Page:Public School History of England and Canada (1892).djvu/107

 there were two Parliaments: the king’s at Oxford, to which most of the peers went, and the Long Parliament at Westminster, composed of a majority of the Commons.

The early battles were favourable to the king; partly because his troops under his dashing nephew, Prince Rupert, were good horsemen and used to arms; and partly because the Parliamentary general, Earl Essex, was afraid to push the king too far. Two little skirmishes in 1642, at Powick Bridge and Edgehill, were somewhat against Parliament, and Charles’ forces for a time threatened London.

14. Principal Events of the War.—The war was carried on in many quarters at the same time. The king was very successful in Cornwall and Devon; and Fairfax, the parliamentary general in the north, was hard pressed by the royalists. In a skirmish at Chalgrove Field, 1643, Hampden was killed, and in the same year, in a battle at Newbury, Lord Falkland fell, crying, ‘‘Peace, peace.” Town after town passed into the hands of the king, and great fear was felt for London itself. Pym now sent Sir Henry Vane to Scotland, and by agreeing to accept Presbyterianism as the form of church government in England, obtained the aid of a Scotch army. The ‘‘Solemn League and Covenant,” as this bargain was called, had scarcely been signed when Pym died.

And now appeared on the scene one of the greatest men England ever had. Oliver Cromwell, a stern, brave, Puritan gentleman-farmer of Huntingdonshire, had been for some time in Parliament and had watched the growing evils in the government of the country. When the war broke out he formed a regiment of horse which became known as ‘‘Cromwell’s Ironsides,” on account of the severe drill through which it passed. They were not common soldiers, but gentlemen farmers and sturdy yeomen who fought for their religion and freedom, and not for pay: Cromwell saw that the only way to fight the king was to match his cavaliers with strong men who knew what they were fighting for, and loved the cause of religion and freedom. It was not long before Cromwell had a chance to show what his ‘‘Ironsides” could do. For in 1644, at Marston Moor, in Yorkshire, Fairfax, aided by the Scots and Cromwell, met and scattered the king’s troops under Prince Rupert. This was the first great battle of the war, and Cromwell