Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/79

Rh that spot was too strongly fortified, and he crossed the river higher up at Ovingham, just in time to avoid the flood of melting snow which next day rendered the stream impassable. Newcastle, on being summoned, refused to surrender, and Leven for a time did little more than maintain his ground and prevent the royalist army in the neighbourhood under the Marquis of Newcastle from proceeding to the assistance of the king. After his arrival in England he was appointed commander-in-chief of all the ‘British and Scottish’ forces in Ireland, by a joint committee of the two kingdoms, which managed the war, but he never personally assumed that command.

In April he was ordered to proceed to York, which Lord Newcastle held, and he lay before it for nine or ten weeks (, Memorials, p. 90); but when Prince Rupert arrived with a large army from the west for the relief of the city, the siege was raised and the combined Scottish and parliamentary forces met the royalists on 2 July on Marston Moor. Within half an hour one of Rupert's brilliant cavalry charges threw the wing of the army under the command of Leven and Fairfax into utter confusion. Leven failed to rally his troops, he was himself forced to fly, and galloped as far as Wetherby or even Leeds (, Memoirs, p. 38). Meanwhile his lieutenant, David Leslie [q. v.], and Cromwell had won the day. He returned immediately on receiving the tidings, and on 16 July York surrendered (, Civil War, i. 445).

Newcastle still held out, and Leven marched thither, having been reinforced from Scotland with an army under the Earl of Callendar. His ‘very fair’ conditions of capitulation were rejected on 18 Oct., and on the following day the town was stormed with the aid of three thousand countrymen whom Leven had pressed into his service with their spades and mattocks (, p. 100). A few days later he received the surrender of Tynemouth Castle (State Papers, Dom. 1644–5, pp. 51, 75, 122).

In January 1645 the earl was present at a meeting of parliament in Edinburgh, whence he was recalled to his command in order to prevent the advance of Montrose from the highlands to the king's aid in the west of England. Leven marched into Westmoreland, but the failure of the English parliament to send him payment for his army hampered his movements, and in order to support his army he was obliged to permit his soldiers to plunder the farmers far and near. In June he marched southwards as far as Gloucestershire, and after the king's defeat at Naseby (14 June) was directed to invest Hereford. He had prepared his batteries to open fire on the town when the approach of Charles with an army forced him to raise the siege (, Civil War in Herefordshire, ii. 391). He retreated into Yorkshire and joined his forces to those then engaged in besieging Newark. The English houses of parliament directed that he should have chief command of all the forces there, both English and Scottish. But while the siege was still in progress he received orders from Scotland to return to Newcastle.

Pecuniary difficulties, due to the neglect of the English parliament, and an attempt made in Scotland to create another generalship, co-ordinate and therefore conflicting with his own, seem to have now led Leven to press his resignation on the Scottish parliament. But the latter was not prepared to part with him, and issued a declaration stating that any commissions granted by them to others in no way derogated from his position as general of the whole forces within and without the kingdom (Acts of Parliaments of Scotland, vol. vi. pt. i. p. 411). The English parliament sent at the same time a letter of thanks for past services, and promised him a jewel of the value of 500l. (, p. 163), which was presented 23 Feb. 1647 (ib. pp. 232, 233, 241).

Leven had regarded with no favour recent royalist endeavours to win the Scottish army to the service of the king, and letters forwarded to him on the subject he had sent to the parliament at Edinburgh. But when Charles fled to Newark (5 May 1645), Leven's officers soon brought him to the general's quarters at Newcastle, and acting on instructions from Scotland, Leven placed him in safe keeping, out of the reach of ‘all papists and delinquents.’ On receiving the king Leven is said to have tendered his sword in token of submission, and the king retained it as if he would assume command, whereupon the earl suggested that it were better to leave that to him as the older soldier, especially as he was in command here, though in humble duty to his majesty. Whitelocke says that Charles was received without any solemnity (ib. p. 206). The king remained with Leven at Newcastle until his surrender to the English parliament was arranged by the Scottish parliament in January 1647. Leven and other officers constantly appealed to Charles to take the covenant, and to terminate, by prudent and liberal measures, the civil disorders of his realms, vowing that if he did so they would cheerfully sacrifice life and fortune in his service.

On Leven's return to Scotland a large