THE GREAT CIVIL WAR.* MR. GARDINER'S latest volume deals with
a brief but eventful period of English history, specially noticeable for the steady decline of the King's prospects, and the growing influence of that Parliament which, in its turn, had to yield to the superior power of the Army. The two Self-Denying Ordinances, the New Model, the execution of Archbishop Laud, Montrose's campaign in Scotland, the Battles of Naseby and Rowton Heath, the massacre of Philiphaugh, the storming of Basing House, Fairfax's successes in the West, the struggle between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, the question of toleration or no toleration, and the surrender of the King by the Scots to the Parliamentary Commissioners at Newcastle,—are the prominent incidents in Mr. Gardiner's book, and certainly they are stirring enough to attract the most indifferent reader. They date from the latter part of 1644 to the beginning of 1647, taking up the thread of the Civil War at a time when the whole country was in a state of ferment and excitement. The Royalist forces were in a bad plight after their defeats at Marston Moor and Newbury, whilst the Parliamentary army was in a discontented and de- moralised condition ; for, apart from other causes, strife had broken out on the question of military efficiency. In the House of Commons, Cromwell was attacking the Earl of Man- chester, and ascribing to his "personal wrongheadedness" every mistake that had been made. The partisans of rigid Presby- * History of the Great Civil War, 160-1649. By Samuel R. Gardiner, M.A. Vol. IL, 16444647. London Longmans, Green, and Co. 1889. terianism, which it was demanded in various quarters should be tile religion of the country, as the "only fitting govern- ment for the Church," were active and persistent in their efforts; whilst the Scots were irritated against Cromwell, and had persuaded Essex and Holies to look favourably on a plan for accusing him as an incendiary between the two countries. It was when the air was rife with the elements of mischief, that propositions for peace were drawn up and despatched to the King at Oxford ; but they came to nothing, and only served to widen the breach and intensify the passions on either side. The King received the Peace Commissioners on his return from the relief of Donnington Castle, and after detaining them for three or four days, dismissed them with the remark "I will not part with—the Church, my crown, and my friends ; and you will have much ado to get them from me." It was at this juncture, too, that the Eastern Association began to complain that it was no longer able to bear the charge of maintaining its troops, and called on Parliament to provide a remedy.
Mr. Gardiner has carefully described the growth of the New Model. It was in November (1644) that, the system of main- taining an army for general purposes by local contributions having broken down, it devolved upon the Committee of both Kingdoms to "consider of a frame or model of the whole Militia," and so to form a new army wholly at the disposal of Parliament. The Committee decided that, irrespective of local forces, the army ought to consist of 21,000 men, and that its pay, which was the all-important matter, should be met by taxes imposed every month, and not be dependent on the caprice of a political assembly or a county committee. "These taxes were to be assessed on the counties least exposed to the stress of war, whilst those in which the conflict was raging might be left to support the local garrisons and any special force which they might think good to employ in their own defence." The scheme was adopted by the House of Commons in January, 1645, and by the House of Lords the following month, Sir Thomas Fairfax being nominated Commander-in-Chief of the new Army. As many as 8,460 men were needed to fill the ranks, and these were obtained, not by voluntary enlistment, but by coercion, the French Ambassador going so far as to state that in London young men were seized in the streets and carried off forcibly to serve against the King. The City lent L80,000. towards the preliminary expenses. No distinction of rank was recognised, and amongst the new military leaders were Hewson the cobbler and Pride the dairyman ; but the gentry of England were largely represented in the list of officers. Mr. Gardiner quotes Markham's statement, that it was calculated that" out of thirty-seven Generals and Colonels "who took part in the first great battle, "twenty-one were commoners of good families, nine were members of noble families, and only seven were not gentlemen by birth." This new army, aided by Cromwell's Ironsides and paid with regularity, soon showed signs of that vigour and discipline which were to prove so formidable at Naseby and elsewhere, when brought face to face with the less disciplined and worse-paid Royalist infantry, and which later on was to overrule the Parliament which had brought it into existence, and at whose bidding alone it was meant to act.
We think Mr. Gardiner has treated somewhat too briefly the military proceedings which followed the surrender of Mont- gomery Castle early in September, 1644, to Sir Thomas Myddelton. He says :—" On September 18th, an attempt made by Lord Byron and Sir Michael Ernely to regain the fortress was signally defeated by a combination of Parlia- mentary forces under the command of Sir John Meldrum.' This is true ; but the " attempt " involved a severe engagement between the 3,000 troops under Sir John Meldrum and nearly 5,000 under Lord Byron, in which 500 of the latter were killed and 1,200 or more taken prisoners, whilst Sir William Fairfax, who commanded the Parliamentary horse, received his death- wound. Moreover, Mr. Gardiner omits to mention that, after the surrender of Montgomery Castle to Sir Thomas Myddelton, and prior to the engagement just referred to, Sir Michael Ernely had defeated Sir Thomas Myddelton and obliged him to seek shelter with his cavalry in Oswestry, whilst Colonel Mytton retired with his foot-soldiers within the fortress, Sir Michael Ernely retaining possession of the town for the ten days preceding his final defeat. The importance of Sir John Meldrum's victory, and its break-up of the Royalist power in North Wales, seems to us, judging by the pro.
portion of events, to deserve more than the passing notice which Mr. Gardiner has bestowed upon it. He has been at infinite pains to give an accurate description of the Battle of Naseby, and has succeeded, with the co-opera- tion of Colonel Ross, in clearing up doubts as to the exact site of the battle and the number of troops on either side. Contemporary writers were wont to tell of a virtual equality of the two armies in point of numbers ; but Mr. Gardiner, supported in his judgment by Colonel Ross, has arrived at the conclusion that the King's troops mustered but 7,500, whereas the Parliamentary army numbered 13,500 or 14,000, a difference that greatly discounts the prestige of those who won. Both Mr. Gardiner and Colonel Ross obtained their numerical results quite independently of one another, and it must be a satisfaction both to themselves and their readers that they are at one in upsetting the traditional figures. Mr. F. Harrison, the author of the recent laudatory Life of Oliver Cromwell, prefers, like the older historians, to estimate each army at about 10,000 men ; his book, one of the series of Twelve Eminent Statesmen, was published, we believe, just before Mr. Gardiner's volume, but subsequent to Colonel Ross's paper in the English Historical Review for October, 1888; so that it was open to him to have accepted the figures of the latter had he been so inclined.
We notice that Mr. Gardiner's account of the assault and capture of Bristol by General Fairfax on September 10th, 1645, does not altogether tally with that of other writers. He states that, prior to the attack, the superior officers at a council of war gave it as their opinion that, "though they might resist a first assault, they must inevitably succumb to a second ;" the judgment of the Colonel of Posts, on the other hand, being that, "if we could repel one general storm, the enemy would be discouraged from attempting the second time." This rather indicates a difference of opinion as to the extent of the discontent prevailing in the city when Fairfax appeared before the walls. If it were general, and the officers were, as Mr. Gardiner thinks, "as despondent as the soldiers," it is doubtful if they would have fought with as much spirit as they did. It is stated in the Fairfax correspondence that the Parliamentary forces had "borne much distress for several days from sudden sallies of the besieged," and that "nearly all the forts and bulwarks gave way after a resistance hardly less heroic than the devotion of the storming parties." This points to a far more spirited resistance on the part of Prince Rupert than Mr. Gardiner would seem to admit. He further credits Fairfax with being the first to propose terms of surrender, he being "unwilling to involve citizens and soldiers in useless slaughter;" but is it not a fact that Rupert, seeing that all was lost, fired the town in three places, and sent a trumpet amidst the flames to propose a treaty of surrender, which was accepted ? Mr. Gardiner does not refer to the reply sent by Prince Rupert to the King after the latter bad written to upbraid him for his surrender of Bristol, and to dismiss him from all his offices. In this letter, Prince Rupert justified his course of action, and asked the King to allow him an opportunity of clearing himself. This, as is well known, was eventually done at Newark in the following month, after a council of war had been held, and the Prince had explained matters, the King announcing himself satisfied that his nephew was "not guilty of any the least want of courage or fidelity in the surrender of Bristol,"—the exact words being, we believe, "to Us or Our Service in that Action."
Mr. Gardiner naturally has a good deal to say about Crom- well. We find him in the earlier part of this volume working with ceaseless energy at the New Model and the Self-Denying Ordinance, and in the hurrying forward of these important measures it became evident that in Parliament, as in the battle- field, he was a born leader of men. Mr. Gardiner does not expect his readers to accept his view of Cromwell's political character as evolved by the evidence in this volume. He considers 1647 the crucial year of Cromwell's career, and this will be dealt with in the next volume, when he will account for his present deductions, and show how at the beginning of that year Cromwell was regarded by his opponents as a "skilful and dangerous antagonist," whilst at its close he was regarded by two great parties as a "cunning and successful hypocrite." We wish Mr. Gardiner bad given more personal glimpses not only of him, but of the other leading characters. In building up his narrative, he does not impress his readers with his own con- ception of the men whose lives he has studied so closely, and whose actions he has dissected with a master-hand, and he leaves few touches by which one could form any idea of the personal appearance of either Cromwell, or Fairfax, or Montrose. He tells us what they did, but they do not take hold of the imagination, nor do they remain in the memory. We remember the events, but we recall no familiar face or figure. We should have liked to know whether, in his opinion, the portraits of Cromwell by Cooper and Lely are more trustworthy and lifelike than those by Walker and Faithorne. If history is made up of events, events are made up of individuals, and it would heighten the interest in both to know something of the looks of the chief personages ; but we must not carp at a book which is full of merit, and which deserves the gratitude of every student of English history. Anybody who desires to have the latest and most accurate information about the Great Civil War, will go as a matter of course to Mr. Gardiner's book ; and in this volume, as in its predecessor, he will not only find the subject treated in the same broad, conscientious manner which characterised his work on the earlier part of the seventeenth century, but he will find some excellent maps and plans to help him in his investigations.
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