return repeatedly to the hall before they could disengage themselves of their wealth. Not only bullion, plate, and jewels were poured in on the astonished collectors, but the sole wealth of the poorest, especially among the by politician or historian. The jewellery of the poor is not extensive or valuable, but yet may be more highly valued by its owners than the diamonds of the rich. The battle of Edgehill was the first great rencontre between the contending forces of the Parliament and the King. The cavaliers formed a gallant band, of whom their historian says, "No similar number of troops ever counted so many men of gentle blood and noble bearing as were here. The whole of the front rank-and there were but two-had probably a claim to such distinction, and were furnished with armour from their own or their kinsmen's ancestral halls." Prince Rupert had taken his place; always in the van as the leader of the royal cavalry. The King marched in the centre along with Lord Lindsey; and Lord Digby commanded the rear. The battle of Edgehill was fought on Sabbath, the 23d October, 1612. The cavaliers engaged in the fight numbered 12,000 men. The Parliamentary army was equally numerous. Prince Rupert is accused of having first gained a victory and then gone so far in chase of his foes, that the Parliamentary reserves of cavalry were enabled to attack the King's artillery, sabre the gunners, charge, break, and cut down the battalions of infantry, until the field became a rout. Some doubt may be legitimately entertained whether Prince Rupert was more at fault than other cavaliers. He commanded an unruly host; and Mr. Warburton says for him, that the Royalists always needed some scape-goat on whom to charge their disasters; and the Parliamentary historians, he alleges, were willing to believe any evil of "the terrible Prince." The bivouac, on the night of the battle and the follow * in 3 vols. By Eliot Warburton. London: Richard Bentley, ing morning, is graphically described in the second volume, page 27, &c. :— "When Prince Rupert returned with such troops as he could rally from the chase, he found a great alteration in the field; his Majesty, with only a few noblemen about him, and the hope of so glorious a day, quite vanquished.' The Prince vainly attempted to gather his broken troops again, for one last charge, which would probably have been final for that war. But it was impossible to get together effective men enough even to attempt it. Evening was setting in; the few horses that could be mustered were exhausted by want of food and their long and furious chase. Wilmot's, indeed, on the far left, were comparatively fresh; and Lord Falkland, whose blood was now up, and whose oft-repeated cry of Peace, peace, peace,' was forgotten, conjured the commissary to charge Sir William Balfour's dragoons, who alone remained unbroken, and protected their exhausted infantry. Wilmot made a most unsoldierlike reply:- My lord, we have got the day, let us live to enjoy the fruit thereof. The King thought, and with better reason, that he had lost it; and what is stranger still, Lord Essex also thought himself defeated; so much so, that in one of the last attacks made by Ruthven and Astley's brigade, he took his stand in the front of his pikemen, resolved to take no quarter, and to die. For him, indeed, there would have been no alternative, if defeated. "In this doubt of all sides,' says Lord Clarendon, who was an anxious spectator of the battle, night, the common friend to wearied and dismayed armies, parted them, and, in dismal anxiety and doubt, the Cavaliers and their King prepared to bivouac on the fiercely-contested and undecided field. The leaders of both armies knew that if they retreated, their forces would rapidly dissolve, and that their sole chance of maintaining, or rallying their troops, was to hold their ground. Essex drew off his forces about three quarters of a mile, and the King resumed his position on the hill; some pickets only of his horse and foot remaining to occupy the plain below. Fires were lighted of wood and bushes, and by them the King and Prince Rupert watched throughout that dismal, anxious night. A freezing wind swept over the wearied armies, and the frost alone closed up the uncounted wounds, or staunched the welling blood of thousands. Both armies stood aloof in mutual fear, and none but the fiendish spoilers of the dead ventured on the field. "The reports from the commanders to their generals, on either side, were equally disastrous. The Cavaliers had to announce the loss of eleven stand of colours, the number of dead unknown; one-third of the infantry missing, and the great part of the horse. Many gallant officers were slain: Lord Aubigny, the Duke of Richmond's brother, had fallen in the first charge; Lord Lindsey was mortally wounded and a prisoner, and the fatal standard was dyed with the blood of its bearer, Sir Ralph Varney; Lord Willoughby was a volunteer prisoner for his father's sake; Sir Thomas Lunsford, Sir Edward Stradling, and Sir William Vavasour, were also prisoners; no other cavalry officer was hurt, but among the infantry, Astley, Baden, Gerrard, and Strode, were wounded. Nor had the Lord General of the Parliament a less melancholy report: Charles Essex had fallen, bravely endeavouring to rally his flying soldiers against Rupert's charge; Lord St. John, also, was mortally wounded. The clergymen of the adjoining parishes, who came piously to bury the dead, alone could number the slain; they amounted to nearly 6,000, but of these how many fell on either side it is impossible to calculate. In both armies the soldiers were half frozen, provisions were unattainable, some of the men on horses had eaten no food since Saturday; many soldiers deserted their respective standards before the following morning, and returned no more. The Royalists were in yet greater difficulties; for the country was hostile, following the opinions of their landlords, Lords Say and Brook; even the blacksmiths had hidden themselves that they might not be compelled to shoe the horses of the Cavaliers, and the country people watched for the stragglers, and knocked them on the head.' "Thus dismally the night was passed with a still gloomier prospect for the morrow. Towards day-break the King took a little rest in his coach: he took horse as soon as it was light and proceeded to view the field. It was strewn with his dead or dying subjects, but still was unapproachable by either army without another battle, and for that there seemed to be no inclination, except on Prince Rupert's part: a few troopers, how. ever, followed him, and did so with good effect. The muster on the Royal side was very thin, but, as the morning advanced, numbers came forth from the places where they had sought shelter, and once more the heights swarmed with armed men. But all order had been lost, and it required many hours to reassemble each soldier under his own officer. Half-starved and frozen as these forces were, their leaders did not care to offer them for battle, and it was agreed that the King should content himself with holding his position, and exhibit as formidable a front to the enemy as could be arranged. Essex, though he had been joined by Hampden's division during the night, mustering three thousand horse, foot, and artillery, was equally indisposed to engage. And so the two armies remained for hours confronting each other; neither wishing to abandon the hard-foughten field to his enemy, and neither venturing to enter and claim it as his own." The armies stood gazing at each other for that Monday. Hampden, who had joined Essex during the night, urged him to advance and attack the Royalists. Dalbier gave different counsel, and the Earl withdrew his forces towards evening in the direction of Warwick. Old Lord Lindsey," who had declined to take the responsibility of the battle, which devolved on, and was accepted by, Lord Ruthven, was shot while leading his own regiment. He was conveyed to a cottage a prisoner, and there he died. His son, Lord Willoughby, by whom he was accompanied, was also captured, and remained a prisoner for a year. This event may be best described as a drawn battle, but the Royalist forces gained the London road. The Royalists then, at least, should have followed Prince Rupert's counsel, and marched on London. They adopted different views, and besieged Banbury. Thus they lost an opportunity of closing the war, changing the destinies of England, and obtaining a triumph for their cause and their king, which the latter, in a curious old work ascribed to him, expresses half a doubt of his power to manage well. Mr. Warburton holds that "Icon Basilicon" was written by Charles I., and not by Dr. Ganden, to whom Charles II. gave a bishopric-the see of Exeter-for accepting the nominal authorship of the work. In referring to this subject, Mr. Warburton styles Charles the Second one of the most worthless men who ever lived ”—a severe, and yet, we fear, an accurate description. Banbury was taken; Lord Say's residence, "Broughton Castle," was next surrendered, and on the 28th of October the King was at Woodstock. Meanwhile Prince Rupert had been amongst the army of the Earl of Essex, in the guise of a waggoner, selling cabbage nets. On the 29th the Royal army arrived at Oxford, and instead of marching on London, the Royal Court was established for a season amidst the cloisters of the University. Like most regal courts of the period, the Oxford establishment was not particularly decorous. "Other gowns, too, than those of students and professors, began to rustle along the moonlit cloisters, (Christ Church was cloistral then,) and Minerva, not to say Diana, gave place too much to Venus. The lovely Duchess of Richmond was there, with eyes that conquered the indomitable Rupert; Lady Isabella Thynne, who is whispered to have made no small impression on the ascetic king; the merry Mrs. Kirke is said to have fascinated the grave Prince Maurice; and the witty and brave Kate, Lady D'Aubigny, who was now mourning for her chivalrous young lord, was soon the arbiter of Lord Hawley's destiny: even the puritanical Elector Palatine is said to have relaxed his hypocritical demureness in favour of fair Mistress Watt.'" Oxford became the capital of the Royalist party, and so remained for years during the civil war. Prince Rupert was busy even during the short period fore the age in which he lived, and died for the present, when others rested. He entered the rich vale of and for ages yet to come. He is one of the noblest exAylesbury, seized the town, and intercepted the com- amples of the good hearts, the sound heads, and the munications of Essex with the metropolis. A brigade strong arms, that England even still combines in many of Parliamentarians were sent to attack him, under of her yeomen. Educated in a better school than his Balfour and Charles Pym. Rupert waited not their as-antagonist, and actuated more unremittingly by high sault, but became the assailant. The brook over which and purer principles than the Prince, Hampden lived his men had to charge was swollen, and the ford was and died without the errors that undoubtedly were comnarrow. His cavalry may have been slightly disordered mitted by Rupert. The Buckingham Squire knew in the passage, and truth requires the historian to say more of these things than the young Palatine; and few that Rupert and his men were defeated, but a latent men in England have ever more thoroughly acted out prejudice for his hero compels him to write it, "forced in life the theory of Puritan principles than Hampden; back across the ford," and with their little garrison of but we believe that their public principles approached Aylesbury, retired upon Thame. The Prince marched || each other closely. Prince Rupert would not willingly to Maidenhead, and from that to Windsor. He seized have lent his arm and his skill in war to subdue a nation's the town, and attempted to take the castle, but was freedom. He wanted to promote the liberty of the subnot successful. He then marched to Kingston, and ject and the security of the crown; and so, doubtless, did fought with the trainbands there, but did not beat Hampden most sincerely, until the King abandoned constithem. He entered the small town of Colebrook, with- tutional measures, and sought to rule England and Scot out opposition, and continuing to urge the King on to land as an arbitrary monarch. Prince Rupert was a zeaLondon, the Royal army, on the 3d November, left lous Protestant, inclining to the Calvinistic views of his Oxford, and on the 4th occupied Reading. Long ne- father, and his noble mother, Queen Margaret; and gociations occurred for a peace at this time, which had so he must have sought the promotion of religious freewell nigh come to a favourable conclusion, when the dom, which John Hampden died to vindicate. RelaRoyalist army, gradually approaching London, Prince tionship blinded Prince Rupert to the insincerity of Rupert made a dash at Brentford, and after a severe his uncle, and in part, probably, to the crimes of his struggle, in which the defenders cast up temporary cousins; but we have admitted that Hampden was barricades for their protection, he drove them out, and the wiser and more prudent man while asserting cersecured that town for the King. The Parliamentary tain wonderfully close points of resemblance in the army and the London train-bands were then drawn up character of these opposite leaders. on Turnham Green, to resist the entrance of the Royal Two hundred years have passed away; but even at army, but the King or his officers considered the enemy the period of which we write both parties appealed to too strong, and retired, abandoning Brentford. The the press-both fought with types. The king could King retreated by Hounslow, Hampton Court, to Oat-write well, and liked the exercise. His partisans lands, and thence to Reading, where he remained for some time, before proceeding to his winter quarters in Oxford. So the campaign, with the exception of a few skirmishes, was ended. We regret that Mr. War-in burton is obliged to make a bad account of the doings of the poet warriors on either side. The sons of genius seem to have fought badly. He says: "Fainham Castle was taken by Sir William Waller, after an indifferent defence by Sir John Denham; Colonel Fane, a son of the Earl of Westmoreland, being almost the only person slain. Denham was a poet and a wit, but, to confess the truth, the poets did not appear to advantage in this war, even in a Tyrtaan point of view. Edmund Waller proved both a trimmer and a coward; Sir John Suckling a poltroon; Denham no better; Will Dave nant was dissipated and negligent; and the great Milton condescended to write the most rancorous and unworthy lampoons." The payment of a large army feli heavy on the exhausted finances of the King, but Prince Rupert contrived so that the forage of his cavalry should be paid for by the enemy. In this respect he was a consummate leader, and greatly feared in the Republican counties, from whom he levied the materials of war, and kept them in a state of perpetual insecurity by his rapid raids. The winter passed in a succession of skirmishes, in which the name of Rupert, dreaded by the Republicans, as in those days that of Hampden was by the Royalists, occurs frequently. These two great enemies on the field exhibit, in different circumstances, a remarkable resemblance. They carried themselves through this difficult period with the same dauntless chivalry. Of the two, the commoner Hampden was, doubtless, the more prudent He stands out in our English history a patriot without reproach, stain, or suspicion. He thought be man. numbered men of considerable ability, who sustained the war of pamphlets; and on the 1st Januuary, 1643, the first number of the Court Mercury was published Oxford by Dr. Heylin. The most decisive actions of January occurred in the West of England, where the Royalist leaders were completely successful. Early in February the Marquis of Hertford and Prince Rupert took Cirencester, after a sharp fight, and many prisoners, amounting to between eleven and twelve hundred, with a quantity of artillery, were captured. At this juncture, the citizens of London again endeavoured to obtain peace, and even petitioned the King to return to his capital; but in their petition they embodied the request for the dismemberment of his army. We do not think Mr. Warburton accurate or happy in his estimate of what might have been the result of the King's concession to this petition. He says: "If Charles, with the spirit of his ancient race, could have then appeared before the people, protected but by their instinctive reverence and loyalty, and exclaimed, My people, I will be your leader!' he would, doubtless, have been received with en husiasm; but, before night, his brief power would have vanished; the meshes of parliamentary power would have entangled him with inextricable folds; and one by one he would have seen all that was dear to him, all that he could depend on, led to the block, that still reeked with Strafford's lawless slaughter." If the King had gone to London without an armed force, had thrown himself upon the people in the first instance, and then had acted insincerely, the result might have been as the author supposes; but if Charles had been frank with his people, and had acted the part of a constitutional king, from that time forward, hell in that case, doubtless, the "sailor" Batten would have might have died on the throne of England. It was not the King's nature to be frank and sincere with his people. His father implanted arbitrary principles in his mind; his friends fostered them; his Queen urged their growth; his religious adviser, Laud, added the sanction of faith to the errors of the mind; and so Charles was habitually insincere-a Protestant-Jesuit, and a king. Prince Rupert, like other warriors of the time, deemed it necessary to issue a defence of his conduct through the press; and it is one of the most spirited documents in the collection of letters brought together in these volumes. We believe his declaration was true. "I think there is none that take me for a coward, for sure I fear not the face of any man alive; yet I shall repute it the greatest victory in the world to see his Majesty enter London in peace, without shedding one drop of blood." In this document Prince Rupert asks, regarding the King, "what a gracious supporter hath he been in particular to the Queen of Bohemia, (my virtuous royal mother!)" And the answer to his statement, and to this question particularly, shows the progress that the Puritan writers had then made in asserting the people's rights, and the source from which the money of kings was derived: "The people's goodness alone made them give to the Queen of Bohemia so many great and free contributions, and now you have not only taken away their wills but their means, of ever doing the like; having brought us to so wretched a condition that we shall never hereafter have leisure to pity her, but rather consider her as the mother of our calamities." sent a party of his men to seize the Queen without firing on her; but the Duke of Newcastle had sent a thousand cavaliers to guard her, and to cover the landing of military stores, arms, and money, so that the Vice-Admiral, in firing on the party, merely pursued the tactics of an uncourteous civil war. The Queen marched to York. Sad events now marked the progress of the war on either side: Lichfield surrendered to Lord Brook, "whose fanatical spirit," says Warburton, "Was strongly moved at the sight of the noble cathedral; and, with all the prelatic associations and sacerdotal attributes that it conjured up, his forces marched to the assault, singing the 140th Psalm 'To execute on them the doom That written was before,' &c. Their guns thundered a refrain, and the town-gates burst open to the psalm-singers." The cathedral was, however, defended by Lord Chesterfield and a number of gentlemen; and of the position and the defence, this author says:-- "Nature and art had made the position strong, and sentiment, more powerful than either, might have rendered it impregnable. The defenders fought in the presence of their countrywomen, under the very shadow of their ancient church. They had not even the poor excuse of want to enervate their courage: herds of cattle, and provisions of all sorts, had been accumulated there for safety. But Lord Chesterfield was not capable of turning either his moral or physical resources to account: the place was almost tamely yielded, on the craven conditions of mere quarter. Thereby,' says Lord Clarendon, sarcastically, many persons became prisoners, of too good quality to have their names remembered.? » Lichfield cathedral was dearly purchased, for it is immediately added : rest. On the morning of his death he had prayed with and preached to his troops, as was his custom: he intended an assault upon the temple of popery and superstition, which, in his ima gination, stood there before him, and he sought a sign from heaven in approbation of his intent.' He stood by one of his attack: at that moment 'dumb Dyot's' bullet pierced his brain, guns, and raised the visor of his helmet to examine the point of The voyage of the Queen from Holland was unprosperous. A terrible storm arose in the channel; and "the little fleet was beaten back," but her Majesty comforted the seamen by assuring them that the This siege is memorable for the death of Lord Brook, one "Queens of England were never drowned;" and she of the few heroic leaders the Parliamentary party had produced. was amused by the confessions of her officers, who He was a man without vices, but his errors were so vehement as shouted aloud their most secret sins into the pre-occu-faithful to the cause in which he faithfully believed the truth to to be crimes-nevertheless, he was a high-spirited, gallant man; pied ears of the sea-sick priests; proclaiming more gossip secrets in a few minutes of despair than would naturally have transpired in as many years;" but the people of England could not be blamed for suspecting the Protestantism of a king whose queen was surrounded with so many Roman Catholics, and the old gentlemen of England who professed that faith were equally blameless in anticipating some advantage to their principles, from these circumstances, which served to strengthen the Royal cause in Ireland. The Queen at last made good the passage, and landed in Burlington Bay, on the 20th of February, where she was joined by a large body of the Northern cavaliers, and by the Marquis of Montrose, who was now fairly committed to the Royalist cause, and had abandoned covenanting. Mr. Warburton omits not a fling at the Parliamentary leaders when it can be conveniently obtained with out damaging his character for impartiality. And he says: and he fell dead." wards by that of Lord Northampton, in the fight of "The Roundhead horse was utterly broken by the first charge; the Earl hastily re-formed his line, and charged again; carried in struggling over the broken ground, the Earl's horse fell, and their battery of eight guns, and dashed in among the foot; there, his furious men swept on, unconscious of their leader's need; "Van Tromp watched over his charge, but at a distance, on before he could rise, the enemy gathered round him; their coloucl account of the size of the ship; while the Parliamentary Vice- fell by the Earl's hand: at the same time the butt-end of a musAdmiral ran close in shore on the night of the 22d, and at day-ket knocked off his own helmet, and left him exposed to a score light on the following morning, he opened fire on the house where of hungry weapons; yet he was offered quarter, as he still bravely the Queen was sleeping. She retired, with some risk, out of the and hopelessly fought on. 'I scorn your quarter,' he exclaimed, Roundheads' range, and Van Tromp soon obliged the only sailor,base rogues and rebels as ye are!' At the same moment he perhaps, who ever fired at a woman, to retire.” Mr. Warburton must surely see that more than the woman was in the house. The woman was not alone, and was not even in company of her ordinary suite; for was struck down from behind, and fell dead, but unconquered, amongst Iris enemies: they had scarcely time to carry off his It was a mournful battle they had won: the gallant voice that body before his victorious horse returned to seek their leader. had so long led them on to victory was now silent; his son, Lord Compton, had been wounded and carried off the field, and "No braver, trner, or more chivalrous nobleman followed the King's standard than he who was lost this day. He was one whom trial had ennobled and redeemed from the luxury and license of the time, which was then thought necessary to great fortunes. But, from the beginning of the war, as if he had been awakened out of a lethargy,' he became self-denying, patient of hardship, prodigal of his wealth, ease, and life. With him fell Captains Middleton, Bagot, Biddulph, and Spencer Lucy, son and heir to Sir Thomas Lucy, of Shakespearean memory." father-in-law's house, at Pyrton. There he had in youth married Hampden's death was deemed a royalist triumph at the hour. It became the bitterest sorrow that the King had known, for it opened up the path of his An impartial historian would find no reason for praising Lord Northampton and blaming Lord Brook for their respective parts in this war. Both were honest defenders of their principles-honest enthusiasts, or fanaties, if Mr. Warburton likes that word best; but the fanaticism of Northampton led him along with his friends, while that of Brook induced him to abandon the majority of his aristocratic acquaintances -to take his stand with the common people, and on The Queen joined the King on the battle-field of the grounds of civil freedom and religious liberty and Edgehill in July, and Warburton holds that this meettruth. Why, therefore, should the fanaticism of Brooking was worse for the Royalist cause than the previous meeting on the same ground between Charles and Essex. 26th of July, after great loss of men and officers, he Prince Rupert was never idle; and on the captured Bristol. The King's cause was everywhere victorious. Fairfax had been defeated at Adderton Moor, and Bristol was taken; but Cromwell appeared force at Gainsborough. From early in August to as an independent leader, and defeated a Cavalier September was lost to the King's army, in the west, by his determination to capture Gloucester, for a number of days, the king gained a good in which he was not successful. After maneuvering Rupert counselled "passive resistance," but the wilful position between Essex and London, where even monarch followed his own counsel, and fought the first battle of Newbury, from which the Parliamentary horse virtually defeated the King. The evening of the day made an early escape, while the London train bands best of his nobles lay" round the King, "dead, upon was sadder yet than that of Edgehill. The very that fruitless field, with many a brave follower of lesser note." Falkland and the young Earl of Sunderland be deemed a crime, and that of Northampton a virtue? The winter closed rather favourably for the Royalist forces, and at the end of March, 1643, Prince Rupert set out from Oxford to York, in order to bring back the queen. He attacked, stormed, and entered Birmingham, after a smart fight on the way. Upon being joined at Strafford by Hastings and Lord Northampton he attacked Lichfield, and after losing a number of men, and many precious days, recaptured the cathedral; and from that he was recalled to Oxford, which Essex threatened. Rupert arrived too late to save Reading, which had surrendered to the Parliamentary army under Essex. The commander, Fielding, was sentenced to death by the Royalists; and Essex, with his usual caution, declined to accept Hamp den's advice, and march on Oxford-which at that time he might have taken, and thus crushed the King's party entirely. We need not follow Prince Rupert's career through the ceaseless skirmishes in which he was engaged. He was incessantly at work, and a better partisan chief and cavalry leader never drew sword in any cause. We may, however, pause for a great event at "Chalgrove's celebrated fight." Colonel Urry had deserted from the Parliamentary army to the King's forces; and, like any other traitor, he desired to commend himself to his new masters, by planning the discomfiture of his old friends. He endeavoured to surprise the Parliamentary army under Essex in their quarters, and he succeeded. After narrating the circumstances of Prince Rupert's attack on the Parliamentary cavalry, Mr. Warburton relates the great event of the day :"At the same time, O'Neale and Percy charged on either flank, and the Roundheads' route becaine general. Hampden now came up from the enclosures about Wapsgrove House, and endeavoured to check the Cavaliers, and give time to his comrades to rally; but he received his death-wound in his first charge, two carbine balls struck him in the shoulder, broke the bone, and buried themselves in his body. His course was run. He feebly turned his horse, and rode from the melee towards his were dead on the field. The Earl of Carnarvon was "run through the body," and wounded mortally. He and he answered, "No; in an hour like this I have no was asked if he had any request to prefer to the King; prayer, but to the King of Heaven." The year 1613 closed, and 1644 began darkly for The Scots entered England to aid the Royal cause. the Parliament on the 19th January of the latter year, and they turned the balance of parties in the North. Rupert was despatched to oppose them. On the 21st of the same month, the King's Parliament of sixty peers and one hundred commoners met at Oxford. Overtures for peace passed between Essex and the King, but now they were couched in colder terms than before. On the 26th, the King's forces were beaten at Nantwich by Fairfax and his army of Northerns. In February, the Scots army was before Newcastle, |
