THE GREAT CIVIL WAR.*
M. GARDINER'S new volume deals with the history of our great Civil War from August, 1642, when Charles I. unfurled his standard at Nottingham, to November, 1644, when he entered Oxford in triumph, the interval embracing all the important actions fought during the war, except that of Naseby in 1645. The general excellence of Mr. Gardiner's History of England from the opening of the seventeenth century to the fall of the Monarchy in 1642, has led historical readers to give a ready welcome to this new instalment, which was to take up the thread of the other work, and resume his narrative of this most interesting epoch of English history. They must not, however, be unmindful of the disconnected elements which mark the events of this unsettled period, nor underestimate the difficulty of moulding their scattered details into history. It must also be borne in mind that neither the desultory skirmishing nor the decisive engagements of 1642 and 1643 formed parts of any concerted plan of operations. Each step was taken inde- pendently by each leader, and strongly influenced by local surroundings. It has, therefore, been a laborious task for Mr. Gardiner to compile a connected narrative out of such piecemeal materials, whilst the labour was greatly increased by the bulk of materials at his disposal and the vast amount of sifting that was needed. The contemporary pamphlets, tracts, and manuscripts in the British Museum, the diaries of D'Ewes, Whitacre, and Tango, the books of the Committee of Both Kingdoms in the Record Office, the Carter manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, and the Tanner and Clarendon collections, are among the more profitable sources of information into which Mr. Gardiner has freely dipped to help him with this volume ; and he has certainly had abundant scope for exercising that judgment and fairness which always stamp his historical writing. In addition to the maps of the principal battlefields, there are some larger ones of England and Wales, coloured so as to show at a glance the relative strength of the contending parties at four different periods ; and these have been prepared with the help of contemporary newspapers, letters, and records. The out- break of the war, which had been threatening for some time, was at length "rendered inevitable," writes Mr. Gardiner, " by the inadequacy of the intellectual methods of the day to effect a reconciliation between opposing moral and social forces, which derived their strength from the past development of the nation," whilst " no permanent restoration of harmony would be possible till some compromise, which would give security alike to the disciples of Hooker and to the disciples of Calvin, had been not only thought out by the few, but generally accepted by the many." The events dealt with in this volume testify both to the difficulty of effecting this compromise, and, notwithstanding the frequent cries of " Peace, peace I" from all quarters, to the remoteness of the chance of finding any common basis for adjustment. Mr. Gardiner agrees with Clarendon and D'Ewes in regarding the religious question of the day as at the bottom of the quarrel, and takes considerable pains to indicate its numerous bearings, and the variety of parties interested in its solution. Though men like Spencer, Southampton, and Carnarvon, who gathered round Falkland, had little reverence for Bishops, they greatly dreaded a Puritan domination, with the mental narrowness of its teachers and the social changes it would entail. Such men, however, were as much opposed to the rale of the soldier as to that of the Calvinist preacher, whilst their intellectual and • Hieing/ 4/ the Great Gina War, 1642.1649. Samuel R. Gardiner, LL.D. Vol. L.1642.1644. London Longman, Green, nod Co. 1886.
social position combined brought them into sharp antagonism with the military party. On the whole, the nobility and gentry took the side of the King, and the townsmen and yeomanry that of the Parliament, Mr. Gardiner showing that as the noblest elements of the former were favourable to peace, so the noblest elements of the Parliamentary party were favourable to war. Mr. Gardiner confesses to a feeling of diffidence in writing about war when he is neither a soldier himself nor knows anything of the military art ; but he consoles himself with the thought that it is possible to have an intimate acquaintance with tactics, and yet know little of the true causes of permanent success in war. Unable to describe battles which he has not seen, as if he had seen them, he yet considers it part of the historian's task to de. scribe them with truthfulness as far as his materials will permit, and he has, therefore, thought it right to visit and examine for himself the fields on which the various engagements took place. The battle-maps he has prepared are the result of much examination and consultation, and in some instances Mr. Gardiner is so dissatisfied with the details of existing maps, that he has preferred allowing his to be less full than to fill up the gaps by conjecture. He has taken infinite pains to represent in detail the Battles of Edgehill, Newbury, and Marston Moor ; and in estimating the general effect of the engagement at Edgehill, he comes to much the same conclusion as Mr. T. Arnold (who has published an exhaustive study of this battle), though he differs with him as to the movements of that small part of the Parliamentary cavalry which remained steadfast. Mr. Gardiner has founded his account of the Battle of Stratton on Clarendon's description, though unable, after a personal examination of the locality, to accept it in its integrity; neither is the Ordnance Map sufficiently accurate to satisfy Mr. Gardiner's exacting standard. He gives a graphic and com- prehensive account of the Battle of Newbury, recognising the value of Mr. Money's Two Battles of Newbury as soon as he had visited with him the site of the battle. After a thorough study of the locality, and a lengthy correspondence with Mr. Money on certain disputed points, these two authorities cannot entirely agree. Mr. Gardiner admits that on many points he has given way before Mr. Money's local knowledge, but he cannot accept the latter's surmise of a victorious charge, led by Essex, at the end of the day. Moreover, he holds that the battle presents some difficulties incapable of explanation, as much from the various narratives being so isolated, as from their vague- ness as to time and locality. He has a poor opinion of the morale of the Royalist army on this occasion. Each side claimed the victory ; but if, up to the moment of the King's retreat, the Parliamentarians had failed to gain their object, at least, says Mr. Gardiner, they had shown themselves the better soldiers. He considers that, though the Royalist gentry could fling themselves upon death with romantic heroism, they had lost touch of the middle and lower classes ; whilst they were unable to inspire the common man with their own courage, because they had no living faith in which he could share. This must be somewhat conjectural, for the growing superiority of the Parliamentary troops quite probably lay in the extra drill and sterner discipline to which they were subjected. We doubt if they were more attached to their leaders than their opponents, who, with their families, were often the retainers and adherents of their officers. Confidence in a commander's skill is a stronger element of success than personal devotion ; and we are inclined to disagree with Mr. Gardiner's statement that the Royalist officers had at this juncture lost touch of their men. Those soldiers on either side who had been seasoned by a year's campaigning were equally to be depended on by their leaders ; whilst the raw levies on either side were equally untrustworthy. It appears to us that when the London apprentices turned their backs on Basing House, and refused to obey their officers and advance to the assault, they showed even greater insubordination than the Yorkshiremen who declined to quit their county, and leave their homes exposed to the mercy of the Parliamentary soldiers, in order to march on London.
Mr. Gardiner has a touching admiration for Lord Falkland, who was killed at the Battle of Newbury, and would like some monument erected to his memory, but does not indicate what form it should take. He first refers to one that gracefully couples his name with those of Carnarvon and Sunderland, who also fell in this battle, but considers it a memorial suitable to a Rupert, and as each depriving Falkland of his special claim to the loving memory of future generations. His glory was, in Mr. Gardiner's opinion, that when other eyes persisted in seeing nothing but party divisions, Falkland had persisted in seeing England as a whole, and that he had thus ceased to be in accord either with the party he had joined, or with that he had deserted. We question whether history does, as Mr. Gardiner declares, "take notice of the aspiration as well as the accomplishment." It may agree with him that Falkland's heart was large enough to embrace all that was noble on either side, but that might be said equally of many who meant well, but were cut off prematurely ; and if special memorials were to be erected to all such, England would resemble one vast necropolis. Mr. Gardiner admits that Falkland threw away his life by an act that can hardly be distinguished from suicide, yet he did this neither as the leader of a forlorn hope nor by an act of reckless bravery. If he saw so much that was reprehensible in both parties that he could not work with either, it would have been well to withdraw from scenes in which he had no sympathy with either side ; but the fact that he wantonly terminated his life because he was tired of it and could not mould men to his way of thinking, hardly entitles him to be idolised by posterity.
We notice that Mr. Gardiner gives the date of the outbreak of the Civil War, as announced by the floating of the King's Standard at Nottingham, as August 22nd, whilst Rapin gives August 25th, and Dngdale August 12th. Mr. Gardiner is so care- ful with his details, that we hesitate to question his accuracy here, and the more so since in his admirable little book, The Puritan Bevolution, he has given the same day. Though the raising of the Royal Standard is always regarded as the outward and visible sign of the commencement of the war, it was not really so, for not only was Dover Castle surprised by the Parliamentary forces on August 21st, and Coventry found defying the King on the 20th; but some weeks earlier, Newcastle and Tinmouth Castle had been seized by the King's orders, Hull had been besieged, and Portsmouth blockaded. In the absence, however, of a formal declaration of war, the definite and palpable action of the King at Nottingham must still be looked upon as the practical opening of the war, and therefore the date of such a landmark should be fixed beyond controversy. Mr. Gardiner does not allude to Rapier's incident of the Standard being blown down by a high wind the very day it was hoisted, or to the statement that there was a delay of a day or two before it could again be raised, many persons regarding this as a fatal presage of the war. Could this accident in any way account for the divergence of dates P After announcing that he feels diffident in writing about war when he knows nothing of military art, we think Mr. Gardiner makes a mistake in expressing a fear lest be may often have given to his narrative the appearance of greater accuracy than is attainable. To raise doubts upon his own writing by begging his readers to bear in mind that they are reading not an account of what has certainly happened, but of what appears to him to have happened after such inquiry as be has been able to make, is to do himself an injustice. The value of all Mr. Gardiner's work has lain in the soundness of his judgment, based upon evidence he considered trustworthy. If the facts at his disposal are such that he feels justified in himself supplying a missing link to complete his narrative, well and good, though this is opposed to his treatment of maps where some of the details are wanting ; but he should do it without compunction or apology, otherwise it seems to us it were better not to introduce matter that could be afterwards controverted, and then announce its doubtful character. Such a course, however meritorious in the desire to produce an ideal history, is apt to unsettle his readers, and make them suspicions.
Mr. Gardiner has thrown himself thoroughly into the period he is writing about, living again among the actors of the day, and watching them on the stage of public affairs with a keen and critical eye. He is, therefore, now able, by the light of con- temporary writings, and standing on the vantage-ground of the present, to divine the motives and explain the action of those he is dealing with, besides laying bare the mechanism of those wheels within wheels which has been such a puzzle to other historians. We wish Mr. Gardiner could sometimes attain a region of warmer, more glowing language, for events, however stirring, fail to lift him from that lower level where, with pains- taking honesty, he metes out justice to all. He fits together with a master hand the little, difficult, many-sided bits of the constitutional puzzle in a way that will be invaluable to students yet unborn ; but his narratives lack that surface-colour which
would enliven his work, and which would tempt those to read it who know English history only through Clarendon or Macaulay.
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