Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/507

 CROMWELL 503 Cromwell's direction. Before the house had received Fairfax's petition, Cromwell had been several times engaged with the enemy, and had been victorious in every encounter. Mat- ters looked ill for the cause everywhere save in those places where Cromwell was present, and there can be no reason for supposing that Fairfax was not sincerely desirous of his lieu- tenant's presence, on plain and obvious military grounds. He wrote to him as soon as he receiv- ed the commons' permission, and on June 13, 1645, Cromwell joined the army at Northamp- ton, the royal forces being six miles distant. His arrival caused the army to become active, and he was the real commander of it at once. Causing Ireton to ascertain the whereabout of the royalists, he declared for action the next day. Fairfax acquiesced, and on June 14 was fought the battle of Naseby, which was fatal to the house of Stuart. Believing his enemies were retreating, the king was led to abandon an excellent position at Harborough, and to draw up his army on ground favorable to those enemies. The action of Marston Moor was repeated on a larger scale. Portions of each army were successful, but Cromwell held his Ironsides well in hand, and assailed a body of royalist infantry after he had routed half their cavalry, and so decided the event of the day. The royalists were utterly beaten, 2,000 of them being slain and 8,000 captured. All their ar- tillery, many thousand stand of arms, a hun- dred pair of colors, and all the spoil of the king and camp, fell into the hands of the victors. The most important capture was that of the king's cabinet, which afforded abundant proofs of his total insincerity. Cromwell led the pursuit to Harborough, whence he wrote an account of the victory to the speaker of the commons. This letter reached the com- mons before that of Fairfax, and that was Cromwell's object in writing it so soon. The reading of it was the announcement to the Presbyterians that power had departed from them. Its tone has been called regal, and it was written in the terms of a master. The very day the news reached parliament, the commons resolved that his services should be continued in Fairfax's army during the pleasure of the houses, the lords substituting three months. He followed up the victory with wonderful celerity and success. Leices- ter was retaken, Taunton relieved, Goring beaten, and Bridgewater stormed. Soon afterward he put down the "club men," a third party, which might have reached to formidable dimensions if they had not been thus firmly dealt with at the outset. After taking Sherburne castle, Fairfax and Crom- well besieged Bristol, which was held by Prince Rupert at the head of 5,000 men. Cromwell, who was ever for bold measures in war, advised that the place should be stormed. This counsel was followed, but the attack failed. It was, however, made with so much spirit that Rupert surrendered (Sept. 11), and the sound- ness of Cromwell's policy was vindicated. He then proceeded against Devizes, which he stormed. Berkeley castle shared the same fate. Winchester surrendered. Basing house, which had previously defied all attacks of the parlia- mentarians, fell before him. Longford house ca- pitulated at once. He defeated Lord Wentworth at Bovey Tracy, inflicting a heavy loss on him, and taking, among other spoils, the king's standard. He and Fairfax stormed Dartmouth, defeated Lord Hopton at Torrington, and drove the last remains of the western royalists into Cornwall, Finally, Sir Jacob Astley, at the head of 3,000 horse, was routed at Stow-on- the-Wold, March 22, 1646, which was the last action of the English civil war. Sir Jacob was captured, and when taken to the headquarters of the victors he said, "My masters, you have done your work, and may go play, unless you choose to fall out among yourselves." Crom- well had indeed done his work, to use an ex- pression of that time, not negligently. He had applied Strafford's idea of " Thorough " in poli- tics to military operations; ami nothing like what he had accomplished in less than ten months from the time he had joined Fairfax at Naseby had been seen in England since the time when Edward IV. crushed the Lancas- trians at Barnet and Tewkesbury. The whole of England had been subdued, though on the 13th of the preceding June the chances were decidedly in favor of the king, whose cause had been greatly advanced in Scotland by the victories of Montrose. Had Cromwell died in 1646, he would have been entitled to a high place in the list of great commanders. In original genius for war hardly any man ever surpassed him. Yet it was to success in poli- tics that he owed his sucess as a soldier ; for if he had not carried the self-denying ordinance through parliament, the royal cause must have triumphed in 1645. The "new model," em- phatically his work, as well as his conception, was the cause of the military superiority of the parliament. The time was now come when he was to be as eminent in the cabinet as he had been in the field. Parliament heaped great rewards on him. Lands of the yearly value of 2,500 were conferred on him, taken from the estates of the marquis of Winchester, and from those of the Somersets and Herberts. It was resolved that the king should be recommended to create him a baron. The king had thrown himself into the hands of the Scotch forces then in England, and had been delivered up to the English parliament. The conduct of Crom- well for some time after this event is the sub- ject of much dispute. He is supposed to have stirred up that agitation in the army which was directed against the king, and against any settlement with him, and which Cromwell is charged with only affecting to condemn, though at a later period he visited some of the agita- tors with military punishment. The army ap- pear to have formed a just estimate of the character of the king. They saw he was not