God’s FURY, England’s FIRE
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The uncontroversial core of the alliance with the Covenanters was the promotion of the preaching of the Word, and the attack on idolatry and superstition.27 Although this had been an important element of the parliamentary coalition in 1642, further reformation was controversial in England. Escalation of the war effort in the first half of 1643 had been accompanied by the definition of the cause – defensive arms (Husbands) and further reformation (the Harley Committee and Cheapside Cross). The Solemn League and Covenant reinforced this latter element, of purgation, making Parliament ever more committed to reform of forms of worship and the ritual calendar. This was of real significance to every parish in the country – the demands of this alliance were considerable. The more so, too, since this effort at purgation was closely tied to the negotiation of a Presbyterian church settlement in England. As events would prove, this was highly controversial even among those committed to the other features of this further reformation.
Royalist politics were hardly straightforward, either. Charles’s diplomacy threw into sharp relief the longstanding question about his trustworthiness. The Cessation was difficult to reconcile with an attempt to woo moderate opinion in Scotland or England, and his major initiative of the final months of 1643 seems similarly instrumental. On 22 December he summoned all those who had left the Westminster parliament to attend a parliament in Oxford, along with all those who might now be willing to come. It was to meet on 22 January. This was a shrewd move, of course, raising in acute form the question of what kind of parliament was now sitting at Westminster – armed with legislation preventing dissolution without its own consent, and following the departure of the King and many members of both Houses, and the assumption of unprecedented executive powers, it was reasonably easy to question the extent to which this could still be considered a parliament. When the Oxford parliament met, 44 peers and 137 commoners were said to have attended – the majority of able-bodied peers and a substantial proportion of the Commons – which represented a considerable propaganda coup. In fact, if those willing but unable to attend are added, Charles would have had the support of 175 members of the Commons. Between the autumn of 1642 and January 1649 average attendance at the Westminster House of Lords was less than twenty, and the active membership of the Commons was below 200.28
But this is difficult to interpret as a genuine commitment on Charles’s part to the virtues of parliaments. He had been reluctant to call the parliament, fearing that it would just press him to make accommodation and peace. On the other hand, it promised to rally support against a proposed invasion by the Scots, and given the balance of the political arguments, he seems to have been persuaded by the constitutional argument. He was restrained from dissolving the Westminster parliament, as advised by hardliners, on the grounds that this would be in breach of legislation he himself agreed in the summer of 1641, and would therefore both cancel the advantage he was seeking to claim, and make him appear untrustworthy, a primary charge against him.29
The force of the charge derived from his simultaneous pursuit of different and sometimes contradictory policies. Prior to the negotiation of the Cessation he had sought further help from Denmark, which had supplied arms in November 1642, but the terms demanded in May 1643 included handing over the Orkneys and Shetland, terms which would cost him dear in Scotland. From November 1643 an envoy was in Paris seeking French help. The Cessation was the best deal he could get, not necessarily the one closest to his heart. Over the winter of 1643-4, he was persuaded by the hardliners of Henrietta Maria’s circle to seek a final peace in Ireland, while at the same time he was open to ‘plots’ – a plan to secure the delivery of the garrison of Aylesbury by disgruntled separatists called the ‘Ogle plot’ and another attempt to divide the authorities of the City of London from Parliament, called the ‘Brooke plot’.30
All this has often persuaded historians that Charles was indeed untrustworthy. For many historians it has seemed easy to add a list of pejoratives – inept, calculating, instrumental, inconsistent, and so on. He was not unprincipled, however. His primary purpose was to preserve the dignity of the crown and integrity of the church, duties for which he was answerable to God. Those with whom he was dealing were rebels and traitors; they were not his equals, and did not share his obligations. Later in the 1640s this principled position was transmuted into an image of the suffering monarch – bearing burdens on behalf of his ungrateful subjects, and willing to suffer at their hands rather than surrender his sacred obligations.31 These principles were consistent and sincere, and made his behaviour internally consistent and honourable; but it made him appear slippery and untrustworthy. He was a difficult king to like. Of course, another pressure making for apparent inconsistency was division among his counsellors, and as their influence waxed and waned so did royalist policies – in this respect the royalist coalition was no more shifty than the parliamentarians. Parliament, for example, was quite capable of negotiating for peace on the basis of established rights and liberties while at the same time seeking to win the war using administrative instruments which undoubtedly violated those principles. In a peculiar way, then, Charles and his critics agree on one thing – that he should be judged by different standards.
The Cessation also introduced an ethnic dimension into the conflict in England. Irish involvement in the war was easily misrepresented, and prompted reactions which were, to the modern observer, grotesque. Newspaper reports over the coming years gave a cumulative estimate that more than 22,000 troops had arrived from Ireland, of whom the majority might have been native Irish rather than Protestant troops returned from service against the Catholics. Clearly an army of this size would have had a very substantial effect on the fighting, but this almost certainly reflected contemporary fears rather than reality. More recent estimates have put the figure much lower – most recently and most authoritatively at a little more than 9,000. It is more difficult to estimate the proportion of native Irish, but there is little evidence to support an estimate higher than 2,000. Remarkably, some of these 2,000 deserted to the parliamentary cause, along with many of their Anglo-Irish colleagues.32 With a downward revision of the estimated size of the army has come a consequent revision of the strategic benefit to the royalist cause of these soldiers.33
There is no disagreement about the propaganda effect, however, and fear of these armed papists threatened to introduce England to a fuller experience of wartime atrocity. On 23 October the first regiments arrived from Ireland and it quickly became clear that the terms of engagement with Irish troops were different. On 26 December, Byron’s royalist forces had trapped a detachment of parliamentarians in Barthomley Church and put them all to the sword. When Byron’s troops were defeated a month later at Nantwich, the parliamentary press made much of the fact that the 120 women captured had been carrying knives more than half a yard long, with a hook at the end, ‘made not only to stab, but to tear the flesh from the very bones’. One newsbook recommended that they ‘be put to the sword, or tied back to back and cast into the sea’.34 This played on more general fears about the Irish: ‘Do you imagine… the Irish rebels will be [any] more merciful to you, your wives and children than they were to the Protestants in Ireland?’35 Attitudes like these informed a hostility to the Irish troops that was barely restrained. In mid-December, following the capture of a minor royalist garrison at Beoley House in Worcestershire, all troops thought to be Irish had been put to the sword. One hundred and fifty troops intercepted en route from Ireland the following April by Vice-Admiral Richard Swanley were taken to Pembroke in triumph before, on St George’s Day, being tied back to back and thrown into the sea. One newsbook reported with glee how they had been ‘caused to use their natural art, and try whether they could tread the seas as lightly as their Irish bogs’.36
These atrocities invited responses, of course, and threatened that the war would lose all restraint. At Bolton in May 1644 parliamentary forces defending the town, having repulsed an attack, took a prisoner and ‘hung him up as an Irish
papist’ in full view of his comrades. When the town fell many were slain out of hand in reprisal. At Lyme, Dorset, in June a royalist siege was abandoned. In the deserted royalist camp parliamentarian seamen found ‘an old Irish woman’, looking for her friends, who she had thought were still there. The seamen dragged her back to Lyme, ‘drove her through the streets to the seaside, slashed and hewed her with their swords’ before casting her corpse into the sea. Following the capture in Dorset of Irish troops, apparently native Irish who could not speak English, Essex had written to approve their execution: ‘if the Irish he [the local commander] has taken prove to be absolute Irish, he may cause them to be executed: for he would not have quarter allowed to those’.37
By the autumn of 1644 this was near to official policy. On 24 October the English parliament passed an ordinance that no quarter should be offered to Irishmen or papists born in Ireland taken in arms against Parliament. They were to be exempt from all surrender agreements and, following any surrender, parliamentary officers were ordered ‘forthwith to put every such person to death’. Officers failing to do so ‘shall be reputed a favourer of that bloody rebellion of Ireland’ and subject to such punishment as the Houses thought fit.38 A similar order followed in Scotland, on 23 December 1645, that Irish prisoners should be executed without trial.39 But the fear of reprisal seems to have restrained this escalation. Days after the execution of the Irish prisoners in Dorset twelve parliamentarian prisoners, civilians, were hanged ‘upon the same tree’ by Sir Francis Doddington. Following the passage of the ordinance of 1644 thirteen Irish prisoners had been hanged after Shrewsbury fell to the parliamentarians. Prince Rupert immediately hanged thirteen Protestant English in retaliation, explaining that ‘soldiers of [his] were barbarously murdered in cold blood, after quarter given to them’.‘[L]et the authors of that massacre know, their own men must pay the price of such acts of inhumanity, and… be used as they used their brethren… in the same manner’.40
Hostility to the Irish threatened to change the terms of engagement, reflecting the power of the fear rather than actual size, composition and importance of the Irish armies. There were other groups who attracted similar, though by no means identical, hostility. The Cornish were talked about as if they were not English by their opponents, and hostile stereotypes of the Welsh were common in cheap print – as buffoons or near pagans. So relentless was this campaign that it informed attempts to propagate the gospel in Wales during the 1650s. Parallels were frequently drawn between the royalism of Cornwall and of Wales, resting it was said on ignorance and simplicity; the bumpkins were said to be dupes of the King. Covenanters on the other hand were presented as invaders, while Highlanders who fought against the Covenanters in 1645 were presented as barbarians in both England and Scotland.41 But although these ethnic identities were clearly important to the paper battles, it was the Irish who were singled out as being beyond the reach of the laws of war, and that was related fairly specifically to the rising of 1641. Significantly, the ordinance denying them quarter in 1644 had applied the same judgement to ‘papists’, presumably independent of their ethnicity, and those who failed to kill them were deemed to be supporters of the rebellion.42 Certainly, there seems to have been a qualitative difference between satirical accounts of cowardly Welsh bumpkins and Irish barbarians deserving only of death.43
From Edgehill in October 1642 until the arrival of Irish troops a year later, the English war had been exactly that: a war between English armies albeit one fought in the context of a wider crisis of the Stuart crowns. As a result of the Solemn League and Covenant and the Irish Cessation, however, England became the cockpit of a war of all three kingdoms. Henceforth ethnic identities had an impact on the conduct of war in England, and on its representation in print. When military victory was achieved in England, it did not resolve this wider military conflict. Moreover these alliances not only made the English war part of a war of three kingdoms, but also made it easier to claim it was a religious war, since there were, it was plausibly claimed, Catholics clearly engaged on one side. Royalists paid a high price for this alliance with popery.
In the short term, what saved Parliament’s cause was not the Solemn League and Covenant, but the failure of the royalists to turn their position of strength into a decisive victory. The decision to move on Gloucester rather than London, and then to lay siege rather than storm it, had allowed Essex time to march to the relief of the city. There then followed a race as Essex sought to withdraw again to London, pursued by Rupert’s army.
In the late afternoon of 19 September, Essex’s quartermasters entered Newbury to arrange quarters and supplies for the main army. Not long after, however, Rupert’s horse arrived, taking a number of prisoners and securing the town for the royalist army. This put the royal army between Essex and London, and on the following day a major battle was fought between armies numbering about 14,000 men each. Although the royalists had the advantage of taking Newbury, which afforded food and more comfortable quarters, they failed to secure the high ground on what became the battlefield. Confused fighting carried on into the night, but the parliamentary army managed to retain control of the Round Hill, thanks largely to the efforts of the London Trained Bands. The result was indecisive, rather than a clear parliamentarian victory, but the royalists withdrew and had suffered the loss of prominent officers. More importantly, if Essex’s army had lost, the parliamentary cause would have been severely damaged: the north and west were secure for the royalists, Waller was in London and so, with central England under royalist domination, parliamentary armies would effectively have been confined to the immediate environs of London and East Anglia. Even with Covenanter troops promised this would have been a bleak prospect indeed. By not losing, Essex had achieved an important victory for the parliamentary cause. He was able to push on to Reading and London was again secure. The royalists, having chosen not to engage with Essex again on the day after the battle, withdrew to Oxford.44 On his return to London, Essex received the thanks of the Commons and reviewed the Trained Bands. On 28 September the troops sent out to relieve Gloucester returned, also to a warm welcome.45
Further good news for Parliament followed in September and October, as royalist forces regrouped. Following a parliamentary victory at Gains- borough in July (notable for the importance and discipline of the cavalry under the command of Oliver Cromwell), the parliamentary troops had withdrawn from the town. But in the autumn they rallied again and, drawing troops from around the region, won another engagement at Winceby (11 October). Hull remained in parliamentary hands, an important limitation on royalist domination of the north, and the position of Hull was improved when the Earl of Manchester lifted a siege of Lynn (16 September). This freed troops for action elsewhere, and on 12 October the siege of Hull was also lifted. Newport Pagnell, an important garrison on the Great North Road, was abandoned by the royalists on 28 October and occupied by Essex two days later. Skirmishing in the west followed Ralph (now Lord) Hopton’s return to the field, armed with a new commission, following recovery from wounds received when barrels of gunpowder exploded accidentally following the battle of Lansdown. Here, too, fortune no longer seemed to be so clearly favouring the royalists.46
Overall, the late summer and autumn saw a slight but significant shift in military fortune and this was of tremendous political significance. In particular, the lifting of the siege of Gloucester and the return of Essex via Newbury, bloodied but still intact, secured London for the winter and prevented an outright military victory. These victories, turning a tide of royalist success, were important for morale. On the day that Essex arrived back in London the Commons swore to the Covenant.
Over the winter there were no formal peace negotiations. Parliament had survived the campaign season, concluded its treaty with the Covenanters and put the finishing touches to its war effort. A South-Eastern Association was formed on 4 November 1643 under Waller’s command and, on 4 December 1643, steps were taken to ensure the regular payment of Essex’s troops
from the receipts of the excise and assessment. This was in part a response to the difficulties that Waller faced in persuading his London levies to stick with the campaign as winter approached, and to the difficulties of supply that had hampered Essex earlier in the summer.47 On 20 January the military effectiveness of the Eastern Association was improved by giving the Earl of Manchester control over the assessment revenues from the region, in place of the constituent county committees. Moreover, the assessment was increased to a massive £33,780 per month. Using this legislation he was able to establish central treasuries and supply departments in Cambridge which supported a formidable army the following year.48 Pym had therefore masterminded a round of administrative reforms throughout 1643 designed to strengthen Parliament’s military position. With a new military alliance in place, and with a firmer administrative structure taking shape, Parliament was not, over the winter 1643/4, committed to peace negotiations.