31—
The Second Campaign

By this time Charles and his Council of War had decided upon their general strategy and were preparing their main offensive for 1643. Newcastle would march south from Yorkshire, Sir Ralph Hopton would gain control in the south-west, while Charles himself would command in the centre. The task was not altogether easy. While Hull was in Parliament's hands, threatening their homes in the rear, Newcastle's progress was limited by the disinclination of his men to progress further south than Lincoln, and Cornishmen were similarly troubled at leaving Plymouth in enemy occupation while they marched through Devon. Charles in the centre had suffered a reverse when the Parliamentarians captured Reading on April 27. But victories at Landsdown and Roundway Down near Bristol on the 5th and 13th of July strengthened his position, while Rupert's capture of Bristol on July 26, two days after the Queen's arrival in Oxford, was of outstanding importance.

The direction of Charles's central thrust occasioned long deliberation in the Council of War. At last it was decided that he should take Gloucester in order to open up the Severn valley and ensure communication with Royalist support in South Wales. This meant abandoning an immediate push to London down the Thames valley, which might have been supported by a parallel drive by Prince Maurice through Hampshire and Sussex. But the western army was still occupied and Newcastle was still no further south than Lincoln. Moreover, it was felt that a threat to Gloucester would lure Essex away from the capital.

For the first time since his arrival in the city Charles left Oxford for a major campaign on Wednesday 10 August 1643. Gloucester did not immediately capitulate, though Essex, as predicted, began his march westward. Charles therefore, fearing to be cut off from his base and

hoping to turn the tables by preventing Essex's retreat to London, abandoned the siege. On September 20 the two armies came face to face at Newbury, with Charles barring Essex's route to the capital. The King was in command and he had been joined by Rupert. As at Edgehill the battle was indecisive but, unlike Edgehill, Charles drew off in the night leaving the way to London open to Essex, while he himself went north to Oxford. There were rumours that he had run out of ammunition, but if he had remained on the field it is likely that Essex would have retreated leaving the Royalists still barring his way to London. It was perhaps another lost opportunity for the King: he had neither taken Gloucester nor opened up a route to the capital nor prevented Essex from returning there. He had lost also his Secretary of State, one of the noblest of his subjects: for Falkland, who had never come to terms with civil war, had been seen to ride recklessly to his death in the battle. In appointing Lord Digby in Falkland's place Charles brought even closer to him than before a man who was deeply attached to his cause but who was impulsive and unreliable and, moreover, still hostile to Rupert, the most able of the King's commanders. Charles's first sally from Oxford, while not disastrous, had done him little good.

In the autumn of 1643 the King's armies retook Reading and some regiments from Ireland joined him. But on October 11 a new sharpness was apparent in the Parliamentarian attack in a small cavalry engagement at Winceby in Lincolnshire when Oliver Cromwell, with a detachment of the hand-picked troopers he had been recruiting in East Anglia, decisively defeated a Royalist force. The year ended in stalemate. Charles was still in Oxford, firmly entrenched behind a ring of well-fortified garrisons, but no nearer to an occupation of London. Parliament had been sufficiently dissatisfied with its military achievements to seek the assistance of the Scots. In return for military aid they agreed to support the Scottish Presbyterian form of worship and to reform the English 'according to the word of God', which was assumed by the Scots and the English Presbyterians to be the same thing. The Solemn League and Covenant which signalized the agreement was taken by the English on September 25 and every officer of the Parliamentarian army was expected to subscribe to it.

Partly as a counter-measure and much as he disliked Parliaments, Charles determined to demonstrate his own strength by rallying to his side all those who had left, or were prepared to leave, Westminster for Oxford. The Parliament which met in Christ Church Hall on 22

January 1644 consisted of some 44 Lords, including the Prince of Wales and Prince Rupert, and 118 Members of the Lower House. But for their war duties and other pressing commitments Charles would have had about 82 Peers and 175 Commoners in his Oxford Parliament — which was a majority of Peers and about one-third of the Commons. There was not much, however, they could do. The Oxford Parliament was prorogued in April 1644 and adjourned in March 1645. It continued to meet from time to time but its records were destroyed during the seige of Oxford. Charles, indeed, lost any faith he may have had in 'this mongrel Parliament', as he ungraciously termed it in a letter to his wife, as action of another kind became necessary.

The fruits of the Covenant appeared at the opening of 1644 when a Scottish army entered England, commanded by Alexander Leslie, the little, old crooked soldier who had crossed the border in 1639 and whom Charles had created Earl of Leven in 1640. By the spring Parliamentarian troops were once more manoeuvring in the South and South-west and Oxford began to look like a beleaguered city. Charles's trials as a Commander were matched by his anguish over Henrietta-Maria. She had not taken kindly to Oxford, she was pregnant and unwell, once more wracked with pain and rendered by her pregnancy anxious and alarmed as the war approached the city and she feared that any escape route would be cut off. Charles could not guarantee her safety if she remained with him; her presence might interfere with military strategy; she herself was anxious to bear her child away from the clangour of war. So once more they prepared to part after less than a year together. Charles with their two eldest sons escorted her to Abingdon on April 17 and left her in the care of Jermyn, her destination still undecided. He received such alarming accounts of her condition that he sent an anguished note to their physician, who remained in London: 'Mayerne, if you love me, go to my wife!', and then, of necessity, turned his attention to his Council of War.

Rupert advocated the holding of Oxford firmly in the centre within its outer garrisons while he went north to aid Newcastle, who had fallen back on York, and Maurice completed the conquest of the West. No sooner had he departed for the North, however, than Charles saw the disadvantages of his own position. He had little freedom of movement while the armies of Essex and Waller were probing and manoeuvring close to Oxford, the city was ill-supplied with provisions, and if he allowed himself to be besieged he would be

starved out in a fortnight. He decided to abandon Reading in order to acquire its men and arms and the city changed hands for the third time on May 18 when the garrison was dismantled and Essex and Waller were free to move in. A week later Charles abandoned Abingdon, so leaving open the entire southern approach to Oxford. To the East, Essex was now approaching Islip and probing as far forward as Cowley and Headington, while Waller began an encircling movement from the West. The situation was sufficiently delicate for someone to talk of surrender on terms. 'What!', exclaimed Charles, 'I may be found in the hands of the Earl of Essex, but I shall be dead first!'

So, after taking a day's hunting in Woodstock, where he shot two bucks, he proceeded to action. Leaving part of his army in the city, and after feigning an attack on Abingdon which drew Waller southwards, he rode out northwards as soon as it was dark on the summer evening of June 3, with 3000 horse and 2500 foot. He rode through Port Meadow by the wide-spreading Thames to Wolvercote and Yarnton, the spires of Oxford fading behind him in the darkness. He crossed the little Evenlode at Hanborough Bridge while his friends left lighted matchcord in the hedges at Islip to deceive the enemy. He proceeded to Witney and reached Burford the next evening, the following night he was at Bourton-on-the-Water and so proceeded to Evesham and Worcester.

But once the exhilaration of action was over he began to doubt his own wisdom: he had left his base both short of food and, with the abandonment of Reading and Abingdon, ill-defended. At the same time, as he might have predicted, Essex and Waller appeared to be joining forces for a combined attack upon him while Rupert was miles away in the North and Oxford could give him little help. Hurriedly he wrote from Worcester to Rupert on the 7th: 'I confess the best had been to have followed your advice . . . yet we doubt not but to defend ourselves until you may have time to beat the Scots, but if you be too long in doing it, I apprehend some great inconvenience.' Fears for the northern project now began to fill his mind also, and a week later he wrote again, unexpectedly, and confusedly:

If York be lost I shall esteem my crown little less. But if York be relieved and you beat the rebels' army of both Kingdoms which are before it, then . . . I may possibly make a shift . . . to spin out time until you come to assist me. Wherefore I command you and conjure you by the duty and affection which I know you bear me that, all new enterprises laid aside, you immediately march according to your first

intention with all your force to the relief of York. But if that be either lost, or have freed themselves from the besiegers, or that, for want of powder you cannot undertake that work, that you immediately march with your whole strength directly to Worcester to assist me and my army.

Charles was clearly torn between his desires for the relief of York and his need to be relieved at Worcester. But, against the odds, the wheel of fortune now began to turn in his favour as the armies of Essex and Waller, far from planning a concerted attack, appeared about to separate, with Essex marching into Devon and Waller alone pursuing the King. With a certain arrogance Charles now doubled back over the Cotswolds, through Broadway and back to Woodstock, collecting men and arms as he went. On June 22 he even pushed over to Buckingham, in enemy country. A Council of War here debated three possibilities, each of which demonstrated their changed fortunes: marching northwards to assist Rupert; falling alternately on the two enemy armies; or making a sudden attack on London. So meagre did London's defences appear at that time that the last plan seemed feasible.

But before Charles could act Waller's army had caught up with him on June 24 by Cropredy Bridge on the banks of the little river Cherwell between Banbury and Daventry. Charles, with the Prince of Wales, was in the main body of the army throughout the engagement that followed, within pistol shot of the enemy. It was said by captured soldiers that the King's person had been deliberately aimed at and that they had focused upon him with their perspective glasses to make sure where he was and what he looked like; it was a different story from the initial one of protecting the King's sacred person and punishing only his evil counsellors. Patrick Ruthven, Earl of Forth, recently created Earl of Brentford, led the Royalist vanguard, a cavalry brigade brought up their rear, while Waller continued on a parallel course on the opposite side of the Cherwell. Each army had about 5000 horse, Charles some 3500 foot, Waller rather more. As they neared Cropredy Bridge Charles sent forward a small detachment to hold the bridge and protect his flank. On the news that a Parliamentarian force was approaching from the North, which might be cut off, this detachment hastened its pace to such effect that a gap appeared between van and rear of the Royalist army. Waller was quick to seize the opportunity and threw a considerable force across a ford at Slat Mill, half a mile to the south of the bridge. Charles, however, regrouped his men in time to repulse Waller with considerable loss of men and material. By

evening the two armies were once more eyeing each other across the Cherwell. Charles sent a message of grace and pardon to Waller who replied that he had no power to treat and the next morning Charles decided to draw off without further engagement, his army being short of victuals and news coming in of a further Parliamentarian detachment marching to the relief of Waller. With little loss to himself, Charles had captured the whole of the enemy artillery train and inflicted considerable casualties. It was a resounding victory, an engagement that Charles liked to remember, and when his secretary, Sir Edward Walker, wrote a detailed account of the battle, Charles annotated the work himself.^[1]

Charles was now free to engage Essex and he turned southwestward, making for Exeter. He had learned while he was on the march that Henrietta-Maria had given birth to a daughter in the city on June 6, and at Buckingham on the 25th he began a letter to her that the requirements of battle left unfinished. After Cropredy Bridge, in the humble house at Williamscote where he slept, he completed the letter, but she never saw his loving words, for the letter was intercepted.

Dr Mayerne had come to her and Madame Peronne had been sent by her sister-in-law from France, but she remained ill and depressed in spite of the healthy, pretty little girl she had borne and called Henrietta after herself. She feared to be taken by the Parliamentarian forces now marching into the West, and her one obsession was escape. So, leaving her baby with Lady Dalkeith, she fled from Exeter with a handful of companions, including her faithful dwarf, Geoffrey Hudson. The dangers and privations of her journey were terrible, but at Falmouth a Dutch vessel, hired by Jermyn, was waiting and on July 14 she sailed for France. She still had to face bombardment by Parliament's ships and the storms that always dogged her, but she reached Brest two days later, only a year after her reunion with her husband at Edgehill. When Charles reached Exeter on July 26 his wife was on the road to Paris waiting to hear whether the waters of Amboise would help her to regain her health; but he fondled his baby daughter — the prettiest, so it had been reported to him, of all his children — and made arrangements for her christening in Exeter Cathedral.

Not only had he missed seeing Henrietta-Maria but, as he hastened westwards, the news from the North was bad. Rupert's approach to York had been sufficient to cause the besieging Parliamentarian armies to retire, fearing to be caught between the oncoming Rupert and Newcastle's men in the town. By a quick feint and a rapid march

Rupert bypassed them as he approached the city, putting the river Swale between his forces and theirs and triumphantly calling upon Newcastle to join him. He then wheeled round to meet the Parliamentarian forces with the intention of crushing them before they had time to group. Thus he would be carrying out Charles's instructions to the letter: to relieve York and beat the rebels' army. Speed was the more necessary as he had not yet heard of Charles's victory at Cropredy Bridge and now pictured him sore beset and awaiting his nephew's return. The characters of Rupert and Newcastle, and an old rivalry dating from the war in Europe between Rupert and Lord Eythin, Newcastle's second, dashed Rupert's plans. Rupert did not stop for the courtesies of the occasion; he spoke to Newcastle, who was twice his age even if less than half as good as a soldier, as though he were the junior officer. Newcastle courteously hid his resentment but he was slow in following Rupert; Eythin encouraged his men to demand their pay before engaging further. Rupert was left on Marston Moor far below the strength he needed and, as he waited for Newcastle and Eythin, the enemy had time enough for their own dispositions. It was four in the afternoon of July 2 before Eythin followed Newcastle to the field, bringing up his foot. He was then dissatisfied with Rupert's dispositions and, though it was too late to alter the plan, it was six or seven in the evening before all was in place. Meanwhile Rupert could hear across the moor the psalms which Cromwell's troopers were accustomed to sing, prompting his question to a captured Parliamentarian soldier: 'Is Cromwell there?'

He was not expecting battle that night, and with other Royalist commanders was preparing to eat his supper when the enemy attacked, their combined forces numbering some 26–27,000 to Rupert's 17–18,000. Moreover, the surprise caused Rupert to lose the initial impact of his cavalry, upon which he relied. Though his men fought hard and bravely the Parliamentarian victory was complete by the end of the day when 4000 Royalist dead lay on the battlefield. Rupert had interpreted Charles's letter to mean the relief of York and the defeat of the Parliamentarian armies. Victory in the field had gone to 'old Ironsides', as Rupert now termed Cromwell in reference to the impenetrable strength of his troops. York surrendered on July 16. Newcastle 'in shame', as he said, at the magnitude of the defeat, left the country together with Eythin and other officers, Rupert collected what men he could and made his way south through Lancashire, too short of ammunition for any engagement.^[2]

Charles, meantime, in spite of his wife's departure and the bad news from the North, had been conscious since the end of June of a feeling resembling satisfaction, almost of fulfilment, as though the earlier events of his life were falling into place: the war-games of his youth; the hours he spent in his cabinet room as a young man seeking escape from the difficulties outside which were too personal to be resolved; the fling for independence when he rode off to seek the Infanta's hand. He was fighting now in a cause he had been brought up to believe was right and he was in full command — unlike the years at Whitehall when Parliaments and Privy Council, ministers and courtiers had bullied him beyond belief and talked incessantly, driving him to the solace of his pictures. Even at Oxford they were doing the same; and at Oxford there were too many military commanders. Now he was on his own, now was the time for action, with one simple task before him. He was, as Roe had perceptively remarked years before, at his best when alone, acting in the awareness of his own responsibility. He did the things he wanted to do. He took the Prince of Wales to a great concourse of people on Dartmoor. 'Your cheerfulness in this service I shall requite if it be in my power', he said to them; 'if I live not to do it, I hope this young man, my son, your fellow soldier, to whom I shall particularly give it in charge, will do so.' When he made contact with the enemy he was in no hurry to strike but awaited the right moment. He knew the game was in his hands.

When Charles entered Exeter, Essex was at Tavistock, having had an easy march and being satisfied that Plymouth was safe, though he was well aware of the danger in his rear and sent urgently to Parliament for reinforcements. Yet, in spite of the difficulties of his situation, or because he hoped for Cornish support, or because he had designs on the profitable tin mines whose proceeds were helping to support Charles, or merely because some of his followers held land in Cornwall and were anxious to inspect it, Essex pushed further on into the peninsular and crossed the Tamar on July 27. Charles could have predicted the welcome he got, for Cornwall was Royalist to a man, and, in steady pursuit, he rode into Liskeard on August 2 while Essex moved to Bodmin and Sir Richard Grenville occupied Grampound, hoping to catch Essex between the two Royalist forces. Essex struck due south towards the sea, where the chance of being cut off was less, and reached Lostwithiel on August 3. Skilfully and without haste Charles set to work to contain him. On the 4th he occupied Boconnock, Lord Mohun's house, lying to the East; on the 12th Grenville

seized Lord Robart's house at Lanhydrock and secured the Respryn Bridge over the Fowey river, which effectively shut Essex in on his landward side. Charles then turned his attention to the seaward side of Essex's position. Essex had control of the western arm of Fowey harbour but Royalist forces took possession of key positions on the opposite side, nearer the mouth of the harbour, so that Essex was effectively blocked for exit or entrance. Charles was still in no hurry, and when Essex's cavalry rode out of Lostwithiel in the early hours of August 31 towards Plymouth he made no attempt to stop them.

It was different with the foot, and later that day battle was joined. Making a reconnaissance before the fighting started, Charles came under fire and a fisherman standing by him was killed. The King remained unmoved. Once more he fought in the midst of his army, he supped that night with his men on the field, and slept under a hedge during the wet, stormy night. By morning Essex had escaped to Plymouth leaving Skippon to accept Charles's terms, which were magnanimous enough, merely requiring the complete surrender of all their arms and equipment while the men were left free to make their way as best they might. What would he have done with prisoners? They would have required guards, food, lodging, and the difficulties of transporting them would have been considerable. Charles was probably pleased to see Essex go and he had no wish to take Skippon. The war had not yet reached the stage when the execution of a commander was considered just or helpful. But Charles had dispersed his opponents in the West, he had once more opened up the western thrust to London, and he had acquired 42 guns, a mortar, 100 barrels of powder, and 5000 small arms. It was perhaps not much to place against Marston Moor, and only about 16,000 Royalist horse and foot and 10,000 Parliamentarian had been involved in all, but it had revealed the inability of the Parliamentarian command to support its officers in the field and, in spite of the intervention of the Scots, in spite of Cromwell and his Ironsides, the autumn of 1644 was full of doubts for Parliament.^[3]

Charles, on the other hand, after a season of successful campaigning, had never felt better. As he turned to wards home his object was to relieve Banbury and to raise the seiges of Basing House and Donnington Castle — all garrisons useful to Oxford — before going into winter quarters. Marching slowly he reached Newbury on October 22. But the Parliamentarian generals had read his intentions correctly and were massed on Clay Hill, north of the river Kennet, to offer battle.

The second battle of Newbury was indecisive and about 500 men were killed on each side. Charles had no wish to risk further losses when he was outnumbered and victory was uncertain, so he drew off in the night to Wallingford and entered Oxford on the 28th. Scarcely pausing, he immediately, with an escort of 500 horse, made for Bath to consult with Rupert. The two left Bath together on the 30th with some 3000 horse and foot and came by way of Cirencester and Burford (where they left a detachment) to Oxford again, which they reached on November 1. Five days later Charles reviewed his army — 15,000 strong — on Bullingdon Green and announced the replacement of old Patrick Ruthven, Earl of Brentford, by Prince Rupert as Lieutenant General, with the Prince of Wales as titular Commander-in-Chief. He made one more foray to secure Donnington Castle and was riding at the head of his men, as usual, when, in a sharp little affray, his horse was wounded in the foot, but there was no serious resistance and he secured the Castle and took over the artillery which was stored there.

He returned to Oxford for the winter on November 23 1644 when the leaves had fallen from the trees and the mists were rising from the meadows. The old city looked dank and cheerless. The Court had shrunk, the courtiers' gossip was less shrill, the students had departed. Merton College was quiet once more and no one trod the private way between his room and Henrietta's. She was now in Paris, the guest of her sister-in-law who was Queen Regent during the minority of the little Louis XIV, somewhat better in health and beginning once more to seek aid for her husband. The letters had started coming through again but, because of headaches and eye-strain, she more often gave them to Jermyn to render into code; Jermyn also, Charles assumed, would decypher his letters to his wife. The knowledge was not pleasing to Charles. There had been various stories of the Queen's unfaithfulness: even when she was coming to meet him at Edgehill the gossips had spoken of too close a friendship with Lord Charles Cavendish, for whom she was rumoured to have delayed her journey. The Earl of Holland had figured largely in earlier days and Charles could not forget how assiduously Holland had courted her in her rooms at Merton. Impudent and scandalous remarks concerning the Queen and Henry Jermyn had recently come to his ears. Jermyn he knew as a faithful friend and servant to the Queen but he remembered how her first request on their meeting at Edgehill had been for a peerage for Jermyn. He was distressed but he was quite unbelieving of

any scandal. The actions of his nephew, the Elector Palatine, were in a different category. That young man had left England after the disastrous summoning of Hull, in which he considered he had played an undignified part, but had returned at the end of August, taken the Covenant, and attempted to ingratiate himself with the Parliament, letting the rumour gain ground that he would be willing to accept his uncle's throne. Even more sinister talk hung in the air, forgotten as soon as whispered, though it had reached Charles's ears, of an intention to depose him in favour of his son, the Prince of Wales.

More concretely his thoughts turned to his old friend, Archbishop Laud, whom he had not seen since the day he was placed under arrest. Laud had remained in prison, half forgotten, it seemed, during the early stages of the war. But Prynne had not forgiven and in the early spring of 1644 the old man was brought to the bar of the House of Lords to answer to a charge of treason brought forward by a Committee of the House of Commons based upon a case made out by Prynne in his usual style of verbose hatred, whose substance was that Laud had attempted to subvert the established religion and the very law itself. The trial resembled that of Strafford except that his accusers found it less interesting, wandering in and out of the chamber at will, rarely caring to devote their afternoons to listening to the prisoner's case which, week after week, for ten whole months, he laboured to put before them. It was difficult to make a charge of treason stick, and the procedure familiar in the trial of Strafford was carried through: first, the petitioning and the angry crowds at Westminster demanding the life of the Archbishop, then the Bill of Attainder. Strode spoke of the need for 'expedition' in the business and claimed that 'multitudes' were 'demanding justice'. 'Is this', cried Essex, who had borne the brunt of their fighting, 'the liberty which we promised to maintain with our blood? Shall posterity say that to save them from the yoke of the King we have placed them under the yoke of the populace?' The speaker carried no more weight than the argument. They were remodelling their armies and in the new command Essex would have no place.

Laud was executed on 10 January 1645, maintaining to the end that he lived and died in the Protestant religion as established in England and that he had laboured to keep a uniformity in the external worship of God according to the doctrine and discipline of that Church.^[4]

To Charles the news brought a strange justification of all he had

done, an expiation, through Laud, for the death of Strafford. In a letter to Henrietta-Maria a few days after the Archbishop's death he wrote:

Nothing can be more evident than that Strafford's innocent blood hath been one of the great causes of God's just judgment upon this nation by a furious civil war, both sides hitherto being almost equally guilty, but now this last crying blood being totally theirs, I believe it is no presumption hereafter to hope that the hand of justice must be heavier upon them and lighter upon us, looking now upon our cause, having passed through our faults.

The conduct of the trial, as well as the execution itself, confirmed his belief in the necessity to continue the war, and his interest was focused upon the strategy of the coming campaign rather than the tortuous or insulting peace proposals that were put to him from time to time.

Parliamentary Commissioners were in Oxford when he returned from the relief of Donnington Castle and he received them the following day — his old enemy Denzil Holles, and the lawyer, Bulstrode Whitelocke, for whom he had some respect. The basis of their proposals was ludicrous enough, entailing the setting up of Presbyterianism as the national religion and he himself taking the Covenant; and when they read the list of Royalists to be excluded from pardon the names included his nephews Rupert and Maurice. Charles was glad to hear the contemptuous laughter of his courtiers. He went that evening with Rupert to the Commissioners' lodgings. The talk was amiable enough but Charles treated them with a certain disdain. 'You told me twice', he said, 'that you had no power to treat . . . that you were only to deliver the propositions. A postillion might have done as much as you.' He therefore declined to give his answer in any form but in a sealed envelope which they were to deliver to Parliament. When they were reluctant to accept it he spoke sharply: 'You must take it', he said, 'were it a ballad or a song of Robin Hood.' When the packet was opened by Parliament it was found to contain nothing but a request for a safe conduct for two of the King's advisers to bring his formal answer to Westminster. The humiliation of the two Commissioners was probably in bad taste, but it was his way of replying to their insult to his nephews. The substance of his reply, when it was sent for discussion at Uxbridge in January 1645, was in the remark he made when taking formal leave of the Commissioners: 'There are three things I will not part with — the Church, my crown, and my friends; and you will have much ado to get them from me.'^[5]