Second English Civil War
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The Second English Civil War (1648–1649) was the second of three wars known as the English Civil War (or Wars) which refers to the series of armed conflicts and political machinations which took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1652 and include the First English Civil War (1642–1646) and the Third English Civil War (1649–1651).
| Wars of the Three Kingdoms |
|---|
| Bishops' – Irish Confederate – First English Civil – Wars of the Three Kingdoms in Scotland – Second English Civil – Third English Civil |
| Second English Civil War |
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| St. Fagans - Maidstone - Pembroke - Colchester - Preston |
Contents |
[edit] Overview
The close of the First Civil War left a partial power vacuum in which any combination of the three English factions, royalists, independents of the New Model Army (henceforward called the Army), and presbyterians of the English Parliament, as well as the Scottish Parliament allied with the Scottish presbyterians (the Kirk), could prove strong enough to dominate the rest. Armed political Royalism was at an end, but despite being a prisoner, King Charles I was considered by himself and his opponents (almost to the last) as necessary to ensure the success of whichever group could come to terms with him. Thus he passed successively into the hands of the Scots, the Parliament and the Army. The King attempted to reverse the verdict of arms by coquetting with each in turn. On June 3, 1647 Cornet George Joyce of Thomas Fairfax's horse seized the King for the Army, after which the English Presbyterians and the Scots, began to prepare for a fresh civil war, this time against Independency, as embodied in the Army. After making use of the Army's sword, its opponents attempted to disband it, to send it on foreign service and to cut off its arrears of pay. The result was that the Army leadership was exasperated beyond control, and, remembering not merely their grievances but also the principle for which the Army had fought, it soon became the most powerful political force in the realm. From 1646 to 1648 the breach between Army and Parliament widened day by day until finally the Presbyterian party, combined with the Scots and the remaining Royalists, felt itself strong enough to begin a Second Civil War.
[edit] The English War
In February 1648 Colonel John Poyer, the Parliamentary Governor of Pembroke Castle, refused to hand over his command to one of Fairfax's officers, and he was soon joined by some hundreds of officers and men, who mutinied, ostensibly for arrears of pay, but really with political objects. At the end of March, encouraged by minor successes, Poyer openly declared for the King. Disbanded soldiers continued to join him in April, all South Wales revolted, and eventually he was joined by Major-General Rowland Laugharne, his district commander, and Colonel Rice Powel. In April also news came that the Scots were arming and that Berwick and Carlisle had been seized by the English Royalists.
Oliver Cromwell was at once sent off at the head of a strong detachment to deal with Laugharne and Poyer. But before he arrived Laugharne had been severely defeated by Colonel Thomas Horton at the Battle of St. Fagans (May 8). The English Presbyterians found it difficult to reconcile their principles with their allies when it appeared that the prisoners taken at St Fagans bore "We long to see our King" on their hats; very soon in fact the English war became almost purely a Royalist revolt, and the war in the north an attempt to enforce a mixture of Royalism and Presbyterianism on Englishmen by means of a Scottish army. The former were disturbers of the peace and no more. Nearly all the Royalists who had fought in the First Civil War had given their parole not to bear arms against the Parliament, and many honourable Royalists, foremost amongst them the old Lord Astley, who had fought the last battle for the King in 1646, refused to break their word by taking any part in the second war. Those who did so, and by implication those who abetted them in doing so, were likely to be treated with the utmost rigour if captured, for the Army was in a less placable mood in 1648 than in 1645, and had already determined to "call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for the blood he had shed." On May 21, Kent rose in revolt in the King's name.
A few days later a most serious blow to the Independents was struck by the defection of the Navy, from command of which they had removed Vice-Admiral William Batten, as being a Presbyterian. Though a former Lord High Admiral, the Earl of Warwick, also a Presbyterian, was brought back to the service, it was not long before the Navy made a purely Royalist declaration and placed itself under the command of the prince of Wales. But Fairfax had a clearer view and a clearer purpose than the distracted Parliament. He moved quickly into Kent, and on the evening of June 1, stormed Maidstone by open force, after which the local levies dispersed to their homes, and the more determined Royalists, after a futile attempt to induce the City of London to declare for them, fled into Essex.
In Cornwall, Northamptonshire, North Wales and Lincolnshire the revolt collapsed as easily. Only in South Wales, Essex and the north of England was there serious fighting. In the first of these districts Cromwell rapidly reduced all the fortresses except Pembroke, where Laugharne; Poyer and Powel held out with the desperate courage of deserters. In the north, Pontefract was surprised by the Royalists, and shortly afterwards Scarborough Castle declared for the king. Fairfax, after his success at Maidstone and the pacification of Kent, turned northward to reduce Essex, where, under their ardent, experienced and popular leader Sir Charles Lucas, the Royalists were in arms in great numbers. He soon drove the enemy into Colchester, but the first attack on the town was repulsed and he had to settle down to a long and wearisome siege. A Surrey rising, remembered only for the death of the young and gallant Lord Francis Villiers in a skirmish at Kingston (July 7), collapsed almost as soon as it had gathered force, and its leaders, the duke of Buckingham and the earl of Holland, escaped, after another attempt to induce London to declare for them, to St Albans and St Neots, where Holland was taken prisoner. Buckingham escaped overseas.
[edit] Lambert in the North
By July 10, 1648, therefore the military situation was well defined. Cromwell held Pembroke, Fairfax Colchester, Lambert Pontefract under siege; elsewhere all serious local risings had collapsed, and the Scottish army had crossed the Border. It is on the adventures of the latter that the interest of the war centres. It was by no means the veteran army of the Earl of Leven, which had long been disbanded. For the most part it consisted of raw levies, and as the kirk had refused to sanction the enterprise of the Scots Parliament, David Leslie and thousands of experienced officers and men declined to serve. The Duke of Hamilton proved to be a poor substitute for Leslie; his army, too, was so ill provided that as soon as England was invaded it began to plunder the countryside for the bare means of sustenance.
Major-General John Lambert, a brilliant young general of twenty-nine, was more than equal to the situation. He had already left the sieges of Pontefract Castle and Scarborough Castle to Colonel Edward Rossiter, and hurried into Cumberland to deal with the English Royalists under Sir Marmaduke Langdale. With his cavalry he got into touch with the enemy about Carlisle and slowly fell back, fighting small rearguard actions to annoy the enemy and gain time, to Bowes and Barnard Castle. Langdale did not follow him into the mountains, but occupied himself in gathering recruits and supplies of material and food for the Scots. Lambert, reinforced from the midlands, reappeared early in June and drove him back to Carlisle with his work half finished. About the same time the local horse of Durham and Northumberland were put into the field by Sir Arthur Hesilrige, governor of Newcastle, and under the command of Colonel Robert Lilburne won a considerable success (June 30) at the River Coquet.
This reverse, coupled with the existence of Langdale's force on the Cumberland side, practically compelled Hamilton to choose the west coast route for his advance, and his army began slowly to move down the long couloir between the mountains and the sea. The campaign which followed is one of the most brilliant in English history.
[edit] Campaign of Preston
On July 8, 1648, the Scots, with Langdale as advanced guard, were about Carlisle, and reinforcements from Ulster were expected daily. Lambert's horse were at Penrith, Hexham and Newcastle, too weak to fight and having only skillful leading and rapidity of movement to enable them to gain time. Far away to the south Cromwell was still tied down before Pembroke, Fairfax before Colchester. Elsewhere the rebellion, which had been put down by rapidity of action rather than sheer weight of numbers, smouldered, and Charles, the Prince of Wales, with the fleet cruised along the Essex coast. Cromwell and Lambert, however, understood each other perfectly, while the Scottish commanders quarrelled with Langdale and each other.
Appleby Castle surrendered to the Scots on July 31, whereat Lambert, who was still hanging on to the flank of the Scottish advance, fell back from Barnard Castle to Richmond so as to close Wensleydale against any attempt of the invaders to march on Pontefract. All the restless energy of Langdale's horse was unable to dislodge him from the passes or to find out what was behind that impenetrable cavalry screen. The crisis was now at hand. Cromwell had received the surrender of Pembroke on July 11, and had marched off, with his men unpaid, ragged and shoeless, at full speed through the midlands. Rains and storms delayed his march, but he knew that the Duke of Hamilton in the broken ground of Westmorland was still worse off. Shoes from Northampton and stockings from Coventry met him, at Nottingham, and, gathering up the local levies as he went, he made for Doncaster, where he arrived on August 8, having gained six days in advance of the time he had allowed himself for the march. He then called up artillery from Hull, exchanged his local levies for the regulars who were besieging Pontefract, and set off to meet Lambert. On August 12 he was at Wetherby, Lambert with horse and foot at Otley, Langdale at Skipton and Gargrave, Hamilton at Lancaster, and Sir George Monro with the Scots from Ulster and the Carlisle Royalists (organized as a separate command owing to friction between Monro and the generals of the main army) at Hornby. On August 13, while Cromwell was marching to join Lambert at Otley, the Scottish leaders were still disputing whether they should make for Pontefract or continue through Lancashire so as to join Lord Byron and the Cheshire Royalists.
[edit] Battle of Preston
On August 14, 1648 Cromwell and Lambert were at Skipton, on August 15 at Gisburn, and on the 16th they marched down the valley of the Ribble towards Preston with full knowledge of the enemy's dispositions and full determination to attack him. They had with them horse and foot not only of the Army, but also of the militia of Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland and Lancashire, and withal were heavily outnumbered, having only 8,600 men against perhaps 20,000 of Hamilton's command. But the latter were scattered for convenience of supply along the road from Lancaster, through Preston, towards Wigan, Langdale's corps having thus become the left flank guard instead of the advanced guard.
Langdale called in his advanced parties, perhaps with a view to resuming the duties of advanced guard, on the night of August 13, and collected them near Longridge. It is not clear whether he reported Cromwell's advance, but, if he did, Hamilton ignored the report, for on the 17th Monro was half a day's march to the north, Langdale east of Preston, and the main army strung out on the Wigan road, Major-General William Baillie with a body of foot, the rear of the column, being still in Preston. Hamilton, yielding to the importunity of his lieutenant-general, the Earl of Callendar, sent Baillie across the Ribble to follow the main body just as Langdale, with 3,000 foot and 500 horse only, met the first shock of Cromwell's attack on Preston Moor. Hamilton, like Charles at Edgehill, passively shared in, without directing, the Battle of Preston, and, though Langdale's men fought magnificently, they were after four hours' struggle driven to the Ribble.
Baillie attempted to cover the Ribble and Darwen bridges on the Wigan road, but Cromwell had forced his way across both before nightfall. Pursuit was at once undertaken, and not relaxed until Hamilton had been driven through Wigan and Winwick to Uttoxeter and Ashbourne. There, pressed furiously in rear by Cromwell's horse and held up in front by the militia of the midlands, the remnant of the Scottish army laid down its arms on August 25. Various attempts were made to raise the Royalist standard in Wales and elsewhere, but Preston was the death-blow. On August 28, starving and hopeless of relief, the Colchester Royalists surrendered to Lord Fairfax.
[edit] Execution of Charles I
The victors in the Second Civil War were not merciful to those who had brought war into the land again. On the evening of the surrender of Colchester, Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle were shot. Laugharne, Poyer and Powel were sentenced to death, but Poyer alone was executed on April 25, 1649, being the victim selected by lot. Of five prominent Royalist peers who had fallen into the hands of Parliament, three, the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Holland, and Lord Capel, one of the Colchester prisoners and a man of high character, were beheaded at Westminster on March 9. Above all, after long hesitations, even after renewal of negotiations, the Army and the Independents conducted "Pride's Purge" of the House removing their ill-wishers, and created a court for the trial and sentence of King Charles I. At the end of the trail the 59 Commissioners (judges) found Charles I guilty of high treason, as a "tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy".[1][2] He was beheaded on a scaffold in front of the Banqueting House of the Palace of Whitehall on January 30, 1649. (After the Restoration in 1660, the regicides who were still alive and not living in exile were either executed or sentenced to life imprisonment.)
[edit] References
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition article "GREAT REBELLION", a publication now in the public domain.
[edit] Further reading
- House of Lords Journal Volume 10 19 May 1648: Letter from L. Fairfax, about the Disposal of the Forces, to suppress the Insurrections in Suffolk, Lancashire, and S. Wales; and for Belvoir Castle to be secured
- House of Lords Journal Volume 10 19 May 1648: Disposition of the Remainder of the Forces in England and Wales (not mentioned in the Fairfax letter)
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Kelsey, Sean. The Trial of Charles I English Historical Review 2003, Volume 118, Number 477 Pp. 583-616
- ^ Kirb, Michael The trial of King Charles I – defining moment for our constitutional liberties speech to the Anglo-Australasian Lawers' association, on January 22 1999.
