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Home From the Civil War to the Restoration, 1645-1660 From the fall of Oxford till the execution of the King, 1646-1649 1646-1649; Part 2 |
1646-1649; Part 2As a result of "the Agreement" the Duke of Hamilton and a Scottish army invaded England in 1648; and Royalist risings also took place in Wales and in the south-east of England. But the Second Civil War, as it is called, was a half-hearted affair. Scotland was divided, the majority of the Presbyterian ministers, so potent in influence, being against the expedition to England. The Scottish army lacked enthusiasm, and was moreover ill equipped-only one man in five knew how to handle musket or pike, and there was •lot a single piece of artillery. Consequently, whilst Fairfax subdued the south-east and took Colchester, Cromwell, in a Campaign of great energy, interposed his army between Hamilton and Scotland. He destroyed at Preston an English Royalist force attached to the Scottish army, and then, in a relentless pursuit of thirty miles, caused the Scottish army to capitulate, ten thousand prisoners falling into his hands (August, 1648). Finally, Cromwell entered Scotland, and restored the influence of Argyll, the head of the Presbyterian party.Meantime, during the war, the king was again negotiating with Parliament, and was making concessions which he had no intention of keeping. But the end was near. Cromwell and his army had gone to the war with the intention of bringing that "man of blood", as they railed the king, to account on their return. When they did return, to find Parliament carrying on negotiations with the king, I hey resorted to force. On December 6, 1648, Colonel Pride.nid a body of red-coated musketeers, standing at the door of the House of Commons, excluded a hundred and forty-three of its members from entering. "Pride's Purge" completed, the remaining members-now only about ninety in number-decided to set up a tribunal to try the king (The trial took place in Westminster Hall, and the place where Charles stood is marked by a brass tablet. As the galleries were crowded with spectators, including ladies, the President of the Court took the precaution to wear a shot-proof hat, which can still be seen at Oxford). The result of the trial was a foregone conclusion; and at four minutes past two in the afternoon of January 30, 1649, on a scaffold erected outside the Banqueting Hall of Whitehall, the king was beheaded (The king, it is said, wore two shirts in consequence of the cold, so that he might not shiver and appear to be afraid, and he walked so fast from St. James's to the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall, outside which he was executed, that his guards could scarcely keep up with him). Never had Charles shown himself to possess such nobility and kingliness of character as in his last days. There is a story that Cromwell, in the middle of the following night, visited the king's body, looked at it mournfully, and murmured the words, "Cruel necessity" (The story is told by Lord Southampton, who had leave to watch by the body that night. The figure of the visitor was muffled ; but from his voice and gait Lord Southampton took him to be Cromwell)! The cruelty of the execution no one will deny; its necessity has been matter of controversy from that day to this. The deed, at all events, shocked public opinion at the time (When the executioner showed the king's head to the thousands gathered at Whitehall, "such a groan arose", writes an eyewitness, "as I never heard before and desire I may never hear again"), and the publication a few days after the execution of the Eikon Basilike, which purported to contain the king's last thoughts and meditations, led an ever-increasing number to regard him as a martyr. |
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